The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(29)

‘What did I say?’ Patricia asks, coming through with a tray.

‘That I’m looking for a dog, apparently,’ Kirsty says.

I can’t quite tell whether she’s annoyed, can’t work out the relationship between them. How close they are, how long they’ve known one another.

‘Let me take him for a few walks first,’ Kirsty says. ‘We can get to know one another. See how we get on.’

It’s not what I’d hoped for. I’d hoped she would take him today, now. It would have been painful but quick, like ripping off the metaphorical plaster. This way I’ll be dwelling on it for weeks. But it’s not as if I have anyone else offering to take him, so I’m not really in a position to argue.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Whatever you think.’

We sit down to drink our tea and Olly trots straight over to her, lets her make a fuss of him, and I can see her falling in love with him right in front of me. She’ll take him, I’m sure she will. It’s just a matter of when.

‘Mabel’s looking for an old friend,’ Patricia says into the silence I hadn’t noticed, given that I’m so accustomed to it.

This again. I feel like it’s turning into some kind of community outreach project.

‘Oh yes?’ Kirsty asks, sipping at her tea.

‘Dot, isn’t it?’

Patricia knows it’s Dot. She’s trying to engage me in the conversation.

‘That’s right,’ I say.

‘Oh, you mentioned your friend Dot that time we met on the street. How long is it since you saw her?’ Kirsty asks. She has her hand curled around her coffee mug and I notice her rings flashing. Nothing on her wedding finger, though.

I think back. ‘Sixty-two years.’

‘Wow, and what’s made you want to look for her now?’

‘Well, my husband died…’

‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’

Everyone is sorry. I’ve got used to batting it away now. It’s just a barrier to conversation.

‘It’s all right, Kirsty. He was eighty-nine, so it was hardly shocking.’

‘Still, hard to adjust to, I’d imagine. Especially if you haven’t had children, and it’s been just the two of you. How long were you married?’

‘Sixty-two years.’

She looks at me a little strangely, and I suppose it’s because I’ve given the same answer to her last two questions.

‘That’s a hell of a long time,’ Patricia interrupts.

‘Yes. Anyway, he died and it made me think about her, and the fun we used to have, before I was with him. There’s no one else in my life, now, no family, no husband, no real friends to speak of. So why not now, I suppose.’

There is quiet, and I sense that they’re feeling sorry for me. It has that effect, when you tell people you don’t have anyone. But it’s the truth.

‘So you last saw her in, what, the 1960s?’ Kirsty asks.

‘That’s right. A few weeks before my wedding in 1961.’

‘What did she look like?’

Julie and Patricia haven’t asked this. Presumably because they think she won’t, now, look anything like she did then. But it’s nice to reminisce.

‘She had blonde hair, curled.’

‘Like me,’ Kirsty says.

It’s true that she has blonde curls, but her hair is nothing like Dot’s was. Hers is straight at the roots and then wavy, the way all the young girls seem to have their hair done now, whereas Dot had big bouncing curls that you got from rollers, except hers were natural. I get an image of her, standing at the bus shelter holding a red lipstick in one hand and a powder compact in the other, her mouth in a pout. Our dads didn’t like us wearing makeup so we used to improvise on the way, Bill and Arthur standing around smoking, telling us we didn’t need it anyway.

‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a photo.’

I haven’t put the photo albums away; they’re still on the dining table. I fetch the one with the picture of the four of us and pass it to them.

‘This is her?’ Kirsty asks, pointing.

‘Yes.’

‘Wow, she’s so beautiful. And this, Mabel, is this other girl you?’ She flicks her eyes back and forth from the photograph to me, as if she can hardly believe it.

‘That’s right.’

‘Oh Mabel, what a lovely photo. Is one of these men your husband?’

I point to Arthur, and then say that Bill was my brother. And I must warn them with my eyes not to ask what happened to him, that or perhaps they remember I said I had nobody left, because they say nothing. Kirsty takes the photo out of the plastic and I want to tell her to be careful with it, but I can see that she is, and when she turns it over, there’s writing on the back that I don’t remember seeing before.

‘Bill, Dot, Mabel and Arthur, June 1957,’ she reads aloud.

I get up and gesture for her to pass it over to me. It’s Mother’s handwriting, and seeing it again is like seeing a ghost. She had a peculiar way of curling her Ls. I’d know it anywhere. And then I feel I catch her scent in the air, roses and cream and cut grass. It must be the perfume one of them is wearing.

‘I’d better get going,’ Kirsty says, finishing off her drink. ‘Ben’s off to a stag do in London in a couple of hours. Shall I take Olly for a quick walk now, Mabel? I’ve got half an hour.’