The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(34)

When Julie’s back in the kitchen, whistling as the kettle comes to the boil, Kirsty turns to me. She’s on the sofa, dressed in an immaculate navy-blue jumpsuit. Dotty’s on her lap, and their eyes are serious.

‘What’s holding you back? I thought you wanted to find Dot?’

‘Do you think we really might? Find her, I mean?’

‘Well, I think we’ve got a good chance, if she’s still…’

‘Alive?’

‘Yes. So if you don’t want to, or you’re not sure, maybe we should stop, or at least pause.’

‘I do want to,’ I say. ‘It’s just been such a long time, and I don’t know why she left, or whether she was angry with me for something.’

Kirsty studies me. She cups Dotty’s feet in her palms. There’s something so natural about the two of them together, the way Kirsty knows what her daughter needs and the way Dotty feels secure in her mother’s arms. Is that the way it is for all mothers? I want to tell her I’ve noticed it, but I don’t know whether it would mean anything, coming from someone who isn’t a mother.

‘How did you know you wanted to have a baby?’ I ask.

She’s a bit thrown by the change of topic but she recovers well. ‘I’m not sure, really. I’d reached my thirties and I’d always thought I would do it, and then I met Ben and he seemed ready, and it just all fell into place, really.’

‘And are you glad you did it?’

She smiles, covers Dotty’s ears. ‘Most of the time.’

And I find that I’m smiling, too. When I lost friends of mine, friends my age, to motherhood, I was bitter about it. It seemed unfair that they were all following a path I didn’t want to go down, and I was left on my own with Arthur, who wanted to go down it too. But now that it’s all so many years behind me, I’m finding there’s a joy in being around a mother and her child. In seeing how they operate together, how they love.

‘I’ve always imagined Dot without children, like me. What if I find her, and she’s nothing like what I’ve always thought?’

Kirsty gives that some thought, doesn’t rush into an answer, and I appreciate that. Julie comes in with the tea, and then she’s gone again, saying something about tidying the kitchen, though it was fairly clean when I made my breakfast. It’s quiet in the front room, both of us sipping our tea, Kirsty making sure to keep hers away from Dotty’s grasp. It goes on so long I think she must have forgotten what I asked.

‘I think no one is really who you think they are, even if they’ve been in your life the whole time,’ she says, eventually.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I think we all have secrets, and things we’re ashamed of, and things we exaggerate because they show us in a better light. What if Dot had children, or six husbands, or ran away with the circus? So what? She’ll still be Dot.’

She will, I think. However she looks and whatever she’s done with her life, she’ll still be Dot. And I’ll still want to hear all about it, and see whether her eyes still dance when she’s telling a joke, or whether the years have knocked some of the life out of her.

‘Julie,’ I call.

‘Yes, Mabel?’ She appears in the doorway so quickly I wonder whether she’s been listening in.

‘I think we should go next week, like you said. If you have the time.’

‘Absolutely,’ she says. ‘That’s great news.’

‘Right then,’ Kirsty says, standing and lifting Dotty into the air until she chuckles. ‘Let’s go for a walk, shall we, little miss?’

Olly comes trotting through from the back room, and Kirsty reaches for his lead.





17





If Julie notices that I’ve made an effort, she doesn’t make a big thing of it, and I’m grateful. I’ve been awake since five, going over the way the day might play out. I’ve tried three different outfits on, settling on a skirt and blouse I bought for a wedding a few years back, teamed with a bright yellow cardigan. I know it doesn’t really matter what I wear, that today isn’t going to be the day that we find her, but there’s something pushing against my chest from the inside and I just knew I wanted to look my best.

‘I like that cardi,’ Julie says. ‘Lovely shade.’

I give her a smile but it’s half-hearted.

‘Have you changed your mind?’ she asks.

‘No.’ I’m clear on this. If I back out, I’ll never do it. ‘What time is Patricia getting here?’

Julie shakes her arm until her watch slips out from under her coat. ‘Any minute now.’

‘Well then, come in. I was just sorting out my handbag.’

It’s not until Patricia’s arrived and Julie’s driven the three of us to the station that she brings up her date. ‘Last night,’ she says. ‘Bloody awful, it was. He looked so normal in his photos.’

‘What was wrong with him?’ Patricia asks.

‘He was a lunatic. Claimed he couldn’t be tied down, that he was dating lots of women and if I couldn’t handle that, he wasn’t the man for me.’

We’re on the platform, on a bench.

‘Sounds like you’re well out of that,’ Patricia says. ‘How did you leave it?’