The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(37)

‘Thank you,’ Julie says. ‘Shall we choose a cake, ladies?’

There’s a slight wobble to her voice and I see that it’s come to mean something to her, this search. That it’s become important. I opt for a custard slice and Julie and Patricia have jam doughnuts, and we find a park with a bench nearby to eat them.

‘Shame,’ Patricia says. ‘And he wasn’t exactly helpful, was he?’

‘It’s such a long time,’ I say. ‘It’s so many years. A lifetime, almost.’

‘Maybe we should have just phoned, rather than coming all this way,’ Julie says.

Telephone. Why didn’t I think of that?

‘I just had this idea,’ she goes on, ‘that she might still be here. Not running the shop, but tucked away upstairs, with maybe a daughter or granddaughter behind the counter. Stupid, I suppose.’

But it doesn’t sound stupid to me. It doesn’t sound stupid at all. I think a tiny part of me had imagined the same.





18





On the train home, I decide to bring up something I’ve been mulling over. ‘Do you think Kirsty’s happy?’ I ask.

I may not have been tired earlier, but I am now. I feel like I could curl up and sleep here, on this grubby, carpeted seat, with the crumpled up crisp packets and squashed drinks bottles kicked into corners, the windows smudgy and flecked with dirt. The atmosphere is different on this journey home, because of the hope being sucked out of us, I suppose.

‘Happy?’ Patricia asks. ‘What do you mean?’

‘This Ben of hers, is he good to her? I just get this sense from her that something isn’t right.’

Patricia sits back, thinks about it.

‘Do you know, I’ve never met him properly. They’re just next door but he’s always working. I’ve heard him, in the garden, and I’ve seen him getting into his flashy car and zooming off, but we’ve never been introduced. I’ve never felt worried about her, though. And I spend a fair bit of time with her.’

Perhaps that’s not it, the relationship thing. What else could it be? I remember what she said to me when we were talking about Dot, about everybody having their secrets and not being quite who you think they are. It’s a puzzle, but I’m determined to piece it together.

Julie’s on her telephone, scrolling through potential men for her next date.

‘What about this one?’ she asks, turning the telephone around.

The photo is of a middle-aged man, his hair greying, his face lined. There’s no sparkle about him, nothing special.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not him.’

‘You seem very sure,’ Julie says, and she sounds a bit offended. ‘Do you know him or something?’

‘No, I just don’t think he’s right, that’s all. I think you’d be better off finding out when that husband of yours is going out with his friends and then getting dolled up and accidentally on purpose running into him. He’ll see how good you look and how well you’re getting on without him and hey presto, he’ll be back.’

She studies me. ‘Really? That’s what you really think I should do?’

‘Well, you’re miserable without him, aren’t you? And I know he did the dirty on you but so many men do.’

There is silence for a minute or two, all of us mulling this over.

‘Arthur was no exception,’ I add. ‘I meant to say, earlier, when you were talking about men and their cheating.’

‘Arthur cheated on you?’ Julie asks. She sounds personally affronted.

‘Three times,’ I say. ‘Three affairs, I mean. Elsie Maybrook in 1966, Sheila Turner in 1975 and Annie James in 1988.’

It’s funny how their names have stuck. And the years, too. That first time, with Elsie, we’d been married seven years and I wasn’t surprised. If anything, I was surprised he hadn’t done it sooner. I’d turned away from him in bed so many times. Still, when I found out, when Helen from work took me to one side and told me she’d seen them together, that they’d been laughing, their lips close and their hands touching, I felt sick. I’d pushed him to it, and I’d expected it, but that confirmation made it take on a different sheen. When I confronted him, he cried. Said that he was sorry, that he loved me, that he didn’t love her. Just me. And I couldn’t blame him, could I, because I knew he was telling the truth and I hadn’t done what I’d promised when we walked down the aisle, hadn’t taken his love and given him mine in return.

‘And you knew? You knew their names and everything?’ Julie sounds totally astonished.

‘Let’s just say he wasn’t a master of subtlety,’ I say.

It’s true. He left clues for me to find, stayed out late with no excuses. All three times, he wanted me to catch him. Wanted me to confront him, so he could confront me about the loneliness he felt in our marriage. And then I think of that conversation we had, after the last time. The closest we ever came to telling one another the truth. When he said he was just trying to get me to react, to show that I loved him. That he was trying to make me jealous.

‘Well, I never would have thought it of him,’ Julie says.

And it makes me smile because she never once met him. I’ve talked about him a fair bit, though. I suppose it’s like me and her Martin. I feel I know him, too.