The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(40)

I’ve thought about this long and hard, and I believe that what I’m about to tell her is true. I hope against hope that it is.

‘Be entirely honest with them,’ I say. ‘Don’t just allude to it or talk about other people you know. Tell them it’s you, and this is who you are. They love you, Erin, they must. And they will accept it. It’s one thing to have an issue with a concept but it’s different taking issue with someone you love.’

I push away the voice inside that asks what happens if they don’t. But she asks anyway, like I knew she would.

‘What if they don’t?’

‘I just can’t believe they won’t,’ I tell her. ‘I just have to believe that they won’t.’ I finish the croissant and fold the bag up into a small square.

She nods, her expression serious. ‘I do believe they love me. But religion’s a powerful thing, you know?’

‘The fundamental basis of Christianity is loving people,’ I say. ‘Helping people. Being kind. Just think, Erin, you could do this and it could all be all right and then what? You’d be completely free.’

She looks away and I want to ask what she’s thinking, but though we’ve come a long way from being strangers in a short time, I don’t feel we’re quite there yet.

‘I have to get back,’ she says. ‘Thank you for the advice.’

‘Thank you for the croissant,’ I say.

And I watch her rush back across the road, between cars, not waiting for the lights to change. There’s so much I want to tell her. Not to waste a second of that precious youth. To hold her family close while she has them. To go after love like it’s a war and she’s losing. But what would I have said, if someone had told me those things when I was her age? I try to picture it, me walking around town aimlessly with Dot, some old woman coming up to us to impart her wisdom. We would have laughed and walked away, thought nothing more of it. Because the young think they know it all already, don’t they? They don’t know how they’ll feel later. How lonely and wistful. That’s the trick of it.





A few hours later, I’m back home and Julie bustles in with her usual cheery hellos. Olly lifts his head, realises it’s not Kirsty come to take him for a walk, and goes back to sleep.

‘I was thinking,’ I say, ‘it’s been a long time since I had a night out.’

How true that is. For years, I was out every Friday and Saturday night. At the pictures or a couple of drinks in the pub on a Friday, dancing on Saturday. It shaped my working week. We spent Monday to Wednesday gossiping about the events of the previous weekend and Thursday and Friday planning for the coming one.

Julie’s in the doorway, and she looks different. New haircut. It’s all sleek and shiny.

‘Out?’ she asks.

‘Yes, dinner or just drinks. I don’t know. I thought maybe we could go somewhere. Ask the others too, maybe. I like your hair, by the way.’

She puts a hand to it. ‘Oh, thanks. Kirsty found a picture in a magazine for me to take in. I’m so pleased with it.’

‘Good. So what about Friday?’

‘This Friday?’

‘Yes, why not? Unless you’re busy painting your nails or reorganising your fridge or something.’

She laughs, throws her head back. ‘Cheeky. All right then, let’s do it. I’ll send Patty and Kirsty a message.’

‘Kirsty will be here in a bit.’ Olly’s head pops up again at the sound of me saying her name. ‘So no need to message her. What will you wear, do you think?’

Julie sits down on the arm of the sofa, pulls out her telephone. ‘What will I wear? I don’t know, Mabel, does it matter?’

‘Well, it’s nice to look your best, isn’t it? Maybe you could go shopping for something new. See what Kirsty thinks.’

‘Patty’s free,’ she says. ‘Right, what needs doing?’

Most days I think up something or other for her to do, but I know the washing basket’s empty and she changed my bed yesterday. I could ask her to put the hoover round but she’s not a cleaner and I’d rather just sit and have a chat with her.

‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ I say. ‘Make one for yourself, too.’

‘I think sometimes you forget I’m here to work,’ she says, disappearing into the kitchen.

I want to say that I never forget that. That I’m starting to like her more than anyone I’ve spent time with in years and I’m painfully aware that she’s paid to be here.

There’s a buzzing noise, and I try to work out what it is. ‘Is that your telephone, Julie?’ I call.

‘No, not mine. Maybe it’s yours? Hold on, I’ll have a look.’

I often forget I’ve got a mobile telephone. I keep it in the back room, in a drawer in the sideboard, and Julie puts it on charge for me every few days. She rushes in now with it in her hands.

‘For me?’ I ask.

‘Well, we won’t know unless you answer it, will we?’

I look at the screen blankly, and she reaches out and slides her finger across the screen, then gestures for me to put it to my ear.

‘Hello? Mabel Beaumont speaking.’

‘Hello Mabel, this is Trisha Smith, I spoke with your friend Julie recently about the house your friend used to live in?’