The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(52)

‘You’re going to live here now,’ I say to him. ‘Kirsty’s going to look after you, and you’ll have Dotty to play with. Be gentle, all right?’

I don’t say I’ll miss him. Or that I love him. He’ll know, won’t he? I get up and go to the door, slip my feet into my shoes.

‘I’m going,’ I call out to Kirsty, and for the first time I realise she’ll have no reason to come round now. Will I only see her in passing, on the street or in the supermarket, from now on?

‘Just doing Dotty’s nappy, are you okay to let yourself out?’ she calls from whichever room she’s in.

‘Fine.’

‘I’ll take good care of him, Mabel.’

I know it’s true, and I’m glad she doesn’t come out into the hallway because I’m a mess. I call a goodbye, my voice on the edge of breaking. He’s just a dog, I repeat to myself. Just a dog. But it’s as if he’s the last link to Arthur. And he’s been with me, these past few months. We’ve been through it together. It’s funny, though, I would never have said I felt that close to him. But now I’ve cut that tie, sent him off to live a better life, and I wonder what it will mean for mine.





25





With Olly gone, I find I’m often waiting for Julie to arrive. The fact that Arthur anticipated my need for company like this surprises me anew every time I think of it. If the shoe had been on the other foot, it wouldn’t have struck me as my job to look after him from beyond the grave. But when Arthur decided to look after me on the day of Bill’s funeral, he took it seriously. It was a lifelong promise, for him. Longer than life, even.

I still see him in the house. Standing in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter with his arms folded across his chest as if he’s about to ask me what I fancy for tea. Lying next to me in bed, silent and still, but not like he was on the day I found him. More like he was on every day that preceded that. Quietly there. Sitting on the sofa, his trousers hitched up and his white socks showing. It’s as if he’s waiting. And sometimes I don’t see him but think I can smell him, as if he’s just walked through the room. Is he wanting to see that I follow his instructions: Find D? I won’t know, I suppose, until I track Dot down. If he keeps appearing then, what will it mean? That that wasn’t what Find D meant after all? Or that he’ll always be here, like this? Or that it’s just my old brain playing tricks? It’s not a frightening thing, coming up against him in these small rooms we shared for so many years. It’s comforting, actually. It’s like a slow goodbye.

I hear Julie’s key scrape in the lock and prepare myself for the energy she brings.

‘Morning, Mabel,’ she calls from the hallway.

There’s something different in her tone, though I think she’s trying to sound like normal. I wait for her to pop her head around the door, and when she does, she looks a bit tired and deflated.

‘Has he left you again?’ I ask.

I’m not sure why I say it. I’m aiming for light humour but I see straight away I’ve missed the mark.

‘Why would you ask that?’

‘You just don’t look like yourself, that’s all.’

She stands there unwinding her scarf, removing her gloves, finger by finger. ‘It’s bitter out there,’ she says.

I’ve no intention of verifying that until much later. It’s tempting to spend these short days inside by the gas fire, now I don’t have Olly to think about, but I do feel better for having a walk in the afternoons.

‘So,’ I say, ‘is there something? You look tired.’

She laughs, but it’s not her usual raucous laugh, the one that makes people turn to look at her in the street. It’s a constrained laugh, and that is somehow more worrying than tears would be.

‘I didn’t have a good night, that’s all.’

‘So things are okay with Martin?’

She pauses for a moment before answering. ‘Things are fine.’

I don’t believe her, but I won’t press her right now. The truth is, nothing’s really been fine since Kirsty’s birthday party. I thought I’d cracked it – Julie with Martin back at home, Patricia with Sarah and her grandchildren. Clearly reuniting Kirsty with her family hadn’t gone to plan, but overall I’d been pretty proud of myself. Not bad for an eighty-six-year-old, I’d thought, engineering that little lot. It had given me hope of getting to the bottom of Dot’s whereabouts. And I’d heard Arthur’s voice in my head, then, saying that it was never too late and that everyone could make a difference. Something he’d said a lot, and that I’d always ignored.

But getting Julie’s marriage back on track hasn’t had the effect on her that I expected. Of course, I didn’t know her before. But where I’d thought she would seem carefree and happy, she still looks like someone weighed down with lead.

And Patricia’s disappeared, pretty much, which I suppose isn’t much of a surprise. She’s gone back to the busy life she had before, helping look after her granddaughters. Park trips and swimming and endless games of hide and seek. She hasn’t got much time for us, where before she had oceans of it. How silly of me, to overlook that.

And Kirsty. Well, she doesn’t need to call in here, now Olly lives with her, and she hasn’t. The fact that we’ve talked things over – my reasons for inviting her parents, her reason for leaving them behind – doesn’t mean we’ve found common ground, or a resolution.