The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(70)

The ride stopped and I watched the three of them step out, giddy and clutching at one another, the way Dot and I sometimes did when we’d been drinking.

‘Well?’ the man asked me, as they came towards me.

‘Well what?’ Arthur asked.

I saw them size each other up, saw that, in Arthur’s eyes, I was already his.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

And I walked away with them, happy to be part of something, part of a group.

‘What was all that about?’ Arthur asked, taking my arm and pulling me into him.

‘It was nothing,’ I said.

But later, when we were walking home, Dot sulked, and I couldn’t work out why. Could it have been to do with me and Arthur, and the way our group was shifting?

That was just one of a series of choices I made that led me here. To Overbury market, to the man selling pies. He is a big man, jolly-looking, his face round with fat lips.

‘What can I get you, my love?’

There are people all around us, not so much a queue as a general buzz, and I know he won’t give me much of his time. Know I have to get it right, what I say, make it as concise and specific as possible.

‘I was here a few months ago, with my husband, and we ran into a woman called Joan Garnett, and now I need to find her, and I wondered whether she’s a regular customer?’

‘Could be,’ he says. ‘But I don’t take names.’

He laughs. He isn’t laughing at me, but it feels a little like he is. I take a step backwards, colliding with someone who tells me to watch it. I am ready to flee.

‘I’m sorry,’ the man says, ‘just messing around. What does she look like, this Joan of yours?’

‘She’s about my age,’ I say. ‘A bit taller than me, a bit plumper. Curly white hair. Very white teeth.’

I think about the fact that older women are invisible. He won’t remember her, I think. But he puts a finger up, as if he has something.

‘I think I might know the one you mean. Partial to my steak and kidney, if it’s the woman I’m thinking of. She’s here most weeks.’

‘You don’t happen to know where she lives?’

It’s so unlikely, and even if he does know, he shouldn’t tell me.

‘No idea, but she usually comes by here around lunchtime.’

‘I’ll wait,’ I say.

He looks at his watch. It’s a little after ten. ‘Suit yourself. I could take a message for her, if that’s easier?’

How would I express it, in a note? I shake my head, but he’s already talking to the next customer, and I back away, wander around, always looking.

A couple of times, I see a white head in the distance, or bent over looking at something on a stall, and my breath catches, but it’s never her. I ask a couple of people, always the older ones, whether they know her name, but they shake their heads. Do they really not know her, or are they simply protecting her from this stranger who’s on the lookout? I could be anyone. I could have a score to settle.

I buy some things I haven’t had since Arthur died: camembert, blueberries, sourdough bread. Arthur used to tease me for being conservative about food, used to say you can’t live off ham sandwiches and conference pears, but he was wrong about that. You can live off so little, can avoid variety and texture. It just makes for a boring life. I don’t want to do it any more.

When it’s coming up for twelve, I go back to the pies. The man is serving someone, but he sees me and shakes his head, presumably to let me know I haven’t missed her. I hang around, choosing a small pork pie to take home and queuing up to pay. The cold is getting to me, now. I feel like it’s crept inside my bones and spread out. I give in, go back to the bus stop. I’ll try again next week, come a bit later, now I know what to expect.





I’m still cold when Julie turns up, though I’ve got the gas fire on full.

‘Nothing from Charles,’ she says.

‘Maybe he hasn’t seen it yet.’

‘Maybe.’ She gestures with her head towards my hat and gloves, which are drying on the radiator. ‘Have you been out?’

I fill her in. She offers to come with me next week, as I knew she would.

‘Exciting to have two irons in the fire, isn’t it?’ she asks, rubbing her hands together.

‘It’s still a long shot,’ I say.

Because it is. Even if I find Joan, what are the chances that she’s stayed in touch with Dot all these years? I hear Arthur’s voice, saying she knew Dot ‘a bit’. What does that mean?

‘Have a little faith,’ Julie says.

And I’m amazed she still does, to be honest. Martin’s in the process of moving out again. And yet, she’s nothing like she was when I first knew her, when he’d just gone for the first time. She’s stronger, more capable. Still sad, but she’s been sad through it all, beneath the surface.

‘Heard anything from Erin?’ she asks. ‘She served me when I went in for teabags and cheese this morning, but there was a queue so we didn’t chat.’

I haven’t seen Erin since she left, and I’m trying to be understanding about that. She’ll have a lot on, settling back in. No news is good news, I think. If it had gone badly, she’d have been back here, I’m sure. But it hurts to think that she doesn’t need me any more, so she’s disappeared from my life. It hurts to think of myself as a stopgap more than a friend.