Then it was almost my stop, and I stood up and rang the bell. As I got off the bus, a woman was approaching me, pushing a buggy. She was wrapped up against the cold—a heavy coat, a huge multicoloured scarf, a hat pulled right down over her ears—but I still recognised her.
“Naomi!”
“Beth!” Naomi’s face lit up, and we hugged each other in the middle of the busy street as if our lives depended on it. “It’s so good to see you! It’s been ages.”
“I know. I haven’t been back here in ages. How’s this little guy?” I bent over the buggy to take a look at Bembe. He was sitting up, wrapped up in warm clothing, his feet kicking at the toasty-looking blanket covering his legs. “Wow, you’re not so little now, are you, little man?”
Naomi laughed. “No, definitely not. He’s doing well. We all are. How about you? What brings you here?”
I straightened, the sadness descending all over again. “My tenants left. I came to check the flat over. But I was here anyway. Well, in Enfield. Because . . . because . . . well, Richard died. You know, Rosie’s dad?”
“Oh, Beth, baby. I’m so sorry. I never met him, but you spoke about him so often, I feel as if I did. He was a good ’un.”
“He was. It was a heart attack. On Sunday. All very sudden.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” A tear ran down my cheek. I wiped it away.
“Listen,” Naomi said. “We were just on our way home. Why don’t you come back for a coffee? Tony’s out.”
I looked down the street in the direction of my flat. I hadn’t been there for more than six months. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out what sort of state it was in.
“All right,” I said, smiling at Bembe because you couldn’t help but smile at Bembe, even when you felt sad as sad could be.
Naomi’s house was like an explosion at a Christmas factory, the way it was every year. Fairy lights twinkled over mirrors and pictures. A giant Father Christmas figure stood proud in the hallway. Candles waited to be lit. There were no fewer than three red-leafed poinsettias on the windowsill. And there was, of course, a Christmas tree. Slightly smaller than usual probably, so that it could be set up high, out of Bembe’s reach. But it was extravagantly decorated nonetheless, with tinsel and baubles and chocolate treats.
I walked past it all, trying not to let it all exhaust me, while Naomi popped Bembe into his high chair and gave me rice cakes to feed him while she made coffee. The little boy’s dark eyes were huge and lively, examining every facet of my unmade-up face—a face suffering from neglect and pinched by the cold of endless winter dog walks—then the next minute dropping to focus on the very important task of dismantling his rice cakes on his high-chair tray.
“He’s just so adorable, Naomi,” I told my friend, taking my mug of coffee from her.
“He is, isn’t he? Which is just as well, isn’t it, mate? Since you’re such a lot of hard work for Mummy?” She chucked her son under the chin, speaking in a funny, high-pitched voice that made him giggle. “Yes, you are, aren’t you?”
I smiled. “He likes that.”
“Oh yes, he laps up anything fun. You should see him with his dad. Tony throws him up in the air and catches him. I can’t watch sometimes. But Bembe loves all that rough stuff.” She sat next to me at the table. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to have the funeral for a while, what with Christmas coming?”
“No, not until the New Year. The undertaker’s coming tomorrow to discuss the arrangements with Sylvia.”
“How’s she taking it? Silly question, I suppose. She must be devastated.”
“She is. But she’s all right, I think. I mean, she’s still functioning in a stunned sort of way. Still thinking about everyone else. I guess it will really hit her after the funeral, when it’s all over, and it’s just her in the house.”
“God, yes.”
“It’s just so hard to take in, Naomi. That we won’t see him again. He was always there, you know? Even when I didn’t see him very often. And I hadn’t seen him very often lately, what with living in Ely.”
Naomi took my free hand in hers. “Listen, sweets, don’t be feeling guilty about that. He wouldn’t want you to. You had your life to lead.”
I sighed. “I know that, but I just think if I’d seen him more often, maybe I’d have noticed something. I don’t know, some clue he had a heart condition.”
“Sylvia saw him every day, though, didn’t she? And presumably she didn’t notice anything.”
“She says not, apart from him being a bit tired. But nothing too much, not really.”
“Well then.”
Across the room, Bembe was sitting up, shouting, and banging a toy train with a toy brick.
“Guilt is all wrapped up in grief, and you’re grieving, mate.”
Tears began to run down my cheeks all over again. I put my coffee down and fumbled for a tissue. “How did you get to be so wise?”
“Some of us are just born that way, I guess.”
I smiled. “I guess.” It was good to speak to her. Very good. I’d spoken to Mark and Rosie, of course, but that was different somehow because they felt every bit as bad as I did.
“How’s everything going, anyway, in Ely?” Naomi asked, and I sighed.
“All right.” I wasn’t at all sure that was true, to be honest. But I was completely sure I didn’t have the strength to talk about it just now. “How about you? How’s it working out for you, being back at work part-time?”
“Ah,” Naomi said with a strange expression on her face. “About that. I might not be back at work for much longer.”
“Oh?” I said. “Is it too much for you?”
“It is, if I’m honest. Dashing about, getting Bembe ready to leave for the childminder on time. Feeling guilty because he’s playing with something and doesn’t want to go. Not being able to concentrate because I’m so damn tired. But I’d probably be able to cope with all of that if it weren’t for the other thing.”
I frowned. “What other thing?”
Bembe crawled over, having abandoned his bashing game, and Naomi pulled him up onto her knee. She was grinning all over her face as she looked at me, and suddenly I knew what she was going to say.
“You’re not pregnant again?”
“I am. Four months. Talk about timing, eh?”
I thought of lucky Bembe, having a sibling close to his age. “It’s not bad timing—it’s perfect. Oh, congratulations! I’m so pleased for you.”
“Thanks. I’m not sure Clive agrees with you about it being good timing, though. I think he’s shell shocked. Especially as the girl they got in to replace you hasn’t worked out very well. Not sure she’ll be sticking around for much longer. Kind of hope not, to be honest. She’s never fit in.”
She looked down at her son and was suddenly very absorbed in pulling up his left sock, which was hanging off his foot. I knew my Naomi. Knew how hard it must be to stop herself from saying anything else. So hard it would take her until lunchtime to get Bembe dressed in the mornings if she put as much attention into his other clothes as she was putting into adjusting his sock. You can go back to your old job if you want to. That’s what she wanted me to know, but she wasn’t going to push it. She was going to leave me to draw that conclusion myself, even if it drove her crazy to stay silent.