I feel exhausted. After returning to bed last night I spent the remaining few hours tossing and turning until I saw the reassuring early-morning sunlight filtering through my curtains. ‘Toast and a cup of tea will be more than enough,’ I say. ‘But I’ll get it.’
‘Don’t be silly. Sit yourself down. I’ll do it for you.’
‘Thank you.’ But I don’t take a seat, instead I help her clear away the breakfast things that must have been Elspeth and Kathryn’s and stack them in the dishwasher.
‘Go and sit yourself down. Are you sure you don’t want an egg with your toast?’
I shake my head. ‘No, thanks.’ I pat my stomach. ‘I still feel full from your amazing meal last night.’
She beams. ‘How was the theatre?’
I hesitate. ‘Yeah. The play was … good.’
I obviously don’t sound convincing because she laughs. ‘Elspeth has some strange tastes,’ she says. ‘What was it about?’
‘It was too highbrow for me. I didn’t get most of it.’ I remember how Elspeth had taken my hand between both of hers afterwards and asked, her tone a little patronizing, how I’d enjoyed my first theatre experience. It had niggled me that she’d assumed – rightly – that it was my first time, unless you count the pantomime I went to with Mum when I was seven.
Aggie hands me my toast and pats me on the shoulder. ‘You’re lovely as you are,’ she says. ‘It’s nice to have a bit of unpretentiousness about the place. I miss that.’
I don’t tell Aggie how Elspeth had said yesterday as we were crocheting, ‘Oh, you do have a delightful West Country accent. I know a very good elocutionist if you ever fancied making it more …’ she’d paused, her eyes assessing me as though she was trying to find the right word ‘… euphonious.’ I didn’t want to admit I didn’t know what the word meant.
Aggie sits opposite me with a cup of tea between her large hands. I need to be honest with her. ‘Aggie – I’m so sorry. I think I put my foot in it with Elspeth. I asked her about Viola. One of the shops was named after her. But she was very defensive about it and basically denied having a daughter called Viola.’
Aggie’s usually good-natured face clouds. ‘I don’t know what went on there,’ she says, shaking her head and making her chins wobble. ‘Viola could be a little madam, don’t get me wrong, and the mind games the two girls played, well …’ She purses her lips, then takes a sip of her tea. ‘There was often fireworks. But it wasn’t Kathryn. Kathryn was as good as gold. She was the perfect daughter. I suppose, really, she made Viola look bad without meaning to.’
‘And she was in a children’s home before then?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It must have been hard.’
‘She never seemed troubled, though. She had her head screwed on, that one. It was like she came here determined to make it work. She said to me once that she’d do everything she could to be the perfect daughter so as not to get sent back to the home.’
I feel a stab of pity for Kathryn. ‘Do you know what happened to her parents?’
‘Her dad wasn’t around. I’m not sure what happened there. And her mum,’ she lowers her voice, even though it’s just us in the room, ‘drugs. She took an overdose. Kathryn was the one who found her and called the police. She was only eight, bless her.’
‘How awful.’
She shakes her chins. ‘But Elspeth has been a brilliant mother to Kathryn. And Kathryn is a dutiful daughter.’
Yet I sense that something is off about their relationship. It’s obvious Kathryn avoided us yesterday. And it’s clear she doesn’t agree with Elspeth employing a companion. Although it could be that I’m comparing their relationship to the one I had with my own mother, which, in my eyes, was perfect.
We sit in silence for a few minutes. My eyes stray to the French windows and the garden beyond. I’m disappointed that Lewis has gone. It would be better if there were other young people about the place, someone to talk to. I had Cherry at the care home. She was a few years younger than me, but the two of us used to have a right laugh. I live for my days off when I can see Courtney. The rest of my spare time – not that there seems to be that much of it – is spent scrolling through social media in the sitting room, where the Wi-Fi works better, looking up Matilde and Jemima, trying to glean as much as I can about what they had been like. Sometimes I feel as if I knew them.