‘I’m just going to say goodnight to Martin,’ Julie says. ‘I’ll meet you outside.’
We stand in the cold, our coats pulled tight around us. Our breath coming out in little puffs like smoke.
‘I’ve had a lovely time,’ Kirsty says.
When I look at her, the light from above the pub door is illuminating her face, and she looks close to tears.
‘I used to go out all the time, but since Dotty, it’s hard. I don’t get much time to myself and my friends are all in London and I haven’t found it easy to meet people here. So thank you, for inviting me.’
Patricia roots in her bag and produces a small pack of tissues. ‘Those early years are hard.’
What can I say to that? I know nothing of the early years of motherhood. Just then, Julie topples out of the door with Martin in tow, and I beam.
‘All right, ladies?’ he says. ‘Shall we get you all home?’
He summons a taxi and we all get into it, and Julie tells the driver to go to each of our houses in turn. When Kirsty and Patricia are getting out, Julie calls after them.
‘Was it Rod Stewart, Patty?’
She turns, smiling. ‘Not my type.’
‘Gotcha.’
I can’t sleep for hours. It must be the excitement of doing something different, being out. When I got in, Olly looked at me in disgust, like he was a parent disappointed at his child for staying out too late, and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was strange, laughing out loud in an empty house. I came straight up to bed but it’s gone midnight now and I’m still wide awake. I go back downstairs, find my list and a biro.
1. Get in touch with friends and family
2. Contact the funeral parlour
3. Go to the supermarket
4. Clean the house
5. Find D
6. Help Julie get her husband back
7. Help Patricia get her daughter back
8. Make sure Kirsty is safe
Number five is still ongoing, but number six looks like it might be well underway. I daren’t cross it off just yet, though. I cross out number eight and change it.
1. Get in touch with friends and family
2. Contact the funeral parlour
3. Go to the supermarket
4. Clean the house
5. Find D
6. Help Julie get her husband back
7. Help Patricia get her daughter back
8. Make sure Kirsty is safe Reunite Kirsty with her family
It’s a lot to do. I close the notebook, put it down on my bedside table. And I lie there until gone two, scheming.
21
Julie’s not coming until one, so I’m up early and ready as I’ll ever be to visit Reg Bishop. I’ve seen him, over the years, around town. Never to speak to, but I knew he was still around. He’s aged just as I would have expected. Carrying too much weight around his tummy, like most old men. For years he had a ridiculous comb-over but he seems to have given that up and come to terms with baldness. His house is not far from where Dot used to live, and I go past the end of her road on my way. What would she make of this?
It’s bitterly cold with a freezing wind, and people have started putting their Christmas lights up. How many more Christmases will I see? Can’t be more than a handful, at best. And that’s probably not a bad thing, given I’ll be spending any future ones alone.
I’m lost in my thoughts and almost miss Reg’s house. It’s a bungalow on a little cul-de-sac. Rendering that was probably once white but is looking decidedly grey. A few shrubs out the front. I take a deep breath and knock on the door, and he opens it so quickly I don’t have time to ready myself.
‘Mabel Mansfield,’ he says.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Beaumont.’
‘Beaumont, of course.’ Is that a sneer that flits across his features?
‘I came to see you because I’m looking for a friend, and I was told you’re interested in local history and might have an idea about how I could find her.’
He nods, smiles. ‘You’d better come in.’
Inside, it’s unbearably hot. Heating blasting out and gas fire on in the living room he ushers me into.
‘Cup of tea?’ he asks.
I tell him how I take it and he disappears. That must be his seat – slippers beside it and a book on the arm of the chair. I sit on the armchair opposite, after taking off my coat and cardigan.
‘You’ve made yourself at home!’ he says, making me jump. He gestures to the clothes I’ve removed and put on the arm of the chair.
‘I was a little warm,’ I say.
‘So this friend,’ he says, picking up my coat and giving it a shake before taking it into the hallway, presumably to hang up. There’s something a bit off about the way he says ‘friend’， but it’s not enough to take issue with. ‘It wouldn’t be Dot Brightmore, would it?’
I don’t look at him. ‘That’s right.’
‘I thought as much. So you lost track of her, over the years?’
‘She left town, just before Arthur and I got married. I never heard from her again.’
He lets out a whistle. ‘So that’s, what, got to be more than sixty years?’
‘Sixty-two,’ I say, still not making eye contact.
‘So why now?’
I don’t know how to answer this and I don’t feel I should have to, either. So I don’t.
‘I’ve been to her old family home, just around the corner, here. And I’ve been to an address I had for her in London, but no joy. I’m just looking for advice, or anything you might know about the family.’
He holds a finger up as if telling me to wait and goes back to the kitchen. I want to get up and walk out, hate feeling like this, like I have to acquiesce to him. I wish I’d said no to a cup of tea now. I feel all hot and itchy and like I don’t want to be inside my skin. To calm myself down, I stand and have a look around the room. There’s something strange about it but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not the television in the corner or the wobbly-looking bookshelf. Not the oil painting of a poppy field above the sofa, or the sofa itself, old and sagging as it is.
‘I was friendly with your brother, Bill,’ he says, putting the mugs down on the coffee table without coasters. They’re too full, and mine sloshes over the top and down the side but he doesn’t make any move to clean it up. I don’t like hearing Bill’s name in his mouth, or the fact that he tagged Bill’s name on after ‘your brother’， as if I might have forgotten it.
‘I remember,’ I say.
‘I’m sure there’s a lot you remember.’
‘Look,’ I say, finding the courage to meet his gaze, ‘do you think you can help me, or not?’
He’s a bit taken aback. No doubt because the twenty-two-year-old me would never have stood up to him, but it’s not her he’s sitting in his living room with, pretending to be civil. It’s me, older and braver. I know how precious time is, now, know I don’t have a lot of it to waste. Know for sure I don’t want to spend any more of it than necessary sitting in this stuffy room with this bitter old man. And that’s when I realise what it is, about the room. There are no photographs. No wedding portrait, no kids, no grandchildren. No knick-knacks, either. It could be anyone’s living room. It could be a set.