‘I’m not sure. I’ll have a think.’
Patricia nods, and it’s quiet, and I know no one wants to say that we’re stuck, so I turn the conversation back to the party, and soon they’re talking about music and food and I retreat a little, not physically, but in my mind. Slip back to the past and have a wander around. There has to be someone, doesn’t there? And then for the first time, I think about how it might have been if I’d had the courage to start this while Arthur was still alive. If he’d agreed to go along with it. He was always good at puzzles. Crosswords and sudoku. Jigsaws. How would he have approached it? What questions would he have asked?
‘Well,’ Patricia says, ‘I’d better get going. Dance class tonight. Are either of you coming?’
Julie looks at me. ‘Fancy it, Mabel? I could drive us.’
It would be so easy to say no. In the past, I would have done. And it’s almost a reflex. But I fight against it, because I’ve found that when I do, good things sometimes happen. And I’ve found, too, that sometimes I genuinely enjoy doing something other than sitting at home.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. Why not?’
I persuade Julie to stay and have her tea with me. There’s no point in her going home for an hour or two and then coming back to pick me up. And she’s got no plans with Martin. She makes us cheese and tomato toasties with salad and we eat them sitting in the front room, laughing when the hot cheese oozes out of the sides.
When we’re in the car on the way to the class, I see Erin out of my window. She’s walking in our direction, looking glum.
‘Can you pull over?’ I ask Julie.
She frowns, looks in the rear-view mirror. Pulls into the curb. I press the button to make my window go down.
‘Hello, Erin,’ I call. ‘Where are you off to?’
She jumps a bit. Then bends down and sees me. ‘Just finished work. No plans. What about you?’
‘We’re on our way to a dance class in Overbury. Would you like to come?’
I’m not sure what it is that makes me ask her. It might be that she’s always on her own when I see her, that I have this idea of her being lonely. She considers it, her head tilted slightly to one side.
‘All right,’ she says, and she opens the back door and clambers in.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ She directs this question at Julie.
‘I don’t mind at all, love. I’m Julie.’
‘Erin.’
‘It’s nice to meet you. Any friend of Mabel’s and all that.’
She pulls back out and we’re on our way. Simple as that. Why did I always make things so hard? Saying no. Never asking anyone anything in case they misinterpreted it. Sometimes, people say yes and things just work and it feels easy and good.
Patricia welcomes Erin like she’s known her for years. At the class, she pairs her with me.
‘What do I do?’ Erin asks.
We’re facing one another, and I’m looking up at her because she’s taller than me, or perhaps it’s just that she still stands straight and tall while I’m stooped, and I put my hands out to show her the hold.
‘Patricia will tell us what we need to do, but I find sometimes it helps to just let the music guide me.’
She looks unsure. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’
She dips her head, and then Patricia’s voice is calling out instructions and we’re dancing, or something like it. We’re clumsy together, stepping on each other’s toes and turning in opposite directions when we’re supposed to be moving as one. She can’t stop laughing, and I find myself smiling too. I look down at our feet, mine in black leather flats and hers in scuffed white trainers. The skin of her hand feels impossibly smooth against mine. Everything I have behind me this girl has ahead. The thought of it makes me feel giddy.
When the music stops, Erin continues to laugh. There are tears on her cheeks.
‘Are you quite all right?’ I whisper.
It takes her a while to compose herself enough to speak. ‘I’m so glad I came.’
And then the music starts again and Patricia’s looking at us a bit like we’re naughty schoolchildren so I don’t get a chance to ask her why until the end of the class.
‘It’s Hannah,’ she says, when I do.
‘Hannah?’
‘The girl I like at work. We’ve been seeing each other but while I thought it was serious, she thought it was fine to sleep with some guy from her school at the same time. We had a huge row and I was on my way home to lie on my bed listening to angry music when I saw you.’
There’s mirth in her expression but I can see in her eyes that she’s hurt. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘Sorry? But you turned my whole day around, bringing me here.’
‘About Hannah, I mean. You deserve better.’
She nods. ‘I do.’
I’m glad she knows. I didn’t, at her age. I decide bringing up talking to her family again would be a bit much, on top of the heartache. I’ll keep my eye on her. I’ll add it to the list when I get home.
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
9. Keep an eye on Erin
23
Mid December is a terrible time to have a birthday. I should know. Kirsty shares hers with Arthur, though I haven’t mentioned that to the others. I wouldn’t want them to be fussing over me, checking I’m all right, when it’s her day.
And I am all right. If I didn’t have them, if I wasn’t spending today at Kirsty’s party, I would probably be moping around a bit. Thinking about his past birthdays. He wasn’t a big fan of material things, didn’t collect anything or really have hobbies that required particular clothes or equipment. We tended to have a day out to celebrate. A pub lunch and a wander around a different town. That was the sort of thing he liked. Pottering. Finding a market or a nicely kept park with pretty flowerbeds or a river to walk alongside. Of course, it was always cold and often wet, the days at their shortest, but he said he liked the way the Christmas lights looked as it went dark in the late afternoon, and he said there was no one he would rather spend his birthday with than me. He was quite romantic, sometimes, especially if he’d had a drink or two with his ploughman’s.
‘You’re miles away,’ Julie says. ‘What are you thinking about?’
We’re on Patricia’s doorstep, Julie’s car loaded with food, wrapped presents in our hands.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just that Patricia must have a good weedkiller for these paths. I must ask her what she uses.’
Inside, it looks like a party shop exploded. Patricia’s made something she’s calling a balloon arch and there’s a tasteful happy birthday banner hanging above the windows in the living room. Everything’s in complementing pastel colours.
‘I’m making a playlist,’ she says, and she looks the closest to flustered I’ve ever seen her. ‘Tell me all your favourite party songs and I’ll add them.’