Chapter 1

Late from Lunch

The whole lot of them - the entire gang had been gathered together for hot desk politics and a lukewarm buffet. Any other day and the office would have been deserted, but not today because everyone was smartly present and correct. Gazing over the top of his booth, Dan had watched neatly uniformed caterers arranging foil platters sprinkled with cress. The food smelt deliciously unhealthy, and just as he was about to grab his place in the queue for first dibs his phone rang. ‘Shit,’ he grumbled, before snatching up the receiver. Whoever was calling was about to get short shrift. If the conversation took too long, his cultureless vulture colleagues would demolish all the beige delights without him. ‘Fernsby, extension 1-9-4-8,’ he announced briskly.

Clearly having not listened, the voice asked, ‘May I speak to Daniel Fernsby?’

Something disquieting about the tone jangled Dan’s nerves. ‘Speaking...’ he confirmed.

‘I’m Sister Connor, from Meriden Ward.’

With his mouth suddenly dusty, Dan spluttered, ‘Err, hi,’ he heard the sister take a sharp short breath, which made him feel even more uneasy.

‘I’ve bad news I’m afraid...…’ her unexpected pause, although brief, offered Dan a moment to steel himself for whatever was coming, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you but around ten minutes ago...’

The rest of Sister Connor’s words tumbled around his ears. Dan began wondering if perhaps she had made a mistake and rung the wrong person. His mother was going to be discharged; he was going to see her later, after work, once she was back at Jephson House. All the arrangements had been sorted out by the care home manager, Mrs Rose. Watching big Mervyn splatter his plate with equally big dollops of coronation chicken, Dan thought, ‘you bloody fat pig!’

‘Mr Fernsby??’ Sister Connor asked.

Yanked from his torpor, he managed to reply, ‘Sorry… yes… what happened? Erm, … sorry, I know what’s happened, I mean… what happened?’ Dan knew that he was lurching badly off script and ad-libbing wildly, making no sense. In his mind this final scene had been rehearsed hundreds of times so he knew how the ending should play out. All that had been missing was his cue, and now it was here it was quite wrong, clogging his brain.

‘She was eating lunch and she just went quietly and peacefully,’ Sister Connor explained, sounding almost apologetic.

Dan said hopelessly, ‘Mum’s being discharged this afternoon.…we’ve booked her a place on the transport,’ then pausing a second, he mulled his next words, ‘what was it?’

‘Mr Fernsby, didn’t the doctor explain?’

Clearing his throat Dan said, ‘Yes, yes, he did. For lunch, I meant for lunch, what was it?’

Instead of joining the corporate feeding frenzy, Ralph had watched Dan’s unfolding conversation fold him into his chair before peeling away his colour. Once the call was finished, Ralph wandered over, asking, ‘Is everything okay?’

With one hand still laid flat against the top of the phone and the other creeping about his face, Dan heard himself offer the most preposterous explanation, ‘Would you believe it? My poor mother just died of a sausage sandwich.’

Chapter 2

Down Under, Not Out

Gloomy like the dusk, arriving home late Dan headed straight to the kitchen. Pulling open the nearest door of the bulky refrigerator, he caused a white arc of light to sweep across the tiled floor. Ignoring that the glass shelves inside needed wiping, he groped through the chill light for the cellophane pack. After kicking closed the door, Dan moved towards the tall pedal bin and when the lid popped up, he dropped in the pack of sausages. Distracted he was oblivious to little Creosote, weaving enthusiastically about his ankles. When he trod on her tail the poor cat hissed fiercely before flying underneath a small table. Flicking on the light he cursed, ‘Stupid creature!’

The evening became a flurry of calls, breaking the sad news of his mother’s death to both his aunts and his father, then to all his mother’s friends, most of whom had already brushed away her memory. In the earliest days of Anthea’s dementia, Christine Jenkins his counsellor had warned, ‘What you’re suffering and will continue to suffer is the same as a bereavement, but the worst sort, bereavement with strings.’

It had seemed an odd phrase and he had certainly missed the terrible implication. But in time he was to grasp the full awfulness of the words. Now he wished he could call Christine, he would have told her, ‘The strings were cut today with sausages. She’s been freed, we both have.’

Looking at his watch he yawned.

In the bathroom, Creosote hopped up onto the closed lavatory lid, and stretching, bumped her head against the tip of his elbow. ‘Hey puss,’ he murmured affectionately. Dan splodged paste onto his toothbrush, whilst scanning his reflection in the wall-mounted mirror. He wanted the comfort of seeing something of his mother in his face, but it was his father who peered back.

Dan had not expected to sleep, so was not fazed by being wide awake. He had though, expected to conjure different memories. He found himself replaying scenes and events that felt inconsequential but probably were not. He pondered the force that his mum had imposed upon their family, back when she had the drive for great social aspiration. In those days such behaviour was known as ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and was frowned upon, unlike now, a dim view was taken of social climbers. Smirking, Dan thought how much his mother would have relished being considered upwardly mobile instead. Years after their divorce, Anthea had told her son that his father’s lack of aspiration had become the main source of her discontent. Now in restless dark, his mother’s ghostly criticism seemed unfair. Owen Fernsby had worked in factories all his life and had actually scrabbled from the shopfloor to a salaried position in management. With a sigh and after whacking his pillows, Dan turned over and tried to ignore the clock dripping time. The night felt longer than all those Christmas Eves when he used to lie awake worrying if he was going to feature on the naughty list. All the kids that he grew up with used to knock about together and on Christmas morning there would be the obligatory parade of bikes and prams. Inevitably when adolescence came calling such innocence was fumbled away.

One dark night with Sandra Loope, Dan had found himself crammed hard against her parent’s little holiday tourer. Miss Loope’s hands were busily swift and her tongue pouring into his mouth felt like it was trying to winkle free his lone filling. Dan could hardly breathe and when his lungs eventually caught up, Sandra misinterpreted the gasps. However, touch indicated that she needed to try still harder and breaking off from their struggle, Sandra cooed, ‘You can come inside; I’ve got the keys.’ She felt sure that with caravan privacy, prospects between them were bound to rise.

Dan’s excuse sounding lamer than his desire did the trick, ‘I’ve an early start…it’s getting late.’

‘Piss off then!’ she had growled huffily back, before marching stiffly away.

He had skulked home, where thoughts of sultry Sandra had kept him rigidly awake but not in the way her hoped. Lifting the duvet Dan had glared furiously at the thing that lay persistently limp, he desperately wanted to blame her but knew the real problem.

Memories of Sandra Loope were suddenly banished when it dawned on him that he had no idea where they had taken his mother. He hadn’t thought to ask. ‘How could I have been so stupid?’ He wished that Scottish Moira were closer, he missed her. He would telephone just after breakfast, by which time it would be early evening in Sydney. They were both sixteen when they had started working at Equitable & Legal. She had been introduced as Scottish Moira and the name stuck, just like the platonic nature of their relationship, which his father had misinterpreted. ‘The Scottish piece who stayed here after your work thing, you still seeing her?’

Glancing up from a lazy scan of the Sunday paper, Dan answered, ‘We’re friends dad, there’s nothing in it.’

‘Sure,’ his father had replied grinning wryly, ‘that’s a shame because with tits like that…you should be!’ he declared, pleased with his joke and himself.

The recollection still made Dan wince, then he remembered the office drinks machine, where coffee and gossip were dispensed for free, for this was where Scottish Moira had cajoled him into visiting The Duck & Jester. Instinctively, unbeknown to Dan, she had guessed that all he needed was the teeniest nudge off the straight and narrow. He had been silently questioning the suitability of her blouse, too clingy for the office, fine for a night out, when she glibly announced, ‘Wendy got dumped, we’re going out on Saturday.’

Remembering their conversation at least eased the worry of the whereabouts of his mother’s body, after speaking to Scottish Moira he would call the hospital, after all, he decided, it was not as if Anthea was in any immediate rush. His mind wound back to the ‘Duck & Jester’. Scottish Moira had been no fool, if she had told him where they were going, she knew he would have cried off. Suspecting he might be gay was one thing but putting himself in temptation’s path was quite another.

Apart from the burly doorman at the entrance, from the outside The Duck looked the same as any straight pub. The long bar was set with chrome pumps and fridges, which were filled with foil topped bottles and trendy alco-pops. Fixed to some of the walls were stained wood slats and screwed to the polished grain were art-deco lights. Strategically placed ornate mirrors were decorated with period advertising. The path to the bar had been obstructed by a milling crowd drinking and laughing. After placing his order, trying to look relaxed, Dan had avoided eye contact with anyone other than his own reflection. Determinedly distracted he was startled by a shout from the young blonde barman, ‘Hey, Dorothy… you planning on paying anytime soon?’

Standing nearby, Liam a tall man with a clump of black hair that ran untidily all over the place, smirked at Dan’s startled reaction. He wore fashionable stubble and the miasma of expensive aftershave. He looked casually smart rather than smartly casual. Drink followed drink. Moira had been intrigued watching Dan, who once relaxed seemed to be enjoying Liam’s overt and charming flirting. Eventually, nodding towards Wendy, Moira said, ‘Danny-Boy, I think she’s had enough.’

‘Just a sec,’ he replied, scooping up his glass.

Shaking her head, Moira was already guiding dumped and now wobbly Wendy towards the exit, with a grin she shouted, ‘Have fun. Just don’t be reckless…’

Dan had expected Scottish Moira to be waiting for him at the coffee machine on Monday morning, but instead he found a note on his desk, suggesting that they meet at the end of the day for a drink. In the days before mobiles and social media, gossip required patience and persistence. When he saw her, Dan was already tense. Eagerly she had asked, ‘So?’

‘What?’ he answered evasively.

‘Liam?’

Without looking at her he revealed, ‘Finished our drinks, went home. If you’d waited we could have shared a taxi.’

‘Absolute fucking idiot!’

The pub had always smelt stale, a peculiar blend of old bleach and yesterday’s customers, smoke and beer. It wasn’t the sort of place they would usually choose. but it was always noisy enough for conversations to stay anonymous. Pointing to a table Moira said, ‘That’ll do. I’ll get them.’

Waiting for her to return from the bar, Dan tried to concoct a plausible defence for the argument that was coming. When she slid his pint over, froth slipped down the side of the glass. ‘Tell me, Fernsy, what was going on, Saturday? I’m confused and I expect Liam is too.’

‘Why?’ he snapped defensively.

‘If you’re going to be a twat…’ and leaving aside her full glass, Moira reached for the jacket she had only just removed.

‘Don’t,’ he said, staring glumly. His face implored her to take the lead.

‘Fernsy, for an English boy you’re not bad looking and occasionally you’re even funny,’ playfully she thumped the top of his arm, ‘in fact you’re all the things I like, but we’re never gonna get-it-together.’

Her words were a declaration and made Dan’s face burn. Reaching for his hand, Moira tried to lift her friend from his discomfort. ‘I’m not trying to force you out, and if I’m wrong, I’m sorry. Am I Dan? Am I wrong?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe…yes…no.’

‘With clarity like that, it’s a wonder you don’t go into politics,’ Moira teased. His smile was feebler than her humour. ‘Don’t look like that,’ she said, ‘remember when we stayed at Wendy’s?’

Nodding and puzzled he confirmed, ‘In her terracotta bedroom and awful bed.’

‘That’s my point. If I’d been sharing with any of the other boys, their first thoughts would have been for their balls and my tits, not the decor.’

‘But we’re friends,’ he argued weakly.

‘Yes. And I don’t have a cock!’ she brusquely announced.

Silence. Before stepping off towards the bar again, she said, ‘I’m only trying to make you face up to yourself because you can’t keep doing what you’re doing.’

‘Which is?’ he sulkily challenged.

‘Nothing, Daniel, absolutely fucking nothing!’

He had expected to be badgered by thoughts of his mother and not Scottish Moira, Liam or Sandra Loupe! With sleep as distant as a dream he rolled across the mattress and with a disgruntled mew, Creosote thumped off the bed. ‘Sorry cat-o,’ he said, as she padded out of the room. Reflecting on the occasion now, it seemed quite ridiculous that he had eventually gone back to Liam’s place to prove a point. In his mind to Scottish Moira but really to himself. He knew full well the meaning of Liam’s invite, the man was nothing if not blatant. Dan felt certain that after sleeping with him, he would absolutely be rid of any queer notions. He would prove that the idea of being gay was a nonsense, a mere blip, to be corrected by the ‘right girl’. The morning after the proverbial night before, one of his Gran’s favourite phrases, ‘You couldn’t lie straight in bed,’ had rattled through his mind. What had transpired between them in the early hours, had proved only one thing, there was to be no ‘right girl’. Dan had enjoyed his months with Liam, whilst it lasted it was fun, but he knew there could be no turning back. ‘My parents need to know, not about us but me, otherwise we’ll all become wilfully blind…I can’t live like that,’ he explained to Liam one afternoon.

‘Tell your mum first, she probably suspects anyway. For dads it’s more difficult like a slur.’

Rubbing the bottom of his face, Dan said, ‘Hmmm, she thinks pink is the colour for girls and gin, not boys. We’re poofs and queers.’

Returning to bed with a milky coffee, the warmth of the mug caressed his fingers. Dan pictured himself with his mother, sitting awkwardly opposite each other in a pretty garden. The pub had been busier than usual because it had been one of those rare, delightfully warm spring evenings, which had only added to his stress. Dan had had no exact idea as to how Anthea was likely to react to his news. The large square lawn was enclosed on three sides by clover shaped privet, when he was little there had been swings and a slide in the middle. ‘I know why we’re here,’ she said, her voice tinged with angst.

Dan swigged his drink, to clear the sandpaper roughness from his throat. After swallowing the cold lager a little too quickly, he spluttered, ‘Liam said you might.’

Anthea stared, trying to capture the full image of her son in the last moments before he broke her heart. Brown as acorns, his eyes were easy to read and betrayed his nerves. ‘I see. You’ve already decided, everything discussed.’

‘Don’t be stupid, it isn’t a decision. But we still need to talk it through.’

‘You should have talked to me before, I’m your mum.’

‘I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?’ then to sweeten the pill he added, ‘and before Dad.’

‘And you’re going with Liam?’

Almost at the home strait the release of tension within his body was immense, nevertheless, he had been surprised at the apparent ease of the revelation. Letting out a sigh, Dan forced his little finger underneath his glasses and began nervously rubbing his right eye. ‘That’s an old-fashioned phrase, going with,’ he remarked.

‘What do you mean?’ Anthea asked, frowning.

‘A bit like saying courting.’

Knocking back the last of her drink, Anthea said, ‘Daniel, what does that have to do with anything? You’ve lost me.’

Whatever calm he had been feeling evaporated quicker than steam at a window, and his guts immediately tightened as he realised that somehow, his mother had managed to grasp completely the wrong end of the stick.

‘Mum, what do you think we’re talking about here?’

Anthea’s eyes blurred, she could hardly bare to hear her own words, ‘You’re leaving me aren’t you! Emigrating to Australia to be with Scottish Moira.’

Chapter 3

The Wonder of Woolworth

The mortal bureaucracy of death dragged on and on and the deathly requirement for documents seemed endless. Dan reckoned that with every swing of the scythe, the grim reaper lopped down forests too. He had been swamped with sympathy cards and although their intent was kind, each followed the path of the sausages to the bin. His mother’s creased birth certificate, handwritten in fading ink was laid out alongside her printed death certificate, which looked crisp and impersonal. Two separate things. The first a hopeful beginning, and the second, seven decades later, a lonely end.

Anthea’s world had shrunken into a twilight of garbled ramblings, a weave of nonsense and truth, fragments of old memories stitching together the holes in her reality. Dan discovered there was no point asking too many questions because she was unable to articulate the answers. ‘Before she’s even gone, Mum’s forgotten. A living shadow,’ he had once complained.

Anthea’s life had spluttered to a halt, her slow fade driven by the clock. Each flick of the second-hand chipped away at her core. All Dan knew of 1947 was the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Phillip, and through being born on the same day, his mother had been given a patriotic middle name, which she loathed. Dan was not sure which event his gran felt the most significant, his mother’s birth or the marriage of royalty. Irene often boasted, ‘My eldest was born on Her Majesty’s wedding day. I listened on the wireless…all the way through.’ He never found out if his gran had meant the service or her labour. He had been close to his gran, who had compared herself to the Queen Mother. In Irene’s mind because they had both endured early widowhoods this made them kindred spirits. Dan hoped that St Peter had taken the time to explain to Irene, that she had actually reached the Pearly Gates at the same time as her stoic counterpart, she would have been delighted.

Irene married Roy in the middle war years when quick ceremonies were all the rage. Weddings triggered by the prospect of the gun, but not in the traditional sense of a shameful pregnancy. In the worst case a marriage certificate bought the security of a widow’s pension. Dan’s memory of his grandfather was vague, as Roy Lomax had died suddenly, when Dan was a small boy. Roy had looked healthy and fit, there was no clue. He had been a tall solid man, muscular and perennially tanned. Straight from school he had worked a short engineering apprenticeship at Herbert’s, until his call-up into the Merchant Navy. After demob and for the rest of his life, Roy harboured dreams of the sea whilst being marooned shore side. One autumn afternoon at the garden gate his heart stopped. Years later, Dan’s father, Owen, remarked, ‘Irene never forgave him for having the temerity to go first. She was supposed to be the ill one, for as long as I’d known her there was always something the matter. Yet dear old Roy pipped her to the heavenly post.’ Irene Lomax had been a hypochondriac, her dedication to her ailments more persistent than any winter cough. Owen added, ‘I’d been talking to him the day before, his lips looked an odd colour. I actually asked if he felt okay, and he nodded. I was going to mention it to your mum but it slipped my mind. I felt awful about that for years. Your mother was desolate. She idolised him…’ Owen became reflective, ‘well, she did afterwards, when there was more scope for it.’

Dan asked, ‘How do you mean?’

‘If your gran said ‘jump!’ your grandad would ask, ‘how high?’ After he died, Anthea enshrined his memory. I’m not trying to decry your mum’s feelings, but it seemed to me that she was able to claim more of his death than his life. Irene couldn’t stop that.’

Living into the new millennium, Irene survived Roy by almost thirty years. By crying wolf so many times before, nobody, including Irene herself, suspected that that last complaint would see her off. Irene spent her final months at home amongst the family, and as she lingered, Dan sat listening to her evocative tales from the past. ‘I was born in Coventry. Before the war such a beautiful city. Medieval buildings and cobbles, streets so narrow; roofs looked like they were touching. In the summer you could smell all the timbers, like sniffing history. When they practised bell ringing in St Michaels, the old cathedral, we could hear the peals.’

Dan asked, ‘How come you and Grandad Roy, didn’t stay there?’

Looking wistful, the old lady replied, ‘My father worked in the car factories, and his father had been a skilled watchmaker. For three generations back the Jerome’s had lived in Coventry, that was my maiden name.’

Dan nodded.

‘We had a semi-detached house, with an indoor lav. Posh for them days and my mother was proud as punch. When I stayed at my friend Velma’s, I was frightened of their outdoor privy. Down at the bottom of their garden…where it was darkest. The seat was always freezing and there were spiders. Velma’s brother used to tell me they’d creep inside my knickers.’

It made Dan laugh.

‘We were in spitting distance of the Alvis and the Triumph. When war came, they made the tanks and planes. I was at the Alvis for a few weeks.’

Dan was heartened to see her burst into life as she delved back.

‘Throughout the summer there’d been more and more sirens, but the planes always kept going. A rumour went round that ‘cos Coventry was in a dip; they couldn’t see us…’ her voice became hoarse.

Dan poured some water into her beaker. After clipping on the lid, he said, ‘Gran, here you go, don’t gulp.’

Although she gripped both handles, Dan tenderly helped position the mouthpiece, enabling the old lady to take noisy shallow sips. Once quenched, Irene handed him back the cup, and picked up where she left off.

‘We were churning out planes and tanks... of course the bombs were going to find us, it was just a question of time. We deluded ourselves because it felt safe. People still do that…don’t they?’

His gran had been a stout, aproned woman. Baker, button-stitcher and seamstress. With cotton kisses and plasters she had always made things better. Watching her reminisce, he wondered what on earth he would do without her.

Irene told her grandson, ‘There was a shelter in the next street, and that night when the sirens went, Dad insisted we go there. Normally we hid under the stairs. It was unusual for the siren to go so early. But for some reason Dad was adamant. We’d only just finished eating and without washing up, out we traipsed. My mother grumbled something rotten, worrying that the neighbours might find out. It was just gone 7 and the frost was already down.’

Dan said, ‘You’re talking about the big Coventry raid, aren’t you?’

Nodding she replied, ‘November 1940. Good job dad made us. Our house took a direct hit. Whoosh! All gone…just like that, including the dirty dishes and my mother’s shame,’ she chuckled, before adding, ‘we’d have all been killed...yet miraculously the poor little thing survived.’

After a few seconds, he enquired, ‘What thing?’

‘Daniel, next morning the stench was terrible. From all the fire the air was warm, but you could still see the frost. I remember thinking that was strange. After a while, the smell hurt your throat. Ash blowing everywhere. Even before it was properly light, we knew something really bad had happened. Some of the back of our house was still standing, a jagged lump of corner. The cage was still on its pole, and like nothing had happened, Tilly was trilling away.’

Irene sighed.

‘Such a long time ago. We went to my sister Maureen and her husband Arthur. Walked all the way. Dad carried the budgie, that’s how we ended up in Leamington. When the war finished, we got a lovely new prefab in Lillington, me and your grandad. I felt like the Queen of Sheba, could hardly believe it!’

Arthur Loafe drove for the bakery, and chuckling, Irene explained to her grandson how her brother-in-law had wearily ignored the irony of his surname. ‘My sister, your great-aunty Maureen thought it was the funniest thing. The kids used to squeal behind his back, ‘Arf-a-Loafe the breadman! As soon as your grandad came back from sea though, straight away, Arthur got him in on the vans. He was good like that. Mind you, they couldn’t hold onto money, neither of them, they were always on the cadge.’

‘Do you need another sip gran?’ Dan offered, holding up the cup.

Irene shook her head. ‘When I went into labour the boys were out on the round. Everything happened so quickly there was no time, your mum was born without the doctor or the midwife. We had the radio on, broadcasting the royal wedding from The Abbey, 20th November 1947, I can remember it like it was yesterday. Just after they were married, out came your mum, bawling and red-faced into the hands of my sister,’ Irene looked wistful, ‘to mark the occasion, we decided on the middle name, ‘Lillibet’. Well, I did, your grandad didn’t like it much.’

‘Nor does Mum,’ Daniel laughed.

‘No,’ Irene mused, ‘we should have called her ‘Mary, Mary quite contrary’. We didn’t have the money for the christening, so waited nearly a year. My mother was scandalised, said that for as long Anthea Lillibet remained outside the church, the devil would dance attendance at her crib. And Daniel, she was right!’

‘Why?’ he asked, sniggering.

‘Anthea was a swine. Wouldn’t do as she was told. By the time she started school, I’d your Aunty Eunice. Your mum played up the teachers…on the days she turned up! I shouted, even slippered her. Nothing made any difference and where our girls were concerned, Grandad Roy was hopeless.’

Weeks rolled by and Irene weakened, but her enthusiasm for memory lane never wavered. Years later, whenever Dan recalled those final days, his fondest memory was of one of their last exchanges. ‘I had an old-fashioned pram. Big square hood with tassels and curved silver handles. Same as the royal family.’ Irene flopped back against plump pillows, her grave colour made worse by a white cotton background, but her eyes still twinkled. ‘Your mother was about six months old. It was a beautiful day, I walked into Leamington. I parked the pram with all the others, in those days, babies were safe outside shops.’

To Dan, this seemed incredibly shocking.

‘Shopping was a chore, the queues…everything took so long; ration books were complicated. I managed to get everything. I’d even found some bananas, but better than that, Harry the butcher gave me extra. He liked to look after his ladies, that’s what he called us. Grandad didn’t like him, in fact, most of the husbands didn’t. He had his favourites and his favours if you know what I mean. I only ever got offal or the occasional bit of off-cut. Connie Perrett, slabs of Sunday beef!’ Narrowing her eyes, Irene admitted, ‘never liked her, mind you, the feeling was mutual... that woman never went short of anything thanks to a horizontal war!’ Even after all the intervening years, the glee in her voice was palpable. ‘When I got home, I tipped the whole lot out. Do you know what your grandad asked?’

Dan shook his head.

‘What have you forgotten?’

Dan looked puzzled.

‘I couldn’t think…then looking over my shoulder, he asked quite calmly…the pram, where’s our Anthea?’’

Irene laughed. ‘In all the excitement, I’d rushed home without her. Grandad made me go back.’

‘What do you mean, grandad made you?’

‘I was embarrassed. I tried to persuade him, but he made me.’

Dan asked, ‘Was mum, OK?’

‘Oh Yes! All tucked up, safe and sound. Outside Woolworths, where I’d left her. And the wonder of it…still fast asleep.’

Unsure how to react, Dan said nothing.

Irene broke their silence by declaring, ‘I’ve often regretted fetching her!’

Chapter 4

Catalogue Fashion

When Dan had joined Equitable & Legal, where he first met Scottish Moira, on his first morning he was eventually taken to meet his head of department. Although his office door was open wide, officious Marsha from personnel still knocked. The man sitting behind a large wooden desk, scrutinising a sheaf of documents slowly closed the file and slowly raised his head all at the same time. With a click of his fingers and a slight nod, he beckoned the two of them over, his expression unreadable as the papers he had just covered. The reasonably sized room was cramped by a large silence, giving it the feeling of a library or headmaster’s study. Even the hullabaloo of the general office seemed reluctant to breach the threshold. Dan felt immediately intimidated, which he guessed was absolutely the point. ‘Thank you, Marsha, no need for you to stay,’ he instructed, his voice clipped like his manner. He wore a black suit and blazing white shirt, which emphasized the stripes of his neatly knotted tie, buttressed tight against his throat. ‘I’m Mr Greene, manager of pension payments. Greene with an ‘e’’

Dan nodded.

‘Cat got your tongue, lad?  Remind me of your name?’

‘Dan.’

Greene sighed, ‘Dan what?’

‘Oh, sorry, Fernsby. Dan Fernsby.’

Short for Daniel I presume?’

Dan nodded again.

‘We use our proper full names in my department. I’m Reginald, not Reg and certainly never Reggie!’

Nodding again, unfortunately this time Dan also smirked.

‘And what’s so amusing young man?’

‘Nothing, first day nerves I think.’ Dan felt his face redden and hoped that Mr Greene (with a sodding ‘e’) was not going to offer a handshake, because Dan’s palms now felt suddenly clammy. He tried not to gawp at Mr Greene’s shiny black hair, which looked as though it had been glued to his scalp. Spread across the fingers of the man’s right hand were smudges of nicotine the same colour as his chunky sovereign ring, but his fingernails were impeccably clean.

‘Daniel, insurance is a serious business and one to which I’ve devoted my life. In that office out there,’ and with his fountain pen he pointed towards his door, ‘amongst your cohorts always call me ‘sir’, is that quite clear?’

Trying not to nod and failing, Dan replied, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Of course, I’m told we must not be perceived as aloof. Our friends in personnel are banging the equal opportunities drum,’ and if Marsha had still been there, Greene would have chucked her a patronising smile, ‘they’re striving for greater informality. I don’t agree, but, Daniel, we must all do our bit. So now my door is left open, new policy. In here,’ he waved his pen reinforcing the boundary, ‘you may address me as Mr Greene.’

Unable to stop himself, Dan quipped, ‘With an ‘e’’.

Peering severely over the frame of his spectacles, Reginal Greene warned in a dour tone, ‘Mr Fernsby, do not think me humourless, but you and I don’t want to find ourselves getting off on the wrong foot, do we?’

Shaking his head and blushing, Dan replied, ‘No. Sorry, sir...erm, Mr Greene.’

‘You could do well here, if you want to…’ he paused, giving the boy chance to register the implied threat, then clearing his throat he continued, ‘now for introductions.’

Dan was surprised by Greene’s lack of height, but not by the clack of his shoes against the wooden floor. Fixed to each heel of the little man’s spit-shiny Oxford brogues were metal segs. Moira had smiled as she watched the new boy being led by dear old Reggie into the centre of the office, to face the cringing ordeal of his public welcome.

In one of the corners of the Equitable and Legal Annuity Office, set apart from all the other desks and in sight of Greene’s open door was the computer table. On top lurked a keyboard with chunky square keys and a big television shaped monitor. Underneath the table was a tall rectangular computer, which hummed air when switched on.

‘Our VDU,’ Mr Greene had explained to Dan that first morning, just before he was paraded in front of his associates, all eagerly waiting for Greene’s toe-curling ‘welcome’ speel. ‘The company believes these are the future, I don’t, but we must all do our bit. You book time on there with me,’ he had instructed, pointing at the screen, in case Dan had forgotten what they were talking about, ‘Daniel, this equipment is never used without my prior arrangement or permission.’

‘I know about computers,’ Dan had chipped back enthusiastically, ‘what operating system does it use?’

Reginald eyed him suspiciously, young people made him nervous, new technologies held no fear for any of them, whereas he was beginning to feel more and more like a creaking dinosaur.

Behind the computer desk was an iron framework of wide shelves, and on each was fixed a line of black square cubes. All were flashing pin-prick lights of green, amber, and sometimes red.  All day they whirred and sighed heat, making it necessary to keep open the little window nearby. A spaghetti mass of black cables tumbled from a hole in the ceiling, with each one being fixed to one of the individual connectors on the back of each of the cubes.

‘These servers run all the computers in the building,’ Wayne Miller explained one afternoon as he was ferreting about, setting up another computer desk in their office, ‘when the light goes red, a computer on the other end needs a re-boot,’ he announced, trying to sound impressively technical.

‘Switched on and off you mean,’ Moira lazily remarked, without looking up.

Determined to stand his ground, Wayne reiterated, ‘You actually switch them off and then on, which if you think about it is the correct sequence.’

With a raise of her hand, Moira stopped him in his tracks, ‘Not interested.’

Only after Wayne had gone, did Moira acknowledge Dan’s stern stare, ‘What?!’ she demanded incredulously.

‘You know what, that was unkind.’

Defiantly, Moira argued that she was blind to his allegations, but her red face proved that his criticism was justified and had struck home. ‘He’s too geeky and I’m not after encouraging him. I might not be getting laid, but you don’t expect me to go after the local IT nerd, surely to God…’

Dan sighed, ‘You’re right. Why should you contemplate giving him a chance?  Intelligent. Own money. Not bad looking.’

Trying to justify her own unfairness, Moira argued lamely, ‘Apart from anything else, he buys his suits from a catalogue.’

In the years when girl-power was cultivated as the essential spice to female life, Scottish Moira lurched from one unsuccessful relationship to the next. Young women were encouraged to treat such disappointments as minor inconvenience, overcome by employing a devil-may-care attitude. On the surface Moira adopted the expected bolshy façade but with each emotional setback, despite her spirited bravado and short-skirted defiance, Dan saw the real effect. When Moira had dragged him to The Duck, she had pontificated much about the dismal state of his confused love-life. It seemed to Dan that Moira’s lovelorn troubles, although straighter, were nonetheless spiralling into the same mess. It was in these circumstances the two friends found themselves drowning Moira’s sorrows, jammed inside a bar full of smokers that was far too loud. A thud of music clouted Dan’s chest and looking down at his overdressed glass, as the bar rolled with an oasis of belched lyrics from the Gallagher boys, he was surprised not to see acoustic ripples riding the blush surface of his drink. Tugging disdainfully at the hem of her camisole top, Moira yelled, ‘For Christ’s sake Fernsy, even you’ve found a nice fella, and you’ve been in and out the closet more times than this top!’

Dan laughed, then grimaced after swallowing some more of his sickly cocktail, announcing, ‘I think this drink’s too gay! You’re better off without him, took you a while, but you got there in the end. Even you couldn’t fail to see what was sprouting from the middle of his forehead!’

Despite her best effort, Dan’s rapid shuffling hand gesture made Moira laugh. When this latest boyfriend had sloped off into the sunset, for some inexplicable reason, Moira had seemed to be particularly affected and desolate by his departure. Everything about the man had seemed unpleasant, he was short of money, lacked charm and manners, looked scruffy, and was weaselly sly with obnoxious opinions. There had been a persistent rumour, which he had persistently denied of a poor wife tucked somewhere in the background. When Moira reached across the bar for the cocktail menu, her lace top flapped. With even more flesh showing, Dan concluded that rightly or wrongly, she had a natural knack for attracting troublesome types.

‘Give Wayne Miller a chance!’ he shouted into her ear.

‘Fuck off!’ she yelled back, shaking her head, gleefully announcing, ‘more cocktails!’

Dan glanced hopelessly at his watch.

Wayne Miller gave the appearance of being stand-offish, timid even, but the opposite was true. He liked Moira. She dressed for work like she was going to the pub, she was feisty, unlike all the other office girls. She had engaged in several public spats with fusty, wig-wearing Mr. Greene. Wayne knew from the cut and ever-changing colour of her hair and her lurid tights, that his mother would absolutely hate her, which in itself made Moira as desirable as her cleavage. Moira had been taken to task over her work attire by frigid Fiona from personnel, but thankfully, it seemed that she had taken absolutely no notice.  Wayne had initially assumed that Moira and Dan Fernsby were an item, but then he had heard the other coffee machine rumours. The pair were regulars in ‘The Duck’, and it seemed impossible to him that Moira might be a lesbian, which left only one other possibility. Whenever in their office, Wayne would furtively glance over at Fernsby, trying to gauge if he looked, as his own father would have said, ‘ginger’. Despite his endeavours, Wayne was still none the wiser about the exact orientation of Dan Fernsby, whether he be portrait or landscape. Wayne decided that when the opportunity availed itself, one way or another, he would have to tackle Dan to establish the exact nature of his relationship with Moira.

Wayne liked working at the weekend, when the offices were empty, and he could wear jeans and trainers. The company was buying more tech, it was up to him to get it tethered to the network. He needed to work quickly, as by midday he was meeting the boys at the pub before heading off to watch the football, nothing fancy, just the local team that his brother played for. After the game a few more pints, then a curry, an ideal Saturday. Ambling into the pension’s office area, Wayne was surprised to see Dan, who was dressed as casually as him, working at his desk. Looking up, Dan looked equally as surprised, but smiled him a warm greeting, ‘Hey Wayne, you nearly made me jump. I thought I was the only one in, security didn’t say anything.’

Wayne could hardly believe his luck, for weeks his efforts at finding the right moment to talk to Dan had come to nothing, ‘Christ, you gave me a start, I thought the same. The new computers are coming next week so I’m freeing up ports, boring stuff, I won’t disturb you,’ he said, hoping he sounded relaxed.

Dan grinned, ‘Better than doing this shitty paperwork, tedious doesn’t even begin to describe it.’

Out of his office garb, Dan thought that Wayne looked curiously attractive, he was surprisingly muscular, and he wished that Moira could see. Dan became aware that his eyes had perhaps lingered a little too long and Wayne had held his stare. It had never occurred to him before, but maybe Wayne Miller was not in the market for a girlfriend, perhaps Moira had realised this too. She had gleefully pointed out to him on more than one occasion, he was neither adept nor reliable in his ability to suss out sexuality.

‘Fernsy, you’re hopeless. Your gaydar doesn’t work. You were even the last one to find out you were gay!’

Her good-natured comment always made in company was greeted with gales of laughter.

‘I’ve something to ask you, if you don’t mind,’ Wayne said, having taken a deep breath, deciding to plunge in headlong, he would never get a better opportunity.

His calm and assured tone hit Dan with panic, ‘Shit...he’s going to come onto me!’ Dan became so flustered he only caught the backend of Wayne’s question.

‘…before I make an idiot of myself, ‘cos if you’re together, fair enough.’

With relief flooding, Dan said, ‘Wayne, we’re friends, we knock about together.’

‘Right!’ Wayne replied, clearly delighted, ‘so, if I was to, you know, see if she wanted a beer, you wouldn’t mind?’  Wayne’s hands flapped as he spoke, betraying his nerves.

‘Moira sort of helped me out, mostly these days we go to The Duck. You get what I’m saying?’ Wayne nodded, as Dan continued, ‘so now it’s my turn to repay the favour. Don’t be put off by her bravado and bolshiness, she deserves and wants a decent boyfriend. Keep in mind though, she’s not too keen on fellas in suits.’

Chapter 5

Not for the Television

Wayne Miller was not easily deterred and by following Dan’s subtle advice, he diligently pursued Moira, badgering her relentlessly for a date.  In the end she acquiesced, and despite her reservations, Moira found that she enjoyed Wayne’s company, he made her laugh and despite his slight frame, it turned out that he was elastically athletic in bed, never leaving her wanting.  Within a year, to everyone’s delight, except perhaps Wayne’s mother, the pair became engaged. Shortly after, Wayne was offered a chance of work in Australia. The wedding which was swift and small was bittersweet for Dan, because before he knew it, the newlyweds had flown. After surprisingly few clicks the telephone earpiece purred with the familiar, yet unfamiliar ringtone. Somewhere in the Sydney suburb of Glebe, a telephone was ringing in a house where hopefully the children were already tucked up for the night. Worrying that hearing Scottish Moira’s voice might set him off, Dan had decided to use the landline rather than videocall from his laptop.

‘Hello,’ a voice answered.

When he was little, Australia had been a place unimaginably remote, distant, gloriously exotic, the fancy of schoolboy daydreams. ‘Hey Moira,’ he announced, absurdly resisting the temptation to shout because she was a long way away!

‘Bloody hell! Fernsy, you’re an early bird…’ then, as if gripped by an ominous sixth sense, she asked, ‘what’s wrong?’

Dan explained his mother’s lunchtime passing, when he got to the bit about the sandwich, he was glad to hear Moira laugh. ‘Oh, poor Anthea!’ she chuckled.

‘We’re relieved to be honest. She was completely do-lally and at least it was quick, we thought it was going to drag on. From what little the doctor told us about this dry thing she got; it would have been unpleasant at the end. She’s suffered enough.’

‘What you going to do next?’

‘Sort the funeral. There’s not much of her stuff left at the home. I need to call the hospital; I don’t know where she’s gone.’

‘I hope, Anthea being Anthea, she’s warming her toes by the fire,’ Moira teased, ‘I meant afterwards. After the funeral is over, why don’t you come here? The kids and Wayne would love to see you and we’ve time owing.’

The invite astonished him, or maybe it was the realisation that he was free to make plans, to not be worried. Once again time was his own, but suddenly he felt lonely. The split with Alex whilst not acrimonious had still been a wrench, but there had been little time for him to dwell upon the collapse. ‘What about Creosote?’ he heard himself ask.

‘That mangey cat, you still got it? She belonged to Alex, didn’t she? Surely, he could look after her.’

‘Yeah, he couldn’t take her to his new place. I suppose he could,’ he agreed half-heartedly.

‘For fuck’s sake Fernsy, tell him. For once, just tell him what you’re going to do. You need a change; it’ll do you and us the world of good. It’s been too long since we had a night out, like the old days, before I became Mrs Mummy. There’s plenty of Aussie boys here, gagging to meet a middle-aged pom!’

The very idea of Australia, Scottish Moira, Wayne, and the kids excited him. Surveying himself in the mirror, after sighing and letting it all out, he patted his midriff. He hardly looked beach ready and for the merest second fretted that his reflection might not reflect well. He fussed the cat, who in return knotted her slinky body against his palm, squeaking pleasure as his hand ruffled her coat. ‘You wouldn’t mind too much, would you?’ he purred. For a while Dan was lost in thoughts of Alex. The relationship did not come to a juddering halt, it had been a gradual thing, and with hindsight, probably inevitable. In the end, the decision to separate just happened to them, as neither fought to keep the affection or love of the other. Dan found himself living alone and lumbered with a huge American refrigerator that he did not want, and little Creosote, whom he had not expected to keep. When Alex moved out, he claimed that his new place didn’t allow pets, but after visiting, Dan had noticed cats and dogs aplenty.

Before becoming befuddled, Anthea had liked Alex, in fact, Alex and Anthea had both liked each other a great deal. On days when Dan was stuck in the office, sometimes Alex used to take Anthea out for lunch. It was one of the few consolations of her dementia, that by the time he and Alex had gone their separate ways, Anthea barely recognised her son, never mind his ex-boyfriend. Once the dementia had established a firm grip, strangely Dan’s sexuality was one of the first things Anthea forgot about. Oddly, he had to ‘come out’ every few weeks, with Anthea being just as shocked every time. The almost comical exchange followed the same pattern. Anthea would look quizzically, before asking, ‘Daniel, where’s your wife, she never comes.’

‘I don’t have a wife, do I?’ he would reply.

‘Oh, is that why she doesn’t come?  Is she at work?’

With a sigh, Dan would patiently explain, ‘I have Alex. You remember him, don’t you? Used to take you out for lunch when I was at work.’

‘No egg,’ Anthea said, nodding.

‘That’s right mum, no egg.’

Looking wistful, Anthea would tell him, ‘I used to fetch the eggs out of the boxes, in the dirty straw. With Ness and we’d have to see nasty Peter.’

The pattern of their conversation never wavered. Dan had no idea who Peter was, and he suspected that his mother no longer knew, because she would immediately follow up the remark with, ‘Gammon and egg! Alex has pineapple. No egg.’

Watching her grappling slowly to join the dots, wearily Dan would nod.

‘Where’s Alex’s wife?’

‘Alex has me, we have each other. For me, Alex is the same as a wife, isn’t he?’

Just as he had done in the pub garden on a warm spring evening all those years ago, he would watch her frowningly compute his words. On every occasion, she would repeat the very same line she had spluttered to him, after he had cleared up the ridiculous confusion of not moving to Australia. ‘You mean, you’re a queer? before correcting herself and saying, ‘erm…I mean a gay?’

Dan had never introduced Liam to her, his boyfriend at the time of the original coming out, because he knew that deep-down, his mother solely blamed Liam for corrupting her son and leading him astray.

‘Mum, I’m not a gay, just gay. But I am a son. Your son,’ he had quietly explained to her in the pub garden as her initial shock had subsided.

‘I thought you were going to live in Australia, I should be relieved,’ she had looked miserable, her gaze unable to meet his.

Watching her wrestling with a rainbow of prejudice, Dan could not think of anything to say to rescue her.

‘It’s my fault,’ she said, determinedly avoiding his eye, ‘I used to get you out of playing rugby. It was too rough for you. So, I wrote you notes and now this.’

Dan shook his head, he felt too sorry for her to be irritated or annoyed, gently he took her hand. ‘Mum, it’s nothing to do with missing rugby or anything like that. You haven’t made me gay by something you did or didn’t do. It’s okay. This took me a long time to come to terms with, I’m not expecting you to do the same in five minutes. But…you needed to know, and you needed to know it from me.’

Sadly, looking at her son, she said, ‘I’m sorry Daniel. I’m you mother and I didn’t suspect. Honestly, I didn’t. And all those terrible things I’ve said…if I’d known…’ her voice wobbled.

‘If you cry, you’ll wreck your mascara, and I can’t have that on my watch …’ he cajoled, trying to ease their tension. ‘Mum, it doesn’t matter. For you then, gays were anonymous. We’re still the same, you and me. Nothing has to change. You bought me up not to tell lies. Would you rather I did that? Until you’d found out, because in the end you would. For me, being a liar is a far worse prospect than sitting here telling you I’m gay.’

For weeks after her son’s admission, Anthea had been quiet at work, remote and clearly distracted. One morning, over coffee in a lull between customers popping in to buy papers, bread or cakes, her friend Pauline asked, ‘Anthea, what’s on your mind?  You’ve not been right for ages, what’s the matter?’

Anthea looked around the shop, to be doubly certain that nobody had mysteriously sneaked in from the rainy street. Pauline’s hooped earrings, large and excessively shiny, flattened against her shoulders as she leaned over conspiratorially towards Anthea.

‘It’s Daniel.’

Pauline felt a flash of dread, ‘What about him Anth, is he okay?’

‘Yes…no… I don’t know really. I can’t make sense of it.’

‘And lovey, you’re not making any sense. Take your time, whatever it is, you can’t keep on like this. He’s not ill, is he?’

Anthea bit her lip and tried not to gulp, for one thing, the scent of Pauline’s perfume was more prevalent than her heavy makeup, so strong that you could almost taste it. Shaking her head, she said, ‘He’s gay. I’ve lost my son; all I can see is a queer. I feel terrible about it... I feel terrible for him. He’s not going to have a normal life.’

Anthea started to cry, and frowning, Pauline placed her hand softly onto the arm of her friend, ‘When my son was seventeen, he wanted a motorbike. I was against it. Drove us mad pestering. In the end, he defied me, and egged on by his dad, sure enough a gleaming bike appeared. He was over the moon, promised to be careful, said all the right things. Six months later, we lowered him into the ground.’ Pauline deliberately stopped speaking, so that the awful impact of her words was not diluted. When it looked as though Anthea was going to speak, Pauline placed a finger upon her own lips.       ‘Hit a tree, on Kingsway. We don’t really know why it happened, but he was going way too fast for sure. They found him halfway through the hedgerow, yards from his bike. Before the police were even in the house, as soon as we got the knock, I just knew. Your boy isn’t lost, you can still see him, talk to him, and most of all, love him. You must still do that Anth. I’d trade my life for that same privilege.’

Anthea felt sickly dreadful and could barely grasp the terrible thing her friend had just revealed. ‘Oh God, Pauline! In all the time we’ve worked together, you’ve never once mentioned him.’

‘Because he’s dead. My lost boy.’

Anthea thought it possibly the saddest sentence she had ever heard, then felt thoroughly ashamed. ‘You’re right. I’ve just got to accept that something has genuinely gone wrong with Daniel. But I feel like I’ve let him down.’

‘How do you mean Anth, gone wrong?’

Gazing into her acorn-coloured coffee as she spoke, Pauline could just about make out her reflection, since noticing that slaggy Louise from the garage wore the same lipstick, she had gone right off the shade.

‘Well, how else do you explain it? He wouldn’t choose to be gay, would he? Even you must admit, it’s not as if, like most of them, he’s camping it up for the television.’

Pauline forgot about the colour of her lips.

Chapter 6

Blame the In-Laws

Following his divorce from Anthea, Owen Fernsby had quickly embarked upon his second marriage, which, most people including Anthea had believed to be a rebound affair. Dan believed though, that if Hilary made his dad happy, and she did, why should it matter how quickly they had married? They lived on a modern housing estate, crammed onto the site of the old Crowther’s bakery buildings, which were long demolished. Hilary was petite with black shiny hair, her fringe cut so straight, Dan reckoned that her hairdresser must use both rule and scissor. Everything inside their house was spick and span, just-so, a description that could easily have applied to Hilary. All the friends Dan knew with stepmothers professed to dislike them, whereas Dan and Hilary got along just fine. She was nice, everything about her was nice. She made sure that his father ate nice food off nice plates, using nice cutlery, drinking nice wine, the dining table set with the nicest linen.

After telephoning to tell his dad of Anthea’s death, during the conversation, Dan learned that Owen was laid up with a bad bout of shingles. Hilary Fernsby still worked occasional hours as a nurse, and Dan was amazed that despite her slight stature, she could deftly manage to manoeuvre her griping bed-bound husband. Dan had sniggered watching Hilary administer the sort of brusque, no-nonsense care, that only a nurse who had spent her working life on an under-staffed ward could administer.

‘Owen, stop being a baby! You need a wash, stop wriggling will you!!’

‘I can manage...lay off!!!’ he snorted.

His loud protestations did not impede the path of the flannel underneath the duvet, and from the disgruntled expression on Owen’s face, Dan was fairly sure of where the wet cloth had landed.

‘Hilary, really?  My son’s here, preserve me a little dignity,’ he gasped.

‘And I’ve little doubt that your son would be a far more patient patient!’ Hilary wearily replied, rolling her eyes in Dan’s direction.

Owen groaned, ‘Oh joy!  Now we’re treated to bed bath comedy too.’

‘Lie still then, stop making such a fuss and it’ll be over in a jiffy.’

Dan sniggered, the funny interlude lifting his spirits, ‘Now, now, daddy, be a good boy. Do as nurse says!’

Owen glared hatefully between the pair of them. Ignoring her scowling husband, Hilary carried on her conversation with Dan, ‘I was on the ward Tuesday; I promise you; Anthea showed no sign. It often happens like that.’

Dan looked saddened,       ‘I’d always expected to be with her. I’d have held her hand.’

‘Daniel, love, she’d have known nothing. Your mum had a happy dementia, which sounds strange. If you’re going to get it, that’s the sort to have. And, you know, most people die alone. Even when the family are gathered. When the end is near, we usually send the family out for a few minutes, then we do the last things and make their relative comfortable. Sometimes though, it’s as if the person senses they’re alone and they let go. Death is rarely the same as you see in the soap operas.’

Hearing the echo of his mother’s words from years before, Dan mumbled, ‘Don’t camp it up for the television.’

Hilary looked puzzled and pointed out, ‘That’s an odd thing to say.’

‘It was something Mum once said about me to one of her friends.’

Suddenly, Owen blurted from his bed, ‘Probably big Diane. Bloody hell, she was a woman. Knees like Sunday-joints. Used to flatten the foam in all our cushions, I’d have to plump them back to life,’ Owen moaned, before asking, ‘what did Anth say?’

After Dan had finished explaining, his father tutted, ‘I’m not being disrespectful, but sometimes your mother had a closed mind, just like your gran.’

Once they were downstairs in the kitchen, watching Hilary fill the kettle, Dan grumbled, ‘Christ he’s got a short memory!  He wasn’t exactly progressive either.’

Pulling open one of the glossy white cupboard doors, Hilary reached for a treacle-coloured teapot, and when she put it down an upside-down figure of eight reflection played back in the shiny spotless worksurface, Hilary said, ‘This was your mum’s, you can have it back if you’d like. It makes lovely tea, let’s have loose leaves they taste better.’

Dan was touched by her generosity. Once the cupboard door had glided shut and with the teapot waiting by the whispering kettle, Hilary said, ‘I may not have known him for as long as your mum did, but I know that your father is...shall we say selective in his recollections. Memories that don’t quite fit are conveniently forgotten, but actually I think reimagined is better,’ she chuckled.

After she had strained the russet-coloured liquid free of leaves, Dan accepted the china, and without splashing a drop from cup to the saucer carried it carefully to the lounge. Whatever Owen was watching upstairs was jam-packed full of sirens, shouting and gunfire. Hilary closed the bubbled glass door onto the hallway, noting, ‘In small houses, voices carry…’

Nodding conspiratorially, Dan sat on the sofa whilst Hilary chose the chair opposite.

‘Mum took my news badly, especially as she’d got it into her head that I was emigrating,’ he smiled slightly, ‘and when she got the gist of what I was actually saying, it seemed to come as even more of a shock. I came out to her first, because the fella I was seeing at the time said that would be best.’ Politely with a shake of his hand, Dan refused the little plate of biscuits Hilary was offering, ‘Once mum knew, I had to tell dad, because she wouldn’t have been able to keep it from him, even though they weren’t together. I’d not thought of that, so the pressure really was on. I’d absolutely no clue how he’d react, to be honest, I was dreading it.’

‘Why were you so worried? Your dad’s not an ogre.’

‘I found coming out to men far more difficult. Dad’s a good man, but neither of them were very modern... progressive, as the old man likes to say. And there I was, about to tell him a thing, that at one time I thought I’d never admit to anyone.’

Looking at him sympathetically, Hilary said, ‘Dan, try not to be too harsh, your dad’s had to rethink more than just memories. When he told me about you, we hadn’t been together very long, all he said was that for you there was no right girl. He’s never once uttered the word ‘gay’, but to be fair, I’ve never heard him use any of the more unpleasant pub expressions either.’

‘He’s changed Hilary, and that’s down to you. But I’m sure he’d still like me to admit that it’s all been something of a queer mistake. Unfortunately, neither of them mum nor dad could be called dyed-in-the-wool liberals. I’ll tell you what happened.’

When Dan had arrived that afternoon, Owen was settled in his favourite armchair, watching the horse racing. Glancing sideways at his son from the television screen, his dad had announced, ‘I won a couple of quid on the lottery and as there’s a full racing card, I’m using lucky money.’

With a mouth drier than hay, Dan just about managed to gabble, ‘Is this your race?’

Nodding, Owen said, ‘Hello Sailor.’

‘What?’ Dan’s stomach lurched.

‘‘Hello Sailor’, Owen repeated, ‘fiver each way. The going is soft, it’s a fair chance. I got good odds; I’ll be 80 quid up on the day.’

With a dismal heart, inwardly, Dan snarled, ‘Hello fucking sailor!’

After the dead cert sailed into last place, Owen proclaimed, ‘Easy come, easy go!’ and looking across at his son, he enquired, ‘you alright?’

Dan’s face leeched of colour made him look as anxious as he felt, ‘Dad, I need to talk to you.’

Involuntarily, Owen’s eyes darkened, and he raised his right eyebrow, something that happened when a conversation was about to stray into serious territory.

‘I wouldn’t mind a beer, if there’s one going.’

‘I’ll grab one for both of us. Daniel, you look as though I’m going to need it,’ Owen remarked. When he returned, Owen was carrying two green stumpy bottles of lager, and handed one down to his son, ‘Is this about your mum?’

Shaking his head, Dan experienced a surge of love for his father. Even though Anthea had walked out, and then pushed him into an unwanted divorce, Owen had behaved graciously throughout. He still worried about Anthea and would not hear a bad word levied against her. Although his father was dating, Dan suspected that not all his love for Anthea had yet been used up. Dan wondered whether his mother would live to rue the day she had left her husband Owen Fernsby behind. His father’s relationship with Hilary was still quite new and he certainly seemed to enjoy her company, since Hilary had been on the scene, Owen had looked much happier. Dan had already figured out that his father was not the living alone sort, if his mother was ever going to have second thoughts about their separation, time was of the essence. ‘It’s about me, Dad.’

‘Are you ill, boy?’

Dan shook his head causing Owen to lurch from worry to confusion, but he opted to say nothing. Whatever his son had come to say, instinctively Owen sensed that it was vital for him to find his own words, ‘Dad, remember Scottish Moira?’ he paused, afraid and mysteriously ignorant of whatever was about to plunge from his lips. Hoping to loosen his leather cracked tongue, Dan sipped at his beer, but he was so nervous it felt like he was drinking concrete syrup.

‘Of course, she’s the one who went to Australia… I liked her. You shouldn’t have let her get away.’

‘She got married. We’re friends Dad, never more than that. She’s my best friend, I really miss her,’ Dan replied in a sigh. The son looked imploringly at his father, hoping that something about his words might lead him to miraculously guess the point and purpose of their conversation.

‘You were a bit silly there, letting that computer bloke muscle in and steal her from right under your nose. Son, you should have put up some sort of fight before it was too late!  To be honest, I was surprised.’

‘Really?’ Dan asked, perturbed by the realisation that in the same way as his mother, his father seemed to have no inkling of what was coming.

‘She slipped through your fingers. If you don’t take care of women, they’ll sidle off, there’s always another bloke with a harder cock lurking in the background. I hoped you’d learnt from my mistake, finding the right girl is like searching for the proverbial needle. Holding onto them though, well that’s an entirely different thing altogether,’ he sounded and looked mournful.

Abruptly, Dan saw that his father was not suffering from wilful blind ignorance. The prospect of doubting his son’s sexuality had never once crossed his mind. Owen shuffled his fingers through his hair, which these days was thinner and smattered with strands of grey. He had always been slim, but since the divorce he had looked thinner and smiled less. Owen had never spoken this frankly about the collapse of his marriage like this before, but unfortunately, for Dan the moment was all wrong. It would be too easy to allow them to become side-tracked, embroiling them in a convenient smokescreen, lifting himself off the hook. ‘There isn’t a right girl, Dad.’

He immediately regretted his choice of words, when with a dismissive wave, Owen launched into an optimistic address, ‘You give up too easily, you’ve always been the same. Move on. Like it or not, you’ve no choice. I’ve had to do the same without your mother. A friend of mine used to say, that to love well once, you need to love twice. There’s always different fish and sad as it might be, learn your lesson.’ The pace of Owen’s words was methodical, Dan could almost see his father’s mind carefully plucking each one. Frustratingly though, there was no gap where Dan felt he could interject, and Owen continued, ‘What about Neavis … she’d just do you. I know she’s got a kid, but she’s a hard worker. And at your age, you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a virgin. Your mum was expecting when we got married, mind you, at least I knew who’d done it,’ he sniggered.

Dispirited, Dan looked guiltily at his father, realising that he was completely responsible for the poor man’s confusion. Not once had he tried to stop his dad from thinking that he was simply being coy about rampant sex with Moira, now he felt terrible. In a moment, Owen’s perception of him was about to be bent by a clobbering from the closet door, ‘Dad, there’s no right girl, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not interested in Neavis, not because she has a kid or where they live. If ever there was a right girl for me, she’s in Australia. But even she wasn’t right,’ Dan paused, praying that the enormity of his words was sinking in. Almost in a whisper, he added, ‘and I could never be right for her. Now do you see?’

Dan thought he glimpsed the briefest flash of acknowledgment, but it was impossible to tell. If he had grasped all his son was explaining, Owen seemed determined to delay the moment of reckoning.

‘I think I might have lost track of what you’re saying, son.’

With a final gulp, Dan fell on his sword, ‘My friend Luke; you’ve met him.’

Owen nodded his head, or maybe, when he replayed the scene afterwards, Dan wondered if it had been a last shake of denial, a futile attempt in preventing the words that he must have known by then were sashaying his way.

‘Well, Dad, Luke is the right sort of girl.’

Owen said absolutely nothing, nor did he flinch a single muscle. His father’s inertia lasted for so long, Dan began to worry that he had catapulted him into some sort of shock-driven episode. Eventually, shaking off his malaise, without actually looking at his son, Owen remarked, ‘I guess you’ve already told your mum.’

Dan nodded, as Owen absentmindedly added, ‘My dad boxed for the Navy. Welterweight, fast as a greyhound he was. Mean right-hook, knock you out cold. His trophy lived on our mantelpiece for years. Your Grandma Celia hated it, but it was his pride and joy. I don’t know whatever happened to it.’ Brooding, Owen picked up the Hello Sailor betting slip, and crumpling it in his fist, he eventually tossed the thing into the wicker bin near the television. Looking benevolently at Daniel he announced, ‘must come from your mother’s side of the family!’

Chapter 7

Bakery Slide & Dance

Living alongside the remorseless grip of Anthea’s dementia had been gruelling, watching the pitiless erosion of her character and shrinking personality was nothing short of brutal. When quite without warning she died, the shock Dan experienced was unexpectedly profound. Once the date of the funeral was set, he felt as though he were living in a peculiar alternate reality. Dan wanted to stand in the middle of the supermarket and holler, ‘My mum died!’ to be certain that everyone going about their seemingly carefree day knew of his loss.

Hunched over the kitchen table, Dan found himself once more, studying her certificates of birth, marriage, and death. When she had first gone into Jephson House, sorting through her stuff he had been surprised to come across her marriage lines. Florid blue strokes inked the wedding date as August 30th, 1969, when she had been 22 and his father 23. Dan reflected that at the same young age, he had been fully occupied with the Hokey-Cokey arrangements of bursting out, then in, then back out again of the proverbial closet. His mum had told him that by the time she married, to the bewilderment of her own parents, she had lost a dizzying array of jobs. In later years, she seemed regretful of her wasted opportunities, but when she was young and belligerent, it looked to all the world as if she couldn’t care less. Years later with a wine loosened tongue, Anthea admitted, ‘I went to the secondary-modern. Daniel, If I’d done as your gran wanted and turned up more, I’d have done the eleven-plus. Girls from our road never made it onto the grammar school bus,’ tipping more wine into her glass Anthea continued, ‘the only thing most of us managed to get on was the pill. I lurched from one dead-end job to the next. They were ten-a-penny then, it didn’t matter if you got the sack.’

‘Keep waving your glass about like that and you’ll spill it,’ Dan warned.

Anthea scrunched up her nose and said, ‘I hated school. I was in such a rush to leave, to get a job, earn money, buy fags with your aunty Jean. All I was really interested in then was records, boys, shoes, and my hair. We’d watch Top of the Pops, or listen to Radio Caroline, then me and Aunty Jean would shoot down to Woollies for the 45’s. I loved Gene Pitney and Dusty Springfield. When we were going out, I’d do my hair and eyes like her. Not until I got to Jean’s, ‘cos Grandad Roy didn’t like it. Celia disapproved of me; thought I was a bad influence. If she’d known I was going to end up marrying her son, she’d never have let me in the house! She’d aspirations for your dad, the doctor’s daughter, Rosemary Chessington-Clarke,’ laughing, Anthea said, ‘from being double-barrelled to just plain old Fernsby, it was never going to happen! Poor Celia disappointed all her life by her own snobbery.’ I’d no idea what I was going to do but was sure it had to be more exciting than all the boring lessons. I fancied myself glamorous like Sophia Loren or Susannah York.’’

Even if she was drunk, her woeful reminiscence mesmerised her son.

‘‘The jobs I got were crap,’ then looking and sounding sad she revealed, ‘nothing high-falutin and although I never admitted it to your gran, I knew it was all of my own doing. So, I just carried on mucking about, eventually getting sacked from one place after another. The only difference was that unlike school, wherever I was working I turned up because I wanted the pennies. My briefest job was in the teapot factory, started there with my friend, sacked before the end of our first morning! She stayed there until long after she was married and had kids.’

‘Why, what did you do?’ Dan spluttered.

‘The line went ever so fast; I ended up sticking the spouts on the wrong way up. The gaffer was good about it and paid me ‘til the end of the day. And from there I went to Crowther’s the bakery, where I met your Aunty Jean and eventually your dad. You could say I suppose that badly fitted spouts ended up putting me up the spout, which of course Daniel, is where you enter the story!’

One of Anthea’s favourite tales had been to tell how she had been sacked from the bakery, where she had worked, filing, making tea, and sometimes answering the telephone. Jean Fernsby had become friends with Anthea, when Anthea had called off her engagement to Gordon Blenkin, after discovering his nightshift overtime with sour-faced Dolly from confectionery. Jean graded flour in the mill. Solid sacks scooted down a long chute into the bakery, landing with a dusty thud onto a slowly moving platform. Using a blade, Jean would slit the neck of every sack, before checking the contents for weevils. She would mark the sack indicating the result, before, just like the stars at the end of Sunday Night at the London Palladium, they revolved away.

One particularly dull afternoon, after squandering time away from her desk chatting to Jean, Anthea strolled over to the sack chute and began scaling the rungs of the maintenance ladder, which was bolted to the side. In an unspoken flurry of anticipation, everyone knew what she was going to do. Once she reached the top, after Ron the loader gave the nod, Anthea clambered in. Amidst a riot of excited laughter, applause and balloons of flour dust, Anthea rocketed all the way down. Rolling in a cloudy floury heap, with legs akimbo, she tumbled upside down out of the chute. After a second or two and with a cold sweat of fear, Anthea realised that nobody was laughing anymore. Usually, the site foreman spent every afternoon in the office, so it was rather bad luck for Anthea that he just happened to be wandering past. Intrigued by the sound of uproar, just in time to witness Anthea’s glorious emergence, Mr Hesketh had popped his head round the door.

‘Oh dear, oh dear, Miss Lomax. Dust yourself down, then follow me, flower. Mrs Pearce will prepare your P-45 and national insurance card, by which time you can have collected up all your things.’

On the bus ride home with Jean, sitting on the top deck wrapped in the stale swirl of everyone else’s nicotine, Anthea said, ‘Christ almighty, they’re going to kill me.’

‘What on earth made you do it?’

‘If it had been Mr Fisher or Denning, they’d have laughed,’ Anthea surmised, ‘but mournful old Hesketh, just my bloody luck! Mrs Hesketh should loosen him up a bit, that’s what he needs!’

Jean clipped open her handbag and after retrieving a packet of Embassy Regal, flipped back the lid, ‘Ciggie?’

Taking one, Anthea remarked, ‘That’ll be me back up the labour exchange, I’m sure the old cow behind the desk will be delighted... you off Senior Service?’

‘I’ve started collecting these,’ Jean confirmed, pulling from the box a little blue card, inked with a fancy motif.

‘What you saving for?’

‘Heated rollers. Tammy gave me all hers; she’s packed them up.’

‘Your hair’s too short.’

Jean’s mousey coloured hair was cut tight into the nape of her neck and sculpted around her ears, ‘I’m growing it.’

‘Why didn’t you stop me, Jean?’

Looking incredulous, she answered, ‘For one thing, by the time I realised what you were up to, you’d monkeyed halfway up the sodding ladder, and secondly, like you’d have listened to me and come back down!’

Anthea laughed and smoke rolled from her nostrils.

The girls stood up just as the bus rounded the bend to begin its whining ascent along Drapers Hill. Jean stepped into the aisle first and Anthea thought that she looked the epitome of style. Her sleek legs disappeared underneath the hem of her stylish calf length coat, the woollen garment was beautiful, a criss-crossed pattern of white and black yarn, fastened with big round wooden buttons. On almost impossibly slender heels, swaying with the motion of the bus, with the grace of the catwalk Jean Fernsby swanned along. Turning back towards Anthea, just before descending the stairs, Jean said, ‘My brother’s place is taking on, Owen says because they’ve been taken over by the yanks, they’ve more work than they can manage.’

Fortunately, the enquiry by Jean’s brother paid dividends. To everyone’s surprise, including Anthea herself, two weeks after being sacked by dour Mr Hesketh, Anthea was sitting behind a desk in the Tool & Gauge wages office. Whatever had been said to Mr Tranter had included a frank account of her departure from Crowther’s.

‘Miss Lomax, explain to me exactly what happened to terminate your last employ and be honest. I’ve already heard one version of events, now I want yours to allow me to contrast and compare,’ he asked at the very beginning of the interview.

Shamefaced, Anthea detailed to Mr Tranter her sorry tale. When she was finished, he bent back his knuckles, displaying both palms as his fingers cracked, ‘Well young lady, I appreciate your candour, not perhaps though, such stupid recklessness. You may be surprised but Mr Hesketh has written you a jolly good reference. It goes without saying though, I’ll be watching. Step out of line, and as quick as Jack Robinson, you’ll be out and back up the exchange. Do I make myself clear?’

Red-faced, Anthea nodded. ‘I won’t let you down.’

‘Let’s be frank here, Miss Lomax, mess this up and you’ll only be letting yourself down,’ he said, making her blush even more.

Anthea was responsible for assembling the wage packets, filling each one with the correct money and a slip. The brown envelopes were then sealed and slotted into departmental trays, to be collected by the foremen. Monday morning, she would soon learn, sorting out the grievances of those short changed was the busiest time of the week. On her first Monday, a silhouette appeared at the hatch and nervously she slid back the frosted glass. The crouching man looking back at her had dark hair parted neatly from right to left, the tramline of his parting was razor neat. Instinctively, Anthea knew that when he turned around, a comb would be sticking from his pocket, ‘Can I help you?

‘Ay up,’ he answered smiling, his straight teeth, eye-catchingly white, ‘I’m guessing you’re the girl who’s slid in from the flour mill?’

His entire face beamed; his mirth enhanced by Anthea’s awkwardness.

‘Erm, well, yes. I guess news like that gets about fast?’

‘Not as fast as you by all counts, straight down the chute I heard!’ Owen smirked. Seeing that Anthea now looked embarrassed, he said, ‘Sorry…I’m Jean’s brother. I put the word in for you with Mr Tranter.’

Conversation between them blossomed, he made her laugh, and inexplicably, for no apparent reason blush. Momentarily forgetting where they were, the pair chatted amiably, oblivious to the growing queue of disgruntled people clutching narrow slips. ‘I’d best go, otherwise my foreman will come looking ...’ Owen said, about to turn away he hesitated, before blurting out, ‘we’re at The Locarno, Thursday, you’ll be there with our Jean?’

Flustered, Anthea answered, ‘I think so, yes.’

‘Good, save me a dance. Miss Lomax, you owe me.’

Chapter 8

The Window Gatekeeper

Anthea’s childhood played out at number 7 Latch Road, with her parents Roy and Irene Lomax, and younger sister Eunice. Dependent upon perspective, the house was pitched at either the very bottom or top of the road. ‘We live in the wide, better end. Not the narrow bit where it’s scruffy,’ Irene used to explain using a tone as tart as lemon. Latch Road curled from one end of the estate to the other and was lined with matching houses. The only obvious difference between each one being either the painted colours of the windows or the square gate. Joined to the back of every house beside the kitchen door and directly underneath the window of the smallest bedroom was a narrow brick building, known affectionately as the coalhole. Before the war when they were without mains gas, the coalhole was the place where Tommy Brennon lobbed grimy sacks of coal. Whenever she missed the last bus home, when she was young, Anthea would shin up the rectangular metal drainpipe onto the flat roof. Being late back from The Locarno dance, before tackling the essential late-night climb, Anthea would kick off her shoes and then gently toss them up. It was imperative they land on the left, because to the right was a rusty tank brim full of foul stinky water. Once atop the roof herself, Anthea would tap urgently on the glass, ‘Eunice…Eunice, it’s me. Let me in!’ she would half whisper. Anticipating her outside summons, Eunice would lie awake waiting. Sometimes, if the weather was bad, out of sheer mischief, for a minute or two, she would leave her sister standing in the rain. Trying to ape the Springfield chicness of her Dusty idol, Anthea would have sprayed so much lacquer into her hair, that the raindrops glinting like miniature jewels merely skidded across the top. Stranded and becoming wetter and crosser, Anthea would frantically rap at the glass. But because she was utterly reliant upon the generosity of her sister in opening the window, and for fear of waking their parents, she hardly dared make too much noise or commotion.

Tonight the weather was fine and as soon as she heard the knock, Eunice sprang from bed. Tugging her house coat over her long cotton nightdress and simultaneously releasing the latch, Eunice enabled the steel-framed window to swing wide, ‘Hurry up! I’ve got school tomorrow, it’s Friday assembly too,’ Eunice grumbled, ‘and don’t give me your same old guff just get in! One of these times you’re gonna get it from Mum, they’re not totally stupid!’

‘If you left your window on the sodding latch,’ Anthea moaned, ‘none of this would be necessary, I could just climb in.  Ness, don’t be mean. I’ll do the same for you.’

‘I see, and explain to me Anth, how you think that’ll work? When I’m rapping at this window and you’re not even here…’

Eunice wrinkled her nose against the odour of kissed aftershave coming from her sister, who, with shoes in hand was carefully rolling herself over the windowsill. Despite being marginally younger, Eunice was already taller than Anthea. She had a shock of fiery coloured hair, which Irene Lomax, her mother, rakishly insisted to be ‘strawberry-blonde’, but even in the pitch of night, there was no mistaking the smouldering copper colour. Leaning in to help Anthea clamber noiselessly to the floor, Eunice warned, ‘Crikey, tell whoever he was, to wear less ‘Old Spice’, or buy a better brand. You know mother’s opinion of sluts!’ In the way that only siblings can, as quietly as they could, the girls giggled together.

‘Jean’s brother, Owen. He’s a dish and can dance.’

‘And from the smell of you, he’s not a bad kisser!’

Eunice mimed shoving her fingers down her throat, as carefully, Anthea opened the bedroom door.

Peeping out onto the shadowy landing, except for the familiar rumble of their father’s snore, the coast seemed quietly clear. With her heart almost beating in her mouth, just as she was about to tiptoe into the most perilous part of her evening, Anthea was dragged back by her sister hissing, ‘Lillibet!’

Spinning round, annoyed by the deliberate choice of her ridiculous middle name, Anthea saw Eunice grinning mischievously. ‘Your skirt’s caught in your knickers and your tights are torn. Best not let mum find them.’

Anthea smiled gratefully, despite her complaints and teasing, Eunice had never failed to enable her after curfew entry back into the house. Disappearing into the gloom, Eunice heard her sister curse, ‘Lillibet!!’

The next morning, before anyone else, Anthea made sure that she was first to use the bathroom. When she was little, a water heater, which frightened her had been fixed to the bathroom wall. Apart from spitting out scalding water, the horrible thing filled the bathroom with acrid smelling vapours from the flickering blue gas flame. One day a man with a big bushy beard came to look at the horrid thing, and after a lot of sighing and chatting with Roy, eventually a big red sticker was slammed on the front. The heater had never been lit again and now their hot water came from two tanks located in the attic roof space. The small and large copper tanks were really no more than gigantic electric kettles, lagged in material that looked like an old anorak. On weekdays, only the small tank was used, producing just enough hot water for everyone to have a flannel wash at the sink. Anthea liked to be first to use the day’s clean flannel, which would have been left out by her mother the night before. Apart from anything else, after ripping her tights on the coalhole roof, she wanted to be sure that her face, hands, and knees were spotless, particularly as at number 7, bath night was not until Sunday. Anthea also needed to wash off every last trace of the extra make-up she had slapped on at Jean’s before heading off to the dance. When she emerged onto the landing, from downstairs, Anthea could hear and smell her mother’s breakfast preparations.

‘You all finished in there, lovey,’ her father asked, striding towards the door. Mr Lomax was wrapped in his thick woollen dressing gown, patterned in brown and red tartan and frayed at both cuffs, regardless of the season he wore the thing all year round.

‘Yes, thanks, dad. There’s still plenty of water.’

‘Your mother’s chuntering about not hearing you come in... were you late?’

Shaking her head, Anthea told him, ‘You were properly snoring; that’s probably why she didn’t hear!’

‘Cheeky young madame!’ Roy smirked, flicking his towel in her direction, which she neatly sidestepped.

When Anthea sauntered into the dining room, toast was already slotted into the silver wire rack on the dining table. Alongside on a raffia mat was a treacle-coloured teapot, where the breakfast brew was quietly stewing. Underneath the serving hatch knocked into the wall between the kitchen and the dining room was her mother’s adored oak sideboard. There were three drawers set along the top with fancy brass handles and two big cupboards below. Without warning her mother’s face appeared through the hatch, ‘Just how late were you last night? Get the cutlery for the table.’

Pulling open the middle drawer, Anthea made the handles of the other drawers on either side tinkle. Inside the drawer, the knives, forks and spoons were sorted neatly into green baize compartments, and as she grabbed an assortment, Anthea replied, ‘Last bus, and I walked as far as the corner with Jean. You can ask her if you don’t believe me.’

‘And what would be the point young lady, you’re thick as thieves. If she said black was white, you’d agree!’ Irene sighed.

Plonking herself down at the table, Anthea took a slice of toast and scraped butter across the surface, but because the toast was cold, none of the creamy yellow coil was absorbed. Bustling about, Irene remarked, ‘I didn’t hear you, and when I last looked at the clock, it was way after you should have been back young lady.’

Using a tried and tested technique to divert her mother’s attention, Anthea went to stab her crumby knife straight back into the butter.

Irene’s eyes widened, ‘Don’t do that! How many times do you need to be told?  You’ll get it full of bits and you know your father hates it.’

‘Dad was snoring when I passed your room. I do try to be considerate and quiet.’

On the wall above the serving hatch was an orange plastic clock with jagged prongs, making it look like an Aztec sun. Suddenly aware of the time, Irene said, ‘Anthea, go shout on your sister, it’s the devil’s own job to get her moving.’

Abandoning the last morsel of her breakfast, Anthea dived from the dining room. Her mother had either accepted her explanation or could not be bothered with the squabble. Flinging open her sister’s door, Anthea barked to the blanketed mound, ‘Mum says get up. I’ve got to dash too; else I’ll be late. Mr Tranter’s watching and I can’t afford to lose this job.’

A muffled voice proclaimed, ‘Especially not now you’re in love. Anthea and Owen sitting ‘neath the tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G…’

With a furtive glance towards the closed bathroom door, Anthea sniggered, ‘Bugger Off!’

Chapter 9

White-Collar Expectation

In the wake of her broken engagement, Anthea had no desire to lumber herself too quickly again. With her friend Jean Fernsby, she went dancing, discovering amongst other things, a taste for Cherry B and Babycham. When Jean took a fancy to her brother’s friend Roger, it seemed only natural, that after some regular dancing and smooching at The Locarno, Anthea should easily fall in with Owen Fernsby. He was charming and funny and had become a welcome distraction, stopping her brooding over sour-faced Dolly from confectionary. Before too long, without discussion, it became an unspoken fact that the four of them were courting, Jean and Roger, Anthea and Owen. When spring sprung towards summer thoughts of a clandestine trip to the seaside bloomed.

‘You’re suggesting a dirty weekend.’

‘No... not at all. Aunty Dot has that caravan, if you girls took it, Roger and me could get one close by,’ Owen said defensively to his sister, feeling immediately on the backfoot.

Sounding doubtful, Anthea said, ‘My mum won’t go for that. Even my dad would say no.’

The boys were crest fallen.

‘Don’t look so defeated!’ Anthea said, ‘surely, it’s a simple question of perception? We can’t be seen to be telling out and out lies.’

‘I don’t follow,’ Jean pointed out.

‘When you ask your Aunty Dot, if the boys honestly haven’t got anything booked ... we’re not lying,’ Anthea looked over at them conspiratorially, ‘but if you turn up and Jean and I didn’t know you were coming, that’d hardly be our fault. And like you’ve just said, we’d really be staying in separate vans, so where’s the harm?’

Irene Lomax scrutinised her daughter, staring so hard, Anthea felt as though she were delving into her soul, ‘What do you think Roy?’

Anthea’s father was far more benevolent, ‘And it’s just you two in this caravan?’

‘Yes, dad. A little two-berth,’ Anthea answered honestly.

Still unconvinced, Irene chipped in, ‘And no boys?’

‘Mum, ring Jean’s aunt. I’ve her number, ‘cos I knew you wouldn’t believe me.’ The challenge was a truthful one, but Anthea’s heart was pounding all the same.

‘Anthea Lillibet Lomax, in front of your father, you promise me, on your life that it’s just the two of you in that van, you and Jean.’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ Anthea replied confidently, looking her mother straight in the eye.

The covert gang of four ate fish and chips served from a basket and danced to the band in the clubhouse. Slightly giddy with drink, walking back towards their respective caravans the girls became edgy, for they knew only too well of the boys’ solid hopes for the rest of the night. Whilst the idea had been thrilling at home, both Anthea and Jean felt slightly unsettled at the thought of engaging in such blatant deceit. ‘I’m going to stay in the caravan with Jean,’ Anthea suddenly declared, ‘they made me give them a solemn promise, I crossed my heart. Now we’re down here it doesn’t feel right to break it. If they found out, I’d be for it.’

Like the moon scudding behind clouds, the boy’s expectations waned.

‘Who’s going to know?’ Roger asked, his desperate question sounding as lame as Anthea’s change of heart.

‘It’s not as if they’re going to appear for breakfast, just to check, is it? Surely to God, you’re not worrying about that?’ Owen asked, sounding equally as thwarted.

‘Owen, Mum and Dad would be furious. And what about aunty Dot? I’m sure she’d have something to say too.’

Feeling guilty at being the trigger for their disappointment, Anthea offered a compromise, ‘How about this… instead of switching caravans, if we were all back in the right places by midnight, I’d be fine with that. What d’you think Jean? Would that be okay?’

Jean nodded, grudgingly the boys eyed their watches, knowing that there was no choice other than to accept the reduced offer. By the time the weekend was over, and they were heading separately home, parental promises made beforehand had at least been honoured in spirit.

One evening during their bus home from work, several weeks after their seaside escapade, Jean sheepishly announced, ‘I’m not going to keep on with Roger.’

Before Anthea could react, the conductress loomed, ‘Tickets?’

‘Drapers, please,’ Jean said.

Once they were alone again, Anthea said, ‘I thought you were getting along?’

‘We are, we were. But since that weekend, I don’t know. Maybe it’s me. Difficult to explain. Feels like that is as good as it is ever going to be between us.’

‘In other words, you don’t love him,’ Anthea surmised.

Abashed, Jean nodded.

‘But you feel obliged, because you...’

Guiltily, Jean lowered her head.

For a moment Anthea gazed silently at the shopfronts sailing by, ‘Bloody hell! Don’t be so stupid. D’you think boys marry all the girls they sleep with? Do they buggery! Yet here we are, 1969, and we’re still expected to! I don’t think sex and love are the same thing at all, you can have one without the other.’

‘I’m not entirely sure my mother would agree!’       Jean sniggered.

The bus started its whining climb up the hill and the girls began getting ready for their stop.

‘I’ve been worrying about it a few weeks Anth. I wasn’t sure what you’d think.’

Anthea was going to explain that she had been having the same doubts about Owen, but at the last moment decided against the idea.

Anthea knew she was late, only this felt far worse than being unpunctual, this lateness came with a grinding worry that really was a question of life and … well, life. After submitting her sample, the passage of days before being recalled to see Doctor Nugent had felt tortuous. Using shifts as a convenient excuse, Anthea had successfully managed to avoid seeing Owen Fernsby, but deceiving Jean, her best friend and confidante had been the worst thing. ‘Miss Fernsby, doctor’s ready for you now,’ the nurse announced, her tone and expression impossibly flat.

Number seven was deserted when Anthea got back, she went to her room and crashed onto her bed. Inevitably, it was not long before tears of pent-up worry were released and in all her angst, she did not hear them return. The voice from the doorway made her jump, ‘Hey, hey, what’s to do?’ Through bleary eyes, Anthea was perturbed to see her father. When he sat on the edge of her bed and gently lay his arm across her shoulder, Anthea was unable to hold back her despair. ‘Oh, my love. Whatever’s wrong?’

There was no way out, although she was far from ready, she would simply have to tell him, ‘Dad… I’m going to have a baby.’

Pulling her close to his heart, he let her sob.

Irene’s voice came barrelling, ‘What’s going on up there?’

Placing a finger tenderly to her lips, gently Roy said, ‘Five minutes, pull yourself together. Come down when I call you, it’s not the end of the world.’

With her face crushed into the mattress, Anthea pulled the pillow over the back of her head.

When her father called, fearfully and tearfully, Anthea made her way downstairs, where she was greeted by her ashen faced mother, standing ramrod straight, arms folded, ‘You swore to us! You made a promise!’

‘Mum… I ... we,’ with voice quavering, Anthea stumbled on, ‘there was only me and Jean, it’s just a small two berth,’ Anthea stopped: the word ‘berth’ now sounding wholly inappropriate.

Pointing accusingly at her daughter’s belly, Irene insisted, ‘So, explain my girl, just how THIS immaculate conception came about!!’

Anthea merely drooped then shook her head. Roy placed his hand on his wife’s arm, ‘Irene, love, shouting like this isn’t doing anyone any good.’

Slumping wearily into one of the dining chairs, Irene said, ‘Your father just made up at the works. And you, you silly girl...you silly, silly girl, you’ve gotten yourself in the family way. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in families like ours, not middle-class, what are white-collar!’

Chapter 10

Caravan Misfortunes

Livid from the bombshell announcement, Irene could hardly bring herself to look at her disgraced daughter. Anthea had explained how the boys had unexpectedly turned up and booked themselves into a different part of the site. In theory the story sounded plausible, but Irene refused to believe it. Anyhow it hardly mattered now, because the amorous expanse between them, along with Anthea’s reputation had been breached. ‘You really expect us to believe this happened by chance?’ Irene demanded, pointing furiously across the dining table towards the serving hatch, ‘when you stood in that kitchen, you’d already concocted the arrangements! Anthea don’t treat me like a fool, you’ve already done that! You must really think I came down with the last shower of rain!’ To reinforce her fury, with every syllable, Irene jabbed her finger, ‘Barefaced lies to me AND your father. I should have expected nothing different!’

‘It doesn’t matter what I say, you’re never going to believe me. We kept our promise. Jean and I stayed in aunty Dot’s caravan. Honestly mum, the boys spent the night in theirs,’ Anthea knew that she was feebly clutching at straws, so when her mother’s face erupted into fury, she was not surprised. In an instant Irene’s complexion became redder than the frills of her apron pockets, where she had thrust both her fists, before shoving out her bust, ‘Big bloody deal! But unfortunately my girl, as you’ve discovered, it doesn’t take the whole night to get yourself into dead lumber!’ Suddenly deflated, Irene’s angry breasts dropped along with her desire to debate the rights and wrongs of their predicament. Sounding defeated, she said, ‘I should have been clearer with you. Once people know you’re expecting, they won’t give a sodding jot over which damned caravan you spent the night. Now you’re pregnant, in their eyes my girl, all they’ll see…’ The ring of the telephone cut Irene off.

‘You were going to call me a slut!’ Anthea said, quietly shocked with tears prickling.

Without shaking her head, Irene growled, ‘That’ll be Mrs Fernsby, and let me tell you, the Fernsby’s are just as upset as me and your father.’ Seizing the chance to halt their increasingly acrimonious conversation, whilst moving towards the telephone she warned, ‘We’ll be carrying this on later.’

When Anthea arrived, Owen was already waiting outside The Haycart. She thought that he was quite a snappy dresser, wearing striped drainpipe trousers and a roll neck sweater which clung like skin accentuating his lean physique. Wearing ludicrously high heels that she only bought because Jean had some, Anthea picked her way along the pavement. Owen thought she looked tired and strained, spotting his stare she quipped, ‘Yes, I know, ridiculous, but when I’m the size of a house, I’ll be dreaming of these.’

Smirking, Owen leaned in and softly kissed her cheek. He noticed immediately the absence of her usual pungent perfume. When Anthea looked up, he saw that her make-up was missing, he had never seen her naked like this before, ‘You Okay? What’s happened?’

Nodding, she replied, ‘Not quite blooming,’ and with her hands in each pocket of her jacket, Anthea opened the garment revealing no bumpy sign of their misdemeanour. ‘I’m not bothering with make-up or perfume, because mum already thinks I’m a slut.’

Owen grimaced. ‘Did she say that to you?’

Shaking her head, Anthea replied, ‘Not in as many words, but she might as well have, it’s what she thinks.’

‘If it’s any consolation my parents are barely speaking to me. We can’t undo what’s done, and I feel bad for everyone,’ Owen frowningly revealed.

‘Well, it’s not against the law anymore, but just like me, we’re too late now,’ Anthea remarked, scowling at the unfairness of her own words, ‘I’d better just have a Britvic,’ she announced, stepping past Owen, who was holding open the bar door and looking slightly confused.

The pub was busy enough for the din to camouflage their conversation, ensuring that their words became tangled in the backdrop of the jukebox. ‘What do you think?’ Owen asked, before taking a mouthful of ale.

‘What do I think?’ Anthea barked incredulously, ‘what the hell does that have to do with anything? They’re all getting so carried away. My mother might not be happy there’s a baby on the way, but everything else including squabbling with yours, she’s loving.’

Looking nervously about to check that nobody had overheard, Owen sloshed his dark beer about the inside of his glass, then took a considerable glug. ‘I don’t mind getting married…a baby should have a proper start.’

‘We ought to be getting married because we love each other, not because you don’t bloody mind!’ Anthea told him. Stopping just short of sneering, her expression had descended into a blend of dismay and despair.

‘Anthea, I’m in love with you, and already, I love our baby. Maybe our mothers are right, we shouldn’t bring shame on the family. I want to do the honourable thing by you both. I’ll never leave you in a mess.’

His well-intentioned sentiments prickled her conscience, with each of his noble words reducing her. Glaring glumly at her orange drink, Anthea saw that if he was not prepared to stand up to his mother, she was trapped like a rabbit snared.

‘Anth, it’s you who’s got to decide about love … all my cards are on the table,’ Owen said, blushing.

Watching him earnestly trying to do the right thing by all the women in his life, Anthea became caught up in an unexpected sweep of sorrowful gratitude.

When Jean Fernsby learned that Anthea was pregnant via her mother ranting at her brother, she had cried. Jean was not sure whom she cried for the most, because whichever way she looked at the situation for everyone it seemed a catastrophe. Celia Fernsby’s attention had so far been focussed on her son, and she had made no attempt to conceal her disdain for the Lomax family. ‘You could have done better for yourself! When I think of Doctor Chessington-Clarke’s daughter, I could weep! She’s just finished secretarial college and can do 100 words a minute. And you’ve gone and tied us to Latch Road of all places! You know what they called it before the war?’ Before Owen could say anything, Celia was already firing out the answer, her words coming so rapidly that in trying to keep pace, her wiry frame looked like it was shaking. ‘They called Latch Road ‘Gunner Alley’, because on tally man day, they were always gonna pay next week, then they’d do a moonlight flit. That’s the type you’re fraternising with, you won’t find decent people … decent people like us down there. Trollops come from Latch Road! It’s secondary-modern, not grammar school types up there, not young ladies like Rosemary Chessington-Clarke!’

Jean feared that once the disruption of Owen’s news had passed, Celia’s ire would next drift to the other miscreant in the saga of aunty Dot’s caravan, and exactly what she got up to with Roger. The expectation made her stomach quiver.

Jean and Anthea sat chatting on the narrow seat of the bus stop bench. The August shade was surprisingly cool because the sun had already lost the heat and height of its earlier summer reach. Anthea shivered as she explained, ‘For the last Saturday of this month there’s been a cancellation at the registry office. They phoned mum yesterday to offer her the time, she spoke to your mum and then accepted. I’ll nearly be showing,’ Anthea said, awkwardly rubbing the huge flowery petals painted across the middle of her nylon dress. ‘We’ve just got to find a place for the afternoon now.’

‘Anth, are you sure about all this?’ Jean asked, frowning deeply and deliberately not looking at her friend. She could scarcely believe that her brother and best friend were about to be married before making her a new-year aunty. The idea of their impending marriage troubled Jean, and she couldn’t help thinking that a baby born out of wedlock, although scandalous, might in fact be preferable to a rushed wedding.

‘We went to bed together; I suppose some might say that we were sure enough then.’

Jean Fernsby was a bundle of agitated fidgets, she was trying to decide how best to make Anthea see that whilst there was still time, she could change her mind. Watching her friend cross and uncross her stockinged legs, Anthea admired Jean’s glossy shoes. Looking for the bus she knew would not yet be approaching, in one single breath Jean blurted, ‘You told me love and sex aren’t the same thing. You said that and now you’re letting yourself be forced into marrying my brother, Jean looked determinedly ahead, refusing to catch Anthea’s eye, ‘if you really don’t want to go through with it you don’t have to. What could they do? Our Owen won’t desert the baby, I know he won’t. And no matter what Anth, I’ll never desert you!’

‘They’re adamant that if we don’t get married, we’ll have to give up the baby,’ Anthea revealed.

‘Come off it Anth! Once the baby comes, d’you think both grandmas are really going to give it away?’ Jean asked, aghast by the very idea.

Flicking open her bag, Anthea scrabbled round inside for her cigarettes. Eventually finding the packet she gripped it for a second before reluctantly letting it go and clipping closed her bag. Without flinching and in a tone forlorn as winter, Anthea said, ‘That was before,’ and once again she patted where her bump would soon be, ‘but I’ve been caught out, haven’t I? In the eyes of our judgey neighbours I’m a bad girl! Mum looks at me like dirt. Although she hasn’t said, she believes I got what I deserved. And your mother,’ Anthea sighed stoically, ‘well, she thinks I’m just a conniving little vixen!’ Hiding her face behind her palms Anthea spluttered tiny guttering gasps.

‘Oh, Anth, don’t. It’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, you’ll see,’ Jean Fernsby pulled her friend close, and trying not to snivel herself, slid her arms around Anthea’s shoulders.

Streaking mascara Anthea ran the back of her hand across her burning eyes, she scrabbled about in her bag, this time she was searching for a tissue. ‘But like your brother says, if we don’t do the right thing the poor little mite will be known as a bastard,’ she spluttered inside a big gulping sniff. ‘Least I haven’t had the sack…this’ll be the first job I’ve ever left,’ she added unsteadily.

Before clattering into view, they could hear the bus trundling down Drapers Hill, linking arms, the girls stood and stepped together from the shelter.

‘Can’t that Mr Tranter help you? Owen says he’s a nice man,’ Jean asked.

‘Once they’re expecting even the married girls have to leave. Even if he wanted, I don’t see what he could possibly do to help? I’ve no choice, seems I’m in the club and out of work.’ Anthea smiled ruefully before speculating, ‘If this was in another twenty years, ten even, I don’t think anyone would bat an eyelid. Anthea rubbed her belly again, ‘if I’d enough money of my own, I’d stick them out honestly I would.’

The bus was nearly upon them and raising her voice to compete with the low diesel growl, Anthea said, ‘We might not yet be properly in love, but there’s plenty of time. Once the baby’s here, it’ll be different, you’ll see. You never know, your mother might even warm to me!’

Jean snorted, and as the bus drew to a stop, Anthea remarked, ‘In those sodding little caravans, seems that in one way or another we all got into trouble.’

Chapter 11

Slightly Detached

In every conceivable way the women were polar-opposite. Irene Lomax was matronly with a full ample face, whereas Celia Fernsby was flinty and shrewishly thin. Celia’s short charcoal hair emphasised her cheek line and slender neck, which was hooped with a fine string of pearls. Irene had a bail of chestnut hair, which was moulded and teased by regular visits to Glamour by Beryl. Despite these obvious differences, the two women were united by one common cause, to camouflage the shameful carrying on of their offspring by arranging the right sort of wedding. ‘Of course, we’d always planned to use the golf club. The Ascot Suite, naturally. Oliver’s his Rotary, and then there’s all my W.I ladies,’ Celia noted mournfully.

‘Roy and I didn’t know you were members,’ Irene observed in her best telephone voice, ‘The Oaklands has a lovely aspect across the fields. I know it’s short notice, but d’you think there’s any chance you could get us in?’

‘Mrs Lomax, I hardly think so. Under the circumstances, with things as they are, I don’t think this is the right sort of occasion for the Oaklands. We were wondering about using the Catholic Club?’ Flicking something imaginary from her skirt, Celia sniffed ever so slightly.

‘We’re Church of England,’ Irene remarked coldly, tinkling her teaspoon through even colder dregs of tea, ‘I hope you won’t mind me saying, but the trouble I’ve always had with Catholics is that you’re all quite so pious. Anthea won’t want to convert.’

Celia coughed discreetly behind her hand. ‘Mrs Lomax, we also worship using the King James’ Bible. In my experience, pounds, shillings, and pence usually turn any religious eye blind. It’d look respectable, especially if we invited the Father McGonigal.’

Reaching across the table for the empty pot, Irene suggested, ‘Mrs Fernsby, more tea?’

Placing the refilled teapot onto the polished shelf of the hatch between the kitchen and the dining room, after poking her head through, Irene asked, ‘Would you mind taking this to the table?’ and pointing, added, ‘you’ll find the cosy over there.’

Celia Fernsby was wearing a long flat skirt and jacket, fashioned from a plain material almost the same colour as her charcoal hair, and pinned to one of the lapels was a cluster of sparkly stones. Irene wished that she’d worn her going-out-visiting jewellery, her ruffled cream blouse would have shown off her Cameo brooch a treat.

‘Such a boon, our serving hatch. Roy knocked it through and did all the woodwork himself,’ Irene said, watching Celia cover the teapot with the crocheted cosy. ‘I’ll fetch fresh cups from the sideboard when I come through.’

‘It’s marvellous that you can undertake such alterations. I suppose that’s the beauty of being with the council. Oliver used to do all our jobs, but since we finished the mortgage we use Frankie Ison,’ Celia snipped.

Irene’s eyes narrowed and despite her annoyance, like a serenely gliding swan she kept her composure. ‘Mrs Lomax, at this wider end we’ve all private landlords. The council renters are up the scruffier narrower end of the road,’ Irene fussed unnecessarily with the edge of the tablecloth, ‘D’you know, you’re right about the golf club. Function rooms can be so sterile, we’ll have the do here. We’ll pull back the middle doors and the weather should still be nice, so open the French window out onto the garden.’

Celia wanted to protest, but there was something deterring about Irene’s tone. Perhaps being the mother of an albeit pregnant bride that inexplicably gave her the whip hand, ‘If you’re keen for her to be married from here, Oliver and I do understand. Because once they’re back from Morecambe, she’ll be with us at Edgehill. What the day might lack in decorum, at least by having food and drink here will give it some intimacy.’

Hovering over both cups with the pot, but not yet pouring, Irene snapped, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Mrs Lomax, I’m trying to be reasonable. After all, it’s your daughter what’s in trouble. Our boy has never been caught up in anything like this before,’ Celia explained, cooler than the cucumber in the sandwiches.

‘And our Anthea’s no slut. I can assure you and Mr Fernsby, this isn’t the sort of wedding we wanted for our daughter either. By all means you’re welcome to continue denying the fact, but your son is half to blame,’ Irene said icily, sloshing out hot tea into their china cups.

With great exaggeration, Celia nibbled delicately at the corner of a white bread triangle, ‘I’m sorry if I appear crass, that’s the last thing I want. It’s just this is so completely out of character for our Owen.’

‘Mrs Fernsby, let me assure you that our daughter doesn’t make a habit of this sort of thing either!!’

‘She’s been engaged though… hasn’t she?’ Celia remarked, discarding the sandwich, and dabbing at her mouth with a paper napkin.

Irene was up and out of her seat in a second and with tension rocketing furiously demanded, ‘Just what are you implying?’

Without flinching, Celia said, ‘Irene, please. Our Owen hasn’t been involved with anyone before, so this is a complete shock. Your daughter’s been engaged, so I thought this might be erm...less of a tribulation for you. That’s all I meant.’

‘Well, it isn’t! Anthea was engaged, but he cheated with another girl, so she broke it off. Our daughter is no tart. Celia dear, it takes two to tango. Your precious boy might have been a novice, but he sure isn’t now! And whether you like it or not, we’re about to become grandmothers,’ with her anger spent and without breaking her stare, Irene dropped back into her chair.

‘I didn’t come here to fight. You’re right, the baby must be our priority…’, and before saying anything else she offered a conciliatory hand, which Irene felt grudgingly forced to accept. ‘These through-rooms are surprisingly cosy, and it’s not as if we’re going to trumpet the event to all and sundry,’ Celia said, nonchalantly.

August was Irene’s favourite month, summer heat curtailed, longish mellow days, with plants and flowers still in glorious bloom. At the bottom of the garden was an aged oak tree, split right down the middle, as if cleaved by heavenly angels. Distracted by watching clusters of squirrels darting amongst the rotten trunk, Irene did not see her daughter Eunice approach.       ‘Hey mum, they’ll soon have all the acorns squirrelled away.’

Turning, Irene smiled. ‘When you were girls, we’d spend hours here. Anthea thought we could feed them bread like the ducks; she’d cry when they wouldn’t eat what she’d thrown.’

‘And soon she’ll be living in the Fernsby’s swanky pad!’ Eunice said wistfully, still staring down the garden.’

‘Only ‘til their own place is ready, and don’t you be thinking your sister’s landed in clover,’ Irene replied, frowning, ‘far from it! Oliver and Celia are there too, and she’s a hard-nosed cat. From what I’ve seen of him, he couldn’t knock the skin from a rice pudding.’

‘You know she doesn’t want to, don’t you?’

‘Well, she should have concentrated on keeping her eyes wide open and everything else closed. If she’d done that none of us would be in this mess. We don’t have room for them here; I only wish we did,’ Irene sighed.

‘Mum, I’m not just talking about her moving…I don’t think Anth wants to marry.’

Tutting and grabbing her shopping basket, Irene ignored her daughter’s concern. ‘Celia has one of them deep freezes. I’ve got a pile of sausage rolls to make. Why don’t you come shopping? Seems to me quite apt, she’s sodding freezing, I’m bloody baking!’

Eunice laughed.

Like most little girls, Anthea Lomax had dreamt of a fairy-tale wedding, the fantasy mostly conjured by the evocative pictures from the Ladybird books. An embroidered lace dress, silk petticoats, a carriage with six white horses and waiting patiently, Prince Charming. How different the reality. Fortunately tension between daughter and mother had started to thaw, and they had taken the bus into town, to begin traipsing in and out of shops, looking for, as Irene explained, just the right thing. ‘Something elegant. You’re still the bride, even if you’re not blushing, though you bloody well should be!’ she teased, linking arms with her daughter.

‘Jean has a beautiful woollen suit; I’d like something similar. Perhaps an autumn jacket-cum-coat.’

‘Nothing too thick love, it could still be hot, and we shouldn’t really go for anything that look... erm…well... you know,’ Irene’s voice trailed away for she did not want to upset her daughter.

‘Mum, I don’t want to give the game away either.’

Squeezing her daughter’s arm, Irene said, ‘Nothing too tapered, you need to be comfortable. We’ll try Marks’ first then C&A. I want you to look beautiful, after all, it’s your wedding day.’

Anthea’s stomach lurched and looking down at her invisible bump, wondered whether her baby might have felt the nervous ripple. There was no doubt in her mind that Owen would be a kind and loving husband and father, but the idea of spending the rest of her life with him was daunting. Yet here she was, shopping for a wedding outfit with her mum, who despite her initial outrage seemed to be thoroughly enjoying both herself and the occasion. Anthea could not shake the feeling that she and Owen were already wedded to an impossible riptide dragging them both along.

They only ever used the British Home Stores restaurant when shopping for special occasions or Christmas. The large room was full of square wooden tables, with each one set under its own long cylindrical orange lampshade. More than half the yellow Formica chairs were empty, but the diners that were already in situ filled the space with the humdrum blurb of multiple conversations. Despite her most determined effort, Anthea had not been able to cast off the chat she had shared with Jean at the bus stop. When Irene returned with a full tray, before waiting for her to sit, Anthea launched straight in, ‘Mum, I’m not sure about this.’

‘Don’t be silly, you like egg-custards, they’re your favourite,’ Irene remarked, without bothering to look up.

‘You know what I mean!’ Anthea snapped back, irritated by her mother’s obtuse reply.

Irene continued to busy herself with crockery and the food, only when the tray was empty did she take a swift look to see if any of the other customers was paying them any attention. ‘All brides get nervous. I was just the same,’ she sipped her tea, then before her daughter could say anything, in an even lower whisper she added, ‘well not quite the same and there’s the problem isn’t it?’

‘Mum, I’m not sure if I love him, we hardly know each other. At least with Gordon I knew, even if he didn’t love me!’

Saying nothing in return, Irene Lomax seemed to look past her daughter, in the end, the unnatural silence between them had to fracture. ‘So… in a few Saturday’s time we get married, then… come January, what happens then? Should I cross my legs a few more months until you say?!’

‘Don’t be vulgar and keep your voice down!’ Irene hissed, ‘to be frank, I wish you’d done that in the first place! You’ve only yourself to blame, but I suppose at least you know that in that way you’re compatible. When I got married, I knew nothing. I was a bag of nerves.’ After another sip, Irene said, ‘We’re going to tell everyone you’ve had a premature labour, these days babies born early live.’

Anthea pushed away her pastry, and in a dry voice muttered, ‘Everything sorted, everything tidy… even though I’ve just told you I’m not...’, she cut the sentence short, feeling that she could be about to cry.

‘What did you expect Anthea? You’re carrying his child!’ Irene snapped, looking distinctly unimpressed, ‘at least he’s sticking by you. For the sake of the baby, you’ve simply both got to make the best of things.’ Placing her hand over the top of her daughters, she said, ‘Try not to worry love, and d’you know, now I’m used to the idea, I can’t wait to be a granny!’

The night before the wedding, Celia Fernsby dropped off all the frozen food at Latch Road. Everything to be left in the kitchen to quietly thaw overnight. ‘Don’t defrost anything under the hot tap, will you?’

Irene was busy sliding a large linen cloth, big as a sail over the dining table, without looking up or stopping what she was doing, she answered, ‘Don’t worry Celia, I know what’s what, you can relax.’

The top of the rectangular sideboard had already been covered in shiny foil and spread with lace doylies, which looked like lily-pads suspended on frozen water. The glimmering foil gave the room an odd Christmassy feel.

‘Gosh, the open doors do give a sense of space. I was worried we’d be too hemmed in, but what with the fine weather, we’ll benefit from the garden too. Oliver sends his apologies; he’s cutting our lawn with the petrol mower because Grace and Ezra are coming later.’

Refusing the bait, Irene remarked curtly, ‘Anthea was sick this morning.’

‘Nerves, I expect,’ Celia surmised.

‘Yes, I expect you’re right,’ Irene agreed.

‘Once Oliver’s finished, he’ll call to collect Anthea’s bags. I’d take them with me, but I’m in the Herald and the roof is down.’ Pretentiously she re-knotted her flowery headscarf.

Having been so busy with the myriad of arrangements to get them all to this point, the grasp that her eldest daughter was about to leave the family home had only just properly hit Irene. Perhaps far too late, she underwent a sudden pang of anguish and without warning announced, ‘Roy and I, have been discussing. We don’t think it’s right pushing our daughter onto you. We can turn this dining room into a bedroom and fit them in here, which’ll be fine, even after the baby comes.’

Quick as a flash, and with a dismissive wave, Celia said, ‘What? And lose your lovely serving hatch? Mrs Lomax, there’s really no need for such a sacrifice. It’d still be a squash for you all, especially since being semi-detached we’ve four upstairs bedrooms,’ Celia paused before adding as an afterthought, ‘actually we’re hallways together, which I like to think is as good as being detached.’

Listening to Celia’s boasts, just like the woman’s house, Irene was beginning to feel slightly detached herself.

Chapter 12

Sway of Cheese and Pineapple

Eunice Lomax was wearing a sleeveless dress; the pretty garment was patterned with tiny petals and was the same colour as the bride’s ensemble. Stitched to each of the shoulders was a delicate knot of ribbon, which just like the hem was decorated with beautiful ivory lace. Wrinkling her nose, Anthea complained, ‘Sodding hell sis, I’m supposed to be the one turning heads today!’

‘You look beautiful Anth, all proper and everything,’ Eunice responded before blushing, but with her wedding day make-up fully applied for the first time, no one would have spotted.

Embarrassed, Anthea bowed her head, ‘I feel like I might as well be wearing scarlet! Ness, can you tell?’ she asked nervously, fearful that the dreaded bump might be showing.

‘Don’t be stupid. You can’t see it at all… by the way, when you throw the posy, I’ll be on your right. We got to make sure that that little bitch Carmel doesn’t nab it!’

Neither of the Lomax girls were keen on their cousin, the only child of their mother’s sister, Maureen Loafe, and as far as they were concerned Carmel would always be a spiteful tell-tale. ‘They were really late accepting … in the end, dad rang, spoke to Uncle Arthur. Mum was all for telling them it was too late.’

With a short glance towards the bedroom door, in an equally guarded tone Eunice revealed, ‘Apparently, Aunty Maureen still owes mum 17 and 6, from Christmas!’

Tutting and in an equally careful tone, Anthea observed, ‘Bloody hell! More fool mum, it’s not as if this is the first time.’

The sisters giggled.

Anthea Lomax was wearing a woven jacket and knee-length dress. The jacket had wide triangular lapels which fanned flat, revealing the round neck of her azure dress, which was made of a thinner material and hugged the line of her neck. With a row of pale pearl buttons, the jacket fastened elegantly to the left without revealing skeletons best left hidden. Pinned to the right was a classically discreet corsage. Conveniently matching the colour of Anthea’s lipstick and ruched hat, two small pink buds peeped from wisps of delicate forest fern. Grabbing the rose ruched hat, Eunice told Anthea to sit still as she started to try and fit the thing, ‘I’ll set it right back, otherwise you’ll look daft. Once it’s pinned and you’re happy, I’ll lacquer your fringe.’

As Eunice continued to mess, Anthea said, ‘I can’t believe this is actually happening…’ there was a quiet tremble to her voice.

‘Don’t Anth! Otherwise, you’ll set me off, and that’ll ruin our makeup. Once you’re settled, you’ll be far too grand for us Latch Road girls,’ Eunice teased.

‘Ness, I wanted to stay here...just until our place is ready. We could’ve all squeezed in.’

Eunice shook her head, ‘Anth, when we were kids, we shared your bigger bedroom for the winter, there was hardly enough room then. And now there’d be you, Owen, and a baby.’

‘Don’t forget the heater,’ Anthea laughed, and taking her sisters hand, carried on with the memory, ‘and that lovely smell paraffin of warm. I know we don’t say it often enough, but Ness, you do know, don’t you?’

‘I’m going to miss you rapping at that sodding window,’ Eunice gulped, then forcing composure upon herself said, ‘You’re such a selfish cow, who’s going to let me in when I’m late?’

Reflective, the sisters fell silent for a few moments. ‘If you’re homesick or lonely, I’ll always be here,’ Eunice said.

‘You’re determined we spoil our mascara aren’t you!’ Anthea accused, holding tight her sister’s hand.

‘There, done!’, Eunice proclaimed, leaving the hat alone, ‘let me get the mirror, see what you think.’

Anthea kissed Eunice tenderly on her cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, ‘now get downstairs you soppy mare. The taxis are here, and I’d hate for you to miss your ride with cousin Carmel!’

With one last spray from the lacquer can, Eunice remarked, ‘Oh, what joy! Just remember darling Lillibet, you owe me.’ Eunice raced for the door, as Anthea reached for a pillow.

The wedding car was a sleek black affair with lines of shiny silver chrome and a stretch of white ribbon flapping over the bonnet. Catching sight of her rounded reflection in the curve of polished paintwork, the image was a last-minute reminder to Anthea of her caravan folly. Before climbing into the car, Roy Lomax ran his hand over the silky-smooth bodywork. ‘Last time I was in one of these... my father’s funeral…’ he said, continuing to gaze adoringly at the car, ‘beautiful, just beautiful,’ he mumbled.

‘Oh dad, don’t get maudlin. I know we’re only going to the registry office, but today this is a wedding car. My wedding car!’

Once she had settled into the plush rear seat, Roy closed the door with the quietest of clicks. Waiting for him to join her, Anthea felt almost emotional by how smart he looked. Roy Lomax was wearing a navy suit with the faintest stripe and being tall he carried off the style with great aplomb. Prominent against his crisp white shirt, his striped tie dipped down behind his waistcoat, which was buttoned correctly and was dressed by a delicate gold chain. Settling himself into the plush leather upholstery, Roy asked, ‘You ready, love? You look gorgeous, every inch the beautiful bride.’

‘Even though I’m not in white?’ she asked, regretfully.

‘Because of it, my darling. You’ve always been a bit… erm, wayward, right from when you started school. All the times we were called up there, especially your poor mother... who gave out to me something rotten. She blamed me; said I was too soft. One way or another Anthea Lillibet Lomax, you’ve been in some sort of trouble your entire life.’ Gently Roy pulled his daughter close into him. ‘Oh dad,’ Anthea said, placing her head on his shoulder, secure within the comforting smell of his fine aftershave.

‘Hey, watch out! Get makeup on my suit and your mother will likely kill us both!’

‘Let’s hope this one turns out better behaved than me!’ Anthea remarked, looking down where the family secret nestled. Before the car swung out of Latch Road, she turned to take one last look at number 7.

Once in the flow of traffic they picked up speed, and for a time, father and daughter sat in mutual silence, the right words distant as her vanished childhood. ‘I’ll miss you darling, I can’t believe you’re leaving us.’ Roy said eventually, holding Anthea’s hand. Clutching her hand harder, Roy told the driver, ‘Take next left, just ahead, then stop the car.’

‘Dad, where are we going?’ Anthea asked, looking puzzled.

‘Nowhere, not for the minute. But where we go next darling girl, well that’s entirely up to you,’ Roy said, with both his hands now wrapped about hers.

‘I don’t understand,’ Anthea said to him, looking perplexed, with her mouth beginning to feel parched.

Turning away from his daughter, Roy asked the driver, ‘Take a couple of minutes my friend, if you don’t mind. Stretch your legs, I’ll make it worth your while.’

Roy waited until they were alone. ‘Over the last weeks your mother and Owen’s mother have been frantically planning for today. Even if you think otherwise, and I’d be surprised if you didn’t, you must understand that all these arrangements are born out of love. And I solemnly promise you, once you clap eyes on your own little one, you’ll better understand what I’m saying.’ Anthea nodded, her heart was pounding, but by instinct she knew to remain quiet. ‘I have a concern about all this,’ despite the gravity of his words he still smiled kindly at her, ‘d’you know what worries me most?’ Anthea shook her head. ‘None of us has stopped to ask what you what you actually want. It might not seem like it, but there’s worse things happen than a baby born out of wedlock. This is the time Anthea, to decide if you want to marry Owen. If you do, then we’ll tell the driver to carry on.’

‘And if I don’t?’ Anthea asked uncertainly, startled by the unexpected turn of their conversation.

‘We’ll go straight back home to Latch Road.’

‘What about mum and Owen and everyone waiting?’ Anthea ran her fingers across her tummy.

‘Don’t you worry, I’ll sort them out; all you need to do is decide.’ her father gently whispered.

Anthea stared out at the impatiently loitering driver, her mind speeding faster than her heart. She knew that for once, her sudden feeling of nausea was nothing to do with her baby. Blurred images cartwheeled through her mind, Celia Fernsby, Owen, Jean, Eunice, her mother and other faces, the cascade flicking far too fast. Platters of wedding food laid out on the sideboard, the cheese and pineapple hedgehog, aunty Dot’s caravan, the deposit on their flat, then she looked down at her stomach. Anthea could hardly bear the thought of the little mite being unfairly judged. Being an unmarried mother, labelled a tart… that should be her shame not the child’s. Her mouth became as dry as her palms were sweaty, the carousel started again.

‘Anthea!’ Roy barked sternly, ‘Do you love him?’

Shacken by his sharpness, but grateful for the rescue, she said, ‘And if I run away dad, the baby’s still going to come. Owen really wants it and he’ll be a good Dad. Mum’s been baking for days, everything’s ready and waiting.’

‘None of it matters... but you Anthea, you my love, must decide what it is you want. We can’t delay any longer.’

The edge of urgency in Roy’s tone straightened her back. Looking at her father, with his face full of love and kindly concern, she felt torn. ‘I’m going to be a mother, aren’t I? I love Owen enough, at least enough to do what’s right for our little baby.’

‘You’re a good girl. I’ve always been proud of you,’ Roy observed, kissing her forehead gently.

After opening the door and climbing out of the car, Roy Lomax walked over to the driver. Anthea watched her father exchange words with the man, pat him on the shoulder and pass him some money. Trying not to smudge her mascara, she dabbed her eyes with a tissue from her tiny bag, whilst muttering, ‘I’ll look like a sodding panda at this rate, and she’s cubed all that sodding cheese and pineapple. If nobody gets to see that damned buffet hedgehog, baby, or no baby, she’d never forgive me.’ When Roy Lomax looked over, Anthea nodded, to inform him that she was ready.

Chapter 13

The Wrong Coffin

The lawn enfolding the church was so chilled with frost the ground looked like it had been sprinkled with a layer of sugar. Glancing across the frozen haze, Jean was reminded of Crowther’s mill floor, where footsteps would make dusty waves ripple through the spilt flour. Despite the bakery being flattened years ago, Jean was still able to conjure the earthy aroma of the place. Closing her eyes, she could picture Anthea, scooting down the sack chute, landing at the feet of the foreman, Mr Hesketh, who then promptly sacked her.

‘Why you smirking?’ Eunice enquired.

‘Anth and the slide,’ Jean chuckled.

‘When she told Mum and Dad, blimey, didn’t they go berserk! Well Mum did anyway, the old man was always lax with us,’ Eunice remarked.

In nippy winter sunshine, leaning against the knobbly stone wall of the church, the occasion felt quite surreal. Both women had suffered watching Anthea fade, seeing her lively character demolished bit-by-bit had been dreadful. Initially some days were better than others, and on those occasions, it was difficult not to hope that a miracle had occurred. But as the good days became less and less, even the most optimistic souls, who had kept faith with Anthea, had to accept the grim inevitability of her fate. Looking wistful, Eunice recalled, ‘For all her mouth, my sister wouldn’t stand up to mum. Dad was mostly the same. If mum shouted ‘shit!’ they both jumped on the shovel. I think she had a love or loyalty for Owen because of the baby, but Mum made her go through with marrying him. If she hadn’t interfered, I sometimes wonder what would have happened between them.’

Nodding, Jean said, ‘It wasn’t just Irene though, my mother was equally as cunning, the pair of them meddled and meddled. I tried to talk Anth out of it, not because it was my brother, but because she was my friend.’

Eunice said, ‘She led Owen a merry old dance, he deserved better, really.’

Jean was reflective for a moment, before agreeing, ‘They both did, but at least Dan’s turned out alright. Nobody can say he hasn’t been a loyal son and looked after her.’

Jean was wrapped in an ankle length coat, supposedly made of mock fur. Whilst trying to gauge the truth of this fake assurance, Eunice noticed just how heavily Jean leaned on her stick, and suggested, ‘Let’s head inside. Wait in the warm.’

Shaking her head, Jean answered, ‘No... thank you. I might have sodding ‘arthur-rightus’ and even though I’m stuck in these bloody old lady shoes, for this last time I’ll meet her properly.’

Looking down at the miserable Velcro straps of her clumsy black loafers, Jean hated that her days of glamorous high heels were gone. ‘Jean, you should worry. What have the pair of us come to? I’m wearing me mother’s old lady jewellery. Good thing Anth can’t see us, she’d surely have something to say.’

Pinned to the collar of Eunice’s checked woollen coat was Irene’s cameo brooch, tenderly, she linked arms with Jean, who chuckled, ‘And you can bet it’d be nasty!’

Slowly, as the time grew closer, a little ramshackle group began to assemble near the entrance doors to the rear of the church, the brightness of the winter day exaggerating the blackness of their funeral garb. The cast of mourners was few, which, given the length of time Anthea had lingered was hardly surprising. When Anthea could no longer determine who was who, or what was what, people became less and less inclined to visit, offering up the noble excuse, ‘I prefer to remember her as she was.’ Josie Rose, the care home manager had watched the same sad episode unfold too many times before but made it her business never to stand in judgement. Josie recognised people’s fear and sadly once dementia was firmly in the saddle, even the most loyal families could become scared away. Completely unsuitable for the bitter November day and at odds with everyone else’s drab attire, Josie was wearing a long bright blue silk dress splattered with enormous flowers all the colours of the rainbow. With dangly plastic earrings the colour of butter and her lips glistening cherry, Josie provided an authentic splash of warm Jamaican glamour. If she were cold, Josie showed no sign of it, because draped shamelessly across her shoulders was a fur stole, which certainly was no fake. Beckoning her over, Eunice smiled and waved. Once she was close, they could smell and almost taste the thick bouquet of her perfume, and they could see that as ever, Josie was wearing a badly integrated hair piece, the fake sheen looking nothing like that of Jean’s supposedly fake fur.

‘Miss Eunice, how are you, darling? The Lord himself has painted a beautiful day, I think Miss Anthea would be pleased.’

Josie’s sonorous voice laced with Caribbean tenderness and the soberness of the bible was a proper tonic. Eunice said, ‘So kind of you to come. I know she wasn’t easy, particularly in these last months. I speak for Dan too, but we’ll be forever grateful to you, for coaxing the best from her.’

When the cortege slumbered into view around the curve of the path, collectively and without instruction the mourners straightened themselves, simultaneously standing to respectful attention. Inside the long sleek car accompanying the hearse was Anthea’s son and his ex-partner Alex, and Anthea’s divorced husband with his second wife Hilary. On the coffin lay a simple floral spray, a posy of gerberas chosen by Eunice, who had insisted that there needed to be some sort of small floral tribute. All her life, Anthea had grumbled about buying flowers. ‘Flowers belong in the garden. When I’m dead, you needn’t bother buying me any then,’ she used to complain.

Gently, the pall bearers, smartly dressed in morning suit hoisted the casket from the back of the hearse onto their shoulders. The burst of sunshine orange petals atop the lid soothed the harshness of the scene. Eunice whispered to Jean, ‘What do you make of that?’

As Miss Bassey sang of Something, Anthea Fernsby began her final journey into the church. Josie Rose made the sign of the cross, and Jean whispered, ‘I don’t think she’d like that. Must have been Hilary’s doing; she’s one of them economy warriors.’

Looking puzzled, Eunice said,       ‘You mean ‘eco’...‘eco-warrior’? It’s quite ridiculous...all on her own Anth hair-lacquered a hole into the ozone layer!’

Still outraged, Eunice was fully occupied glaring sternly at the coffin as it disappeared inside the church, before being placed onto the catafalque, muttering, ‘I sort out my recycling, that’s enough! What on earth were they thinking? In my opinion, a coffin should look like a coffin!’

When Jean didn’t answer, as they followed on into the church, undeterred, Eunice carried on moaning, ‘Good thing she’s being cremated, otherwise, before she’s even in the ground, she’d be bloody spinning!’

Jean hissed, ‘Ness, don’t keep swearing, they’ll hear you!’.

Shaking her head, Eunice complained, ‘Well… fancy putting her in a wicker hamper. This is a funeral... not a picnic. You make damned sure I’m in a mahogany box!’

In front of the pulpit was a huge vase of roses, the aroma of the petals fanning as far back as their chosen pew, looking over at the red and white blooms. Jean muttered mournfully, ‘Oh dear, someone should have thought better, that means blood and bandages.’

Deliberately standing apart from the congregation was a tall thin man, wearing a smart trench coat. Knotted tightly at his neck was a chunky woollen scarf, he looked like the sort of person from whom you would never buy insurance. Owen Fernsby had spied him straight away, but as one of the chief mourners, before Owen could say anything, he was ushered into the church. Once inside, he immediately forgot about Howard Montgomery, because after looking at his son, Owen was far more worried about how Daniel was going to cope.

Shortly before the start of the final committal, Howard Montgomery got up from his pew and discreetly left. The chilly funeral men huddled outside were surprised to see him, because usually, after filing past the coffin mourners exited from the doors at the front. Nodding to them all, Howard strode across the frosty grass and mumbled, ‘Goodnight, God bless Anth.’

Chapter 14

Naked Truths

Early every morning the cat trampled Dan’s pillow and pawed his face whilst rumbling a symphony of hungry purrs. Creosote was as ravenously determined to rouse him as Dan was to grab more sleep. In the forlorn hope of batting the cat away Dan rolled over. Being sluggishly hungover and bleary eyed he was startled by the sight of Alex’s face on the other pillow. Irrespective of his mind clogging fog, like a bad film flickering behind his eyes, Dan immediately pieced together the jigsaw of events that had seen them crashing into bed. Lifting the duvet and peering, inwardly he groaned, he was naked, in fact, they both were. Within a croak Alex moaned, ‘What’s the time?’

Reaching for his phone, Dan confirmed, ‘8, just gone.’.

Yanking the cover back over his head, Alex made a guttural kind of noise, which Dan recognised as an appeal for coffee. Pulling on his underpants prior to battling with his dressing gown, when eventually Dan stumbled downstairs, he was trailed by one triumphant cat.

Mushing jellied meat from a foil pouch into Creosote’s plastic dish, Dan tried not to catch a gut churning whiff before slinging it unceremoniously onto the mat. After filling two mugs with steaming water and stirring in coffee, looking over towards Creosote, in a low voice he cursed, ‘I only asked him back because of you, and now look what’s happened!’  Silently he remonstrated himself, ‘How could you have been so stupid?’ It had taken months for them to comfortably adjust to the new reality of their changed relationship. Anthea’s death though, had imposed upon them both a calming sort of truce, and yesterday at her funeral, behaving like sensible grown-ups, they had got along simply as friends. Yet somehow, at the first drunken hurdle they had fallen, quite literally into bed. Dan had already regretted being so weak-willed and felt certain that Alex would undoubtedly feel the same.

Returning to the bedroom, which smelt of yesterday’s booze, he was ashamed to see all their clothes strewn everywhere, even his suit jacket lay crumpled on the floor. After placing Alex’s mug onto the bedside table, he opened the smallest bedroom window. Propped against pillows and without conversation, both men sipped their coffee. Eventually, it was Alex who broke the silence, ‘Hmmm... well, this isn’t awkward.’

‘Blame the cat,’ Dan responded, sounding unintentionally humourless.

‘You don’t change, just like that animal. You take nothing seriously, if we’d talked more...’ Alex stopped himself from saying anything more, for there was no point as there could be no winding back the clock.

‘I knew you were blaming me,’ Dan said, sounding moody.

Putting his drink aside, before shifting out of the bed, Alex announced, ‘I don’t want to argue Dan, especially not now.’

Swiftly placing his hand on Alex’s arm to stop him, Dan said softly, ‘Wait. I don’t want to argue either, I wanted to say thanks for yesterday. Mum would have appreciated it.’

‘I wanted to be there; for you and Anth. You know what I thought of her,’ Alex sat on the edge of the bed with his back to Dan.

Dan smiled a little smile, and in a soft warm tone said, ‘Yeah...I do. Thankyou Al, I really mean it. How about I knock some breakfast together?’

‘Yeah, that’d be nice. Tell me though, in the cold light of day, you’re not going to change your mind, are you?’

As if on cue, Creosote bounded onto the bed, brushing against Alex’s shoulder, who ruffled her fur. ‘I’ll call Moira later,’ Dan confirmed.

Alex grimaced. ‘I don’t think you should mention...’ waving his hand in the space between them he hesitated, trying to harvest the right words, ‘... you know. I guess this was the last thing either of us expected...’

Dan laughed, before giving Alex a playful shove. ‘It’s fine. We drank too much, and I was... well, to be honest, I don’t know. Nothing about yesterday went as I expected,’ Dan retrieved his jacket from the floor and slung it over the chair nearest the door, ‘I’m not expecting you to dash off and fetch your bags. Towels are in the same place and you’ve still some clothes in the back wardrobe.’

After Dan had gone, Alex tickled Creosote’s chin, which made her delightedly roll, ‘Boojey cat, we’re going to be stuck with each other a while,’ he murmured.

The kitchen was filled with the mingled aromas of smoked bacon, fried sausages and percolated coffee. Sitting at the table, Alex said, ‘I reckon, if you’ve got to go to a funeral, Friday is about the best day.’

Spooning a dollop of baked beans onto each of their breakfasts, Dan nodded his agreement, before handing Alex a groaningly full plate, ‘Beans haven’t touched the egg, I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Lovely stuff, just what the doctor wouldn’t order,’ Alex announced, looking at the bounty laid before him,

‘When I get back from Oz, if you’d taken that monstrosity, I wouldn’t be in the least bit offended,’ Dan teased, nodding towards the huge double doored fridge.

‘It’s bigger than my entire kitchen,’ Alex said sadly, and feeling suddenly benevolent he offered, ‘whilst you’re gadding about down-under, I’ll sell it and split the dosh.’

Surprised, Dan nodded and grinned. ‘Have you talked to work?’ Alex asked.

‘Yep. I’ve holiday owing and compassionate leave and they agreed I can take unpaid. I’d like to be there for Christmas, be nice to see the kids and soak up some sunshine,’ Dan answered, after taking a mouthful of coffee.

‘I’ll flit between my place and here if that’s alright. Moving her isn’t really practical, although some people have pets and the association turns a blind eye, they don’t like it.’

‘Fine, she won’t care.’

‘Dan, I’m glad you’re going. Promise me, you’ll leave Anth behind.’

Fidgeting and stalling his food, Dan said, ‘Eh? I don’t follow.’

‘Oh, I think you do Danny-boy, you just don’t want to. Anth has freed you, I hope you’re brave enough to walk away, to let her go,’ Alex replied, smiling wryly.

‘You make it sound like I chose it. I’d no idea what was coming, but to give her a voice I had to be her voice,’ Dan retorted, feeling uncomfortable.

Throwing himself back in his chair, upending the front legs, Alex answered calmly, ‘That’s not what I’m saying... dementia didn’t just rob her; it crashed your life too. I watched you get dragged down. Perhaps I could have done more to rescue you, which is why I’m saying now, don’t trail all this behind you. Free yourself, otherwise you’ll never recover.’

Dan immediately blurted, ‘I couldn’t just abandon her, she was helpless. Do you really think I wanted to live like that?’

It was the most honest conversation they had shared for a long time, and shaking his head, Alex ploughed on, ‘Of course not, she was your mother! Dan, you were selfless, but that time is over.’

Fighting tears, Dan looked down into the remains of his breakfast and Alex silently watched him, which was awkward, but he knew, that one way or another, Dan’s anguish needed to be expelled. Unable to meet Alex’s eye, in a whisper, Dan admitted, ‘Coping, for me became about helping her survive the ordeal. If she could have seen herself, she’d have been horrified. I worried all the time. For a while, it drove me half mad. In the end, there didn’t seem room for anything else... not even you. I’m sorry for that.’

‘We were already running out of steam, weren’t we? Anth didn’t make that happen. Poor woman. She never had any idea of what she’d become, or of all that you were doing for her. For me, that’s the cruellest bit,’ Alex said kindly, mildly blushing and reaching over to touch the back of Dan’s hand.

‘By the end I was desperate for her to go. I even prayed for it. And now she has, I keep wondering...’ Dan stopped speaking and swallowed hard.

‘What were you wondering?’ Alex immediately asked, keen for Dan not to lose his momentum, who now looked dejectedly abashed.

‘Which I wanted more...a release for her or a release for me, I’m still not sure. In my mind I rehearsed her funeral hundreds of times. I thought I’d say something heroic, and the packed church would laugh in all the right places and applaud. Yet in front of just a handful of people what happened? I lost my shit that’s what. She’d have hated that...I know I do. I feel ashamed. To be honest, I’ve don’t have the first idea of what the hell happened to me yesterday.’

Chapter 15

A Stammering Pirate

Pushing a needle through fabric stretched across a round wooden frame, Hilary kept one careful eye on her stitching and the other on her husband. Owen Fernsby was slouched in his armchair at the other end of the narrow room staring vacantly at the television. In the aftermath of the funeral, he had remained quiet and obstinately distracted. ‘No good comes from brooding,’ she warned.

‘I’ve never seen him like that before, he might be gay, but he’s not one for making a show,’ Owen turned from the screen to face her.

Reluctantly, Hilary lay aside her embroidery and tutted. ‘For pity’s sake Owen! It was his mother’s funeral; I honestly don’t know why you’re surprised. Heaven only knows what she’d have done without him.’

‘Well, I’d have stepped up,’ Owen declared moodily.

‘You.... my love, wouldn’t have been able to do half the things your son did,’ Hilary sighed.

Narrowing his eyes, Owen snarled, ‘And that bloody man, H-H-Howard!’

‘Don’t be childish. What’s upsetting you more? Howard Montgomery, or your son? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s difficult to tell,’ Hilary admonished him whilst frowning.

Without looking at his wife, Owen rumbled, ‘I should have done more.’

‘For whom, Owen? Let me remind you as you seem to have forgotten that Anthea was your ex... and hasn’t for years, in any shape or form been your responsibility. What I do see without any shadow of doubt, is everything Daniel sacrificed, naturally he’s scared to let go.’ Hilary was struggling to contain the irritation.

‘Don’t be so ridiculous! His life will be easier now, why should that scare him?’ Owen snapped, flinging his newspaper onto the low coffee table.

Exasperated, Hilary retorted, ‘What’s left? Alex? Moira? By the end, his own mother didn’t know him. Owen. imagine how that must feel, watching yourself becoming forgotten!’

‘He’s got us.’ Owen declared feebly.

Suddenly feeling sorry for her husband’s lack of understanding, Hilary pointed out, ‘I’m sure he knows that, but Anthea’s left such an enormous void. Everything he had to do, sorting out her clothes, her money, getting her hair and toenails cut. He even used to shave her chin so she’d still feel feminine and she used to fight him?’ Owen said and did nothing. ‘I worry how he’s going to cope now she’s gone and doesn’t need him anymore,’ the thought made Hilary’s eyes blur.

‘I’m going for a bath,’ Owen announced moodily, prising himself from his seat.

Hilary returned to her needlework and not for the first time, wondered who had garnered the greater portion of his heart. Although Anthea had called time on the marriage to Owen, Hilary felt that her shadow had never quite faded. Sometimes being the second Mrs Fernsby had been a bloody trial. Dan and Owen were going to both have to reconcile themselves to Anthea’s passing, pulling a brightly coloured thread through her fabric, Hilary whispered her late father’s words, ‘You can’t live with the dead.’

Cocooned beneath a blanket of soothing water, Owen scattered the coconut scented suds by rippling his breath across the surface. Closing his eyes, his thoughts were firmly anchored with his boy. He had been immensely proud watching Dan deliver a dignified and compassionate eulogy, and he did not for one second doubt the courage and self-control mustered by him to stand and speak from the lectern. Owen had patted his son’s shoulder when he had returned to his seat, but as the final committal began, Daniel had crumbled. When the velvet curtains began to slowly swish and Dusty Springfield sang about ‘Being Sure’, Dan had started to sob. If Owen was now asked to explain the sound of anguish, he would describe the strangely quiet noises of his stricken boy. Dan was out of the church and sprinting across frosty grass before anyone could stop him. Owen wanted to go after him but Hilary had seized his elbow and Alex had urged him to leave Dan alone, to let him recover himself.

When he had no more breath left, Dan had stopped running. With a pounding heart and his face fiery and pinched against the bite of the cold, he felt wobbly. Just ahead was a bench where a solitary scarf-wearing man was sitting. Unfocussed, Dan made his way over, before asking, ‘Do you mind?’

‘O-o-of course not.’ Such little sounding words, but they seemed to tangle and snag at the man’s tongue with the ferocity of razor wire. Curiously in the next breath and without any trouble he enquired, ‘You okay?’

Dan shook his head. ‘My mother’s funeral.’ Clouds of breath came from his mouth and nose, as miserably he stared down at the droplets of melted frost rolling down his shoes.

Howard waited a while before reassuring him, ‘Anthea would have liked your words, you were d-di-di,’ he stopped, frustrated by his inability to finish the sentence as he wanted, settling instead with, ‘kind.’

‘Were you there?’ Dan looked quizzically at the man, feeling like he might now be the one to stammer.

‘I didn’t think you’d recognise me. I came to say....’ Dan watched the man’s lips again become word glued. Eventually taking a deep calming breath, he forced out, ‘...farewell. And as you see, it’s sometimes not easy!’

‘Like dignified,’ Dan quipped, quite forgetting himself.

Howard smiled and to his own surprise, Dan laughed.

The man held out his hand, ‘I’m Howard...’ he paused, waiting for a reaction, but all Dan could do was gawp. Strangely reassured, Howard pressed on, ‘whilst she knew me, I visited every week...  I loved her. Turned out though, she didn’t love me, well not enough. Ironically, I ended up in the same boat as your dad, although I’m sure he doesn’t quite see it that way. Go back Daniel to your family. See her off in good style. And as she would have said... go easy on the tonic.’ Howard Montgomery sounded and looked bereft and there was something unsettling about his stare. The notion of leaving him marooned on that cold bench, hunched deep inside his coat made Dan feel unkind. In the briefest moments, this unexpected encounter had skewed his perception of the man who had been the catalyst for his mother’s abscondment of her marriage. It was too late to shake Howard’s hand because he had plunged it back into his coat.

‘Mr. Montgomery,’ Dan was trying to sound respectful, ‘Howard, I’ve no illusions about mum. That you kept turning up to visit, I don’t doubt you loved her. If it helps, by the end, she didn’t have a clue who I was either.’

Neither man spoke, then almost in a conciliatory whisper, Dan said, ‘You’d be very welcome to join us.’

Steeped in sorrow, Howard shook his head. The very look of him made Dan feel useless and encouraged him to tell what his Gran would have called a noble white lie, ‘In the last months, you know, when I visited, mum sometimes called me by your name, which makes sense now.’

The tightness in Howard’s face slackened. Reverting back to truth and offering out his hand, speaking with true regret, Dan said, ‘Nobody told me you visited; I wish they had.’

Owen had been relieved to see his son sauntering back towards them across the lawn, where in tepid sunlight most of the frost had by now vanished.

‘You alright, son?’ Owen asked.

Nodding and making a determined effort not to catch sight of the chimney, sheepishly Daniel explained, ‘I don’t know what came over me. I guess it’s too late to go back in...’

‘I think so, love,’ Hilary said gently and hooking her arm around his added, ‘come on, let’s get into the warm. I’m sure your mum wouldn’t want any of us hanging around here in the cold.’

‘We can catch up with Ness and Jean, though my sister can’t half clatter along with that bloody stick, especially if there’s free GnT in the offing,’ Owen remarked, as they all started up the path.

Sounding nervous, Dan blurted, ‘I didn’t expect it to be like this... then running out on her.’

‘You, of all people never ran out on her. Never forget, there’s no shame in mourning your mother. No shame at all,’ Owen said quietly to his son.

Hilary pulled him close, and Alex took his other arm. ‘You great big drama queen! Anthea would have expected nothing less!’

‘One of you is wearing lovely perfume!’ Dan teased, looking first at Alex then at Hilary.

Anthea’s wake morphed into a boozy boisterous affair, the sort of evening she would have thoroughly enjoyed and approved of. Ending up maudlin, wistful but mostly drunk, Dan had slept with Alex, which turned out to be much less of a disaster than he had first groggily feared when he woke the next day. Clearing up bedroom debris, it was the ding-dong chime from his laptop on the desk that broke Dan’s chain of thought, ‘Shit! It can’t be that time?’ he said to nobody other than himself. Quickly scanning the room for Creosote, the cat had sloped off, which was a shame because the kids liked to wave at her. Nudging the mouse, Dan clicked the call icon, and instantly the Miller family were squashed into the middle of the flipped-up screen. The boys were dressed in school polo shirts and behind them, on top of their schoolbags he could see their sunhats. Over the din of their mostly incomprehensible chattering, Dan shouted, ‘It’s freezing here, I can’t wait to see you!’

‘Will you be here when I get home?’ the littlest one shrieked excitedly.

‘I’m too far away, but very soon, I promise. Santa might shove me down the chimney!’ Dan hollered, shaking his head and laughing.

Over an eruption of squeals, Wayne shouted, ‘Thanks Fernsy, a great help in the middle of the school-run...’

In the racket of silence that followed the kids noisy exit, despite being thousands of miles away, inexplicably, Moira was instantly suspicious, ‘Fernsy, tell me if what I’m thinking is bullshit, but you didn’t make an already difficult day harder for yourself did you? And yes, the pun is deliberate.’ Like sand on the breeze, his carefully concocted story spiralled from his mind. ‘I bloody knew you would!’ she screeched, ‘I just bloody knew it!!!’

Shaking his head and in the same manner as his father ruffling his hair, Dan pleaded, ‘Hold on, hold on. Before you start, it’s not what you think. We really are at the end of the road, but he’s agreed to have the cat.’

The strain etched across his face showed Moira the toll of Anthea’s funeral, so she said, ‘Fine, but Fernsy, don’t be stupid. Anyway, tell me how it went and how you’re doing now.’

‘I lost the plot and now I’m utterly ashamed,’ Dan told her, looking desperate and shaking his head. Moira listened as Dan regaled his woeful tale of the day. Every now and again she tried to soothe him, pointing out the burden and emotion of all he had been and was still toiling with. For his own survival of his mother’s wretched disease, Anthea Fernsby’s son had thrown himself into the management of her dementia. Regardless of the miles between them, Moira had watched him stamp down his feelings. Of course, the problem with such a strategy and something that she had tried to point out numerous times, was that one-day Anthea would be freed, whereas he would still have to face the turmoil of his grief.

‘Fernsy, think of it as a big simmering pot you’ve filled to the brim and now the lid is rattling. Either you empty it or it’ll boil over anyway.’

Uneasy with her analogy he changed the subject, ‘You’ve dyed your hair... I’ve always thought blue was underrated.’

In the days after his brief conversation with Howard Montgomery, Dan had pondered all that he knew of the man. Naturally, his father had blamed Montgomery wholeheartedly for the collapse of his marriage, which Dan suspected was the easier and less painful choice for his dad. Anthea, on the other hand, had always spoken fondly of him but had never once alluded to the fact that Montgomery loved her, or she him. She had given the impression that the affair had been just that, a brief relationship, a flash in the pan. Anthea had explained, ‘Daniel, you don’t just wake up one morning and decide because it’s Tuesday or it’s raining, that you’ll start an affair. Your father and I were already in trouble. Relationships fail slowly, but there always comes a tipping point.’ Intrigued, Dan had asked his mother to elaborate. ‘It sounds nonsense now and your father won’t even remember. It was summer...you were about 9 or 10. There’d been a storm and we’d only just settled you back in your room.’

‘You used to tell me thunder was God moving his furniture, that frightened me just as much,’ Dan had interrupted. Anthea smiled, ‘Or the clouds bumping into each other. Anyway, we were lying in bed, when your father said, ‘Know what we haven’t had for ages?’ and ...’

Dan had quickly interrupted, ‘Mum, erm… really?’

Grinning and shaking her bobbed hair, Anthea had reassured him, ‘it’s nothing like that, but that’s what I thought at first! I was about to, erm, avail myself when your father announced, ‘Stew!’’ Even after all the intervening years, Anthea had looked outraged by the very word, pursing her lips in fury, she repeated, ‘fucking stew! Then to make matters worse, he said, ‘better dumplings than my mother’! And that’s when I knew Daniel, I couldn’t keep letting life drip by.’ Dan wondered how Howard would feel, if he knew that a disgruntled discussion of stew had enabled him to poach Anthea away.

Dan wanted to talk to his father about his meeting with Howard and decided to wait for Hilary’s stint at the hospital before visiting his him. Owen was pleased to see his son, ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ Ushering him into the lounge, he added, ‘Beer?’

‘They’re breathalysing by the big Sainsburys,’ Dan said, shaking his head. The room was thin like a corridor and at the other end from the sofas and the television the dining table was piled with rolls of gift-wrap and cards. Noticing Dan catch sight of all the festive paraphernalia, Owen was about to explain, when with a gentle raise of his hand, Dan interjected, ‘Christmas is still coming. Grab a drink dad; I’ll be fine with coffee.’

By the time Owen returned from the kitchen, Dan was settled on the sofa. In old black and white photographs his pencil thin father looked fashionable and dapper. Although still slim, Owen had developed a middle-aged habit for shapeless cardigans and trousers, the hems draping over the top of his square patterned slippers. After handing Dan his drink, Owen placed a crystal tumbler onto a raffia coaster on the small wooden table. ‘No need to look like that, mostly mixer, mind you, that would have had your mother complaining like hell!’

Dan pictured poor Howard Montgomery, alone on the churchyard bench. He was not only outside the church but also outside Anthea’s life and death. ‘Dad, when I left the church, I was going to see Gran, but I never got that far.’

Owen decided not to find out which Gran for he already knew. Just as she had managed with Roy, Irene Lomax had overshadowed his own mother. There was no doubt that Celia Fernsby had been an adept social climber, organising both the women’s guild and golf club social functions, but against Irene Lomax, she had fallen short. ‘Why not?’

Taking a deep breath, Dan revealed, ‘On one of the benches there was a fella, sitting alone. And I ended up talking to him.’

‘I see, Mr M-M-M-Montgomery I expect,’ Owen sneered, his eyebrows raised and ice clinking.

‘I didn’t recognise him, but then again, I was only little. Before he disappeared, I’d only met him a few times, Dan continued after tutting.

‘Disappeared with my f-f-fucking wife, whom he had being doing the very same thing to, when I was on bloody n-n-n-nights!’ Owen snarled.

Draining the dregs of his coffee, Dan said, ‘Don’t. I feel sorry for him. Thing is he visited her every week until she didn’t recognise him anymore. For that he must deserve some sympathy.’

Suddenly jealous, Owen tussled his hair, ‘What are you suggesting, that we give him a bloody medal? He stole my wife!’

‘Good thing your present wife can’t hear you,’ Dan pointed out with the merest shake of his head.

Guiltily flummoxed, but still defiant, Owen declared, ‘You know what I mean. Our Jean always said we’d go our separate ways, but he made it odds-on.’

‘You’re happy with Hilary?’

‘Of course! She’s been more of a wife...’ stopping, he checked himself, before adding, ‘but I did love your mum and we had you.’

Staring absently somewhere between his father and the dormant television, eventually Dan said, ‘He loved her, dad. Said he’d ended up in the same boat as you. I asked him back for a drink, but he wouldn’t.’

For a while Owen was subdued, eventually he said, ‘You should have brought him. Unfortunately for both me and Howard, there were only two men for your mother.... you and Grandad Roy. Neither of us could compete.’

Silence. Dan wondered why they had never had this conversation before, because previously they had only ever skirted and flirted with the subject. Maybe now because she had died, they could objectively discuss some of Anthea’s less attractive traits. Dan caught the delicious whiff of hot rich food. ‘What’s cooking?’

‘Beef casserole Stay. There’ll be loads, you know Hilary.’

‘I’m going for a curry. For what it’s worth Dad, at least you moved on. Howard hasn’t. He looked terrible, lonely. Mum just seems to have made him and left him sad.’

‘She had a rare talent for it. Me, lover-boy, from time-to-time, she made us all sad. Anthea did exactly what she wanted when she wanted and bugger everyone else.’ Despite everything that had happened between them, Owen had rarely criticised Anthea, always jumping to her defence if anyone else dared call her. Breaking the unfamiliar awkwardness between them, Owen revealed, ‘I was always too soft, let your mother walk all over me. If I’d been firmer, like Eunice... perhaps ... well, what does it matter now? All water under the bridge now. I’ll never understand what she saw in him. Apart from his stuttering conversation did you notice anything else?’

‘What d’you mean?’ Dan asked.

‘His stare?’

Owen’s words reminded Dan that there had been something odd about Howard Montgomery

‘Now you come to mention it’

‘A false eye!’ Owen boomed, triumphantly.

‘Are you sure?’ Dan asked incredulously.

‘Course I’m bloody sure! She worked with him at the bakery, years before they got together. He was on the mixer. One day his eyeball fell out, the left one.  Straight down into the dough, plop, just like that! They had to stop the machine, clean it out and everything. After that he wore a patch. I wouldn’t mind, but Aunty Jean said that Anth used to be right cruel... encouraged everyone to call him Jim-lad. Didn’t look too good on me, did it? Your mother leaving me for L-L-Long John pissing Silver!’

Dan wanted to laugh but knew not to.

Chapter 16

The Very Last-First Mince Pie

The day before Santa could have tipped him off his sleigh and straight down the chimney, Dan had arrived in Australia. In beautiful sunshine he had swum with the kids at the beach, eaten barbecue food, drank too much wine, and drunkenly chewed the cud with Scottish Moira and her husband Wayne. Despite Moira Miller’s blatant encouragement, he had rebuffed all chances of a holiday fling, even though there had been plenty of opportunity for a middle-aged pom on the cusp of plumpness. In a blink, six sun-drenched weeks had flown, as had Dan, who now found himself being jostled at the luggage carousel, back at a bleak and drab Heathrow. Watching a parade of other people’s bags, he questioned how a journey inside a sterile aeroplane could make one feel quite so grubby. Apart from being tired and cold, he craved a shower and desperately needed to brush his teeth.

After clambering out of the rumbling black cab, Dan almost kicked his luggage up the garden path to the front door. All he wanted was to get inside the house. Once indoors, he was delighted to see that just as Alex had promised, the kitchen had been liberated from the vast American fridge-freezer. The tiled floor was also clean and free of crumbs and bits, which he knew would have been Hilary’s doing. Gratefully surveying all the spotless surfaces, Dan made a gleaming promise to keep the kitchen pristine. On the square Formica table in the corner was a little vase of glorious golden daffs and a welcome home card. Both were from Hilary and his father, but as usual the card was written by Hilary, who had been roped into looking after the cat by Alex. Dan had been surprised to receive Alex’s email so early during his holiday, but at least before swanning off he had sorted out Creosote’s care. When Dan had told her Alex’s news, Moira remarked, ‘He never stays alone for long. When you got together, he’d barely finished with ‘what’s-his-name’...’

‘Limp-as-Lettuce-Stuart,’ Dan had laughed

Dan had long recognised that Alex’s scruples rested on shifting sand, but time away had allowed him to get much into perspective, and he at last realised he was content to bid Alex farewell. Being away without the distant worry of Anthea languishing in Jephson House had also proved cathartic, for it finally made him appreciate what a constant and sometimes invisible burden his mother had been. However, emancipation had thrown up new worries, for whilst he hoped that Anthea was resting in peace, he had started to question how peaceful her death had left him. Countless times he had prayed for Anthea to die, which had always rendered him feeling guilty and conflicted. Now that she had gone, with some surprise and relief, Dan recognised that he had only wanted rid of the bad dementia mum. The trouble was though, when Anthea did die, the good mum and any chance of her resurrection went too – a turn of events that he had not contemplated. Unfortunately, once normal Anthea had sadly vanished there had been no room to grieve, because the substitute in her place was so dominantly vile. Moira was right, before moving forward he had to mourn a bolshy, dogmatic, funny, loving lady, in short, he had to mourn the woman who had once been his mother. He had also found time to reflect upon the relationship between his mother and his father, and then her subsequent affiliation with Howard Montgomery. In fact, there had been ample time for Dan to ponder the nature of all his mother’s different dalliances. After leaving Owen Fernsby and then Howard Montgomery, Anthea embarked upon an altogether different life. With a middle-aged figure fuller and curvier, she re-discovered herself and her desirability, and following her separation from both husband and lover, more than Anthea’s eyes were opened by the freedom of independence.

With the teeniest squeak, Creosote peeped cautiously around the doorframe. Dropping to his knees, Dan cooed, ‘Hey, little girl, I missed you.’ The cat hesitated before slinking towards his outstretched hand. Subtle and quick though, before he could stroke her soft coat, Creosote had managed to squeeze herself beneath the flat of his palm. If she were pleased he was home, her feline delight remained well hidden. Breezing past, the animal stalked across to her food bowl before staring indignantly back. Acting upon her huffy insistence, tearing open a foil pouch, Dan said, ‘Okay... okay... you’re not going to easily forgive me!’ Blithely shoving her face into the delivered jellied meat, the little black and white cat noisily ignored him.

Once showered and changed, and with a mug of steaming black coffee to hand, Dan turned his attention to the accumulation of letters. The majority was junk, there were a few bills and a sunflower card from Josie Rose, inviting him to collect the last few items of his late mother’s belongings. Ms. Rose was the manager of Jephson House Residential Care Home, and Dan had liked her from the off. When he had visited the place to assess its suitability with Freya Maybury their social worker, Josie Rose had immediately impressed him. She matched all Dan’s preconceived expectations of a larger-than-life Caribbean lady. Josie was firmly tall with fabulously glossy hair and extravagant indiscreet extensions, she wore dazzlingly bright earrings, aromatic scent, and lipstick so garishly red; that Granny Irene would have considered her brazen. In Granny Irene’s world there had been two types of unacceptable women, a dirty cat, and far worse, a brazen slut. Dirty Cats had somehow offended Irene’s snobbishness, which was based around class, accent, education, and housekeeping proficiency. Brazen Sluts, in Irene’s considered opinion, were women of easy virtue and sexual morals looser than their tights. Irene identified such lax behaviour by skirts too short, tops too tight, makeup too bright, and scent too cheap.

When he was shown into Josie’s airless office, which hinted at a stillness of antiseptic and medicine, she greeted him with a beaming smile. Bounding up from her chair, Josie boomed, ‘Mr Dan, darling!’ After releasing him from a genuinely affectionate hug, she beckoned him to sit, ‘Australia... how wonderful. Such a long way away!’ she said, whilst reaching across and closing a file next to her keyboard. There were lever arch files strewn all about the place, some stacked vertically, others piled horizontally, and nothing seemed to be in any fathomable order. Once the small talk between them was done, Josie said, ‘I couldn’t keep Miss Anthea’s room empty, I’m sorry. I personally boxed up all her things and took great care. We miss her, but thankfully, now she’s safe in the arms of Jesus.’ Josie made the sign of the cross. Although touched by her pious display, Dan did not follow her lead.

‘Thank you, I’m grateful. And the other stuff?’

‘I did as you asked. Mr Dan, not all families are as generous. The television and DVD we gave to old Mr Garth. He wanted to buy you a gift, but we persuaded him out of it, we did promise that you’d drop in. Could you spare him a minute?’

Nodding, Dan confirmed, ‘Of course.’ Josie smiled. Now it was Dan’s turn to broach a difficult subject, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Howard Montgomery’s visits?’

‘First, a pot of tea, I think,’ she gently suggested.

When Josie returned, Dan was relieved to see proper cups, and not the plastic beakers used by the residents. Even with dementia, his mother had been an absolute stickler for proper table manners, proper etiquette and hated plastic picnic dining. Until the advent of her stroke, she had insisted on a proper cup, but after the stroke however, everything changed. With all her manners wiped away, for Dan, watching Anthea eating and drinking was utter misery. After passing him a cup and saucer, Josie offered Dan a biscuit, which he politely declined. Josie tinkled the spoon through her own drink for quite some time, before making eye contact. Without warning, suddenly she stopped, and looking directly at him softly announced, ‘Mr Montgomery is a nice man, he used to come every week, so patient with her.’

Trying not to sound irked, Dan said, ‘I know, he told me. I found him outside the church and sat with him. ....’ Deliberately cutting the sentence short, he hoped Josie would appreciate the significance, which she clearly did because she blushed.

‘When she first got here, before the stroke, Miss Anthea was more lucid. One day she gave us her address book, asked, well told us to call Mr Howard.’ Josie’s words hung clumsily as Dan simply nodded a grudging acknowledgement, forcing her to continue. ‘Until there was no point anymore, he visited Wednesday afternoons. Stayed a couple of hours, came by bus....rain or shine.’ Saddened by Dan’s offended expression and feeling that she had purged both herself and Miss Anthea’s confidence, Josie stopped and waited for Dan to say something.

‘Did you think I’d try to stop him?’

‘Of course not!’ Josie declared, affronted by the mere suggestion.

‘Well, why couldn’t you tell me?’ Dan demanded.

Looking awkward, Josie shook her head, before revealing, ‘They made me promise...but by then, Miss Anthea couldn’t remember what she’d had for breakfast, let alone promises made.’

Dan sighed. ‘She was never wholly happy being with my dad. She ended up making him unhappy, mind you not that he’d ever admit it. Thanks to Howard Montgomery, Dad’s ended up with a better wife, which is the oddest irony. When I was talking to him, Howard said that Mum had left him and my dad in the same unhappy boat, and he was right. I wish you’d told me about him, we could have been friends, helped looked after her.’

‘I’m so sorry....’ Josie was reflective a few seconds, before admitting, ‘Mr Montgomery was kind and had the knack of soothing her. I knew what he was to your mother, and therefore, by consequence to you and your father. I knew what Miss Anthea had given up for him. Even though adultery is a sin, I didn’t feel I should risk driving him away because he eased her suffering. In the bible, Luke says, ‘Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.’’ Dan admired those who, at the drop of the hat could conjure a biblical quote. He felt compelled to admit to Josie that since leaving school, he had not so much as glanced at the good book, but he suspected that she already knew.

‘Mum didn’t deserve his loyalty... do you have his number?’

Nodding, regretfully, Josie said, ‘But I can’t give it out, you know that don’t you.’

On the desk nearby was a pen and little pad and after scribbling numbers across the top sheet, Dan told her, ‘My new number.’

The wheelchair cupboard was really a small room, where in the far corner, away from the flotilla of empty chairs and idle walking frames, Josie had stacked the last few boxes of Anthea’s stuff.

‘Let me fetch you a seat, take your time. Leave whatever you don’t want.’

‘I can sit there,’ Dan offered, pointing at his mother’s redundant chair.

‘Once you’re done, I’ve something else in my office,’ Josie said, patting his shoulder.

Looking across at his mother’s wheelchair, Dan replayed gloomy hours of shoving the damned thing along. Anthea’s stroke had come out of the blue, and afterwards, subsequent scan results showed that there was no evident reason why Anthea should not walk, but she never did. For fear of irrationally tempting fate, Dan decided not to sit in the wheelchair. Instead, he began lifting the boxes onto a nearby table. At the top of the first one opened, he found Anthea’s green anorak, which she never wanted to wear whenever they were about to go outdoors. The routine was always the same, after a narky scrap getting her fitted into the garment, she would refuse to have the zip up. Once outside, Anthea would declare that she was ‘fucking freezing’, and no matter how swiftly Dan moved, she would berate him for not being quick enough with the zip. Next came a picture of Roy Lomax. The framed photograph had stood for years on his mother’s bedside table. After Anthea’s departure from the family home, the picture had been one of the first things he had missed. Dan had the haziest notion of visiting his mother and Howard a couple of times, but there was no distinct memory of actually being introduced to the man. After his mother had left Howard, she bought a ground floor flat near the canal, and once again, Dan could remember seeing Roy’s picture at her bedside. The place had been airy and light, with French windows opening out onto a garden with a pretty aspect. A tiny patio gave way to a sloping lawn, which meandered to the edge of an algae splattered canal. The green pasture was bordered on both sides with cottage shrubs and pastel-coloured flowers. Gazing down at the picture of his grandfather in his hand, Dan smiled as the ghostly echo of his mother’s social outrage replayed in his head, ‘Daniel! This isn’t a flat, the council give those out! This is an apartment AND privately owned!’

Tapping gently on the open door before entering Josie’s office, Dan told her, ‘I’m finished up, I’ve just these few things...’

He lifted his rucksack as if to prove his words, as Josie crossed to the large square safe, plonked in the middle of the floor beneath the shuttered window. The thick door was already partially ajar, allowing her to delve inside. Josie retrieved what she was searching for and walked back to where Dan was standing and handed him a small rectangular envelope. It reminded him of the old-fashioned wage packets he had seen in black and white gangster films. After gently tipping out the contents into his left hand, Dan declared, ‘Well, I never.’

Daniel Fernsby’s father sat waiting for his son, who had been irritatingly vague on the phone. All Owen Fernsby had managed to glean was that Daniel had something of Anthea’s to give him. The bar was quiet, but as it was mid-week, Owen was not unduly surprised. He felt that since pubs had been forced to give up the wicked weed, the venues, unlike their customers were poorer for the loss of the habit. Catching sight of Owen’s familiar paisley patterned shirt, Dan waved at his father who was sitting alone at a round table with two full glasses in front of him. ‘I got you a lager,’ Owen announced, then pleased with himself added, ‘2 for a fiver, until 7 o’clock.’

‘You mean old sod!’ Dan grinned.

‘Aren’t you a little too old for ripped jeans? And what’s happened to your razor, leave it in Australia?’ Owen observed as his son slugged the cold draught.

‘This’ll be gone before I go back to work, I can’t help being a slave to fashion,’ Dan announced cheerily, raising his eyes and stroking his scratchy stubble.

Ignoring the reply, Owen said, ‘You were all cloak and dagger on the phone.’

‘I didn’t want Hilary to see these, hold out your hand,’ Dan explained, reaching into his coat pocket. Dan shook the little envelope, causing two small pieces of gold jewellery to drop into his father’s palm.

‘Good grief!’ Owen declared, recognising both things immediately.

‘Josie found them.’

Owen gazed forlornly at Anthea’s engagement and wedding rings, which he had purchased more than 50 years before. Sitting through his father’s doleful silence, Dan tried to ignore the tactless lament of Freda Payne’s Band of Gold which was inconveniently rolling from the speakers.

‘Why on earth did she keep them?’ Owen eventually asked with the heaviest voice.

‘She never forgot you. Whenever I went, she’d tell me you’d just been, or you were just coming, or you were stuck at work.’

Narrowing his eyes ever so slightly, Owen lifted his head, allowing Dan to see the sketch of wrinkles in his face.

‘Son, she left me…’ and as usual he was about to mimic Howard’s stammer, but Dan’s warning look stopped him.

‘But she never mentioned him, not once. It was you she spoke about,’ Dan said, feeling even sorrier for his father.

‘Whatever might have been going on in her head, he was there, week after week, securing his place. You’re trying to protect me. She forgot me years ago. Anth was never content being married, perhaps happy for a while, but never content. If a marriage is going to survive you need both,’ Owen reflected mournfully.

Dan disliked hearing his father talk so despondently and tried to make their situation more palatable by pointing out, ‘In the end, she forgot us all.’

Like a magician about to perform an astounding trick, Owen tossed both rings from one hand to the other. ‘That’s not quite true is it, Dan? Not quite everyone, she didn’t forget grandad Roy.’

There was nothing he could add to make things easier for his father. Looking pained, Owen continued, ‘In young relationships, there’s always one who loves the other more. With your mum, that was me.’

Running his hand through his hair, Dan asked, ‘And is that what you think with Hilary?’

‘No... it’s different second time round. Hilary and me, we’re equal. I’m just pointing out that it was never like that with your mum, which in the end did us no good,’ Owen explained shaking his head.

Looking at the rings jingling in Owen’s hand, Dan enquired, ‘What you going to do with them?’

‘Nothing. You sell them, do something with the money.’

Shaking his head in protest, Dan said, ‘It doesn’t seem right, not after she kept them.’

Tutting, and without bitterness, Owen said, ‘Daniel, she’s gone. If these had meant that much, she’d have kept them on her finger, that was the promise we made. Like those vows, they don’t mean a thing anymore. Let them go.’ Catching sight of his watch Owen said, ‘Your round, particularly as I’m just about cross your palm with something more valuable than silver!’

Dan slid a full glass of lager over towards his father. Prior to taking a sip, Owen said, ‘You think I’m being unfeeling; but I see no reason to keep them.’ Owen pushed the rings back across the table to his son.

‘Okay, but let’s split the money,’ Dan suggested, as he carefully put the jewellery back into the creased envelope.

Owen refused. ‘In the end, I’ve learned to accept that we were married because Granny Irene and my interfering mother forced it. It’s not that long ago, but oh so different days. Your mother tried to make the best of it, but she didn’t love me enough. Like I said a few minutes ago, there’s always one who loves the other more.’

‘You don’t know that for sure,’ Dan said hopelessly.

‘Son, but I do. Before we got together, your mother was engaged to a man from the bakery. He badly let her down and Anth broke it off. That’s when your Aunty Jean started bringing her dancing, which was great for me, ‘cos in those days, just like Jagger, I had all the moves.’ Dan chuckled and Owen winked.       ‘Anyway, I put in a word for your mum at our place, after she was finished at the bakery. Jean was seeing my mate Roger and I was proper keen on Anth. The four of us just sort of fell in together. One weekend we went away. Our old aunty Dot had a caravan near the sea, the girls stayed in there, and me and Roger were nearby.’

‘Ay, Ay!’ Dan teased mischievously.

Shamefaced, even after all the years, Owen nodded, ‘Ay, Ay indeed. I didn’t want to admit it and I still don’t now, but your mum was on the rebound when I got her into trouble. Before either of us knew, we were waiting at the registry office, and the only ones blushing on our wedding day were our damn mothers. Of course, once you came along, we were all in absolute raptures. At least with you, we...I mean, me and your mum, we got one thing right between us.’

Quietly, Dan watched his father, who’s face appeared shrouded by sad words, some already spoken and some that were still to come. Lifting his glass from the table, then changing his mind and putting it back down again, Owen said, ‘We settled into married life and for a while I thought there was love, but in my heart I knew. After Roy died, Anthea drifted. I couldn’t seem to reach her, she closed herself off, and not just from me either. She didn’t do it on purpose… grief is a hard thing.’

Interrupting him, Dan said, ‘She kept his photo by her bed. I wish I’d taken it to the hospital. If ...’

Owen halted his son with a raise of his hand. ‘The picture wouldn’t have made any difference. I’ll tell you something though, I used to wonder if sometimes she had one foot in this world, and one in the next. Because if she did, I hoped Roy was watching,’

‘That’s a nice thought,’ Dan remarked wistfully, as he headed towards the bar.

When Dan returned to the table from the bar with two more full priced pints, Owen announced, ‘Hilary will fetch us when we’re ready.’

‘Good thing I’m not working tomorrow,’ Dan laughed.

Picking up the thread of their previous conversation about Roy Lomax, Owen said, ‘I’d been talking to him the day before, he was in the garden cutting back his roses. He looked awful. All grey and his lips were an odd colour. I was going to mention it to Anth, but somehow, I didn’t. For years afterwards that made me feel bad. Seeing him that last lunchtime is one of my saddest memories.’

Silently fascinated, Dan let his father drift back, for he supposed that these days these were memories not often shared and certainly not with Hilary.

‘Granny Irene was just like your mum, liked to keep up with the Joneses, and liked to be seen doing it. They’d just bought a new car and because it was a beautiful day, a proper Indian-summer, they’d decided to go for a drive. Roy came round to tell your mum they were off out for the afternoon.’

‘This is the bit I remember; Grandad being there, it was my birthday,’ Dan chipped in.

Roy Lomax had stood watching his daughter gingerly lift hot pastries from a baking tin. ‘Mince pies? You’re early love, come Christmas, you’ll be sick to the back teeth of them.’

‘We’re only having these now because it’s his birthday and he’s been pestering all week... haven’t you?!’ Anthea laughed, and catching his mother’s look, little Dan had nodded eagerly.

‘Mind!’ Anthea had yelled, as her father reached over to pinch one, ‘they’re still far too hot! Keep ‘yer mitts off! At least let me dust them first.’

‘You fuss worse than your mother!’ Roy had remarked, sniggering like a scolded school-boy.

Looking over at Dan, who was loitering impatiently, Roy then said, ‘Clever Mummy, eh? And you’re a clever little boy for knowing these are Grandad’s favourite too!’

Roy rescued a broken pie, as Dan jumped up and down on the spot, declaring excitedly, ‘And mine Grandad! And mine favourite!’

Winking, before eating it, Roy had said, ‘Naughty Grandads are allowed the broken ones; you’ll have to wait ‘til they’re cool, otherwise, you’ll burn yourself.’ Roy Lomax sloshed the hot fruity filling about the inside of his mouth, then slightly breathlessly, whispered, ‘Bloody handsome, first one of the year!’

Leaving a smudge of icing sugar behind after kissing his daughter’s cheek, Roy had turned to his grandson and said, ‘Danny-boy, come wave me and Granny off.’

‘Grandad, will you bib the horn?’ little Dan had shouted, waving his arms, whilst Roy ushered him outside and along the path.

‘Yes...yes... now get moving young man! Gran will have my guts for garters!’

With the briefest of sighs, just beyond the garden gate, Roy slumped down. The topple was neither violent nor dramatic, and by the time he hit the concrete pavement, Roy Lomax was stone already dead. Thinking that silly old Grandad was playing another of his daft games, hopping about excitedly, from one foot to the other, Dan had squealed. Her son’s yelps of joyful delight made Anthea smile. Just as she was lifting the full cooling rack, Dan galloped through the doorway, booming, ‘Funny Grandad’s felled down!’

Before pelting outside, Anthea dropped her baking, letting the whole lot crash to the floor. Upon seeing all the mince pies smashed to pieces, little Daniel started to cry.

Chapter 17

Seeds of Doubt

Dan bounced the call, not because he was sitting at his desk in the office, but because the number displayed across his phone’s screen was not assigned to a contact. Several seconds later, a door chime ping told him that a voice message was waiting. Dan was surprised to hear Howard Montgomery’s voice when he played the recording back, because it had been weeks since he had left his number with Josie Rose at Jephson House.

Howard was waiting outside the Old Greyhound Inn, just as they had arranged after Dan had returned his call. They had settled on the pub as a convenient meeting place because it was only a short walk from the bus stop and Howard always used public transport. Dan wondered if he looked as apprehensive as Howard. Either the coat he was wearing was too big for him, or he was not as thickset as Dan remembered. He had scruffy looking hair, the sort that was too wispy to be kept easily tidy. Prevalent in Dan’s mind was the thumping instruction not to look at the man’s glass eye, and he vehemently wished that his father had never mentioned it. Whilst he had been unaware of the thing, he had not been subconsciously drawn by the temptation of staring. ‘Thanks for meeting me, it’s good of you,’ Dan said slightly too cheerily, and holding out his hand, he hoped that the conciliatory offer of a handshake would put them both at ease. After accepting Dan’s hand, Howard displayed the feintest hint of a smile, but with nerves betraying him, his words were thicker than treacle as he struggled to expel them ‘Sorry it took me so long to call,’ he eventually managed to say.

‘It’s fine,’ Dan replied, ignoring Montgomery’s verbal acrobatics, ‘I wasn’t sure if you would to be honest. This is strange for both of us,’ and after seizing the chrome handle of the pub’s entrance door, Dan next asked, ‘shall we?’

Unexpectedly shaking his head, Howard wrong-footed Dan by replying, ‘I’d prefer a walk if that’s all the same with you. I think I’d be happier with that if you don’t mind.’

‘Yeah, no problem at all,’ Dan confirmed leaving go of the door, slightly surprised by the request.

Wordlessly falling into step, the two men strode along the pavement and without the hubbub noise of the pub, and lacking the distraction of a drink, conversation between them had fallen beyond the premise of a lull and was non-existent. Mesmerised by the rhythm of their feet, Dan was sensitive to the yards of overpowering silence between them, it was difficult to think of anything worthy to say to break the deadlock. At the pedestrian crossing, Howard pressed the button on the box fixed to the traffic light pole. ‘What do you want from this, Daniel?’, Howard asked just as the green man was illuminated and they started to cross. The abruptness of the question, not the actual question itself took Dan aback. He speculated whether Howard was always this brusque, or whether it was the anxiety of their situation that was causing him to be so curt. At the very back of his mind lurked an unkind thought, the fewer words that Howard used, the less the risk of stuttering. ‘To talk with you. Since we sat together outside the church, you’ve been on my mind. I was just a kid when you were with mum. I really only know of you, nothing about you or your life with mum.’ Howard did not reply. The path the two men were following wound down a steep incline, which forked at the end. In one direction leading towards a large green park and in the other, leading to a retail park and the main road. Turning left, Howard walked purposefully towards the leafy trees, ‘They’re rebuilding the pool here, to encourage the birdlife back. I come a couple of times a week, watch the progress, it’s fascinating.’ Diligently, Dan followed, cutting across a green field of clover leaf and spongey bracken grass, which felt resiliently soggy underfoot. Towards the top end of the park, a huge hollow had been carved from the toffee-coloured ground, a deep almond shaped pit. Without warning, or even inviting Dan to do the same, Howard plonked himself on the first bench they reached, ‘In Victorian times there used to be hundreds of ducks and geese here, there are old photos on the boards right over there,’ he pointed, and Dan’s eyes followed in the direction of Howard’s finger. In contrast to minutes before, without any verbal impingement, Howard continued explaining, ‘On the sabbath in their Sunday best, the well-to-do middle class would stroll taking the air, trying to marry off their daughters.’

‘Sort of like Tinder in breeches and crinoline!’ Dan remarked, sniggering.

‘And with more refined swiping,’ Howard replied also laughing, Dan was impressed and warmed a little to Howard Montgomery, ‘What happened to it?’

‘Filled in during the war.’

‘Have you ever swiped right?’, Dan asked, emboldened by Howard’s earlier directness.

‘Oh yes, with my glass eye, I’m quite the catch. No doubt your dad mentioned it. I presume he knows you’re here, does he?’

Shaking his head, before answering, Dan decided to be honest with Howard, there was something about his approach that convinced Dan he could easily sniff out a fib, ‘Nope, but I shall tell him. I told him I’d met you outside the church, he said you should’ve come back for a drink.’

‘Hmmm, that was good of him. I don’t know what upset him more,’ Howard pointing at his left eye, ‘this, or my...’ and on cue, the words log jammed somewhere between his throat and teeth.

Resisting the temptation to complete the sentence on Howard’s behalf, Dan waited tensely, urging him to be victorious in the daring battle of ‘stranded vocabulary’. Eventually Howard declared triumphantly, ‘my fucking stutter!’

In different circumstances it would have been ideal sitting in the spring sunshine, watching nothing much happening other than the blossom of flora. In the distance the birds were already busy at the piles of rich banked soil where worms and grubs burrowed. Fiddling with the cord at the bottom of his mac, Howard reckoned that the best thing to do was to wait for Anthea’s son to take the lead. The last thing he wanted was to say the wrong thing, whatever that might be, and to unintentionally cause him offence. Although he had not admitted it, since their accidental meeting at Anthea’s funeral, Daniel Fernsby had weighed heavy on his mind too. Deciding to adopt the same no-nonsense approach as Howard, without any prior niceties beforehand, Dan blurted out, ‘Did you love my mum?’

‘I did. And for a little while there was love between us,’ Howard confirmed, nodding calmly.

The remark made Dan spin round, looking Howard Montgomery directly in his good eye, ‘What made you say that? It’s the same phrase my dad used... erm... not about you... but about him.’

‘I told you; I ended up in the same boat as your dad, only I got there much quicker than he did,’ Howard replied with the merest flicker of a sadness. In the distance something must have spooked the birds, because as one they clouded the sky as they scattered to the safety of nearby trees.

‘What happened to your eye?’ Dan asked, after watching them fly, shocking himself with the abruptness of such a personal question.

‘My brother whacked a tennis ball, I never ducked. I can still hear the squelch. We were kids, it was an accident,’ if Howard was offended, he showed no sign.

‘Oh God!’ Dan replied, closing tight both his eyelids at the very thought of the tennis ball.

‘When I was a younger man, I used to make it pop out and plop into my beer. You’d be amazed at what impresses the girls, eye out, leg over. I don’t do it anymore,’ Howard chuckled.

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Dan laughed, ‘as I’m sure you already know, ladies are not my sphere of expertise. Anyway, I think these days, swiping is quicker and easier!’

‘I didn’t steal her away you know. I’m not claiming to be blameless, but if it hadn’t been me, it’d have been someone else. Your mum didn’t want to be married, and it didn’t make me feel great, when I realised that I was merely the excuse. Trouble is, by that time I’d fallen for her, and I hoped she’d fall for me. I thought that her leaving you Dad was more than it turned out to be.’

Howard Montgomery jigged his knee rapidly, and watching him talk, clearly nervous, Dan suddenly realised that Howard’s speech was unfettered.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but your speech, now there’s no.... hesitation.’

‘Comes and goes, usually if I’m in stressful situations or with new people...’ and as if by his own volition, Howard’s tongue and lips crashed about the rocks of jagged syllables. Immediately he stopped trying to speak and steadied himself. Closing his eyes Howard took an enormous lungful of air, which Dan watched him expel excruciatingly slowly. Unbeknown to Dan, following an aged instruction from his therapist, Howard Montgomery was realigning his body core to calm his diaphragm. By doing this and before becoming completely irate, Howard could usually retrieve his words and rescue his sentence, ‘see!’ he eventually spluttered spectacularly. Making the spring afternoon chilly the sun had dipped beyond the canopy of the fir trees of the other side of the pit, ‘Now the pub…’ Howard suggested.

Watching Howard navigate the tables and chairs as he returned from the bar with their drinks, Dan was struck by the physical similarities between Howard Montgomery and those of his father. Like Owen Fernsby, Howard Montgomery was a thin man, although beneath his pullover, there was the outline of a paunch just beginning to show. Clearly, his mother had had a type. Sipping his gin and tonic, a drink that his father would never have ordered in a pub, Howard said, ‘Your mum and I started seeing each other just for fun. I’d been married but my wife died. Anthea, well, I could see that she was... erm… dissatisfied.’

‘With my dad?’ Dan asked, looking anywhere other than at Howard.

‘No,’ Howard said, shaking his head. He pushed back the strands of hair that had fallen over his forehead.

‘With me then?’ Dan asked, becoming unnerved by Howard’s revelation.

‘Life in general, never with you. She adored you. Anthea was knocking on 40, she felt time was passing her by. How old are you now, Daniel?’

‘47… you can call me Dan if you like.’

‘Your mum always called you Daniel. You’re already older than your mum when she left your dad... If I’d been married, I don’t think anything would have happened between us, but I was widowed. Time goes fast, we’re none of us are blind to the passing years, even if we pretend to be. I think 40 is probably the first age when most people realise that they’ve had more than they’ve probably got ahead. Anthea went in search of her younger self. If you had your time again, I’m sure there are things, events, even people you’d change aren’t there?’

The revelation unsettled Dan because it was a perspective he had not previously considered. In all the ups and downs of his own personal life, it had never occurred to him that perhaps at the same age, his parents might have been wrestling with the similar doubts and insecurities. Howard could almost see the pattern of thought gambolling through Dan’s mind. ‘I’d no idea she was going to leave your dad, we’d not discussed it. I’d certainly no intention of asking her to choose.’ Dan just listened, asking nothing. Allowing Howard to dig through the sequence of his memory without interruption, he was gathering a different version of his mother. He also sensed that this was a one-time-only chance of hearing Howard’s side of the story. ‘When I opened the door, she was standing there with a suitcase and carrier bags stuffed full. I was stunned and a little afraid.’

‘Of my dad?’

Smiling sadly, almost imperceptibly, Howard shook his head, ‘No, not your dad.’

‘What then?’ Dan wiped the condensation from the side of his barely touched lager.

‘That she had left your father on a whim. I desperately wanted to believe that she’d left for me; and I think so did she. But from that moment, if I’m being honest, I knew we were ruined. I lived waiting for the day when she’d call time on us. I’ve already told you there was one more space in your dad’s boat.’

‘You never believed in her, even though she’d left my dad?’ Dan asked, frowning.

Looking incredulous, Howard said, ‘Come on Daniel, you’re no kid. Believing in someone or trying to believe what they say, they’re two completely different things. The fella you lived with; always believed in him, did you?’

Peering across the rim of his glass into the fizzing bubbles of his drink, all the doubts and worries he had ever suffered about his relationship with Alex bobbed before his eyes. ‘In retrospect, I suppose not.’

Nodding, Howard concluded, ‘You see doubt unravels a relationship, even when you don’t want it to. Seeds of doubt turn into big sprawling trees.’

Dan was subdued a moment, then after taking a mouthful of his drink clearing both his throat and mind said, ‘Dad’s never been quite able to explain why mum left, and although you’ve given me some insight, I’m still not absolutely sure either.’

‘Unfortunately, Dan, the only person who can answer that questions is gone. Whatever Anthea was chasing, neither me nor your dad could quite provide it. Recently, I’ve got to wondering if somehow, she sensed her time was short, which drove her into unwise decisions. If that’s the truth of it, that’s sad for the three of us,’ Howard said, standing from his chair and reaching for his mac.

Chapter 18

A Magic Carpet

Sloshing soapy suds everywhere after clambering out of the bath, Dan clattered down the stairs whilst unsuccessfully trying to wrap a towel round himself. Lightning footsteps and the thundering instruction, ‘Shift!’ shattered Creosote’s sun-drenched afternoon sprawl. Diving through banister spindles the cat landed on the hallway floor before fleeing into the kitchen. The hallway led to a small porch where his boots and scruffy coat were kept. Abandoning the pointless struggle with his towel, reaching the porch door and quickly releasing the catch, he yelled, ‘Close your eyes, I’m not decent.’

Blindly hearing his squelchy retreat, playfully, Eunice called, ‘Won’t worry me, don’t forget, I talced your little peachy bottom!’

‘Shut up!’ Dan laughed, annoyed with himself for forgetting their arrangement,

Eunice Lomax was preparing coffee when Dan stepped into the kitchen. Patting the crown of her white bobbed hair, he teased, ‘Still shrinking?’

‘Still tall enough to give you a clout,’ she warned, after stretching to reach Dan’s face before playfully slapping his cheek and catching the smell of his soap and musky aftershave. Dan watched her tip water from the kettle into coffee mugs. She was wearing a long flowery dress, which at first glance appeared shapeless, but as she swanned about the material flapped and billowed from hip to ankle. Her laced canvas pumps, patterned with cornflowers and daisies stylishly matched the dress. Eunice was far more free-spirited than his mother had been. She had flouted the convention of her time by defying her mother, Irene Lomax’s instruction to marry. Instead, she had lived happily in-sin with Vince Pope for years, until one day, quite unexpectedly he died. Seemingly free of the social pretensions that had hindered her mother and sister, Eunice appeared to waft through life, being neither too stressed nor distressed. Dan leaned heavily on the support of his Aunty Eunice, as heavily in fact as Jean Fernsby, his other aunt, leaned arthritically on her stick. ‘Had you forgotten?’

‘Of course not!’ he lied.

‘Well either way, it’s good of you to take me. It’s times like this I miss Vince the most. I won’t be long; I only want a few trays.’

‘It’s no trouble, fill the car,’ Dan reassured whilst reaching for his coffee, ‘you might as well have me carry it all round in one go, and if you can wait ‘til Sunday, I’ll help you plant them out.’

Tapping his arm, Eunice said ‘Thanks lovey, it gives me something to do. The gardens been my salvation,’ noticing the cat, scowling under the table, she said, ‘Creosote’s not yet forgiven you I see.’

‘She’s sulking, ‘cos I just kicked her off the stairs.’

Eunice smiled; it was good to see her nephew looking relaxed.

‘Looks much better in here now that big fridge is gone, I take it you haven’t heard from Alex since you’ve been back?’

‘Nope, which is fine. Water under the bridge.’

Nodding Eunice said, ‘I often see Wayne’s mother on the bus. She’s going over after easter, but really she’d love them to come back home.’

‘Wayne said as much but the kids are thriving; they’d be crazy to shift them, it’d be nice though,’ Dan said wistfully, shaking his head.

Like the house in general, the sitting room was cosy and contained two plain but vibrantly coloured sofas. Being set against each other at right angles they filled the bottom corner of the room farthest from the wood burner. Despite her liberalism, Eunice harked back to the days of a three-piece suite, so her nephew’s sofas being neither the same colour nor pattern discomfited her. Once Eunice had placed her cup onto the iron framed glass table, Dan revealed, ‘I met with Howard Montgomery. We ended up in the Royal Tandoori.’

‘‘I see,’ Eunice remarked, with words cooler than Indian raita.

‘Aunty Ness, didn’t you like him?’

Undoing the big shiny buckle of the cloth bag on the cushion beside her, Eunice made a performance of ferreting about inside. Eventually lifting a white cotton handkerchief and wiping her nose extravagantly she said, ‘To be fair, I never found much about him to dislike,’ she paused, before adding, ‘mind you, there wasn’t much to like either. Never sure what our Anth saw in him. He wasn’t one to waste words.’

‘You’re right, I found him quite abrupt at first, but like you say, he simply doesn’t waste words. I found him to be refreshingly honest. But after talking to him and Dad, I reckon mum would always have upped sticks. If it hadn’t been Howard, she’d have left Dad for somebody else.’

‘She ought to have left Owen for herself, not Howard. We blamed him more than we blamed her, which wasn’t fair. He became standoffish with us, which in hindsight, I can understand,’ nodding and leaning conspiratorially towards her nephew, Eunice divulged, ‘on the morning of their wedding, Grandad Roy stopped the car. He liked and respected your dad a great deal but wanted to give Anth a few minutes, to be sure that she was sure of what she wanted. He never told me what was said, and I never asked Anth either, but I know that my dad felt that Anth had gone through with it for all the right and wrong reasons. He’d not have been surprised by how things turned out between them, but would have disapproved of Howard.’

‘Dad told me that she’d been engaged to someone else before meeting him.’

Flicking something imaginary from her lap, Eunice said, ‘Gosh, that’s going back a bit. Yes, Gordon Blenkin, but really we were just kids ourselves.’

‘What happened to him?’ Dan asked, his curiosity pricked.

‘Anth found out he was carrying on with Dirty Dolly from nights. In front of everyone in the canteen she tipped his dinner in his lap and broke off their engagement. Gordon married Dolly. Not long after he got killed on a pedestrian crossing and they never ever caught the driver.’

‘Which mum used to say was the thing that had happened to her,’ Eunice nodded slowly, before Dan added, ‘Dad and Howard loved her, yet she walked out. Ness, I don’t think I understand her.’

Eunice sighed kindly before explaining, ‘My big sister was impulsive. Apart from you, the man she loved most was Grandad Roy. She did love your dad, but we knew, even Owen I suspect, that it was never going to last. I don’t doubt there was love for Howard, but no one quite compared with Dad. She never got over him dying, which in the end exacerbated her restlessness.’

‘Mind you, Dad didn’t do himself any favours. Remember that Christmas?’ Dan asked, lightening the mood.

With unexpected joy Eunice’s face lit up like a festive candle as she merrily exclaimed, ‘A bloody hoover, what on earth was he thinking?’

‘And then as defence, to claim that reconditioned is a step up from second hand!’ Anthea’s sister and son fell about at the recollection of Owen’s ill-considered Christmas gift.

Once at the garden centre, Eunice chose varied plants, pots, and trays, which Dan loaded into the boot of his car. The traffic on the way back was solid, and after following a detour they ended up driving through Latch Road. ‘Howard said he realises now, Mum was displaying signs of dementia when they were together,’ Dan told his aunt, whilst queuing to re-join the main road.

‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ Eunice confirmed, ‘Daniel, I saw it too, only you don’t see what you’re not looking for.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘We both know how fond Anth became of an afternoon tipple, I blamed that at first, but when she moved into the flat…’

Dan immediately interrupted. ‘Tut-tut, Aunty Ness, apartment...flats only come from the council. Good job mum can’t hear you!’

‘Just like your gran, Anth was always distracted by appearances...thing is, it was a lovely place. Anyway... Where’d I get to?’

‘Blimey,’ Dan joked, ‘you getting forgetful?’

Thumping the top of his arm, Eunice continued, ‘We used to meet every Thursday outside Woollies. She started holding my arm and because we were sisters I didn’t think anything of it. Then one day Jean mentioned that she was worried, because Anth looked unsteady and had suddenly taken to holding her arm when they were out.’

‘It was the same thing with me! I used to tell her she was getting old...the clues were always there.’

Placing her hand over his on top of the gearstick, Eunice reiterated, ‘Like I say, we never look for what we can’t see.’

Suddenly, Dan remembered the saga of the rug that had started almost as soon as his mother had moved into the apartment.

He had been quite envious of the place his mother eventually bought, a modern build overlooking the canal. If he had been alone at the time, it was exactly the sort of place he would have chosen. After moving out from Howard, whilst she searched for the right property, Anthea had rented a small house. ‘I’m too old to keep flitting about. I won’t have the money to do it again, this is my last chance,’ she told her son. Anthea had settled quickly after moving in, making friends with some of the other women, who, just like her were divorced and lonely. All the new friends had shortened names, Von, Glo, and Jue, and although Dan was not keen on the trio, they seemed to give Anthea a new lease of life. But Dan had already begun to notice subtle behavioural changes, although now, he could not pinpoint exactly when it had all started. It took time to acknowledge the repetition of seemingly innocuous questions.

‘Are you working today?’

‘Mum, I don’t work Saturdays.

‘You in work today?’

‘No because it’s Saturday, mum.’

‘You on the way to work?’

‘Not today mum, I don’t work Saturday.’

Dan next noticed that Anthea was constantly searching for things, becoming excessively irate when she could not lay her hands on whatever it was she wanted.

‘Who keeps moving it?

‘Where’s my bag?’

‘Have you got the keys?’

Anthea had always been impatient, fiery even, but somehow these outbursts felt oddly different. Naively Dan convinced himself they were harmless episodes happening because she was still getting used to living alone.

One evening she invited him over for dinner, and when Dan got there nothing had been cooked nor prepared. Anthea was sitting in her chair looking out across the garden down towards the canal. When she turned to face him, she was still snivelling, but her blotchy face betrayed a tale of spent tears. Rolling his arm around her shoulders, Dan asked, ‘Mum, whatever’s the matter?’

Sniffing and wiping her eyes on her cuff, Anthea explained, ‘The new till has a screen which you touch. Daniel, I haven’t been shown and today she shouted!’ Not long after Anthea had moved in, her friend Von had persuaded her to take a job at the corner shop sorting the morning deliveries. Her upset over something seemingly so minor was out of character.  Anthea had been bolshy all her life and never afraid to stand up for either herself, or anyone else. Over the next months there was more teary heartache.

‘The newspapers were muddled! It wasn’t me.’

‘The bread order was wrong; I got the blame.’

‘She meddled with the rota.’

Dan wondered about talking to Von but was frightened of the outcome. In the end he did nothing, foolishly promising himself he would know when the time was right.

Niggling and persistent worry made him visit his mother more often. One afternoon when the apartment was stuffed full of stale cigarette smoke, he found Anthea anxiously pacing circles round and round her enormous woollen floor rug. ‘Bloody hell! It’s absolutely choking in here!’ he complained. Feeling sure that his clothes would already be reeking, Dan moved towards the French windows intent on letting in a wave of fresh air.

‘Daniel, no!’ she screeched; in a voice deranged as her hair. Anthea’s face was a mash of fear and fury and in a quavering voice she accused her son,

‘Who else did you give a key?’

‘A key to where?’ Dan enquired, perplexed.

‘Where do you fucking think?!’ she snapped, waving her arm, pointing at all the walls.

‘Just me, why?’

Exhausted by the fact that her son was failing to keep up with the rudiments of their simple conversation, Anthea sighed despairingly, ‘Somebody keeps coming in.’

‘How d’you mean?’ Dan asked, trying to keep himself in check, using a measured tone that did not match his alarm.

‘How d’you think I fucking mean? Intruders! They keep coming in! One minute they’re out there, next they’re in here! They keep fucking coming!’ Anthea shrieked, slamming down her fist.

Panicked by her furious insistence but trying not to further antagonise her, Dan shifted the focus of his question, ‘I understand what you’re saying, what I mean is...when they’re in here mum, where are you?’

‘In bed, where else would I be?  Especially since bloody Eunice won’t let me in through the window!’

‘Oh... I see. Makes sense,’ Dan replied, fighting the urge to shout, he wanted to grab his mother to shake common sense back in, whilst snapping her out of such nonsense.

‘Thank you,’ Anthea replied softly, the aggression in her posture and voice quelled.

‘Tell me mum, how do they let you know they’re here?’

‘They blow whistles before moving it, from there...to there,’ Anthea said glibly, pointing at the rug, her attention beginning to wane.

Looking at the rug still in its usual place, closing his eyes, nervously Dan pointed out, ‘But mum, it hasn’t moved.’

With another wearisome sigh, Anthea announced, ‘That’s because clever fucking clogs,’ she jabbed angrily at her chest, ‘I move it back again! It won’t do it by itself will it?! Daniel, you might not have bloody noticed, but it’s not a flying carpet!’

Chapter 19

Whispers & Shifting Furniture

Since her revelation that the big square rug was being moved about the floor by night-time intruders, the frequency of Dan’s visits had rocketed and were beginning to irk Anthea. He had a manner of eyeballing her which sparked her fury, flaring her temper and igniting arguments. It made Anthea glad that she had since decided not to tell him, or indeed any of them about the whispers she had started to hear. Miraculously she discovered that the whispers seemed able to stop the intruders. One day, to throw her son off the scent she calmly announced, ‘Daniel, they know I’m onto them. They’ve stopped coming, and anyway it doesn’t matter, I’ve gone off that sodding rug. I’m going to get rid, you can have it.’ Surprised and bothered by the absurdity of his mother’s declaration, Dan felt that his best bet was to try and pacify her.

‘Right… but what about the locks …don’t you want them changing?’

‘No point now... and I’ve started putting across the chain your friend fitted,’ Anthea told him, shaking her head in agreement.

‘Mum, you mean Alex. You know he’s more than a friend don’t you...!’

Anthea stomped over to the lush velvet curtains, which stretched from ceiling to floor framing the French window. Fiddling with them unnecessarily, she suddenly confirmed,

‘Alex! That’s it. He’s nice. He doesn’t get on at me.... we go for lunch. He likes gammon with no egg.’

‘You can’t have gammon with no egg, you can have gammon without egg,’ Dan reminded her exasperated.

When she turned to face him, Dan saw that splattered down her shabby t-shirt and even shabbier tracksuit bottoms a collection of food stains. ‘When I ask the lady in the shop for a cheese sandwich with no tomato, that’s exactly what I get, explain that smart arse!’

Ignoring the challenge Dan pointed and said, ‘they need to go in the wash, you look like a living menu of everything you’ve eaten. Did any actually make reach your mouth?’

Anthea tried to brush away some of the marks with the back of her hand. ‘These are only comfies, they’ll do for now,’ she said, not in the least perturbed by his observation.

‘Good thing Gran isn’t here to see you,’ he teased. ‘she’d have called you a dirty cat for wearing such a scruffy top.’

Ruffling the tangle of her hair, Anthea discounted his words, but frowning, Daniel knew that her reaction was odd. In matters of appearance, she had always been fastidious, this change alone should have set alarm bells ringing.  Years later, when questioning such apathy with his counsellor, Christine Jenkins had tried to reassure him, ‘Dan, sometimes even when we don’t realise it ourselves, the brain will do all it can to shield us from events that were perhaps already too painful to face.’ But watching his mother that Saturday morning, lacklustre and tatty, Daniel convinced himself that living alone was making his mother lazy.

The lounge and bedroom of the apartment Anthea Fernsby bought benefited from magnificent views, which swept across the lawn and shrub filled borders down towards the algae canal. Anthea had relished watching the birds frolic at the water’s edge, tree roosting at dusk before returning to the sky on the wings of dawn. The emerald water reminded her of shinning up the drainpipe to the rusted metal tank on the roof of the coalhole in Latch Road, and smiling with the memory, she wondered how she had ever managed such a feat.

By lying dead still in bed and not breathing too hard, Anthea could just about make out the occasional splash of the canal water. But now, the whispers coming just before the muffle of sleep had started to drown out the sound. At the very last second with heavy eye lids about to droop, voices that Anthea still recognised but had long forgotten came fluttering like a breath of butterflies. Sometimes their words came together so fast it was impossible to separate the chatter into recognisable faces. Distinct and distinguishable though, one voice louder than the rest was always dominant. During one particularly troublesome night, exasperated and exhausted, Anthea pleaded, ‘Stop bellowing, leave me alone will you!’ The chatter ceased abruptly, and she plunged into sleep. The next morning, Anthea was astounded to see that the rug had not moved. Whilst sipping her tea and gazing down towards the squabbling geese, as one of the birds was screeching and flailing outstretched wings, Anthea muttered a threat to the absent intruders, ‘Come again and I’ll tell mum.’

For some time, Dan had been bothered over whether Anthea’s erratic behaviour at home was also being repeated in the shop, so was not entirely surprised when Von, his mother’s friend and colleague suggested a chat. When she had first started working at the shop, Anthea had enjoyed laying out the newspapers and marking up the editions. On Anthea’s mornings, the paper girls and boys knew that everything would be ready promptly to be collected without backchat. Progressively though, Anthea had begun to struggle, eventually complaining, ‘I wish they hadn’t changed the drop; the bundles are more complicated. Why can’t they leave things alone?’

Von frowned before replying, ‘Nothing’s changed. If it had, you can be sure Upstairs Wendy would’ve been first to notice, and the first to moan!’

Anthea was about to argue, when a waggy bundle of labrador joy came bounding in from the street. Being yanked and dragged by the dog’s taut leash, the red-faced man with hair wilder than his dog panted an urgent apology. ‘Mrs Fernsby, it’s all your fault! I realise she’s not supposed to be in here, but Rita knows you mean biscuits.’ Hurtling from behind the counter and laughing, Anthea rushed towards the bouncing dog and from her tabard pulled out a bone shaped biscuit. She had clearly forgotten the newspaper conversation, but Von could not, and it was then she had decided to call Anthea’s son.

In Dan’s experience, requested chats never augured anything good. With an employer it usually meant the sack, and conversely with boyfriends it never meant that. When Von arrived, he was already tense and after opening the door to greet her, his skin coolly prickled and his face flushed. Dan ushered her into the sitting room and inviting her to sit, offered, ‘Coffee or tea?’ Perched on the sofa, Von shifted from side to side before declining both. Dan could see that the poor woman was nervous. Her hair, cut too short for her years was spiked, the harsh peroxide tint seemed to have also bleached the colour from her face. The pull of buttons on her blouse made the garment look at least half a size too tight. Almost wringing her hands, she admitted, ‘I feel dreadful about this.’

‘Anything you say is between you and me,’ Dan had tried to reassure her, ‘please, don’t worry.’ Being sympathetic to Von’s plight, Dan chose to sit alongside her. The closer proximity to his mother’s friend was as much for his own comfort as hers. Clearing her throat, Von asked, ‘Daniel, have you noticed anything odd with your mum?’

,

‘Well, nothing alarming, though recently she has seemed a little highly strung, call me Dan please.’ Conflicted and out of blind loyalty, he had opted for a white lie. If he were engaged in a game of verbal tennis, Dan reckoned that his opening salvo was lobbed neatly across the net.

‘I’m worried about her, we all are. We try to limit the time she’s on her own, we’re all going in a little earlier and leaving a little later. Dan, something’s not right.’

With a sinking heart, Dan felt as though he were pelting towards the back of the court chasing an impossibly long volley, the lob of her words being far worse than he had expected.

The unsettling exchange with Von had left him feeling disloyal and guilty. In his heart, Dan feared that through the things he had said or more worryingly had not, that he had managed to make his mother’s position more precarious. If Anthea’s disposition waned further, it would be game set and match and although Von had stopped short of making the threat, but Dan was no fool. Discussing his fears with Alex, Dan had said, ‘All this odd behaviour, I put down to her living on her own. It’s taken her some getting used to.’

‘Come on Dan, really? This business with the rug, her repetition, the questions... I told you when I took her out, she’s sort of vague but not quite.’

‘Von said that they can’t leave her to cash the till, and if she gives out the right change, it’s more by luck.’ Flopping his hand against his jaw, Dan sighed. He had hoped that Alex might hint that Von was exaggerating and that everyone else was getting slightly carried away, and when that did not happen, Dan became agitated. Upon seeing his growing discomfort, Alex helpfully suggested, ‘You should go talk it through with Hilary.’

Following Alex’s advice, Dan arranged to see his stepmother and when he got there, Hilary Fernsby was busily pulling together a colourful lunch. On each porcelain plate was a twisted pile of leaves drizzled with just enough oil to make them glisten. Spanning a large flat wooden board already placed on the dining table was an array of cured and smoked meats, cheeses, sun-dried tomatoes, plump olives and chunks of bread. ‘You didn’t need to go to all this trouble,’ Dan said, eagerly taking his seat. Waving her had dismissively over the food, Hilary announced, ‘It’s a pleasure. Your father’s not here and he’d never eat this... and he’d moan like a drain. In his world salad is lettuce … no more than two leaves, a single tomato cut into quarters, sliced cucumber, and a hardboiled egg. Everything plonked separately leaving room for a pork pie slab.’

‘Served with chips. A proper Gran’s salad! In her world olive oil was for earache, curing not pouring. If she was here, oh my goodness, then you’d hear complaining!’ Dan chuckled.

‘I found your Granny Celia to be a difficult woman. I don’t think she liked me taking your mother’s place, even though I didn’t meet your dad ‘til after the divorce. I got the feeling she believed I’d been lurking in the shadows,’ Hilary revealed with a roll of her eyes.

‘I shouldn’t worry, most of the time grandma wasn’t keen on mum either. She never forgave mum for getting pregnant with me and spoiling his prospects. She’d wanted dad to marry the posh, Rosemary Chessington-Clarke. In grandma’s eyes, Dad stayed quite blameless!’

‘Your Grandad was much easier but spent most of his days up at the golf club or the Rotary. I never spent much time with him, which was a shame,’ Hilary said regretfully.

‘Grandpa Eric used to take me in the golf buggy across the greens. When no one was looking, I’d sit on his knee to and steer.’ Dragging his fingers through his hair, Dan’s eyes twinkled with the thrill of the memory.

Throughout their lunch, Dan detailed the depressing chat he had shared with Von. Hilary sat and listened, until she was sure that he was done. Carefully weighing up words to avoid, she dabbed her mouth with her napkin. With fingers narrow as twigs it looked as though Hilary’s hands should be permanently cold, which they were not. Everything about her was petite, Grandma Celia had been thin in the same way, but Grandma’s features had been left flinty, whereas Hilary’s were combed with softness. Hilary was no pushover and conducted herself in the same manner as she ran her ward, with determination and kindness, always without nonsense. Looking directly across the table, she asked, ‘Is Anthea aware of what might be happening to her do you think?’

‘No, but she’s completely convincing. Mum’s adamant that intruders are getting in at night,’ Dan answered without doubt.

‘Do you challenge her?’

Dan nodded.

‘What happens?’

‘She blows her stack, goes nuts.’ Dan sighed heavily.

With her fingertips arched beneath the tip of her chin, Hilary was reflective a few seconds. ‘Dan, I think your first port of call must be her GP, to sort out a referral to the memory clinic. They’ll organise tests, which will at least give you a clearer idea of what might be going on.’

‘You think something is though, don’t you?’ Dan asked miserably.

‘Before second guessing, get her properly assessed. But Dan, I’m sorry to say, what you describe sounds awfully familiar.’

Unable to sleep and baffled by the crashing noises coming through the darkness, rigid as a corpse, Anthea lay wide awake. Far from being afraid she was more concerned that her neighbours would soon be disturbed. She was resolute that she had locked the apartment door, but the intruders were back and causing a merry old din. Suddenly she remembered the door chain. She had not slid it across like she had promised, and nor could she shout for her mother, because typically tonight of all nights, when she really needed them, the whispers had not come. Anthea seethed at the thoughtlessness of such a late-night racket. Fumbling for, then pulling on her housecoat, fuming at the framed picture on her bedside table, Anthea cursed, ‘How bloody rude!’ In the black and white photograph taken on her wedding day, a grinning Roy Lomax, her late father, showed sprinkles of confetti dotted across his pin-striped shoulders. Stepping into the small hallway, Anthea cocked her head. To her astonishment all noise had stopped. Looking back at the red shine of numbers from her radio-alarm, she said out loud, ‘It must be the shift change.’ At the Tool & Gauge, where she had worked in the wages office, there had been a 3am switch over, causing the rate to drop by two-bob an hour. Anthea had dealt with the wage complaints and just like she used to in the office, she blurted into the silence, ‘Check your payslip!’

After storming into the dark kitchen, Anthea was peeved to find everything quiet as the proverbial grave. Turning on the light, at first nothing looked out of place, no mess, everything just as it should be, but then she realised what had been the cause of the racket. She was incensed to see that her father’s serving hatch had vanished, and the rest of her mother’s kitchen had been replaced by an imposter kitchen. Perplexed Anthea stood and stared, uncertain what to do next. Banging her hand down flat hard against the work surface, she said, ‘Someone’s playing silly buggers!’ In the proper kitchen, the one with the serving hatch, all the drawers had been set like carriages above a rail of cupboard doors. In this strange kitchen, the drawers were stacked on top of each other and were plonked in-between the two tallest cupboards. One of the drawers was stuffed full of odds and ends and after much ferreting, Anthea discovered a little notebook. She decided that she would write to the caretaker, complaining about the intruders and all they were doing. She would have liked to raise the alarm with her son, but changed her mind, mumbling, ‘he’ll just get shitty!’ Marching into the hallway, on the telephone table she found a pot of pens. Once settled in her chair, she was disappointed it was still too dark to see the canal. Eventually opening the pad, with her pen hovering, she racked her brain trying to recall what she had wanted to write. ‘Bugger!’ she cursed, before starting to cry.

She wept for several minutes, stopping only when she had cried herself dry, and of course, by then, she could not explain what had upset her so badly. Looking uncertainly around the room, Anthea realised that from Latch Road, the imposters had also bought her mother’s grand sideboard. The wide burnished sideboard had fine doors decorated with carves of swirls and feathery tails and had been left where her old radiogram once stood. Just like at Christmas, the surface had been covered in shiny foil and spread with lace doilies, which looked like lily-pads resting on frozen water. Confused and puzzled, Anthea asked nobody, ‘What on earth?’ Overwhelmed and assuming that the food would be following on later, she decided to go back to bed. Turning to leave the room, she was startled by sight of her mother’s fireside armchair tucked snugly against the sofa, but the shock jolted something deep within her mind. Grabbing both the pad and pen, before the memory could gambol, she scrawled the man’s name.

Standing outside the apartment, squinting through the mottled glass it was clear his mother was not coming. Dan dithered. Gripped with uncertainty, he was unsure whether to knock again. Pushing his key into the lock, with a turn to the right the latch released, and expecting to encounter the clang of the chain he was annoyed when the door opened without restraint. Stepping inside he called, ‘Mum!’ When there was no response, he shouted louder. Venturing through the hallway, Dan headed for the door farthest left, which was his mother’s bedroom. Reaching it, he was relieved to hear the groggy sound of movement. ‘You okay? I thought you’d be up by now,’ Dan remarked, without entering the room.

‘Let me get my housecoat. Put the kettle on!’ Anthea spluttered.

When she plodded into the kitchen, Dan thought that his mother looked terribly tired and not just because she was just awake. With bed-clumped hair, Anthea was aware that she looked a sight, ‘A bad night,’ she announced in justification, her words hanging like fog. Unable to stop himself, Dan enquired, ‘Did they come again, mum?’

‘Daniel, don’t be silly! I told you they don’t anymore,’ Anthea chided her son, as she busied herself with mugs and hot water.

‘The chain wasn’t on,’ he peevishly announced to the hunch of his mother’s shoulders.

‘It was....I had a fag when it was getting light,’ Anthea explained, quick as a flash. He knew she was lying.

Lifting her coffee and therefore implicitly forcing him to do the same, Anthea said, ‘I wonder what the ducks are up to. Striding ahead of her son, Anthea wanted to clock his face when he clapped eyes on both the sideboard and his grandmother’s chair. Now we’ll see who’s the fool, she thought excitedly. Stopping in her tracks so suddenly, Dan almost crashed into her. Anthea was appalled to see that both things had gone, and whoever had taken them had done it whilst she was sleeping. ‘Sodding sodding bastards!’ she cursed.

‘What’s the matter?’ Dan asked, surprised by the unexpected outburst and the distress within his mother’s stooped posture.

‘The chair, the sideboard, fucking gone!’

‘What chair and sideboard? I don’t see them...’ Dan said kindly but nervously.

‘Course you fucking don’t, they’ve been taken back! I just said,’ she screeched, her voice and eyes wild as her hair.

Dan wished fervently that he could prevent himself from indulging her further, but still heard himself enquiring where to?

‘Latch Road!’ Anthea yelled.

On the table next to his mother’s chair was a little pad. Noticing the spidery name scrawled across the page and keen to divert her attention, Dan asked, ‘Who’s Tommy Brennan?’

Chapter 20

Keys Lost, Potatoes Ruined

Not too long after they were married and the birth of their son, Owen Fernsby taught Anthea how to drive, but unfamiliar geography always daunted her and made her nervous. She could never be described as a happy driver. When she was a wife, Anthea preferred to let her husband take the wheel, but the same arrangement did not hold true once she was with Howard. His perception of blind spots had been made worse by his absent eye, and there had been a few close calls, forcing Anthea into driving more when they lived together. These days, apart from driving to her job at the local shop she did not venture much further from home, so a trip to the ‘big Sainsbury’s did not faze her. Anthea liked shopping there because the cafeteria was nice and after a cake and coffee, she would take a pleasant amble looking at all the clothes and household goods. Sauntering the aisles, Anthea lost track of the afternoon and by the time she emerged into the food gangways, she had no idea how long she had been in-store. Checking all her pockets at once, she was annoyed to find that her list was missing. Surveying all the things lumped mysteriously inside her shopping trolley, she searched frantically for the rogue piece of paper. Bothered by returning home with bags and bags of the wrong stuff, Anthea started to put back items that she thought unnecessary. Noticing a fellow shopper hesitantly watching, Anthea felt obliged to offer an explanation, and smiling said, ‘You never know what to buy them do you? The kids have gone off these now,’ she indicated, before squashing a family sized pack of crisps against a line of tins. The curious observer said nothing before moving away, and Anthea carried on regardless, moseying around the store minus her shopping list.

At the very top of the shopping bag stowed in the boot of the car, packed snuggly into a little cardboard box with a cellophane lid was a pastry tart bulging with gleaming set custard. Settling herself behind the steering wheel, already Anthea was anticipating slurping up the creamy gloop just as soon as she got home. Pulling out of the main carpark she joined the queue being funnelled through the single lane exit onto the busy dual carriageway. Manoeuvring herself into the outside lane, Anthea pressed the accelerator pedal to ensure that the car kept pace with everyone else. Approaching a large white road sign listing destinations and distances, the black letters looked odd, and whilst she was quite able to read the names, Anthea realised with some foreboding that she could not make sense of them. It felt like trying to guess the final picture of a half-finished jigsaw, without actually having the picture on the box to refer to. But because of the speed of the traffic, Anthea could not allow herself to become panicked, the critical thing was to remain in control of the car, if not quite herself. Forming a fume shimmering queue, the rush-hour commuters slowed and stopped. Right in the distance at the brink of the hill, Anthea could see the ruby twinkle of traffic lights holding them all back. Waiting to move, she tried to remember exactly where she had been heading, tantalisingly, the memory felt as though it was dangling almost within her grasp. Staring about at all the other bored faces, Anthea wondered where on earth everyone was trying to get to. The excitable voice belting from the radio was beginning to grind, and Anthea was about to swich the thing off, when the man enthusiastically declared, ‘Hometime is drivetime!’ Clapping both palms against the steering wheel, feeling triumphant, Anthea proclaimed, ‘home!’ The puzzle of place names reassembled, enabling her to conjure familiar streets and houses once again.

She loathed reversing into spaces parallel to the pavement, but today despite feeling hassled and rushed, remarkably Anthea managed the feat at the first attempt. Catching sight of her watch she sighed, ‘Bloody hell!’ Anthea prided herself in always having the evening meal punctually ready on the table, but now being inexplicably late, the dinner would be delayed, kicking the whole night out of kilter. Seizing the shopping, she slammed shut the car boot, before trudging up the path, puffing as she went, cursing, ‘Sodding fags!’ Reaching the front door, with her free hand she fumbled for her keys, then, no matter how hard she tried, she discovered that none of the damned things would fit the lock. On a swirling tide of cold panic, frustrated at being unable to open the door, Anthea looked around for somebody to help, but there was nobody. Perplexed and on the verge of tears, she could not fathom what was wrong and flopped down onto the doorstep. Exhausted and with the shopping bag tipped onto its side, with head bowed, there she remained, locked out. ‘Are you OK, love?’ a kind and completely unexpected voice enquired.

Slowly raising her head, Anthea focussed on a sturdy woman with a mop of curly hair, staring down with some concern from the gate at the other end of the path. ‘I can’t get in, my keys won’t work,’ forlornly Anthea held up the bunch to prove the point. Anthea looked desperate and disorientated; the neighbour felt compelled to help, ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,’ and pointing over the privet to the adjoining property, she continued, ‘I live next door.’

‘You’re not Edie Osbourne,’ Anthea observed suspiciously.

Startled by the name and shaking her head in agreement, the lady said, ‘I’m Lydia Hooch, we bought the house from Mrs Osbourne 30 years ago.’

‘Oh... have they moved?’ Anthea remarked, seeming genuinely surprised by the news. Suddenly, as if remembering forgotten manners, Anthea introduced herself to the plump lady. Nodding and smiling sympathetically, Lydia enquired, ‘You do know where you are, don’t you?’

‘Of course I sodding do!’ Anthea snapped, ‘I can’t get in, can I!’.

Lydia knew she could not leave this confused woman perched on the doorstep of number 7, particularly as Mr & Mrs Parkinson were away. Although she had no idea of exactly what to do, she said softly, ‘I was thinking of putting the kettle on, come next door to wait. A cup of tea always makes the time go by...’ then glancing theatrically at the lolling clouds, in the hope of cajoling Anthea, she warned, ‘goodness, looks like it might be coming onto rain.’

The inside of the house was painted a blend of magnolia and cream and fixed above all the long windows were pelmets adorned with swags and tails, which exaggerated the flamboyance of all the frilled curtains. After looking at the clutter of framed photographs in the stuffy wallpapered sitting-room, it seemed true, Mrs Osbourne had definitely gone. For Anthea, the revelation came like a whiff of betrayal. Having been friends for years, to simply up sticks without bidding farewell was rude and strangely out of character. However, this new woman seemed very nice, and smiling she handed Anthea a cup of autumn-coloured tea. ‘You lived next door, did you?’

Anthea thought that there were too many matching cushions scattered over the sitting-room sofa and chairs, but decided not to say, nodding instead. ‘When I missed the last bus, after getting on the coal-hole roof, I could clamber through Ness’s window!’

‘How on earth did you get up there?’

‘Shinned up the drainpipe, mind you, I couldn’t manage that now,’ Anthea chuckled.

‘Leave that to the kids, they’ve the knees for it!’ Lydia advised, before continuing, ‘gosh, that must have been a while ago, the Parkinson’s have lived here nearly as long as us. They’re retired now, spend half their year in Spain, they’ve a little place near Benidorm. I vaguely recall the lady who lived there before, but she left not long after we arrived.’ The recollection must have been too vague to stir Anthea’s subconscious because she said nothing, which for Lydia was a disappointment. Undeterred, she pressed on, ‘Is there anyone I can call, see if we can’t sort out the trouble with your keys?’

‘My son, Daniel. He’ll know what to do, he’s a bit of a bossy-boots!’ Without instruction, Anthea reached inside her coat pocket for her phone, and after pulling it out, as she handed the thing over to Lydia, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Stooping to retrieve it, Anthea handed Lydia the note. Glancing at it, Lydia said, ‘Thanks,’ before placing it on the mantlepiece over the gas fire, ‘would you like me to call your son, or do you want to?’

‘You do it,’ Anthea replied, half distracted by checking all her pockets.

Watching her a few seconds, instinctively, Lydia guessed what Anthea was searching for, and reaching for the shopping list handed it back saying, ‘I think this is yours, put it somewhere safe.’

Smiling gratefully, Anthea folded the paper before popping it into the side pocket of her coat. Looking at her dressed in jeans and a check patterned shirt, Lydia thought that at first glance, it was impossible to tell that anything was wrong. The only visible clue that something was amiss, was that Anthea Fernsby was wearing one slipper and one shoe.

Whenever his mother’s number flashed across his phone screen, Dan’s heart managed to gallop and skip a beat simultaneously. At the press of his finger and with an audible click the call connected, ‘Hey mum,’ he said, trying to sound nonchalant, but already anxious.

‘Is that Daniel Fernsby?’ The unfamiliar voice and unexpected question crowded him with nerves, ‘Yes, who’s this? Is everything okay with my mum?’

‘Yes, absolutely fine. Nothing to worry about. You mum’s having a cup of tea,’ Lydia immediately tried to reassure him, hearing his panic.

Once Lydia Hooch had finished explaining, Dan thanked her, and said that he would be along just as soon as he could to collect both his mother and her car. With the call ended, Dan had asked Alex, ‘Can you drop me at Latch Road, a neighbour found mum trying to get into her old house.’

The foreboding Victorian villa was the sort of rambling place where period dramas would once have been filmed. Built from terracotta-coloured bricks and partially clad in ivy, at each gable-end of the yawningly steep roof was a tall chimney stack. Both were topped with an enormous chimney pot, shaped like a spikey Saxon crown and stained black from years of coal smoke. Gazing up at the impressive height as they walked, Dan felt that the added spectre of circling ravens would certainly not have gone amiss. Upon eyeing the highest sash windows set almost in the eaves, he fully expected to see Miss Havisham staring grimly down. For the umpteenth time during the short walk from the car, Anthea enquired, ‘Where we going?’

‘Memory clinic, remember? I told you.’

Oblivious to the irony, Anthea answered, ‘Oh, I must have forgot. Why we here?’

‘The doctor wants to chat to you, and he needs to talk to me.’

‘Sounds queer,’ Anthea replied. The appointment had been made by the family GP, after Dan had called to explain what had happened to Anthea, and how he was getting more worried that she was, becoming a dangerous liability. The rest of the walk was done in silence, Anthea, strolling with her arm looped tightly through her sister’s, whilst Daniel her son, walked steps ahead, trying and failing to set the pace. Memory Clinic, such a polite, innocuous sounding place, but the reality made his stomach lurch. They were bringing Anthea here to measure her descent into madness, and as she traipsed ignorantly behind, arm in arm with his aunt, he felt terribly guilty and for the briefest of seconds he screwed his eyes tight.

The oak doors formed a seamless wooden arch when closed, but this afternoon each door was pushed hard against opposite walls. Just as they were about to step over the threshold at the front of the house, Anthea again asked, ‘Where are we going?’ Eunice watched Dan’s shoulders stiffen, but before he could say anything, she jumped in, rescuing the situation, ‘How about we find a nice cup of tea!’

‘And a biscuit?’ Anthea boomed, her voice catapulting into the echo of the vaulted ceiling.

Dan despaired. Before it was too late, he wanted to shake her, to yank her out of her dangerous malaise. But his mother’s biscuit-words felt like they were crumbling against the very walls of his heart. At the end of the entrance hallway was a wide staircase with a huge, varnished banister that snaked upwards and right, however just before reaching it, a sign directed them left. Dan, Eunice, and Anthea walked into a large windowless room, where they found several rows of uninviting plastic chairs. Some were already occupied by couples or family clusters, with everyone looking uncomfortable, and Dan knew that the pained expressions were not because of the curved orange seats. The rectangular room whiffed of distant mould and was filled with a murmur of nervous whispers, which sounded quite different to regular chatter and felt more imposing. Usually in waiting rooms there were bored children, trying not to misbehave under the stern glare of their equally bored parents, but there were no youngsters amongst this unhappy congregation, this place was for adults only. After sitting down, Dan turned to Anthea, who had become mesmerised by the diamond pattern of black and white floor tiles. It was then that the terrible realisation hit, she looked the same as all the other people becoming slowly broken. Looking about, it was disturbingly easy to pick out the one’s like his mother, those here to be assessed. Some looked vacant or confused, others blank, but unlike their relatives, none looked anxious nor worried. From that second, for Dan, Anthea stopped being just his mother, now she was his responsibility, and as he was later ashamed to admit she became his burden. Trying to drive out the awful thought, like a dog with fleas, vigorously Dan shook his head, but all that happened was Grandma Celia’s pious voice came clattering, ‘The Lord never gives more than you can handle.’

‘You okay lovey?’ Eunice enquired, watching her nephew.

‘Yeah, it’s just... you know.’ Eunice nodded sadly because she understood his turmoil, she was living the same thing. She wanted to grip his hand, to reassure him, but Anthea was in the way.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ Anthea demanded.

‘He’s fine Anth,’ Eunice replied, thankfully the answer seemed to satisfy her sister, who immediately looked elsewhere.

Becoming lost within himself, Dan wondered if they were all waiting in either the old dining room or ballroom. His imaginings of long forgotten grand occasions were eventually interrupted by Anthea, who declared slightly too loudly, ‘We could play draughts in here, couldn’t we?’

There was no point ignoring her, if he didn’t respond she would become irate, repeating the question more forcefully and with more volume. After nodding his agreement, Anthea fired a volley of other questions, ‘How long will it be? Are we at the hospital? Have you hurt yourself?’ Despite the loudness of her voice, nobody looked up or over, because everyone there was pitched into the same hapless boat, cut adrift. In one way or another, they were all wavering at the altar of the soon-to-be forgotten, teetering at a precipice of misery. Whilst Anthea glared impatiently, Dan was relieved to see Eunice coming back. She had helped Anthea dress that morning which Dan was glad about. Looking at some of the other sad people waiting to be seen, Anthea looked remarkably smart, today, at least, she was coordinated, with tidy hair and no visible signs of either her breakfast or lunch. Eunice was carrying a tray with three plastic cups dropped into the round slots. ‘Health and bloody safety, fancy not being allowed to carry coffee cups at my age! And I’ve got to take this back...’ Eunice grumbled, waving the tray once it was empty. The discarded tray reminded Daniel of mornings at the Equitable & Life coffee machine, where he and Moira had gossiped. After placing their plastic cups onto the low table nearest their uncomfy orange chairs, she lifted off the flimsy lids. The mud-coloured drink tasted as awful as it looked, grimacing and with a shudder Eunice muttered, ‘Good God! If you don’t like it, leave it...’ After blowing her drink, but without taking a sip, Anthea put it back down on the table, before saying, ‘We didn’t bring any grapes.... who are we visiting?’ At that moment, opposite where they were waiting, the plain wooden door to room number 3 opened, and a nurse dressed in maroon trousers and jacket with a cream collar and cuffs emerged, announcing in a voice sounding far too jolly, ‘Mrs Fernsby!’ As the trio rose, oblivious to the call of her name, Anthea asked, but this time more irritably, ‘Is someone poorly?’

The memory clinic visit was more of an ordeal for Eunice Lomax than her sister Anthea Fernsby, and for Eunice, it only served to emphasise the gaping chasm opening between them. It had been incredibly difficult to watch her sister answering the consultant’s questions, whilst smiling, sometimes laughing, but without showing any proper grasp of what was happening or why. Eunice was amazed how Anthea unconsciously flitted between parallel worlds of the present and the past. Daniel was astonished by the docility of his mother as she talked to the consultant, a softly spoken man, who’s patience and generous smile had put them all comfortably at ease. Recently when being asked obvious things like her name, age, the day, date or the year, Anthea would end up exploding in furious temper. However, there was something soothing about the rhythm of his voice and manner that far from aggravating Anthea, actually seemed to sooth. Observing her mannerisms, the use of her hands to articulate whatever tale she was telling, Eunice was struck by how Anthea could look and sound quite normal. With the spray of perfume and hair lacquer she even smelled the same, but it was her repetition of words and heartrending lack of fluency that betrayed Anthea’s invisible assailant, and the insight filled Eunice with dread and pity for her sister.

A few days after the memory clinic visit, Dan called Scottish Moira in Australia, who was properly saddened to hear of Anthea’s unyielding decline. Moira still saw her as a feisty no-nonsense woman, bolshy, opinionated, the life and soul of the party. When Moira had emigrated with Wayne, Anthea was full of beans, loud and brash, with the most glamorous hair and make-up of all her peers. Moira had not known Anthea when she was still married, but it was as clear as the nose on her ex-husband’s face, that Owen Fernsby had doted on her. Although Howard Montgomery had always been pleasant and polite, Moira could not see the attraction, but conceded that before settling down, she too, had had her fair share of dolts. When the relationship with Howard inexorably faltered and at Anthea’s instigation they separated, like everyone, Moira was not surprised.

After Dan had finished detailing how he had rescued Anthea from Latch Road, in the innocent belief that the thought would already have crossed his mind, Moira enquired, ‘What you going to do about the car now?’ Dan Fernsby’s silence was so protracted, eventually Moira was forced to ask, ‘Fernsy, you still there?’

‘Yes,’ he answered glumly, for her question had thrown him into a tailspin. ‘Bloody hell, I hadn’t really thought. I’ll have to stop her driving at least for now won’t I?’

Feeling bad immediately, Moira said, ‘Yes. Even without a diagnosis, you’ve gotta question how safe she is, what if she crashes, or causes one without even knowing?’

‘Shit!’ was all Dan could think to say, his mind now rammed with all the painful implications of exactly what the loss of her car would mean for him. ‘How the hell am I going to wrestle the keys from her?’

He sounded dismal, and with words loaded with love, she said, ‘Fucking hell Fernsy, I wish I could give you a hug....’ then quickly followed it up with, ‘I could fly over, be with you by the weekend.’

‘No!’, Dan answered rather too swiftly, but then realising and regretting his abruptness said, ‘Sorry, I meant no thanks. I’d love to see you, but I think we’re only at the start. Once we hear something definite from the memory clinic or the doctor, I’ll let you know.’

The outcome of the memory clinic visit confirmed all their worst fears, the dementia diagnosis was given by the doctor, who handed them a bumf of information about next steps and support organisations. Daniel was also given a letter enabling him to arrange for Anthea’s driving capacity to be assessed, and as he read the few sentences on the paper, Scottish Moira’s prophetic words played through his mind. If Anthea failed the assessment, which according to the doctor was more likely than not, this would be her first major liberty lost in an already shrinking life. Although Anthea seemed ignorant to all that had been discussed and the possible ramifications, a seed of understanding had somehow lodged in her mind. Over the next few days, repeatedly she asked, ‘Am I having a driving test?

‘Yes mum, sort of, but not yet.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you have to. Don’t worry about it.’ Anthea would have once argued with such a feeble answer, but her natural desire to debate was steadily being quelled. Now, whenever she asked a question, as long as an answer, any answer it seemed was forthcoming, this seemed enough to placate her. The sullenness of her once lively personality highlighted the ruin that her dementia was already wreaking.

Daniel drove his mother’s car to the test centre, as they crawled along the busy main road full of commuter and school traffic, Anthea asked, ‘Where are we going so early?’

‘It’s your driving review ... we talked about it, remember?’

Saying nothing, Anthea pulled at the shell shaped buttons on the front of her plain ankle-length dress. ‘Don’t do that mum, you’ll spoil it. You look nice, is it new? It’s my favourite colour.’

‘Ness got it when we went to town,’ Anthea replied, looking down at herself and half-smiling. This at least was true because Ness had told him.

‘I’m going to come with you, and I’ll sit in the back. The instructor will be in the front. Is that okay?’

‘You can drive. I need my other shoes these are no good,’ she waggled her feet to emphasise the point.

‘Aunty Ness put your pumps in that bag in the back. The driving won’t take very long, but you have to do it.’ Sometimes Eunice made Dan feel utterly inadequate, such a possibility would never have crossed his mind, yet Eunice had been three steps ahead.

‘Waste of pissing time if you ask me,’ Anthea concluded, ignoring her son, and looking out of the car window at the houses and gardens flashing by.

Already anxious and for fear of antagonising her further, Daniel overlooked the remark. If she became too irate nothing would persuade her to drive, and if that happened, they would still have to face the same ordeal at some later date.

In a little over 20 minutes the deed was done, with a full column of crosses on an observation sheet, like a driving test in reverse, the consequence would be just as life changing. When Anthea was politely informed that she must surrender her driving license, Dan expected indignant outrage and vigorous protest. However, because the lady with the clipboard represented authority, just like when she was talking to the doctor at the memory clinic, Anthea meekly accepted what she was told. Dan half wished she would challenge the decision, to prove that some of her fighting spirit remained, but she just nodded, looking as if all that she was being told affected somebody else. Feeling wretched, leaning forward, and placing his hand on her left shoulder, Dan asked, ‘Mum, you get what this means don’t you?’ His words elicited a mild reaction from his mother, she looked suddenly forlorn and embarrassed, which in turn made him feel loathsome when she snapped back, ‘Of course I bloody do! I’m not a five-year-old!’

Once back at the apartment, Anthea waved her son away refusing to let him inside, the question he had asked in the car had hooked her mind, and whilst she might forget everything else about the day, she would not forget that he had made her look stupid in front of the lady. Pacing around the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, Anthea found her favourite mug, it had a donkey on the front wearing a sunhat. Anthea was just about to remove the lid from the metal biscuit barrel, when a shout startled her, ‘Lost the car then, you let them take it without so much as a fight.’ Immediately forgetting both her drink and the biscuit, Anthea marched furiously into the sitting room where the voice came from. Whilst she had been out the intruders had been in and returned the sideboard from Latch Road along with her mother’s fireside chair, which this time was occupied by Irene Lomax, looking supremely smug. Anthea was neither surprised nor alarmed to see her, and said, ‘It wasn’t like that, Daniel was there, he said what to do.’

‘I’m surprised, normally such a sensible boy. You should have stood up to them, fancy letting our Ness play you,’ Irene tutted.

‘Who keeps moving this furniture, I’m going to talk to dad about it,’ Anthea remarked moodily, looking about the room.

Waiting for her mother to speak, Anthea became irritated by the relentless click of Irene’s knitting needles as she worked the wool between her spindly fingers. Once it became blindingly obvious that her mother had no intention of answering, Anthea demanded, ‘Who told you anyway?’

‘Nobody needs to tell me anything, I’m here, aren’t I…watching, listening? Just like nobody needed to tell me when you were pregnant, you can’t soft-soap me, not like your father.’

Confused by her mother’s spiteful recollection and strangely disorientated by her presence, Anthea could not think what to say. Rather than linger, she announced, ‘I’m going to start dinner.’ Turning away she moved towards the door, the clack of needles being the only sound.

When the water in the pan was simmering, Anthea plopped in the potatoes, before tipping in a length of salt. In the fridge was a cooked chicken, and prior to slicing, Anthea decided to ask her mother if she wanted breast or leg. Returning to the sitting room, Anthea could barely believe her eyes, the sideboard, her mother’s chair, and its occupant had all vanished. Anthea fumed, how could Irene just have disappeared like that, especially as she must have known that dinner was being prepared? The more she ruminated over the injustice of bad manners, the angrier she became, which her ever more annoyed with those sneaky bastards moving the furniture back and forth. Eventually she decided there was nothing for it, enough was enough, the time had come to have it out with all of them.

She had looked in all the obvious places, through cupboard drawers, inside her pockets, she had even tipped out her handbag and shopping bag, but the keys not even the spare were anywhere to be found. ‘Where the hell are they?’ Anthea yelled, scratching her head, before flopping into her armchair. Watching the birds down at the canal for several miserable minutes, eventually it occurred to Anthea that perhaps she had left the keys inside the car, which had happened before. When she reached the place where the car was usually parked, she was dismayed to find that just like the keys, the car was also missing. Whilst Anthea stood outside trying to makes sense of all these strange events, on the hob, the last of the water in the saucepan of potatoes disappeared. Being focussed upon calling her son, back in the apartment and marching into the sitting room, Anthea did not notice the acrid smell. Snatching up her phone, she pressed Daniel’s name, and just as soon as he answered, breathlessly she blurted, ‘Daniel, call the police! Those bastards have taken my car and all the keys and mum’s chair!’

‘Mum, I have your keys and the car. Remember what the man at the hospital said?’ Dan patiently explained.

Before he could say anything else, Anthea yelled, ‘Fuck the man and fuck you! I need to check on mum and there’s no bus.’

The shrill screech of the noise was so piercing and sudden, it gave Anthea such a shock that she ended their call. Dan recognised the sound of the smoke-alarm and looking in disbelief at his silent phone he cursed despairingly, ‘Shit!’ Panicked and afraid, he scrambled for his keys and the door latch all at the same time.

Chapter 21

Dogs, Ducks, Squirrels, Chickens

Just as Von had predicted, progressively Anthea found it tougher and tougher to cope with the demands of her job in the shop. All the youngsters delivering the early morning papers had noticed a change too. The newspapers were supposed to be numbered and sequenced by avenue and street, before being shoved into large hessian sacks, but some days Anthea bagged them up in the wrong order or the house numbers were incorrect, or worse still, there were editions missing. Anthea handled their complaints aggressively, refusing to accept any responsibility for errors, accusing them all, ‘You cycled a different way’, ‘You must have put some through the wrong doors’, ‘Just do it properly!’ Anthea’s disdain showed a clear break from her previous character, and if this was not bad enough, her tussles with the till were snowballing and becoming harder to conceal. Time and again, Von found it necessary to patiently explain, ‘Just touch the screen here, and the categories appear...see? Choose the thing that the customer wants.’ Each time the training was replicated, Anthea seemed to grasp what she was being told, and for the next few days coped. But with the pitiless shift of time, her recall of Von’s simple instructions slipped, forcing Anthea to continually apologise for her fuddled confusion. ‘I’m sorry, it’s this new till,’ she would explain, or ‘I’m waiting to be shown’. Initially, because there was no reason to doubt her sincerity, people were kindly tolerant with most feeling sorry for her. In fact, several benevolent customers embarrassed by Anthea’s obvious troubles took it upon themselves to complain to Von about her plight. Quite quickly though, even the most sympathetic began to see that perhaps Anthea was the problem. Von noticed customers starting to hang awkwardly back, waiting to be served by somebody other than Anthea, whilst trying not to appear overt or rude. In her trek to the world of blankness, Anthea had just passed the first sad milestone. Anthea Fernsby never forgot to fill the pocket of her work tabard with crunchy canine treats, regardless of everything else slipping in and out of her mind. Her enthusiasm for the customer’s dogs never dimmed, all of whom waited excitedly outside for the nice biscuit lady, apart from Rita the greedy Labrador who always bounded in.

When Dan had called asking to see her, Von was not in the slightest surprised. Arriving at his house, being less nervous this time round she had gladly accepted his offer of coffee. ‘Von, mum can’t come in anymore,’ Dan paused, unable to force himself into saying precisely what needed saying, afraid of wielding the knife to slash at his mother’s independence. Watching him, Von knew the depth of his turmoil because she felt something similar. First and foremost, Anthea was her friend, yet here she was colluding with the poor woman’s son to winkle her out of her job.

‘Daniel, it’s unsafe to leave her alone in the shop. When I dropped in one morning a while back, the till was wide open. Anybody could have dived over for a fistful of cash... she’s at risk... she is a risk... you do see, don’t you?’

Dan nodded, so slightly it was almost imperceptible. His silence compelled Von to press on, ‘Even outside work, I hardly see her these days, she either doesn’t turn up or turns up in the wrong place sometimes on the wrong day.’

With each of her words stabbing his conscience, Dan felt like he was being slain by a sly blade marking him disloyal. Although he had been putting the moment off, he knew that he was backed into a corner. He had no other option than to come clean about the memory clinic diagnosis. Pushing aside his coffee, for the first time and with a heavy heart, Dan was about to speak for his mother. He already felt guilty because he knew that Anthea would neither appreciate nor understand the words he was about to use. The onus of becoming his mother’s voice would be huge, and had he been able to foresee everything that lay ahead, this responsibility alone would have overwhelmed him. ‘Von, there is something you need to know,’ he revealed ominously.

‘Go on...’ she replied, locking eyes.

‘A little while ago, we took mum to see the GP, who referred us to the memory clinic. We went there with her, me, and aunty Eunice.’

Clearly waiting for something more concrete, Von made no comment. Feeling as if he were standing at a precipice being forced to jump, Dan closed his eyes. ‘We had to lie to her... I told mum I needed help getting Ness there. I don’t think even now she realises what was going on.’ Flushed and vexed, Dan dithered, indisposed to the action of purging both himself and indirectly his mother.

‘Daniel, what happened?’ Von asked softly, trying to help him. She felt terribly sad for the man, she had already sensed what he was going to divulge, but instinctively knew that it was better coming from him unfettered. Von thought that Dan’s jumble of dark hair gave him a moody almost smouldering air. His face skimmed by a soft shadow of stubble was alluring, ‘Such a waste,’ she thought, ‘otherwise I’d...even if you are Anth’s boy.’ Symbolically crossing her legs, Von tried to drive such wanton thoughts from her mind, as this was neither the time nor the place to fantasise about her stricken friend’s son. Dan’s cough re-focussed her attention. ‘I need a glass of water,’ he announced, ‘excuse me.’ Watching him head off into the kitchen, Von found herself savouring the cut of his jeans which hugged all the right places. Alone, apart from Creosote, who had squeezed herself into the shard of sunshine cutting the floor, whispering to the cat she confided, ‘What a damn waste!’

A minute or two later, when Dan returned, Von could see that his whole demeanour was changed, and he looked despondently resolute. In the kitchen he had given himself a stern pep-talk, the game was up, there was no point trying to pretend anymore. ‘Von.... What I am trying to tell you...’ his voice quivered.

‘Oh lovey...’ Von cooed, moving from her sofa to quietly sit next to him, her amorous thoughts replaced by motherly care. Without warning she took his hand, and in that moment, Dan had never been more grateful for the touch of another hand in all his life.

‘They took bloods, she did aptitude tests, it was pitiful. Just by watching her, I knew,’ his voice came in almost a whisper, and as he spoke, forcibly detaching himself from the emotion of the event, his words sounded flat as paper, ‘it was the strangest thing. She submitted to everything they asked, the whole lot. I expected a fight, but not a bit of it, she was as meek as a lamb.’

‘To be honest that doesn’t surprise me,’ Von interjected.

‘Why?’

Now Von looked uncomfortable, about to break Anthea’s confidence. Colour flooded her bleached face, ‘Months ago, she told me she was frightened. I tried to get her to tell me what of, but she wouldn’t or couldn’t. All she’d say was that the whispers were trying to get her.’ Involuntarily, Dan tightened his grip around Von’s hand. ‘I asked again what she meant but she poo-pooed me. But it was the quiet submission of her voice that bothered me. When I watch her struggling at work it’s always those words that come back. I should have told you, but somehow I couldn’t. I hoped if was just a phase or too much booze.’

‘She has dementia,’ Dan said emptily.

Von started to cry and Dan’s eyes burned as he forced it all back.

Between them, as they concocted a plan to lift Anthea from her job in the shop, Daniel was adamant that his mother be given a dignified exit. Eventually they hit on the idea that Von should have a discussion with the shop owner Mr Doukas, a sympathetic man with a kind soul. Although Anthea had not worked too long for him, Thomas Doukas liked her and was saddened to learn of her diagnosis, and without hesitation he agreed to their proposal. Von arranged to see Anthea after she had finished her Monday shift and was dreading the occasion. Dan turned up in time to accompany his unsuspecting mother into the office, because both Dan and Von were fretful of Anthea’s response. In a voice splintered with dryness and nerves, Von embarked upon their rehearsed explanation, ‘Anth, there’s no easy way to put this, but business is slack.... too slow. Mr Doukas is going to let his part-timers go, it isn’t just you; the same thing is going to happen to ‘Upstairs Wendy.’ The entire speech was a blatant fabrication, but they were working on the assumption that Anthea would not be able to figure it out. Dan had anticipated an aggressive reaction by Anthea to the news of her dismissal, but again, just like when they visited the hospital, the fight seemed to have gone out of his mother. Once Von had finished speaking, Anthea merely shrugged. After an interminable agony of silence, all she asked was, ‘Am I still allowed to give the dogs a biscuit?’ The lump in Dan’s throat felt bigger than a bowling ball.

Eunice Lomax decided that once her elder sister was finished at the shop, she would visit more often to keep an eye on her, but more crucially to share her company whilst there were still lucid days. Although she was not surprised by the diagnosis, it had still been a jolt to think that her once feisty, glamorous, unpredictable sister was morphing into a stranger. Eunice had expected to feel grief, but mostly for Anthea she felt sorrow and pity, because as far as Eunice could tell, her sister appeared oblivious to the seep of change already assailing her character. Eunice said to Dan, ‘The real sadness of it all is that this should happen now, when for the first time in her life, Anth is settled with herself.’ Sitting on a rickety bench at the bottom of Eunice’s well-kempt garden, the sunlight was mollifying. In the corner farthest from her house stood a huge willow, where from an arch of time-woven branches, a curtain of speckled vines plunged towards the surface of the lawn. The grand old tree looked serene and made Dan feel the same, and whilst listening to the birds twittering and watching the summer insects buzz, Dan could have easily drifted with the idleness of the summer afternoon. Instead, he asked, ‘How d’you mean?’ Tossing aside her canvas gardening gloves, Eunice explained, ‘She’s spent her whole life leaving one man for the next. Started when she married. Anth didn’t just leave home, she left Dad. Then from Owen to Howard... and after that, well... you know as well as I do. But once she got the flat, she quietened down, seemed a bit more peaceful. I don’t know.... perhaps I’ve got it wrong, maybe it was the start of all this.’

‘I’ll tell you something you do have wrong,’ Dan laughed, ‘it wasn’t a flat, was it?!’

‘Knocking round with those girls did her the world of good, it doesn’t seem fair.’

‘You’re right.’ Dan nodded, ‘but I suppose because of what she’s got, we’ll always think she didn’t have quite enough time.’

‘We’re going to have to keep a weather eye on her. Like granny Irene used to say, you’ve won the hat, you’ve gotta wear it. But if we go one day at a time, between us we’ll manage.’

‘I wish they’d be more precise. If she had cancer, they’d be telling us weeks, months, or years. But with this, nobody seems sure. Ness, whatever happens, we should keep her at home as long as we can,’ Dan said.

‘And is that what our social worker thinks?’

‘For now, said we’ll know when. I hate the thought of her being in a home.’

‘I know love, but like we just agreed, one day at a time, eh?’ Eunice said, placing her hand gently on his knee.

When at last Anthea opened the door, she was surprised to see her sister, declaring, ‘Oh, it’s you!’

‘Who else were you expecting, I told you I was coming over when I rang.’ Ignoring the question, Anthea headed to the kitchen and silently Eunice trailed behind.

‘Mum will be back in a minute; kettles just boiled,’ Anthea announced. Seeing the slightest thread of steam curling from the spout, for the briefest moment Eunice thought about reminding Anthea that Irene was long-dead. At first, when Anthea had started talking about visits from their deceased mother, Eunice had corrected her. However, this only served to enrage Anthea, who refused to believe or could not comprehend that both Roy and Irene Lomax were gone. Eunice would explain what had happened to them, and without fail, Anthea became distraught, just like she was hearing the news for the first time. Unable to stand the rawness of her sister’s repeated grief, Eunice’s approach now was to casually change the subject.

‘As the water’s hot I’ll make our drinks, you okay with tea?’

‘Fine,’ Anthea replied leaving the kitchen, then crossing the hallway, ‘I’ve the wrapping to finish,’ she shouted.

The room was muggy because none of the windows or the French doors were open. Regardless of the humid day, Anthea was wearing a thick sweatshirt and the collar of her blouse underneath was showing half in and half out. ‘It could do with some fresh air in here, I’m going to open a window or two,’ Eunice suggested, already releasing a latch as she spoke.

As usual, because this is how their new routine worked, Anthea hollered, ‘No!’

‘It’s proper stuffy, you’ll get a headache.’

‘I don’t want them coming in!’ Anthea added in a quieter tone, with panic clearly evident in her voice.

‘How about I open one now, and before I go, I’ll make sure they’re closed and locked? You can watch, to be sure I do it properly,’ Eunice suggested, familiar with their learned drill. Letting go of the handle, Eunice stood back, giving Anthea time to consider the offer, which of course, she always accepted. Glancing over to the dining table, which was busy with wrapping paper, labels and tape, Eunice said, ‘Gosh, you’re early. You know what mum used to say about doing it before November.’

‘Well, she can say what she likes, it’s her idea. She’s gone to get more cards.’

Eunice had no clue what Anthea was planning to do with the Christmas paper because there were no gifts on the table, trying to divert her attention again, Eunice said, ‘Once you’re done, put everything in a box, so you don’t lose it in the run-up.’

‘I’m not bloody five! I know what to do!’ Anthea snapped.

‘Humbug! Drink your tea, bloody misery guts!’ Eunice said, lifting up her mug and laughing deliberately loudly to diffuse the situation.

Anthea laughed too, her annoyance and Christmas forgotten.

Eunice suggested that they take a stroll across the garden down in the direction of the canal. When the weather was fine, she liked to take the chance get Anthea outdoors. ‘These look silly with a dress, but they’ll have to do, we’re not going far,’ Eunice said, Lacing up her pumps.

‘You look like a ragamuffin,’ Anthea remarked before laughing.

‘Said the woman also wearing... oh yes, trainers,’ Eunice retorted, ‘I bought some stale crusts, if you like, we can chuck it at the ducks.’

The idea seemed to please Anthea, who immediately went to fetch her anorak.

‘I doubt you’ll be needing that, it’s hot outside,’ Eunice advised.

Obediently, Anthea flung her coat over the back of the nearest dining chair, whilst saying, ‘Don’t forget the windows, ‘cos there’s no room today, not with all the wrapping. I’ll tidy when we get back.’

‘Room for what?’ Eunice asked, unable to stop herself.

‘The sideboard and chair from Latch Road. I’m fed up with it, backwards and forwards all the time,’ Anthea clarified, with a deep sigh and a sharp hint of irritation.

‘I’m sure you are,’ Eunice concurred, swinging open the French windows, allowing the afternoon to drift in and harry the staleness from the room. Offering her arm, Ness said, ‘Come on Anth, let’s walk a while. Don’t worry, I’ll keep a look-out, we won’t be too long anyway. And if the intruders come, we’ll both send the buggers and the sideboard packing.

The balmy afternoon was glorious, the sea-blue sky unblemished with clouds. Looking as though they were skimming the edge of heaven, summer swallows dived and flitted. Walking in the direction of the canal, Anthea relished both the warmth of the sun and the rich soil-like smell of the water. The ripples created by their handfuls of stale bread hurled across the surface of the olive water alerted a flotilla of ducks to the presence of food. Laughing and pointing, the ladies watched the birds vigorously snatching and gulping at the partially submerged slop, and for a few merry minutes worry flew from Eunice’s mind. For Anthea, with the migration already well underway, nothing flew from hers. Once all the floating offerings had been gobbled up, Anthea announced, ‘When we were girls, we used to throw food for the squirrels.’

Charmed by the bittersweet memory, Eunice saw herself as a child, standing with Anthea and their mother in the garden at Latch Road, watching the broken-down oak tree where the creatures scampered. Wistfully she recalled, ‘You used to cry when the squirrels ignored it.’

Before too long the ducks were all dispersed, and turning away from the water, Anthea and Eunice began a slow mooch up the slope back towards the apartment building. As they ambled Eunice noticed to the left side of the garden, amongst a thicket of stooping trees, a large solid wooden frame, which was fixed with taught honeycomb wire. Halting and pointing, she asked, ‘What’s going on over there?’

‘Oh...  Mr & Mrs Drake, getting rescue battery hens. Len’s been building that for the poor things to live in,’ Anthea said, looking across the lawn.

‘How nice, all those fresh eggs, I bet you’ll be able to gather some once they start laying proper.’

‘Peter,’ Anthea whispered, pulling her sister close.

For the briefest second Eunice’s eyes widened, and keen to change the subject, quickly she teased, ‘Come on Lillibet, I don’t know about you, but I’m parched. Let’s get back for a cuppa.’

After giving her sister a playful slap, Anthea replied, ‘Sod tea, I’ve got sherry.’

Chapter 22

Hen-House Wolf

Weeks passed before Anthea finally stopped pestering for her car, but it was a long and much harsher slog than any of them had been prepared for. Whenever anyone visited, Anthea would become or would already be engaged in a noisy search of her apartment for her lost keys, checking the same places over and over. Dan hoped that this fruitless activity was not something happening day in, day out, particularly when she was alone. He hated to think of his mother being perpetually bewildered by an inability to lay her hands on an impossible prize. One day, pointing to the hallway wall, Anthea told her son, ‘I want you to put a hook there for my keys. Someone keeps losing them and I’m sick-to-death of it!’ In the way parents learn how to distract tantrum throwing toddlers, Dan had developed the same technique with Anthea. ‘When the ironmongers are next open, I’ll get you one... tell you what though, I could murder a cuppa... you got any biccies?’ Nine times out of ten, appealing to Anthea’s maternal instinct worked a treat in diverting her attention or temper. Unfortunately for Daniel today was the ‘ten out of ten day’, and with her temper prodded by his lack-lustre response, Anthea snapped, ‘Forget it! Don’t fucking bother!’  Without both keys and car Anthea had to be content with storming off into the kitchen and slamming the door very hard. When these outbursts had first started Daniel would rebuke her. However, like in a bad poker game this would raise the stakes of both her anger and fury, and before he knew it, they would fall into a spiteful verbal duel. The hangover of such a confrontation could stalk Dan for days, whereas for Anthea the episode would be forgotten just as soon as it was over. After a particularly turbulent argument with his mother, Dan decided it was time to speak to somebody who could help him better untangle the nuances of dementia driven behaviour. Somehow, for his own sanity, to better comprehend the complications of her peculiar world, he needed to find a way of throwing light onto the increasing gloom of his mother’s muddled life.

Daniel called Christine Jenkins one Tuesday evening, after he had been given her telephone number by a nice lady from the organisation Mind, whom he had contacted after their last skirmish over a box of frozen fish fingers. Christine’s lyrical voice echoed with the deep roll of the valleys where she was born, the tone exquisitely soft like a beautifully painted watercolour. He would never forget one of the first things she told him, ‘What you’re suffering…and will continue to suffer, is a type of bereavement. But one with strings attached.’ Throughout all the years of his mother’s illness that particular phrase would come to simultaneously comfort and taunt him, but on that first evening as they talked, he had no comprehension of all that lay ahead. Conversation between them ebbed and flowed as Christine asked questions and he answered, with each trying to glean the measure of the other. ‘Leave her searching Dan because she will anyway. For your mum the loss of her keys or whatever she is looking for is acutely real to her at that time. If you leave her looking without making a big fuss, the significance of the thing will fade. Your mum’s life is going to become a sequence of obsessions, which only she will understand.’

‘But she gets frantic, then goes nuts,’ he explained, sounding despondent. Christine said nothing, imposing an unnaturally long pause between them, a technique she used effectively, especially when the client was new, to till the conversational ground. Her job was not to become Daniel Fernsby’s friend, she was only there to help, shifting him from one perspective to another, restoring a balanced view of both his and his mother’s changed lives. To break the drag, Dan was tempted to fill the muted seconds with more words, but instead he waited.

‘Dan, I think quite unintentionally it’s you making her frantic. In her head you’re asking daft questions and preventing her from completing her most critical task, which at that moment is finding whatever she perceives as being lost. I know it’s difficult to visualise, but your mum’s head is bursting with disorder. What you see as helping she sees as intrusive.... threatening even, it looks to her like you’re taking control.’

‘You’re saying I’m to blame...’ his voice trailed huffily away.

‘Not at all. Whilst she’s searching Dan, what do you do?’ Christine asked, deciding to change tack. Listening to his breathing from the other end of the line, she could almost visualise his confused expression. ‘I ask her to stop,’ Dan eventually admitted. Christine could hear that he was unsettled by her challenges, but it was important that he got used to her questioning his view of events and as this was their first meeting, albeit over the phone, she was going easy on him. ‘Dan, do you ask her, or do you tell her?’ Dan did not confirm one way or the other, which was the response Christine had been expecting.

‘Okay, let’s try a different angle,’ Christine suggested, ‘see if this helps you. Tell me, when your mum is tipping the place upside down, what are you actually physically doing?’

Simple words, but the question seemed fiendishly difficult, making Dan feel like he was groping through fog. Christine patiently waited, until a hesitant answer fell from his lips, ‘Nothing... I’m not doing anything, because that makes her rage even more.’

‘Dan, imagine you’ve lost something. It seems like the most important thig to you in all the world. In the midst of your ever increasingly frantic searching your mum just stands watching you. Despite your growing anxiety and frustration at not being able to find the object, mum does nothing to help, other than repeatedly telling you stop looking. How d‘you think that’s going to make you feel?’

‘Annoyed, furious...angry I suppose. I try to tell her that the keys aren’t lost,’ he said weakly, but Christine could sense his mind turning.

‘But how does she know that if she can’t find them? Dan, you Mum’s view of the world is fractured, you and I know it and make allowances... Anthea doesn’t. Her life, her perceived reality is turning into a tapestry of holes, which she’ll plug with facts that are either true or aren’t, but to her there’s no discernible difference.’

‘What are you saying that I should simply let her keep on looking?’

‘Yes, partly. Your mum is fixating on the keys because they’re tangible, they’re a stable memory because she still knows what they are. She’ll always know what they are, like a chair or a table.’

‘But then she’ll want the car,’ Dan said, on the verge of irritation.

‘I don’t think so, driving is too abstract. Where would she go? Once a key is in place and she can see it, I think she’ll be calmer, then you can distract her with something else. Why not let her find one, see what happens?’ The advice evoked another of Grandma Celia’s favourite pious phrases, employed when she wanted to be critical without appearing judicious, ‘there’s none so blind as those who don’t see.’

Jean Fernsby, the sister of Anthea’s ex-husband hated watching Anthea fade, the slow but steady demise of her beloved friend was wrenching. Often, Jean found herself replaying the discussions of their youth, woeful echoes of all the exciting things they were going to do together, adventures they had been planning to share. One foolish weekend in aunty Dot’s caravan had snuffed out all their glorious plans. Anthea fell pregnant to Owen and foul of both their mothers who bundled her off to the registry office. From sitting next to each other on their first day at infant school, throughout the intervening years, Jean had been with Anthea every step of the way. Naïve days of dances and fellas when they were young, buying lippie and lacquer from Woollies and smoking fags on the top-deck, thinking they were grown-ups. In the chaotic years following Anthea’s divorce and Howard, wearing almost the same lippie and lacquer there had been more dancing and fellas, only this being the second time round, casual sex came into the mix. Unlike all of her friends and colleagues, except curiously for Eunice, Jean had never married. There had been chances, but in a brave honesty that Celia her mother had never understood, Jean knew that doubt meant second-best. Once, at somebody else’s wedding, Jean had overheard her mother brutally announce, ‘Some girls are brides and others are not, our Jean suffers that catastrophe.’ Jean wondered what her mother would have made of the lax modern world and felt sure that if she listened hard enough, she would hear her gravely spinning.

If Anthea answered the door quickly, usually it meant that the visit would be better, if not, with a sinking feeling, Jean knew that the visit would be tricky. The responsibility of a shared history obliged Jean to keep visiting her stricken friend. Sadly, every time she found it necessary to brace herself just a little more against the pain of watching Anthea plunge further into murk. Aggravated by her anxiousness the arthritis in Jean’s hip gnawed. Waiting for Anthea to come, Jean leaned firmly on her stick, she was about to push the buzzer button again, when slowly the door began to open. Once ajar, cautious as a new-born foal, Anthea peeped from around the frame. ‘If you’ve come selling, I told you the last time.’ Jean was wearing her calf length coat, which she had owned for so long it had become retro fashion. The woollen garment a criss-crossed pattern of white and black yarn, fastened with big round wooden buttons had long been coveted by Anthea. Take aback by Anthea’s confusion, Jean declared uncertainly, ‘I’m not selling anything, it’s me, Jean.’

From beneath a mess of black hair, Anthea blinked slowly, she said nothing and just gawked, her brown eyes not quite narrowed were furiously working out how to slot everything together. Anthea did not move, neither did the door, and Jean stood still as a lopsided statue. Suddenly, as if her cognitive agility was all fixed back together, Anthea blurted, ‘What you waiting for?’ The door swung wide with Anthea disappearing behind it, saying, ‘Come along in!’ There was quite a step from the corridor over the threshold into the apartment, and carefully before tackling it, Jean slotted her stick into the hallway. Anthea growled, Hurry up! For God’s sake!’ adding, ‘you’re too bleeding slow to catch cold.’ Once Jean was inside and the door closed with an almighty slam, and Anthea trundled off towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ The apartment smelt fusty, the aroma a mixture of yesterday’s fry, cigarettes, vague deodorant, feint sweat, everything combining to produce a general state of staleness.

By the time they were seated in the equally as stagnant lounge, sipping tea and chatting, at first glance, it would have been easy to miss the tension between them. The smartly dressed woman with the stick was the more nervous of the two, she sat on the edge of her seat. The second woman looked raggedy, on the fringe of being unkempt. In other days, if Anthea had seen someone dressed the same way, she would have unkindly remarked, ‘Dress in the dark, did you?’  Anthea was not entirely oblivious to Jean’s tension and asked, ‘You okay?’ Nodding and furrowing her forehead Jean merely smiled and finished her tea. Anthea wondered whether Jean was starting to go a bit funny, because the last few times she had seen her, Jean had behaved strangely. Her odd behaviour made Anthea think of Fluffy their aged cat, who had gone odd, and in the end the vet insisted the poor thing be put down. When Jean returned from the jitchen with two cups of fresh tea, Anthea said, ‘Fluffy went senile, we had her put to sleep.’

‘Gosh, that was a long time ago.’

Anthea was gazing out of the French windows down towards the canal, and despite the glorious weather, Jean noticed that all the windows were shut. Eunice had warned her that Anthea was still refusing to open them. Unlike Ness who was far more resilient, Jean could not face the battle of the window latch, so instead suggested, ‘It’s a lovely day, how about a stroll Anth? Looks busy down by the water, I love the ducks and geese. I forgot to bring bread, but we could still go, couldn’t we?’

Anthea never tired of the canal, the earthy smell, the sound, the splash of squabbling feathers, everything about the environment rejuvenated her. Slyly stealing a sideways glance at her friend, Jean wished that they could somehow stay in this moment, freeze time, stop the clock. Anthea was already changed, and sadly, this reduced version of her character was now the best of her. Jean began to feel mournful, because tomorrow, next week, the next month, even more of her friend would be stolen. How unfair Jean thought that this should be happening to Anthea now. If only she had had the chance of enjoying just a few more unfettered years, before being struck down by an old person’s disease. If it had happened when she was older, perhaps it might have seemed fairer? Before she became too melancholy, turning to Anthea, Jean suggested, ‘shall we walk?’

Looking back across the slope and pointing, Jean asked, ‘What’s that?’ Following the direction of Jean’s point, Anthea looked over to the wood and wire coop, ‘Mr Drake made it, for the rescue chickens from the factory.’

‘’Oh, how lovely! Let’s go see them!’ Before Anthea could answer, Jean had set off up the slope, arthritis proving small hindrance to her desire of seeing the birds. Inside the large square coop were six of the scrawniest chickens Jean had ever seen, they were emaciated with patchy clumps of bronze-coloured feathers and naked bobbled skin. ‘Poor things,’ Jean lamented, upon seeing their pitiful state. Both women stared in silence watching the birds scratch and forage, slotting her fingertips through the honeycomb wire, Jean remarked, ‘I wonder if they’re laying.’ Anthea mumbled something that Jean, being so occupied with pity for the birds did not hear. Watching then peck, Jean said dreamily, ‘Free-range beautiful golden yolks.’ Recoiling so quickly from the wire it looked as if she had thrown herself backwards, Anthea repeated, only this time more loudly, ‘Peter…’

‘Anthea, sweetheart, what on earth’s the matter?’ Jean asked, shocked by panicked tone and expression of her oldest friend. Turning on her heel and without bothering to wait, Anthea had already started back up the grassy slope.

Jean remained disquieted by Anthea’s bizarre behaviour and had subsequently spent hours replaying the event, analysing every last snippet of their conversation in search of a clue. Back in the apartment, Anthea had clammed up, refusing point blank to say anything, and effectively sent Jean away. To settle her own mind, Jean decided to tell Eunice. Since the start of Anthea’s slide the two women had built a stronger, closer friendship. Eunice’s temper did not match the flame colour of her hair, nor did she possess the same verbal bolshiness that her elder sister once had. The prime difference between the two sisters was that Eunice had always stood up to Irene Lomax. Without shouting or protracted debate, Eunice refused to bend to her mother’s will, sticking resolutely to her own path. Like an old locomotive, Irene had puffed indignation when Eunice and Vince Pope chose to cohabit rather than marry, unashamedly disobeying her command. As a last resort Irene even tried blatant emotional blackmail, ‘I don’t know! Your father would be bitterly disappointed. You were the apple of his eye and yet there he is, barely in his grave and you behave like this!’ Fully expecting her headstrong daughter to buckle, for good measure Irene made the sign of the cross. Eunice did not yield and calmly replied, ‘Dad wouldn’t care, all he’d mind about is that Vince is a nice bloke who makes me happy. And whilst we’re at it, Dad’s apple was my sister, whom he did try to stop getting married!’

‘You always were a ‘Mary, Mary quite contrary’, do you want to burn in hellfire?’ Irene retorted, shaken by her daughter’s overt belligerence.

‘Why should I worry? You’ve been holding my feet to the fire for years,’ Eunice jibed, confident that the battle was won.

Jean Fernsby and Eunice Lomax arranged to meet in a bar where idle punters could sit and sip through lazy afternoons, whilst a fine-looking man at the piano tinkled comfortably familiar tunes. It was difficult to believe that the venue had once been the main post office, where Eunice had queued alongside her mother, with all the other impatient mothers rocking big prams on family allowance day. Eunice could still conjure a distant sense of shame, whenever she thought about the time that her mother had given her a walloping in front of all the other sniggering children. Where there used to be counter booths dispensing giros and gossip, there were now funky café tables and comfy chairs. Jean Fernsby, her stick tucked discreetly alongside her was already seated when Eunice arrived, and with a smile said, ‘If you don’t mind, I shan’t stand. By the time I’m up and down again, this will have gone warm!’ smiling she pointed at the wine cooler, ‘I ordered Sauvignon.’

‘Fine, you know me, A-B-C…’ Eunice confirmed, sitting down opposite.

Reaching for the bottle, Jean groaned as Eunice cheerfully elaborated, like every time, ‘Anything but Chardonnay!’ Watching her fill their glasses, Eunice admired Jean’s sleek blue shift style dress, which complimented her figure and slender shoulders. Jean had always been a dapper dresser with an innate sense of style, enviously Eunice suspected that the garment was an original. ‘That’s a lovely dress Jean, these days I have to manage bingo-wings!’

‘Get out of it! You’ve a lovely figure!’

‘How was she then? What happened?’ Eunice asked, ignoring the compliment whilst accepting her brim-full glass. It was an unspoken rule between the two women, whenever they met, to quickly get all the Anthea stuff out of the way, so that for the rest of their time together they could focus on cheerier matters. ‘Initially, confused. She didn’t recognise me,’ Jean revealed.

‘Oh dear,’ Eunice remarked, before asking, ‘did she start looking for her keys?’

‘Not this time. I was going to ask you about that, what’s made her stop?’

Eunice explained about the key hook, nodding and clearly impressed, Jean observed, ‘Clever Dan.’ To the table behind where they were sitting, a waiter delivered a platter of sizzling food and with the hissing smell twisting and twirling across the air, Eunice pulled a menu out of a wooden block to see what might have been ordered. ‘We should eat here next time; it’s had good reviews.’ Jean thought that whatever had just been served smelt far too oily, ‘Ness, something happened that’s bothered me, she behaved really strangely.’ Abandoning the menu, Eunice, her face now drawn with concern looked slowly up. After Jean had finished talking, Eunice was quiet for quite a few seconds. ‘We need to keep her away from the coop; I’ll have a word with Mr. Drake. Poor Anth. After all these years it’s still swirling in there.’

‘Ness, I don’t understand, do you know what this is about?’

Eunice solemnly nodded. ‘Remember at the top of our road, there was that brand new Standard Vanguard?’ Jean shook her head and Eunice continued, ‘the man who owned it, Mr Wolf. Always wore a waistcoat even in summer. Now you remember?’ Jean nodded, vaguely recalling the name but not the man or his car, but without her confirmation, Eunice would get all waylaid.

‘One day, he took me and dad out for a spin, dad was cock-a-hoop. The old man was green with envy, not that he ever showed it. When we got back, Finley Wolf showed us his sweet-pea canes, and ‘cos dad said they were mum’s favourites, he cut us a bunch...’ Eunice paused, and Jean had a nasty feeling of foreboding. ‘At the bottom of the garden was a henhouse, painted bright red like a pillar box. I was absolutely dying to see it. In the end Dad asked Mr Wolf if we could go over. One of the birds let me stroke its feathers, I was thrilled, he.... Mr Wolf told me that if I wanted, I could bring my sister round for a look,’ Eunice took a mouthful of cold wine, ‘We kept going back, me and Anth. Once a week, which soon turned into every few days. We didn’t tell dad because he’d have said we were making a nuisance of ourselves. Mr Wolf told us because he lived alone there were too many eggs for one person, and if we wanted, as long as we collected them, we could take the spare to our mother.’

The revelation flicked a switch in Jean’s mind, ‘That was it! Ness, she was fine ‘til I mentioned them laying eggs,’ she announced interrupting Eunice’s tale. Like a December afternoon, Eunice’s expression darkened.

‘When he left the side door open that meant there were eggs for us. Inside the henhouse was just about tall enough for us to stand up, there lots of little crates filled with straw or ripped newspaper fixed to the walls. Strangely, I don’t ever recall the chickens being in there, but it always stank.’ Jean held her breath at the monotony of all the insignificant detail for it felt excruciatingly sordid.       ‘Anth never went without me. I loved collecting the eggs, which mum used to make cakes and gleaming custards, she’d often send us up with some for Finley. One day, when we went inside Mr Wolf was already there. Half crouching, waiting.’

‘Uh-oh,’ Jean murmured.

‘Uh-oh, indeed,’ Eunice affirmed, lowering her voice, ‘He kicked closed the door and we couldn’t see properly. At first, I thought he was rubbing a baby bird...one that was injured.’

‘Dear God!’ Jean groaned,

Nodding methodically, Eunice continued, ‘His trousers were nearly down. I couldn’t make sense of it. I wanted to laugh, but then I worked out what it was in his hand. Then I didn’t want to laugh, because I thought we were going to be in such trouble for looking at his willy.’ Even to Eunice, the words now sounded preposterous, she stopped talking and poured the remainder of the Sauvignon into her glass.

‘And?’ Jean whispered urgently, barely able to stand the horrible suspense.

‘Mr Wolf grabbed Anthea’s hand and shoved it up ‘n down his dick, said if we wanted eggs, we needed to be good girls and play with his peter.’ Jean gasped. ‘Do you know what stays in my mind most?’

Jean shook her head, her wine glass looked as though it were levitating halfway towards her mouth.

‘The stringy spittle hanging from his mouth!’ Jean shuddered, as Eunice continued, ‘Unfortunately for Mr Wolf, Anthea had long nails. She didn’t half make him yelp; he called her a wicked little bitch. One of us barged open the door and we absolutely flew. We never went back, and I don’t remember ever seeing him again.’

‘Dirty bastard, I wonder why Anth never told me.’

‘We were just kids. We thought Dad would belt us, so we made a pact never to tell. My poor Lillibet, after all this time to be frightened once more by big bad Finley Wolf,’ Eunice said sadly.

Chapter 23

Brush of Advice

Anthea was bothered by a feeling that something unpleasant had happened, and that the event had been recent and had somehow involved Jean. By being unclear when she had last seen her friend, Anthea was busy checking the calendar. Each month showed a funny painting of outsized ladies with big hair, bigger heels, and voluminous breasts, which made her think fondly of The Locarno, the dancehall she had frequented years before. But Jean’s name was not written inside any of the numbered squares below the cartoon picture and just to be sure, Anthea had checked them all. Annoyed by her baffling unease she padded back down the hallway. Once in the kitchen she clicked the kettle on, then almost immediately changing her mind, clicked it off. Anthea stooped to pull open the sticky cupboard door beneath the sink, and after reaching blindly in with her fingers touched what she was searching for.

After clapping eyes on the sideboard in the sitting room, reappeared from Latch Road and loaded with Christmas fruit, copper skinned clementines, holly-coloured apples, and a claw of golden bananas, Anthea gasped. Quickly looking around at the window latches, she was perplexed to see them all still locked. Her palms began to sweat and with her heart bumping, Anthea very nearly let go of the bottle she was carrying. One way or another, the furniture was still getting in, ‘How the effing hell…’ she cursed. By contrast, she was not surprised to see her mother sitting serenely in the long-backed chair. Irene Lomax, wrapped in a quilted candy floss housecoat that tumbled way past her knees was busy knitting. ‘I only brought one glass,’ Anthea guiltily admitted, partially hiding the sherry behind her back.

‘That 23 goes the long way up Drapers Hill now,’ Irene said blithely, without bothering to look up. Ignoring news of the bus, Anthea asked, ‘Is dad coming?’

‘I should hardly think so, you look a proper sight,’’ Irene sniped, without disrupting the click of her needles. Anthea was wearing sunshine cotton trousers, a mauve blouse patterned with flowers and a fluffy green cardigan, with a sloppy collar and gaping cuffs. Wrinkling her nose, Irene also sniped, ‘A squirt of smelly wouldn’t go amiss either.’

When Anthea returned to the lounge from her bedroom after spraying herself with Jasmine & Elderflower perfume, her sallow-faced mother declared in words that were as icy as they were unexpected, ‘You should never have married.’ Such was the shock of the announcement, Anthea thought that she might need her asthma inhaler and took several gulps and seconds before replying. Even then, it felt as though her words were snatching her breath, ‘You made me.... I told you, that day in British Home Stores, I bloody told you!’ The scorch of her temper felt like lava oozing through her veins as she gabbled, ‘you and Celia Fernsby! You left us no choice, so it’s a bit rich and a bit too late now for a change of mind, don’t you think?!’

Quite aloof from her quivering daughter and sitting unnervingly still, Irene retorted, ‘One of us had to see sense, your father was far too soft and silly with both you girls.’ Scowling, whilst skulking behind her mother, Anthea felt utterly confused.

‘I was too scared to defy you.’

‘Too scared! Huh! That’s rich I must say! You defied me every school day when you wouldn’t go! What I absolutely didn’t tell you to do was leave Owen, which is why you shouldn’t have married! Wedding vows are for life my girl, not just ‘til your knicker elastic sags.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Anthea snapped, storming round to face her mother. Jabbing her finger through the air she accused, ‘And you know it! But you just couldn’t help yourselves, could you? Constantly interfering and piling on the pressure!’ Anthea’s eyes blazed like her mounting temper.

‘Anthea my girl, and if I hadn’t, what then? I’ll tell you what...my grandson born a bastard! Fancy running out on a good man, the father of your child for a half-blind stammerer!’

‘Who showed me I was alive! Took me to the theatre, the ballet...made love to me!’ Anthea yelled.

‘You weren’t bought up to be vulgar! Don’t talk like a slut,’ Irene said sternly, twitching slightly.

‘Admitting that a man has made love to you doesn’t make you a slut,’ Anthea pointed out with a weary sigh, then on a tide of sudden fury she admitted, ‘Let me tell you, just so you know! I have been a slut, but never with Owen and never with Howard!’

‘Anthea Lillibet, I’ve warned you! We don’t like grubby talk; I’m beginning to think your mouth might benefit from a scrub of soap.’

Anthea glared daggers, whilst Irene stared impassively back, but her lazy expression was so enraging it caused Anthea to shout, ‘Stop being prudish! If you’d kept your nose out, we’d have all been okay, me, Owen, Daniel, Howard, Dad!’ A hostile silence ensued, when without warning, to highlight her mother’s blind unfairness, Anthea screeched, ‘You’re a sodding selfish old bitch!!’

After closing the front door, Dan was alarmed to hear Anthea shouting, and panicked rushed along the hallway. Striding into the lounge he was perturbed, but not, he was to later admit, entirely surprised to find his mother standing alone. ‘Mum,’ he said, clearly startling her, because when she spun round her face was flushed, and her eyes boiling with wild fury. ‘What on earth’s going on?’ he asked. Ignoring her son and turning to continue the argument with her mother, Anthea was aghast to see that in the blink of an eye, Irene Lomax and the Latch Road sideboard had vanished. Immediately deflated, steadying herself by placing her right hand on the edge of the empty armchair in front of her, looking dazed and defeated, slowly Anthea lowered herself down onto the cushion. Warily she glanced at the window opposite, which was still closed, just as she knew it would be. ‘Why is this happening?’ she asked, her voice barely louder than a breeze. Being mindful not to distress his mother any further, gently Dan crossed the room, before crouching down and tenderly taking her hands. ‘Why is what happening? Why were you shouting?’

‘You’ve beautiful brown eyes. I used to have a handbag the same colour,’ Anthea’s breath was still coming in shallow pants and she looked agitated and nervous, which in turn was beginning to make Dan feel exactly the same.

‘Mum... please, who were you shouting at?’

‘Makes me look so bloody stupid, doesn’t it? One minute here, the next minute gone. I told her you know; I told her when we were in British Home, but no, she wouldn’t allow it,’ Anthea declared, looking desperate but marginally calmer.

‘Who wouldn’t allow what?’ Dan asked, becoming more baffled with each sentence.

‘Your gran! She wouldn’t hear of it! That’s why I was shouting. She shouldn’t have interfered.’

Leaning back in the chair, Anthea looked rung-out, she closed her eyes and slowly trailed the creases of her forehead with her fingers. It was clear to Dan, that his mother truly believed that she had been arguing with her own dead mother. Dan’s voice sounded distant when he told her,       ‘You rest a few minutes.’

Although her eyes were still shut when he returned with two steaming mugs, Anthea was not asleep.       ‘Here you go,’ he said, nudging her gently, ‘drink this, you’ll feel better.’

‘Cup that cheers,’ she said, heaving herself up before taking a sip.

‘Did you see Jean?’

‘No.... why?’ Anthea replied slowly, unsettled by her son’s mention of the name, because it made her remember that there was something she had been trying to remember about Jean, and now it had dropped from her mind again.

‘She said she was coming over this week. Are you sure she hasn’t been?’

‘Of course I’m bloody sure! D’you think I’m fucking stupid?! If I’d seen her why would I say haven’t? I haven’t seen anyone!’ she bellowed.

Anthea was staring so hard it made Dan feel awkward. Her eyes began darting rapidly from side-to-side as she tried to make sense of the carousel of whispers spinning inside her head. The chaos of voices was so shrill she could barely stand the din, but at last, after some perseverance, she knew exactly what they wanted her to say. ‘Mum’s been very rude to me about you. You’re happy though, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Dan answered, unsettled by the disjointed nature of Anthea’s question.

‘Good, thendo me a favour?’

After he had nodded, Anthea leaned forward and said, ‘Thing is... Owen, mum says I ruined your life. I haven’t, have I? When she’s next here, tell her, tell her that you’re happy. You will do that, won’t you? Tell her for me, won’t you?’ Anthea looked as though she were about to collapse into tears. With his mouth parched by the jolt of her confusion, Dan rasped, ‘I will, don’t you worry.’ Looking similar in face to his father, by being rational, Dan could force himself to justify his mother’s mistake. But try as he might, there were several other disturbing worries he simply could not fathom. Firstly, this mix-up seemed to have come out of the blue. Secondly, it had totally enveloped her, and finally, it involved two people she had lived with most of her adult life. Instinctively, Dan knew that this awful disorientation should never really happen. Worse still, it bought a terrible foreshadowing, the further she slipped down the rabbit hole of cognitive crumble, the less Anthea would recognise and remember. From here on in, every face encountered by his mother, whether it be familiar or new, would eventually become a sad blur of other people’s features and expressions.

Even though Eunice and Vince Pope had never married, Dan had only ever known his aunt’s partner as Uncle Vince. Tales of his bust-ups with Eunice’s mother, Dan’s Granny Irene were legendary. However, by the end of Irene Lomax’s life, the two of them had cultivated a camouflaged respect for each other, and when she did die, Vince had wept. For a man so dedicated to the pursuits of rugby and beer, it seemed odd that Vince did not care for Indian food, which is how Dan found himself sitting in his favourite restaurant, opposite his aunt, just the two of them. In the middle of the table were small iron cauldrons, containing either snow-white rice, or two different sauces the colour and heat of flame. Scooping in a tear of soft bread amongst half-sunk shiny emerald peppers, Dan said, ‘She thought I was Dad, like she was locked into the illusion and couldn’t escape.’

Dropping the large metal spoon back into the rice, Eunice tutted before saying, ‘Some days, even though she seems to be following the conversation, all I get is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It’s like she’s behind glass and I can’t reach her, for me those are the loneliest days.’ Stirring her meal, Eunice looked wistful, before adding, ‘Then there’s the days, when she goes on and on, about nothing... nonsense. But if you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t guess anything was up.’ Watching him plough through his meal, Eunice noticed tiny beads of sweat gathering at his temples. ‘Have you seen that the kitchen cupboards are full of rice pudding? Tins and tins,’ Eunice asked.

‘That’s because it was Grandad Roy’s favourite,’ Dan confirmed.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘When I was little, I had swimming lessons after school...…’

‘Is everything fine with your food?’ the waiter asked, leaning right between them, oblivious to the fact that he had just broken their conversation. Nodding, what Dan actually wanted to say was, ‘go easier on the aftershave mate,’ but what he plumped for was, ‘super, thanks.’ Delighted with the response the waiter smiled appreciatively, showing teeth white as the chicken in their fiery Balti.

Once the man had bustled away, Dan returned to his tale. ‘We’d go back to grans after swimming, and on a plate on the serving-hatch would be an iced-bun. But before I could grab it, she would make me eat a bowl of that rice pudding, which I hated more than swimming. And every week without fail, she’d tell me how it had been Grandad’s favourite.’

‘It certainly wasn’t. She served it us with a blob of strawberry jam, which Anthea would mix in. Mum didn’t like her doing that. Every week Anthea stirred, and every week there’d be a row,’ Eunice revealed, firstly looking askance, then chuckling at the unintentional humour of the recollection, ‘seems it’s her strongest memories driving her, like the chicken house,’ Eunice sighed, ‘but as we’re beginning to find out...we don’t actually know what those memories are actually going to be.’

‘Nor does mum,’ Dan said, sounding sadder than his aunt.

After the waiter had cleared away the remnants of their meal, Dan looked at the splatters on his side of the tablecloth. ‘Like mum’s trousers,’ he observed, neither of them laughed.

‘Daniel, I think the time is fast approaching...’ Eunice’s voice momentarily quivered and trailed off, before she started again, ‘she’s deteriorating on every level, especially with the toilet. I take most of her washing home, though the bad stuff I do there.’

It took Dan a couple of moments to figure out the nature of the laundry demarcation, but when he did, slowly he shook his head.

‘Oh God Ness, why didn’t you say?’ Before she could answer, Dan added, ‘I’m so sorry... I should have thought. I change her duvet, and some weeks it rinses my eyes... I put it straight into the machine. Why have I never wondered about her clothes? I thought she was doing them, who was I fooling?’ Whenever he saw the empty laundry basket or clothes drying on the airer, he had conveniently presumed that despite her increasing limitations, Anthea was at least been keeping pace with some of her household chores.

‘Daniel don’t be daft, but I think we’ve gone nearly as far as we can. She needs incontinence help. I’ve looked at different things, but she’ll go mad. And how long do you think we can all carry on with her living alone? If you hadn’t been on the phone that time when the smoke alarm went off, it doesn’t bare thinking about. ’

The chain of binding words she had carefully avoided swung hard between them, with Dan backing away from their malevolent threat, because once spoken, just like a wicked genie they could never be put back. Eunice looked desolate. Watching his mother being dismantled little-by-little was bad enough for him, but at that moment, he saw the dreadful implication for both her and his aunts. They had grown-up with Anthea, sharing triumphs and tragedies, starting school and work together, dancing with and kissing the boys, before sneaking off for an ill-fated weekend. He could not begin to imagine the cruelty for them of witnessing Anthea’s unforgiving decline, watching a shared history disintegrate into tatters. Laid between them on the table was a simple clay dish, inside were two mint chocolates and the bill. ‘I’ll make the call to the social worker,’ he woefully offered, after removing his sweet treat from its flimsy envelope.

The woman fitted Dan’s conventional image of how somebody from social services might look, but given his own personal circumstance, he tried hard not to view the world in stereotypes. Unfortunately, Freya Maybury made such an approach feel quite impossible, because the archetypal Miss Maybury gave the impression that she had been born to be a social worker. Prior to falling way past her shoulders, Freya’s flat hair was divided into a chapel-arch parting, held in place on either side of her mottled face by bright coloured grips. She was wearing a long-crocheted cardigan with low-slung untidy pockets, and Ness could not decide if the thing had gone bobbly in the wash or was just made from scrappy wool. Freya’s skirt was a pile of leafy pleats collapsing around her ankles before fanning out across her pink pumps. When Freya leant forwards to talk to them, Eunice detected inexpensive perfume. With open palms resting in her lap, showing she had nothing to hide, Freya explained, ‘Human rights I’m afraid .... Anthea has to be in the room, so that we can be sure that she is aware and not being coerced.’

‘But she won’t be aware! Ten minutes after the meeting she won’t even know it’s happened,’ Dan argued pointlessly, looking exasperated.

Conveying much with a simple touch, trying to settle her nephew, Eunice placed her hand softly on Dan’s knee. Carefully observing the interaction between the pair, Freya decided to address her next remarks to Anthea’s sister, who was dressed in a dungaree style dress, adorned with bangles on both wrists, and a long necklace of colourful wooden spheres, it was a style Freya would have liked to ape.

‘Miss Lomax...’

‘Ms. If you don’t mind,’ Eunice quipped mischievously, ‘Or Eunice, or Ness, as you prefer.’ Freya blushed, embarrassed by being called out.

‘Err... Eunice, I understand how difficult these occasions are for families. Even if she’s not what she once was, the law says that Anthea must be given the opportunity to contribute. She must be allowed to take part and be seen.’ In the silence after her words, Freya watched one of Anthea Fernsby’s relatives nod, whilst the other scowled. Indiscreetly Freya glanced at her watch, which jolted Eunice into action. ‘I’ll go and see where she’s got to.’

The lavatories were only a short distance from the building entrance at the other end of the corridor and, the door to their meeting room could be clearly seen. Eunice was now annoyed with herself, despite her sister’s assurances that she knew the way back, she ought to have waited. Here they were, about to have their first meeting with their social worker to discuss Anthea’s safety and they had already managed to lose her! Being so engrossed in nattering to the receptionist Anthea did not see her sister enter the reception area. Eunice arrived just in time to hear her sister reveal, ‘the squirrels, ran all the way up my legs chasing the bread, which my sister said was for the ducks....’ Seeing Eunice approaching, looking relieved and smiling sympathetically, the receptionist asked, ‘Is this your sister, Mrs Fernsby?’

Spinning around, Anthea’s face lit when she saw her, ‘Ness, thank goodness! Where’ve you been? If we’re late, they’ll be ever so cross.’

‘Who will?’ Ness asked, already regretting the question.

‘The man! Don’t be so pissing stupid!’ Anthea hissed, instantly furious.

When Anthea’s decline had first started, Eunice had struggled to communicate with her. In hindsight, she wondered why it had taken so long to see that Anthea’s fury fed on fury. The more you raised your temper, the more she would raise hers, upping the ante, like a gambler boasting a flush of four straight aces. ‘Come on you, Daniel is waiting for us with Freya,’ smiling patiently, Eunice pointed back towards the glass doors and the corridor beyond, ‘and you’ve a cup of tea getting cold.’

‘With a biscuit?’ Anthea enquired, malleable as a spring lamb. Eunice looked edgy, if she lied, there would be trouble when Anthea discovered the deception, the promise of biscuits was something she never seemed to forget.

‘I’ll bring some through,’ the receptionist said, recognising Eunice’s dilemma.

Anthea adored Bourbon Creams, their rectangular shape and chocolatey smell reminded her of her father. After biting into the biscuit, she was disappointed by the lack of sugar-sprinkle topping, and with a spray of crumbs announced, ‘Cheap ones.’

‘Don’t talk with your mouthful,’ Dan told her.

‘Piss Off!’ Anthea replied, displaying a mouthful of mush.

Dan winced as she threw the other half in.

‘Anthea, stop swearing please,’ Eunice instructed.

To the surprise of all three of them, Anthea did not retaliate, reaching instead for the last cheap biscuit on the plate, without first asking if anyone else wanted the thing.

‘Anthea, are you okay with everything I’ve explained?’ Freya asked quickly, keen to close the meeting.

Anthea nodded, but her focus was seized by the round golden shortcake in her hand, and not the words of Freya Maybury, ‘Just for a short while. Mrs Rose... Josie, the manager, she’s lovely and will make you feel very welcome, as will all the other residents.’

‘Like a holiday?’ Anthea asked. Freya nodded, and Anthea said, ‘Why didn’t you say that? Instead of going on ...showing off,’ she leered wildly at Eunice and Dan after speaking, pleased with herself. If she were uncomfortable with Anthea’s remarks, Freya did not show it, whilst Dan and Eunice were mildly embarrassed. They had expected Anthea to be far more resistant to the idea, but just like when she was winkled from her job in the shop she had simply rolled over and given in.

‘How will we get there? I don’t think Dad can take us; he’s got flu.’ Anthea looked over at her sister. Eunice did not know what to say and could feel her face beginning to redden, whilst Anthea’s was becoming flinty with impatience. Before the situation span out of control, Freya jumped in, ‘In that case Mrs Fernsby, don’t you worry, I’ll sort that out. The most important thing is that you’re happy with all we’ve discussed.’

Dan and Eunice let out simultaneous sighs of relief, as Anthea, now derailed from her fury nodded blankly. Watching her sister, clearly bewildered and not all au-fait with all they had agreed, Eunice fought back the stab of unexpected tears. Already folding papers and closing her lever arch file, Freya asked, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to say to me?’ For the briefest second, Anthea’s sister and son mistakenly thought that Freya Maybury was talking to them. With the same cold shiver of dismay, they realised that the question was actually being addressed to Anthea. A panicky glance flew between them, as Freya persisted in her dominance of Anthea’s attention, ‘Well lovey, is there?’ Whilst screwing up her face and sucking in a great big breath, Anthea calmly replied, ‘You need a better bra, your hair wants cutting then a decent brush, and your manky teeth could do with cleaning.’

Chapter 24

Who’s Green Chair?

Along with their maids and servants, at the beginning of the twentieth century the substantial brick villa would have been the comfortable abode of a provincial family. Spaced equally across the ground floor and set two either side of the main entrance were big sash windows. Each one still had its original iron frame and a stone sill deep as a park bench. Spoiling the overall look, the smaller and more frequent upper-floor windows were framed in modern UPVC plastic. However, with an impressive tiled porchway, mighty front door and towering chimney the Edwardian building still managed to feel indomitably grand. But like the families who had lived there, the place had suffered the slings and arrows of long years and today, Jephson House was a home for souls in crisis.

Dan was thrilled to discover that the doorbell was on a rope and chain and after pulling, he was even more thrilled to hear the deep ringing of a distant bell. The red door was so solid he could hear nothing from the other side. After standing in the porch for ages waiting for someone to answer, Dan wondered whether he should again use the bell. He was about to grip the round iron handle, when just before the door opened, he heard the loud clunk of a lock being released. The short lady who greeted him was wearing a burgundy tabard and Dan could not read the name on her badge. She had bleached hair, cropped severely short, which had the unfortunate effect of making her face look unnaturally sallow. Her forearms and the tops of them, as far as Dan could see were inked with green and blue tattoos. Conveniently and probably quite unintentionally he surmised, the artwork complimented the tide of her sea-coloured eyeshadow. Before she even opened her mouth, Dan knew that her manner of vocabulary was going to be lazy. ‘Yeah?’ This was not the start that Dan had been hoping for.

‘My mother arrived today, I’ve an appointment with Mrs Rose.’

Monica neither stepped aside nor spoke, but deliberately looked him slowly up and down, making Dan feel that she had believed nothing of what he had just told her. ‘Name?’

‘Dan Fernsby.’

Monica tutted, and in a tone laced with exasperation. ‘Yer mother’s.’

‘Oh...sorry....er, Mrs Fernsby, Anthea.’ Dan’s face pinkened.

‘Wait a sec, Monica Logue commanded, before slamming closed the door, which Dan could hardly believe. But as he was still outside, there was little he could actually do other than to mutter, ‘How bloody rude!’

The door re-opened sooner than he expected, and with an incline of her head, Monica beckoned him over the threshold into the small square lobby.

‘Sign in,’ she instructed, pointing to a coverless folder.

‘There’s no pen?’

‘Visitors keep nicking ‘um. Well, you’ve still gotta sign in, case there’s a fire,’ Monica moaned, before tutting, then for good measure added a sigh. It felt like she was solely blaming him, and it was abundantly clear that she was not going to fetch a replacement.

‘There’s one in my car,’ Dan eventually revealed. Looking quite uninspired, Monica silently nodded. ‘Will you leave the door on the latch?’ Dan asked.

‘What? And have the bugger’s escape!’ Monica said incredulously, her eyebrows raised.

Suddenly like a wolf harrying sheep, the sound of his mother’s furious voice came howling down the corridor. ‘Piss off! I’ll smoke whenever I want!’

‘That’s her!’ Dan announced, and squeezing urgently past Monica, promised, ‘I’ll sign later, or at the least before the flames get this far!’

From the entrance lobby, a wide corridor smelling of stale cooking and bleach ran the length of the building. Everywhere was painted magnolia and the walnut-coloured floor laminate was marked by the tracks of wheels and the heels of shoes. The facing walls were divided by a narrow-varnished rail, the bottom halves were covered by a square patterned anaglypta, whilst the tops were smooth. Above the Daido in the spaces between doorways, were notice boards, housekeeping instructions, and thank-you cards curled with age. The cork boards were chock full of pictures of birthdays Christmas and Halloween celebrations. Initially the pinned photographs had made Dan feel hopeful, but when his mother had started to appear in later snaps, he felt hopeless. At the farthest end of the passageway were a set of wheelchair-wide doors, where Anthea was vigorously shaking and rattling the handles. ‘What are you up to?’ he called.

Turning from her task in hand, Anthea paused for a moment before screaming, ‘Owen, thank God! I can’t get out!’ When he drew closer, in a calmer but still agitated voice, Anthea gabbled, ‘Daniel, it’s locked.’

‘Let’s see if we can find Mrs Rose,’ he said, gently placing his hand on her elbow ready to steer her, ignoring her confusion,

‘I want a smoke!’

Daniel shook his head and tried to move her. Anthea’s face became twisted with fury and with hateful eyes she glowered. ‘Leave me alone! Get off! You little bastard!’ she snarled through curled lips. Spitefully she dug her sharp nails into the back of his hand, pinching and twisting so hard, it made him wince. Yanking away from her, Dan saw a vivid raspberry smudge spreading across his skin. Although he had grown used to his mother’s stamping and shouting, he was shocked because this was the first time that she had been violent. And now, with her vicious fury quickly spent like a passing storm, his mother looked contrite and confused. ‘Ciggie?’ she mumbled without feeling.

‘Once we’ve spoken to Mrs Rose. Afterwards, I’ll take you out, and you can smoke as many as you want... deal?’ Dan offered, rubbing his hand.

Fixed onto the office door was a brass plaque that read, ‘Josie Rose – Manager’, and fixed underneath with blue-tac was a laminated instruction, ‘Knock and Wait’. Doing just that, Dan had turned and was squinting through the archway behind them into the resident’s lounge, where he could see several empty different sized chairs lined against the right-hand wall. Tugging at the bottom of her jumper, Anthea knew that Dan had said she could have a fag, but that first, they had needed to do something important. She wondered why they were waiting when she could have been outside. Peering longingly back up the corridor, Anthea was about to challenge her son, when the door burst open. Monica stepped into the corridor, showed them the pen she was holding then and with a tut and a sigh went on her way. Meanwhile, Josie Rose shouted a beaming greeting. ‘Miss Anthea, how nice to have you with us! And Mr Daniel, come along in.’ Forgetting about cigarettes, Anthea watched her son sit in one of the seats next to the untidy desk, where files and papers were stacked everywhere. Then to her horror, Anthea saw the thing on the desk. On a wave of panic, she pressed herself hard against the wall.

‘I don’t want to use that! She’ll shout and I wasn’t shown!’ Anthea blurted in a loud voice, pointing at the screen.

‘Okay, don’t worry, we’ll find something else for you. Would that be better?’ Josie answered calmly, unfazed by the outburst.

‘Your dress looks nice,’ Anthea replied, instantly calmer. Josie was wearing a full-length orange dress that calypso’d across her plaid sandals. Around her throat was a choker of huge glossy red wooden beads, and her perfume smelt as exotic as she looked. On one of her wrists was a bracelet matching her neckless, and on the fingers of her opposite hand she wore flamboyant costume-jewellery.

‘How did you manage that?’ Dan asked, astounded by his mother’s instant calmness.

Josie explained, ‘Miss Anthea is seeing the world through a patchwork of skewed reality and old memories, but of course, she doesn’t realise it. Think of it like when you’re in a dream. The most ridiculous things can be happening, but in that moment when you’re dreaming, everything feels oddly normal,’ nodding towards the screen, Josie continued, ‘somehow this sparks an unsettling memory. It won’t help trying to find out what that is just now, but it’s important to keep her calm, hence my answer.’

‘I can tell you the memory,’ Dan said.

‘What happened to your hand?’ Josie asked, once he had finished explaining the circumstance of Anthea’s departure from her job in the shop. Suspiciously, Anthea watched the conversation unfolding between her son and the black woman. She felt that she vaguely knew who they were gossiping about, but their muddling words were coming too fast.’

‘Now, Miss Anthea!’ Josie’s tone seized her attention, ‘we have your room ready for you. Would you like to see? Mrs Cardamon has put lovely clean sheets on your bed, so later, you’ll be as snug as a bug!’ Anthea nodded.

‘Good! Let’s go together!’ Josie proclaimed, theatrically clapping her hands.

Anthea’s hand found Daniel’s as they trailed in the wake of Mrs Roses’ enthusiastic march. Upon reaching the first staircase, she was halfway up them, before mother and son had even thought about taking the first step. Sensing Anthea’s nerves, Dan gently squeezed her hand, which she reciprocated. ‘Not so hard,’ he warned, ‘you’ve already made it sore by pinching.’

‘Did not!’ Anthea snapped, ‘only kids pinch.’

Dan went to climb but stopping him, Anthea hung back. ‘Come on mum, get a wiggle on, Josie’ll be waiting.’

‘’Daniel, when can we go home?’

Freya Maybury had advised that he should have a plausible answer ready for that very question and he was glad she had. ‘Ness and Vince are in Spain, so like them, you’re having a little holiday too. I’ve got to be away with work. We talked about this when we went to see the social worker? You remember Freya? You were rude about her teeth and hair.’ Undaunted, Dan mounted the stairs with Anthea’s footsteps thumping reluctantly behind him. Reaching the top, they found themselves on a curved landing where there were three bedrooms. Josie was chatting with 2 carers dressed the same as Monica, but she still saw Anthea hanging sullenly back.

‘Miss Anthea, this is Ursula and Maneesh, they’re going to help look after you,’ she announced with the broadest smile.

Whilst Anthea scowled fiercely, smiling, both carers gave a discreet wave, before going about their work.

‘Here we are, your room,’ Josie said, ‘number 7.’

‘Same as Latch Road, that’s a good omen,’ Dan cheerfully observed, trying to cajole his mother. Josie disappeared inside, but remaining defiant, Anthea refused to follow, gesturing instead to her son.

‘What’s the matter?’ he whispered.

‘Thingy in the orange dress, and that woman and that man!’

‘What about them?’ Dan hissed, already knowing the answer.

‘They’re all black! I’m not staying here!’ she told him in a depressingly loud voice.

In all the time of her unravelling, Dan had been tolerant and patient to the vagaries and extremes of Anthea’s behaviour. Even today, when she had been violent, he had managed to keep himself in check. Before speaking, Daniel tightly gripped his mother’s left shoulder, which startled and subdued her. ‘Listen to me mum...and you’d better listen good! And for your own sake, this had better stay in there!’ he warned, prodding his own temple with his free hand to emphasise the point, ‘Mrs Rose, and all the kind people here want to look after you. If I hear a single word about you being rude or unkind, and you know what I mean by that don’t you?’ Bewildered, Anthea gave a little nod. Dan had had no idea of exactly what his threat was going to be, but in a menacingly low whisper out it came, ‘One word that’s all, and I’ll be straight on to Grandad Roy. I’ll tell him what you said, and he won’t like that one little bit, will he?’ Daniel felt dreadful, the nuclear words had leapt from his lips before he could stop them. He knew it was possibly one of the cruellest things he could have chosen to say. When Anthea started to cry, he felt utterly ashamed, but it was too late for backing down. ‘You need to be nice; everyone here is being nice to you. Give it a try,’ he said in a softer, kinder tone.

‘Daniel, please don’t tell dad,’ Anthea pleaded, wiping her nose along the sleeve of her jumper, and sniffing.

Feeling hateful Dan changed the subject, ‘Shall we look at your room?’

Room seven benefited from a private bathroom, and from the window, there was a view of the slabbed garden and canopied smoking shelter. Near the bed was a table with wheels and fixed to it was a thin television. Ignoring Anthea’s tearful look Josie explained to her that she could watch it whilst sitting up in bed. Anthea seemed more pleased by this than by the fact that she had her own personal toilet and shower. On both sides of the bed were adjustable rails, Dan struggled to equate such an obvious sign of disability with his mother. He felt that they could easily have been standing in a slightly shabby hotel, because reassuringly, apart from the bed, nothing about the décor or layout of the room screamed ‘care home’. To fully involve Anthea with the process of unpacking and settling in, Josie had arranged for her principal carer to arrive. Lauren was young with a rebellious sense of fashion. After all the introductions were done, despite the look of her punk-rock style, to his own considerable surprise and relief, Dan realised that Lauren was everything Monica was not. She was polite and articulate and used the full alphabet. Anthea was immediately fascinated by the jazzy laces of Lauren’s chunky boots, and as she chattered to the younger girl, Josie manoeuvred Daniel away.

Back downstairs without Anthea, after Monica had unceremoniously deposited two cups of coffee on the desk in front of them, Josie explained, ‘All our residents have suffered some sort of brain event or disorder,’ feeling that there was no expectation for him to say anything, Dan merely nodded and listened, ‘my staff are trained to look after people with complex needs, they understand the hazards and importantly the triggers. Even Monica, who is, shall we say, a little unrefined. But she’s fantastic with our more aggressive residents, those who require a certain type of coaxing.’

Dan was impressed.

‘There’s nothing we haven’t seen before. In here Mr Daniel, Anthea isn’t unique. And don’t you go worrying, I shall be pointing out to Miss Anthea that it’s actually her skin that’s a different colour from mine!’ Josie roared out a laugh brewed from far beneath her desk, and it was such a jolly thing, Dan could not help becoming wrapped up in its warmth.

‘I’m sorry about that Mrs Rose, I gave her a right old roasting.’

‘I gathered from her tears. Goes with the territory. Once people get broken they can malfunction in all sorts of ways, but mostly their prejudices just become more pronounced.’

‘Even before all this, she used to be a bit racist, though its lessened over the years,’ Dan admitted, feeling like Josie was peering into his soul.

‘Dementia is more wicked than Herod himself. It preys on character extremes and kills off the stuff in the middle. Things like compassion, empathy, tolerance, and manners. For us, you and me, unless we’re upset or angry, our behaviour mostly functions in that middle bit. But for poor Miss Anthea, there isn’t a middle anymore.’ Josie’s analysis of Anthea’s limitation was so simple, instantly, Dan saw the boundaries of her dementia with a fresh clarity. ‘And tell me my darlin’, your sexuality - how did she cope?’

‘Am I that obvious?’

‘Mr Daniel, Jamaican ladies have always been able to figure out the right sort of boys! She’s fortunate God blessed her with you, gay boys always take care of their mommas. If I’d had boys, I’d have wanted at least one of them ....’ Josie winked, then belted out another roll of laughter.

‘It took a while,’ Dan revealed, before once again joining her infectious laughter.

Once they were recovered, pointing to a stack of big boxes camouflaged amongst the clutter of everything else, Josie said, ‘Those need to go up to Miss Anthea, they’re not heavy just bulky, would you give me a hand?’

‘What are they?’

‘Pads,’ Dan’s face reddened, ‘whilst she’s with us she’ll be using them. Your aunt told me about the laundry. Don’t be embarrassed, your mum won’t. Incontinence is a common side-effect and something we’re quite used to.’

‘She’ll hate it,’ Dan said. Looking and sounding anguished.

‘You might be surprised. Keep in mind what we just said, for Miss Anthea, there isn’t any middle anymore.’

Dan lacked the willingness to believe her, because the idea of his mother wearing grown-up nappies was simply too awful. Suddenly it dawned on him that they had not properly considered the impacts of her stay. For as long as Anthea remained in Jephson House, they would all be required to adopt new routines. One fact that was already obvious, was that their approach and interaction with Anthea was changed forever.

Mrs Rose had requested that after seeing Anthea settled in that first morning, for the remainder of her opening week they kept away. ‘We find comings and goings in the first days disruptive, which won’t help Miss Anthea. I’ll let you know how she’s getting on,’ Josie had promised. Neither Anthea’s son nor sister was happy with the suggestion, but felt they had little choice but to agree. With much less fuss than either of them had expected, Anthea seemed to adapt quickly to everyday life at Jephson House. Entrances from the main corridor led into the dining room, the main lounge, a ‘time-out space’, the medicine and wheelchair cupboards, a toilet, and Josie’s office.  All the bedrooms and bathrooms were located throughout the upper floors. Consequently, the ground floor was where all the social activity occurred and was where Anthea would spend much of the day. The large seating lounge was just as one would expect and lined up against three of the four walls was an array of armchairs. Some were tall and some squat, some looked a little threadbare, but there was enough comfortable seating to accommodate all the service uses, as Freya Maybury liked to refer to them all. Scattered irregularly about the room were low coffee tables, where old newspapers and magazines gathered. The only wall without any chairs was the fireplace wall, directly opposite the entrance arch. Mounted above the defunct grate was an enormous flat screen, which blared a constant flow of people either buying antiques, selling houses, or shouting in pubs. There was also an unspoken seating hierarchy because once settled on a favourite chair, nobody wanted to change. Anthea took an immediate liking to a long-backed green coloured chair, which reminded her of 7 Latch Road, her childhood home. The accepted occupant of the chair was Marilyn, a gentle soul, cuddly in stature with marshmallow cheeks, which glowed pink on a face drawn by the drag of a difficult life. Squashy Marilyn, as Dan would come to fondly think of her was eager to greet any visitor, and upon spotting him that first drop-off morning had made a beeline for him. Slung over her wrist was the most dilapidated handbag Dan had ever seen, and in the same hand she clutched a frayed toy cat, which could have used a spin in the wash. ‘That’s MY fucking son!’ Anthea yelled, as she was led into the room through the entrance arch by Josie.

‘My boy died,’ Marilyn announced, after being shoved roughly aside by Anthea.

On the second day after her arrival, by smacking Marilyn’s face so hard that she left behind finger-marks, Anthea won possession of the big green chair. ‘Try not to worry Mr Daniel, the rules of the playground permanently apply here. At least when kids are four and five, you have the comfort of knowing that they’ll grow out of it, we don’t have that luxury,’ Josie Rose explained, after calling him to report the fracas.

‘She told us her son died,’ Dan said, appalled that his mother had lashed out at Marilyn.

‘When he was an infant. But like I do for you and Miss Anthea and all my residents, I keep them in my prayers,’ Josie said gently, ‘Mr Daniel, Marilyn is as broken as your mum, but it does not show in the same way. Remember what we said, there’s no bit in the middle. I can assure you though, it’s unlikely to happen again.’

‘How Mrs Rose? How can you possibly say that? Mums already clouted her once.’

‘Because Marilyn has taken the brown chair next to your mum, and they’ve become inseparable.’ Josie decided not to reveal that harmony between the two women was dependent on Marilyn doling out an endless supply of chewy mints from her battered bag.

Chapter 25

Dentures Abandoned

After losing the tussle of the green chair, without any fuss, Marilyn dropped into the scruffy brown draylon seat beside it, and no matter that Anthea had slapped her, a friendship of sweet bribery blossomed between them. Most days they sat happily enough together at least until either Anthea tired of Marilyn’s company, which is usually happened just as soon as her chewy mints ran out. Anthea mostly watched television or read any old newspaper she could lay her hands on because sadly, neither the content nor the date mattered anymore. Given the general hullabaloo of the television and the room, it was quite the achievement that every day Anthea managed an afternoon snooze. Arriving at Jephson House to visit Anthea after her first full week, after signing the entrance register with another new pen grudgingly fetched by Monica, they were shown to Josie Rose’s office. Smiling grandly, Josie treated them to a welcome as sparkly as her garish jewellery. ‘The lord himself couldn’t be more pleased to see you than I am today!’ Josie stood, arms spread wide, a bright sassy shepherd with palms outstretched, guiding her flock into seats before giving an outline of Anthea’s stay. ‘Miss Anthea’s gained weight, which you would expect with more regular and controlled mealtimes. As you know Miss Anthea has had a water infection, we sticked her this morning and she’s now clear. Since we’ve been fitting her with a pad, toileting is better - but only in the sense that the pads are stopping her from getting sore ...…’

Eunice interrupted, before Josie could finish her summary,

‘Sorry to interrupt you, but these pads, she can’t fit them herself, can she?’

Josie shook her head. Looking aghast, Eunice spoke again, only this time her tone was more severe, ‘Mrs Rose, surely not us? It’d be bad enough for me doing it, but nobody’s actually expecting such a thing of her son are they? That wouldn’t be right!’ Eunice looked desperately towards her nephew, who sat expressionless and still as stone.

‘Miss Eunice, Mr Daniel,’ Josie said gently, ‘don’t make an elephant out of a mouse. Miss Anthea isn’t going anywhere yet and we must first talk with Freya Maybury. I’ve already reported to her that I doubt Miss Anthea can go back to living independently. She’ll require assistance ...carers are the people who help with this sort of thing. Try not to worry.’

In Anthea’s third week, Eunice and Dan found themselves in Josie’s office once again, who, as usual was resplendent in an ensemble of brilliant colour and pungent scent. For Dan, the visit had got off to an impressive start, because after opening the door to greet them, the feintest trickle of a smile had rippled Monica’s lips. Conspiratorially, Josie explained, ‘The social worker will be here in a mo, so I thought it would help if we took a few minutes beforehand to clarify our approach. We’ve almost exhausted initial funding, but with the right sentiments from me and responses from you, we can secure more money for Miss Anthea to stay a while longer, which, if you agree, I think is better for her.’ Josie stopped talking and apart from the tick of an unseen clock, at her silent cue, Eunice and Dan knew instinctively to nod, accepting the conspiracy she was about to inveigle upon them. As they were beginning to realise, with every new stage of Anthea’s wane, the question of cost hung persistently in the air like a chilly autumn mist.

Freya looked as untidy as Mrs Rose’s office, which smelt of Dettol, perfume, and the mustiness of institution. Lying here, there, and everywhere were files, books, boxes, and piles of paper. Facing Josie, Freya sat between Eunice and Daniel and perched on her woolly knee was a black lever arch file. On the spine was written, Fernsby, Anthea Lillibet, and in brackets, (Mrs). The level of bureaucracy generated by Anthea’s short stay in Jephson House seemed out of kilter with the duration. Leafing through the correspondence, Freya eventually found the sheet she was looking for. Scanning the figures, then doing the same to the people around the desk, she enquired, ‘Why hasn’t Mrs Fernsby joined us? We can’t proceed without her.’

‘The petting dogs are here.  Miss Anthea doesn’t have to be present whilst we discuss funding. I can bring her in once they’re gone,’ Josie said, smiling softly. Freya disagreed.

‘I’m sure none of us want to be responsible for Miss Anthea missing the joy of the dogs, so we’ll adjourn a while. I’ll grab us some tea,’ Josie announced, with a genial sigh.

Even though Eunice was mindful of the remaining parking time on the car, she still nodded, and Dan nodded too. Eunice was about to excuse herself to go and extend the ticket when Freya said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t be delayed. I’ve a full calendar...…and getting across town this time of day is dreadful.’

Feigning concern, Josie said, ‘Oh dear, what a to-do...,’ then sat deliberately waiting.

After seconds that seemed to stretch longer than minutes, Freya caved. ‘Okay, we’ll do funding now, then I must absolutely insist.’

‘Excellent!’ Josie said, clearly pleased.

‘Once current funding is exhausted, Mrs Fernsby is due to return to her own home. However, before those arrangements, we must discuss her assessment prepared by Mrs Rose,’ Freya began, squinting sternly through her tortoise shell glasses. Freya Maybury stopped talking and looked expectantly over at Josie. For the first time since Eunice and Daniel had known her, they watched Josie’s face could with misgiving. Opening the manilla folder on her desk in front of her, after removing the only sheet inside, using a tone flatter than the folder, Josie said, ‘Unfortunately, it’s not been possible to properly gauge Mrs Fernsby’s precise abilities and limitations. When I reported the water infection to you Miss Maybury, I also clearly pointed out that based on our brief interaction with Mrs Fernsby, we already felt that it would be unwise for her to return to independent living.’ Keen to avoid becoming twisted in Josie’s verbal knots, steadily and deliberately, Freya noted down all her words. She had long believed that managers like Mrs Rose were by far the worst to deal with because they were wily, hiding vague charms and deceits beneath seemingly disarming and innocent smiles. Josie continued, ‘First time on pads, a water infection isn’t that unusual, but alas it has taken quite some time to clear.’ The flow of Freya’s ink kept pace with Mrs Rose.

‘Can’t you give me slightly more?’

‘What? More than our professional opinion, which, as I’ve just said, you were aware of before today,’ Josie emphasised with a bleary roll of her eyes.

‘And does that match your own?’ Freya asked, in a voice beset with frustration. Fiddling with a crucifix suspended from a thin silver chain round her neck, Josie did not immediately answer. Tension mushroomed, as silently she carefully sifted options through her mind. ‘Freya, you of all people should see that in safeguarding, opinion, personal or otherwise is a dangerous thing,’ giving Freya no space, she waded on, ‘if my opinion shapes the backbone of your final decision, it leaves me in an insidious position. Let’s say once she’s home, Miss Anthea faces unexpected risk or danger and something bad happens,’ pausing for effect, Josie stopped talking, and after locking her fingers together and leaning earnestly across the desk, looking like a newsreader she continued, ‘it could easily be interpreted that my words sanctioned her unsupervised release back into community living, which would never do.’

‘But that’s supposed to be the purpose of today! Isn’t it? When you realised you couldn’t finish the assessment, why didn’t you at least let me know?’ Freya snapped, exasperated.

‘Freya, I’d already reported to you, firstly, that Miss Anthea was in the grip of infection, and secondly, we didn’t think that she would be able to cope with non-assisted living. What else were you expecting me to say?’ Dan felt like he was watching a tense game where the ball, had bounced perilously close to the line. Josie continued, ‘Now that Mrs Fernsby is recovered, we’d like a little more time to properly assess. If we’re going to do right by this vulnerable lady, it would be folly to rush.’ Dan wanted to shout, ‘in!’, but waiting with bated breath for Freya’s return in a contest that still remained too close to call.

Without warning, turning to look first at Eunice, then at Dan, Freya asked briskly, ‘And what do you think?’  A wary glance flashed between nephew and aunt, and neither dared look at Josie. With the merest nod, Dan tried to encourage Eunice to speak first, for it was imperative that they did not contradict each other. Watching Freya run her fingers through the fall of her long flat hair, Eunice expected that before much longer, one of the woman’s silver bangles would soon become tangled. ‘Well?’ Freya asked, looking and sounding increasingly impatient.

‘We see some improvements, eating for instance. But the toilet, now she’s wearing pads is much better,’ Eunice paused, then after pointing at Dan corrected herself, ‘this is new for us, we don’t know much about safeguarding, but whatever happens,’ Eunice again, her eyes watery full. Dan stepped in. ‘We’re now Mrs Fernsby’s...mum’s voice ... whatever is decided surely it won’t be based on here say or assumptions, from whomever they come.’

‘Of course not,’ Freya answered, trying to sound reassuring, ‘but we must strike the right balance. With you the family, and Mrs Rose and her team here, my job is to work out what’s best for Mrs Fernsby. I am aware of her changing capacity, but we also have to be mindful of the wants of Mrs Fernsby.’

‘Miss Maybury, we wish mum didn’t have to be here, and not because of the quality of the care or anything like that. Mum has dementia, every day is a bit harder than the day before, every day throws up more and more challenges. If she could truly see herself now, I can promise you, my mother would be appalled, and this is only just the beginning, isn’t it?’

Freya’s eyebrows rose behind her wispy fringe and Josie sat confidently back. Sometimes there was nothing better than letting relatives run with the baton. If it looked as though they were about to get bogged down, she would intervene, but so far, Anthea’s family were preforming admirably.

‘Mum keeps all her windows and doors bolted because she’s convinced that people are getting in.’

‘Mr Fernsby, who’s getting in?’ Freya asked, halting her note taking.

‘Just people, that’s all she says. She’s no more idea than me. She believes there are people bringing furniture from her childhood. And she sees Granny Lomax, who’s long dead, which unhinges her and us. Mum argues with her, fierce, shouting. It’s quite disturbing,’ Freya began writing again, so Dan waited a second, ‘strange thing is she never mentions seeing Grandad Roy...’

‘He was our father,’ Eunice quickly confirmed, ‘my sister was especially close to him.’ Freya nodded.

‘A while back she set fire to a towel in the kitchen, fortunately I was able to get there in time because I happened to be talking to her on the phone. But I’m sure you can imagine how that’s raised our anxiety. We took away the car because she kept ending up where she grew up, then she couldn’t find her way back, the neighbours there are very kind and would call me.’

Eunice took the baton.

‘I do my sister’s washing, most of it I take, but the rough stuff I sort at her place. More and more, when I go, I see her living on a precipice of fear. As Daniel just said, she’s frightened by the dread of intruders, mithered by our mother’s imagined furniture. She’s frightened to death of Mr Drake’s chickens because of something that happened when we were kids. It’s heart-breaking because she used to be so bloody-minded and independent. We’d give anything to get that back. Now though, everything Anth thinks or remembers is mixed up.’

Once the formalities of the meeting were finished and Anthea had been enticed away with the promise of cigarettes, the provision of funds to extend her stay at Jephson House was settled. ‘Tomorrow I’ll take this to panel; they have the final say. Given the duration we’ve agreed though, and that Mrs Fernsby seems happy, I don’t anticipate any real difficulty,’ Freya confirmed.

After the social worker had left to engage with the traffic, Josie said, ‘Miss Anthea is fortunate for the support of a loving family. Sometimes half the battle is for social services to engage with good people like you.’

‘But we won’t carry on indefinitely like this?’ Eunice observed.

‘No. It will down to a calculation of risk to Miss Anthea and those around her. The thinking is to keep a person independent for as long as possible, but in cases like this, is it better to move them sooner? Personally, I think so, but social services use a matrix of tests. What I try to do in cases like Mrs Fernsby’s, is to decide whether it is best to observe or push against the rules.’

‘But mum is only going to get worse, what else can we do?’

‘Pray. Ask God for his help,’ Josie replied without doubt.

Looking dismayed, before he could stop himself, Daniel blurted out, ‘And when he doesn’t, what then?’ Eunice felt her face unexpectedly flush.

Engaging directly with Daniel, pushed on by the fervour of her faith, Josie held his gaze, and with a kind yet steely conviction told him, ‘God hears only open hearts. Free your mind and let him in, he’s full of mercy and forgiveness. Try prayer Mr Daniel. Try you’ll find our God is omnipotent.’

Days ticked by and Anthea became more accustomed to the routines of Jephson House, although ominously, Lauren, Anthea’s assigned carer, reported that she had started insisting that the windows in her room stay locked. Anthea was yet to complain of intruders, the sideboard or Granny Lomax, but Dan and Eunice feared that it was simply a matter of time. On the second Saturday after the fund meeting with Freya Maybury, Anthea was sitting in the green chair watching television. Suddenly she spewed and splattered the draylon chair, where Marilyn would usually have been sitting with foul vomit. Lauren cleaned her up as best she could before helping her to her room, by which time Anthea was distressed. Passing one of her colleagues as she helped Anthea shuffle along the main corridor, Lauren asked, ‘Can you get a mop, poor Mrs Fernsby has just been poorly.’ Out of Anthea’s view, with her free hand Lauren pinched her nose and grimaced. Nodding sympathetically, Anthony who was tall as he was thin headed towards the cleaning cupboard.

Once she had managed to properly wash Anthea down and change her into a fresh nightie, Lauren settled her into bed and said, ‘I’ll bring you a drink and some plain biscuits. Are you feeling any better?’ Propped against bright linen pillows, Anthea shook her head, she looked, as Lauren’s nan would have said, a right queer colour. Tenderly, Lauren placed the back of her hand against Anthea’s forehead, which felt clammy, but not hot. ‘Hmm...’ Lauren muttered, ‘fresh air.’      Lauren moved to the window on the right side of the bed and reached over for the catch.

‘Leave it!’ Anthea instructed.

‘Anthea my love, its humid, I think that’s what’s made you poorly. Just a breeze and you’ll feel better.’

‘I’m too tired and this room isn’t big enough. I tell them but they never listen?’

Anthea’s eyelids were falling faster than her words. On each side of her pallid mouth was gathered white spittle raspberries and she looked drained.

‘Big enough for what?’ Lauren asked.

With eyes again open wide, Anthea answered nervously, ‘The sideboard and the Christmas fruit. Mum will bring rice pudding; I don’t want it today.’

‘Let’s leave the window open, just five minutes,’ Lauren pleaded, ‘when I’m back with your cuppa, I promise I’ll shut it before anyone can come.’

‘I told her you know .... in British Home ... where’s my bag?’ Anthea muttered, looking far from sure about the proposal as Lauren patted and settled the duvet.

Releasing the metal clasp to open her handbag found by Lauren, Anthea delved deep inside. Eventually she pulled out a slim book, the cover was dog-eared and decorated with a bright violet fuchsia. Letting her bag fall to the floor, Anthea began flicking quickly through the thin pages. It felt to Lauren like there was a strange frantic urgency to the activity. ‘Careful you don’t rip them,’ Lauren warned anxiously.

‘Piss off,’ Anthea answered carelessly, jabbing her finger against a page almost halfway through said, ‘tell him.’ There were only two names written on the page, and just to be absolutely sure, Lauren asked, ‘Howard?’

Yes!’ Anthea snapped irritably.

Catching sight of the name written below it, Lauren asked, ‘Is Hilary your sister?’

‘That’s my husband’s wife! Don’t fucking call her!’ Anthea fell back into the pillows, closing her eyes as she again insisted, ‘leave the window please.’

In Jephson House weekends were the busier days because there were less duty staff, all the residents were in, and family visitors were more frequent. After dropping Anthea Fernsby’s address book on Josie’s desk and dashing off a note, Lauren became caught up in one of the other resident’s noisy tantrums. Once order was restored, leaving Anthony and Ursula to it, Lauren stepped into the kitchen, where she prepared a small tray of plain biscuits and a cup of tea for Anthea. Before fully pushing open the door to her room, Lauren could hear that something was terribly wrong. Gurgling and dribbling frothy spit onto bare breasts, slumped, Anthea was outside the top-half of her nightdress. Fanned out across the pillow near her right cheek was a splash of bile or vomit. The left-side of her face looked like it was being pinched and dragged down by invisible fingers. Whilst Anthea was vigorously rocking her head, Lauren was struck by the strange stillness to the rest of her body, and she was mumbling, ‘Father Christmas.’ Abandoning the tray on the top of the nearest set of drawers, Lauren turned tail before crashing down the stairs to call for an ambulance.

The doctor looked too young to be a neurologist, but Jean Fernsby felt that whatever he lacked in years, he certainly made up for in compassionate authority. Gently he told them that Anthea’s stroke had been severe, and that if she survived the night, the next twenty-four hours would be critical. Eunice had gone to ring Josie Rose, and Jean had gone to call her brother and Anthea’s ex-husband, Owen Fernsby. Alone with his stricken mother, Daniel mulled the explanation that a stroke and an aneurism were actually one and the same thing. Large circular plasters fixed wires to both Anthea’s forehead and the top half of her body, which linked her to an array of machines, bleeping and flashing incomprehensible numbers and lines. Watching his mother, he could hardly believe that she might be dying because she looked too peaceful and healthy. Apart from sagging on one side, her face looked serene and completely at odds with her dismal prognosis. Set slightly away from the bed was a moveable square table, where, somewhat pointlessly Daniel thought, was placed a jug full of water and a cup. He also noticed a closed round plastic tub, which looked similar to an old-fashioned margarine pot. Reaching over for the container and after prising off the lid, what he found inside surprised him. He clipped back on the lid and slipped the tub into his jacket pocket, feeling absolutely certain that his mother would not want anyone else to see the contents.

If the call summoning him to the hospital had not woken Dan, the din of bins and boxes being tipped into the recycling waggon certainly would have. With orange lights blinking, the refuse lorry appeared in his road just as he was unlocking the car. When it drew to a halt, Dan took the chance to saunter over to the rear of the vehicle. From his pocket he pulled a plastic tub and threw it amongst the rest of the rubbish.  The discarded package contained a small wire frame, on which was fixed three false teeth, which for years had slotted into the back of his mother’s mouth.

‘Old dentures,’ he sadly announced to the high-viz jacketed operative.

Chapter 26

Different Strokes

Once the family was grouped together in his office, calmly the vascular surgeon began to outline Anthea Fernsby’s prospects. Accentuating the irregular scatter of faint freckles dotted about the flawless complexion of his face, Emlyn’s sandy hair was brushed neatly across the right of his forehead. Wearing affluent cologne, luxurious cotton weaved shirts, expensive cufflinks and slick silk ties, Emlyn Reece would not have looked out of place working in the city. ‘We didn’t expect Mrs Fernsby to survive the night, but remarkably she confounded expectation,’ he smiled sympathetically before continuing, ‘that said though, we think it’s prudent to wait until this evening before the next MRI. In these first post-trauma hours we don’t like moving the patient more than absolutely necessary.’ In sync with his build, Emlyn’s words were blessed with a slender Welsh burr, which gilded his voice with a reassuring warmth. After their early summons back to the hospital; where they fully expected to learn that Anthea had either died or was about to, Daniel, Eunice, Owen, and Jean sat listening intently. Reece thought that the relatives looked only slightly less dumbfounded than the previous day when Mrs Fernsby had been blue-lighted in. Fortunately, after years of experience, Emlyn was comfortable talking to families pitched somewhere between profound shock and confused disbelief. ‘Do you wish me to recap anything?’ Emlyn Reece’s wedding finger showed no mark of a ring, this fact alongside those of his mother’s precarious grip on life, was now jockeying for position in Daniel’s mind.

‘One way or another, you’re saying there’ll be surgery?’ Dan asked, struggling to shake thoughts of how he might possibly be able to entice the man into bed. Emlyn looked kindly at Dan, who felt himself begin to blush. He half hoped that he was not betraying his furtive desire, but even as he waited for an answer, Dan was distracted by the stubbled line of Reece’s prominent jaw.

‘Yes quite probably, but the extent of any surgery will be determined by the severity of the bleed and dispersal. Until the next MRI we won’t know, but the drain we fitted has certainly helped ease pressure inside the skull. She’s far from out the woods, but the fact she’s still with us this morning is more than we first expected.’ Dan was clobbered by an unwelcome image of the council dustcart, and any inappropriate desire for Doctor Reece was bitten flat by his guilt for junked teeth. ‘Where blood vessels join like a junction, weak spots can naturally occur. Sometimes these spots rupture causing an aneurysm. As I explained yesterday, where blood saturates brain damage occurs.’  The terrible phrase sucked the life out of the room and time hung heavy before thankfully, Owen broke the stalemate. ‘This next MRI is that all you’ll use?’

‘What do you mean?’ Emlyn enquired, seeking out the parameters of the question because it rarely helped answering more than had been asked.

‘The decision whether to operate is it based solely on the scan?’

Emlyn shook his head. ‘We back it up with those physical tests I detailed yesterday. In most cases the coma score supports the scan and vice-versa.’

‘And if you think there’s no worth in operating and we disagree, what then?’

These conversations were hard for the family and for Emlyn it was always tricky trying to decide when to close dialogue down. ‘Mr Fernsby let’s wait for the results...’ he paused to seize their attention, ‘we’ll consult with you at every stage, but we always put the patients long term interests first, which can be particularly difficult for you to hear because Mrs Fernsby is either your sister, mum, or wife.’

‘Dr Reece, Anthea’s my friend,’ Jean said, tiny voice loaded with sadness.

Anthea was lying in the exact same position as the evening before, and as they all stood around her bed, it was almost impossible not to fixate on all the wires and sensors and flashing beeping machines. Recognising only blood pressure numbers, they had no idea if the figures displayed were good or bad. Gripping Anthea’s right hand, Jean whispered, ‘We’re here... fight Anth. Remember The Locarno, dancing, gin and lime. I don’t know in God’s name how you ever swallowed the stuff. All our happy times, Crowther’s, don’t you dare let go Miss Lomax!’ Shutting her eyes, Jean saw Anthea clambering the ladder bolted to the side of the bakery flour chute, but before she could replay Anthea rocketing all the way down, someone else’s words interrupted the memory.

‘Where’s the plastic tub gone?’ Eunice asked, standing next to a square table where a jug filled with water twinkling tiny oxygen bubbles. Owen and Dan Fernsby, father and son shrugged their shoulders, and Dan looked Eunice squarely in the face, praying that she would not sniff out his guilt. ‘We’ve got to find it,’ Eunice said urgently, ‘it’s got her teeth in.’

Anthea’s surgery took so long they were all advised to go home. At the request of the hospital, only Eunice and Daniel returned the next day. They were shown to the intensive care unit, which resembled the set of a science fiction film, and made the enormity of all they faced feel horribly worse. The ICU ward contained just three beds and had he not been told which one was his mother’s, Daniel would have walked past her. Anthea Fernsby was barely recognisable. Her eyes were so intensely bruised, it looked like she had forgotten to wash off the previous day’s mascara. Her swollen tongue lolled grotesquely against her ventilator pipe and reminded Eunice of the hose used by Finley Wolf to water his garden. Tenderly rubbing the back of Anthea’s left hand, careful not to knock the I-V line, Eunice whispered, ‘Dirty old bastard, scaring us like that!’ Like branches on a tree, Anthea’s arms were set strangely rigid against her body. Daniel could tell by the shape of the bed covers that the same thing had happened to her legs. Most strikingly alarming though was the left side of Anthea’s head, which had been completely shaved. A trail of chunky dull staples tracked from the top of her forehead eventually disappearing underneath a turban of bandages. Depending upon your viewpoint from where you were standing, Anthea looked like two completely different people. The Frankenstein side of her character was so ghastly, it had made them gasp, and with sickly despair, Dan immediately fretted at what had been done. Looking over to his aunt who’s shocked expression must surely have been mirroring his own, Dan wondered if she was living the same sort of fear.

‘We’ve got to find her teeth, Eunice announced.

Back in Dr Reece’s consulting room, on the fringe of distress after seeing his mother’s parlous state, this time Daniel paid complete attention. ‘The operation is a success; we managed to seal the bleed and remove much of the residual fluid. What’s left will clear naturally because we also fitted a better shunt. The scan highlighted three further potential aneurysm sites, we successfully clipped two. Unfortunately the third one is too near the brain stem.’

‘What happens if it bursts?’

Calmly, Emlyn Reece confirmed,

‘Mr Fernsby, sadly the result would be catastrophic.’

Daniel felt the pupils of his eyes dilate, ‘And will it?’

‘Impossible to say. But your mother clearly has a propensity, so it might.’

‘Are these weak vessels hereditary? Should I ... erm, can we get checked?’

‘Miss Lomax, they’re part of the brain’s natural structure. Everyone has them. To a certain extent it’s a question of luck, but lifestyle’s the big decider. If you smoke and drink, but particularly if you smoke, your chances increase significantly.’

Oddly, Eunice felt compelled to snitch on Jean, however, before she could, Daniel blurted out the dreaded question.

‘What brain damage does she have?’

Reece’s forehead creased with a frown. ‘There was saturation and you’ve noticed the way she’s holding her limbs. That’s happening because the brain is trying to find new pathways. You need to prepare for the fact that she’s not going to be the same as before. But unfortunately, at this stage we simply don’t know how she’s going to be. Even when she wakes, it will be a long time before we understand the full extent and type of cognitive damage.’

‘And what about her dementia?’ Eunice asked, disheartened by all she had thus far heard.

‘Right now, that is impossible to predict, but it’s an added complication. I’m sorry. Keep in mind that the scan and coma score were promising, otherwise we wouldn’t have proceeded.’

For the first time, Emlyn Reece delivered more fear than comfort.

Much to the chagrin of Eunice Lomax the plastic teeth pot seemed to have simply vanished from the face of the earth. The nurses, along with Eunice and Jean searched everywhere. Daniel made the right noises about looking but didn’t because he felt rotten. He tried to console himself that he had genuinely been trying to stop anyone else from clapping eyes on her dentures, especially as she was supposedly dying and would have hated her teeth being on public display.       ‘It could be worse,’ he said to Eunice, hoping to both console and deter her from kicking up any further fuss, ‘at least they’re back teeth and nobody will see.’ Daniel really wanted to own up but could not quite force out an admission.  By allowing his aunt to berate hospital staff for their carelessness he was also now complicit in the fruitless search. ‘Am I the only one who’s bothered?’ Eunice exclaimed.

‘Look at the state of her Ness. Don’t you think she’s got more to worry about? We can buy new teeth when.... AND if,’ he said, deciding that mild attack was his best defence.

Eunice stared pitifully at her sister, who with a stapled skull and hands clenched like claws looked horrific. Wincing at the harshness of her nephew’s biting words, Eunice whispered anxiously, ‘You’re right, Daniel. God, I hope she can’t hear us.’

Dan had never felt so dishonest.

In television drama, if one of the characters suffers a stroke, within a couple of episodes the entire event is usually finished, and the character remarkably recovered. The painful reality as the Fernsby’s were beginning to find out is nothing like that. Anthea’s revival was numbingly slow. Apart from the comings and goings of nurses and doctors nothing else hapened. Paperwork was ticked as Anthea was checked and there were occasional encouraging words. Sometimes her eyes were open and flitting erratically before closing again. Stubby tufts of dark hair were beginning to appear across the surface of her scalp which was no longer stapled. One afternoon, Daniel and Eunice were back in consultation with the ever-dapper Emlyn Reece.       ‘Things for Mrs Fernsby are generally going in the right direction. We’ve removed the staples; she’s breathing by herself and there’s no leakage around the aneurysm site. Her blood pressure has stabilised, and she’s responded to all the antibiotics. Although she’s opening her eyes, don’t be alarmed but she’s not conscious, she’s experiencing a waking coma which is quite normal.’ Emlyn paused to give them chance to process his words and ask any questions, when there were none, he dropped his bombshell. ‘Based on the latest coma score Mrs Fernsby is going to be stepped down from intensive care.’ Eunice’s mouth dried and she found that she could not actually speak.

‘How can that be? She still looks terrible,’ Dan said flatly.

‘She has made enough progress to move from ICU. Mrs Fernsby now requires high dependency and not intensive care,’ Emlyn answered, his tone calm and measured, for it was important that he managed both the conversation and their emotion. ‘If she’s still unconscious, surely you can’t just shove her out,’ Dan argued, feeling sure that his voice was quivering. There was an immediate sea-change to the atmosphere in the room.

‘Mr Fernsby, we don’t just shove our patients anywhere and certainly not those exiting ICU. Your mother is independently performing all her critical functions and her coma score has marginally improved. But that doesn’t mean by any stretch, that there aren’t remaining concerns, which is why she needs the continuation of high dependency. It’s not that different from ICU. You should view this as a positive step forward.’

‘What remaining concerns?’ Eunice asked, regaining her voice. Nevertheless, her palms pressed firmly together were clammy with nerves. Looking gravely serious but still sounding steadily calm, Emlyn Reece explained, ‘Given the time since surgery, overall, Mrs Fernsby is not doing quite as well as we’d like, but slow improvements are happening, which is better than no improvements at all. However, her arms and hands remain severely contracted, and although her leg muscles are relaxing her mobility remains chronically compromised, but this may yet change. We’re continuing with peg feeding because her swallowing reflex is dormant, which, at this stage although unhelpful is not entirely unusual.’

‘We want her to stay where she is,’ Dan curtly announced.

Reece’s sandy hair drooped onto his forehead as he shook his head, and brushing it away with his hand he replied, ‘Mr Fernsby, these are not things that will be fixed by a longer ICU stay, if that were the case, I assure you, I wouldn’t sanction moving her. You must understand that some patients simply take longer to respond. I did warn you; recovery is a long process. I’m sorry, but I don’t have enough of a robust justification to argue for Mrs Fernsby to remain inside ICU.’ Dan felt dizzy and was suddenly very glad that he had not slept with the duplicitous doctor.

‘Before the surgery you said that mum’s scan and her coma scores were good. I knew she didn’t look right, and now you’re shipping her on,’ Dan could feel his face beginning to colour, and he was finding it difficult to maintain a sense of calm.

‘Mr Fernsby,’ Emlyn said coolly, ‘I realise how painful this is...’

Dan interrupted straight away,       ‘Do you? Really? We trusted you. Yet now everything sounds different, like you’re saying that the damage is worse...is going to be worse than you expected. And on top of all this there’s her dementia, from where I’m sitting, my mother’s prospects look pretty bleak. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful Dr Reece, but I don’t think you have the first inkling of how painful this is.’

If the angry words had unbalanced Reece, it did not show, he stared impassively but not unkindly at Daniel. Stunned, Eunice did not know what to do. She but knew there was no point rebuking her nephew, and apart from anything, right now, she shared the same feeling of grudging betrayal. After taking several seconds to calm himself, Daniel asked another question, ‘Mr Reece,’ the deliberate change in title crashed the room and was lost on none of them, ‘if the outcome we seem to be facing applied to your own mother, I wonder if you’d think it was worth it?’ Shutting the file on the desk in front of him, Emlyn felt terribly sorry for the Fernsby’s, but these sorrowful conversations were part and parcel of his job.

‘From the coma scores and the pre-surgery MRI scan, there’s still a reasonable chance that Mrs Fernsby will make a good recovery. Anyone entering the hospital suffering a brain haemorrhage is assessed to achieve a coma score. When time is critical this assessment is vital in allowing us to make our best judgement for the prospect of possible recovery. I’ve never been in the business of offering false hope. We use calibrated scoring techniques because no two people are ever quite the same.’

‘Different strokes for different folks you mean??’ Dan remarked bitterly, glaring across the desk.

Chapter 27

Doughnuts Disappeared

Anthea’s monotonous recovery panned out just as Dr Reece had predicted, and the waking coma, one of the most disturbing facets of her stroke held resolutely fast. Anthea Fernsby’s eyes railed erratically, darting and flicking so quickly it felt almost painful to watch. Sometimes it looked as though Anthea was glaring at whoever was attending her, and her pupils remained stubbornly blanker than fog. Nobody was able to offer any visibility as to when this phase would end, and as everything else about her overall condition stabilised, another decision was taken to further step-down Anthea’s level of care. On the general hospital ward one nurse was responsible for looking after eight beds. Dan and Eunice noticed the change immediately. ‘When she wakes, she’ll have no concept or memory of being like this. Some emerge within days others like your mother can take weeks,’ one of the busy nurses had hurriedly explained. On one hand the clarification was reassuring, but then on the other it simply increased their anxiety. Depressingly the family saw that nothing about recovery would happen quickly. Desperately hoping to coax her forwards, day after day, Dan or Eunice turned up to sit and talk to Anthea, but nothing changed.

Every week Jean Fernsby diligently took her turn to visit Anthea, caring and fussing about her incapacitated friend. Just as Jean was gently dabbing Anthea’s face with a sponge, almost three months to the day since the aneurysm burst, in a surprisingly solid voice Anthea said, ‘Thank you.’ For Jean, the jolt was so profound it caused her to seek out the chair set next to the bed. ‘Oh my god!’ she gasped, ‘Anth, we thought we’d never hear you again. How are you feeling?’ Squinting quizzically and saying nothing, Anthea simply closed her eyes, but Jean could not be swerved from her joy.  Although Eunice and Daniel were incredibly grateful that Anthea was conscious at last, they were disappointed not to have been able to see the moment for themselves.  They rushed to the hospital after receiving Jean’s excited call, but sadly by the time they got there, Anthea was sleeping. In the weeks following Anthea’s coma emergence, other improvements followed. Propped against pillows she was able to sit upright and despite her speech being infrequent, its clarity was slowly improving. Fortunately Anthea’s breadth of vocabulary had survived the stroke remarkably intact, unlike other poor souls on the ward.

Anthea Fernsby’s move onto the general ward also meant that she ceased to be the responsibility of Dr Reece. Consequently, Eunice and Daniel found themselves assigned to a different but dismally familiar consulting room. By now, being quite used to the drill they were far less intimidated by the medics and their surroundings, nevertheless, Eunice still gave Dan a stern warning, ‘Just listen to what we’re told, you getting antsy isn’t going to help anyone, least of all our Anthea.’ Doctor Varma was a slight man with a boyish face and shiny jet-black hair, spiked raffishly at the fringe. Everything about him from his buttoned shirt collar through to the crease of his narrow-legged trousers was precise. But unlike Dr Reece, Varma did not to wear a tie and his refined aftershave was never overplayed. When Abhishek Varma’s cobalt gaze settled upon you the effect was mesmerising, partly because it was unusual to find an Indian man with blue eyes, and partly because the colour was so striking. ‘Mrs Fernsby is making satisfactory progress. With help, once in the sitting position she is reasonably self-supporting and can hold up her head for periods at a time,’ Varma began to explain, in a gentle calm cut-glass voice. Dan and Eunice nodded enough for him to notice, but not enough to stop him talking. ‘What remains unclear is the effect of the stroke on the dementia.’

‘And when will we know that?’ Eunice asked.

‘Because of where the brain damage is, Mrs Fernsby won’t be able to answer most of the questions we use to gauge dementia positioning. We should face the reality that this isn’t likely to change,’ Varma calmly answered. Daniel peered into his coffee, trying hard to reconcile himself to his own perceived unfairness of the words. He knew that Dr Varma was not to blame, it was abundantly clear that Varma’s expertise revolved solely around recovery. Varma could see that neither of Anthea Fernsby’s relatives were ready with further questions. ‘However, I want you to be aware that there are aspects of Mrs Fernsby’s recovery worrying me. Everything about good stroke survival is time-critical, the quicker intensive rehabilitation begins the better. With this in mind, I want to move her to our rehabilitation facility as quickly as possible. Every week we wait is a week lost and unfortunately we can’t wind back the clock.’

‘What’s worrying you particularly?’ Eunice enquired, sounding doggedly pessimistic.

‘There’s no good reason why Mrs Fernsby shouldn’t be taking a few steps with a frame or at the very least standing. But she isn’t. Upper body fluidity should be better, but it isn’t. Her swallowing reflex should be better, but it isn’t.’

‘Do you know why?’

Without disturbing his hair, Dr Varma shook his head. ‘To be honest, we don’t,’ the polite abruptness of the answer took Dan by surprise, but before he could fire off another question, Abhishek Varma continued, ‘from looking at the MRI I would expect some of these things to be happening by now, especially as these controlling pathways were not significantly impacted by the bleed. Despite advances in our understanding, there remain many aspects of stroke recuperation that still confound us. Your mother’s best chance now is through rehab and physio. But as I’m sure you’ve already been told; no two people make exactly the same recovery.’

‘Different strokes for different folks,’ Dan mumbled.

‘Precisely. Mr Fernsby, precisely. I couldn’t have put it better myself. Do you have any other questions?’

Shifting in her chair Eunice nodded. ‘You mentioned her swallowing, what about feeding and drinking?’ With his hands finger-locked and set before him on, Abhishek smiled benignly. ‘When she was in H-D, a stomach peg was fitted, which we’re still using to push a concentrate of nutrients directly into Mrs Fernsby’s stomach,’ Eunice grimaced, ‘Miss Lomax, it sounds far worse than it is. Once your sister is in rehabilitation proper, they’ll start trying to stimulate her. We begin with ice cream which quickly melts so it won’t get into the lungs. Mrs Fernsby will try to swallow,’ he said, before adding, almost as an afterthought, ‘eventually.’

At first sight the rehabilitation unit looked neither one thing nor the other, not quite a hospital, not quite a hotel. Sitting at a wide curved desk in the middle of the entrance foyer, tapping at a keyboard was a sombre looking lady oozing authority. Everyone was greeted with a brief perfunctory smile before being efficiently dealt with. The general atmosphere felt more relaxed than the hospital, even though the entire place smelt of sterile antiseptic. Every now and again the murmur of hushed conversation was unsettled by a sudden shout or yell from any of the patients, making their visiting relatives look either startled, embarrassed or both. Eunice and Daniel were guiltily relieved by seeing the number of other unfortunate families, who just like them had ben pitched into a strange world of damaged people, who were all trying to communicate and function just as before. It was enormously difficult for to accurately gauge the progress Anthea was making, because apart from the changes already wreaked by her dementia, her entire character had been disrupted by the aneurysm. Improvements to Anthea’s condition seemed to be coming at a snail’s pace, but thankfully, now she was in rehab, review sessions with the medical team were at least happening more frequently.

During one of these reviews, Eunice and Daniel were listening to a dismal assessment from one of the many consultants involved with Anthea’s care. ‘Persistently, even with the aid of a frame, Mrs Fernsby cannot stand or walk, nor is she self-supporting. As I know Dr Varma has already explained, from the MRI scans we have we can see no discernible reason.’ Neither of them answered or posed any questions because nothing about the situation being described was changed. The consultant was quite used to such a reaction because by this stage in the recovery of a loved-one, relatives had invariably succumbed to the grinding slog of rehabilitation and recuperation. ‘When the brain suffers significant injury, rooted at the deepest levels a patient can become overwhelmed without even realising. I think this is the case with Mrs Fernsby, so there’s something I’d like to try.’ Eunice and Daniel both looked quizzically. ‘We want to put Mrs Fernsby onto a tipping table to see if we can coax her brain into accepting that it’s possible and okay to stand.’

‘Is that going to hurt her?’ Eunice asked, immediately alarmed by the proposition. When the doctor shook her head her tight curls bounced, and fleetingly Eunice was momentarily side-tracked by the question of natural or permed.

‘She won’t like it. We’ll be trying to push her through a mental barrier, a block if you like. Keep at the forefront of your mind the benefits of this working. Are you familiar with the mechanics of a tipping table?’ Lucy Nash described how Anthea would be laid onto a flat table and strapped by both wrists and ankles before being vertically tipped into the standing position. ‘Once upright the physiotherapist will work with her building her confidence. Over several sessions we would hope to reach the point where we can undo the ankle and wrist straps and she’ll be able to stand.’

‘Can we be with her. It might help,’ Eunice asked, nodding slowly.

‘Of course,’ Lucy agreed smiling, ‘we encourage families to get involved, but let me warn you, the first few times will be extremely difficult for you to watch. Her reaction will be extreme.’ Lucy was sitting in front of a large sash window dressed by a dusty sun-bleached blind. In one of the top corners Dan had become distracted by sight of a tiny spider patiently lowering then raising itself on an invisible line.

‘And what if this doesn’t work?’ he asked, breaking away from watching the creature’s toil.

‘The longer she doesn’t the more likely it is that she won’t walk, so you see, time is of the essence,’ Lucy affirmed.

‘Crippled you mean?’ Eunice gulped. Dan noticed with some sadness that the little spider had vanished.

‘I prefer wheelchair bound,’ Lucy corrected, but still nodding grimly.

Eunice Fernsby went along to the first tipping table appointment, which Dan was unable to attend. By the time thirty minutes was up, Eunice looked more ashen than her sister. Lucy Nash had warned that the session would be hard, but for Anthea’s sister it had verged on looking medievally cruel. Anthea had screamed and wailed, and slammed her head against the table as she was tipped. Her distress became so violent actual physio was not possible. Once safely back in her wheelchair, oddly Anthea became immediately and intensely calm, which Eunice found to be just as disturbing. Having watched the dreadful reaction of her sister, in her heart, Eunice knew that the chances of Anthea standing and walking again were zilch. Eunice also decided that she would not put herself through another harrowing session. After listening to his aunt’s account, being Anthea’s next-of-kin, Daniel requested that the therapy be stopped or at least suspended. The rehabilitation team were of quite a different mind, reassuring them that once the session was over, despite her ugly protestations, Anthea would remember nothing.

The therapy continued without Eunice or Daniel, and despite the team’s best efforts, Anthea made no progress. Consequently the family loaned a heavy square wheelchair with solid jigsaw patterned tyres, which even when it was empty it was difficult to push and steer. Initially it was a great shock to see Anthea wheelchair bound because it reinforced the reality of her newfound disability, and she seemed to be beyond the capacity of mourning what had been lost to her. But like anything, as everyone became used to the sight of the chair and its occupant, shock dissipated, and an event once quite unthinkable became the new norm. ‘Are we going home soon?’ was the thing Anthea asked most often, which would culminate in an outburst of crying and emotion. The problem for Anthea was that she could no longer articulate exactly where home was.

The wards where the patients slept were found at the back of the main building, Anthea Fernsby’s bed, which was one of four in the bay was nearest the corridor, giving enough room for her wheelchair to be drawn alongside. She was completely unable to assist with the physical transfer into and out of the thing. Eunice and Daniel were beguiled by how easy the nurses made it look. When they tried the same feat, the transfer was clumsy, and Anthea would shout and swear. Once on the bed, Anthea could sit up. The bed guards had to be locked into place because Anthea could neither prevent herself from toppling to the side or sliding down the bed. Whenever this occurred, Anthea never called out. ‘That’s a consequence of the brain damage,’ Lucy Nash explained, ‘she’s unable to perform personal risk assessment or critical decision-making, its why she can never live alone or even unsupervised. If there was a fire she wouldn’t know what to do....so by consequence she’d do nothing.’

‘You mean she’d simply burn to death without even shouting,’ Eunice stammered, feeling shocked by the revelation and stupid at the words leaving her mouth.

‘Miss Lomax, your sister’s behaviour is damage driven. There’ll be days when you’ll be lulled into thinking that perhaps she’s getting better. And there’ll be bad days when you’ll feel like she’s back to square one. But it’s the same brain damage all the time, then we have to throw into the mix the complexity of her dementia,’ Lucy said, sympathetically.

Anthea’s reactions were often disjointed and her tolerance at being misunderstood was non-existent, causing her to trumpet, ‘fuck off then!’ After the outburst she would be gripped by a fiery fury. Yet again, Lucy was able to offer valuable insight, ‘There are several ways that brain damage can manifest. A person may become completely withdrawn, or overtly and inappropriately sexual, or gripped by bouts of aggressive rage, which we think is the case with Mrs Fernsby. Once she’s on that path, like a toddler about to have a tantrum you can’t swerve it. If you show aggression back, the situation will rapidly escalate, Mrs Fernsby will just become more incensed by your anger.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Dan replied, shocked, ‘Lordy, I couldn’t have coped with option two, at least we seem to have dodged that particular bullet!’

‘Fingers crossed, but there’s time yet,’ Lucy warned.

The most notable success of Anthea’s time in rehabilitation was the reinstatement of her ability to swallow. Through weeks of patient feeding, firstly with miniscule amounts of ice cream, miraculously it felt, Anthea suddenly seemed to grasp what was required of her. Before long she was swallow slightly bigger morsels, which soon became bitesize, prior to becoming small mouthfuls. For Daniel and Eunice, the removal of the stomach feeding peg was their first true joyous milestone of Anthea’s post-aneurysm recovery.  But there was a dark side to the development, watching Anthea’s voracious appetite for food and the unruly manner of her consumption was both disturbing and unsettling for Daniel and Eunice to see. Anthea spent a good deal of time sleeping and they were reassured that this was quite normal and was to be expected during the long drag of recuperation. Often after arriving at his slumbering mother’s bedside, Daniel would just sit watching her. Sometimes she was on top of the covers and sometimes not. Over time this unexpected solitude bought him strange comfort, because when resting like that, Anthea looked mostly as before, before both the dementia and haemorrhage. Frequently, during these serene occasions when her face looked untroubled, Daniel found himself wishing that his mother would quietly slip away, but of course it never happened, and afterwards acknowledgement of the wish made him feel dreadful.

Like all her rehab cohorts, Anthea’s attention span was fused short. Thankfully the effect of her explosive outbursts was mollified by the presence of others in exactly the same predicament.  It was impossible to avoid other bed fillers and their families, and somehow it was reassuring to see that recovery seemed to be equally as frustrating and slow for everyone. One afternoon, deciding to cheer up everyone on the ward, all the patients and their weary relatives, Eunice arrived with a tray of jam-filled doughnuts. Anthea’s eyes gleamed just as soon as she saw the pile of plump sugary treats and she immediately reached out her hand. ‘You’ll have to wait,’ Eunice announced, placing the tray on top of Anthea’s bedside locker.

‘I want one!’ Anthea insisted, her fingers wriggling like worms in soil.

‘I’ve paper plates and napkins in the car, after I’ve fetched them, we’re all going to get one,’ Eunice said, nodding towards the other beds, where some of the occupants were already craning their necks. Scowling Anthea snatched back her hand and tucked it moodily amongst her cleavage.

‘Just fuck off!’ she snarled.

‘If you can’t be patient,’ Eunice warned, ‘there’ll be nothing! 2 minutes!’ she warned, before turning and striding away.

Eunice could not straightaway identify the sparkles speckled through Anthea’s hair, but the vision made her remember when they were kids. When Anthea had missed the last bus home, Eunice used to let her climb in through her bedroom window. On rainy nights she deliberately made Anthea wait outside and because so much lacquer had been sprayed into her sister’s hair it had made the trapped raindrops twinkle. Spinning round to look at the doughnut tray, Eunice was aghast to see that almost half were gone. Smudged across Anthea’s cheeks and against the corners of her mouth were sticky slashes of red. Some of the ruby gloop was also splodged down her nightie and her fingers were thick with granules. Dumbfounded she stared at her older sister, who with a guilt encrusted face glibly announced, ‘It wasn’t me!’

Chapter 28

Forgetting the Elephant

The longer Anthea Fernsby lingered in rehabilitation, the easier the environment became for them all to cope with. After the failure of the tipping table therapy no more attempts were made to try and coax Anthea back up onto her feet, and without fuss or complaint she adapted to wheelchair life. The only thing that seemed to cause her any obvious alarm was when the chair was tipped back to negotiate steps and kerbs. Although Anthea’s power of speech returned, she struggled when engaged in conversation of more than a few sentences.  Generally, she spoke in fragments of reality, repeating the same sequence of questions over and over. Anthea’s memory already blighted by the grind of dementia had been further scattered by her stroke, yet bizarrely, she recognised if any of the answers to her stock questions changed. Whenever this occurred, which threw her off kilter, Anthea simply returned to the beginning of the loop. Her sister and son both silently suspected that the day was fast approaching when Anthea would have to be discharged, so they were not surprised when Freya Maybury telephoned.

Freya’s office was messier and far more cluttered than Josie Rose’s, and instead of the smell of medicines and antiseptic, they were greeted with the fragrance of musty coffee and stale files. Pinned to one of the walls was a stretch of calendar filled with coloured stickers and haphazardly fixed notes, the visual disorder adding to the atmosphere of general chaos. Freya was wearing her usual outfit of a long sloppy cardigan, bangles jingling from both wrists, and a skirt with squeeze-box style pleats smothering her shoes. Today her long hair was tied back into a ponytail, opening out the contours of her narrow face and neck. Intimidated by the bulky file dominating the desk, Daniel and Eunice decided to wait for Freya to speak first. ‘Before we start are you sure I can’t fetch you a drink?’ Having grabbed a more preferable café coffee beforehand, both heads in front of Freya shook a silent refusal. Opening the lever arch file, she told them, ‘I’ve the latest assessment from Lucy Nash, which I know she’s briefly discussed with you.’ This time both the heads facing her nodded, Freya continued, ‘We think for now, Mrs Fernsby has plateaued, which doesn’t mean that there won’t be any more recovery, but the benefit of her remaining in rehab is questionable.’

‘And I daresay you don’t want Anth bed blocking,’ Eunice remarked, surprising herself with her abrupt boldness. Although she sometimes looked timid, in fact Freya was just the opposite. ‘If more could be achieved by keeping her there, Miss Lomax, rest assured that we would. There’s always bed pressure.... but that doesn’t mean we’re in the habit of forcing people out. All the assessments indicate the same thing.’

‘Miss Maybury, to be frank, we’ve been expecting this. We’ve always known Anth can’t stay there forever,’ Eunice remarked softly.

Freya smiled slightly before announcing, ‘You’re both eminently sensible, I do realise the difficulties you’re facing.’

‘What happens next?’ Dan asked, before tension set in.

Freya explained that a permanent space at Jephson House had become unexpectedly available following a resident’s death, and although Anthea was unlikely to remember staying there previously, on some hidden level she would still be familiar with the environment.  Eunice knew that such news should have been greeted with enthusiasm and even relief, but Freya’s words made her sad. No matter how long her sister lived, it felt as though a permanent move into Jephson House was the trigger of a final slow endgame. Anthea was never going to recover, and in her heart, Eunice had always known this, but now it felt like a shared painful reality was being hammered home. Frowning, she asked, ‘Last time, funding had to be reviewed every few weeks, how will that work now she’s permanent?’

‘Continuing Health will cover initial cost, at least whilst the transfer from rehab is underway. But for as long as she remains solvent and over the threshold, Mrs Fernsby will have to pay,’ Freya replied, without blinking or flinching, quite prepared for the question.

‘Her apartment you mean?’ Eunice observed sadly.

‘I’m sorry, but yes,’ Freya confirmed, nodding.

‘And when that money’s all gone?’ Eunice half whispered, her voice and lips beginning to tremble.

‘Don’t worry....once that happens everything will be taken care of, it’s standard procedure,’ Freya answered gently, unable to blunt the bureaucratic harshness of her words.

Eunice wanted to cry; they might as well have been talking about a commodity and not her sister’s life. Seeing his aunt unexpectedly struggling, Daniel piped up,       ‘Thank you, Miss Maybury. We understand what you’re saying. We’ve only just had the letter from the hospital, which we’ve passed to the solicitor.’

‘That’s fine,’ Freya reassured, ‘we’re used to waiting for power of attorney, such things never happen quickly. But we can progress without it and once it’s in place we’ll sort everything out.’

Almost eight months after her aneurysm burst, Anthea Fernsby arrived back at Jephson House. She was greeted by Josie Rose the manager and Lauren, her prime carer, who, through quick actions that terrible afternoon had undoubtedly saved Anthea’s life. ‘Miss Anthea, my darling,’ Josie purred, careful not to speak too loudly, so as not to frighten her. Josie’s affection was heartfelt and genuine and as she declared 'welcome home!', the warmth of her hushed greeting stayed bright as her dress, and as she spoke, Josie swamped Anthea’s brittle hands amongst her own. It was difficult to be sure if Anthea recognised her, because despite Josie’s mellifluous care, Anthea had still involuntarily recoiled. Looking both startled and bewildered she searched desperately for her son, whose voice she could hear somewhere. Whilst Daniel was chatting to Lauren, Eunice protectively watched her sister. Upon seeing her gathering nerves and being keen to avoid a harvest of expletives, Eunice stepped into Anthea’s line of sight, saying, ‘Anth, you remember Mrs Rose, don’t you?’ Gently tapping Lauren on the shoulder, Eunice encouraged her to step forwards as she said, ‘And before you were poorly, Lauren looked after you.’

‘Hi Anthea, we’re ever so glad you’re back,’ Lauren said softly.

Lauren was wearing chunky boots with jazzy laces threaded through all the brass eyelets. Once Anthea had noticed them, Eunice thought she saw the briefest spark of recognition light her face. For a second Anthea wavered close to a smile before closing her eyes and asking wearily, ‘Who’s taking me home please?’

The bedroom doors were identical and fixed to the front of each was a large silver number, the occupant’s name, and a letter box. Seeing Dan notice, Mrs Rose explained, ‘Some of our residents like receiving post, so we pop things through, makes them feel like they’re at home.’

‘Can you post mum a newspaper each day?’ Dan asked, impressed with such thoughtfulness.

Smiling, Josie nodded, before Lauren added, ‘We won’t need a new copy every day.’

‘But she likes one, and we’ll pay,’ Dan pleaded.

‘And she’ll have one, but it doesn’t always have to be a new paper...’ Lauren glanced down at Anthea before stating, ‘you won’t remember one day from the next, will you.’

‘I want a smoke before the bus because that 23 goes the wrong way,’ Anthea smartly replied, gawping quizzically. Looking away from his mother, Dan’s eyes suddenly blurred and as his face started getting hotter, Daniel noticed another sign fixed below Anthea’s name.

‘That was the road where Miss Anthea lived wasn’t it?’ Josie asked.

Dan and Eunice nodded together.

‘Latch Road... that’s right,’ Eunice confirmed.

‘All these things help... see what we can coax out of Miss Anthea, because it’s all still in there you know,’ then turning to face Anthea, Josie said, ‘come along my darling, let’s get you settled, before tea. The kitchen’s made your favourite, specially.’

Months elapsed before the apartment sold, the delay being caused by all the legal machinations associated with granting Daniel Fernsby a legal power of attorney. Oblivious to all the trouble, as long as Daniel explained, Anthea gave her signature to any document laid in front of her by her son. Sadly, it was abundantly clear that Anthea Fernsby did not have the feintest idea as to what she was agreeing to or why. Curiously, since her bleed, so tiny were the letters of Anthea’s signed name, a mouse could have written them. Oddly, even years after her death, the memory of his mother’s minuscule handwriting could still bring Dan to tears. For the three of them, Dan, Eunice and Jean, the task of clearing Anthea’s place was raw and difficult, but as they went along their mission became easier. Between sorting items destined for either the dump or the charity shop, they whittled down a lifetime of belongings into a small pile of artefacts that they would bring to Anthea at Jephson House.

‘Oh gosh,’ Jean said anxiously, ‘I hope we’ve made the right choices...’ she pondered anxiously.

‘Aunty Jean... Don’t overthink it, you’re worrying too much. Mum has no idea, she’ll only remember this stuff when she sees it,’ Dan reassured, reaching for a wooden clock nearest his hand.

Not too long before the dementia had begun to properly show, with Alex, Dan had taken his mother on a short holiday to the South of France. In a shaded higgledy-piggledy backstreet shop bursting with tourist treasure, Anthea had found a wooden clock carved into the shape of an elephant.  Managing to convince her that the item was far too expensive the boys had secretly bought the thing for her. When she opened it that Christmas morning, Anthea had burst into tears, and for the next few years the clock took pride of place on her mantlepiece.

‘My son got that when we were in Marseille,’ she would proudly boast.

Carefully wrapped in crinkled tissue, the elephant clock lay inside a swirly patterned cardboard box that was wrapped and tied with ribbon, and after receiving it from her son, Anthea’s eyes thrilled with excitement.

‘It feels heavy. Is it my birthday?’

Shaking his head, Dan said,

‘Mum, it’s just for you. A present for today.’

‘You want a little help?’ Eunice offered, watching her sister struggling to balance the box on her knee whilst untying the daffodil-coloured bow.

With patience lost, Anthea slung the parcel at her sister, demanding,

‘Get the paper off too!’

Removing the ribbon and only loosening the paper Eunice said,

‘It’s your present, you unwrap it.’

‘Oh piss off!’ Anthea hollered short in temper, ‘You fucking do it! I want a smoke...’

With a plummeting heart, suddenly Dan wanted to seize back the box, he had expected the occasion to be entirely different...and regretfully it was. On its own, dementia had left recognisable threads of character, but now, his mother seemed utterly transformed. He saw the same realisation grip Eunice, but alas it was too late to stop the charade, and in an air of despaired jollity, wearily his aunt persisted.

‘Come on Anth, open your lovely present...everyone wants to see, nobody else has one. We’ll go for a smoke just as soon as you’re done.’

None of the other residents were paying Anthea or her family the slightest bit of attention, but Anthea’s enthusiasm for the mysterious gift was rejuvenated by the idea that they were. After lifting off the lid, which she passed to Eunice, Anthea tore through the tissue paper. Upon finding the clock her hands stopped abruptly. Gently, saying nothing, she ran her fingertips along the contours of the elephant’s shape, pausing only when she reached the glass face embedded in the creature’s side.

‘D’you recognise it?’ Dan asked hesitantly, his heart drumming a mixed beat of fear and expectation.

When she eventually looked up, Anthea’s face was twisted into the sort of disgruntled look he had displayed as a child when forced to eat swede. With words leaching disappointment and sounding smaller than her handwriting, Anthea challenged, ‘What the hell is it?’

Eunice glanced despairingly at her nephew, whose own expression was already crumpled with hurt. Even if Anthea could see the same, Eunice knew that she would not, could not muster compassion. Empathy, like so much else, walking, toileting, even living, all lay resolutely beyond Anthea’s ken.

‘It’s the clock I bought you,’ Daniel croaked.

‘It’s fucking vile!’ Anthea declared.

She chucked the box aside, before demanding,

‘Fag.’

Chapter 29

Shooing Rage

After the miserable fiasco with the clock, Anthea’s son and sister decided not to bring any more of her stuff to Jephson House. A decision made not so much for Anthea, but to spare themselves the ordeal of witnessing another awful reaction by her, to something which should have been a joyful occasion. Although the elephant clock would never have been Dan’s personal choice, taking care of it had reminded him of better days with his mum, and now those memories were wrecked.

‘Mr Daniel, everything in your mother’s head is jumbled, like scrabble letters when you shake the bag. If you’d showed her on a different day, she may very well have loved it. Unfortunately, you just can’t predict how they’re going to cope. Don’t get disheartened, bring it in again,’

‘Mrs Rose, it’s gone. I got rid of it. Mum spoiled its associations, which for me is terrible. It’s bad enough watching her going, but if she trashes all our memories, I’ll end up with nothing.’

Junked in the chair, weighed down and desolate, Daniel looked an absolute portrait of misery. His voice sounded sad, and his eyes reflected it. Josie felt terrible for him and the family.

‘Oh lovey, I do understand,’ she said benevolently, ‘in many ways this ordeal will be worse for you. Miss Anthea’s world is a landscape that only she can cross, and she can’t let us in. If she knew your pain Daniel, if she truly knew... but she’s broken. Never forget she’s broken. God has given her a wonderful son, and God walks with you too. Mr Daniel, find courage to lean on him.’

He wanted to utter something dreadful about all he thought of God right now, but Josie’s calmness and the solidness of her belief stopped him. Suddenly recalling Christine Jenkins’ prophetic words, instead, Dan muttered bitterly, ‘Bloody bereavement with strings.’

The dining room where they were sitting was airy and square, set out with several easy wipe plastic tables on shiny chrome legs. Some of the tables were surrounded by chairs with vibrantly coloured plump leather seats, whilst several had none, these were where the people on wheels ate. At the far end of the room was a stainless-steel counter-top, and visible beyond were the industrial ovens and plunge sinks of the kitchen. Just after Josie had been summoned back to her office to intervene in someone else’s crisis, Lauren appeared from the kitchen with 2 steaming mugs. Even before tasting it, Daniel could smell the strength of the thick coffee. After sitting, Lauren scooted between them a long thin packet of unopened biscuits. ‘Apologies they’re not plated or anything fancy. I thought we’d grab some before they’re tipped into the ‘free-for-all’ tin.’

Daniel thought that if he had to describe Lauren, he would have said that she looked classically English, with an understated prettiness and character, at least until you saw either her hair or boots. Her voice and diction was also surprisingly at odds with her punk appearance and confounding her look, the manner of her speech was eloquent and precise. Regardless of Dan’s polite refusal, Lauren opened the packet, and far sooner than he would have liked, Dan succumbed and took a sugar-coated rectangle. Between bites he asked, ‘How’s Mum settling in this time round?’

‘She’s integrated quite well, but we keep her away from Mrs Morval...they’ve taken quite a violent dislike of each other.’

‘Why?’ Dan asked, startled by the news.

‘Impossible to say, but like children at school, sometimes they just rub each other up the wrong way. Unfortunately, they both have the same sort of cognitive restriction, which never helps. In the most part though, given the day-to-day challenges that she faces, Anthea is doing okay.’

Grabbing yet another biscuit, Daniel said,

‘Hmmm, I sense a ‘but’...’

Wrinkling her nose and screwing up her lips, Lauren hesitated before informing him,

‘She’s started to obsess again about the windows and the doors, mostly in her room, but she gets extremely agitated.’

Dan listened as Lauren finished the gloomy familiar tale, wishing that Eunice were here too.

‘Has she mentioned the furniture yet?’

Scrunching closed the cellophane packet; Lauren moved the biscuits next to her empty cup and reached over for Dan’s.

‘The sideboard and her mother’s chair, yes, but not too often, although that will change, it’s a common symptom. Unlike some of our other poor souls, Anthea is experiencing a happier dementia, at least she’s conjuring memories with happy connotations.’

Raising his eyebrows, Dan could hardly believe his ears.

‘Happy? This isn’t happy. She’s lost... vanishing week-by-week. Thank God she’s not aware. Mum used to be smart. Look at the state of her now, she can’t even use the toilet.’

Lauren did not interrupt his anguish, and as Dan continued to vent his hands jerked with every syllable.

‘She’s a living ghost! Everyone’s been frightened away. I’m telling you, if me and Eunice were brave enough, we’d be off too, then who’d she have?’

Raising his shoulders to support the next wave of his bitter tirade, Lauren watched him suck in a huge furious lungful of air, but then nothing happened. He simply stopped, his sorrow spent, and as he recovered his composure, Dan’s hands fell flat.

‘Lauren, I’m sorry,’ he half-whispered.

‘Don’t be daft. It happens like that. You mustn’t underestimate the good you’re doing for your mum... it really makes a difference. Anthea’s fortunate, half our people get no visits, nobody comes for them...ever.’

Peering through the archway from the main corridor into the lounge, Dan saw his mum sitting in her big green armchair, reading. She looked as tatty as her crumpled newspaper.  There were other people in the room too, some were staring disinterestedly at the wall-mounted television, and the programme loudly blaring seemed wholly incidental. Others were staring vacantly into space, whilst some despite the noise were miraculously snoozing.

‘Hey Mum,’ Daniel said as cheerfully as he could muster.

It took Anthea a couple of seconds to recognise her son, and when at last she did, she beamed.

‘Hello boy, we’ll have a smoke?’

Looking for all the world like she was going to stand up and stroll outside with her son, Anthea began to fidget. The only other sign of impatience that she showed was verbal. Hearing the commotion from the corridor, Lauren quickly fetched Anthea’s wheelchair. Stopping it right in front of her, before Daniel realised what was happening, Lauren had swiftly hoofed his mother from her armchair. ‘It’s chilly out, coat on,’ Lauren said, reaching for the red padded anorak hooked across the handles at the back, ready for the inevitable squabble.

Once settled into the wheelchair Anthea’s demeanour altered and the change was not subtle, she became more confrontational and aggressive. She struggled against the fitting of the coat, and then even harder against having the thing zipped up, but fortunately Lauren was nimbler, faster, and more determined. ‘There you go,’ she said, ‘all ready for the shops with your son,’ Lauren announced as Anthea scowled.

Dan stopped pushing the wheelchair along the pavement, and after applying both brakes on either side of the chair he stepped round to the front to face his mum. From his coat pocket he pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and after flipping back the rectangular lid removed a cigarette and handed it to his mother. Popping the cigarette between her dry lips she waited expectantly for him to light the thing, there was no point handing her the lighter, because Anthea could not manoeuvre the flame to the fag or vice-versa. Once she was wheezing and puffing away like a clapped-out locomotive, as the blue smoke rolled and swirled up through her hair in the direction of his face, Dan freed both wheels and continued with their walk. She finished the cigarette quickly and before he could stop her, Anthea deftly flicked the dog-end down into the gutter. Next time, pass it to me and I’ll throw it in the bin, I don’t want you flicking your nub-ends into the road,’ he said to the crown of her head.

‘Know all!’ she snarled, and although he could not see it, he knew her lips were curled.

Forgetting everything that Lucy Nash had explained about the management of rage, the subsequent argument between them escalated rapidly. By the time they reached the city centre, which was only a short distance from Jephson House, there were no words just silence, weary from Dan, fury from Anthea.

The rows of shoes were laid out on one long narrow display stand that was three shelves high, there were so many pairs, suddenly Dan felt overwhelmed. Apart from the fact that he knew they needed to easily slip on and off his mother’s foot, he did not have the faintest idea what sort she would like, and her answer did not help, ‘I’m not fucking five, I can get them myself, but I don’t want any!’

Mindful that there were in the middle of Marks and Spencer, Daniel could not risk antagonising his mother to the same level of foul-mouthed fury as had happened on the way into town. Choosing a shiny pair with a fixed buckle, he placed them flat onto his palm, before lowering them so Anthea could better see.

‘These are smart,’ Anthea was sullen and looked sulky, ‘you can have any pair you want. Point to the ones you like most, and I’ll get them for you,’ Dan suggested, trying to coax her into engaging.

Don’t fucking bother!’

Undeterred by her frayed temper, Dan began lifting several different pairs from the top shelf for his Mum inspect before he fitted them onto her feet once, he had removed her slippers. Stooping on his haunches, Dan gripped his mother’s left ankle and deftly removed her slipper, with the event happening before Anthea could either protest or prevent it. Fitting the new show was a different feat altogether! Anthea shrieked and attempted to kick him away as he tried unsuccessfully to still her foot, ‘Fuck Off! Get Off! Leave me alone!!’ she screamed; her hateful words felt as though they were dominating the whole shop. He was aware that little clusters of inquisitive people were beginning to gather, keen to watch their unfolding battle of wills, although he was not actually looking at their faces, nonetheless he felt intimidated by them.  ‘Sit still!’ he half-shouted, half-pleaded, and much to the audience’s shameful delight, Anthea became noisier and more physical. She tried to kick her son’s face, and Dan just about managed to avoid a kick to the jaw. Buoyed by her near miss and slouching deep into the square aircushion fixed to the seat of her chair, Anthea managed to kick even harder and higher. For the briefest second, Dan did not comprehend what had just happened.

The shelving rack tipped back, and for the merest moment looked as though it were defying gravity whilst trying to decide which way to go. To Dan’s horror but to the delight of the gathering crowd, the entire rack continued to fall backwards disgorging a tsunami of air-borne footwear as it went.

‘Daniel, I told you! I don’t want pissing shoes!’ Anthea squealed.

Ignoring the galloping shop assistants, Dan covered his face.

Chapter 30

Horrible Toad

Anthea Fernsby had to use a lift to reach her room, which was situated on the first floor at the top of a tight staircase. The grill-gate inside the antiquated lift scared her because it allowed Anthea to see the passing walls as it ascended. Only after the old-fashioned gate had been cranked open, would Anthea leave go of her armrests relieved that the ordeal was over. The passageway carpet made shoving the wheelchair hard, and by the time they reached bedroom 7, Eunice was feeling the strain. It was also tricky choreographing their entrance whilst trying to keep the room door wedged open, but somehow, she managed. Anthea’s eyes immediately darted anxiously towards the windows, which were closed, all with their latches fixed secure. ‘Anth,’ Ness said gently, ‘you don’t have to worry anymore, nobody can get up here from outside.’

‘They get in when I’m not here,’ Anthea said, anxiously twisting the cuff of her jumper.

The sweater was far too big for her and actually belonged to somebody else, but rather than debate this moot point with her sister, Eunice decided that it would be easier to mention it to Lauren instead. Eunice could hardly believe how quickly her sister’s hair grew, it had once been Anthea’s pride and joy but not anymore. Eunice dreaded the conversation that was about to unfurl between them. Trying to sound glib she said, ‘When the lady comes, we’ll get your haircut.’ If given a simple choice of yes or no and Anthea plumped for the negative, the battle of wills would be lost for that day. Eunice had quickly learned to couch questions that hopefully delivered the right answer, but not today. Anthea vigorously shook her head, ‘She’s no bloody good that one. I could do better myself with a knife and fork!’

Eunice laughed, particularly because Anthea’s hair looked wilder than her often lost temper.

‘Well, it needs doing. I’ll have to take you. If you’re good and make no fuss, we’ll go somewhere for breakfast afterwards.’

Enthusiastically, Anthea clapped her hands, but within seconds making Eunice’s heart sink, her expression clouded. Anthea’s obsession with intruders never quite abated. ‘When we go, you’ll lock the door won’t you?’

‘Of course. We’ll lock it tight,’ Eunice said.

Anthea smiled unconvincingly, giving the impression that she did not quite trust her sister’s reassurance. Eunice pulled something small from her pocket. ‘What’s that?’ Anthea asked, her beady eye missing nothing.

‘When we go to the hairdressers, you’ll be wanting to look properly smart afterwards,’ Eunice said, revealing a small disposable razor.

‘Piss off!’ Anthea snarled, for she hated having the coarse hairs shaved from her chin. However, more than Anthea disliked the business with the razor, Eunice hated seeing her look so unkempt. She knew that if Anthea could view herself with unfettered eyes, she would have been appalled.

‘Fine. Stay scruffy then, you’ll end up like bristly Aunty Bridget,’ Eunice warned, making a great performance of dropping the razor back into her pocket.

Unperturbed by the comparison and grinning victoriously, Anthea suggested, ‘Let’s go for a smoke!’

Eunice shook her head. ‘If I can’t tidy you up...no cigarette,’ Eunice calmly announced, determined to avoid antagonising her.

‘Where you going?’ Anthea asked despondently as her sister moved determinedly away.

‘To get Lauren to take you for a fag, and to get her to write a date in the diary for the hairdresser. You’ll want your hair washing the night before.’

Releasing her brakes, Anthea began trying to wheel herself towards Eunice. Her juddering progress was heart-rending to watch and for the briefest second, I her mind Eunice was back at Latch Road. She saw her younger self tugging a house coat over her nightdress before opening her bedroom window, allowing Anthea to climb in from the coal-hole roof. ‘Don’t go Ness,’ Anthea pleaded, breaking Eunice’s reminiscence.

Once again, Eunice removed the blade from her pocket and began tapping it against her left palm. ‘Two minutes then you can smoke as many fags as you want. Entirely up to you... but if you really want to huff and to puff...then this particular little piggy will need a smooth chinny-chin-chin, won’t she?’ Eunice cajoled, gently teasing and blackmailing her sister.

A trip to the hairdresser with Anthea was far more stressful for Eunice, and the unfortunate stylist, who, under the most trying circumstances showed the greatest patience and compassion. In the years before her aneurysm and even during the onset of her dementia, Anthea had loved getting her hair done. Oddly, now she loathed the thing that had once bought such joy. Anthea would begin badgering just as soon as the scissors touched her hair, preferably the haircut had to be finished almost as soon as it had started with minimal fuss and chatter. Often, forcing Anthea to sit quietly still and to stop swearing, Eunice had to intervene with the threat of a cigarette ban. Generally, though, Vanessa had learned how to manage Anthea and. finish the job within 15 minutes. Miraculously, somehow the cut always looked halfway decent. Today’s result was no different, and as ever Eunice was enormously relieved that it was over and done and achieved with. With Anthea zipped into her coat and ready to go, Eunice paid the bill. She was always careful to add a significant tip, mostly to acknowledge Vanessa’s kindness, but to also secure buy-in for the next time. After their early morning appointment, usually Eunice took Anthea for breakfast, but because the day was soggily cold, Anthea wanted to return home.

Once back at Jephson House and safely inside her bedroom, before the transfer from chair to bed, Eunice unzipped Anthea’s coat and helped her take if off. Eunice’s technique was neither as smooth nor efficient as Lauren’s and made Anthea swear. When at last Anthea was settled comfortably on top of the bedcovers, all she wanted was a newspaper. The edition did not matter, so Eunice handed her yesterday’s edition that was still on the table. Anthea’s capacity for engagement was draining, Eunice could see that that there was little point in dragging out the visit. After running her fingers through Anthea’s fluffy hair and then kissing her forehead, Eunice whispered, ‘Looks nice. I’ll get someone to bring you a cuppa and a biscuit.’ Glancing up briefly Anthea nodded, and within seconds of the door clicking, her head lolled.

When she opened her eyes, it took a couple of groggy seconds for Anthea to gather her senses. On the table next to her bed was a mug, and peering inside, she could tell by the dull colour of the tea that it was stone cold.

‘Looks a bloody mess!’ the cold voice said.

Familiar as Anthea was with the unexpected voice it still startled her. The sunlight streaming through the window skimmed the shiny foil on top of her mother’s reappeared sideboard, making it glare. Anthea could not see the doylies that she knew for certain would be there. ‘Jesus Christ!’ she exclaimed, looking over to the windows that were still locked, ‘where’s Dad?’

Loitering at the bottom of the bed, Anthea’s mother ignored the question, sniping instead, ‘I expect you paid through the nose! And it’s not even cut properly at the back.’

Anthea watched Irene Lomax move over to the sideboard, open the middle drawer and begin clattering the knives and forks.

‘Who bought that in?’ Anthea asked, the jangle of cutlery grating her nerves.

‘Your father’s never going to come here, this is the same as the place where they dumped Cynthia Lawn,’ Irene remarked, ignoring her daughter’s question again.

The spiteful remark hit the spot. ‘I’m only here ‘til the decorating’s all finished then I’m going home!’ Anthea barked. Irene laughed. If Anthea could have raised herself from the bed she would have. Instead, she half-lay in clenched silent fury, watching her mother prowl. Occasionally Irene ran her finger along one surface after another, then with a dismissive tut she would flick away imaginary dirt. Eventually arriving at the wheelchair, she enquired, ‘And who’s is this?’

‘Mine,’ Anthea whispered.

‘What’s supposed to be wrong with you?’

Nervously Anthea pulled at the string of her jogging bottoms and tried to wipe away some of the grubby stains that she had only just noticed. Looking helplessly at the contraption, she realised that she could not properly explain why she needed the damned thing. Racking her brain, Anthea began to panic at the blaring absence of a tangible explanation. Something must have happened, but for the life of her, she could not think what. Suddenly, miraculously, a memory began flickering behind her eyes. In words as fragmented as the reminiscence, Anthea blurted out, ‘Pedestrian crossing...knocked down...in the dark. Driver didn’t stop.’ Feeling triumphant she stared defiantly at her mother, who was glaring incredulously back.

‘What on earth are you going on about? That was Gordon Blenkin! He got killed.’

Muddled by the name and confused by the fragment of a murky memory, as if trying to clear fog, Anthea shook her head. ‘I’m married to Owen...you saw to that!’ Anthea bellowed, pointing accusingly, her face burning fury.

‘Anthea Lillibet, you’re spending too much time in here on your own; sending you daft,’ Irene said haughtily, looking and sounding completely non-plussed by Anthea’s outburst.

Rage engulfed, Anthea squealed, ‘Fetch my dad!’

By sheer coincidence Lauren had been in the corridor when she heard Anthea’s raised voice, and recognised immediately that something was amiss. She found Anthea slumped, distraught with tears, almost inconsolable.

‘Hey, hey, what’s the trouble?’ Lauren asked, gently taking Anthea’s clammy hand. Anthea tried in vain to peep over Lauren’s shoulder to see what her mother was up to; she was going to tell Lauren to make her leave. Before she could do or say anything, Lauren had repositioned her on the bed.

‘There you go my love, is that better?’

Devastated to discover that both her mother and the sideboard had completely vanished yet again, gulping tears, Anthea repeated, ‘Fetch dad.’ Once Anthea was calmer, Lauren washed her face and hands in warm water with a flannel. Next, she proposed a change of clothes, which surprisingly Anthea agreed to, but she refused to have her hair brushed. Lauren found a lipstick and perfume in one of the bedside cabinet drawers, and after using them on Anthea, announced, ‘There.... a million dollars and ready for dinner.’

‘Can I have a smoke?’

‘Of course,’ Lauren answered, ‘if we go down now, you can have a ciggie outside.’

‘Lock the door,’ Anthea said, looking anxiously across the room.

Glowering at her meal made Anthea’s belly squirm and looking up at Josie Rose who had just served the plate she said, ‘I don’t like it.’ Anthea was not fond of sausages and blamed the aversion on the grimmest childhood meal she could recall - ghastly toad-in-the-hole. Even after all these years the memory like the food still left a nasty taste. Anthea prodded her fork distastefully.

‘The other meal is pork casserole and I know you don’t like that,’ Josie said. Anthea eyed her suspiciously, where Josie came from, Anthea knew that they boiled pork and served it up with rice, that much she could remember. She felt that if Mrs Rose had been shown properly, she would have known that pork should aways be roasted with crispy potatoes sage and onion, never in sloppy casserole. Anthea looked up, expecting to see Josie waiting, but she was already back at the kitchen collecting more meals.

‘Just eat it!’ the voice demanded.

Anthea recoiled looking at the greasy sausages wrapped in batter, which was crispy on top and spongey underneath. ‘I don’t like it,’ she mumbled.

‘Well, there it is...and it’s all there is!’ Anthea heard her mother insist, the sound entirely filling her head. She looked round for Irene, yet strangely, her mother was nowhere. Making matters worse, somebody had now sloshed thin gravy across her plate.

‘You’ll stay there until it’s eaten,’ Anthea heard Irene invisibly warn.

She began to cry and spluttered, ‘Fetch dad.’

Seeing Anthea’s juddering tears, Josie rushed immediately to her aid, and gathering her into herself, said soothingly, ‘Miss Anthea, don’t cry, we’ll find you something else. How about a nice sandwich?’

‘Cheese and ‘marto,’ Anthea spluttered.

Releasing her hold, Josie bustled off back towards the kitchen, and Anthea sat quite alone, staring glumly at her plate. Once again, her mother’s voice harried.

‘Anthea Lillibet, nobody’s impressed by crocodile tears! You, my girl will do as you’re told!

Reluctantly Anthea picked up her fork.

Josie was surprised to see that after all Anthea’s tears, some of the food had gone. ‘My darling, you ate some of it. Do you still want these?’ Nodding, Anthea reached eagerly for the little platter of cheese and tomato sandwiches. Smiling, Josie revealed, ‘Cut into triangles, just as you like.’

‘Thank you,’ Anthea replied, before asking, ‘Don’t tell mum.’

After Eunice had called to tell him that the haircut trip had gone successfully, Dan decided to drop into Jephson House. He knew what time dinner was served, so had waited until after. By the time he got there and had shared a brief chat with Mrs Rose, Anthea was settled in the big green armchair in the booming resident’s lounge. Just as soon as she clapped eyed upon her son, Anthea beamed. Daniel expected her to immediately demand a cigarette for this was their routine, but she did not. Instead, with her right hand stuffed deep into her cleavage from the top of her blouse, his mother was fidgeting relentlessly. ‘Mum, what’s the matter?’ Looking furtively left, then right, Anthea urgently whispered, ‘Get rid!’

With the flourish of a triumphant magician, from within the confines of her bra, Anthea pulled out something Dan could not quite make out. ‘Quick! Before she comes,’ Anthea told him frantically.

Instinctively he held out his hand into which his mother dropped two cold sausages.

‘What the hell?’ he mumbled.

Chapter 31

Arid Offal

Anthea Fernsby’s life settled into the humdrum routine of institution, which consisted mainly of cigarettes, newspapers, mealtimes, and then more cigarettes. What she particularly and persistently disliked though, was showering, being dressed, or submitting to having either her teeth or hair brushed. ‘Do you think she smokes too much?’ Dan’s father Owen asked one morning, after returning from the supermarket where he had just watched his son buy another carton of two hundred cigarettes.

‘Absolutely,’ Dan confirmed, nodding. ‘What else does she have? If I stop her, it’ll make everyone miserable. The promise of a fag will make her do almost anything, and those poor carers need these more than mum!’

Peering over the frames of his glasses, Owen Fernsby was concentrating on cardboard pots of black compost lined-up on his greenhouse bench. Dan had showed a cursory interest in the seeds his father was pricking out, but only just enough to avoid an unnecessary explanation of the merits of one plant over another. Owen was wearing a baggy cardigan, an old tatty shirt, and ancient, scruffy trousers. Dan thought that his father looked like an absconded scarecrow from the farmer’s field. Owen was working the seeds, his fingers efficiently adept at a task perfected over decades.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, his overly cavalier tone instantly pricking Dan’s attention. Without looking up, Owen gabbled, ‘I’m not going to visit, because I don’t think it’ll help. Continuing to prod the crumbly soil, he explained further, ‘I mean for me, it won’t help me. I can’t bear to see her like she is. It was bad enough in the hospital... but I talked it through with Hilary and she agreed, she said....’

With a raise of his hand Daniel interrupted his father’s increasingly speedy words. ‘Dad! It’s okay.  If I didn’t have too, I wouldn’t be going either. Nor would aunty Eunice. Mum’s getting worse, and to be honest if she saw you, it’d confuse her more. In fact most days she believes she’s still married.’

‘But she’s not, is she?’ Owen quickly retorted, sounding surprisingly hostile.

‘And that’s exactly the point. Dad, you’ve been more than fair over the years, you, and Hilary. Some people might say that’s more than she deserved. Mum isn’t your responsibility, she’s mine.’

Owen said nothing, but his seed planting had paused. Feeling the need to offer an olive-branch, Daniel said, ‘This week wouldn’t have been any good because we’re expecting a visit from the doctor, which always unsettles her.’

‘Oh, why?’ Owen enquired, as he began sifting compost like flour through his fingers.

‘Upset tum, but it’s easier to persuade Dr Mohamed to visit the mountain rather than the other way round!’

Owen sighed.

Eunice and Daniel tried to arrive at Jephson House together as often as possible, for it relieved the tedium of the visit, and it was easier to distract Anthea when she was about to fly off the handle. After signing in, where yet again, it was necessary for Monica to grudgingly fetch them a pen, they headed straight for the noise of the main lounge. Although the room was full, Anthea’s green chair was empty. Surprised by this, and without speaking, next they made for the closed door of Josie Rose’s office across the corridor, where the stale smell of the evening meals still lingered. Glancing at his watch, Dan thought there was a chance that she might have already left. Eunice knocked and they waited. It took a couple of seconds for Josie to shout, and they were both silently relieved to hear her. Josie offered up her usual enthusiastic warm welcome. Dan always looked forward to seeing how much false hair was piled on top of her head, and this evening he was not disappointed. Whoever fixed her extensions was a master of their mischievous craft. Josie’s crimson dress complimented her dark skin and flawless complexion. ‘Miss Eunice, Mr Daniel, please...’ she offered smiling, pointing at the vacant chairs in front of her desk, which was covered in files and piles of paper. Scooping up the loose sheets, Josie dumped the stack into a wire tray near the telephone.

‘We thought Anth might still be up,’ Eunice said as they settled into their seats.

Without breaking her smile Josie observed, ‘you both look very smart.’

‘Thank you,’ Eunice replied, ‘we’re on our way to the theatre, but we’re early...’

Josie nodded.

‘Miss Anthea went up a couple of hours ago, the lounge was too busy and noisy for her. She was sick, so I decided it better to settle her early. Lauren took her some soup and sat with her.’

‘When’s the doctor due?’ Daniel asked, frowning.

‘Tomorrow some time before lunch. If we’d been concerned about today, I’d have called you. I think mostly she’s unsettled, although she squabbled with Marilyn, she misses her.’

Squashy Marilyn, as they had come to fondly think of her was always eager to greet any visitor, never having any of her own. Once Josie had mentioned the fact, it dawned on Eunice and Daniel that Marilyn had been missing for their last few visits.

‘Where’s she gone?’ one of them asked, both feeling guilty by how quickly they’d forgotten her. The realisation was hard to acknowledge, because it made them see how easy it was for Anthea to have become forgotten too, which is exactly what had happened in her wider world.

‘Hospice,’ Josie answered succinctly, the single word conveying all they needed to know.

‘Give her our love,’ Eunice said quietly.

‘I will indeed,’ Josie confirmed, but they all knew the uncomfortable truth of the situation. ‘Go on up, she was watching television so she shouldn’t be asleep just yet,’ Josie added quickly.

‘What about cigarettes?’

‘Their rooms have smoke alarms, she can’t have one in there,’ Josie warned.

‘Course not...’ Dan confirmed, ‘I meant what about when she asks, because she will, just as soon as she sees us,’ Dan explained.

Wearing a t-shirt cotton nightie with a picture of a flop-eared dog on the front, Anthea was leaning heavily against a heap of pillows. Daniel presumed that she must have recently been changed because she was missing her habitual food splatters. Alongside the bed was a portable table on which was placed a plastic jug full of water and an empty cup.

‘You alright Anth, can I pour you a drink?’ Eunice offered, perturbed by the waxy appearance of her sister’s pale chalky skin.

Waving her hand dismissively Anthea refused, instead suggesting eagerly, ‘shall we have a smoke?’ The briefest nervous glance stretched between nephew and aunt, as neither of them wanted to deliver the refusal.

‘Not right now, Anth,’ Eunice blurted, and before her sister could protest, Eunice added, ‘Josie said that you were poorly this afternoon, so it’s probably better you stay warm in bed.’ In an instant Anthea’s expression clouded darkly thunderous, so her son spoke quickly and dominantly ahead of his mother.

‘And the doctor is coming to see you soon. Did you forget? If he gets here and we’re outside that won’t look very good, will it?’ Revelation of the forthcoming visit from the doctor stumped Anthea. The question posed, although mildly deceitful, at least stopped her exploding at Eunice. Despite her precarious cognitive disposition, Anthea was not good with her memory being quibbled. On some hidden level, she knew that she could not faithfully pinpoint facts. With her mind hopelessly spinning, desperately she looked between her son and sister; ‘Piss off!' she eventually snapped, frustrated by the twist of their impenetrable conversation.

‘Once he’s been, Mrs Rose said we can take you out for as many fags as you want, that’s okay, isn’t it?’ Daniel asked, saddened at his mother’s inability to swim with the tide of their conversation. In the time since her aneurism, they had quickly discovered that by swamping Anthea in pools of rapid dialogue, her sink into fury was always stalled. Although they felt guilty for preying on such an unfair weakness, the tactic would trigger a collapse in Anthea’s instinct for cognitive rage.

‘Sick. Sick in my lap,’ she admitted feebly, before asking, ‘Ness... is Dad bringing the doctor in his new car?’ Her words cracked Eunice’s heart.

The doctor came and the doctor went. Antibiotics were prescribed, which quelled Anthea’s sickness. Despite this improvement, she became less and less inclined to spend time in the main lounge, and as the weeks rolled, Anthea clearly preferred and opted for the peacefulness of her room. Just as Lauren predicted, if there was a newspaper to hand, Anthea seemed happy enough.

‘We told her Marilyn died,’ Josie explained, ‘and although it looks like she doesn’t take anything in, I wonder if this is having some detrimental effect.’ When there were no more pills, gradually the bouts of sickness returned, and Josie wasted no time calling Dr Mohamed back, before telephoning Daniel and Eunice, to invite them to Jephson House for a chat.

‘That word augurs nothing good, does it?’ Daniel remarked as they waited for the traffic lights, ‘in my experience, chats only ever bring bad news,’ he added. Eunice switched off the radio, sadly she knew what Daniel meant and shared the same worry. When her partner Vince had suddenly keeled over, he and been blue-lighted to hospital. Not long after she had got there, a stubbly, but fresh-faced consultant had ushered Eunice into one of the quiet side rooms, for what he ominously described as a chat. She remembered that the aroma of his aftershave had been quite overpowering. Once their chat was done, she had learned a painful new reality of an emptier world without Vince Pope.

‘If only she’d used a different word,’ Eunice mused as the lights switched green.

After Dan had pulled the rope doorbell and Monica had eventually opened the solid red front door to Jephson House, their anxiety was further compounded when she greeted them with the slightest tepid smile. Even though there was a pen next to the folder, Monica ushered them into the main corridor and along to Josie’s office without making them sign-in. Tapping and opening Josie’s office door simultaneously, Monica stood neatly aside allowing them to enter. ‘Hello, hello!’ Josie’s greeting was affable as ever, but there was an indefinable tension meshed within her words. Taking their usual places in front of her untidy and cluttered desk they felt increasingly anxious. ‘Don’t look so nervous,’ Josie said, easing herself down into her wide leather chair before asking, ‘coffee?’

‘Err, no thanks,’ Eunice answered, ‘as I’m sure you can imagine our minds have been working overtime.’

Seeing their discomfort, Josie came straight to the point. ‘I’m sorry to have worried you, but I thought it better we talk face-to-face. As I explained, Miss Anthea has started with the sickness again. Doctor Mohammed came and has given her the same antibiotics as before; he was here quite a while but couldn’t find anything obviously wrong.’

Watching the tension in Eunice’s face slacken, Josie couldn’t help but envy her sense of fashion, she would have loved to have had her hair cut into the same short, neat style. Josie thought that everything about Eunice Lomax was elegantly sleek, and for a fleeting moment, she remembered a picture she had seen of Eunice and Anthea as young stylish girls about town.

‘Thank goodness,’ Eunice gasped, ‘we were expecting bad news ... you know, something awful.’

Pursing her lips and wiping away the sunshine from her face with her hand, Josie said, ‘I’m not giving you good or bad news, and that’s just the problem. It’s why I wanted to see you.’

Daniel’s stomach dropped and with a sense of bleakness he forced his little finger underneath his glasses and began rubbing his right eye, something he always did when nervy. ‘What d’you mean Josie? I’m not quite following,’ he said, continuing uncertainly, ‘the antibiotics will bring it under control, won’t it?’

Josie frowned, forcing Eunice to ask, ‘Mrs Rose, is there something we’re missing here?’ the unprompted formality of the address betraying her fear.

‘Dr Mohamed said he would have expected the antibiotics to have cured it, they’re quite strong.  What’s she’s now producing isn’t right either, not the smell, nor the colour. It’s just not what we normally see, and as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, we’re no strangers to dealing with vomit.’

‘Did you explain this to Doctor Mohammed?’ Eunice asked, trying not to sound too rattled by the conversation that was spreading out before them.

Nodding Josie answered, ‘Of course, it’s why we called him back. He’s equally perturbed. But I’ve other concerns too, which may or may not be part and parcel of the same thing.’

Dan forced his fingers through his hair, and glanced over at Eunice, who looked as grave as he was now feeling, ‘go on,’ he said.

Josie spoke calmly with neither exaggeration nor fuss, but as she explained Anthea’s reluctance to leave her room, her shrinking appetite and weight, the sense of looming crisis that Josie was trying to explain became starkly obvious. Years later, whenever he thought of that meeting in particular, Dan was struck by the gentle professionalism of Josie Rose, and how tenderly she had shepherded them. ‘Lauren has increased the time she spends with Miss Anthea, and whilst the dementia is evident day-to-day, it seems that for now she’s plateaued. But there’s an aspect to this that’s worrying us. She’s no longer fretting about windows and doors and has stopped mentioning your parents.’

‘Is that because she’s spending more time in the room, so she knows it’s not really happening?’ Eunice suggested, releasing a sigh.

Josie shook her head, for the briefest moment there was silence before she spoke, ‘you said that her apartment was always shut up and that Anthea was always fearful of intruders. She was the same here, your mother’s sideboard and indeed your mother, both were disturbing preoccupations.  Dementia never retreats....it persists, carrying every last bit of a person away.’

‘So, what then?’ Daniel asked, feeling like he wasn’t keeping up with the ebb and flow of the discussion.

Josie looked uncomfortably embarrassed.

‘To be honest I’m not sure. Miss Anthea is struggling with the aftereffects of a significant aneurism, which on its own would be difficult enough, throw dementia into the mix and the whole thing becomes much more complicated. My gut feeling is that she’s poorly but lacks enough cognitive capacity to express herself.’

‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ Daniel asked, then completed his clarification anyway, ‘you think she might still be seeing Granny Lomax? You think she’s still seeing the furniture and the intruders? The dementia is still playing all its tricks but because she’s already compromised...I don’t know how to say it?’ He sounded completely frustrated.

‘This additional illness is making her brain more broken?’ Eunice suggested, her rigid words coldly controlled.

‘I think so,’ Josie confirmed, nodding slowly, ‘I’m no medical expert, but I’ve seen it happen before. Doctor Mohammed wants to arrange for some tests, which is sensible.’

‘Okay,’ they both said in unison, before Eunice added, ‘we’ll be here when he comes.’

Looking solemn, Josie shook her head, ‘You misunderstand me, Miss Anthea needs to go into hospital.’

Anthea’s transfer by ambulance from Jephson House was a sedate affair. Lauren packed a small rucksack with all the things that she would require for a few nights, most vitally her cigarettes and a helpful note for the nurses. Contained inside a plastic wallet, which was placed at the very top of her bag were copies of all Anthea’s critical documents. ‘We’re sending the DNR, as a precaution because it’s better for the hospital to be aware from the outset, rather than when they’re about to resuscitate,’ Josie explained. Daniel and Eunice nodded blankly, accepting the necessity without either doubt or question. Although they saw the need for the form, Dan held a niggling doubt that his mother had not fully understood the potential implication of her signature, and watching her, he shoved the thought away. Before Anthea was pushed up the ramp into the ambulance, Josie knelt in front of her, taking both her hands.  ‘Now Miss Anthea, you’re off to see the doctor. Nothing to be frightened of, he’s going to find out what’s causing that nasty sickness and make you better. You’ll be back here in a jiffy, is that okay my darling?’

Seemingly nonplussed, Anthea nodded, ‘It’ll make a change. I think Dad’s taking us and I got up early to make our picnic. Can I have a fag?’ After spotting Eunice’s sudden tears, Anthea had demanded, ‘Why you bloody grizzling!’ Unwilling to face the same accusation, Daniel chose to stand behind his mother and kiss the crown of her head.

‘Just a few days mum,’ he said, then when she was out of earshot, inexplicably he whispered, ‘God-willing.’ When he had been a little boy, on school-outing day, all the parents would gather to watch their over-excited offspring clamber rowdily onto the coach, his mother was always the first to cry. Her public tears were mortifying to him, and he had prayed that none of his pals would notice, which thankfully they never did. Watching his mother aboard the community ambulance, Daniel suddenly understood her long-ago angst from the other side of the glass, to spare her the shame of his tears he turned his back.

Anthea was admitted onto a general ward, so when they were eventually called to the hospital they headed to a completely different building. Nevertheless, the consulting room looked just the same as all the others they had frequented over the last few years. The nurse who had shown them into the room said, ‘Make yourselves comfortable, someone will be along shortly,’ and then she left them alone in nervous silence. When the door opened, they were both pleased to see the familiar boyish face and jet-black hair of Abhishek Varma.

Once pleasantries were done, with his soothing cut-glass voice, Abhishek began to explain, ‘I saw Mrs Fernsby’s notes come onto the ward. I wanted to come and speak with you. Mrs Fernsby has undergone a wide range of vigorous tests and I’m sorry to tell you the result is not good. She’s suffering from a condition called dry kidneys, which unfortunately can’t be cured.’ For Dan, the strange diagnosis stoked memories of long-forgotten trips to the shops with his mother. He saw himself as a child, standing in the butcher’s shop gripping her hand. The butcher man would plop piles of awful offal into a thin plastic bag, before sealing it closed with a sticky yellow tag dispensed from a machine that clunked. The noise was Daniel’s cue, because the horrid package would then be tossed in his direction, by the grinning butcher, and he was always expected to catch it.

Chapter 32

The Wrong Sandwich

Although she could not recall the ladies name, Anthea had changed her mind about the black woman with false hair. When Daniel, her son next visited, Anthea was going to tell him that that woman was a liar, because she had definitely told her it would be for a few days only, and yet here she was, still stuck on Meriden Ward. Anthea Fernsby suspected that she had been in hospital far longer, but it was difficult to be sure how long, because as she had just worked out, nobody told her the truth any more. If her son started fibbing too, she’d know, just like when he was little. Anthea looked around wondering where her mother could have got to as she had still not shown up, which was strange. Irene Lomax had continually pestered her all the way through her stay at Jephson House, so it seemed odd that her mother could not be bothered to visit the hospital. Anthea suspected this was because Irene disliked the number twenty-three bus, which went the long way round and all the way up Drapers Hill. Tutting, her attention drifted to the comings and goings of the afternoon. Luckily, thanks to the position of her bed, Anthea could keep an eye on almost the entire length of Meriden Ward and there was always something interesting to see. The nurses looked busy dashing to-and-fro, but Anthea reckoned some of them, particularly the younger ones were lazy. Several times she had asked them to stop the squirrels scampering across her bed, and they had done nothing. The nurse now approaching was middle-aged, and Anthea felt that she would have looked better without her hair being pinned back quite so harshly because it made her forehead look too long.

‘Mrs Fernsby, I’m Sister Connor, how are you today?’ she asked, her accent softly Irish.

‘Fine thank you,’ Anthea answered, suddenly feeling shy.

‘Good, I’m glad to hear it. You’ve been quite poorly.’

Anthea nodded, ‘I got knocked down on a crossing ...in the dark. Driver didn’t even stop.’

Ignoring her explanation, Sister Connor said, ‘Now, I’ve all your new tablets. They’ll help with your nausea, but Nurse Higton tells me you don’t want to take them.’

Narrowing her eyes, defiantly folding her arms Anthea hunched back into her pillows. ‘He wants to mind his own pissing business that one. He’s idle. He’s the one I told.’

‘Told what?’ Sister Connor enquired.

‘About the squirrels.’

‘Well I’m here now, so what about these tablets? Shall we take them? Then I can leave you in peace. I’ll go and talk to Nurse Higton for you. How’s that for a deal?’

Anthea shook her head.

‘Why ever not?’ Sister Connor asked, perplexed by the refusal.

‘I know what’s going on,’ Anthea growled, plucking at her bedcovers, her hackles already raised.

Scanning the length of the ward for the sandwich girl, Anthea was so pre-occupied that she failed to notice Doctor Varma coming towards her.

‘Mrs Fernsby, is everything all right, only you look like you’ve lost something.’

‘Have you brought my sandwich?’ Anthea demanded, staring at him accusingly.

Smiling, Abhishek Varma shook his head, and after glancing at the clock told her, ‘Lunch won’t be much longer. Sister Connor asked me to come and have a chat.’

Enthralled by the dazzle of his cobalt blue eyes, Anthea could feel herself beginning to blush, and she tried extra hard to concentrate on his cut-glass words.

‘It’s vital Mrs Fernsby that you take all your prescribed medication, especially the tablets to stabilise your aneurism. We need to be absolutely sure that your dosage is not being compromised. If you continue to vomit, we won’t know what’s stayed in your system and what hasn’t, and we can’t have that, can we?’

Confused by his words Anthea merely nodded, fearing that he might shout if she asked him to repeat anything. The look on Anthea’s face told Varma that she had no understanding of what he’d just said, but when he asked her if she wanted him to recap anything, Anthea simply shook her head.

‘When Sister Connor comes later with the new tablets for your sickness, you’ll take them for me won’t you?’ he softly suggested.

Anthea wanted to tell him that despite him being an Asian she still thought he was quite an attractive man and very smartly turned out. When she saw her mother standing next to him at the foot of her bed the thought flew from her mind.

Irene Lomax was wearing a cream ruffled blouse and pinned to the collar was her very best, smart ‘going-out-visiting’ cameo brooch. Anthea had to squint to see it properly. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked incredulously.

Abhishek frowned realising he was on the verge of losing Anthea’s attention, and using a much sterner tone said, ‘Mrs Fernsby, all your medicine is critical; it is very important that you take it. If you don’t, I’m going to have to call your son.’

Looking disgruntled, with her arms folded over her breasts, Irene warned her daughter, ‘Take no notice Lillibet, they’re poisoning you. What can Daniel do? Remember what I said?’

Dismayed, Doctor Varma watched Anthea shake her head. Looking hopelessly between her mother and the doctor, Anthea wondered why he did not say something, after all, her mother’s allegation was shocking. Irene’s chilling words came again,

‘You know what’s making you sick! It’s all those pills that they’re forcing you to swallow!’

‘Yes!’ Anthea yelled, desperate for her mother to hear.

Relieved, Abhishek Varma said, ‘Excellent, I’ll make the arrangements with Sister Connor and pharmacy.’

‘Pardon me? What do you mean?’ Anthea spluttered.

‘Your tablets, we’ve just agreed, haven’t we? Mrs Fernsby?’

Irene was now whispering in Anthea’s ear, ‘You haven’t agreed to anything, tell him Lillibet, tell him! He’s bullying you. Stand up for yourself for once .... otherwise, he’ll be laughing at you, just like sour-faced Dolly and dead Gordon Blenkin!’

Varma began speaking again, ‘Mrs Fernsby, I understand this is a lot to take in, but you’re already quite ill...’

Drowning him out, Irene persisted, ‘He’s in league with that black woman with the funny hair extensions, your Josie Rose. They’re renting out your room, the two of them. Pocketing the cash, whilst you’re stuck here, sicking up more money!’

By now utterly distressed, looking wildly between mother and doctor, unsure who to believe, Anthea squealed, ‘You’re tricking me!’

Dan’s telephone call with Doctor Varma had been quite disturbing. Whatever sinister thoughts were rattling through his mother’s head, Varma had explained that they had caused Anthea to withdraw from all her medication. Sitting at Eunice’s dining table, Dan gazed out through the lattice windows across his aunt’s orderly garden. The spectacular summer weep of the willow had been quelled; its vines thinned by the chill of autumn. ‘What a terrible choice,’ Eunice complained, ‘just terrible,’ she repeated, sounding and looking as grave as the words.

‘I’d be all for strong-arming her, I’d force the drugs down her throat myself if I thought it’d make any difference,’ Dan admitted.

Eunice looked blankly back at him, her face nearly as white as her hair, ‘Daniel, if Varma couldn’t persuade her, what chance have we? I don’t think it’s fair of him to ask us to even try. And why now? What’s suddenly happened to make Anth behave like this?’

‘Maybe she’s just had enough, and maybe Josie’s right, mum doesn’t have the juice to articulate herself.’

‘But Daniel, she’ll die,’ Eunice whispered.

Looking out across the garden once more, he said, ‘she’s going to anyway. This dry thing with her kidneys, they already told us it’s slowly terminal. On top of everything else she’s endured; it hardly seems fair. Poor mum, she deserves better.’

Tipping her face down, pouring her gaze and grief into her lap, Eunice let out a painfully long sigh.

‘Aunty Ness, we’re not forcing her meds away against her will. Just the opposite, we’re trying to stop them being forced onto her when she doesn’t want them.’

Suddenly Eunice sat bolt upright, her expression changed, now resolute, determined, she proclaimed, ‘I don’t care!’

Daniel felt himself crumple, unsure whether he had the strength to begin a fight to his mother’s death with his aunt. All the way, apart from the occasional spat here and there, they had been united. Together they had spoken for, argued for, and acted resolutely in the best interests of Anthea. Wearily, Dan readied himself for the argument Eunice was about to make.

‘I don’t care what Varma wants, or Freya Maybury, or even Josie, none of them,’ Eunice declared haughtily, ‘my sister’s been rendered silent for too long, yet now, perhaps for the final time, she’s telling us what she actually doesn’t want. Answer me this Daniel, in all good conscience, how can we go against that? Why should we ignore her?’

When the lady bringing the lunches arrived on Meriden Ward, she remarked, ‘Mrs Fernsby, nice to see you up and about, you look much better.’ Whilst placing a paper plate onto the table covering Anthea’s lap, she suggested, ‘shall I take the clingfilm off?’

Earlier that morning, Anthea had told the nurse that she wanted to sit in the tall chair next to her bed, and to help her stay upright a pillow was slotted behind her back. Side-tracked by the pattern and colour of the sandwich lady’s tabard, Anthea did not answer because for a second, she mistook the woman for her gran, ‘Can’t be,’ Anthea chided herself, ‘She’s coming tomorrow.’

‘What’s that you say, Mrs Fernsby?’

‘Tomorrow ...my gran,’ Anthea mumbled.

Smiling sympathetically, then looking at the next day’s food order, the sandwich lady was not surprised to see that the slip remained blank, ‘You haven’t filled it out, don’t you worry lovey,’ she announced, ticking a box with her pen. ‘I’ve done it. See you tomorrow.’

Anthea struggled to remove the packaging wrapped the sandwich. By the time she was able to peel back the bread she could hardly believe her eyes. She had wanted cheese with no pickle and felt quite sure that that was exactly the thing she had asked for. Miserably she glowered, wondering whether to make a fuss, ‘I don’t want to get gran into trouble,’ she whispered, squishing the sandwich between her fingers, melding the bread against the sausage filling.

‘Anthea Lillibet! Eat it! Don’t play with it!’, her mother invisibly instructed.

Half-heartedly, Anthea hoisted one of the sorry sandwiches and navigated the thing lethargically towards her unwilling mouth. Desperately she looked for someone to help, but imposter gran had already moved too far away. As Anthea dithered, she spotted the tall man for the first time. He was wearing a pin-striped suit, crisp white shirt and matching striped tie, which dipped neatly behind his correctly buttoned waistcoat. Oddly though, his face seemed mistily obscured, but Anthea Fernsby knew absolutely who it was. Only when he was almost alongside her did she see the wedding confetti sprinkled across his navy shoulders and smell his fine aftershave. With her heart racing excitedly, gratefully offering him the plate, Anthea managed to ask, ‘Have you come for these? I wanted cheese with no pickle not this.’ Shaking his head, he said, ‘Darling girl, it’s you I’ve come for.’ When he held out both his hands the sleeves of his jacket rode up slightly, revealing smart silver cufflinks. Waiting for his daughter to join him, Roy Lomax looked at the sorry plate of food and observed, ‘Oh dear, you’ve the wrong sandwich.’

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32