11 The Teashop on the Corner (16 page)

‘Thank you,’ said Harvey, as the door fully opened and she stood there with her arms folded, looking as emotionally impenetrable as it was possible for Molly to appear. His hand came
out to find the wall for support, but his legs gave way and he started to sink to the ground. Molly instinctively reached for him, looping his arm around her shoulder and then she was pulling him
down the hallway and into her kitchen towards a chair. He felt like skin and bone; Molly could never have shifted him in his heyday – he’d been all rock muscle and solid. She left him
on the chair whilst she went back to the front door to bring his battered suitcase inside, then she filled a glass with water.

‘Here,’ she said, putting it in front of him and then stepping backwards as if she expected him to leap up and attack her now that he had managed to gain entry.

Molly watched his hands extend out for the glass. They were old hands, thin and bony and shaking. She remembered how strong they once were. She remembered them threading in her hair as he pulled
her mouth to his. She tried to cram those thoughts back into that
do not open
box in her head.

‘Thank you,’ he said again, taking a long sip before putting the glass back down. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to go quite like this.’

‘What did you think would happen?’ Molly snapped. ‘You turn up here after twenty-eight years and expect what?’

‘To say goodbye and sorry to you before I shuffle off this mortal coil,’ said Harvey. ‘I don’t have a lot of time left. But I wanted . . .
needed
. . . to see
you.’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Molly brusquely. She was still reluctant to believe his story.

‘Restrictive cardiomyopathy,’ replied Harvey and reached into his pocket. When his hand came out, it was full of bottles of tablets. ‘These are working less and less but I
wasn’t ready to let go until I’d made my peace with you.’

Molly swallowed hard. The evidence was stacking up but still she wasn’t sure. She didn’t
want
to believe him. Whatever she might think about him, she wouldn’t have
wished this on him. She picked up one of the bottles and read the label:
Lanoxin.
She recognised the name. A drug to help the heart beat stronger. His name was printed on the label.

‘How long have you been unwell?’ she asked.

‘I’ve been on heart medication for a few years now, but my condition was managed. Then things started to get worse and I seemed to be more or less living at the hospital, getting
poked and prodded at. I’d had enough of it. No more, I told myself.’

‘Where were you staying?’
Are you still with her?
Molly wanted to ask, but couldn’t quite bring herself to.

‘I’ve lived all over,’ said Harvey. ‘London, Torquay, Spain, Germany, New York, even Shanghai for six months. I ended up in Portugal three years ago and settled there,
sort of, but none of those places ever felt like home to me. They aren’t though, are they? Thoughts turn to your roots when you’re near the end.’

‘Why the suitcase?’ Molly bobbed her head towards it. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re thinking of moving in with me.’

‘No, no,’ he replied quickly. ‘I gave up my flat so I could move back and die in Barnsley. I’ve got a little bit of money. And this suitcase. That’s all I amount
to, but it’s enough. I can’t take it with me. I thought I’d go and stay in a room in the Vine or the Coach and Horses.’

‘Both of those were knocked down an eternity ago,’ sniffed Molly. She was swaying towards not believing him now. Was he really saying that he’d lived all over the world and
wanted to die in Barnsley? She stiffened her back. Same old Harvey, despite the years and the tablets, thinking he can get anywhere on the strength of a few softly-spoken words and a plea to the
heart.

‘If you can tell me that you forgive me, Molly, I promise I will go and you’ll never hear from me again.’ He took another sip of water and for some reason his weakened state
suddenly infuriated Molly.

‘Just like that?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘All those years without a word and you expect me to say “absolutely, Harvey. Of course I’ll forgive you. Off you go and
pop your clogs in peace.” Have you any idea how much you broke my heart, Harvey Hoyland? So much I never got over it and yet – yep – off you would trot to the bloody Pearly Gates
with your conscience scrubbed cleaner than a whistle. Well no, I won’t forgive you. No. I hope you rot in hell, Harvey Hoyland. You and
her.
I don’t care.’

Harvey dropped his head as if it was weighted with shame.

‘I’m sorry, I had no right,’ he said and put his hand flat on the table and levered himself up. ‘Molly, I shouldn’t have come. I should have left you in peace. It
appears I never learn.’

Then his legs gave way completely and he fell heavily to the floor, cracking his head on the table, and Molly knew that Harvey Hoyland wasn’t joking when he said he was very, very ill. And
that she’d been lying when she said that she didn’t care.

Theresa left the house at nine-thirty that evening. Between her and Carla every room in Dundealin was as spotless as a new pin; the furniture was in situ, the curtains were
hung, her bed was made up, the carpets freshened up with Shake n’ Vac and the ancient oven as clean as it ever could be. Jonty arrived after work and had great fun burning all the packaging
in an old incinerator which he found in the garden. He was a typical bloke, happiest when employed in an occupation of controlled arson. The skinny black cat remained asleep in the cardboard box
next to the radiator.

‘What do I do with him?’ asked Carla as she walked out with Theresa and Jonty to their car. The sky was growling and fat drops of rain were starting to fall from the doughy grey
clouds.

‘Are you going to throw him out on a night like this?’ replied Theresa, raising her eyebrows. She knew there was more chance of Martin coming back from the dead.

‘Well of course I wouldn’t. Shall I put some newspaper down?’

‘Good idea,’ nodded Theresa. ‘Give him another tin of tuna tonight and tomorrow go and get some flea drops just in case.’

‘Yeurch. I’m not keeping him, Tez,’ said Carla, holding up her hand in protest. The thought of fleas crawling in his fur made her shudder.

‘I never said you had to,’ said Theresa, all innocent blue eyes, although she knew that Carla had acquired a new pet.

Carla waved off her friends and then shut the door on the rainy night. The lounge of Dundealin didn’t look that bad with the main ceiling light off and the low wattage wall lights on.
There was still a lot to do, such as arrange for a telephone line and internet access; but at least the TV was working. She wished she had bought that Home Sweet Home picture from the teashop now.
There was an alcove to the right of the fire which was ideal for it. She made up her mind to go and buy it in the next couple of days. It would be a marker of her new life; every time she looked at
it she would be reminded that a line had been drawn under the old one and she was on the way up. She sat with a coffee, watching a programme about people who shared their homes with strange pets.
There was a woman in America who had a tame lynx which sat on the sofa with her and a couple who slept with two pot-bellied pigs. The larger of the pigs reminded her slightly of Martin, she thought
with a sudden snort of laughter. His belly was enormous and his nose was slightly flat at the end. And boy, could he snore.

Carla’s thoughts started to stray towards Martin and she couldn’t help but try and analyse what it was that she had actually loved so much about him. He was hardly Brad Pitt or
Casanova. And she only saw him for two days out of every seven. Maybe her heart had kept being fond because of the absence? He used to be a fine, fit fellow with a cheery face. She’d fallen
in love with his cheeky banter. Over the years she had watched his smile being whittled away by the long working hours and his waist grow thicker with all the pasties he ate on the road. She had
started to feel sorry for him, pushed the boat out at weekends to give him some respite. She’d begged him to find another job but he never had. He said that it was better to stick with the
devil he knew, and that he was putting his head down and getting on with it until pension time. Their relationship had been one-way traffic, she realised now, with hindsight. The changes in their
marriage had crept up on her so slowly that she hadn’t noticed them. Until it was too late.

Carla jumped as the black cat leapt up on her knee, turned a circle and plopped down on her lap. She was about to move him, then thought – why? He was soft and warm against her, purring
softly; and it was a pleasant experience to be viewed as so comfortable. He was a sweet little thing and very friendly. In fact, when she thought about it, he’d given her more affection since
he’d pushed his way into the house that morning than Martin had for weeks. When she thought some more, she realised that he hadn’t shown her any real affection for a lot longer than
that actually. He never gave her anything other than a perfunctory kiss on the cheek when he arrived home on a Friday night and left on the Monday morning. When they had sex, which had been
infrequent, there was no cuddling afterwards or snogging during. He never brought her small gifts or flowers, and Carla loved flowers – and what’s more he knew she did. She’d
worked in a florist’s for many happy years until the owner retired and closed up the shop. How had she missed the signs? They were screaming at her now. How could she have been truly happy
with a man who gave her so little? She bet Julie Pride had wanted – and got – so much more.

A single fat salty drop landed on the cat’s back but he didn’t seem to notice. She sat and stroked him gently and sniffed back the remaining tears which were banked up in her eyes.
She refused to waste any more on that man. But, my God, she really had been stupid.

Molly had called an ambulance as soon as he collapsed and now Harvey was in Barnsley hospital. Molly had scooped up all the medicines from the table to take with her to show
the doctors. Harvey wasn’t lying to her, she found out after talking to them. He was a very poorly man.

She went in to say goodnight to him and found him asleep and covered in sticky tags and wires which were hooked up to various machines. He looked so old and thin lying there in hospital issue
pyjamas. She would check in his suitcase when she got home and see if he had any of his own or if not she would nip into Marks and Spencer and buy him some. He wouldn’t be the same size he
used to be – she could still remember it. He’d had a seventeen-and-a-half-inch neck in those days, a fifty-one-inch chest. He wouldn’t have now. He had been a big strapping fellow
with an easy smile, George Clooney teeth and warm, sexy eyes the colour of a tropical ocean. She had fallen for him the moment her eyes rested on him. She had felt her heart react to the sight of
him: it had stopped for a moment then gave a great big beat and she could have sworn she heard it whisper ‘Good God.’

It wasn’t all his fault,
said a voice.
You should have told him. Maybe then . . .

She shook her head, trying to rid it of that voice. She had never wanted to think that she might have had any hand in Harvey leaving her.

Returning home, she opened his suitcase and found, pressed between two jumpers, a photo – and it was of herself, her face tilted, her lips dark red and smiling, her skin like cream. She
couldn’t remember ever seeing that photo.
Did I ever look as lovely as that?
she wondered. She couldn’t stop staring at it. She had always thought that she was punching well
above her weight in landing a man as handsome as Harvey Hoyland, but she wasn’t really. She shone from the inside when she was with him. He made her feel beautiful, gave her confidence; then
had stripped her of it all when he left.

It wasn’t all his fault.

She pulled out a pair of pyjamas which she found beneath the neat stacks of his shirts and trousers, all good quality but well worn; he had always been such a snappy dresser back in the day. His
white shirts were like snow and ironed to perfection.

She lifted his pyjama top to her nose and inhaled. There lingered a faint familiar scent of him, his aftershave that transported her immediately to dancing with him, her body next to his. She
had never been as happy ever as she was with him, or as unhappy as she’d been without him. And here he was again like a giant spoon, stirring all the settled waters inside her, disturbing the
memory-filled sediment at the bottom until it swirled up and took over every thought she had. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if she had any choice.

Molly didn’t sleep very well at all. She got up the next morning and tried to read the newspaper, but she couldn’t concentrate. She rang the hospital and was told
that Harvey was awake and was presently eating breakfast, no more detail than that. There were almost two hours until visiting time at the hospital and she was pacing about so anxiously it was a
wonder there was still a pattern left on the carpet. She needed to get out of the house. She drove out to the little teashop with the gorgeous book gifts in the cabinets. She liked it there. And it
would pass some time in the most pleasant way.

Leni greeted her warmly. ‘How lovely to see you again. Please sit down and I’ll be over to take your order in a moment.’

‘Am I too early?’ asked Molly, watching Leni switching on the huge coffee machine.

‘Not at all,’ smiled Leni. ‘If the sign says open, everyone is welcome.’

*

Carla awoke with the annoying sensation that something was blocking her nose. She sat up bolt upright in bed after finding the black cat half-draped over her face. The damned
thing had climbed upstairs and got into bed with her. The cheek.

She went downstairs to find a neat little poo on the newspaper she had left by the door. The cat trotted behind her and sat expectantly down by a cupboard in the kitchen.

‘I haven’t got any food for you,’ Carla said to him but he didn’t hear. He carried on sitting there, waiting and making her feel guilty enough to get dressed and grab her
car keys.