Falling For You (11 page)

‘The thing is, Uncle …’

A renewed blast of fresh-coffee aroma and the fragrance of warmed mince-pies accompanied by a gale of laughter turns our heads towards the kitchen as my aunt Carlotta and cousin Sam look as if they’re about to come out into the hall.

‘I want …’ my fingers grip tight around his elbow suddenly, calling his attention back to me and he turns to look at me in surprise.

‘I
need
you to help me out with Dad.’ My words come tumbling out all high pitched and fizzy like the pop of the cork on a champagne bottle ‘…
u
ncle Ty, even if I’m made an offer, I won’t be able to go unless you can agree to help.’ I watch his eyes dart over to his wife and daughter who have seen us, who are walking right up to us but I have to get this all out before his attention slips away. His dark eyes are on me again, sympathetic.

‘Dad can’t live here without assistance. In fact, he’d be loath to leave, but maybe if you could take your brother into your own home …?’ Ty’s eyes open wider in surprise – shock, even? He wasn’t expecting that, obviously. When he said he could offer help he probably meant money. Or advice?

He clears his throat and when I remove my fingers from his arm he gives me the faintest of nods, acknowledging my words but little else and then;

‘She’s back!’

Any other words I was going to say to him die in my throat.

‘Rose. We missed you. Where were you?’ My cousin grins. I smile faintly at her and when she comes over to hug me I get a whiff of her heady signature perfume, a quick shot of her clothes, which are exquisitely-tailored and expensive, matching her mother’s, a whole picture that says they’re on their way somewhere else, somewhere exciting and fabulous and this unexpected blip of a stop-over at Clare Farm is a minor inconvenience. I swallow, taking it all in. Is
u
ncle Ty really going to let himself be affected by what I’ve just told him? Their lives are so busy, so
full
. Full of their own desires and wants and pleasures. They haven’t got room for an ageing, disabled, needy relative have they? Room in their house, maybe - but in their hearts? I bite my lip. Our situation here is nothing to them. They’ve never really concerned themselves with it too much, have always just assumed me and Dad would cope just fine …

‘Darling it’s been
ages
.
’ Carlotta smiles at me a little sympathetically and I imagine she’s thinking I could do with a better hair-cut, maybe some high-lights …

‘Where did you get to? Your home-help thought you might have gone to fetch some logs. We noticed
the fire
was burning a bit low …’

‘No.’ I stick my hands in my pockets, shrugging off her question. When I glance behind me I can see my uncle. He’s a step or two behind us, letting us get on with all the ‘female relatives greeting each other’ thing but I can feel his pensiveness from here. What I’ve just said to him has really affected him, I can sense it. His women-folk seem oblivious to any of that, though.

‘If you’re cold I can always put some more wood on the fire?’ I offer.

I shoot my uncle a glance, give a little shake of my head, so he knows I’m not going to bring the topic up again now, in front of his two women, this question of what’s going to happen to Dad.  I get the impression if there’s to be any chance of this happening at all - Dad going to live with them - then it’s all going to have to be broached very delicately and sensitively with all parties concerned. 

‘Coffee?’ Sam offers brightly, holding up her cup. I take my cousin in with a teensy pang of envy.  At just fourteen she already looks suave and sophisticated and has the air about her of being generally
well-kept
. I wish I could be well-kept. I push my hair back self-consciously and my shabby, faded jeans that I’ve worn for ages are suddenly embarrassing in a way that I’d never even noticed before. 

‘Sure,’ I say, ‘I’d love a cup,’ and my voice sounds over-grateful, as if it weren’t my own coffee, in my own home, that is being offered. ‘How long do you think you’ll be here for?’

‘Not long,’ my aunt says quickly. Too quickly. When she glances a little coyly at her husband I get the impression that this is a rehearsed line; something they’ve already talked about on their way up here.
We won’t stay, okay? We’ll tell them we’re only stopping over briefly, that we have to be on our way … 

 ‘But ... if it takes a while to fix the car you may be here for Christmas after all?’

 This time, Carlotta’s smile is a little more strained. 

‘We’re not planning on that happening, Rose.’ As we move into the living room she goes over and pulls back the curtains, immediately frowning at the sheet-snow that’s coming down thick and fast. ‘
Bloody hell!’
I hear the annoyance surface in her voice at the sheer scale of it. I can well recognise the feeling of frustration.

‘We’ve got somewhere else that we need to be, Rose.’

Snap, I think. I do too. My uncle’s forefinger and thumb, squeezing gently on my elbow says a whole host of things that I can only guess at;
well done for not letting the cat out of the bag, we’ll talk about this a little later, I’m on your side
. I imagine it means all of those things.

Right now I can only hope.

‘South East trains have all just been cancelled,’ Mrs P mutters as she joins me at the kitchen sink an hour later. ‘Mr P is walking up to fetch me - should be along any minute - but Rose, I think you’d better start planning how you’re going to put this lot up?’

‘
All
cancelled, you sure?’ I’m placing the coffee cups carefully one by one on the draining board and she’s picking them up and slowly wiping them dry. No trains. I’ve had the growing sense in the last hour since the family arrived that they weren’t getting away and this confirms it. I feel a sense of satisfaction flood through me at the news, a quiet excitement. It means I’ll get a proper chance to talk to Ty about what we opened up before. We might actually be able to rough out some kind of plan, agree something in principle. I hope it’ll also mean Dad can get some quality time with his brother, something I know he’s yearned for.

‘It’s going to be a big let-down for them, Rose,’ Mrs P warns. I see her give a swift glance over her shoulder. ‘At least they’ll have a roof over their heads.’ She shakes her head reprovingly and I know that a comment Carlotta made earlier is still rankling with her; something about how she’s not sure Dad and I are coping with everything and how this place is ‘looking a bit run down’.  I’m washing up quicker than she’s drying. I tap the draining board with my fingers and she wakes up again.    

 ‘It means we’ll have to clear out the living room,’ Mrs P thinks out loud. ‘We’ll put the sofa bed to one side and pump up an air mattress for Samantha … do we know where the air pump is?’ The air pump? I have no idea what she is on about.

‘What’s wrong with Samantha kipping in a sleeping
bag on the carpet?’

‘Hah!’ is all she answers. She gives me a knowing look. Then she runs on; ‘… the other thing is, I only bought you and Jack a crown of turkey breast for your Christmas dinner.’ The implications of having an extra three people stay are spreading through her mind as quick as wild-fire. ‘You’ll have to give them extra-large portions of roast potatoes tomorrow, Rose. Don’t forget the sprouts and the carrots and parsnips. Mind that you peel enough …’

‘I’ll peel a hundred,’ I assure her, ‘I’ll peel a thousand.’

‘Don’t do that!’ She says in alarm. ‘There’s Boxing Day to think of, too. And maybe even the day after that. I’m not back till the New Year don’t forget. I’ll have to get the emergency loo-roll down from the loft.’

‘You keep some in the loft?’ I look at her in surprise.

‘For emergencies,’ she nods. And there is clearly an emergency looming in her book. Or there will be in a few days when we run out of potatoes and looroll …

‘Do you really think the trains will be out for as long as that?’ I look at her dubiously. ‘The family could be here for days!’ She nods dolefully but I can see the possibilities opening up here. We’ll all get a chance to catch up, properly catch up. There are so many things I don’t really know about their lives. It’s … exciting, that’s what it is.

And I’ll get plenty of time to put my case to uncle Ty.

‘The air-mattress must be up there as well,’ Mrs P is thinking out loud. ‘I don’t know where else I could have put it. There’s scarcely room to swing a cat in this joint. If we could only open up your mum’s old room…’

I turn sharply from the kitchen cupboard where I’ve just put away the dried cups.

‘You know we don’t use that room, Mrs P’

‘Not normally, no’
S
he’s drying her hands thoughtfully on her wet tea-towel.

‘Not
ever,
Mrs P’ Her pale blue eyes come up to meet mine for an instant, but whatever she’s thinking, she keeps it firmly to herself. I want the family here. I’m happy that they’re here. But I don’t want them poking around in Mum’s room, moving her things about, disturbing stuff. That room is out of bounds.   Mrs P gives a small ‘humph’ like she does on the very odd occasion when I ever have to cross her. We get along very well, but at the end of the day, she doesn’t have the final say in things. 

‘Opening that room would just … spook Carlotta out,’ I remind her kindly. ‘Remember the time when Mum was sick and they came by?’ It wasn’t long after Mrs P had started with us but I know she hasn’t forgotten. That day Ty had dropped by with his wife, knowing Mum was ill, to ‘see if they could do anything to help’. The whole visit had been made awkward and painful by Carlotta’s obvious discomfort at catching sight of some of Mum’s things in her room as they’d walked past it in the hall. I think she saw the crystal ball or some such thing, some tall candles that had been left burning in the darkened room, anyway, she freaked out; she made the unfortunate comment that she thought ‘all that kind of thing’ was the work of the devil. They hadn’t stayed for very long.

‘She won’t
want
to stay in there, Mrs P.’

‘Well, I don’t honestly know where else you think you’d have the space to put them up.’ I shrug.

‘There’s the sitting room isn’t there? The adults can have my room and I’ll kip out in th
ere
with Sam. It’ll be
fun
.’   

She looks a little dubious. ‘As long as you don’t forget all the usual routines, with all the fun. Your dad’s meds ...’

His meds. The minute she mentions them a memory breaks through from yesterday, something I’ve been meaning to bring up with her all morning but we’ve been so preoccupied …

‘Mrs P - did you pick up the tablets?’

I think she realises even before I bring it up; the fact that we’re out of the red ones. She cups her hand over her mouth in horror. The dispensary’s on the way to her mid-week job and she always picks them up for me.

‘You
didn’t?
’ Oh, shit. I look at my watch. The dispensary w
ill
have closed by now – even assuming anyone could get there in this weather to pick them up. This is not good. Not good at all. Mrs P looks mortified.

‘I am
so sorry
Rose.’   

We’ve got to figure this out. I have to get hold of those meds because Dad can’t be without them over the whole of Christmas. He wouldn’t die - but they help control his symptoms, headaches and so forth. They make life a lot more comfortable for him. I really didn’t need this. Especially not right now when we have the rest of the Clares staying over and Carlotta on the look-out for every little slip up that we make. She already believes we’re ‘not coping’ doesn’t she? If that belief made her more inclined to give a helping hand then it wouldn’t be a bad thing. It’s more likely to lead to her looking up local homes that might be suitable for Dad.

 
And he’s not going into Forsythes!

‘You’ll have to ring the locum,’ Mrs P is saying. ‘Ask him what they can do about it. Perhaps he’ll be able to arrange delivery out to you, himself?’

‘It’s unlikely,’ I say in a muted voice. Damn it, if only I’d remembered this before there would have been time to have
done
something about it.

‘Rose, Mrs P’ Carlotta is suddenly at the kitchen door, looking fed-up and exhausted.
Crap. Did she hear anything?
It doesn’t look like it.

‘Ty’s just been on the phone to eight local taxi firms and not one of them is offering any service right now.’ She spreads her beautifully-manicured hands in a ‘this is ridiculous’ gesture.

‘Maybe you know of someone – an unemployed man, perhaps, who’d be grateful of the chance to earn something …?’

 Mrs P. gives me a quick roll of her eyes.

‘That chap who gave us a lift up to the village - the one who’s fixing the car, maybe?’

‘If the taxis aren’t running then that’s a good indication that you won’t find anyone, Mrs Clare.’

‘There must be
someone
?’ Carlotta insists. ‘We have to get to Guiliana’s, Mrs P’ I almost feel sorry for my aunt she looks so desperate. Whatever Guiliana’s is, it must be somewhere pretty glamorous, I’m thinking wistfully. It must be somewhere pretty damn amazing. I bet the people who go to Guiliana’s don’t have to worry about seeing to their parent’s medication or about on which part of the floor they are going to put up unexpected guests …

‘We were just talking about how we were going to put you up here,’ I step in consolingly. ‘Given that it looks like you’re not going anywhere.’

There’s a small silence in the kitchen as Sam joins us, just in time to hear the bad news. The coffee machine makes the spluttering sound I remember it making when it had run out of beans and there’s a definite sense that the
joie de vivre
they’ve been displaying ever since they got here has also run its course …

‘We don’t want to put you out, Rose,’ Carlotta says, quietly hurt, as though, just by saying the words, I have manifested some dreadful truth that did not exist before.

 ‘We’d love you to stay, though.’ I can feel the enthusiasm I’m radiating bouncing back off them and returning to me empty and hollow. They do not want to stay. ‘It won’t be as exciting as Guiliana’s,’ I rush on, even though I clearly have no idea what Guiliana’s is - ‘But it’ll be nice for
us
to have you.’

‘I’m sure it will. But, you see, Guiliana’s is something I’ve waited a very long time to get an invite to. It’s …
exclusive
. You understand me, don’t you, Rose?’ I understand her, but I don’t see what any of us could be expected to do about it.

‘Well. It
might
settle down,’ Mrs P takes a peek through the kitchen blinds which we’ve closed to help keep the heat in. ‘You might make it … tomorrow?’ She says it in a tone which implies there is as much chance of that as there is we’ll out be sitting out on the lawn tomorrow sunning ourselves. ‘Would you like me to take a look in the airing cupboard for you Rose?  Sort out some bedding for them for later on?’

Sam pulls a sudden moue, and I see she’s not looking so cheerful anymore. Neither is her mother.

‘For God’s sake, what possessed Jack to buy a house in such a God-forsaken out-of-the-way, back-woods location as this?’ Carlotta is muttering to herself as she’s suddenly on the phone frenetically texting someone.      

‘My mother did,’ I tell her and she stares at me. I stare back at her.

‘Now,’ Carlotta murmurs, her voice, I feel, quite deliberately provocative, ‘Why am I not surprised?’

There’s a brief moment where I can feel both our hackles rising. Mrs P gives me a tiny warning shake of the head and I shift my gaze away from my aunt.  She doesn’t look best pleased.

‘Look. Let’s not go there, Rose. I have no quarrel with you, you know that.’

No; only with my mum
, I can’t stop myself thinking. Because she was different. Because she never subscribed to all the things that keep
you
happy and sane and safe in the world; because she did her own thing.

‘I’m sorry you can’t go to Guiliana’s,’ I tell my aunt, and she lowers her gaze, looks away. ‘But we really were very happy to see you all just now. We don’t have much but … we’d be honoured if you’d like to share whatever we have over the holidays.’