Me and Mr Jones (32 page)

‘Yeeees,’ Hazel said, just as David pushed the front door wider and stepped over the threshold, a couple of folders under one arm. He turned and waved at his brother.

‘See you then,’ he called.

He smiled briefly at Izzy as he went past and dumped the folders on the reception desk. She found herself blushing for having eavesdropped. ‘Come on, girls,’ she said quickly. ‘Let’s go back to the dining room. Smells like dinner’s about ready.’

She led them back, wondering and worrying. She hadn’t known Alicia long, but anyone could tell she was the married-for-life type, someone whose family meant everything to her. If Hugh had been doing the dirty on her . . . Ugh. Izzy couldn’t bear to imagine how her friend might react. Her whole world would cave in.

Her dilemma now was, having overheard the snippet of conversation, should she report back faithfully to Alicia, or was it kinder to keep it to herself?

It was hard to decide anything with the funeral looming at the end of the week, though. Lou and Ricky were travelling down, plus another couple they’d been friends with, Jane and Liam. When the day came, Charlie drove them to the crematorium in Chard. ‘Do you want me to come in too?’ he asked when they pulled into the car park. ‘Bit of moral support?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But thanks. I might need some support later on, though. The kind that comes in a glass.’

The service before Gary’s had attracted a large crowd of black-clad mourners, many openly weeping and clutching at each other for comfort. A whole florist’s worth of bouquets were laid out in the display area, along with poignant notes:
A wonderful mother and friend. Goodbye, Grandma xxx. For Vera, sadly missed.

In contrast, Gary’s send-off was a much smaller affair; his life less celebrated. Fewer people and just one bunch of flowers:
From everyone at Little’s Insurance, with best wishes.
Despite her complicated feelings for him, it gave Izzy a pain inside. She’d loved him once, after all, before everything went wrong. The dispassionate way in which the rest of the world was letting his life slip by seemed an injustice.

The room where the service took place was echoey and spacious, and Izzy felt self-conscious, with only seven of them there, all on the first row of seats. Tears pricked her eyes, wondering what Hazel and Willow were making of this. It seemed wrong, somehow. Not enough.

Afterwards she and Lou embraced. ‘So I take it you’ll be up soon to clear out the flat?’ Lou said. ‘Would be lovely to see you properly.’

Izzy bit her lip. She hadn’t actually thought about the practicalities of Gary’s possessions, and what was left of her belongings in the Manchester flat. It would all need boxing up, and then she’d have to sell it, she supposed. She certainly didn’t want to go back and live there any time soon. ‘I guess so,’ she replied heavily. It was not a job she was looking forward to, that was for sure.

‘I’ll help you,’ Charlie said when she mentioned it on the way back to Mulberry House. She’d bowed out of putting on a wake – she didn’t have the money for any kind of catering, for one thing. The others were going to find a pub nearby and drink to his memory, but she hadn’t wanted to. ‘Are you sure? What about work?’ she replied. ‘Isn’t your boss getting fed up with all this time off you keep taking?’

‘He’s a mate,’ he said. ‘He understands. Besides, I don’t want to work there forever anyway. I’m trying to convince my parents that I’m “mature and sensible enough” – he took his hands off the steering wheel to make quotation marks – ‘to run the B&B when they retire.’

‘Oh! Is that what you want to do?’

He nodded. ‘I know it’s sentimental, but I love that house. I don’t want it to be sold to a load of strangers. But Mum and Dad think I’m too disorganized to take it over. They don’t think I’ve got the staying power.’ He grinned. ‘Can’t think why, when my career history has been so glittering so far!’

Izzy smiled faintly, just as Hazel, who’d valiantly kept it together all day, suddenly burst into noisy sobs in the back seat. ‘I miss Daddy,’ she cried. ‘I still miss him. Am I going to feel sad forever and ever, Mummy?’

Izzy reached back and took her hand, her heart aching. ‘No,’ she promised. ‘Not forever, my love. You’ll always be a little bit sad, but soon you’ll be able to feel happy about other things again. I promise.’

She stared unseeingly out of the window as Hazel hiccupped, tears still flowing.
Please God
, she thought fiercely.
Let that be true. We all need to feel some happiness again soon
.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Alicia had one single day left as a thirty-something. Less than twenty-four hours before the clock ticked that decade out with a terrifying finality. It was a weird feeling, as if she was standing at the docks, waiting for a ship to slowly pull away without her, never to return.
Goodbye, youth
, she kept thinking mournfully.
I never really made as much of you as I could have. And just as I’ve realized this, you’re leaving me forever. I’ve only got the Dull Ship Forty on the horizon now, and the prospect of wrinkles, heavy-duty moisturizer and support stockings in its wake.

‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ Sandra had snapped on the phone the night before. Her voice was odd, muffled as if she had a cold. ‘For heaven’s sake, Al. You should try counting your blessings for a change.’

Alicia was taken aback by the advice. Counting blessings? Not so long ago her sister had been prescribing counting orgasms and sexual adventures. ‘I suppose,’ she replied.

‘You’re so lucky,’ Sandra said, a distinct sniffle in her voice now. ‘You’re so bloody lucky, and you don’t even frigging realize it!’

Oh. Okay. So perhaps it wasn’t just a cold. ‘Is everything all right?’ Alicia asked cautiously. Sandra was the kind of person who bit your hand off if you dared make her feel vulnerable.

Now came a definite sob. Bloody hell. Sandra never cried. She’d sooner punch a wall, or an unlucky bystander, rather than let actual tears rain from her eyes. ‘What is it?’ Alicia asked in alarm.

‘Ohhh . . . Just men,’ came the reply. ‘Fucking bastard shitty MEN!’

Alicia flinched, hearing the soft thump of fist meeting pillow. At least she hoped it was a pillow and not some poor unsuspecting bloke that her sister had trussed up on her sofa. ‘What happened?’

‘Matt decided he wanted to stay with boring fucking Penny, his boring fucking wife, that’s what. The lying shitball. The tossing great tosser!’

Another broken sob. Alicia couldn’t bear it. Despite a sneaking sympathy for boring fucking Penny, she felt a ferocious surge of rage for tossing tosser Matt. ‘Bastard,’ she said sympathetically. ‘After stringing you on for so long!’

‘Don’t rub it in,’ Sandra snarled. ‘Two sodding years of promises, and it turns out they were all a crock of horse-shit. I hate him!’

Another muffled thump. ‘Do you want me to come over?’ Alicia asked.

Sandra gave an almighty sniff, the sort for which Alicia would have sharply scolded her own children had it come from their nostrils. ‘Seriously?’ she said, her voice softer. ‘You’d do that?’

Alicia made some rapid calculations. It was a three-hour drive to Sandra’s house in Cheltenham. It was eight in the evening now, she could be there by eleven. She’d have to arrange for Hugh to drop the children with friends the next morning, of course, so that he could go to work, but she could whizz back down the following day in time for lunchtime, say, to pick them all up . . .

It would all be a gigantic palaver, quite frankly, but then this was her sister. Alone.
Crying.
Punching random objects, by the sound of things. If ever there was an emergency, this was it. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘No problem.’

Sandra started weeping even more copiously. ‘You’re so nice,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t deserve you. You’re so kind.’

‘Nonsense,’ Alicia said bracingly. ‘You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?’

There was a slight hesitation. They both knew Sandra wouldn’t, any more than Alicia would ask it of her.

Sandra gave a snorting sort of laugh. Not a horrible one for a change, more the snotty, choking laugh that you sometimes manage even when crying. ‘I wish I was like you,’ she wailed.

Alicia thought there must be a fault on the line. ‘What? You wish you were like
me
? Ha!’ She shook her head. ‘I wish I was more like
you
. More confident, more adventurous . . .’

Sandra sniffed again and Alicia only just managed not to suggest that she find a handkerchief. ‘Well, don’t,’ she said. ‘You really shouldn’t wish that right now. You wouldn’t wish this on your worst fucking enemy.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I’m a total mess, Alicia. Think yourself lucky that you’re not me.’

‘We’re just different, that’s all,’ Alicia said gently. ‘Now then. What can I bring for you? Wine? Chocolate? Some posh bubble bath?’

There came the sound of Sandra blowing her nose – thank goodness – and then she spoke. ‘Listen. You don’t need to come, Al. Seriously. It’s a long way, and you’ve got stuff going on at home.’

‘It’s fine,’ Alicia replied. ‘Honestly. If you want me there, I’ll—’

‘No,’ said Sandra. ‘I’m not saying I don’t want you here, but it’s too much. Just talking to you like this is enough.’

‘Are you sure? I don’t mind—’

‘I know you don’t. And that’s the most amazing, lovely thing about you. You’re so, so kind. And I love that you were willing to trek up the M5 in my hour of need – I absolutely love that. It makes me feel really . . . loved.’

Goodness. This was the most intense conversation Alicia had ever had with her sister. More intense, even, than the one when Sandra had stolen Alicia’s first teenage boyfriend and Alicia had threatened to kill her, with her bare hands if necessary.

‘You
are
loved,’ she said quietly. ‘Even if Matt, the wanker, is dumb enough not to stick around, there are other people who will.’

‘Thank you,’ Sandra said. Then she chuckled. ‘I’m loving hearing you slag him off, by the way. Swearing and everything. You really hate him!’

Alicia smiled. ‘Too right I do. The shitty wanky bastard motherfucker!’

‘MUMMY!’ came a shocked voice just then, and Alicia whirled around to see Rafferty standing there in his pyjamas, staring at her, his eyes as round as ten-pence pieces.

Sandra, who had obviously heard this, burst into fits of laughter, and then, before Alicia could stop herself, she was laughing too. Great gales of laughter from deep in her belly. ‘Oops,’ she giggled, as Raff vanished. ‘Lucas, guess
what
?’ she heard him call in glee.

‘I’d better go,’ Sandra gurgled. ‘Leave you to explain that one. Good luck.’

‘Are you going to be okay? Ring me back later if you want to chat.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Sandra said. ‘You know me. I’ll be over it tomorrow.’

‘You will,’ Alicia agreed. ‘Take care of yourself, then.’

‘Yeah, And thanks, Al. For being there. I appreciate it.’

So, as Sandra had suggested, she was counting her blessings. Grateful for the children. Grateful for Hugh. Bless him, he’d fabricated this whole story about going to the gym, just so that he could go shopping for birthday presents for her. Originally he’d arranged for Lilian to look after the children while she was in Paris, so that he could go shopping alone, he explained. The pleasure of discovering that he’d been so thoughtful swelled inside her. What on earth had he bought for her? she wondered excitedly. It definitely wasn’t a Marks and Spencer jumper this year, if he was going to such trouble.

‘You could have just
said
you were going shopping,’ she’d laughed, delighted. To think she’d had her doubts about him! To think she’d gone in all guns blazing, ready to accuse him of playing away, of all things. ‘Why didn’t you just
say
?’

‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ he’d said. ‘Because you really are the most wonderful wife, Alicia. I honestly don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you.’

His words touched her, reached right to her heart. ‘He looked as if he was about to cry,’ she told Izzy when she went to visit her later that week. ‘Seriously! Hugh doesn’t normally do emotional, but he was all choked up, his voice sort of thick and gruff.
And
he brought me flowers the next day – for absolutely no reason!’

Izzy opened her mouth, then closed it again, as if changing her mind about what to say. She seemed a bit quiet but then she had just been to her ex-husband’s funeral the day before. ‘So . . . things are good between you, yeah?’ she asked, turning a dandelion stalk between her fingers. It was a warm afternoon and they were sitting out on the lawn at Mulberry House, intermittently cheering and clapping as one of the children scored a rounder or made a good catch.

Alicia looked at her in surprise. ‘Between me and Hugh? Yes, very good, thanks.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘How about you and Charlie? It sounds as if you’ve really turned his head.’

Izzy wrinkled her nose. ‘Do you reckon? He’s hardly been anywhere near me since we moved in. I mean, he’s been perfectly nice and polite, making sure we’ve got everything we need, and I’m massively grateful to him, but that’s it.’