Something Only We Know (31 page)

‘Good.’

‘Yeah.’ Vikki looked rueful. ‘Too bloody late now, of course. Anyway, all the best with your mum. Text us and let us know. Text me if you can’t face him. Oh, and if
you’ve a spare minute, pop into our new Facebook page, we’ve revamped it. We do a Book Hero of the Week, and the shop events are listed. You might see something you fancy.’

‘I might.’

‘See you on there, at least.’ Then, with a brief apologetic grin, she was gone, retreating into the crowds of shoppers and quickly lost in the masses.

At the end of the day I came home to a house which was superheated and reeked of disinfectant; Hel always added too much Dettol when she mopped the kitchen floor. But the main
thing was Mum was home. They’d set her up on the sofa, along with all the cushions we possessed, plus a padded stool for her feet and, at her elbow, a shabby tea trolley Dad must have
unearthed from the garage. On the trolley were bottles of pills and water, her reading glasses, a paperback, half a sandwich, a pear, a magazine, her mobile phone and the TV remote. Everything she
needed to keep her content.

Hel was perched on the low stool, reading a British Heart Foundation leaflet on cardiac rehabilitation. From the clicks and clunks and cursing going on in the kitchen, I guessed that Dad was
attempting to put on a clothes wash. I saw that some furniture had been pushed against the wall, out of the way, and a few of our ornaments were missing. Hel had said she might put the fiddlier
ones into storage to save on dusting.

I dropped my bag and ran over to my mother.

‘Don’t leave that there. Mum might trip over it,’ said Hel immediately.

I pushed the bag with my foot so it was under a chair. Then I switched my attention to Mum.

Now she was home, amongst these familiar surroundings, you could gauge the effect of her illness better. To my eyes she seemed to have aged even more. Her hair was wild and unset, she wore no
make up, and her hand when I took it was dry and unmoisturised. Really I just wanted to gather her against me and hug her tight. Or rather I wanted her to hug me tight and say everything was going
to be OK and I was safe.

‘Hello, love,’ she said.

‘So glad you’re back!’ I leaned in and kissed her brow, feeling a wave of emotion break over me. ‘Was it a good journey?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘“In the first few weeks after you come out of hospital you are likely to have good days and bad days. But as time goes by, you should improve steadily and gradually feel
better,”’ Helen intoned.

Dad walked in and set down three cups of tea. ‘Oh,’ he said when he saw me, ‘I didn’t realise you were here. I’ll go stick the kettle on again.’

Hel tutted. ‘No, Jen can get her own.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said.

He sat down heavily and she returned to her booklet. ‘“For the first two or three days it is best to take it easy . . . each day, try to get up, wash and dress, do some light
activities such as making drinks and snacks, go up and down the stairs a few times and do some gentle walking.” Are you listening, Mum? Take it easy, the book says. Anything that needs doing,
I can do it.’

‘Or me,’ I said. ‘Ask me. Hey, are you warm enough? Shall I get you a shawl from your drawer?’

Mum smiled and shook her head.

‘“You can begin doing
light
work in the house as soon as you feel fit and able – for example, washing up and dusting. After a few
weeks
you may feel well
enough to do other jobs such as vacuuming.” So no going near that Hoover, yeah? In fact, if I find you’ve even opened the cupboard and looked at it, I’ll be cross. We will,
won’t we, Dad? No joking.’

‘I defrosted the freezer for you yesterday,’ I said.

‘Yeah, and flooded the floor. And all the tea towels needed washing afterwards.’

‘I cleared up. The towels are clean and aired.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mum.

‘“When you can start driving again depends on your heart condition and the sort of treatment you have had. You need to contact the DVLA to make sure it is safe for you to start
driving again. Many people who have had a heart attack are not allowed to drive for the first month.”’

‘We know that,’ said Dad. ‘The doctor told her. It’s on my list.’

I said, ‘Shall I put your Get Well cards up, Mum?’

‘Done it,’ said Hel.

‘Where?’

‘In the hall. Didn’t you notice when you came in?’

‘She can’t see them there. They should be in here, on the bureau.’

‘I thought they’d keep getting knocked off.’

‘But there’s a draught in the hallway. Every time anyone opens the door they’ll be blown over.’

‘Yeah? Do you want to go test it out, Jen?’

I actually would have, but then I glanced at Dad’s expression and stayed where I was.

‘“If you have had an uncomplicated recovery, you can usually start sexual activity when you feel—”. Oh, God, you can read that chapter on your own.’ Helen dithered
with the pages of the booklet, trying to find a blander section. With her lips pressed together disapprovingly, her expression was for a moment so like Mum’s it was uncanny. They don’t
look much like each other – Hel doesn’t favour any of us, though she gets her red hair from Dad’s gran, apparently – but in that moment she was her mother’s daughter.
‘OK, this is a good bit: “What happens on a cardiac rehabilitation programme.” Do you want to hear?’

Mum opened her mouth, then shut it again. We waited, poised to hear what it was she desired.

But then Dad leaned forward on his seat. ‘You know what, girls? I reckon your mum’s ready for a nap. Yes? Do you want to go up and have a proper lie down, love?’

‘Well, if no one minds. I didn’t sleep well last night. You don’t in hospital. All the noises and the lights. And the woman in the bed next to me kept muttering to
herself.’

Helen sprang up. ‘Good idea. I need to get on and make the meal, anyway.’

‘I’ll help,’ I said.

‘You need to come through and see what I’ve done with the fridge,’ she told me over her shoulder. ‘I rearranged the cupboards today, sorted out the healthy foods Mum
needs. Because we’re going to have to change, as a household.’

With care and concentration, Mum got to her feet and reached for Dad’s support. We watched as he led her out of the room and to the foot of the stairs, where she began to climb the steps
gingerly one by one. I could feel the effort myself, the grip of her knuckles on the banister, the strain of her thigh muscles with each haul upwards; tried hard not to imagine the dark and
blood-rich heart muscle pumping away beneath her rib cage. After a few moments I made myself look away, and in doing so noticed one of her Get Well cards had fallen off the telephone table onto the
carpet.
Hope you’re flying high again soon!
If Hel spotted it, she didn’t say.

Hel had indeed reorganized the kitchen. One cupboard was full of pulses and seeds and tinned tomatoes and tuna and sardines and brown rice. Our usual jam had been replaced with
a high-fruit version, and the salt with a low-sodium one. Certain bottles of sauce had vanished, and in their place were ranks of herbs and spices. Even some of Mum’s baking ingredients were
different, so the shelf now boasted a packet of wholegrain flour and, alongside the sugar, something called Splenda. The cooking oil had been pushed to the back and there was a bottle of Flora
Cuisine and a can of FryLight sitting in an easy-reach position. We seemed to have a whole supermarket’s worth of Shredded Wheat stockpiled. Hel hadn’t got rid of my favourites, she
explained, just put them in the corner cupboard to make us think first about using them. She reckoned she was going to buy one packet of chocolate digestives a week, and when they were gone, they
were gone. ‘Because there are only four of us in this house, and I don’t touch them, so that ought to be enough.’ As soon as she said this I had a craving for an entire
plate-full.

Finally she revealed the fridge, packed with salad and fruit juice and lean meat and more low-fat dairy. When I protested about missing my butter, she said, ‘We need to support each other.
Can’t you do this for Mum?’ Then, as she closed the fridge door she said, ‘Anyway, there are implications for us, too.’

I’d not wanted to think about it, but she was right. If heart disease ran in the family, Hel and I could well be next in line. It was certainly something we needed to factor into our
lifestyles. This was a good point to take stock, she said. It would do the lot of us good to eat better, get ourselves checked over at the doctors’. She placed an onion in my hand and I
stared at it, stunned by a spike of fear at my own mortality. ‘Chop that,’ she told me.

Together we began preparing a lasagne, one which used quorn mince instead of beef, and cheese sauce made with reduced fat cheddar, and twice the usual amount of veg. She boiled up tomatoes with
garlic and mixed herbs for extra flavour. ‘See. No need for salt, then, is there?’ And I watched her lecture, like some TV presenter, and I thought,
She’s actually enjoying
this. She’s almost happy because now there’s a reason for her rules and we’re all in tune at last.
It was hard not to be annoyed by the preachy tone, yet I also had to admit
it was a relief that she was ready to take on the responsibility, just sort out the shopping and menus for the rest of us. I could always eat butter at work, if I wanted. Maybe I would and maybe I
wouldn’t. I’d get my cholesterol measured first.

‘Pass me the whisk, will you?’ Hel asked, and as I pulled it out of the pot with the daffodils on the side, my memory was jolted and I thought of the bunch of flowers I’d
bought for Mum while I was in M&S, and left wilting on the parcel shelf of my car.

‘Back in a sec,’ I said, and nipped out to get my keys.

It was dark and spitting with rain when I opened the front door. I put my head down and scuttled to the car, unlocked it and reached over the rear seat for the flowers. That’s when, out of
nowhere, I felt someone grasp my shoulder hard, in a pretty much exact replay of that time I was harassed on Chester Walls car park.

‘Get
off
me,’ I shouted, stamping my foot down hard and jerking my elbow backwards. I was only acting on instinct.

There was a winded yelp, and then Ned’s voice went, ‘Fuck’s sake!’

I pulled my head out of the car, turned to see, and he was bent over, stumbling across the tarmac, in obvious pain. ‘God, are you OK?’

‘What do you think?’

He straightened up cautiously, rubbing at his stomach.

I should probably have been apologetic, but I was a bag of jitters after the shock of being grabbed, never mind the other feelings he aroused in me at the moment. ‘What did you think you
were doing?’

‘Trying to speak to you, Jen.’

‘Not now.’

‘Yes, now. You’ve done a great job of avoiding me for two weeks, and I’m not having it any longer. You won’t return my texts or emails, you won’t speak on the
phone. What am I supposed to do?’

‘Nothing. Leave it. That’s the point. Can’t you take a hint?’

‘Not in the circumstances, no. We have something we need to talk about.’

‘No, we don’t. There’s nothing to say.’

‘But there is.’

I ducked into the car once more and fished out the bouquet. I was drawing a line under this conversation. But as I slammed the rear door shut, he came at me again, took my arm, pushed his face
close to mine. ‘You have to listen. Please. Two minutes. I won’t go away, you know. I’ll keep on trying till you let me speak. I’ll send a bloody carrier pigeon if I have
to.’

‘Just leave it.’

‘No.’

‘Jen, I’m begging you.’

I twisted my neck as far away from him as I could and held the pose. With a sigh he eventually let me go and stepped away, his shoulders drooping. I felt a pang, in spite of myself.

‘What can I do here?’ he said.

‘Nothing. Don’t do
anything.
That’s the point.’

A cat crossing the lawn made next door’s security light click on, and I jumped guiltily. In that moment of distraction, Ned strode forward and took my free hand, leading me down the side
of the house to the garage. I let myself follow. I could have fought him, but what was the point? He’d only come back at me another time. Perhaps it was better to get it over with.

In the narrow gap between the walls we were sheltered from the rain but not the wind. A sharp breeze whipped my hair across my mouth and into my eyes. With clumsy, fumbling fingers he brushed it
away and held the sides of my face so I was forced to look directly into his eyes.

‘You’re angry with me, I get that. But tell me what you think happened in the hospital café,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘We have to.’

‘No, we don’t. We need to forget it and move on. “Least said, soonest mended,” as my mum says.’

‘Give me strength!’

His fierce tone stung me. I gripped the bouquet and tried once more to dodge past him, but he blocked my path.

‘OK, listen,’ I said. ‘Nothing happened in the café. We were wound up and confused. We bumped into each other and there was a friendly moment of reassurance between us.
That’s it. Finished.’

‘“A friendly moment of reassurance”?’

‘Yes.’

‘You really believe that?’

‘Look, Hel’ll be coming out any minute to see where I’ve gone. I’m supposed to be cooking tea with her—’

Ned touched my chin gently. ‘I know I should be apologising here, but I can’t. I mean, I don’t regret what I did. The timing was way off, I’ll grant you, I should have
waited . . . But you were there right in front of me and I’ve never wanted anything as much as I wanted to kiss you then.’

‘Stop it.’

‘You know, don’t you? I’ve wanted to kiss you for ages. You’ve felt it.’

‘No.’

‘You kissed me back.’

‘I did not.’

‘Jen, for God’s sake—’

‘What good will it do?’

‘I’m in love with you. I’ll go insane if I don’t say it.’

I shrank deeper into the shadows, terrified someone might see or hear. Just my breathing in this narrow brick space sounded incredibly loud. ‘Well you mustn’t. You’re not free
to come out with stuff like that. You’re attached, if you remember. To my sister. Practically engaged.’