Two Fridays in April (15 page)

She might see it – you couldn’t rule it out. You could never rule it out.

By seven she’s home again. She’ll have to leave for Daphne’s in a few minutes. She longs to change back into her sneakers – the black shoes aren’t half as comfy – but they’re still too damp.

In the bathroom she reaches for the bar of soap, about to wash off the make-up. She always washes it off if she’s going to Daphne’s for dinner afterwards, can’t have them pitying her for getting all dolled up to go and visit a man who looks at her and sees a stranger.

But then she stops. Tonight is different: tonight they have to commemorate a day they’d rather forget. Tonight needs all the help it can get to feel special. She’ll leave the make-up on; let them think what they like.

She redoes her lipstick, dabs more perfume behind her ears, pouts into the mirror at the old woman with the thinning grey hair. ‘Get a move on,’ she tells her, ‘before you die of starvation.’

Cheeky has shown up: he sits on the kitchen sill, his unblinking golden-syrup eyes turned into small torches by the kitchen light. ‘Back again,’ she says, opening the door, and in he hops. She tips milk into a saucer – no scraps today – and he lowers his head and laps. She heard somewhere that milk is bad for adult cats: clearly nobody’s told him.

As he drinks, his tail gives an occasional flick to and fro. He’s company of sorts: if she wasn’t heading out again she’d let him stay a while, but as soon as the saucer has been licked clean she nudges him towards the door with her shoe.

‘Go on – out you go.’

He blinks up at her, offended. He plants his paws on the floor, refusing to co-operate. She has to slide him across the tiles and bundle him out as he mews hoarsely in protest.

‘I know you’re cross, but I’m in a hurry. See you tomorrow.’ He’ll be back: he won’t hold a grudge as long as there’s something on offer.

Thank God the rain has stopped. Not a bad evening now, dry and calm, a few thin slashes of pink cutting the grey out of the sky. Might give them a better day tomorrow. It’s far from warm, but the green coat keeps her reasonably snug. Her knee is complaining again – she walked a bit more than usual today – but the bus stop isn’t far, just the end of her road.

The bus is early for once: she’s barely landed when she sees it rounding the corner of the green. Good, she could do with a sit-down. She clambers on, pulling herself up the steps with the rail. ‘Take your time,’ the driver says. He’s young enough to be her grandson, looks like he’s barely out of school. He hardly glances at her pass, knows well she’s entitled to it.

She takes a seat by the window, in front of a man eating an enormous sagging pizza slice. The herby, cheesy smell wafts tantalisingly in the air, sending saliva gushing into her mouth and reminding her again that she’s eaten hardly anything since breakfast.

But she’s not a fan of pizza, or any of those other things they didn’t grow up with – pasta, rice, noodles, hard-to-pronounce grains that come from God knows where. Give her a couple of slices of bacon or beef and a spoonful of veg any day, healthiest food you can eat.

Susan used to do a lot of that stuff: pizza with garlic bread, bowls of pasta, herbs and spices, cheese that smelt like a teenage boy’s well-worn socks. Finn used to wrinkle his nose when she produced the cheese, but she’d laugh and say he didn’t have to eat it.

Mo didn’t taste a mango till she was well over forty, or a pomegranate. Wouldn’t give you tuppence for either of them, prefer a nice Cox’s Pippin or a juicy orange. Melon isn’t bad though; the creamy-coloured one, not the pink watery thing.

Daphne’s been known to serve up something like quiche or lasagne, but she never tries to be too way out. Finn wasn’t a fussy eater growing up, cleaned his plate whatever Mo put on it. Just as well: she’d have had no patience with a child pushing his dinner aside.

A loud, prolonged belch erupts behind her. She waits for an apology, isn’t too surprised when none comes. Manners a thing of the past – not the done thing any more to show consideration for your fellow human beings.

The bus climbs a hill and rounds a bend. It pulls to a stop just
outside the school where George teaches, and as new passengers clamber on, Mo watches cars manoeuvring into the parking spaces in the school grounds, and remembers Daphne saying something about a concert there tonight, otherwise George would be at the dinner too.

He’ll be on Easter holidays after today, two weeks of no work on full pay. Two weeks of youngsters kicking a ball in the street outside Mo’s house, booting it into her front door every so often just to annoy her.

She sees a woman she recognises emerging from the passenger side of a silver car, opening the rear door to unbuckle the belt of a child who bounds out, something dangling from one of his hands. Mo recognises the teddy his mother bought for him in the charity shop this morning. Small world: he’s probably in George’s class.

A man gets out at the driver’s side, another familiar face. Mo watches the three of them walk towards the school entrance, the little boy skipping along between the adults. So the guard and the counsellor are a couple: small world indeed.

Before they reach the door the little boy points suddenly upward, and Mo follows his finger to find two kites in the sky, pulling and diving along with the breeze. She wouldn’t have thought it was windy enough for kites; maybe it is, higher up. She’s never flown a kite; presumably there’s a bit of a skill to it, keeping them up like that.

The pizza eater leaves his seat and ambles down the aisle, pausing to hitch his trousers over his substantial hips. No sign of the packaging his food must have come in – left on his seat, no doubt, for someone else to dispose of.

The bus meanders through the city, picking up and dropping off as it goes. When it has passed the stop before Daphne’s Mo reaches up and pushes the button on the pole by her seat. Getting off, she thanks the driver as she always does, and he gives her a cheery wave before pulling away.

She covers the short distance to the corner and turns at the shop that sells the Macaroon bars Daphne buys her. They’re not her favourite: she liked them one time, but now the coconut gets trapped under her plate. Still, the thought is what matters, and they never last long when Mo adds them to the plate of break-time biscuits in the shop.

She walks up the road, quickening her step when she gets to the point where it happened. She hates passing it, but the bus leaves her with no choice. At least she was spared seeing him there, unlike Daphne. Every morning they drive past it, Daphne and Una. Every morning they’re reminded.

She stops in front of the house, rests against the gate to catch her breath. She recalls Finn buying it, a single man still, a few years before he took up with Susan. Got a bank loan for it that scandalised Mo: how on earth would he ever repay it? Looking back, it wasn’t that big at all, not compared to the huge mortgages people had to get afterwards, when house prices started to go mad. Finn was lucky: he got in before all that.

She remembers helping him to paint it: she could do so much then, all the energy in the world. Didn’t cost her a thought to spend the afternoon up a stepladder running a roller to and fro across a wall after a morning of doing the books in the shop with Leo. Gave a hand in the garden too, shopped with Finn for
shrubs, helped him to put them down after they’d cleared the weeds away.

And she’d donated things for the house: an armchair, a kettle, a rug for in front of the fire. A few cups, a saucepan, a frying pan. Most of them have gone now, have worn out and been replaced, but the chair, she’s glad to see, is still in the kitchen.

She pushes open the gate. She walks up the path and rings the bell.

Daphne is dressed in jeans and a jumper, a pair of thick grey flecked socks bunched around her ankles, her hair pulled into a heap with a big tortoiseshell slide. You couldn’t say she’d made much of an effort.

She makes no comment on Mo’s made-up face; maybe she doesn’t notice. She waits until Mo is in the kitchen before she drops the bombshell.

Mo can’t believe it. Una not eating with them? Not bothered turning up for her own birthday dinner? Worse, Daphne doesn’t appear particularly put out. On the contrary, she attempts to defend the girl, implying that they should feel sorry for her.

Mo sips the sherry that’s poured for her, fuming. The idea of marking this day with anything other than sorrow is abhorrent to her – but she’s
there
. For Una’s sake, she’s shown up. More fool her – and more fool Daphne for splashing out on a big cake: no doubt it’ll be far too rich, have Mo awake with heartburn half the night. No sign of it, must be in the fridge. It can stay there for all she cares.

The sherry slides down, its heady sweetness welcome, hitting
her empty stomach before moving up to drift around in her head. Despite her annoyance, she can feel herself relaxing. Oh, she knows Una’s not a bad girl; she wouldn’t have realised the ingratitude of her actions. Mo will rise above it, she won’t allow it to ruin the evening.

She fills a jug with tap water when Daphne asks her to. She puts cutlery on the table, takes out serviettes and salt and pepper. She drains her sherry glass, wondering if she’ll be offered a refill. For once, she wouldn’t say no.

She remembers the first alcohol she ever tasted, the day Leo went into the home. She remembers seeing his room for the first time, the room she knew would more than likely be his last. The single bed, the floor that you might think was wood if you’d never seen a real wood floor. A painting she didn’t recognise – a river, a boat, a humpbacked bridge – on the dull green wall. Why did institutions so often seem to favour green as a wall colour?

But it was the single bed that broke her heart. The days of them sleeping side by side were over; she was never again to lie in the dark listening to the rhythm of his breathing, never again to wake in the morning within the warmth of his arms. As she and Finn removed his clothes and put him into pyjamas, she kept up a ridiculous cheerful monologue, determined not to let him see how broken-hearted she was, even though he was pretty much gone beyond noticing by then.

On the way home she asked Finn to drop her at the shopping centre.
I need to get a few things
, she told him. He said he’d wait; she insisted he left her there, said she wanted the walk. When his car had vanished she went into the off-licence – the first time
in her life she’d stepped through its doors – and walked slowly along the aisles before settling on a small bottle of Baileys. The ad on telly was nice, and she had a weakness for cream.

On the way out of the shop she stopped. She turned and walked back in, and went straight to the counter.
Twenty Benson & Hedges
, she said, reaching a second time for her purse.

Back home she put Leo’s beloved Mozart on the CD and poured an inch of the drink into a glass. She dipped in a finger and brought it to her mouth; it tasted of fiery chocolate. She eked it out in tiny sips as the music washed over her. When the glass was empty she held it suspended above her mouth and waited for the last precious drops to roll down and fall onto her tongue.

Every day, she resolved, she would do this. Every evening after dinner, Baileys and music would be her consolation. Just an inch, she wouldn’t overdo it – and a single cigarette every day. Every morning, the time she’d always enjoyed them the most.

She’s tried sherry too, just for a change. She likes both, but Baileys feels more special. She’d prefer a Baileys now, but sherry is what Daphne always offers, so sherry it is.

The bottle is offered again and she extends her glass, noting her daughter-in-law’s white face, her tired eyes. The first anniversary has taken its toll – but maybe once they’re over it, things will pick up. If Mo has her way, this time next year could see them in a very different place.

Towards the end of the meal – which it has to be said is perfectly fine – Mo decides to broach the subject. With Una not here, it’s the ideal opportunity.

But it doesn’t go well. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says – and straight away she observes the wariness that comes into Daphne’s expression. Resistant already, before Mo has even begun. Sure enough, Daphne refuses even to contemplate resurrecting the shop, making it clear that she thinks the whole notion is cockeyed, and that Mo must be out of her head to be suggesting it. Within minutes they’re glaring at one another across the remains of their dinner.