A Thousand Tiny Disappointments, page 11
18
It was strange being here again. The bungalow smelt musty and dust was already collecting on the surfaces. Despite what Alice had said, it looked like Sharon had decided there was no point continuing to clean an empty house. Or maybe she was just doing the bare minimum, thinking no one would be there to check up on her.
Martha knew it was petty, but in a way she was glad she’d turned up without warning today: at least she now had a proper idea about what the woman was – and wasn’t – doing. On the other hand, with estate agents due to visit in half an hour, it was disappointing the bungalow didn’t look its best. Martha should have called Alice to tell her she’d be back – how stupid not to think about that. But there were so many things she was supposed to be doing: the lists – neatly typed up on her laptop as well as scribbled on numerous scraps of paper – seemed endless and insurmountable.
This time last week, she’d had no idea what lay ahead. It had been a warm Saturday afternoon and she had been in the garden at home with Joe, while Simon mowed the grass down at the far end. Joe had been stretched out on his back on a picnic blanket and Martha had picked leggy dandelions, tickling her boy’s cheeks with the soft downy heads, before blowing hard enough to release the parachute-like seeds into the air, stroking his face as he watched them float above his head. That evening she and Simon had gone to Claudia and Adam’s for that rather awkward dinner party. It hadn’t been the greatest night out, but it had still been such a relief to be doing something normal.
Incredible how so much had changed in such a short space of time.
And now here she was, back at the bungalow already, waiting to find out how much money they might make on it. It was all so bloody mercenary. Martha hadn’t even thought about getting the place valued yet, but – again – Patrick had taken matters out of her hands. He’d texted:
Two estate agents are visiting on Saturday. Midday and 2pm, so you’ll have time to get down there.
She’d sworn out loud as she read the text. Even for Patrick, this was unbelievable. She texted back:
Why can’t you go?
She’d stared at the blank phone screen for a couple of minutes, but he didn’t reply. This was crazy: he lived so much closer than she did, and she had childcare to sort out, whereas he could presumably rely on Helen to deal with the children. Martha had wondered if she might hear from her sister-in-law after the harrowing events of the last few days, but it was no surprise when she didn’t. The two of them had never been close, and Patrick hardly visited his own mother, so there was no reason why his wife should feel obliged to get involved.
Fed up with waiting for a reply to her text, Martha had tried to call. ‘Patrick,’ she said, as his voice asked her to leave a message. ‘How dare you arrange this without asking me! It’s such a long way for me to go, and didn’t it occur to you that I may have plans? I don’t know what Simon’s doing on Saturday, he might not be able to look after Joe. Honestly, this is really unfair!’
Two hours later, another text pinged in.
In Paris until Sunday.
She had thrown her phone onto the purple sofa and screamed into the vast, echoing space of her kitchen.
But, of course, Martha did what Patrick had presumed she would do, and made all the necessary arrangements so she could come back down to Surrey today. She filled the kettle and, while it boiled, went around throwing open windows and flicking through the post Alice had left piled neatly on the hall table. The girl was right, there was nothing important amongst it. Martha threw away the circulars and put the rest in her bag. In Judith’s bedroom, she stood in front of the open wardrobe, looking at the rows of clothes hanging from the rail, the pairs of shoes neatly lined up on the shelves below. What was she supposed to do with all this stuff? Most of it could go to a charity shop, but some items were so old or worn, it seemed insulting to expect anyone else would want them. She knelt down and pulled out an ancient pair of black court shoes, the leather tough and unyielding, moulded to the shape of Judith’s feet. They were her mother’s favourite shoes, the only ones she ever seemed to wear when she went out. She had worn them to Martha’s graduation, more than twenty years ago, even though she’d bought herself a pair that went with her blue outfit.
‘These are comfortable,’ she’d said, when Martha asked what had happened to the new ones. ‘I don’t care if they don’t look as smart, my feet will thank me for it later.’
Martha sat down on the edge of the bed. There was a book on the bedside table, with a pair of reading glasses balanced on top of it: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Martha had read that herself last year; why had they never spoken about books they’d enjoyed? She felt a pang, as if she’d swallowed a stone and the sharp edges were digging into her stomach. There was so much she was going to miss about her mother, so many things they would never now get the chance to share.
As she picked up the paperback, a bookmark which had been between the pages fell onto the floor. Leaning down to pick it up, she saw it was home-made: a piece of white card with a ribbon threaded through a hole in the bottom and, above it, a child’s drawing of some kind of animal. There were words written across the card as well, the characters spiky and uneven: Nippa’s Granny buks.
Martha had no idea what this was. She turned the bookmark over and saw more writing: lov Gracie xx
Alice’s little girl must have made this. She looked at the drawing again – if you were being generous, you could possibly guess it was a dog, although it only had three legs.
She slid the bookmark back between the pages and put the paperback on the bedside table. Judith must have known Gracie very well. Why hadn’t this occurred to Martha before? How stupid of her. Obviously, if her mother saw a lot of Alice, then she would know her daughter. But thinking about the girl being here, in this house, caused a strange pulling sensation in Martha’s gut. She pictured the child running down the hall and perching beside Judith in the upright armchairs in the sitting room, swinging her legs and showing her the bookmark she’d made for her. She imagined Judith clapping her hands together and exclaiming with joy as she looked at the drawing of what was presumably meant to be Nipper.
Martha stood up suddenly, marching out of the room and slamming the door shut behind her. It had all been so bloody cosy: Alice and her daughter spending time with Judith, taking care of her dog, giving her the sort of handmade presents she would never have received from her own grandson. She went into the sitting room and picked up the photo of Judith with the little girl on her lap. Gracie; of course this was Gracie. Now that she looked more closely, she could see it had been taken here, in the back garden. There was a pounding in her ears. It really was a lovely picture: Judith looked so happy and the little blonde girl was gorgeous.
Martha walked into the kitchen and pulled open the back door, her breath coming in shallow rasps. Without letting herself stop to think, she raised her arm and threw the photo frame onto the patio, the glass shattering as it hit the stone. Sunlight glinted off the photo as it lay amongst the broken pieces of wooden frame.
‘You all right over there?’
Martha jumped and looked across to where she could just see eyes and a thatch of grey hair above the top of the fence. It was Judith’s neighbour; Martha couldn’t remember what his name was, he’d only moved in a couple of months ago. ‘Yes! Fine, thank you. I just dropped something,’ she said. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’
She knelt down and began gathering the bits of frame together and picking up the larger shards of glass. It felt like someone was banging on her skull with drumsticks. She lifted up the lid of the nearby dustbin and threw everything inside, then went back into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, standing at the sink while she drank it, aware her hand was trembling.
Patrick was right. Claudia too. None of this was fair. Whatever their mother had been thinking, her actions weren’t moral or justifiable.
The sheet of pale blue paper was still in Martha’s coat pocket, folded into a small square, slightly worn at the edges where she’d run her fingers across it endless times. Now she pulled it out and walked into the bathroom, lifting up the toilet seat and beginning to rip the paper into shreds, smaller and smaller as they fell out of her hands and floated around in the bowl. She pushed down the handle, once, twice, three times, until all the evidence was gone and the bowl was empty. Then she slammed down the lid, sat on it, put her head in her hands and wept.
At exactly midday, there was a loud knock on the front door. ‘Jeff Daniels from Moretons,’ said the man, stretching out his hand. ‘Sorry for your loss.’ He didn’t sound particularly sorry. What a stupid phrase anyway; her mother wasn’t lost. That made it sound as if Judith had absent-mindedly taken the wrong turning when she wandered out of a shopping centre. Martha told herself to stop being oversensitive; it didn’t matter, the man was just being polite. She smiled tightly as she shook his hand, and opened her mouth to continue the conversation, but he had already walked past her into the bungalow.
As she showed him through the rooms, Martha straightened bed covers and plumped cushions, chatting to fill the silence, pointing out features she thought might appeal. ‘I’ve always loved the view of the garden from here,’ she said, as they walked into the kitchen. ‘And the patio’s a good size.’ She could hear the desperation in her own voice. The bungalow looked even less appealing now a disinterested stranger was peering into its dark corners and noting down its unimpressive specifications.
‘Quite a bit of updating needed in the kitchen and bathroom,’ said Jeff Daniels, eventually. ‘Might have to reflect that in the asking price.’
Martha nodded.
‘Could also do with replacing some or all of these.’ He ran a finger down the edge of a windowpane, where the seal was grey with mould and peeling away from the frame.
‘I know there’s some work to be done,’ said Martha. ‘But we thought there would be a demand for this sort of place. It’s quite a popular road?’
The agent sniffed and shook his head, as he produced a tissue and wiped the dirt from the tip of his finger. ‘There’s never a shortage of properties like this,’ he said. ‘The turnover’s too regular. That’s what happens in an area where you’ve got a predominantly elderly population. They die or get moved into homes. I took on a bungalow just like this two days ago, and we already have a couple of others on our books.’
Martha stood at the front door and watched him striding down the street, his highly polished shoes clicking loudly against the pavement. He was on his phone, throwing back his head and laughing loudly, gesticulating with his free hand as he talked. Martha wanted to run after him, grab his sleeve and spin him back around so that he could see the fury in her face.
‘This was somebody’s life!’ she imagined shrieking at him. ‘Somebody’s home! It’s not just a bloody commodity.’
Although, sadly, that’s exactly what it was. That was the reason Patrick had lined up the viewings, and it was why she’d been so keen to show off the bungalow at its best as the agent made his disdainful appraisal. She and Patrick needed to get a good price for it; Jeff Daniels wanted to earn as much commission as possible for the sale. There was no point in pretending anything else mattered.
19
She woke with a start, her heart pounding as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she made out the outlines of the furniture on the other side of the room, the shadows thrown by the thin strip of light beneath the bedroom door. She must have had a nightmare, but could remember no details; there was just a vague sense of unease lurking at the edges of her mind about something she’d been about to see or do.
Then a wail came from along the hall: Joe. That’s what had woken her. She threw back the duvet and grabbed her dressing gown, pulling it around herself as she tiptoed out of the bedroom and pulled the door closed behind her. Simon hated being woken in the night; he was useless and bad tempered if she ever needed his help with Joe, and the next day he would be bristling with resentment about his interrupted sleep.
‘We both work, Simon,’ she sometimes said. ‘Why is it always me who gets up?’
‘You’re better at it,’ he would say. ‘You can cope with less sleep.’
They both knew that was rubbish. They both also knew she would always be the one to go and comfort their son in the night. She sometimes lay listening to Joe cry for half a minute or so, waiting to see if Simon would stir. He never did. Either he was a very deep sleeper or he was expert at bluffing it out: lying there motionless for as long as it took for her to drag herself out of bed.
Joe was on his side, kicking at the safety rail along the edge of his bed. She leant over to stroke his face but there were no tears, and the smell of urine stung her nostrils.
‘God, Joe, not again.’ She sighed. He wore nappies at night but they often leaked.
She hauled the boy out, changed his pyjamas and put a new sheet on the mattress, before settling him back into bed and stroking his cheek gently, watching enviously as he slipped back into sleep almost immediately. How she’d love to be able to switch off so easily.
She was now wide awake; that was the trouble with these disturbed nights, it was impossible to stop her mind from racing out of control. In the darkness, even normal fears and anxieties were magnified and, if there was something specific worrying her, everything about it would seem ten times worse in the lonely hours before dawn. There was always grief, which bubbled up with no warning when she was at her lowest ebb, knocking her sideways as it bombarded her with memories of her mother. She tried not to cry too much during the day, but gave into it at night, shutting herself in the spare room so Simon wouldn’t hear, sobbing into a pillow until she was so drained, she could barely lift her head off the sodden pillowcase.
But right now, there was something even worse: regret at what she’d done to her mother’s carefully handwritten note. She’d been so angry and upset when she’d realised how important Alice and Gracie had been to Judith, but if that piece of paper hadn’t been in her coat pocket, maybe she would have calmed down and started to think rationally. Ripping it up and flushing it away had made her feel better for no more than a few seconds. Immediately afterwards, she was horrified at what she’d done.
She went downstairs now, switching on all the lights to banish the shadows. It was 4.30am – not worth going back to bed. Joe would be awake again in an hour. She filled the kettle and spooned hot chocolate powder into a mug. She mentally ran over what was planned for the next few days. She wasn’t working today, so was meeting Claudia and her kids in the park, then tomorrow Joe was booked in for his taster day at Greenways and Clive had said she could have the day off to take him. Because of that, she’d decided to drive on to Surrey and had booked an appointment with Judith’s solicitor, to read the will. Her stomach clenched at the thought of it. She and Patrick had arranged via text to meet beforehand, so she had no idea what he was thinking. But she was panicking about it. Standing in a queue at the supermarket, a couple of days ago, it had suddenly occurred to her that the solicitor might have a copy of her mother’s handwritten codicil. A proper copy, signed, witnessed and legal.
She’d been so shocked at the thought, that she’d not heard the cheerful ‘Good afternoon!’ from the girl sitting behind the checkout. She hadn’t put down her basket or unloaded the handful of items in there. She’d just stood, open-mouthed, looking through the plate glass window into the car park but not seeing anything in it, paralysed with horror.
‘Are you all right?’ The man behind had tapped her on the arm.
‘Excuse me, can you put your items on the belt?’ asked the girl.
Martha had stared at her, idiotically, before frantically unloading the milk, cheese and broccoli from her basket and fishing a ten-pound note out of her bag to pay for it.
Outside, walking towards her car, she’d felt sick. Of course, her mother would have done this whole thing properly. Why hadn’t she and Patrick thought about this? The note she’d left in her dressing table drawer had just been a practice, something she’d scribbled for herself to get the wording right. At some stage after that she would have gone to see her solicitor and had the codicil officially added to her will.
If that was the case, it didn’t matter what she’d done. Alice would get the house anyway.
Martha was desperate to speak to Patrick, to find out if the same thought had occurred to him. But every time she called, his mobile went to answerphone, and she didn’t want to leave a message. What if someone else picked it up? Helen or one of the children? What she’d done was so appalling, Martha couldn’t bear the thought of other people knowing about it. If only she hadn’t told Claudia. She was a good friend and had been incredibly supportive, but she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
20
Sometimes Martha found it hard to like Barney – even though he was a sweet little boy, cheeky but funny with it, and polite when he needed to be. It wasn’t Barney himself who made her so angry – just what he stood for.
They watched as he ran across to the slide and started to haul himself up the steep ladder; he turned and waved at them when he got to the top, before launching himself down the other side, screaming in delight, his yellow T-shirt picked up by the wind and billowing towards his chin.
‘Be careful!’ called Claudia. But she didn’t sound worried. She didn’t need to be. Her normal, happy, healthy five-year-old was just doing what almost every other child his age would do.
