Tess Evans - Book of Lost Threads

‘You wouldn’t go back to your research?’

‘You wouldn’t go back to your singing?’

‘Touché.’

Finn said he had to go out, and Moss decided to walk along the river.

‘There’s a path that goes about five kilometres,’ he told her. ‘Starts near the bridge.’

That night at dinner, Finn seemed distracted and not inclined to talk. Finally, he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat.

‘How long do you plan to stay? Not that I want to get rid of you,’ he assured her, remembering his panic when Jerome had asked a similar question.

‘Not sure, really. I need some time to think things out. And-and I’d also like to get to know you better?’ The upward inflection betrayed her uncertainty.

‘I’d like you to stay a while.’ Finn’s tone also betrayed doubt.

‘But we can’t have you sleeping on the floor and I don’t have a spare room so I… sort of took the, you know, liberty of speaking to old Mrs Pargetter. She lives next door, in the house with the blue verandah. She said you can stay with her.’

When he took the house, Finn was pleased that his elderly neighbour was a recluse. After a brief introduction, they had merely nodded politely whenever they happened to pass. One evening, a few weeks after he moved in, he answered a knock at the door to find her standing on his verandah, twisting her apron apologetically.

‘Mr Clancy,’ she began, ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, but my door is stuck and I can’t close it properly. I won’t sleep unless I can lock it, you see. Normally my nephew would…’

‘Of course I’ll help, Mrs Pargetter. Just let me get my tools.’ Noting for the first time how frail she was, he took her arm as they went down his path and up to her house. ‘Now, let’s see what I can do.’ He planed a little off the door and, disarmed by her old-fashioned courtesy, accepted the proffered cup of tea. As he left, he was surprised to hear himself promising to dig over her vegetable garden.

After that, Finn found it pleasant to do little jobs for her- taking her dog for a walk, pruning her roses, replacing a tap washer, changing a light bulb. In turn, she would call him in when she’d made scones or biscuits or a teacake. Once she presented him with a tea cosy. But she never asked personal questions, nor did she tell him anything of herself. They suited each other very nicely.

So for want of another solution, he turned to Mrs Pargetter for help with the problem of Moss’s incursion into his life.

As he saw it, he had no choice. He didn’t want to send her to the pub, so where else could she go? Besides, he often worried about his neighbour living alone. She was so frail. What if she had a fall or became ill? Here was a perfect solution-at least in the short term.

The old lady stared in dismay when Finn proposed that she take his daughter in for a few days. ‘I didn’t know you had a daughter, Finn. Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added hastily. ‘I mean, a young girl! What would she want staying with an old woman like me?’

Despite his rationalisations, Finn already felt guilty for trying to pass his problem on to his elderly friend. He stepped back a pace. ‘That’s alright, Mrs Pargetter. I’m sorry I asked. I had no right to expect…’

Mrs Pargetter saw in Finn’s face a montage of embarrassment, confusion and… something else. Something familiar. She swallowed hard. ‘You’ve been good to me, Finn. I’d like to help. Just for a few days, you say? Bring her round tomorrow afternoon.’ She said this rapidly, as though she had to get the words out before she regretted them. She even allowed Finn to leave without offering him a cup of tea. They were both aware that they had crossed some unspoken boundary.

‘So,’ Finn continued now, in the face of Moss’s frown, ‘you can move your things in tomorrow afternoon-if it’s alright with you, of course. She’s a nice old thing,’ he added weakly. ‘Knits tea cosies for the United Nations.’ He indicated his own colourfully encased teapot. ‘That’s one of hers. She gives them as Christmas presents too.’

‘Did you say United Nations?’

‘Yup.’

‘And it was tea cosies ?’

‘Yup again. There was some story involved, but I can’t remember. She’ll tell you. She could do with some company. Sometimes I wonder if she’s a bit batty.’

Moss had been wondering the same thing, but sleeping on the floor had little appeal so when Finn said they would still have meals together, she agreed to move next door on a trial basis.

When Finn had gone, Lily Pargetter went up the stairs and stood looking at the closed door of her spare bedroom with something like fear in her eyes. She opened the room once a week to air and dust it, but this was different. If the girl came, then the room would be disturbed, unsettled. Things would be displaced. What would happen then to the sorrow she had folded and stored away there? Looking at Finn, standing irresolute on her doorstep, she had seen a sadness that echoed her own, and had let down her guard. She had been foolish to agree, but could always go next door and tell him she’d changed her mind. It was her house, after all. Her private domain. But what could she tell him? The truth was too painful, and a lie would drive him away. She didn’t want that. She’d come to rely on his presence, his quiet companionship over scones and tea.

The door creaked a little as she opened it and switched on the light. Her fingers trailed over the wallpaper. She had decorated this room so long ago. A musty smell sent her hurrying to the window to let in some fresh air. She shook out the curtains. Perhaps the musty smell came from them. ‘I have to do this,’ she muttered. ‘Merciful God, help me do this.’

Determined to concentrate on the task at hand, she applied herself in a housewifely manner, polishing the dressing-table, smoothing fresh linen on the bed, checking there were coathangers in the wardrobe. She switched on the little bedside lamp and was pleased to see its soft glow. The room remained curiously aloof, so she went out to the garden and cut some camellias. ‘Thank goodness the drought hasn’t got these yet,’ she murmured to herself. She arranged the pale pink blooms in a blue-patterned vase and stepped back to admire them. This cleaning had taken on the elements of ritual, as though sweeping away the dust and polishing the surfaces would drive her sadness into the darkest corner. It still lingered in her heart-a small, hard knot of misery-but she called on her reserves of strength and refused to let it overwhelm her.

She was startled to hear the clock chime six and realised that she had achieved a victory of sorts: she could never have imagined spending so much time in that room. More than that, she was actually excited by the prospect of playing hostess for a few days. It was nice to feel needed.

The following day, Moss and Finn arrived just before three o’clock, Finn carrying a backpack and Moss a handbag and a basket of fruit. The old lady greeted them at the door, her hands in a flurry of flour.

‘Come in. I’ve just put some scones in the oven. We can have a cuppa. Or would you rather see your room first? What am I thinking?’ She smiled a welcome through unwieldy teeth. ‘You must be Fern.’

‘Moss, Mrs Pargetter. And thank you, I’d love a cup of tea.’

Mrs Pargetter pottered around the kitchen, insisting that she wait on her guests. She was of medium height, her body melted into the shapelessness of old age. She carried the beginnings of a dowager’s hump, a feature that was accentuated by her habit of holding her head down to one side whenever she spoke. Her grey hair was drawn back in an untidy bun, and what was once a wide and generous smile was marred by ill-fitting false teeth which she occasionally needed to slurp back into place. She found this manoeuvre quite embarrassing but managed to perform it with some delicacy, simultaneously sucking and patting at her mouth with a lace-edged handkerchief.