Anouska Knight - Letting You Go

‘Who’s George? Your boss? Or just the bloke tasked with tracking you down to Mum’s bedroom phone?’ Alex felt her eyebrow rise like her dad’s would whenever he used to catch them on his bedroom phone.

Jem looked guilty. She set the water jug back down and braced herself on the back of the chair. ‘George can be … difficult. Thinks everything is always so simple … black and white,’ she muttered, sliding back into her seat.

‘How nice for George.’

Jem obviously didn’t want to get into it. ‘Did you call me before?’

‘I wanted to know if you were ready to eat? Or do you think Dad might leave the hospital soon?’ Alex pulled the lid away from Mrs Fairbanks’ pot and beheld six fat juicy dumplings proudly peeping from a puddle of rich gravy. Saliva rushed into her mouth. She never ate like this any more. Casserole for one? Unlikely.

‘That was Dad on the phone just then.’

‘Still nothing?’ Alex asked. It had only been an hour and a half since they’d left them at Kerring General, Ted still pacing, Blythe still sleeping. Soundly they all hoped.

‘Nope. I told Dad to go and get a paper, have a smoke or something, not that I want to encourage his bad habits. I think the nurses are wearing him down though. They’ve promised to call him if there’s any change, he was just mulling over leaving.’

‘We’ll wait then. He must be starving.’ Alex clamped the lid back onto the pot, her stomach grumbled again in protest.

Jem nodded at Alex’s tee. ‘I don’t think Jaws is willing to wait. Come on, dish up. I’ll put Dad’s in the oven.

Alex was still weighing it up when a ladleful of food fell onto the plate in front of her.

Alex bit into a tender piece of hot lamb and nearly slipped taste bud first into a state of euphoria. ‘Bloody hell, Mal Sinclair got lucky marrying Millie! I wonder if she can cook like her mum.’

Jem smiled disinterestedly. ‘Who knows? Probably. Millie’s probably perfect wife material, she’d have to be to get the green light from Louisa Sinclair just to spend time with her little Malcy, let alone marry him.’

Alex detected a nip in the air. She wasn’t completely convinced it didn’t smell of sour grapes. Nothing drove a wedge like an old boyfriend. Jem had never admitted to it but their mum had seen her and Mal ‘in a tryst’ outside Frobisher’s Tea Rooms in town once. Blythe had called Alex up at university specifically to tap her for inside knowledge.

‘I thought you and Millie used to be good friends?’

‘Years ago, maybe.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you see her much?’ Alex asked with a mouthful. ‘When you’re home? Don’t tell me she’s still gorgeous and slender, not with food like this firing out of her mum’s kitchen?’ Millie Fairbanks had always reminded Alex of Sandra Dee on Grease. Prim and lovely, and only a pair of black satin trousers away from total sex-goddessdom.

‘Not really.’

‘Not really what? Not really gorgeous or not really, you don’t see her much?’

‘I don’t see Millie.’

Jem yanked a slice of bread in two. Alex silently chewed a piece of swede. ‘That’s too bad. I always liked Millie.’

‘A few ballet classes doesn’t make you besties, Alex. Anyway, she was pallier with Carrie in the end.’

Alex took another bite of food. It was probably best not to get into it. She’d eaten four melt-in-the-mouth potato morsels before Jem spoke again. ‘Did you know they have a kid now?’

Alex backtracked her thoughts but couldn’t find where they’d left off. ‘Who?’

‘Mal and Millie.’ Jem laughed under her breath. ‘They even sound like they should be a couple.’

‘Oh, yeah. I think I heard something. A boy?’

‘Alfie. He’s four. Looks just like his dad did at his age, apparently.’

‘Oh.’

‘But I hear he has Millie’s dark eyes, not blue like Mal’s.’

‘I see.’

Jem nodded wistfully. ‘Helen spent nearly the whole time I was at the mayor’s funeral walking me through all of her grandson’s milestones. It was lucky she’d taken her funeral handbag and not her everyday handbag or I’d have been looking through albums of the things, I reckon.’

‘You went to the mayor’s funeral?’

‘Sure. He was always nice to me when I hung out at Mal’s house, unlike his serpentine wife. I really liked him. Didn’t you?’

‘I guess. I never really saw much of him after Mum finished helping him at the library.’

Jem shrugged. ‘I liked him. He always asked me stuff about Dill, as if he thought it was important to keep talking about him or something. Anyway, someone had to go. The Fosters and Sinclairs go way back. Everyone knows …’

‘The Fosters and Sinclairs have the longest bloodlines in these parts,’ they both said in unison. Jem grinned. She had a brilliant grin. Infectious, Alex always caught it.

‘Good old Mum. The genealogical guru of Eilidh Town Hall.’ Everyone wanted to be of Viking descent in Eilidh Falls, the mayor had been no exception. ‘So the mayor wasn’t cast adrift on a burning pyre then?’ Alex teased.

‘No pyre.’ Jem smiled.

‘Why didn’t Mum and Dad go?’ Blythe and Ted had moved in the same social circles as the Sinclairs once, until Helen and Millie Fairbanks’ car had collided with a wagon at the bottom of the bridge on Eilidh high street, just after it had left a service at Foster & Son’s Autos.

‘Not sure, it was weird. They both had this mystery bug they didn’t want to pass on. So I went on my own.’

Jem reached for more water. Something pretty caught Alex’s eye. ‘Jem! Your bracelet! Did your company make that?’

‘Ah, just a little something I knocked up.’ Jem said modestly.

‘It’s beautiful, Jem,’ Alex admired, running a finger over the edge of the bracelet. ‘I bet you’ve sold a few of these.’ Pottery had been Alex’s bag. She’d been all set to become the next Emma Bridgewater.

‘I wish. I’ve only made two, they’re such a bugger to make. I do love them though. They’re my best pieces.’

‘Have you seen Wedding Wars ?’

‘ Wedding Wars ?’

OK, so Alex probably needed to rein in the late night telly watching. ‘Jem, I’m telling you, you should go into the bridal market. You’d make a fortune.’

‘And deal with all those finicky bridezillas or, worse, their mums? No thanks. They’re not all as chilled out as Blythe, you know. Just ask Mal.’ Jem stabbed at a piece of carrot then thought better of eating it. ‘I wonder when her next meal will be.’

Alex had stopped eating too. She pushed a slice of potato around her plate. She’d been hasty, hopeful this morning of her mum waking up and them bringing her home in no time. Then they’d come in to change Blythe’s catheter and Alex realised. Blythe wasn’t just sleeping, she was dependent. For now, at least.

Alex sat perfectly still, listening to the clinking of Jem’s cutlery against her plate and a houseful of silence behind it. ‘She needs to come home, Jem. It’s too quiet.’

‘She will. This place will be jumping again once she’s home.’ But they both knew that it probably wouldn’t. It had been years since either of them had heard the sounds of their childhood. Years since Blythe’s voice had effortlessly chased the rising and falling of dramatic melodies while Madama Butterfly or La Traviata played through the house. When Blythe did eventually come home it would just be more obvious. Dill had taken all the noise with him.

‘You’re lying. ’ Ted’s voice sounded thin against the cheery 20s jazz playing out in Frobisher’s Tea Rooms.

Louisa’s hand was trembling. Her glass lying upended on the table-top. She wiped at the lipstick smeared messily from her lips. Ted saw the tears pooling in her eyes and felt nothing. He might have worried that he’d hurt her, been too rough, if he could think straight.