Maggie is running a bath for Lillian. ‘How hot do you like it?’ she shouts into the room where she’s left her grandmother undressing. There is no answer so she leaves the water running into the old claw-foot tub and returns to find Lillian hunched over, struggling to undo her blouse.
‘Here, let me help you.’ Maggie unfastens the buttons and slides the shirt from Lillian’s shoulders.
How strange life is, she thinks. All those years as a child when Lillian cared for her – helped her to bathe and dress, checked and labelled the uniform in her school trunk, combed her hair for nits, rubbed salve onto cuts. All those times Lillian tested her on her spellings or made her chant her multiplication tables. The excruciating sex talk, the first box of tampons, the revolting yet magical cure she had mixed up for her first violent hangover. The weekend they sat and discussed her career options and Maggie had dared to admit for the very first time that what she really wanted to do – most of all – was go to art college and be an artist and Lillian had looked her in the eye, nodded once and said, ‘Someone once told me that if you’re going to throw your life away on art, you should do it properly. Be bold. No half measures.’ And Maggie had understood that Lillian wasn’t laughing at her, as she’d feared she might, but accepting her decision, unconditionally.
Beneath it all – the care and the advice – had been a constant and unswerving affection; and here she is now, returning the favour, helping an ailing Lillian undress and slip into a warm bath. Perhaps it is the simplest acts of devotion, she thinks, folding the shirt and laying it onto a nearby chair, that send the strongest messages of love.
Lillian, struggling with a stocking, sits herself down on a gilt chair and Maggie kneels down to help peel it off. As it slides from her leg, Maggie rests back on her heels. ‘What are those marks?’ she asks, her gaze fixed on the thick, raised ridges of white flesh that twist around her grandmother’s calves like vines.
‘They’re scars.’ Lillian doesn’t return Maggie’s stare.
‘Yes, but how did you get them?’
‘Oh, it happened a long time ago now.’
Maggie narrows her eyes at Lillian. ‘Gran?’
‘Just a silly accident. Nothing for you to worry about.’
‘A silly accident? Does it hurt?’
‘Not anymore.’
‘But how? And how did I never notice this about you?’ She thinks back to the night of her grandmother’s wanderings when it was dark and her long nightdress had fallen down to her ankles, covering these awful scars.
Lillian sniffs, still not looking at Maggie. ‘In my day, it wasn’t the done thing to appear in public with bare legs. Stockings were more seemly. I’ve upheld the standard over the years.’
It’s true, Maggie realises; she has never seen Lillian with bare legs, though she always assumed it was a certain sense of decorum that had driven the older lady to cover up with stockings, even in the warmer months.
‘Besides,’ adds Lillian, ‘I don’t recall any other occasion when you’ve had cause to help me bathe?’
‘True.’ Maggie rises quickly from the floor, remembering. ‘Oh hell. The bath water. Hang on.’
She knows from the thin, firm line her grandmother’s mouth has settled into that she isn’t going to get anything else out of her on the matter, but she is still thinking of those strange twisted marks on Lillian’s legs as she rushes back into the bathroom. The water in the bath is deep and warm. She turns the hot tap off easily, but the cold tap twists round and round endlessly in her hand as the water continues to gush into the bath. ‘Shit.’ The washer must have gone – or the thread has broken – and the bath water continues to rise.
‘Is Will still here?’ she asks, running back to where her grandmother sits, half-dressed.
‘I think so. Yes. I heard him outside putting the mower away.’
‘Quick, put this on.’ She thrusts a dressing gown at Lillian and then she runs.
She finds him outside, closing up the doors to the barn. ‘I need some help,’ she gasps, ‘. . . it’s the tap . . . upstairs bathroom.’
He doesn’t seem to need her to explain further. He nods and runs into the house, Maggie following a little way behind.
In the bathroom Will tries the cold tap. ‘It won’t turn off,’ says Maggie, frustrated to see him repeating her efforts. It twists round in his hand just as it did for her. Will rolls up his sleeve and pulls out the plug – of course, why hadn’t she thought to do that? – before tugging at the tap again. Maggie watches as the whole thing lifts off in his hand.
‘Uh-oh.’ Will stares at it for a moment, a useless lump of china, as the water continues to pour into the bath. He tries to twist it back onto the metal prong, but it won’t gain any purchase and suddenly there is water spraying everywhere, jets squeezing out the top of the thread like a high-pressure sprinkler. ‘Fuck!’
Maggie squeals as the cold water blasts her full in the face. Will swears again and tries to twist the thread of the tap with his bare hands, water continuing to spray at crazy angles through his fists, drenching them both.
‘Is everything all right in there?’ Lillian’s voice drifts through the open doorway.
‘We need to turn the main water supply off,’ Will shouts to Maggie. ‘Where’s the valve?’
‘I don’t know!’ shrieks Maggie.
Lillian appears in the doorway, a safe distance from the water spray. Her gaze takes in the drenched bathroom and the two of them soaked to the skin, water still shooting out from between Will’s hands. ‘The main valve is in a box, in the flower room downstairs,’ she says, her voice calm but the amused smile on her face obvious to them both.
Maggie thunders away down the stairs again, finds the valve in a wooden box in the room opposite the kitchen and turns the main water supply off. When she arrives back in the bathroom, the fountain from the tap has stopped and Lillian is handing Will a towel from a wooden rail. All is silent except for the dripping sound of water falling from the ceiling into the draining bath.
‘I thought I was the one supposed to be taking the bath?’ says Lillian.
‘Ha ha,’ says Maggie, rolling her eyes at Will. His sodden T-shirt clings to his body. She looks down at herself, her jeans and T-shirt soaked through, her hair plastered to her face, and she can’t help the bubble of laughter that rises up from her throat. Will stares at her, and then he is laughing too, both of them falling about until tears leak from their eyes.
‘If only you’d asked me,’ says Lillian slyly, watching them both, ‘I could have told you where the main valve was right away.’
Maggie throws a towel half-heartedly at Lillian. ‘You’re a devil woman, Lillian Oberon.’
Ten minutes later, with Lillian settled back downstairs in the drawing room and her own damp clothes changed, Maggie goes to the kitchen. Will is leaning against the sink, shivering slightly in his wet T-shirt. ‘Here.’ She throws him an old sweatshirt she has pulled from her drawers. ‘It should fit. I liked them baggy back then.’
He glances at the top, which features the name and tour dates of a favourite band.
She nods. ‘I got it at that Brixton gig the three of us went to.’ She can’t help a quick glance at his lean torso as he peels off his wet T-shirt, more muscular and brown than she ever remembers seeing him.
He pulls the sweatshirt over his head. ‘Thanks.’
She holds his gaze, the smile still playing on her lips. There are droplets of water caught in his hair. One spills onto his cheek and she has to fight the urge to reach out and catch it on her fingertip. ‘I think we’ve both earned a drink after that drama.’ She goes to the fridge and opens the door. ‘There are some cold beers in here. Want one?’
She pops her head up over the fridge door and meets Will’s solemn gaze, but the light in his eyes from just moments ago seems to have extinguished. His mouth is set in a tight line. He shakes his head.
She doesn’t know what she has said or done to make his mood change so suddenly, but it’s as if a shutter has been pulled down. ‘Just one? For old time’s sake?’ she tries gently.
‘I’d best be off,’ he says, his voice gruff, his eyes not quite meeting hers.
And it’s then, looking at him standing there across the kitchen from her in her old sweatshirt, that she fully understands how much she has missed him, how much she has lost, and how desperately she wishes she could find a way to get their friendship back on track. ‘Please?’ she tries.
But Will, oblivious to her rising emotion, shakes his head. ‘I’ve got to go. Busy day tomorrow.’
Before she can say another word, he has spun on his heel and left the kitchen, the dull sound of the back door echoing back at her.
Maggie stands in the empty kitchen, wondering if she imagined that small, singular moment of connection, wondering if she will ever be able to break through the barriers she has put between them.