‘Thanks Ted, it was good of you to ring.’ Mary scowled at Ellen who was glaring back at her from the sofa. ‘I’m sorry she’s not here at the moment. I think she must be next door at Gwyneth’s picking up the children. We had Tom’s inquest this morning.’ It chilled her just saying the words.
She listened with a hand over her other ear against the hum of voices from the wireless, making small assenting noises. ‘Yes, I’m – we’re all fine – children too, yes.’ She sighed. ‘I know, I’m sorry, I have tried.’ Finally, ‘I will ask her again to call you. Yes, I promise.’
Putting the receiver back onto the cradle of the telephone she said, ‘You’ll have to talk to him sometime, you know. I can’t keep putting him off and why should I?’
Ellen shrugged. But when she looked at Mary her make-up was washed away by tears.
‘After this morning I’d have thought you’d have understood life’s too short to play these games.’
‘Don’t, Mary.’
In the lull that followed Mary could hear the children laughing next door; a bus trundled by on the lane; the drone of a bee or wasp circled the parlour before escaping into the kitchen and out through the back door. The rain had finally stopped and weak spikes of sunlight fell across the room like slivers of glass, lighting up the horse brasses on the wall. A random thought flitted through her mind: perhaps the hot days of June were coming back.
‘We need to talk,’ she said again, taking in long slow breaths to stay calm. ‘It’s not just Ted’s mother, is it? What’s wrong between you and Ted?’ Mary waited, watching Ellen playing with one gold hoop earring, her hand shaking.
On the way home from the inquest Peter had said that she needed to take care of herself; that her sister must sort out her marriage on her own. Yet, even though those awful last moments of Tom’s life haunted her all the time, she still felt compelled to sort out Ellen’s problems. You’re a fool, she told herself.
Ellen picked up her packet of Craven ‘A’. ‘Damn!’ It was empty. She flung it into the hearth.
‘Tom kept some cigarettes in here.’ Mary walked over to the roll-top desk in the corner of the room and opened a drawer. Her brother’s broken spectacles were at the front in their case. Mary opened the lid and touched the wire frames with the tips of her fingers as though they would burn her.
‘I didn’t know he smoked.’
‘He didn’t, not often anyway.’ Mary picked up the packet of Capstan and closed the drawer with a snap. ‘Not your brand but they’ll have to do if you’re desperate.’ She tossed them over to Ellen. ‘Well?’ She hoped she didn’t sound as tired of all this as she felt.
Ellen sucked hard on the cigarette before answering. ‘Okay,’ she said, with a deep sigh and gulping a few times. ‘However much I hate her, I have to say it’s not just his bloody mother.’ Her eyes filled. ‘Ted’s having an affair. He’s messing about with the girl he took on in the shop.’
‘From next door? The couple who moved in after Mrs Jagger died?’
‘The same.’ Ellen was crying again. ‘And I’m not going back home and I don’t want him here, not until I’ve decided what to do about it.’