The following morning, the Wednesday, Jools seemed to take for granted that she would accompany me on my SpaceWoman rounds. I’d planned to spend most of the day continuing the clearance of 14 Seacrest Avenue, a job where it certainly helped having two pairs of hands.
I continued tidying downstairs while Jools dealt with Cedric’s bedroom. Presumably, it was the room he had shared with Flick though, interestingly, they’d had twin beds. Jools started sorting out the clothes that would have to be chucked from those that might make it to the charity shops. There were very few in the second category. Clothes did not feature much in the old man’s online shopping. He clearly wore the same things till they fell apart.
And, at some stage, he had removed all of his late wife’s clothes.
Jools worked hard and seemed to have an instinct for what needed doing most urgently. She asked me for very little guidance. Again, I suppressed the seductive vision of the two of us working together in SpaceWoman. There was still far too much baggage, too many things between us, things that needed explanation. If I ever did achieve full rapprochement with my daughter, I knew it would be at the end of a long, long process.
I had to persuade her to stop working for a coffee break. I always have the makings of hot drinks amongst my permanent kit in the Yeti. Some clients may offer you a tea or coffee, many don’t. And working in an empty property, you have to be self-sufficient. I always have a tin of that Nescafé Azera which tastes more like real coffee than most of the instants. And in Seacrest Avenue I used Cedric’s kettle. (I did wonder again why the police hadn’t shut the house off as a crime scene, why there wasn’t plastic tape everywhere, but then all I know about how they work is gleaned from the unreliable source of crime series on the telly.)
‘Nice collection of books in the sitting room,’ said Jools as we sat, quite companionably, in the kitchen.
‘Yes. It seems they were mostly bought since Cedric’s wife died. Apparently, she wasn’t interested in books.’
‘They’re very well looked after.’
‘Obsessively well looked after. That’s quite common with hoarders. There’s one area of their life that’s kept punctiliously tidy … and they never notice the chaos everywhere else.’
‘Not that Cedric’s chaos was too bad.’
‘No, Jools. I’ve certainly seen a lot worse.’
‘Hm. Funny. I’ve never really thought much about what you do, Mum.’
‘No.’ Well, at least she was honest.
‘Must be strange, going into people’s houses, shuffling through their rubbish.’
‘You get used to it.’
‘Hm.’
I didn’t pursue the subject. Quite a moment, though. The first time my daughter had shown any interest in what I did for a living.
‘One thing I’ve noticed that’s odd …’
‘Hm?’
‘… is that Cedric didn’t seem to have a laptop.’
I suppose that would seem particularly odd to someone who, apparently, conducted her whole life online.
‘Or did you take it?’ she went on. ‘Did the police, come to that?’
‘I don’t know about the police. I certainly haven’t seen a laptop anywhere here.’
‘But there’s a broadband router upstairs, which seems to be in working order.’
‘Yes. And now I come to think of it, Jools, Cedric was keen that the broadband should be reconnected when I started sorting things out after his first fall.’
‘Oh well …’ My daughter shrugged. ‘I guess the police would take a laptop if they found one, if they want to find out about the old man’s contacts, that kind of thing.’
‘Yes, they probably would.’ I didn’t mention how much more interested they might be if they thought Cedric Waites had been murdered. Jools needn’t know about that. Not for a while, anyway. There was plenty of other stuff for us to talk about. ‘Talk through’ might be a more accurate expression. I was still reeling from the new information about my daughter that I had garnered in the last few days.
‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled, anyway,’ said Jools. ‘See if I can find a laptop somewhere here.’
I told her that I had an appointment elsewhere that afternoon. Gerry Cullingford, setting up his surprise for his wife Lita. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. Something in the set-up didn’t quite ring true but I couldn’t think what.
Jools could have continued tidying up at 14 Seacrest Avenue, but I was still uncomfortable at the idea of leaving her on her own. Knowing that I had a daughter with mental health problems was a new concept for me, but the history of Oliver and Ben made me wary.
‘Couldn’t I come with you?’ she suggested. ‘As part of the SpaceWoman team?’
‘One of my staff of thousands?’
‘Something like that.’
I had a thought. ‘Hey. I’ve got a spare SpaceWoman polo shirt in the Yeti. Do you fancy wearing the livery?’
‘You bet!’ She grinned, looking suddenly as she had when she was five years old.
She put the shirt on gleefully. No freebie she’d got from a fast-fashion designer, I felt sure, could have put an equivalent beam on to her face (definitely visible behind its surgical dressing).
We went to a café I’d noticed round the corner from Seacrest Avenue and had bacon sandwiches for lunch, sitting side by side in our matching polos. I was just wiping a paper towel round my greasy lips when the mobile rang.
‘Hello. SpaceWoman.’
‘Ellen, it’s Gerry Cullingford.’
‘Oh, hi. I hope you’re expecting us.’ Funny, how easily I said ‘us’ rather than ‘me’.
‘Well, that’s the thing,’ he said. ‘I was here, ready to greet you, and Lita walked in. Completely unexpectedly. And, as I said, what I’m doing is a secret. She’s just out of the room for a moment. So, look, can we reschedule? Oh, hi, darling.’ This greeting was not for me. And then, just before he switched off the phone, I heard Gerry Cullingford say the lie beloved of adulterous husbands everywhere, ‘Wrong number.’
The call did not reduce the uneasiness I felt about the Cullingfords. I explained to Jools that the appointment was off.
‘Pity. I feel like striding in somewhere in my SpaceWoman kit.’
‘Well, we can stride back to Seacrest Avenue, I suppose. Get on with the clearance job.’
‘Yes. I’m still convinced I’m going to find a laptop there.’
‘Wish you luck.’
‘It’s just a matter of thinking myself into the mind of a recluse, in his late seventies,’ said Jools. ‘Think like him and then I’ll find his laptop.’
I liked her approach to a problem. It mirrored my own. First understand the person, then you begin to understand the behaviour.
But our return to 14 Seacrest Avenue was delayed – as it turned out, prevented – by another call on my mobile. Gerry Cullingford again.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Lita’s gone out now. So, if we could still keep the appointment we arranged …?’
‘All right,’ I said, grinning across at Jools, ‘I’ll be bringing my assistant with me.’
The garage had changed considerably since I last saw it. One thing there was no sign of was an electric car.
I mentioned this to Gerry Cullingford, a bluff, hearty man who wore the kind of leisurewear that looked as if it was for going sailing, but which nobody who’d ever been in a boat would wear.
‘Oh, I’m afraid that’s Lita all over,’ he said. ‘Keeps changing her mind.’ He raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Women, eh?’
Possibly not the most appropriate thing to say to the combined staff of SpaceWoman. I looked around the garage space. It was a lot tidier than when I last saw it. There were two tables and a couple of chairs. On one of the tables stood an expensive-looking sewing machine. There were bolts of cloth and other needlework impedimenta on a row of shelves.
‘Lita wants all this moved out,’ said Gerry.
‘Really? Why?’
‘Another of her fads,’ he said. ‘They never last long. She got all this lot set up, was determined to make a business of designing clothes. Couple of days behind the sewing machine and she’d had enough. Her next idea is she’s going to learn the clarinet.’
‘So, if I do clear this lot out, what do you want me to do with it?’
‘Lita said my stuff you gave to charity.’
‘Some of it.’
‘Hope my golf clubs went to a good home.’
‘They did, actually. A very good home. They’ll be helping some deprived kid get an interest in life.’
‘Well, that’s good. That’s what I like to hear.’ He gestured round the garage. ‘So, can you do the same for this lot?’
‘Give it all to charity?’
‘That’s right. That’s what Lita would want to happen to it.’ The grin with which he said this was almost conspiratorial.
It made me feel uncomfortable. There was something very odd going on in the Cullingford household. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I didn’t want to be part of it.
I said I didn’t really do that kind of disposal of goods. I was a declutterer and the contents of the garage were far too well organized to qualify as clutter.
Gerry was disappointed but soon realized I wasn’t going to change my mind. As he saw us off the premises, he said, ‘Send us an invoice.’
I said I would and I meant it. Charge my top rates, too. Nothing annoys me more than having my time wasted.
‘What on earth was all that about?’ asked Jools, once we were back in the Yeti.
‘I’ve no idea. I think it might be some elaborate game he and his wife are playing. Not a game I want to be involved in, anyway. I’m afraid you encounter a lot of time-wasters in this business.’
As you’ll find out if you join me in it. I’d been within an ace of saying the words out loud. Thank God I stopped myself. But there was something about sitting there with my daughter, in our matching polo shirts, which was powerfully attractive.
Fortunately perhaps, I was moved off that train of thought by the arrival of a text.
‘Ma,’ it read, immediately identifying the sender, ‘Pippa’s away for a few days. OK if I stay at your place? Hope so because I’m actually here. A few thoughts on where Dodge might be. Love, Ben.’
No problem, of course, about him staying. But I still felt I should go back home rather than to Cedric’s. I still needed to cover any unexpected move from Ben.
Wow, my daughter and my son together in the same house. When had that last happened?
‘Sister mine!’ Ben shrilled fulsomely, as he embraced her in a bear-hug. Then he drew back and took in her polo shirt. ‘Ah. I see that you have been subsumed into the SpaceWoman cult. Beware, it is a sect from which there is no escape.’
Jools giggled. She has a very distinctive giggle. I couldn’t remember when I’d last heard it.
‘Can I get you both something to drink?’ I asked. ‘I’m going to have a coffee.’
‘I’ve got rather hooked on Dodge’s nettle tea,’ said Ben wistfully. ‘I don’t suppose …?’
‘You don’t suppose correctly,’ I said. ‘Ordinary Builder’s?’
‘That’ll have to do, Ma.’
‘Jools?’
‘Could I possibly have … hot chocolate?’
The regression to childhood was complete. Hot chocolate had been Juliet’s go-to drink on every occasion – she even asked for it when we went on family outings to pubs – until … well, until Oliver’s death, I suppose. When so much else in our lives changed.
I should have been relieved at hearing my son and daughter chattering away in the sitting room while I was in the kitchen making their drinks, but my dominant feeling was anxiety. I had seen Ben – as I had seen his father – in this brittle, jokey mood before. It never boded well. The fragile high was almost always followed by a desperate low.
I wondered what his words about Pippa ‘being away for a few days’ meant. Maybe no more than that. But my instinctive maternal fear was going into overdrive. Had my perfect son’s unsuitable girlfriend had the nerve to dump him?
I took the drinks in and sat with them while we drank. The full family of three. Feeling quite cosy.
But, before settling into the cosiness, I needed information from Ben. ‘You said you had some ideas about where Dodge might be …?’
‘Yes. There are a couple of people, friends of his, who I’ve met when they came to the workshop. Might be worth asking them.’
‘But you haven’t asked them yet?’
‘I will, Ma, I will.’
His tone made me sound as if I’d been nagging him. Which was not my intention. I was just desperate to get Dodge back to his relatively ordered life of recycling and renovation.
‘I’ve got numbers for them,’ Ben went on, ‘though whether they still work I don’t know. They’re not the most reliable sort of people.’
That didn’t sound good. Dodge did voluntary work at a drug rehabilitation centre. If he’d been looking to some of his clients there to shelter him … I always worry about people who’ve had drug problems getting too deeply involved with other users. Dodge in his normal routine wouldn’t be at risk, but a Dodge fearful of being hounded by the police … who could say what extremes he might resort to? The thought of him starting to use again …
‘I’ll talk to them soon,’ said Ben. Adding, ‘Promise, Ma.’ Which again made me sound like a bit of a nag.
It struck me that Ben had shown no surprise at his sister’s arrival at the house with me, although he could have had no inkling that she was in Chichester. Nor did he make any comment or ask any questions about the injury to her face.
I wondered, almost with a feeling of paranoia, whether they knew all about each other’s lives. Both of them spent a lot of time on their computers. Making contact with people, presumably? Would it be so strange if they were actually making contact with each other as well?
Communication between a sister and brother could easily bypass their mother. In fact, that would probably be the more common scenario than all three sharing everything. And what could be better served by social media than exchanges between two siblings about the inadequacies of their mother?
I was determined not to take up the Fleur Bonnier default position and feel martyred. My daughter and my son seemed to be getting on well together. That was all that mattered.
Ben turned to Jools. ‘So, sister mine, how have you been these long years? Living up the life of the London fashionista.’
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Can’t you tell from the polo shirt?’
They both chuckled at this, which didn’t reduce my unease.
‘And you, brother mine,’ asked Jools. ‘Being an innovative animator or making furniture – which one’s the day job and which one’s the hobby?’
‘Furniture’s the day job. Animation is definitely just a hobby.’
‘Oh, you say that,’ I intervened, ‘but in fact your Riq and Raq film is up for an award this very weekend and—’
‘Will you not bloody mention it!’ Ben shouted at me. It felt like a physical slap. He had never shouted at me before. ‘That’s what bloody Pippa kept doing! She wouldn’t leave it alone, kept on about it. That’s why we …’ He corrected himself before he said it. ‘Why she’s gone away for a few days,’ he concluded limply.
As he turned back to Jools, the anger in his voice was replaced instantly by boyish charm. ‘So, tell me, sister mine, what salacious stories can you tell me of your adventures in the dating game?’
I had often wanted to ask the same question – though I might not have put it in those words – and I awaited her response with interest.
But both mother and brother were doomed to disappointment. ‘Quite honestly, Ben darling, being a fashionista makes me such a busy bunny that I don’t have time for dates.’
The evasiveness – and the fact that she’d dropped back into the bantering manner she always used when she was with Fleur – made me think that my two children might have a more revealing talk without a mother’s presence on the scene.
I said I had some shopping to do and left them to it. They hardly seemed to notice my departure.
When I said I had some shopping to do, it was true.
Strange how you don’t notice change if it happens gradually. It’s like elderly couples not realizing that, to the outside world, they look old. To each other, the minor depredations of the years have happened so relatively slowly, they’re almost imperceptible. Unfortunately, Oliver and I were never able to put that process to the full test.
Anyway, it was the same with the contents of my knickers drawer. Yes, knickers and bras got replaced when they split or got noticeably frayed. But otherwise, they went through the regular cycle of being worn, placed in the dirty clothes basket, going through the washing machine, going through the tumble dryer and being worn again. It was very rarely that I actually thought what they looked like. And the concept of wearing matching bras and knickers never went through my head.
But in the last week I had found myself actually seeing my underwear as someone else might see it.
Now, I hasten to add that this was just a random thought. Maybe my forthcoming dinner with Tim Goodrich had got me thinking how I might feel if the occasion was a date. But I knew full well that it wasn’t a date.
Nonetheless, I did select my new bras and knickers with considerable care. Thinking about colours, I avoided those skin tones which always make me think of surgical appliances. And white somehow felt too bland and obvious. Other primaries felt risky and somehow not me. Red? No. Was that a reaction to everything I’d read about Scarlet Women? And the pastels looked a bit wishy-washy. I homed in on black.
Not skimpy. Just well cut, on classic lines. Comfortable.
I have to admit actually buying the stuff did feel mildly transgressive. Only mildly, though. We are talking M & S here, not Ann Summers.
As I walked back home, I was thinking about my changed circumstances. Having two children at home is what I mean. Calling them ‘children’ actually feels daft. But the English language, usually so deft and flexible, hasn’t come up with a decent word for grown-up offspring. So ‘children’ will have to do.
And children, both of whom had problems. I was used to worrying about Ben. Worrying about Jools was a novelty. And the fact that it was a novelty made me feel guilty. I should have monitored my daughter’s life more since she’d been in London. Shouldn’t have been put off by the barricades she had built up around herself. Shouldn’t have assumed that no news was good news.
With that anxiety came a new one. Fleur Bonnier. I hadn’t heard from my mother since I last saw her on the Sunday, but the weekend was once again looming and it was only a matter of time before she called me. Kenneth would once again, inevitably, be playing golf on Sunday, which would guarantee a request for me to join Fleur for lunch at Goodwood or an ill-disguised plea for me to invite her to my place for lunch. Which would inevitably involve either her seeing her granddaughter or, at the very least, being given some information about recent events in her granddaughter’s life.
I would have to talk to Jools. As I thought of her I wondered, no doubt unrealistically, about the chances of her ever reverting to calling herself ‘Juliet’.
I was so deep in thought that the ringing of my mobile was almost a shock.
‘Hello? SpaceWoman,’ I said. Daytime calls on that number were usually work.
‘Ellen, hello.’ I was amazed how instantly I recognized Tim Goodrich’s voice.
‘Oh, hi. Good to hear you.’ Sudden anxiety. ‘Are we still OK for the weekend?’
‘Yes. Absolutely fine. At least I am.’ Then perhaps he had a matching moment of anxiety. ‘I hope you’re not going to tell me you can’t make it.’
‘No. I’m fine too.’
‘Glad to hear that. I’m really looking forward to it.’
‘Me too.’ Damn. Shouldn’t have said that. Just slipped out. Dangerous to sound too keen. I’m sure that was one of the rules back in the days when I used to go out with boys. Frankly, that time seemed so long ago, I couldn’t remember the moves of the dating square dance.
‘I was actually ringing to firm up the details,’ said Tim. ‘I’ve booked us a table for eight o’clock Saturday evening at the Chichester Harbour Hotel. I’m staying there again,’ he added.
‘Fine,’ I said, wondering whether there was a subtext there. And not too worried if there was.
‘It’ll be nice to see more of you,’ he said. Another remark which could have contained a subtext. Which again I didn’t resent. I was, after all, walking home carrying an M & S carrier full of new underwear.
‘Incidentally,’ Tim went on, ‘we’ve got the Order of Probate on Cedric’s will.’
‘Oh yes. You hoped you would have by now.’
‘Which means that the will is now a public document and I can talk about its contents.’
‘Oh?’ I said, sounding casual but hoping desperately that he would continue the conversation in the direction I wanted.
He did. ‘Makes quite interesting reading.’
Another apparently non-committal ‘Oh?’ from me.
‘Cedric’s entire estate is divided between two people.’
He was playing now, deliberately building up the tension, so I didn’t give him another prompt.
‘And those two people,’ he went on, ‘are, interestingly enough, not Roy and Michelle.’
‘Really?’
‘They get absolutely nothing.’
‘Wow. I can’t see Michelle taking kindly to that.’ My instant thought was what would happen to the two thousand pounds she’d taken from her father-in-law’s bedroom.
‘No, nor can I. And Roy, of course, will feel whatever she tells him to feel about it.’
‘Yes. Do they know yet?’
‘No. They’re due in Chichester Friday. I thought I’d tell them face to face.’
‘I don’t envy you that encounter.’
‘Really? I’m quite looking forward to it,’ he said with some relish. ‘Though not as much, of course, as I’m looking forward to seeing you on Saturday night.’
‘You silver-tongued devil.’
‘Yes, I am a bit of one, aren’t I?’
‘So, come on, tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’ he asked in mock innocence.
I spelled it out. ‘Who are the two beneficiaries of Cedric Waites’s will?’
‘Oh,’ said Tim, playing out his denouement. ‘Vi Spelling … and me.’