Louise frowned as she listened to her mother. “You are kidding.”
“He’s always loved it there, and he doesn’t have his own place here anymore. I understand.”
She and her mother were sitting in the car outside the girls’ school, waiting for pick-up time. They had been into town to check on her grandmother’s house, clean out the fridge, turn the heating down low, put out the rubbish, cancel the papers and pick up the post. It was the end of October and both women had come to the conclusion that it was highly unlikely Frances would ever go home now. Her mum was going to raise the delicate subject with Granny about sorting out power of attorney when she got home.
“But he’s not going to live there without you, is he?” Louise asked, glancing sideways at her mother. She’d been looking quite stressed and pale, but Louise had put that down to coping with Frances.
“No,” Nancy replied, but she didn’t sound too certain. “No, he’s . . . Well, it’s early days, I don’t know what he’s going to do.” She took a deep breath. “But he’s asked me to go with him.”
Louise did a double-take, mouth open. “What? You live in France? That’s bonkers. You’d never do that, Mum.” She was suddenly uncertain. “I mean, you don’t want to, do you?”
“I can’t, obviously, with Granny being so ill . . .”
Louise searched her mother’s face. “But if Granny . . . Are you saying you might if it wasn’t for Granny?”
Nancy sighed, pulling the edges of her dark gray cardigan tight round herself. Louise waited, but her mum didn’t speak.
“Sorry, Mum, I can’t get my head around this. You’d honestly consider leaving the girls and me and going to France with Jim? That’d be a total and complete nightmare. We’d never see you.”
“Well, you would, but it’s not going to happen, is it? I’ve got Mum to look after so I’m not going anywhere.”
“But Jim?”
“I don’t know, Lou.” She sounded so bleak that Louise put her hand out and stroked her mother’s arm.
There was silence in the car. Louise checked the time: the girls would be coming out soon. She reached to open the car door.
“Shall I come?” Nancy asked.
“No, stay here, I won’t be long.”
Feeling a bit stunned as she walked away from the car, Louise simply couldn’t believe that her mother was considering abandoning them. The selfish bastard, she thought. As if Mum doesn’t have enough on her plate looking after Granny, without being emotionally blackmailed by bloody Jim.
But as she stood in the playground waiting for Hope and Jazzy, she began to calm down. Her grandmother might live for years, or Jim might just bugger off . . . or the horse might talk. Whatever, losing her mother to France and Jim Bowdry was not an option.