Louise filled the kettle again, flicked the switch, emptied the big brown teapot of the four bags, which she squeezed over the sink and put in the bin. “Take these round one more time, please, Hopey.” She handed her daughter the plate of smoked-salmon sandwiches. Hope, who had been on her way up to her bedroom to play with Jazzy, sighed, but did as her mother asked.
The voices wafting through from the sitting room were mostly female, her grandmother’s coterie, not many in number but tough, independent women, who seemed to laugh loudly and a lot, despite the loss of their dear friend. Maybe it’s a case of you have to laugh or you’d cry, Louise thought, especially when you can’t help wondering if you’ll be next.
As she waited for the water to boil, she heard Ross open the front of the wood-burning stove and bang another log inside, the squeak as the door was closed. She’d drunk too much wine and was aware of a dull ache behind her forehead, a stale taste of tea in her mouth. She wished they’d all bugger off. Ross had been whining all morning about having to shut the restaurant for lunch—as if it mattered anymore—and they’d been arguing since dawn.
As she poured hot water over the fresh teabags, Jim wandered into the kitchen and came over to the sink, where he emptied the dregs of two glasses of red wine, then ran them under the tap, placing them carefully on the draining board.
“How’s it going?” he asked, giving her a sympathetic smile.
“Okay, I suppose.” Louise hardly ever spoke to Jim alone and she felt awkward with him.
“Good turnout,” he was saying.
She nodded. “How do you think Mum’s coping with the whole thing?”
“Not sure. She hasn’t said a lot, hasn’t even cried much. I think she’s exhausted.”
Louise nodded and they fell silent.
“Are you planning another French trip?” she asked. She worried he’d already been nagging her mother to go with him, now Granny was dead.
Jim shook his head slightly. “Not sure what’s going to happen.”
“Mum says you love it there.”
“I do. But I also love your mother.” His tone was resolute, but his expression suggested he wasn’t sure how his remark would be received.
Louise fitted the lid back on the teapot, picked it up and gave it a gentle swirl to disperse the tea. “She doesn’t want to live in France, Jim. You must know that.”
Jim’s face, which had gone very still at her words, told her he hadn’t known that, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “I mean,” she hurried on, “she’d never be happy so far away from us all.”
Jim gave a slow nod. “Has she said as much?” he asked quietly, glancing toward the sitting room, where Nancy was standing in the doorway, talking to Granny’s friend Joyce.
Louise hesitated. “You should probably talk to her about it.”
“I will . . . I have. But it would help to know what she’s told you.”
“She said, basically, that it would never happen.” Trying to think back to the last conversation she’d had with her mother about the French house, she thought she remembered her saying that, even without Granny being a factor, she wouldn’t consider leaving them.
Jim cleared his throat. “She said that, did she?”
Louise nodded. “I’m sure you can see it from her point of view, Jim. You know how much she adores Hope and Jazzy. If she left, she’d miss their whole childhood.”
He didn’t reply, just stood looking out toward the garden, arms folded, jaw solid, swaying backward and forward slightly in his boots.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Louise felt sorry for him now. He looked devastated.
“No,” he said eventually, turning his blue eyes on her. “Best I know.”
It was best, Louise was certain of that. The last thing her poor mother needed, after all she’d gone through with Granny, was to be shanghaied into living in some godforsaken house in the middle of France, where she had no friends, no family, with a man she barely knew. All right, he loved her, but that wasn’t enough reason to tear her away from her beloved grandchildren. If he really had her best interests at heart, he’d sell the wretched house and buy something over here.
“Don’t tell her I said anything,” Louise whispered, as she heard her mother saying goodbye to Joyce and saw her swing round to face them, making her way tiredly across the kitchen in her black dress.
“God, that was exhausting,” Nancy said, laying a hand on Jim’s arm.
Louise watched him automatically put his own round her mother’s shoulders and pull her into his side.
“I think they’re beginning to go at last,” her mum added.
Jim didn’t respond, his expression giving little away.
Louise couldn’t look at him. Had he got the message? Would he back off, stop badgering her mother?
“Maybe I should hold the tea?” she asked Nancy.
“Yes, I don’t want to encourage them. But I could do with another cup.” She looked up at Jim, let out a long sigh. “Well, that’s it, I suppose. Think it went as well as it could have.”
Jim smiled at her. “Yeah, good job. Frances would have loved it.”
Louise saw her mother’s eyes fill with tears. “She would, wouldn’t she? Mum adored a party. Can’t believe she’s not here enjoying it with us.”
*
Later, when she and Ross were lying back exhausted on the green sofa, Louise told her husband what she’d said to Jim because she was worried that she’d gone too far.
“You’re such a bitch sometimes, Lou.” Ross’s words were without heat and accompanied by a huge yawn. Perhaps he didn’t even care enough to be angry, these days.
“Why?”
“Well, going behind your mum’s back like that, interfering.”
“She needs to be protected. Jim’s an okay guy, I don’t dislike him, but it’s not fair that he’s pressuring Mum to go away with him. I’m glad I told him.”
“Your mum’s quite capable of looking after herself, you know. You putting your oar in will only cause trouble.”
“He said he wouldn’t tell her.” Louise realized that wasn’t quite what had happened, but she didn’t correct herself.
“Just leave her alone. Let her make her own decisions,” Ross was saying. “If she wants your help, I’m sure she’ll ask for it.”
Louise wasn’t listening. Her father had just left her a message saying the baby, a boy—her half-brother, she thought, with a moment of shock—had been born last night. She knew she was too tired to reach the expected level of enthusiasm required if they spoke, so she texted him congratulations and pulled the “Granny’s funeral” card, saying she’d ring in the morning.