part0019

She looks disappointed, she’s desperate to know how I got on at the solicitors and I’ve already fobbed her off with I don’t want to talk about it texts. She offered again to go to the funeral with me; supporting a friend and all that, she said.

‘Yeah, course. I’ll see if I can grab our usual table. What’s old Ron want wiv you?’

‘God knows.’ I roll my eyes. ‘I’ll let you know later.’

I go inside and squeeze my way through the throng of cleaners and give my timesheet to Moira.

‘Is there anyone in with her?’ I nod in the direction of Veronica’s closed door.

Moira looks up at me and sniffs.

‘Don’t think so. Give her a knock.’

I squeeze around Moira’s desk and rap loudly on the door and go in without waiting for a reply.

Veronica is seated behind her desk and pauses mid-bite on a bacon and egg bap; she looks at me with annoyance .

‘You’re early.’

I ignore her and sit down in the chair opposite her.

‘You wanted to see me?’

She places the bap carefully back in a greaseproof paper bag and scrunches the opening closed before replying.

‘Yes. It’s Rita, she’s off sick again.’

‘Yes. Not even back for a whole week and she’s off again. It’s too much.’ She sighs in exasperation and looks longingly at her bacon and egg bap.

‘What’s wrong with her this time?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Veronica waves her hand dismissively. ‘Same as last time I think, who knows? Anyway, the thing is I need to cover her shifts and what I need to know is can you do the Willoughby’s shift again?’

Of course I can but I’m not going to make it too easy for her.

‘Hmm, I’m not sure because I’ll start to rely on it and then Rita’ll come back and I’ll be left in the lurch again.’

‘I did offer you replacement shifts last time.’

I don’t reply and look down at my handbag.

‘But of course if you take the Willoughby’s this time they’ll be yours to keep. I can’t be accommodating Rita’s illnesses all of the time. When she’s back she’ll have to take one of the new clients.’

‘Okay.’ I say grudgingly, pretending not to be pleased.

‘Could you take Petulia and Edith’s shifts as well? They’re not keen to do any extra.’

I’m about to ask who Petulia and Edith are when I realise they’re the pearls and twinset cleaners.

‘No, sorry, no can do.’ Veronica looks annoyed. ‘I can’t leave Mother on her own for too long. Not with the way she’s deteriorated,’ I hurriedly add, not wanting to upset Veronica too much.

‘Okay. I’ll ask around, see if anyone else wants some extra.’ Her hand snakes towards the greaseproof bag so I take it I’m dismissed now and I pick my handbag to leave.

‘Maybe try Doris,’ I offer as I leave. Who knows how long Doris’s boyfriend will keep his current job? She might be interested.

The truth hurts; until I found out the truth I’d built up a nice little fantasy world where my father loved me and had been desperately wanting to see me for all these years but had been stopped by my evil Mother.

She had stopped him at first; but he obviously got over that and forgot all about me as he could easily have contacted me once I was eighteen. I keep telling myself that nothing’s changed from how it’s always been but of course it has. Now I know for sure; he didn’t want me, or if he did he gave up at the first hurdle.

I haven’t told Mother about the meeting and she hasn’t asked but I have a feeling she knows, even though I’ve put on a happy face when I’ve seen her. I’m a pretty good actress, but not that good. Maybe she’s afraid of what I’ll do if she upsets me after the dressing table incident.

By the time I arrive at Joey’s I still haven’t decided if I’m going to tell the truth or not; I’ll just play it by ear and see how it goes. Doris is ensconced in the corner and I don’t bother ordering a drink but go straight over and flump down in the seat opposite her.

‘What did the Ron want?’

‘Rita’s off sick again, she wants me to cover her shifts.’

‘Bloody cheek! I ‘ope you told her to fuck off.’ Snorts Doris.

‘I don’t mind, said I’d do the Monday but I didn’t want the other ones, apparently the pearl and twinsets didn’t want them either.’

‘Serves her right, she can’t expect people to keep chopping and changing just ‘cos Rita fancies a bit of time off.’ Doris still hasn’t forgiven Veronica for not finding her extra shifts when Charlie was sacked.

‘Anyway,’ she goes on, ‘how did you get on at the solicitors?’

‘Bit surreal really; I’ve missed the funeral, it was over a month ago.’

‘No!’ Doris looks shocked. ‘That’s terrible.’

‘I know. Apparently, my father had a car accident several years ago and had been in a coma ever since so his affairs were in a bit of a jumble.’

‘A coma? Poor fing.’ Doris’s eyes couldn’t get any rounder.

‘It wasn’t helped by the fact that he’d been living in Australia for many years and had just come back to settle in England.’ Absolute rubbish and I don’t even know where it’s all coming from but I’m warming to my lies now and I can’t seem to stop. Australia seems to be a theme with me as my imaginary boyfriend was Australian. Maybe I have a hidden yearning to go there; I haven’t thought this story through, it’s just come out, on the hoof or off the cuff or whatever the saying is.

‘So had he been trying to trace you?’

‘I think so. He’d only just arrived back in the UK when he had the accident in London and then he was in a coma and couldn’t tell anyone about me. He’s spent the last four years in a hospital in London and never regained consciousness.’

‘They only found out about me because when he died a tracing directive was sent to the Solicitors Guild which generated a search of all the solicitors in the country. He’d lodged his will with Thompson’s Solicitors and that’s how they traced me.’

‘Wow,’ Doris says in admiration. ‘That’s like, so romantic.’

And so untrue. I feel a bit bad, all complete bullshit that just tripped off my tongue and I don’t even know where it came from. Solicitors Guild? Tracing directive? I surprise myself sometimes. It helps that Doris isn’t the brightest; she takes everything at face value and never questions what I tell her. I don’t think that anyone else would believe me.

‘It’s just so tragic.’ I shake my head sadly. ‘I so nearly met Daddy. So near and yet so far.’

Doris has a strange look on her face and I think Daddy might have been a step too far. A bit too hammy. Strangely, though, I feel a bit better about it all. I think all the lying and story-telling has cheered me up a bit.

‘Are you like, his only, whatchamacallit, heiress?’

‘I think you mean beneficiary.’

‘Yeah, that’s it, beneficiary.’

‘I am,’ I admit. ‘I’m his only living relative.’

‘So come on, has he left you a load of money?’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

‘Oh.’ Doris looks disappointed.

‘But he has left me a house.’

‘A house? What, in Australia?’

I’m silent for a moment; this is the trouble with lies, they grow like Topsy and you have to keep inventing even more lies to stop it looking like you’ve lied in the first place. Exhausting, plus you have to have a good memory to remember all of the lies that you’ve already told.

‘No, not in Australia, here in Frogham. It was rented out while he was in Australia and he was going to move back in when he came home.’

‘Oh, I see. You lucky fing, your own house.’

And I would be very lucky indeed, if it were true. What I don’t tell Doris is that he did have a house but it was sold to pay the fees for all of his years in the nursing home. After the solicitor’s fees have been paid I’ve been left the princely sum of five hundred and forty-seven pounds and twenty-eight pence.

‘Where is it? This house?’

See. Now I have to lie again and I need to be very careful that I don’t say it’s anywhere near one of Doris’s many relatives.

‘Oh, I’m not sure. The solicitor did give me the address but with everything that’s happened I can’t remember.’ I shake my head. ‘My head’s just been spinning with it all.’

‘I bet. Are you going to sell it?’

‘Not sure,’ I say. ‘Haven’t really had a chance to take it all in yet. Bit of a shock.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ll be able to move into it ‘cos of your mum.’

‘No, I couldn’t leave Mother.’ I arrange a concerned look on my face. ‘Not with the way she’s deteriorating.’

‘So...’ Doris begins hesitantly. ‘If you wanted to rent it out again me and Charlie could rent it off you.’

Doris has a hopeful look on her face and I feel rotten for lying; I got carried away as usual and didn’t know when to stop. I guess they’re being evicted again for not paying their rent and are looking for somewhere else to live. If I really had a house I wouldn’t rent it to them, they’re nightmare tenants. Always in arrears with their rent and at the last place they rented Charlie attempted to decorate their bedroom in hot pink paint but then left it unfinished when he got fed up half way through. I’m surprised they manage to get anyone to rent to them, they must be black listed with most of the letting agents.

‘No offence, Doris, but it’s a four-bedroom house so the rent’s probably going to be too high for you.’ I wish I’d never started this stupid lie but I can’t go back on it now.

‘Not even at mate’s rates? You wouldn’t need to go through an agency or nuffin’ with us being friends an everyfing. You wouldn’t even have to pay tax on it.’ She looks at me hopefully. ‘And we could move in straight away,’ she adds .

‘If it was up to me I would,’ I lie. ‘But it’s all tied up with probate and everything so I can’t rent it out until that’s all sorted.’

‘Just a fort.’ She shrugs, looking really disappointed and also a bit pissed off with me.

I need to stop this lying thing; I was really enjoying myself and got carried away and now I’ve upset Doris and I feel really bad about. If I really had a house I wouldn’t rent it to her but that’s not the point. I make a silent vow to myself not to tell any more lies and then quickly decide that it’s pointless making a promise to myself that I won’t keep.

No point in lying to myself is there? I’ll be more careful in future with these stories I create. Perhaps I could plan them a bit more, not so off the cuff.

‘So you don’t know why he left it so long to look for you?’

‘No. And now I’ll never know so I’ll just have to learn to live with that.’

‘Yeah. Must be shit. My parents ain’t up to much but they’ve always been there for me.’ Doris slaps her hand across her mouth. ‘Oops, sorry, me and my big mouf.’

‘No worries,’ I say with a smile. She looks smug, not sorry, but I probably deserve it and I wonder if she said it on purpose.

The minutes tick by as we sit in uncomfortable silence and Doris starts looking at her watch.

‘Have you got to be somewhere?’

‘Yeah, said I’d pop round me mum and dad’s, haven’t been round all week. Gonna ask ‘em if they can put me and Charlie up while we look for somewhere else to live. ’

Ouch. A definite dig at me. I have upset her.

‘Do you think they will?’

‘Course they will, they’re always saying we can move in anytime but they do me head in. Me and Charlie like to do our own fing and me mum fusses too much; tea on the table every night, soon as we take anyfing off it’s washed and ironed. Drives me mad.’

See? Some people just don’t know how lucky they are.

She pushes the chair back and stands up.

‘Yeah, I’ll stop for a while, get myself a coffee.’

‘Okay, see you next week.’

Doris picks up her enormous PVC handbag, slings it over her shoulder and stomps away in her four-inch-high platform wedges. She doesn’t look back as she goes out of the door. It’s unusual for her to leave first; she can talk for England and it’s normally me that suggests it’s time to go. There was a definite coolness after I turned down her offer to rent my imaginary house and I feel she couldn’t wait to get away. Perhaps I’m not such a good liar as I think and she knows I didn’t want to rent it to her.

I go up and order a coffee and sit back down and wait for Joey to bring it over. I look at my watch to see that it’s only half past eleven. At least I have Bella’s to look forward to on Monday now that Rita is sick again. I’ve only missed going there for one week but it seems like forever.

Okay, that’s another lie; I did go there on Monday but not to clean and not officially. I parked in the next street so Rita wouldn’t spot my car and then walked around the corner to Bella’s house. Rita’s car was parked on the driveway where I always used to park. I felt absolute rage when I saw it; she didn’t even thank me for looking after her clients when she was off sick and then she just comes back and takes over as if she’s never been away.

It was just after ten o’clock and she always starts bang on nine thirty and has her set routine for cleaning so I knew she’d be upstairs doing the bedrooms for at least another half an hour. I quietly let myself in and went into the kitchen and I was in and out in five minutes so she never even knew I was there. I had my excuse ready just in case; I was going to say I’d popped in to see how she was getting on and to ask if she was better. I was going to say she’d left the front door open but as it turned out I’d didn’t have to lie because she never came downstairs. It felt strange though; Rita upstairs doing the cleaning when it should have been me. But look how things have turned out; Rita’s sick again and things are back to how they should be.

I have Monday to look forward to now but the weekend looms ahead of me; a weekend of tending to Mother, running, and nothing else. I have to collect my father’s personal belongings from the nursing home but the burning inquisitiveness that I once had to know about him has vanished since I found out the truth from the solicitor. Honestly, I don’t even know if I’ll bother to collect them as I have no interest in him at all now; the visit to the solicitors was just another big let down. I might just ring the home and tell them to donate whatever’s left to charity or throw it all in the bin.

But maybe the solicitors visit wasn’t a total waste of time; I do have Gerald’s mobile phone number. He made a big deal of giving it to me and said to call him anytime. I’ve thought about the way he said it over and over in my head and I don’t think he meant to call him in an official way; I think he wanted me to call him in a personal way. I pull my mobile out of my bag and scroll through the contacts list.

My finger hovers over the screen; he wouldn’t have given me his number if it was just business, would he? If I wasn’t such an idiot I’d have given him my number and then he could have called me .