A Close Connection (18 page)

‘Don’t laugh but I’m thinking of joining the local Amateur Dramatic Society,’ Paula said as they sat companionably enough in silence for a while.

‘Good heavens, are you? I didn’t know you were interested in acting.’

‘It’s not something I usually admit.’ And then, a little shyly, Paula told her about the acting, how she would have loved to be on stage, and hearing that, seeing the sparkle in her eyes as she talked about it, pulled at Nicola’s heart because the poor woman, just like Alan, had never been given the encouragement they needed from their parents. It made her realize that she would give her child – a slightly larger bean now – every opportunity and never ever stand in its way. If it wanted to go to Mars, she would be the first to push it onto that spaceship.

‘What do you think?’ Paula asked. ‘Should I try?’

‘Go for it. I shall drag you there if necessary.’ She leaned forward, thinking that today was the first time ever they had really clicked. ‘I didn’t know the old man, Matthew’s grandfather,’ she told her. ‘But Matthew told me something about him and he was wrong, you know. Alan couldn’t have done better than you if he tried.’

She had no idea why she said it, why she dared to voice it out loud but she did.

And, when she eventually left, for the first time ever, the hug they exchanged on the doorstep was truly meant.

‘P
AULA
, I
NEED
to see you. It’s Eleanor. Can we meet somewhere?’

Paula was in the middle of tearing up the particulars of the various houses the estate agent had sent them. The houses were in different areas of the city but, although they had viewed a lot of them, she had never really fancied any of them. Her heart had never been in a move, not just now, and although there was some confusion – for a while she was going to go through with it because she thought that was what Alan wanted – it eventually became clear that he had no particular desire to move either.

She knew they could be accused of being stick-in-the-muds but they liked it here so why should they move? It was a street of well-kept houses with good neighbours, which was worth a lot because you could never be sure who you got landed with next door. They could spend money now on a new bathroom, something really nice, and she was not fussed about a big garden either. The big pots in the back courtyard here were good enough for her.

And, although she and Alan had no intention of ever moving into the ‘granny flat’ at Matthew and Nicola’s new house, she had to say that in order for her stubborn son to
accept the money she offered him.

So she was tearing up and stuffing the particulars into the bin bag when the phone rang and picking it up, she never expected it to be Eleanor because Eleanor never did ring. And she sounded different, panicky, anxiety etched into the voice.

‘Where are you?’ she asked, tempted to ask her to calm down because she sounded distraught.

‘I’m in town. I’m parked in Drake Circus. Do you want to meet somewhere for lunch?’

‘Look …’ She had the fire lit, it was cold outside and the thought of getting herself into town through an already murky gloom was not an attractive one. ‘Why don’t you come to me? I can do us a quick lunch. Would some soup and a sandwich be all right? The soup won’t be home-made, I’m afraid.’

‘It would be marvellous. I can be with you shortly. Are you sure it’s all right? I don’t want to impose on you.’

‘You won’t be. Come on round. I’ll have the kettle on.’

Eleanor was wearing a pale-grey cashmere coat, long and loose, over trousers and sweater. She looked tired but her hair was sleek and pulled back, her make-up as clever and subtle as always.

‘This is so good of you, Paula,’ she said, taking off her gloves and handing Paula the coat and the toning scarf in the manner of a lady to her maid. Everything always matched, Paula thought, knowing that, even with her increased spending power, she still struggled to achieve the best look for herself.

‘I felt so rotten suddenly that I didn’t know what to do. I shouldn’t have come in today but I had an appointment with one of our team and I couldn’t put it off. We’ve had a hiccup with something and that husband of mine has been trying to keep it from me because he didn’t want to worry me.’

‘I’m sorry. Is it serious?’

‘Nothing that can’t be sorted but I do wish he wouldn’t keep things from me. We are supposed to be equal partners but if anything does go wrong it’s always me who picks up the pieces.’

‘Come on through and we’ll have a cup of tea first. Unless you prefer coffee?’ she asked, showing Eleanor into the lounge. ‘Go and sit by the fire.’

‘A real fire. How wonderful.’ She saw Eleanor looking round before she made a positive little comment about how nice the room looked. She had no idea whether she was speaking the truth, but she no longer minded so much. Eleanor could make of it what she would and it did not compare in any shape or form with the splendour of her house but it was Paula’s home and she loved it. And just lately she had realized how much she loved it when she had considered leaving it.

‘Sorry, I should have brought you some flowers,’ Eleanor said, sitting down in Alan’s chair by the fire. They had a coal fire these days, ever since they had gone to the trouble of having the chimney sorted out, and it was lovely and warm in the room, a proper winter’s day outside, the temperature dropping sharply this last week. ‘I just haven’t been able to think properly these last few days.’

‘I won’t be a minute.’

Paula bustled about in the kitchen, eventually bringing in the tea. ‘Isn’t it wonderful news about the baby,’ she said, making room for the tray on a small table. ‘And Nicola seems to be keeping well.’

‘She is. The sickness isn’t quite so bad now. She’s scared stiff about having it but we can help there, can’t we? We can reassure her. I blame all these television programmes about midwifery and showing people giving birth. It’s enough to put anybody off. Did you have an easy time with yours?’

‘Fairly.’ Paula smiled. This was the sort of conversation she could handle with one hand tied behind her back. Female
and gossipy. She settled back comfortably in her chair. She was wearing ballerina pumps which made her feel so tiny; but it was her home, her space, and it no longer mattered that Eleanor was almost a foot taller. ‘Matthew was straightforward but Lucy was premature and small and we were worried for her because her lungs were weak – but she was a little fighter.’

Eleanor smiled sympathetically, sipping her tea.

Paula hesitated. ‘I don’t usually talk about it,’ she began. ‘It’s too painful but it’s getting better and I feel badly about that because it’s as if I’ve got over it and I haven’t and I never will. Not completely. But I do forget about it sometimes, find myself laughing, and for a long time that seemed a sort of betrayal to Lucy.’

‘I’m sure that’s a very natural reaction. And I’m sorry I tried to push you into talking about it. I should know by now, from my limited experience, that people only do that in their own time.’

‘You never think it’s going to happen to you,’ Paula said, not quite sure why she suddenly felt the need to talk. Perhaps she was giving Eleanor some time because she knew that there was something wrong and that she was plucking up courage to come out with it. ‘She had a sore throat and I thought it was the start of flu or something like that. Anyway, I phoned the school to say she wasn’t coming in and then I left her in bed and went off to work. I didn’t work at the card shop then but at a baker’s just down the road so I told her I would pop back at lunchtime and check how she was and she was to ring me if she felt bad. I left the handset beside the bed and a jug of water and a few biscuits and I told her to stay put and to ignore the doorbell if anybody rang it. I did all the things I normally did. It wasn’t the first time I’d left her on her own for a few hours.’

‘That sounds perfectly reasonable. She was thirteen, old enough to be left.’

‘Oh yes,’ Paula said quickly. ‘She was very responsible. A
good girl. But by the time I got home at lunchtime she was struggling to breathe and that had never happened before. She had tried to ring me but couldn’t manage it and that scared me. I managed to get hold of Alan eventually – he always left phone numbers for his clients with me in case I ever …’ She tailed off. ‘Anyway, he told me to ring for an ambulance straightaway. When they came …’ She paused, re-living the moment. ‘The man said that I wasn’t to worry, that the pain she was feeling was most likely because she had pulled a muscle in her chest from coughing and that she should probably just stay in bed and rest and it would get better. But when his colleague came up, he looked more worried and we set off for the hospital and then halfway there the blue lights came on and I knew then it was serious. And when we got there, she was whisked into intensive care straightaway and hooked up to machines before you knew it. There were all these machines, blinking …’ she made a little sound and put her hand over her mouth.

‘What was it?’

‘She was shutting down. The doctor explained it to me later. It was like lights going out in a house, one room at a time, until they were all off and it was complete darkness. It was called sepsis.’

Eleanor nodded. ‘I’ve heard of that but I didn’t know it was as serious as that.’

‘It can be very quick. The body goes into shock followed by multiple organ failure and then that’s it. If it reaches a certain stage there is nothing they can do.’

‘Oh, Paula, what can I say?’

‘It’s all right.’ She managed a smile. ‘But if I hadn’t gone to work that day, if I had got her to hospital earlier, then she would have stood a chance. Half an hour might have made a difference. But I didn’t. I delayed it because I rang Alan first when I should have rung for the ambulance. But you don’t like
to bother them, do you, not when you’re not sure what it is. You don’t want to be a nuisance.’ She looked across at Eleanor. ‘You would have done it differently, wouldn’t you, if it had been Nicola? You would have got her to that hospital and played merry hell until somebody did something, wouldn’t you? Oh I wish I was more like you, Eleanor, then I might have saved her. If I hadn’t been such a wimp, frightened of bothering people, then I might have saved my little girl.’

‘Oh, don’t say that.’ Eleanor was across the room in an instant, sitting beside her on the sofa and putting her arms round her. She smelled of a lovely scent and Paula closed her eyes a moment, taking it in, taking in the comfort she was offering, composing herself to stop a flood of tears. She was past crying about Lucy and here it was, welling up as if it were yesterday.

‘If Lucy was here today she would not blame you,’ Eleanor was saying in a calm, quiet voice. ‘She loved you and you were so lucky to have such a loving relationship with her. I want you to hold onto that thought. I’ve never quite had that with Nicola. She’s always been a touch abrasive, never one for a cuddle; or is that me perhaps? It’s only recently that it’s starting to get better now that she’s pregnant. She’s changed a bit and I’m happier because I think the two of them will be fine. They seem a lot happier these days.’

‘The three of them,’ Paula corrected her, moving away and sniffing away the tears. ‘Thanks. And you were right. It has helped to talk about it. I’ve kept it shut up for too long. I’ve never really talked about it with anybody, not even Alan. You know, the first thing he said to me when they brought us the news in hospital was that it wasn’t my fault and because he said that, in my eyes that made it absolutely one hundred per cent my fault.’

‘How did you make that out?’

‘I don’t know. Grief comes at you like that. Blaming myself
was my way of coping with it. And it’s only now, all these years later, that I can stop doing it because it’s not helping is it? Oh dear …’ She pulled herself together. ‘I’ll put the soup on. And I’ve made a selection of sandwiches and then maybe you can tell me what’s wrong with you.’

Paula had set things out in the dining room, a small room off the kitchen, but then everything about this house was small. Goodness, Eleanor reflected that she could fit the entire house into her sitting room – well, almost.

But what did it matter? What did things matter? After what Paula had told her, after what seemed a distinct warming in their relationship, she found something comforting in the little dining room where white dishes were laid on the blue tablecloth. There was vegetable soup and big chunks of bread, a little dish with butter, and a plate piled with sandwiches with the crusts trimmed. And a big pot of tea, a little matching sugar bowl and milk jug.

She had no appetite but she did her best to do it justice and then Paula brought out some cheese and grapes and they sat together and finally, as if it were after a long period of sniffing around each other suspiciously, it seemed as if they were friends.

‘I want to thank you,’ Eleanor told her. ‘For helping the youngsters out with the house. It was very kind of you and a real boost for them to be able to move from the cottage. We would have helped of course except that I’m not sure if we could have helped to the extent you did. Our money is rather tied up at the moment.’

‘You’re not in trouble, are you? We can help if you need it.’

‘Thank you, that’s very sweet of you but no, it happens occasionally and we’ve always got through it. Henry is a wheeler and dealer. Sometimes I have to close my eyes to the things he gets up to. Between you and me, some of it is a little too under
the counter if you know what I mean?’

Paula nodded, not the least surprised by that. Crooks come in all shapes and sizes. ‘If you do need help just say and I am so pleased we could help Matthew and Nicola. After all, what use is it to have a big amount of money just hanging around? We’ve invested some of it for the future and we still have the rents coming in from the houses so we are fine and it seemed only right that we helped them out before the baby comes.’

‘Nicola is very excited about it all. She has big plans and I’ve said she can help herself to some of the bigger items we have stored away for clients. It’s going to take a lot of furniture to fill those rooms.’

‘How is Henry?’

The question was guarded and Eleanor glanced quickly at her. ‘He’s all right. You know Henry.’

‘Yes, I think I do.’

It was just something in the way she said it, something that told Eleanor that she knew all there was to know about Henry. So what was the use of denying it?

‘We have an unconventional marriage. It’s not quite the same as yours,’ she explained. ‘I think you’ve probably guessed that he’s a bit of a free spirit.’

‘You mean he’s unfaithful?’

She looked at her in surprise. She had meant that but she had not expected Paula to be quite as direct. Somehow she thought of Paula as being innocent but maybe she was not as innocent as she appeared.

‘He didn’t try it on with you, did he?’

Paula shrugged. ‘A little but I guessed as much anyway. When we were on holiday I think the whole group of us had him down as a ladies’ man. He’s very attractive and he’s touchy-feely if you know what I mean.’

‘I know exactly what you mean.’

Having finished their meal, Paula put down the napkin
and suggested they return to the living room and no, she did not need any help because she would pop the dishes in the machine later, thanks very much. ‘Oh, you have a dishwasher,’ Eleanor said in a voice that implied surprise as if she had expected Paula to be putting on the rubber gloves at the sink.