‘Life has to go on for you two,’ he told them. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’
It was he who lit the fire and made them a brunch of eggs and bacon. He rang the vicar of their church, who promised to call round. Then, as it seemed neither had any idea what to do next, he found them a local undertaker, who also said he’d call.
Rex was preparing to leave when Helen lifted a stricken face. ‘Chloe,’ she said, ‘I haven’t let her know.’
‘Do it now.’
‘I can’t, I don’t know Adam’s number. She wrote it down for me but I’ll have to go home to get it.’
Rex drove her home and promised Marigold he’d deliver her back again. She spent a very tearful ten minutes talking to Chloe on the phone, and there was no possibility of drying her eyes after that. She was full of guilt that she’d been out enjoying herself with Rex, instead of being available to help Marigold.
‘A hot bath will make you feel better,’ he told her. ‘You left without even cleaning your teeth this morning.’ He ran the bath for her and she got out some clean clothes. While she was in the bath, he collected her make-up for her to take with her. By the time she was ready to leave, she was much calmer.
He drove her back to Marigold’s house and promised to return at six that evening to take them both out to the bistro for supper. When he did, it was Chloe who opened the front door to him. She looked pale and exhausted, and for the first time, he thought she looked heavily pregnant.
‘Thank you, Rex,’ she said. ‘Mum tells me you’ve been a cast-iron support to her and Aunt Goldie. You did what I should have been here to do.’
He rested his hand on her arm for a moment. ‘I only did what anyone would do. How are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ she told him with a wry smile.
‘Would you like to come with us for a bite to eat?’
‘Yes, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. We’re all glad to have you here,’ he said.
Chloe’s presence made the simple meal the highlight of the day for Rex, though the women were quiet and had little to say. He was glad he’d encouraged Helen to keep in touch with her daughter. He’d feared a rift between them, because that would mean he’d never see Chloe.
Afterwards, he took them back to Helen’s house. As it seemed they all intended to spend the night there, Rex knew he could not. He went back to his lonely flat to dream of Chloe.
Chloe grieved for Gran. In her early teens, when she’d first come to Liverpool, she’d found her sympathetic and a comfort. But Aunt Goldie seemed to view her death as the end of everything and went to pieces. Her mother too seemed incapable of functioning normally. Chloe would have liked to go back to Adam’s house to escape from their grief, but felt she couldn’t leave her mother until the funeral was over. They wanted that to take place as soon as possible, but Chloe knew they were dreading it as much as she was. Her mother was clearly looking for support.
Rex came round as usual and Chloe was surprised to find him discussing everything from the service to the flowers with Mum and Aunt Goldie. The earliest date they could get for the funeral was seven days hence. It was to be at half past eleven in the morning, and Mum decided to follow it with a light buffet lunch at her house for the mourners.
‘What about Auntie Joan? Have you told her?’ Chloe asked. ‘She’ll be upset, Gran was her aunt.’
‘Oh heavens, no! How could I forget Joan?’ Helen rushed to the phone.
‘Tell her about me too,’ Chloe called after her. She wanted them to know of her problem before they saw her.
Mum was on the phone for ages. Chloe heard her say her name several times and she knew they were discussing her. But when they came round later that day she was swept up into comforting hugs.
‘You mustn’t worry about it love,’ Auntie Joan told her. Chloe thought they were particularly kind to her. It was Auntie Joan who took over organising the funeral lunch.
Chloe rang Adam later that day. ‘I’m missing you,’ he told her. ‘When are you coming back?’
She told him about the funeral arrangements and suggested he came. ‘You could take me back with you after the lunch. I’ll have everything packed ready.’
‘I don’t like funerals,’ he said. ‘They give me the creeps. Tell your mother I’m sorry but I have to go to an auction on that day. An important one I can’t afford to miss.’
‘Oh!’
‘She won’t care whether I’m there or not.’
‘I care.’ Chloe thought he should come. ‘You must if you’re ever to be considered one of the family.’
He said, ‘You could catch the train back and I’ll meet you at the station.’
To Chloe, the days of waiting seemed interminable. Aunt Goldie came to stay with them in the third bedroom, but she complained that it was poky and the bed uncomfortable. Rex encouraged Chloe to take her mother out for walks and on trips to the shops to buy their daily provisions. They cooked together, and Rex usually joined them for their evening meal.
Adam rang her every day. ‘I do love you and wish you were here,’ he told her. ‘It’s lonely without you.’
But on the day before the funeral he said, ‘If you come back tomorrow afternoon, I won’t be able to meet your train, because the sale I told you about is in Edinburgh.’
‘I thought that was just an excuse for you to avoid the funeral.’
‘Of course not.’ He sounded disconcerted. ‘The sale is at Hampton’s in Edinburgh, I told you that.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Why don’t you stay over till the next morning? There’s a train you could catch that gets in about twelve. I could meet you and take you to lunch in Manchester before we go home. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘All right, that’s what I’ll do.’
When the day of the funeral came, it was pleasantly warm and sunny. Rex drove them to the church in Mum’s car and was very attentive to them all. Gran had been in her eighty-sixth year and had outlived or lost touch with most of the friends she’d had, but she and Aunt Goldie had been regular churchgoers all their lives, so the church was not empty, as many of the congregation attended the ceremony.
As Helen’s house was some distance from the church, only the vicar and two or three of the congregation came for refreshments, and they didn’t stay long. That left the family party, which included Auntie Joan and Uncle Walter. Soon Mum and Rex were showing them round the lovely garden. Chloe made afternoon tea in the summerhouse for those who stayed on, and spent quite a long time talking to Auntie Joan.
Helen was relieved when she could take Marigold home and have the funeral over. She missed Chloe when she went back to Manchester, but was pleased she was maintaining contact with her. The following week, Chloe rang several times to ask how she was, and then invited her to come for afternoon tea and see where she was living.
‘I’d love to,’ Helen said. ‘How do I find you?’
‘I could draw a street map and post it to you. Or you could come by train and Adam will pick you up from the station.’
‘Easier to drive, provided I can find you.’
‘What about Rex? He’s almost one of the family, isn’t he? Would he like to come too? Then you’d have him to map-read.’
‘Yes, I’ll ask him.’
Helen found Rex was quite keen. ‘I’d like to see where Chloe’s living now, and it would be a day out for us.’
After much deliberation, they decided on a Wednesday afternoon. ‘Come here around half twelve,’ Helen told him. ‘I’ll make us a light lunch, salad or something, and we’ll get on our way as soon as we can.’
They had no difficulty finding the house, and Helen was impressed when they drew up outside. It was a stately Georgian-style building of smoke-blackened stone, with the sun glinting on the tall windows.
‘Is it a flat they have here?’ Rex asked.
‘Chloe said it was a house.’ It was a substantial one.
She’d been watching for them and came out to greet them. She seemed more relaxed and happier now she’d made her move.
The hall took Helen’s breath away. It was vast, with white walls and a chandelier; the furniture was of the period. Chloe showed them round. It was all beautifully and expensively furnished. The kitchen and bathrooms were ultra-modern and there was central heating, though now it was summer it had been switched off. The sitting room was sumptuous.
‘Adam says he had to have modern sofas and easy chairs,’ Chloe told them. ‘Antique soft furnishings are hard to find and they aren’t very comfortable.’
‘It’s luxurious,’ Helen said. ‘Is it his family home?’
‘No, he was brought up in Bournemouth and his mother still lives there. She’s a widow now.’
‘So Adam lived here alone before you came?’ Rex asked.
‘Yes.’
‘This really impresses me, when I think of my own comfortless two-bedroom flat. He could be an interior designer, he has very good taste.’
‘Antiques are an obsession with him.’ Chloe smiled. ‘They’re his hobby as well as his means of earning a living.’
‘He’s a perfectionist,’ Rex said.
‘It’s all lovely.’ Helen had not thought Chloe would improve her living standard by moving in with Adam, but she had to accept that she had.
Chloe chatted away about her coming baby and showed them the Georgian mahogany cot Adam had found and the layette she was putting together. Helen immediately offered to knit a matinee jacket for the baby.
It pleased her very much that Chloe was showing nothing of Marigold’s attitude of shame. Rather she seemed to be looking forward to the birth and to be content with her lot.
She’d made them a chocolate cake and little savoury sandwiches of prawns and cucumber. She served the tea in a Georgian silver tea service on a silver tray and they used exquisite china.
Adam returned and greeted Chloe in a way that showed how much in love with her he was. He too seemed more relaxed now that their position was accepted by Chloe’s family. He chatted pleasantly about his day and offered them sherry.
On the way home, Helen said, ‘I didn’t realise Adam had money.’
Rex sighed. ‘We needn’t worry about Chloe after all. She’ll be all right with him.’
‘All they need to do is get married,’ Helen said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
H
ELEN FELT SHE COULDN’T neglect Marigold now she was alone, and called round to see her. It was almost lunchtime but Marigold was just lighting her living room fire. She looked as though she’d neither washed nor combed her hair this morning.
‘I had a wakeful night,’ she said, ‘and then I fell into a deep sleep when it was time to get up.’
‘Have you had any breakfast?’
‘All I want is a cup of tea.’
Helen went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She knew Marigold must be feeling her loss because her life had always been so tied up with Gran’s. She moved the remains of her last three meals from the table and started washing the dishes. It shocked her to see Marigold neglecting herself.
‘Gran was old, Marigold,’ she said. ‘It’s not as though her life was cut short by illness. She was old and often in pain. She probably didn’t want to live longer.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Marigold’s face showed signs of long-dried tears.
‘We all have to go in the end,’ Helen added.
‘I know that.’ She sounded impatient. ‘What I don’t know is how I’m going to manage without her.’
Helen had given little thought to that. She felt her relationship with Marigold had been permanently distorted because she’d been brought up to believe that she was her older sister. Even now, that was how she saw her.
Certainly she thought Marigold had had a sad life. Having an illegitimate daughter when she was sixteen had never been spoken about, but had provided all sorts of undercurrents in the family. Helen had been unable to understand this until she was fully adult. While Gran had had her health, she’d been a real matriarch and made all their decisions for them. Marigold had been her subservient daughter, and had never had another man in her life.
Last year, when she’d turned sixty, she’d retired from her job as a sewing machine operator and her time had been filled looking after her ailing mother. Now suddenly her days were empty. She could go to church on Sundays and chat to the vicar and others in the congregation, but she had no real friends.
Helen made her some tea and toast, poured a cup for herself and led the way back to the fire, which was now drawing up. She felt tea and sympathy would fill the bill.
‘I’ve nothing but my old age pension to live on,’ Marigold told her. ‘Mother worked in the council offices for most of her life and she earned a pension from them, so with that and both our old age pensions, we survived.’
‘You lived in modest comfort,’ Helen corrected. ‘Gran said you had all you needed.’
‘Yes, but her pensions have died with her.’ Marigold made it sound as though she’d been singled out to suffer like this.
Helen looked round the shabby room. She’d been brought up in this house and nothing had changed in all the years. She’d thought it draughty and comfortless then. It was a Victorian bay-windowed terrace house, one of the many thousands in the outer districts of Liverpool.
‘They keep putting the rent up,’ Marigold complained. ‘It’s too much, I can’t afford it.’
‘Won’t social security help?’
‘I don’t want to live on social security.’ She was indignant. ‘It’s not what our family do.’
‘There’s no harm in claiming help with your rent if you need it,’ Helen said sharply. ‘That’s false pride in this day and age.’ She could sense what was coming.
‘You’ve had a much better life than I have, Helen.’ Marigold sounded envious.
‘That was due to John’s greater earning power.’ Helen didn’t find it easy to forgive their hostility towards him.
Marigold pulled herself up on the sofa cushions. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea if I came to live with you?’
Helen froze. It was the last thing she wanted. If Marigold was always in the house, Rex wouldn’t come. Her presence would be off-putting even if he did. She very much missed having Chloe about the house, but it did mean that if she invited Rex to stay the night, nobody else need know. She wanted to go on having her house to herself.