Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
‘And you told him?’ I am almost falling off the sofa with curiosity.
‘I said I wasn’t, but he still went on about you and how much
you wanted to meet your lost great-aunt. So I phoned him the
other day and told him who I was. It seemed time to finally admit
the truth.’
I feel a glow in my heart. Nathaniel is completely redeemed in my affections. He has found DeeDee for me. He’s just as special
and sweet as I imagined. Of course I love him – I will always love
him, even though he just sees me as a friend. That will have to be
enough for me. I’m just glad he exists and that I met him. He has
solved the family’s biggest puzzle through a chance visit to a café.
It seems more than a coincidence. It somehow seems that it was
meant to be.
‘Aggie so much wants to see you too.’ The words come out of my mouth in a torrent of hopefulness. ‘It would mean so much to
her, DeeDee. I don’t know how much longer she’ll be with us. She’s desperate to tell you that she loves you.’
DeeDee looks down at the table.
‘I know about Joseph.’
DeeDee grows even more still and silent.
‘I read your notebook.’
‘What notebook?’
‘The one with the recipes.’
She just looks at me.
‘Someone must have found it,’ I say quickly. ‘It was in my
parents’ attic. You’d gummed together the pages that were… were
more personal.’ Suddenly I feel guilty. ‘I would never have seen
those pages if they hadn’t got damp and opened on their own.’
She is still looking at me strangely.
‘Don’t you see, DeeDee? It’s like I was meant to read them. So
m
any strange things have been happening lately, it’s almost like…’ I take a deep breath. ‘It’s almost like we were meant to
find you because of Aggie. You must visit her. Please say you will.’
‘I don’t know if that’s really called for.’ She says the words slowly, flatly, almost as if she’s decided already. ‘I want you to
keep this a secret, Sally. I don’t want you to tell anyone that you
have met me.’
I stare at her, aghast.
‘I just wanted to meet you because Nathaniel has told me so
m
uch about you.’ She touches my arm gently. I maintain a m
utinous silence, but I decide not to argue with her. Maybe when we know each other better I can persuade her to see Aggie.
‘Do you like Extravaganza?’ Her eyes search mine keenly.
‘Yes, I do. I love it. It’s… it’s just great.’
‘Oh, good. Some people say I should get rid of the sofas and
t
he hats and the cushions, and put in more chairs and tables.’
‘
Oh, no!’ I protest. ‘The hats and the sofas and the cushions
a
re… are essential.’
She laughs. ‘No wonder Nathaniel says you and I are so alike.’
I wish I’d made a list of the questions I want to ask her. There
are so many that I don’t know where to start.
‘What happened to your baby, DeeDee?’ I say softly.
She gazes out the window at the rain and the cars and the
p
eople walking home from work. ‘That’s a long story, Sally.’
‘
I want to hear it.’
I’m afraid she may be about to tell
me that’s a secret too. But then she begins to speak.
Chapter
Forty
‘It was an awful
situation, of course,’ DeeDee tells me calmly
as I eat my omelette and chips. I’m amazed that I can eat,
given the circumstances, but something about DeeDee is so loving
and gentle that my hunger has returned. I even remembered to ask
for tomato ketchup.
‘I hadn’t planned to have a baby for years, if ever,’ she says. ‘I
was never the sort of woman who felt she
had
to have a child.’
I just listen. As DeeDee speaks, the light from the pink candle
on the table seems to glow a deeper gold.
‘I didn’t really even know Joseph. He wasn’t my type at all. He
was rather solemn and lugubrious, to be honest with you.’
DeeDee sighs. It sounds like an old sigh, one she has sighed many
times already. ‘He was the type of man who actually
liked
wearing pinstripe suits and braces. And he regularly talked about
his large collection of cufflinks. He seemed to bask in the comfort
of conformity. He and Aggie were engaged at this point, but I really never understood what Aggie saw in him. There was no spark to him. No
bounce.
’
DeeDee’s voice rises slightly in indignation. ‘I wanted Aggie to find her prince, but she seemed perfectly contented with that smug, plump frog.’
The music in the room has changed to jazz. As the silver notes of a saxophone cavort through the air, DeeDee smiles at me with
mild apology and rises to attend to a new customer who is clearly also a friend. This place is a kind of haven, I realise. People come
here sure of their welcome. London can be a lonely place, but
there is nothing lonely about this room. There is no rush about it; t
here is time for what needs to be attended to. There is a rhythm and a faith in its sounds and its silences. It has what no interior
decorator can ever offer: it has love – a wise, embracing love that
is there for whoever needs it.
DeeDee’s sudden disappearance is almost useful: it gives me
time to recall my own impression of Joseph. I always thought of
him simply as Aggie’s husband. He didn’t intrigue or even interest me; he was just there, and at Marie’s family gatherings he was the
only one who relished her soggy lemon meringue pie. He seemed
a man of cherished routines and habits – routines and habits that
he and Aggie shared. By the time I knew him, he had moved on to smart navy suits; even in retirement, he kept up his sartorial standards on trips to town. When pottering around the house he favoured a rather shabby blue cardigan and slacks, and some
times he wore gumboots in the garden. He was usually very
polite, even friendly, but he didn’t give the impression of a man
who wanted to be known by all and sundry. He saved his
intimacies for Aggie, whom he appeared to love and who clearly
loved him back. They did crosswords together and went to bridge parties and always had some plan or other to improve the garden.
They planned their yearly holiday well in advance and in great detail, and sometimes they even tried to acquire a perfunctory knowledge of the local language via books borrowed from the
library. There was a regularity to their relationship that was
almost comforting. Joseph seemed like a man who could be relied
upon to remain much as he was. This is the story we told
ourselves about Joseph. We didn’t question it, because we had no
reason to. He fooled us all. Perhaps he even fooled himself.
As I am thinking these things, DeeDee returns with two
steaming mugs of tea. She also brings a bowl of sugar and a small
jug of milk, and an orange plate full of the chocolate chip cookies.
‘Help yourself, dear,’ she says. I reach for a cookie and crunch it gratefully. All thoughts of my diet have gone, though I don’t feel a
ny need to munch my way through the entire plate. That is another kind of hunger, one that is satisfied by simply being in this room with DeeDee.
As she sits down on the sofa she winces slightly. ‘The creaks and
groans of age, I’m afraid,’ she says. ‘Sometimes my joints make as
much noise as a loose floorboard.’ She laughs – an exuberant, almost youthful laugh. She wears her years wonderfully. She doesn’t flaunt them and she doesn’t deny them; she is simply
herself. She is wearing cerise lipstick and a light brush of mascara,
and in the low light her tan looks real and glowing.
I think of Fabrice – her low décolletage, her showy jewellery
and the caked powder that covers her wrinkles like uneven
cement. Fabrice’s eyes are so covered in mascara and eyeshadow
that I can’t even imagine what she might look like without it.
If only she could meet DeeDee
, I find myself thinking.
Then maybe she would realise that age can be beautiful.
‘Of course, the family all thought Joseph was wonderful,’
DeeDee continues. She is clearly used to picking up the threads of
a conversation after interruption. She takes a cookie herself; small
crumbs fall onto the floor, and the Labrador jumps up from his
slumbers and watches her eagerly. ‘They liked his neatness. I was
never neat enough for them. I wasn’t one thing or another. I
suppose I’ve always been a bit like this room, really – full of ideas
and plans that don’t seem to quite fit together.’ She looks around
her as though trying to see the room through another’s eyes. ‘Only they do fit together. They do in my heart.’
I reach out and touch her hand. As her face softens, I realise this is what I have been wanting to do: just reach out and touch her hand like this, to let her know she can share her truth, and it will not be ridiculed or questioned.
‘What happened, DeeDee?’ I almost feel guilty asking. ‘How did he… you know… how did you find yourself in that situation
with him?’ I find I can’t bear to mention Joseph’s name.
The air seems to stiffen. ‘I was working in a hat shop off Grafton
Street,’ she says slowly. ‘Joseph came into the shop one day. I was
surprised to see him, but he said he wanted to buy a beautiful hat
for his beautiful Aggie. I was delighted, of course. I thought maybe
he had some dash about him, after all – a bit of romance. We laughed about how it would surprise her and how she mightn’t
even want to wear it – she had this set idea of herself as a person
who didn’t do certain things…’ DeeDee’s words trail off miserably.
‘I told him a famous hat-maker had said that the courage to wear a grand hat came from wearing it. Once you put it on, you
could do it. The hat gave you the conviction.’ She sighs. ‘I even
joked that he would have to steal up behind Aggie and put it on her,
so that this transformation could happen. What I wanted him to
understand was that Aggie had a wildness in her – a wildness she
wouldn’t allow.
‘Anyway, Joseph and I were having such a pleasant conversation about this hat he wanted to buy for Aggie that I agreed to
go out for a drink with him. The shop was just about to close, and
I thought it would be nice to get to know my future brother-in-law better, especially since he seemed so much nicer than I’d thought he was. So we went to a pub. I only meant to have one
glass of wine, but it was the kind of evening that happens
sometimes – you know, when you keep meaning to go home, but
you end up getting tipsy and giggling and smoking French cigarettes. Joseph bought them for me.’ She smiles wearily. ‘I suppose I mainly stayed drinking with him because I was often bored in those days. At least this was something different.’