The Guest
PENGUIN BOOK S
hilary
boyd
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First published 2024 001
Copyright © Hilary Boyd, 2024
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Set in 12 5/14.75pt Garamond MT Typeset by Falcon Oast Graphic Art Ltd Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–405–95225–5
To my brilliant sister, Judie. With all my love.
‘Love is the ultimate expression of the will to live.’
Tom Wolfe
Prologue
‘Where are you going?’ Kitty, who’d been adding ‘piccalilli’ and ‘shower gel’ to the shopping list on her phone, looked up and saw Angus had swung the car left down a particularly narrow lane that led, after many twists and turns and treacherous potholes, to a couple of old stone cottages neither of them ever visited. Not the way to the big supermarket on the roundabout they’d been going to every week for decades.
Angus turned to her and what had been merely puzzlement for Kitty turned into something more concerning. Because the glance from his intelligent blue eyes seemed, she thought, befuddled for a second, almost frightened. After a slight hesitation, he replied unsurely, ‘Shopping.’ But he slowed the car and came to a stop in the middle of the muddy lane, his hands clenched tight to the steering wheel.
Kitty felt a chill pass through her. She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly constricted. The air in the car pulsed with anxiety – hers and her husband’s. Angus never pays attention to everyday stuff , she tried telling herself. It was an old joke between them. His brilliant brain – he was employed as a highly respected economics guru, with many articles and books to his name – inhabited another plane most of the time. But today the silent joke fell flat.
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‘Yes, Tesco,’ she agreed, forcing through the panic and finding a smile for her bewildered husband. Because this was by no means the first thing. It was just the first thing Kitty realized she could not ignore. The others had been minor lapses ‒ memory, a certain uncharacteristic vagueness ‒ which they had laughed off, resolutely putting them down to the normal insults of ageing. Although Angus was not old yet, not even sixty. ‘Shall I drive?’ she asked, fumbling with her seatbelt and opening the passenger door with a shaking hand on the cold January morning.
Angus didn’t speak while they swapped seats. Not until she was backing cautiously down the lane did he say, ‘We could get some of that trout we like. Do it with rice.’
As if nothing just happened, Kitty thought.
Kitty Cox had a husband, and did not have one. Because Angus, to whom she’d been happily married for more than thirty years, had been resident in the Willows care home for sixteen months.
Each weekend she would drive the three miles south along the West Sussex lanes to the bland, modern, red-brick facility on the northern outskirts of Chichester, heart fluttering with trepidation, pick up Angus and take him home to the rectory for Sunday lunch. And each week she struggled just a little more to manage the person his young-onset dementia had reduced him to. He was only sixty-four, diagnosed three years ago, after at least two frustrating years during which they’d known there was a problem.
The rest of the time Kitty seemed mired in vagueness, her brain uncharacteristically foggy and useless. She felt lost, often turning to say something to Angus – his presence still so strong in the house where he’d been born ‒ then remembering, the reality landing on her chest with a dull thud. When it became unsafe to leave him alone even for five minutes, she’d had to give up the work she loved as a family mediator ‒ helping couples avoid court and custody battles during a divorce ‒ which she’d practised from an office they’d converted in the corner of the small barn beside the house.
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Having always considered herself a capable, optimistic person, someone who coped with whatever was thrown at her, she found this confused state of mind bewildering. It was as if she was no longer quite sure who she was or of her purpose in life. She wandered about their smallholding, looking after the animals, the house, the garden, as she always did, waiting for something to happen that would change things – but in ways she was not yet ready to accept. In theory, she might have returned to work now that Angus was safe and well cared for. But there was no space in her head to cope with her own problems, let alone other people’s fractured marriages.
Marybeth, her best friend in the small Sussex village, had lost her husband to cancer the previous year. But however much Kitty sympathized – and she did hugely, of course ‒ she also felt a shameful pang of envy. Julian had been in his mid-eighties, had led a good life and was at peace with leaving it. Marybeth could grieve, knowing he’d died well, appropriately and much loved. But Angus was being snatched away before it seemed fair.
The day of the diagnosis still haunted Kitty.
‘It’s not great news,’ the doctor had said softly. She’d met Kitty’s eye only briefly, blinked, then turned her attention back to her computer screen, clicking on her mouse a couple of times before easing the desktop round so that Kitty and Angus could see. ‘This is your PET scan,’ she went on, ‘and these . . .’ she tapped lightly over the screen with her pen tip at a number of lit-up areas dotted across the image of the organ on display ‘. . . are the plaques.’ Dr Wishaw’s mouth tightened as she checked to see if they
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were following her. ‘Given the results of the other tests we’ve run, I’m afraid it seems pretty conclusive.’
Kitty gave a small gasp and heard Angus’s breath quicken. He sat close beside her on the upright hospital chair, but said nothing as she reached for his hand and squeezed it hard. It was not a surprise. But the doctor’s words still shocked her to the core. There had always been that sliver of hope. More than a sliver, really, because the truth was impossible to comprehend.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Dr Wishaw added, her tone sympathetic but final.
Angus shifted, let go of Kitty’s hand. ‘So, what now?’ His apparent nonchalance jarred. Does he understand what she’s just said? she wondered. Angus, who understood everything.
The doctor, perhaps feeling they were over the worst hurdle, became more business-like. ‘Well, it’s good that we at least have a diagnosis. We’ll start you on medication to help control symptoms. And there’s a lot of practical support you can access.’ She pulled out a couple of leaflets from under some files and held them across her desk. Kitty took them because Angus didn’t, but she refused to look at them. Leaflets? She wanted to scream. It was like being handed a live grenade and told, ‘Don’t panic, everything will be absolutely fine.’
Whatever Dr Wishaw told them next, Kitty had not heard. Not until she asked, ‘I know this is a lot to process, but do either of you have any questions?’ did Kitty tune in again. She took a deep breath, shook her head. She had thousands, but was incapable of framing a single one.
‘I’ll be in touch with your GP with all the information,’
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the doctor added, as she rose to her feet, bad news delivered, care package in train, appointment over, and shook hands firmly, her smile so full of compassion it made Kitty want to retch.
As they’d walked back to the car park, she remembered, neither she nor Angus had spoken. Denial froze in her veins. The unthinkable had actually happened.
Now Kitty felt trapped in this limbo, racked by suppressed anger she dared not feel, for fear it would overwhelm her, and guilt at not being able to care for Angus at home, watching his agonizing decline, week after week. She wished with all her heart now that she’d complied with what her husband had begged of her when he was first diagnosed, despite still shuddering at the thought. Wished she had not been too selfish, too late.
This Sunday morning in late April, though, was so unexpectedly gorgeous that Kitty felt a small lift to her heart as she looked out onto the sprawling garden, the flowering cherry piercing the new-green landscape with delicate splashes of hope. She couldn’t help smiling, too, at the little faces of Lotty and Dotty, the two blotchy Kunekune pigs, poking their hairy snouts through the wire fencing of the paddock, watched by the goats in the small adjoining field. Both animal pens lay left of the gravelled driveway at the bottom of the wide slope of lawn behind the house, which ran down from the flagged terrace outside the kitchen.
Kitty and Angus had inherited the Sussex house and the incumbent menagerie from Angus’s parents. Apart from a couple of years in a tiny Holloway rental, they’d lived their entire married life in the sprawling pink mid-Victorian
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rectory. Moving in with his parents – Margot resembling, in many respects, Dr Dolittle ‒ was intended to be temporary, their London landlord having unexpectedly refused to renew their short-term lease.
It made sense, at first, not to look for another expensive city rental when neither was earning much – Angus as a budding financial journalist, Kitty paid peanuts at a small company that published in-house magazines ‒ but somehow they’d never left. Soon Kitty had dumped her London job and taken a part-time post at Citizens Advice in Chichester, starting, in tandem, to do what she’d always wanted: train to be a family mediator.
She had loved Angus’s dotty parents and the chaos that reigned in the crumbly old house. A cockatoo called Horatio, for instance, spent most of his day on Margot’s bony shoulder, if he wasn’t perched menacingly on the kitchen table among the open jam jars and unopened letters. There were mice – food littered every surface ‒and pigeons in the attic, hedgehogs in the cellar, dogs and cats curled on every available piece of furniture, as well as the pigs, goats, chickens and sheep in the surrounding pens. The whole house had seemed to shimmer in perpetual motion with all the livestock back then. And although she’d never so much as owned a goldfish growing up in her neat suburban Kent terrace – only yearned after next door’s amiable tabby ‒ she’d come, over the years, to love the animals too.
Now, carrying her coffee across the kitchen, she unlocked the French windows and opened them on to the morning, feeling the fresh spring air on her cheeks. It was still cool
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from the ferocious storm a few days back. Jinx, their black and white collie – one eye brown, one bright blue, making him always look a little crazy ‒ rushed past, tail wagging, to investigate the pigs. They stared him down for a second or two, then disdainfully turned away, as if he was beneath their notice.
Kitty breathed slowly and deeply as she settled gingerly on the damp cast-iron garden chair by the table outside the kitchen windows. The breeze blew her hair over her face ‒it was blonde-grey, thick and wavy to just below her chin, with a mind of its own – and she brushed it away, drawing her heavy charcoal cable-knit closer around her body. She would go and fetch Angus as soon as she’d finished the animals. She felt a pang of love at the thought of him, which was immediately smothered, if she were being totally honest, by a tiny spike of dread.
The staff at the home kept telling her she didn’t need to take Angus out any more. ‘We’ll bring you lunch in his room,’ they offered, hinting the trip home might be upsetting for him and that he took time to settle afterwards. But Kitty wasn’t sure they were right. She thought he seemed pleased to be home. And if she gave up the ritual, there would be nothing left of their life together. Angus had always loved a good Sunday roast.
As usual, the animals brought a smile to her face. Ike, the dafter of the two Alpine goats in the pen next to the pigs, was now perched on the sloping roof of their wooden shed, preening and prancing in the sunshine, showing off to Kitty and making her laugh – he could have balanced on a pinhead he was so agile. Ike’s performance, though,
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brought grimly to mind the night she’d woken to find Angus’s side of the bed empty, eventually discovering her husband in his pyjamas on the very same roof, feet on the edge of the feed trough, clinging to the wooden roof tiles, the bright moonlight silhouetting his shivering figure eerily against the night sky. He’d been trying to join his brother, Robert, who was waiting for him on the roof, Angus told her, as she helped him down. His bare feet had been so icy when she eventually coaxed him back to bed that she’d had to get both their hot-water bottles and bank them around his toes.
Now she rummaged in her cardigan pocket and came up with some dried macaroni, holding it out on the palm of her hand as she opened the gate and went inside the field, to lure Ike down from the roof. But his companion, Fitz, got there first and crunched up the lot. They were both relentless escape artists, Kitty constantly having to rescue them from getting caught in the fence, or chasing them down, herding them back into their pen. She knew she should probably arrange high deer-fencing for the goat field but, like everything else these days, didn’t have the energy for the task. Shooing Ike to the ground, she walked across to fill their water trough with the hose. Fitz – smaller and by far the more docile of the two – followed her and she bent to stroke him. His coat was rough, but warm and comforting under her fingers as she breathed in his musky animal scent.
Later, she drove the short distance to the Willows, pulling slowly, almost reluctantly, into the nursing-home car park. The place was full, as always at weekends, and she had
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to inch the small Hyundai hatchback between two solid, looming four-by-fours – Sussex was full of them. As she climbed out of the car, flattening herself against the side of the orange Subaru to her right, she shook herself, straightening her spine and rolling her shoulders back. As if she was going into battle.
Angus, sitting quietly in the chair by his bed, blinked and stared vacantly up at her when she came in. He was gaunt now, his face still handsome, but pale and lifeless, as if some unseen hand was gradually rubbing him out. His grey hair – previously dark, longer and attractively wild –was too clipped, too neatly combed. He was dressed in beige chinos, a sky-blue polo shirt, and trainers fastened with Velcro: an outfit that would have horrified him in his pre-dementia life. But easy-care pop-on pop-off clothes were required by the care home – the room temperature permanently at brain-fogging levels ‒ and he didn’t notice.
Now his eyes sparked up a little, but he didn’t speak. Don’t ask him questions he can’t answer. The advice from Alison ‒ the slightly annoying care-home supervisor, who meant well, Kitty knew, but still managed to sound patronizing ‒ rang in her head. So instead of kicking off with a normal ‘How are you?’, she chose instead ‘You look nice today.’ Short-term-memory loss rendered casual dialogue impossible. Gone were ‘What did you have for lunch?’, ‘Did the physio come?’, ‘Who gave you those lovely chocolates?’, ‘Do you remember . . .’ which normally peppered a visit to a sick person. Angus, Alison insisted, couldn’t find the answers. He’d already forgotten.
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Kitty went over and dropped a kiss on his forehead. His skin smelt stale, warm and a bit cheesy. She had always loved the way he smelt in the past, the sort of careless, unscented, clean smell of someone who washes while his mind is elsewhere. Angus’s mind was always whirring nineteen to the dozen.
‘I’m doing roast chicken today,’ she told him, as she perched on the bed and took his hand, which was thin and cold, despite the punishing room heat. Angus smiled. Not quite his old smile, which had always been warm and full when she amused him. But a smile nonetheless. ‘Shall we get going? Jinx is waiting in the car.’
Angus looked worried and shook his head. ‘Where . . . are we going?’ he asked, his speech slow and halting.
‘Home for Sunday lunch,’ Kitty said encouragingly.
‘Home,’ he muttered blankly, blinking fast and clearly not comprehending.
‘For lunch. I’m roasting a chicken,’ she repeated. Lamb, with mint sauce and crunchy roast potatoes, cabbage –still with a bite ‒ and redcurrant jelly, was his favourite, but it was too difficult for him to eat, these days, the meat too hard to swallow. Chicken chopped small and mashed potatoes were a safer bet. She gently urged him to his feet. He could still walk, but his gait was now unsteady and plodding.
Mel, one of Angus’s carers ‒ a girl with a high, swinging ponytail not yet out of her teens who seemed endlessly kind and cheerful ‒ popped her head around the door. ‘Off out, are we, my lovelies? Such a smashing day.’
Angus, head down, trudged doggedly on as if using
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every ounce of concentration. ‘Smashing day,’ he muttered, under his breath.
‘Can I help you out to the car?’ she asked Kitty.
‘Thanks, Mel, we’re OK,’ Kitty replied. ‘How has he been?’ she asked, voice lowered, hanging back a bit to be out of Angus’s earshot.
‘Oh, you know. Much the same. Always a bit up and down, mood-wise.’ She shrugged, as if this was to be expected – which it was. Catching up with Angus, Mel nudged his arm as she steadied him, adding, ‘We can be a bit grumpy when we get tired, eh, Angus?’ Which remark he completely ignored, on a mission, it seemed, to make it to the front door.
Much later, having dropped her husband back to his room at the Willows, Kitty sat, drained and exhausted, on the sagging chintz sofa in her kitchen, with a glass of red wine and Jinx by her side. Even though it was nearly May, she had lit the fire with last year’s applewood logs from the orchard. The warmth and glow were comforting.
It had been wearing, being bright and encouraging with Angus. It was all down to her to make the day a pleasant one. She found herself constantly blathering on, like a manic comedy turn, searching her brain for new topics of conversation to avoid them sitting in dreary silence, while at the same time remembering not to stress him out with questions. Incidents in the past that might trigger a pleasant reminiscence were her best bet, and could offer a few minutes of chat: holidays, suppers with friends, a visit to the beach for a swim. But today Angus had been largely
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silent, his speech, Kitty noticed, slipping away with every week that passed. She wondered if this was exacerbated by lack of stimulation in the care home, or just a manifestation of the disease.
Knowing she couldn’t leave him alone for a second in case he wandered off and hurt himself, she’d also been concerned that he would forget to tell her if he needed to pee – there had been accidents recently. But her biggest worry was that she might unwittingly cause his mood to flip: it could turn on a penny. Today had been one of the better days: Angus seemed to enjoy the small amount he ate of the meal, the orange jelly and ice cream she’d served for pudding. Then she’d walked him out to see the pigs and the crazy goats after lunch, which made him smile, sat with him for a while on the bench by the cherry tree, overlooking the paddock. He’d only got upset once, when she tried to help him into one of his old jackets, as the April afternoon had turned chilly. She hadn’t thought to bring the fleece he usually wore, these days. It was almost as if he didn’t like the smell or feel of the tweed any more and he pushed it away, becoming flustered and angry. As if he’s rejecting his old life, Kitty thought sadly.
Mid-morning, the following day, Kitty took herself into Chichester. The small city was fifteen minutes from the house and was her go-to place for everything – shopping, entertainment, hairdresser – that wasn’t available in the village. She didn’t really need much today. She just felt like a break from the endless back and forth to the Willows, and found herself wandering aimlessly down a crowded East Street, the right arm of the pedestrian precinct, which flowed in four directions from the ancient central market cross.
She paused outside a new café, fancying a coffee and maybe a piece of cake. A board in the window offered the predictable soundbites: ‘fresh’, ‘homemade’, ‘organic’, ‘local produce’, but the white-painted interior seemed bright and inviting on such a beautiful spring morning. She was wondering if she’d be allowed to take Jinx in with her ‒ it wasn’t quite warm enough to sit outside – when a small boy ran up to the collie. He must have been three or four, Kitty calculated, a beautiful child, sturdy, with ragged white-blond curls around his ears and large dark eyes. He reached out his hand to Jinx, who cautiously investigated the newcomer, wagging his tail in welcome.
‘Careful, Bear!’ an anxious voice behind Kitty called, making the little boy jump and retrieve his hand.
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Kitty turned. And did a double-take. ‘Vee?’
The woman, whose attention had been fixed on her child, looked up at the sound of her name. Her face seemed blank for a split second, then broke into a huge smile. ‘Kitty!’
The two women embraced. ‘You’re visiting?’ Kitty enquired. ‘Sheila said you’d moved to New Zealand.’
Vee shook her head. ‘I did. But I came back a while ago now, nearly five years. Mum died and I bought a B-and-B with the money she left me. It’s the one on the corner of North Street, by the roundabout.’
Kitty frowned. ‘You’ve been here all this time and you didn’t get in touch?’
Vee immediately looked stricken. ‘I didn’t think . . . I wasn’t sure . . .’
Kitty knew what she was thinking. Vee Quirke and Kitty had met when Vee started as a mediator, about fifteen years ago. Kitty reckoned she must now be about forty-five to her own sixty. She had been just out of training and Kitty had mentored her for a while. But they’d become good friends over the five years they’d worked together for Sheila McGovern at the Chichester law firm.
Then one Monday morning Vee didn’t turn up for her clients. She left a brief message on Sheila’s mobile, saying she wouldn’t be returning to work due to ‘unforeseen’ personal circumstances. No further explanation was forthcoming at that time, because she wouldn’t answer her phone to either Sheila or Kitty, leaving everyone at the office mystified. Kitty heard a few weeks later that she had moved to be with family in Auckland. It had always
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baffled both her and Sheila why Vee would take off so suddenly like that. She hadn’t seemed the flaky type. Nor had she appeared to be suffering from any particular stresses, at home or at work. ‘Goodness,’ Kitty said now, ‘it must be nearly ten years.’
Vee nodded, gazing nervously at Kitty as if she expected some sort of rebuke. She was of medium height and very slim, with wheat-blonde hair in a neat gamine cut brushed back off her face, framing strong cheekbones and anxious hazel eyes. She seemed frailer than Kitty remembered, maybe because she was now so thin. Kitty watched as her old friend lunged at her son – who was wandering off down the street ‒ and grabbed his hand, pulling him in close.
‘I wondered if I’d ever bump into you,’ Vee said, giving Kitty a shy smile. ‘This is Bear, by the way.’ She held up the child’s hand. ‘Say hello to Kitty,’ she urged. But Bear buried his head in his mother’s jeans.
‘So you’re living round the corner,’ said Kitty, after greeting the child, somewhat bemused. There were other words burning on her tongue: What on earth happened? Why didn’t you call me? But there must have been a reason she’d chosen not to, back then, Kitty reasoned, and didn’t press her now.
Vee blinked hard, looked away, but not before Kitty had noticed tears in her eyes, although she was obviously trying very hard to control herself. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she muttered, dragging a tissue from her sleeve and wiping her eyes.
Nonplussed, Kitty put a hand out and laid it gently on Vee’s arm. ‘Are you OK?’
Vee gave a strangled laugh. ‘Oh, God, I’m such a mess at the moment. Sorry, Kitty, sorry.’
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‘Do you want to grab a coffee?’ Kitty asked, concerned. She had been very fond of Vee when they’d worked together. Back then, her friend had been calm and very kind, excellent at her job but with a real sense of fun. They had shared quite a few nights out together with Angus and Vee’s partner, Harry. But looking at her now, all Kitty saw was a fragile, nervy shadow of her former self. She wondered if Harry was Bear’s father – although those large dark eyes bore no resemblance to the pale blue of Harry’s clearly Viking ancestry.
Vee took a big breath, nodded.
They sat outside at the new café. It wasn’t warm, but Kitty thought the intimacy of the crowded interior wouldn’t allow Vee any privacy, if she wanted to speak about what was troubling her. Kitty bought two coffees –black for her, an oat milk latte and babyccino for Vee and her son. Bear fell happily silent as he began to scrape the chocolate off the foam with a teaspoon.
‘It’s all a bit mad. We had a nightmare flash flood at the B-and-B a few weeks ago,’ Vee began, as they sipped their drinks, ‘and the insurance people have put us in this depressing dump of a flat in Littlehampton.’
‘God, I’m so sorry. Will you have to be there long?’
Vee sighed. ‘It could be weeks before it’s properly dried out, they say. Bear can’t live in a damp house ‒ he’s prone to asthma.’ She squeezed her eyes closed. ‘And just when we were doing so well, fully booked all summer and loads of great reviews on Tripadvisor.’ She lifted her hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘I’ve had to cancel everyone, and I can’t even tell them when we’ll be open again.’
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Kitty nodded sympathetically. ‘Why is the flat so depressing?’
‘If you saw the place, you wouldn’t think it was too bad,’ Vee replied. ‘The worst part is our neighbours downstairs. They leave their three terriers out in the garden all day when they go to work. And they howl and yap, sometimes for hours on end. But when I tried to tell them, they refused to believe me and suggested Bear sets them off when he cries . . . which he hardly ever does, by the way.’ She took a lurching breath. ‘They play music really loudly, too, sometimes till two in the morning. I’m exhausted.’
She certainly looks worn out, Kitty thought, noticing incipient tears in her friend’s eyes again. ‘Couldn’t you ask to be moved?’
‘Raf – he’s my partner ‒ has. But they say the flat is the best they can find in the area. There aren’t any other options at the moment.’ Vee fell silent, just staring into space. Kitty felt so sorry for her. She thought of her big house, with all the open space and fresh air, the empty bedrooms, the peace and quiet.
‘There’s no garden for Bear, either, and it’s a longer journey to his nursery,’ Vee went on. ‘He doesn’t have his friends round the corner to play with.’
‘So you and Raf have been together for a while?’ Kitty wanted to ask about Harry, but didn’t like to, in case he, in some way, had been the trigger for Vee’s abrupt departure.
Vee’s mask of anxiety softened a little. ‘About four years. He’s an archivist. At least he was. Now he helps me with the business, which is great. We’re a good team.’ She smiled self-consciously. ‘I got pregnant with Bear accidentally,
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really soon after we met.’ A moment later she added, ‘I never thought I’d have a family . . .’ She stopped abruptly, her face colouring as she gave Kitty a constrained, almost apologetic smile.
Kitty didn’t know quite what to make of this. Vee had been engaged to Harry, after all, and there had been talk, from Harry, at least, of getting married, buying a place together.
A silence fell between the two women.
Vee smiled. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Kitty. I’ve thought about contacting you so many times since I came back to Chichester.’ She took a breath and shook herself, went on in a brighter tone: ‘So how’s Angus?’
Kitty’s heart sank. She hated having this conversation: the explanations, the looks of shock and dismay, the attempts at reassurance . . . the pity. But she took a deep breath and plunged in.
Vee said nothing when Kitty stopped talking. She just got up and came round to where she was sitting, bent down and gave her a tight, warm hug. She smelt very fresh and comfortingly of lavender. ‘If I can help in any way,’ she said, as she sat back down on the café chair, which wobbled on the paving stones as she pulled Bear onto her knee.
Kitty had a lump in her throat, touched by her friend’s response. She’d had to be so strong, so calm, so in control in dealing with Angus’s dementia for what seemed like such a long time. Her old friend’s kindness made her want to give in, to lay her head down on the metal table and sob.
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‘I’m embarrassed,’ Vee was saying. ‘My problems are nothing compared to what you’re both going through.’
‘It’s not “nothing” to be flooded out of your home. Especially with little Bear to think about.’ Kitty’s focus turned to the child on his mother’s knee. ‘He’s gorgeous, Vee. I’m so happy for you.’
Vee smiled warmly as she hugged her son a little closer, then fell silent, her gaze miles away. ‘We had some fun together, didn’t we?’ she commented, a little wistfully, Kitty thought. ‘That Tex-Mex place we liked is still there. I often walk past it and remember the margaritas.’
Kitty chuckled. ‘I’m surprised we do remember them!’ They had enjoyed a few slightly drunken cocktail moments – mopped up with a plate of crunchy, cheesy, spicy nachos ‒ after a hard day of mediating, before Vee disappeared.
‘Are you still working with Sheila?’
‘Umm, not at the minute,’ Kitty replied hesitantly.
Vee looked apologetic. ‘I suppose you’ve got your work cut out, keeping an eye on Angus.’
‘It’s not that,’ Kitty began. ‘They do a wonderful job at the home. But . . .’ She stopped, not knowing quite how to explain why she didn’t feel she could work. She had enough time on her hands, after all.
Vee seemed to understand, though. She shook her head. ‘Life’s so unfair. I can’t even imagine what you’re dealing with.’
Kitty’s gaze met Vee’s in grateful acknowledgement of the understanding between them. It felt good.
The two women chatted for a little longer, starting to
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catch up with each other’s lives, but Bear was becoming restive and Vee said she ought to get going, promising, as she said goodbye, to keep in touch on the numbers they’d exchanged.
After Vee had left, Kitty was surprised to find she’d really enjoyed the company. It had taken her out of herself for a short time, reminded her of times past when things had been much happier. And as she made her way back to the car park, she found she was looking forward to meeting up with Vee again soon ‒ her circle of friends had shrunk to almost nothing as Angus’s dementia had taken hold.
That evening, as Kitty sat with a glass of wine on the sofa, Jinx snuggled into her side, a mad notion began slowly to take root in her mind as she recalled the chance meeting with Vee that morning. Looking now about her spacious kitchen, aware of the acres of garden and orchard and animal pens surrounding the house, the empty bedrooms upstairs – mostly piled with junk, admittedly – she wondered how she would feel with guests in the house. Then she smiled to herself. Don’t be daft. Vee wouldn’t be in the least bit interested in coming to stay here. It was a crazy idea.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of her mobile on the table beside the sofa. Not someone who was naturally wedded to her phone, since Angus had gone into care Kitty now found herself constantly on the alert. But glancing at the screen, she saw it was her sister, Helen, and gave a quiet sigh. Things were slightly better between them, these days. Although the rancour engendered after their mother’s death still hovered like rain on the horizon,
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Kitty was never sure in which direction it was heading. But, really, it was just a symptom of a much deeper problem within their relationship.
The row between the sisters had centred around Kitty’s decision to help Ben, Helen and Fletcher’s only son, with some of her money from their mother’s will. Audrey had left a small cash sum to her grandson, but the bulk of her assets she had divided equally between her two daughters: the terraced house in Sevenoaks to Kitty, the hairdressing salon she’d owned and run for decades to Helen. Kitty was well provided for. Helen, long since widowed and extravagant to the last, was less financially secure, the recent renovation of her London flat having cost an eye-watering sum. When Kitty had offered to give some of her legacy to Ben, Helen had initially welcomed the kind gesture.
But instead of using the money to pay down his mortgage on the flat where he lived with his girlfriend, Minnie ‒which was what Helen had wanted, and, indeed, expected her son to do with the gift ‒ Ben had immediately resigned from his teaching post in an inner-city school. Then he’d enrolled, aged thirty-one, in the London Film School: he wanted to be a film director. Helen was incandescent.
‘You realize what you’ve just done?’ she’d shouted at Kitty, when she found out. ‘You’ve totally ruined him. He had a steady job, set for life. Now he’s chasing after some stupid pipe-dream.’ Sounding as if she was about to choke, she spluttered on: ‘I’ve spent every waking moment since Ben first noticed there was such a thing as a screen keeping him away from the industry. Look at what happened to his father.’ Fletcher Marwick, a charmingly louche actor of
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only minor distinction, had died from a heart attack when Ben was in his teens, passed out after yet another long night on the lash. ‘How dare you interfere? Just because you don’t have kids of your own it doesn’t give you the right to play God with mine.’ Helen had finished her tirade with acid cruelty.
Kitty ‒ childless, as Helen had felt the need to point out ‒ had given the money to Ben in good faith. She adored her nephew and, knowing how much he hated his stressful, low-paid job, had been thrilled to be able to facilitate his change-of-life plan. Her sister’s outburst both surprised and shocked her.
‘He always loved film, even as a little boy,’ Kitty had reminded Helen, remembering the times she and Angus had taken her nephew to the cinema on his visits to the house and how he’d sat spellbound by every frame.
‘Watching them, not bloody making them,’ her sister had retorted.
‘But surely if he got into the film school he must have shown some talent,’ she suggested, in a conciliatory tone. ‘I’m sure they don’t take just anyone.’
‘That’s not the sodding point!’ Helen exploded. ‘Do you know the percentage of directors that actually make a reasonable living from their work in this country?’ She didn’t wait for Kitty to guess. ‘Probably two per cent at best. Two per cent.’
Although Kitty had apologized endlessly, Helen was unforgiving, and the froideur had continued over the last two years, mitigated only somewhat by Angus’s decline and the sympathy Helen obviously felt for her sister.
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Now Kitty took a deep breath and clicked on the call. ‘Hi, Helen.’
‘How’s it going, darling?’ Helen, whose normal delivery could be loud and a bit brash – as if she was engaging an unruly audience ‒ had begun to modify her tone when talking to Kitty since Angus had become ill, as if Kitty was old and fragile. ‘How’s dear Angus?’
Kitty knew she meant well but her sister’s question grated. Helen had made it clear right from day one that she didn’t approve of Angus. He’s too clever for his own good, was her harsh assessment when Kitty had first introduced them. What she really meant was that Angus had challenged her opinions in a way very few people dared to do.
And as the years went on, Kitty frequently got stuck between her husband and her sister having rows over some minor fact of history or politics ‒ or even something as trivial as whether the M25 was faster going eastbound or westbound if heading for Norfolk, for instance.
Since Angus’s diagnosis, though, Helen had taken to maintaining she’d always adored her brother-in-law. And Kitty wondered, looking back, if Angus and Helen had fundamentally enjoyed the sparring and dislike, maybe even come to love each other in their own peculiar way.
‘Much the same,’ Kitty replied.
‘God, it’s all so ghastly, sweetheart. I wish there was some magic I could do to change things,’ Helen said softly.
‘I wish there was too.’
‘Listen, I’ll come down for lunch one weekend, cheer you up.’ There was a pause, during which Kitty pictured
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her sister clicking through her phone diary. ‘Weekend after next any good?’
Kitty had no plans aside from Angus, as she’d wound down their previously lively social life when he had started to become confused and uncomfortable in company, even with those he was fond of. But she didn’t particularly relish a visit from her sister. She worried her reserves of tolerance were wearing thin under the pressure of Angus’s decline. Plus she didn’t want to end up listening to further rants about Ben or enduring lectures about what she should be doing with her own life. Helen fell neatly into the category of the bossy older sister.
‘Maybe see if I can rope Ben in,’ Helen added.
‘Lovely,’ Kitty replied, pleased at the thought of seeing her nephew, at least, and knowing Helen would behave better if her son was in tow. Then she found herself suddenly articulating the thoughts Helen’s call had interrupted. ‘I’ve just had this bonkers idea,’ she told her sister. ‘I bumped into an old friend in Chichester today. She’s been flooded out of the B-and-B she runs and now she’s coping with a small boy in a dreary rental in Littlehampton, miles from his nursery and friends. So it occurred to me, Jinx and I are rattling about in this big old house . . . and maybe . . .’ She stopped, wondering why on earth she was involving her sister, who always had strong opinions on everything, with which Kitty often disagreed.
‘Maybe you’ll ask them to stay.’ Helen was quick off the mark.
‘Well . . .’
‘Hmm, is that a good idea? Who is this person?’
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‘Vee Quirke. She’s lovely, an old mediation colleague who’s been living in New Zealand. We were good friends for a while.’ Kitty cleared her throat. ‘Don’t worry, Helen, I haven’t asked her and she probably wouldn’t come anyway. It was just a thought.’
Her sister was silent for a second. ‘I mean, if you’re lonely, darling, wouldn’t you be better off going back to work than taking in house guests?’ That Kitty should go back to work was a recurring theme of Helen’s – work was her god. ‘House guests are like fish, remember. They go off after three days.’ She chuckled at her own witticism. ‘Has this friend hinted she might stay? Seems a bit cheeky if she has, knowing the situation you’re in.’
Kitty wished she hadn’t brought up the subject. ‘No, of course not. Vee’s not like that.’
‘Don’t do it. Please. It won’t end well, mark my words.’
Kitty gave a noncommittal grunt, used to these bossy edicts from her dear sister and able to ignore them most of the time. But after they’d said goodbye, the idea wouldn’t go away. It nagged at her as she lay in bed later. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, she decided, as she finally drifted off to sleep.
