‘Do you know what he said? He said, “Graham, you’re not dead. Go and visit a cemetery and you’ll soon feel much better.” It’s not funny, Jan!’
‘Shush!’ Lucie gestures to us, still on the telephone to the woman who viewed the house in Broughton yesterday.
‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ she’s saying. ‘No, ofcourse, I understand.’ They say their goodbyes and she hangs up.
‘So?’ Graham asks as we hear footsteps coming downstairs and towards our office. Quickly I tie Spud’s lead around my chair leg.
‘Ward,’ Lucie addresses him, ‘I’ve just heard from—’
‘Broughton House. And?’
‘She’s been in hospital. Her husband tripped over the garden hosepipe. She tried to help him up, but then fell over herself and all her fingers were like this.’
There’s a snort of laughter from Graham as Lucie bends her own fingers back to ninety degrees.
‘Then when their daughter saw her fingers she fainted,’ Lucie continues, ‘and if you can believe it, she then goes and knocks her head on the marble mantelpiece.’
Ward’s eyes glaze over. ‘Is she interested or not?’
There’s an awkward pause. ‘No,’ Lucie says.
He leaves the room, telling Nadine he’s heading out for a minute.
When we hear the front door slam Graham bursts into laughter. Nadine rushes in to see what’s going on. ‘And then what happened?’ Graham swivels his chair round to Lucie’s.
She presses her head into her hands. ‘Did you see Ward’s face? He thinks we’re a bunch of losers.’
Graham crosses his arms. ‘Listen, sweetie, we can’t make people fall in love with the houses we show them, we’re not magicians. Ward might think he knows it all…’
‘Graham!’ Nadine says, all of us still laughing nervously. Even Spud gets the joke, his little squashed nose wrinkling as he looks up at me with a smile.
‘… but seriously, that man has a charisma bypass.’
6
As Isla and I drive to Grandad’s for his birthday weekend, I only wish that when we drove through the gate we’d see Granny waving. I picture her standing by the door, dressed in her muddy gardening trousers, carrying a basket filled with flowers, carrots or spuds. That’s where we got the name for Spud. Isla loved Granny’s roast spuds.
Her absence is like a hole in my heart. During the first year following her death, I felt as if I were in a permanent traffic jam. I realise now grief is a sort of madness, in the same way that falling in love is. When I fell in love with Isla’s father, Daniel, I didn’t notice the world around me, only him. When Granny died it seemed grotesque that the world should carry on. When someone you love dies, the stars and sun disappear and it takes a long time to see light again, to look out of the window and see a blue sky.
She was my mother, best friend, the first person I’d ring when I needed to hear a familiar voice. I think of all those times I sought her advice. I also knew that everything I asked Granny was also put to Grandad. They were a formidable team. Granny was my rock; he was hers. When I told Granny what Dan had done, Granny had to physically stop Grandad from getting in the car in the battering winds and rain and driving to London to give this man a piece of his mind. I have learned from my grandparents that in life I have to stand up for myself, but more importantly, I have to stand up for others.
I look across at Isla, now fast asleep. We stayed up late last night, talking as we iced Grandad’s chocolate sponge. So far Isla has escaped the likes of the Toby Browns, but I’m worried about her going to secondary school this autumn. When we moved to Cornwall and I went to secondary school, Granny advised me not to tell friends about my past. ‘What they don’t know they can’t hurt you with,’ she’d said. ‘All you need to do is make one friend, find that one person in your tribe.’ She was right. I found Lizzie. Lizzie was different from all the rest with her long straggly hair and nose ring that the teachers made her take out during term time. She paid no attention to the cliques and cool girls. She was also the only person curious enough to ask me why I lived with my granny and grandad and I knew I could trust her with my secret.
As I continue driving I smile, remembering how funnyGranny could be. She never used to let Lucas and me get away with not doing the washing-up. ‘Why should I cookandclear up?’ she’d ask, chasing us around the table with the drying-up cloths, a game that usually ended in laughter. ‘You pick a husband, January, who will dry the dishes.’
Lucas and I used to wonder what Granny did when she was young. ‘Hush-hush,’ she’d reply, pressing a finger against her lips.
‘Were you a spy?’ asked Lucas, his brown eyes shining with curiosity.
‘Not exactly, but I worked in an organisation where there were spies.’ I could feel Lucas’s excitement rise like a bird soaring to the sky. I was picturing Granny sitting on a park bench dressed in a wig and shades, hiding her face behind a newspaper.
‘Tell us more,’ Lucas insisted.
I think Granny was so pleased to have his rapt attention that she did. I recall her reinforcing that the work was so hush-hush that if they had typed a letter with a mistake they had to tear the piece of paper into tiny little shreds before casting it into the bin. One morning one of her colleagues had been so angry with their boss that she’d hurled her bin out of the window, secret scraps of paper littering the road and pavement. She had been fired on the spot. ‘That’s how top secret it was,’ Granny had said.
I am jolted from my thoughts when my mobile rings. It’s Lucas. I pray he’ll say he’s jumping on a train and will be with us later. ‘How are you?’ he asks.
‘Fine. I can’t speak long, I’m driving.’
