“That’d be lovely.”
Jess unlocked the front door and they went together into the kitchen, where Jess moved quickly to the kettle, putting it on to boil.
Mrs. Robinson sat on a stool at the bench. “You’ve been to see your grandmother?”
“This afternoon.”
“You’ll have noticed she’s gone downhill a bit.”
“I wish you’d warned me.” Jess hadn’t meant to sound so accusatory. It was a reaction to the shock of Nora’s state. She had been completely unprepared. “I suppose she made you promise not to.”
“You know what she’s like. She wouldn’t admit that she was having any trouble.”
“She’s lost weight.”
“And height,” Mrs. Robinson agreed.
“We’re going to need to feed her up again when she gets home.”
Mrs. Robinson raised an eyebrow. “Did the hospital say anything about that?”
“They were a bit vague. I guess they have to be; they don’t know who they’re dealing with.”
The kettle whistled. Jess poured boiling water over the tea bags and swirled them as they steeped. She asked after Mrs. Robinson’s family and smiled at the antics of her four cheeky grandsons and single, doted-on granddaughter. “I sometimes think she’s the rowdiest of the lot of them,” said Mrs. Robinson. “Not that I disapprove. On the contrary. More power to her.”
“The future is female,” said Jess, bringing over their teas. “Isn’t that what they say?”
“You sound exactly like your grandmother.”
Jess sat on the kitchen side of the bench, opposite Mrs. Robinson. She could just reach Nora’s biscuit tin and plucked it down from the shelf, pulling off the lid and proffering the open container. Mrs. Robinson helped herself to a shortbread, and Jess took one, too, setting it on the bench beside her cup of tea. “May I ask you something?”
“You can ask. I can’t promise to know the answer.”
“You were here when Nora and her husband separated?”
Mrs. Robinson nodded. Did Jess imagine the caution? “I began working for your grandmother a couple of years before that. I was only sixteen when I started.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“No reason you should. I was well and truly part of the furniture by the time you came along!”
“A very fine piece of furniture.”
Mrs. Robinson laughed. “Your grandmother and I met quite by chance. I’d only recently arrived in Sydney, having left behind an unhappy past. I was heading down a bad path and Nora threw me alifeline. She gave me a few odd jobs to start with, paid me enough to keep me in food and shelter, but the best thing she did was to put her faith in me. It was the first time anyone had trusted me with real responsibilities.” The older woman had relaxed into the telling and was enjoying the memory.
Jess prompted gently: “I was wondering about the custody arrangements for Polly when they divorced.”
Mrs. Robinson glanced at her, momentary confusion clearing quickly as she remembered the question that had sparked her recollection. “I’m afraid I don’t know the details. As I said, I hadn’t been working here for long. Your grandmother wasn’t in the habit of taking me into her confidence back then. Why do you ask?”
“I think there’s something playing on Nora’s mind. Patrick mentioned that she’d said a few strange things recently—that she was worried about someone taking her baby—and I wondered whether it might be a concern from her past that she’s reliving.”
Mrs. Robinson smiled sympathetically. “Your grandmother hasn’t seemed quite herself lately. She’s been a bit confused. But whatever it was she said to Patrick, there’s every chance it didn’t mean a thing.”
“But it might have,” Jess countered. “And if it did, and we can work out what it was, we might be able to offer her some relief.”
“I’m sorry, Jessica,” the housekeeper said, “but nothing comes to mind. And I have to say, even if she were remembering a past event, it could be one of any number of minor fears. She was a very protective parent of a much-longed-for baby. I daresay there were many times when Polly was tiny that your grandmother worried she’d somehow lose her. It’s every parent’s nightmare.”
But Jess was not prepared to let go that easily. “It seems strange to me that she and her husband went their separate ways and he never got in touch again. They can’t have parted on good terms.”
