Jacob was sitting on the sofa, staring sightlessly at a SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon, a sure sign of worry and preoccupation. Steeling herself, she sat beside him, fully expecting him to shrug himself away and stalk off.
However, he didn’t. After a moment – to Liz’s warm, blessed relief – he snuggled up against her as he’d done so many, many times before.
‘Grandma,’ he said in a small voice, eyes not leaving the screen. ‘Grandma, youhaveto keep your beta cells working. Theyhaveto keep hoovering the sugar up out of your blood.’
And all at once Liz understood. Heard the fear in his voice – and understood the root cause of his anger. She felt a sudden, warm, swell of realisation that here was one person who loved her, and out in the kitchen was another who loved her, and that both of them cared for her enough to try and keep her out of direct sunlight and away from sugary snacks.
‘I know,’ she said sensibly, putting her arm round him, so he could snuggle still further. ‘And one of the reasons I know is that you’ve explained it all to me so well. And what I want you to do now is go online and find me a reasonably priced gizmo for testing blood sugar so we can keep checking how I’m doing.’ She expected him to nod, leap up in search of his tablet, but instead her merely nodded, eyes fixed to the screen.
‘Is there something else worrying you, lovey?’ she said, knowing full well there was.
Finally, Jacob looked at her, eyes magnified and troubled behind his spectacles. ‘It’s Anna-Marie,’ he said.
‘Anna-Marie from your direct action group?’ said Liz. ‘Why, what’s she done?’
Jacob took a deep breath, marshalling his words in the way he’d done ever since he’d learned how to talk.
‘So, you know our blog,Climate Change Devastation?’ he said. Liz did, of course she did. Barely a day went by when she wasn’t WhatsApped some photo of parched trees and browning vegetation. ‘She’slying.’ He brought up a picture on his tablet showing a flower bed, earth cracked, plants brown and very, very dead. ‘That’s her garden,’ he said.
‘Oh dear,’ said Liz, wincing at the sight of such horticultural devastation. She looked at Jacob. ‘Her garden?’
‘Oh yes.’ Jacob nodded. ‘But it’s only like that because she deliberately hasn’t watered it, not even with a watering can. She’s just left it, so people will think it’s like that even with watering.’
‘That does seem rather extreme,’ agreed Liz.
‘I mean I know how bad climate change is, but isn’t it wrong not to be truthful about it?’
Liz thought of the Vegan Moments. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Yes, it is. Deception is not right.’
As Jacob got up to fetch his tablet, Liz remained sitting there. A train of thought had started flickering in her mind, just beyond sight but definitely there. A brush left soaking in white spirit … someone going in Ffion’s house, going through drawers – and boots liberally splashed yellow …
Direct action … telling a lie to support a truth or something you believed was true …
When Jacob appeared twenty minutes later with three blood sugar monitors to show her, she was still sitting there, frowning.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Monday 28th July
From the Surviving Hay Fever: A Guide for Sufferers website:
Tip 9: Wearing wrap-around sunglasses can effectively prevent pollen getting in your eyes when outdoors
‘And you’resurethe boots weren’t there?’ said Pat. Today she wasn’t even bothering to hide her yawns. How many restless nights had it been? Four? Five? ‘I mean they could’ve been hidden away at the back of the cupboard, behind all the cleaning stuff?’
Liz nodded her head firmly. ‘Positive,’ she said. ‘While Ffion was in the shower, I had a good poke around and those boots were not there.’ She turned to Jax who was sipping a mango smoothie through a straw. ‘And they weren’t that well-hidden, were they?’
Jax shook her head, ponytail swinging, swallowing down a mouthful of smoothie. ‘The minute I opened that door I saw them,’ she confirmed. ‘I thought: aye aye – what’s that? But Ffion’ll have put them somewhere else, as soon as she got wind that people knew what she’d done. That or chucked them.’
‘Unless,’ said Liz, ‘it’s like Ffion says – someone’s been in the house.’
The ponytail shook emphatically from side to side. ‘She’sbound to say that. We know she lied about coming back to the house – so why not lie about this?’
Pat bit back another yawn. It didn’t feel quite so blisteringly hot that morning. The rays that penetrated the linen drapes on the windows of the garden centre café were hot but maybe not quite so scorching in their power. Which was just as well – if it’d been any warmer, she’d have had serious trouble staying awake.
The previous night after Justin and Rod had come back from the Wheatsheaf, they’d had a family conflab. Rod (hastily pulled to one side and primed by Pat) had said the couple could stay with them as long as they needed –live, not stay, Pat had corrected. Justin had said that was Mega and Amazing, and implied it wouldn’t need to be for very long as he had several Irons in the Fire and Projects in the Pipeline. Tiffany had said very little. For once she looked lost, a little girl in a world of grown-ups.
‘A baby,’ Rod kept saying, later on when the two of them were in bed. ‘Ababy. How’s that going to work?’
