‘I’ll pay you back every penny,’ said Bess. ‘As soon as I can.’
‘You just get yourself straight. Will £500 help?’
The hope in her mother’s eyes almost destroyed Bess. ‘Of course it will, thank you.’ She flung her arms around her mother, hugged her tightly.
The fact that her mother thought £500 would be enough toget herself sorted made Bess feel ten times worse because it would barely scratch the surface and telling her mum that would only transfer some of the worry onto her shoulders. She didn’t need that either.
When the front door went, the conversation stopped there. She put a smile back on her face in time for Malcolm to arrive in the room.
They joked about Malcolm’s search for normal vanilla custard powder when the shelves were filled with all these fancy things, the effort to find vanilla ice cream when the flavour combinations had almost left vanilla behind.
‘It was so much easier to shop when there wasn’t so much variety,’ he concluded. He looked a bit bewildered that Fiona wasn’t really joining in the conversation. She was at the sink filling a pan of water for the potatoes, which didn’t need to go on yet unless they wanted a really early dinner.
Bess picked up her bag, looked around to say goodbye to Liquorice, but he’d got bored of them all and was probably curled up on her mum’s bed upstairs, his favourite place since Bess had left home. ‘I need to go; work beckons.’
‘You’re not staying?’ Malcolm didn’t look relieved, he looked disappointed, which gave Bess a good feeling.
‘I’m afraid I can’t – another time.’ She gave her mum a hug, whispered the question of whether she was all right into her ear and her mum nodded against her cheek. ‘I’ll nip upstairs and use your bathroom first.’
‘You know where it is,’ her mum said with false joviality.
Bess trotted up the stairs. She used the toilet and washed her hands, pausing at the sight of her mum’s single toothbrush in the little cup, the women’s shower gel and shampoo in the frameless shower her dad had had put in. There were no signs of him left save the few photographs around the house, the little things likehis shaving foam and aftershave had gone, his slippers were no longer at his side of the bed, there was no shoe horn propped up beside the front door for the smart, leather shoes he’d worn to work. There was even another man here now in his place at the table this evening.
But he seemed a good man. She had to remember that.
She stopped by her mum’s bedroom and, sure enough, Liquorice was curled up at the end on the old cardigan Fiona had left there for the cat. She kissed his forehead and he barely opened his eyes, so content in one of his favourite spots.
Bess went downstairs and was almost at the bottom when she thought she heard her mother crying. She stopped; she wasn’t sure. But after another minute, she knew she was right and it broke her heart.
She froze. She couldn’t intrude. It sounded like Malcolm was comforting her. And she sensed it was probably out of fright that Bess had been about to share another health worry.
Bess put on her coat, sat on the bottom stair. Should she sneak out and get to work? Or would that be worse? Should she not poke her head around the door but rather just call out her farewell?
She was still thinking when she heard them talking and she realised her mum had only gone and told him Bess had money troubles.
Bess didn’t know whether to fly in there all guns blazing or head straight out of the front door. He wasn’t her dad! He wasn’t in this family! If she’d wanted a stranger to know her business, she would’ve told him herself.
She crept back up the stairs and then made a show of coming down heavy footed, rounded the corner and called her goodbyes from there before grabbing her coat from the hook in the hallway.
‘Stay safe, love,’ her mum’s voice followed her.
‘Good to meet you,’ came Malcolm’s as she got to the front door and opened it before either of them could catch her up. And she didn’t look back; she got in the car and left.
Bess drove to the airbase. Part of her was fuming; another part wanted to fall in a heap and cry. Her dad had instilled the same messages over and over: that she should think about the future, not just the present, to be careful with money and save in case something unexpected happened. She’d tried to do that, the same way he had for years, before he’d died suddenly. He’d worked his arse off and for what? To leave a load of savings in bank accounts that he’d never get to use? He took holidays but could’ve had so many more and to further afield, he hadn’t updated his car even though it was getting old, he’d never bought that fancy barbecue he’d always talked about havingone day. He hadn’t spent much on the family home either apart from to keep it comfortable – a new bathroom suite when it began to show a lot of wear and tear, an upgrade to the kitchen when things began to start falling apart.
Her father’s death had started the ball rolling with Bess’s spending but it was the breast lump and the scare that she could be terminally ill, because that’s where your mind went when you were waiting to find out, that had really done it. She’d been faced head on with her own mortality and had begun to wonder, what really was the point of it all? You worked hard to put a roof over your head and food on the table and you saved, you saved hard, but for what? In the end, what was the point?
And just because the lump hadn’t turned out to be cancer, Bess’s head had been embroiled in the fear that another lump might appear, or that something else might happen to her. And so her mantra became,live each day as if it’s your last.It wasn’t like there was a day when she decided that was going to be the wayshe lived her life; it became a feeling that engulfed her – it became her purpose.
A few weeks after she had been given the all-clear, Bess had found herself driving to a shopping centre away from Whistlestop River where she could be incognito, grab a coffee, sit and watch the world go by. Since the scare, she’d found herself needing to do that more and more.
The café she tried to go to was packed, as if everyone was in need of the same comfort that day. And so she’d ended up in a posh restaurant nearby, ordering herself a slap-up meal of lobster and after that, she’d thought she’d better walk off the heavy meal, and she ended up going in and out of shops, browsing turning to buying, and buying making her feel better. She’d got home and felt a buzz when she got a text confirmation with the delivery time for her new plasma television she’d bought when she saw it on special offer. She’d smiled as she put away the designer-label jeans she’d splashed out on, excited to wear them soon, the cashmere jumper, the beautiful silk pyjamas, too. And she’d admired the totally unnecessary purchase of a new handbag, a bag that she never would’ve justified under normal circumstances with its buttery-soft leather, its smell, its feel of extravagance.
Bess pulled into the parking space at the air ambulance base. It was time to push away her worries, get ready for her shift.
She waved across to Frank, the engineer as he emerged from the building.
And just like she did every other day, she put on a smile which she knew she’d have to keep in place unless she wanted to fall apart.
