Chapter Thirty-four
July
Living at Kilmory Cottage: Carly, Frank, Kenny, Eddie
Bella and Ana both offer Eddie their beds that night. No, he’ll be fine, he insists. ‘You’ve had a rough time, Ed,’ Bella reminds him. ‘Honestly, I don’t mind. I’ll sleep downstairs on the sofa.’
‘I’ll befine,’ he says, a little more forcefully now that Prish, Myra, Sandra and Ian have left. The sofa will be FINE, seeing as Granddad seems to have moved into his room now!
Eddie observes me, pointedly, as I spread a sheet over the sofa, and then bring down the spare duvet we’d always kept for sleepovers, and which Dad rejected in favour of blankets. ‘I hope you’re comfy here,’ I say, feeling helpless as to how to make him feel better. He’s already spilled out what happened: the blind fiasco.The blind you ordered, Mum.As if that, like the pregnancy, was somehow also my fault. Imagine, buying him an item that would result in injury and unemployment! Andhadn’t he told me that he’d put it up months ago? Why had he lied about that?
‘What happened exactly?’ Frank asked. Eddie muttered that the stepladder he’d used, in order to position the blind accurately –according to the instructions– had suddenly collapsed. And then his boss had been totally unsupportive – sacking him with no notice, for having an accident! Eddie had only found out when he’d borrowed Raj’s phone again and finally managed to get hold of Marius at the restaurant. As he doesn’t know Lyla’s number, he’s been unable to contact her – and instead of being at home when she was due to visit, he’d opted for drowning his sorrows in the pub. When he’d woken this morning, depressed, hungover and still phoneless, all he could think of was to grab a bag of essentials and catch the next train home.
We’d all gathered around him, dispensing sympathy and careful hugs, so as not to knock his bad arm. ‘It’sfine,’ he said sharply as I fussed over him, asking if it hurt, or whether he needed painkillers.
I glance at him now, all pale and exhausted and looking as if he’s been in a fight. I’ve already texted Suki, explaining briefly what’s happened and asking for Lyla’s number. As she has yet to reply, I assume she’s up at the cabin. ‘I’ll just fetch you a pillow,’ I say.
‘Yeah, if you’ve got one,’ he mutters.
I frown, suddenly reminded of my petulant, pre-Edinburgh son.Now you’re deciding which Quality Street I like?‘Eddie, of course there’s a pillow—’
‘—Or I could make do with a cushion.’
Don’t rise to it, I tell myself. He’s been through anawful lot. ‘Sure you’ll be okay down here?’ I ask later, when he’s tucked up.
‘Yeah.’Please go away now,is the strong signal he’s sending out. The fact that he has Lyla’s number now – Suki got back to me, full of concern – hasn’t seemed to lift his mood.
‘You know the girls are heading off tomorrow, so you’ll have a bed then,’ I add. Eddie nods, duvet pulled up tightly to his chin. ‘You’re not really fed up that Granddad’s in your room, are you?’
A shrug. ‘Not really.’
I peer at him, trying to make sense of this. ‘Eddie, you’d moved out. I didn’t think you’d be back. And you knew Granddad had moved in with us—’
‘I didn’t know he’d have my room!’
I open my mouth, stunned by his outburst. ‘Should we have asked permission?’
‘It would’ve been nice to know it was still there,’ he mutters, looking a little shamefaced now.
‘Itisthere,’ I say, patience fraying now. ‘And it’s only temporary, Granddad being here—’
‘Yeah,’ Eddie says. ‘It’s just that some parents keep their kids’ roomsexactlyas they are.’
*
As ashrine, he meant, which kills Prish, Jamie and Marilyn when I tell them at the library on Monday morning. ‘Like you did, Prish,’ Jamie teases. ‘Didn’t you have Joe’s room up on Airbnb before he’d unpacked his stuff in uni halls?’
We laugh, and as the days go on, I take to offloading about my home situation on a daily basis. Since the weekend at the cabin, Suki and I have also been messaging occasionally. Oliver was concerned about my dad, she’s told me, and she’s reassured him that everything’s okay. I’m enjoying the connection with her, mainly because we’re sharing a huge thing here; the arrival of our first grandchild. Happily, the focus is more on the birth, and the baby, than the parents’ relationship. What names do we think they’ll choose? Does Lyla have a birth plan? We share our own birth stories and admit how nerve-shredding it’ll be for us, when the day finally arrives.
Also, surprisingly to me, Suki seems to enjoy my updates on home life.Carly, you’re a saint,she’s said on more than one occasion. Of course it’s not true because often my thoughts are far from saintly. But all of this helps to keep me sane while I’m living with Frank, Eddie and Dad. A lone female now, missing my daughters and concerned about Bella, even though she insists she’s okay.
Meanwhile Dad keeps insisting that I’m trying to overfeed him. And Eddie’s lengthy soaks in the bath trigger much door banging from Dad. In turn, Eddie is appalled by our new dinner-on-laps regime with the endless quiz shows, and the way his granddad leaves his pill packets scattered all over the bathroom.
‘Everything’s gone soweirdhere,’ he’s complained. As if, during his absence, Kilmory Cottage was taken over by an invading force, who have instilled a harsh and unsettling new regime, and no one thought to warn him. Plus, since his spell in Edinburgh his already tenuous ties with his remaining Sandybanks friends seem to haveweakened even more. Without a phone, it seems, you just can’t communicate with anyone (when I suggested he popped round to see a couple of old mates in person, he looked aghast). Quite reasonably, Frank says we’re not buying him another phone, not when there’s a perfectly good one sitting in an Edinburgh flat. Why can’t Lyla post it to him? I have no idea, and am loath to broach the subject. Perhaps she, like Eddie, is allergic to anything to do with the postal system.
Meanwhile I might have expected that, as a professional chef, Eddie might offer to cook now and again. But instead, he has taken to patronising me in the kitchen. ‘Your knife skills are terrible,’ he hectors, looming over me in his hooded brown robe as I dice an onion. Yep, now they’re reunited – the disgusting article was given a boil-wash in his absence – and he’s taken to wearing it again like a second skin. ‘You shouldneverstir a paella, Mum,’ he scolds. ‘You’re breaking down the starch in the rice and that’s what’s making it sludgy.’
This from the boy who incinerated my best pan and grated his thumb!
