Her phone starts to vibrate and Jo grabs it with something like relief. It’s her mum. Jo holds it to her ear and is talking for a moment before she realizes her mum has video-called her – this is not her usual style.
As Jo looks down into the screen, she can see the top half of her mum’s head, wavy dark hair threaded with grey; the rest of the screen is ceiling. It doesn’t seem to be the farmhouse: there are ornate scrolls on the cornicing and she spots a green ‘Exit’ sign above what looks like a door.
‘Hi, Mum, where are you?’
‘Jo, I think I’ve got this. Elaine, one of the carers, showed me how to switch to video on WhatsApp. Can you see me?’
‘Yes,’ Jo laughs, ‘well, half of you.’
‘Oh, there you are. Ah, it is a treat to see your face. You look tired – are you okay? It’s not all too much for you?’
Jo feels a twinge of guilt. She calls her mum every now and then, but she hasn’t been home for a weekend since she got here. ‘I’m good, Mum.’
‘I’m here with Wilbur.’ Her mother’s head dips even further off the screen. ‘I’ve got her, Wilbur. I’ll show you.’ And with this the screen blurs and Jo is suddenly looking at her Uncle Wilbur. He is sitting in a winged chair upholstered in burgundy fabric. He is wearing sandy-coloured trousers and a blue jumper, but the clothes look loose on him, like they are a size too big. Jo’s heart aches; her uncle has never been tall, but he was always a solidly built man. This man looks as if he is fading away. He is not looking at the screen, but at a point somewhere in the distance – maybe at her mother?
She can hear her mother’s voice. ‘Can you see him, Jo?’ She then says more quietly, ‘They said it might be nice for him to see faces from the past,’ then more loudly, ‘Wilbur, it’s Jo.’
‘Jo?’ His voice sounds hesitant but as he repeats her name it gains more certainty. ‘Our Jo?’
Jo breaths out. It is still her uncle.
‘Give me that phone, woman – you have no idea what you’re doing,’ and with this Uncle Wilbur grabs the phone and Jo laughs. Oh, that’s her uncle all right. Now she is looking full at her uncle’s face. ‘Hello Jo, where are you? Still with that bollox James?’ Jo gasps. ‘He’s a right fart, Jo. How’s uni going? Where is it again?’
‘Bath,’ Jo says faintly, at the same time wondering –you too? Was she the only one who liked James?
Jo can hear her mother’s voice in the background. ‘Wilbur, you know Jo left university years ago. She’s in London looking after your shop for you. You know she is.’
Jo wonders who her mother is trying to convince.
‘You’re in the shop? What, playing post offices?’ Her uncle’s face is grinning at her.
‘Certainly am, Uncle Wilbur,’ Jo tells him.
‘You having fun, lass? Keeping out of trouble?’
‘Good as gold,’ she assures him, then on the spur of the moment asks, ‘Uncle Wilbur, do you remember Malcolm, from the shop? Tall man, buys notebooks.’
‘Malcolm …?’ Her uncle sounds uncertain, and Jo can’t help feeling disappointed. ‘Should I?’ he asks her, and doubt has threaded its way into his voice. Jo can see that he is starting to look worried, so she changes the subject. ‘I met a runaway vicar in the shop the other day,’ she tells him.
‘Did you now?’ Uncle Wilbur perks up. ‘What was he running away from?’
‘It was a she, and I don’t know.’
‘A she? You don’t say. Well, you know the answer to that one, don’t you?’
‘No?’
‘A place for everything, and everything in its place. This runaway vicar of yours just needs to find her place.’ Wilbur then repeats, ‘A female vicar, you say?’
Jo can see her mother’s hand trying to take the phone, but Wilbur is having none of it. He pulls away and swivels the phone around, showing Jo the rest of the room. ‘Quite fancy here, lass, look at this. It’s a hotel they’ve got me in. No sea, though. Bit disappointing that.’
Jo can see a bed-sitting room, chintzy and comfortable-looking. It could almost be a hotel, apart from the number of sturdy-looking horizontal bars screwed to the walls, presumably to stop Uncle Wilbur from falling again.
Jo smiles, ‘It looks really nice, Uncle Wilbur. And with all those bars you could do ballet.’
Uncle Wilbur’s face suddenly appears on the screen. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I can’t do ballet,’ he barks.
Jo can hear her mother making soothing noises as she takes the phone. But before she loses sight of her uncle’s face, she sees it crumple into confusion.
