Beneath our feet the brown and orange checked lino rose and fell in a series of ripples, crackling slightly where we trod. A Welsh dresser looked ready to collapse under the weight of mountains of crockery, teapots, china ornaments, candlesticks, figurines, polished stones and bits of driftwood. From among this collection the old lady selected a porcelain urn, and ignoring the rising shriek of the kettle, measured out four teaspoons of black dust into a teapot.
“You must have one of my flapjacks,” she said, prising the lid off a biscuit tin which proved to contain nothing but a pile of used envelopes. She looked at them, mystified, for a second or two before laying the tin aside with a shrug. “How about a ham sandwich?” she said brightly
“No, thank you. Just tea would be lovely,” said Rachel, gesturing urgently towards the billows of steam pouring from the still-wailing kettle.
The old lady dived for the hob and snapped the gas off, and the room fell silent again. When she had tipped what was left of the boiling water on to the tea leaves, she wrenched open the fridge door and produced a sliced loaf and various cellophane packages, and began buttering bread, very fast, deaf to our protests.
Her task done, she turned back to us, beaming, holding a plate of limp sandwiches cut into eight triangles, the white bread still bearing the dimpled impression of her fingers. “There we are.” She looked at us expectantly.
“Thank you,” I said, helping myself to the least mauled of the triangles, and glaring at Rachel until she followed suit. The ham tasted slightly fishy Perhaps it wasn’t ham, I decided. Perhaps it was some form of beige, pressed fish. I ate two of the sandwiches, while Rachel nibbled delicately at the crust of her first one, and wondered how many we could leave on the plate without giving offence. I knew Rachel had no intention of sharing the obligation fifty-fifty: she tended to have sudden crippling attacks of vegetarianism on these occasions. The tea, at least, tasted recognisable, even if it was served in bone china cups so tiny they must have come from a teddy bears’ picnic.
“I wonder if we ought to have left a note on Auntie Jackie’s front door,” Rachel was saying, using this as an excuse to lay down her sandwich. “She won’t know we’re here.”
“Oh, yes. Perhaps we’d better go and see if she’s back,” the old lady agreed, as the two of us leapt to our feet. “It’s been lovely to meet you,” she said to me as we made our way along the corridor, and added confidentially, “I know your mother, you know.” And I now realised what had been dawning on me, oh so slowly all the time I had been in the house: she was completely and utterly mad.
As we reached the front door, it was pushed open by a guy of about nineteen who was holding a bicycle which he had evidently just carried up the steps. He had curly hair and thin oblong glasses and was dripping with sweat. We stood aside to let him pass into the house. He propped his bike against the wall and wiped his forehead on the edge of his T-shirt.
“Hello, dear,” said the old woman. “This is my grandson, Adam,” she explained. “These girls have come to visit Janice.”
“Jackie,” said Adam, not loudly enough for her to hear. He gave us an apologetic look.
“I said you’d carry their cases round for them later.”
“Oh, there’s no need,” said Rachel quickly. “We can manage. We’ve carried them halfway across London already”
Well, I did, I thought. You wheeled yours.
“It’s no trouble,” said Adam.
“If we could just have a piece of paper, we could leave a note to say where we are,” said Rachel, fishing in her bag for a biro.
“Why don’t you just borrow the spare key,” said Adam, selecting one from a row of hooks on the wall beside him. Rachel and I looked at each other.
“Do we have a key to Janice’s?” his grandmother said. “I didn’t know we had a key”
“She gave it to us because Charlie kept locking himself out.”
The old woman looked blank. “Who’s Charlie?”
This bewildering exchange was interrupted by the whoop of a siren which grew to a crescendo and then stopped as a police car pulled up at the kerb, lights flashing. The passenger door opened and a woman in a strappy sundress clambered out, showing rather a lot of leg. Her chunky calves were laced almost to the knee into high, cork-heeled espadrilles. She had long plum-coloured hair plaited into dozens of thin braids and gathered up into a sprouting ponytail high on her head. A pair of heavy chandelier earrings dragged at her earlobes. She flew up the steps towards us, blethering apologies.
Auntie Jackie.
“You got here. Thank God!” Auntie Jackie advanced on Rachel and me with arms outstretched and crushed us against her in an uncomfortable three-way hug. “I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t at the station. I went to Asda to get something nice for your dinner and on the way back some lunatic jumped the lights and smacked into the side of me. My car’s a wreck. Luckily there were witnesses. Anyway,” she went on, releasing us at last, so we could uncrick our necks, “you’re here, safe and sound, and that’s the main thing.” She stepped back and looked us up and down, her eyes resting admiringly on the expanse of smooth tummy exposed by the ten-centimetre gap between the end of Rachel’s vest and the start of her skirt. “Your dad was right,” she sighed. “I’ll be beating the men off with a broom.” She seemed quite capable of it too, if that hug was anything to go by
“You look so much like your mum,” she said, turning to me, and for an awful moment I thought she was going to cry, but she contented herself with a last bruising hug. All this while, the policeman had been busily unloading plastic bags of groceries from the boot of his car and carrying them up to the door of number 29. I wondered if all Brighton’s policemen were this helpful.
“There you are, lovely lady,” he called out when the job was done and he was about to drive off. Auntie Jackie went haring down to the kerb and leant, head and shoulders, through the driver’s window to speak to him. In fact, from where I was standing, she looked as though she was giving him a kiss, but she couldn’t have been. Could she?
Without waiting to be asked, Adam disappeared back inside his house and emerged with our suitcases, one in each hand, and carted them next door.
“Adam’s at the university” Auntie Jackie said, as if this was some rare and marvellous feat. “So he knows all the fun places. Don’t you, Adam?”
He nodded placidly.
“Thank you for looking after them,” she went on, as she kicked a path between the piles of Asda bags to let us into the house.
He didn’t seem to take this as his cue to go, but stood, loitering awkwardly while Auntie Jackie unlocked the door. I wondered if he was waiting for a tip. Then just as I turned my back to follow Auntie Jackie and Rachel inside, he tapped me on the shoulder and said in an urgent whisper, “My gran didn’t give you any food, did she?”
“Yes,” I said, a trifle uneasily
Adam went white. “Oh my God,” he said. “She always does
