or do you want to head straight off?’
‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’
I follow him into the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and beckons me to stand closer to him. He waits until the water starts to hiss until he speaks.
‘Monica’s not feeling too well,’ he says.
He points to the kettle, then up to the ceiling. What he means is that the walls are very thin in their three-bedroomed terraced house – you can hear next door sneezing, and I dread to think what else.
‘Shall I take her up a drink?’ I ask.
Making yourself heard whilst trying to be quiet is harder than it seems.
Dad shakes his head. ‘Best leave her to it, love.’
‘It’s okay,’ I say, pouring hot water into the teapot. ‘I want to see Monica for myself. I’ll take her up a digestive.’
Dad doesn’t look happy, but what is he going to do? Wrestle me to the ground to stop me? I pour tea into a china cup, and milk into a little jug, and place them on a tray with a biscuit she probably won’t eat. I carry them upstairs, everything rattling.
I balance the tray on the palm of one hand and knock on their bedroom door with the other. There’s no reply. She used to do this a lot when she and Dad had arguments about the boys when they were teenagers. Robert and Leo didn’t get on most of the time. They had to share a bedroom. Robert’s side was reasonably tidy; Leo’s not so much.
I knock again.
‘Monica, it’s me, Anna.’
Still no reply.
I open the door. My eyes go directly to their bed, but she’s sitting in the chair that faces the window. I place the tray on the little table, and sit on the footstool next to her.
‘Have you been crying?’ I ask.
She blinks several times.
‘Oh, hello, Anna. I’m sorry. I’m not with it today.’
‘That’s okay. Is it the news about Debbie?’
I can’t call Debbie my mother in front of her. It feels disloyal to Monica; she has always been here for me.
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ she says. ‘It’s all come as a bit of a shock.’
I pick up the cup of tea and offer it to her.
‘I’ve put two sugars in it.’
She purses her lips in a smile. ‘You’re too good to me. I don’t deserve it.’
‘Of course you do. Who else would put up with Robert and me?’
There is an answer that hangs in the air that neither of us even jokes about: Not my mother.
‘You know,’ she says, ‘I felt tremendous guilt getting together with your dad after your mother left. She was my best friend, you know. I met her in the third year of secondary school. I’d just moved up north, and spent the first couple of days sitting on my own at dinner time. Then Debbie came over to me – of course, she was Deborah, then. Her mum, you see, she always wanted her to be Deborah, never Debbie.’
I love hearing Monica talk about my mother like this. Grandad still calls her Deborah – when he talks about her, that is.
‘Has Dad told Grandad about the email?’
Monica drops a splash of tea onto her skirt as she sips from her cup. She frowns, disorientated at being interrupted.
‘I imagine so. You’ll have to ask him.’
I take the tea cup away from her as she dabs at the blotch.
‘Where was I? Oh yes, at school. She walked up to me, her dark, wavy hair flowing behind her – you’ve got her hair, you know, the exact same. She looked stunning. Who looks so beautiful while they’re a schoolgirl? Back then it was different – kids weren’t allowed to wear make-up to school, and I had terrible spots. Debbie thought she was hideous, but she was never hideous. She was a joy to be around … well, until the end … Anyway, when she met my eye that day, I was sitting on a bench near the Maths block. I had to turn around to check it was me she was talking to. “I hear you’re from London,” were her first words to me. “I’d love to go there,” she said.’
‘What did you two used to get up to?’
I have asked the question so many times, but Monica never complains. Sometimes, there will be something I’ve never heard before.
‘We didn’t get up to much really. In the first summer we spent together, we were fourteen. All we did was talk about boys, though the ones at our school could never compare to David Cassidy.’ She smiles at me. ‘He was famous in the seventies – Google him. We were so naive. We read about boys and sex from a book, for God’s sake. Forever by Judy Blume – though we’d heard about most things by sixteen.’ She returns her gaze to the window. ‘We didn’t spend much time at her house. I think she was ashamed, but she needn’t have been – her parents were lovely.’
‘Why would she feel ashamed?’
‘Her parents sent her to a school in the next town – she mixed with other people than those on her estate.’ She looks at me and places a hand on mine. ‘I’m not saying that it’s right or anything, for her to have felt like that. It’s just how it was. Her parents were older than most when she was born. When she was growing up, they focused on what was best for her. I wish my parents had been like that, but Debbie felt embarrassed that they showed so much interest in her life. It made her lonely, I think. She didn’t have many friends. She was like you, really.’
‘A loner, you mean?’
‘No, no. As if I’d say something like that to you.’ She squeezes my hand, rubbing the top of it with her thumb. ‘She chose her friends carefully … was wary of other people. Her parents sheltered her from the big bad world, protected her from the hardship they suffered.’ Monica sighs. ‘Time goes by too quickly. She was always there for me. Until the end. It was all my fault.’
My ears tingle with a new bit of the story – she has never mentioned any cross words between them.
‘What do you mean it was your fault?’
‘Has your dad never talked about the troubles we had?’
‘He doesn’t talk about her much at all, let alone any problems.’
‘Thinking about it … I don’t know if Peter would want me to say anything to you about it.’ Monica’s not looking at me any more. ‘We haven’t talked about it for such a long time, I don’t know what he remembers. Memories can get distorted … hold you back, you know? Such a horrible time.’
Monica is staring out of the window again. It’s like a mist has covered her eyes, between the past and the present. I follow her gaze. Mr Flowers, from the house opposite, has dropped his keys; he’s trying to pick them up using the end of his walking stick. I should go out and help him,
