rain hat from her coat pocket and gave Laura a look that said, you'll have to do better than that, dear.
Laura looked out to sea. A container ship almost stuck to the horizon. At this distance it looked as innocuous as a child's drawing of a generic boat. But she knew they were over a thousand feet long; she'd seen them hulking their way for fuel at Seal Sands at the mouth of the Tees. She glanced at Mary and thought how her life was like that container ship; mostly so distant that it was inconsequential though it could suddenly loom large and in pin-sharp focus and fill her mind. But it always sailed away from her until she was just an infirm pensioner, muttering to herself while she gazed out of the window in the overheated sunroom of an old-age home.
‘Well – I wonder whose brolly this is,’ Laura murmured because she often chose to appear less bright than she was – a ploy she used with the residents because she thought it was patronizing, intimidating even, to bandy her youth and savvy in their presence.
‘Elsie's, probably,’ said Mary, ‘daft old bat.’
‘Elsie is lovely,’ Laura said.
‘Or else it'll be Catherine's.’ And Mary started to laugh. ‘She's a one. She never knows where things are. She never knows where they belong. She forgets what they're for. Her fanny being a case in point.’
‘Mrs S!’ Laura protested.
‘Everyone knows about Catherine's fanny,’ Mary said and she had to stop completely because she was laughing so much, ‘not that she does. She didn't know when it fell right out.’
‘Mary, you're unkind – it was a prolapse. It can happen to anyone.’
‘I'm not unkind,’ Mary said very straight, quiet but sharp.
Laura wanted to say, I know you're not – it's your condition that's so unkind. Memory loss one day, inertia the next, sudden aggression or unpleasantness but, cruellest of all, acute lucidity every now and then. ‘Catherine – Mrs Tiley – can't help it,’ Laura said.
‘Nor can I,’ Mary said, stopping, ‘nor can I.’ She looked at Laura squarely. ‘I may not have had a prolapse but I know something dreadful is happening to me. They're right to call me mad or doolally. I've heard them. I feel it coming. I know I try to run away – but often it's only when you bring me back again that I know I've even been.’
Laura linked arms with her and gave a little squeeze.
‘Swallows is very comfortable, Laura dear. And you are a love. But I don't want to belong at Swallows. More than that, though, I don't want the mind I have now. It's like Babel in here sometimes.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘And I'm trapped.’
‘Let's get away from this cliff – there's a strong wind today. Let's follow the road round. Let's buy a fancy something from Chocolini's. Let's not talk about sad things.’
‘Tomorrow – even this afternoon – Catherine might be talking about me because I may be talking claptrap again but of course I won't know it.’
‘Let's not talk about Mrs Tiley.’
‘I don't like what's happening to me, dear. It's the normal periods in between that make it so dreadful. I almost long for the day to come when I'll be permanently gaga. What fun I shall provide Mrs Tiley and the gang then.’
‘Come, Mary, be kind to yourself.’
They turned into Milton Street, the jewel streets running down from Marine Parade acting as a filter to the brunt of the slicing wind that can come off the North Sea at all times of the year.
‘There's that girl of Joe's,’ Mary suddenly said.
Laura looked ahead and saw Tess peering in through the ornamental grilles in front of the dusty old windows of Keith's Sports. ‘So it is.’
‘Haven't seen Joe, have we. Not for some time.’
‘No,’ Laura said, ‘we haven't, not for a bit.’
‘Dear!’ Mary called ahead. ‘Dear! Emmeline and mother! Emmeline and mother!’
Tess was surprised to hear her baby's name and more surprised to see who called her. She waited under the old iron and glass canopy as they approached.
‘What is your name, dear?’ Mary asked. ‘Laura here thinks it's Tess but I don't think that's right. Joe's girl isn't called Tess, I keep telling her. Joe's girl is called Kate. It's been Kate for a long, long time.’
Kate? Who's Kate?
Laura could see Tess trying to compute the information.
‘Not Kate,’ Tess said as if it wasn't an issue, ‘it really is Tess.’
‘Well, I liked Kate,’ Mary said indignantly, pursing her lips, which tempted Tess to say, well, Joe likes me.
‘Chocolini's,’ Laura said as if it was a password or peace offering. ‘You coming, Tess?’
Ice cream was a luxury and an extravagance that Tess couldn't allow to cross her mind too often. It was, however, the perfect day for one, with May so close and the weather mild.
‘Where are we going?’ Mary asked.
‘To Chocolini's – the fancy place you love,’ Laura said.
‘Would you like an ice cream, Mary?’ Tess asked, clearing her throat.
‘I'll have vanilla. A licky, not a cup,’ Mary said. ‘Kate, you are kind.’
‘Tess,’ Tess said quietly, feeling disconcerted by Kate, ‘I'm Tess.’
She had to extend the offer to Laura. And she couldn't deny Em. And it would look very strange if she was the only one not to have an ice cream so Tess rifled through her purse and paid as quickly as she could, snapping the clasp shut when she was midway through calculating what remained. Mary and Em derived much merriment swapping a lick of strawberry for a lick of vanilla and they chuckled and conversed as easily as if they were contemporaries.
‘He's gone again, has he?’ Laura asked Tess, aside. Tess nodded. ‘He didn't come by, you know, not this time. I don't know how, but she always knows when he's in town, does Mary. But he didn't come by this time, like.’
Tess felt compromised. She didn't want to consider that Joe might not be the dutiful son she'd like to earmark him as. But nor did she want to talk about Joe – she'd much rather ask about Kate. ‘He was very busy. I don't know when he's coming home. A week or so, I imagine.’ How to slip Kate in? Think of a way!
They licked their ice creams, both thoughtful for different reasons.
‘You been together long, then?’
‘Who?’
‘You and Joe?’
‘Me and Joe?’ The ice cream tasted suddenly more lovely.
‘You're an item, aren't you? Mary says you're Joe's girl.’
Tess knew she had a single chance, before
