Swallowing Grandma (35 page)

I didn’t know what to do. Was Poll in hospital again? Had she died? But no, Maggie or someone would have phoned and told me, surely.

I hunted for a note or a letter to tell me what was going on; nothing. I phoned Maggie and Dogman, but there was no reply from either. Finally I called a taxi and went to see Cissie at the home.

Mr Poole was in reception, wearing a Santa hat on his head. It was jingle all the way. ‘I’ll fill your stocking,’ I heard him say to Ally as I signed in.

‘Honest,’ she rolled her eyes at me, and her face was the colour of a cricket ball, ‘they’re like a class of infants. There’s still three weeks to go, you know. Come here if you want that tinsel sticking on your Zimmer.’

I found Cissie in her room. She was looking distracted.

‘Thank God you’ve come,’ she said when she saw me. ‘I’ve had a message from the Railway.’

‘How do you mean?’ I was thinking I’d left something on the train, maybe.

‘The Railway Arms. Maggie gave them my number to get in touch with you because she thought you’d come here. She was supposed to meet you off the train, but she’s fell on some black ice and they had to carry her into the pub. They think she might have broken her cheekbone. She’s been tekken to the Royal Bolton, anyroad. They’re like glass at the best of times, them cobbles down to the station. They want tarmacking.’

‘Oh God, poor Maggie.’

‘I know, it’s a shame. She’s a kind woman. Too kind. She were bothered about you, they said.’

I sat down on the bed. ‘Yeah, what’s going on? Is Poll all right? The house is deserted.’

Cissie pursed her lips. ‘All right? I should say she’s all right. She’s flitted, that’s all.’

‘
Moved house
, after all this time?’

‘And how.’

‘She didn’t think to tell me. Typical. God, that’s my home.’

‘Not any more, it in’t. That’s why Maggie were meeting you, to bring you up to speed. Poll decided, a couple of months back, she wanted a new bungalow. She came to see me last week. I thought there must be summat up. Brought a box of Roses and delivers this bombshell.’ She reached for the chocolates and shook the carton. ‘Oh. I was going to say have one, but they’ve all gone.’

‘Never mind. So where is she?’

‘Well, you know Coslett’s farm? Right at t’ other end of the village, on t’ way to Ambley? There, in a bungalow for the disabled.’

I was following the route in my head. ‘Next to the white farmhouse?’

‘That’s right. John Coslett built it for his mother, and then she died, and then a chap from Harrop had it awhile. And it’s come on the market again.’

‘So Poll’s sold our house?’ It was unbelievable.

‘No. Not yet.’

‘So how’s she funded it? Is it a social services thing? You’re going to have to talk me through this, Cissie, ’cause I don’t get it at all.’

‘No, well, you wouldn’t. It was a shock to me. I’ll tell you what she said. She reckoned, if she was going to have to live on her own, she wanted somewhere easier to cope with. Hand rails, no steps, a special bath, big windows. It’s very deluxe, she showed me the details; a beautiful garden. That I’ve no problem with. “But,” I asked her, “who’s paid for it?” And she said, “Me, I have.” So I said, “How have you done that? Have you come up on t’ lottery?” And she said—’

‘What?’

‘She’s been collecting money from Vince for years. Or should I say, Dickie has, on her behalf. He had property, Vince. I don’t know how many houses he owned, but he’d been buying to rent since his grandad and then his mum left him their houses. He’d used the rent to buy others, and so it went on. Nowt flash, just little terraces, but it all added up. I knew he’d owned a couple, way back, but I thought they’d had to be sold to pay off a debt. Turns out that was completely wrong.

‘Now, when he went, Poll couldn’t get at these houses because they were in his name. But six years ago he wrote to her out of the blue and said she could have the rent.’

‘Bloody
hell
. Does she know where he is, then?’

‘No, he didn’t say. Just sent this parcel of keys and deeds. So Poll med Dickie her rent man and handyman, he’s been going round collecting the money and doing general maintenance. She pays him a wage, you know. Cash in hand.’

‘And where is all this money?’ I thought of our threadbare sofa and the flaking fridge. ‘Christ, Cissie; how much is there?’

‘She refused to say. I told her she’d get done for not declaring it, but she said it’s all legal. She says, get this, that she’s got an accountant.’

‘No way.’

‘It’s what she said. I don’t know whether to believe her or not. This bungalow’s real enough, though. You’ll be amazed when you see it, if it’s owt like the photos.’

‘Oh, Cissie.’ We sat in silence for a minute, then I said, ‘Why would Vince have given her all that money, though?’

‘He probably felt guilty, I should think. Perhaps he heard she were going blind. Or maybe he’d bought some more houses since and thought he didn’t need them all. Or he could have hooked up with a rich widow, or gone on the streets, or topped hisself. We’ll never know. But he were never very interested in wealth, weren’t Vince. I think property was more of a hobby.’

‘Some hobby. And where’s Dickie now? Has he moved in with her?’

‘He’s in an annexe, apparently.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t know how they carry on aside from that. I don’t ask. So there you are. Oh, she’s going to employ a carer, she says, in the New Year. Someone she can boss about properly. I pity that person, I do.’

‘Who wants a mince pie?’ called Ally from the other side of the door. ‘Come on, boys and girls, get them while they’re hot.’

Neither Cissie nor I had any appetite, but we had three each.

‘Will you be seeing Poll now? I’ve her new number written on that pad by the bed.’

‘I’m so angry, Cissie, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

She picked an escaped raisin off her skirt and ate it. ‘It’s going to be a rum sort of Christmas for you,’ she said.

*

Christmas Eve found me in Oxford with Ann. We went to Midnight Mass together and walked home under sparkling frost. Where the pavement narrowed, I had to step in the road.

‘Steady,’ I said, my voice loud in the quiet street. I felt drunk.

She looked at me and laughed. ‘We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’

‘Oscar Wilde?’

‘The Pretenders. But I think they stole it from him.’ We craned our necks back to see the constellations. ‘Do you know their names?’

‘Most of them. I had a Ladybird book on it. Do you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, pointing, ‘Big W, the Saucepan, Mini Saucepan, the Bow-tie.’ Her breath came out in little spurts of cloud. I wanted to catch hold of her hand and run all the way back to town, keep the magic going.

‘Doesn’t a night sky make you feel small?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Shall I show you why?’ And she came up close and put her arms round me. ‘Watch the stars.’

She turned me round slowly, as if we were dancing, and the sky moved.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We’re the axis of the universe,’ she said. ‘You have to believe that.’

*

I didn’t want it to be Christmas Day.

But it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. We listened to Radio Four and unwrapped our presents to each other; a velvet tunic and a professional hair-shaping set for me; an antique brooch in the shape of a basket for her. Then I was busy getting the dinner on, and Dinah Dragon arrived saying how quiet the motorways were, and Ann put the BBC 2 opera on, and we were all grinning with nerves because our relationships had shifted round and nobody was quite sure how to behave any more. But then I took Dinah next door and showed her the guest room, where Ann was going to make me a study, and she asked me whether I was truly happy with the way things had turned out, and I said, I thought I was as near to it as made no difference. Then she said, was I missing Poll.

‘Yes,’ I admitted.

‘Give her a ring,’ she said.

I looked doubtful.

‘Go on, because whatever she says to you, you won’t settle till you do.’

‘Won’t Ann mind?’

Dinah said, ‘I’m going to take her out for a walk now. We’ll be gone about half an hour.’

I’d so wanted to go and see Poll, even if it was just to give her a good slapping, but I hadn’t had the courage. After the interview with Cissie, I’d gone back to Ann and stayed there. I hadn’t seen Poll now for nearly three months.

The phone rang and rang, till Maggie eventually picked up. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s Kat. What are you doing at Poll’s? I thought you’d be at Dawn’s.’

‘I’ve only popped round to give her her present, I’m off in a minute. Oh, love, it’s good to hear from you. Poll’s been missing you. Are you all right? Did your tutors let you stay in Oxford, in the end? You’re not on your own, are you? Are there a few of you?’

In the background I could hear the music to
The Snowman
, and Dogman’s voice shouting, ‘What’s this bloody rubbish? Bloody snowmen? Who’s on t’ phone?’

‘Dawn,’ Maggie told him promptly.

‘Yeah, everything’s fine; can I speak to Poll?’ I said, my heart pounding.

‘She’s just on t’ lavvy. She’ll only be a minute.’

‘Has she been to Cissie’s?’

‘We went this morning. She’s looking very well, ankles a bit thick. Sends her love.’

‘Look—’ I was losing my nerve. ‘Tell Poll happy Christmas from me, OK? And I’ll see her in the New Year. We’ll talk then.’

‘She says – ’ Maggie lowered her voice – ‘it’s all coming to you when she dies, you know. Every penny.’

‘Not to a dog’s home, or Dickie, then?’ I could hear the bitterness in my own voice.

‘She says not. She says it won’t be long now, she’s tired of this world.’

I could make out Poll yelling something about Bailey’s. It sounded serious. ‘What’s going on, Maggie?’

‘Oh, she’s got a new puppy, that’s all. Tilly. Dickie give it her this morning, she were ovver t’ moon. It’s another Westie, but it’s not like Winston. This one’s a little demon, I think Dickie got it from a home. It’s knocked her glass and her drink’s gone on t’ floor.’

‘I towd you not to get cream carpets,’ Dogman was saying. ‘Every mark shows. Come here, I’ll have a go at it.’

‘Let me put her on,’ said Maggie. ‘I know she’d love to chat.’

‘Not now,’ I said quickly, and put the phone down.

Explanations, apologies, recriminations; it could all wait till after Christmas.

Later, I watched Ann chase a lone turkey drumstick round and round her plate, while Dinah told us stories about her father’s time in the army and I tried not to panic about feeling full; there was no way I was going to make myself sick on Christmas Day. I imagined a stranger walking in and seeing us sitting round the table with our tissue hats. Hearty Dinah, with her ruddy cheeks and faint moustache; quiet Ann, with her skeletal arms; me. We must look a pretty strange party. But this was the family I’d chosen, for now.

My life as it stands is a web of deceit. Not just my own, either: I’ve taken on other people’s too. But then, whose isn’t? What family isn’t held together by a cartilage of lies? In these fractured times, these days of spin, you have to make the family you can.

Bring on the New Year; I’ll be ready.

SWALLOWING GRANDMA

Kate Long lives with her family in Shropshire. Her first novel,
The Bad Mother’s Handbook
, and
Swallowing Grandma
are both top-ten bestsellers.

Also by Kate Long

THE BAD MOTHER’S HANDBOOK

QUEEN MUM

Acknowledgements

For help with research:
Mollie Thompson, Jennifer Leeming, Judith Magill, Deborah Kelsall, Jane Smellie, Ruby Parr, John and Margaret Green, and Graham Dixon of http://www.btinternet.com/~troubleatmill/speak.htm.

For editorial and other assistance:
David Rees, Kath Pilsbury,
Peter Straus and the team at RCW,
Simon Long, Ursula Doyle and
my friends at Picador.

First published 2005 by Picador

First published in paperback 2005 by Picador

This edition published 2006 by Picador

This electronic edition published 2010 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-0-330-53210-5 PDF
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Copyright © Kate Long 2005

The right of Kate Long to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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