Moon Page 2

  So this was it. She was on her way, her wardrobe made and packed with everything she needed for the next few months. She’d even brought her dress patterns with her; it had always been a bit of a ritual to collect mementoes of her favourite times wearing her dresses, and keep them in the original pattern packets. Mum said she was a ridiculous hoarder, but this wasn’t hoarding: it was more like a diary, and one day when she looked through these packets and their contents, it would bring back memories of this trip more clearly than any photograph could.

  There was no going back. Not for a few weeks, anyway. An amazing opportunity to see a bit of the world at someone else’s expense. She had only once ever stayed at a proper hotel, so unlike the little B&B they always went to in Hastings for a week each summer, where you had to make your own bed and clean the communal bathroom when you’d finished with it. She couldn’t imagine the French or Italians would kick you out after breakfast and not let you in again until tea, whatever the weather.

  She pinned the ends of her hair into whorl-like curls and covered them with a fine-mesh hairnet, then, exhausted, she squeezed between the tightly made sheets of the narrow bunk. Although her body craved sleep, her mind flicked from vignette to vignette, refusing to let go. Eventually, though, even her worst anxieties could not resist the rocking of the racing train as it sang its metallic lullaby, and she spent her last short time on English soil sleeping as peacefully as a baby.

  Part One

  BRIGHTON

  1

  Flo wiped the last of Gran’s teacups with the damp Fountains Abbey tea towel, putting it with its companions in the top-right cupboard. Not the middle one: that was for everyday crockery. The top-right cupboard was for visitors. And there had certainly been visitors today for the wake. Peggy would have been horrified if her granddaughter had brought out the old supermarket plates and royal wedding souvenir mugs today of all days. Instead, Flo had dusted off the Royal Doulton and made sure the matching sugar bowl and milk jug stood next to the cups on the sideboard, along with the best silver-plated teaspoons. She couldn’t imagine that Peggy had ever needed twenty of everything – the only other occasion had probably been Flo’s own christening, which she suspected her gran had most likely organised while Mum was away on one of her extended trips.

  She rinsed out the dishcloth and wiped it across the table, rubbing at a speck of dried egg she’d not seen earlier. Not only had she forgotten to swap the faded oilcloth for a pressed embroidered linen one, but she had left the remains of what was probably Peggy’s last breakfast at home for all the neighbours to see. If her grandmother’s weak heart had not already surrendered its fight, she would surely have died of shame at this aberration. She gave the oilcloth a final wipe, so that the yellowed daisies sprinkled across it glistened briefly, then faded back into their dull beige background.

  She jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Seamus standing close behind her.

  ‘Right, Flossie, I’m off to drop a couple of old biddies home. Reckon I’ll be safe?’

  Flo did wonder: Seamus was a natural at funerals, and always had Peggy’s friends eating out of his hand, with his perfect combination of pathos and humour and Irish blarney, and of course the killer floppy black hair and blue eyes.

  He squeezed her shoulder, instantly taking his hand away as he felt her flinch. ‘Be back in half an hour, if they’ve not kidnapped me and locked me in a cupboard.’

  ‘Seamus?’

  He stopped in the doorway. ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘It’s fine, you don’t need to come back. Why don’t you get off home? There’s not much more to do here except keep Dorothy away from the drinks cabinet.’

  She spotted the whisper of barely suppressed relief. ‘You sure? In that case I’ll get us a takeaway on the way back, bottle of wine. Run you a bath if you’re lucky.’

  She wished he’d stop trying so bloody hard. He’d been so good all day, and she couldn’t have asked for more, but it made it extremely hard to carry on being pissed off with him. ‘I might stay here tonight, actually.’

  ‘Really? What for?’

  She didn’t feel like explaining; she was virtually out of words. ‘I just want a last night here, to say goodbye, I suppose.’ And because I can’t face coming home. Not to you.

  He had the grace to take the excuse for what it really was, and dropped his gaze to the ground. ‘Floss . . .’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Seamus.’ She knew, as she turned back to the sink and began polishing a glass, that he was still there, watching her, willing her to look at him, but eventually she heard him sigh and walk away.

  She listened to the raucous, affectionate goodbyes as he took his leave of the small wake and ushered his twittering charges out of the front door and into his car.

  Apart from the chit-chat of the final few guests, the house was quiet again, drifting back into its default carpeted hush. Flo couldn’t ever remember there being much noise here: Peggy and Donald were gentle, softly spoken folk, and in all the years she had lived with them, they had never exceeded a modest decibel count, not even when they were chuckling at The Morecambe & Wise Show or Donald had told one of his jokes he’d picked up from the chaps at work. There’d never been so much as a raised voice on the many occasions Mum had appeared on the doorstep with Flo and a little suitcase and a brief explanation, before disappearing to another airport and another continent. They had just quietly brought her in each time, Donald carrying her things to the little spare bedroom that eventually became hers permanently when one day they discovered Maddie would never be coming back for her.

  And so Flo had found herself growing up in a sleepy coastal town whose average age never dipped below sixty-five, even after a colder-than-usual winter, and who remained indifferent to its brash London-on-Sea neighbour that she now called home. Peggy and Donald had lived at the top of one of many roads of identical bungalows that snaked around the contours of the town, fizzling out on the fringes. Through the net curtains, she saw the little green that had been built for children’s games but that was home to a few dog walkers with their Yorkshire terriers, or occasionally an old lady or two, meeting to catch up on the news. She craned her neck to look at the sliver of sea, just visible beyond the television aerials and satellite dishes, the tired cafés and pebbled beach. Today the sun sparkled on the water, reminding the residents of this old-people’s-home of a town why they had come here to quietly see out their days, rather than stick it out in the ever-changing and ever-expensive outskirts of a city they barely recognised and no longer understood.

  ‘Anything else I can do, dear?’

  She jumped at the intrusion, and took a second to acknowledge her grandmother’s old friend standing in the doorway. ‘You’re fine, Phyllis. Thanks. You’ve been so helpful already.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I seem to have spent most of the day keeping Dorothy off the sherry.’

  ‘Trust me, that’s helpful.’

  The two women smiled at each other. In the distance they could hear Dorothy’s raised voice regaling a captive audience with some no-doubt-raucous tale of her youth.

  ‘Sounds like I failed, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Don’t worry. There’s only Marco and Aunty Bean left in there with her.’

  Phyllis sighed. ‘Oh, your Seamus is a lovely man, Flo. He was a real tonic today. So funny, he is. There’s something about Irishmen, isn’t there?’

  ‘You should live with him, Phyllis. You might not think so then.’

  Phyllis put her hand to her mouth and giggled, misreading Flo’s jibe as a joke. Flo could see why she and Peggy had been friends – they were so much alike in many ways. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. Such a kind, attentive man – your gran adored him.’

  Flo wondered what Peggy would have thought if she’d known what a shambles her marriage had become. It hadn’t felt fair to burden the old lady with any more than she’d already had to endure. It had been a tough time for all of them, with one thing and another.

  She was aware that Phyllis was staring at her with exaggerated concern. She really didn’t want to get into a feel-sorry-for-Flo conversation – Peggy’s friends had been part of her childhood, and there was no kidding these old birds. She smiled brightly. ‘Anyway, it’s about time we got Dorothy to the station, isn’t it? She won’t want to be getting back to London too late. It’s still so dark, these evenings.’ She had a feeling that even into her early eighties, Dorothy was still a match for most self-respecting muggers, but the feisty old queen of Wandsworth was like family, and there was no way she would allow her to get home too late for her evening tipple in front of EastEnders.

  Phyllis pulled her black cardigan sleeve up over her plump wrist and looked at her dainty gold watch. She had always had neat extremities – size three feet, tiny hands and delicate, pretty features – at odds with her waistline, which had gradually caught up with her bosom and expanded over the years in line with her unabated love of the ice cream that kept the family in business, and supplemented by the carbohydrate recipe book passed down to her by her Italian mother-in-law. She had gone from Dolly Parton to Hattie Jacques in less time than it took to say tiramisu. ‘Oh, I suppose it is getting on. Marco and I can drop her. It’s on the way home. Or Aunty Bean might be driving back to London – we’ll ask her.’

  ‘Thanks, Phyllis. I appreciate it. You must be exhausted.’

  As was Flo: suddenly overwhelmed by an urge for silence and solitude, and for an empty house. Today of all days, she could justify spending some time alone here before she locked up the little bungalow and travelled the few miles home along the coast to face the music.

  From down the narrow hallway came the sound of Dorothy’s hyena laugh. Flo smiled. ‘It’s definitely time t
o get her home! Come on, Phyllis, let’s call it a day. Even Peggy wouldn’t be able to find one more thing to wash up or wipe down here.’ And it was true: everything had been put back in its allotted place. The dishcloth was neatly folded and hanging over the edge of the sink, tea towels pushed back into their sticky-backed rubber pegs, and Peggy’s apron hung on the back of the kitchen door.

  Phyllis tugged her black sweater down over her straining polyester skirt and brushed a few stray sausage-roll crumbs from the recesses of its pleats. ‘Right you are, dear. If you’re sure there’s nothing else I can do?’

  ‘No, really, you’ve all been so kind and helpful. Well, maybe not Dorothy, but she wasn’t exactly made for labour.’

  ‘Don’t think she’s ever so much as chipped a bit of nail polish off, that one. We love her for other reasons, though. She’d do anything for friends and family, our Dot.’ Phyllis looked sadly at Peggy’s limp apron. ‘The four of us went back a long way, you know? Knew each other from babies to nippers to young girls and married women, we did.’

  Flo had heard the old friends’ recollections of their childhood scrapes on the streets of south London over and over again, but never tired of listening to the first-hand stories of a London that barely existed any more. She went over and hugged Phyllis, inhaling the cocktail of Silvikrin and Charlie that took her straight back to illicit ice-cream cones after school.

  Phyllis stroked Flo’s cheek. ‘You’re a good girl. Always were. Peggy loved you like her own daughter. Such a shame about your mum. She just had that wild streak – couldn’t be tied down. Drove us all wild.’

  Flo had a feeling that one of Phyllis’s never-far-away tearful episodes was imminent. ‘I was lucky. I had two mums in the end. Well, four, if you count you and Dorothy! Five with Aunty Bean.’

  Phyllis’s peach-powdered cheeks glowed as she pulled a hanky from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Now, dear, you fetch your things and get yourself home too. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘I think I might stay here tonight, actually,’ Flo said. ‘Spend one last night in the bungalow.’

  ‘Are you sure? Might be a bit lonely. Maybe Seamus will come back and stay with you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, executing an unconvincing smile.

  In the little sitting room, Marco was stretched out in Donald’s chair, his tight grey curls pressed against the embroidered antimacassar and yellowed dentures on show as he snored gently, knocked out by the combination of stifling heat and Donald’s best whisky and oblivious to the constant stream of invective coming from another third of the three-piece suite opposite him. His shirt collar had been unbuttoned and his black tie pulled loose, revealing a sprouting of curly greying hair that mirrored that on his head.

  Aunty Bean was already in her coat, waiting patiently near the door. She saw Flo and winked, and they shared a quiet laugh unnoticed as Dorothy’s monologue continued unabated. Flo loved Bean: she had started off as a lodger with Peggy’s parents back in the sixties when she was a student, and ended up as a friend to the little network of Wandsworth families. Rumour had it that she had aristocratic blood, but Flo wasn’t so sure: beyond the plummy vowels was a down-to-earth woman-of-the-people who wouldn’t know a Barbour from a brogue, particularly in the corner of north-west London that she and her assorted dogs called home.

  The heat from the gas fire had drawn out bright carmine discs on Dorothy’s cheeks, matching the crêpey rim of dark-red lipstick around her constantly moving lips and the polished nails that pointed punctuation at the dozing Marco. She had never been one to halt her stream of consciousness just because her conversation partner was asleep – besides, they all knew Marco was a master of faking a nap when it suited him. Too many noisy women in his life, Phyllis always said, which was presumably why he had chosen the sweetest, quietest bride he could find.

  Dorothy pulled herself up out of the chair and held her arms out. ‘Come here, girl. Give us a hug.’ Flo squeezed past the Ercol coffee table that took up most of the floor space and let Dorothy embrace her, the gold charms on her bracelet tinkling in her ear and the heavy gold hoops that always dangled from Dorothy’s lobes pressing into her cheek. ‘Don’t you forget you’ve still got us, sweetheart. You’re as much family to me as my own lot. Bloody useless bunch they are, mind you. Never visit me unless it’s for food or money or somewhere to lie low for a day or two. You’ll come and see me soon, though, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will. I’m sure to be up in London before long. I’ll let you know, and you can bake me a cake.’

  Dorothy laughed. ‘Sod that, darling. You can have shop-bought like everyone else. But I might have a nice little bottle of something tucked away for special occasions.’

  It was a well-known fact in Florence’s family that you went to Phyllis to be fed and Dorothy to be watered. ‘Perfect. I’ll bring a lemon.’

  Dorothy pinched her cheek, just as she had done when Flo was a child. ‘That’s my girl.’ She rearranged her fitted black lace dress around her hips and shrugged her diamanté-studded cardigan back on. Even in her eighties, she hadn’t let things slip. Flo had thought she was some kind of film star when she’d been a child – the Rita Hayworth of Wandsworth, with her proud bust and the platinum-blonde hair that now was more nicotine-yellow and came out of a bottle, defying the decades of gin and cigarettes that couldn’t be denied in her complexion. ‘Right, am I getting this train or not, young Marco?’

  Marco, miraculously hearing despite his apparent deep slumber, shot upright and straight out of the armchair, rising from prostrate to his full height of five foot two in less than a second. He jangled his car keys in his pocket. ‘Ready when you are, lie-ee-dies.’

  ‘I’ll drop you, Dot,’ Aunty Bean said, brushing dog hairs off her shabby coat. ‘It’s on the way.’

  ‘Bye, Aunty Bean,’ Flo said as she hugged her, wondering whether she should mention that her ratty black cardigan had been buttoned up wrong all day. It amused them all that someone so chaotic in her own life had run a hospital ward like clockwork, and wouldn’t tolerate so much as a scuffed shoe from her nurses.

  ‘Take care, lovely,’ Aunty Bean said as she squeezed Flo warmly. ‘And bring that chap of yours to supper soon?’ Flo nodded non-committally as the small party eased themselves out of the sitting room and into the salt-scented night.

  ‘By the way,’ Flo said, pulling Phyllis to one side as the others headed outside and started opening car doors. ‘When we were in the kitchen, you mentioned the four of you. Not three: you and Peggy and Dorothy. Four. You said you’d known each other since you were babies. And Aunty Bean was a student when you first met her.’

  Phyllis frowned, and Flo spotted a definite deepening of the rosy blush that always adorned her cheeks. ‘I don’t think so, dear. It was always the three of us. Why would I have said four?’

  ‘You definitely said four. I remember it clearly.’

  Phyllis squeezed her arm. ‘You must have misheard, silly. Hardly surprising – you did just bury your grandmother today. You must be all over the place.’

  Flo wasn’t so sure, but she nodded anyway. ‘You’re probably right.’ She gave Phyllis a peck on the cheek, transferring a residue of heavily scented powder to her own face.

  ‘Now you’re sure you’ll be all right here on your own tonight? And you’ll remember to switch everything off when you leave? And check the oven’s turned off? And Peggy likes to leave a key in the bread bin.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll finish off the sherry and vol-au-vents and have a quiet one. It’ll be good to have some time to say goodbye on my own.’

  Marco clapped his hands together loudly. ‘Come along now. Is getting late. Marco needs his rest.’ He blew a kiss to Flo as he guided his wife down the drive and into his old Lancia.

  Flo waved as first Bean’s Golf drove away, then Marco’s temperamental car hiccuped away down the hill. Finally she closed the door and let out a huge long breath.