I remember waiting until he turned his back to shake the soil from a clutch of spindly carrots or similar, and then I’d seize my moment to dash into the house to see Mrs Barrett.
She used to bake a lot in those days, and there would always be something nice for me in one of her tins to have with a glass of juice.
‘Is he here again?’ Harold would grunt when he shuffled in from the garden, and Mrs Barrett would always answer him curtly whilst smiling at me, her mouth stretched almost too wide for her face.
‘Yes, he is here again, and I for one am pleased to see him. Even if nobody else is.’
Harold’s eyes would harden like little brown nuts and he’d shake his head and walk away without saying another word.
Despite Mrs Barrett’s assurances that I was most welcome, my guts would feel like mush inside. Her face said one thing, her words another… I felt uncomfortable but didn’t know why.
It was a feeling I’d learn to get used to with other people over the coming years.
When Harold died, I asked Mrs Barrett why she was moving the chair.
‘Well, I’ll be eating alone now, you see,’ she said, her dull eyes staring at the wall. ‘I’ve no use for two chairs any longer.’
That’s why I initially made the effort to pop round a bit more; for a chat, at least. To try to make Mrs Barrett’s brown eyes sparkle again. But nothing really worked. Still, I suppose it felt a bit like I was paying her back for all those times she’d been a friend to me during my difficult younger years when Father was trying to make me into the brusque, macho son he’d have much preferred.
Yet something about seeing her alone, getting older with the empty years stretching out in front of her, made my scalp tighten, and I found myself less and less keen to come around here.
But now that her new visitor – Holly – is here, the atmosphere in the house feels altogether different.
In a way, I’m glad the chair is coming downstairs again. It shows Mrs Barrett has someone to sit down with again.
It occurs to me that to get to the chair, I’ll have to walk past the end of the bed. I take a step inside the door and then see that there are garments strewn across the quilt, including a bra that looks as if it has been cast off with some urgency.
I’d never openly admit it, of course, but I’ve never actually touched a bra or even seen one up close except in a shop. You can’t linger in department stores to look at stuff like that, not when you’re a single man of a certain age, anyhow.
I’ve never been able to work out how, when the other customers and assistants don’t know you personally and can’t possibly know if you’re married or have a girlfriend, they somehow seem to know with an unspoken certainty that you have no business being near women’s underwear.
People look at me like I’m some kind of creep; a weirdo, one woman hissed as she brushed by me at the three-pairs-for-two knicker island in Debenhams.
I’m just curious, that’s all. I mean, there’s nothing sinister in wanting to have a look, is there? Although it’s probably that sort of curiosity that got me into so much trouble last time.
I’ve seen Mother’s bras, of course, hanging on the washing line like great rigid white bowls. They’re an engineering miracle.
The flimsy bra on the bed is the colour of unfurled spring leaves, and the modest cups are smothered in layers of delicate lace that look as if they might shred under one’s fingers.
I slip my finger inside my collar to loosen it slightly.
‘David, is everything OK?’
I visibly jump and spin round to find Holly at the top of the stairs.
‘Oh! Yes, I…’
‘The chair’s right there, look. In the corner.’
She squeezes past me. Her body feels warm against my arm and I press myself back into the door frame, my entire face burning like a candle.
She doesn’t notice, just strides across the room. Using her foot, she pushes away an open suitcase that lies in front of the chair.
‘Sorry about the mess.’ She sweeps her hand around the room. ‘I confess I’ve only just started unpacking. Shameful, really.’
There’s a large framed photograph on the bed. The light from the window is shining directly on to it, so I take a step nearer and tilt my head to get a better look. I see a male face with pale hair and dark eyes.
She follows my eyes and snatches up the picture.
‘You can get to the chair now,’ she says tightly. ‘I think Cora might be waiting for it downstairs.’
I nod and walk past her, stooping to pick up the chair. I hesitate at a rustling noise behind me.
I glance sideways and watch as she gently wraps the photograph in tissue paper and places it in the top drawer of the chest.
She covers it with a folded sweater and then closes the drawer with a muffled thud that somehow seems to have an air of finality about it.
Chapter Sixteen
Cora
Cora sat in her armchair by the window with a nice fresh cup of tea and a slice of toast and marmalade, cut in two neat halves.
Holly was a good girl. She’d seemed so grateful for the modest meal Cora had served up last night. A salmon fillet and vegetable medley – nothing special, and yet her young visitor’s eyes had lit up as she declared she hadn’t eaten anything as posh as salmon for an age.
What a treat it had been for Cora to sit with another person again and chat about this and that without the pressure of saying the right thing or tripping herself up in some way, as had been the case with Harold before his illness moved him permanently upstairs.
As the cancer took a firmer grip, his temper had worsened. Far from showing appreciation for his wife’s constant care and attention, he had grown increasingly critical.
‘This steak is overdone,’ he would bark. Or, ‘Same old boring sandwiches again. Can’t you come up with something new?’
But one day, it was as though someone else entirely took over Cora’s body, and she could only sit back and watch.
Harold had picked up a sandwich and peeled back the top slice of the dainty triangle to look beneath. When he saw the thick-sliced ham and tomato underneath with a thin spread of mayonnaise just as he liked it, he huffed disparagingly and dropped it back on the plate like a piece of dirt.
Cora had stood up quite calmly and whipped the plate from under his nose. She’d picked up his mug of tea from the bedside table and simply walked from the room with a serene look on her face, turning back only to pull the door closed behind her with a hooked foot.
Harold had bellowed insults for what seemed like hours.
Cora had taken her own sandwich and tea into the lounge, closed the door and put Antiques Roadshow on with the volume turned up at least twice as loud as Harold ordinarily allowed it.
The faint rumble of his bellowing eventually grew dim and then stopped. When Cora crept up over an hour later, he had fallen fast asleep, still sitting up in bed.
She left him as he was and slept on the sofa.
The next morning when she took up his breakfast, the incident wasn’t mentioned by either of them, but Cora noticed he never complained about his meals again. Her only regret was that she hadn’t done it years ago.
Over tea, Holly had been excited about a job she had applied for at one of the agencies in town. It was working in retail at some posh department store, apparently.
Cora knew of a few such shops in the city but had never set foot in any of them. Harold had always baulked at the price of goods in the more stylish window displays and moved her hastily on.
Vaguely it occurred to her that she might know someone who worked in such a shop, but the information, though it danced tantalisingly close to her consciousness, did not come quite close enough for her to grab it.