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As he puts Mum’s favourite spotty mug back in the cabinet, I catch the lost look skittering across his expression. I guess it is there, after all.
‘I’m sorry, Dad.’
He’d rung me just after lunchtime. He never does that during the day unless it’s to tell me I’ve forgotten a birthday or an anniversary or something.
I’d just managed to wrestle four giant packs of chicken thighs out from the overstuffed freezer at work for the next day’s curry. Care home residents might not seem like they’d appreciate food that’s not bland or pureed, but our residents aren’t what you’d call the norm.
‘Who did I forget?’ I answered with my mobile wedged between my cheek and shoulder.
‘Hi, Phoebe. This is your father.’
‘I know it’s you, Dad. You come up on my phone.’ Every conversation started like this.
‘Your mother has gone into hospital.’
I felt my tummy sink to my knees. I clasped the phone to my ear. ‘What’s happened?’ Horrible scenarios flashed through my mind: she’d been in a crash. No, it was a mugging. She’s always marching around with a big expensive bag dangling off her arm. Or a random acid attack or a knifing or she’d lopped her fingers off chopping onions or confused arsenic for sugar in her tea. Though I’m not sure why there’d be arsenic in the cabinet.
‘Heart attack, they think,’ said Dad.
‘Is she … okay?’
‘Oh, yes, she’s fine,’ he said. ‘She didn’t want me to bother you. I just thought you might like to know.’
‘How can she be fine, Dad, when she’s had a heart attack? And, yes, I want to know!’ Only my mother could think that a near-death experience wasn’t even worth a phone call.
‘I mean she’s awake and feeling fine, so don’t worry.’ His voice was as calm as always. Unlike mine.
‘Have you rung Will already?’ I asked.
‘He’ll be busy with work. We don’t want to disturb him.’
Of course, they’d never dream of giving him anything to worry about at work. Like the entire financial system would collapse if he were ever to take a personal call. I looked around my kitchen. In their eyes, Will was the one with the important job, not me. I’m ‘just’ a cook. ‘I’m leaving now,’ I told him. ‘I can be there in two hours depending on traffic. I’ll see you soon, Dad.’
‘I’ll meet you at the hospital in a few hours, then. Text me when you’re off the motorway.’
‘But aren’t you at the hospital now?’
‘Your mum wants me to stay at the office. The sealed bids are coming in today.’ He gave me the hospital’s address. Then he told me not to use the car park there.
‘Parking will be expensive,’ he said. ‘There’ll be spaces further along the main road and you can walk back.’
Honestly.
The drive there is a blur, but I do remember the feeling. It was all I could do not to scream and bash the steering wheel every time I had to slow down for traffic or lights. I just knew I wouldn’t get there in time to see Mum one last time.
I found the closest spot in the car park, sprinted to the critical care unit and blurted my mother’s name to the nurse, who calmly pointed me to her room.
‘God, Phoebe,’ said Mum when I skidded through the door. ‘Where’s the fire? You nearly gave me a heart attack. Ha ha.’
‘Mum, what happened?!’ She was sitting up in bed with a blue hospital gown draped loosely across her front. Wires trailed from under the covers to the machines that beeped and chirped beside her.
She had her mobile to her ear. ‘Sorry about that,’ she told the caller. ‘I’ll have to ring you back.’
She kept her phone clasped in her hand as she waved away my question. ‘It’s a lot of palaver over nothing. The doctors aren’t even sure it was a heart attack. They’re making me go through tests to check. Your father didn’t need to bother you.’ She looked me up and down. Then she sighed. ‘Isn’t there something better that you could wear to work?’
I glanced down at my black checked chef trousers and short-sleeved white tunic.
‘And those clogs. I wouldn’t wear them around the house, let alone out of it. Why can’t you try a bit harder, Phoebe? Don’t you care what people think?’
I ignored the jibes. Only because she could be dying. ‘Tell me what happened, Mum. Did you have pain?’
‘Of course I had pain,’ she snapped. ‘It was a heart attack. Or something like it anyway. I feel fine now, though. I need to get back to the office. The sealed bids are coming in today. I can come back after for the tests if they’re so keen on them.’
‘I’m sure the office understands that you’re here.’
‘Pah, I didn’t tell them! And don’t you, either. They think your dad gave me a surprise spa day.’ Then she muttered, ‘As if I’d tell them about something like this.’
What was wrong with my mother? ‘Mum, that’s nuts. You can’t cover up a heart attack with a spa day. You’re ill. You could be here for some time. Everyone at the company cares about you. They’d want to know.’
‘I just bet they would,’ she said. ‘Phoebe, how many times have I told you that people will exploit their advantage. I’m not about to give them an excuse.’
‘These aren’t just people, Mum, they’re your friends. Your employees. You’ve worked with them for years.’
She waved away my protest. ‘You’d hope that friends wouldn’t use something against you, but why would I take the chance when I don’t have to? If you’ve learned anything from me, darling, I hope it’s that.’
Then she pulled off the covers and started to swing her legs to the floor, sending the machines into a meltdown.
‘Mum, don’t!’
A nurse hurried into the room, probably expecting cardiac arrest. What she found was the world’s worst patient peeling off the tape holding the monitors to her chest. ‘What are you doing?’ the nurse demanded. ‘Get back into bed. You’ve got to rest. And keep these on.’ She pulled off another length of tape with a furious tear and stuck it to my mother. ‘If you need the loo, push the button and someone will help you.’ She glared at Mum. ‘Do not leave this bed.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured to the nurse as she left. ‘Mum, why can’t you behave?! You need to stay here until they know what’s wrong. These people are trying to help you.’
‘I know that, Phoebe, but I’ve got things to do. I’m very busy. We didn’t build our business by sitting around on our bums, you know.’
How many times had I heard that over the years? Whenever I didn’t do things the way she thought I should. Which was almost always. ‘Being in hospital with a heart attack is not just sitting around on your bum,’ I reminded her. ‘Besides, you’ve got Dad looking after the bids, so you don’t need to worry about anything.’
She rolled her eyes. Then she zeroed in on my hair which, I remembered too late, was still in its ponytail from work. ‘Couldn’t you have done something with that?’ She patted her own perfectly coiffed gingery head. She looked like she’d had it styled on the way over in the ambulance. ‘You only have one chance to make a first impression. You could look so much better, you know, if you tried at all.’
Despite my mother being mortified by a hair tie, I actually think it looks all right, thank you very much. It might not be as shimmery and because-I’m-worth-it as Mum’s, but it’s a nice brown, long, straight and thick.
‘You made a great first impression with that nurse,’ I said. ‘You’d better be careful or she won’t give you the good biscuits at teatime.’ I heaved a great sigh. ‘Do you need anything? I can run downstairs to the shops.’
I was desperate to get away for a few minutes to catch my breath. Besides, my tummy had been twisting into knots since the drive.
She always did that to me. My mother didn’t get ulcers, she gave them. Which said everything about our relationship, really.
Chapter 2 (#uc32eeea7-9ee2-5d67-bc48-ac94b2c049b9)
By the time I got back with all Mum’s shopping, Dad was there, sopping wet from the squall that had whipped up outside. His dress shirt was stuck to his chest and little rivulets dripped down the sides of his face from his flattened hair. His whole head had gone grey early, but at least he’s still got it, and despite the stress of being an entrepreneur, he doesn’t look his age (fifty-eight). He does look like a builder, which he is, even though he spends more time on email now than on building sites.
‘You really didn’t park in the garage?’ I asked him.
‘You really did?’ he shot back. ‘I told you it was a waste of money.’
That’s pretty much what passes for a friendly greeting in our family.
Dad wasn’t offended because he’s cheap. We’re talking about the man who drives a £60k car. He and Mum went on exotic holidays. He’s not afraid to spend his cash. He just hates feeling ripped off. That’s why he buys own-brand baked beans if the good ones aren’t on sale. Tesco won’t ever put one over on him.
Not Mum, though, aka Spendy McSquillions. She’d never met a purse she couldn’t empty. It was a good thing their business had done well.
‘I’m only supposed to have one visitor at a time,’ Mum said when I gave her the carrier bags from downstairs.
‘I’m sure it’s fine, Bev,’ Dad said. ‘Phoebe’s driven all the way here.’
‘I know, thank you,’ she said to me. ‘But really, you don’t have to stay, now that Dad’s come. I’m fine, don’t worry about me.’
I could tell that she was fine by the way she was just as critical as usual.
‘Mum’s right,’ Dad added, glancing at his phone. ‘You’ve got to get out of that garage,’ he said, like the parking attendant there was holding my car hostage.
‘I don’t care about the money, Dad.’
But I let them convince me to go back to their house. He’d only keep going on about the expense anyway, and clearly Mum wasn’t in any danger.
I couldn’t say I was completely at home at my parents’, but it felt comfortable enough. Like I said, it wasn’t where I grew up. They sold that when they decided to make their fortune a hundred miles south. Still, I flattered myself that the guest bedroom where I always stayed was ‘my room’, and that I’d at least get first dibs over any Tom, Dick or Harry who came to visit.
Dad didn’t stay at the hospital very long after me, but he went back to work and then out for some dinner meeting that couldn’t be moved just because his wife and business partner was dining in Critical Care.
When I got to Mum’s room the next morning, all I saw was a lump in her bed with a sheet pulled over it. Exactly like they did in films when the paramedics had done all they could to save the patient.
She was dead! ‘Mum!’
‘What!’ snapped the voice under the bedding.
‘What are you doing?’
Mum appeared with an angry yank of the sheet. She had her phone to her ear.
‘You’re not supposed to use that in here!’
‘No kidding, Phoebe, so stop shouting about it or the nurse will hear. Shush.’ She waved me away as she continued to talk and scribble in the notebook I’d picked up for her in the shop.
‘That could interfere with the machines, you know,’ I said when she’d hung up.
‘Don’t be such a worrier,’ she grumbled. ‘It’s my machine, so it’s my risk.’
‘There are other patients with machines on the ward, you know. Do you really want to kill one of them with a phone call?’
Mum rolled her eyes. She was a famous eye-roller. ‘Don’t believe everything you read, Miss Health and Safety. If it was such a problem, then they’d block mobiles.’
‘If it’s such a problem, then they’d put up signs.’ I pointed to the warning posted by the door. ‘Oh, look, they have.’
Then, right on cue she said, ‘Are those the same clothes from yesterday?’
‘I was at work when Dad rang,’ I reminded her. ‘I can pick up some things later if it’s so important to you that I dress for the hospital.’ I knew I should have at least borrowed one of Dad’s shirts. Though the checked trousers were still a problem.
I didn’t usually take Mum’s image critiques to heart. I’d never leave my flat if I did that. Instead, I tried not to give her too much to work with. It was easier emptying the gun than trying to keep the bullets from hitting their mark when she spotted an easy target.
‘Standards,’ Mum said. ‘Anyway, did you have a nice breakfast with Dad?’ We’d gone out to the builder’s caff before he left for the office. ‘The food here is vile. They couldn’t make a decent fry-up with guns to their heads. You could teach them something. Maybe you should work for the NHS. I bet it pays better than what you’re getting now.’
Not wanting our possibly last conversation to be an argument, I ignored her career advice. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t be eating fry-ups, Mum,’ I said instead. Although she was generally one of those women who kept fit and ate well-ish. If she started filling out a bit, she just cut back, as she loved to say. Simple as that. The implication was that anyone could do it. But I’m no supermodel and there’s no ‘just’ cutting back. I’m rounded, like any good chef worth her salted butter should be.
‘At least put on some decent clothes if you’re going to stay,’ she said. ‘I don’t want people thinking my cook is visiting me in hospital.’
‘Sorry I didn’t think to pack a ball gown for your heart attack,’ I said. I’d gone from worried about my mother to rowing with her in less than twenty-four hours. In other words, totally normal.
She glanced at her phone. ‘The shops are open now.’
‘I’ll stop back after lunch, then,’ I told her.
My mobile rang a few hours later. ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you,’ she said, and she meant it. She usually apologised for her outbursts. Not for thinking what she thought, but at least for saying it out loud. ‘You don’t have to bother with new clothes. I’ll be out of here soon anyway, as soon as the doctors tick all their silly little boxes. They’re only covering themselves. I’ve been through most of the tests now, and they’re saying it probably wasn’t even a heart attack. I don’t want you to worry, okay? Honestly, Phoebe, you don’t have to stay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Ask your dad if you don’t believe me.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’ I didn’t need too much convincing, because everyone knew that my mum was invincible. She’d probably be back at the office bossing everyone around before I got to work on Monday.
My jaw started to unclench as soon as I got onto the motorway toward home. Please don’t get me wrong. I love my parents. It’s just sometimes hard being their daughter. Maybe all driven people are like that, setting the same high bar for everyone else that they do for themselves.
I didn’t strictly have to go past work on my way home, but I drove that way anyway. The care home is a grand old building and would practically be stately if there was anything aristocratic about the residents. It used to be the owner’s family home – also not aristocrats – and there’s a portrait in the entrance of the card-happy ancestor who won it gambling. He lost everything else the same way, though, so it’s never really been looked after beyond the minimum of upkeep.
The house is set back from the road with wide, sloping lawns running on either side. Our boss, Max Greene, had the drive widened a few years ago, but other than that it hasn’t changed since his mother owned it. That’s both a blessing and a curse.
June’s car was parked out front. She wasn’t supposed to be working on a Saturday. We’re the weekday staff. We’ve got night and weekend cover and she promised me no more overtime. She had the nerve to get snappish just because I pressed her on it.
I pulled into the drive behind her car.
‘You didn’t answer your phone,’ my best friend called down the corridor as soon as she saw me come through the side door where the office is. ‘How’s your mum?’
So she wasn’t going to make it easy for me to bollock her about the overtime.
‘As frightful as usual,’ I said, throwing myself down on the extra chair in front of her desk. June’s mind might be ultra-organised, but her office isn’t. There are binders stuffed full of receipts and records teetering all over the top of the cabinets, and her desk looks like she’s been shredding evidence. ‘I was driving when you rang,’ I said. ‘And you were working while I was driving.’
But June didn’t rise to the top of senior management (also the only management) at the Jane Austen Home for Ladies by caving in at the first sniff of trouble. She ignored me. ‘Frightful is good,’ she said. ‘That means Bev’s back to normal. She’s out of hospital now?’ She stretched her arms above her head and leaned back in her office chair, like she hadn’t a care in the world. The hem of her top rode up to flash a few inches of tummy, but she didn’t notice.
‘No, but she’ll be home soon. It doesn’t sound like anything too serious.’ Of course, June knew this already. I’d rung her from the hospital just after I first saw Mum. Was that only yesterday? ‘She sent me home.’
June nodded. I didn’t have to explain. We’d spent our entire childhood at each other’s houses. She knew all about my parents first-hand.
‘Nick’s gone home,’ she said with a smirk. ‘He only came in to do an hour with Laney.’
