‘No, because I’ve been too knackered to send invitations,’ Hattie explained. ‘I’m having a birthday celebration. A fancy one. And there’s a lot to organise.’
‘You’re going to be, what, fifty-six? Why a big party this time, when you’re not well? If you haven’t sent out invites yet, you can always postpone,’ Deirdre said.
‘Like, until you’re sixty, and the right age for a big party,’ Kalani added.
‘I’ve had fifty-five birthdays already, and not one proper party. I don’t see why I should wait until a round number if I feel like having one now. Maybe I want a big partybecauseI’m ill, and things are hard, and I want something else to focus on other than how sick and tired I feel.’
‘Then of course we’ll help,’ the Gals agreed.
We spent the next hour or so planning, looking at ideas on Pinterest and assigning tasks.
My main role on the Party Taskforce?
Decorations.
This was going to be a classy affair. Hattie didn’t want bunting, balloons and a few fairy lights. She wanted shimmer and sparkle, opulence and elegance.
I would take inspiration from the weddings I’d helped dress all those years ago. I would fill Riverbend and its lawn and terrace with flowers.
* * *
Hattie was determined to get most of her things in order before the party and subsequent onset of treatment. I tried to find ways to make it as easy for her as possible – bringing boxes into the sunroom, working through and streamlining as much of her paperwork and admin as I could myself – but she found her lack of stamina increasingly frustrating.
In the end, she confessed that the real issue wasn’t her possessions or financial and business affairs. ‘It’s this story, scraping at the back of my throat, insisting on being told.’
So, I poured us both a gin and tonic, pushed her comfy outdoor sofas into a patch of April early evening sunshine, and gave her story my full attention.
* * *
Riverbend
It was the strangest time, coming home. Hattie found Riverbend full of ghostly shadows. But the slow process of clearing away the dirt and decay did something to chase off the echoes of her father’s footsteps, his bitter laugh and the thud of her prison door banging shut.
The only time she ventured anywhere near the attic was to sprint up the stairs and check the door was locked, before burying the key in the back of a drawer in the boot room. Instead, she spent those first few days making the downstairs habitable again, scrubbing away years of neglect in the bathroom, kitchen and a spare bedroom with few enough horrible memories to allow some fitful sleep most nights.
The funeral was as depressing as the latter few years of Leonard Langford’s life. A smattering of villagers came, alongside a couple of his family’s friends, and a distant cousin Hattie knew nothing about. The big, and best, surprise was the grey-haired woman who shuffled into a seat on the back row of the crematorium (there was no way Hattie was having the proceedings in the chapel, given that the only time her father had set foot in there was the day he ruined her life).
As soon as the curtains had closed, and the mourners started filing out, Hattie intercepted the stranger.
‘I’m sorry.’ The woman ducked her head. ‘I’d hoped to slip in unnoticed. I thought there’d be more of a crowd, given how popular Leonard was.’
‘Was being the key word.’ Hattie grimaced. ‘My father’s friends disappeared along with his charm and money. May I ask how you knew him?’
Hattie braced herself. Although her father’s affairs were hardly a secret, and this person might not have been around until years after her mother died, the thought of being confronted with an old lover gave her goosebumps.
The woman frowned. ‘I’m your Auntie Agnes.’
Hattie burst into tears.
With nothing but a lukewarm cup of tea and a plain biscuit in the crematorium foyer to send off a man neither loved nor liked, Agnes accompanied Hattie back to Riverbend. Once Hattie knew, she could see in the familiar curve of cheek and way her aunt clenched her hands around her midriff that this was Uncle Chester’s wife.
‘My goodness.’ Agnes sighed, taking in the tatty façade, overgrown shrubbery and general air of severe neglect. ‘Your mother would have been heartbroken. If I’d known, I’d never have stayed away so long.’
The question begged to be asked: why Leonard’s sister-in-law, and Hattie’s only family, outside of her abusive, neglectful father, had stayed away. Once they’d made a proper pot of tea and settled at the scuffed kitchen table, Agnes was more than happy to answer it.
‘You were fifteen the last time we were here. It had been so strange, calling in and finding out your mother had passed. Even before then, things with Leonard had been strained for a long time. He was very… different from Chester.’ Agnes shifted on her seat, her discomfort evident. ‘They led very separate lives.’
‘Please, don’t hold back for fear of upsetting me.’ Hattie placed a hand over her aunt’s and gave it a squeeze. ‘I hadn’t seen him since I got married. I shan’t miss him. I suppose I’m grateful he’s the reason I exist. But I’m not sorry that he’s dead.’
