‘I can’t remember it being so spacious.’
‘Opening the blinds properly helps.’
‘Gramps gets annoyed if he sees the neighbour’s cats.’ Annoyed, as in he would throw saucepans at them. ‘Have you had a drink?’
‘I’ll have one once the floor’s done. Then we could look at domiciliary care companies? Unless you’d rather I clean the fridge, or start on the living room.’
‘No. I definitely wouldn’t rather you did that. Please sit down. Do you want tea or coffee?’
‘Now I’ve wiped down the machine, I’ll have coffee.’
They had almost another hour before either of their dependants woke up. The atmosphere was so comfortable they could have known each other for eons. At the same time, Beckett had to work hard at quashing the spark of joy that in the past he’d have described as attraction, but in this case spelled inevitable disaster.
Mary was happy to chat about her childhood, which offered some explanation regarding the disconnection with her family, but whenever the conversation strayed to more recent years, she would redirect it back onto him.
He found himself describing how when he gave up on a medical career, his fiancée, another doctor who he’d been with since the first week of university, made it clear she wasn’t prepared to share Beckett with his grandpa, or marry someone with such altered ambitions from hers.
‘Wow. That sucks.’
‘She spent all her working life with ill people, why would she sacrifice her precious spare time caring for a sick old man, too?’
‘Because he’s family, and he hasn’t got anyone else? Because whatever challenges he has now, he sacrificed so much for you? Because it’s the right thing to do?’ Mary found it hard to hide her distaste, and in that moment Beckett felt as if he loved her a little bit for it.
‘We spent weeks discussing it while he was in hospital. Then, one night I overheard her on the phone to a friend, saying that hopefully he wouldn’t hang on much longer, so maybe she should persuade me to stick him in a home and take the financial hit, ride it out. Once I’d got over the grief, I could go back to medicine.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah. At least I found out before we got married. You saw my old Facebook account. We were too busy out socialising for loads of deep discussions about taking care of Gramps in his old age, but, even if we had talked about it, I think she’d have given me all the right answers until facing it for real.’
‘It’s impossible to know how we’ll truly respond when everything falls apart, until it does.’
Mary shook her head, her gaze focused on something a long way from the kitchen. Beckett wondered if now was the time to ask how she’d ended up in Sherwood Forest, but then Bob started wailing, which woke up Gramps, and for the next couple of hours they barely had a spare minute.
‘Well, not the productive day we intended,’ Mary said, screwing up her nose in apology when Beckett carried Bob back into her house later that afternoon. He’d have been happy for her to stay longer, but didn’t want either her or Bob to witness Gramps letting rip when his favourite quiz show came on.
They’d kept getting so distracted with talking, and making sure everyone was fed, jigging the baby up and down and playing a three-way game of cards where Gramps managed to wipe the floor with them, that they’d only managed to send off a couple of enquiries to home-care agencies.
‘I disagree,’ Beckett said, resisting the urge to tuck a stray strand of hair off her face. ‘I haven’t talked, or laughed, that much in literally years. You cleaned my kitchen and kept Gramps out of trouble. Time well wasted, in my opinion.’
‘Fair enough.’ Mary ducked her head. Beckett wondered for a thrilling moment if she was blushing. ‘Would you like to waste some more time with me another day?’
Every day?
‘Sonali’s coming in tomorrow, and if I don’t get a replacement soon I’ll be taking Gramps out in the taxi with me.’
Mary burst out laughing. ‘Oh, that’ll get you some interesting tips. How about Thursday? We’ll be more disciplined this time, so you can make some proper progress.’
Beckett replied before his brain could stop him.
‘Okay, Thursday. It’s a date.’
Date? He didn’t stop cringing the whole way back to Bigley.
12
MARY
I messaged Beckett on Wednesday night.
