‘Not with moving the furniture! He dusted, and vacuumed. Helped unhook that filthy net monstrosity. Another time, I’ll wash the curtains and bring a few cushions, and it’ll be perfect.’ Her eyes shone. ‘You might even have room to squeeze in a Christmas tree.’
‘It’s already perfect.’ Beckett didn’t ask why, when she’d been able to transform this room in two hours, her own house still looked so drab after months.
‘So, the living room’s not been this afternoon’s only transformation.’
Mary reached up and ran a hand over Beckett’s newly cut hair, which now sat just below his cheekbones. Her expression was playful, but the way Beckett’s body responded was deadly serious. He had to turn away, fighting the urge to grab her hand and press it against his face.
‘It looks lovely.’ She spoke more gently, perhaps assuming Beckett’s awkwardness was down to feeling self-conscious, rather than his nervous system going into overdrive after being touched tenderly for the first time in forever. ‘It’s made me realise I’ve not been to a hairdresser since I moved.’
‘Next time, leave Bob with me and you go.’
Beckett took his time after offering to make them both tea, so when he turned around he could at least pretend he’d yanked himself back together. ‘Goateez down the road will do you a snazzy short back and sides.’
‘What else did you do, then?’ Mary sat down at the table. ‘It’s a great cut, but can’t have taken two hours.’
‘I had to wait in the queue for twenty minutes. Then, afterwards I walked around for a bit, worried about Gramps. Worried more about why he’s been so uncooperative with me since the stroke, so determined to sit at home and feel miserable, and now he’s happily hobbling into church to charm everyone. Then I come back and he’s cleaning! Yesterday I couldn’t persuade him to throw out an old VHS remote.’
‘Surely that’s a good thing?’
Beckett rubbed his eyes. ‘Except it shows how badly I’ve been letting him down all this time.’
‘What? Beckett, you gave up a medical career to take care of him! You lost your fiancée. Until Tanya quit, you’ve been working all day, looking after Gramps the rest of the time. You get hardly any sleep, handle his insults and unreasonableness, keep an eye out constantly. You’ve given time, energy, patience. Everything. You told me he wasn’t interested in clubs and day centres before. Maybe he’s simply ready for them now. Maybe Tanya leaving was the catalyst he needed.’
Beckett shook his head. He needed to get this out before it ate him alive.
‘I didn’t try hard enough. I know I didn’t. For the first few months, getting him out of bed felt like an achievement. Then, I don’t know, there was so much to figure out. It was easier to stay at home and let him watch quiz shows than think about the next week, let alone what the next few years would be like. I was completely out of my depth. Relying on random care-agency staff who didn’t even know him, weren’t going to care about finding a way to get beyond survival and start living again. Why would they, when his own grandson didn’t?’
‘You were mourning.’
‘For six years?’
‘Beckett, you were so young. It’s a miracle you managed to do any of it alone. Most people would have found him a care home and got on with their lives ages ago.’
Beckett’s jaw clenched at the thought of it. ‘I promised him I wouldn’t do that. And still, I wasn’t good enough. This past couple of weeks have proven how different things could have been. Should have been.’
Mary screwed her nose up. ‘When you’re already at breaking point, sometimes all you can do is choose the option that seems safest. You did your best.’
‘He’s so old. He’s getting worse every week. How much precious time have I wasted? How can I begin to make that up to him?’
She reached across the table and took his hand. ‘You don’t squander the time you have left. You do better from now on.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘We both do.’
19
MARY
I woke up on Friday to a moody morning. A blanket of gunmetal-grey stretched above the treetops, and it was one of those wintry days when it never seemed to get fully light. I’d been intending to knuckle straight down to cutting out patterns, but, after the busyness of the day before, decided to be kind to myself with a slower start. I turned on the two lamps in the living room, settled Bob back into his Moses basket and tucked myself up with a blanket, mug of tea, raisin toast and a notepad, sketching out the finer details of the costumes I was hoping to create. The only thing missing was a fire in the grate. I’d tried a couple of times to get one going, using a starter kit from the farm shop, but had got nowhere past a few embers and a lot of smoke.
Not long after eleven, I was startled out of my creative zone by the doorbell. Quickly pulling on an oversized cardigan to hide the roll of flesh sagging above the pre-pregnancy joggers I’d squeezed into, I hurried to answer it.
Someone had already dropped off a generous portion of lasagne, so it wasn’t the meal-train calling. I paused in the doorway between the living room and the hall, caught off guard by how my assumption that it was probably Beckett sent a flutter of anticipation through my insides. Quickly dismissing it as the natural reaction to an unexpected visit from a friend, given how the only people ringing my doorbell for months had been delivery drivers, I told myself that I’d be equally pleased if it was Sofia or Rina. Okay, so almost as pleased. I knew Beckett better than the coffee mums. I was allowed to like him more.
I’d not reached the point where I could even begin to consider someone as becoming more than platonic. I knew I’d not get there for a very long time. If ever.
Although, when I saw the unmistakable shadow of a six-foot-three man through my front-door window, the swoop in my belly felt like a long-lost friend. With a flash of shock, I had to wonder if my feelings might have other ideas.
‘Hi.’ Beckett stuck his hands in his pockets, his eyes shifting to the side and then back again. ‘This seemed like a great idea when I was up convincing Gramps that three in the morning wasn’t the best time to start dismantling kitchen cupboards. Now I’m here I’m thinking I might have overstepped.’
‘In coming to see me? I mean, you could have messaged first, but I’m not busy.’
