‘No! She never mentioned it. Never, I can’t believe it.’
‘Yes. Well, it would have been like her not to say. She and I were school friends, I lived around the corner. We recently reconnected, but I know she would have enjoyed seeing her belongings in the place she grew up – not that we had such fine things back then. I still don’t.’
‘Wow! I can’t believe this,’ Ciara replies. Sensing this woman is not here to browse, she extends her usual wonderful and, in this instance, annoying, hospitality. ‘Would you like a tea or coffee?’
‘Oh, a tea would be lovely, thank you. With a small drop of milk, please.’
Ciara goes into the back rooms, and I hear Joy walk around the shop. I pray that she won’t discover me but I know that she will. Her footsteps near me. They stop, I look up.
‘You must be Holly,’ she says. She has a cane.
‘Hello,’ I say, as though I hadn’t heard a word her and Ciara had said.
‘I’m Joy. A friend of Angela Carberry’s.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you. She went fast in the end. She declined so quickly. I wonder if she had a chance to speak with you.’
If I was polite I would stand up. Stop this woman on a cane from having to lean down and talk to me. But I’m not feeling polite.
‘About?’
‘About her club.’ She reaches into her pocket and retrieves a business card. The same one that Gabriel had shown me.
‘I received the business card, but I have no idea what it’s about.’
‘She gathered – well, she and I both gathered a group of people who are fans of yours.’
‘Fans?’
‘We listened to your podcast, we were so moved by your words.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I wonder if you could meet with us? I want to continue the good work Angela began …’ her eyes fill. ‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’
Ciara returns with the tea. ‘Are you OK, Joy?’ she asks when she sees the woman with a cane crying, while I’m still sitting on the floor with a book in my hand. She throws me a look of confusion and horror. Her cold-hearted sister.
‘I’m fine. Yes, I am, thank you. I’m very sorry for the imposition. I think I’ll just … gather myself.’
‘There’s no need to leave, take a seat over here.’ Ciara guides Joy to an armchair beside the dressing room, a corner of the room with a mirror and dramatic draping, still in my line of vision. ‘You stay here and rest until you feel right. There’s your tea. I’ll get you a tissue.’
‘You’re very kind,’ Joy says, weakly.
I remain on the floor. I wait for Ciara to leave before speaking, ‘What’s the club about?’
‘Did Angela not explain it to you?’
‘No. She left the business card here for me, but we never talked.’
‘I’m sorry she didn’t explain it to you. So please do let me. Angela was shining like a light after she attended your talk; she came to me with her idea, and when Angela Carberry got something in her head she was bound to it. She could be very persistent, and not always in the right ways. She was used to getting what she wanted.’
I think of Angela’s hand squeezing my arm, her nails digging into my flesh. The urgency that I misread.
‘Angela and I were in school together but we lost contact, as you do. We met each other a few months ago and because of our illnesses I think we connected more than we ever had. After she heard you speak, she called me and told me all about it. I was as greatly inspired by your story as she was. I told a few others who I felt would benefit.’
As Joy takes a breath I realise I’m holding mine. My chest is tight, my body is rigid.
‘There are five of us – well, four of us now. Your story filled us with light and hope. You see, dear Holly, we got together because we have something that bonds us.’
My fingers are clenching the book so hard it’s almost bending.
‘We have all been diagnosed with terminal illnesses. We joined together not just because of the hope that your story inspired in us but because we have a shared goal. We want to write letters for our loved ones as your husband did for you. We desperately need your help, Holly. We’re running out of ideas and …’ she breathes in as if summoning the energy, ‘all of us are running out of time.’
Silence as I pause, freeze, try to absorb that. I’m speechless.
‘I’ve put you on the spot and I’m very sorry,’ she says, embarrassed. She attempts to stand, with the cup of tea in one hand and her cane in the other. I can only watch her; I’m too stunned to feel anything but numb to the sadness of Joy and her fellow club members. If anything, I’m irritated that she would bring this back into my life.
‘Let me help you,’ Ciara says, rushing over to take the tea and hold her arm to assist her.
‘Perhaps I’ll leave my phone number for you, Holly. So that if you want to …’ She looks at me to finish her sentence but I don’t. I’m cruel and I wait.
‘I’ll get a pen and paper,’ Ciara says, jumping in.
Joy leaves her details with Ciara and I call goodbye as she makes her exit.
The bell rings, the door closes, Ciara’s footsteps click-clack across the wooden floors. Her 1940s vintage peep-toe heels, worn with fishnet stockings, come to a halt beside me. She stares at me, studies me, and I’m quite sure she has eavesdropped and heard it all. I look away and slide the book on to the shelf. Here. Yes, I think it will look good here.
6
‘Easy on the gravy, Frank,’ Mum says, taking hold of the jug in Dad’s hands. Dad clings to it, intent on finishing his gravy annihilation of his roast dinner, and in the tug of war the gravy glugs from the spout and drips on the table. He looks pointedly at Mum, then wipes the thick drips from the linen with his finger and sucks it in protest.
‘There won’t be enough for everyone,’ Mum says, holding it out to Declan.
Declan catches the dribbles from the spout and licks his finger. Then goes for another swipe.
‘No double-dipping,’ Jack warns, stealing the jug from Mum’s hands.
‘I haven’t had any yet,’ Declan gripes, trying to steal it back, but Jack retains possession and pours it over his food.
‘Boys,’ Mum admonishes them. ‘Honestly, you’re behaving like children.’
Jack’s kids laugh.
‘Leave some for me,’ Declan watches Jack. ‘Do they not have gravy in London?’
‘They don’t have Mum’s gravy in London,’ Jack says, winking at Mum, before pouring a little on the kids’ plates, and then passing it to his wife, Abbey.
‘I don’t want gravy,’ one of the kids moans.
‘I’ll have it,’ Declan and Dad say in unison.
‘I’ll make more,’ Mum says with a sigh, and hurries back to the kitchen.
Everybody mills into their food as if they haven’t eaten for days: Dad, Declan, Mathew, Jack, Abbey and their two children. My older brother Richard is delayed at choir practice and Gabriel is spending the day with his teenage daughter Ava. As she has wanted very little to do with him most of her life, these visits are precious to him. All are preoccupied by their meal apart from Ciara, who watches me. She looks away when I catch her eye and reaches for the salad spoon in the centre of the table. Mum returns with two jugs. She places one in the centre and another beside Ciara. Jack pretends to reach for it, like a false start, and it makes Declan panic, jump and grab the jug.