‘I should go, we’ve got people coming to dinner tonight,’ she said.
‘Well … give my regards to your husband, and to Jessica,’ Mrs Kline replied, disappearing into the snow in her tracksuit and sandals.
Linda went into the garage and lifted the lid of the chest freezer, on the brink of remembering what it was she needed to get out for dinner that night when she heard the phone ring. She dropped the lid, letting it bang shut.
‘Where are you?’
‘Brighton,’ Joe said.
‘Still? It’s nearly quarter to four. I thought you said you were leaving at three?’
‘It took longer to pack away the stall than I thought – then I called in to see your mum.’
‘My mum?’
‘Just a cup of tea. I’m leaving now.’
‘Well, if it’s of any interest to you, I’m going out of my mind over here,’ Linda exploded. ‘There’s a blizzard you’re probably going to get stuck in if you stay there any longer drinking tea; Jessica – who’s meant to be coming home to help me – is in detention because of something nuclear; and this man from the council came round to talk about the tree, you know – the tree – and I thought we would just talk about the leaves, but he didn’t want to talk about the leaves, he came to do a risk assessment – with no warning or anything – and then when he got into his car to go, some end-of-the-line Granada – he had freckles, Joe, all over his hands – he started talking to me about God – the man from the council – and Mrs Kline says he’s a minister or something, and …’ She stopped suddenly.
‘Linda?’ Joe prompted her.
‘Gateaux.’
‘What?’
‘The freezer. Triple chocolate mousse cake and Black Forest gateau – that’s what I was looking for in the freezer.’
Down the line from Littlehaven to Brighton, faster than the speed of light, came a profound sigh of relief.
Tired, Joe Palmer had made a deal with Steve, his business manager. If Steve agreed to oversee packing up the two showroom kitchens and stand into the van, Quantum would pay for him to stay in the Metropole that night and he could drive the van back to Littlehaven on Saturday morning.
‘I could do that,’ Steve had said, off-hand but sincere at the same time. Neither of these were qualities Joe liked on their own, but Steve managed to run them simultaneously and it had always made Joe trust his business manager.
He’d left the Brighton Centre, where Britannia Kitchens roadshow had been running for the past three days, and crossed the road onto the promenade. As he walked it had started snowing again and the headlights of late-afternoon traffic picked people out, making them look more interesting than they did in daylight. Above and beyond the traffic was an uneven December night, and the sea, which he couldn’t see but knew was there. Something that was true of a lot of things in life, he supposed. He’d heard it dragging itself backwards and forwards across the pebbles on the beach, distant and impartial.
The pier had been open, sending out its multi-layered stench of fish and chips, waffles, candyfloss and donuts: smells he found less easy to stomach the older he got. He’d thought about the penny slot machines in the amusement arcade, but it was too cold and anyway he’d promised to drop in on Belle, Linda’s mum.
The Pavilion Hotel on the corner opposite the entrance to the pier hadn’t drawn its curtains yet and passers-by were treated to a panorama of geriatric diners eating in sync. Foreign waiters stood poised against green fleur-de-lys wallpaper as the diners stared out the window, past the SAGA TOURS coach, looking for someone or something they might recognise.
Joe had passed the Aquarium where he used to take Jessica when she was small, then carried on up Roedean Road that rose with the cliff. No. 26 still had its stained-glass hotel fanlight: a rising sun with LYNTON HOTEL written underneath. It used to belong to Jim, Linda’s stepfather, and after his death it had been bought by a trust that built sheltered accommodation for the elderly. It was flats now – he didn’t know how many. There were six buzzers by the door and he was sure there had only been four the last time he came.
How could they say the world was getting bigger when all the time they just kept on dividing it up like this. What was it Jessica said? Something about matter being continuous, that you could divide up one piece over and over again and never stop. He didn’t understand what Jessica said half the time – hadn’t understood what she’d been saying, in fact, since she was about nine. But then children, he discovered, were the one thing in life you could love without understanding.
He rang the bell for Flat Three, which used to be the upstairs residents’ lounge, and about four minutes later a young woman in jeans opened the door, a pair of scissors in her hand.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hi.’ She stared at him. ‘Belle said it would be you.’
‘Who’s me?’
‘You’re Joe, aren’t you? Her son-in-law, Joe? There’s a photograph of you on the sideboard upstairs. You on your wedding day,’ she said slowly.
‘Ah.’ Joe didn’t want to think about his wedding day right then, and his prick – which had gone from belonging to Joe Palmer to belonging to a munchkin to belonging to a Lego man – was about to drop off with the cold.
‘Only you’re old now.’
‘Older,’ he corrected her, shoving his way into the hallway. ‘But then that’s only natural.’
The girl nodded, unconvinced, and led the way upstairs past the badly maintained stairlift tracks.
‘I sent Lenny down to get the door. She’s younger than me,’ Belle said as he walked into the flat.
She was sitting in her wheelchair with a Chanel towel wrapped round her shoulders, which Linda had got free with some perfume and given to her mum as a Christmas present. The girl, Lenny, went and stood behind her and carried on cutting Belle’s hair. The toes of her boots were covered in grey curls and a halo of them had formed on the carpet around the chair.
When Joe thought about it later, it was what he remembered most about that afternoon in December: the sound of the scissors and Belle’s grey curls on Lenny’s boots.
‘Don’t mind, do you, Joe?’ Belle asked. ‘We was right in the middle.’
‘You go ahead. Wouldn’t want to get between a woman and her hair.’
He went over to the window, pulling the nets to one side. A seagull on the ledge eyed him and let out a shriek then flew away. In summertime you got a bird’s-eye view of the nudist beach from here.
‘Not such a good view in December, is it?’ Belle said, smiling.
He looked to see if Lenny was smiling as well, but she wasn’t.
The room was lit by the gas fire and a couple of heavily tasselled standard lamps with shawls draped over them. The lack of overhead light combined with net curtains, snow and twilight made it difficult to see anything but shadows in the room, and the flat suddenly felt as though it was waiting for somebody long overdue.
‘Your eyes all right?’ Joe asked Lenny.
She nodded, tucking the scissors into her belt as she started setting fat pink curlers in the old woman’s hair.
‘D’you want tea?’ Belle asked Lenny, her eyes closed. Then, without waiting for an answer, ‘Go and make us some tea, Joe, and don’t forget the biscuits.’ Her eyes opened and followed her son-in-law into the kitchenette in the corner. ‘And you can take your coat off – the flat’s got central heating.’