Bill shook his head. It was a very definite gesture. ‘It’s only another way to meet people. But like Joe said, just be careful. Then again falling in love is about chemistry and attraction and all that stuff you can’t possibly define on your shopping list.’
Kate looked at Bill and laughed, ‘Ohhhhh, my God, you are such a soft touchy feely bunny, Bill. It’s such a terrible shame you pair don’t fancy each other.’
And then Joe snorted, put his guitar down, and said. ‘And let’s face it, they can’t be any worse than the prats and no hopers that’s she’s picked up before.’ Before Chrissie could react, he continued, ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake, let’s go and eat. I’m starving,’ and so they did.
Later everyone was sitting around the kitchen table when they heard the phone ring. Nobody moved.
After three more rings it stopped and the hall door swung open.
‘Mum, it’s for you.’
‘Can you take a message?’ Kate said to Danny.
‘They said it’s really urgent.’
It was around nine o’clock, maybe half past. Half way through supper.
‘Nothing is that urgent. I’m not planning to deliver anything anywhere for anybody tonight,’ Kate said.
‘So, you want me to tell them that then, do you?’ snapped Danny. It was one of those family face-off moments. Danny looked a lot like Joe but with more hair. Same attitude.
They stared at each other for a few seconds, mother and son, and then Kate got to her feet. Clients really don’t like to be told the truth. ‘No’ does not appear anywhere in the Client-English dictionary. ‘Actually I’m working on it at the moment. I’m just waiting for agency to email more copy, more images, more bullshit,’ are just fine. Acceptable. ‘No’ is strictly a no-no.
‘Excuse me, folks, won’t be a minute. Bloody clients,’ Kate mumbled under her breath.
Except that it wasn’t a client. It was her little sister, Liz.
‘Kate? Is that you?’ The words were strung as tight as piano wire.
‘Yes, what on earth is the matter? Are you okay?’
‘It’s Mum. She’s had an accident.’
Kate felt an odd nip in her throat and then a great lurch of pain and panic in her solar plexus. ‘Oh God, what happened?’
‘She’s fallen over.’
Momentarily, the pain pulled back like a wave on a beach, replaced by relief, only to return an instant later, gentler but still raw. ‘Fallen over?’ Kate repeated.
‘She was coming home from the shops, I think, and fell down the steps at the back of the house. God alone knows how long she’d been lying there before they found her. It’s terrible. Anything could have happened. I mean, at her age. She’s getting frailer; when was the last time you saw her?’
There was a pause, well larded with guilt and any number of unspoken accusations. Kate leant back against the hallstand waiting for the next salvo.
The whole house smelt of curry. It hadn’t been a bad evening so far, a couple of beers and half a bottle of wine, and even Joe was starting to thaw out a bit.
‘Doesn’t bear thinking about, lying there, all on her own,’ Liz added, in case there was some possibility Kate might have missed the point. There was an even longer pause and then she said, ‘You know what Mum’s like, she won’t ask for help and she certainly wouldn’t ring up to let us know she had a fall. If it hadn’t been for her lodger, I probably wouldn’t have known at all. I told him that I’d ring you.’ Heavy sigh. ‘I wonder whether we ought to have a family conference. I’ve been looking at brochures for sheltered accommodation; if you can find the time to get up to Norfolk, obviously.’
The implication, of course, was that Kate was so busy in the fast lane that she never spared her poor old widowed mother a second thought. Kate glanced across the hall into the kitchen. The door was ajar, framing the supper party. The fast lane looked remarkably like a coffee advert, all low lights and soft autumnal tones. Behind the low babble of voices someone had put Gabrielle’s new CD on the hi-fi as a soundtrack.
‘So where did you say Mum is now?’
Bill was busy uncorking another bottle of red. Joe was holding court. Chrissie was looking pale and interesting.
‘The local hospital. They’re keeping her in for observation overnight. I’ve been over to see her, obviously. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay because of the girls, but she’s in plaster up to the knee and her face looks awful, dreadfully bruised, lots of stitches. It could have been very nasty. I thought you ought to know. I didn’t want to say anything to Daniel, didn’t want to upset him.’
Kate sighed. Presumably Liz had put on her best telephone voice so that he wouldn’t recognise who it was. There was that silence again, the one into which Kate guessed she was meant to leap head first.
In the kitchen, in the lamplight, Joe was rolling a joint while at the same time going on about how bloody terrible the parking was getting. The terrible dichotomy of hippiedom finally meeting middle age.
She stood still for a few moments after hanging up the phone; from upstairs Kate could hear the boys playing – the bass beat of Danny’s music overlaid with the ping-ping of a video game from Jake’s room. Where would they be when they got phone calls like this? Never mind getting married, giving birth, or signing up for a mortgage, the realisation that your parents don’t have the secret of everlasting life is the real ticket into adulthood.
Kate had been totally incredulous when her dad died. How the hell did that happen? How could it happen? He hadn’t even been ill. Part of her was still outraged.
Even after five years, the first thought Kate had whenever she thought about her dad was that he couldn’t possibly be dead, it had to be a trick of the light, he was there somewhere if only she knew where to look. He was just hiding, maybe in the next room, and along with a residual ache of loss was a terrible nagging frustration that he kept giving her the slip.
‘Who was that then?’ Joe asked, topping up his wine. ‘Not one of your clients again? You need to get them to ring in office hours, Kate. I’ve told you before. You’ve got this cosy cottage industry attitude towards business – boundaries, that’s what you need. I’ve always said that if you want people to consider you as a professional you have to –’
‘Actually, it was Liz. My mum’s had an accident. I’m just going to go and put a few things in a bag.’ For some reason saying it out loud made Kate feel shaky and weepy. ‘I ought to go and – well, just go and make sure she’s all right. Keep an eye on her. You know.’
‘You’re not going to drive to Norfolk tonight surely?’ Joe asked incredulously. ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’
‘No, I don’t think it can, I’m not sure what sort of state she’s in – and I’ve only had one glass of wine. I’ll be fine. They’re keeping her in overnight. I want to be there for her, sort the place out, pick her up tomorrow. She can hardly come home to an empty house and Liz’s girls are still little –’
‘Of course you’ve got to go,’ said Chrissie, on her feet, instantly sober, and instantly supportive. She was always calm in a crisis, or at least always calm in someone else’s crisis. ‘We can see to everything here, can’t we, Joe?’
‘Well, yes,’ he began more hesitantly. ‘But I’ve got stuff to do; there’s some Yank flying in for a breakfast meeting tomorrow. I need to drop in to the office – I did tell you, Kate – it’s important.’ And then he looked at her. ‘And you said you’d be able to pick my suit up from the cleaners –’ He blew out his lips and shook his head as if all this had nothing to do with him. ‘And what about the boys?’
Kate