‘Oh, I’m fine, Dizzy…’
‘So,’ Dizzy appeared to have forgotten she had a hairdressing appointment in Thorpe, four miles away. ‘Tell me all about your new neighbours from across the road.’
‘I don’t know them yet.’ Pauline looked towards the neighbours’ house. ‘They only moved in last week. I haven’t met them. I saw them when the removals van arrived. She’s in her forties, I suppose, the woman – dark hair. He has glasses, same age as his wife, same hair colour.’
Dizzy rolled her eyes. ‘I must pop round there, offer my services. She might benefit from a good cut and blow dry. Or him, a nice tidy-up. And I’ll do the kids cut-price, if they have any. Do they?’
‘I’ve no idea. Look, Dizzy, I’m sorry – I have to leave soon. I’m picking up my sister from the station in Taunton – she’s just phoned me with a third update on her arrival time.’
Dizzy beamed, her eyes shining. ‘Is she coming to stay? I didn’t think she’d been here since you moved – what – it must be more than three years ago now?’
‘That’s right. She’s been twice, once for our first Christmas. She stayed for a day or two. She was bored, I think. Then she came just after Douglas died and managed to tolerate me for three days. I don’t think she likes the country life.’
‘Why is she coming, then?’ Dizzy’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘She won’t stay long.’
Pauline nodded. ‘I expect not.’
Dizzy patted her on the arm and gave a little skip. ‘You mustn’t miss yoga, the day after tomorrow in the village hall. You are coming, aren’t you?’
‘I wouldn’t miss it.’ Pauline’s eyes shone. ‘I always look forward to it.’
Dizzy turned. ‘I’ll see you there then.’ She walked four paces away, then twisted back. ‘Bring your sister. It might do her some good.’
Pauline watched Dizzy slide into the Fiesta, following it with her eyes as the car shunted away. She chuckled softly. ‘It might be an idea. It could help Barbara to chill out. On the other hand…’ Perhaps it was the word chill, or the bite in the gust of wind, but Pauline shivered inside her jacket. With a heart heavy as stone, she flopped into the Volkswagen and started the engine.
Two hours later, Pauline gripped her keys, opened the oak front door and stood back to allow Barbara to walk in with her case. Barbara stopped stiffly in the hallway.
‘Smells damp in here, Pauline. Very musty.’
Pauline was conscious that plenty of fresh air was sweeping into the house, cold air with a touch of ice, and that she had put the radiators on full especially to welcome Barbara into her home. She shut the door with a heavy thud and made her voice light.
‘I can’t smell anything.’
‘I suppose you are accustomed to the damp. It’s in all these old houses. That’s why I live in a cosy little modern terrace.’
Pauline murmured, ‘Soulless places,’ under her breath, then put an arm on her sister’s. She hoped a warm gesture might be a positive start; it might begin to close the gap between them. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of tea. I need one.’
‘Good idea. But I’ll need to take my bag up to my room first and put my things away tidily. I like everything in order.’ Barbara glanced at Pauline’s hand on her arm and her eyes glittered. ‘And I’ll need the loo. Tea always goes straight through me.’
Pauline shook her head and led the way to the kitchen, hurrying forward like a broody chicken: the quicker she could seat Barbara at the table and fill her mouth with tea and cake, the less her sister would be able to speak, to complain about the house. Pauline considered her home through Barbara’s eyes: musty, damp, old, in need of renovation. Pauline wondered if her sister saw her the same way: a lonely widow, past help, crumbling, incapable of keeping up her own home. She folded her arms, determined she’d show her that she was independent and in charge of her own life. Barbara wouldn’t stay for long but, while she was here, Pauline was certainly not going to put up with any of her nonsense, that was a certainty.
Barbara considered the spare room, the double bed with its soft duvet with a colourful picture of the Buddha on the front, the smooth matching pillows. She frowned, observing the rounded doorways, iron latches, low black beams. She moved to the window and held out a hand; she could feel a breeze blowing through, and thought of her own neat bedroom, half the size of this vast room, with triple glazing and a tidy built-in wardrobe. She folded her clothes into the heavy wooden drawers, glancing at her looming reflection in the mirror of the dark wardrobe. She moved to the fireplace, turning her back to the old mantelpiece, and shivered as a draught whirled around her hips and up her spine to her shoulders.
‘This place is so cold.’ Barbara said the words aloud, wondering how Pauline could survive in such a draughty house. Even now, just standing in the room with its one small radiator on full, Barbara’s fingers were rigid. She folded the last of her underwear, pushed the winceyette night dress under the matching Buddha pillow and thought that a cup of tea would be very pleasant. At least the kitchen had an Aga. It would be warm there.
4
‘You don’t have to come with me, Barbara. There will be lots of people there. You mightn’t enjoy it.’
‘What makes you think I won’t? I’m flexible for my age.’ Barbara glanced up from the chair at the kitchen table and smirked at her own joke. ‘Physically and mentally.’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean, I’ve been going for over a year. I know all the people at yoga – all the villagers. They might not be, you know, your sort of people.’
‘There you go again, making assumptions. What are you trying to say, Pud? That I’m not the sociable type?’
‘Pauline. I hate being called Pud.’ She took a breath, determined to be assertive. ‘You’re the only person who’s ever called me that and it’s not my name. And I didn’t mean to imply that you’re antisocial, it’s just that—’
‘When I was on holiday in Suffolk recently, I went out hiking and made a new friend, a woman who came with me on the coastal paths.’
‘Oh yes?’ Pauline raised her eyebrow in disbelief. ‘What was her name? Was she young?’
Barbara shrugged. ‘My age, I suppose.’
She couldn’t remember the woman’s name: Doris, Dorothy? Barbara had been walking in front most of the time, surging ahead and trying to ignore the woman’s pleas to go back and the complaints about her raw bunions. She forced a smile.
‘I make friends easily. You never know, I might even like yoga. I might be good at it.’
Pauline looked at her sister in the purple baggy t-shirt and the well-worn jogging bottoms she’d just borrowed, which reached her calves. She turned away and muttered, ‘I doubt it,’ then raised her voice. ‘Come on then – let’s get going. Yoga starts in half an hour.’
‘We’re far too early.’
Pauline grabbed her keys and her jacket and moved towards the front door, pretending she hadn’t heard. After all, it was her house, her friends, her yoga class.
Barbara had insisted they walk into Winsley Green, despite the chill in the air. She maintained that it was a crisp April day and that a stroll would be good for them both. She added that Pauline needed the muscle tone. Pauline said nothing, although she was piqued: she thought her muscle tone was fine for a woman of seventy-five. They arrived in the village, Barbara surging ahead and Pauline strolling several paces behind, five minutes before eleven o’clock when the class would