The Last Thing She Told Me Read online

  James stirred and turned to kiss me. ‘Morning. You OK?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Is it tomorrow we get an extra hour or next weekend?’

  ‘Next weekend.’

  ‘Could we get away with telling Maisie it happens every Sunday?’

  ‘Worth a try.’ I smiled.

  ‘So, what’s the plan today?’

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind taking Maisie to her swimming lesson again, I want to go to the nursing home, see if I can talk to Olive.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘No, but I have to try.’

  ‘They might not even let you in.’

  ‘I’m family, aren’t I? I’ll take the photo to prove it.’

  ‘She might not have all her marbles.’

  ‘Like I said, I’ve got to give it a try. It’s my best hope – pretty much my only hope.’

  James sighed. A moment later Maisie burst into the room, like a crazed human alarm clock. ‘Time to get up. I’m hungry and I want a puppy.’

  ‘For breakfast? That’s not very nice,’ said James.

  Maisie collapsed into fits of giggles and jumped on him. ‘No, to take for walks and look after. Emily said she’s going to get a puppy when she’s nine.’

  ‘Great. You can play with Emily’s. I’m not going to get up at six thirty at the weekend to take the dog out.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Maisie.

  ‘You’ll have to pick up the puppy’s poo in a plastic bag and bring it home with you.’

  Maisie wrinkled her nose and made a disapproving noise, then disappeared out of the bedroom.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’re entirely wasted as a plumber, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied. ‘And you owe me big-time.’

  *

  I knew exactly where the nursing-home was. I’d driven past it several times over the years when I’d brought the girls to events in the village. I pulled into the car park at the back and took a moment to get myself together. I hadn’t rung in advance: I’d decided the staff would find it harder to turn me away in person. I’d seen on their website that they had open visiting hours so thought I’d just turn up. All I needed to do was appear confident and matter-of-fact. And keep reminding myself that I had every right to be there.

  I got out of the car and walked up the gravel path. If you had to go into a nursing-home, there’d be worse places than a beautiful Georgian building perched on the top of the hill, looking down over the valley. I imagined you’d have to pay extra for somewhere like that, mind. Or, rather, your children would. John must have had a good job to afford somewhere like this for his mother. I wondered if he had a family. I might have second cousins, or cousins once removed or whatever they would be to me.

  I pressed the buzzer on the front door. A young woman, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing a navy uniform, opened it.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, ‘my name’s Nicola Hallstead. I’ve come to see Olive Armitage. She’s my great-aunt.’

  It was only as I said it that I realised Olive might have died since she’d turned a hundred. I remembered reading somewhere that a lot of people died shortly after reaching a landmark birthday. It was like they’d been hanging on for their big day and their will to live disappeared with the last of the cake.

  ‘Have you been to see her before?’ she asked, in an East European accent, frowning slightly as if she was trying to remember me.

  ‘No. My grandma, her sister, died earlier this month. They’d lost touch years ago but we wanted to let her know.’

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, holding the door open for me. ‘I’ll get my supervisor.’

  She walked off, leaving me in the foyer. At least Olive was still alive, that was the main thing.

  The inside of the home was rather tired and faded. The walls were dotted with various framed certificates, hung so high up I couldn’t read them properly.

  ‘Hello,’ came a voice from behind me. ‘I’m Dawn, the duty manager. I understand you’d like to see Olive.’

  I turned to find a large woman in her fifties smiling at me. ‘Yes. I’m Nicola Hallstead, her great-niece. I’ve never met Olive before. We’ve only just tracked her down. My grandma, Betty, died earlier this month.’

  ‘Betty?’ she replied, frowning a little. I worried that she might have seen the news stories about the bones in the garden. I didn’t want to put her off. ‘She sometimes talks about a Betty.’

  ‘Really?’ I was unable to hide my delight.

  ‘Betty and her little girl. Irene, was it?’

  ‘That’s my mum. I’ve got a photo of them all together,’ I say, rummaging in my bag and handing it to her. ‘There are lots of others at Grandma’s house. I could bring them in to show her.’

  ‘I’m sure she’d like that. She’s got dementia, struggles to remember anything that happened yesterday, but old photos are a good way of getting her talking. John brings some in with him sometimes,’ she said, pointing at him in the photo. ‘I nearly didn’t recognise him with all that hair!’

  I laughed along with her. I couldn’t help feeling a fraud, though, considering I’d never met him.

  ‘Would it be possible for me to see her now? I won’t stay long.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘She’ll be delighted to have a visitor. I wouldn’t tell her about Betty dying, though. It might upset her. Perhaps John could talk to her about it later.’

  ‘That’s fine. Whatever you think’s best.’

  ‘Follow me. She’s in the day room.’

  The day room was light and airy with a bay window looking out over the gardens. Several residents were sitting on the sofa and easy chairs clustered around the TV. Only one was in an armchair in the window. I knew at once it was Olive from the photo. She even appeared to have the same mauve cardigan on.

  ‘Olive, love, I’ve got a visitor for you,’ said Dawn. Olive turned her head. I was struck by her nose, which was very similar to Grandma’s.

  ‘This is Nicola. She’s Betty’s granddaughter. You’ve talked to me about Betty, haven’t you?’

  Olive frowned at me. For a moment I thought she was going to send me away. Maybe whatever the family falling-out had been about, she wasn’t interested in making up. But then something appeared to register on her face.

  ‘Our Betty were always a good mum,’ she said. ‘Always looked after her own.’

  Dawn pulled up a chair and gestured to me to sit down, then left us.

  ‘Hello, Olive,’ I said, sitting down and holding out my hand. ‘It’s lovely to meet you. I’ve never met anyone who’s a hundred before. Congratulations.’

  Olive clasped my hand. Her fingers were long and gnarled, blue veins standing out like motorways on a map. All I could think of was holding Grandma’s hand as she took her final breath. Now I was holding hands with her older sister.

  ‘Here,’ I said, pulling the photo from my bag. ‘This is you and Betty when you were younger, with John and my mum Irene.’

  Olive stared at the photo for a long time without saying anything. Finally, she looked up at me and spoke. ‘Like a little sister, she were to him.’

  I smiled at her as I put the photo back into my bag. ‘There are lots more photos of them at Betty’s house. I could bring them in, if you’d like to see.’

  She looked at me blankly. I wondered if she’d forgotten who I was.

  ‘I’m Nicola. Irene’s daughter. Betty was my grandma,’ I said.

  I realised as soon as I’d said it that I’d spoken of Grandma in the past tense. The last thing I needed was to upset Olive. ‘Can I get you anything?’ I asked, keen to distract her. ‘A cup of tea or a biscuit?’

  ‘Betty liked a custard cream,’ Olive said.

  I smiled. She was talking about her in the past tense too.
I guessed, when you were a hundred, everything was in the past.

  ‘Do you remember her biscuit barrel?’ I asked. ‘There was always a custard cream or two in there.’

  ‘John preferred wafers,’ she added, looking up at me. ‘Is he here? Does he want a wafer?’

  ‘It’s just me, Nicola,’ I reassured her.

  ‘Is Betty here?’

  ‘No, she’s not.’

  ‘She’ll be busy in garden. She always kept that garden lovely. Hard to grow owt up there, mind. Always blowing a gale.’

  This was my opportunity. I leant forward.

  ‘Do you remember the fairy statues, Olive? The ones in Betty’s garden?’

  She looked intently into my eyes. She did remember, I was sure of it. She was there now in her mind.

  ‘Pretty little things, they were.’

  I swallowed, still not daring to say too much out loud. ‘The statues?’ I asked.

  Olive fell silent.

  ‘Can you remember when Betty got the statues? I wondered how long she’d had them.’

  ‘They were there before Betty moved in,’ Olive replied.

  I stared at her. That didn’t make sense. If the statues were there before Betty moved in, maybe the babies weren’t hers. But, then, why would Betty have known about them?’

  ‘Did she tell you about the babies?’

  Olive looked past me out of the window. Her eyes had sadness in them. I was about to prompt her when I heard a cough behind me.

  ‘Hello, Mam,’ said a man’s voice.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Olive. ‘Is it John? Does he want a wafer?’

  I stood up and turned to face him. Dawn had been right: he did look different without a full head of hair. But there was enough in his features for me to see the boy in the photo. He was looking at me strangely, and I wasn’t sure if Dawn would have told him who I was.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘You must be John. I’m Nicola, Irene’s daughter.’

  The colour drained from his face. He stared at me. Confusion was knitted into his brows. ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here?’ His voice was icy quiet. I stepped away from Olive.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I would have contacted you earlier, but I didn’t have your details. Betty, my grandma, she died earlier this month.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied.

  Of course he did. Her name had been all over the local TV news. He would have heard about it along with everyone else. He could have got in touch with us then. Could have put a card through Betty’s door. Though maybe, understandably, he didn’t want to get involved. I ushered him towards the far corner of the room.

  ‘Look, we’ve got no idea what happened, with the bones and that, I mean. And we don’t know anyone who has. I was clearing out her house and found some old photos. She’d written your names on the back. I tracked down your mum from the story about her birthday in the Courier.’

  He continued staring at me. A line of moisture had formed on his top lip. I knew I’d probably said too much already, but my instinct in these situations was always to carry on talking to fill any awkward silences. I took the photograph from my bag and handed it to him.

  ‘Dawn said I could show your mum the old photos. She said not to tell her about Betty dying, that I’d be better leaving that to you. I don’t want to upset her, you see.’

  John took the photo from me. His hand was shaking but his face seemed to soften. ‘I’m sorry about your grandmother,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Thanks. And I’m sorry for turning up out of the blue like this. I know it must have come as a bit of a shock.’

  He managed the first hint of a smile.

  ‘Look, I’ve got no idea why Grandma and your mum had lost touch but I do hope we can start afresh. I’m simply trying to make sense of all this and I thought you might be able to shed some light on it.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You or your mum. I wondered if she’d ever mentioned anything to you. Or if my mum had ever said anything to you about it.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

  I didn’t want to go into everything with someone I’d only just met, but if I was asking him to talk about things buried in the past, it was only right that I was open and honest with him. Besides, he was family. And I had precious little of that left.

  ‘We’ve had a bit of a falling-out ourselves, actually,’ I said. ‘She didn’t agree with me going to the police about the bones.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So she hasn’t talked to you about me or my mam?’

  ‘She hasn’t talked to me about anything, I’m afraid.’

  ‘She always were a stubborn one,’ said John. ‘I take it she doesn’t know you’re here either.’

  I shook my head. ‘She never spoke about you. I didn’t even know your names until I found the photos. Although I did remember afterwards that we used to get a Christmas card from Auntie Olive, Uncle Harold and John.’

  He nodded slowly. He didn’t seem to know what to say, so I continued. ‘I was told there’d been some big falling-out years ago but that was all. Neither Grandma nor Mum ever talked about it, or any of you, for that matter.’

  ‘I see,’ he said.

  ‘Do you have any family?’ I asked.

  ‘No. It’s just us.’ He turned to look at Olive, who had gone back to staring out of the window. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Two daughters,’ I said. ‘Eight and thirteen.’

  ‘Lovely,’ he replied. It struck me how lonely he must be, living on his own, his only relative having dementia.

  ‘They’d love to meet you,’ I said. ‘I mean, they don’t know about you yet, because I didn’t want to jump the gun, but they’d be so interested to meet you and hear your stories about Mum and Grandma.’

  He looked down at his feet and I wondered if I’d overstepped the mark. He might be one of those older men who preferred his own company. He might not even like children.

  ‘That’s nice of you to offer,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t want to intrude.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be intruding. They’ve just lost their great-grandma and they’re not seeing their grandma either. It would be lovely for them to have someone older to talk to. How about you come over Monday teatime? Have you got a car?’

  ‘Aye, and I can still drive it.’

  I smiled, appreciating the note of sarcasm. ‘Well, we’re only in Hebden. It would give us the chance to have a proper chat.’

  ‘If you’re sure, that would be grand. It’s not easy to talk here. Mum gets confused and upset pretty easily.’ He glanced at her again and lowered his voice. ‘I know you wouldn’t think it looking at her now, but she can get a bit aggressive when she can’t remember things. That’s why she’s in here, you see. They provide the level of specialist care she needs.’

  ‘Oh, I see. That must be so tough for both of you.’

  ‘Where’s John?’ Olive called from her armchair. ‘John’s coming and I haven’t got any wafers.’

  John walked over to her. I followed a few paces behind. ‘I’m here, Mam. And you don’t need no wafers.’

  ‘The new lady said Betty only had custard creams.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered to John. ‘I didn’t mean to upset her.’

  ‘I’ll sit with her quietly for a bit. Try to calm her down.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  I took the piece of paper from my bag on which I’d written my contact details, in case they hadn’t let me in. ‘Here’s my address and phone number. Any time after four on Monday would be great. We’re easy to find. Second road on the left when you come down from Heptonstall.’

  He nodded, folded the piece of paper and put it into his jacket pocket.

  I moved closer to Olive. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Olive. I enjoyed our chat. I’m going now.�
��

  ‘Tell Betty to get some wafers for when John visits. He’ll be upset if she hasn’t got any.’

  I smiled and mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ to John on my way out.

  19 June 1944

  Dear Betty,

  We can’t go on like this, sneaking around and snatching precious moments together. I understand that you don’t want to be seen with me. The last thing I want to do is to get you in trouble. But Betty, life is too short and I might burst if I have to wait any longer.

  Meet me by the gate tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. If we get up real early before everyone else, we won’t have to worry about being seen. I know somewhere we can be together without having to worry about anyone else seeing us. Please don’t tell anyone. I want it to be our secret. If it was up to me, Betty, I’d take you to the swishest hotel in London or New York City or wherever you wanted to go. I’d buy you a pretty dress and you’d walk in and turn heads because you turn heads everywhere you go, even if you don’t know it. But for now, we’re going to have to make do with something a little less grand than that.

  You don’t need to bring anything. I’ll be providing everything we need. Just bring your smile and your sense of adventure. I can smell you already, Betty. The scent of you is still on my jacket, or maybe I just think it is. And tomorrow I will touch you and taste those lips again and everything will be fine. Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you. But it’s time, Betty. Two of the guys from Thunderbird didn’t make it back last night. We need to grab our moment while we can.

  I love you, Betty Braithwaite. And I’m going to be counting down the minutes until we can be together alone.

  Until tomorrow,

  Yours always,

  William

  10

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ asked James.

  ‘Are you sure you weren’t sent by God to question everything I do?’