Page 36 of Annabel and Her Sisters

Some days later, my mother was discharged from hospital and safely installed at Ginnie’s with the remaining dogs.

According to Ginnie she was getting better by the day– physically, much stronger.

Mentally… well, she was definitely more cheerful, she assured me.

I sensed Ginnie was sugar-coating it: my mother had been very attached to Raffles, a lovely gentle crossbreed she’d had from a puppy, courtesy of a litter next door.

She would have been very upset at the way he’d died, not to mention how Liam would feel; that would affect her deeply.

Apparently, Clarissa had driven him across to the house and he came in and apologized, stammering and nervous, but he assured her, too, that it had been very quick.

‘He’s a crack shot,’ Clarissa had put in helpfully, which Ginnie said they could have done without.

My mother had been brilliant with him. Made him sit beside her on the sofa and have tea, patted his hand, asked after his father.

Of course she did: she never showed her real feelings; those of others were far more important.

It made my eyes fill to think of it. To take my mind off her distress, I went to see Joan.

By this time a week had gone by, a week that did indeed include the Friday, and if you’re wondering what I did about Ralph, he cancelled.

He rang and said he was a bloody idiot. He said he’d totally forgotten some happy clappy festival he’d agreed to go to– not really his thing– but very much something vicars were supposed to support these days, and take their congregations with them.

‘Camping,’ he groaned. ‘Arms aloft, swaying to acoustic guitars. Think Four Weddings , that scene in the church with the two drips at the front of the church who look like the New Seekers. Before your time, obviously.’

‘ Four Weddings ?’

‘No, the New Seekers.’

‘Absolutely not,’ I assured him. ‘My uncle liked them.’

He said he’d blanked the whole event from his mind, then turned over his calendar and groaned, and did I ever do that, or was it just him?

‘Often,’ I said happily, thinking I’d even written the R in a very small letter on mine, as if it wasn’t really there, but that weirdly, talking to him on the phone now, made me remember why I liked him.

Or was it because I was now safe? I didn’t have to think through the next ‘goodnight’.

Who knows. Anyway, I took the phone to the sitting room, curled up on the sofa and we had a bit of to and fro.

He said I was welcome to come, but that really would get tongues wagging.

Everyone camped in church groups, and since his wasn’t an evangelical church, we’d probably be the only two there.

I giggled and said no, probably not in that case, and wasn’t there a high church equivalent he’d rather go to?

‘What, where we sit in a lecture hall and discuss the importance of the Episcopal form of church government? The sacraments and the liturgical worship? Not really. Unless it’s in a monastery, which I’ve always rather fancied, actually.

Preferably somewhere in the Tuscan hills, possibly near Siena and therefore convenient for good restaurants and lashings of Chianti. ’

‘Now that does sound attractive,’ I agreed.

‘So maybe one day,’ he said, somewhat wistfully.

‘At least the Siena bit.’ I found myself smiling.

Easier, perhaps, from the sanctuary of my sofa, knowing he was away for a week, but honestly, it was nice chatting to him.

He said he’d only got a dreadful old tent courtesy of his daughter’s D of E days, full of holes, and that Colin had said he could sleep in his, it was huge, but he wasn’t sure about bunking up in a threesome with Colin and Mike.

‘Bit cosy,’ I agreed. ‘Plus you have to camp with your own gang,’ I pointed out.

‘Exactly. My gang of one. I made my excuses and told him I’d pop to Mountain Warehouse and sort myself out. Sorry, my love, I’d have loved to have seen you. I’ll be in touch when I get back– if I survive.’

‘You’ll enjoy it,’ I assured him, deliberately responding to the latter part of his sentence rather than the former. ‘Be a new man.’

‘That is, of course, the point. You became renewed. Old things pass away. New Wine, it’s called.’

‘Oh. But I like all the old stuff. Choral anthems in Latin, freezing cold, centuries-old buildings…’

‘Me too. Lyrical, beautiful prose that needs deciphering sometimes… but no, accessibility and modernization and all manner of digital PR is apparently crucial to drag us along the path of righteousness. Diversity is key.’

‘Your church couldn’t be more diverse.’

‘True.’

St Mark’s was full of all ages, all ethnicities, classes and backgrounds. Despite, or perhaps because, of the traditional mass, the choral ensembles. He sighed.

‘But try telling that to the general synod. They don’t think the young can appreciate beauty unless it’s easy and delivered on a plate in patronizing, childish English that doesn’t make you think.

No, Annabel, I have to don my trainers, add a necklace or two and dumb down.

I should probably have a podcast and suggest a reality show for vicars. Blind Date with Dog Collars ?’

‘Too old school,’ I told him. ‘ Love Island in an Abbey .’

‘Perfect– Mont-St-Michel. The abbey dominates the island. I’ll float it.’

We laughed and said goodbye and I wished him luck.

Then I sat there, curled up, thoughtful.

Nice man. And I’d been to the hospice shop yesterday to check out Celine.

His ex. I’m not being vain, but I was prettier.

She was quite plain. And very hearty. A puffer and pearls.

Black lab at her feet. And I knew the other woman Anthea had been talking about, her friend Cynthia.

She was quite a lot older than me. Grey hair.

Her children were married; in fact, I was pretty sure she was a granny now.

And she was a bit dull. So actually, Polly, I have checked it out, and you’re wrong.

You’re not always right. Max’s exes weren’t as pretty as you either, or as fun and amusing, and you know it.

I got up rather defiantly and, somewhat in the manner of my daughter, swept from the room, chin high. Then, with something approaching joy in my heart– but it might have been relief at being let off the hook entirely this weekend– I went to see Joan.

Polly had organized a three-day deep cleansing session at the house courtesy of a local contractor, but little could have prepared me for what met my eyes.

It hadn’t come cheap, because the garden had been included, but the money had been well spent.

Indeed, it was transformational; rather like one of those television shows when people like Alan Titchmarsh and his team get cracking and there’s a big reveal at the end.

So much so that when I pulled up at the kerb, I wasn’t even sure I’d got the right house.

The front garden was tidy and mown– I’d had no idea a lawn even existed, had imagined it was simply thigh-high nettles– and the brambles had been ripped up and disposed of.

The tree had been pruned– it was huge, so pollarded is perhaps the word– and a cobbled path revealed, so pretty, where all the mud had been before.

The creeper had been trimmed right back so you could actually see the windows, which were clean.

Sparkling. I blinked. And the porch, with an arched roof which I didn’t even know was there.

Blimey, this was in fact a very attractive house– who knew.

Joan was impervious to my gushing admiration when she came to the door, still in her underwear but with a straw hat on.

‘What? Oh yes, some gardeners came.’

‘But Joan, it looks amazing!’

She shrugged. ‘Who cares? Anyway, come in.’

I followed her down the hall, which was devoid of piles of old newspapers, boxes of ancient pots and pans, old electrical equipment, broken frames.

Instead, the mouldy carpets had been taken up and scrubbed floorboards were revealed.

I stopped: gasped. As I raised my eyes I saw that this extended all the way up the stairs.

I wondered how Polly had managed it. I had to ask.

‘Well, she came round and put chalk crosses on all the stuff I told her could go. Most of it was supposed to be taken by the dustmen, anyway. Not the carpets, obviously. But they won’t take anything that doesn’t fit in the bin.’

Right. She’d clearly tried. So what were old people supposed to do?

Book their slot online at the local tip, as the children had shown me?

Joan wouldn’t have a clue. Drive there with trepidation, having loaded the car themselves?

Joan no longer drove and would be too proud to ask for help.

Find some complicated system of waste disposal awaiting them in different skips which had made me bat what remained of my eyelashes and ask my neighbour, a young man in a turban, who’d sweetly obliged, for help?

Or stack it all up in the hall as Joan had done?

And how was she supposed to attack the garden?

Look up a landscape gardener in Yellow Pages, which no longer existed?

What were elderly people, who still wanted to live independent lives, expected to do?

What happened to them, without busybodies nosing in and alerting social services about unhygienic living conditions?

My blood boiled briefly, but I also felt unbelievably guilty.

What was it Luke had said about other nations respecting and caring for old folk?

Family? She was our aunt, for God’s sake.

A spinster. And yes, my mother had tried, but she was not young herself.

Surely the three of us should have persisted?

Or did it matter? If she’d been happy. As Quentin Crisp said in The Naked Civil Servant , the dust only reached a certain level, then it just stopped building.