Page 37 of Annabel and Her Sisters

I marvelled quietly as she threw open a few doors for me to inspect– not out loud, I didn’t want to embarrass her.

All rooms were clean, clear and tidy. More scrubbed wooden floorboards, a few recently cleaned rugs, some nice pieces of vintage brown furniture, revealed and polished.

Joan’s sitting room remained exactly as it was.

But it had been hoovered and dusted, I noticed.

The exploding sofa remained, but all the old newspapers had been removed from a pair of wingback chairs.

I recognized the chairs as being from my grandparents’ house in Yorkshire.

There was another leather one, which again, had belonged to Grandpa.

I tried not to look too carefully in case Joan saw me inspecting. She didn’t seem to care, though.

In the dining room, the table– which I could see now the junk had gone– had been polished, and an excellent tallboy at the far end shone, the colour of burned mahogany.

Golly, it looked Georgian. Good for Polly.

Six chairs, again antique, and similar to my mother’s which were in storage, and no doubt also from my grandparents’ house in Yorkshire, surrounded the table, which I now vaguely remembered.

I tried not to exclaim, but actually, I was alone.

Joan, bored, had disappeared. So I crept through to the kitchen.

The blue Formica surfaces remained plus an old fridge and cooker, of course, but so clean.

And the lino floor, I realized, albeit cracked, had been scrubbed to within an inch of its ancient life.

I daren’t open a cupboard for fear of being too presumptuous, but Polly had told me everything had been thrown away: all the old jars, bottles and mouldy jams, and she’d bought Joan new essentials.

‘Mostly gin, fags and chocolate,’ Polly had grinned. Then she’d seen my face. ‘No, obviously not, Mum. Some bread, butter, tinned soup and corned beef and stuff, but only ones with ring pulls. Baked beans and sardines. Old people can’t do tin openers.’

More shame. So thoughtless of us. But Mum had been so capable. A few years younger, of course. And Joan wielded a paintbrush, so one assumed a level of dexterity. No, that was untruthful. It hadn’t crossed my mind.

The study I viewed with interest. Clean, tidy and scrubbed, there was a Victorian kneehole desk, a balloon back chair, a bookcase with dusted books encased in latticed glass, but nothing else.

All the rubbish on the floor had disappeared.

Mum could put a large rug down, have a sofa– two, actually– one for the dogs.

She could live in here with them if Joan got on her nerves.

Or vice versa, of course. And they could eat in the dining room together.

My mother still cooked. I realized a gorgeous Ladies in Lavender screenplay had evolved in my head, with the pair of them living in companionable, Bloomsbury-esque contentment: Mum stitching– she liked to do tapestry– Joan painting, till the end of their days.

The studio, at the back of the house, naturally remained exactly the same, but Joan wasn’t in there when I looked; she was outside in the garden which was…

magnificent. I nipped through the back door.

Walled and private, it was now mown– and gosh, what a lawn!

Flower beds on either side had been weeded, trees pruned, bushes cut back.

Joan’s easel was in prime position on the grass, a painting in situ.

The whole scene looked idyllic on this fine summer’s day.

‘Oh!’ I couldn’t help exclaiming as I joined her at the easel. I spun around in delight. ‘Don’t you love it?’

She looked at me disdainfully, made a face. ‘It’s all right. I have to wear this wretched hat because there’s less shade. They’ve taken so much of the ash tree down. But there’s more to paint, I suppose.’

There was. I realized her painting– dreadful, to my eye– was supposed to be the wall at the back, with roses climbing up it. At least I imagine that’s what those red splodges were.

‘Lovely,’ I said politely.

‘You don’t want to see upstairs, do you? It’s just more of the same,’ she said impatiently, her eyes fixed firmly on her canvas.

‘No, no,’ I said quickly. ‘I can imagine.’ God forbid I should bore her.

Joan could be quite scary. I mean, I wouldn’t mind peering at the condition of the beds, and the bathroom, but we could always get Mum a new mattress, and to be fair, the downstairs loo had sparkled.

Suddenly she put her brush down, turned and marched back inside, guided tour over, or perhaps time with her painting over, one never knew.

I followed her meekly, then stopped abruptly in the back hall. I stared.

‘Oh, how funny. I’ve just seen this at Clarissa’s.

Or something similar.’ On a dresser against the wall, now clear of junk, were some framed photos.

No doubt they’d always been there, but never seen, for the mess.

One was similar to Clarissa’s: Joan and Mum hunting with the same crowd, and another of Joan in a long black dress and pearls.

She looked lovely. There were two young men behind her, leaning against a bar– in a club, perhaps.

They were grinning. Nice looking, both of them.

I recognized one of them from the photo beside it.

‘Knick-knacks,’ she said crossly, marching on.

‘Don’t know why Polly didn’t chuck them with the rest of the stuff.

They should all have gone for jumble.’ She’d disappeared into the studio, clearly the only room she intended to inhabit, and sat on a stool at her easel, another picture on the go.

I realized she’d moved from one painting to another.

I perched on the stool opposite where I’d sat before.

If I was to conduct any sort of conversation, it was to be in here, probably very speedily.

No coffee, obviously. So like Clarissa, I realized.

She glanced at me. Picked up her brush, then realizing I wasn’t going, lowered it impatiently.

Just crack on, please , her expression said.

I thought you wanted to look at the house? Be gone.

I cleared my throat and told her Mum was feeling much better and was at Ginnie’s. She was obviously still sad about Raffles, but on the mend.

‘That’s rubbish,’ she said brusquely. ‘She’ll be sad about that dog for a long time, just as she’ll be sad about the other two. You girls are just trying to make yourselves feel better for having made a pig’s ear of everything. You should never have taken the money in the first place.’

I blushed scarlet. Joan’s eyes were flinty. She sat there glaring at me in her underwear. No flannel, just the truth.

‘I resisted,’ I said, somewhat plaintively.

‘But you didn’t refuse. You increased the value of your house, just like the other two.’ I opened my mouth. Shut it again. ‘If none of you had accepted it, she’d still be where she was. Happily, with seven dogs.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, hanging my head with shame. ‘I admit that. I did try to persuade her against it, but we are where we are. And– I’m hoping you’re still happy for her to live with you?’

‘Of course I am, I told you,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s why the house has been cleaned. I’m not a fool. But only if Leanora wants to. Don’t twist her arm.’

‘No, of course not.’ But what if she didn’t want to? That hadn’t occurred to me. What then? Well, then Ginnie and I would take it in turns.

‘But I think she will,’ she said unexpectedly.

‘Do you?’ I glanced up, heartened. ‘Oh good.’ It struck me that these sisters, however different, knew each other extremely well.

They knew what made each other tick. In the past, when we had been exasperated with Joan for her slovenly, eccentric ways, my mother would either remain silent or defend her.

‘Her house! Her embarrassing state of undress– it’s just mortifying, Mum!’ Ginnie, in particular, would say, when she was younger. ‘Why don’t you do something about it?’

‘Precisely because it is her house. And her ridiculous state of undress,’ my mother would respond. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. Leave her alone, she’s happy.’

Paradoxically, when it came to us, my mother would– not fuss exactly– but certainly attend to our every need. Be on hand to give advice when we needed it, gently steer– even Clarissa, who resisted. But not Joan. Unless Joan wanted her. I took a deep breath.

‘Joan, when Mum was ill in hospital, she– sort of… ranted a bit. About the past.’

‘That’ll be the UTI talking.’ She was already scanning her painting.

‘Maybe. But I wondered if there was a bit of– I don’t know– in vino veritas.

She talked a lot about someone called Piers.

’ Joan came back to me smartly. Her eyes flinched.

Definitely. I’d been watching her closely.

It was like watching a fox at bay. She didn’t speak.

‘And about how it wasn’t his fault.’ No response.

‘And she talked about you, quite a lot. As well as Piers.’

‘Did she.’

‘Was he…’ God, this was brave. I went for it. ‘Your boyfriend?’

She stared at me. I felt afraid, suddenly.

‘I don’t talk about it,’ she said finally.

‘Right.’ Bullseye. I’d thought so. ‘And she kept mistaking me for Pammy.’

‘Well, Pammy knew.’

‘What?’

Silence.

‘Because you were all friends, weren’t you?’ I pressed on, regardless. ‘You, Mum, Pammy, Piers, Uncle Bob. There was a whole gang of you in Yorkshire?’

‘East Yorkshire,’ she said impatiently. ‘At least us lot. Pammy, Bob and a few others. Piers was North.’

‘Right.’ How did that matter? I wasn’t sure.

Suddenly she turned back to her painting.

She narrowed her eyes at it. Then she found her palette on the table and squirted some oil paint in a curl.

Then some blue beside it. She began to make a paste with her brush.

The painting in the garden was definitely forgotten; this one demanded attention.

She started to daub away and I realized she’d forgotten me, too. But suddenly she turned.

‘If she kept thinking you were Pammy, I suggest you go and see her . Because you’ll get nothing more from me, Annabel.

Pammy likes to chatter, she always did. Like a jackdaw.

Just like your mother. They never stopped, the pair of them.

Mostly about me.’ She glanced at her canvas.

Then came back to me. She fixed me with that flinty eye again.

‘If you must rake up the past, ask her. I don’t care.

I’m beyond caring. You’ll get nothing more from me. ’

And with that she raised her chin and got to work. The interview was clearly over.