Page 103 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
‘How is Cora?’
‘Good.’ Lorraine makes a face. ‘Actually, really good. She’s making lunches for the boys, she’s doing some washing.’ She scratches her head. ‘I can’t quite work out why Mike turning out to be a dickhead has made her nicer, but there we go.’
‘Maybe she feels bad.’ When Elizabeth met Cora she perceived her to be a woman unsure of her position in the house and also slightly scared of Lorraine. Not that Lorraine would believe her if she said that.
‘Oh, I’m sure she does. Mike’s father was a gambler too – don’t think I’ve told you that bit. So she could have warned me. Or warned Mike off gambling.’
‘So she’s making it up to you now?’
‘Guess so. Life’s funny, isn’t it?’
Elizabeth nods slowly. ‘It can be.’
‘And sad.’
‘It can be that too.’ It’s something of a relief to have it acknowledged.
‘Sorry,’ Lorraine says. ‘I should probably not say anything about Jon.’
‘No, I appreciate it. After someone dies people tend to not mention their name or ask how you are because they’re worried about upsetting you. But it’s not as if I’ve forgotten about Jon and that mentioning him is going to bring back a bad memory. He’s always here.’
Even if sometimes she wishes he wasn’t, but she hasn’t worked out how to program her brain to eliminate random repeated memories of him.
‘That’s a good thing,’ Lorraine concludes. ‘For you and for Charlie.’ She picks up the little hoe she brings with her to society gatherings. ‘Time to see what’s in this dirt.’
Elizabeth takes up her trowel and they investigate the soil together.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
‘Honestly,Mum, I’ve told you and told you that the path needs to be fixed.’
Lorraine huffs and puffs as she plumps the pillows behind her mother’s back. Pillows that are usually on Lorraine and Mike’s bed, but now they’re in Simon’s room where Rose is recovering from a fall. It’s not like Mike uses his any more. Lorraine doesn’t know where he’s sleeping these days and she doesn’t care.
Well, she does care because she can’t just turn off her feelings about the bloke, but to anyone who’ll listen she’s saying she doesn’t care. He still seems to care, because he left a bunch of flowers on the doorstep with a note asking her to forgive him because the worst thing he can imagine is losing her. All Lorraine could think about was where he got the money for the flowers.
‘I can’t afford to get it fixed,’ Rose says meekly.
‘I’ve offered to pay!’ Lorraine practically yells, as much as you can yell at a mother who looks like she’s shrunk five centimetres in the past couple of days.
The path in the back garden has been a subject of contention between them for a while. Lorraine has said she’ll either pay for the repair of it or deploy Mike to fix it, and Rose has repeatedly refused, saying it’s her home and she’ll take care of it – exceptnow she’s gone and tripped on one of the bigger cracks and come down on her arm, with a busted radius to show for it.
At her age, thinks Lorraine, she’ll be lucky to get the full use of the arm back.Andit’s her writing hand. How’s she going to do crosswords? That was the first thing Lorraine thought when they called her from the hospital to say her mother was there. Rose doesn’t know how to live without crosswords.
‘I have my pride,’ Rose almost whispers and thatreallygets on Lorraine’s goat.
‘Mum, pride does you no bloody good when you break your arm because of it. You’re elderly!’
‘I’m not!’
‘Technically you are!’
‘I don’t care, I don’t feel elderly!’
That stumps Lorraine, because you can hardly argue with how a person says they feel. Something inside her lets go a little.
‘All right, I understand. But how does it hurt your pride to have me help you?’
‘I’ve always managed,’ Rose says. ‘Whatever you needed, I’ve managed.’
