Page 43 of The Tapes
The woman is resting on her car door but angles towards me. ‘Pardon?’
I step nearer, holding my palms out at my side, no threat to anyone.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I thought I might know you…’
It’s not my mother – but there is a similarity – even down to the way the other woman dumped her bag on the bonnet to go through it. Mum used to do the same on the kitchen table all the time.
‘Are you the owner of number twenty-seven?’ she asks, managing to neatly sidestep the fact I called this stranger ‘Mum’.
I reply with an instinctive ‘no’, before I realise that I kind of am. ‘Jointly,’ I add quickly. ‘My brother and I are waiting for the probate to go through.’
The woman closes her car door and starts hunting through her bag again. She finds a business card that she passes across. ‘Lovely to meet you. I’m Mary,’ she says.
I have to squint to make out the card in the gloom – but ‘Mary Edgars, Estate Agent’ is printed in neat type across the centre.
‘You’re an estate agent?’ I say, somewhat needlessly.
‘Yes, and I’m sure I can help you out. I hope you don’t mind, but a friend on the street told me that number twenty-seven was going to be empty and might go to market. I’ve got good news: there’s loads of demand around here at the moment. The primary school at the end of the road got a good Ofsted report. I’ve got at least four families who’d love to offer if number twenty-seven’s going to be available.’ She smiles brightly.
I look to the woman, then the card, trying to put the pieces together. The familiarity with my mother ended the moment this other person started to speak. Mum could be rambling and hesitant but Mary is brusque and confident.
‘Were you at the college yesterday?’ I ask.
Crinkles appear in her forehead. ‘How’d you know that?’
‘I thought I saw this car…’
There’s a sort of truth there – and Mary follows my gaze to her vehicle, before looking back to me. ‘It might’ve been me. I was taking photographs for one of my clients. I’d come back here this evening to see if there was anyone home. I did put a card through the door.’
I had left off the lights in the main house, only using one in the garage – so this sounds possible. I’m not sure how I missed the card, though.
Mary waits a moment and then: ‘So you and your brother will be joint owners…?’
My first instinct is to tell her to get lost. My father hasn’t even had his funeral yet and this ambulance chaser is busy trying to sell his house from under him.
And yet… thiswouldbe a great family home, not least for the school at the end of the street. There’s a park barely five minutes away, plus a decent garden at the back. My brother wants rid so he can get his share of the money and I probably want that too. It’s another moment in which it feels as if I should be angry and yet I just can’t bring myself to be so.
‘The funeral’s tomorrow,’ I say.
Mary touches her chest. ‘My God, I’m so sorry to hear that. I don’t want to impose, or push you into anything. I would never have said anything if I’d known.’
She motions to reopen her car door but I tell her it’s OK.
‘The house is a bit rundown on the inside,’ I say. ‘I’ve been trying to clear it but Dad kept a lot of things. There’s so much.’
‘I can help if you want…?’
Mary tells me this is common and she knows someone who specialises in house clearances. They’ll come and collect all the bin bags, plus drag off anything else I don’t want, including the furniture. No fee, apparently, although I’m sure Mary’s thinking further down the line. I’m not naïve – but that doesn’t mean we can’t both get what we want.
We chat for a few minutes more as the sky darkens around us. It’s almost heartening to talk about the house and its problems in a way that doesn’t involve discussing the memories that come with it. It’s bricks and paint; plaster and wallpaper. Mary says she could have the whole place emptied and redecorated within a week of me giving her the say-so. As we walk, it’s impossible not to see thereisa hint of my mum about her. It’s surface in that they look somewhat alike. Or, more to the point, if Mum was still around, I can see how she might have morphed into this person.
I say none of that but listen and there’s a sense of satisfaction of having a grown-up in the room. At least somebody knows what they’re doing. We leave things with a promise that I’ll call as Mary gets into her car and drives off. I head back to my own vehicle, where I sit and stare at Dad’s house.
One week.
I can give Mary the say-so, while we wait for the probate, and that will be the end. No more house, no more ignored texts to mybrother about who’s responsible for what. Mary doesn’t seem the sort to over promise.
One week, and this part of my life could be over.
