Homecoming (28 page)

No matter how many times a day Eleanor stroked his face and said: ‘I love you, I know you’re still here with me,’ she could feel his anguished eyes telling her this was destroying him.

The man who’d loved to learn about brains and who’d rejoiced in the genius of human beings was at the mercy of his own failing brain and his wife could do nothing about it.

Eleanor got out of her chair at the window in Golden Square and switched on the television. She couldn’t think about this, not now. Her darling Ralf. How she missed him.

She didn’t look at the brochures again for several days. She hadn’t the heart to.

14
Irish Moss

In Brooklyn, nobody would believe how much we used carragheen moss in cooking.

‘Seaweed?’ they’d all say. ‘You’re joking.’

It’s no joke. When I was a child, I used to take carragheen moss boiled up in milk for my bad chest. I hated it, in much the same way I hated the ginger and pepper my mother would sprinkle on hot milk for me when I was sickly. But seaweed was our medicine for many years. It would build you up if you’d been ill and people with bad coughs swore by it.

My mother and sometimes Agnes collected the carragheen from the rocks at low tide in the spring and summer. Dark red and purple, it looks like mermaid’s lace until it dries, when it’s hard and you can chew it, the same way cowboys in the films chew on dried beef.

Many a poor family round our way got their vitamins from carragheen when they hadn’t enough to put anything but potatoes on the table. Peasant’s jelly was a jelly made from boiling moss in water and leaving it to set.

My grandmother used to soak the dried moss in cold
water, then boil it up in three cups of milk until the herb had dissolved. She’d add burdock root and broom top and boil it up to make cough syrup. Or else she’d use the plain moss in milk for everything from an inflamed chest to the rheumatic pain her husband used to suffer from.

Carragheen blancmange was a favourite dessert in the house, and you could use it to thicken all manner of sweet puddings, but you had to be careful not to use too much or the taste of the Atlantic would overpower the dish.

To make blancmange, add soaked carragheen to milk, lemon rind and a bit of vanilla essence, if you have it. Beat up an egg yolk and sugar, pour in the milk mixture, then whip up the egg white and fold it in slowly. Leave it to set overnight and it’s the sweetest, most delicate pudding you’ll ever eat.

It was an unexpected gift, my mother said: the sea’s unexpected gift to us all. You never know when the unexpected gift is going to come out of nowhere and cheer you up.

Megan loved working in the chiropody clinic. You never knew who was going to turn up and, best of all, at the end of the day, you just put the answering machine on and left. The work didn’t follow you home and make you endlessly anxious.

Being out of her normal life like this was fun, like researching for a part, which was always exciting because you got to slip into someone else’s world, but you didn’t have to stay. Just long enough to get the flavour of how it felt.

For the gangster movie, she’d spent a day with some of the other cast members in a flat with a few professional criminals. The director, Jonnie, had set it up.

‘These are hard men,’ he’d said, barely able to contain his excitement. Despite affecting a Sarf London accent, Jonnie was truly Home Counties, having grown up in an old rectory complete with a tennis court and gone to Eton. But he loved the underworld and talking to the hard men and pretending to be a hard man himself was his dream.

Megan was mildly amused by his adoration of East End gangsters, including the accent and the lingo.

Over the years, she’d carefully cultivated a neutral accent and preferred not to link herself with any class or place. It was easier if you were chameleon.

She’d liked one of the guys Jonnie had found. He’d been in prison for armed robbery, but he seemed sorry now, not just sorry he was caught and had done ten years inside.

The other man, Roofie, frightened her. There was a wildness about him, nothing sexy or attractive, but a sense that he truly didn’t care about society’s rules. His own rules mattered most to him. Fifteen years, on and off, in a maximum-security prison, hadn’t changed that.

Megan had shimmied into playing the admiring girl.

‘Roofie, you must have seen it all,’ she’d said, wide-eyed to make him like her.

Roofie had looked at her as if he could see right through her act, which made her more scared.

‘Is Roofie his real name?’ she asked the other guy, later.

‘No. His trick is throwing people off roofs. Roofs, Roofie, get it?’

The Golden Square Chiropody Clinic was blissfully safe in comparison.

The only threat, Nora had implied when Megan first took over from Birdie, were the man-mad women who needed to be kept away from Kevin, the other chiropodist.

‘Women are strange creatures,’ Nora said. ‘Kevin does something to them. Or at least they hope he will. They look at that innocent, kind face and they see salvation. I have no idea why. He tells them he’s got a girlfriend, but it doesn’t stop them.’

Megan had enough experience of looking at men and seeing salvation to decide that even if Kev threw himself at her, she was not interested in him, especially since he was attached. It was, therefore, a relief early on to find that Kev was attractive but entirely not her type.

‘It’s good to meet you,’ she said determinedly, shaking his hand hard. ‘I can’t believe we haven’t met till now.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kev happily. ‘Good to meet you too. Hope things are OK, you know. All that press stuff…bummer. Nobody cares about that stuff round here. Hey, do you cycle?’

Nora looked on fondly as Megan replied that, sadly, she hadn’t cycled since she was about ten, and had never been that keen on it then. ‘I liked rollerskating more,’ she said.

‘I do that. It’s rollerblading now,’ Kev said.

‘Right,’ said Megan gravely. ‘I’m not sure I’d be any good at that.’

‘Myself and my girlfriend are going at the weekend,’ Kev said.

‘I’ll get back to you,’ Megan said, nodding. Her social life was looking up. She was having a pizza with Nicky and Connie O’Callaghan tonight, and there was the possibility of rollerblading with sweet Kev at the weekend. It was a far cry from her old life, but it was strangely comforting.

These people were becoming her friends. They knew who she was and what had happened, and they still liked her.

Connie went to Patsy’s salon to have her hair cut.

‘Just a trim, Patsy,’ Connie said, sitting in front of the mirror and noticing all the flaws in her face. Where had all those lines come from? ‘I don’t know what Nicky wants for the wedding, so I’d better keep it long.’

‘Wear it the way you want for the wedding,’ Patsy advised. ‘I’ve no time for that bride madness where they want to rule the world for one day.’

‘You know that Nicky’s not a bit like that,’ Connie said. ‘She only wants me to be happy.’

‘She’s a rarity,’ Patsy agreed. ‘I’ve seen plenty of brides who want the bridesmaids done up like Hallowe’en horrors just so they don’t outshine them on the big day.’

‘I’m hardly likely to outshine Nicky, now, am I?’ Connie said cheerfully.

Patsy glared at her. ‘With that attitude, I don’t know why you bother coming in here at all.’

‘Oh God, just cut it, will you?’ Connie groaned. ‘I don’t want a life-coaching session, just a haircut.’

The girl sweeping the floor let out a snigger. Patsy sent a death glare in her direction.

‘I’ve a good mind to dye it orange,’ Patsy said, when she’d stopped glowering and had started trimming. ‘How are the wedding plans coming along, then?’

‘Fine. We’re having a hen night with her friends from school and the people from work the week before.’

Patsy kept trimming. ‘We could have a bit of a Golden Square hen party,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty of us here who’d like to give her a decent send-off, but we’d be out of place with Nicky’s work crew.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ protested Connie loyally, consumed with embarrassment at the realisation that she, as bridesmaid, had forgotten their neighbours in all the party plans.

‘Rae and Dulcie mightn’t, but I wouldn’t be on for a night in a posh club or anything like that.’

Nicky’s workmates had indeed suggested organising a cocktail party at a glamorous city-centre club.

‘What could we organise then?’ Connie asked.

‘We could have it here,’ Patsy said. ‘No, what am I talking about – we’ll have it in Titania’s Palace. Isn’t that a great idea?’

Nicky admired the cupcakes Connie had organised for her. There were pink swirly ones, white chocolate ones with dark chocolate stars on them, tiny carrot cakes with little orange marzipan carrots on top.

‘I love it all!’ she said delightedly.

Livvy from the tearooms had put the wedding march on the stereo, and Nicky laughed as she paraded through the premises, smiling at everyone, hugging her friends and displaying her engagement ring.

Soon, everyone was enjoying tea, coffee and the bellinis Connie had brought in a couple of big flasks.

The only person there who didn’t look happy was Rae.

In spite of the general air of enjoyment, Connie noticed that Rae’s beautiful face was strained and tired. She was doing her best to smile, but it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ whispered Connie to Patsy.

Patsy shrugged in reply. ‘She’s been like that for weeks. The mother-in-law is staying with her. She had a hip done and I think she pushed herself in the door there, and I know she drives Rae mad. Not that she’d tell you anything, but you can tell, can’t you? She’s a right old rip. Thinks she pees eau de cologne, that one.’

Connie giggled.

‘Is that it, then? The mother-in-law’s not staying for good?’

‘You’d want to have been very bad in a past life for that to happen,’ Patsy said darkly.

‘You know what you’re talking about with the mother-in-law thing,’ Connie said suddenly.

Patsy’s laugh was dry. ‘My first husband was a pet of a man and his mother was a cast-iron bitch.’

‘Your
first
husband –’ repeated Connie. Wow. First implied that there had been a second. And she personally had never even got one.

‘How many husbands have you had?’

Patsy laughed properly this time. ‘My own or other people’s?’ she said. ‘I heard someone say that once. It’s brilliant, isn’t it? Ah no, I only had two. That’s enough for any woman.’

‘There’s no Mr Patsy now, is there?’ Connie asked. She was on a roll. She and Nicky had often wondered about Patsy, but she’d never been that forthcoming when she was in the salon. Here, though, it was different.

‘No Mr Patsy. A few wannabes, though. And you?’ Patsy’s eyes were shrewd. ‘No man on the scene?’

‘I haven’t even made it to the altar once and you’ve had two husbands,’ Connie sighed.

Megan went over to sit beside Eleanor, who was sipping herbal tea.

‘Had your two coffees?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, smiling.

‘You know, Nora drinks buckets of the stuff,’ Megan said.

‘Nora is twenty-five years younger than I am,’ Eleanor pointed out.

Megan couldn’t hide her surprise. Eleanor didn’t look that old.

‘It must be hard not to drink coffee in New York,’ she said now. ‘There are so many gorgeous little cafés there.’

She was fascinated by Eleanor’s life in New York. Megan had visited the city, and once spent three weeks there living with one of her friends, a girl who had a trust fund and a growing coke habit. It had been fun, but sort of nocturnal. Megan still didn’t know where anything was during the day: they only went out at night, and then, it was in cabs or limos to parties. At the time, she’d thought it was fabulous fun. Now, she reflected, it had been a bit one-dimensional. Party to party with the same people, all desperate to have fun, all desperate to be famous.

‘New York is great for coffee lovers, but we do good herbal tea too.’

‘I’d love to live there,’ Megan said mistily. ‘Properly live there, not just stay with someone for a week or two. Does it stop being exciting when you live there?’

‘No,’ said Eleanor. ‘It’s a fascinating place. I’d say that New York has a heart. Everyone there is an immigrant, there are very few people who start off in New York, so we’re all blowins, and you can become a part of it very quickly. Everyone’s in the same boat, from the movie star to the kid serving coffee in a diner.’

‘Did you know any movie stars?’

‘A few. But in New York, nobody treats them any differently to anyone else. They have to go to LA for adulation.’

Megan laughed at that.

‘Did you have any movie stars as patients?’ she asked.

‘I can’t tell you that,’ Eleanor said. ‘But people are people, Megan. Whether they’re famous or not. We all have the same doubts and fears.’

‘So, no dirt then?’ Megan said.

Eleanor grinned at her. It was the first time Megan had attempted to make any sort of joke with her. Up till then, Megan had behaved as if Eleanor was about to launch into a therapy session there and then, analysing her from her conversation.

‘No dirt.’

Megan made her think of Gillian for some reason, even though there was a good seven years between Megan and her grand-daughter. For all her experience, Megan had a sliver of the childlike innocence of a younger person. It was the strange world of celebrity: she’d grown up with sophistication all around her and no chance to grow as a person.

Eleanor thought again of her proposed trip to her hometown and she knew how hard it would be to go on her own. Darling Gillian or Naomi would have been the perfect travelling companion in one sense, but Eleanor couldn’t do that. She’d never be able to go through with what she had to do then. She sighed and changed the subject.