The Silent Wife(84)

If I’d been Maggie, I’d have hugged him. As it was, I put out my hand and said, ‘Thank you. Thank you! You’ve made my day!’ Which for me was quite gushy.

I bounded out of the car, waving my test certificate.

Maggie chucked her cigarette on the ground, grabbed my hands and twirled me round and round in a circle like two little girls in a playground. ‘Get you! Bloody brilliant!’

I felt as though a door was cranking open inside me, filling a corner with pride where doubt used to reside.

‘Right. First thing tomorrow morning we’re going to fetch your dad and you’re going to drive him back to yours so he can see Sandro.’

I stopped. ‘We can’t just turn up there and get him. They’ll want some notice.’

Maggie shrugged. ‘I rang them last week so they could prepare all his medication. I knew you’d pass.’

‘I thought they weren’t allowed to discuss him with anyone other than family?’

Maggie laughed. ‘I didn’t let that worry me. I just pretended to be Lara Farinelli and told them we wanted to take him out for a day,’ she said in a voice that was a pretty good imitation of me.

What a different life I’d have led if I’d have had half of her gall. ‘What if I hadn’t passed?’

‘I’d have fetched him for you. I’ve got Mum on standby to help – she’ll pop round and stay as long as you need her to make sure all his meds are as they should be.’

‘Do you think he’ll need anything special?’

‘I’m quite sure seeing his grandson will be special enough.’

I loved her enthusiasm, which swept me along. Massimo was away until tomorrow afternoon. I’d be able to get through the worst of settling in Dad before Massimo had to face him. By the time he got back, he’d only have to put up with Dad for a few hours.



The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn so we could fetch Dad straight after breakfast at eight o’clock before he got settled into the daily routine of the nursing home. I forgot all about Massimo when I saw Dad in the reception area, eyes bright with excitement. ‘Am I going home? Where’s Shirley?’

I’d trained myself to block out the pain of hearing him say my mother’s name with hope, with optimistic longing. Like a microscopic shard of glass lodged deep under a fingernail I’d become so used to it I hardly registered the twinge. ‘We’re not going to your home, but we’re going to see Sandro.’ I said his name slowly to see if that would register.

Dad frowned and started fiddling with the cuff on his jacket.

Talking to him was like trying all the switches to see which one turned the lamp on.

I tried again. ‘My son?’

‘You have a son!’

And his old face lit up, making me indulge in a little fantasy of him sitting drawing with Sandro.

Then he noticed Maggie and we did the usual introductions, which Maggie, bless her heart, performed with aplomb as though it was the first, not the twenty-first time, she was doing them.

Maggie took hold of his arm. ‘You’ll come with me to the car, Robert, won’t you? While Lara just has a chat to the nurse?’

Dad never ceased to surprise me. ‘It would be my pleasure.’ He did a little bow.

I didn’t know how Dad would react to me getting in the driving seat, but Maggie was brilliant. She sat in the back with him and started chatting about the flowers lining the driveway to the nursing home. So different to Anna. She’d last seen Dad when he was starting to get muddled, way before he didn’t know who people were. Whenever he said something a little odd, she’d wave her hand and say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Robert,’ and my poor old dad would stand there, digging around for the right words to describe what he meant, then lapsing into silence, muttering about becoming a little forgetful these days. Yet Maggie, who’d never had the luxury of knowing my dad when he was well, instinctively knew how to steer him onto a topic of conversation he could manage.

In between reminding myself to keep my eyes on the road rather than watching them in the rear-view mirror, I listened to Dad. ‘At my house, I’ve got rudbeckias like that. But best – Shirley loves them – are my hollyhocks, so dark they’re almost black.’ So cruel he could remember the colours of flowers from my childhood but not that I had a son.

I hoped this wouldn’t turn out to be a terrible mistake. Despite Maggie’s bluster about how Massimo should be grateful he didn’t have to put up with Dad every day of the year, my husband had never been big on surprises that weren’t his own.

Maggie winked at me in the mirror as Dad started singing ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’ without getting a single word wrong. Seeing him so animated, so joyful, whittled away my concerns about Massimo’s reaction to Dad.

I really needed to become more like Maggie and follow her ‘Worry about worries when you need to worry’ philosophy.

If nothing else, I’d see whether Massimo really had changed his spots.





41





MAGGIE




There were so few moments in life when I thought, ‘I played that right’. Mainly I looked back and thought, What a bloody numpty. What was I thinking of? Usually when tequila or vodka had been doing the thinking for me. Yet when Lara did a perfect bit of parallel parking and Sandro dashed over from Anna’s house, skipping with pleasure at seeing Robert, I could have danced for joy.