The Switch(70)

‘Maybe just don’t say anything at all,’ I say, ushering Nicola towards the car. ‘Probably safest.’

Nicola grumbles the whole way to Leeds, but as soon as we get into that first meeting room she’s such a convincing doddery old dear I find it quite hard not to laugh. Such an important event for our poor little village, Nicola says. I look forward to May Day all year. They lap it up. Port & Morgan Solicitors sign up there and then; the others say they’ll think about it.

It feels good to be back in a boardroom, actually. And it’s especially good to be walking out of one victorious, instead of hyperventilating. I send a quick text to Bee as we head to the car.

You’ve still got it, she replies. THAT’S my Leena Cotton.

As we drive back to Knargill, Nicola cackles into the enormous mocha I bought her to say thank you.

‘I had no idea it was so easy getting men like that to cough up some cash!’ she says. ‘What else can we ask them for, eh? Sponsor the mobile library? Sponsor a minibus?’

She might actually be on to something, there. My mind goes to the document still open on Grandma’s computer: B&L Boutique Consulting – strategy. Corporate responsibility is more important than ever for millennials – businesses need to be building charitable work and volunteer opportunities into the heart of their business models, they need to …

‘Leena? This is my house,’ Nicola says.

I screech to a halt.

‘Oops! Sorry! Miles away.’

She eyes me suspiciously. ‘Don’t know why I let you drive me anywhere,’ she mumbles as she unfastens her seatbelt.

*

The next morning I pop around to Arnold’s and knock on the conservatory door. He has morning coffee in here at ten-ish, and every so often I come around to join him. I’ll be honest, the cafetière coffee is a big draw, but it’s more than that. Arnold is lovely. He’s like the granddad I never had. Not that I didn’t have a granddad, but you know, Grandpa Wade hardly counts.

Arnold’s already there, a full cafetière ready and waiting. It’s sitting on his latest book, and I shudder as I step inside and spot the large brown ring spreading across the cover. I move it and spin the novel around: it’s Dorothy L Sayer’s Whose Body?, one of my grandma’s favourites. Arnold seems to be on a detective novel thing of late. Discovering his love of reading has been one of my favourite surprises of my time in Hamleigh.

‘How’s your mother doing?’ Arnold asks as I pour myself a coffee.

I give him an approving nod, and he sighs between his teeth.

‘Would you stop acting like you taught me how to have a conversation? I wasn’t that bad before you got here. I know how to be polite.’

Whatever. Arnold insists that his decision to ‘clean up’ (buy some new shirts, go to the barber’s) and ‘get out more’ (start Pilates, go to the pub on a Friday) was his and his alone, but I know the truth. I’m his Donkey, he’s my Shrek.

‘Mum’s good, actually,’ I say, passing him his mug. ‘Or, you know – a lot nearer to good than she has been for a while.’

Since that phone call after the argument, Mum and I have met up three times: once for tea, twice for lunch. It feels strange and tentative, as though we’re rebuilding something wobbly and precarious. We talk about Carla in fits and starts, both afraid to go too close. It makes me anxious to the point where I’m sweating with it. I feel like I’m in danger of opening something I’ve fought very hard to keep closed. I want to do it, though, for Mum. I may not have really known what I meant when I promised Grandma I’d be here for my mother, but I get it now. Mum doesn’t need errands doing, she just needs family.

I think part of what had made me so angry with my mum was the fact that I felt she should have been looking after me, not the other way around. But Mum couldn’t be my shoulder to cry on, not when she was bent double with grief herself. That’s the messy thing about family tragedy, I guess. Your best support network goes under in an instant.

I’m explaining all this to Arnold when I see his mouth twitch.

‘What?’ I say.

‘Oh, nothing,’ he says innocently, reaching for a biscuit.

‘Go on.’ My eyes narrow.

‘Just seems to me that helping your mum has really got you talking about Carla at last. Which is what your mum wanted. Wasn’t it?’

‘What?’ I lean back and then I laugh, surprising myself. ‘Oh, God. You think she’s doing all this talking about Carla for me Nothing to do with helping her?’

‘I’m sure you are helping her, too,’ Arnold says, through a mouthful of biscuit. ‘But you’d be a fool to think she’s not getting her own way, that Marian.’

Here I am, making Mum my latest project, and there she is, making me the exact same thing.

‘Maybe fixing one another is the Cotton family’s love language,’ Arnold says.

I stare at him, my mouth hanging open. He grins toothily at me.

‘Borrowed a book about relationships off of Kathleen,’ he says.

‘Arnold! Are you thinking about trying to meet somebody?’ I ask, leaning across the table.

‘Maybe I already have,’ he says, waggling his eyebrows. But, infuriatingly, no amount of bullying, cajoling or wheedling will get any more information out of him, so I have to give up for the time being. I take the last shortbread as punishment for his discretion, and he shouts such a florid string of old Yorkshire insults after me that I laugh so hard I nearly choke on it on my way out.