The Switch(75)

It’s only when I’m waiting for the tea to brew in the pot that it occurs to me how odd it is that I don’t find this situation strange. People are often telling me how ‘mature’ I am for twenty-nine (Watching your sister die will do that to you, I always want to snap back). But I’ve actually never been friends with anybody over the age of thirty before. And now I don’t even bat an eye when Arnold pops around unannounced – in fact, I look forward to it – and I’m totally delighted that Nicola has decided she likes me enough to spend the afternoon with me. It’s nice. I like how they change my perspectives, how widely our lives all vary. I’ll miss this, when I go – I’ll miss them.

There’s a knock at the door. It’s Betsy.

She looks a little crumpled. ‘Hello, Leena,’ she says stiffly.

‘Betsy! Hi! Come in! We’re just having tea,’ I say. ‘Let me get you a cup! Can I take your coat?’

I take her coat and hang it up, mind whirring. Betsy’s not dropped around since that terrible first tea when I said all the wrong things. What’s prompted this?

‘I won’t stay,’ Betsy says. ‘I’m just here for the spare key. Eileen keeps one somewhere.’

‘Oh, sure!’ I say, looking around, as though the key might be lying out on the dining-room table. ‘Did you lock yourself out?’

‘Yes,’ she says.

I try to hold her gaze, but it skits aside. She’s definitely lying.

Arnold looks back and forth between us for a moment, then gets to his feet. ‘Nicola, I must show you the hydrangea at the bottom of Eileen’s garden,’ he says.

‘The what?’ Nicola says. ‘I don’t …’

But he’s already helping her up.

‘Oh, all right,’ she grumbles.

I mouth Thank you at Arnold, and he gives me a small smile. Once we’re alone, I turn back to Betsy, who is opening and closing drawers in the dresser.

‘Can’t Cliff let you in?’ I ask her gently.

Betsy doesn’t turn around. There is a long silence.

‘It was Cliff who locked me out.’

I breathe in. ‘Well, that’s pretty awful of him,’ I say, as neutrally as I can manage. ‘Would you like to stay here for tonight?’

She looks around then. ‘Stay here?’

‘Yeah. You can have my grandma’s room.’

‘Oh, I …’ She looks a little lost for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘That’s very kind. But I’d rather just find the key.’

‘All right,’ I say, as Arnold and Nicola make their way up the garden again. ‘We’ll track it down, between the four of us.’

I find all sorts of things, digging around for that key. My old school satchel (how did that end up here?); a photo of my mum when she was pregnant with me, looking movie-star gorgeous; and a recipe for mud pie in Carla’s handwriting, which makes my eyes prick with tears. Carla seems to turn up all the time here in Hamleigh. She may not have lived in this village for long, but she’s part of the fabric of the place. Maybe that’s why I’ve finally been able to move forward a little while I’m here – or rather, to stop moving forward. Moving forward is my forte; it’s standing still I’m not so good at.

I fold the recipe carefully and place it back where I found it. Maybe someday when I find a treasure like this, it won’t make me tear up, it’ll make me smile.

In the end, Nicola finds the key. It is carefully labelled in Grandma’s spidery writing – Betsy’s spare – and lodged in the back of a drawer in her hall table, along with a whole collection of keys for houses we’ve all long since left: Carla’s flat in Bethnal Green, our old place in Leeds, and, much to my irritation, a bike-lock key I thought I lost approximately ten years ago. There’s also a spare key to Mum’s house, which I pinch for the rest of my time here – I’ve been using Grandma’s one, but it always seems to get stuck in the lock.

I walk Betsy back to her house. I don’t give her room to object to the idea, but I’m still surprised she lets me. I try to think what Grandma would say, and I decide she wouldn’t say much at all – she’d leave Betsy room to talk. So as we make our slow way down Middling Lane in the rain, I just hold the umbrella and wait for Betsy to feel ready.

‘I suppose you’re thinking you know all about my situation, now,’ she says eventually, looking straight ahead.

‘No, not at all.’

‘Good. Because it’s – it’s complicated.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

I chew the inside of my cheek. Grandma would stay quiet. She’d leave it at that. But …

‘Nobody should ever be afraid in their own home. And if you want to leave him, Betsy, everyone here in this village will have your back. Every one of them.’

We reach Betsy’s house. She pauses in front of the gate – I’m supposed to leave, that much is clear, but I’d rather stay until I see she’s safely inside.

‘He’ll have calmed down by now,’ Betsy says, fiddling with the key. ‘Off you go, Leena, you can’t be hanging around here.’

‘You deserve better. And I’m not going to stop telling you that, no matter how many times you kick me out or tell me to stop hanging around,’ I say, with a little smile. ‘I’m always here.’