Annie Stanley, All At Sea Read online

  Annie Stanley, All at Sea

  Sue Teddern

  Contents

  PART I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  PART II

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  PART III

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Coda

  Acknowledgements

  For my parents, Gaggi and Teddy

  PART I

  Chapter One

  ‘Becoming Cyclonic Later’

  I wake with a start. Someone’s snoring and it’s me. Even as six-packed superheroes are triumphing over evil at an ear-piercing volume on the multiplex screen in front of me, I’ve managed to nod off, with my fist submerged in my popcorn bucket.

  I pull myself upright and wipe a string of stray dribble from my chin. The twelve or so other people dotted around the auditorium, mostly singles like me, are unlikely to notice the dozing woman in her usual seat at the far end of Row G. I expect one or two of them are ‘resting their eyes’ too.

  Silver-screen matinees are the best and you don’t even have to be over 60. If you get there ten minutes early, there’s a free cup of tea and a budget Bourbon. If you get there on time, there’s a plate full of crumbs and an apologetic shrug from the staff member on biscuit duty. Sometimes I pop into Greggs before the midday screening for a sandwich or a slab of bread pudding, Dad’s favourite. Last Friday, I slid out of bed and into my comfiest jogger–cardy combo for a late morning Japanese animation, with an ice-cream tub of cold spag bol to sustain me.

  There’s something slightly illicit about going to a daytime screening. But if I see a film at night, I might bump into friends (or worse, ex-colleagues) in the foyer and be forced to make small talk. Early afternoon films offer anonymity. Having said that, on the way home from one last week, I pulled up at the traffic lights alongside Nia Ronson-Tanner’s mum’s Berlingo, doing the school run with a carful of kids. I could guess what Nia was saying: ‘Hey, it’s Miss Stanley. OMG, state of it!’

  I manage to stay awake for the rest of the film and blink into the daylight as I emerge from the Odeon. My car is in the usual car park and I’ve yet to get a ticket if I’m late returning to it. I’ve got this cinema thing down to a fine art. Plus it’s good to leave the flat every few days and get some fresh air. Vegging out on the sofa, shouting at Pointless contestants, has lost its charm and I’m bored with choosing the right villa for retired couples from Lincoln, seeking ‘their place in the sun’.

  It’s a dull Tuesday afternoon. I could pop home, find the stray trainer that’s missing from my sports bag and do a forty-five-minute circuit at the gym. Or go wild and randomly take whichever class is about to start. Except Zumba. Zumba is for show-offs in expensive kit who roll their eyes at uncoordinated heffalumps like me. I don’t have the frigging funk and I never will. Can they recite the alphabet backwards in Finnish or teach a roomful of rambunctious 13-year-olds the chemistry of coastal erosion? I very much doubt it.

  If I can’t find my trainer, I could still grab my swimming things and do a few laps of the leisure centre pool. Then pick up a pizza, polish off that opened Merlot and hunker down in front of the latest ‘acclaimed film’ Netflix has specially selected for me.

  There again, I could do the gym and/or pool tomorrow. Maybe get up early – half nine at the latest – and use the morning to wash and bag up my kit so I’ve got no excuse. Great. I have a plan. Starting tomorrow. Once I find that trainer. Or buy new ones that don’t squash my little toes.

  Or not. Fuck it, I hate the gym anyway.

  Traffic is light and I’m home in fifteen minutes. Maybe I should jog to the cinema next time. I park in my usual slot, click my car locked and walk to the front door, patting the pockets of my Puffa jacket for the key. I suddenly remember a budget pizza buried in the bottom drawer of the freezer that I can pimp with tinned pineapple. Result.

  I don’t expect to find Kate, sitting on the step, punching a text into her phone. She gives me her signature glare. ‘At bloody last. Where have you been?’

  ‘The gym, okay. Are we meant to be seeing Dad tonight?’

  She stands, brushing down the pencil skirt of her Zara suit. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon but your phone’s off. Dad’s in hospital.’

  ‘The physio for his knee? That’s not for ages, is it?’

  Kate takes a deep breath. I think she’s tired of lecturing me on why a) I should keep my phone turned on, b) I’m so flaky and c) she’s always the first port of call in a crisis.

  ‘Annie, just listen, will you? He’s been rushed in by ambulance. He collapsed. Bev rang me and I said I’d ring you. She was beside herself.’

  Dad. Collapsed. Ambulance. I swallow hard, forcing Kate’s words to engage. I spot some popcorn on my cuff and eat it.

  ‘We’ll go in my car,’ Kate commands, over her shoulder, as she strides back down the path, waving like a tour guide for me to follow. ‘He was in such good form on Sunday. All jolly and silly. Going on and on about some cheap headphones he’d bought at Lidl. Like he needs new headphones. But they were “such a bargain”. You didn’t see him, but he was.’

  I’m still scrabbling for my seatbelt as Kate screeches her Mazda into the afternoon traffic. ‘He kept asking why you weren’t there. Bev too.’

  ‘I told them. I was busy.’

  I stare out of the window, looking but not seeing. Is that a new hair salon in the parade of shops by the bus stop? Or has it always been there and I’ve never noticed it before? I concentrate hard, trying to remember.

  ‘Busy. Yeah, right. So busy.’ Kate overtakes a bus with her usual brazen confidence. ‘And then you have your phone turned off all afternoon because you’re so “busy” at the gym.’

  ‘I was. Ask my Zumba instructor if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘And I have to search St Albans to find you.’

  I don’t reply. What’s the point?

  ‘I just wish you could share the load, do your bit. You’re the big sister around here. But you do fuck all. You only make an effort when I nag you. It isn’t fair. It so isn’t, Annie.’

  I suddenly remember: that new hair salon used to be an off-licence. With the flirty manager. Ric, was it? No, Vic. He asked me out once. As if! And now it’s gone. When did that happen?

  I let Kate drone on, say her piece, get it off her chest. Path of least resistance. And okay, maybe there have been times when I’ve taken a back seat, excused myself from my responsibilities. Kate’s just better at that kind of thing, so why compete and fall short?

  ‘Come on, come on.’ Kate thumps her steering wheel at some slow emergency traffic lights. I give her a reassuring ‘we’ll be there soon’ smile, but she’s staring straight ahead. The lights change and a yellow-bibbed lad with a ‘Go’ paddle waves us on. I recognize him as a former pupil. Mason McIsaac. Shame. I thought he’d gone to uni.

  Kate accelerates, to make up for lost time, her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as a sign for the hospital appears at the roundabout.

  ‘It sounds serious, Annie. Let’s assume it is so that we c
an be pleasantly surprised. And we need to do this together. Don’t we?’

  ‘Stop going on. I’m here, aren’t I? Just stop going on!’

  The ICU visitors’ room has a TV in the corner, turned on but muted. A programme about antiques, is it? Or upcycling? I have to stop myself scrolling through the daytime schedule in my head. It doesn’t matter, you idiot.

  Bev is sitting in a corner armchair, away from a noisy family who are celebrating with each other that their mother is on the mend. ‘Typical Mum, putting us through the wringer because she likes the attention.’

  Bev looks up as Kate and I approach. Her eyes are ringed with damp mascara and she’s forgotten to apply her ever-present coral lipstick. I clock the relief in her eyes as we sit each side of her.

  ‘Oh, thank God you’re here. Pippa’s on her way but she had to ask Mark’s mum to pick up Elliott and Evie. She shouldn’t be long. I won’t text her if she’s driving. I don’t want to distract her. She should be here soon. Thank God you’re here . . .’

  Bev runs out of words and searches her pockets unsuccessfully for a Kleenex. I pull a trail of toilet roll from my Puffa pocket and pass it on. Least I can do.

  Unfeasibly grateful, she gives me a spontaneous sideways hug which I have to twist round to accept. I hug back. This angular, unfleshy woman with whom I rarely, if ever, make human contact, needs comfort from me and I don’t like it.

  Kate gives a weird little hiccup of supressed emotion and sandwich-hugs Bev from the other side. Eventually and awkwardly, we free ourselves, sit back in our chairs and remember our surroundings.

  ‘What happened?’ Kate asks, taking Bev’s hand.

  Bev shakes her head, trying both to recall and delete the memory. ‘We went to the garden centre. You know how keen your dad is to get those raised beds planted for the summer. We bought some things for lunch in the farm shop: cheese, bread, that spicy chutney he slathers on everything. I laid the kitchen table and Peter carried all the things through to the garden. You know, round the side of the bungalow. From the car. I called out “Ready!” but he didn’t whistle back. He whistles back when it’s mealtimes.’

  Bev pauses to blow her nose. ‘He’d collapsed on the path, you see. I didn’t realize. If he’d collapsed in the garden, I’d have seen him when I was slicing the bread.’

  She stops, indicating with a wave of the hand that she’s too distraught to go on.

  ‘Did you dial 999 straight away?’ Kate asks.

  Bev nods, filling up.

  ‘Did you try CPR?’

  ‘I didn’t want to do it wrong so I got a pillow and made him comfortable. I sat on the path and held his hand. The woman on the phone was very reassuring. They think it’s a heart attack. They were there so fast. I can’t fault how well they responded. Or you two. Your dad will be so pleased to know you’re here to look after me.’

  I try to scrunch away the negative thought but it lingers. This woman, whose hand now pats my arm, has got it so wrong. We aren’t here for her, we’re here for him. Isn’t that bloody obvious?

  I walk to the window and take in the view, six storeys up: a car park; a single-decker bus disgorging visitors; three paramedics grabbing a quick coffee break. One of them leans in and says something and they all laugh. In a job like that, you have to laugh to keep sane. Teaching geography’s a breeze in comparison. I’m a lightweight.

  The door swings open and Pippa bustles in, bearing a palmful of hand sanitizer from the dispenser outside.

  ‘I squirted too much. May I?’

  She takes my hand and wipes a dollop onto it. I catch Kate’s eye and we exchange a look. That is so Pippa, so typical of how she behaves. Like her mother before her, she has invaded our family without being asked.

  Pippa hastily rubs in the last of the sanitizer so that she’s hands-free to hug her mother. If Bev’s held it together until now, the presence of her only child gives her free rein to break into wracking sobs which startle one of the noisy family’s children so much that he has to be taken to the chocolate machine for a consoling KitKat.

  As Pippa rocks her mother, she looks to Kate and me. ‘Well? What’s happening? How is he?’

  ‘I’ll find a nurse,’ Kate replies, clacking away down the corridor in her work stilettos. I want to go too, but Kate would have asked, if she’d needed me. Which is the whole problem in a nutshell. She accuses me of not being involved but chooses to exclude me. And I let her.

  ‘They think it’s a heart attack,’ I tell Pippa.

  The words sink in. A heart attack. People die of heart attacks: my neighbour, three days after last Christmas; Toby’s mum when he was 16; Stephen Gately. No, he died of a pulmonary oedema. Is that the same as a heart attack? I have no idea . . .

  Should we have seen the signs? If I’d gone to Dad and Bev’s for Sunday lunch, would I have noticed that he was breathless or wheezy or sweaty? If I’d got my lazy fat arse in gear and driven the twenty minutes to their house, could I have stopped this?

  Pippa is saying something. I allow the words to drift past me. She tries again. ‘I’m getting Mum a cup of tea. Do you want anything?’

  I could murder a Mars bar. I saw them in the machine as we left the lift. And now that little boy is making a smeary meal of his KitKat.

  ‘Not for me, thanks.’

  ‘Keep an eye on Mum, will you?’

  Or your mum can keep an eye on me because that’s my dad in there, in intensive care. And he could die and I’ve already lost my mum so I’m the one who needs taking care of, thank you very much, Pippa.

  ‘Maybe a Mars bar if they’ve got one?’

  The noisy family have left and Bev and I have the visitors’ room to ourselves. Why are Kate and Pippa taking so long? When will we be allowed to see Dad? Why did I ask for a Mars bar when I know the very first bite will make me heave?

  Bev pats my hand. It’s a gesture. Of sorts. Is she acknowledging that we’re both running the same anxious thoughts through our heads? Or is she gently reminding me to be the ‘dutiful daughter’ in Pippa’s absence?

  I give it my best shot. ‘How are you doing, Bev? Finding Dad like that, it must have been horrible for you.’

  ‘Oh, Annie. It was. Of course, I’ve been here before. Not here, I mean. Not the ICU.’ She lets out a heavy sigh. ‘When I lost Keith, I couldn’t possibly imagine I’d be going through all this again.’

  ‘Nobody’s “lost”, okay. Dad’s collapsed but we haven’t lost him.’

  ‘Absolutely. We mustn’t jump to conclusions. But you can’t help it, can you? Worst-case scenario. What if he doesn’t make it?’

  I try not to raise my voice, lose my rag. ‘Dad’s a stubborn old bugger. Always digging his heels in, not giving up. He’ll come through.’

  Bev takes comfort from my words, even though I’m not totally convinced by them. He is stubborn though, and he often loses patience with my ‘oh sod it’ attitude. Kate’s more like him. Diligent, conscientious, responsible; she hated learning the piano but still got her certificate. I gave up the violin after two lessons; Dad was always teasing me that I could have been the next Vanessa-Mae.

  ‘It was different with Keith, of course,’ Bev continues. ‘Still a shock. Still out of the blue. But it was instant. That lorry ploughed into his car and he felt nothing.’

  I know how Keith died. I’ve heard the story countless times and yes, it was sad and ghastly. But, if I’m really, really honest, I can’t find it in my heart to care about a man I never met. A man I was only aware of, post mortem, because of his connection to a woman I hardly know and barely tolerate.

  ‘It was different with Jackie too, wasn’t it?’ Bev says, sifting through our shared losses. ‘Peter’s often told me how painful it was for you all to watch your mum fade away like that.’

  ‘Yes. It was.’

  ‘What’s worse, I wonder? Losing someone in an instant, like I lost Keith. Or knowing they’re in dreadful pain, month after month, and they’re going to die.’

  ‘Bev,
we’re all going to die,’ I snap. ‘Didn’t you get the memo?’

  Bev chuckles, enjoying my little joke. I can’t even get angry with this silly woman without her seeing it as a bonding moment.

  ‘I knew your dad was a good man on our very first date. It wasn’t really a date. He came to the garden centre with me to help me choose a new lawnmower, then we had lunch in the cafe.’ Bev’s chin quivers as the irony hits her. Will the garden centre symbolically bookend their relationship?

  ‘We sat there on the terrace for a good couple of hours and he told me about Jackie, how she’d fought off the first bout of cancer and they thought that was it. How he knew before she did that something was wrong. He was so loving and caring as he talked about her. A proper gentle man. And I thought to myself: Crikey, Bev, this one’s quite the catch.’

  I bite my tongue. Dad didn’t know before Mum that the cancer had returned; she’d been so careful to hide the signs because she feared she wouldn’t survive it a second time. So did he rewrite the story of her illness, or did Bev? I’ll have a word with him when he’s back on his feet.

  He will be back on his feet. I won’t lose two parents in five years. No bloody way!

  And then Kate and Pippa return. Pippa holds two paper cups of tea and the top of a Mars bar pokes out of her pocket. Kate is pale. She squeezes her eyes tight shut, then blinks them open again. She tries to find the words but they don’t come. She sits down with a thump, lucky to find a chair behind her.

  He is gone.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Rough or Very Rough’

  Nearly noon and I’m curled up on the sofa, still in my washed-to-death Boyzone T-shirt and equally ancient leggings. I’ve dragged the duvet off my bed and tucked it around me as I channel-zap through daytime options, finally settling on something with dogs. At the next commercial break, I shall make some tea and polish off the last two Tunnock’s teacakes. They never used to make me feel queasy but, with determination, I’m pretty sure I can eat through that.

  I am an orphan.

  I went to sleep – eventually – with those four words in my head and they were still there, like an insistent cluster headache, when I woke up, befuddled and exhausted, at five to six this morning.