odd. She bent down and gave him a rub on his tummy. He barked and tried to lick her face. ‘No! Taffie, you should have seen these silly dogs at Olive’s care home! They were eating all the cakes from the old ladies’ laps!’
She knelt down and patted Taffie on the head, enjoying his fluffy fur. He wagged his tail excitedly. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted something glistening by the side of the chest of drawers. She reached under the chest and felt around – it was small and she pulled it out. A pearl earring. How funny. She didn’t own any pearl earrings. She sat on the floor for a long time, hugging her knees as Taffie nestled at her feet. She held the earring, rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, and thought about Olive. A tiny little ember flickered inside her. She got up, popped the earring into a small bowl on the kitchen table, went to her laptop and flicked open the lid.
She logged into Facebook and scrolled along her home page. She sent Ed a private message:
Are you OK? Have not heard from you in while. Send news! Mum x
Then she deleted the last bit and changed it to: ‘Mum and Dad x’.
‘There you are!’ She flew backwards in her chair as her heart hammered in her chest. Tim was back. He strode along the kitchen tiles, his shoes clipping as he walked. She tried not to find it irritating but with each ‘clip-clop’ she realised she was listening out for the rhythm of it.
He pecked her on the cheek and sat down at the kitchen table across from her.
‘Heard from Ed?’
‘Um, no, I’ve just messaged him again. I’m getting a bit worried now, Tim.’
‘He’s fine – what can go wrong? Relax.’
She knew the conversation wouldn’t go where she wanted it to, as they both had hugely different views on how to parent Ed. Ever since—
‘So… what have you been up to?’
She looked up at him. ‘Sorry miles away.’ She forced a smile. ‘Went to see Olive, you know, your aunt!’ She’d seen people do it – they were able to have a go at someone but present it as a joke. The minute she said it she knew she’d gone too far. Tim scraped his chair back. ‘We moved her here, Maddie, so that we could both see her! You know that. I’m at work all the time. I work very hard. Things are very stressful right now.’ His mouth started to twitch.
‘I know, Tim, but the consultant today said things aren’t looking good. She’s deteriorating quite a bit.’
‘What do you mean deteriorating? She’s got everything she needs. That place is rated “outstanding”.’
‘It’s not about how it’s rated, Tim,’ she snapped, then took a deep breath as his eyes widened at her. ‘I mean mentally, things are getting a bit worse – Alzheimer’s. The doctor has identified it, but Olive doesn’t want to know. She said it would be over her dead body that she’d go into the Dementia Wing, but I do think she needs more help.’
‘I wouldn’t bother, Maddie, I doubt she’ll be around for too much longer. C’mon, let’s get in the car – for a spin.’
Maddie sat completely still, staring at the way the knots of wood twisted round on the kitchen table, at the salt and pepper pots in the middle. The neatness of it all. She could just see the tiny earring glinting at her. And she wanted to scream at her husband. She wanted to tell him that Olive needed to see family, that she was lonely, that he was her only living relative – and who the fuck did the earring belong to? She wanted to say all those things, but as she looked up at him, and saw that expression in his eye she knew so well, she decided to say nothing at all.
*
It was the silence up to the front door that nearly made her turn round and run back to the car. She couldn’t bear another minute of it. They’d been out in his ‘dream machine’ for a spin, the new car he was test-driving, but neither of them were having a fantasy road trip. It was more like a nightmare. It was pouring. Plants, leaves, trees, the pavement, everything wet and soggy; rain had been lashing down on the windscreen for the past forty minutes. She couldn’t get Tim’s dismissiveness of Olive out of her mind.