Dial tone. I sigh, wait ten seconds, and call her back.
‘Did I cut you off, love?’
‘Yeah, but don’t worry – you were saying, Jackson’s mum …’ I say, turning on to Lower Lane. Basil’s right, actually, these potholes are dangerous; I make a mental note to call the council about sorting them.
‘Ooh, yes. So she ditched grumpy old Arnold and went off with Denley from Tauntingham. You know, the one with the house in Spain that he probably bought with dirty money from his father’s used-car business?’
I laugh. ‘Grandma, I’m only just getting a handle on the gossip in Hamleigh. I can’t broaden my range to the whole of the Dales just yet.’
‘Oh, you’ll get the hang of it all in no time, just have Betsy around for coffee once a week. She can fill you in on everything you need to know.’
I make a face to myself. I don’t get the impression Betsy wants to come for coffee once a week. ‘Go on, Grandma – Jackson’s kid?’
‘At this point Jackson was living with Arnold – I never got to the bottom of that, but Jackson’s always seemed strangely fond of Arnold – and so I knew he was stepping out with a bouncy blonde girl called Marigold from Daredale who fancied herself the next Hollywood starlet. I knew she was a wrong ’un,’ Grandma says, suddenly sounding a lot like Betsy. ‘She wore these awful high-heeled shoes that were always getting stuck in the mud on the driveway and she’d squeal until Jackson heaved her out.’
‘Wearing high heels, eh,’ I say. ‘Whatever next!’
‘Oh, don’t try and make me sound old-fashioned,’ Grandma says. ‘I’ll have you know Fitz took me out shopping yesterday and I bought all sorts of trendy things. And I borrowed your high-heeled boots to go out for cocktails afterwards.’
I widen my eyes in alarm. Is she steady enough on her feet to be wearing my heeled boots?
‘But this girl went everywhere in stilettos and tight skirts she could hardly move in. Jackson was always opening doors and helping her into cars and carrying her bags and she never liked to lift a finger for him. Then they ended things, or at least I think they did because she stopped coming by, and then she turned up six months later round as a Rolo.’
That makes me laugh. ‘A Rolo?’
‘Exactly,’ Grandma says with relish. ‘Pregnant! Then next thing we know, Jackson’s off to Daredale half the time looking after the baby. This was all, ooh, three or four years ago, maybe? Then – and this is the real gossip – Marigold moved to LA for her big break as an actress, and she took the little girl with her. Jackson hardly gets to see her now.’
Oh, God. Poor, poor Jackson. I feel so bad about what I said at Penelope’s house that I don’t even feel angry with him about the sneaky cocktail-making any more.
Well, not very angry about it, anyway.
My phone buzzes. This phone is a relic from the era of floppy discs and Game Boys, and it takes me a while to realise what’s happening: I’m getting another call.
‘Got to go, Grandma – speak soon, love you.’
‘Oh, bye, love,’ she says, and I hang up and switch to the call waiting.
‘Hello?’ comes a wavering voice from the other end of the line. ‘Is that Leena Cotton?’
‘Yes, this is she.’ I definitely just did my work voice. It felt a bit weird.
‘My name is Nicola Alderson,’ the lady says, ‘and I’m calling about an advert I saw in the grocery store, about lifts?’
‘Oh!’ I drove out to Knargill and posted a few flyers (well, printouts from Grandma’s computer) yesterday – I’d not expected quite such a speedy response. ‘Hello, Nicola, thanks for calling.’
‘Are you sure it’s free?’ Nicola asks. ‘This is all very … good. My grandson’s always warning me about those emails that say you’ve won some money, and an offer of free lifts might come under the same category, I’d say. No such thing as a free lunch, and all that.’
I nod. This is a fair point – actually, I wish my grandma was this suspicious about these sorts of things. We had a scare a few years ago where she mistook some junk mail for an official letter from the bank and almost transferred her savings to a mysterious Russian bank account.
‘Absolutely. So basically, my grandma had this idea about helping isolated people get around more, and I’m staying at her place at