Forever Home by Graham Norton

Author:Graham Norton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

A click and a sliver of light.

‘Carol? Are you up?’

Moira’s shadow loomed large in the doorway.

Carol turned on her bedside lamp. ‘Yes, Mammy.’

Moira quickly closed the door and scuttled forward to sit on the edge of the bed.

‘So, what happened?’ Moira’s eyes seemed to be bulging out of her head.

‘What about Daddy?’

‘Fast asleep in front of the telly. I’ll wake him to go to bed.’

When Carol had got home from St Brendan’s she had tried to get her mother alone but Dave never seemed to be out of earshot. She had managed to whisper to her mother while he went to the toilet, ‘I know for certain it isn’t Joan Barry in the freezer.’

Moira had quickly pulled her daughter further into the kitchen.

‘What?’

‘She’s alive. She’s here.’

‘What?’ Moira repeated, urgent and hoarse. ‘How do you know?’

‘I met her!’

Moira opened her mouth to let forth a torrent of questions but then Dave was back in the room, asking about the timer of the central heating and if anyone had been ‘messing with it’.

As soon as she could after dinner Carol had crept away to her room. She knew that Moira wouldn’t be far behind. And here she was like a hungry dog that had been promised treats.

‘So, where did you meet her? Did you just bump into her or what?’ Moira leaned forward encouragingly.

Carol pulled herself up to rest her back against the pillows.

‘No. She was in St Brendan’s. I came into Declan’s room and there she was.’

‘And did she know who you were?’

‘She did. It all seemed . . .’ Carol searched for the right word. ‘Relaxed. Like, normal between us.’

‘And where has she been? What happened?’ Moira was looking for the meat on the bones of this story.

‘Well, she lives in Wiltshire – Salisbury, she said. Works as a legal secretary. No more kids. Still single.’

‘Still married, more like,’ Moira muttered. Her eyes turned to the wall for a moment while she gathered her thoughts.

Carol knew that nothing she had to report was going to satisfy her mother. Apart from Joan’s sudden reappearance there was nothing even vaguely dramatic or noteworthy about the woman or their meeting earlier that evening. No voices had been raised, no revelations had been made. Joan had asked a few questions about Declan, and Carol had answered without editing herself. She felt oddly at ease talking about him with this stranger. Joan knew a version of Declan that she never would. The young father, the man starting a business. If any of his memories washed up on the shores of his consciousness, it seemed far more likely that they would be from when he lived with Joan. He might be the great love of Carol’s life, but she had only known him for a fraction of his years and for some of that time he had already been slipping away.

Of course, Carol had questions, but standing in the hushed still of the nursing home with the steady rasp of Declan’s breath marking the passage of time, it hadn’t seemed like the place to quiz this woman.

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