Last Chance Café Read online

  ‘Really good; Grant’s always been terrific with Rosie, even when she was a tiny baby, and Wendy’s just lovely, and they’re both very steady and responsible. Actually, Dot, I really admire Grant. It’s not been easy for him but he’s handled it so well, no rancour; he and Wendy seem like extended family.’

  ‘It’s an odd sort of set-up though.’

  ‘I know, but it works and that’s what matters. Em wasn’t coping at all, that’s why it all fell apart. She just wanted out and back to work, wanted to get away from anything remotely domestic. She went back to her job at Grangewood; they own this place,’ she says, indicating the shopping centre, ‘and a couple of other malls. She’s the PR manager. Good thing the press didn’t spot you out there or she’d be in damage control by now! Motherhood totally freaked her out.’

  ‘A girl after my own heart,’ Dot says. ‘But fortunately I knew it from a very early age!’

  Margot nods. ‘Well, it’s not for everyone, that’s for sure. Anyway, Dot, as I’ve saved you from ignominy this morning, I think you should help me find something I can wear for Phyl’s party. I’d rather be trawling through the op shops but I’ve left it too late.’

  ‘I’m complaining about consumerism and you want me to go fashion shopping?’

  ‘Balance, Dot,’ Margot says, handing her a pair of nail scissors from her handbag. ‘You were always good at that. Cut that sign off your sweater or you’ll end up in custody in the centre manager’s office. Anyway, you’re a fine one to talk, you could always shop ‘til you dropped.’

  Dot snips the stitches on the four corners of the sign and rolls it up. ‘I was a bit of a shopper, wasn’t I? I suppose there’s always been a part of me that is deeply politically incorrect.’ She stuffs the sign into her canvas bag and lugs it onto her shoulder, sending their empty cups flying across the table.

  ‘What on earth have you got in there?’

  ‘More chain. I was going to start again at the other end of the centre once they moved me on.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Margot says, grabbing the bag and stuffing it down on the floor in the corner of the booth. ‘We’re not taking that with us.’

  ‘They might think it’s a bomb,’ Dot protests. ‘We’ll never be able to come back here again.’

  ‘Well, it’s not a bomb, and there are plenty of other cafés that serve better coffee.’ She slips her arm through Dot’s. ‘Now, we’re just two old dames going shopping, and the nice thing is we’re invisible. No one gives a damn what we get up to.’

  ‘And that’s another issue,’ Dot says. ‘We’re invisible because we’re old women, it’s a real –’

  ‘Oh do shut up, Dot,’ Margot says, ‘or I’ll have you forcibly shipped back to that Indian mountain.’ And she leads her along the mall and up another escalator to the opposite side of the gallery, and into a shop full of clothes that she really can’t afford.

  Lexie hasn’t shown the letter to Ross. She can’t because he’s away and he was away when she brought it home with her from work. She wouldn’t have shown it to him anyway; Ross would always have been among the last to know. She hasn’t shown it to anyone since it was handed to her at four o’clock on Friday afternoon by the practice solicitor. She’d read it, put it back in the envelope, resolved not to look at it again for forty-eight hours and to stay cool in the meantime. Then she’d left the office without a word to anyone. She hasn’t shown it to her mother either, because Margot’s unwavering support and loving concern would be more than she could bear at the moment. And she hasn’t shown it to her younger sister because Emma – well, she never quite knows how Emma will react to things. And now it’s four o’clock on Sunday and she’s sitting at the kitchen table staring at it again, and in the forty-eight hours since Friday she has not, for a minute, stayed even remotely cool.

  Not surprising, really – after all, she’s worked there for twenty years, starting as the receptionist when old Dr Faraday was in practice on his own, and on through the expansion when he took on a younger partner. Then a few years later young Dr Faraday had come on board, turned the place into a medical centre and sent Lexie off on a business management course so she could be the practice manager. And now here she is, forty-eight and redundant thanks to a chain of problems that began with a lengthy, expensive and damaging case of medical negligence. On a Saturday night, two days after the court found against the practice, Dr Faraday the younger committed suicide in his consulting room, using a lethal cocktail of drugs, and wasn’t found until the Monday morning. After that everything started to fall apart and Lexie began her efforts to patch it back together; meanwhile the doctors negotiated deals to move to other practices, disheartened nurses opted for agency work and anxious patients changed their GPs.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ the solicitor had said as he handed her the letter on Friday. ‘I know how hard you’ve worked to keep going this long, but they can’t go on treading water, and frankly the doctors don’t have the will for it, they have other plans. I guess you saw it coming.’

  Of course she’d seen it coming, she’d have been a lousy business manager if she hadn’t, but she had deliberately looked away, hoping that by pouring all her energy and ideas into developing new plans she could somehow reinvigorate everyone. So now she is not only redundant but hurt, disappointed and absolutely exhausted. And while the lump sum that she is owed, plus a generous ex gratia payment for more than two decades of dedicated service, is helpful, it’s no compensation for the loss of what was so much more than a job.

  Folding the letter again Lexie wonders idly whom she might consider telling. Her father, possibly? He would be affectionate, solicitous, ask if he could help and offer her money and then he would leave her to get on with it. But he is overseas on some walking holiday. She certainly wouldn’t tell her Aunt Phyllida because she would immediately tell Uncle Donald, who would froth and bluster and start phoning his contacts in the higher echelons of the medical fraternity to find her another job. The people she might like to tell are her former brother-in-law, Grant, and his sister, Wendy, who have become good friends. But one thing’s for sure, she won’t be telling Ross. He will be the last to know.

  What Lexie feels like doing is running away. She wants to be somewhere completely alone where she doesn’t have to talk, where she can step outside the door knowing she won’t bump into anyone who might ask her how she is, or what she’s going to do next. The job was her; without it she is invisible. Lexie slips the letter back into its envelope, pours herself a very large gin and tonic and drinks it rather quickly. She never drinks alone. Then she pours another equally large one and takes it with her to the shower, imagining as she does so that she is not getting ready to go to her aunt’s anniversary party, but that she is preparing to leave, to disappear somewhere where no one can find her.

  ‘Where would you go, Lex?’ she asks her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she turns on the shower. ‘Vanuatu, Penang, Fiji … or maybe somewhere in Europe? Prague, perhaps, or maybe Venice? Yes, Venice, and don’t tell anyone and don’t come back ‘til you’re ready. If ever! Ha!’ And she gives a short dry laugh, swigs the last of the gin and steps into the shower.

  What a blast that would be, she thinks, and then what would happen? For a few satisfying moments as the water cascades down her body, Lexie allows herself to imagine the domino effect. She visualises the chaos of the remaining staff sorting out the winding up of the practice. She hears them casting her as a deserter, a rat leaving in the last days of the sinking ship, a fallen angel; she sees the nods and winks and the mention of hormones and the onset of menopause. She imagines the family’s disbelief, the worry, the arguments in which people would say one thing to one person and something different to the next.

  Sighing, she squeezes shampoo into the palm of her hand and begins to massage it into her hair. She could, of course, take a decent holiday but she has to work two more weeks to finalise all the accounts and everyone’s pay. And meanwhile she’s supposed to turn up at this wretch
ed anniversary party and act as though nothing has happened. She should have been there earlier in the day, she’d promised to help them set up for it, but this morning she’d sent Phyllida a text saying she couldn’t make it. Now she’s stricken with guilt, but the last thing she feels like doing is putting on some sort of brave face and being part of a celebration.

  Lexie has no idea how to get herself to the party, how to smile or talk to people, how to pretend everything is normal … it’s all just too hard, and that’s when she starts to cry. Great big sobs surge through her body, huge tears mix with the shower water, and she heaves and moans until eventually the tears stop. She leans, exhausted, against the shower screen and slides down to sit on the tiles with the water still beating down on her until it starts to run cold and she gets out, wraps herself in a towel, winds a second towel around her head, goes to her bedroom and sends a text to her mother.

  TWO

  At six o’clock on Sunday evening Dot is preparing to draw the cork from a bottle of wine and is reflecting on the pleasure of that chance meeting with Margot: their conversation, the frock shopping and all the memories it has revived. But her pleasure is tinged with anxiety. What must Margot think of her after that bungled attempt at a protest? How ridiculous she must have looked; a ridiculous old woman making an exhibition of herself. She would never have done that in the old days, it would have been a proper group action. It’s a sign, she thinks, that she has been spending too much time alone since she got back. And then she made it worse by talking to the journalist from the Sunday paper who had phoned yesterday afternoon.

  ‘Someone just emailed us a picture from the shopping centre,’ he’d said. ‘My editor recognised you, but we’re not sure what you’re protesting about.’

  So off she’d gone, ranting on about shopping malls and cosmetic surgery and makeovers, and god knows what else. Margot will have a fit, Dot thinks, but with any luck it’ll be tucked away on an inside page and she won’t see it. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to go out and buy a copy to check. Margot’s right, a blog might be the thing, at least it would be a start, but the first thing to do is to nut out what she’s going to aim for. Dot picks up her glass, but as she takes her first sip and settles down to watch the news the doorbell rings. She pauses, weighing up the possibilities; almost six-thirty on a Sunday is not a time for door-to-door sales persons, not even those selling religion. She pads softly on socked feet along the passage to peer through the spy-hole in the front door. A man, tall, youngish and wearing a black jacket and jeans, is standing with his back to the front door, facing the street. Dot tilts her head in an attempt to get a glimpse of his profile, and then reels back as he turns suddenly and presses his eye to the spy-hole.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she shouts, flinging open the door. And now it is his turn to recoil in shock. ‘How dare you peer into my spy-hole? Who are you anyway?’

  ‘Whoa! Sorry!’ he says, holding up his hands as if to ward off attack. ‘I couldn’t actually see anything – you can’t, you know, not from this side.’ He hesitates. ‘I rang the bell and you didn’t answer but I could hear the television …’

  Dot looks him up and down; he’s not as young as she first thought. He has hair like Hugh Grant, but that’s not a crime. ‘It’s none of your business if the television’s on,’ she says. ‘I might just be choosing not to answer the door. Do I know you?’

  He gives her a disarming smile that fails to disarm her. ‘Patrick,’ he says. ‘I emailed you, remember?’

  Dot stares at him, frowning.

  ‘Last week. About talking to my students. You said to pop round this evening.’

  ‘Ah …’ Dot’s expression softens, although she’s already regretting the invitation. ‘Yes, I do remember. Did I really say come on Sunday evening when the news is on?’

  ‘Well, you actually said to come Sunday about six-thirty, which is now, but I could come back another time …’

  She shakes her head and opens the door wider. ‘No, no, you’re quite right. Come in. But you must promise never to peer into my spy-hole again.’

  ‘Never,’ he says. ‘Scout’s honour. Not yours or anyone else’s.’

  ‘Come along then. I’ve just opened a bottle of wine.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure …’ He hands her a small bunch of perfect, hothouse violets swathed in a cone of glossy white paper, and walks into the hall. ‘You should still catch the news,’ he says. ‘It’s only just started.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you for the violets. Old ladies’ flowers.’

  ‘Well I …’

  ‘They’re my favourite.’ She leads him down the passage and gestures towards the sofa. ‘Make yourself comfortable, I’ll get another glass.’

  ‘Castro’s announced his resignation,’ Patrick says, nodding towards the screen and the archival footage of Castro in the sixties.

  ‘About time,’ Dot says, handing him a glass and settling into her own chair as a close-up of Fidel Castro, now looking like an ancient monument, fills the screen. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers. It’s really good of you, I hope I haven’t disturbed –’

  ‘You haven’t,’ she says, ‘but you will if you don’t shut up till the news has finished.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, and he sips his wine and leans further back into his corner of the sofa.

  Dot tries to concentrate on the news, which is vital to her sense of being on top of what’s happening at home and abroad – it’s a feeling she finds increasingly difficult to maintain these days – but, hard as she tries to concentrate, Patrick’s presence distracts her. She sneaks a sideways glance at him; he certainly doesn’t look like an axe murderer, but then he wouldn’t, would he? She remembers that in his email he’d said he was a lecturer in cultural studies. It conjures up images of dead and largely incomprehensible French philosophers, possibly boring but bearing little similarity to axe murderers, although the two are not mutually exclusive. Anyway, he seems harmless, sitting there relaxed with his wine, watching in silence, and Dot realises her unease is not because Patrick is young, or male, or a stranger, but simply because it’s so long since she’s sat and watched the news here, or anywhere else, with anyone at all. It is, she supposes, the price she’s paying for decades of immersing herself in work and various causes at the expense of relationships and friendships. The pigeons come home to roost as one gets older, Dot thinks, only this particular pigeon is starting to feel more like an albatross. Loneliness is something she has never had to face and now it seems to be thundering along behind her flapping its wings and threatening to roost here in her own house. She looks across at Patrick, and this time flicks the mute button on the remote control.

  ‘I’m going to make a toasted sandwich,’ she says, getting up. ‘Will you join me?’

  ‘But I thought you wanted to watch the news.’

  ‘I did, but your presence is unexpected and distracting.’

  ‘I could go.’

  ‘Definitely not. Now you’re here you have a responsibility to stay and entertain me.’

  He smiles and gets to his feet. ‘In that case, yes please, cheese if possible, and I should probably tell you more about why I’m here.’

  ‘You want me to talk to your students, although I can’t think why. I imagine I’d bore them stiff.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ he says, ‘but before we talk about that I want to ask you a more personal favour.’

  Dot looks at him across the bench. ‘You’re pushing your luck! Tomato with the cheese?’

  ‘No thanks. And, yes, I know it’s a cheek but please just say no if you want to. I wondered if you’d come out to lunch with me and my Aunty Win. It’s her birthday soon and it would be a terrific treat for her. A surprise, you know – just turn up at the restaurant? She and my mum were huge fans. They listened to you on the radio and Mum kept scrapbooks of your articles and columns. She used to make me read them too.’

  ‘How flattering for me and how boring for you,’ Dot says. ‘You could only h
ave been a teenager.’

  ‘It was okay as long as no one at school knew,’ he says. ‘Actually I plagiarised one in a Year Twelve essay about violence on television. Copied several paragraphs of your column and only changed about five words.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ Dot said. ‘I hope you got a good mark. Would your mother come to lunch too?’

  ‘My mother … no, she’s … well, she’s dead. Ten years ago. My father too, a couple of years earlier.’

  Dot puts down the block of cheese she’s holding. ‘I’m so sorry, how sad for you.’

  He shrugs. ‘I’m over it now, except that you don’t ever get over it. You just learn to live without people, don’t you? Anyway, Aunty Win has kept all Mum’s scrapbooks – you were their hero.’

  ‘How nice,’ Dot says, hoping she doesn’t sound fatuous.

  ‘So you see it would mean a lot to her – lunch, I mean.’

  Dot rummages in the cupboard for the sandwich toaster, her head buzzing with conflicting reactions: how tedious, just what I don’t need … how flattering, just like old times … it’ll be a couple of hours at the most and when did you last do anything for someone else? … I’d rather stick pins in my eyes … but on the other hand …

  ‘Would I have to leap naked out of a birthday cake?’ she asks, playing for time.

  Patrick laughs. ‘No way – although if you fancy it … no, just kidding. Seriously, just being there would be great, she’d be over the moon.’

  ‘She might prefer to spend her birthday with you; it could seem like an intrusion.’

  ‘She’d love it, believe me, and so would I.’

  Dot makes a hurrumphing noise and pushes the bread towards him with a knife. ‘Cut two slices for me and as many as you want for yourself,’ she instructs.

  ‘Of course I’ll understand if you’d rather not, but I –’