Finally he spoke. “I don’t know if she’s a morning person or not, Joy.”
* * *
Down the hallway their unexpected guest lay flat on her back in the neatly made-up single bed, wide awake and staring dry-eyed at the darkness, hands clasped like those of a corpse or a good little girl, her bedroom door pulled wide open as if to show she had nothing to hide from anyone.
Chapter 6
NOW
Barb McMahon grimly dusted the framed picture of Joy and Stan Delaney on their wedding day and thought what a good-looking couple they’d been. Joy’s dress had a high neckline and billowing sleeves. Stan wore a ruffled wide-lapel shirt and purple bell-bottom trousers.
Barb had been at that wedding. It was a big raucous affair. Some guests thought the bride and groom an odd couple: Stan, the giant, long-haired lout, and Joy, the tiny blond fairy princess, but Barb thought they were probably just jealous of the couple’s obvious sexual chemistry, so obvious it was almost indecent, not that anyone would have used the phrase “chemistry” back then, because she was pretty sure it was invented by the people who made The Bachelor.
Barb had married Darrin a year after that wedding, and she didn’t remember much chemistry, just a lot of earnest conversation about savings goals. When Darrin died of a stroke ten years ago, Barb started cleaning to bring in extra cash. She generally only cleaned for friends, people like Joy of her own circle and generation. Barb’s daughter thought that was weird. Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable, Mum? It didn’t make her at all uncomfortable. Why should it? Barb preferred to clean for friends, and friends of friends, the sort of women who had never had a cleaner before and felt embarrassed by the luxury of it, so they liked to work alongside you, chatting at the same time, and Barb liked that too because it made the time fly.
But Joy wasn’t here today, so time wasn’t flying.
“She’s away,” Stan had said.
He looked terrible without Joy there to look after him. He probably couldn’t boil an egg. His jaw was covered in snow-white stubble and there were two long scratch marks, like a railway track, down the side of his face.
“Away?” Joy never went away. Where would she go? “When did she go away?”
It was on Valentine’s Day, according to Stan. Eight days ago.
“She never mentioned she was going away,” said Barb.
“It was a last-minute decision,” Stan had said tersely, as if Joy were in the habit of making last-minute decisions.
Very odd.
Barb put down the framed photo with a regretful sigh, plugged in the vacuum cleaner, and tried to remember if they were due to vacuum under the bed. How long had it been? Joy liked to make sure they pushed the bed to one side and gave it a good clean at least once a month.
She got down on her hands and knees and peered under the bed. Not much dust. She’d leave it until Joy was back. She was about to stand up again when something caught her eye. A sparkle.
She dropped flat on her stomach and reached out with her fingertips. She had a good reach. Joy used to tell her that when she played in the afternoon ladies’ tennis comp.
She pulled the object toward her. It was Joy’s mobile phone. She recognized it immediately because of the glittery phone case, like one of those Glomesh evening bags they all used to love in the seventies.
She got back up and sat on Joy and Stan’s bed, panting a little from the effort. The phone was dead.
So Joy had gone away without her phone? There was a sick feeling in her stomach.
She walked out into the kitchen where Stan was sitting at the table with his son Troy. They weren’t talking. They looked like two strangers forced to share a table in a food court, although there were no cups of tea or food on the table.
Troy was holding Joy’s precious headphones, which gave Barb a strange, chilly feeling. It felt too intimate, like he was holding something that was part of his mother: a wig or dentures.
“Hi, Barb,” said Troy brightly. “Haven’t seen you for ages. Love the new haircut. How is—”
“I just found your mother’s phone.” She held it up. Troy’s smile vanished as fast as if she’d slapped him. His eyes flew to his father.
Stan said nothing. Not a word. He didn’t even look surprised. He just stood and dully held out his hand for the phone.
“I have to say, I found Stan’s reaction quite peculiar,” Barb would later tell people. Then she’d pause and let her cheeks collapse with the dreadful gravity of her inside knowledge. “Even, you might say, suspicious.”
Chapter 7
“Troy just called to say Barb found Mum’s phone under the bed.”