When the telephone rang, John looked visibly relieved. He darted across the room to pick up the receiver, placing a hand over his other ear.
Still standing in the doorway, listening to her sister give voice to her pent-up frustration, Linda’s eyes had become glassy. ‘Well, if I’d known that was how you feel, Debs, I would never have come here. My marriage had broken down, in case you’d forgotten, and I had no one else to turn to. It’s all right for you, with your lovely café and cosy flat. Life’s not all cupcakes and kittens for everyone, you know. Some of us have real problems to deal with.’
If Linda had hoped this would elicit sympathy from her sister, she was mistaken. ‘Real problems?’ Debbie repeated sarcastically. ‘Linda, the only problem you’ve ever had to deal with is how to spend your husband’s money. My God, you’re still doing it now! Do you think I haven’t seen the stash of shopping in Beau’s carrier?’ At this, Linda blushed deeply, but Debbie wasn’t done yet. ‘If you want to know about real problems, you should have tried walking in my shoes for the last few years. My ex-husband left me bankrupt, with a teenager to bring up on my own, remember?’
Linda looked close to tears, but Debbie showed no sign of relenting; the resentment that had been simmering for weeks had erupted in an unstoppable tide of bitterness and recrimination. ‘You’ve been the same, Linda, ever since we were little. You’ve always had a knack for getting other people to bail you out. First it was Mum and Dad, then it was Ray. Now that well is running dry, you can’t wait to think of ways to spend my money instead!’
While she was in full flow, John slipped wordlessly past Linda to the hallway, leaving the sisters alone. As the argument had gone on, I had braced myself for histrionics from Linda, of the kind I had witnessed when she first moved in, but in fact she assumed a look of stoic forbearance.
When she finally spoke, her voice was eerily calm and her face expressionless. ‘So it’s your money now, is it, Debs? I thought you said it belonged to Margery’s family.’ There was a pause, during which Debbie blushed a deep pink. ‘Maybe we’re not so different after all, Sis,’ Linda said coldly.
‘I didn’t mean . . . I know it’s not . . .’ I could tell Debbie was horrified by her slip of the tongue.
The tension between them was palpable, although apparently not to Beau, who, his itch satiated, had fallen asleep and begun to snore on the sofa cushion.
‘Fine,’ said Linda suddenly. ‘If that’s the way you feel, then I won’t impose on your generosity any longer.’ She strode across the room and grabbed her suitcase from the alcove. ‘Come on, Beau!’ she shouted.
Waking with a groggy bark, Beau stared wildly around him, as Linda scooped him up. Dragging the suitcase clumsily behind her, with the bewildered dog tucked under her arm, she walked, with as much dignity as she could, across the room.
In the doorway, she looked back over her shoulder. ‘Of course, legally, the money isn’t yours or Margery’s. It’s Molly’s,’ she sneered, shooting a spiteful glance at me. ‘Maybe you could save yourself a lot of heartache by asking Molly what she’d like done with it.’
Before Debbie could answer, Linda was gone. Debbie could do nothing but stare at the empty doorway, listening as Linda’s suitcase thudded heavily down the stairs behind her.
I felt my heart thumping in my chest. I was furious that Linda had spoiled Debbie’s chance to make amends with John, and livid that she had used me as a weapon in their argument. But, underneath my anger, what stung most was the sickening realization that Linda was right. Whether I liked it or not, Margery had left her money to me. All the upheaval of recent weeks – from the encounter in the café with David, to the argument with John, and this evening’s showdown with Linda – had come about because it had fallen to Debbie to decide what to do about it. There was no denying that Margery’s legacy to me was the primary cause of Debbie’s anguish. The way I saw it, if anyone was to blame for Debbie’s suffering, it was me.
23
As soon as the café door slammed shut, Debbie burst into tears. She staggered to the sofa and dropped down next to me.
‘Oh, Molly, what a complete and utter mess,’ she cried.
Outside, the wind had picked up and the windowpanes rattled ominously in their frames. I climbed onto her lap and began to knead at her legs with my front paws, gazing up into her face and purring. I was desperate to do whatever I could to comfort her, although in truth I knew I was powerless to help.
After a couple of minutes I heard Sophie’s soft tread in the hallway. ‘Mum?’ she said, peering anxiously around the living-room door. Her long blonde hair was loose and she was wearing her pyjamas and slippers. With a look of tender concern, she shuffled onto the sofa next to us. ‘What just happened?’ she asked.
‘Linda just happened,’ replied Debbie wanly. ‘When she started talking about Margery’s legacy, something snapped inside me. I told her exactly what I thought, as you said I should, Soph. You should be proud of me.’
‘I am proud of you, Mum.’ Sophie laughed. ‘But couldn’t you have picked a better time to tell her? This was meant to be your romantic night with John, remember?’
Debbie had covered her face with both hands. ‘I know,’ she groaned through her fingers. ‘I didn’t plan for it to happen like this! Linda promised to stay out for the evening.’
Sophie looked around the room, taking in the plates of half-eaten dinner lying on the table. ‘Where’s John?’ she asked, sounding troubled.
‘He left,’ Debbie answered listlessly.
‘What do you mean he left? Did you have a fight with him, too?’
Debbie shook her head. ‘I’m not sure what happened. One minute he was standing between me and Linda, looking like he wished the ground would swallow him up, and the next minute he’d vanished. He must have gone while we were arguing,’ she said in a flat, expressionless voice.
Sophie leant back against the sofa arm, frowning. ‘Have you tried to call him?’ she asked with an air of no-nonsense practicality.
Looking faintly surprised, as though the thought hadn’t occurred to her, Debbie craned forward, reaching over me to fish her phone out of her handbag. She tapped at the screen, then held it to her ear, biting her lip nervously. ‘It’s just going to voicemail,’ she said, before leaving a brief message: ‘Hi, John, it’s me, could you give me a call when you get this?’
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine, Mum,’ Sophie reassured her, as Debbie tossed the phone back into her bag.
‘He might have thought he was getting in the way and wanted to give you some privacy.’
‘Hmm, I’m not so sure, sweetheart,’ Debbie smiled thinly. ‘I think he’s probably had enough of me and my sister. And who could blame him?’ She tried to muster a watery smile.
Sophie was beginning to look pained, as though she had exhausted all the avenues of reassurance she could think of and was struggling to come up with something else to say. ‘Shall I make a cup of tea?’ she asked at last.
Debbie smiled appreciatively. ‘Thanks, Soph, that would be lovely.’
When Sophie had placed the two mugs of tea on the coffee table, she grabbed the remote control and curled up alongside Debbie. Leaning back against the sofa arm, with her feet pressing against Debbie’s thigh and her toes touching my fur, Sophie flicked through the television channels. I stretched out lengthways on Debbie’s lap and rested my chin on her knees, purring steadily as she absent-mindedly stroked my back. I closed my eyes and indulged in the blissful fantasy that Linda was gone for good and I would never see her again. I lost track of time, as I hovered deliciously between consciousness and sleep for what might have been a few minutes or a few hours, until the sudden slam of the café door reverberated through the flat.