‘But why would she do that?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jude! Because it left the garage to Billy! If that will didn’t exist, Bill would technically have died intestate. I don’t know much about the law, but I do know that if a married person dies without a will, the estate goes to the surviving partner!’ Shannon leant against the work surface, drained by this outburst.
‘You’re right about one thing,’ said Jude coolly.
‘Oh?’
‘Bill Shefford did make a will.’
‘See? I told you.’
‘But he made that will very recently.’
‘Oh?’
‘After he married Malee. And in the will, he left the house and his savings to her. And he left the garage, the whole Shefford’s business, to Billy.’
‘I don’t believe you but, even if I did, what difference would that make? It would still have been to Malee’s advantage to destroy it.’
‘She didn’t destroy it. She fully supported the provisions Bill had made for her and for Billy.’
‘Oh yes? And why should I believe that?’
‘You could ask her.’
‘Talk to Malee? You’ve got to be joking.’
‘It’s better to talk to someone than go around nursing groundless suspicions of them.’
‘My suspicions are not groundless! Malee is, and always has been, nothing but a gold-digger!’
‘But you can’t—’
Jude was interrupted by a weak voice from the front room calling, ‘Shannon.’
Instantly, daughter went to mother. Jude followed, asking, ‘Is there anything more I can do for you, Rhona?’
‘No, I just want Shannon,’ said the old woman with a note of petulance. ‘I don’t trust healers! They don’t do any good for people. Just get them worried about things they don’t need to worry about. They’re all rubbish. The first one you brought to me, Shannon, he was rubbish. And this woman’s no better!’
The sudden change of attitude hit Jude like a slap in the face. Though Rhona had expressed scepticism of the healing profession at their first meeting, there had been no criticism voiced since then. Jude wondered whether the old woman’s mind was starting to go. She had been aware recently of a tendency towards rambling.
But this was no time to take issue or defend herself. Jude picked up her woven straw basket and said, ‘Very well, I’ll be on my way then. See you, Shannon.’
Shannon, who was cradling her mother’s frail body like a baby’s, hardly seem to register Jude’s departure. Just before the front door closed behind her, she heard Shannon calling upstairs, ‘Supper in ten minutes, kids!’
The perfect example of the sandwich generation, caught between the aging and the young. Though Jude feared that Shannon Shefford’s sandwich would very soon be reduced to one slice of bread.
As she walked back to Woodside Cottage, she kept asking herself, ‘Why won’t people talk to each other?’ She knew of many situations, usually within families, of conversational lockdowns, which sometimes lasted for decades. And it was her view every complexity in life could be improved by at least talking about it. (Except, of course, for telling a spouse that his or her partner was having an affair. That never helped.)
NINETEEN
‘Is this seat taken?’
Carole looked up at the familiar bulky outline of Adrian Greenford, holding his customary mug of flat white.
‘No, it isn’t,’ she said, draining her Americano, ‘but get them to put that into a takeaway cup. We need to talk outside.’
‘Really? Surely I—?’
By then Carole had left Starbucks.
He found her in one of the seafront shelters facing Fethering Beach. Though full of day trippers in the summer, they were deserted in February. The cold wind sawed through the broken glass of the windows.
He sat down on the paint-denuded wooden seat beside her, a respectable distance away. ‘So, what’s all this about, Carole? Very mysterious.’ His tone was joshing, ready to join in whatever game she was up to.
‘It’s about your wife.’
‘Oh?’ A new alertness came into his manner. ‘What’s Gwyneth done to annoy you?’
‘I’m not sure that she’s done anything to annoy me. But there are things about her behaviour that require some explanation.’
‘Like what?’ he asked, unsure of his ground.
‘My neighbour Jude met some people from Ilkley at the weekend.’
‘Oh,’ said Adrian, as if he knew what was coming.
And Carole told him everything that she had heard from Jude, finishing up by asking, ‘So? Does Gwyneth need to be in a wheelchair or not?’
There was a silence. Then he said, ‘That’s a rather difficult question to answer.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s a perfectly straightforward question. Either she cannot move anywhere without being in a wheelchair, or she can. Which is it, Adrian?’
‘Hm,’ he said. ‘The mind works in strange ways, Carole.’
‘What, are you telling me her disability is all in her head? Shocked into immobility like some hysterical imaginary invalid from a Victorian novel?’
‘It’s not quite like that.’ He was still holding his cardboard cup in both hands, as if using it to warm them. ‘The fact is that Gwyneth is extremely jealous.’
‘If she is,’ said Carole tartly, ‘according to Jude’s friends, you’ve given her reason to be.’
‘All right. I’m not claiming to be guilt-free in all of this.’
‘And is that why you moved away from Ilkley?’
‘Of course it is. After what Gwyneth did, I couldn’t stay up there. I had become a laughing stock.’
‘So, what made you choose Fethering?’
‘It was about as far away as we could get. And Gwyneth had some recollections of having happy childhood holidays in Littlehampton. I thought making a complete change might … well, might save our marriage.’
‘And how has that process been going so far?’
‘Good. Well, good in some respects. Good, in that Gwyneth hasn’t gone around vilifying me in Fethering, like she did in Ilkley.’
‘You still haven’t explained about the wheelchair.’
‘No. Well, I’m afraid that was part of her deal.’
‘Deal?’
‘Yes. Gwyneth made certain conditions when we moved down here. Things that I had to agree to if the marriage was to continue. She’s a very powerful woman, you know, Carole.’
‘Is she?’ came the dry response.
‘I’m afraid … I’m not proud to say this, but throughout our marriage … I’ve always done what she asked me to.’
‘Done what she told you to, do you mean?’
‘I suppose so. I wanted to have children. Gwyneth didn’t. So, we don’t have children.’
‘I see.’ Carole was glad she hadn’t made any comment when Gwyneth had confided that detail to her.
‘Haven’t you been tempted to leave her at times?’ asked Carole. After all, even she had a divorce behind her.
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that,’ said Adrian, as if she’d suggested the unthinkable. ‘Gwyneth and I couldn’t part.’
‘And yet you quite happily went off to have an affair.’
‘I don’t think “quite happily” would be the best way of describing that situation.’
Carole shrugged. ‘Up to you. You still haven’t told me about the wheelchair. Is Gwyneth physically disabled or not?’
‘She might as well be.’
‘What kind of an answer’s that?’
‘I mean that was one of the conditions she made when moving down here. That she would be in a wheelchair and I would do everything for her.’
‘But that’s madness.’
‘It was the deal. It was the deal I agreed to.’