Marble Heart

The way she listed it all, fast and crisp, she might have been asking Joan to be her secretary. She was a cool customer all right. Her big hazel eyes were very direct, almost uncomfortably so. It was only her body that was frail, Joan decided; there was a firm will inside that thin frame.

‘What about lunchtimes?’

She shook her head. ‘I want to have to fend for myself some of the day; can’t be going soft.’

Joan wondered where her family were. Maybe she’s like me, she thought, pretty much alone. There was no wedding ring on her finger but Joan could see a faint white strip there, as if she’d removed one in the recent past. She and her husband must be separated or divorced, Joan decided, unless he’d died. But widows didn’t usually get rid of their wedding rings, they clung to them. Mrs Waverley had been distraught because she couldn’t find her ring when her Harry dropped dead. Joan had searched high and low for it to no avail and in the end had lent her an ordinary signet ring she had been wearing.

‘That all sounds fine,’ Joan said. ‘I can’t do Sundays.’

‘Weekends are covered, this is a Monday-to-Friday arrangement.’

‘Have you had breakfast today?’ It was just on eleven.

Nina Rawle hesitated, then said no. She smiled at Joan, the first smile she’d given, as if she could relax now they had agreed terms. She’d like an egg, she said, and toast.

Joan got her what she wanted, wondering what her talk about her tissues amounted to; maybe she had cancer but couldn’t say it. People came out with all kinds of expressions to disguise illness; a man she had helped who had lung cancer always referred to his dodgy chest. She wiped things over as she waited for the egg to boil and made the toast nice, cutting off the crusts and slicing it into triangular shapes. When you’re ill, she thought, the little touches make a difference. She had noticed a patio rose planted in a tub in the conservatory, a bushy variety with orange-red blossoms. She nipped out and cut a single flower, putting it beside Mrs Rawle’s plate on the tray.

‘Oh,’ she said when she saw it, ‘how lovely! I’m not used to this kind of luxury.’

‘When I’m helping someone I like to attend to the details,’ Joan told her. ‘Now, tuck in before it cools down. Something tasty and hot is just the ticket when you’re not feeling too chipper.’

Mrs Rawle looked taken aback but she laughed. ‘Thank you, I will. Have you been doing this kind of work long?’

‘Six years, just on.’ Joan moved a plant which had tilted over on top of another.

‘And do you like it?’

‘Oh, yes, I love it. There’s always something new and I like meeting people.’

‘Some of them must be difficult, though – demanding.’

‘Well, sometimes. But I try to see the best side of people. You have to, and most clients are decent when you get to know them.’

‘Do you live near here?’

Joan chuckled. ‘Oh, I couldn’t afford this area. I’ve got a place in Leyton.’

‘Leyton.’ Mrs Rawle looked puzzled. ‘I don’t think I’ve been there.’

‘It’s okay, the only drawback is there’s no tube near but I’ve got Bessie – that’s what I call my car – so I’m not dependent on public transport. Now, shall I pop and tidy the kitchen while you’re eating?’

‘Please do. And could you see to the bathroom, too? I make quite a mess when I’m showering.’

There was an archway at the end of the kitchen, leading to a small tiled hallway. The bedroom was to the right, the bathroom on the left. It had a shower unit with a fitted seat, a bath, bidet and washbasin, all in the green of mint-flavoured chewing gum.

Quite a mess was an understatement. The floor was greasy with water and hair, toothpaste and soap clogged the basin. There was a perfume in the air that Joan recognised immediately. She lifted a bar of creamy soap and sniffed. Lily of the Valley. She could see that Nina Rawle had talc, deodorant and an atomiser, all from Selfridges. She used to buy Gran a tin of Lily of the Valley talcum powder from the Co-op for every birthday and Christmas. On the front of the yellow tin was a spray of dark green leaves with drooping delicate white flowers. Joan had thought it was the height of classiness. Gran’s name was Lily and she used to pull the front of her dress forward and shake the talc down her chest, saying, ‘Lily by name and Lily by smell!’ Then she’d tell Joan that she would be the most perfumed lady at the opera which would set her granddaughter giggling as Gran never went anywhere except to the whist drive. When Gran died and Joan was sorting her clothes, drifts of the snowy powder crept from the seams of her dresses and the perfume was all around her. Inhaling the scent of the soap took her right back to their dark little bedroom in Bromley with the gentleman’s oak wardrobe and the commode disguised as a chair. If Joan thought that she detected any omens that day, finding the Lily of the Valley seemed a good one. Then she gave herself a shake; she wasn’t being paid to stand and daydream.

She spent a good hour cleaning without even touching the conservatory. By then it was getting near the time she had to be at Mr Warren’s, so she washed up Mrs Rawle’s dishes and arranged to come back at six-thirty to cook supper.

‘There’s food in the fridge for tonight,’ Nina Rawle said. ‘I prefer light meals, soups and soufflés, snacks on toast, that kind of thing. I’d like some fruit. Could you possibly pick up a cantaloupe for this evening?’

Joan had never heard of a cantaloupe but she supposed they would have one in the supermarket. As Nina Rawle gave her the money she yawned, eyes watering. ‘Do excuse me,’ she said, ‘I don’t sleep well at night so I snatch naps during the day. I’m ready for one now.’

‘I sleep badly sometimes,’ Joan told her, ‘I have worrying dreams. Have you tried sleeping tablets?’

Nina looked uneasy. ‘Yes, but I don’t like taking them. Maybe I’m anxious that I won’t wake up.’

Joan didn’t believe in encouraging that kind of talk. ‘You’re just a bit down,’ she told Nina. ‘Try and get some rest and things will look brighter. Meeting someone new takes it out of you.’

Mrs Rawle gave another, fainter smile. ‘Oh, you haven’t tired me. I think we’ll get on, don’t you?’

Joan picked up her bag. ‘I speak as I find, and I think we can rub along very well, Mrs Rawle.’

‘We won’t stand on ceremony,’ came the reply. ‘You must call me Nina.’

‘Then you call me Joan.’

Nina Rawle was making her way carefully to the sofa as Joan left, leaning on her sticks, old before her time. She wore soft, Chinese-style slippers and the plastic soles made the lightest of taps on the floorboards, like a cat’s paws. There were only six years between them but there could have been twenty. Count your blessings, Joan told herself, heading for Bessie; you’ve got a good job and a neat little flat and Rich. She took a quick peek at the photo she kept inside her purse before starting the engine. Mr Marshall had kindly taken a snap of her and Rich with her own Instamatic. When Alice saw it she said they looked like peas in a pod because they both had round faces and Rich’s hair was the same shape, square-cut and layered. He came out quite blond in the photo although when you saw him in person there was a tiny bit of grey at the sides. Joan had warned him, as soon as she had her hands on him she’d tint that out. Mr Marshall laughed when he heard that and said could Joan pop in and do his for him sometime?

Sitting there outside Nina Rawle’s flat Joan thought that you met some good people in this world: Mr Marshall had been kind to Rich and of course Alice had been a brick about the whole thing. On the other hand, Mr Warren, the client she was about to see, was a real moaner; never a please or thank you but always quick to criticise if everything wasn’t just so. She gave Rich a kiss and tucked him away. There were another three days to go before she’d see him again but one of the advantages of having such involving work was that it made time fly.

2

JOAN

Joan spent the first week with Nina Rawle helping her to get her flat organised. Nina didn’t want to be taken out anywhere; she said she’d rather concentrate on ridding the place of the stacked cardboard boxes. She could do very little herself. The least exertion tired her. By the time Joan arrived each morning at nine she’d showered but the energy she had expended left her exhausted for an hour afterwards. Her hair never looked quite clean and at times Joan could see a sticky crust of lather on the crown of her head. Joan wondered about offering to help her in the bathroom but Nina had a reserve that made her think better of it.

While Nina sat reading the paper or listening to music or the radio Joan prepared her breakfast. She liked a small bowl of muesli or a poached egg on toast and fresh fruit; a segment of melon or a peeled orange or grapes. Joan had never come across this eating fruit for breakfast before; to her, fruit was for puddings or for when she was watching her weight and then she ate apples. For evening meals Nina requested blended home-made soups, pieces of chicken or fish with steamed vegetables or cheese or tomato soufflé followed by more fruit. She liked two glasses of wine in the evenings, French or Australian red from the rack in the kitchen. She invited Joan to have a glass, too, but it wasn’t to her liking. If Joan drank wine she chose a sparkling sweet variety; Lambrusco was her favourite: those bubbles tingling on her tongue spelled luxury.

At first, Joan found the shopping nerve-wracking. Nina’s list sent her searching for star fruit, lychees, artichokes, smoked applewood and goat’s cheeses, Greek olives, red snapper and lemongrass. Joan had never taken much interest in cooking and, as most of her clients were old, they liked the kinds of dishes her gran had preferred: tinned steak-and-kidney pies with mushy peas, jellied eels, liver and bacon with a thick cornflour gravy, sausage and mash and shepherd’s pie. They were meals she could make with her eyes closed.

She felt anxious for the first few days, examining the produce at the delicatessen counter in the supermarket, but there was a kind, motherly woman there who helped her out. Joan explained that she wasn’t used to this sort of shopping; with me, she said, it’s a quick whip-round for a jar of coffee, a couple of ready dinners, a boxed pizza and a packet of frozen peas. The assistant laughed, tucking a straying hair under her cap and told Joan that she could hardly keep up herself with the new lines they were always introducing. They had to have what was called familiarisation, she revealed; sessions with the section manager where they learned about the product and how to pronounce its name. When she was a young housewife you bought either Cheddar or Leicester cheese. Now it was Italian this and Norwegian that, soft and hard, pasteurised and unpasteurised and were we any the better off for it? Joan was reassured that she wasn’t the only one who’d never come across some of these alien foodstuffs.

It was years since she had been to a proper fishmonger’s. She used to go to the one in the High Street with Gran on Friday mornings to buy slabs of the waxy yellow haddock that she then poached in milk. Gran had stomach ulcers and ate a lot of what she called slop food: junkets, custards and milky sauces. One of her favourite dishes was fresh white bread squares sprinkled with sugar and steeped in warm milk with an egg whipped in. Nourishing, she called it. She used to feed that to Eddie, Joan’s brother, when his chest was bad but she never made it again after he’d gone. Joan couldn’t imagine what Nina Rawle would make of such a concoction. She specified the fish shop where she wanted Joan to buy the red snapper, salmon and trout she liked. The raw smell of the place made Joan gag; give me a boil-in-the-bag kipper any day, she thought, avoiding the staring cod eyes. The assistant who served her had wet chilled hands and his eyes bulged too. The right one had a cast, the pupil pale as if it had been bleached. She hurried in and out of there.

Nina took it for granted that Joan was familiar with all these foods and although this unnerved her it also afforded her a certain pride; she liked to think that she could keep her end up in any situation. When Nina handed her the shopping list Joan glanced at it and nodded. Out in the car she would sit and read through. Unfamiliar items such as Jarlsberg or Prosciutto made her frown but then she headed for the woman on the delicatessen and all was explained. Nina also gave exact instructions about how she wanted things cooked, which was just as well as Joan wouldn’t have known one end of an artichoke from another. She had never come across some of the kitchen utensils but she was quick off the mark with anything practical and worked out how to operate the asparagus steamer and the chicken brick. As she grilled monkfish or turned bean sprouts in a wok moistened with sesame oil she thought that she would serve some of these dishes to Rich and impress him. He’d grown up by the coast in Frinton so she imagined that he might be partial to seafood. He complained about the muck he’d had to eat over the years; there was never enough and it was tasteless, worse than school dinners. Joan wouldn’t try him with the fruit, though. She knew he liked what he called proper puddings: jam roly-polys and treacle sponges with thick custard.

After Nina had eaten her breakfast they got on with the boxes. Joan knelt on the floor and Nina sat by her in her chair, sneezing now and again as dust rose. If there was a spring chill in the air she pulled her old woollen shawl around her shoulders, plaiting the fringes over her knuckles. Sometimes Nina wore dark glasses when the light was particularly bright. She had them attached to a silver chain and they dangled on her chest when she took them off.

She had worked out ways of saving energy and keeping things to hand: there was the CD player clipped to her waist and the headphones around her neck. She also had a leather belt of the kind that Joan had seen carpenters store their tools in where she kept her tablets, eye drops, glucose sweets, tissues, a hip flask and a slim volume of Keats. She sucked glucose constantly, saying that it bucked her up. When Joan mentioned that the sweets might rot her teeth, she said flippantly that she didn’t think she was going to need teeth for that many more years. Joan was shocked, especially by the casual way Nina came out with it. She felt herself colouring up and said something about it being a warm day.

The boxes were mainly full of books, dozens of novels. Some of them were old, creased paperbacks with dark green and orange covers. Two boxloads were in French. Joan recognised the actor with the big nose on the front of one.

‘Goodness,’ she said to Nina, ‘have you really read all of these?’

‘Yes, most of them more than once.’

Joan flicked through one, glancing at the strange words. ‘I’m not much of a reader, although I like a magazine story. The best are those ones with a twist at the end. What language is this?’

‘Italian. I was a university lecturer in languages, French and Italian, for twenty years.’

‘Did you have to give up work because of your illness?’

Nina nodded. ‘These are just a fraction of the books I used to own. I got rid of a load of stuff before I moved here.’

‘I try to read,’ Joan told her, ‘but I can never settle for long. I always notice a bit of dusting that’s needed or a cushion cover that wants mending.’

Nina raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever mended a cushion cover.’

‘There’s real satisfaction in doing a neat job on a seam.’ Joan rubbed a book jacket with the duster. ‘I suppose I’d better watch my grammar, now that I know I’m around a teacher,’ she said, laughing. ‘You know, no dropping my aitches.’

‘I’ve just realised, I’ve put the cart before the horse here,’ Nina said. ‘I need bookshelves for all these volumes you’re unpacking.’

This fact had crossed Joan’s mind already but she had assumed that Nina had something organised on that front. ‘Those alcoves would fit shelves very nicely,’ she suggested. ‘We could get free-standing ones at the DIY place or if you want fitted I could do it, but I’d have to borrow a drill.’

Nina shrugged. ‘No, I can’t be bothered with drilling, that sounds too permanent. Where did you learn to put up shelves?’

‘I taught myself out of a book when I got my flat.’

‘You live on your own?’

‘That’s right, I’m a single gal.’ Not for much longer though, she thought; just three months to go. She and Rich would need a bigger place to live eventually but her little nest would be fine to start with. Now that it was all beginning to seem more real, she had started to imagine how it would be in the evenings, the two of them watching TV over a takeaway or deciding to catch a film. Sometimes she pictured him there on the sofa and chatted to him, telling him her plans.

‘Let’s go to the DIY place then,’ Nina said suddenly. ‘I’ll just get a jacket. You have time, do you?’

‘You’re my only client today.’ Mrs Cousins, who she usually visited on Tuesdays had died two nights previously but she wouldn’t mention that, of course. She found a tape measure and sized up the alcoves while Nina went to the bathroom. When she returned she smelled of Lily of the Valley.

Joan told her it was the perfume her grandmother had used. ‘Funny how a scent can bring a person and lots of little things about them back to you, isn’t it?’ she said.

Nina buttoned her jacket up, even though the day was warm. Her poor circulation meant that she felt chilly when other people were taking a layer of clothing off. She nodded agreement but offhandedly, as if she wasn’t paying attention. Joan hoped that she hadn’t thought she was being compared to an old lady and taken offence.

The superstore was only ten minutes away and the mid-morning traffic flowed lightly.

‘You’re a good driver,’ Nina observed, ‘very confident.’

‘Ten out of ten?’ Joan asked.

‘Well, nine and a half. It’s always important to leave a margin for improvement, give a student something to aim for.’

Joan was getting used to her dry way of talking. She could just see her at the front of a class. She’d have been the kind not to take any nonsense, although Joan supposed that university students didn’t misbehave.

‘Did you like teaching?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes. But it all seems a long time ago. It’s only a year since I gave up work and yet I feel as if I haven’t stood in front of a group of students for much longer. I’d be frightened to now, I’ve lost the knack.’ She laughed. ‘It was hard going for my colleagues at my leaving party, they didn’t know what to say. It was difficult for them to wish me a happy retirement, after all. People generally don’t like illness, it makes them uneasy, reminds them their own lives are fragile.’

‘That makes me think of a little verse I know,’ Joan said: ‘“We only know that each day bears, Joys and sorrows, sometimes tears.” Do you know Grace Ashley’s poems? I love them, I cut them out of magazines and put them on my fridge; I always carry a few in my bag.’

‘No, I don’t think I’ve come across her.’

‘They’re only a couple of lines, each one, but they make you pause. She really sums things up in a nutshell. I find them comforting.’

‘I think I’ll stick to a glass of good wine for comfort. Which reminds me, I’d like to stock up at the off-licence later.’

When they parked Nina handed Joan her sticks, then pulled herself out of the seat, holding onto the door frame. Her fingers were long and bony. Joan heard her knuckles crack as she put her weight on them. Her nails looked at odds with the puckered skin around them; they were oval, beautifully shaped with perfect half-moons at the cuticles.

They walked slowly into the store and made for the shelving section. Nina went straight to the pine and selected what she wanted within minutes, a golden Scandinavian wood. The two sets of shelves came to four hundred pounds. Joan thought it must be nice to go for the best without hesitating. Maybe once Rich was in a job they would be able to rip out the chipboard in her living room and have pine. If he was able to get a job; no, she wasn’t going to think negative thoughts, she was going to put her best foot forward.

That evening Joan assembled the flat-pack shelves in the alcoves and cooked turkey with baby sweetcorn and broccoli for Nina’s meal. When she carried it through on a tray Nina was pouring a glass of wine for her, a sparkling white.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘I bought a couple of bottles of the stuff you like. Tastes like lemonade to me, but each to her own. Cheers!’

She looked exhausted after her outing. Mauveish smudges ringed her eyes and Joan noticed her hands trembling on her sticks. She was terribly touched by the wine.

‘You’d no need to buy this for me,’ she said, sipping.

‘It’s nothing, it humours me. Where are we up to with the books? The Ms?’

Joan was lining them up on the shelves in alphabetical order. ‘Alberto Morave next,’ she said. ‘Is he interesting?’

‘Moravia. I think so. The turkey is delicious. What do you have in the evenings? Do you visit family?’

‘No, I’ve nobody close, they’ve passed on. I usually eat on my own, a pizza or a chop, something quick. I quite like those low-calorie, ready-made meals. You can pop them in the microwave and they’re done in a couple of minutes. It’s not much fun, cooking for one.’

‘No. I used to find it a bore before I got married. The university had a staff restaurant which was excellent so I ate in there most days.’

‘Are you divorced then?’

‘Separated. Have you ever been married?’

‘Yes, only for a year, in my twenties. It didn’t work out. I don’t like living alone. I pretend to; you have to, don’t you? It’s like what you said about illness. People get embarrassed if you admit you’re lonely. I didn’t think Mr Right would ever show up but he has and we’re marrying soon.’ She heard Rich’s voice telling her it wouldn’t be long now. They planned to go to the registry office the week after he came out. Joan would have married him and waited for him – she knew other women in a similar position did – but Rich insisted that he wanted to be a free man before they tied the knot. Joan wasn’t going to explain any of that to Nina, though. There were certain things you didn’t confide to clients if you valued your job.

Nina gave a pained smile. ‘Sometimes it doesn’t work out even when you do meet the right person. It’s all a gamble, it can tear you apart.’

‘You’re tired, I reckon,’ Joan said, thinking she sounded low. Her voice was flat and there was a slide in it. ‘You’ve done too much today. A good night’s sleep will put a smile back on your face.’

Nina lowered her head and finished her turkey. She dozed for a while, the tray still on her lap. Joan didn’t move it for fear of waking her. She carried on quietly with the books, wondering how anyone could read this lot, thinking of all the hours of sitting still it would mean. Like her, Rich wasn’t a reader, which was a shame because it would have been a way of passing those long hours he complained about. Joan had to be on the go, doing something; a tapestry, some mending, cleaning windows, stripping the cooker. She was just like Gran that way, always up and active. She had never seen Gran sitting for long: ‘I’m as busy as a hen with one chicken,’ she used to say, zipping from room to room. The day before she died she was turning a mattress. Joan thought of Nina, alone here at night with just her books for company and little else to look forward to. It made a sad picture. She chatted to Rich inside her head, telling him that she was going to get on with decorating the living room when she got home. The whole place was going to be revamped before he arrived; she’d drawn up a timetable. The last time she had been to see him she’d taken colour charts and they’d chosen the emulsion. Rich suggested that she should wait until he was out and he’d help her but she said no, she wanted the place just so from their very first day together.

Joan and her brother Eddie went to live with their widowed grandmother in Bromley when she was three and he was eleven. Their father had died of a heart attack just before Joan’s birth and their mother was felled by cancer when Joan turned three. Gran had a two-bedroomed terraced house. She and Joan slept in the front bedroom, Eddie in the smaller back one. Gran worked long hours in the rag trade but she ran a tight ship at home and they all had their domestic jobs. Gran couldn’t stand even a speck of dust in the house. When the coalman came to shunt his sacks into the bin outside she covered the floors and furniture in the back room with sheets of newspaper. She craved an end-of-terrace house so that he could take his filthy, blackened hessian bags up the side alley but none ever came up for rent. She’d hover around him, warning him not to touch anything, monitoring his mucky boots. Sometimes, to annoy her, he’d pretend to lose his balance and her hands would fly to her face in silent agony.