Read Online The Love She Left Behind by Amanda Coe - Free Book Online Page B

be different, won’t it, without Mum, I mean?’
    Patrick snorted, spraying crumbs. They both ate on. Now was the time to mention the house, the ownership of the house. Finishing his last mouthful, Patrick crumpled the empty paper bag and said, ‘A pair of brown eyes.’
    Nigel made a vague noise of agreement at this unprovoked reminiscence. Patrick hooked a finger in a back molar to retrieve a piece of gristle, which he wiped on the balled-up paper bag.
    â€˜Stupendous knockers.’
    Nigel couldn’t really continue the agreement. You couldn’t think of your own mother’s breasts as knockers. Had they, in any case, been all that stupendous? She had been rather a slight woman.
    â€˜Your mother was jealous.’
    Oh. Although relieved, Nigel wasn’t sure he wanted to be Patrick’s confidant.
    â€˜I was staying at this awful hotel, jacked in my teaching, trying to be a writer. Trying to be! She’d definitely given me the heave-ho, all too much, think of the kids, et cetera, et cetera. I knew I’d win in the end, mind.’
    Nigel sipped, concentrating on his mug. With the children, they told you not to reward negative behaviour with attention. It might work.
    â€˜There was this maid, with the—Why not, I thought? And of course the sheer mention . . . She was green. Absolutely couldn’t take it, the thought of me and other women. So it was all back on from then. A sprat to catch a mackerel.’ Patrick grinned wolfishly. His large teeth were an appalling sepia. ‘Most enjoyable, mind.’
    Yes. It was obvious cause for celebration that his mother, a married woman with two children, had been crucially provoked into abandoning them all by the fact of Patrick, a childless bachelor, fucking around. And why not revisit those carnal delights that had reunited them while he was at it?
    Nigel intervened with the offer of another coffee. But from the way Patrick settled back with a cigarette as Nigel filled the kettle, he feared that they were in for the long haul. Exhaling, Patrick squared the cigarette packet, crossed his legs and cosied the chair next to his with an outstretched arm. The pose was very much Man of the Theatre. The haircut really had taken years off him.
    â€˜Of course you’re right. I’ll need some help.’
    That was something.
    â€˜The girl’s offered. Mia.’ Although his inflection on the name was sarcastic, it prodded Nigel electrically. ‘Putting my house in order.’
    â€˜The house . . . but surely that’s not her—area of expertise . . .’
    â€˜My work. She’ll help me with my work.’
    Nigel spooned coffee into their recycled mugs.
    â€˜Are you sure it’s a good idea? I was thinking more—a housekeeper sort of thing. Not to live in or anything, just to sort you out until you’ve had time to think of the future.’
    â€˜She’ll sort me out, for the time being. She has the summer vacation.’
    This was very bad indeed. On the other hand, Patrick was past seventy and a girl like that . . . And she’d be here, and Nigel had ongoing reasons to visit.
    â€˜What about paying her?’
    â€˜She’s offered herself for free.’
    There was no doubt that Patrick was enjoying playing up the unsavoury roué implications. Nigel stirred the coffees overthoroughly, intent on dissolving the last granules that whirlpooled creamily in the centre of each mug.
    â€˜Well, if you think it’s best . . .’
    Nigel put Patrick’s mug in front of him. Patrick flicked ash. His hand trembled and, when he spoke, his voice.
    â€˜I’ll never forgive her, you know. Leaving me like this.’
    He meant Mum. Well, rampaging end-stage cancer was hardly running off with the milkman. Nigel pushed the sugar bowl his way appeasingly.
    â€˜Ashes,’ said Patrick. ‘Oh God.’ And to Nigel’s dismay, he wept. Nigel hated this, always had, the way Patrick