Read Online The Other Ida by Amy Mason - Free Book Online

door.
    Morning Ida.
    Could you please do some stuff around the house? Cleaning? We’re going to need to sort through Mum’s things too as I want to sell the house as soon as poss. Could you make a start? Please put anything you might want to keep to one side so I have a chance to look at it too. There’s a list on the back of this note of people who need to be called – their numbers are in the book.
    PLEASE HELP. I’M SICK OF FIGHTING BUT I REALLY NEED HELP! Al x
    Ida turned the note over.
    Margot
    Dianne
    Julie and James
    Uncle Peter
    Ida sat on the sofa, flicking through her mother’s address book. It was virtually incomprehensible, full of crossings-out, and Ida noticed how like her own spidery writing her mother’s had been. In some places there were notes about people: ‘wonderful actress’ or ‘total prick’, making Ida laugh. Still, she held the book at a distance, as if she were holding something precious but vaguely nasty you might find in a museum. It was interesting to see all the names she didn’t recognise, next to long defunct dialling codes. Who were all these people that her mother had once had a reason to call? It made her realise how little she really knew about her ma.
    Ida stared at the phone. She hadn’t spoken to Elliot since she’d arrived and ached for him to ring. There was no way for her to contact him – it had been months since his phone had been cut off – so all she could do was wait.
    It wasn’t only because she loved him so much, there was more to it than that. She was desperate to speak to someone who understood her, someone normal, who got up late and got wasted and forgot to wash their hair. She tried hard to put aside the other constant worries she felt about Elliot, that he’d take too much, or take something bad, or get beaten up for unpaid debts. She hoped somebody would have got in touch if something like that had happened.
    The phone was an old fashioned one with a circular dial, and she misdialled Peter’s number four times.
    â€œ054,” said a young-ish man, to Ida’s surprise.
    â€œOh, hello, can I speak to Peter please? It’s Ida Irons.”
    â€œIda! The famous Ida! I’ll get him, so sorry about your mum, I’m Jonathon, his friend. One mo.”
    There was rustling then some distant shouts and then a deep, older voice.
    â€œMy darling, darling, fabulous thing – Princess of Bournemouth! How are you sweetheart? Crying into your wine or ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’?”
    â€œNeither really.”
    â€œOh it will come, you mark my words. Now, when do I need to come down? And where shall I stay? John’s working but I’ll be there. We’ve been praying all over the shop, me and John, and had a mass said at St. Mary’s.”
    â€œIt’s on Tuesday. You can come down whenever though. And stay here of course, we’ll find room. I can’t wait to see you. Oh Peter, you couldn’t just talk to me, for a bit, about any old crap? Make me laugh.”
    When she put down the phone she noticed a pain in her side. She decided she must be hungry and put the list on the floor. Breakfast first; the rest of the calls could wait.
    For a full forty-five minutes Ida stood outside her mother’s bedroom, staring at the unmade bed and rubbish-strewn floor through the foot-wide crack in the door. She couldn’t go in. The thought of it made her exhausted and then panicky – it would be like cleaning her own room times fifty and she couldn’t face it, not yet. She would clean the bathroom, cut the grass, vacuum the house, anything, except sorting out that room. Alice could do the sentimental stuff; she actually enjoyed sentimental stuff. She would let Alice boss her around as much as she wanted to if she would let her off the grown up jobs and give her some clear instruction. Ida was disorganised, she was scatterbrained, she was ruthless and