Chapter Seventeen
The John Radcliffe Hospital was heaving on a Tuesday morning. Harriet peered through the rain-spattered windscreen—the glorious weather had broken and a persistent, misting drizzle had fallen for the last twenty-four hours, leaving her feeling permanently damp.
And what a twenty-four hours it had been. Her life had sprung into surprising gear. First she’d called on Lady Stokeley, finding her in the sitting room, looking small and somehow shrunken huddled under an old tartan rug.
“I’m so glad you’ve decided to go ahead with the treatment,” she’d said, and Lady Stokeley had sighed.
“I’m not entirely sure it was the right decision, but I was never one simply to give up.” She gave Harriet one of her shrewd, narrowed looks. “If that was the case, I would have got divorced years before Gerald had died.”
Which was a loaded statement if there ever was one, but marriage and divorce wasn’t a subject Harriet felt courageous enough to broach with Lady Stokeley at that point.
“You certainly don’t seem like someone who gives up to me,” she’d said. “So when is your first appointment?”
The appointments were every weekday at ten o’clock, leaving Harriet with just enough time to get there after the school run, and get back to Wychwood-on-Lea before her shift at the school as dinner lady—for, after speaking with Lady Stokeley, she’d rung up the school and been hired that same afternoon.
When she’d told the children, they’d been nonplussed, but then Mallory had given her something resembling a smile and a nod, which Harriet deemed as approval. It seemed her children weren’t going to be too embarrassed seeing their mother in a paper hat, doling out cafeteria food.
“I’ll pay you,” Lady Stokeley had said when Harriet had made arrangement to collect her the next morning. “For your time as well as your petrol.”
“Oh no, you don’t have to do that—”
Lady Stokeley gave her a severe look. “I might not have to, but it is entirely sensible. The petrol alone will cost you, and it will take several hours every day. Shall we say seven pounds an hour?” Which was a little less than the national living wage, so Harriet didn’t feel quite so bad. “And,” Lady Stokeley added, “I’m sure you can use the money.”
“Can you spare it?” she’d dared to ask, and Lady Stokeley’s snow-white eyebrows snapped together.
“How impertinent,” Lady Stokeley said, drawing herself up. “Of course I can afford it.”
Which made Harriet wonder why she didn’t splash out on some heating, at least, or better food. But those were questions she did not have the courage to ask.
So now, here she was, searching for a parking space, with two jobs rather than none, and the prospect of making if not decent money, then maybe enough.
With a gusty sigh of relief, Harriet pulled into a miniscule space, sucking in her stomach to squeeze out of the door and then jogging to the pay and display. She’d dropped Lady Stokeley off at the hospital’s main entrance but she was worried about leaving her for too long. The old lady still had plenty of spirit, but she’d grown frailer in the last few weeks, her clothes hanging off her thin frame, her face more deeply creased than ever.
The chemo treatment, at least, was short and simple—after taking her blood pressure, the nurse gave her a cup of water and a pill to swallow. Then Lady Stokeley waited for ten minutes to make sure there were no adverse effects, and then Harriet took her home. Afterwards Harriet stopped at the chemist’s on the ground floor to get Lady Stokeley’s antinausea prescription, and then she went to get the car.
“So, now what happens?” she asked when they were back in the car and she was turning out of the hospital, heading for the A40.
“Now I wait to feel awful.” Lady Stokeley waved a bunch of pamphlets she’d been given. “There are plenty of side-effects, it seems.”
Harriet had a look at the pamphlets as she boiled the kettle for a cup of tea for Lady Stokeley back at Willoughby Manor. Living with Lung Cancer. You and Chemotherapy. When You’re Neutropenic. It all sounded rather horribly grim—and it made Harriet wonder if it really was worth it. What would Lady Stokeley do if she became truly ill, here on her own? Jace looked in on her, as did Abby, and a care worker came in three times a week for about an hour each time. But added up, that still was a negligible amount of time. What if Lady Stokeley needed more care than Harriet or anyone else could offer her?
She took the cup of tea upstairs, pausing on the threshold of the bedroom. Lady Stokeley had already fallen asleep, her face pale, one thin hand resting by her cheek like a child’s.
Harriet tiptoed in and put the cup of tea on the table next to her bed. She never liked leaving her alone, and now more so than ever, but she didn’t really have much choice. She was due at the school in twenty minutes.
Half an hour later, Harriet was in the huge school kitchen, tucking her hair into a net as the head cook, Ruth, bellowed orders to two sub-cooks who were scurrying around, looking demented. The place smelled strongly of tikka masala, as the main dish was a curry, with a pervasive, underlying odor of boiled cabbage, even though cabbage hadn’t been served since before the holidays. Harriet suspected the smell never went away. She’d need to shower after this.
For her first day, she was serving out rice from an enormous vat, which seemed simple enough. Each child got one scoop. No one got seconds until a bell was rung. It felt like the army, or perhaps prison.
And then the soldiers or prisoners, however she wanted to look at it, came into the cafeteria in a jostling, screeching stream, making her question whether it was going to be as easy as she’d thought.
Harriet thought she’d had quite a bit of experience with children, even with groups of children. She’d manned plenty of bake sales, led toddler groups, donned the ever-important teacher’s voice when needed. But she had not manned the lunchtime barricades, flinching as children pushed and shoved, shouted and screeched.
And the rush. Lea Primary was a relatively small school but the children kept on coming, thrusting their trays forward, looking bored or surly or mildly interested that someone they recognized was wielding the scoop.
And rice was sticky. Harriet found she had to clang the ladle quite hard on the plate in order to get all the grains off, but after umpteen scoops the ladle was half-filled with rice when she tried to place a scoop on someone’s plate, meaning a child only got a half-scoop, and drama ensued. And then the vat was empty, and Harriet had to run around breathlessly, burning her fingers as she tried to lug another vat of rice over to the waiting—and ever-lengthening—queue of hungry children.
By the time the year sixes had helped stack chairs and then run out for playtime Harriet was exhausted. She smelled of cabbage, curry, and sweat—and the sweat was hers.
She helped tidy up the kitchen and dining areas, spritzing and wiping down tables, every muscle in her body aching. She had an hour to kill, hopefully making herself presentable, before she was back at school for the pickup.
“You did well.” Ruth gave her a craggy smile as Harriet put away the cleaning supplies. “I wasn’t sure you had it in you, but you did well.”
“I wasn’t sure I had it in me, either,” Harriet said with an answering smile, and then dragged herself back home.
Daisy was yipping madly as she came in the house, and Harriet let her out of her crate, smiling as the puppy gave her playful nips. Then she switched on the kettle and sank into a kitchen chair, deciding she needed a cup of tea before she attempted to rid herself of the smell of tikka masala.
“How did it go?” Ellie asked that evening when she collected Abby from Harriet’s after work. It was an informal arrangement that seemed to work out well—Abby and Mallory hung out most days, playing with Daisy or walking the Matthews’s enormous beast of a dog, Marmite.
“It was utterly exhausting,” Harriet answered. “And tell me the truth—do I still smell like a cabbage?”
Ellie leaned forward and took a sniff. “Maybe a little bit,” she said with a laugh.
Harriet rolled her eyes. “I washed my hair twice. I suppose I’ll have to get used to smelling like a roast dinner.”
“Could be worse,” Ellie said with a laugh. “You’ve come a long way, Harriet.”
And Harriet knew she had.
That evening, after the children were in bed, she decided to call Richard. The hiring had happened so quickly that she hadn’t had a chance to tell him about her gainful employment.
She was curled up on the sofa sipping a glass of wine when she called him, and it wasn’t until she heard his voice that she realized she’d actually been kind of looking forward to the call.
“Harriet.” Richard sounded tired but pleased to hear from her. “How are you?”
“Proud,” Harriet answered. “I earned forty-two pounds today.”
Mentally she shook her head at herself. She’d once spent that much during one visit to Starbucks. Easily.
“How did you manage that?”
Briefly Harriet told him about her two jobs. “I know it’s not much,” she said, “and I’m only making minimum wage part-time.” When she said it like that, it didn’t sound like anything at all. “But it’s still something,” she finished, sounding a bit defiant.
“It is, it definitely is. And I’m glad and proud of you.” He paused, his tone softening. “I know it’s not easy, managing such a huge step down.”
“It isn’t, but it’s easier than it was.”
They were silent for a few seconds. Harriet wanted to say something more, something about how she’d changed, how she looked back on the person she’d been and wasn’t sure she actually liked her anymore. That she understood a bit more what Richard had been trying to tell her back at the pub.
And yet… it felt like too much risk. What if Richard said, “Yeah, thanks, but you’re still not quite what I want”? And what if he got a job? If Richard found a job… if they could move into a decent house together… maybe not Wychwood House, but something bigger and nicer… would she? If she could send Mallory to Ellerton, and get Cobbler back, and rejoin the Soho Farmhouse, would she? Would she be friends with Sophie again, reigning once more as Yummy Mummy Number One?
“It won’t be for long,” Richard said. “I promise. I’ve got an interview next week.”
“You do? A proper interview?” This was news.
“Well, it’s more like a pre-interview, but I feel good about this. It’s with a start-up firm that likes to take risks. They’re a bit edgy, and they don’t mind the fact that I have a colossal smudge on my CV.”
“That’s good.”
“And. if I get it, you can quit the dinner lady job, hand in your notice for that place.”
Which made her feel… strange. “And we’ll go back to the way things were?” Harriet asked. “I thought you didn’t like that.” She paused. “Didn’t like me.”
Richard sighed. “I didn’t mean it quite like that.”
“Maybe not, but it wasn’t working, was it? Our life. I realize that now.” Even if she still wanted parts of it back.
Richard sighed. “It still could work,” he said. “I believe that.” Now he was the one to pause. “Do you?”
“Maybe,” Harriet said, and it felt like a big admission. She shifted on the sofa. “I should go,” she said after what felt like an endless silence, the only sound their breathing. “School tomorrow and all that.”
“Right. Shall I come up this weekend and do something with the children? We could take the puppy out, give you a break…”
“They’d love that, I’m sure.”
“Okay.”
More silence. More awkwardness. Would he call Meghan after this and describe the conversation? I’m not even sure if it’s worth it anymore…
Harriet closed off that line of mental torture. “Bye, Richard,” she said softly.
As she disconnected the call a text pinged in.
“How about Friday for dinner? –Tom.”