15

~ De-pong a stinky bin by putting a tumble-dryer sheet at the bottom, under the bin bag.

O n Saturday morning, Mum turned up on my doorstep with the latest weapon in her arsenal in her war on grime: a carpet cleaner. Cleo was, she explained, thinking of investing in them for Taylor Maid but was far too busy to road-test one herself.

‘Do you mind if I give it a go in your flat?' Mum asked, eyeing my dingy hall. ‘I'm not sure it's working – it barely picked up a thing on ours.'

There was an obvious reason for that – Mum's carpets were cleaner than most people's work surfaces – but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

‘Be my guest.' I swung open the door as far as it would go, which wasn't very far on account of two bin bags of clothes and a fan heater.

‘Oh, Robyn.' Mum sighed. ‘I thought you were going to take a carload to the charity shop last weekend?'

‘That's why they're there! Just waiting to go,' I lied, but I lugged them into the bedroom and began tidying up the sitting room.

It turned out that the carpet cleaner did work. Horrifically well. Mum, who had once admitted her secret dream was to present cleaning products on QVC, steamed one demonstration stripe down the middle of the room, like a red carpet from the door to the window. Well, a beige carpet. My sitting-room carpet was camel, not brown, it turned out.

‘Can you see how the rolling brushes are blasting away the built-up grime?' Mum demanded, euphorically, ‘and how the multi-jet head is drenching the fibres in detergent?'

I watched as the carpet slowly surrendered years' worth of filth. The room visibly lightened. It was compelling, if also revolting at the same time.

‘And just look how the powerful vacuum sucks back the dirty water!' Mum enthused to the imaginary director in her head. (‘Can you be more excited, Melanie? Even more excited? Like it's growing wings in front of you.')

I was starting to feel nauseous at the sight of the tarry water in the tank, so I left her to it and went into the bedroom to unpack a box of junk. Candles, mugs, things I'd bought to make my house look better when in fact what would have made it look better was a massive declutter. I found some earrings I thought I'd lost, and an old Quality Street tin full of bits and bobs that weren't even mine. It must have fallen into a packing case when Mum and Cleo were carting my junk over: I'd had so much stuff in Mum's garage that it was hard to tell what belonged to who.

I packed up three charity shop bags for Mum to take home, then made two cups of tea and took them into the sitting room, which now smelled different.

‘This machine really works!' she said, with a theatrical ‘behold the freshness!' sweep of the hand. ‘Do you want to help me move the furniture back?'

Together – Mum was subtle but firm with her ‘suggestions' – we shifted the sofa so it faced the view and moved the lamps round so the lighting would be softer. Mum had a knack for knowing what went where, and by the time she'd finished, my sitting room was unrecognisable. Maybe I'd risk a new house plant, I thought, admiring the harmony of my surroundings. What plant wouldn't like living here?

‘That looks a bit nicer, doesn't it?' she said, satisfied.

‘Understatement of the year,' I said, offering her the better of the two mugs. ‘Mum, I don't know how you do it.'

She seemed pleased. ‘I know you're not planning on staying here long, but you might as well make it as nice. Have you found anywhere yet? Or are you going to get settled into your new job first before you start looking? Is it a good time to buy a new house?'

Her voice was breezy but there were at least three different Mum Worries concealed underneath the breeziness. They stuck out like the piles of unironed clothes Helena Corrigan shoved under her duvet before we arrived.

‘Actually, Mum, that job's not happening now.' I tried to sound unconcerned.

‘What? Why?' She went to put her tea down, couldn't find a coaster and flapped in panic. ‘Oh no, I've spilled. Where are your coasters?'

‘I've never had coasters.' I slipped an unread Women's Prize shortlisted novel under the mug. ‘It's fine. I'm over it. Onwards and upwards.'

‘But Robyn, what happened?' Mum's face fell. ‘You were so sure!'

Maybe it was the sunlight flooding the room, or maybe it was the flirty exchange I'd had with Mitch about booking a romantic break later that month. Or maybe it was because my flat no longer smelled of rancid dust, or because Tomasz had put my bin out for me or … whatever it was. I had moved on from the Malvern Property Finders disaster. I could learn from it and grow.

‘It didn't work out.' Mum didn't need to know exactly why it hadn't. ‘But I've got other things in the pipeline. And the other good news is that I've got in on the first phase of a really amazing—' I stopped short.

Mum was fidgeting nervously with her rings. I decided not to tell her about Lark Manor right now. She'd only zone in on the risk involved, and it was hard to explain that there really wasn't any, not in the way she was thinking. I did sometimes get cold sweats thinking about that huge lump sum I'd invested, but reminded myself it had only moved from one piggy bank (the bank) to another (property). And I had a document in a file that confirmed all that.

I made a mental note to get it out and re-read it once she'd gone. Just to reassure myself. I was sure I'd seen some dates in there.

‘I'll get you some coasters for your birthday,' she said.

‘That would be great, Mum.'

She did look stressed about something, I thought. More than my failure to get a job warranted, anyway. Was it poor Rhiannon's news? One of Mum's book-group friends had only just recovered from cancer, and she'd done a lot of batch cooking to help out the family. Or had Cleo's mysterious Gwen Thomas phoned back? Had Grandad himself called?

I longed to reassure her – such an adult thing to do, re-assuring your own mother – but Mum tended to shut down quickly if you didn't judge your approach right. How could I coax her into telling me what was wrong?

I had a sudden brilliant idea, a cunning sideways approach that might elicit some spontaneous sharing where Cleo's ‘tell me now' tactics had failed.

‘I think I've got something of yours,' I said, and went to get the Quality Street tin.

It was only kitchen-drawer flotsam and jetsam, cotton reels and gift shop pencils, but for someone like me, desperate for any fragments of the past, it was a treasure trove. Some of the old bank cards were in Mum's maiden name, Melanie Davies, and I'd spotted what looked like baby passport photos of me and Cleo. If I could just lure her out with a few anodyne memories about her first teaching assistant job or something.

I offered it to her with a smile, but when Mum saw what was inside her face changed and she recoiled as though there was a dead mouse in there, not a jumble of old loyalty cards, coins, keys, badges.

‘Mum?'

She got up, reaching out a hand for the tin. ‘Thanks, Robyn. I should probably make a move. Cleo's got the mobile hairdresser and make-up artist booked. You know it's her awards do tonight?'

I'll be honest: I'd forgotten about it.

That was probably why Mum had come over, I realised. She was evening things up. Attend one child's awards ceremony, clean the other child's carpet.

I wasn't ready to hand the tin over, not without getting some history in exchange.

‘Is this your student railcard?' I waved an ancient photocard, so old the photo had peeled away from the backing. ‘I didn't know you had glasses.'

‘You won't forget to ring Cleo and wish her good luck, will you? You know how important this is for her.' Mum held out her hand for the tin. ‘I'll take that, thank you.' She paused, and said, more pointedly. ‘Robyn?'

There was a firmness in Mum's expression that I rarely saw. Her jaw was set, and as she frowned, her dark brows lowered over her eyes, transforming her whole face. I was so used to Mum-who-never-said-no that it was unsettling to suddenly see her as Mrs Melanie Taylor, independent of me, refusing to bend to my wishes. Even more unsettling, determined to keep something of herself separate from me.

She reminded me of Cleo in that moment.

‘Is there something in here you don't want me to see?' I demanded.

‘No! It's just … junk,' she said. ‘I'll bin it when I get home.'

It clearly wasn't junk. It was a box of fragments of the life she'd had before me and Cleo, part of a story that started before us, and would end after us. And I really, really wanted to know what had happened before us.

‘Then I'll bin it.' I held her gaze. What the hell. ‘Mum, Cleo said someone called wanting to talk about Grandad the other night. What was that about?'

‘Nothing. Please.' Mum looked almost tearful. ‘Give me that.'

Maybe I should have pushed her, but I hated seeing her upset. Mum's pain always cut me deeper than my own. Nothing was worth that. Reluctantly, I handed the tin over, and my chance to talk about Grandad slipped away with it.

But only for the time being. Cleo was right: we needed to have an adult conversation with Mum about our family history. I'd just have to find the magic words.

To cut a long, looong story short, Cleo came Runner-Up in the Small Businesswoman of the Year category. She still managed to make herself more prominent than the winner in the press-release photos, though. So, you know, still a result.

To celebrate, she graciously awarded her whole squad a bonus and then, on top of that, Jim and I won the monthly team award, which I didn't even know was a thing. Apparently it was assessed on client satisfaction, and Terry, Sally Armstrong and the Corrigans had sent complimentary feedback.

I knew this because Terry had shared said feedback directly with me in the kitchen at the end of our Monday session. I could tell he'd spent a while composing it and he read it aloud with his customary relish.

‘In conclusion, these two smashers should be called Batman and Robyn,' he finished, turning over the second sheet of ancient Basildon Bond notepaper. ‘They fight grime and banish dust, germs and clutter – kapow! Jim is a top-drawer cleaner and Robyn is a ray of sunshine.'

‘Is that a kind way of saying I'm not a good cleaner?' I deadpanned.

‘There's more than one way of cleaning. You two brighten up my flat, and my day,' he said, with his gappy smile.

‘Aw, Terry,' I said. ‘You brighten up my day too.'

Jim pretended he was only interested in providing a quality service, not ‘monthly popularity contests' but I knew him well enough by now to spot the involuntary back-straightening of pride as I read highlights from Cleo's email, containing key snippets of client feedback.

‘You know who else thanked us for going the extra mile? I'll give you a clue – they mean it literally.'

Jim didn't take his eyes from the road. He was back in uniform, and there was no trace of the man who'd pretended to bring me tea in bed on Friday afternoon. You wouldn't even have thought they were related. ‘No. Tell me.'

‘Nessie and Rambo! They said we were the best walkers they'd ever had. Oh, and Ivor the corgi says thank you for his medications. I think you should take credit for that.' I glanced over, hoping for a glimmer of a smile, but … nothing. ‘Are you OK? Something on your mind?'

He'd been distracted all day. Not distracted from his work, which was as thorough as ever, but distant, as if he'd been engaged in a conversation raging on in his head.

‘What? No, nothing.'

That wasn't true, I thought, covertly watching him in the reflection of the windscreen. He was different.

The door to the real Jim had opened a crack the day he'd patiently coached me through that excruciating call to Liv Williams. He hadn't needed to get involved but he had. We'd spent hours and hours together, cleaning or driving, talking not talking, and though he rarely offered up any facts, I'd started to sense what he might be like as a person: he was practical, professional, observant. Kind, occasionally funny in a dry way. I had relaxed into his company; I no longer rushed to fill silences.

And then that bizarre but hilarious photoshoot had swung the door into Jim's psyche wide open and it turned out his inner life had a chandelier in the hall. I couldn't help but be curious as to what else was in there. Upstairs, even.

‘Did you have a good weekend?' I asked. ‘Were your team playing rugby?'

‘My team?'

‘The team you coach.' I paused. It was like getting blood out of a stone, but we'd worn matching dressing gowns, for heaven's sake. I'd seen his shins. ‘Where do you play? Somewhere in town?'

Jim turned and, while his expression was pleasant enough, there was a formality in his voice. ‘Robyn, don't take this the wrong way, but work is work. I don't like to talk about my hobbies during work hours. OK?'

I felt stunned. ‘Yes, but …'

‘It's better to keep things separate. No offence.'

‘OK.' I wasn't sure what he meant, but I heard, Shut up , so I did.

I turned up the radio so we didn't have to talk, and Jim didn't turn it down. And then I texted Mitch and didn't bother to hide my smiles when he suggested dinner.

I spent half my bonus on a haircut and the other half on an aspidistra for my Mum-improved flat, which I called Astrid, just to up the emotional stakes for both of us.

Astrid was a symbol of my determination to keep my life as tidy as my domestic quarters. I bought her a brass plant stand, invested in plant food and put a watering schedule into my phone. Astrid wasn't going to die on me. Not now she had a name.

Then I did the same for myself, metaphorically speaking. I looked honestly at my CV and created a version I didn't have to cross my fingers and hope no one looked too closely at. I workshopped my ‘how I learned from my mistake' story until it was fluent and honest. I made a meal plan with proper food, I did a budget and I bought some vitamins. Mum even sketched out an amazingly detailed plan for rearranging my bedroom into a more relaxing space.

For the first time in I don't know how long, I managed to get nearly six hours' sleep a night, which for me was a lot. The first baby green shoots of new growth started to appear on Astrid, and something started to sprout in me too. Hope, and confidence. Not huge new leaves, but promising buds.

It took a while for the changes to register with the universe but finally, just as the first proper hints of summer warmth were softening up the morning air, I got a call on my way to work.

It was for a negotiator role at Hastings Laidlaw, a new agency in town looking to expand their sales team; a bit of a step down in salary terms but I wasn't in a position to be fussy. Anna Hastings sounded keen to see me, as soon as tomorrow; not a maternity cover this time, but a ‘health issue' that meant an immediate start.

‘Can you do a morning appointment?' she asked. ‘Say, ten?'

I had to be at Terry's for nine thirty, my first call of the day. Jim was off all of Tuesday morning – no reason offered, just that he wouldn't be in – and Cleo had reshuffled the schedule. I was supposed to be flattered that she trusted me to clean Terry's house alone, but I knew it was because she was still short-staffed. She'd sent me the job list, then phoned me twice to make sure I'd got it and fully understood it. And made me promise that I would be there on the dot of nine thirty.

‘Any chance you can make it earlier?' I asked Anna. ‘I have a meeting at nine thirty.'

‘Um, can you come in before the office opens? Say, eight forty-five?'

Hastings Laidlaw was on the far (currently unfashionable) end of the High Street, down by the market place. Terry's flat was at the other – ten minutes' fast walk away. Longhampton wasn't a big place, but if the interview went even slightly over half an hour, there was a risk I'd be late.

I wrestled with my conscience. I was sure Terry wouldn't mind. It wasn't as if he was going anywhere. And I could make up the extra time by skipping my lunchbreak and getting back on track by the afternoon. Jim wouldn't know, and Terry wouldn't tell, especially if I agreed to make him some lunch before I left.

No, I decided. It was a matter of principle. I said I'd be at Terry's by nine thirty, so I'd be there. I'd made that promise to Cleo. Anyway, it would make me sound organised, needing to leave for another appointment.

‘Can you do eight thirty?' I asked.

‘Perfect,' said Anna. ‘We'll see you then.'

‘Perfect!' I said. ‘I'll see you then.'

When I arrived (on time!), Anna Hastings herself welcomed me into her office, and although it wasn't as self-consciously luxe as Malvern Property Finders, everyone there was busy, and that was a good sign. I put my phone onto airplane mode so I wouldn't be distracted.

‘Graeme is the Laidlaw,' she said, showing me into a meeting room. ‘He's our financial director.'

A bald forty-something man in a proper suit was sitting at the table with a pen, pad, cup of coffee and a glass of water arranged in perfect alignment in front of him.

‘Hello!' I said, already sensing that this was going to be a good cop, humourless cop type of interview.

Anna opened the batting with some straightforward questions about my recent sales and what I enjoyed most about selling houses, which I was able to answer with enthusiasm. She'd seen my virtual viewings and liked them.

Then it was Graeme's turn, and he wasn't messing about. ‘Can you tell us about a time that you made a mistake and what you learned from it?'

I swallowed. It had been so easy in my bathroom mirror but now I had to get it right: I didn't want to go into too much detail and if I messed it up …

Graeme was observing me closely. Anna had mentioned my social media work for Marsh his ‘own it and move on' advice. Maybe Graeme did know. What could I do about it now?

‘I love finding and selling homes for people, but admin isn't my strong suit.' I chose my words carefully. ‘I wasn't proactive enough with one client's sale, and that caused delays that led her to lose her onward purchase, as well as her own sale. She was understandably angry. That was a low point for me, as well as horrible for her, but the experience made me address my tendency to take on too much, and also commit to managing my time so I don't rush important communication.'

There. It was out. When I put it like that, I knew I'd deserved that bollocking from Emma Rossiter. I'd been useless. But I would be better. So much better.

‘You lost the sale?' Graeme clarified. ‘And that impacted a whole chain?'

‘Yikes,' said Anna. ‘Big lesson, right?'

‘It was a big lesson,' I agreed.

‘Reliability is obviously key to what we do.' Graeme seemed less amused, and I nodded harder.

‘It's my main priority now.'

‘And how did you leave the situation with the client?' he went on, but someone knocked on the meeting-room door behind us with an urgent query about a transaction, requiring both Graeme and Anna's attention. By the time the junior left, the moment had passed. I glanced at the clock. Seven minutes past nine. Perfect timing.

‘I think that's about it!' Anna smiled and swung in her chair. ‘Do you have any questions for us?'

We'd covered pretty much everything I needed to know in our chat – hours, salary, area – but I felt I had to ask something . And we had a few minutes in hand. So I said, ‘What's been the most interesting property you've brought to market recently?'

It was a question Graeme and Anna obviously hoped I'd ask, as they immediately started rattling on about a luxury development in an old marmalade factory, oh, but also that fabulous Arts and Crafts property down by the river with the original wallpaper, and no, wait, what about the Cider Barn, the award-winning Passivhaus project …

I could talk about houses and their owners all day, and the more we talked the more I wanted to work there. Unlike my friendly chat with Liv Collins, it didn't feel like a test of who I knew or where I'd been. They both clearly loved being part of people's stories, loved the way buildings told the history of the town. Just like I did. I really wanted them to like me.

We were still talking when the junior knocked on the door again. ‘Sorry to interrupt, guys, but Anna's nine forty-five's here?'

What? I looked up at the clock.

It was nine forty-eight.

Oh no. I was so late for Terry.

I powerwalked faster than I thought possible to Terry's street, ignoring the buzzing of my phone and the dead feeling in my shins, then jogged up the stairs to his flat and rapped the letter box. ‘Terry? It's Robyn.'

No answer. I was so late that maybe he thought I wasn't coming, and had gone back to bed. Or was in the loo.

I hunted for the key safe that Terry's daughter Jayne insisted he install under the letter box for emergencies. The code was easy to remember – 1966, ‘so her old dad would remember, greatest year in our history, shall I tell you why, Robyn?' – and found a key inside. When I tried it, the front door wasn't locked.

Did he have guests? Ugh, late, in front of guests.

‘Terry, it's Robyn, I'm letting myself in, so I hope you're decent!' I called out. ‘I'm sorry I'm late, I got held up at the—' I stopped short. ‘Oh shit.'

Terry was lying between the hall and the sitting room, one of his legs at a worrying angle. His eyes were closed and his skin was a blotchy beige, like porridge.

A punch of adrenalin walloped me in the chest, but instead of moving, I froze. What was I supposed to do? I'd never seen a dead body before. If he was dead. Was he dead?

My voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else. ‘Terry, are you all right?'

I'd had no first-aid training, but I did watch a lot of 999 Emergency- type programmes when I couldn't sleep and something must have lodged in my subconscious. Nothing medical, unfortunately, just the importance of the recovery position and reassuring chat until someone arrived who knew what they were doing.

‘It's OK, Terry, I'm here. What are you doing, giving me a scare like this, eh?' I dropped to my knees, and tried feeling his neck for a pulse but the loose skin above his shirt collar was chilly to the touch.

He was wearing his good shirt, the ‘bespoke cotton' one he'd got on a long-ago holiday in Hong Kong. Terry always wore a proper shirt and tie, even when the only people he'd be seeing that day were me and Jim. The effort it must have taken to keep himself so smart, I thought, always shaved and pressed … It suddenly dawned on me that maybe he only wore the shirt and tie because we would be in the house that day.

Oh, Terry.

I winkled my phone out of my pocket. There were several missed-call notifications and voicemails. Mostly from Cleo. Shit. Shit . I ignored them for now, and dialled 999 with my thumb, trying to keep talking at the same time.

‘Now then, Terry, this is a first for me, calling the emergency services, let's hope they haven't got the camera crews in … Hello? Ambulance, please.'

At some point I was connected to a calm woman who started talking me through how to check if he was breathing or not. I don't know how long it took or what I did. I kept talking to Terry at the same time, even though there were no signs of life. If I stopped talking, then it was like admitting there was no one there to hear me.

‘I'm going to roll you into position now, as this lady's telling me, so if you don't mind … this is one to put in the Christmas round robin, isn't it … something to tell the grandchildren …'

The words tumbled out because I didn't want to think. I didn't want to think about how I was the only one here. I was the one who'd have to save Terry by forcing my own breath into his lungs.

Please, I begged silently, please blink. Please don't be dead.

‘Now she's telling me to get you flat on your back …'

Laid out in front of me on his patterned carpet, Terry's body seemed so small. In his chair, chatting and laughing, I'd always assumed he was taller, the way he filled the room with his personality. That ‘big man in the pub' energy. Now there was an echo in the flat, an ominous emptiness.

I knelt over Terry's chest, fingers knotted, ready to start chest compressions.

‘I'm scared I'm going to break his ribs,' I blurted out to the phone, on speaker by Terry's head.

‘Don't think about that, Robyn, just follow my instructions. Are you ready?'

I looked down. He didn't look alive. It was too late. I was too late.

Why hadn't I checked my watch? All those times I'd wished I could turn back the clock just a few minutes to stop a disaster, yet it had been in my power to stop this one.

‘I'm sorry, Terry,' I half-sobbed, ‘I hope this isn't going to hurt you, this is … oh!'

Without warning, Terry's eyes snapped open and he choked on a half-breath.

The calm woman instantly shifted her advice to recovery positions and blankets, and then, miraculously, there was a knock on the door: it was the paramedics.

I fell back onto my heels, numb, as they went into their routines. I couldn't tear my eyes away from Terry. He had gone limp again. They were loosening his shirt to stick on the ECG pads and wiring up his finger to a different machine, and every bit of exposed skin was the same pallid texture. His shirt seemed far too big for him.

‘Hello, Terry, mate, my name's Kyle and this is Martin. We're going to run a few quick checks then … what?' Kyle turned to his colleague, who pointed to something on the machine. ‘No, we're going to do that in the ambulance now, Terry. We need to get you into hospital quick smart, all right? Stay with us, pal.'

He turned to me. ‘Are you a carer? Relative?'

‘Cleaner,' I said dully.

‘Done a great job, love.' Kyle was packing up his equipment. ‘Are you coming to the hospital with us? Any family you can call?'

I thought of Terry's family. I knew so much about them: Jayne and her grandchildren, Holly, Lily, Rosie, Daisy (‘daft names, I get them mixed up, called one Tulip by mistake, didn't half get an earful …'), his sons Brian and Barry, one a policeman, the other ‘gone the other way, if you know what I mean', the various junior footballers and tap dancers. Terry was so proud of them.

‘They're not local,' I said, ‘but I can call someone.'

‘Yeah, if you could do that.' Kyle nodded. ‘They'll probably want to get here.'

I knew what that meant. My heart sank.

‘He's got an address book somewhere.' I'd seen it by the telephone while I was cleaning. An old-fashioned address book, decades old, with tatty Christmas cards and Post-it notes sticking out.

‘Bring that with you, eh?'

I heard the other paramedic say, ‘Think he's trying to speak, Kyle!'

We crowded round as Terry's breath rattled in his throat. It was the most upsetting thing I'd ever heard.

He opened one eye, bloodshot and unfocused. His voice was barely a whisper and I had to lean close to hear the words but I couldn't. They were lost in a scratchy breath. I think he said ‘Robyn'.

Then he closed his eye, let out a final ragged breath and the paramedics sprang into action.