‘It’s not bad. Tiny, but does the job.’ They went into the conservatory to enjoy the evening sunshine as it went down over the Suffolk countryside, and Lydia curled her feet beneath her on the sofa beside the door Grace had opened to enjoy the evening air as she took the sofa opposite. The sun had dropped so much in the sky that the very end of the land was hard to see and everything was bathed in a deep orange glow. ‘How’s work?’ she asked.
‘It’s pretty good. The practice is well established up in Nottingham and I’m able to vary my hours with the other dentists.’
‘That’s great.’
‘And what about you? Any more travel on the horizon?’
Lydia shook her head. ‘Not for now, unfortunately. Sometimes it’s good to get away.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Grace sipped her wine. ‘I read your feature on Jonathan Maynard and the charity event in Hertfordshire.’
‘You did?’
‘I enjoyed it. And Theo was always proud of his journalist girlfriend. As I read it I thought of how impressed he’d be.’
‘He probably would’ve wanted to join in with the ski event.’ Lydia laughed. ‘You know, he pressured me to apply for the job, and I’m glad I did.’
Grace’s smile didn’t last long. ‘I miss him.’
‘Me too.’
Grace lowered her voice even though they’d shut the door behind them when they’d come in here. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk properly until now, but for what it’s worth, I’d have probably sided with you at the hospital.’ The tone of her voice gave away how difficult an admission it was to make.
Lydia turned to face her. ‘Sometimes I feel physically ill that he’s like this. I know how much he’d hate it and if he could speak he’d tell me how ridiculous it was.’
‘Dad thought the same. I mean, it’s his son, but he knows Theo, the sort of man he is. I think if he was here he may have made Mum see sense, but being on the other side of the world I think he backed off.’
‘Is he coming over again soon?’
‘Next week and he’ll be here for a few days. I think he’s staying with some friends near Cambridge but he’ll travel up and down each day to spend time with Theo.’
‘That’s great.’
‘Yes and no,’ Grace grimaced. ‘I’m not sure how he’ll feel seeing Theo in that place. The move to the care home knocked him and me for six,’ Grace confessed.
‘It’s not something I ever wanted to think about either.’
‘I’ve had to let Mum get on with it and not tell her what I really think.’
Lydia could relate to that. ‘I’m hoping it’s better for him than the hospital. I couldn’t stop your mum with this, but she knows I wasn’t fully behind the idea.’ She shook her head. ‘God she must hate me.’
‘She’s angry, she’s grieving, but there’s no hate. I don’t think she’s got any room for that. But the situation is taking its toll on her, and I think it’s the only reason I’ve been keeping my mouth shut.’
‘I can see how hard it is for her.’ It was the reason Lydia wasn’t voicing her opinions either. ‘I wasn’t going to mention anything until after the weekend, Grace, but seeing as we’re talking, what do you think of the care home? I mean, really?’
‘Honestly?’ She took a good swig of wine and swallowed. ‘Fucking terrible. It’s like a morgue in there. Yes they’re keeping him clean and feeding him, making sure his teeth are clean, yada yada yada, but he’d hate it if he knew he was keeping company with people who were almost twice his age, some of them more than that.’
Grace was frank but rarely did she swear and it made Lydia laugh. The laughter was just the release she needed as they chatted on about the sounds in the care home, the smell, the sheer inappropriateness for Theo.
‘What gets me is that Mum didn’t want to wait for the rehab spot to come up,’ said Grace.
‘She wanted him nearby,’ Lydia told her.
‘Yeah, but she’s taken Theo away from you by doing that.’
Lydia contemplated how best to word what she was about to say. ‘I got used to seeing him every day and I want to stand by him no matter what, but it was getting stifling doing the hospital visits. This is harder, by far, because I have to hire a car and take a whole weekend away from home so there’s the time it takes, the petrol money, the accommodation costs I’ll have to pay sooner or later. But with Theo here I’m having an almost normal life.’ She hesitated. ‘That sounds terrible, I know.’
‘I think we often forget what this is doing to you,’ said Grace. ‘I’m not about to make a voodoo doll of you and stick pins in it if I realise you have a life outside of this hellish one with my brother.’
