I set everything down on the little table beside her chair, then bring through the milk and sugar.
Ed reappears, with an empty salt container. ‘I’ve done your path, Gubba. Last thing we need is anyone slipping.’
‘Oh, and Mum’s coming over at one,’ I tell her. ‘She’s collecting your prescription as well.’
‘I wish you’d all stop fussing,’ she insists. ‘I’m hardly on me last legs. It was just a chest infection.’
‘It was pneumonia,’ I remind her. ‘And you scared us all. So fussing is not optional, I’m afraid.’
She smiles. ‘You can be just like your mum sometimes. Though she makes a better brew.’
I roll my eyes. ‘And you sound just like Tom. . . but at least thecolour’s back in your cheeks. You were so pale earlier.’
‘Probably because you scared the rouge right off my face!’ she replies. ‘Any more toast?’
‘I’ll get it,’ Ed offers, taking her plate. ‘Same again?’
‘Please.’
She watches Ed walk to the kitchen and smiles. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve had a man in my kitchen, you know. Your grandpa was an excellent cook. Nothing fancy, mind you, but I left it all up to him. He took care of me.’
I nod, watching Ed rummage in the bread bin. ‘Yeah, it’s nice to be taken care of. I think sometimes I forget to return the favour.’
Gubba and Grandpa Tom got married in the early sixties. She was twenty, he was thirty-five and apparently my great-grandmother didn’t approve of the age difference. Gubba always said that he treated her like a queen, right up until his heart attack in 1989.
Gubba reaches over and places her hand on mine. ‘It’s hard getting old you know,’ she says, ‘because inside, in your heart, you don’t age. You still feel and laugh and love exactly the way you always have. It’s just the outside that reminds you that all this won’t last forever. I’ll never quite get used to seeing an old lady looking back at me in the mirror.’
I take her hand in mine and give it a little squeeze. Even though her skin might be thinner than it was, holding her hand still feels exactly as it did when I was a child.
‘It’s normal to want more, love,’ she tells me. ‘And it’s normal to want time to yourself, to be by yourself. But all that time you wish you could have to yourself, Kate– one day you’ll have it. One day there will be no work to do and no place to be and all you’ll have is whatever time you have left. It’s a much nicer place to be when you have someone to share it with.’
‘Here we go!’ Ed announces, placing more toast on Gubba’s table. I’m not sure how much he has heard but the look on myface and my reluctance to let go of Gubba’s hand make him do a one-eighty back into the kitchen.
‘I love you, Gubba,’ I tell her. ‘And I’m sorry that Grandpa isn’t here. I know you miss him.’
She nods. ‘Sometimes I do. It’ll be thirty-two years this year. It does get lonely, but Anthony in number twelve has been keeping me company.’
‘Sorry, who?’
‘Anthony. He’s quite the charmer. He’s seventy-six, from Trinidad. His legs are bad but the rest of him works—’
‘Gubba!’ I exclaim. I can’t believe my ears.
‘What?’ she asks, munching her toast. ‘I’m eighty-one Kate, I’m not dead. Life goes on, petal.’
‘Ed!’ I yell. ‘Gubba’s got a boyfriend. And he’s younger!’
‘What?’ he asks, coming back through. ‘Gubba? Is this true? Does Paula know about this?’
‘Does she, heck,’ Gubba replies. ‘She’ll scare the man off. One glare from her and he’ll be wheeling himself out of here sharpish.’
Ed laughs the loudest because he knows better than anyone. When we first started hanging around together, Mum did everything but sit on the porch with a shotgun to ensure he behaved himself. I suppose part of that was due to her getting pregnant at sixteen. The rest was just her being a bossy cow, as usual.
‘Well, my lips are sealed,’ he says, sitting down beside me. ‘But I think it’s great. Good for you.’
She nods in agreement and goes back to her toast.
Mum and Gary show up just before one, bringing with them the shopping that I’d already agreed to pick up.
