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There was no funeral for Harry, not yet. He had willed his body to medical science, always convinced that he would die of something that might be of scientific interest to investigate. He’d admired people who donated their organs and though he’d carried a donor card in his wallet, he knew that as he grew older, his organs became less and less valuable. He’d given blood for thirty years, his bog-standard O positive, as he referred to it, never thinking about how manylives he’d saved, or prolonged. He hadn’t been a flawless man, but he’d been much more special than he realised.
Shay hadn’t known where to scatter her mother’s ashes and didn’t want to let them go until she was sure she’d found the perfect place. It was Dagmara who suggested she take them down to Weston-super-Mare and sprinkle them in the sea next to the promenade, where Roberta had strolled eating chocolate ice cream with a handsome Egyptian officer as their baby grew inside her. They went together, like a Yorkshire/Latvian version of Thelma and Louise on a bright, sharp mid-November day. Shay let an eager breeze take her mum, stir her into the air where so many happy memories of ice creams and sandcastles, sunshine and the songs of seagulls, were cold-pressed in the layers of time.
Chapter 47
Shay was strangely nervous as she waited for her date to pick her up and she realised this was probably a favour too far. But here she was, in her heels and her favourite black velvet dress, the one she’d worn when she’d gone for her anniversary meal with Bruce. How long ago that all seemed.
She hadn’t seen him since Sunny’s aborted wedding. She’d tried to speak to him about the sale of their house because she’d needed to know if he wanted any furniture and if they should accept the offer that had been made on the place, because it was just a little less than the asking price but it involved no chain. She’d left voicemails for him and he’d texted his replies and that was how they communicated as and when they needed to.
He had rung Sunny after the wedding to ask what the bloody hell all that had been about, and also to ask him, ‘What planet is your mother on?’ And then when he found out what had been going on, ‘How can a woman do that to you unless you let her?’ Sunny had put the phone down and they hadn’t been in touch since. Bruce had failed his son when he really needed him, unlike Harry Corrigan whohad stepped up for his child and made up for any of his previous shortfalls. Shay didn’t recognise Bruce any more. That made it so much easier to let him go. She didn’t draw any more genitalia on forms she was presented with pertaining to the divorce; she didn’t want anything slowing down their journey to its end.
A car sounded its horn outside and she braced herself for the evening. She locked up the door and waved at the driver of the Range Rover. He’d traded in his old Jeep for something he’d long fancied. Part of the new him, he’d said.
Morton Jagger wolf-whistled as he got out of the car to open the door for her. He’d overdressed by far, looking more as if he was going to a society wedding in his suit and waistcoat and carnation in the buttonhole. Young Mort had gone through his wardrobe with him; out went the 1970s-style suits and crap shirts, in came some top clobber. He could afford it, it was just that he’d always spent his money on Les and his son, on tools and materials and never on himself, something young Mort said would have to change. But he looked good. He’d had a haircut, too, short back and sides and he smelt of something foresty, albeit with a faint tang of sawdust, which suited him.
‘By ’eck you look nice, lass.’
‘So do you, Morton. You scrub up very well.’
He beamed and Shay thought he must have gone through most of his life having barely a compliment paid to him.
‘I’ve booked us in at the Walled Garden,’ said Morton. ‘That okay?’
Shay raised an impressed brace of eyebrows. ‘That’s pricey. A nice Italian would have been fine. You’ll be bankrupt if you pick places like that for every date you go on.’
‘Well, I reckon if I can pass muster there, I can pass muster anywhere,’ he said.
The restaurant was in the countryside on the outskirts of the city, perched on a hill with beautiful views. It was one oftheplaces to eat in the area; moneyed folks went there a lot and enjoyed the status of being ‘a regular’, but it was definitely the top choice to go and blow a budget for a special celebration. Many proposals of marriage had been made in its beautiful walled garden, from which the place took its name. Shay was hoping there wouldn’t be another one tonight, though.
The waiter led them to a table in the window and lit a candle that sat between them.
‘That’s romantic,’ said Morton, with a wink.
‘Don’t get any ideas,’ replied Shay. ‘This is a dummy run.’
‘Thank you for this, Shay. Because getting into this dating game again is a proper ball-ache. Well, I say “getting into it again”, I’ve never been in it. Les was my first girlfriend… and my last.’
‘Well, just make sure that they’re not more interested in your money than they are in you. Take your time to find someone nice and not someone “who’ll do”.’
Morton picked up the wine menu. ‘I know bugger all about these,’ he said with a grumble. ‘Not like your Bruce, able to tell the difference between his grapes.’
‘I’ll let you into a secret, shall I? Bruce knew as much about wines as I know about quantity surveying. Just read the labels, read the descriptions. And if you find one you like, stick to it. Would you prefer dry or something sweeter? Red or white?’
‘I prefer a pint of Boddy’s if I’m honest.’
‘Then you must have a pint,’ replied Shay. ‘This is about you being you, Morton. You want someone to fall foryou, not a false version of yourself.’
‘Not very impressive sitting here with a pint though, is it?’
‘Did you know that Prince Philip prefers real ales to wine? In particular Boddingtons, as it happens. So you’re in right royal company.’
‘Bugger off.’
Shay laughed. ‘True, look it up. Now, I think I’ll have a Pinot Noir.’
‘You can have champagne if you like,’ said Morton. ‘It’s all on me.’
‘Morton, if I said I wanted champagne on a first date, I’d ask you to get rid of me. But I will have a fillet steak.’
