Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller (best large ereader txt) 📕

“Is he picking you up later?”

“Stu said he’d come and get me about ten thirty. Is that okay?”

“That’s good of him.”

“He’s not a bad husband when he puts his mind to it. He said people were asking after Julius in the Plough. I told him to tell them that they should call in. It’d be good for Julius to have a visitor or two, give you a bit more time off. You could take this dog for a proper walk.” She grabs Maude and waggles the dog’s head, digging her fingers into Maude’s fur.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Jeanie says. “Shelley Swift came last week and Julius had a seizure. On the floor, foaming at the mouth, the works.”

“She won’t be back, then.” Bridget turns a page of her magazine. From upside down it looks like a comic strip.

“I don’t know. Maybe she will.” Jeanie starts up the left staircase to her bedroom.

“Stu told me that Chris from the Plough was wondering if you’d do another gig, when you’re ready. Said that some bloke had come in asking about you and your music. He couldn’t make it last time. Something about an interview or a recording?”

Jeanie stops halfway up the stairs, where Bridget can’t see her. She thinks about the night they played in the pub: Julius’s hair falling over his face, the singing, how much fun it had been. Her fingers go to her chest out of habit.

“I don’t think I could do it again. Not without Julius,” she calls down, her voice lighter than she feels.

“I told him that, but apparently it was you in particular the bloke wanted to see.” Jeanie hears her turn another page and she doesn’t know what to think about that.

“Bridget,” she says tentatively. “Would you do something for me?” Another page turns. “Would you read me a letter, from Rawson?” She can’t get used to calling him Spencer. Jeanie puts her palms on the wood panelling which divides the old kitchen from the staircase. The white paint which she can’t remember being done in her lifetime is scratched and marked and yellowed.

“A letter?”

She can hear that Bridget’s interest is piqued.

“I’ve tried, but I can’t work out his handwriting.”

“Of course I’ll read it. No problem.”

“Okay. I’ll get dressed and I’ll show you.” Jeanie pushes herself off the panelling and goes up the rest of the stairs. She puts on a clean dress, one she’s had for years. It’s too hot for tights.

∙

In the old kitchen, Jeanie sits opposite Bridget, the letter in a cream envelope in front of her, her hands placed on top. She knows Rawson has written her name on the front.

“I went to see Dr. Holloway on Monday for the results of my echo,” Jeanie says.

“I know,” Bridget says. She’s eyeing the letter but clearly trying not to show her curiosity.

“And I suppose you heard what they were?” Jeanie says sarcastically.

Bridget raises her eyebrows, pops a Polo mint into her mouth. “Of course not, that’s confidential.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Go on then.” Bridget sits back, waiting. Jeanie tries to assess from her expression whether she knows about Dot’s lies, but it isn’t possible.

“All clear. There’s nothing wrong with my heart.”

Bridget’s smile on her big round face is genuine delight. “That’s great news.”

“Except it’s not that I’ve got better. I never had it in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I never had RHD. Not when I was thirteen, not ever.”

“But you were diagnosed, weren’t you?”

“Mum told me I had it, not the doctor. And I think she made it up. Told me I was ill when I wasn’t.”

“What? Why would she do that?” Bridget closes her magazine.

“To keep me at home, I suppose. She told me in the year after Dad died when she was going a bit crazy, before the thing with Rawson started.”

All week Jeanie has been thinking about it and this morning finally she decided that it is another simple story: Frank died and in the year that followed Dot realized, or believed at least, that one day she would be alone. Maybe her crying in the doctor’s consultation room was not because of Jeanie’s diagnosis, because there never was one, it was from relief, or just an outpouring at her husband’s death. But at some low point she told Jeanie she had something wrong with her heart in order to keep her at home. The lie grew and could not be undone; Jeanie—and Julius too—would remain in the cottage with her.

“Oh, Jeanie,” Bridget says and puts her hand across the table. Jeanie reaches out and touches Bridget’s fingers with her own, just for a moment, and then shakes her head at the thoughts of her mother, refusing her tears for a second time that day. Bridget starts to say more, she will want to discuss it, unpick it, and analyze it, and Jeanie can’t do that, not yet.

She picks up the envelope, raps it on the table. “This letter then. He gave it to me when I was leaving last time, said he wasn’t very good at saying things out loud. I haven’t told him that I can’t read.” Reluctantly, Jeanie hands it over.

Bridget takes the cream-coloured letter out of the envelope; the paper is thick, expensive. She unfolds it. Jeanie knows it has the farm address printed at the top, and she knows it begins with Dear Jeanie.

“Dear Jeanie,” Bridget starts. “Forgive me for putting this in writing rather than simply saying it to you, but I find that I express myself better on the page, and I want to make sure that what I say is right this time.

“Your mother meant a great deal to me. Perhaps we should have tried harder not to see each other for Caroline’s sake, but I refuse to believe that our love was wrong. I miss Dot every day, as I’m sure you and your brother do. I’m also sure that the nature of our relationship must be a shock to you,