Chapter 42: Renata
She was there at ten to eleven, at the table by the window, facing the door.
I know she was there at ten to because I got there at ten to and she was already sitting.
Camel coat over the back of the chair. Reading glasses on a chain. Grey hair cut short and well, by somebody who charges properly.
Two cups on the table. She had ordered for me.
The cups were the wide kind, and mine had gone lukewarm before I sat down.
She stood up when I came in and did the thing where the arms start to open, and I sat down, so they closed again.
She sat down too.
She said, “You look well.”
I did not look well. I weighed a hundred and nine pounds and I had been walking two point four miles a day in secondhand shoes.
I said, “You ordered for me.”
She said, “Flat white. You always had flat white.”
I had never had a flat white in my life. Bree drinks flat whites.
I did not correct her. There was nothing to gain by correcting her and I wanted to see what else she was sure of.
She talked for about four minutes without needing anything from me.
She talked about her hip and the surgery and the waiting list and the physiotherapist who was very good. His name was Colin. I know the physiotherapist's name.
She talked about the weather turning and about a neighbour's tree.
I have thought about those four minutes a great deal. They were not stalling. That is genuinely how she opens.
Then she put both hands around her cup and said, “I want to say something and I want you to let me finish.”
I said, “All right.”
She said, “What happened to you was the worst thing that ever happened to this family.”
I noticed the construction. To this family.
She said, “I have thought about you every single day.”
I said nothing.
She said, “Every day, Cass.”
I said, “For six years.”
She said, “Yes.”
I said, “You visited twice.”
That is not true. She visited twice in the first year and never again, and I said the sentence in a way that let her correct it, and she did not correct it.
She said, “It was very far.”
It is ninety-four miles. The visiting bus from the city took three hours and ran on Saturdays.
Twelve women used that bus every week. I knew four of them by their coats.
I did not say the number. I have a rule about numbers with people who are already uncomfortable, which is that you only get to use one.
She said, “You were always so strong. Even at school. Bree was never like that.”
I put my cup down.
She said, “She's had a hard time too, you know. In her own way.”
I said, “I'm sure.”
I want to be honest about my own conduct at this table. I was not gentle. I was flat, and flat is a kind of pressure, and I knew it.
She reached across and put her hand on my wrist.
Her hand is small and dry and there are three rings on it, none of them my mother's.
She held my wrist for about three seconds. My wrist was bare.
She was looking at my face while she did it. She did not look down at all.
I would like to be able to tell you what that means. I have never decided.
I took my arm back by moving it, not by pulling it, which is a thing you learn. You learn it in a visiting room.
She said, “I know there are things you want to ask me.”
There were four hundred and twelve pages under my bed and one question on the back of a bus transfer.
I said, “Not today.”
She said, “Whenever you're ready.”
I said, “How is the baby?”
She lit up. She got out a phone and showed me eleven photographs, holding it up, turning it towards me. She held it at my eye level, not hers.
Photograph four was one I had already seen on a library terminal on a Thursday. I looked at it for the correct length of time.
I said he was lovely. He was lovely. That is not a difficult thing to say about a baby.
Then she put the phone face down on the table and left her hand on it.
She said, “Dean asks about you.”
I did not answer that.
She said, “He's got himself sorted out. He works for a supplier out on the ring road now.”
She said, “He's just tidying up some paperwork. Old paperwork. From before.”
I said, “What paperwork?”
She picked up her cup, found it empty, and put it down again.
She said, “Nothing you need to worry about.”