Close to Death

Inevitably, over the years, things had changed. Life is seldom perfect and even when it is, it’s not for ever. May and Phyllis had largely kept themselves to themselves, part of the little community but not dependent on it. However, as they drifted into and then out of their seventies, they both found themselves having to adapt to new circumstances.

The women who lived on either side of them – Felicity Browne and Iris Pennington – both became sick. Despite her relatively young age, Felicity was soon confined to her bed and rarely left the house. Iris’s illness was worse. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died a few years later. Death was followed by new life. Gemma Beresford in Gardener’s Cottage gave birth to twin girls. At around the same time, Adam and Wendy Strauss got divorced. Wendy had never fitted into the close and it was no secret that she had been unhappy for some time. Adam remarried a year later, but he and his new wife, Teri, never took to the Lodge: it was too big for them – and too expensive. Adam’s earnings had shrunk. His TV quiz show, It’s Your Move, had been cancelled, and he had been hit by a series of poor investments. Although the couple would remain where they were for another three years, they both knew they had no choice and began looking for somewhere else to live, outside Richmond.

But then, at exactly the right moment, Jon Emin announced that he was relocating his family to Suffolk. He had made a fortune out of his business, arranging private and business loans, and wanted somewhere bigger to bring up his children, preferably in the countryside. May Winslow was particularly sorry to see the family go. Like them, she had a pet – a French bulldog – and they’d often met walking along the river. However, their departure brought an unexpected bonus. Adam spoke to Jon Emin and the two men agreed a private sale. The week the Emins left, Adam and Teri Strauss moved across to The Stables, keeping the Riverview community intact.

The only question was, who would be the new owner of Riverview Lodge – and more importantly, would they fit in?

‘Did you hear him last night?’ Phyllis asked, as she sliced the top off her egg with a decisive swing of the knife. She was the smaller of the two women, with tightly permed white hair and a thin frame. Her face had folded itself into so many creases that if she had been mummified, no one would have noticed. Certainly, it was almost impossible to imagine her as a young woman. Her seventy-nine years had her in their grip and she had long ago given up caring. Even her clothes could have been deliberately chosen to date her. Today she was wearing a floral-patterned dress that hung as loosely on her as if it had still been in the wardrobe and brown derby shoes that took her all the way back to World War Two.

‘Do you mean, Mr Kenworthy?’ May asked.

‘He got home at twenty past four. I saw the time on my alarm clock. And he had the music playing full on in his motor car.’

‘I wonder where he’d been?’

‘At a party, from the sound of it.’ Phyllis pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘He was blasting out music as if he wanted the whole world to hear it. I’m sure everyone will have been woken up!’

The two elderly women seemed to fit together perfectly. They were seldom apart and had known each other so long they had the awareness and the timing of a comedy double act, although without the jokes. They did everything in sync. The hoovering and the dusting. The cooking and the laying of the table. While one reached for the tea leaves, the other would be warming the pot. They watched the same programmes on television and went upstairs to bed at the same time. They never argued. People assumed they were sisters, which quite amused them because, as they explained, for almost thirty years they had been nuns, living together in the same convent in Leeds.

In fact, May very much controlled the relationship. For a start, the house belonged entirely to her. She had bought The Gables off-plan, without even visiting it, using money she had inherited. Phyllis lived with her rent-free as a sort of unpaid companion. May came from the south of England, enunciating her words with the care and exactitude of a Norland nanny, whereas Phyllis had never lost her Birmingham accent. May’s large physique also gave her the edge. She had recently put on weight, which made her breathless and inclined to become red in the face if she did anything too quickly, although this somehow suited her. With her bright clothes, her chunky jewellery and the glasses hanging on a cord around her neck, she had the optimistic look of old age – the round, satisfied, homely cheerfulness of a fairy godmother.

‘Well, I didn’t hear him.’ May spread a pat of Cornish butter onto a triangle of toast and then bit into it with very white teeth that were, perhaps surprisingly, her own. ‘Did he wake you up?’ she asked.

‘No. I wasn’t asleep. I never sleep well any more. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’