‘Is it Jenna Diamond?’ An elderly lady in a headscarf touched her on the arm.
‘Myatt. I don’t go by Diamond any more.’
‘Oh, no, sorry. It’s a treat to see you back here in Bledburn. How’s your mum?’
Jenna focused properly on the woman and saw a face that had often appeared over her garden fence when she was a girl.
‘Auntie Jean!’ she exclaimed. ‘I didn’t realise it was you. How are you?’
‘Mustn’t grumble,’ she said. ‘Mind, I?
??m not getting any younger and me arthritis has taken a turn. Got a new hip just last year.’
‘Oh dear, I hope it’s a good one.’
‘Marvellous what they can do these days. Made of rubber, it is.’
‘Mum’s fine. And Dad. Enjoying the Spanish sunshine all year round.’ She raised her voice a little; Auntie Jean (her long-time next-door neighbour, not her real aunt) struck her as a trifle hard of hearing. ‘Are you still at Shelley Road?’
‘I am. Got new windows and doors put in last month. The council are doing up the whole estate. Well, it’s that or knock it down, isn’t it? Ooh, the state of it now, love. You’d shake your head. You must come round for a cup of tea.’
‘Yes, I will. And you’ll have to come and visit me in my new house, once I’ve got it done up.’
‘Where’s that then? That new development out of town? Proper nice, those houses are. I’ve seen inside ’em. Our Michaela’s husband did the electrics.’
‘No, not there. Harville Hall.’
There was a silence.
‘Say, what, dear? I’m a bit deaf, these days.’
Jenna said it more clearly, conscious of curious nudges and murmurs of recognition going on around her.
‘What on earth are you living there for? You aren’t one of them, are you?’
‘I bought it.’
Auntie Jean shook her head. ‘I don’t know what the world’s come to sometimes. Well, don’t forget that cuppa. I must get on.’
And with that she moved away as fast as her arthritic knees could take her.
Jean’s husband had left her, when he couldn’t find work after the pit shut. He went to Manchester, looking for something, anything. He didn’t find work, but he did find another woman. Jenna remembered endless cups of very sweet tea in the back kitchen, Jean sobbing all over her mother then putting on lippy and going up the Mecca for bingo.
She hadn’t told her parents about buying Harville Hall because at the back of her mind she knew that it made her, in some obscure fashion, a traitor. As for lunching with Lawrence of that ilk, it would be considered completely beyond the pale.
What was she thinking?
She went to the counter, so lost in thought that she had to be told twice how much she owed. The checkout operator clearly recognised her, but didn’t say anything, to her relief.
Back at the Hall, Leonardo was still in the bath. She could hear the splosh of water and him singing, rather well, an old Robbie Williams number. Good old Robbie, she thought. Perhaps she should look him up?
She put the bags of clothes down and knocked on the door.
‘I’ve been shopping,’ she said. ‘There are some new clothes for you in the hall, if you want to change.’
Silence followed, then the thumping plunge of a substantially sized man standing up in the bath.
‘What the fuck are you buying me clothes for?’ he said.