Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans Page B

talk. Finally, he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat.
    ‘How long do you plan to stay? Not that I want to get rid of you,’ he assured her, remembering his panic when Jerome had asked a similar question.
    ‘Not sure, really. I need some time to think things out. And—and I’d also like to get to know you better?’ The upward inflection betrayed her uncertainty.
    ‘I’d like you to stay a while.’ Finn’s tone also betrayed doubt.
    ‘But we can’t have you sleeping on the floor and I don’t have a spare room so I . . . sort of took the, you know, liberty of speaking to old Mrs Pargetter. She lives next door, in the house with the blue verandah. She said you can stay with her.’
    When he took the house, Finn was pleased that his elderly neighbour was a recluse. After a brief introduction, they had merely nodded politely whenever they happened to pass. One evening, a few weeks after he moved in, he answered a knock at the door to find her standing on his verandah, twisting her apron apologetically.
    ‘Mr Clancy,’ she began, ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, but my door is stuck and I can’t close it properly. I won’t sleep unless I can lock it, you see. Normally my nephew would . . .’
    ‘Of course I’ll help, Mrs Pargetter. Just let me get my tools.’ Noting for the first time how frail she was, he took her arm as they went down his path and up to her house. ‘Now, let’s see what I can do.’ He planed a little off the door and, disarmed by her old-fashioned courtesy, accepted the proffered cup of tea. As he left, he was surprised to hear himself promising to dig over her vegetable garden.
    After that, Finn found it pleasant to do little jobs for her— taking her dog for a walk, pruning her roses, replacing a tap washer, changing a light bulb. In turn, she would call him in when she’d made scones or biscuits or a teacake. Once she presented him with a tea cosy. But she never asked personal questions, nor did she tell him anything of herself. They suited each other very nicely.
    So for want of another solution, he turned to Mrs Pargetter for help with the problem of Moss’s incursion into his life.
    As he saw it, he had no choice. He didn’t want to send her to the pub, so where else could she go? Besides, he often worried about his neighbour living alone. She was so frail. What if she had a fall or became ill? Here was a perfect solution—at least in the short term.
    The old lady stared in dismay when Finn proposed that she take his daughter in for a few days. ‘I didn’t know you had a daughter, Finn. Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added hastily. ‘I mean, a young girl! What would she want staying with an old woman like me?’
    Despite his rationalisations, Finn already felt guilty for trying to pass his problem on to his elderly friend. He stepped back a pace. ‘That’s alright, Mrs Pargetter. I’m sorry I asked. I had no right to expect . . .’
    Mrs Pargetter saw in Finn’s face a montage of embarrassment, confusion and . . . something else. Something familiar. She swallowed hard. ‘You’ve been good to me, Finn. I’d like to help. Just for a few days, you say? Bring her round tomorrow afternoon.’ She said this rapidly, as though she had to get the words out before she regretted them. She even allowed Finn to leave without offering him a cup of tea. They were both aware that they had crossed some unspoken boundary.
    ‘So,’ Finn continued now, in the face of Moss’s frown, ‘you can move your things in tomorrow afternoon—if it’s alright with you, of course. She’s a nice old thing,’ he added weakly. ‘Knits tea cosies for the United Nations.’ He indicated his own colourfully encased teapot. ‘That’s one of hers. She gives them as Christmas presents too.’
    ‘Did you say United Nations?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘And it was tea cosies ?’
    ‘Yup again. There was some story involved, but I can’t remember. She’ll tell you. She could do with some