She’d set Raven to work changing the bedding in the master bedroom. (She’d not brought her own, the poor love. From the few glimpses that Flo had had while she was unpacking, Raven’s entire move looked rather hastily put together. Clothes and books and a couple of sketch pads seemed to be the sum total of her belongs. No favourite pillows, knickknacks, photos by the bedside. Nothing. She’d investigate later, but … Sue.) After checking what Sue did and didn’t want touched (the desk and the wardrobe were off limits, everything else was fair game) she’d set Sue to work ferrying the remains of her clothes from the wardrobe to a rather beleaguered-looking clothes rack hiding in the corner and a two-drawer filing cabinet that was mysteriously empty. Didn’t look touched. Flo couldn’t understand why Sue didn’t want to tidy things away in the perfectly serviceable wardrobe, and put the piles of papers on Gary’s desk in the cabinet, but it wasn’t a time to press, so they’d pushed on, with Florence dangling pizza and fizz as prizes at the end of this particular rainbow.
Now, a good two hours later, having made up the bed with a couple of dark throws and unpacked her clothes, Raven was downstairs (as instructed) heating up the oven for the pizzas (one vegetarian, just in case and one gluten free, just in case). Gary’s clothes had been tenderly relocated to a miniscule box room (closet really) that housed the hoover, a clothes drying rack and a scarecrow that Sue laughed about, patted then said … Oh, Gary.
‘There’s so much of it.’ Sue was staring at the Ikea desk, some sort of laminated press wood from the looks of things. It was weighted with three very large cardboard boxes that had, at one time, housed a toilet, a u-bend pipe and a ‘sturdy plastic toolbox to suit all of your needs’. In a surprisingly clear hand (Flo didn’t know why, but she wouldn’t have imagined a plumber having excellent penmanship) they each bore A4 labels. Bills, Invoices and Paid. The first was overflowing and, until about five minutes ago, sent a perpetual flow of paperwork cascading to the floor each time they so much as exhaled. The second was full-ish. And the third, the paid box, was pitiably empty. Next to the boxes was an accounts book. It was filled with endless columns and scribbles and all sorts of indecipherables. She knew because she’d peeked when Sue was out of the room. It’d take more than Google translate to get through that mess. Flo’s compassion for Sue deepened.
‘I hadn’t realised how much paperwork was involved in the plumbing business.’ Sue was staring at the boxes with disbelief, as if seeing them for the first time. ‘In all of the years I’ve known him, I never knew Gary to spend more than ten, fifteen minutes in here.’
‘So you’ve not been in here.’
‘No, not really.’ Sue flushed. ‘Gaz used to keep my presents in here. In the wardrobe. He told me I was never to come in unless I wanted to ruin the surprise.’ Her eyes flicked to the wardrobe then lingered.
Oh, you poor, silly, gullible, girl. The secrets this man has been keeping from you.
She was no detective, or psychiatrist for that matter, but she’d seen enough telly and met enough people to know the unattended paperwork was a likely explanation as to why Sue’s husband might have found it all too much. And, Flo suddenly put two and two together, why Sue needed a housemate quite so soon after her husband had taken the darkest route imaginable.
‘Do you think we should open it? The wardrobe?’ Sue asked.
Oh, god no. Flo didn’t. Not tonight anyway.
‘I think we’ve done quite enough for one night, Sue. Why don’t we head down for a bite to eat and a bit of a drink after all of this work, eh?’
Sue didn’t move. ‘It was his father’s business to start,’ She pointed at the stack of tool boxes at the end of the bed. ‘The plumbing.’
‘Oh, was it now? And your Gary worked with him, then? Father and son?’
‘Yes,’ Sue’s face softened with a memory. ‘Young & Son’s Plumbing.’ She laughed the first laugh Flo had ever heard from her. ‘Gaz used to say his father should’ve called it Barney Rubble Plumbing with the cack-handed way he went about fixing things. How little he worked. Reg only went out on two or three calls a day. My Gaz could do five or six depending upon the traffic. And supplies of course.’ Sue shook her head. Whether it was in awe or disbelief, was difficult to tell.
Sue lifted up a stray pipe wrench they hadn’t yet found a home for. ‘When his father passed, Gary said he was going to kick things up a notch. Make a proper go of it. And he did, too. Always busy, my Gary. Taking classes to learn more things that the companies put on. You know, jacuzzis and the fancy showers and things. Watching YouTube videos from America to keep up to date. Always helping someone. Good or bad. He was always helping someone.’
A little glow of something Flo had not seen in Sue before appeared. Pride. Pride for the mark her husband had made on the world before he left it. She looked at Flo through glassy eyes, then gave herself a shake as if she suddenly remembered a silent promise not to cry about anything. Not in front of a near stranger anyway.
Raven stuck her head round the doorframe, knocking on it as she did. Her eyes shot to the desk sagging with boxes, the accounts
