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by Penny Parkes

  But if not now, then when?

  If not here, on this beautiful beach with this kind, generous man who wanted to be her friend, then where?

  She’d not been short of stunning locations over the years, or indeed offers of company. But genuine offers of friendship had been in short supply.

  ‘I’ve been on pause for a decade,’ she confessed. ‘I was driven to get myself to Oxford, to prove to myself that I could, as much as anything. And then, when I left – a little older, a little wiser, a little more broken if I’m honest, I had absolutely no idea what to do next.’

  ‘My grandpa would have a word or two to say about that,’ Henry said, nodding. ‘He likes a nice concrete goal to work towards. He’s not fussy: work, life, money, getting a budgie… He just reckons that the most demotivating thing in life is to be aimless.’

  Aimless.

  The word spoke volumes to Anna, as all of her aspirations suddenly felt vague and wishy-washy.

  ‘I mean, look at your clients. The Lyndells,’ Henry continued. ‘All that money, but are they actually happy with their lot? I remember when they first moved down here. They were building their company and they were so filled with excitement and possibilities. But once they sold it, they lost all sense of purpose.’

  ‘And decency?’ Anna frowned.

  ‘Ah, no, you’ve got me there – Liza was always a bit, erm, particular. But they seem so lost now, they put all their focus into random shit that doesn’t matter, just to feel important.’

  Anna nodded. She could see how easily that might happen. How the veneer of confidence and perfection might actually be papering over the holes. How their big plans of cashing in might not have provided the happily ever after they were hoping for. Their beautiful home, a sterile carapace and insufficient antidote to their unhappiness.

  ‘Hindsight is always twenty-twenty though, isn’t that what they say?’ Anna shrugged. ‘No point trying to change the past. I just try and focus on not cocking up in the future too. Just trying to get it right, you know?’

  ‘And what would happen if you got it wrong? Life?’ Henry said gently. ‘Would it really be so bad to take a few chances, make a few commitments? You do know that you can always change your mind, right? You said something on the boat the other day and it really stuck with me – about being afraid of settling down somewhere and realising you’d got it wrong.’ He gave her a little nudge. ‘You do know that you aren’t obliged to stay there. I’ve heard tell that there’s a whole industry based on people moving house…’ He smiled. ‘Go on. Be brave. And if you get it wrong, you are absolutely allowed to have another go.’

  ‘Oh shush,’ Anna said, smiling despite herself. Getting it wrong never really felt like an option for her. Part of this exhausting commitment to the moral high ground meant that failure could not be an option. There would be no divorce, no failed manuscript rejected all over town, no nasty break-ups, or crying children.

  It was admittedly twisted logic, but it made sense to Anna within the framework of her life so far.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether perfectionism is the last socially acceptable form of addiction,’ she said, thinking out loud. ‘But it’s not easy to give up.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Henry said. ‘I don’t imagine it’s an ethos you could ditch overnight, either. Could you maybe start with a small change? Something important enough to care about, but where it really, truly wouldn’t be the end of the world if it went tits up. Something you want in your life but that you’ve been avoiding for fear of getting it wrong.’

  Anna nodded. For someone so young, Henry made an awful lot of sense. And seeing him this morning, with Oscar strapped to his chest, he had somehow gained a gravitas and authenticity that had been lacking as they’d larked about on his boat, on the beach.

  Her mind skittered through the possibilities, and as she thought about her writing, her friendships and the possibility of a place to call home, she realised that one unnerving theme had developed: so many of her big decisions of late hadn’t ever been hers at all. She’d been letting life happen to her, unengaged in the process, and buffeted by prevailing winds.

  ‘You know something, Henry, it is so much harder to ask for what you want out of life, if you have absolutely no idea what that is. I mean, beyond the vague and generic. I want to be happy. I want to be healthy and safe. But doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Probably,’ he agreed. ‘But not everyone wants to be a writer. Or to spend their lives globetrotting.’

  ‘So I could go back to actually submitting my travel articles, rather than just thinking about it?’

  ‘Are you asking me, or telling me?’ Henry grinned. ‘One of my gran’s best rejoinders there, by the way.’

  Anna laughed. ‘For what it’s worth, I think I’m a little bit in love with your grandparents. And their fisherman’s therapy.’

  ‘They are the best,’ he agreed. ‘Another favourite of hers: there’s no reward without a little risk – but who are you betting on if not yourself?’

  ‘Shit.’ Anna shook her head. ‘Imagine if I’d had a cuppa with your gran ten years ago. I could have saved myself a decade of soul-searching.’

  ‘Yeah, that pesky decade of fun and travel and exploring the world – who wouldn’t want to avoid that?’ Henry laughed. ‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t put it to work for you.’

  Anna resisted the urge to stick out her tongue, but she felt a small lift in the weight that sat so squarely on her shoulders. Time you enjoyed wasting could never really qualify as wasted time, after all. If only she weren’t always, always, so hard on herself.

  All she had ever really wanted, it seemed, was to find answers. And yet, the more she travelled, and the more lives she temporarily borrowed, the more it served only to throw up more questions. Ten years of trying on lives for size and she was none the wiser about what she, Anna Wilson, actually wanted in her life.

  And it felt as though a few decisions on that front were now long overdue.

  ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ Henry said, the colour rising up his neck again as he fidgeted. ‘Start small. Make a small change. A small plan.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like staying in touch with me when you leave – I mean, I’m guessing that’s not something you normally do, right?’

  Anna wrinkled her nose. He made a valid point. So many connections over the years. So many moments of small truths. All of them left behind.

  ‘Staying in touch?’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘You know, almost as though we were friends.’

  Even before her whirling mind could consider what that might look like, Anna felt her face crease into a smile.

  ‘I think I would like that,’ she said.

  Chapter 20

  Swindon, 2001

  Anna looked around her bedroom – a monstrous confection of pink kitsch – and wondered whether she was in fact, as Jackie had often chastised her, just plain rude and ungrateful.

  A bedroom of her own.

  No sharing, no negotiating, no demarcations of where she was allowed to put her belongings. No need even to say goodbye.

  A room designed, apparently, with only her in mind.

  And therein lay the rub: how could Kara and Ian possibly know her, even a little bit, if they thought this would be something she would like? No bookshelves, but a heap of glossy ‘teen’ magazines. No radio, but a hot-pink stereo with a stack of pop CDs. And, possibly worst of all, the wardrobe already filled with girly, flouncy skirts and dresses in shades of pastel and white.

  Mary Janes in patent black leather.

  Anna held tightly to the bag in her arms, her jeans and T-shirts, her few novels, suddenly feeling even more precious – a last semblance of who she truly was.

  And perhaps it was a little strange for a girl her age to prefer Beethoven to Busted, or White Teeth to Harry Potter. But then, she had never pretended otherwise.

  It was just a very confusing place to be – this room – since s
he’d met Kara and Ian several times. They’d talked, laughed, discussed how her life with them would be.

  And none of those plans had included tulle or twinkles.

  Anna lay back on the bed, throwing a sequined pillow across the room in frustration, and trying to find a comfortable spot. This was to be her third placement in as many years and, whatever Kara and Ian had promised, Anna could only see this new situation as temporary too.

  She wasn’t a likeable child. Fact. She knew that she irritated people with her quiet resilience; she would share her belongings but never her thoughts. In her mind, she’d already given away the very last measure of privacy and pride, and she determined that her feelings, at least, would remain her own.

  And so she read, or perhaps devoured, novels that were well beyond her age, to challenge herself, yes, but also to see what life would be like when she too was a grown-up and could make her own decisions. Books were, at times, her only constant, her only companion, and Anna treasured the few volumes she had with an intensity that bemused those who took care of her.

  After Marjorie, there’d been Gail. Gail and Mike with their petulant daughter, Lucy. Anna was to be the longed-for sibling, the child that ‘completed’ their family, and yet apparently nobody had sent Lucy that memo. Angry, slow-witted, bitterly resentful, Anna’s every academic achievement irked her and laid the groundwork for some hateful tirade; insults that Anna had never even heard in the foster homes poured out of the mouth of this perfect blonde cherub, her pink cheeks contorted with jealousy.

  It was never going to last.

  And so, to Tina and Dave – the last hope for Anna to stay on at her grammar school, the last placement within the catchment. And there, Anna had learned very quickly to trust her own instincts, her own gut. Deep down, she’d known that there was something a bit ‘off’ about Dave even on their very first meeting, but Jackie had been clear on her options and, for a girl like Anna, her school had become her happy place. A place where her passions and endeavours had been encouraged, not ridiculed. A place where Marjorie’s words of wisdom made sense, like the pieces of a jigsaw fitting together to make a picture of her own choosing.

  When Dave’s wandering eye became a daily, cringeworthy occurrence, and the incipient threat of wandering hands grew more hazardous by the day, Anna had locked herself away. His avuncular promise to ‘tuck you in later’ turned her stomach every night as she went to bed, locking her door and checking over and over again that it was secure, with increasing anxiety, even as the handle turned and jiggled late into the night.

  When Tina announced she was going away for a few days ‘for work’ and Anna saw the look of delighted anticipation on Dave’s face, his moist, fat tongue flicking out to touch his lips, then suddenly a grammar school education didn’t seem like a price worth paying.

  Anna had never been so pleased to have Jackie on speed dial, even accepting with good grace her sigh of annoyance as she drove over to collect Anna once again.

  * * *

  ‘Anna? Anna love? Are you okay in there?’ Kara tapped plaintively at the bedroom door. A door with no lock.

  ‘I’ve made us some supper and we thought, as a treat, we’d eat in front of the telly? What do you think?’

  Anna stood up and opened the door, all too familiar with the longing expression on Kara’s face. It was like looking in a mirror. Eyes wide, supplicating, wondering what it would take to earn affection.

  ‘Thank you, Kara. That sounds lovely,’ Anna said.

  Kara hesitated, waving her hand towards the wardrobe. ‘I know some of it might not be to your taste, but Jackie said you didn’t have much.’ She offered a wavering smile. ‘It can all go back, if you’d rather go shopping together? We can make a day of it.’

  Anna felt torn. So much thought, so much effort, however misguided. And if these were the clothes that Kara had chosen, then surely that spoke volumes about the kind of ‘daughter’ she was looking for?

  ‘Maybe we can do a little of both?’ she suggested tentatively. ‘I’ll mainly be in school uniform and casual clothes, won’t I?’ The thought of having more seemed almost alien. After all, how many days in the week were there? Uniform, pyjamas; jeans and sneakers for the weekend. Anything more felt decadent to the point of extravagance.

  Kara clapped her hands. ‘Of course, but did you see these?’ She bounded into the room and with huge ceremony reached into the chest of drawers, emerging with a pair of bright velour tracksuit trousers laid out across her hands like an offering, ‘Juicy’ studded across the backside. ‘I’ve always wanted to have some of these but I think my tush is past it.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Anna, curling up inside a little, willing herself to find the necessary enthusiasm. Blatant lies made her feel disingenuous, she’d decided last week, as she’d copied the definition into her notebook in her careful cursive script: slightly dishonest and insincere. Yet the desire to fit in, to blend into each new placement like a chameleon was still strong, almost overpowering.

  It wasn’t enough to long for her mother, a person she barely even remembered without an inexplicable chill of apprehension, but now, everywhere she went, Anna tried desperately to recreate the life she’d so briefly discovered with Marjorie; a life where her opinion mattered and her childhood was simply an apprenticeship for the grand adventures and successes she could strive for in her own life. Soon. In six short years.

  ‘Do you like them?’ Kara pushed.

  ‘I never dreamed I’d own a pair like that,’ Anna said, nodding, not a word of a lie.

  * * *

  It was probably the springy velour trackpants that shattered all Anna’s resolutions that this time would be different. This time, she’d promised herself quietly in Jackie’s car on the way over, she wouldn’t be a chameleon, blending to fit. She could be herself, couldn’t she? Admit to her own interests and ambitions, talk about the travels and adventures she longed for?

  But somehow, with the generosity of that gift, which seemed to embody Kara’s desperate eagerness to connect, Anna felt herself weakening. Surely fitting in, pleasing Kara, was more important than that feeling of freedom Anna so rarely felt, when she could actually be herself?

  If she even knew what that looked like anymore: she felt like a glass of orange squash, diluted down to a pale imitation of herself.

  But maybe it was worth it, because no matter what life threw her way, there was always that hope, however small, that she had finally landed somewhere she could stay.

  Even when the common-sense voice in her head urged caution, anticipating a more pessimistic – dare she say it – realistic outcome.

  Everything and everyone in Anna’s life was temporary. Until Anna’s mother showed up – one way or another – foster care was the only option on the table.

  Anna knew it; Kara knew it. And yet still she made no secret of her wish to adopt. ‘Just to be sure,’ she would say with a smile, as she plaited Anna’s hair into long, heavy braids that weighed down her small frame and made her scalp ache.

  Strangely though, after only a few weeks, it was Ian who called time on Anna’s ruse.

  ‘Now, you two, I’ve been thinking about this a lot and it’s time we had a frank conversation,’ he said, pouring gravy over his chicken and passing the boat – a gravy boat! – over to Anna. He looked at his wife sternly, affection and concern mingled into one. ‘Our Anna isn’t to become your mini-me. She’s twelve, not thirty, and whilst I’m glad you two have had fun with the yoga and the outings this summer, school’s about to start and there’ll be lots of clubs and activities to join. So, I think we need to talk about what Anna really enjoys doing.’

  Kara blushed but didn’t look surprised, almost as though this wasn’t the first time Ian had shared his concern.

  Anna shook her head, spilling gravy from her fork and instinctively flinching, looking around for a cloth.

  Ian simply handed her his napkin reassuringly. ‘It’s only gravy, love,’ he said kindly. ‘So tell us – and there�
�s no need to be polite – what do you enjoy?’

  Anna shrugged, unaccustomed to the spotlight and confused as to her role. ‘I’m fine,’ she said earnestly. ‘I don’t really know what I like.’ She speared an enormous roast potato, still getting used to the fact that every night, without fail, they sat down to a lovely meal. No more white toast with sugar to fill her gnawing stomach. No more lying awake, daydreaming about hot salty chips at the seaside.

  She looked around their house – always immaculate, bright scatter cushions and huge prints hanging on the pure white walls. Their only concession to clutter had seemingly been Anna herself.

  ‘I like books,’ she offered, ‘but I’m guessing you knew that?’ She smiled nervously. It was a source of confusion to Kara that Anna would rather spend her allowance on paperbacks than party clothes. Not to mention a standing joke that Anna would arrive at the local library clutching all three of their library cards for maximum book-borrowing capacity. It was only of late that she’d stopped selecting books by weight – reassured that she could come back again whenever she liked.

  Ian laughed, nodding towards the newly installed bookshelves. ‘Yes, I’m not sure what tipped us off about that one. But seriously, it’s going to be a fresh start at Hinchworth, and the chance to make lots of new friends. And sometimes those friends are the ones you meet in class, but often they’re the ones who share your hobbies and interests. You might join the same clubs or teams…?’ His voice petered out, concern etched on his face as he took in Anna’s unexpected reaction.

  Colour draining from her tanned cheeks, making the freckles stand out on her face as though drawn by marker, her eyes darting back and forth uncertainly between Kara and Ian.

  School was something she’d simply chosen not to think about, a talent she’d developed for when things bothered her. Leaving the grammar school had been so much harder than she’d realised, especially when Jackie had taken her for a tour of Hinchworth.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Ofsted.