by Lilac Mills
Telling himself that something would come up soon, he started the engine and moved off. But in his heart all he felt was dread and a crushing sense of defeat.
Chapter 4
Lottie
The last thing Lottie had expected Henry to announce when he’d arrived home from work that evening was that she would shortly be taking delivery of a boat.
For a moment she’d thought he’d lost his marbles. Despite living only two miles from the sea, the family hadn’t had much to do with it. Other than numerous and very lovely trips to the beach or walks along the coastal path, none of them had done much more than paddle in it. If the weather was particularly good and if he was feeling adventurous enough, Henry sometimes swam in it, but he never went more than a few metres from the breaking waves and, to her knowledge, he’d never been on a boat in his life.
But when he’d told her what it was for, she didn’t know whether to kiss him, laugh incredulously or weep. That he had such belief in her abilities was humbling. And because he’d hadn’t taken much interest in her penchant for rescuing bits and pieces for the last few years, it was also rather unexpected. But nevertheless welcome. She’d seen his expression when she’d told him she’d fixed Robin’s bed, and she guessed what had been going through his mind – he’d wanted to be able to take his son to a shop and tell him to pick whichever bed took his fancy, but he was so intent on saving for the extension that he couldn’t, so he was doing the next best thing, and hoping she was up to the job.
As did Lottie herself.
* * *
‘Where do you want it?’ John asked, manoeuvring the boat out of the rear of his livestock trailer and hefting it over his shoulder. He grunted a bit and Lottie quickly offered to help. ‘I can manage. Where’s it going?’
‘In the shed, please.’ She showed him the way to the large outbuilding at the back of the house, swiftly opening the door and moving stuff out of the way. Her shed was neat and tidy, and quite large, but there was no way a ruddy great boat was going to fit in there without her shifting things. Looking at it, she didn’t know how it was going to fit in Robin’s room, either. She was tempted to paint it and stick it in the garden for the kids to use as a sandpit, but the beach was only two miles away and she’d be forever sweeping up sand…
She helped John lower it to the floor, and stood back to take a good look at it. It didn’t appear to be in too bad a condition and, thankfully, she couldn’t see any evidence of woodworm.
‘Thank you so much for this. I know you told Henry you didn’t want anything for it, but please let me give you something,’ she offered.
‘Pleasure, that’s what you’ve given me – I hate seeing things go to waste. And an invite to see it once it’s done.’
No pressure, then, she thought wildly. ‘Of course. We’ll crack a bottle on her,’ she joked.
After waving him off, Lottie turned her attention back to the boat. It was about eight foot long and four wide at the middle, tapering into a squared-off end at the back and a pointy bit at the front. It had two planks of wood across the middle which she assumed would have been used for the occupants to sit on, and it still had the metal bits on either side where the oars would have gone in. She made a mental note to see if she could find some – they’d look brilliant above the bed.
Oh, listen to her – it looked like she was definitely going to do this, and a shock of excitement shot through her. She couldn’t wait to get started, but first she had to make up her mind exactly what she was going to do with it.
Thinking furiously and scribbling some notes on a pad, she strolled around it, looking at it from every angle. Thank God the boat wasn’t a big one; she could just about cope with the size, but to double-check she grabbed her measuring tape, noted down its dimensions, then raced inside to check if it really would fit in Robin’s room.
Seeing that it would (just about) she blew out her cheeks and sagged against the wall. Her son’s room was a little short on storage and, as she gazed around it wondering how it could be reconfigured to make the best use of the space, an idea came to her that sent her dashing outside and into the shed once again.
She knew precisely what she was going to do and where she needed to start, although the mattress would be a problem. Or would it…? Lottie pulled the tape measure out of her jeans pocket and measured the inside of the boat. After darting back into the house to measure Robin’s single mattress, she made a mark on the inside of the boat where it would fit. To her dismay, although it would sit nicely at the squared-off end, there would be some space at the sides where they curved out and quite a lot at the front where the pointy bit – the prow, she suddenly remembered – was.
She debated taking the front off – but then it wouldn’t look like a boat any more, and considering that was the purpose of it, she knew she’d have to have another think.
The first thing she should do was to put a base in the bottom of the boat for the mattress to sit on, then she’d cut a hole in the side to allow access underneath and use the space for storage. Similarly, she could keep the prow shape, but open it up from the front to make shelves.
The more she thought about it, the more she knew it would work. Excited, Lottie took some photos and uploaded them to Instagram. She’d started the account a couple of years before after following several people who upcycled things, and now she had a respectable 2,000 or so followers. Some of them were friends and acquaintances, but the majority were strangers. It was rather thrilling to receive likes and comments about her projects from people she’d never met.
She was happily beavering away, a sanding block in her hand, when she realised she needed to hurry if she wasn’t going to be late picking Morgan up from nursery. The two and a half hours had flown by. Hopefully he’d settle down after his lunch for a nap, and she could carry on working on the boat. Now that she’d started, she didn’t want to stop.
Drat – when she went to wash her hands in the downstairs loo, she noticed she was wearing a fine film of wood dust over the parts of her face her mask hadn’t covered, and her clothes and her hair were coated in the stuff. She looked a mess, so she swiftly splashed some water on her face and scrubbed her skin with a flannel. The resulting red tinge to her cheeks, forehead and chin was possibly worse than the dust.
She grabbed her keys and once she was outside, she jumped up and down, frantically slapping at her clothes to try to shake off as much wood dust as she could. God knows what the neighbours would think of her if any of them happened to look out of their window.
Keeping her head high and pretending she didn’t care that she looked a fright, she collected Morgan and took him home, hoping he’d have one of his increasingly rare naps.
No such luck – he was crankier than usual and refused to settle, and she ended up sitting on the floor and playing with his farm set instead of working on the boat-bed, until it was time to fetch the other two.
The school runs punctuated her weekdays, bracketed by nagging her children to put their school uniform on before they went, and nagging them to take it off when they got home. By the time Sabrina and Robin needed to be collected, Lottie had tidied herself up somewhat from that morning’s debacle and she wasn’t looking half as dusty, although her scalp still felt gritty. Ruefully, she acknowledged that she’d never be a yummy mummy, unlike some of the women congregating at the school gates. It wasn’t in her nature to dress up and put on make-up merely to walk her kids to and from school; some days it was a miracle she managed to change out of her pyjamas for the occasion.
And talking of yummy mummies – Lottie was a bit taken aback when, at the school gates, Natalie Sharp deigned to turn to her and demand, ‘Are you really going to make Robin sleep in a boat?’
Lottie heard a titter from the woman’s cronies. ‘Only as much as you make Callum sleep in a fire engine,’ she retorted, mildly. Instagram had its downsides, and Natalie Sharp viewing Lottie’s photos was one of them. She’d considered blocking her, but Natalie would know she’d
been blocked and that would cause more trouble than it was worth.
‘It looks…’ The woman shuddered, words to describe the horror of the boat-bed having failed her. She grimaced and shrugged.
‘Wonderful?’ Lottie supplied.
‘Hardly. And I’ll have you know that Callum’s bed was from Nighty Night.’
Lottie hated the one-upmanship that seemed to be in abundance when it came to mums and their kids. ‘I want Robin to have something unique, not something off the shelf,’ she retorted, as coolly as she could manage.
‘Oh, it’ll be unique, all right.’ More tittering from Natalie’s gang.
Delia swept in and dragged Lottie away. ‘Ignore her, she’s only jealous. You’ve got a skill and talent, and what has she got?’
‘A cushy job in the doctor’s surgery? This skill and talent of mine doesn’t bring in any income.’
Lottie caught sight of Sabrina as she waltzed out of the Year 5 classroom along with her friends, trying to pretend Lottie wasn’t there. She supposed she could allow her eldest to walk home on her own, but it would be rather silly considering Lottie still had to be there to collect Robin. The group of girls flitted around each other like burgundy butterflies in their school sweatshirts, their giggles and chatter contrasting with the squeal and yell of the boys as they leapt on each other’s backs, or spun their friends around by their backpack straps.
Robin launched himself at her, his enthusiasm on seeing his mother in direct contrast to the lack of it from his sister.
‘Oof!’ Lottie grunted as he headbutted her in the stomach, thrust his bag and coat at her, then dashed off to race around the playground.
‘Yes, but if you make something it stops you having to buy it, so it’s almost like having an income.’ Delia carried on seamlessly after her son, Mick, thrust his schoolbag into her hands. ‘It’s almost as good as having a job, and why shouldn’t it bring in some money? You could sell some of the things you make.’
‘No one wants other people’s cast-offs.’ Lottie caught Sabrina’s bag as her daughter handed it to her as she swept past. She always ended up carrying backpacks, coats, PE bags, artwork, a half-eaten sandwich left over from lunch… she often felt like a packhorse.
‘You have heard of eBay, haven’t you?’ Delia persisted. ‘And what about Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, and boot sales? You’ve told me yourself that you’ve picked up loads of stuff over the years for the house and the kids from boot sales. If other people can sell things they don’t want, why shouldn’t you?’
They rounded their children up and began the familiar walk home, the mums holding on to the hands of the littlest children, the older ones scampering on ahead. Sabrina and Mick were as thick as thieves, having known each other since they were babes in arms, and Robin was tagging behind, hoping to be noticed by his older sibling and her friend.
Lottie thought about what Delia said and opened her mouth once or twice to make a comment, then closed it again before saying anything.
‘You don’t think you’re good enough, do you?’ Delia observed.
Delia had a point – it was one thing Lottie doing this for herself and her family, it was quite another thing entirely doing it in order to sell it. Nothing she produced was ever perfect, and while she was realistic enough to know that nothing ever was perfect – there were tiny flaws in everything that maybe only the creator could see – she’d know they were there and they’d haunt her.
‘What have you got to lose?’ Delia was saying, as Lottie watched her son and Mick haring up and down the pavement. Sabrina now stalked in front, studiously ignoring their antics, believing she was too old for such childish things as a game of tag. Mick was good like that, happily playing with the younger child, much to Sabrina’s disgust.
Delia shouted to her ten-year-old to slow down; he pretended he hadn’t heard. ‘Pick something up off Freecycle,’ she advised Lottie. ‘Do your thing, then sell it.’
‘But what if it’s no good or nobody wants to buy it?’
‘If you make something that you and your family would use, then whatever it is won’t go to waste.’
Lottie saw the boys poking their tongues out at her daughter’s back, but she couldn’t be bothered to tell them off. If she intervened every time the children made fun of each other she’d be doing nothing but scolding them. She gripped Morgan’s hand tighter as he tried to tug himself free to join the older boys.
‘Let go, Mummy. Want Robin,’ he demanded.
‘No chance, buster. You’re too little not to hold Mummy’s hand.’
‘Am not.’ Morgan abruptly went limp and collapsed onto the pavement, almost yanking Lottie’s arm out of the socket. He hung there like a baby chimpanzee on a branch, the beginnings of a wail issuing from his mouth.
Lottie scooped him up and balanced him on her hip, trying to avoid his flailing feet. ‘He didn’t have a nap,’ she explained, when Delia caught her eye with a sympathetic smile. ‘When they get to this stage, I’m always torn between trying to get them off to sleep in the afternoon so I don’t have to put up with this, or being relieved he’ll drop off at seven instead of still being awake at nine.’
‘The next couple of hours will be interesting,’ Delia agreed. ‘Trying to keep them awake until bedtime when they’re like this is always fun.’ She pulled a face and Lottie laughed. ‘I’m serious, Lottie,’ she said, returning to their earlier conversation. ‘You’ve seen all those programmes on TV where old things are brought back to life. People are interested in that kind of thing.’
‘Yeah, to do it themselves.’
‘Some people will want to, of course; but others will want the items but won’t have the time, the patience or the skill. They’ll just want the finished results.’
‘Surely they’d just go and buy new?’
‘Like Natalie Sharp, you mean? As I said, she’s jealous.’
Lottie wasn’t convinced about any of it – from Natalie’s supposed jealousy, right through to selling the bits and pieces she transformed. She also knew how much work went into producing the pieces she made; it would never be cost-effective. If she seriously wanted to contribute to the family’s finances, she’d be better off going out and getting a proper job. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel able to do that until Morgan started school: she’d fork out more in childcare than she’d earn. Besides, it wasn’t easy finding a job that fitted in with school hours, and the school holidays would be a nightmare to manage. Her parents lived too far away to be of any help and they both still worked, and although Henry’s parents lived in Applewell, they had full-time jobs, too.
The only option open to her was to work in the evenings when Henry was at home and could look after the kids. But she was knackered enough already by teatime – goodness knows how she’d cope if she had to go out to work just when the children were off to bed.
Thinking of Henry must have set something in motion, because just then her phone trilled with an incoming text. Smiling at Delia, she waved goodbye as her friend turned into the road she lived on, and Lottie checked to see what Henry wanted.
Going to be late, she read.
That figured – this past week or so he’d been late more often than not. It looked like she’d have to deal with the kids by herself again this evening.
As she let them into the house, the children darted in front of her, discarding shoes, coats, sweatshirts and a stick (Robin had brought it home for some inexplicable reason) as they went. She followed them inside, calling for them to come and pick their stuff up and put it away, continuing with the usual nag that they change out of their school uniform or they wouldn’t have the snacks she’d prepared for them.
Lottie sighed dramatically as her words fell on deaf ears. Groundhog Day had nothing on her.
Chapter 5
Henry
Henry looked at his watch with a frown; it might be late, but he couldn’t prevent himself from checking yet another job site. The library was quiet at this time in the evening, hardly a soul
in it apart from the librarians themselves, but he glanced around quickly, almost furtively, to check there was no one who knew him. Improbable, he realised, but he didn’t want to take any chances. When he thought about it logically, he was hardly likely to meet anyone he knew in Lampeter Library, and if he did, they wouldn’t be peering over his shoulder to see what he was doing. But still…
Over the course of the last few days he’d popped into a library on the way home from work to make use of their computers. That evening the nearest one had been in Lampeter, and so far he’d applied for two jobs – but he wasn’t particularly hopeful about either of them.
There were jobs around, but very few in this area: it was bad enough being on the road most of the day as it was, without having to spend nights away from home, living out of a suitcase. Besides, if he took a job where he had to do that, he would have to pay those overnight expenses himself, and he wasn’t quite that desperate. Not yet.
He’d been mostly concentrating on vacancies with agencies who specialised in agricultural sales – surprisingly, there were several of them in what one might assume would be a very niche market. This latest trawl had shown him very little of interest, although he seriously considered a marketing executive job, before he realised that his CV would probably be thrown straight in the bin.
He checked the time once more, dismay running through him when he realised how late it was. Lottie would be cheesed off again. Since Redundancy-gate, as he referred to it, he’d been late home more often than he’d been on time, and he could tell Lottie was becoming a little fed up with him.
Reluctantly, because he felt compelled to keep looking no matter how tired he was or how futile the search, Henry removed the memory stick from the computer and slipped it in his pocket. The stick held his CV, which he’d recently updated, and a covering letter, which he was careful to tailor to each application. The other day he’d forgotten to take it out of the library’s computer, almost reaching his car before he’d realised and had to dash back inside to fetch it. Henry’s mind was still very firmly on job hunting when he walked into his house some time later, shrugging his jacket off at the door and dropping his briefcase at the bottom of the stairs. He hung his jacket over the newel post and walked into the kitchen, flinging his car keys onto the worktop near the microwave.
