The Art of Hiding

by Amanda Prowse

  She looked up over the chimney pots, wondering what was going on inside the numerous homes all squished together in this little corner of the city. She knew that in many of them, parents just like her would be waking children for their first day of school after the half-term break and, just like her, they would be sitting with nerves shredded, torn between wanting to get the day started and wishing she could delay it.

  A bus pulled up and Lucia got off, wearing her striped overall over a tracksuit. Nina could see she was tired, and remembered Lucia had a night job, cleaning. She waved her hand in greeting and Lucia managed a smile, then a yawn, followed by the universally recognised sign for sleep, her two hands in prayer, laid against her tilted head.

  Nina gestured for her to come inside, remembering her dad coming home from night shifts, the joy he took in easing off his cumbersome work boots and flexing his feet inside the thick socks, and the look of bliss on his face as he sipped hot tea that seemed to offer momentary restoration.

  Lucia came over to the door, which Nina opened. ‘Can’t I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘I can’t. Babysitting duties.’ She pulled a face. ‘My baby sister, Jemima.’

  Nina had thought the baby was hers. ‘Oh how lovely, your lucky mum!’ She meant it.

  ‘Yes, lucky. I’m one of six and she just keeps getting lucky!’

  One of six? Nina bit her lip, not wanting to blurt out what she was thinking: that having six children could do nothing to help when your life was a struggle financially. It was another wake-up to just how much her life with Finn had shielded her from the harsh reality of what she had left behind.

  ‘Are you the oldest?’

  ‘No, I have two older brothers, both moved away, one at college, and then the three little ones are at home with Mum and me.’

  ‘Hard work, I bet.’

  ‘Yes, hard work, and the reason I can’t go away to college for my art, my painting. There’s just not the money – a student loan would barely cover it and I don’t know how Mum would cope without me.’

  ‘That’s such a shame.’ Nina didn’t want to judge or pry, but she wished she could tell her that it was important she live her life too, follow her dreams. ‘I bet you are talented.’

  ‘I love painting. I’m really good.’ Lucia held her gaze and Nina envied her confidence in her ability.

  ‘You shouldn’t let it go to waste.’

  The girl shrugged, as if the sentiment, no matter how well intended, were irrelevant. ‘Anyway, better get home. A quick nap, then the kids are up for school.’

  ‘Your mum’s certainly lucky to have you.’

  Lucia blushed. ‘I’ll take you up on that cup of tea another time.’

  ‘You bet.’ Nina hoped she would. Here, in this community, alone, she felt comfortable in reaching out the neighbourly hand of friendship, wanting to engage. Yet at The Tynings, where she had had enough room to house the entire neighbourhood, and an abundance of beverages to offer, the thought didn’t occur to her. An image of Mrs Appleton flashed into her mind and she cringed, remembering the damp, dark evening she had practically begged the woman, who was little more than a stranger, for shelter.

  She heard the boys’ bedroom door open and the sound of Connor running a bath. The bathroom was harder to spruce up. The addition of lime green towels and bath mats from home had certainly brought a welcome splash of colour. These additions, however, counted for little when her skin met with the scratched base of the plastic bath and the icy wall tiles when climbing in and out.

  She hadn’t told the boys, thinking it might unsettle them, but only the day before she had taken a call from Mr Firth. He had told her softly, kindly, that the liquidators had been inside and taken any bits of large furniture that were left, the gates had been padlocked, the locks changed, and a ‘For Sale’ sign put up. It was hard for her not to picture the numerous times she had driven through those gates, pulling up in her fancy car with groceries, shopping or kids in tow . . . She couldn’t imagine being locked out of the home they had created. Mr Firth was a good man and she was thankful that he had thought to ring. She flashed back to Connor’s distressed call and the battered lorry on the driveway. Even the thought of it left her feeling a little queasy. Nina tried not to imagine the house now, preferring to think of it in its pristine state, even managing to erase the image of two sets of dirty footprints left by Mr Ludlow’s associates on her hallway floor.

  She shivered and took a glug of her tea. There simply wasn’t enough headspace available for her to go over that day again. Not with everything else to occupy her thoughts.

  ‘Mum?’ Declan stood in the doorway, clutching his stomach, ‘I’ve got an upset tummy.’ He grimaced.

  ‘That’ll just be nerves, darling. It’s okay, once you get settled and your day is under way you’ll be right as rain, you’ll see.’ She winked at him, trying to lighten the mood, fighting her desire to scoop him into her arms and hold him close. She thought of the bedwetting incident, the stress that Declan hid, and that pained her so.

  Declan screwed up his face, ‘It’s not that, Mum. I need the bathroom. I need it badly, but Connor is in there.’

  ‘Oh, oh God.’ She put her tea down and rushed along the hallway, knocking gently on the door, ‘Con, sorry to disturb you, but Declan needs to use the bathroom and he needs it now!’

  ‘I’ll be five minutes!’ he snapped.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve got five minutes!’ she yelled, whilst smiling reassuringly at her youngest.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’

  She heard a loud splash and then the stamp of her son’s feet on the linoleum floor. The door flung open and Connor stood dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his waist.

  Declan rushed in and slammed the door, then banged the toilet seat against the bowl.

  ‘Thank you, Connor.’

  He ignored her, shaking his head and twisting his jaw in frustration before he started banging on the door with his fist. ‘Hurry up, Declan!’

  ‘Please don’t take it out on him, he can’t help it, he needs the loo!’

  ‘And I need a bath and here we are stuck in this shitty flat on this shitty day!’

  ‘You need to pipe down, Connor. You can’t talk to me like that. I am aware that our situation is far from perfect—’

  ‘You think?’ he snorted, interrupting her.

  ‘Losing your temper is not going to help anything.’

  He huffed and stared at his feet.

  Nina felt the first throb of a headache. This was not the start she had hoped for.

  The boys ate their breakfast of cereal in the narrow kitchen. The lack of space meant they stood side by side, leaning against the cupboards.

  ‘You both look lovely,’ she tried.

  Connor tugged at the thin polo shirt collar that sat under his sweatshirt and turned up his nose, as if both the material and school logo offended him.

  ‘This is, like, something you might wear for PE!’ He shook his head. She had to admit it was a world away from his old uniform of a stiff-collared white shirt, navy sweater and pure wool blazer with the school crest and motto emblazoned on the chest. Nina felt a spike of disgust when she recalled just how much she had enjoyed traipsing around the city with her boys in tow, quietly acknowledging the knowing looks from other residents who knew what it took to be a Kings Norton College boy.

  ‘And the good news is, you finish at four fifteen. That’s a whole hour earlier than you are used to. You’ll have more free time of an evening.’

  ‘You are right, Mum, this whole move is a great idea because rather than carry on with the education I was getting and being able to play my rugby, I now get to spend an extra hour sitting on my bunk bed trying to block out the noise of the road we live on and Declan’s non-stop talking!’

  Declan shrank at his brother’s comments.

  ‘I know you are anxious about today and I understand that. It sucks that we are in this situation, it sucks that you have had to change s
chools and it sucks that we live here with one bathroom and that Declan needs a shit while you need a bath. I get it.’

  Both boys looked up at her. Declan sucked in his cheeks, whether to stifle any potential laughter at her language, or whether to stem his embarrassment, she wasn’t sure.

  ‘I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all better, but I can’t. I can’t.’ She paused. ‘And the one thing I do know is that you are a great kid, Connor. You both are.’ She smiled at Declan. ‘You know how to make the best of a situation – you learned that on the rugby field, right? Looking for the opportunity! Adapting quickly to whatever might come your way! Thinking fast! That’s you, Con, and these are your skills! And that is what will get you through this.’

  Connor stood up straighter. Declan continued to look at the floor. ‘And you, Declan, have nothing to worry about. There is nobody on the planet that has ever met you and not wanted to be your friend. Plus, your big brother is only ever going to be a corridor away.’ She brushed his cheek and thought again of Tiggy and how comforting it was to have a sibling looking out for you.

  Connor turned and walked back into the bedroom, closing the door behind him loudly. Nina felt the apartment shudder, quickly followed by a banging on the ceiling above and a shout of ‘Don’t slam the doors!’

  ‘It was hardly a slam, was it?’ she whispered to Declan, and they both looked upwards towards where Mr Broom Handle’s yell had come from. ‘You and Connor have a right to be angry with me and angry at the world. You have had more to deal with than most adults ever have to. But everything will settle, you’ll see.’

  Declan looked up at her hopefully.

  Nina waved the boys off with a false smile masking a feeling of dread. The three of them had rehearsed the walk to school twice, and both times it had taken a little less than twenty minutes. They had robustly rebuffed her offer to walk with them on their first day. Knowing they would take their lead from her, she smiled and bade them farewell, wishing them luck and promising a nice celebratory supper when they returned.

  She went over to the French windows to wave at Declan, who glanced briefly over his shoulder. A loud wheeze of bus brakes on the road opposite made her jump. It was a physical reminder that her old life was gone, and in this life what she needed to do was not stand and lament what she had lost, but find a job.

  Closing the French doors, she sat on the sofa and opened Declan’s laptop, typing the familiar search for ‘JOB VACANCIES SOUTHAMPTON’, which took her straight to her favoured local paper site. She stared, yet again at the job titles on offer, reading aloud: ‘Gardening Apprentice, School Cleaner, Office Manager, Money Coach.’ She gave a snort of laughter. ‘Money Coach? That’d be a quick interview.’ She clicked on the school cleaner advertisement and read the details, figuring it sounded like her best bet. If there was one thing she could do, it was clean. ‘From 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.’ She read the opening line and her spirits sank. She didn’t have the luxury of choosing suitable hours. As heartbreaking as it may be, she might not be there to greet the boys from school, as she always had been, and they might have to forage for their own supper. She couldn’t sit back and watch their money dwindle to nothing. Amending her saved letter of application, she filled out the online form. The template was now so familiar to her she could almost do it instinctively. She looked at the time – 8.45 – and wondered how the boys were faring. Were they lonely? Nervous? Afraid?

  ‘You can do this, kids!’ she called towards the window.

  An unexpected wave of sadness rose in her. She sank back into the sofa and took a deep breath, feeling slightly woozy. Recent experience had taught her that if she ate in the late morning and then again in the late afternoon, this would get her through the day on two meals. If she ate early she was hungry again by midday and then again in the evening. This way, she saved money and lessened the effect of too little food on her day.

  I just want a job, any job. How come all these people outside my window, running for the bus and walking along the pavement, can manage it and I can’t? I feel like nothing. I feel like I am on the outside of the world looking in, peeping out from behind my tree, hiding . . . ‘And I think I have been for quite a while,’ she said out loud to the walls. She decided to get moving. An idea had been forming for a while and this, she knew, was the day to put it into action.

  Nina fixed up the flat for three hours, folding bed linen, hanging clothes, hefting furniture and shifting heavy boxes until her arms shuddered. The muddle she created caused her to doubt her idea, worrying that she was making things worse rather than better. By the time she had finished, however, with the place dusted, aired and vacuumed, and with sweat on her brow, she was able to stand back and admire her efforts.

  The boys’ bedroom had been somewhat transformed. She had cleverly bisected the space by dismantling the bunk beds and pushing Connor’s to the opposite side and moving his clothes rail to the top of his bed to form a barrier of sorts. Declan’s clothes rail mirrored this on the other side of the room. Two side tables she had brought from The Tynings sat at the heads of the boys’ beds with a little lamp on each, so they could now at least read, or have their own light, and not have to rely on the communal overhead bulb that had sat uncomfortably close to Connor in the top bunk. Not only did the new arrangement instantly let light from the previously blocked window flood in, but it meant that each boy now had a modicum of privacy. She stood back with her hands on her waist feeling a rare sense of achievement. She had worked her way through the whole house.

  Looking up at the clock, it was nearly time. She placed the cut slices of shop-bought cookie dough in the oven and waited. The boys would be home soon. Her stomach was in knots. She closed her eyes, and prayed silently that their first day had gone well, knowing it could set the tone for the coming months. Her heart leapt when the front doorbell rang and she ran to answer it. ‘Hey, boys, there you are! How did it go?’

  Declan wrinkled his nose and gave a little shrug. ‘It was okay.’ The child who always managed to find a silver lining damned the experience with his faint praise. She ran her hand over his head.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she said to Connor. ‘How was it?’

  Connor gave her a dark look and remained silent. He rushed past her and into the bedroom, saying nothing about the changes. Instead, he climbed into his bed, pulling the quilt up over his head and curling himself into a ball. Nina felt awash with disappointment. She had hoped that the thoughtfulness with which he had gathered her flowers, and the openness of their recent communication, might have continued, but as was the way with disgruntled, complicated teens, his mood and treatment of her continued to ebb and flow. One step forward and two steps back.

  ‘I think we should leave him,’ Declan said. Even he sensed her desire to run after Connor and quiz him on how best she could fix things.

  She smiled. ‘Maybe for a bit, then he might want to talk to his mum.’

  Declan wrinkled his nose, as if he found this idea most unlikely.

  The two of them sat on the sofa and nibbled the warm oatmeal and raisin biscuits; an indulgence, and a celebration.

  ‘So come on, how was your day?’ She nudged him.

  ‘Different,’ he managed, through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Very different.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Every way, Mum!’

  ‘Are your teachers nice?’

  ‘My form tutor, Miss Butler is nice, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Some of the girls in my class ignored her. She was telling us what to expect on our first day and she asked me to stand up so that she could introduce me, and all the time she was talking, these three girls at the back of the class were chatting and laughing, really loudly, as if she wasn’t there!’ He looked at his mum with an expression of incredulity.

  This behaviour would have been unthinkable at Kings Norton, where kids were respectful of the teaching staff and equally as fearful of the punishments.

  ‘Maybe Miss Butl
er was just letting everyone get settled in and she might be very strict tomorrow?’ Please God . . .

  ‘Yep, maybe,’ he conceded.

  ‘I’ll go and check on Connor.’ She hoped that the half an hour she had given him to calm down and gather his thoughts might have done the trick. She knocked on the door and gingerly approached his bed. Thankfully he had emerged from under the duvet. He still looked miserable as he banged away on his laptop.

  ‘How are you doing, my love?’

  He shrugged. She laid a hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed. It was the closest thing to a hug that he would allow.

  ‘Do you want a biscuit? I baked some. Actually it might be pointless offering you one – I think Declan is working his way through them.’

  ‘I’m okay, thanks.’

  ‘You don’t seem okay, Con. You seem agitated, upset, and that is understandable, of course. Today was a huge day. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can only help if you tell me what’s on your mind.’

  She stood in silence for a second or two, giving him a chance to change his mind and speak. He didn’t.

  ‘I changed the room around.’ She stated the obvious for want of something to say. ‘It’s better, isn’t it? More space, and a little bit of privacy.’