by Lucy Diamond
‘Can’t Alex sleep with Babs and Marjorie? Or in the kitchen?’
‘No, he can’t. Look, Polly’s family. My sister. It’s nice to have her staying.’ The words sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. Last night’s conversation hadn’t exactly ended nicely.
‘Huh,’ Leila grumbled. ‘I don’t think so. All she ever says to us is How’s school? Who cares about school? She’s a rubbish aunty. She never even buys us sweets.’
‘Yeah,’ Alex agreed. ‘I’m never letting Leila stay with me when I’m a grown-up. Sisters stink.’
‘Not as much as poo-pants brothers,’ Leila retorted. ‘And there’s no way I’d want to stay with you anyway.’
‘Good, cos you’re not invited,’ Alex said, sticking his tongue out. ‘EVER.’
‘Just eat your breakfast, you two,’ Clare sighed, buttering more toast and putting it on the table. She hadn’t had enough sleep the night before to be very patient today. The evening had been surprisingly good fun to begin with, once Polly had got over her initial huff about the cleaning job at the pub. They’d actually had quite a laugh together, even bonded about various telly hunks they both fancied, and the conversation had flowed as easily as the wine.
Then, unfortunately, she had to go and open her big trap about the cleaning job again and it had all gone wrong. Worse than wrong, in fact; she’d ended up tearing a strip off Polly about her bad attitude. That was gin for you, it always made Clare arsey.
She munched her toast thoughtfully. Maybe she’d been a bit harsh. For most of the evening Polly had seemed humbler, less cocksure than in past years, as if the redundancy had knocked out half of her confidence. There must have been some devil in Clare that had been unable to resist that unnecessary swipe, upsetting the delicate balance they’d just arrived at.
‘Alex!’ she roared, suddenly catching sight of him feeding the dog under the table. ‘That toast is for you, not Fred. Hurry up, we’ve got to go in fifteen minutes and you’re not even dressed yet.’
School mornings were usually painfully observed rituals of hustle and hurry. As a single parent, it had to be that way – she couldn’t rely on anyone else to get them all ready and out of the house. Once breakfast had been eaten and the table cleared, clothes had to be thrown on, teeth and hair brushed, bags checked for permission slips, homework or reading books, and then at last they’d be into the final straight of shoes and coats if the weather was bad, or suncream and sunhats if the sun was actually showing its face.
Clare knew from bitter experience that if one single link fell from the chain – if the hairbrush couldn’t be located immediately, for instance, or one of them remembered at the last minute (as they were annoyingly prone to do) that oh yeah, they were meant to be coming to school dressed as a book character today, or whatever – then the whole routine would collapse. No mercy. And so, when she realized her sister was locked in the bathroom taking a long shower when she’d have liked a quick hose-down herself, not to mention the fact that none of them had brushed their teeth yet, she could sense that the morning was on the brink of unravelling completely.
She banged on the door, impatience sparking. ‘Are you going to be long in there?’
There was no reply, except for the sound of pouring water. ‘I need a wee,’ Alex said, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Well, you’ll have to wait, or go in the garden, I’m afraid,’ Clare said wearily.
‘But I need a poo as well.’
Clare took a deep breath and banged on the door again, louder this time. ‘HURRY UP!’ she bellowed through the wood. She felt like thumping her head against it too. Rules were going to have to be set down regarding bathroom availability times, she could see, as well as rules about leaving open gin bottles around the place.
Great. Her new lodger was going to love that.
Thursday was Clare’s day off, so once she’d finally hustled the kids off to school (teeth still unbrushed unfortunately, and with her having to make do with a stand-up wash at the kitchen sink – nice), she wandered home, trying to shake off her bad temper by running through the list of things she needed to tackle that day. A supermarket run, clothes washing, hoovering, tracking down Leila’s lost trainer (what on earth had she done with it?), a long walk with Fred and general house-cleaning and tidying duties. That would do. She rather liked Thursdays, even though they consisted mainly of domestic chores. It was the sense of catching up on herself, of having a breather to put everything in order once more, before the chaos had a chance to explode again.
She was glad not to be going into work for other reasons too. She’d felt embarrassed the entire week about what had happened with Luke the Friday night before. The more she thought about it, the more hysterical she became in her memory of that evening, wild-eyed and frenzied, fingers like claws as she dragged Luke into her car, driving like a lunatic and garbling all that stuff about Michael to him. Shit. What must he think of her? Talk about how to make a fool of yourself. He’d been as friendly and nice as ever since then, asking how Leila was and waving away Clare’s apologies, but she still found herself turning pink every time he came near her. It was toe-curlingly horrendous.
She let out Babs and Marjorie, the chickens, who strutted down their ramp, beady-eyed. ‘Thanks, ladies,’ she said, reaching into their house to collect two warm eggs. ‘At least I can count on you pair.’
Carefully carrying the eggs, she pushed the back door open to see Polly in the kitchen crunching her way through a bowl of cornflakes with a mean-looking black coffee by her elbow. Clare took in the spilled milk on the table, the trail of sugar crystals from the bowl, and Fred with his greedy head under the table to gobble up the stray cornflakes there, and felt cross all over again. ‘Morning,’ she said shortly, putting the kettle on.
Polly jerked in surprise at Clare’s appearance. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘Day off,’ Clare said. ‘There are eggs here, if you want them,’ she added, putting them in the fridge. She opened the cupboard to take out the coffee, just before she saw the empty jar on the worktop, lid off, a scattering of granules freckling the surface. ‘Ahh. Did you use the last of the coffee?’
‘Yeah,’ Polly said. ‘I’ll get some more later on. I think you’re out of milk too, unless there’s another secret fridge that I haven’t tracked down yet.’
Clare smiled tightly. ‘No secret fridge,’ she confirmed.
‘What was all that banging about this morning, by the way?’ Polly asked, spooning in more cornflakes. ‘Do the kids always make that sort of racket?’
‘That was me,’ Clare said, feeling her jaw stiffen. ‘That was me, banging on the bathroom door, because we needed to brush our teeth. And poor Alex nearly wet himself on the way to school because he was bursting for the loo.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘If you could try to avoid having a long shower at that time in the morning, I’d really appreciate it. We’re always in such a mad dash to leave on time as it is, without …’
Polly rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and Clare wanted to throttle her.
‘All right, all right, I didn’t realize,’ she said huffily.
‘Right,’ said Clare as the kettle whistled to a crescendo of boiling – uselessly now, as it had turned out. ‘Well, I guess I’ll hit the supermarket then. Is there anything in particular you want?’
‘Some proper coffee,’ Polly said at once. ‘Oh, and some nice shampoo. I like that Salon Class stuff, you know, in the silver bottles?’
Clare knew, all right. The most expensive range on the shelves, no less. Did Polly expect her to shell out for that, as well as her posh coffee? Clare narrowed her eyes. Like hell she would. Her sister would be getting supermarket own-brand 2-in-1 shampoo and would have to lump it. ‘Sure,’ she said, turning away so that Polly couldn’t see the irritation on her face. She grabbed her handbag and car keys and strode towards the door, with Fred trotting hopefully after her. ‘No, you’re staying here, matey, sorry,’ she said, patting him. ‘I’ll
take you out later. Unless …’ She eyed Polly. ‘Maybe you could take Fred out if you’ve not got anything to do?’
Polly shook her head. ‘I’m going to be busy,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
Clare was reminded of the Little Red Hen story she’d read to the children when they were younger. ‘Well, I’ll just do everything myself then,’ she muttered, slamming the door behind her.
‘I never thought I’d say this, but thank God I’m working today,’ Clare sighed the following morning, sinking into her chair behind the reception desk.
Roxie goggled at her. ‘Er … who are you? You might look like Clare Berry, but you sure as hell don’t sound like her.’
Clare managed a smile. ‘Well, it is me. Just about. A demented version of me, who’s desperate to get out of the house and away from my house-guest, that’s all.’ She shook her head. ‘She is driving me MENTAL.’
Roxie, who was wearing her hair in Princess Leia-style coiled buns over her ears and sporting a lime-green short-sleeved blouse with silver heart-shaped buttons, and a hot-pink frayed denim miniskirt, looked amused. ‘What happened? She hasn’t found out you flogged her daft presents on eBay, has she?’
‘No, and if you ever meet her, you mustn’t tell her,’ Clare said. ‘She’s just got no idea about living with someone, that’s all. She’s worse than a bloody man! She never tidies up after herself, she spends hours in the bathroom every morning when we’re trying to get ready for school, she doesn’t lift a finger to help, and she’s practically colonized the kitchen with her so-called “work”.’ She made little quotation marks in the air with her fingers and snorted. ‘Although I caught her watching Jeremy Kyle when I came back with the shopping yesterday morning, so she’s not exactly pressing her nose to the grindstone.’
‘LOVE Jeremy Kyle,’ Roxie murmured, rather inappropriately.
‘The irony is,’ Clare went on, ignoring the interruption, ‘that I was moaning on to her about how crap and lazy Steve used to be around the house, and she was giving me all this sympathy – like, oh, how awful, what a nightmare. And it turns out she’s even worse; something I didn’t think was humanly possible!’
‘Morning, Luke,’ Roxie cooed just then, batting her false eyelashes, which were so long they sent a small breeze across the reception counter.
‘Morning,’ Clare mumbled, embarrassed to be caught whinging on so heatedly.
Luke seemed distracted as he went by. ‘Morning.’
Roxie began whistling ‘Always Look on the Bright Side’ rather pointedly, but he took no notice and went into his office. ‘What’s up with him then? Has he got spikes in his undercrackers or something?’ She patted Clare’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, honey. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea and tell you my exciting news. That’ll cheer you up.’
Clare smiled wanly, wondering if Roxie’s exciting news meant sordid tales of an imaginary bunk-up with Jake Gyllenhaal or Orlando Bloom this time. Still, it would be a welcome change to have someone else make her a drink, at least. Polly had only been staying two nights, but already Clare felt as if she was running a café-cum-guest-house. ‘Thanks,’ she said, clicking on the appointment list for that day and answering the phone. ‘Good morning, Amberley Health Centre, can I help you?’
‘So,’ Roxie said without preamble a few minutes later, plonking a steaming mug in front of Clare and perching on her swivel seat once more, ‘the exciting news is … I’ve gone and got you some business, hopefully. I know, I’m amazing; I’m the best, you love me. You don’t need to say it, that’s a given.’
‘What do you mean?’ Clare asked, eyes on her computer screen as she typed in a new appointment.
‘I mean, my Aunty Kate came to stay with us last night,’ Roxie said, twirling on her chair. ‘Have I ever told you about her?’
‘No,’ Clare said, wondering where on earth this was going. An old lady had come to stand at the counter, her eyes rheumy. ‘Morning, Mrs Atkins, do take a seat,’ Clare said. ‘Dr Copper will be with you in a minute.’ She turned back to Roxie. ‘Who’s Aunty Kate?’
‘She’s a buyer for Langley’s,’ Roxie went on. ‘You know Langley’s, that funky hotel chain?’
‘No,’ Clare confessed. ‘Funnily enough, I haven’t been to any hotels lately, funky or otherwise.’ She scrolled down the list of patients they had booked in for the morning. It was going to be non-stop today, she could tell already.
Roxie ignored her sarcasm. ‘Well, they’re pretty cool. Glamorous, but funky – kind of like vintage meets art school. Anyway, they’re opening a new boutique hotel not far from here, in Lovington. It’s a new direction for them too, this one, according to Aunty Kate: what they’re calling “Home from Home”. The idea is that you feel like you’re staying with a bohemian, ever-so-slightly eccentric mate, not in some bland corporate-clone hotel.’
The phone rang just then and Roxie took the call. Then, as she was hanging up, the other phone rang, so Clare answered. Then three patients came in for their appointments, and the post arrived and had to be signed for.
‘Go on,’ Clare said, when all this had been dealt with. She had absolutely no idea why Roxie was embarking on this anecdote featuring glamorous hotels, but was interested all the same. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she guessed. ‘Your Aunty Kate has offered to put my sister up for a while in one of these lovely hotels, take her off my hands. No – even better, she’s decided to let me stay there for a holiday and I’m going to be pampered from top to toe. Am I right?’
‘Not quite,’ Roxie said. ‘But listen. She’s a buyer for the chain, so she’s been in charge of kitting out the new hotel with all its furniture, bed linen, cutlery … oh, everything. Can you imagine? Being paid to shop, like, as your job? Well jeal’. Anyway, because it’s Langley’s, it’s really fun, funky stuff too. Like, the crockery looks kitsch and mismatched, not your bog-standard white IKEA stuff, and …’ She caught Clare’s eye and cut to the chase. ‘So she’s got to source a load of toiletries too, for the hotel bathrooms.’ She grinned. ‘And that’s where you come in.’
Clare blinked. ‘What?’
‘She’s sourcing a new range of toiletries for the Lovington hotel,’ Roxie repeated patiently. ‘She said she’s after a local company preferably, organic if possible, really high-quality stuff, but a bit different from the norm. So I told her I knew just the person to supply her. You!’
‘ME?’ Clare laughed at the joke, then stopped as she saw the hurt expression on Roxanne’s face. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘DUH! Of course I’m serious!’ Roxie’s eyes were sparkling with excitement beneath their pearlescent aquamarine eyeshadow. ‘Your stuff is lovely. I showed her my perfume (I couldn’t show her the bath bomb you gave me because I’ve already used it and it’s down the plughole), and I think she was impressed. You would be perfect for Langley’s, I reckon – I mean, it’s not super-posh, like terrifying-posh, where the likes of me and you would be scared of using the wrong knives and forks and what-have-you, but quirky and cool, and … you know. Nice. Just like you.’
Oh, bless her. Clare couldn’t help feeling touched by her friend’s enthusiasm, but shook her head slowly all the same. ‘That’s really sweet of you, Rox, but honestly, my little business is just a kitchen-table sort of thing. It’s only a bit of fun, for family and mates, it’s not like I’m in it as a serious company, or anything …’
The phone was ringing and Roxie snatched it up. ‘Amberley Medical Centre, can you hold for a moment?’ she said politely. She clapped her hand over the receiver and gave Clare a stern look. ‘Well, I think you should give it a go. What have you got to lose?’ And before Clare could formulate a reply, she’d uncovered the phone and was speaking into it once more. ‘Sorry about that. How can I help you?’
After much badgering, Clare finally agreed to think about the idea. ‘Your aunt’s never going to want my stuff she kept telling Roxie weakly, but Roxie wasn’t having any of this defeatist approach.
‘How do you know?’ she replied each tim
e in bracing tones. ‘She might! And wouldn’t it be amazing if she did?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Look, Clare. This is a really cool opportunity to expand a bit. She’s back next week and has lined up some meetings with other firms. If you could get a few samples together by then – say, a bubble bath, shampoo and soap – and come up with some costs, she’ll listen to your pitch.’
A pitch? Costs? This was sounding more like Dragons’ Den by the minute. Clare shook her head. ‘I really don’t think—’
‘No need to decide now. Let me know on Monday,’ Roxie told her airily. She elbowed Clare. ‘And don’t say I never do anything for you.’
‘Thanks, Rox, but—’
Roxie picked up the ringing phone before Clare had a chance to progress the ‘but’ any further, and stuck her tongue out. ‘Amberley Medical Centre, how can I help you?’
Clare clocked off at two-thirty and, by the time she’d driven home, she’d pretty much written off the whole harebrained idea. Roxie was lovely for thinking of her, but really, it was just plain daft to imagine her little home-made toiletries would ever be professional or perfect enough to be stocked by a fancy, upmarket hotel. She wasn’t a businesswoman, end of story. The whole thing was a silly pipe dream that you might indulge yourself in for a few minutes, but nothing more than that.
She returned to discover a sea of mess in the kitchen: papers dumped in haphazard piles on the table amidst empty coffee cups, a plate with sandwich crumbs, a soggy, browning apple core and a Diet Coke can. Polly’s caffeine intake obviously hadn’t fuelled her with any energy for tidying, Clare thought peevishly. No surprises there. There were even – ugh – splats of chicken shit on the floor too, where Polly must have left the back door wide open. Babs and Marjorie loved an excuse to wander into the house, and clearly they’d had some kind of party in here today. Brilliant.
Clare sighed in exasperation. It was not only completely bloody annoying that her sister saw her as some kind of char, it was also deeply hurtful. Clare had actually been really kind, opening her door to Polly and inviting her in. God knows what had got into her. If she knew back then that having Polly to stay was going to result in this kind of chaos, she’d have kept her mouth shut. Why couldn’t Polly show even the slightest hint of gratitude that Clare had put her family life through a complete upheaval to make room for her?
