by Beth Moran
In the end, I decided to finish the Hillary West book in bed, with a packet of cheap chocolates. I would speak to Dawson when he’d recovered, then decide what to do next.
For many years I’d been a woman without dreams. Hobbling from one day to the next, clutching the fragments of my mental health to my chest. My only dream was that one day I might dare to have real dreams again.
And then, slowly, over the past few years I’d begun to imagine. To hope. To think about having the guts to get a job that didn’t make my eyes bleed from boredom. To picture a scenario where Richard would hold my hand in public, where Zara would invite me to her parties. And I would feel so secure, so confident, I would decline, busy with a fulfilling life of my own instead. I’d begun to plan the home I would one day live in, full of colour and squishy furnishings and hundreds of books…
And now. Now at least half those things had come true. I owned a house, some potential friends, a fledgling social life, and a job that was anything but boring. And the rest of those dreams – the ones involving Richard and Zara – seemed more like nightmares.
Now, I dreamed about three things, over and over again: washing machine; oven; fridge.
Pulling an envelope out from the drawer by my bed and counting the money I’d squirrelled away inside, I wondered which one I wanted most. But soon I’d have bills to pay. I needed a cheap computer so I could start selling some things. To hire a skip. And who knew what other problems were hiding in the Hoard? I might have to give in and hire pest control if the scrabblings above my head got any worse.
I put the envelope back, shut my dreams away in the drawer and tried to be happy for those which had, so unexpectedly, come true.
14
Back working on Wednesday, I was still rushing about trying to sort coats and find enough pairs of shoes for the right feet when Dawson announced he would walk by himself, slamming the front door before I could reply. At school, I toyed with peeping around the corner to see where he was, but knew it would do nothing towards earning his trust.
Instead, I waited until that afternoon, finding him in his bedroom.
‘I’m busy.’ He clearly was, bent over his desk, concentrating on a sheet of paper.
‘I know, but I’m worried.’
No reply.
I had thought long and hard about this, but still felt a hot, painful lump in my throat as I moved to sit on his bed. ‘How long have you had no friends?’
Head buried in the paper, he froze.
‘This talk is two-way; did I forget to mention that?’ I added, trying to ignore my heart bashing against my ribs.
The only sounds were the clock ticking and the scratch of his pencil against the paper. I began to think he wasn’t going to answer, which left me sort of stuck for what to do next.
‘I do have friends. They don’t go to the same school as me, that’s all. They live in Hatherstone.’
‘Oh, okay. What are they called?’
‘Lucas and Erik.’ It was clear from his flat tone that he was hating every second of this conversation and had only answered, with the minimum of information, so I’d go away and stop bugging him. ‘They go to our church. Happy?’
‘Happier.’ I took another deep breath. ‘Has something happened, or has school always been like this?’
‘I used to be friends with Daniel, but he moved. And then Harry and Porter started playing football with the rest.’ He shrugged his slim shoulders. It made me want to cry. ‘If you don’t play football, no one’s friends with you. It’s just how it is.’
‘Don’t you like football?’
He carried on drawing. ‘What do you think? And even if I did, I’m so bad no one would let me play.’
‘What about your cousin, the one you walk home with?’
He shook his head. ‘Austin hates me the most. And he walks with his stupid girlfriend now anyway. Which I’m glad about. I like walking by myself.’
‘I really think your mum could help with this. And your dad – he must be an expert. Most kids have times when friendships change, and they need to find new people to hang about with.’
‘Next year I’ll be at Redway with Lucas. I don’t want to be friends with anyone in my class. They’re idiots.’
I thought about him shrinking into that wall on Monday. Remembered how long five months of lunchtimes, break times and group work could feel when you were ten.
‘Maybe we could invite Lucas and Erik for tea sometimes?’
‘I used to go there. They live in Hatherstone Hall – it’s way bigger than this house so it’s more fun. But you don’t have a car, and they can’t get here because their mum and dad work at the hall.’
‘Right.’ I crossed a big red line through the dream fridge and replaced it with a car battery. ‘This might not mean anything, but I didn’t really have any friends at school either. Or right up to when I moved here, to be honest.’
‘Why not?’
‘Lots of reasons. I didn’t like myself, so I tried to hide away so people didn’t get to know me and find out what a loser I was. And after I left school I was ill. For a long time. I didn’t really get a chance to make any friends. All I’m saying is, I know that hearing other kids talking about parties and clubs and stuff like that and not being a part of it hurts, even when they’re idiots. So, if ever you want to let off steam, or need a few rules bent to make things easier, I’m here.’
‘I’m okay.’ He went back to the picture. ‘I don’t need friends.’
‘Maybe not. You’re a strong, resourceful young man, with a family who love you. But most people find friends make life even better. I wish I’d had some sooner now I’ve found out for myself. If you want help with that, let me know.’
I left the room, my heart a little lighter at having connected with Dawson at last.
As I closed the door behind me he muttered, ‘You could leave, so we can have a nanny with a car. That would help.’
I didn’t leave. Instead I got back to cleaning up, chasing, buttoning, laughing and winging it for three hours, four days a week. It remained utterly exhausting, but not in a way I was used to – this was a satisfied, happy, job-well-done sort of tired.
I had decided the best way to take care of the Cameron kids was to emulate their parents, and do the exact opposite of the way my own had done it. So I loved them. I loved them with my time and attention, my praise and encouragement, my care and my boundaries. It turned out I’d been storing up a lot of love over the years. Letting some of it out was easier than I thought.
And if sloppy kisses and muddy hugs, diagrams of futuristic weaponry and fun facts about lichen were anything to go by, I was mostly loved in return. And, hey, four out of five ain’t bad.
In between, I spent long hours hacking at and digging up the brambles and undergrowth round the back of the house. I uncovered a chicken-coop buried in the undergrowth, and pondered a half-hearted idea about a vegetable patch. Maybe a beehive. After a couple of days I found the remains of the boundary fence to my land. The garden wasn’t huge, but I didn’t need it to be – I had the whole forest on my doorstep.
In the evenings, still chilly as March blew in, I continued working inside the house. Although in desperate need of some fresh paint, the kitchen was more or less straight now. At the back of the pantry, I found my first real treasure, hidden behind a broken ironing board and covered in dead woodlice: a slow cooker. I bleached, scrubbed and rinsed it several times, then raced to the shop to buy the ingredients for a chicken casserole.
The fragrance of that casserole wafting through the house, as I searched through the pockets of thirteen handbags, was the best darn smell in the world: thyme, leeks, fresh protein and hope.
I declined dinner at the Camerons’ that evening, whizzing home to eat my own home-cooked food. I ate so much I had to un-pop two buttons on my jeans.
Then I had to strain them closed again when I looked at the remaining food and realised I had nowhere to store it, so had better find an alternative l
ocation.
Mack opened the door looking like a lumberjack in a thick checked shirt. He wrinkled his brow, which I translated as, ‘Hi, Jenny, great to see you! Come on in!’
So I did. At least I tried, until he shifted to block my entrance. That pushing-your-way-into-someone-else’s-house manoeuvre was trickier than it looked.
‘I made some casserole, and had loads left over. I thought you might want it.’
He looked at the slow-cooker pot, wrapped in a tea towel. ‘Did you find that in the Hoard?’
‘It’s been rigorously cleaned. Multiple times.’
‘Have you eaten from it?’ He peered at me.
‘Yes! It’s clean!’
‘Why are you bringing me leftovers?’
‘What, apart from it being a nice thing to do?’
‘You don’t have enough to be giving food away,’ he said.
I took a deep breath, wishing I had a hand free to push my glasses back up. ‘I’m not giving it away, I’m repaying a minute morsel of the debt I owe you.’
‘What debt? I lent you that stuff.’
‘I smashed your window on purpose.’
‘If I take this food can we call it even?’ He sounded exasperated.
‘Why are you getting mad at me when I’m giving you something?’
‘Because I don’t enjoy keeping score. Life isn’t a tennis match. It can’t be measured in meals, or tools, or favours done. I would like to just get on with being me, behaving in a manner that means I sleep at night, without having every little thing noted down in your book of neighbourly transactions.’
‘I haven’t got a fridge,’ I blurted out, interrupting. ‘And really don’t want to cycle through the dark with a massive hotpot to find someone else to give it to. Okay? So, will you please take the damn casserole before my hands start blistering?’
Mack looked at me in surprise, allowing me to seize the moment and squeeze past him into the kitchen. ‘And the least you can do is finally invite me in!’ I crowed, dumping the pot on the worktop and waltzing into the living room beyond.
Then I looked – properly – at the living room. My crowing fizzled to a weak chirrup.
‘Wow. Your side is the exact opposite of my side.’
Mack’s living room contained an ugly black leather armchair and a side table with a laptop and a dirty mug on it. That was it.
‘Where’s all your stuff?’
More to the point, what do you do in here all day, with a laptop and nothing else?
Mack, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, shifted onto the other foot. ‘I keep most things upstairs. Stops me getting distracted when I’m working.’
‘Must be an important job you have. Either that or a really boring one.’
‘Thanks for the casserole.’ He coughed. ‘I’ll drop any leftover leftovers round tomorrow.’
I looked at him, wondering. Remembered his office was supposedly upstairs. Remembered how he’d poked his nose all round my house before I could stop him.
I made it to the landing before he caught up with me, but I wriggled under his arm and threw myself through the nearest door, landing on my stomach in what was quite clearly Mack’s bedroom.
A bed, a wardrobe. A book on the floor beside an empty glass.
I pulled myself up. ‘Well, that wasn’t a lie. You do keep most things up here, in the strictest sense of the word.’
He glared at me. ‘I don’t like clutter.’ ‘Are you undercover?’
‘No. I’m not undercover. I currently don’t have many possessions. And I prefer it that way. Thanks again for the food. Now, will you please get out of my bedroom?’
‘What if a friend drops by? Do they sit on the floor?’ I headed back downstairs. ‘Do you have two mugs, or do you share?’
‘We manage,’ he said, voice tight, herding me onto his doorstep.
‘Right. Okay. Well, enjoy the chicken,’ I said, turning round to see the door already closed.
Later that night, I listened to the water gurgling through next door’s pipes and replaced my smug grin with questions: why was Mack living in a ramshackle cottage in the middle of nowhere, supposedly working all the time at this mystery job? And if he ‘currently’ had no possessions, where had they all gone?
He seemed to be a kind man underneath his grumpiness and need to keep a distance. He noticed things; he was thoughtful and generous.
I wondered if I’d ever be able to ask Mack the question I had asked Dawson: how long have you had no friends?
That Friday, I washed my bedding in the bath, feeling a little like my grandmother must have done in the days before washing machines, pounding and pummelling, not sure where the steam ended and my sweat began.
Someone knocked on the front door. A quick dash to the bedroom window revealed a sleek, shiny car parked a safe distance from the junk. An identical car to that driven by a local crocodile-slash-property-developer. I waited, holding my breath (because crocodiles had an acute sense of hearing). Another knock, louder this time. Was I being cowardly? Maybe. But I’d decided not to waste any more of my life in the company of people who made me feel inferior. Especially on my afternoon off.
Eventually, the letterbox rattled, quickly followed by an expensive engine purring away into the distance.
I counted to ten, ran down the stairs and then spent an age clearing the stack of old paint pots, deckchairs, plastic tubs full of nails and boxes bulging with Betamax videos before I could squeeze my arm round to reach the note pushed through the letterbox. F. F. Fisher (headed paper) asked me to call, again offering to buy the house for well above market value.
Why was he so interested in Charlotte Meadows’ old cottage?
I ripped up the note and got back to my washing.
Forty minutes of wringing and squeezing later, I picked the bits of note out of the bin and pieced them back together, copying Fisher’s number onto a scrap of paper. One day the house would be finished. If I was still living without basic appliances then, I might just consider Fisher’s offer. After all, I’d never even met Charlotte Meadows. Staying here out of sentimentality would be stupid and pointless, right? Perhaps I would feel more sentimental about a decent kitchen and living closer to civilisation.
I blew my nose, wiped the tears – now mysteriously falling – and got back to work.
15
That evening, we convened the first meeting for the Christmas Book Club Challenge. Once everyone had a slice of warm apple cake, Ellen called us to order.
‘Good to see you all here. I hope you’ve been enjoying your challenge and have some stories to share. Who’s going first?’
Sarah volunteered. She’d been dying to tell us all about her first Lovelife! date.
‘So, my challenge is to find a man who’s not a lazy, selfish, untrustworthy waster,’ she announced.
‘That shouldn’t be too hard!’ Ellen said.
‘Yeah, but he also has to be interesting, kind, love kids, properly like me and be single.’
I snuck a glance at Jamie. He looked like a stunned bear.
‘Apart from that I’m keeping an open mind. But, I thought, why not kick off with the best-looking bloke on the app? He didn’t seem a total deadbeat, so we arranged to meet at Scarlett’s for a drink. I spruced myself up, dropped Edison at the Dud’s and sat in the car park until I was ten minutes late, so’s not to seem too keen.
‘First impressions: miraculously, Tom looked even better in real life. Bought me a drink, didn’t ogle my boobs or anything. It was a cracking start. My heart was racing, ladies and gentleman. It ain’t thumped like that in a while.’
The gentleman opposite me looked as though he might need CPR.
‘And?’ Ashley leant forward, her necklaces tapping on the table, voice slightly breathless.
‘And then he started talking.’ She paused, looking round at us all. ‘And talking. And then a load more talking. I bought us another drink, and he talked some more. It became pretty obvious what h
is favourite topic of conversation was: Tom. Main hobby? Tom. Primary interest? Tom. What was he looking for in a relationship? My guess, a mirror. Not a real-life woman with a brain and a mouth of her own. I don’t know if a woman exists who’d enjoy listening to him r-a-a-amble on about how awesome and fit and brilliant he is. But I’m not that woman. In my opinion, nobody should spend an hour describing their daily fitness routine. Let alone on a date. I could tell you what this man had for breakfast. He probably couldn’t tell you my name.
‘So, lesson learnt: unnaturally good-looking, may equal, unnaturally self-centred and boring. I’m going to try a boy-next-door type next.’
Jamie, now seeming a little less shell-shocked, looked thoughtful. Perhaps he was figuring out how to move next door, given that Sarah’s only neighbours were squirrels and foxes.
‘Thanks, Sarah,’ Ellen said. ‘We’ll look forward to hearing future instalments. Who’s next? Lucille?’
Lucille tucked a strand of glossy hair behind her ear. ‘My challenge is to run a marathon. But I wouldn’t want to bore you by going on about my fitness regime.’ She tossed Sarah a sour glance.
‘Well, why not tell us something else, instead?’ Jamie said. ‘Why pick this challenge? What’s training been like?’
Lucille talked for a few minutes about how she spent most of her time at work, or with her kids and husband, and rarely any time alone, just by and for herself. So, she now got up every morning at six and ran. Sometimes she used the time to think, sometimes just to be. She had made it up to five K in the first month, her feet were sore, her shins ached and she’d lost three pounds. The sound of her kids whining ‘Mu-u-u-u-mm-e-e-e’ no longer made her feel like sticking her face in the blender. She was addicted.
Jamie then brought out a large plastic tub. ‘I have quite a… physical job, as you know.’ He wiped one hand across his brow. After leaving the army, Jamie had started a ‘problem resolution’ company specialising in resolving the kind of problems he couldn’t talk about, for security reasons. Reasons such as those ‘problems’ might come and kick the crap out of him. Or blow up his car.
