by Sue Teddern
‘I just want to sleep.’
‘I get that. I do, Annie. But I want to help. What’s that bollocks they say on the telly? I want to “be there for you”.’
He says it in a really bad American accent and I can’t help laughing. It’s even worse than his all-purpose yokel accent. He’s always made me laugh. When Dad first met him, after disapproving for months that I was dating the father of a pupil, he was instantly disarmed.
I go to the loo to have a little cry and brush my teeth. When I return, the coffee table is laid with mugs of tea and a plate stacked with toast, cut on the bias, one triangle slathered in lemon curd and the other in marmalade. He knows me so well. The ‘St Clements Special’ was our favourite lazy Sunday breakfast, if we didn’t go out for brunch.
Rob gives his tea a stir and takes a sip. ‘Bev said it was sudden. How he died.’
‘He never regained consciousness. The paramedic promised us he wasn’t in pain.’
‘It’s just too quick, too soon. He had so much life in him . . . Top bloke.’ He pauses, momentarily overcome with sadness. ‘I wish I’d met your mum.’
‘You’d have won her over too.’
‘I haven’t cracked it with Kate though. You sister remains one hundred per cent underwhelmed.’
‘Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself.’ I grin. ‘Eighty per cent, more like.’
He grins back. Water under the bridge now.
‘So,’ he says eventually. ‘What can I do? How can I help? I’ve got a day off between jobs and I want to be useful.’
Not a good idea. ‘Kate’s on the case. And she reckons we should let Bev make all the decisions for the funeral, even though we’re next of kin.’
‘Cremation or burial?’
‘Cremation. That’s what Mum had.’
An awkward pause. This is the man I thought was my soul mate for life and now we’re doing awkward pauses.
Eventually he breaks the silence. ‘Peter wasn’t too impressed with my tool box. Remember? When I helped him lay that decking. He’s got – I mean, he had – a hammer that belonged to his dad. Just imagine all the nails it bashed in, all the stuff it made. I’d be honoured to have his tools, Annie. That’s if you and Kate don’t want them.’
‘And then you can pass them on to Josh so he can make things with them too.’
‘He can’t even make his bed.’
Rob watches me dispatch the last triangle of toast, then run my finger round the plate to wipe up any missed marmalade. Job done.
‘I need to deliver a cabinet to a woman in Luton, then I’m all yours,’ he offers, probably kicking himself for his choice of words. He isn’t mine any more. But I’m not quite ready for him to be anyone else’s.
I look at him looking at me. I think he still loves me. Maybe the grief of losing Dad has cleared my mind and we could try again. Is that a good enough reason? I can’t even begin to think about it just yet.
He waits for a response: how can he ‘be here for me’?
‘There is one thing, Rob.’
His face lights up.
‘How are you with dishwashers?’
Chapter Three
November 2014
Just one more hour – fifty-four minutes to be precise – and Annie could pack up and depart. Some of her workmates were planning to decamp to the Plough, get a few rounds in and compile nominations for this year’s unofficial Parent/Teacher Awards: rudest parent, pushiest parent, least fragrant parent, hottest parent, coolest parent; plus a special award for the daftest question.
Annie intended to nominate Nia Ronson-Tanner’s father for both ‘rude’ and ‘pushy’. Plus he had thrust his IT business card into her hand, when his wife wasn’t looking, and told her that he’d be happy to ‘update her system’ any time, wink-wink. He certainly wasn’t ‘hot’ or ‘cool’ and she hadn’t got close enough to assess his aroma.
Cameron, the head, had stationed her in a classroom some distance from the central hub. Annie suspected that several parents had been unable to find her, despite all the laminated signs, but she wasn’t going in search of them now.
Those she had seen, apart from Nia’s dad, were in the main friendly and polite. They understood their kids and had reasonable expectations of them, bearing in mind the muddled, unfair and unpredictable world beyond Rangewood High School. In fact, Annie’s most repeated advice was for their sons or daughters to aim higher: Seema Patel should definitely study engineering, and Mason McIsaac was easily university material. It felt good to be the voice of optimism and positivity. It reminded Annie why teaching beat the corporate world hands down, even if the salary was hardly commensurate.
She checked her phone to make sure it was still the Plough and not the Queen’s Arms, which was closer but mankier. There was a text from Kate reminding her that it was Bev’s birthday on Saturday and did Annie want to go halves on the turquoise necklace she’d already bought in Accessorize? And not to forget a card. Annie replied twice: ‘Yes’ and ‘I haven’t’. She could nip in to the newsagent’s tomorrow and pop something in the post, more to please Dad than Bev.
Annie began noodling around on Facebook, checking on her ex, Toby; they were no longer on good terms but he had yet to unfriend her or tighten up his privacy settings. She didn’t miss him, not one bit, but she resented the presence in every photo of his fiancée, an American City lawyer called Madison. Toby was welcome to her, in all her size 6, Stella McCartney-clad glory.
‘Ahem.’
Annie jumped, so caught up in Toby and Madison’s weekend in Barcelona that she’d not heard anyone approaching.
‘Sorry. Did I startle you?’ the man asked, apologetically.
‘Just a bit.’
‘Am I too late? I’m Joshua Tyler’s dad. Rob Tyler. Hi.’
Annie gestured for him to sit. He took the chair beside her but kept looking to the door, then his watch.
‘Honestly, you’ve got ages yet, Mr Tyler.’
He turned to face her properly, to give his full attention. Curly red-blond hair, long legs which didn’t sit comfortably on the utilitarian school chair and the deepest brown eyes. Annie mentally ticked ‘hot’ but she wasn’t going to tell her colleagues just how hot.
‘Sorry. I thought my wife would be here. She said she would be.’
Wife. Of course there was a wife. They’re either gay or spoken for – wasn’t that the rule?
‘We can give her a couple of minutes,’ Annie suggested, ‘if you think she’s close.’
‘No. Let’s start without her. I had a feeling she wouldn’t make it. I don’t mind her taking it out on me but she shouldn’t punish the lad.’
‘How is she doing that?’
‘We separated last month,’ he said, looking down at his shoes. ‘Not permanent, just a trial to give ourselves breathing space. And, well, it’s all been a bit . . . fraught. Right now, we’re not very good at being in the same room, even if it’s a classroom with a teacher present to keep the peace. Anyway, it’s not your concern. So. Josh Tyler. How’s he doing?’
Annie knew and liked Josh. If she could only adhere to her brief and disengage from those molasses eyes, she could do this. She rebooted herself into teacher mode and gave a thorough assessment: Josh is diligent, bright; good manners (mostly); needs to take assignments more seriously because he can’t get by on charm if he keeps missing deadlines; definitely university material, if that’s what he wants.
Mr Tyler looked pleased. ‘That’s great, Miss Stanley. That’s really good news. He’s an only child, you see. So all the tension at home lands on him, however hard Maggie and I try to keep him out of it.’
‘Perhaps, when the trial separation’s over, things will be easier.’
‘God, I hope so.’ He tried an optimistic smile. ‘We just need some time apart. We’ll come through this stronger, all three of us. I know we will.’
Annie reciprocated the smile. God, those eyes. They’d really done a number on her. She collected herself. She’d dispensed her
words of wisdom but there was no harm in a bit of informal conversation, was there? Otherwise he might just leave. Or, worse still, Mrs Tyler might skid into the room, apologizing for her lateness.
‘You’re a carpenter, right? I remember Josh mentioning it in class when we were discussing global warming. He was very concerned about deforestation.’
‘We didn’t worry about that kind of thing when I was a lad. Dinosaurs still roamed the earth, of course, so we were too busy wrestling them.’
Annie felt a frisson of attraction. Bloody hell, Mr Tyler was hot and funny. She wondered how he smelled. Wright’s Coal Tar Soap with a hint of wood shavings? Stop it, stop it, calm down, you ridiculous woman.
And then she said it, before she could stop herself. ‘Do you do small commissions? What I mean is, do you make things for ordinary people? Or is it just big stuff? Shop fitting-type stuff? Or small stuff too . . .?’
‘Ordinary people? Not sure what you mean.’
Annie felt her face redden but she’d started, so . . . ‘I’m looking for someone to make a cupboard for my kitchen. The units I’ve got are discontinued Ikea but I need more storage space. So I thought I might get a carpenter to make something in a dark wood to match the worktops. Um, can you recommend anyone?’
‘Ah, I’m with you now.’ He laughed. ‘So you’re just an “ordinary person”, are you?’
‘Absolutely.’
He felt around in his pockets, eventually pulling out a crumpled card. ‘There’s a link to my website, such as it is. You can see the kind of jobs I do. I’m just finishing a study of bookshelves, floor to ceiling, for a mate of a mate. If you like what you see, I could squeeze you in after that.’
Stop it, stop it, Miss Stanley. You’re making a show of yourself now. Pull yourself together.
‘Great,’ Annie replied. ‘I’ll check out your website. Good to meet you, Mr Tyler.’
Chapter Four
‘New Low Expected’
One Tuesday morning, in that strange period post-shock and pre-funeral, I wake up early. I even get up early, rather than turn over and go back to sleep. Before 8 a.m., I have tipped the contents of the laundry basket into the washing machine and set it to 60°C, made and eaten porridge with banana and washed up two days’ worth of plates and cutlery. I am also showered and dressed. What has happened to me?
Years ago, I used to be good at early mornings. Maybe not at uni, unless I had a 9 a.m. lecture, but I could do it if I had to. It was how I’d been brought up; Dad thought he was late if he was on time and Mum was just very organized. So, when I worked in the City, it wasn’t hard to be suited, booted and on the Tube to Canada Water by 7.30.
I kept it up when I became a teacher. Finally I was doing something worthwhile, after all those years of pretending to find satisfaction in the corporate world, and that was definitely worth getting up in the dark for.
Mum’s cancer returned just as I was starting my PGCE teacher-training course. I offered to postpone it, but she wouldn’t let me. She said that me becoming a teacher, after my seven-year fling with mammon, was more therapeutic than any chemo. ‘You were born to do this, love. I never saw you as a City person.’
So . . . I qualified as a teacher and moved back to St Albans two months before Mum died. My silly City salary meant I had enough put by for a tiny flat and a tiny mortgage. I didn’t become a teacher for the money, that’s for sure, but I was sufficiently cash-cushioned to take the leap and it was important to be close if Mum needed me.
And yet, however much I knew it was the right move, it was always tainted. She didn’t live to see that I was a good teacher: motivating sullen kids, keeping up – at first, at least – with all the prep and marking.
Once she’d gone, it became harder to get out of bed. Slowly, incrementally, I began to lose my nerve and my way. When I met Rob, I was still a good teacher but even his support couldn’t put off the creeping burnout. Working for an international merchant bank had its moments but teaching is on another level of stress because the ‘product’ is people. Young people. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything.
I experienced breathlessness and palpitations. Twice, I was convinced I was having a heart attack; the second time in the middle of a lesson. My GP put me through all manner of cardiology tests and my heart got the all-clear; there was nothing physically wrong with me. I was, however, diagnosed with stress due to excessive workload and bereavement, and signed off work on full pay for the first hundred days, with half pay to follow.
I coped without Mum. We all did. Dad coped by hooking up with Bev. Kate coped by shagging unavailable men and being a control freak. I coped – for a while – by being loved unconditionally by a wonderful man. But I didn’t deserve it and, pretty soon, I extricated myself from the two things that gave me a purpose. I resigned as a teacher and I ended it with Rob because he could do way better than me.
Kate called it a breakdown. Maybe it was; I don’t honestly know. I simply decided I didn’t deserve to be a teacher and/or Rob’s girlfriend any more. So I stopped. Dad quizzed me a few times on my plans but I couldn’t tell him what they were because I didn’t have any. Keeping things simple was the only way I could get out of bed in the morning – although, more often than not, I didn’t.
Perhaps if Dad hadn’t met Bev, he might have been more proactive in pushing me. But suddenly his life was full again and he was too busy selling the family home and moving into the bungalow with Bev . . . or hiking in the Tyrol with Bev . . . or holidaying with Pippa’s brood in Dorset. With frigging Bev!
I will go back to teaching. Or I won’t. Cameron has said numerous times that there’s a job for me at Rangewood, if I want it. Do I? Fuck knows!
But today, I am up and dressed and I will use the day wisely. There’s nothing left to organize for the funeral. Bev and Kate have liaised about the music and the words; I’m down to read a Walt Whitman poem. Pippa and Kate have downloaded a pdf template for the order of service booklet and will collect it from the printers tomorrow. They’ve also booked a pub function room not far from the crematorium. Bev and Pippa have chosen the finger food and pastries Dad would have liked and will put £200 behind the bar.
I have done bugger all.
On a whim, I drive to The Galleria in Hatfield, half minded to find something to wear to the funeral. I still have an expensive black Hobbs work suit from my past life, but it doesn’t seem appropriate. Plus I was a stone lighter back in the day and I manage to bust the zip trying it on. Lucky I didn’t get it dry cleaned.
Mum wanted everyone to wear red at her funeral but Dad died so suddenly that we have no instructions. Bev believes black is respectful and Kate relays this information to anyone who asks.
I park underground and wander aimlessly around the shopping mall. I am not one of life’s shoppers and none of the window displays feature outfits that tempt me inside the stores. Why isn’t there a formal version of trackie bottoms and sweatshirt?
I try on a couple of things in M&S: a black dress with a wild turquoise flower print. Bev would love it. And a longish pleated skirt in a shiny fabric that reminds me of the curtain at the hospital when we were ushered in to see Dad’s body.
I buy the dress. It can go to Oxfam next week.
That evening, Kate and I are summoned to Bev’s; she says she has some things for us. I can’t concoct an excuse quickly enough to refuse and Kate is keen to pick me up. In the car, she sets the usual ground rules.
‘Just because I’m driving, doesn’t mean you can get pissed, Annie.’
‘Yeah-yeah.’
‘Seriously. We’ll get through this by being considerate and accommodating. We’ll bite our tongues. Agreed?’
‘Kate, I’m not a kid. I’ve behaved up till now, haven’t I?’
She doesn’t reply. Clearly not. I don’t pursue it because then we’ll argue and it’ll turn into an even more uncomfortable evening.
This way, we’re both still talking to each other when we ring the bunga
low doorbell. Pippa opens it and directs us to the garden room, Dad and Bev’s pride and joy. En route, I try not to take in our old family Welsh dresser, now boasting a set of turquoise serving platters and a row of little carved stone ornaments. Mum used to display her much-prized collection of Poole Pottery milk jugs on it. That’s what it was for.
Last time I visited, I got unfeasibly distressed that Bev had changed the knobs on the drawers . . . from the slightly scratched wooden ones I’d grown up with to white porcelain faux-Victorian ones, each one hand-painted with flowers. She and Dad had bought them in a craft market in York. She threw the old knobs out, not that I’d have known what to do with them if I’d asked for them. But even so.
Pippa brings in glasses of iced tea and bowls of nuts and olives. She puts the nibbles beside me and I tell myself to ignore them. I know her game. I will not scoff the lot like last time.
‘So,’ Bev says after we’ve cheek-kissed and settled ourselves. ‘We’re nearly there.’
‘Nearly where?’ asks Kate before I can.
‘Saying our farewells, celebrating Peter,’ she replies. ‘There’s such a big build-up to the funeral and then, after that, we just have to get on with our lives. That’s how it was when I lost Keith.’
Pippa chips in. ‘You took it one day at a time, Mum. And that’s what you’ll do now. You’ve got no choice.’
‘Dad was just the same after Mum died, wasn’t he, Annie?’ Kate is determined to draw me into the conversation.
‘He said each day had its own personality,’ I recall. ‘Mostly sad, sometimes surreal. Or tied up in miles of red tape, like that day he tried to cancel all her magazine subscriptions. We did laugh a lot though, the three of us, didn’t we? I can’t even remember what about now.’
Kate smiles. ‘The music box that wouldn’t shut up.’
At this point, Cromarty hurtles in from the garden and scoots under Bev’s chair, as if he’s playing hide-and-seek with an invisible pal.
The cavalry has arrived. Cromarty is one of the Stanley clan. I lean forward and wiggle my fingers under the chair rung to tempt him out. He loves chasing my fingers. But he won’t budge.