‘Hello,’ called Olivia. Who on earth could this be? ‘In here,’ she yelled.
‘I brought these,’ said Heather coming through the door carrying a huge tray of sandwiches. ‘I was going to bring you a nice pot plant or something, as a housewarming present, but then I thought you’d prefer something practical.’
‘Heather! You angel.’ For the second time in twenty-four hours Olivia felt close to tears. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
‘It’s what friends do. Where’s the kitchen?’
Olivia led the way and Heather followed. She pushed the heavy tray onto a yet-to-be-unpacked carton – the counters being covered in possessions that still had to be found homes.
‘Got any plates?’ she asked.
‘Not that we’ve unpacked.’
‘I am prepared for that. I’ve got a whole pile of paper plates in the car. Back in two ticks.’
Olivia followed Heather out of the kitchen but stopped at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Lunch, girls,’ she yelled.
A few seconds later her daughters came crashing down them. The noise of two pairs of feet on the treads was deafening.
Everything about this house, noted Olivia and not for the first time, was hollow and tacky and, consequently, all sounds reverberated. The stud walls, the stairwell, the pressed plywood doors that were designed to look as if they were solid, carved oak but had about as much substance as a flyscreen… everything was flimsy. She’d even noticed that the sound of someone peeing in the upstairs loo could be heard in the kitchen. She shuddered. The Grange had been all about quality, about high-end finishes, but this place… Even the garden was little more than a square of grass, a few paving slabs and a dreary fence on three sides. Uninspiring didn’t even come close as a description. Olivia wanted to be positive about her new home but it was almost impossible. The only thing in its favour was the fact that it had allowed them to clear Nigel’s debts.
Be grateful, she told herself. Be grateful that you still have a roof. She clamped down on the anger that it had been her husband’s reckless addiction that had brought this circumstance about. He’d been ill. His addiction had been an illness. It hadn’t been his fault. But deep down she wanted to rail, to shout, to throw things… especially at Nigel.
Heather returned with the plates and distributed them to the family while the Laithwaites, locust-like, fell on the food.
‘There’s veggie on the left and meaty on the right. Well, I say meaty – some of them are tuna.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Olivia picking out a cheese and pickle one. ‘And so thoughtful to think of dietary stuff, though none of my kids have gone vegetarian – yet.’
‘I’m trying to eat less meat,’ said Tamsin. ‘But – you know… bacon.’ As she said this she picked a bit of ham out of her sandwich and threw it to Oscar who caught the morsel in midair and swallowed it whole.
‘And roast chicken,’ said Mike.
Heather watched them all tucking in for a few seconds before she said, ‘Right, I’m going to get out of your hair. There’s no hurry to return the tray – I have others.’ She slid off, leaving the family munching.
By the evening most of the furniture had been transferred, as had boxes full of everything else from Olivia’s kitchen and some of the family’s clothes. Books, ornaments, spare bedding and towels, the contents of their home office, rugs, soft furnishings and anything that wasn’t totally necessary for survival over the coming days and weeks were still in cartons which were stacked in the new garage or in the sitting room.
Olivia looked at the chaos that was her new kitchen and remembered the advice she’d given to Bex when she’d helped her with her unpacking – the advice about putting kit away in places where you planned for it to live for ever. Huh… fat chance of doing that here, not with the lack of cupboard space she now realised the kitchen suffered from. Yet another example of how the house looked superficially well-appointed but the instant you dug under the glossy surface you found it was an illusion. Fur coat, no knickers, she thought crossly.
At around six she slumped, tired out, on the sofa. Nigel collapsed on the other one and put his feet on a packing case.
‘That’s enough for today. I am bushed,’ she announced.
‘What’s for supper?’ asked Jade coming into the sitting room.
‘It’s either fish and chips again or the pub.’
‘Mum! I can’t have chips twice in two days – just think what it’ll do to my skin,’ protested Jade.
‘Then find something else to eat,’ said Olivia, refusing to be drawn.
‘Like what?’ Jade sat on the edge of the other sofa and eyeballed her mother.
‘I don’t know. There’s a tin of beans somewhere, I think.’
‘You’re not going to cook?’
‘No.’
‘But, Mum… I’m tired and hungry and I really want to eat something healthy – not, you know, chips or pub rubbish.’
Nigel snapped. ‘Jeez, Jade, we’re all tired and hungry. Stop being so needy and spoilt. If you want home-cooked food, why don’t you cook it?’ He glared at his daughter.
Blimey, thought Olivia, that was a turn-up for the books. But she noticed he wasn’t offering to cook. Baby steps, she thought, baby steps.
‘But…’ Jade lapsed into silence for a few seconds before she muttered, ‘I thought you were broke. How come we can afford to eat out?’
Nigel shook his head in disappointment. ‘I had a vague hope that some of you kids might fancy chipping in – you know, considering, Zac excepted, that you’re all earning.’
‘Un-fucking-believable,’ said Jade standing up. ‘We come here, we work our socks off and all the thanks we get is to be told to pay for our own supper. Like we owe you or something.’
‘I think you’ll find you wanted for precisely nothing when you were growing up. Is a bit of payback too much to ask?’
Apparently it was, thought Olivia, tiredly.
Outside the house, Olivia heard the van draw up. This would be Mike and Zac with the final load of the day. Olivia was tempted to tell them to leave it on the van – that they’d deal with it in the morning, but it was only kicking the can down the road. Tonight… tomorrow… the boxes needed unloading. Better to get it over and done with now. Wearily she stood up again and twenty minutes later the van was empty, the kitchen had even more boxes piled in it and Olivia got her phone out.
‘We’re going to have supper at the pub,’ she told them. ‘I’ll book a table for thirty minutes’ time.’ She looked about at her family. ‘It should give us time to have a wash and brush up.’ Then she noticed Jade wasn’t there. Maybe she’d gone to the loo.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Tamsin.
‘Go and find Jade and tell her,’ said Olivia. Olivia rang the pub and booked a table. She was just disconnecting when Tamsin returned.
‘I couldn’t find her so I texted her. She’s at the station. She says she’s going back to London. She says you’ve had your pound of flesh – whatever that means.’
Olivia didn’t know what made her feel more disappointed: that her older daughter didn’t get the Shylock reference or that her younger daughter was such a selfish spoilt little madam. She made light of it. ‘One less meal to pay for then, and more room for you in the spare room tonight.’
Chapter 10
The next morning Heather walked down the path from the vicarage to the church, wrapped up against a brisk autumn wind. She could hear a magpie’s staccato call, like machine gun fire, coming from a tree in the churchyard and over to her right came the faint hum of cars on the ring road. The breeze rustled the leaves in the ancient oaks but here and there a leaf fell onto the outfield of the cricket pitch. Soon, thought Heather, there would be drifts of russet leaves and the local squirrel population would be bouncing around in them, hunting for acorns. The squirrels might be classed as vermin but she couldn’t help loving them with their ostrich-plume tails, bright boot-button eyes and clever, dextrous paws. Whatever the weath
er or the season, Heather loved this view. A bit of English rural perfection.
Except today it wasn’t perfect. Something was missing and ruining the scene. The bells were missing. The silence wasn’t right. She stared at the church tower and wondered how long it might be before the bell frame got fixed and the congregation would, once again, be summoned by bells. Brian was already planning to exhort his flock to start fundraising. They had yet to have the problem properly assessed or to be given a proper estimate of the cost, but Brian had put out feelers to other parishes who had suffered similar problems and the sums involved were invariably eye-watering.
Heather reached the Norman porch and walked into the gloom, over the huge coir mat. Just ahead of her a familiar figure was picking up a hymn book and a prayer book.
‘Olivia! What on earth are you doing here? Aren’t you moving house?’
‘I am, but I need an hour or so to gird my loins. I was up at six this morning to put a stew in the slow cooker so everyone will get fed later. I then did a couple of hours of unpacking before anyone stirred. I think I am entitled to some time off now.’
‘I think you are too.’
‘I need the peace, I need the strength…’
Heather put her hand on Olivia’s arm. ‘I understand.’
The pair made their way to the pews at the front.
‘I didn’t tell you,’ said Olivia after they had prayed and slid back on the hard wooden seats. ‘I got the job at the hotel – on a permanent basis.’
‘That’s brilliant.’ But Heather’s heart sank. No Olivia to help fundraise. She gave herself a slap for being selfish.
‘I start on Monday afternoon – a late shift which finishes at about ten. I’ve told Zac and Nigel they need to start to learn how to fend for themselves. It hasn’t been greeted with unalloyed enthusiasm.’
Heather could imagine.
‘But Nigel was a trouper with the move and he says he’ll do his best to help out a bit and he does work hideous hours…’
Heather put her hand on Olivia’s. ‘It’ll be all right. If anyone can make it work, you can.’
*
At school the next morning, Lewis was still the centre of attention in the school playground because of the snake in his garden. Small boys were queuing up to be asked to his house for play dates which was great, in some respects, but Bex felt that it would be quite nice if her boys got invited back. She didn’t resent feeding extra mouths – far from it – she was thrilled her boys were popular, but it would be quite nice to have a bit more peace and quiet after school, a bit more time to read with them, find out about their day before they hit the supper-bath-bed-story routine. Maybe she ought to ration play dates.
Bex was still thinking about this conundrum when she left the playground and began to walk down the hill. Out of habit she glanced across at Olivia’s house and saw her friend’s bike parked on the drive. She must be finishing off the last bits of the move. On an impulse, Bex crossed the road, trudged up the drive and rang the bell.
‘Oh.’ Olivia sounded surprised to see her. Then she added, ‘Sorry. That wasn’t very welcoming. I was expecting it to be the people from the charity to take away our unwanted furniture, but it’s lovely to see you. Come in.’
She led the way into the cavernous room that looked even bigger now it was stripped of everything that had made it homely, with the exception of a mattress lying in a corner.
‘We couldn’t fit everyone into the new house so Mike slept here,’ explained Olivia. The place echoed as they walked over the polished floorboards. ‘I’d offer you tea but, as you can see, everything’s gone.’
‘How did the move go?’
‘Not too bad; Nigel worked like a Trojan and cracked the whip with the kids too.’
Bex felt her eyebrows shooting into her hairline.
‘I know,’ said Olivia. ‘I was a bit shocked too but as a result we got pretty much everything done. Of course the downside was one of my children had a monumental sense of humour failure and flounced off.’
‘Oh, Olivia. That wasn’t what you needed.’
‘Kids, eh? Jade couldn’t take being read the riot act by Nigel. It’s my fault – I spoilt her. Well, I spoilt them all, truth be told, but the others seem to have worked out that their sense of entitlement is completely misplaced nowadays.’
‘And how’s it going at the other end?’
‘Why don’t you come and see? I can offer you tea there and everything – even a biscuit or two – that is, if you can bear to wait till after the charity people have been and collected the stuff we’ve no more use for.’ Olivia said it lightly but Bex could see that the downsizing was tearing her apart.
‘You don’t want me cluttering up your morning, surely.’ Although Bex was itching to see Olivia’s new house.
‘To be honest, I’d love an excuse to take a break from the endless business of getting straight.’
The doorbell rang again.
‘This’ll be them,’ said Olivia as she headed across the room to open it. Bex heard her giving the men from the charity instructions before they came in, removed the mattress and then she heard the clatter of the garage door opening.
Twenty minutes later, their van had driven off and Bex walked beside Olivia as she wheeled her bike down the hill to Beeching Rise. Olivia parked her bike, got her key out and opened the door.
‘Here we are.’
Bex thought her bright tone sounded more than a little forced. ‘Gosh, you look almost straight.’
‘Total illusion. But we are getting there,’ said Olivia. She bustled into the kitchen and put on the kettle.
Bex followed her.
‘How about a guided tour while we wait for it to boil. It won’t take long,’ she added with a wry smile.
She led the way up the stairs. The contrast between this place and the huge barn conversion couldn’t have been starker.
‘Poky, isn’t it?’ said Olivia, as she led Bex back to the kitchen and made the tea.
‘Compact,’ offered Bex.
‘But, on the positive side, I have a job, full-time and everything.’
‘Olivia, that’s brilliant.’
‘I’m quite pleased.’ She looked it. The doorbell rang. ‘Excuse me.’ She left Bex sipping her tea.
There was the sound of voices and then some thumping. Curiosity got the better of Bex and she stuck her head round the kitchen door. There on the doorstep was a young woman with three suitcases by her feet, sobbing loudly onto Olivia’s shoulder.
‘This is Jade, my daughter,’ said Olivia. ‘She’s a bit upset.’
No shit, Sherlock. ‘I’ll get out of your hair,’ said Bex, putting her mug on the counter and then squeezing past the pair in the narrow hall.
‘I’ll catch up with you later,’ said Olivia stroking her daughter’s hair.
As Bex walked away she heard Olivia say, ‘Of course you can stay – for as long as you want. It’s not a problem.’
But Bex had seen the space available in the house and she rather thought that it might be.
*
Olivia installed her daughter on the sofa, made her a cup of tea and then dragged in the suitcases from the doorstep.
Dear God, where the hell were they going to store all Jade’s stuff? The garage was full of boxes, the spare room had almost no storage space in it at all and the other two bedrooms were full of her, Nigel’s and Zac’s clothes and possessions. She piled the cases in the hall and went to talk to her daughter.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’
‘It’s Luke,’ said Jade, between sobs.
‘Luke?’
‘My boyfriend.’
‘Sorry, darling, of course.’ Olivia could have sworn Jade was dating Ryan. And she had to make a desperate effort not to glance at the clock. She had so much to do before she went to work.
Jade’s sobs stopped and she glared at her mother. ‘I’ve been with him for three months now. I told you I was moving into his flat.’ J
ade’s irritation with her mother’s failure to remember all the details seemed to suppress her misery.
‘Yes, darling, of course you did.’ Had she?
‘Well, it’s like – my phone dies on me when I was on my way back home yesterday so I couldn’t call Luke to say I was coming home. And when I let myself into the flat…’ Jade gave an anguished wail, ‘he was shagging another woman.’
‘Oh, Jade.’ Olivia put her arms around her daughter as the crying started again. She glanced at her watch. Shit – she still had to shop and cook supper before work. There was time but it was getting shorter and shorter in supply.
By eleven Olivia decided it was time to get tough. She had heard, several times, what a rat Luke was, how Jade was better off without him and how her daughter ought to have seen the signs, how she’d gone to a friend’s house and got wasted on vodka, how she’d spent Sunday alternately throwing up and crying, how her mobile wasn’t just out of battery but now completely lost, how her life was ruined…
‘But what about your job?’ said Olivia, while thinking about her own.
‘I’ll phone in sick,’ she said. Olivia wondered how, since she didn’t have a phone. ‘Anyway, I’m not going back,’ added Jade. ‘They can sack me for all I care. The job is awful and I only stuck it so I could afford my half of Luke’s rent.’
Olivia’s heart sank. ‘But… your career?’ She didn’t think there’d be many job opportunities in a place like Little Woodford that would need an MA.
‘It’s only a job, Mum,’ wailed Jade. ‘There’ll be another. Anyway, how can I think about that at a time like this?’
‘But… but…’
‘You don’t want me here, that’s it, isn’t it?’
‘Darling, this is your home, of course I want you here,’ lied Olivia, thinking about the lack of space, the inconvenience, the way her planned new routine was already being thrown into turmoil. She had to bite the bullet and pull some sort of order back into her disrupted morning. ‘But I am going to have to go out. I need to shop and then cook supper for this evening, unless…’ She paused and looked at her daughter. ‘I mean, I find cooking very therapeutic and calming.’
The Bells of Little Woodford Page 8