Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  The horrid little man sniffed loudly. It was that productive sort of sniff where you can hear a bogey dislodging and it makes you shudder. ‘There’s a class on Wednesday,’ he groaned, leaning his head on his hand like he would literally rather be cleaning the toilets with his tongue than talking to me.

  ‘Great! What is it?’ I’d replied enthusiastically.

  He sighed so heavily that his breath almost blew the papers from his desk. ‘Some guy who owns a bookshop is coming in to talk about business ownership.’

  ‘Excellent. Sign me up.’

  I guess I had to be grateful to Julie for that. If she hadn’t said what she had, then I never would have met Arthur.

  I hadn’t given Arthur enough credit for the amount of goodness he’d brought to my life.

  Theo was not the best thing to happen to me, Arthur was.

  ‘Now, the book club comes by on Monday nights at eight and they stay for an hour or so. All they really do is bitch about everyone else at church and drink tea, so it’s not too much to handle. Amy can cover it if you can’t be bothered.’ Arthur reeled off some final instructions as we approached the airport. He’d given me use of his car while he was away and it would be a lie to say that that hadn’t brought an almost-smile to my face. Toby sat in the back seat, his accountant’s suit swapped for jeans and a busy jumper, his bags clasped in white-knuckled hands.

  ‘You okay back there?’ I asked, seeing his face turn slightly green.

  He turned to my reflection in the rear-view mirror and attempted a smile. ‘I don’t really like flying.’

  I didn’t have chance to respond before Arthur started up again. ‘And the boiler is on the blink but all you need to do is smack it hard on the side when it makes that clunking sound.’

  ‘I know, you already showed me what to do,’ I said as I pulled in and parked in the drop-off zone.

  I unbuckled my seatbelt and slipped out of the car, helping Toby with his bags as he uttered little ‘Oh God’s the whole time. I pulled him into a hug and spoke into his ear.

  ‘You’ll be fine. Just take care of him – you know how enthusiastic he gets and I need him back here in one piece.’ I pulled back and looked into the eyes behind the glasses. ‘And don’t worry, aren’t you more likely to die in the car on the way to the airport than in the plane?’

  ‘With your driving, Effie, I would say so, yes,’ he replied with a smile. He pulled me in for another embrace before letting me go.

  I tried not to cry when I said goodbye to Arthur, but I knew it was going to be a losing battle. What was I going to do without him? He was one of the few people left who could stand to be in the same room with me and now he was leaving the country with the new love of his life. It was difficult for me not to be jealous. I’d been so close to the same level of blissful happiness, but I guess life couldn’t work out perfectly for everyone.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Effie,’ he said as he squeezed me to within an inch of my life. ‘By the time I get back I want to see you turned into a career bitch, you got that?’

  He pulled back, holding me firmly by the shoulders and looking at me with rapidly pinking eyes.

  ‘Be safe,’ I said, only just managing to get the words out before a tear fell. He wiped it away with his thumb.

  ‘You too,’ he replied, and just like that the last person I had walked away.

  When I arrived back at the flat, I sat down on the sofa and stared at the TV without turning it on. The silence pressed in on me like iron weights in my ears.

  I decided to skip dinner and clicked on the TV to watch Sky for four hours instead, barely moving enough to adjust my position as I stared, hypnotised. At 11.41 p.m., after I’d finished off the dregs that were left at the back of Arthur’s alcohol cupboard, I walked to the off-licence and bought a bottle of wine, warming the bottle beneath my good arm as I made my way back up to the flat. The bottle was empty by 1 a.m.

  I did the same the next night and the night after that like an ultra-depressing version of Groundhog Day. I tried my best not to think of Theo, but then I would hear Bowie on the radio or drink wine that reminded me of the taste of it on his lips or I’d notice the stain on the ceiling in the bathroom that vaguely resembled his face in profile and he was right back in the forefront of my mind again.

  On Saturday they were showing an Eighties film marathon on channel four and so, after I closed the shop for the day and sent Amy home, I made my way to the off-licence and bought myself a tub of ice cream, along with my usual wine, and a microwave dinner for one (a sad little watery lasagne that looked as pathetic as I did). I was quite used to cooking and generally keeping myself alive – it was one of the few things I’d learned at uni – but it was one of those nights when even pushing the buttons on the microwave seemed like a gargantuan task.

  The Breakfast Club was first. I ate my ugly microwave mush while I watched that one and then I turned my attention to the ice cream while Pretty in Pink started.

  I watched as the heroine fawned over the boy she liked, cutting up her dress and making a new one for the prom and walking in on the arm of Jon Cryer to impress the boy who’d screwed her over.

  ‘Don’t go back to him, Molly,’ I said through my mouthful of chocolate brownie ice cream. ‘Don’t trust him, you fool. He doesn’t love you. Sure, he says that now, but he doesn’t mean it.’

  I looked away as she returned to the arms of the boy she loved, who loved her too.

  I could reimagine as many dresses as I wanted and show Theo how great I looked, how well I was doing. But there would be no telling me that he loved me, no reconciliatory kiss beside his car as Eighties music played in the background. Theo didn’t want me and I had to try and accept that.

  I shook myself as the credits began to roll and ate another spoonful of liquid ice cream.

  I didn’t need Theodore ‘Fucking’ Morgan anyway. Why would I when I had Ben, Jerry and Molly Ringwald?

  It had been three and a half days since Arthur and Toby had flown away and as of yet I hadn’t managed to do anything seriously wrong. I’d fallen asleep whilst making dinner, ruining one of his pans in the process and setting off the smoke alarm, but apart from that life had been pretty uneventful.

  It was well into the run-up to Christmas now and the shop was busy, so much so that I barely had time to do anything else other than work. I went down to the shop, spilling my drink slightly as I went, and arriving at the counter with the smell of coffee and moroseness in the fabric of my black hoodie. I was feeling especially sorry for myself after a full two days of having absolutely zero calls, texts or emails. I mean, I didn’t miss my parents that much, but they could at least have the decency to wonder if I was still alive or not and check in.

  Amy sat behind the counter, refilling the bowl of mint imperials with that ever-present smile on her face.

  ‘Effie!’ she squealed when I arrived, bleary-eyed from a night of uneasy sleep. Amy took the mug from me, placed it down and took my hands in hers. ‘Guess what?’

  ‘What?’ I replied; her excitement wasn’t catching.

  ‘I just had an agent request the rest of my manuscript.’ She almost screamed and brought her hands up to her mouth as she giggled madly behind them.

  ‘You’re being published?’ I asked, jealousy flaring in my gut.

  ‘Not yet. They need to read the rest and see if they like it, but if they do, then …’

  She came in for a hug before I knew what was happening and I had no choice but to hug her back. I tried to be happy for her, to not be jealous, but as you probably know by now, I’d never been too good at that.

  That night I locked up the shop, turned out the lights and made my way up into the place I called home, for now. I sat down on the sofa, flicked on the TV and looked around at the boxes that I had yet to unpack. I’d just been grabbing the things I needed without unpacking, but now I realised that I would never settle until everything was in its place.

  I spent four hours unloading and trying to
make the flat a little homelier. It wasn’t large but it wasn’t small either. The front door was at the top of a staircase that led up from the back room of the shop and opened directly into the living room. The walls were painted an attractive shade of burnt orange (which annoyingly reminded me of Theo again) and a kitchenette sat in the left-hand corner. There was one modestly sized bathroom, Arthur’s bedroom and a room I couldn’t even get into for the sheer amount of books that blocked the doorway. I’d been sleeping on the sofa, abandoning the godforsaken futon after the first night, but tonight I vowed to sleep in an actual bed.

  I emptied the box, avoiding my novel until last. I set it down on the table, sat on the sofa and took a swig of wine. With acid rising in my throat I picked up the wad of papers and turned to the first page. As soon as I started reading, I began to feel the burning in my chest, the passion for the story, the love for the characters. But as I read on, I began to notice things. Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, even sentences that didn’t make sense, and by the time I lowered the papers to my lap I realised that I had been a deluded fool.

  I’d vainly sent it off without checking anything, so excited to get it gone that I’d rushed it and ruined my chances of it getting anywhere. I’d spent year upon year thinking that I’d done the most I could to ensure the future I thought I deserved, but now I saw that I hadn’t done enough. I felt like such an idiot when I thought of all the time I’d wasted, moping around when I should have been rewriting and fixing it.

  That night I crawled into my PJs and readied my clothes for the next day, laying out a pair of jeans and a billowy chiffon blouse that was burgundy and covered in lots of tiny green birds. As I laid the jeans down, I heard a rustling in the pocket and reached in to pull out a piece of crumpled paper. I unfolded it and my heart began to ache a little.

  The list sat in my hand, half-finished and torn down the centre.

  There were six tasks left unchecked:

  5.Move out

  9.Do something that matters

  10.Stop holding grudges

  11.Achieve a dream

  12.Learn to love myself

  13.Earn more money

  I crossed off Move out and Earn more money. My new managerial position had proved to be more profitable than my previous role had been, and I had moved out, although not permanently. I looked at the list and felt the hatred swell. But for all the hurt and despair that man had caused me, at least he’d made me feel something, made me do something with my life, even if it was only for a while.

  I took the list into the kitchen and pinned it to the cork noticeboard next to the door, beside a photograph of Arthur and Toby at the bowling alley, and I looked at the four remaining missions.

  Theo might have sent me away like a disgraced nineteenth-century housewife, but he had been right about one thing. I didn’t need him, not to complete this list.

  Even though I missed him, hated him and loved him in equal measure, I knew that my life was my own charge and if I didn’t like how it was going then I was the only one with the power to change it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I stood outside the ugly 1970s building that sat hidden away like the eyesore it was in a side street, away from the tourists. The charity logo blazed red from the centre of a desolate concrete façade and graffiti tags decorated the door. The building was terribly ugly, but what happened within its walls was not.

  I’d always wondered if the choices we make in life change the path that we started out on, or if we just end up at the same predetermined destination.

  A man could choose a red pair of socks over grey because his wife complained that he was boring. But then one of those red socks might end up getting thrown in with the whites, turning his wife’s favourite blouse a shade of baby pink and that might start the row that makes her think about filing for divorce, like she planned to do in the first place. Is life a series of meaningless decisions that fool us into thinking that the choices we make matter or do we really have control over where we end up?

  When I had found that list, I had chosen to try and change my life. Whether that would result in it actually changing was another matter entirely, but simply making the choice felt like progress and so what did it matter if that choice was a little meaningless?

  ‘Have you had any experience with the homeless before?’ Cassandra Hamilton asked me over the pine-effect veneer of her desk.

  Apart from my mother comparing me to one?

  ‘No,’ I replied as I completed my sign-up form and handed it back to her. She was a stout woman with an ill-advised pixie cut, dyed a shade of platinum blonde. She was wearing a shirt that didn’t quite fit her across the bust, the fabric gaping open to reveal the white bra she was wearing beneath. I tried not to keep glancing at it, but most times it couldn’t be helped.

  ‘Well, we have several teams that take a different section of the city centre. They tend to start at 8 p.m. and work through until they’ve run out of aid. You’ll be part of Caleb’s team working along New Street.’ She looked down at the form and grinned, her cheeks bulging out all round and pink. ‘All seems to be in order here and your background check is all clear. I’ll go and get Caleb so that the two of you can meet and we’ll see you tomorrow at eight.’ She pushed her rounded body up from the spinning lumbar support chair and disappeared around the corner.

  I heard a ping come from my phone; it was an email from Arthur.

  I smiled as I read it and saw the attached photographs of them at Prague’s St Vitus Cathedral. He told me that a postcard was on the way and that they’d arrange a Skype call soon.

  Before I could finish reading, Cassandra came back with a skinny man in tow.

  ‘Effie, this is Caleb. He’ll be your team leader starting tomorrow. I’ll leave you two to have a chat and then you’re free to go.’ She shook my hand, limply, and trotted off again.

  Caleb wasn’t what I’d expected. He wasn’t much older than me, with curly black hair that reminded me of Arthur and green eyes that smiled with friendliness.

  ‘Effie, that’s an interesting name. Is it short for anything?’ he asked, wheeling the chair around the desk and sitting next to me.

  ‘I think it’s usually short for Euphemia, but mine’s just Effie, thankfully.’

  ‘What happened to your hand?’ He pointed to the once blue splint that was now turning black with dirt.

  ‘I fell down a few weeks ago,’ I said simply. ‘I tend to make a habit out of injuring myself.’

  ‘Did it hurt?’ he asked.

  ‘Like a bitch.’ I clapped my hand to my mouth in worry about my flippant use of the word bitch in a formal situation, but he just smiled and I relaxed. ‘It’s not so bad now. I think it can come off pretty soon.’

  ‘Well, try your best not to injure yourself on my watch. The paperwork is a literal nightmare.’

  He smiled and ran his hand through his hair, the curls bouncing back to their original positions like springs when his hand had moved through.

  ‘Well, I’m Caleb, short for Caleb,’ he said and I found myself almost smiling. ‘What made you want to join us?’

  I couldn’t say, ‘Because a man I love made me promise to do a list of missions before he kicked me to the kerb like one of those sad single shoes at the side of a motorway.’ So, instead I replied with, ‘I just wanted to do something that matters.’

  ‘Well, we need all the help we can get,’ he said, wheeling the chair he was sitting on over to a cupboard. He sized me up with his eyes and took out a red sweatshirt and an armband with reflective patches. ‘Around Christmas is when we need the most help. People have their turkey dinners and their gifts and they watch their Morecambe and Wise box sets and it’s easy to forget that there are homeless people still out there, spending the day in a cold doorway.’ He handed me the sweatshirt with the official charity logo and the armband, telling me that he’d get an ID made up and would give it to me when I started tomorrow night.

  ‘Welcome aboard, Effi
e,’ he said, shaking my hand.

  I couldn’t wait for Tuesday evening to come around and give my life some purpose and when it did, I arrived half an hour early. The only other person there was Caleb, who greeted me with a grin and handed me my ID. It was raining outside and so cold that dragon’s breath fell from my lips, so Caleb got me a coat in the same red as my sweatshirt and handed me two bags full of food, energy bars and tokens for the shelter’s soup kitchen.

  ‘You ready to save the world?’ he asked as we headed out into the night.

  ‘Is it too cliché if I tell you I was born ready?’ I said, with an unnatural spring in my step. I was excited to be doing something, anything, other than sitting alone at home and talking to myself or the people on the TV.

  ‘Probably, but I’ll forgive it just this once. The others will be waiting for us at the meet point. Let’s go before they freeze to death,’ he said with a smile.

  We walked along the entire route of the main high street to the meeting point, Caleb chattering away the whole time. There were four others in our team: Janet, a middle-aged woman with warm brown skin and box-braided hair; Liz, a teenager with exceptionally large drawn-on eyebrows, who informed me that she was also part of Teens Against Animal Cruelty and the Stop the Badger Cull Campaign; and Ned and Cassie, a married couple who talked to me non-stop about their recent trip to visit family in Ireland.

  Ned carried a tank of hot water on his back and Cassie made hot drinks for the people we found huddled in doorways, their hands shivering as they took the polystyrene cups.

  ‘How are you finding it?’ Caleb asked, rubbing his hands together to generate a little heat.

  ‘I’m enjoying myself. It’s nice to do something good for a change,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, there’s another one for you over there.’ He pointed across the street to where a young woman, around thirty, was sitting in a tattered sleeping bag in the doorway of a Boots. I headed over and crouched down beside her.