The Dream Life I Never Had

by Terri Douglas

  ‘I’m never going back in that shop again’ I said. ‘Oh my God I could die, I could actually die.’

  ‘Well we’ll have to go back when we start doing up the bathroom’ Martin said trying to keep a straight face.

  ‘We’re never doing up the bathroom. The bathroom’s fine just how it is.’

  ‘I was thinking of putting in a new toilet, maybe like that one in the shop now Ben’s road tested it for us.’

  ‘Yeah, no though’ I said emphatically.

  8

  Of course it had been impossible to stay angry with Martin after Ben’s little escapade. We’d walked over to the McDonald’s near Frost’s and while I queued up still feeling mortified Martin tried to explain to Ben the difference between the toilets on display in a shop and real toilets, and two happy meals for the kids and two coffee’s for the adults later I began to see the funny side of things.

  The paint hadn’t gotten any further than being stored in the cupboard under the stairs as we’d gone to the play-park straight from McDonald’s; taking advantage of the sunshine Martin said, but I knew it had more to do with him being relieved that Ben was alright and feeling guilty about all the shouting he’d done the day before. Anyway by the time we got home it was a bit late to start clearing out the bedroom and washing walls down.

  And now here it was Monday morning again. The weekend had flown by and disappeared almost as if it had never happened and as usual we hadn’t actually done very much. Well Martin and I had belatedly ‘celebrated’ my birthday last night and although he was very careful not to say so I knew he was relieved not to have to sleep on the settee anymore.

  For me Monday was catch up day; in theory Monday was my day off, in reality it was anything but a day off. I’d done the morning school run and was quite pleased that I’d managed to be organised enough to get Kate to school ten minutes early. I’d already stripped the beds and done one load of washing and hung it out and the second load was already at the spin stage, time for a coffee while I waited for it to finish off and then I’d start the hoovering. Most Mondays I hoovered the whole house thoroughly and without interruption, the rest of the week it was a hit and miss affair and usually only got a perfunctory vacuum round the bits you could see.

  I lingered over my coffee to the background clatter of the final rinse cycle and was mentally planning the washing line configuration as to what would fit where, and worrying whether it would all be dry before it started raining as the sky had clouded over just in the last ten minutes, when my mobile started ringing. It was Martin.

  ‘They’re going to lay people off again’ he said forgoing a greeting of any kind and just launching straight into his reason for phoning.

  ‘What about you, are you one of them?’ I asked worriedly. Shepherds had laid people off before, a couple of times now in fact, but luckily for us Martin hadn’t been one of them.

  ‘Don’t know they’re not announcing who or how many until this afternoon.’

  ‘Well you’ve been there a long time now Martin, I’m sure it’ll be alright’ I said crossing my fingers and hoping I was right.

  ‘I don’t know Soph, apparently they’ve lost the Heathton contract and they were banking on that to keep the place going.’

  ‘But you’re doing the new houses up by the bypass; surely they can’t afford to get rid of you before the jobs finished can they?’

  ‘Yeah maybe’ Martin said but he didn’t sound in the least convinced.

  ‘Of course they can’t. Look it might not be as bad as you think, it’ll probably just be a few of the new guys that get laid off’ I said more confidently than I felt.

  ‘I hope you’re right. I’ve got to go now but I’ll let you know when I know anything, not sure exactly when that’ll be but I’ll phone you okay?’

  ‘Okay Martin, try not to worry’ I said as the phone went dead. Try not to worry, huh fat chance of that happening I said to myself.

  The washing machine had finished so I pegged the second load of washing out while pessimistically scanning the skies and wondering if I should be pegging anything out at all now that a few black clouds had turned up to join all the grey ones.

  I pushed the hoover round the living room and had just moved out to the hall when I heard the unmistakable rattle of doom as I sucked up a penny. ‘Oh great that’s all I need’ I said to no-one as I switched the stupid thing off. I upended the hoover hoping the malicious coin would fall out, but of course it didn’t. I could still hear it rattling around as I jiggled the extended hose but that’s all it was doing, just rattling. After another ten minutes of this useless exercise I capitulated and resigned myself to the inevitable, I was going to have to dismantle as many of the components of the hoover that would be dismantled and shake each one individually.

  Twenty minutes and a lot of dust later a five pence piece rolled out and innocently sat twinkling at me amid all the dislodged fluff as if to say ‘ha that was a good joke wasn’t it?’

  I put the hoover back together, emptied what was left in the dust bag that hadn’t already jumped out and scattered itself along the length of the hall, and decided I needed a tea break.

  As I sat down tea mug in hand I heard the patter of raindrops on the window. I sighed, put my mug down and dashed out to the garden to rescue the washing. With damp sheets and many small garments hanging from every available object including the backs of the dining chairs I finally sat down, on the edge of my chair, to drink my tea.

  I’d told Martin not to worry, but I was worried. We’d known Shepherds were in trouble for a long time now so it wasn’t a complete surprise that they were laying people off again, but what if this time Martin was one of the ones who lost their job, what then?

  In the dream life Martin being made redundant was not so much a disaster as it was a golden opportunity, a push towards starting his own business albeit a one man business to begin with. He’d get some redundancy money after so many year’s service and would use it set himself up. I’d help him, I would do the books and answer all the enquiries and take the bookings, and eventually we’d be so busy that I’d have to give up working at ‘Cut and Dye’, and Martin would have to take on an apprentice or something to help him. Maybe he’d do so well that we’d be able to move and Ben and Kate would finally be able to each have a bedroom of their own. Maybe we could even afford a holiday.

  Okay I was fantasizing but wouldn’t it be good if for once the dream life was real. It could happen couldn’t it? It wasn’t a complete fantasy. Things like that happened all the time . . . sometimes . . . for some people it did. Maybe if I just talked to Martin and got him all fired up and determined like he used to be about starting his own business he’d give it a shot, maybe.

  I finished hoovering, not as thoroughly as I might have done but my heart wasn’t in it, not that my heart was ever really that into it I mean you couldn’t exactly get passionate about hoovering but you know what I mean. I made up the beds with clean quilt covers and after going the standard ten rounds with mine and Martin’s double gratefully went back downstairs for a sit down before I went to pick up Ben and Kate from school. As I looked out at the wild weather I thought I really should have given at least the downstairs windows a bit of spit and polish while I had the chance, but as it was raining on and off I could legitimately give that a miss this week.

  Of course it poured with rain for the whole walk up to school, and the wait outside, and the walk home again, and then promptly stopped the minute we were back indoors. Kate and Ben followed their usual script asking when tea would be ready and I went through the usual responses. I gave in to Ben’s request for sausages but today we had peas instead of yucky coloured beans, so Ben was a bit disappointed but Kate was happy.

  I still hadn’t heard from Martin so either he still didn’t know, or everything was okay and his telling me had fallen out of his head. Or worst case scenario it was bad news and he was keeping it from me for as long as he could. No the worst case scenario would be if Shepherd
s had got rid of a load of people and they had rioted or something and Martin had been arrested. Okay I knew I was overreacting and that probably wasn’t going to happen, but that’s what you do when you’re left just hanging without a clue as to what might really be going on, you imagine the worst possible thing that could happen and before you know it you believe it’s true.

  Then as I was washing up and the kids were having their usual argument in the living room over who had control of the remote Martin got home. He was at least an hour early so the signs weren’t looking good and when I saw his face the signs were bang on target.

  ‘They’ve given me two week’s notice’ he said as he slumped down on one of the chairs.

  ‘Oh Martin.’

  ‘Two weeks! After all the time I’ve . . . and now just like that two weeks to finish off the bypass site and then thanks for everything but don’t bother coming back.’

  ‘Are they getting rid of everyone, are they closing down?’ I said abandoning the washing up and sitting down opposite Martin.

  ‘They’re downsizing’ Martin spat out with contempt.

  ‘Oh Martin. What did the others say?’

  ‘D’you know there were blokes that had been there for twenty years, twenty years Soph? Bill Jenson was crying, actually crying, although I felt a bit like crying myself. What’s he going to do now; he’s fifty at least so he’s not going to walk into another job just like that is he?’

  ‘We’ll manage, you’ll find something’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know if I will I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. The way things are at the moment everyone’s struggling for work.’

  ‘I’ll go full time for a bit until you get something’ I said.

  ‘Yeah it might be for a bit longer than a bit’ Martin said bitterly.

  ‘You could go self-employed’ I said tentatively. ‘You always said you were going to work for yourself one day.’

  ‘Soph if a big place like Shepherds are struggling to get work what chance do you think I’d stand?’

  ‘Yes but they’re trying to get the big jobs, building sites and refurbs. You’d be doing domestic stuff; there must be loads of people who need electrical things doing in their house.’

  ‘Yes loads of people who need stuff, not very many who can afford stuff though.’

  ‘But you could try’ I said encouragingly. ‘You could put an ad in the gazette and see what response you get. In the meantime you can have a look in the job centre, and in the paper I think Wednesday is jobs day, or you could sign up to an agency.’

  ‘I’ll think about the advert thing, and I’ll do the other stuff but I don’t hold out much hope. There’s thirty blokes just from Shepherds that’ll all be looking for work never mind the two million that are already on the dole.’

  ‘Are you going to do the two weeks?’

  ‘Have to don’t I? We need the money and I’ll miss out on redundancy if I don’t stick it out till the end’ Martin said angrily.

  ‘How much redundancy will you get do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know should be a month’s wages I would have thought.’

  ‘Well there you are then, we can make that stretch to keep us going for a couple of months at least and you’ll have got something else by then’ I said trying my best to be positive.

  9

  The weeks that had followed Martin losing his job were awful. He’d slowly become more and more depressed and I can’t say that I was jumping for joy myself. We’d had a slight reprieve in as much as Shepherd’s had asked Martin to stay on for an extra week owing to an overrun on the bypass site he was working on, but then the inevitable axe had fallen and Martin officially became one of the two million unemployed.

  Greg had said I could go full time at the salon which was good because we needed the money, but it was weird not to mention exhausting working eight or nine hours a day while Martin stayed at home. He did the school run twice a day and gave Ben and Kate their breakfast and tea as he didn’t have much choice about that, but as to everything else that needed doing he didn’t do any of it and spent most of his time watching daytime television or just mooching about feeling sorry for himself, so the everything else fell to me to carry on doing despite upgrading to a full time job.

  Martin had signed-on on the Monday following his last Friday at work, or at least he’d tried to but they’d told him that the four weeks and two days redundancy money he was due to get meant he couldn’t claim anything until that had run out, the time that is not the money. The money when it was finally paid was sitting in the bank and we were eking it out as Scrooge-like as possible.

  In my dream life it was about now that I’d buy a ticket and win the lottery, all our problems would be over and we’d live happily ever after.

  Meanwhile back in the real world our problems were just starting, at least mine were.

  I got home on Tuesday night after a particularly bad day at work, Mrs Fairchild had wanted a dye job and chosen red of all colours that was totally unsuitable for her olive complexion but no amount of persuading could deter her. And then she’d complained because the colour was too bright even though she’d chosen, insisted even on that particular shade herself. Anyway when I got home Martin was actually happy for once and had cooked dinner.

  ‘Wow’ I said referring to the novelty of a meal almost ready and waiting for me.

  ‘Sorry I’ve been such a grump lately’ Martin said as he helped me off with my coat.

  ‘Has something happened?’ I asked. ‘Have you got an interview or a job, Martin have you found a job?’

  ‘Sort of . . . I might have’ he said while he busied himself making me a cup of tea.

  ‘Never mind about tea, sit down and tell me what and where the job is?’

  ‘Well it’s not certain yet but Lenny thinks . . . no he knows that this bloke he met will be able to get us some work’ Martin said excitedly.

  ‘Lenny?’ I said dismayed.

  ‘Yes I know you don’t think much of Lenny but he’s been trying as hard as I have to get a job.’

  ‘And he knows a bloke does he?’ I said sceptically.

  ‘Yes he met this guy who . . .’ Martin started.

  ‘Met what guy, where did he meet this guy?’

  ‘If you just let me talk I’ll tell you. He met a bloke in the pub, and alright I know you’re going to say something about that but it’s where blokes meet and . . . talk and . . . anyway it doesn’t matter where he met him, he met this guy who’s been working on a project in Spain for the last three months and now they’re looking for electricians to do the first fix.’

  ‘In Spain?’ I said even more sceptically.

  ‘Yes in Spain and alright I’d have to work away from home for a bit but it’s an English outfit running the job and they’re looking for English blokes to go out there. It’s some holiday-let complex or something, I don’t know all the details yet but this guy told Lenny they pay top whack and . . .’

  ‘You’re going to work in Spain, away from home in Spain?’ I said astounded, so much so that I found the need to keep saying Spain as if the more I said it the more chance it might have of making sense.

  ‘Yeah it’s this whole common market Europe thing they’re always going on about where you can work abroad.’

  ‘And what about us, me and Ben and Kate?’ I said still stunned.

  ‘I know it’ll be a bit hard Soph but . . .’

  ‘A bit hard! You’re seriously telling me you’re going off on some jolly to Spain with Lenny while me and the kids tough it out here all on our own, while you’re in Spain?’ I just couldn’t stop saying Spain although it still wasn’t sinking in.

  ‘I won’t be on a jolly I’ll be working, and it’ll be just as hard on me working away from home as it will be on you’ Martin said reasonably.

  ‘Will it?’ I said. ‘Really? And where will you stay and what will you be doing when you’re not working? . . . Mmm now let me see if I can guess, oh I know you’ll be in som
e bar with Lenny because of course you’ll be missing us all so much, and naturally you won’t want to stay in your room of an evening, and Lenny won’t want to stay in his room . . . or perhaps you’ll be sharing a room. And then there are the weekends or are you going to tell me you’ll be working weekends as well?’

  Martin didn’t get a chance to reply as Ben and Kate came out to the kitchen to see what all the shouting was about. I gave them both a hug and then got dragged into the living room to see the mess they’d made in there; of course they didn’t say to see the mess they said it was to see the den they’d made between the settee and one of the armchairs with a bottom sheet they’d robbed from the airing cupboard and the seat cushions from the settee. I enthused telling them it was brilliant and then had to sit in it, or should that be under it, and tried to read them a book with us all squashed together in the tiny cramped space; well my legs stuck out through the entrance but the rest of me was squashed in.

  Kate told me about her day at school and how Miss Taylor had told Stacey off for pulling Reanna’s hair at playtime and then Stacey had started crying and wouldn’t say she was sorry. Evidently Reanna had been saying that Stacey’s dad had left home because he didn’t love Stacey anymore, so Stacey naturally enough had lashed out trying to hit Reanna and ended up pulling her hair. If you ask me Reanna got everything she deserved but it was still Stacey who got told off; seems nothing much has changed in the last fifteen years since I was at school, it’s always the one who gets caught that gets all the punishment regardless of the circumstances.

  Ben as usual couldn’t remember anything he’d done all day but then he very rarely could tell you anything about his day at nursery, even at three o’clock when he’d only just come out. No matter how much coaxing I did all he’d say was ‘don’t know’ or ‘can’t member’. I sometimes wondered if they made the nursery children sit in the corner facing the wall from the moment they got there until going home time and that’s why he never had much to say about it, but then again the other nursery children seemed to have plenty to say when their mothers picked them up, guess it was just my Ben that was so uncommunicative.