Unsettled Ground

by Claire Fuller

  “Fucking ridiculous,” Julius says, reading as he goes indoors. “A week. We’ve got a week.”

  “Is that all?” Jeanie says, although she knew it already.

  “Maybe we could take it to a solicitor.” Julius runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up on one side.

  “Where would we get the money for a solicitor?”

  He turns to her, his expression a snarl. “I don’t know. Sell the piano?”

  “Or Mum’s wedding ring,” she shouts.

  “Neither of them are worth anything.”

  “This is crazy. We don’t owe them any money.” Jeanie thinks she might actually throw up. “What about the council?” She sits on a kitchen chair. Maude goes under the table. “They have to help people when they’re made homeless, don’t they? A council house or whatever.” She can’t believe it’s come to this.

  “I’ve already had a word with someone,” Julius says, more quietly now.

  “What?”

  “That bloke who looks after the market, the one who came to the wake. He used to work in the housing department. There’s not a chance in hell. We’re too old, or not old enough. We need to be married or have children, or something.”

  On Sunday morning after Jeanie hears Julius leave for a relief milking job he’s managed to get for a couple of days, she goes downstairs in her nightie and dressing gown. She’s barely slept for thinking about what might happen tomorrow. Every time she has tried to talk to her brother about the impending eviction, they’ve argued. In the early hours she decided that she would get some things together—just a couple of boxes in case they really do have to leave tomorrow. She tells herself that this isn’t giving up, it’s being prepared. But what do you pack when you don’t know where you’re going or for how long?

  There had been a day in that long feverish time when she was about six and off school, that she’d woken on the sofa to see a man standing at the kitchen table, stuffing a slice of bread and butter into his mouth. The coat he wore was tied closed with a length of string and crumbs had fallen into his grey beard, which was long enough to lie on his chest. His sour odour reached her across the room and when Jeanie cried out, the man shovelled the food in faster—pieces of ham and then a whole hard-boiled egg which he didn’t stop to peel—his eyes darting and his cheeks bulging. Another egg went into his coat pocket, followed by an apple. At Jeanie’s cry her mother hurried in from the scullery, and the tramp, perhaps used to being chased away, made a few steps towards the front door.

  “Mr. Jackson,” Dot said calmly. “Won’t you sit down to eat?” She pulled out a chair and, cautiously, the man sat. “Mr. Jackson is our guest, Jeanette. He’s come to tea.” Her mother returned to the scullery for more food and Mr. Jackson relaxed, and popped the hard-boiled egg, whole, out of his mouth, shell intact. He put it in one ear and drew it out of the other before tapping it on the table and peeling it.

  She remembers, dropped by the table leg, his canvas bag—his only belongings apart from the clothes he wore. What, she wonders now, did he carry with him?

  In the scullery, Jeanie stands for a long time watching a beam of sunlight slide across the farmhouse sink. If they’re evicted tomorrow, what will they do about their mother’s body? They can’t leave it and risk it being discovered, but they certainly can’t take it with them. Jeanie doesn’t have a solution. With a gasp and a rush of energy she goes into the old dairy, where half a dozen flattened cardboard boxes have been shoved in a corner. The cardboard is damp, and it takes her an age to find a roll of parcel tape, but she makes them up and packs them with plates and other pieces of essential crockery, wrapped in towels. She tucks in the portable radio, the torch, cutlery, two saucepans, and a frying pan, as well as whatever food she has in the cupboards. Angel’s painting of Maude is secured with an elastic band and placed on top. On Tuesday, she tells herself, she will be unpacking everything and putting it back on the shelves, laughing at her own caution. She stuffs another box with two sleeping bags, spare pillows, and blankets, and puts everything in the old dairy. She is only preparing because she can’t bear to be unprepared.

  15

  Jeanie sits in the kitchen, still in her nightie, fingerpicking the same phrase over and over on her guitar. The need to play it three times in a row at the same tempo with the same stress on the top string has kept her on the chair for an hour. She hears the back door open and Bridget call, “Jeanie? It’s only me.”

  She stiffens, keeps the guitar on her knees, waiting for Nathan to follow on behind. But Bridget is alone and immediately talks about what a long way up the track the cottage is and how her poor car can’t cope with those potholes, how warm it is in the kitchen, why for goodness’ sake aren’t the lights on, and what is Jeanie doing in her nightie at this time of day, and is so generally cheerful and chatty that Jeanie supposes she knows nothing about Nathan’s new job or the threat of their eviction.

  Bridget puts a large flat box on the table. “There’s a nice pizza for your dinner and I bought a couple of rolls for lunch.” She brings out two ciabatta rolls wrapped in cling film from her handbag. “That deli is doing all sorts now,” she says. “Pastries and macaroons. I sat at one of the tables outside and had a lovely cappuccino with a milky swan on top. You should go sometime, get yourself out of here.” She looks around. “I don’t expect you’ve been eating, have you?”

  “I’m not hungry.” Jeanie stands the guitar against the wall. It’s clear that Bridget is staying.

  “That’s what your heart says, but the body needs sustenance. Energy.” Bridget takes two plates from the dresser and wipes her hand quickly across them. If she notices that there are fewer than usual, she doesn’t comment. She unwraps the food and lifts the top of each roll. “Pâté and rocket or brie and cranberries?” She sits at the table. “I thought you might need a bit of help sorting through Dot’s clothes. Not a nice job, but these things have got to be done, haven’t they? Mind you, I can’t see Stu or Nath going through mine when I’m gone. They’ll probably build a bonfire in the garden and dump everything on it. Me included.”

  Jeanie thinks of Dot under the ground beside the apple tree. She draws a plate towards her, suddenly starving. “Maybe Stu will go first,” she says, her mouth full.

  “No, it’ll be me,” Bridget says. “Worn out by my husband and son. I was forty when I had Nath, you know—”

  “Have you seen him recently?”

  “Nathan? He’s living with a mate in Newbury. He comes over when he fancies a home-cooked meal or when he wants to borrow some money. God knows what he’s up to. No good, I imagine.” She laughs, and Jeanie is no longer hungry. She thinks about telling Bridget that Nathan came to the cottage a little over a week ago and that she might see him tomorrow, but she says nothing. If she doesn’t say it, it might not happen. When Bridget has finished eating, they go up the left staircase to the bedroom. Bridget leads, clinging on to the handrail and panting, with Maude jostling between their legs to get there first, then curling up in her place on the landing when she decides nothing interesting is going to happen.

  “The bulb must have gone.” Bridget flicks the bedroom light switch. “In here?” she says, opening the wardrobe. Jeanie doesn’t want to be doing this now. She’s hoping to go to Saffron’s house later, start the mowing to see if the volume of the engine will drown out her thoughts.

  “Hers are on the right,” Jeanie says, reaching out but not touching. When she came upstairs to look for something to dress her mother’s body in, Jeanie hadn’t been able to resist holding one of Dot’s dresses to her face to inhale the scent of her. Mostly, though, the smell had been of the washing flakes they used. Every Monday, Dot and Jeanie used to drag out the twin-tub from the old dairy, stuffing the dirty clothes in one side and slopping them into the spinner on the other. The machine was so violent that if they went away for a few minutes, when they returned it would have limped across the room as far as the electric lead would let it as though trying to escape. Jeanie hasn�
��t done any proper washing since Dot died, only rinsing out her and Julius’s underwear in the kitchen sink and hanging it on the line in the yard. “Mum’s jumpers and other things are in her chest of drawers,” Jeanie says.

  “There’ll be clothes you’ll want to keep, I’m sure.” Bridget takes down a hanger with a skirt and holds it up. “Your mum wore this to the village fete last year.”

  “I don’t remember,” Jeanie says. She didn’t go. She never goes to village events. Too many people, too much noise and excitement. “I don’t want any of it. It can all go. The nearest charity shop.” She has an urge to clear out everything. If the cottage were empty she wouldn’t have to decide what to pack.

  “Surely, something?”

  “It has to go, today.” Jeanie feels the same surge of energy she had when she got the boxes out from the dairy. With two hands she lifts off half a dozen full hangers from her mother’s side of the wardrobe and chucks them on the bed. A flowered skirt falls to the floor and Bridget picks it up. “This is lovely. Isn’t it from some fancy shop?” Bridget is looking inside the waistband at the label. Jeanie hasn’t seen the skirt before, and it does look expensive.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” she says. “Can you take the lot of it in your car?” Jeanie has never understood the fuss people—women—make about hair and make-up and clothes. Clothes are things to keep you warm or dry. She goes to the chest of drawers. “All this too?” She yanks at a drawer so that one side comes out first and won’t come out further or go back in, and she hangs her head, pausing, gathering herself without Bridget seeing.

  “What about this winter coat?” Bridget says. “This might fit you. You’re a bit smaller than your mum, though.”

  “The coat too,” Jeanie replies, without turning.

  “It’s good quality.”

  When Jeanie looks, Bridget is rubbing the wool between her fingers. Jeanie huffs and with what she knows is bad manners takes the coat from Bridget, yanks it off its hanger, and thrusts her arms into it.

  “It’s too big, see?” Only her fingertips show below the sleeves. “It can all go.” Jeanie shoves her hands deep into the pockets of the coat. “Bridget, there’s something I need to tell you—ask, really.”

  “It looks lovely on you,” Bridget says, talking over her. “You could take up the sleeves. Putting on a bit of weight wouldn’t do you any harm.”

  Jeanie’s fingers feel a piece of folded paper at the bottom of the pocket. She pulls it out: a twenty-pound note.

  “Would you look at that,” Bridget says, smiling.

  Jeanie laughs. Delighted and surprised, she unfolds it and holds it up to the window.

  “Maybe you should keep it. It’s a lucky coat.”

  Jeanie puts the money in the pocket of her dressing gown. It will be enough for another food shop. She takes the coat off and dumps it on the bed with the other clothes. “No, I can’t keep any of it.” She sits on the side of the bed. “I’ve been having a clear-out.”

  “A clear-out?”

  “Deciding what to keep and what can go. So much clutter in this house.”

  “A spring clean.”

  “Kind of.”

  “But too much change all at once isn’t a good thing. It takes a while to adjust after something big has happened. When I had to clear out Dad’s house—”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “Why’s that then?” Bridget takes down the remaining hangers on Dot’s side of the wardrobe.

  “Julius and I are probably moving out,” Jeanie says fiercely, chin up, as though daring Bridget to challenge her.

  “Moving?” Bridget says. Her surprise doesn’t sound quite genuine. “What a shame for you and Julius to have to move out now.”

  “I thought you said this place wasn’t fit to live in? Buckets in the corners when it rains. Freezing in the winter, damp the rest of the time.”

  “I’m not sure I said all that. I might have suggested that Rawson needs to pull his finger out and get the place fixed up.”

  “He’s pulled his finger out all right.”

  “Your mother would be so sad. It was important to her, to keep this roof over your heads, make sure you were looked after.”

  “Oh, Bridget.” Jeanie slumps, giving in. “Rawson’s evicting us—tomorrow. Tomorrow! If it actually happens. God knows where we’ll go. Julius won’t talk about it. I’m not sure if he refuses to believe it’ll happen or he’s just ignoring it, but—”

  “Well, that’s terrible,” Bridget interrupts, her tone odd enough for Jeanie to look up. Bridget, still facing the wardrobe and fiddling with the clothes draped over her arm, says: “We can’t be having you homeless. I’ve known you and Julius nearly all your lives and I wouldn’t want that. I tell you what, if it happens, why don’t you both come and stay with me and Stu for a bit? A week or two until you sort something out.”

  “I don’t think it would work. But thanks.”

  Bridget turns finally, smiling too broadly. “Of course it would. You can have Nath’s old room and Julius can have the sofa. We’ll manage for a while.”

  The moment for telling Bridget about Nathan seems to have passed. It would be like revealing to a wife that her husband is having an affair, or her child has been seen smoking pot on the village green: not your business and too close to gossip. Maybe it’s better to let her find out for herself, or not.

  “And Stu. What will he say?”

  “Stu won’t mind.”

  ∙

  In bed later, with Dot’s clothes taken away by Bridget, Jeanie lies in her nightie and dressing gown, which she hasn’t taken off all day. She never made it to Saffron’s. Under the covers she slips her hand into the dressing gown pocket and finds, again, the twenty-pound note. She searched every other pocket before Bridget took the clothes away, in case Dot left money in another, but she didn’t find any more. Jeanie replays their conversation and remembers Bridget’s awkwardness. She unfolds the note and holds it in front of her. Would Dot have folded a single note and forgotten it in a pocket? In the dark Jeanie’s face burns with shame at her naivety as she realizes that Bridget put the money in the coat pocket, and this could only mean that Julius had told her about how desperate their money problems have become. He must have told her about the eviction too and discussed the idea of them moving in with her and Stu. Did he also try to mention Nathan’s involvement? That evening, when Julius was eating the pizza, he pretended to be surprised by Bridget’s offer, maintaining that they wouldn’t need to take her up on it; they wouldn’t be moving out the next day no matter what. Perhaps the suggestion for them to stay wasn’t even Bridget’s; maybe he went to her and begged.

  16

  The smell of cigarettes wakes Jeanie. It has taken days for the smoky, beery stink to dissipate after the gathering for Dot, and now the smell sets up the same palpitations inside her. How was it that last night, of all nights, she was able to sleep? She hears raised voices in the kitchen—Julius’s and several others—and she scrambles to get dressed while Maude harasses her and grouses, knowing something is going on. Downstairs, Nathan is lounging in the doorway between the scullery and the kitchen. He appears more at ease than he did on his last visit and he’s wearing the same suit, although it has already bagged at the knees and the pockets have taken on the shapes of a mobile phone and a set of keys. Another young man is wedged into a corner of the sofa, his eyes closed and mouth open. He jerks awake, eyes staring crazily about him. A third man, slighter than the others, hollow-cheeked with eyes deep-set and red-rimmed, stands near the front door smoking while Julius rants at him about rights of entry and trespass. The man says nothing, only smiles, his teeth too small for his mouth.

  Three, Jeanie thinks. Why did Rawson send three people?

  “What the hell is going on?” she says, and they turn to look at her. She tries to block Maude on the stairs but the dog slips round her legs and snarls, lips retracted. The man Julius is arguing with stamps a booted foot towards her and Maude scuttles
under the table.

  “Jeanie,” Nathan says, standing upright. “Miss Seeder. I didn’t know you were home.”

  “Where else would I be at nine in the morning, Nathan?”

  He shoves his hands in his trouser pockets and she can see the shape of his knuckles through the material.

  A fourth man appears from beside the front door, carrying a toolbox. “All done, Tom,” he says, handing over a set of keys.

  “For God’s sake,” Julius says. “This is our house.” He’s wearing only his pyjama bottoms. His go-to uniform for emergencies, Jeanie thinks.

  “Why did you let them in?” she asks.

  “Didn’t you hear them? They were beating the door down.”

  Tom slaps the workman on the back. “Cheers, mate. Settle up later, yeah?”

  Through the kitchen window Jeanie sees the locksmith wandering down the path like this is just another job. The wind lifts long strands of his hair and blows them about. Tom takes a drag on his cigarette, flicks the butt into the garden, and kicks the foot of the man on the sofa, making him jump and jerk again. “Come on, Lewis. Can’t fucking sleep all day. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Get out of my house,” Julius says. He’s at the front door with his hand on the latch.

  Jeanie is standing in front of the range, its dull warmth radiating through her skirt, and she thinks that she must build up the fire—they will need hot water and the top warm for breakfast—until she realizes that they probably won’t be having breakfast this morning. Perhaps the scrambled eggs she made a few days ago but didn’t eat were the last she’ll ever make in this house. She thinks then of the chickens—what will they do with the chickens? Nathan comes to stand beside her. “I thought you’d have moved out already,” he says quietly, apologetically.

  “Well, we haven’t. Let’s just stop this,” she says. “We don’t owe any money. There’s no rent to pay. We’ll speak to Rawson and get it sorted out.”