The Kindness Club on Mapleberry Lane - Part One: A Summer Surprise

by Helen Rolfe

  ‘Please tell me it won’t be going all day,’ Audrey moaned about the piano before Veronica could get a word in edgeways.

  Veronica deliberately slowed her breathing and tried to take this one battle at a time. ‘She hasn’t played for days because you were settling in here.’ Veronica led her away to the kitchen and shut that door too. Perhaps it would be enough to calm the storm that was brewing. ‘She’ll be off to school soon.’

  ‘Good, then I might be able to study in peace.’ Audrey yanked a bowl out from the crockery cupboard and thumped it down onto the counter but after a review of the cereals decided there was nothing to her taste and exchanged the bowl for a plate, treating the plate to as much brutality as its predecessor. She shoved two pieces of bread into the toaster and pressed the lever.

  Veronica daren’t even mention she hadn’t heard Audrey have her shower yet and that she was pretty sure she hadn’t done anything closely resembling study. ‘Layla is lovely, Audrey, and she needs to learn properly. At least if she does, we’ll all have less of a headache.’ She exchanged a look with her granddaughter but her joking wasn’t working and so she went back to the study and left Audrey to have her breakfast.

  Now Layla had had a bash – the only way her playing could be described – it was time to have a quick look at the book that had arrived yesterday afternoon. It was full of exercises but Veronica only intended to teach formally for fifteen minutes a day, or else Layla wouldn’t take it in. They could likely get more done over the summer when the holidays arrived, but then again, if Audrey maintained this ghastly mood, Veronica didn’t hold out much hope for harmony between them all.

  When Sam first asked her to have Audrey for an extended summer break, Veronica had panicked. Then as she waited for her granddaughter to arrive, she began to have a change of heart. She’d talked with Ian the postman about Audrey – he had a daughter the same age and agreed it was a testing time – and he’d told her it would be a lovely summer surprise to have family staying with her. He knew her life was limited, he knew there weren’t many comings and goings at number nine, and after Veronica shut the door to him that day, she’d tried to think about it differently. It was a surprise, he was right, and she’d tried to look forward to it rather than dread it. She’d even had Trevor make up extra vases of fresh peonies to put around the house, not that Audrey had noticed.

  Since Audrey’s arrival, Veronica swung between being more than happy with her summer surprise and wishing she could give it back like a gift that came with a receipt and you were able to return. She’d never tell Audrey that, or Sam either; she’d never admit she dreaded failing all over again.

  Back to focusing on Layla, Veronica took her through the hand and finger positioning at the piano again, and with a very simple exercise using only the right hand and three notes, Layla did her best to follow it. It helped that she’d learned to read music with the recorder; it was treble clef so they’d deal with that first and when they finally moved on to more complicated tunes, Veronica could play the bass clef with her left hand.

  Veronica didn’t miss the slam of Audrey’s bedroom door above and the footsteps before she must have thrown herself down on the bed and likely shoved those earphones of hers in. The girl would have ear problems before long if she kept insisting on doing that.

  ‘I think it’s time we got you organised for school,’ Veronica prompted Layla, checking her watch. ‘I don’t want to make you late.’

  Layla picked up her things, finished the glass of water on the side table and went through to the lounge where she knelt on the armchair closest to the window and flipped the shutters to horizontal so she’d be able to see Bea. And when Bea walked along the pavement and waved, Layla hugged Veronica and called a goodbye to Audrey up the stairs.

  ‘She’s probably got her earphones in,’ Veronica told her, when there was no reply. Layla’s hugs were starting to become a feature of her life, but each one still made Veronica take pause. She’d spent so many years alone in this house, convincing herself that she didn’t need those moments of affection – and now they’d become a highlight of her days, and one she looked forward to more and more.

  Layla happily ran out of the front door, down the path and turned back with a wave before she went off with Bea.

  Audrey didn’t grace Veronica with her presence until halfway through the morning when she came to get a snack, which timed with Charlie’s arrival. He’d just come off nights and looked exhausted.

  Veronica introduced him to Audrey before she disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ Unsure after meeting the infamous granddaughter, he wiped his feet on the mat before stepping into the hallway.

  ‘Not at all.’

  He handed her a punnet of raspberries. ‘It’s not many, I’m afraid, but they’re good.’

  Veronica inhaled their summer aroma. ‘Nothing like home-grown, you’re too good to me. Come through, I’ll make some tea.’

  ‘I’ll pass today, I need to get home to bed. But I wanted to give you these – Layla was supposed to bring them over with the cauliflowers. And, I confess, I have another motive.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I wanted to make sure you’re happy with Layla coming over so early in the mornings. She says you like to hear about the calendar.’

  ‘I’m very happy with the arrangement – I enjoy her company.’ No more information needed; the piano would hopefully be a lovely surprise come the end of the year if she could get Layla to practise so she was good enough to play Christmas tunes.

  ‘Pleased to hear it, but make sure you tell me if you change your mind.’ A yawn pulled his handsome features into a totally different expression.

  ‘Tough night?’ Veronica often loved to sit down and talk shop. She missed working at a hospital with so much to think about and keep you on your toes. It was when you had too much time alone with your thoughts that it became a problem. She managed to fill her time with the few visitors she had, a lot of television, she read a lot and kept up her activities like baking and knitting. But there was nothing like hearing about the rush of dealing with patients, being the saviour in an emergency, interacting with people who needed you the most.

  ‘Very tough, I’ll tell you the details another time.’

  Veronica put a hand to his arm. ‘Sleep well, and let me know if you need me to mind Layla.’

  ‘What would I do without you?’

  Veronica smiled before she noticed Audrey watching them from her position leaning against the kitchen door frame, as she ate a chunk of cheese. Her granddaughter didn’t always talk but Veronica had no doubt she was taking everything in as she went along.

  ‘Good to meet you, Audrey,’ Charlie said her way.

  Charlie had only just left when Veronica saw Trevor coming up the garden path. With a big grin he handed her a bulging carrier bag that was so heavy she had to put it straight down. ‘Whatever is all this?’ she asked, peering in the top.

  ‘China.’

  Audrey had a look for herself. ‘You’re giving Gran all your rejects?’

  Trevor took his cap off to let the breeze run through white hair that was always cut so neatly. Veronica wondered whether his wife made sure he was presentable at all times. Even when he was gardening, the only signs he’d been working with dirt was the odd muddy trouser leg or elbow. ‘When we talked the other day, you mentioned the mosaic wall,’ he said to Veronica, ‘and you seemed enamoured with the idea. It’s not my thing at all, I prefer genuine flowers rather than mosaics, but we’ve been meaning to get rid of some of this for ages, it just sits in the cupboard taking up space. There are all sorts of colours in there.’ He nodded to the bag.

  ‘I’ll say,’ enthused Audrey, taking out a grape-coloured tea pot and a sunflower yellow mug.

  ‘Do with it what you will,’ said Trevor before suggesting, ‘perhaps your granddaughter here might like to be a part of the community project.’ Even though he knew what Veronica was like, he wasn�
��t giving up on her and it was the little acts of kindness like this that kept her going on some days.

  Veronica watched Audrey rummage through the bag as though it was filled with little treasures rather than someone’s unwanted items. ‘Well thank you, it’s much appreciated.’ And if Audrey didn’t want it, Layla would.

  Trevor roared with laughter and when Veronica looked again at Audrey, she was wearing a pair of plastic goggles held tight against her face with an elastic strap that ran around the back of her head. ‘Whatever have you got on?’

  Audrey giggled away, her head turning to Trevor who shared the amusement. Each time she moved, the ends of the elastic strap flapped around the enormous goggles.

  ‘I added in three pairs of those,’ Trevor explained. ‘If you’re going to smash china, you need to protect your eyes.’

  ‘All I need is a hammer!’ Audrey announced.

  ‘God help me,’ said Veronica with a shake of her head.

  ‘You’ve got your hands full with that one,’ Trevor winked. ‘Good luck.’

  Trevor went on his way and before Veronica had a chance to shut the door after Audrey took the bag of china inside and admired her own reflection in the hallway mirror, a Tesco delivery truck pulled up outside. Without complaint, Audrey helped her bring everything through to the kitchen once it arrived on the doorstep from the delivery man who seemed most amused by Audrey’s face accessory.

  Audrey helped refill the cupboards and the fridge, finally took off the goggles and poured a glass of lemonade.

  ‘You can take that upstairs with you if you like,’ said Veronica. But when Veronica shut the fridge door after putting the lemonade away, Audrey was still standing in the doorway. ‘Would you like something else to eat?’ she asked her, anxious to do the right thing and make her feel welcome. ‘We have raspberries. I was going to make muffins, but I can use an alternative, chocolate chips perhaps.’

  ‘Raspberry muffins sound good.’ She still wasn’t leaving. ‘Gran, I’ve been wondering…the supermarket deliveries, the fresh produce from your neighbours, your visits from people…’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Don’t you ever go out to bowls, or bingo or something?’

  ‘Bowls and bingo?’ Veronica chuckled. ‘That’s stereotyping of the elderly. You’ll be suggesting I ride around on a bus next, just because I’ve got a free bus pass.’

  But Veronica’s sense of humour didn’t deter her granddaughter who sipped her lemonade and watched her gran closely. ‘Seriously, you’ve not been out since I arrived and I’ve been here over a week. Did Mum tell you I was so bad you can’t leave me alone? I’m not going to burn the house down or have a party you know.’

  ‘I know.’ She washed the fresh raspberries in a colander.

  ‘Then why don’t you do something for yourself – go over to the shops?’

  ‘I don’t need anything.’ Veronica emptied the raspberries onto kitchen towel to rid them of most of the water so they’d be ready for muffin-making.

  ‘That day you asked me to get toilet rolls and I forgot, you lost your temper at me.’

  ‘I apologise, it was unnecessary.’

  ‘I deserved telling off – you’d asked me to do it. But why didn’t you go to the shops? You had all day to yourself.’

  ‘Audrey, really, why all the questions? I hope you’re this inquisitive at school, it’s good to have an inquiring mind.’ She hoped her rambling might deter Audrey but her wish fell flat at Audrey’s direct question that came her way.

  ‘Gran, why don’t you ever leave the house?’

  And there it was, the question she’d been waiting for, the question Sam obviously hadn’t answered for her daughter. Instead she’d sent her here to Mapleberry to discover for herself, when Veronica could hide her secret no longer. Her granddaughter was about to find out what kind of misfit her gran really was, how she’d failed her entire family so badly she was surprised they wanted anything to do with her at all.

  And she had to live with her mistakes for the rest of her life.

  Chapter Six

  Sam

  Ever since she dropped Audrey off in Mapleberry, Sam had been frantically trying to find work and sell the house that had always been too big for just the two of them. She’d found a buyer for her property quickly and the sale had progressed rapidly, but as the months marched on through July and now well into August, the search for a new place to live was getting even more desperate.

  Her first impressions of the rental house she’d come to view today weren’t bad at all. The gate was still on its hinges for a start, and although on a busy main road, the terrace was close to shops and just about walkable for Audrey to get to school come September.

  The last four rentals Sam had looked at had been a far cry from what she wanted – the first had been next to a pub and the noise even during the day was intolerable; the second had a brown bathroom suite that looked like it belonged in the 1940s, and a kitchen in similar disrepair, and the third property was so far from the bus route she would have had to drive Audrey to school and back every day.

  Surely somewhere along the line, Sam was going to strike it lucky in the rental lottery. She had a good feeling about this one.

  A smart navy-blue door opened up into a long hallway with vintage oak flooring, rooms off to the right-hand side. First was a beautiful sitting room with a fireplace surrounded by turquoise tiles. The curtains, thick and luxurious, were cream like the carpet and there were floor to ceiling bookcases that Sam could see housing not only books but photo frames and perhaps an indoor plant. She nodded her approval and it was on to the next. Okay, so not quite as nice: a sparse dining room with nothing in it apart from a dusty light fitting. But she could work with that. Perhaps she’d make turn it into a study.

  She followed the estate agent into the kitchen, which hadn’t been put together at all well. The cooker was a slot-in style with gaps either side just waiting for food to fall down. And on closer inspection, it seemed whoever was in this place before had had that very problem. Sam didn’t want to look too carefully and find out exactly what the remnants were and so she moved on to the downstairs toilet, which wasn’t bad, although it had no window and the door didn’t shut fully.

  ‘I assume there’s a bit of wiggle room with the monthly rental,’ she said. ‘Given the state of repair this place is in, the price tag is rather high.’

  He shrugged. ‘No wiggle room at all, I’m afraid, and it’s a fixed-term rental for a year.’

  The year wasn’t a problem, but the price was, not to mention the downsides of what she’d seen so far. The rental was top of her budget, which was already looking too generous unless Sam found a job in the next couple of months. She had a third interview right after this, hence why she was wearing a skirt and heels and a silk blouse, which she was careful not to get dirty when she walked past the built-in fridge that looked like it hadn’t seen a cloth in the whole time it had been there.

  Upstairs, Sam approved of the biggest bedroom; when it came to the bathroom, she’d seen far worse, but the other bedroom could more accurately be described as a cupboard. ‘Is this really the second bedroom?’ She peered into the room with the salmon pink carpet that she knew Audrey would hate, possibly more than the restrictive space that barely seemed big enough for a single bed, let alone a teen’s paraphernalia.

  ‘The previous tenants used the dining room as a bedroom instead,’ the estate agent told her as they went downstairs, the grand tour over. There was just enough time for Sam to look out at the what you might describe as a bijou garden. A patch of lawn feeling very sorry for itself was punctuated with paving slabs making a path down to a dilapidated shed and a washing line gathering cobwebs hung limp outside the kitchen window. It made her realise how much she was going to miss her own garden with its planter boxes filled with pink crocuses, the daisy-like hot yellow flowers of the heleniums planted in amongst taller grasses, the rose beds filled with deep reds and creams. There was a patch
at one side where snowdrops grew every winter too and the bed she’d planned to plant tulip bulbs in ready to bloom next year. But soon, all of that would belong to someone else.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she told the estate agent.

  She tried to leave with an air of positivity and went to possibly her worst interview so far. The first few jobs she’d gone for had been the same as what she was doing before, but then she’d begun to apply for anything in that realm, even if it meant demotion and a fraction of the salary. This position wasn’t even customer service, it was telemarketing. She had no interest in the work itself; it was antisocial hours answering the phone working towards daily targets in an environment with shouty twenty-year-olds.

  As she drove home Sam wondered how different her life might have been if she’d followed a different path or if her home life hadn’t panned out the way it had. She’d chosen to study psychology at university, intrigued by the way other people’s minds worked or why they behaved the way they did. During the degree course she’d found her niche too – educational psychology, something for which she devoured the subject matter, aced all of her essay assignments. But she’d never really got the chance to follow through with her dream career helping children with special educational needs. Life had had other plans for her by then.