Can’t Live Without
by
JOANNE PHILLIPS
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Mirrorball Books
An imprint of Bostock Publishing
1 Lower Barn, Bostock Hall, Whixall, Shropshire SY13 2RN
www.bostockpublishing.co.uk
Kindle Edition 2012
Copyright © Joanne Phillips 2012
Joanne Phillips asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved in all media. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author and/or publisher.
Cover design by Blondesign
For Jez
Chapter 1
Ever heard the saying, ‘If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen’? What would you do if this wasn’t just a philosophical suggestion but a blazing fact staring you in the face one morning as you wander downstairs to make yourself a cup of tea?
Shall I tell you how I react when I nudge open my kitchen door and see yellow flames climbing up my kitchen units? I’m a thirty-seven-year-old single mother, responsible and capable and – I thought until now – calm in the face of most crises. So I stand in the open doorway, gape-mouthed and wide-eyed, for a second or two, allowing the heat to sear my shocked retinas. I drop last night’s half-empty coffee cup from my slack hand and watch it shatter on the slate floor. Then, without a single coherent thought, I race back through the house, out of the front door and into the street, screaming like a schoolgirl.
I immediately forget everything I’ve ever learned about fire safety.
There is, I’m pretty sure, a small and shiny red extinguisher languishing under the sink somewhere. There are procedures for this sort of thing: wet blankets to be thrown, doors to be closed, valuables to be lifted and removed (although even if I’d had the presence of mind it would probably have been a struggle to get my American double-door ice-maker fridge-freezer out in time).
Never mind that I’m not even dressed, or that the nightshirt I’m wearing isn’t my own but my sixteen-year-old daughter’s and therefore about three sizes too small. Never mind that I haven’t yet brushed my hair or cleaned my teeth. You don’t worry about these things when your house is on fire.
I run directly into the arms of my neighbour, the ridiculously handsome but slightly obsessive man from Number Four. Gasping and reaching back to point over my shoulder I manage the words, ‘Fire!’ and ‘Help!’
He looks beyond me to see smoke streaming out of my kitchen window and then drops me like a hot brick and runs back into his own house, hopefully to call the fire brigade.
More people dribble out to see what’s going on. The handsome neighbour joins us again, a mobile phone pressed to his ear, giving my address in a clear, calm voice I find deeply impressive.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says to me. Like someone’s died.
I don’t know his name, only that he’s lived next door to me in Chaplin Grove for six months and that he cleans his car (sporty, red, expensive) at least twice a week and shops only at Waitrose. We stand side by side and watch the smoke billow out of my front door, thickening to a grey-white fog.
‘Your daughter…’ He is still staring at my house.
‘She’s away,’ I answer shakily. Did the man think I’d be standing here relatively calmly while my daughter burnt to death inside? ‘She’s at her father’s,’ I explain unnecessarily.
The sight of actual flames creeping around the side wall finally spurs me into action. The sense of unreality slips away as I realise what the bloody hell is happening. My house is being destroyed.
‘Shit!’ I cry. ‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’ And I race back towards the open doorway.
I don’t know what, precisely, I aim to achieve by this but I suddenly know I must get back inside the house and salvage… something. This is more than just a minor incident, a little blip that can be sorted out with a good clean and a lick of paint. All my worldly possessions are inside those four brick walls, not to mention all Lipsy’s worldly possessions: her Playstation, her DVD player, her iPod, her computer ...
My daughter is going to kill me.
Mr Waitrose catches up and pulls me back before I reach the door. The flames have got there first anyway. An orange haze glimmers in the hall, coming off the walls like phosphorous. In a completely deranged way it’s actually quite beautiful.
I hear sirens in the distance and my heart lifts just a little. Maybe the damage won’t be too bad after all. Maybe they’ll catch it in the nick of time. I look around at my neighbours for reassurance, my face a hopeful question mark. They each wear an identical expression of horror and, like the psychic I’m most definitely not, I can read their one single thought: Thank God it isn’t my house.
I move my eyes from my neighbours’ stunned faces, back to rest on my burning home. My single thought: I wish to God it was somebody else’s house.
***
When fire engines start to pile up, I am ushered across the road by a lady with white lacquered hair. She installs me on her sofa, sits next to me and strokes my hand, making noises I think are supposed to calm me down. ‘There, there, dear,’ she says every few seconds. Sitting stiffly upright I stare straight ahead, eyes unfocused, ears ringing with the sound of sirens. Her voice is far away. She doesn’t manage to calm me down.
We’re in her house, the grand one on the corner. I’ve seen her taking her miniature poodle out for walks. They look similar, in the way dogs and their owners sometimes do. A small group of self-appointed protectors, of whom Mr Waitrose seems to be the leader, has followed us here. We all smell of smoke, like the aftermath of burnt toast and a greasy roast dinner. Only worse.
Much, much worse.
I rub my stinging eyes with tight fists and look around the room. The four other residents of Chaplin Grove are here: newly married couple Pete and Louise, their faces pinched and drawn; a middle-aged woman who has lived at Number One for only a month; and Mr Waitrose of course. I’m Stella Hill and I live at Number Three. The house with three enormous water hoses currently aimed at its roof.
Poodle Lady seems quite animated, making the most of her role as unofficial trauma counsellor by going over who’d seen what and when. She says, ‘I was putting out the washing when I said to Bill, “I can smell smoke”, and he said to me, “You’re imagining it, woman, your sense of smell is as bad as that bloody dog’s.” Well, you can imagine how he feels now. If he’d listened to me ...’
I watch her as if from a long way away.
I’ve noticed this kind of excitement before in people involved on the periphery of something awful, around it but not in it. It isn’t necessarily that we don’t like bad things to happen – we just don’t want them happening to us.
I begin to feel edgy, trapped. I want to go back to my house, watch over it, survey the damage for myself. I want to see if anything can be salvaged. Thoughts of all that we might have lost are crowding my mind now and making it difficult to think clearly. I feel I’m going to collapse under the weight of it all.
I try to get up but Mr Waitrose won’t let me. He tells me to stay where I am and the others agree with him. Their words fly around me like panicky birds as they exchange wild ideas about how the fire might have started. Have they forgotten I’m even here? They’ll probably still be talking about it weeks from now, an exciting morning, a break from the old routine. Of co
urse they are glad it didn’t happen to them, but do they have to be so vocally glad?
Resentment stirs ugly inside me. Maybe they sense it; the atmosphere changes slightly and they shift their collective attention back to me.
‘At least you’re OK, though. You weren’t hurt.’ This comes from the anonymous lady, our newest resident. She has kind eyes and wears long, hippy-style skirts. True enough, I think, although I’ll reserve judgement on the psychological damage.
‘Thank goodness it didn’t happen in the middle of the night while you were asleep!’ says Louise in her mouse-like voice, clutching her husband’s hand so tightly she looks likely to break it off.
I nod to show her I agree that, yes, not being burned to death in your sleep is indeed a good thing.
‘Oh well, it could have been worse,’ says Poodle Lady. She says it kindly, absently, but something about the way it just slips off her tongue enrages me and I suddenly find my voice.
‘You think?’ I snap, twisting round violently to stare at her. ‘It could have been better, though. For me, at least. For example, it could have been your house instead.’
Unforgivable, I know.
My outburst is met with a stunned silence, but in a perverse way I am glad to have shut them all up. I’m feeling the first pinpricks of anger – irrational, but completely normal I’ve been told since – and I almost enjoy lashing out. It releases some of the tension. Not much, but now I feel slightly less trapped. And my resolve is returning.
It’s short-lived.
Something else I’ve observed before is how resilient people can be when they feel sorry for you. My rescuers rally with cries of how I have every right to be upset, and I should let it all out, that’s OK. I give up and slump back into the over-stuffed sofa. Their words wash over me and fade away. I feel weightless, unreal. Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I’ll wake up in a minute in my own bed, my super-soft duvet wrapped around me like a cloud, fuzzy and contented, the whole weekend stretching out ahead of me ...
I notice a Swiss-style cuckoo clock on the wall above the Poodle Lady’s TV. It has tiny, intricately carved wooden doors painted green, and red decoupage flowers on the roof. It is hideous. I imagine the little wooden bird popping out on the hour and crying, ‘Help me, help me!’ instead of cuckoo. It’s 9.55 am.
I sit up, determination making my movements careful and deliberate. This is not a dream – and I am not going to be cuckooed at while my house burns to the ground. I’m ready to face the music, and more than ready to fend off any further objections. I perch myself on the edge of the sofa and grip the cushion edges with shaky hands.
‘Right,’ I say. And then, more loudly, ‘OK. Excuse me?’ But then I glance down and remember that I’m still wearing Lipsy’s nightshirt – the pink one with “I Am A Sex Goddess” emblazoned across the front in gold lettering – and I see that I have brown stains across my lap from the chocolate I had indulged in the night before, making the most of a rare moment of peace and quiet. On my feet are my favourite, almost threadbare, pink fluffy slippers, a Christmas present from years back when my daughter still believed in giving and receiving.
Looking up I find Mr Waitrose’s eyes also trained on the slippers, an amused smile hovering around his clearly defined mouth.
Just perfect.
There may have been times when I’ve felt lower than I do right now but I can’t remember when. With everything I own gone up in smoke – my dignity along with it – I have descended to a whole new level of having a crap life. But the great thing about reaching the bottom is: there’s only one way to go.
***
‘So, everything is gone? Everything?’
Monday morning and I am sitting in the staffroom holding court for my horrified colleagues at Smart Homes. Susan, the most recent addition to our happy group, is having trouble taking it all in.
‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Absolutely everything.’
Although strictly speaking I suppose this isn’t true. Some of my possessions still exist – not everything burnt to ashes in the fire. But what remains is completely useless. One of the firemen, still smeared with soot and smelling of damp dog, told me that if the fire and the smoke hadn’t got them, the water damage would have seen them off.
‘Even your shoes?’ says Susan, almost unable to bear the enormity of this.
‘Even my shoes. Except for these, of course.’
I am wearing a pristine pair of Reeboks, which, thankfully, escaped the fire by residing in the boot of my car in a rarely used gym bag. I’m also wearing the cycling shorts and vest-top from said gym bag, as these are currently the only wearable clothes I possess. It must be pretty obvious to everyone that they’ve been in the boot of my car for some time, not only because of the slightly musty smell but also because they clearly fitted me a lot better when I was actually bothering to go to the gym on a regular basis.
I swing around in the swivel chair and lift my legs up onto the table to show off the trainers. Joe’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.
‘Oh, put it away, Stella.’
This is Loretta, the office bitch. She always acts this way when someone else is the centre of attention. I leave my legs where they are. Last season’s workout gear probably isn’t ideally suited to the office but I can’t let the comment go.
‘I’m sorry that I can’t stick to the office dress code today, Loretta. I’m afraid all of my clothes were completely ruined in the fire.’
The others murmur sympathetically and Susan pats me on the arm. I tilt my head up towards Loretta and raise an eyebrow provocatively.
She gives me a look that implies she thinks my usual attire isn’t that much better than today anyway and, putting on the vocal equivalent of six sugars, asks, ‘Was that what you were wearing when it happened? You don’t look like you’ve seen the inside of a gym for quite some time.’
The staffroom becomes very quiet. Loretta and I have locked horns before and it is never pretty. But I don’t have the energy for it today and she knows it. She stands over me, hands on bony hips, a smirk planted on a face that definitely lost the fight with the ugly stick.
I swing my legs off the table quickly, making her jump out of the way, and I stand up, a good three inches taller than her.
‘Yes, Loretta. I was wearing this on Saturday morning.’ Thank God she wasn’t there to see me in Lipsy’s nightshirt and my fluffy slippers. ‘And I’ll probably be wearing it quite a lot from now on, it being the only outfit I’ve got left. If you don’t like it I suggest you take it up with Paul.’
We eyeball each other for a few long seconds, your classic Mexican stand-off. She opens her mouth to speak, no doubt something devastatingly clever and cutting on the tip of her tongue. I am saved by a cheerful voice from the doorway.
‘Hey, Stella. Love the new look!’
Paul Smart. Owner of Smart Homes, my boss of eleven years, and one of my best friends for even longer. He acts like he’s just walked in but I’m sure he’s heard everything and timed it just right. He makes a habit of getting me out of tight spots: he’s done it so many times he occupies the number one position on my speed-dial.
Loretta closes her mouth tightly and her lips all but disappear.
‘You’ve given me an idea, Stella,’ Paul says in his usual upbeat way. ‘Every Monday we could all wear our gym stuff to work and go for a communal jog at lunchtime. It would liven us up at bit, don’t you think?’
The atmosphere lightens a few kilograms and I smile triumphantly as Loretta stomps away. A battle won or an enemy made? Only time will tell. It occurs to me that even with much bigger, more important things to worry about I can still get drawn into the petty stuff. In a way it’s kind of reassuring.
As the staffroom empties Paul takes me to one side.
‘Tea?’ His blue eyes are warm and full of sympathy. I nod gratefully. ‘So, are you planning on going jogging later?’
I flop back into the chair and sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Paul. I know it looks crappy to come in
to work like this. It was either these or nothing, I’m afraid. Why is everyone I know so much smaller than me?’
None of my mother’s clothes were suitable to borrow – not that I’d really want to don her frilly blouses and bias-cut skirts anyway – and my best friend, Bonnie, only comes up to my armpit. Lipsy enjoyed raiding Bonnie’s designer-stocked wardrobe though, which distracted her from berating me for all of half an hour.
‘“Nothing” would have been OK by me,’ says my boss with a cheeky grin.
Paul’s an outdoorsy kind of man, you know the type: runs every morning, plays football in the park on a Sunday with his mates, sports a natural tan and sun-kissed hair even in the middle of winter.
If I was a man I’d hate him. But I’m just a lowly employee, so I throw a Bourbon at him instead.
‘Hey, don’t waste them.’ He puts it back in the biscuit tin and closes the lid. ‘You’re going to need these, Stella, to get you through today.’
How well he knows me. I watch as Paul goes through the motions of making tea: skimmed milk and two sugars for me, which always makes him smile.
‘So, you’re back at your mother’s?’ he says, handing me my mug and grimacing.
I nod, squirming inside at how that sentence makes it seem as though I only left my parents’ house a few weeks ago. On the contrary, Lipsy and I have been living in our own home for thirteen years now. One small set-back like a house fire and you’re back in the room you grew up in, asking if there’s enough hot water for a bath and watching TV programmes you can’t stand in a lounge filled with enough memories to suffocate you.
I’m not ungrateful. I’m lucky to have a roof over my head. It just makes me feel as though the last thirteen years never happened: all those steps forward, all those hard-fought battles. What was the point when one small step takes you all the way back to where you started from, like a life-size game of snakes and ladders?
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