And with a furious sixteen-year-old daughter to contend with, the last thing I need is to feel like a child again myself.
Paul will understand. He knows all about going it alone. He built this business from scratch with nothing more than a love of property and a business enterprise loan to guide him. I open my mouth, ready to share my innermost thoughts. Unfortunately, Joe chooses that precise moment to walk back into the staffroom, humming under his breath.
‘The worst thing is, though,’ I say loudly, ‘the worst thing is, I have absolutely no underwear left now.’
Joe freezes, turns tomato red and races for the door. Mission accomplished.
Paul raises an eyebrow. ‘Lipsy not taking it well, then?’ As predicted, he hits the nail on the head with painful accuracy.
‘She hates me. I mean, she wasn’t too keen on me before but I just put that down to teenage rebellion. All kids hate their parents, right? At least, they hate the one they’re with – the absent one gets off scot-free.’ With an effort I bring myself back to the matter in hand. ‘You should have seen her face, Paul. I had to watch as she went through in her head every single thing she’d lost, and there was nothing I could do about it.’
‘It’s only stuff, Stella. Stuff can be replaced.’
‘She’s a child. She believes stuff is all she has. It’s what gives her kudos with her friends. You know what she’s like, what all kids are like these days. She looked at me as though I’d gone into her room and personally set the fire myself.’
Of all the images that would haunt me from the weekend, the reproach in Lipsy’s eyes was the worst. It was as if she knew, before I even summoned up the courage to tell her, how much worse it was about to get.
Paul takes my hand and fills it with biscuit. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Stella. These things happen. When the insurance pays out, you and Lipsy can go on a huge shopping spree. Think of the fun you’ll have, spending all that money, getting everything new. You’re just as bad as her, you know, Mrs Must-Have-The-Very-Best-Of-Everything. Come on, admit it – if you’d had the chance you’d have chosen to save your new sofa over the family photos.’
He is teasing me but I can’t meet his eyes. Close, Mister, but no cigar. I’m picturing my beloved fridge-freezer, ruined forever along with everything else I’d worked so hard for. Funnily enough, the photos were one of the few things to survive, just a little bit of water damage curling up the edges.
Why do I find it so hard to derive any comfort from this? I’m disgusted with myself, but I just can’t help it. I struggled so hard, for so long, to buy comfort for Lipsy and me, to buy the right things, the things that other, normal, families have, and I can’t get my head around the fact that it is all gone. Destroyed. And all I have left is exactly what I had before. It’s like someone has reached inside me and pulled out a decade of my life. I’m empty, and a few soggy photos are not going to make me feel better.
Plus, Paul’s blithe assertion that Lipsy and I can simply go shopping again to make ourselves feel better is way off the mark. If only that were the case.
I take a deep breath, and in my smallest voice I tell Paul what I’ve done. Or rather, what I haven’t done. He frowns, leans forward, says, ‘Pardon?’
I tell him again. There really is no hiding from this one.
‘I – erm – I didn’t actually have any insurance.’
And there it is – my unforgivable crime. This is no ordinary calamity, to be fixed with a couple of phone calls and a few months’ discomfort. Oh no, when I say all our possessions are gone forever, I mean forever.
Paul says, ‘Are you insane?’
Quite possibly.
But try not to judge me too harshly. There are worse things a person can do than let their house insurance lapse. If you knew what I’d been through the last few years you might be a little more understanding.
Chapter 2
Taking the small, ring-bound notebook out of its paper bag, Lipsy stroked its smooth black cover thoughtfully. As her new diary it would do fine, but nothing in this world could replace her old fake-leather one with the press stud flap. Or the one before that – candy stripes with teddy bears waving from the corner of each page. Lipsy had filled more than ten diaries, starting them practically as soon as she could write. She couldn’t believe they were gone forever. Just couldn’t believe it.
If she closed her eyes she could picture the diaries as they were only a week ago, stacked high up on her bookcase, away from prying eyes. She trusted her mum not to look at them.
Now it seemed that might have been the only thing she could trust her with.
The girl moved around the bedroom, picking up and replacing random objects: a pink teddy pyjama holder, its tummy deflated and hollow-looking; a tiny straw basket filled with dusty china flowers; a paper cowgirl hat hanging on the back of the door, bent and flattened out of shape. At least this room was full of familiar things, which helped a little. Here, in her grandma’s house, she felt comfortable and safe and – most importantly – left alone.
But all these things belonged to a younger Lipsy: an unhappy, unpopular girl whose family was falling apart. This past year, Lipsy had managed to mould herself into someone who fitted in – who was admired, envied even, by her friends. She had left her childhood behind. Cowgirl hats and teddies were for children. Lipsy was a woman.
The new Lipsy always wore the right clothes, always knew the latest slang, the best put-downs, the newest swear words. She listened to the coolest bands, made sure she knew enough about what mattered to impress other people but never enough to sound nerdy. She’d successfully left behind the burden of her fractured family and she damn well wasn’t going to let this bloody fire set her back again.
The pages of the new diary were cool and smooth. Lipsy loved a brand-new notebook, untouched and waiting. She tapped the pen between her teeth and thought of how to begin. This diary would very probably be published one day, when she was rich and famous and people wanted to read the fascinating story of how she got to where she was from being a one-parent child with a no-good father, a crazy mother, a jailbird granddad, a spendaholic grandma, and an uncle who was only one step up from a tramp.
If these details were exaggerated a bit, well, that was OK. It was her story, after all. And the chapter where their house burnt to the ground, and Lipsy and her poor, slightly mental, faded-beauty of a mother lost every single thing they owned, would have the public riveted, she just knew it.
Lipsy sighed, running a finger under each eye to check that her make-up wasn’t smudged. She was trying hard to turn this into something positive, she really was. Her grandma’s lodger, Alistair, had told her that the grown-up way to deal with disaster was to turn it into a positive. She liked the sound of the word “disaster” and decided to make it the title of this first chapter in her new diary.
But it was harder than she’d expected. Her thoughts kept returning to the sight of her bedroom two days ago. Dirty water streaking down the walls where she’d carefully pasted her posters and her collection of art cards. The shelf of pulpy, unreadable diaries. Her computer was ruined, they told her, although it looked OK, just a bit wet. Well, of course it couldn’t survive that drenching.
‘But the bloody fire didn’t even reach up here,’ she had screamed at her mum, who stood in the doorway still wearing one of Lipsy’s cast-off nighties. Looking ridiculous, as usual. ‘Why did they have to destroy everything in my room?’
‘My room’s ruined too, sweetie,’ came the reply. In what way did that make it any better? Her mum’s bedroom had been just that – a room with a bed in it and some clothes. And all her mum’s stuff was rubbish anyway: those stupid trouser suits she liked to wear, the tops that mimicked fashion but never got it quite right. Lipsy’s room contained all her worldly belongings and it was plain to see that the firemen had no right to go around flinging water about willy-nilly like that.
Not that she blamed them, oh no. The blame for the fire – the devastating fire – lay
firmly at the feet of one person. Her bloody mother. She may not have set it herself deliberately, but Lipsy had no doubt that it would turn out to have been caused by some failing on her part. As for the other thing, Lipsy understood enough about insurance to know that not having any was just about the worst thing a person could do. It meant that whereas a normal family would simply go out and start again with new things, Lipsy couldn’t. And that in itself was unforgivable.
She placed the pen carefully against the clean white surface of the paper and began to write:
Monday 4th June 4.30 pm
Lipsy Hill’s Diary – How I Survived Disaster
She wrote with her head bent low to the child’s desk, her sleek dark hair falling across her face as she mouthed the words silently, unconsciously. When she’d finished three pages she sat back, stretching her narrow body like a dancer. And then, furiously, she began writing again, this time a list, in no particular order, with the heading: Things I Can’t Possibly Live Without ...
***
At lunchtime I go shopping. Strangely enough I don’t enjoy this experience, probably because I’m spending money I don’t have on things that give me absolutely no pleasure to buy. Functional knickers and bras, a pair of jeans and a pair of wear-everywhere shoes. A few plain T-shirts. Some socks. Boring! This is a capsule-sized capsule wardrobe. In Monsoon I splash out on a chiffon blouse in cheerful citrus colours. I just need something to brighten up my day.
There’s no point buying anything for Lipsy. She thinks I have less than no taste and would no doubt roll her eyes disgustedly at any offering I might make. Besides, she is OK in the clothes department for the moment. When I dragged her round to Bonnie’s yesterday she spent a peaceful hour going through my best friend’s wardrobe, oohing and ahhing over her collection of designer clothes, shoes and handbags. Pocket-sized Bonnie and Lipsy are roughly the same size, and Bonnie, generous as ever, allowed my daughter to put together her own capsule wardrobe, drawing the line only at a designer handbag, as worn by Mischa Barton. I tried on one or two items myself but ended up looking as though I’d just been through the hot-wash cycle, much to Lipsy’s disgust.
I guess I’m going to have to get used to Lipsy’s disgust.
Paul has given me an advance on my wages, something he’s been doing a lot lately, and I can’t see how I’m going to stop needing this gesture anytime soon. I’ve known Paul Smart since I was fourteen; we went to the same high school. He was a real heart-throb back then, you know the sort: leather jacket even when it’s thirty degrees outside, girls standing in clusters giving him sly smiles, other boys trying to impress him by picking on the skinny girl with the buck teeth from two years below. Who, believe it or not, was me. I know, you’ve got a picture in your head that I’m drop-dead gorgeous. Well I am, now. (Modesty requires me to say that I’m joking.) But back then, in the dark days, I had legs like sticks and teeth that wouldn’t look out of place on Bugs Bunny. Thank goodness for wealthy parents and good dentistry.
Paul never participated in the bullying. He was my hero, uber cool, always made a point of saying hello to me, causing my little group of misfit friends to swoon. For a while I thought I was in love with him – until I was eighteen, in fact. He treated me like the younger sister he didn’t have. My love was definitely unrequited, and that hurt.
One weekend, during the only year I managed to complete at university, I was visiting home and I saw him around town. I was in a bar with a group of crazy friends, showing off and being annoying, you know how you do. One of the girls started making faces at some guys sitting at a table nearby, and then she was laughing and calling them boring old farts. Apparently they’d been giving us the evil eye for being too loud. I looked over with my who-do-you-think-you-are killer stare and realised one of them was Paul.
I was gobsmacked. I mean, he was so normal. And I realised there and then that he was just a guy. Special, but nobody special. Which was how he’d always thought of me, I guess.
We stayed in touch after that, and when I’d had Lipsy, and loved and lost the bastard who broke my heart, he gave me a job in his fledgling estate agency. I love my job. Really love it. Sure, it’s a bit boring and repetitive – isn’t every job? – and yes, I’d have liked to have done something a bit more dynamic, but for over ten years it’s been my lifeline. And Paul is my lifeguard, watching over me, always there to pick up the pieces when yet another disaster strikes. Which, unfortunately, it has a habit of doing quite often around me.
I finish off my shopping trip with a visit to Boots for basic toiletries and then rush back to the office before my hour is up. No time for a sandwich but then my figure probably needs to miss more than just one meal anyway. What my mind needs is work, work and more work, to keep it from thinking about the fact that when it’s time to go home tonight I have no home to go to.
My regular job, since the office expanded last year, is to handle the rentals. This mainly involves dealing with complaints from tenants, anything from ‘My tap is dripping’ to ‘Part of an aeroplane has fallen through the roof’. (It happens, believe me.) Every phone call I get today has me biting my tongue. ‘Oh really,’ I want to say. ‘Well, at least you haven’t lost all your possessions in a house fire! How would you feel about that?’
I hold it together, just. Loretta stays out of my way for the rest of the day. At quarter to five Joe appears at the side of my desk looking sheepish.
‘Hey, Stella,’ he says, swinging his arms like a naughty school boy. ‘If you’re staying here a while I could do with having these details typed up. They need to go out tomorrow, I’ve been a bit busy.’ He holds out his Dictaphone and fixes me with puppy dog eyes – what can I say?
‘Give it here. And don’t say I never do anything for you.’
Fitting my earpiece to the machine I press play and begin to type, albeit with only two fingers. Joe’s a bit work-shy but his euphemisms and descriptions always make me laugh.
Like this one: “The garden is deceptively small and would appeal to an agoraphobic midget.” Not very PC, but Joe, short for Giuseppe (unfortunate phrase, as he is very short indeed), never understands why some of his comments are offensive. This just makes him even funnier, to me at least. If I ever wanted to drop him in it, all I’d have to do would be to play some of this stuff to Paul.
“The bathroom is large and green. Like a swamp.”
Classic. I type: Compact easy maintenance garden. Unusually spacious bathroom with avocado suite and scope for further improvement. It doesn’t take long to pick up the spiel in this business.
Estate-agent-speak gets a bad press, and some of it is deserved. But most of the homes we sell wouldn’t get anywhere near their true value, or sell this side of the next millennium, without a bit of creative marketing.
Judging by Joe’s comments, this house is going to need a lot of creative marketing. In one of Milton Keynes’ less desirable areas – what we like to call “up and coming” – it has been rented and systematically run down by a succession of tenants from hell. The landlord has obviously given up doing repairs and decided to cut his losses instead.
I look at the pictures and my heart goes out to the poor house – it doesn’t look so very different from mine in its current state. Two of the windows are boarded up, the garden’s full of rubbish and the front door hangs off its hinges as though kicked in. All it needs is a bit of TLC, but it will probably be bought by another developer who’ll pay for basic repairs only and then let it out again to more tenants from hell. If only I had the money …
I pull myself back to reality. No point in thinking that way. I don’t even have the money to do up my own wreck of a house, let alone invest in someone else’s. I feel a knot of dread in my stomach when I think about my house again. It keeps coming back to me like a bad dream – everything I owned disappearing in a cloud of smoke and a torrent of grubby water. If there’s a silver lining here I really can’t see it.
Just before seven, Paul returns to the office with a hug
e smile and a spring in his step. I am staring blankly into space and I jump as though shot when he bursts through the door.
‘What are you still doing here? Aren’t you going home?’ he asks.
‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ I snap back. Now where did that come from? It’s not Paul’s fault. Win friends, Stella, don’t alienate them. ‘Sorry,’ I tell him, glad to see the hurt look on his face disappear as quickly as it arrived.
‘I sold Shenley Church End,’ he tells me happily.
‘What, the whole estate? That’s impressive!’
‘No, silly.’ He gives me a light punch on the arm and I pretend to fall off my chair; an old routine of ours.
‘I’ve sold that house in Shenley Church End. I was starting to despair, this is only the second person I’ve shown it to and we’ve had it on for eight months. But he loved it, made an offer there and then. Cash buyer.’
‘The best kind.’
‘You know it. I called the vendors and that was it. Job done.’ He does a little dance across the carpet as I pull up the details on my computer.
‘Six bed executive with outbuildings and paddock. Very nice. Although I’m assuming his wife hasn’t seen it yet? She may put the kybosh on it, say the feng shui is all wrong. Or the grass in the paddock isn’t right for their darling little pony.’
‘Stella is a grump, Stella is a grump,’ Paul sings, spinning me round in my chair.
I regain my balance and say, somewhat huffily, ‘Might I remind you that as I have just lost my own humble abode I’m hardly likely to take great pleasure in the purchase of Holly Bush Heights by Mr and Mrs Rich-and-Important.’
‘The business really needs this, Stella.’ Paul flops down into Joe’s empty chair. ‘A sold sign on a house like that, well, you can’t buy that kind of advertising.’
‘I’m really happy for you, boss. You’re very smart, Mr Smart.’
He looks at me, tilting his head down to meet my eyes, suddenly serious. ‘I know it’s been tough for you today, Stella, and I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But I want you to know that I’m really proud of you. I think you’re handling it all brilliantly. I just know you’ll think of something and work it all out. You always do.’
Can't Live Without Page 2