by Tina Clough
Mia leant forward and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, I’d really like to do that. Do you want to write down my number, so you don’t have to ask Thomas to email me?”
Driving home Mia thought of all she had learnt, and the many questions it raised. How did different time strands interlock? Were there rules for which actions in one strand affected other strands? Or did they not affect each other, were the strands separate and moving at different paces - somehow split off from the original strand for some peculiar reason, like branches with little twigs growing out from them?
Lunching on the balcony in the midday warmth of late winter sun, Mia read the paper, trying to keep her mind off the jumble of thoughts churning round in the back of her head. To divert her mind from running in circles and getting nowhere she took her plate and cup to the kitchen and went back to the bedroom. She had already removed lots of clothes and minor things and now it was time to consider the furniture.
That dressing table will go, I don’t care it was great-aunt Mary’s and I know Sarah doesn’t like it either. Do I really like the bed? We bought it the year before we got married, but those heavy bed ends are such a nuisance – it’s hard to make the bed without skinning your knuckles. I might change that, I think I’d like something more minimal, still a queen size but less chunky wood all round; I’m forever getting hurt when I tuck things in.
The bed joined the dressing table on the list of things to go, and she turned yet another page on the pad and started a list of things to buy, starting with a bed and bedside tables to match, and maybe some new linen.
By the time she finished in the living area and sat down to complete her shopping list, it was clear that more things were going than staying and the list of replacements was long and detailed. She must decide on a style and colours, she must visit websites, make notes and go shopping. Great therapy and something that would signal to herself every day, and to anyone who came to visit, that the slightly timid and non-descript Mia was gone and someone more decisive and clearly defined had taken her place. She stretched her arms above her head and pushed her shoulders back and considered the implications. She knew she would end up spending a serious amount of money on top what she had already spent on a new wardrobe - and that was a work in progress too. But with the mortgage paid off by the life insurance, her income was a bit more than her needs, and if she didn’t buy a new car, as she had done in That Time, she could well afford a major change of style. She might go into overdraft, when the credit card fell due, but that would soon be covered by income again and then in November she’d get the quarterly interest income from her trust fund.
The rest of the afternoon until she had to leave to pick up Sarah and James was spent in front of the computer, trawling through interior design sites and furniture retailers, avid for ideas and inspiration. She made a mental note to check the bookstore in the airport terminal and buy all the design magazines she could find.
At six that evening Mia drove away from the house in Verbena Road with Sarah and James. The house was locked and everything switched off; the fridge was cleaned, the rubbish out and Sarah had checked and double checked that Mia had her key to the house, remembered the alarm system code and knew that Her Next-door would ring, if there was something in the mail that might need attention.
“Don’t fuss Sarah!” said James from the backseat. “Mia knows the house and the neighbours as well as you do, she used to live here for goodness sake! Just forget it all and relax - this is the start of our special holiday!”
Sarah laughed. “I know, it’s just me. Forever trying to make sure nothing ever goes wrong! Once cast in the role of Big Sister, forever a Big Sister.”
Mia smiled to herself, remembering her thoughts earlier that day. By the time Sarah and James got back she might have moved even further away from the little sister, who needed protection. As they cruised along the motorway towards the airport Mia told them of her plans to change the apartment. Their positive response amused her. If she had told them a month ago that she was changing everything they would have worried about her and offered to help – already their relationship was changing.
“What fun!” said Sarah, happy on many accounts, and relaxed now that they were truly on the way. “It’s like an adventure, isn’t it? I’m so pleased for you. You seem to have turned the page somehow and be starting a new chapter.” Mia smiled, but said seriously, “I don’t know how to explain it, Sarah. Somehow I seem to have processed a whole lot of grief and sadness very fast in the last little while.” This was of course entirely true – her words fitted based on Sarah and James’s reality and they were also true for herself, who had had a whole extra year to adjust.
“I think having it out with Barb was important and it closed a whole chapter that you didn’t know about. It had been on my mind for a long time, and being able to face her like that made the most enormous difference.” And then as an afterthought, “I am sorry I caused a bit of an upheaval at your dinner, though!”
James chortled at the memory. “That was awesome, Mia! I loved every bit of it - never liked Barb that much to tell you the truth, though she was your best friend. A bit too fond of flirting with all and sundry, even plain old James.”
Sarah turned in the front seat to stare at him. “You never told me that! When was this? Lucky I didn’t know or she would never have got inside our door again!”
James grinned at her. “Ages ago, poppet, and not worth mentioning. I made it clear I wasn’t interested and I must have done it properly, because she never tried again. But I must say I kept a bit of an eye on her, just in case she set out to make trouble for anyone else we know.” Inside his head James told himself, that the last bit might turn out to be a silly thing to have said, but hopefully Mia wouldn’t ask any uncomfortable questions. Sarah saved him. “I suppose you must have scared her off from trying it on with any of our friends, then. Maybe it was just your irresistible charm!”
“Well, I don’t want to contradict you about James’s irresistible charm,” said Mia lightly. “But the fact is that she tempted Greg too and was successful – surely that’s the proof of the pudding?”
“You know what, Mia?” said James; suddenly changing the subject “I know what you should do about all that stuff you want to get rid of. Instead of trying to find a second-hand shop to take it you could look in the yellow pages and find some auctioneers. When my grandmother died, my parents got an auction firm to come and give them a price for the whole lot, and they just took it all away. Probably gave half of it to charity or took it to the dump, but they literally emptied the house. Perfect solution for you and no hassle at all. You might not get the top price, but it would surely beat lots of trips and hiring a van or whatever. You don’t even have a tow bar on the car, do you?”
“Perfect!” said Mia. “That’s one problem solved then - I’ll ring someone tomorrow. Much easier than any other way.”
A couple of hours later Mia sat in her living room again looking through the Yellow pages, added three auctioneers’ numbers to her long list and then sat up late reading the design magazines she had bought at the airport. There were many styles to choose from, but she kept reverting to pictures of minimalistic and uncluttered interiors. Gradually she built a mental image of what she wanted. She would keep a couple of antiques and the old Persian rug from her parents’ home, her lovely shelf unit, the desk in the study and her favourite bucket-shaped leather armchair. For the rest her freedom of choice was complete and she could be as radical as she liked. Maybe she would even get rid of the curtains and change to Roman blinds and change her colour scheme that way, keep the furniture colours very basic? She went to bed with her head full of happy plans.
CHAPTER 7
Mia cursed campervans in the morning rush hour and red lights conspiring to delay her progress. It was so long since she had driven the car through the traffic on a weekday morning that she had forgotten how easy it was to get stressed and irritated. She heaved a sigh of relief when she final
ly dropped the car at the garage, confirmed the choice of new tyres and set out on foot for the short distance to work.
She pulled up the White Pages on her computer and started the search for an auctioneer prepared to be helpful. Her third call produced results.
“If you can’t be home for us to do a pickup during the day, I can come in the evening. We do it all the time, now that everyone’s always at work, eh? Give me the address and I’ll come tonight, but not till about eight. I’ve got another job to do at six and yours could fit on the back of that, if your stuff isn’t too big and bulky?”
“It’s not that much, enough to fit on a biggish domestic trailer maybe?”
“Good-oh. I’ll be there at eight or maybe a bit earlier, depends on the job before. I’ll bring the paperwork.”
“I’ve got everything in bags and boxes, so it’s easy to take away.”
She gave him the address and told him where to park. He was brief and businesslike. “OK, see you tonight then.” Mia promised to be home by seven at the latest and put the phone down.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Somehow her energy seemed nearly inexhaustible these days. Alan made a face of mock amazement when she returned for their third ad-hoc meeting that day.
“Whatever it is you’re on I want some too! Have you done all that already?” Half an hour later they agreed that this was the final version; it all stacked up, there was just enough detail and they agreed they would be very surprised if the client found it anything but completely convincing.
“Well, that’s good,” said Mia, making an opportunistic grab for a favour. “Because I’d like to have Thursday off. I need to get some things done. If I’m done by lunchtime I could be in about one, if that’s OK?”
“Fine with me – you’ve done so many extra hours in the last week we’ll just write it off as a treat to compensate.”
Mia left a fraction before five and declined Alice’s invitation to stop for a chat as she walked through the foyer. “Sorry Alice, I’m on a mission tonight. Let’s take a coffee break together tomorrow - come and get me on your way upstairs! I must run!” Outside it was still light and quite warm. Full spring was only a flutter away; you could feel it coming like a tinge of increased colour gently seeping into the cityscape.
Picking up the car from the garage and stopping at the supermarket took longer than she had expected, but she made it home by quarter to seven and was putting away her shopping and eating a banana, when the man from the auction firm buzzed her from the entrance.
“So what have you got here then?” He parked his flat deck trolley in the hall and looked round at the sliding tower of bags and boxes. He was a massive man, nearly as wide as he was tall and dressed in shorts and work-boots. He had the biggest calf muscles Mia had ever seen.
“Let’s write it down and we can decide as we go what’s going to be sold in the shop – and I’ll write you a cheque for the shop stuff right away – and then I will list what’s going in the next auction.”
“Does some of it go to a second-hand shop? I thought you’d auction it all?”
“Not just any second-hand shop, missy - our own shop. I’ll help you sort it out. We have a shop, quite separate from the auction rooms. We usually advise people to put the less valuable - I won’t say rubbishy - stuff in the shop. It turns over fast there and doesn’t clutter up the auctions. And then we keep all the good bits for the next auction. We have an auction every four weeks – very popular they are too. Here’s the first form.”
This was clearly a man of action; probably he wanted to get home and have his dinner. Mia filled in her personal details and signed a contract and was handed a pad with forms in triplicate: listing things was a slower process. Her new friend was very honest.
“Oh no, not that one!” he said decisively when she suggested putting a box of mixed ornaments on the list for the shop. “That stuff might not be valuable, no. But in an auction people love a box of mixed ornaments and bits and bobs. They all imagine they’re going to find something really special in amongst it! It’s really competitive at times; people get as silly as chooks outbidding each other for stuff that they don’t even know what it is. And sometimes we get it back, the whole box, for another auction later on. We sort though the boxes first, to see if anything is worth separating out to auction on its own.”
He laughed and his large belly wobbled alarmingly. Mia obediently put the box aside to go on the auction list instead and they set to work. In the end it took five trips in the lift and then the job was done; somehow they had managed to dismantle the bed and get everything down to the truck. Mia went to put her copies of the forms and a cheque for $340 in the study. The next auction date was in a couple of weeks, so the main part of the money would come later – hopefully a reasonable amount seeing that the whole bedroom suite had gone.
The only thing left in the bedroom was her great-grandmother’s Scotch oak chest, nearly black with age and with a satin sheen from generations of hands rubbing it with beeswax polish. She looked round and tried to imagine a new bed and bedside tables, but all she saw was an empty room with dents in the carpet. She would sleep in the spare bedroom until she got a new bed. The living area was practically empty too apart from her armchair, the dining table and the chairs. And based on her new stance, that she would not give houseroom to anything that she did not positively like, she had even got rid of some ugly wedding presents.
She turned her computer on to check emails and news. There were two more mad replies to her advertisement, and one from Thomas Livingston, passing on an invitation from Carl to come for dinner on Sunday. Mia replied saying she’d be delighted to, and that she would bring something for dessert.
The salad and the four-cheese sauce were prepared, the smoked chicken breasts neatly cut into slivers and Mia was setting the table, when the entry phone buzzed on Tuesday evening. Lorraine came to a halt in the doorway to the living area looking across the room to the large windows. “My goodness, that’s a million dollar view - bet you never get sick of it!” She held out a bottle in a shiny gift bag, and shrugged her jacket off.
Mia laughed. “Well, let’s not exaggerate – maybe a quarter of a million dollar view, but I love it and no, I never ever get tired of it.”
As she turned from the view Lorraine glanced round the nearly empty room and Mia had to explain her urge to have a radical change. “I had a man from an auction firm here last night and he took masses of stuff. Not just furniture but all sorts of things. I went through every cupboard and drawer and made ruthless decisions and I’ve only really kept things I positively like and want – come and see!”
She led the way round the rooms, enjoying having someone to tell about her changes. “See, an empty bedroom, apart from the chest of drawers, because I love it and it was my great-grandmother’s. Study still intact, reasonably furnished spare bedroom, at least I left the bed here. Living area, as you saw: One armchair and two large cushions, the TV on the floor, dining table and chairs. Most of the ornaments gone. Isn’t it lovely?”
Lorraine laughed that wonderful laugh again. “God, I think it’s amazing – the energy! Did you win Lotto?”
“No, no – nothing too exciting. But Greg was insured, so I’m mortgage free - as long as I don’t buy a new car or some other big expensive thing I’ll be OK. I’m lucky, despite tragedy and all that, because some of the money from my parents’ estate is invested and that gives me a small extra income that I get in instalments each year.”
“You are so lucky! My brother and I flat together, which means that we cope really well, and we only have one vehicle between us. Paul’s a policeman, so he’s quite well paid, but I’m going back to university next year, so I’m saving all I can. Mind you, you have lost big chunks of your family and that’s not really lucky, is it.”
“I know, it’s like some cosmic ledger that ends up balancing one part of your life against another. But I didn’t know you’re a student. Did you have a break to earn some money?”
“Yes, I’m doing a law degree. I get the student allowance of course, but that’s not enough these days and I didn’t want to graduate with a loan debt, so I’m doing it in instalments. First I worked for two years after school and saved money and then I did two years study. This is another year of earning and saving hard. Next year will be my final year and then I’ll have my degree and I’ll rush out there and earn some real money!”
“How organised you are! I did a marketing degree after I’d worked for a few years. I only finished it last year, but I used my trust income and we lived on Greg’s income. But how come you don’t work for a law firm in your in-between years? Wouldn’t the pay be better?”
“I actually get very well paid at Designers. I look after the whole business when the owner goes overseas with her husband – which they do for weeks on end. I do the staff rosters, pay the wages and the bills and do the bookkeeping. She pays me manager’s wages for every hour I work, because it gives her heaps of freedom to do whatever she likes.”
“Aren’t you lucky – and she must trust you completely. What a great job.”
“Yes, it is, but the best thing is that I can put myself on the roster so it fits my second part-time job with a law firm; just casual hours that change from week to week. It doesn’t pay as well as the shop job, but it’s a chance to learn a lot as well.”
They ate their dinner, and laughed together at the fact that Lorraine had brought a bottle of the same chardonnay that Mia had put in the fridge to have with dinner. After the meal they stayed at the table and finished the wine and a round of Brie and talked about everything under the sun. Mia talked about Sarah and James and Lorraine told her about Paul, her own ambitious plans for the future and about her mother.
“Dad died a few years ago and Mum lives in a little house in Meadowbank and works at the local TAB; she’s been there for years and it’s not that interesting, but as she says ‘not a job that’s going to disappear in a redundancy’. I could have stayed on at home with her, but she leads quite a busy life and I needed to be closer to the university. Flatting with Paul is great – he’s between girl-friends and I don’t have boyfriends. I’m far too busy with my own things to want to get into all that! I go out with people, but mostly in a group, often Paul’s friends. There’ll be plenty of time to get serious later on, after I’ve started a career.” She grinned. “ I think I’m definitely a member of the Me Generation! And anyway, I’ve never found a guy who was interesting enough to go out with more than a couple of times.”