by Jules Wake
Oh God, I needed something to take my mind off things.
I grabbed the BBC Good Food Magazine, almost in desperation. Cooking. That would give me something to do. And I was not going to think of the meeting that I should have been at in Bradford this morning. Who was taking it instead of me? Would they be presenting my work? Would the client know where I was? Surely the company wouldn’t tell them I was off with stress. Please no. And would they have found the additional notes I’d made?
I put down the magazine in despair. I looked at my watch as I spotted the cobweb in the corner of the room. Should I phone Ros and tell her where to find the notes? She could email them over. I could almost feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it all.
‘Hi Ros, it’s me,’ I said at the same time as reaching up the wall with a duster.
‘Claire, how are you feeling?’
‘I feel fine,’ I snapped, immediately irritated and frustrated because I’d spotted another bloody cobweb. ‘I’m not ill.’
‘No, dear. Now, if you’re phoning about work, I’m not to speak to you. If you want me to tell you that TJ got an A in his biology exam, I can do that. And Rissa was in a dance show last week and Ty took a catch in his cricket match.’
‘But I just need you to tell the team that I—’
‘Claire. You are signed off. I’m telling you, you’re not my boss at the moment. So I get to boss you around. And I’m telling you: clear your head. Work will carry on, just fine. I’m going to miss you but you have to give yourself some time.’
‘But there’s nothing—’
‘I’m no doctor but even I could tell you haven’t been right these past months.’
‘What? That’s rubbish.’ Even as I said it, I could feel a slight trembling of my hands.
‘Claire. You’ve been running on empty for a long time. Now, make the most of this time. Learn to dance, enjoy the sunshine, and smell the flowers. Do the things you enjoy instead of being cooped up in this stuffy place. It’s just a job, honey.’
I reached for the cobweb and noticed my hands really were shaking. Do things I enjoy? What things? I enjoyed work. I wanted to be there.
It had never ever been just a job. I was a career woman. On track to make partner.
My stomach lurched with the horror of realisation.
They wouldn’t give a partnership to someone who’d been signed off with stress. My career was toast. And my kitchen was a mess. Just look at the state of it. I couldn’t even manage to get that straight, so how the hell could I hope to salvage my career?
The panic that, like a malignant shadow, had been dogging me all morning with the frantic cleaning, suddenly engulfed me. My throat closed up and my breath stuttered in my chest.
I put my head down on the kitchen table and wept.
The bout of crying left me feeling worn out and lethargic, too tired to do more than raise my head from the table and glare around at the kitchen with all the half-finished jobs. I was as wobbly as a new-born giraffe and didn’t trust my legs to stand up yet.
For the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps Dr Boulter had a point and that I should think about taking better care of myself. I was clearly run-down. I scowled at the tatty kitchen floor which looked no better for my manic scrubbing and the hideous red and orange wallpaper on the ‘feature’ wall. This was supposed to be my grown-up, Instagram-perfect, I’ve-made-it home. It was laughable; I couldn’t even get my house straight let alone do my job. An epic fail on both counts.
Oh God, I had to sort myself out. Prove to them back at work that I was fine. Dr Boulter might be right about my need to be healthier but he was wrong about the stress. I snatched up the BBC Good Food Magazine. In the next three weeks, I was going to cook. Proper nutritious meals. Get myself back on track. Proper exercise, proper meals, just like the doctor had ordered. But would it help?
I didn’t know any of the mums in the playground and felt just as self-conscious waiting outside Ava’s classroom as I had that morning. Poppy, apparently, was old enough to be released into the wild by herself and was allowed to come and find me. Alice had had to give approval for me to collect the girls and this morning yesterday I’d had to check in with the teacher, Miss Parr – a smiley, fresh-faced girl of at least twelve – whom Ava clearly adored.
Keeping my head down, I focused on my phone to avoid the other mums’ speculative looks. Had Alice told them what had happened? I was embarrassed that they might know about my health issues and that I wasn’t currently working.
I’d managed to fill the rest of my day by doing some cooking and tidying up the bedroom Ava and Poppy were sharing. Neither were thrilled about having to share the big double bed, and I didn’t blame them, but I hadn’t got around to furnishing the third or fourth bedrooms since moving from my two-bedroom flat in Headingly. Ava’s rumpled side of the bed had looked as if rampaging squirrels had run amok in her sheets overnight, scattering the pile of soft toys she’d insisted she had to bring. Nine in all, each of which had a name and a reason as to why it had to accompany her. And at bedtime, every last one had to be given a goodnight kiss and cuddle before Ava would climb into bed. In contrast, Poppy hopped straight in and opened up her book. She was currently reading something called Skulduggery Pleasant with a slightly macabre front cover. On her side of the bed, the covers had been neatly pulled up and her pyjamas were folded on top of the pillow. Ava’s PJ bottoms hung from the shade on the bedside light and the top dangled from the bed post at the end of the bed.
After bringing order to Ava’s side of the room, I’d been relieved to find that it was nearly three and time to collect the girls and that somehow I’d managed to fill my first non-working day.
When Ava’s teacher, Miss Parr, beckoned me over with a stern expression, I immediately began to worry that I’d forgotten something this morning.
She gave me a tight smile. ‘It would be really good if you could do some reading with Ava this evening. We do encourage children to read every day, if possible.’
I glanced down at Ava at her side and winced. Ava’s hair was an astonishing bird’s nest that had long-ago escaped from this morning’s plaits. Clearly, I also needed to do better on the hairdressing front. ‘And if you could practise spellings with her too, well…’ She paused and gave me one of those non smiles that contained a definite touch of admonishment, ‘that would really help her.’
‘Of course,’ I said a little too eagerly, wanting to be the perfect mother-substitute in Alice’s absence. Ava’s hand snuck into mine and I remembered her tears and her woeful cry that she was always bottom.
It was something I had intended to ask Alice about when she called but my sister hadn’t been in touch at all since she’d left last Friday which made me feel faintly uneasy. I had to remind myself that this was typical Alice. Trying to curb my irritation, I decided to send her a chatty text telling her the girls were great and suggesting that she video-chatted with them this evening.
Surely they had Wi-Fi at the retreat? Even Mum had sent an email from the middle of the ocean. She was thrilled that Alice had managed to get a holiday and I got kudos for being such a good sister.
‘Did you bring a snack?’ asked Ava as we crossed the playground, Poppy skipping towards us.
‘No but you can have something when we get in.’
‘But I’m starving,’ she wailed. ‘Can we get some sweeties from the shop?’
‘Why don’t you wait until we get home? I’ve bought some nice grapes and bananas.’
A pout appeared on her face. ‘Hello Poppy,’ I turned with relief to my elder niece.
‘Hello, Auntie Claire. I’ve got a letter about a school trip. Can I go?’
‘I got letters too,’ announced Ava, lifting her plump arm and waving her book bag at me.
‘Let’s get home and then we can look at the letters,’ I said with a sudden surge of pleasure at being needed and having something to do. Letters I could do. This was something I could deal with and be effic
ient-Claire again. The Claire I was at work. ‘And who likes spaghetti Bolognese?’
‘Me, me,’ cried Ava dancing around my feet.
‘My favourite,’ said Poppy with quieter enthusiasm. ‘Did you make it or is it a packet one? You know they’re full of trans-fatty acids.’ Her small pink mouth pursed in disapproval.
‘I made it,’ I said. ‘Well, the sauce.’
‘By yourself?’ Ava’s saucer-eyed admiration and Poppy’s approving nod made me grin at them both. Feeling like a hero was something I could get used. After my ridiculous meltdown earlier, this was balm to my soul. It had been a long time since I’d felt such a sense of achievement. Although, if homemade spaghetti Bolognese brought me superhero status, it showed just how far I’d fallen.
Listening to their happy chatter about their days – what they’d eaten, how brilliant super-speller Lucy Chambers was at maths and how the five-a-day fruit and veg maxim should really be ten-a-day and a host of other nutritional facts that Poppy had absorbed in Science – took us from the playground to the edge of the park. The same park I was striding through not that long ago, feeling like I could take on the world. How quickly things had changed.
‘Can I go on the swings? Can I? Can I?’ asked Ava, her chubby legs already deviating from the main path that cut through the park to my house towards the enclosed playground area.
‘That all right with you, Poppy?’ I asked, giving my watch a quick glance. We had plenty of time and nowhere to be. Unlike Ros’s kids who had Cubs, ballet, trampolining, and football to be ferried to, Alice’s children didn’t appear to have any after-school activities.
She looked surprised and shrugged. ‘I guess. I’ve got my book with me.’
I’d noticed that Ava got her own way an awful lot. Alice always deferred to her while poor old Poppy often had to play the sensible older sister. It was a role I remembered well.
We diverted to the small play area which had a couple of swings, a roundabout, a rope walk, and several one-seater rocking animals on large springs for which Ava made a beeline. Poppy chose a swing and before long was flying high, her long spindly legs earnestly propelling her backwards and forwards.
Ava, with her butterfly attention, zig zagged from ride to ride, calling for me to watch, catch, and chat to her before I escorted her to the slide where she directed me from her Nelson’s Column position at the top of the steps. Her bossiness with her precise instructions, no there, not there, was quite comical, although I caught Poppy rolling her eyes from where she now sat on one of the benches by the fence with a book.
A few minutes later I heard a snuffling noise and when I looked behind me, I saw a scruffy grey and white lurcher loitering by the fence. The next time I glanced over he’d poked his nose through a gap and I watched as Poppy put out a tentative hand to stroke the top of its head. I heard her crooning gently to the dog as it tipped his head to one side as if paying careful attention to her. The dog was just like her: all skinny legs and big brown eyes.
‘Look! Doggy! Doggy!’ cried Ava leaping from the end of the slide and barrelling over towards Poppy with her sturdy body. ‘Doggy!’ she screeched even more loudly, climbing on the fence and leaning over, waving her arms like a whirling dervish towards the dog. The dog, which had been quietly making friends with Poppy, immediately began bouncing about, its back legs springing from side to side, barking in a high pitch which was growing ever more hysterical.
‘Stop it, Ava,’ snapped Poppy. ‘You’re winding it up.’
‘Not,’ said Ava as she withdrew, not quite so confident now. The dog jumped up and startled Ava who fell backwards and started to cry.
‘Serves you right,’ said Poppy crossly.
Ava wailed. The dog barked and Poppy glowered.
I scooped Ava up and sat down on the bench, ignoring the dog. ‘What have you done? Where does it hurt?’
‘My b-bottom,’ sniffed Ava, rubbing at the damaged area, pulling up her skirt and exposing her knickers with gay, exhibitionist disregard. Surreptitiously I tugged the skirt down.
‘Ava, you frightened the dog,’ I said sternly. ‘And I don’t think you’re hurt, just a bit shocked. I’m sure you’ll be fine. See, Poppy’s just sitting quietly and letting the dog come to her.’
She gazed up at me, her tears drying instantly at my no-nonsense lack of sympathy.
Now that Ava had calmed down, the dog had quietened too and was pressing up against the fence, sticking its head through the metal bars again. Poppy edged forwards and scratched its head. ‘He likes this. You just made him all over excited, Ava. See, he’s lovely. Like a hairy carpet.’ He certainly seemed to enjoy her attentions and was now sitting on the other side of the fence, his dark eyes watchful, grey tufty ears twitching and lifting as if he were following our conversation.
‘Mmm,’ I said, wondering whether I should encourage Ava to approach the dog slowly so she wouldn’t be frightened in the future.
‘There now, he’s calmed down.’ Poppy continued to stroke him. ‘I wonder where his owners are. He doesn’t have a collar on.’
‘Maybe he slipped his lead.’ I said, looking at the scruffy animal.
‘Do you think we ought to take him home with us?’
‘No, I’m sure he’ll find his – or her – way home,’ I said firmly. The last thing I wanted was an extra addition to the household. I wasn’t sure what I was doing with two small humans; I certainly wasn’t about to throw a dog into the mix.
‘Please, Auntie Claire.’ Ava had jumped off my lap and was now trying to angle her head through the railings to get closer to the dog. She was so that sort of child that would get stuck. I could see it now and I’d be having to call the fire brigade if she didn’t stop.
‘Ava, be careful.’ I grabbed the collar of her coat and tugged her back. ‘We ought to be going home. I thought you were hungry.’
‘Yes, but I’m chocolate-biscuit kind of hungry,’ she said, her eyes ever hopeful.
‘Let’s go home and see what we can find.’ I gave in, knowing that I had bought a secret bag of bite-sized chocolate treats and a packet of chocolate digestives.
Of course the dog wanted to follow us and bounded around our legs with playful hopefulness.
‘Home, boy,’ said Poppy with more authority than I’d have given her credit for.
‘See, he wants to come home with us,’ said Ava tugging on my hand, looking up at me with angelic pleading.
‘Well, he’s not.’ It was all I could do not to smile at her cupid-bow mouth quivering in distress and her mercurial change of heart.
‘I think he’s probably run away from home because his owners were mean,’ she announced.
‘It is odd he hasn’t got a collar on,’ said Poppy, ever thoughtful.
‘And it isn’t our problem,’ I said firmly. ‘Just ignore him. Don’t pay him any attention and he’ll soon get bored.’ For some reason, we’d all assigned the dog as male.
Ava gave me a mutinous stare from under the snarled tangle of curls masquerading as a fringe, her bottom lip standing proud. Any second she was going to dig her heels in and refuse to abandon the dog.
‘Home,’ I said, firmly. ‘Biscuits. Chocolate.’ As if she were the dog.
‘Okay, then,’ she said and reluctantly followed me. Poppy eyed me with disapproval but trailed after us, throwing backward glances at the dog, who had now got the message and stood whining, its head down and its tail between its legs. It really, really wasn’t my problem but I did wonder for a fleeting second if dogs ate Bolognese sauce. No, I told myself, adorable and needy as he was, I could not add any more into the mix.
‘Come on, its owners will probably be searching for him. If we take him home, they won’t be able to find him, will they?’
‘I spose not,’ said Poppy, dragging her feet.
There was plenty of Bolognese sauce; perhaps if I washed the sauce off the mince it would be all right? But then the thought became moot because with a joyful bark, the dog pricked up his ears at
the sound of another dog in the distance and ran off.
Ava was already asking what sort of biscuits I had.
‘Why don’t you have a dog, Auntie Claire?’ asked Poppy as I opened the front door, ushering the two of them in and the three of us, the habit already formed, headed towards the kitchen.
‘I…’ To be honest, I’d never thought about it before. ‘Well, I’m out at work all the time and it wouldn’t be fair to have a dog if I’m not here. They need company; they get lonely if they’re left on their own all day.’
‘Oh, yes. Mummy says you have a very important job.’ I could hear the weight of disapproval in her words. ‘And that you have lots of money.’
‘I don’t know about lots of money,’ I said with a half laugh. How did you measure riches? I certainly didn’t have to worry about paying the bills but I wouldn’t be buying a Ferrari anytime soon. ‘But I do earn enough to buy mini-Crunchies.’
‘Crunchies!’ squealed Ava. ‘My favourite.’
‘No, they’re not,’ said Poppy, her voice full of elder-sister scorn. ‘You said it was Caramel last week. You’re just a piglet.’
‘Am not.’ Ava thrust her pink face forward, quivering with indignation. With her riot of pigtail curls, round face, and shrill cry she was rather reminiscent of a sturdy piglet.
‘No one will get anything if you carry on bickering,’ I said firmly and they both cast baleful looks my way but they did stop. ‘You need to be nice to each other.’
‘I got a picture for you.’ Ava dug through her book bag spilling pieces of paper all over the floor. ‘It’s for your fridge.’ She waved a paint-splodged picture painted on the reverse of a piece of wall paper at me. ‘It’s a caterpillar. We’re doing insects. It’s a hungry caterpillar, like me. You can have it. Mummy has lots already. When is she coming home?’ Ava’s lower lip quivered for real this time.
Surreptitiously I checked my phone, hoping for a text from Alice. Still no word. What was she playing at?