by Beth Moran
The dimples deepened. ‘Yes!’ Hamish shouted, in a deep superhero voice.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Uuuummmmm…’ He thought about it, as I flicked icy raindrops from my forehead.
‘Please?’
‘Uuuummmmm…’
‘Ellen, have you seen my jeans?’ Will came thumping down the stairs, wearing a shirt and boxer-shorts. ‘What are you doing, Hamish?’
I had automatically stepped back, but as he leant past Hamish to close the door, he saw me.
‘Hi.’ I averted my eyes, lifting one hand in a feeble wave. ‘I’m Jenny.’
‘Yes. Hi. Come on in. Watch the skateboard. And the stepladder. And, well, make yourself at home. I’ll be one minute. Ellen! Hamish opened the door again!’ He waited for me to enter, then whipped shut the bolt at the top of the door before leaping up the stairs, two at a time, leaving Superman grinning as he hopped up the ladder.
‘Is that how you opened the door?’
He nodded. Hop.
‘Did Mummy and Daddy tell you not to open the door?’
He pretended to think about that. Hop, hop.
‘Because it’s dangerous?’
‘Not dangerous for me! I’m Superman!’ Hamish threw himself off the fifth rung, landing in a heap on the hall floor before scampering off into the living room.
I snuck a glance back at the door, contemplating a pre-emptive escape.
‘Hi, Jenny,’ Maddie said, perched at the top of the stairs.
Okay, so no escape this time. ‘Hi. Where does this go?’ I replied, folding up the ladder.
‘Under the stairs. Daddy forgot to lock the cupboard door. You can leave it there, though. Hamish only opened the door because Jonno sounded the alarm.’
‘Alarm?’
‘The Jenny alarm. They’ve been waiting for you since swimming. They want you to play Hunt and Destroy.’
‘Hunt and Destroy? Is that a computer game?’
‘No.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s like hide-and-seek, only with weapons. And wrestling.’
‘Sounds… painful.’
‘Yep.’ She stood up. ‘Want to see my new sample of Botrytis?’
‘I’d love to, but I’d better say hi to your mum first.’
‘Okay. I’ll not open the airing cupboard door yet, then, because they grow best at warm temperatures.’ She clattered off, calling, ‘She’s in the kitchen trying to make it look as though we’re a nice, normal family.’
I found Ellen chopping broccoli, engulfed in a haze of delicious smells.
‘Jenny!’ She stopped to give me a hug. I tried not to react like an ironing-board, awkwardly reaching up my arms before realising the hug was over. ‘Did Will let you in?’
‘Sort of.’
She tutted. ‘Hamish?’
‘Yep.’
‘I don’t know why we bothered fitting that bolt. Those boys would make a crack team of jewel thieves. Once they want something, there’s no stopping them. And they haven’t stopped talking about you all day.’
‘Really?’
‘They’re four. A new woman in their life is big news.’
‘Have you told them I might be their nanny?’
She chucked the broccoli into a large pan. ‘I’m hoping there’s no might about it. But, no. That would produce further excitement. And three over-excited little boys at the dinner table are not going to encourage you to accept the job.’
She handed me a jug full of knives and forks. ‘Could you sort these?’
I began to lay the table, pondering whether to be honest. In this house, anything else seemed strange. ‘Just to be clear, I’m absolutely certain I want this job. I presumed this evening was about Will deciding whether to hire me.’
Ellen paused. ‘Jenny, Will trusts my judgement. And your character references were exceptional. I’d have considered bribery being involved if I didn’t know you were broke.’
I sent out a silent thank you to Claudia, Zara’s elderly housekeeper, who had adopted me as a sort of pet. And to Meg, for what she’d left out as much as what she’d said.
‘Right. If you summon the troops, I’ll dish up.’
I could do that – round up five children and a strange man I’d recently startled in his underwear. This was like The Apprentice. Only with superheroes and mould spores.
One near-impossible round of Hunt and Destroy, one microbiology lecture and one long conversation about hobbits later, the food was only slightly cold.
Billy pushed his plate of chicken pie away. ‘Yuck.
‘Billy,’ Will warned, with a look probably honed on thousands of school children.
‘Billy hates cold pie,’ Maddie told me.
‘Yes,’ Will agreed. ‘But it wouldn’t be cold if he’d come when Jenny called him. Would it, Billy?’
‘I don’t want cold pie. Only peg-nins eat cold food and I’m not a peg-nin, I’m a fire-robot. Cold food breaks my buttons.’
Ellen grinned. ‘What do you think, Jenny? Can fire-robots eat cold food?’
‘Um.’ I set down my water-glass, wondering if the boardroom interrogation had commenced, and how to stop it ending with, ‘You’re fired.’
‘Of course, I think this pie would be delicious at any temperature. And I’m sorry to hear that you aren’t a Magnetron Ultra-Inferno Incinerator-Hot Robot Two Thousand, Billy. I heard they were the fastest, hottest, best fire-robot ever made. But their buttons love cold food. They eat it really fast, and are so hot it gets warm before it even reaches their stomach compartment.’
Hamish and Jonno watched me, eyes wide with interest. Billy gasped. ‘But I am a Magnon Ultra-Ferno Hot Hot Hottest Robot Ever! Look!’
I caught Ellen raising her eyebrows at Will, who winked at her. Hired?
Shortly before I left, the doorbell rang.
“Dad?” Ellen said, sounding surprised. With one remaining shock of silver hair and a sharp suit stretched over his rounded stomach, he seemed somewhat at odds with his now flustered daughter. He shook my hand, eyeing me up and down with a shrewd eye before offering a business card.
‘You’re living in the Meadows’ place. When you decide it’s too much and want to sell, give me a call.’
I read the card: F. F. Fisher, Property Developer.
‘Thanks. But I’m not planning on selling.’
He smiled. It reminded me of an overweight crocodile. ‘Trust me, it’s a money pit. The most sensible option is to knock it down and start again. You could save a whole lot of time and trouble, and I can promise you a decent offer. I can pop round some time next week, give you a professional opinion.’
‘No, thank you.’ I felt my cheeks take on the appearance of a Magnetron Ultra-Inferno Robot. ‘I’m really not interested in selling.’
I downed the rest of my coffee, trying not to think about what Fisher, or Ellen and Will – or anyone – would say if they saw the reality of where I was living. I would die of shame before I let F. F. Fisher poke his professional nose inside my cottage.
Easily said, when enveloped by soft cushions, sitting beside a crackling fire with a home-cooked meal in my stomach. When the storm broke, later that evening, rattling the rotten window-panes and whistling through the holes in the roof, causing a worryingly loud sound of running water somewhere behind the boxes in the biggest bedroom, the idea of handing the nightmare over to someone else seemed a lot more appealing. Lugging an armful of large bowls, I took a deep breath and ventured into the attic.
Avoiding the droppings and the worst of the manky boxes, I hunted through the freezing darkness and found four places where the rain was pouring in, the wind screaming behind it.
Positioning bowls underneath the drips, I then spent a frustrating amount of time trying to nail, then duct tape, four bin bags to the holes in the roof, while the rain lashed at my face, and my fingers became so numb they couldn’t feel the tape any more.
Stumbling back out, the worst holes finally covered, I tripped over a box tucked to one side of the entrance hatch. In
the light from the corridor below, I could see the box wasn’t like the other plain cardboard or wooden crates. Instead, it appeared to be a polished mahogany chest, the lid engraved with a pattern of daisies. My tiredness now overruled by curiosity, I carefully negotiated the steps and placed the box on the bathroom floor while I made a cup of tea.
Prolonging the anticipation, I sipped my drink, allowing the warmth to defrost my extremities while contemplating the possible contents. Jewellery? A priceless stamp collection? The deeds to a secret fortune? A rotten mouse carcase?
But, no. When I managed, with some effort, to force the lid open, I found something far more valuable – I found a wodge of faded school reports, a CSE exam certificate and a thick brown envelope crammed with photographs.
I found my past.
I hastily got ready for bed and then settled down to see the faces of my history.
The pictures started somewhere in the early fifties, I guessed by the style of clothing and the furnishings. They were mostly black-and-white – a woman laughing on a beach. Dressed up in a fur-trimmed coat. Eating Christmas dinner with her parents, paper chains dangling above their heads. I grew certain the woman was my grandmother – although I had to pause and wonder how this carefree, exuberant spirit turned into the old lady dying alone in her hoarder’s prison.
I reached wedding photographs – posing with a formal smile in her lace dress while the man who must be my grandfather draped one arm around her shoulder.
And then, I stopped, mouth dry, at the next photograph. It contained the same woman, but everything about her looked different. Her face drawn, bordering on gaunt. Hair scraped back, eyes hovering below the camera. And in her arms a baby, wrapped in a white blanket.
I did some rapid calculations. This must be my mother. I moved on: saw the baby growing to a girl in school uniform; wearing an Easter bonnet and seated in front of a birthday cake; standing alongside a snowman. There weren’t many – three or four each year. Mostly just the girl, occasionally with her mother. But never the man. And no smiles. The pictures changed to colour, but the expressions remained grey.
I reached the last one in the stack. My mother looked about thirteen. In baggy cords and a ribbed polo-neck sweater, she squinted into the camera. Behind her, my grandmother, hair streaked with silver, skin pulled tight across sharp cheekbones.
I had learnt one thing, if nothing else: my mother did not have a happy childhood. Either that or she really hated having her photograph taken. And if her father had been around, he must have hated it even more.
Still, it was questions, not answers, that kept me twisting and turning in the bath that night. What happened to change my grandmother so strikingly? Did my grandfather die, or leave?
Why did we never, ever visit her?
Tomorrow’s cleaning would have to be put to one side. I had answers to find.
7
After a terrible night, the sound of banging on the back door woke me. Scrambling to get out of the bath, I caught my feet in the tangled sheet, tipping me headlong onto the floor. Untwisting myself, while trying not to lose my jogging-bottoms in the process, I heard the door open and a man’s voice call my name.
Oh, pants. Only one guess for who that could be.
Managing to pull myself up, I snatched my glasses off the window sill, straightened my clothes and sprinted out of the bathroom, hoping at the very least to prevent him mounting the stairs.
We collided in the hallway, crashing into Mannequin Diana, who thankfully broke our fall. Righting himself, Mack hauled me to my feet.
‘Are you okay?’ He peered at me, still holding my arms with each hand.
‘What? Yes! Why wouldn’t I be? And what are you doing in my house? Don’t you knock and wait for an answer like normal people?’
Dropping my arms, he raised one eyebrow. ‘I did knock. For five minutes.’
‘So maybe I was out. Or not receiving visitors today.’
‘Or suffocating beneath an avalanche of junk. Or electrocuted by the lethal wiring in this place. Or trapped by the flood of storm water that has come in via your leaky roof, and somehow made its way through your wall and into my office.’
‘Say what?’ I blinked, my idiot, pre-coffee brain struggling to focus beyond how cold and bare my arms felt without his hands on them any more.
‘Water is leaking through the top of our adjoining wall into my office. The place in which I earn my living. Several documents are now destroyed, the floor is soaked and my laptop barely escaped with its life. If you could find it within yourself to “receive visitors”, I would be very grateful,’ he said pointedly.
‘Are you always this rude and sarcastic?’
‘While we discuss that issue, months of work will be drowning in the results of your DIY incompetence.’ He folded his arms, which were bulging with tension.
‘Excuse me! I’ve done nothing!’ I folded my arms right back at him, and made a vain attempt to stretch myself up to somewhere near his height.
‘If only that were true. For the past six years this house stood empty and derelict while managing to leave my side of the building undisturbed and intact. Now I have a broken window and a flood.’
‘I haven’t caused a flood! I actually repaired the leaks, in the middle of the night, using my own ingenuity and wits.
He sighed. ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
‘I worked really hard! It took ages, and I got soaked in the process.’
‘Right. That would explain the hair. Now, if you’re finished bristling, can I see what’s causing the problem? That is, apart from you.’
I gaped. How dared he come into my house at whatever time it was in the morning and insult me like this?
‘How about we start with wherever you were fixing the leak?’
He didn’t go as far as making finger quote marks to frame those last three words, but his tone implied as much. I watched him climb the attic stairs, my simmering anger powering up the cogs of my brain.
‘Fine! As long as you don’t touch anything. And I didn’t think you’d noticed my hair!’
So, my rescue bin-bag job hadn’t quite turned out as planned. One side – the side nearest Mack’s house – of one of the holes – the hole nearest Mack’s house – had half peeled away, creating a sort of water slide, beginning at the hole and flowing towards – yes, Mack’s house. The water had run down the bin bag, poured onto the floor at the edge of the dividing wall, found a massive crack to gather in and presumably seeped through to the rooms beneath.
Mack looked at me. ‘Bin bags?’
‘I didn’t know what else to use.’
‘No. Not much lying around here you could use to board up a hole.’
I bit my cheek and tried to think of something to say other than sorry. I couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry. Has it really ruined months of work? I can try and help fix it, if you want.’
One side of his mouth twitched. ‘No. I don’t want.’
‘I did try.’ I blinked, hard.
He nodded. ‘Well. I’m sorry for being a sarcastic git. I didn’t get much sleep. Let’s check out the damage on your side, and then I’ll sort the roof before it rains again.’
He clattered down the steps, flinging open the door to the small bedroom before I could stop him. I thought I might have left my dirty wet clothes on the floor while rushing to change so I could look through the photos. If thought meant knew and might meant did and clothes meant underwear, that was.
But Mack getting an eyeful of my old knickers was nothing compared to my mortification after he then moved past me to the bathroom.
He paused in the doorway. Sidling up behind, I followed his gaze as it took in the sleeping bag, the pile of photographs and a battered novel on the wooden table I had positioned beside the bath. At least I’d moved my food supplies into the small bedroom with my clothes.
‘It all looks fine,’ he said, abruptly turning away, and pretending to examine the landing ceiling. ‘I think th
e attic wall must not be flush with the walls on this level, which is why it all ended up on my side.’
‘I’m really sorry.’ I stared at a stuffed chipmunk, aware I sounded as wretched as I felt. ‘Can I clean up your office while you fix the holes?’
His face shut down then, with a clang – making me realise how much it had previously softened. Yes, Jenny, softened with pity for the useless woman sleeping in a bath and surviving on cold baked beans and tins of tuna.
‘No. It’s fine.’
‘Right.’ I nodded. ‘It’s understandable you don’t trust me with your stuff.’
He sighed. ‘No. It isn’t that. Well, not just that. My work is extremely… private.’ He attempted a smile. ‘I’d appreciate a cup of tea, though. As long as it’s from the kettle in the bedroom, not the kitchen.’
‘Are you a spy?’ I sat the tea on one of the less manky attic boxes.
Mack glanced down, holding a sheet of wood against the roof, two nails in his mouth.
‘Okay, so if you told me would you have to kill me?’ I said.
He deliberately took one of the nails out of his mouth, placed it carefully in position and swung the hammer on to it so hard the roof shook.
‘Because if you are a spy, I could be a threat. Like, a counter-spy sent to discover all your secrets. My bumbling incompetence would be an excellent ploy, to lure you into coming to my rescue, and then wheedle out your secrets by lulling you into a false sense of security. As demonstrated by you revealing where you keep your secret spy documents.’ I took a nonchalant mouthful of tea.
‘Are you trying to lure me?’ he asked, removing the second nail from his mouth.
I choked, spluttering and coughing for a couple of minutes while he finished one repair and moved on to the next.
‘Well, obviously I’m not a spy. It was a theory, pointing out that if you’re a spy you aren’t a very good one.’ My voice came out rough from coughing.
‘Maybe I’m a good enough spy to know you aren’t a spy.’
‘But what if an enemy spy takes me hostage, and tortures me to discover where you keep your information?’