by Beth Moran
We sat there for a moment, thinking about that.
‘I like it,’ Frances said. ‘Sometimes at eighty-four you need an excuse to get up and at ’em in the morning. To beat the aches and the wobbles and the tiredness and still have a go at life.’
‘I’m not sure…’ Ashley picked at a loose thread on her cardigan. ‘I can’t think of a goal.’
‘I say we go for it,’ Sarah said. ‘We could call it the Get Yourself a Life Worth Telling Stories About by Christmas Book Club Challenge.’
‘The Christmas Book Club Challenge, for short,’ Jamie added.
‘Well, let’s give it a month and see how it goes,’ Ellen said. ‘And if it can avoid wine being spilled. Or blood. Votes?’
Everyone voted yes, we could give it a go.
And I’d say this: the Christmas Book Club Challenge was anything but boring.
11
Before going home, Sarah asked if I fancied another girls’ night the following Friday. ‘Sean’s supposed to be having Edison for the evening.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Although I’ve not told Edison yet. Last time he “forgot” to turn up. Apparently I should have reminded him. We’d only sorted it that afternoon.’
‘I sometimes think Adam would forget he had kids if I didn’t remind him,’ Kiko said. ‘And he lives in the same house as them.’
‘Still working all hours?’ Sarah asked.
Kiko nodded. ‘But how can I complain when he’s saving the world?’ She grimaced at me. ‘He manages a charity that rescues people from trafficking. Young women, kids, people working as slaves. It’s horrific. I understand why he finds it hard to stop. And you can’t just clock off in the middle of saving someone. Our life is very dull and safe in comparison. I’m very dull in comparison. And I feel shallow and selfish complaining about any of it. So I don’t.’
Sarah huffed. ‘He chose to get married and have kids. He’s got a responsibility to you, too.’
Kiko looked at us nervously, her face pinched with tension. ‘I’m starting to wonder if it would be best if we weren’t together. The kids would probably see him more if we had custody visits like Edison and Sean. And I wouldn’t spend my life feeling a disappointing second best.’
‘Do you still love each other?’ I asked, after a moment’s silence.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think we even know each other any more. I want to stay married. I never, ever thought I’d consider breaking up my family. And my parents would be devastated – they still consider divorce to be shameful, and that a man must work hard to provide for his family. But I can’t keep going by myself. I can’t keep having my heart stomped on every single day.’ She gulped back a sob, and Sarah and I both put an arm around her.
‘Come next Friday.’ Sarah said.
Kiko nodded, a tiny smile flickering at the corner of her mouth. ‘I’ll ask Adam if he will watch the kids.’
‘No, you won’t!’ Sarah snapped. ‘You’re not asking, you’re telling him. Phone right now.’
Kiko paled. ‘No, his mum’s babysitting. Adam’s working late tonight. I can’t call unless it’s an emergency.’
‘His marriage is an emergency. Call him.’
She called, eyes widening in surprise when he answered. In a hesitant voice, she told him she was going out the following Friday, too. After some humming and haa-ing, Adam agreed to be home. Kiko wiped the sweat off her forehead and let out a shaky laugh. ‘Right. I’ll see you then.’
‘Too right,’ Sarah said, slamming a cupboard door shut. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do.’
I muddled through the weekend, working at the café and filling more bags with rubbish. I had a vague plan about borrowing someone’s laptop (and Internet connection) to get some of the less-abysmal Hoard up for sale online, to supplement the tiny pile of wages I’d brought home the previous Thursday. In the meantime, I carried on sorting and cleaning, constantly on the lookout for further titbits about my family.
It was soon Monday morning. The kids and I slowly grew more used to each other through the week, spending most afternoons in a blanket fort we built (and continually rebuilt, extended, redesigned and smashed to bits), while I revealed my appalling lack of knowledge about military matters. On Wednesday Maddie had a meltdown about a specimen being knocked over during the battle of Bannockburn, but we soothed her grief with a burial ceremony for the mould, ‘a worthy comrade, who fell valiantly upon the battlefield, and whose sacrifice shall not be forgotten’.
Thursday dinner-time, when nobody’d even asked me to stay, simply laying an extra place at the table as if I’d always been there, Dawson announced his pleasure that tomorrow was Friday, and, ‘She won’t be here, messing everything up and making us late.’
‘Dawson!’ Will put down his fork. ‘That was unacceptable. Jenny is doing a great job for her second week.’
No, Jenny isn’t.
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Of course, you want your mum there, instead of me.’
‘No. I just don’t want you there. I don’t care who else does it.’
‘That’s enough,’ Will said. ‘You’d better think very carefully about what to say to Jenny now.’
‘Sorry,’ Dawson muttered. ‘I’m not hungry. Can I go?’ He dumped his plate, still half-full, on the counter-top above the dishwasher and stomped upstairs.
The rest of the kids, plates emptied, soon followed him.
‘I am so sorry about Dawson,’ Ellen said, frowning. ‘I think something’s going on, but I can’t get him to talk about it. Please don’t take it personally.’
I took a large gulp of water, and carefully set the glass down on my coaster. ‘The thing is, he’s right.’ I forced myself to look up at my employers. ‘We’ve been late to school every day this week. A couple of days by a lot. Today, I was late picking up from drama club because Billy hid after I told him off for chopping up a library book, and it took twenty minutes before Jonno – not me – found him. Things feel chaotic and messy. They are chaotic and messy. I’m making a lot of mistakes, and I’m finding coping with all five of them really challenging. I think maybe you need a professional to do this job.’
Ellen grinned. ‘Was he in the wood-box?’
I nodded.
‘He always goes there. Next time you’ll find him straight away. I probably should have put it on the list.’
‘But I’m saying I don’t think there should be a next time. Your house is being destroyed one broken picture frame and smashed toy at a time. I’m worried I’m not good for your kids.’
‘You’ve been here two weeks, and this was the first time Billy’s hidden from you. That’s impressive. I was late getting to school after the triplets were born every day for three months. And that was with a huge amount of help. This is a chaotic family. It is a messy house. If you want to quit because you hate it that’s one thing – although I’d still beg you to stay. Literally, on my knees and begging. If it’s because you aren’t a perfect caregiver for these kids, you don’t know what you’re doing and you feel like they may just drive you round the bend, join the club. No one is good enough for my kids, especially not me. But together, with the grace of God and a mighty load of prayers, we can be enough. Now, are you having some ice cream? I’m off tomorrow so the weekend starts here.’
I nodded yes.
Will reached over and picked up my plate. ‘You’re one of us now, Jenny. For better or worse. Part of the crazy Camerons. We won’t let you go without a fight.’ He winked at me, and I had to pretend I needed the loo to go and pull myself together.
The thought that I might have somehow stumbled upon a place to belong, to call home, overwhelmed and bewildered me. How long would it be before these wonderful people found out what my family, Oxford University, Dougal and Duff – Richard – had all realised? I wasn’t worth fighting for – quite the opposite. Wasn’t I?
Friday morning, I woke to the blissful knowledge of a whole ten days without squabbling, nagging or wiping anybody’s nose other than my own
. Next week it was the half-term holidays, so Will was taking care of the kids. I thought about the latest batch of clean, crisp twenty-pound notes in my purse and hummed with glee. Today I would go food shopping. Every scream, scratch and second of stress from the previous week would be worth it. And then tonight I was heading over to Sarah’s for another dose of girl-power ballads and more tortilla chips than was medically advisable.
First, I went to the shed, retrieving the car key I’d found hiding in a toolbox a couple of days earlier. Propping the shed door open, unsure of the possibilities regarding dangerous car fumes, I adjusted myself in the driver’s seat. I hadn’t driven since Mum gave her car to a prostitute.
I inserted the key, which to my great delight actually fitted, held my breath and turned. Nothing but a faint clicking sound. I tried again. Shook the steering wheel about a few times. Pumped randomly on the pedals while twisting the key and ordering it to start. Counted to twenty and tried it all again. Opened the bonnet, blew on everything and went over the whole palaver one more time. Went to have another look at the engine, in case a helpful arrow had a sign saying ‘press this’ or ‘problem here’.
‘It’s the battery,’ a voice said, causing me to bang my head hard on the bonnet.
‘Really?’ I asked, irritated, rubbing the sore spot. ‘Are you a car expert?’
‘It doesn’t take an expert to know a car left undriven for years will have a dead battery,’ Mack replied.
Mack leant in next to me and poked about a bit. I didn’t notice that he smelled of cinnamon and vanilla, at all, as he stood beside me. Neither did I attempt to look down the neckline of his running top.
My flustered state was purely due to having bumped my head.
‘So, what, it needs a jump-start?’ I asked, revealing that I wasn’t a total mechanical dimwit.
‘No point,’ Mack said. ‘You need a new one.’
‘Right.’ My heart sank, for two reasons. One, I had been looking forward to having a car, but finding money for petrol, sorting tax, insurance and everything else was impossible enough. Repair costs would leave my dream as flat as the battery. Two, because Mack was here. Which meant that by next week I would doubtless come home to find the car purring like a tiger, equipped with a shiny new battery and a tank full of petrol. ‘If I look hard enough I can probably find one in the Hoard somewhere.’
‘The Hoard?’ I turned to see him grinning. ‘That’s one word for it. It’s a shame you don’t want my help. Otherwise, if you found one I could show you how to swap them over, in a polite, neighbourly fashion.’
‘Yes, I guess all good spies need basic car skills. The truth is, I don’t even know who it officially belongs to.’
‘Shame. I could help with that, too.’ Mack rocked back on his heels. I said nothing.
‘Well, let me know if you change your mind.’ He strolled off, whistling.
I closed the bonnet, climbed on the bike and sped towards the village. Whistling. Louder.
With my groceries unpacked in clean kitchen cupboards, I spent the rest of the day hunting through the living room for car-related paperwork. (I used the term ‘living room’ in the loosest possible sense, since currently the only things living in there were not the intended inhabitants.) I found forty years’ worth of telephone directories interspersed with junk mail. And if I could have invented a way to power a car with dust and mouse droppings I wouldn’t have had to bother with a battery.
I arrived at Sarah’s to find Kiko perched on the edge of the sofa, holding a glass of lemonade as if it contained cyanide.
‘Don’t worry about her.’ Sarah offered me a bowl of popcorn. ‘She’s feeling guilty about being out two Friday nights on the trot.’
‘I’m feeling guilty about telling you I’m considering leaving my husband!’ Kiko squeaked as we plopped onto the other chairs. ‘I’m happily married!’
‘No, you aren’t.’ Sarah snorted. ‘But maybe if you stopped thinking so little of yourself, remembered that you aren’t put on this earth – or in that marriage – to be his unpaid servant – which, coincidentally, is otherwise known as slavery, which, coincidentally, he runs a charity to eradicate – if you could remember that, you might be able to make your marriage half decent.’
Kiko’s mouth fell open. ‘He doesn’t treat me like a slave!’
We looked at her.
‘Okay, but he doesn’t mean to. He got home on time tonight so I could go out.’
‘Wow.’ Sarah nodded her head, fake-impressed. ‘He got home on time, once, so you could go out. When was the last time you went on a date?’
Kiko’s reply was so quiet we had to bend our heads closer to hear it. ‘We went to a fundraising dinner a couple of months ago.’
‘How romantic!’ Sarah clutched her chest. ‘I bet he didn’t leave you alone and invisible in the corner for one second while he schmoozed all the guests.’
I intervened by handing Kiko the box of chocolates I’d brought. ‘Instead of making her feel even crappier, why don’t we do something constructive while we wait for the food?’ We had ordered take-away from a restaurant located on a campsite a few miles into the forest. ‘If this is about trying to boost our self-esteem, maybe we should concentrate on something positive.’
Sarah screwed up her nose. ‘Fair point, Jen. Soz, Kiko.’
We sat for a minute trying to think of something positive.
‘What about the Christmas Book Club Challenge?’ Sarah asked, perking up. ‘Have you decided what to do yet?’
Kiko shook her head.
‘I’m hoping to find something interesting in my grandma’s stuff,’ I said.
‘Like what?’ Kiko asked.
‘I don’t know. I never met her, and my mum never talked about her childhood, so I’ve no idea what I might find. Hopefully something to explain why they never spoke.’ And why Grandma looked so miserable in the photos as soon as my mum appeared on the scene.
‘But isn’t that still someone else’s story?’ Sarah asked.
‘It’s my story too.’ I shrugged. ‘And, honestly, fighting my way through all that junk is enough of an adventure for now.’
The food arrived – mozzarella and chorizo pasta, steaming in the cartons. We dolloped huge portions onto plates and zoomed in on Kiko.
‘What did Ellen say?’ I recapped. ‘Exciting, challenging. Scary. What do you want to do that’s exciting and scary?’
None of us mentioned the scariest thing Kiko was thinking about doing: scooping up her kids and getting the heck out of her marriage.
‘I’ve never really liked that kind of thing.’ She gently blew on a chunk of pasta bake, oh-so-carefully.
‘There must be something,’ Sarah prodded. ‘Some secret dream where you think, maybe if I was an adventurous, feisty, couldn’t-give-a-monkey’s type woman with tons of cash and a couple of years to spare I might fancy having a go at that.’
Kiko thought about it. We helped by lobbing random suggestions at her: ‘Abseiling. Burlesque dancing. Opera singing. Medieval re-enactments. Bee-keeping. Netball. Rally driving…’
When Sarah and I simultaneously paused for breath, she said, ‘Well, actually…’
‘Yes?’ We leaned forward.
‘I wouldn’t mind climbing Mount Everest.’
‘Right.’ Sarah sat back. ‘Ice cream, anyone?’
We spent a while discussing both the figurative and actual mountains that Kiko now contemplated climbing, deciding that she might as well have a look and see if it was even a possibility.
‘I’m only looking for fun!’ she repeated, every two minutes. ‘I’m not serious about doing this!’
‘That’s what you reckon,’ Sarah muttered, winking at me over her coffee.
‘So, what about you?’ I asked, hoping it was something that lay between scaling a pile of rubbish and scaling the world’s highest mountain. ‘What’s your story going to be about?’
She put her cup down and spread out her arms like a circus ringmaster. ‘I,
ladies, am going to join a dating agency and find myself a fella.’
‘Oooh!’ Kiko said.
‘Well, I’m going to have a cracking good go and hopefully a few laughs while I’m at it,’ Sarah conceded. She looked at me. ‘Care to join me on this tall, dark and handsome adventure?’
‘Not in a million years. Let’s get you signed up.’
So we did. And if Kiko laughed so hard she had a slight accident (‘Honestly, I think I must be doing those pelvic-floor exercises all wrong…’) it was totally worth it.
Sarah’s protests that she wanted ‘classy options only’ soon became the catchphrase of the night. It also became apparent that any website with the word ‘classy’ in the description meant: ‘Totally non-classy. Trashy, in fact. Trashy, slimy and quite probably perverted.’
In the end, we went for the bog-standard, mainstream site Lovelife! Then came the tussling over the profile pictures.
‘No, Sarah, looking like a prison guard from Guantanamo Bay is not going to help you find a man who will suit you.’
‘But doesn’t that one make me look clever?’
‘If clever is another word for terrifying. Or ill.’
‘Please don’t use that one. Please, please, please. I look like a total airhead.’
‘Fun and beautiful does not mean you’re an airhead!’ I scolded. ‘What made you think being attractive and smiley means stupid?’