by Maeve Haran
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ Emma scoffed.
‘He admitted it this very morning on the Mike Willan show. Told two million listeners that the woman he wrote it for abandoned him and went off with a chartered accountant and that her name was Stella.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Stuart at least was looking impressed. He turned to his mother-in-law. ‘And did you actually go out with him?’
‘Yes, I did for a while, before he disappeared to America. He wanted me to go with him but I was eighteen and too scared. Then I met your dad, Emma. That was it, end of story.’
‘You didn’t keep in touch or anything?’ Stuart asked.
‘Fuckin ’ell, Gran,’ Jesse’s tone held a new humility, ‘you inspired an anthem. Respect!’
‘Does that mean,’ Izzy’s quick wits had made some fast deductions, ‘that Gran was in bed with this man? When she was only seven years older than me?’
Fortunately for Stella, Ruby saved the day by tossing her beaker noisily onto the floor and making them all jump.
‘Right,’ Stella got to her feet, ‘time to clear the table. Suze has brought cheesecake for pudding.’
‘You know, Izzy,’ Suze congratulated as she took her plate, ‘you are one fast thinker. If they have that as a question in your entrance exam, you will certainly get in!’
‘Yes,’ Jesse laughed, for once forgetting the tension between his parents. ‘I can see it now. If your grandmother, aged eighteen, was in bed with a rock star in 1969, how old does that make her now?’
Stella turned round, laughing. ‘Anyone who answers that will not be getting any cheesecake.’
‘That’s easy peasy,’ Izzy piped up, ignoring the threat. ‘She’d be sixty-five!’
‘Izzy Cope,’ Stuart congratulated, ‘I am truly proud of you.’
‘Before you all get too star-struck by ancient groupies,’ Emma intervened abruptly, ‘I have an announcement of my own to make.’
They all stared at her except Jesse, who fixed his gaze firmly on the cheesecake, as if it somehow had the power to prevent any lethal developments.
‘I have been offered a job and I am pretty sure I’m going to take it.’
‘But what about Ruby?’ Stuart faltered, as stunned as the rest of them.
Emma gazed beatifically at Stella. ‘I rather hoped Mum could look after her.’
Stella sensed the shaky ground in front of her. She adored looking after her granddaughter, and would be happy to do so for part of the week, but had to admit that the joys of grand-parenting were, at least partly, in being able to give the darling grandchild back.
‘I’d be delighted to look after Ruby,’ she finally managed to reply, ‘and of course I’d always drop everything in an emergency, but I don’t think I could take it on full-time.’
‘That’s typical of you!’ Emma blurted. ‘You think your pet paintings matter more than your grandchild!’
‘That’s hardly fair, Em,’ Stuart intervened. ‘I mean you have rather sprung this on us all.’
‘And I’m not entitled to a life!’ Emma blazed. ‘I thought you’d be pleased I was getting off the sofa!’
‘Em, I’ve never implied you were lazy,’ Stuart insisted. ‘I realize you have your hands full with the children and that I don’t give you enough help.’
‘Too right you don’t!’
‘It’s just that we’ve never talked about this.’
‘And when would we talk about it, since you’re never home?’
This was something Stella absolutely supported her on but she couldn’t help feeling that Emma was going about it the wrong way. Perhaps she’d already tried a more diplomatic route and got nowhere.
‘I’ll go mad unless I do something that uses my brain!’ Emma insisted angrily.
Stella could see that Stuart was on the point of shouting, ‘But you were the one who wanted the bloody baby!’ so she tried to steer the conversation away. ‘How are you getting on with your test papers, Izzy?’
‘She’s amazing at that non-verbal reasoning stuff,’ Jesse chipped in gratefully, seeing the icebergs ahead as clearly as Stella did. ‘You know, “Which of the 2D shapes on the right can be folded into the 3D cube on the left?”’
Stella could see how adept Jesse was becoming at heading off conflict between his parents and it made her feel sad. He had difficulties of his own. ‘That’s terrific, Izzy, well done.’
‘Miss Simmons says I’m one of the brightest in the class.’
‘Pity your brother can’t say the same,’ Emma carped sarcastically.
Jesse looked away and said nothing while Stuart threw down his napkin. What on earth was the matter with her? She was usually so supportive of her children. Stella had often thought what a good mother she was. Perhaps too good.
Suze started to collect the pudding plates. ‘I thought that shop-bought cheesecake was delicious, as shop-bought cheesecakes go,’ she commented brightly.
Matthew looked at her as if she had gone mad.
‘Bomb about to go off there, I’d say,’ she whispered to Stella as they loaded the dishwasher together.
‘I know,’ Stella whispered back. ‘I hope I didn’t make it worse. But I really don’t think I could cope. I’m knackered when I give Ruby back and have to sit down for the rest of the evening. The funny thing is I think you worry more about your grandchildren than you did about your children. They seem so very precious.’
‘She couldn’t just spring something like that on you. You’ve got your painting career.’
‘And actually,’ Stella agreed, ‘I never thought I’d say this but I’m doing quite well. I actually made a living wage this year and we can do with the money.’
‘And you enjoy it.’
‘And I enjoy it,’ Stella agreed. ‘Apart from the owners.’
They both giggled.
‘You don’t have to come into the kitchen to talk about me.’ Emma was standing behind them.
Stella turned guiltily. ‘I wasn’t.’ She decided she’d had enough of Emma’s attitude. ‘I was talking about my dog painting and how well it’s going. I’m actually pretty busy.’
‘Yes, Mum, I get the message. You’re much too busy painting pugs to look after your grandchildren.’
‘Of course I’ll help. I’m just not up for doing it full-time, that’s all. What is the job, anyway?’ It struck her that Emma hadn’t even mentioned CVs, polishing up her work skills or going to job interviews. The world had turned on its axis since she’d last been in an office. Emma was impressively tech-savvy in terms of watching YouTube, and particularly adept at finding things on eBay, but surely that was different from working in an actual office?
‘It’s for Hal. Do you remember Hal?’
‘Hal you used to go out with at college?’ Stella remembered a silent nerdy boy with big glasses and a tall daddy-long-legs frame who used to hang around their house all the time in the holidays, rarely speaking.
‘He’s a tech whizz now. Offices on Silicon Roundabout. He’s made millions.’
‘What on earth’s Silicon Roundabout?’ It sounded like a children’s TV show presented by someone with a boob job.
‘It’s in Old Street, the new East End, full of lofts and studios. It’s where all the tech offices are.’
‘It sounds a long way from Camley.’
‘There is this thing called the Overground.’
‘I think she means train,’ translated Suze.
The vision of Emma as well as Stuart disappearing off to the city every day for long hours, leaving Ruby in someone’s care, hers included, daunted Stella. ‘Would it be full-time? What is the job anyway?’
‘Organizing events. Hal wants to raise his profile. And don’t worry, it’d probably only be three days a week. And anyway, he said I could bring Ruby with me if things got tough.’
Alarm bells began to ring in Stella’s brain. She knew the modern workplace had changed but what normal techie whizz said you could bring your baby into the office? The words of a
song by Jarvis Cocker flashed into her mind – You can even bring your baby. But wasn’t that song about someone who was still obsessed with his childhood sweetheart, the girl who hadn’t really noticed him?
‘So how is Hal these days? Settled down with a wife and family?’
‘Mum, you are so transparent! As a matter of fact, he’s still single. Says he’s too busy for love.’
‘How did you happen to bump into him after all these years?’
‘Is this the Spanish Inquisition? I met him at a college reunion, if you must know.’
‘Oh. That’s nice. I didn’t know you’d been to one.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Mum. After all, I’m a big girl now.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Time we went, I think, before there are any other explosions.’
‘Right. Emma . . .’
‘Yes, Mum?’ The exasperation was clear in her daughter’s voice.
‘Of course I’ll help out as much as I can if you take the job.’
‘OK, thanks.’
Stella waved them all goodbye and turned to Suze. ‘Oh dear, Hal used to be completely obsessed with her at college. Worshipped the ground she walked on.’
‘A bit like Cameron and you, despite what he pretended. Funny both of you suddenly encountering lost loves.’
‘For God’s sake, Suze, don’t be bloody ridiculous!’ Stella snapped, genuinely worried about her daughter’s marriage. ‘Cameron Keene is probably as drunk as Dean Martin, as grouchy as Van Morrison and as fat as Elvis!’
But later on, as she emptied the dishwasher, she found herself smiling at the memory of those dizzy, happy times when she thought she was in love with Cameron Keene. It all seemed a very long time ago.
Stella woke up the next day with a start, feeling dreadful. Worry about Emma and the whole job thing with Hal had kept her awake. Should she try and discourage her, which Emma would interpret as not only interference, but also selfishness over looking after Ruby, or maybe even have a word with Stuart? She realized that actually she could do absolutely nothing but leave them to sort it out for themselves. The other thing that had woken her up was an extraordinary other-worldly barking, which almost sounded like the Hound of the Baskervilles on a weekend break in suburban Camley, until she remembered it had to be foxes. Foxes were extremely keen on Camley. They appreciated the cordon bleu quality of the rubbish bins belonging to all those posh Waitrose shoppers.
Stella looked out the window in time to witness an incredible fight taking place between two of them right in the middle of her lawn.
One of the combatants was clearly the young contender, all thick russet fur that shone in the early morning mist; the other was the Jack Nicholson of foxdom, an old dog fox with a disreputable look in his eye and a tail with bare patches that had clearly seen plenty of previous encounters. As Stella stood watching at the bedroom window the young one finally admitted defeat and hobbled off while the wily old Basil Brush looked up, his gaze settling directly on Stella. His eyes were the most extraordinary she had ever seen on an animal, pale tawny green, almost yellow, in fact, and yet not the threatening eyes of a Conan Doyle monster, but gentle and world-weary, almost humorous. They must have stood staring for almost five minutes. As noiselessly as she could, Stella reached for her camera and moved in for a close-up. The fox, still looking up at her, waited, almost daring her: ‘Go on,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘see if you can capture me on that contraption of yours!’
‘Stella!’ Matthew’s voice made her jump. ‘What on earth are you doing? It’s barely six.’
‘The foxes woke me.’ She wondered if he, too, was worried about Emma. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
She made the tea and poured hers into her favourite mug. Funny how comforting an object could be when it was a thing of beauty you’d owned for a long time. This one was in bone china. She remembered the arguments with Matthew that tea tasted better in china. He thought she was mad, but she knew he was wrong.
She took the tea back to bed. ‘Suze and I are going down to the high street this morning to have a look around.’
‘We have to move quickly. The oracle on the corner tells me they’re making the decision soon.’ The oracle on the corner was the delightful Turkish newsagent who somehow managed to know exactly what was going on in the entire borough without even leaving his seat behind the counter.
‘Right . . . Matthew?’
‘What?’ he replied sleepily.
‘Do you worry about Emma and Stuart?’
‘What about them?’
Could he seriously not have noticed the tension between them last night and how Jesse had been trying to keep the peace?
‘They don’t seem to be getting on. And Jesse’s so quiet and anxious-looking.’
‘Stella, you imagine things. They’re perfectly fine. All couples bicker a bit.’
Stella sipped her tea. She wished he was right, but knew instinctively that he wasn’t. Were all men obtuse when it came to emotional relationships or was Matthew more obtuse than most?
Stella decided she didn’t want to answer that question.
She was meeting Suze at midday, and since it was a sunny Saturday morning Stella decided to take the bus rather than drive. But first she decided to print up the photograph of the fox and see if it really was as good as she’d thought.
She made herself a coffee while the printer chuntered away. Accidentally, she’d forgotten to set the print size to her usual 6 x 4 and set it at full page. As she sipped her coffee the life-size shot of the fox appeared, the russet of its fur, and those extraordinary yellow eyes accentuated by the bright green of the lawn behind it.
Stella considered it, taken aback by the immediacy of the picture. It was as if the fox was standing right there next to her. She slipped the photograph into a hard plastic folder and put it in her enormous shoulder bag to show it to Suze, who would be a more appreciative audience than Matthew, and headed for the bus.
As usual everyone at the bus stop was busily studying their phones. The stop was next to a popular local pub with a large outdoor area which was nearly always inhabited by smokers. But today, even though it was only half past ten in the morning, an eager queue of people were making their way to the pub garden. Stella noted with interest that they were all ages, including quite a lot of hip young mums with their smart Bugaboo strollers. Stella let the bus go past and decided to have a look. She was amazed to find that the entire garden had been converted into some kind of market for the day.
Tables were laid out offering retro clothes in bright satins and velvets – very Suze – and one rather chic 1940s dress in severe black that she was rather tempted by herself. Another couple had bric-a-brac. There was a book stall with lots of alluring orange and blue Penguins, a craft stall and another offering cappuccinos and gluten-free iced fancies. How amazing that it was just round the corner from her home and she’d never even noticed it.
Despite the temptations of the little market she ought to get on as she wanted to slip into the library in the high street – also under threat – to do a little research before meeting Suze. Fortunately, a bus appeared almost instantly. Stella felt the usual small rush of pleasure as she swiped her Freedom Pass. There might be a lot of disadvantages to not being young, but Freedom Passes were a wonderful compensation.
The reference librarian was very helpful and Stella was soon seated amongst the old men who looked as if this was their last refuge and the diligent foreigners of all ages enthusiastically studying English, mostly through reading the Sun. The library had a whole selection of material on high streets, thanks to the Mary Portas campaign to save them, which, she remembered, had been greeted with a certain amount of derision from the giant retail parks who claimed the future was with them.
It was fascinating that in the few years since then it was now the retail parks themselves which were in trouble. Shopping habits had changed yet again.
Stella immersed herself in the debate of ‘clicks v bricks’, the argumen
ts for and against lowering business rates, providing better parking and giving grants to any start-ups which would take on the desolate empty shops. It was noticeable that some schemes actually had been successful in reviving abandoned areas. The consensus seemed to be that a mix of shopping (and not just charity shops, though they had a place), pubs and cafes and some kind of leisure attraction worked best.
Suze was already waiting for her on the corner of the half-timbered high street, a blaze of colour in the rather depressing backdrop of boarded-up shopfronts, tacky takeaways and betting emporia that had taken over from the video store and the extraordinary fashion shop that, for as long as anyone could remember, had sold giant bloomers, bras that could have held up the Empire State Building and crimplene two-pieces to the good ladies of Camley.
‘Suze, I’ve had this great idea and I’m pretty sure it could be done here. A vintage market – just up your street – lots of stalls with books, antiques, food, clothes – they’ve opened one in the pub garden near my house.’ They turned to consider the only pub in the area, the deeply uninviting-looking King’s Arms.
‘Nothing ventured,’ Stella grabbed her friend’s arm. ‘Let’s go in.’
Two middle-aged (OK, a bit older than middle-aged), middle-class women daring to enter the deeply male, deeply working-class precincts of the King’s Arms caused the entire clientele to turn round and unite in a stare so chillingly hostile that it reminded Stella of the scene in American Werewolf in London. Before either Stella or Suze found their necks being savaged and black wolf-like hair growing on their bodies, they beat a hasty exit. ‘OK,’ Stella conceded, ‘maybe not the King’s Arms.’
They stopped to survey the seedy, somewhat discouraging alternatives. Three doors down was a petrol station which did at least seem to attract some trade. Next to it was a square of derelict land behind which a sign, falling off the wall, bore the legend CAR RENTALS: DAILY, WEEKLY, WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS.
‘Maybe no one around here gets married or dies,’ suggested Suze.
‘It might be OK, though.’ Stella was mentally measuring up the space. ‘You could fit about ten stalls here. Hang up a bit of bunting, a few Indian bedspreads like Camden Lock, some street-food stalls too. I can see this working.’