One good thing, p.16
One Good Thing, page 16
‘Still – now I know what you mean about the scenery.’
And flashing me that wide Naomi grin that never failed to set me off in the staffroom, we both burst out laughing.
STAGE 4
Hang in There
Hey you,
So you’ll never believe it: I went wild swimming in the river! Yes, me! The scaredy mouse who would never go further than her ankles. And you were right all along – it was freezing, but truly amazing. I wish I’d found the courage years ago; still, now I’ve found it, I’m not planning on letting it go. I remember once reading about the difference between courage and bravery: being brave is having no fear, but having courage is doing something despite being afraid. And I’ve decided that courage is a lot like swimming; you’ve just got to practise it.
Something else you’re not going to believe. Ben Armstrong is my builder. Yes. That Ben Armstrong. He’s changed a lot. Married with a little boy now, called Stanley, and owns a building firm. A really successful one too, by all accounts. I’ve hired his firm to renovate the cottage – but, oh my, I had no idea what it’s like living with builders.
The renovation is coming along, though we’ve had to alter a few things, as some of the original plans weren’t passed. At first I was disappointed, but now you know what? I’m actually pleased. My friend Valentine is always saying you never want to erase the past, and it’s made me look again at what I saw as negatives and view them as positives. To stop beating myself up about its imperfections, and celebrate them. A bit like life, I suppose.
What I need now, though, is someone with an artistic eye. I wish you were here to give advice. You’re so amazing at all that. I need help on the colours. When I first moved in, it was so dark I wanted to paint it all white, but now I’ve completely changed my mind and want colours and prints and fabrics. What do you think of Hippo Pink? Isn’t that a great name for a paint? Or what about Silhouette for the skirting boards?
OK, I’m getting carried away. It’ll be weeks until I get to that stage. It’s currently a building site! Still, you know me: I like to be organized.
Miss you. x
Sleeping Arrangements
He snores. And he farts. And he kicks me when he dreams. Quite hard sometimes. I’ve even got a few bruises. He takes up all the bed, so I wake up to find I’m teetering on the edge. He tosses and turns all night long. I don’t get a wink of sleep and wake up feeling exhausted.
I swear it’s like being married.
‘Right, that’s it.’
After yet another sleepless night, I prop myself up groggily against my pillows and eye Harry sternly.
‘Something’s gotta give.’
Stretched out full-length across the duvet, Harry briefly raises his head and looks at me drowsily, before letting out a huge yawn and flopping back down again to fall straight back to sleep.
After dropping Harry at Valentine’s, I drive into town, ten miles away, the plan being to buy Harry a new basket – one he’ll hopefully sleep in, rather than eat. We’ve been living together for several months now and it’s time to stop making allowances and feeling guilty about telling him off. I need to start being firm and laying down some proper ground rules, otherwise I’m never going to get another wink of sleep.
On arrival, I discover it’s market day and people are out in droves. May has brought with it some warmer temperatures, and the high street is busy with stalls selling an array of locally made things: hand-carved wooden bowls, wool blankets from the neighbouring mills, soy-wax candles and divine-smelling soaps, plus the most gorgeous sheepskin rugs, in all shapes and sizes. I decide to buy one for Harry. They’re so big and warm and fluffy – this will be a perfect alternative for him. Much nicer than a basket. He couldn’t possibly not want to sleep on it.
Talking of sleep, I’m about to head back home when I pass a bed shop on the high street. It’s the window display that catches my eye; pride of place is one of those gorgeous French beds you just want to sink into, with plumped-up pillows and crisp white linens. Staring at it, I think about my own bed. It’s the one I shared with my ex-husband. We bought it when we first moved in together, a big wrought-iron thing that cost a fortune from an antiques shop and weighed an absolute ton. David loved it, but it was never really my style. Plus the mattress must be at least ten years old.
That said, it came with a lifetime guarantee. Being practical about it, there’s nothing wrong with it. I turn away from the window. But psychologically and emotionally, everything is wrong with it. Pushing the door, I walk inside. Harry isn’t the only one who needs a new bed.
Derek, the salesperson – or ‘sleep consultant’, as he introduces himself – quickly swoops upon me and I spend the next half an hour choosing a bed frame and trying out mattresses.
‘Have you thought about a Tempur-Pedic?’ he’s asking me now, eyebrows raised, as – in true Goldilocks style – I discount the orthopaedic ones for being too hard, the double-pocket sprung ones for being too soft, and the Vispring for being too expensive. ‘They’re very popular. How about a test drive?’
A few moments later I’m flat on my back again, wriggling around under his watchful gaze as I try to stimulate sleeping. It’s actually the most bizarre thing buying a mattress: trying to re-create a very private act in a public showroom, while other shoppers mill about, rolling around on mattresses next to me. Earlier, I even spotted a couple spooning.
‘Are you a side-sleeper?’ Derek stands watching me, clipboard in hand, ticking off boxes.
‘Hmm, sometimes.’
‘Or do you like to sleep on your back?’
‘No, my stomach,’ I muffle, rolling over.
‘And your partner?’
Face down, I feel suddenly uncomfortable – and it’s not the mattress. The last few months have been spent rebuilding my life, getting used to being on my own, and now it suddenly hits home again.
‘Is he or she a front-sleeper too?’
‘Actually he tends to sleep at the foot of the bed,’ I reply, swallowing down the lump in my throat and thinking about Harry, which makes me smile.
There’s a pause, and I sense Derek is confused by an answer that is not in a box he can tick.
‘Right, well, if you want to see how you feel, I’ll be back in a few moments.’
I turn my head sideways to see him attend to a young couple, their arms wrapped lovingly around each other: much less confusing. I’m sure they tick all the boxes.
I lie still. In truth, this one’s really quite comfortable. Closing my eyes, I spread my arms and legs out, starfish-wide, imagining that I’m asleep and Harry’s snoring next to me on his new sheepskin rug. Wait a minute. Someone is snoring next to me.
I snap open my eyes and get quite a surprise. Ajay is standing next to the bed, an amused expression on his face.
‘Sorry, I couldn’t resist.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I sit up quickly and get a sudden rush of blood to the head.
He rubs his chin, pretending to think for a minute. ‘Hmm, buying a bed?’
I suppose I did ask for that.
‘I’m joking.’ He smiles, and I’m reminded of what a lovely smile he has. ‘I saw you in the window, when I was walking past to get a sandwich for lunch. Quite some window display.’
I feel my cheeks colour. God, this is awkward. It’s a couple of months since our disaster of a date and my promise to call Ajay back.
‘Look, about that drink – I know I said I was going to call.’
He puts up a hand and shakes his head. ‘You don’t have to explain.’
I smile gratefully, relieved he’s being so nice about it. ‘Thanks,’ I say, only now I feel bad. I should have called back. How many times did I berate men for not doing that, when I was younger?
Yet, in reality, what could I have said? I didn’t want to lie – I’ve been lied to and it sucks, as Maya would say, but that left only the truth. And the truth is that once I’d got over my hang-up about our age gap, I hadn’t expected to like Ajay as much as I did; that he was interesting, and interested in me; that he was far too handsome and I was intimidated; that I was flattered and vaguely embarrassed, and still suffering the aftershocks of my divorce, when I would be fine and trundling along and then, every once in a while, I would catch myself and my situation and think: how could it be that everything I knew was gone, and I’m single and starting over?
Exactly.
Just the kind of fun, flirty phone call that a man wants to have after a first date. Ajay would have hung up and run a mile, and I wouldn’t have blamed him. And so it was decided: it was all too scary and too uncertain; I don’t like uncertainty, it makes me anxious. And Ajay brought with him a whole bunch of uncertainty.
‘So, did you make a decision?’
We’re interrupted by the salesman who, having finished with the other couple, circles back.
‘Yes, I think so.’ I nod, and Ajay gives me a look.
‘Well, I’ll leave to you it. I just wanted to say hi.’ He takes his hands out of his trouser pockets and gives me a little wave. ‘And bye.’
‘Bye,’ I nod, raising a hand.
‘OK, wonderful. Well, if you’d like to follow me to the payment point, we can start taking all your details . . .’
The salesman is talking and leading me away and I follow him, only now I feel all discombobulated. Because I had certainty, didn’t I? I got married, we made promises to each other, and I thought it was forever. I watch Ajay leave the shop and disappear down the high street. Only it turned out that love – unlike mattresses – doesn’t come with a lifetime guarantee.
Stanley
‘Come on, son, time for school.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
Friday morning, and Stanley was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at his new school shoes. He’d grown out of the old ones, and last night it had taken him ages to thread his laces. He wanted them to go straight across – that was very important – and also quite hard, as the laces had to end up equal lengths and they never did. It meant doing it lots of times until you got it right.
Tricky, that’s what his mum had called it. Stanley liked that word. Much better than the words his dad used. His dad got impatient and swore a lot, and said what was wrong with laces being criss-crossed? Laces were always criss-crossed.
But Stanley knew that wasn’t true, as he’d seen them laced in a shop when his mum had taken him to buy the last pair. The laces definitely went straight across. He remembered the sales assistant threading them through. It had been fascinating. He’d watched her carefully, committing it to memory. Which was lucky, as this time he didn’t go into a shop. Instead they ordered his shoes from a website on the computer and, when they arrived, all black and shiny in the box, they weren’t laced up and there wasn’t a nice assistant called Fatima to do it for him.
So he did it himself. After his dad sent him to bed with the criss-crossed laces, he’d got out his torch. Patiently doing it again and again until he got it right. Because it was very important that he made the new pair like the old pair. They had to be the same. Everything had to be the same.
Even when it wasn’t.
‘I’ve got to work, even if I don’t want to go,’ his dad was saying now.
Stanley raised his eyes from his shoes. Above him, his dad was peering down at him, frowning. He had that deep line that went between his eyebrows, which he always had these days. Once when his dad had fallen asleep on the sofa watching telly, Stanley had run his finger across it and was surprised to realize it was a proper groove. Since then he often rubbed the bit between his own eyebrows with his thumb and wondered when he’d get one.
‘Why don’t you want to go to work?’ asked Stanley, frowning and trying to copy his dad.
‘Because sometimes I don’t want to face the world.’
And now his dad was bobbing down next to him, and brushing the hair out of his face. His hands were rough, like sandpaper, but Stanley didn’t say anything. He didn’t like people touching him, but with his dad it was different.
‘Look, Stan, it’s going to get easier, I promise.’
Stanley chewed the inside of his lip and looked down again at his laces. They really were very straight. He’d even used a ruler.
‘Can I come to work with you instead?’
‘Yes, but not today.’
‘I want to see Harry.’
When he’d learned that the house his dad was working on was where Harry lived, Stanley couldn’t believe it. He learned a new word: coincidence.
‘You’ll see him after school, I’m sure.’
It was true. Every day after school Harry walked past with his owner, and Stanley always made sure he was there, waiting for him. His owner probably thought it was also a coincidence, but Stanley knew it wasn’t that at all. In which case, Stanley wasn’t sure he believed in coincidences. He needed another word. Could you make up words? His teacher, Miss McCleary, would know, but that meant having to go to school to ask her.
‘Do you promise?
His dad look thoughtful. ‘If you promise to go to school, I’ll promise to have a word with Harry. I’ll lift up one of his big ears. Make him promise to pop round and see you after school.’
That made Stanley giggle. ‘Dogs can’t talk.’
‘Says who?’
‘I do.’
His dad was smiling now. ‘Happen not, but they can listen, and that’s more important.’
Stanley thought about that for a moment, twisting and turning it around in his mind, looking at it from different angles. He did that a lot with new ideas.
‘Like people in heaven?’
His dad breathed in then and didn’t exhale for five seconds. Stanley knew because he counted them. ‘Exactly,’ he nodded, then glanced down at Stanley’s shoes and let out a low whistle. ‘You did your laces! Well, aren’t you a clever lad?’
Stanley felt a burst of pride.
‘Now come on, let’s go show them off.’
‘OK,’ he said and stood up from the bed.
Peeling Back the Layers
In my spare bedroom the radio is playing golden oldies in a futile attempt to drown out the noise of the building work downstairs. Valentine is hard at work up a ladder, armed with a scraper; I’m on the ground with a steamer.
Welcome to Operation Woodchip.
It had been Valentine’s idea. Following my trip into town to buy a new bed, I went round to his bungalow to collect Harry, where I told him my plans to put my old bed in the spare bedroom.
‘Problem is, it needs redecorating.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say?’ he cried, his back straightening and his chest appearing to visibly inflate as he poured me a cup of Darjeeling. ‘I was a painter and decorator for over sixty years. Fully booked, I was, months in advance. Nobody could hold a paintbrush to Valentine Crowther. My skirting boards were legendary.’
So, like a rock star coming out of retirement, he turned up yesterday with his ladders, which he informed me were ‘aluminium and light as a feather’ as I fussed around him. Though he did finally allow me to help with his paint pots and tool bag, grumbling incessantly as we carried them together up my narrow staircase.
‘I’ve never needed any help before.’
‘That may be, but we all need help at some point.’
‘I can manage.’
‘It’s ten litres of paint.’
‘And you a woman too,’ he puffed, his breathing laboured.
‘I didn’t have you down as sexist, as well as stubborn.’
‘It’s not sexist – it’s how it should be.’
‘Since when did we time-travel back to the last century?’
‘Gisele never carried anything. I did all the heavy lifting . . . Oof! Bloody hell.’ Forced to rest on the step, he hung on to the bannister. ‘That’s heavy.’
‘What did I tell you? It needs two of us.’
Which makes me think how it’s not only a ten-litre pot of Dulux Trade that’s too heavy for one person – it’s so many things in life. So we managed it together, each holding the handle, shifting the weight between us. We all need to help sometimes; the hardest part is accepting it.
And so for the last two days we’ve been attacking the woodchip, a type of textured wallpaper that, in the past, was used to cover up a multitude of sins and is a complete nightmare to remove. The cottage is covered in it, and it’s become my nemesis. Still, it has to come off before Valentine can start to work his magic with his paintbrushes. So we have a system. He uses the edge of the scraper to scour the paper, making a diamond pattern on the walls, while I follow with the steamer, holding it for a few seconds over the marks to let the steam penetrate. We started at the bottom, as the steam rises, and are working our way slowly upwards.
It’s hard and messy work. Years of wallpaper and woodchip, and coats of nicotine-stained paint. Slowly we chip away at the layers, peeling them back, revealing what’s underneath. And we talk.
‘So how did you and Gisele meet?’ I’m asking him now, aiming the steamer at a particularly stubborn patch.
‘At a dance at the Plaza,’ he informs me from halfway up the ladder. ‘She was with her friend Betty. Took me ages to get up the courage. And then she said no.’
‘She did not!’
Valentine nods and continues scraping at the woodchip. It floats down like confetti. ‘So then I asked Betty.’
‘Valentine!’ I look shocked.
‘Tactics.’ He laughs and taps his nose. ‘Of course, once she’d seen me jiving, Gisele couldn’t refuse.’
I laugh then and put down the steamer. ‘That’s a good bit,’ I point to a large piece of wallpaper that’s bubbled up from the wall.
