Living with Strangers (9 page)

My homecoming, on a hot day in early June, bears none of the warmth that greeted me at Christmas. Unwisely, perhaps, I’ve not warned Molly and Saul, have not written to hint at my ineptitude and they’ve had no time to prepare. I just turn up, unannounced, two weeks earlier than expected.

My funds are exhausted; Max has lent me money for the journey and to tide me over. I catch the overnight coach and arrive home in the early morning. Only Molly is at home, standing in the kitchen drying the dishes after breakfast.

‘Madeleine!’ She stares at me. ‘We weren’t expecting you – has something happened?’

‘Sort of. Sorry I didn’t let you know.’

‘Are you back for the summer – has term finished?’

‘Term hasn’t finished. Not quite.’ I sit down at the kitchen table and pour coffee from the jug. ‘But I have. I won’t be going back.’

This is not how I’ve practised telling them. The rehearsal was a measured, sensible explanation followed rapidly by a coherent plan for the future, full of proposals – positive actions to discuss with them. But it all fails me now. I’m faced with Molly’s deep frown and the tightening of her top lip and I can’t find a lot to say.

Molly turns back to the sink, busying herself with the drying up. ‘So you’ve left then – without telling us?’

‘I didn’t really have a choice. I failed my exams – they didn’t want me to stay.’ I’m aware this isn’t quite the truth. Molly is too.

‘But is that final – can you not resit?’

I sip my coffee, gazing down the garden at the newly stocked borders – the brilliant, haphazard mass of colour, wanting so much not to be here, saying this. ‘I don’t want to resit. There’s no point.’

Molly snaps the teatowel onto the draining board. ‘So what’s going to happen now? You can’t just give up. What will you do? You know it’s not easy to find work – meaningful work – without qualifications.’

‘I know. I just… I’ll find something.’

Molly sighs and sits down at the table, her eyes following mine down the garden. Then turning to me she says, more softly, ‘You still miss him, don’t you – your brother. Sometimes I think it was hardest for you.’

I look at her, stunned. It takes a moment to realise she’s referring to Josef. Has Molly forged a link between Josef’s leaving and the situation I’m now in? Is she right? Have I failed because of what happened? Is this an opening – the overture I’ve waited for, a gap to allow my questions to enter, to climb up and slide through? But the window is tiny, a mere slit, and before I have a chance to work out what to say, it slams shut.

Molly stands up. ‘You’d better sort your things out. I haven’t made the bed up or anything – there are sheets in the airing cupboard.’ Then she goes out of the room, leaving me to finish my coffee.

I’ve sent my trunk ahead by train. It’s due to arrive that afternoon, so I go to the railway station and spend more of my borrowed money on a taxi to bring it home. I don’t want to wait until evening and have to ask Saul.

I manage to haul it up the two flights of stairs to my room and spend a gloomy hour unpacking, trying to find spaces again for the year’s accumulation of baggage. But nothing seems to fit; the spaces have been filled, the gaps in my wardrobe and drawers have closed like the window and there’s no room for me. I leave my trunk in a corner, still half full.

Later I walk down to meet Sophie from school. I need something to shore up this day that is already too ragged and too long. As always, she doesn’t disappoint.

‘I didn’t know you were coming! When did you get home?’

‘This morning – early.’

‘Mummy didn’t say.’

‘She didn’t know.’

‘How long are you home for?’

‘I’m not sure. For the time being. It’s… a holiday.’

‘We’re going on holiday this summer – did Mummy tell you? We’re going to Devon – all of us, even Daddy. Perhaps you can come too – that would be lovely!’

I doubt Molly and Saul will think so. ‘We’ll see,’ I say, hanging on to Sophie’s hand as she jumps by my side along the pavement. ‘Tell me about your day – tell me what you’ve been doing.’

Thankfully, Molly is still out when we arrive home. I make a drink and take it into the garden, sitting on the grass under the plum tree with Sophie, out of the heat. When Paul comes home a little later, I find him in the kitchen with a mouthful of biscuits, helping himself to squash.

‘Hey,’ he says, spraying crumbs. ‘You’re back.’

‘I’m back. Term’s… finished’

‘It’s alright for some.’ He wipes his mouth with the back of a grubby hand. ‘Does Mum know?’

‘Yes, she does. But Papa doesn’t.’

‘Well, he won’t be back for hours – exams and stuff.’

I ask about school. It’s not the one where Saul works, where Josef and I went. Molly and Saul sent him to Adam’s school – better for sport, they said, but I’m not sure that’s their only reason.

Paul drinks his squash and plonks his glass in the sink. ‘School’s ok,’ he says. ‘Same as ever. Tennis is great – and the running. I’m in the district squad now.’ He pauses, ‘Why
are
you home?’

‘I’ll tell you later. It’s a long story.’

But Paul’s attention has shifted already; he’s rummaging around under the stairs for a bat, a ball, roller skates – anything that might soak up his endless supply of energy.

By the time Saul arrives home, I’ve resigned myself to some sort of scene, a confrontation, or at least a rigorous interrogation that will clear the air. Saul might even understand at some level. But I’m denied the opportunity – denied the luxury of an outburst. I find him in his study, bent over the desk. Perhaps Molly has warned him, because when he looks up, there’s no surprise and no welcome either. The ground we gained last year spreads out before us again, leaving the field wide open with too much distance in between. I stand in the middle of the room, searching for something to say. I notice the waste paper basket overflowing under his desk, the carpet beneath his chair worn bare from his feet.

‘Molly told you, then,’ I offer.

‘Yes, Maddie, she told me.’ Saul takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. ‘Was it so hard? Can you not do the year again – it would be easier a second time. Giving up now does seem…’ he waves his hands in small familiar circles, ‘such a shame – as if you’ve wasted a year.’

‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ I say. The need for his approval I have dealt with; I have yet to come to terms with being such a disappointment.

Saul puts his glasses on again and turns back to the papers on his desk. ‘I have to do this now. Exams you know. We’ll talk another time.’ Then he looks up. ‘You need to decide what it is you want to do, Maddie. You need a plan – it’s a long road without one.’

And that’s it. ‘Another time’ to talk never comes and I studiously avoid any opportunity when the subject of my ‘plan’ might come up. Saul works late into the evenings, while Molly spends hours in the garden, tending and tying, attempting to establish order until the fading light eventually brings her in. It’s not hard to keep out of the way. I read to Sophie at bedtime, take long walks by the lake and into the fields beyond. I see no one I know; the few friends I made after Gil have dispersed to jobs elsewhere and it’s too soon for students. It’s a curious, empty time. I too should be somewhere else, but I have no idea where.

One evening, a few weeks after my return, I pass the Moorhen. Having no wish to be home, I push the door and go in. The bar is half-empty; through the open doorway at the back I can hear voices from the garden. The barman smiles, twisting a teatowel into a pint glass and holding it up to the light. I remember his name is Mike.

‘And what can I get you?’ He puts the glass on a shelf behind the bar.

‘Just a half please. Shandy.’

‘Haven’t seen you in here for a while.’ Mike pulls a generous lager into a glass and tops it up with lemonade.

‘I’ve been away.’

‘So are you back for long?’

‘I’m not sure.’ The conversation is drifting dangerously. ‘Maybe, we’ll see.’

He hands me my drink, wiping the foamy overspill on a bar mat. I thank him and give him the last of my borrowed money. I’ve come to the end of it now – paying back the loan and keeping myself in pocket money being just another problem awaiting a solution.

I pick up a newspaper and go into the garden. Most of the drinkers are out there, clustered round rustic wooden tables. I sit as long as possible with half a shandy and a paper full of nothing in particular, then finish my drink and take my empty glass inside. But as I’m leaving, I notice a card pinned up with others on a small corkboard. They’re mainly items for sale – cars, bikes, curtains, rugs, tools – but this one in the corner simply says:
Bar staff wanted – evenings and weekends.

I take it down and go over to see Mike. ‘The bar work,’ I say. ‘Do you still need someone?’

Mike looks slightly baffled. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, I might be interested.’ It doesn’t sound very convincing.

Mike picks up another glass. ‘Done this sort of thing before have you?’

‘A little. At uni.’

He looks at me again then says, ‘You’ll have to smarten up a bit.’

My eyes drop to the state of my clothes. This is no classy wine bar, but clearly jeans and a sweater don’t fit the dress code. ‘I do have a skirt,’ I say, more hopefully.

‘Short?’

Hope fades. This is not such a good idea, even desperate as I am for an income. ‘Short enough,’ I say. Then stretching the truth, I add, ‘I’m good with money,’ as if this might help.

‘Ok,’ he says, handing me a notepad and pencil, ‘write down your details and we’ll see how it goes.’

And just as I will later be recruited by Antoine, Mike adds me to the roster on a two-week trial. I now have the first line of my new CV, the first of an eclectic list of jobs that will furnish it over the coming years. It’s not much – and certainly no life-plan, but I’m not really in a position to pick and choose. I go home, encouraged and relieved – a little money, something to fill my time and a small offering for Molly and Saul.

Next morning at breakfast, I deliver my news. Saul has already left for school; Sophie and Paul sit opposite me at the table.

‘I suppose it’s something,’ Molly says, ‘while you work out what to do.’

‘Does that mean you’ll stay?’ Sophie’s eyes brighten as she munches her cereal.

‘It means I’ll have something to do – and I’ll have some money, which is a good thing. I have to wear a skirt, though. That’s not so good.’

Paul loads marmalade onto his toast. ‘And does it mean you’ll get drunk every night?’

‘I won’t have time to drink, it’s too busy, especially at weekends.’

‘But don’t barmaids have blonde hair and big tits? They always do on telly.’

Sophie snorts, spluttering into her cereal bowl. I watch them both, so open and joyful, chewing noisily. Without them, where would we have gone, Molly, Saul and I? How much darker would it all have been?

‘Paul,’ Molly says, clearing packets and plates from the table, ‘finish your breakfast, you’ll be late.’ I think her face twitches.

I start work that weekend – four shifts, lunchtime and evening. The hardest part is remembering orders; pulling pints, giving change and bashing at the huge till keys all come surprisingly easily. Tips are few and far between, but Mike pays me in cash each day; the gratification of money outweighing any worries that I should be doing something more useful with my life.

*

Another summer passes in relative calm. I’ve saved enough to pay back the loan and send Max a cheque with a note I hope will excuse the delay. I hear no more from him, fresher fields having fully claimed his interest.

The family go away in August, but I don’t go with them, placating Sophie with a promise to take her to a concert in London again before she goes back to school. It will need to be a Prom and we’ll have to stand – but she doesn’t mind that.

I spend two blissful weeks alone in the house. At the pub, I pick up extra shifts now that Mike is satisfied with my performance. A few familiar faces drift into the bar in the evenings and if we’re quiet, I’m able to spend time catching up. Among them is Hannah. I’ve heard she was training to be a teacher at a college somewhere near Nottingham but I haven’t seen her for years. One evening she comes in with a man in tow, her fiancé Derek. I couldn’t fail to notice the sparkly cluster on her left hand.

Hannah and I sit at a table in the corner, while Derek, gallant in sports jacket and neatly pressed trousers, goes to buy our drinks. He must be ten years older than we are; I vaguely wonder what he does for a living.

Hannah fills me in on her major life events, of which there are many. I’m grateful she doesn’t pause for breath, let alone make any enquiry about my life or welfare. It’s easier just to smile and nod. I glance across to the bar, where Derek makes slow progress with our order. In a minute I can escape and go back to work, but since Hannah has saved the best news till last, I politely take my cue.

‘So,’ I say, ‘you’re engaged?’

She twinkles with excitement. ‘He asked me last week – on one knee! Flowers and everything! It was lovely – isn’t he gorgeous?’

Now I’m stuck. In my book, if I had one, Derek would not constitute gorgeous. But I’m kind – kinder than I need to be towards this girl who once made my life so difficult. ‘And when’s the wedding?’

At this, she dims a little. ‘Well, not till I’ve finished my training, so another two years.’ She shifts back into gear. ‘But that’s fine, because we need to save up so we can buy a house and there’s so much we need. This’ll really give us time to collect it all – and make the arrangements. Mummy thinks we should go for a service at the Abbey, then a reception at the Swan – the grounds are so lovely all down to the river!’ She pauses, breathless with the scale of it.

I’m breathless too, trying to keep up. How can we be in such different places? Buying houses, engagement rings that cost the earth – enough to feed me for months – wedding plans and a whole life tied up. I’ve always felt uneasy in her presence. She’s stayed on the edge of my life, as so many friends have done, only moving back in when, as now, she needs a platform to declare how wonderful things are. Yet I feel no envy. None of her pronouncements touches any chord within me, no sense that in my penniless, single, transient state I am somehow missing out.

I smile at her, knowing she needs a response but knowing too that even if our paths ever did run parallel, they now strike off in directions so obtuse, I doubt we will ever spend time together again.

When Derek finally brings the drinks over, I’ve run out of patience and I leave her to prattle, half wondering too whether Derek is ever consulted or whether he always simply sits there, staring at her benignly like a kindly uncle.

After my shift that evening, I walk home through town, up the High Street and past the clocktower where I once waited so long out in the cold. The encounter with Hannah has thrown those years into sharp relief. Relief that they are over. The clutter of her self-absorption, has shown me, not what I don’t have, but precisely what I do. I’m nearly twenty, I have stepped away from the constraints to which Hannah now so willingly shackles herself. I think of a song I’ve heard – something about freedom being nothing left to lose. If this is my life now, it will do.