Summer Daydreams (6 page)
‘They had one place left,’ I say. ‘I’m in.’
They go crazy and cheer and kiss me and hug me. Phil hugs me the hardest. Our eyes meet. ‘Thanks,’ I say to him. ‘Thanks so much. You don’t know what this means.’
‘I do,’ he assures me. ‘Just make me proud, Nell. That’s all I ask.’
I’m in. My head’s spinning. In two weeks I start my new Art and Design foundation course. In two weeks I start my new life.
Olly stares at me open-mouthed. ‘I thought we agreed that we’d wait until next year?’
‘But Phil offered to lend me the money,’ I remind him. ‘I can do it now.’
We’re sitting on the steps by the duck pond opposite St Mary’s Church. We’re enjoying some quality time together as a family – grabbing a guilty hour before I’m back on shift again at six. The intended visit to Mount Ironalot will have to wait. Crumpled clothes will be
de rigour
again for the week.
It’s a beautiful, sunny day in downtown Hitchin. The sky is blue and cloud free. But the air is cool today and I pull my cardigan around me. Normally, Olly would put his arm round my shoulders, but he doesn’t.
Petal is busy bossing the poor, unfortunate ducks about and doling out bread to those she thinks are well behaved enough to deserve it. Even the dog is out with us and is trying to pretend he’s cool about the ducks, but I know that he’s secretly longing to give one just a little chew.
‘What’s the rush?’ Olly asks.
‘Why wait?’
We descend into silence.
‘Stay away from the edge,’ Olly warns our daughter as she waddles after a duck. ‘I just thought we’d make such a big decision together, as partners. I can’t help feeling hurt that Phil, Jenny and Constance seem to take precedence.’
‘It was a spur of the moment thing. I got caught up in their enthusiasm,’ I confess. ‘It felt nice to have them cheering me on.’
‘Are you saying I don’t?’
‘Why are we arguing about this? I feel really lucky to have got the last place, really lucky to have friends who care enough to want a better life for me, for us.’
‘You’re right,’ Olly concedes. ‘Of course, you’re right. I just feel a bit excluded.’
I lean against him and, finally, his arms slip round my waist. ‘It wasn’t intentional. It was simply how it happened.’
Olly sighs. ‘I’m stoked for you. Really I am. I’m just worried about how we’ll pay Phil back, worried about the extra work involved, worried that it will change us.’
‘I can go along with the first two,’ I tell him, ‘but why would it change us?’
He shrugs. ‘These things do.’
‘Not if you don’t let them.’
‘I want to do everything I can to support you,’ Olly says.
‘I’ll take on some extra work so that you can cut back on your shifts.’
I don’t like to admit that I haven’t quite worked out how we’ll pay Phil back yet. Maybe we can give him a bit each month and then pay off the lump when I land myself a fabulously creative and extravagantly paid job at the end of the course. It’s something I need to discuss with him, but my boss is so excited that I’m going that he won’t even deal with the nitty gritty of the finance.
‘It’s this little lady I’m concerned about,’ Olly continues. ‘What will we do with her?’
‘I’m taking a course, Olly. At the local college,’ I remind him. ‘I haven’t signed up for NASA’s astronaut training programme. It’ll be a breeze.’ I think, famous last words, even as I say it.
‘You’re right. I’m probably overthinking it.’
‘I want our daughter to be proud of us.’
‘I know.’
At that moment Petal lifts her skirt above her head and bends over, displaying her rugby player’s legs and spotty pants to the world.
Olly puts his head in his hands. ‘She gets that from you.’
‘Petal!’ I call out. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m showing the ducks my bottom,’ she shouts back. Clearly, she’s not quite so concerned about making
us
proud of
her
.
Day one of my new life as an art student. I got up mega-early in order to leave myself hours of calm and collected preparation, so I can walk into my college in a Zen-like state ready to absorb knowledge like a sponge.
Petal sicking up in the bed is not a good start. ‘I’ve got a poorly tummy,’ my daughter complains.
I lift her and take her into her own room, wiping her down with a warm flannel, changing her sicky pyjamas for clean ones and settling her in her own bed. Then my daughter promptly throws up down herself again and I repeat the process once more. After that I go and chivvy Olly out of our bed.
‘I’m not feeling that great myself,’ he moans.
He does look a little peaky but I’ve no time to be sympathetic to man-illness now. Has he
actually
been sick? No. I’m afraid that Olly will just have to get on with it.
‘Take her temperature regularly,’ I instruct. ‘If she doesn’t look like she’s getting any better by mid-morning, call the doctor.’
‘You’re still going into college?’ he asks.
‘Of course.’ That shouldn’t even be a question. What else can I do? I bite down my impatience. ‘I have to, Olly. How can I miss my very first day?’
He groans and sways a bit. Now I think he’s putting it on. ‘How can you leave us?’
‘I’ll call Constance. She’ll come up and sit with you for a couple of hours.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he says. I swear he’s putting that croak in his voice. ‘We’ll manage.’
‘It’s probably just a twenty-four-hour bug,’ I assure him. I rack my brain to remember what we had for dinner last night and whether I’ve poisoned them both by giving them something to eat that was past its sell-by date. But we just had oven chips and fried eggs, so I think I’m in the clear.
Stripping the bed, I put on clean sheets while Olly has a shower. I grit my teeth as much groaning emanates from the bathroom. By rights, it’s me who should be in there now. This was my master plan. Instead, I carry the sheets downstairs to put them in the washing machine, but when I eventually reach the kitchen, a bloodbath awaits me.
‘Oh, no. Not today! Dude, what’s happened?’
The dog bounces up and down, so pleased to see me and, therefore, puts more bloody footprints on the kitchen floor. On the work surface, the biscuit jar is up-ended and there seem to be more than a few missing. It seems that Dude’s attempts to have a biscuit frenzy also led him to upset the knife block and judging by the blood trail, it looks as if he’s cut his paw on one of the knives. Bending down to examine it, I get licked all over my face for my trouble.
‘Oh, Dude. Look at you.’ Manhandling my pooch, I manage to see that the cut doesn’t look too bad in relation to the amount of blood he’s managed to daub round the kitchen. More licking interspersed with whimpering.
With a new J cloth, I bathe his paw and conclude, thankfully, that it doesn’t need stitches. A vet’s bill on top of everything else would finish us off. I’ve had to spend a hundred and fifty quid on the list of required materials to take in with me to college – something I perhaps should have expected, but hadn’t.
I tie Dude to the back door handle with his lead, while I set about mopping the floor with disinfectant and wiping down all the surfaces that have been customised with red paw prints. By now, according to Plan A, I should be sitting down to watch a relaxing ten minutes of
Daybreak
with my cup of tea and my bowl of Lidl muesli. Fat chance.
When I’ve finished cleaning the kitchen, I throw the dirty sheets and the two sicky pairs of Petal’s pyjamas into the washing machine before realising that I ran out of washing powder yesterday. I’ll have to pop out in my lunch hour to get some. I release Dude from the door handle and feed him, then I find a bandage in the first aid drawer, which is always wellstocked due to Petal’s propensity for walking into things, falling over them, having them drop on her from a great height. I wind it round Dude’s paw knowing full well that it will be chewed off in five minutes flat.
I quickly make a sandwich – no disasters there – so that I can cut costs by avoiding the student canteen. Then, with the frantic realisation that time is running out, I dash upstairs to run round the shower.
Olly is back in bed and Petal is beside him. ‘We’re going to stay here,’ he tells me. ‘Until we’re better.’
Marvellous, I think uncharitably. Bloody marvellous.
In the shower, no hot water left. Typical. All thoughts of an impressive hairdo, a quirkily different outfit suitable for an art student and maybe even some slap, go completely out of the window. Instead, I pull back my hair into a ponytail, bite my lips a bit to make them red and then throw on whatever’s to hand that looks clean.
I blow a kiss to Olly and Petal. If they have got something contagious I should try to keep my distance. ‘Love you both,’ I say. ‘I’ll phone when I can, to see how you are.’ Olly groans and Petal bursts into tears. ‘Don’t go, Mummy,’
she sobs. ‘Don’t go.’
That’s my heartstrings twanged to breaking point. I rush over to cuddle her, taking her in my arms and pressing her against my chest. I’m a terrible mother for even thinking of leaving her.
‘Go,’ Olly croaks. ‘You’re going to be late.’ So I am.
‘I’ll be back before you know it,’ I promise Petal and she wails some more.
With the sound of my daughter’s crying ringing in my ears, I belt out of the house, leg it down into town like a thing possessed and fly through the doors of the college at a speed that Usain Bolt would be proud of. But nothing can disguise the fact that I’m late, late, late. And on my first day, too. I could weep.
Without too much fuss I’m pointed towards my classroom and dash in there, still out of breath and panting in the style of Dude. Everyone else is in there, sitting down, looking bright-eyed and attentive, ready for action. I already feel that my morning has seen enough action to be going on with. All eyes swing towards me.
An elderly, pinch-faced woman stands at the head of the class. She looks as if she feels that life has dealt her a mean hand. She’s immaculately dressed, stylish but with an individual edge. She also doesn’t have a hair out of place. The sharp glance at her watch tells me that my tardy arrival hasn’t gone unnoticed.
‘Good morning,’ she says crisply. ‘So glad that you were able to join us.’
The rest of my week does not get any better. Nor the week after. Nor the week after that. I race home from college every night at five o’clock, say hello to Olly and Petal and then race out again to get to my shift at Live and Let Fry by six. By the time I finish at ten o’clock and the entire population of Hitchin is filled with chips, I am on my knees. Then I rush home to take over from Olly, while he goes off to do his night shift at the pizza factory. When he’s not making high-end, boxed pizzas, he swaps his beloved sixties gear for a black T-shirt and ripped bondage trousers and sets off – hair gelled into mountainous, and possibly lethal, spikes – to do the punk gig that he bagged at a local bar. The brief peck on the cheek in the kitchen as we hand over the baton is the closest we get to a sex life.