One Good Thing, page 8
‘Yes, something like that.’
Every summer Josie and I used to hang out with a gang of local kids, playing games and swimming in the river. Ben was a few years older than me and a bit of a troublemaker. Forever getting drunk and into fights, he was your typical bad boy. Good-looking, unapologetic, fearless. Sexy as hell. As a teenager I had a secret crush on him, but he fancied my sister Josie and was always showing off, trying to get her attention. I think the only time he spoke to me was to make fun of my flat chest and braces.
‘It’s so great to see you! After all this time,’ he’s saying now, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief. He doesn’t remember. To him it was nothing, just harmless teasing. To my thirteen-year-old soul, it was crushing. ‘How are you?’
‘Wet.’ I wipe away a strand of hair that’s dripping down my forehead.
He laughs. ‘How’s your sister – what was her name?’
‘Josie.’
Ben was forever flirting with her and now he doesn’t even remember her name? I feel oddly offended on her behalf.
‘Josie, yeah, that’s right,’ he nods, smiling.
‘She’s good,’ I say tightly. ‘What about you? I see you got married.’ In an attempt to change the subject, I say the first thing off the top of my head.
‘Oh . . . yeah.’ His eyes flick to his wedding band. Flexing his fingers, he grips the steering wheel tighter. ‘I’m a dad now, too.’
‘That’s great.’
‘What about you?’
‘No, no kids.’ I quickly sidestep the issue of marriage. Not that I care what he thinks, but my teenage self in braces and a trainer bra still does, and somehow admitting that I’m single and divorced feels like a failure.
‘Though I used to have thirty-one thirteen-year-olds,’ I add and then, seeing his confused expression, I explain, ‘I’m a teacher. Well, was. I’m taking a bit of a break.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me – you were always the brainy one. Not like me. I hated school. “He’ll either end up in prison or a millionaire,” it said on a school report once.’
‘So you’re a millionaire?’
‘Not yet,’ he laughs, and I decide not to ask him about the other option.
Luckily his phone rings, interrupting our conversation. He apologizes: sorry, he has to get this. I hear him talking about work. I zone out, turning to look out of the window as the countryside flashes past. As we slow down to cross the bridge that leads into village, he hangs up.
‘So how long are you visiting for? We should catch up properly. I only live behind the Crooked Billet pub.’
‘To be honest, I’m really busy,’ I fib, cutting him off before having a drink together for old times’ sake is suggested. As we enter the main square, I gesture for him to pull over. ‘Actually I can walk from here.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, it’s only two minutes.’
He stops the van and I clamber out.
‘Well, thanks again for the lift.’
‘Bye.’
Relieved to be out of the van, I slam the door behind me and walk briskly across the cobbles. I want to put as much distance as I can between us. It’s still raining and I keep my head down as his van rumbles past me. Ben Armstrong. Of all the people to run into. Still, I suppose it had to happen sometime. Nettlewick’s a small place.
Lugging my heavy shopping bags, I turn up the small lane that runs alongside the graveyard. Almost home, I dig out my house keys, and I’m just thinking about warm, dry clothes and a hot cup of tea when I notice there’s a van already parked outside my cottage. I get closer. Wait a minute, that looks like—
‘Ben?’
He’s standing on my doorstep ringing my doorbell, which doesn’t work, while inside I can hear Harry barking like crazy.
At the sound of his name, he turns and we both look at each other in astonishment.
‘Livvie?’
‘What are you doing here?’ I pause at my gate.
He’s rolled his sleeves down to cover his tattoos. ‘I’ve got a meeting with the new owner about some building work—’ He breaks off and frowns, noticing the keys in my hand. ‘Hang on. What are you doing here?’
My eyes dart to his van and for the first time I notice the logo painted down the side.
‘You’re Nettlewick Building Contractors?’
At which point my plastic bags finally decide they can’t hold it together any longer and choose that moment to split, scattering loo rolls, tins of baked beans and a crushing sense of inevitability all over the wet cobbles. It’s the perfect end to the day.
Anger and Letting It Go
When I discovered my husband’s affair, everyone told me I needed to get angry. Naomi, friends, self-help books, even the therapist I saw for a while after David left. Apparently anger is a healthy emotion, whereas crying in the toilets at work is not. It’s one of the stages you need to go through.
My therapist seemed almost disappointed by my lack of fury. And I tried, really I did. I managed flashes of anger, usually fuelled by wine and late nights, but try as I might, I couldn’t keep hold of it. It would slip through my drunken fingers and I’d go back to feeling sad and scared.
But since Harry came to live with me, things have started to change. For the first few weeks after he arrived home from the shelter, he was completely shut down. He couldn’t even wag his tail or look at me, and whenever I made a sudden movement he would shy away in fear. And for the first time I stopped feeling sad and scared and started feeling angry – angry towards the people who had treated him so badly and tossed him away like a piece of rubbish. Furious. Indignant. Outraged.
And it started to rub off on me.
By getting angry about what had happened to Harry, I started feeling angry about what had happened to me. Only I got angry at the wrong people. I got angry at poor Ajay. And I got angry at myself. So last night I wrote an email: To David, the Man Who Broke My Heart. A furious, ranting, punching bag of an email, into which I poured out every single drop of rage and betrayal. Long, rambling sentences without care for the punctuation. Me, an English teacher. Until I was left purged and exhausted at my keyboard and it was long past midnight.
Then I pressed ‘Delete’.
And it was all gone and, with it, most of the anger too. Because I’ve realized that while anger might be healthy and liberating for a while, I only have to watch a certain scruffy black dog happily sniffing around the overgrown bramble bushes that are my garden to see that healthier still is letting it go. Who knows what Harry went through before he was dumped on those moors, but he’s not angry or bitter about what happened in the past. It’s in the past.
‘C’mon, Harry, dinner time.’
Putting his food bowl on the kitchen floor, I open the old stable door and call him in from the garden. He’s started to recognize his name and, as he limps his way towards me across the patch of grass, he slowly wags his tail. Not big, sweeping excitable wags, just small, tentative ones, as if he’s feeling his way. Like me, really.
I smile. I’m beginning to think I can learn a lot from Harry.
The Boy
After the awkward run-in with Ben Armstrong, my first impulse is to go with a different builder. However, after giving it some thought, it seems foolish. His company has by far the best reviews of anyone in the area; plus everyone I call for references provides a glowing one for Ben.
So in the end I decide to put aside any childhood grievances and go ahead as planned. Signing the contracts, I email them back, pay my deposit and agree on a start date of the beginning of April, with ‘works estimated to take six months’.
‘Thanks, Livvie. Can’t wait to move in the lads and get started!’
‘Great. Looking forward to it.’
And I try not to think about how living with builders in my house now effectively means living with Ben Armstrong.
In the meantime I register Harry with the local vet. Being in All Creatures Great and Small country, I imagine a cosy encounter with a hunky James Herriot type and even put on a bit of make-up for the appointment. Sadly, as is often the case, the reality is very different. Mr Jenkins, one of the partners, must be well into his sixties and completely bald, apart from a pair of fierce eyebrows that make him resemble an owl.
He is, however, an extremely good vet and checks Harry over thoroughly. He says Harry seems in good health, apart from his arthritis, and advises joint supplements and gentle lead-walks. He’s also very kind and generous and doesn’t ask me to pay for any of the damage Harry inflicts on the waiting room, when he lunges at man with a sick ferret on his knee. Mr Jenkins says it’s just Harry’s hunting instinct, and not to worry about the overturned display cabinets and broken chair legs. Luckily the owner was really understanding too, and the Fred the ferret was none the worse for wear.
So every morning, on the vet’s advice, we do our same walk, only each time I notice something different. The way the light appears, catching on the stone roofs of the village like brushstrokes. The stillness. The bright-green moss on the drystone walls. The shapes of the clouds (whoever knew clouds could be so beautiful? Before moving here I thought they were just grey, fluffy blobs). The smell of wood-smoke, The rumble of the farmer’s tractor.
Yet one thing is always the same. The old man. I always see him sitting in the window, but I only spoke to him that once. The first few times I smiled and waved, but he never waved back, so in the end I stopped.
In the afternoon I take a different route and follow a series of narrow alleyways – or ‘snickets’, as they’re known here – that lead out onto a cul-de-sac overlooking a green. Usually we don’t see anyone much. Being February, most people choose not to brave the weather, but it’s on one of these afternoon walks that I first see the little boy.
Well, I hear him first. A distant thumping and squeaking as we turn the corner out of the alley and Harry stops to sniff the street sign.
Thump . . . squeak . . . thump . . . squeak . . .
It’s rhythmical. I listen harder, trying to figure out what it is. It’s a peculiar sound and I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I notice Harry’s ears prick up too. We set off walking again. It sounds like it’s coming from up ahead. As we pass a few houses the thumping and squeaking grow louder . . . then suddenly I see a head. It pops up from behind the garden fence, only to disappear again. It has dark curly hair and is wearing large yellow headphones. It reappears, flying up in the air. Only a few seconds, then it’s gone again. But it’s long enough to see that it belongs to a little boy.
He’s on a trampoline. I catch sight of it now in the front garden of a pebble-dashed semi. Wedged into the corner, it’s still taking up nearly all the space on the small patch of grass. As we pause by the garden gate, Harry barks at the strange object, but the boy can’t hear him and continues jumping. I notice his face is turned to the sky as he bounces higher and higher. It’s almost like he’s trying to take off.
Harry barks even louder.
‘C’mon, boy.’
I go to pull Harry away, when the boy suddenly glances in our direction. Immediately he stops jumping and stares at us, his face appearing frozen in shock.
‘It’s OK, he’s friendly,’ I reassure him quickly – and pointlessly, I realize, as the boy can’t hear me.
I tug on Harry’s lead, but he’s taken root and is refusing to move.
For a few moments the boy continues to stare at us, before climbing off the trampoline and carefully making his way down the garden path. He’s wearing his school uniform and yet, despite the freezing temperatures, he isn’t wearing a coat. Or shoes and socks, I notice as he tiptoes carefully in his bare feet on the paving stones towards us, his face a picture of concentration.
Reaching the gate, he takes off his headphones.
‘He just got a bit scared by the noise,’ I reassure him, gesturing at Harry, who has stuffed his nose firmly through the metal swirls of the garden gate and is taking deep sniffs, as if trying to inhale the little boy.
‘Does he want to wear my ear defenders?’ The boy holds them out.
‘Oh, thank you, but no.’ I smile, touched. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine now.
‘That’s why I wear them, because I get scared by noises too.’
Standing a few feet away from the gate, he studies Harry, his brow furrowed in concentration.
‘Noises can be a bit scary,’ I nod in agreement, ‘but they’re only noises.’
He doesn’t answer. I’m not sure he’s really listening to me. He seems completely enthralled by Harry, his expression a mixture of fear and fascination.
‘Do you want to stroke him?’
‘I’m scared of dogs.’
‘Harry used to be scared of people.’
He eyes Harry curiously.
‘Why isn’t he scared now?’
‘He still is sometimes, but he’s trying to be brave.’
‘Daddy tells me I need to be brave sometimes.’
I nod sympathetically. ‘Me too.’
He hesitates, then reaches through the gate and tentatively touches Harry’s head with his fingertips. As good as gold, Harry allows himself to be touched without shying away. It’s as if instinctively he knows the little boy is scared.
‘He’s all soft.’
I notice how small his hand is against Harry’s big bear of a head. The boy must be only about seven or eight. Harry tries to lick him, and he suddenly lets out a squeal and quickly retracts his hand, jumping back behind the garden gate.
‘He licked me!’ He seems unable to decide whether to be delighted or scared.
‘That’s because he really likes you.’
I give Harry a reassuring rub around his ears as a reward for being so good. I’m fast learning that’s one of his favourite things.
‘Stanley!’ A woman’s voice calls from inside the house. ‘Tea’s ready!’
The little boy looks at me, then pulls a small laminated card from deep inside his pockets and squints at it. ‘I have to go. Look, it’s number seven.’
He thrusts the card at me, and I can see it’s some kind of list:
Get home from school
Wash hands
Empty backpack/lunchbox
Have snack
Do homework
Play outside
Teatime
‘Stanley!’ yells the voice, louder this time.
And before I can finish reading it, he snatches the card away, runs deftly up the garden path on his tiptoes, making sure to miss all the cracks, then disappears into the house, slamming the door behind him.
The Teenager
Nursing a cappuccino, I try to eke out the last remaining bits of froth. It’s long since gone cold. I look at my watch for the umpteenth time.
They’re almost twenty minutes late.
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m sitting in the small cafe in the village where I’ve arranged to meet my first student, after getting a reply to my tutoring ad. Outside it’s grizzly, but inside is warm and welcoming, with old-fashioned flowery wallpaper and shelves filled with a collection of old teapots. A fire burns in the grate, while wedged into the corner is a pine dresser laden with home-made cakes displayed under glass domes. Filled with butter and cream, the slices are the size of doorsteps. No gluten-free brownies here. It’s a world away from the trendy cafes in London with their chalkboards, vintage lighting and hipster baristas. And I love it.
The bell on the door goes and I look up, expectantly, only instead of a teenager, it’s another hiker.
‘Do you want another coffee?’
One of the two ladies who run the cafe bustles over in a tomato-red apron, her cheeks flushed, balancing plates of toasted teacakes. The cafe is busy with cyclists, in training for the Tour de Yorkshire, and she’s rushed off her feet.
‘Actually, I’m OK, thanks . . . maybe in a minute.’
‘No worries, dear, just give me a shout.’ She smiles generously and weaves away through the tables.
Harry stirs under the table. The cafe allows dogs, so I’ve been able to bring him, which is lucky, as he still hates being left alone. In fact his separation anxiety seems to be getting worse, not better. Yesterday I only popped to the postbox and found him tearing up yet another squeaky toy. He rips them to shreds until they stop squeaking and then buries them in the garden. Kind of like some Swedish crime series.
I glance at my watch: twenty-five minutes. Not exactly the best start to my glittering new career as a private tutor. On the table my phone pings. That’s probably them texting to say they’re not coming. Wishing I’d told them there was a cancellation policy, I pick up my phone to text back – only it’s from Ajay at the car-rental company instead. I’ve been chasing him about the return of my deposit. It’s been almost a month and it still hasn’t been paid back onto my credit card. I’ve given up emailing and have begun texting him directly.
‘Are you Olivia Brooks?’
Before I have chance to read his text, I look up to see a figure bundled up in a beige furry coat and a bright-yellow bobble hat, standing by my table. So this must be my long-awaited pupil.
‘Hi, yes,’ I smile, taking in the young teenage girl. ‘You must be Maya.’
I was expecting to meet her with her parents – the arrangement being that they would drive her over, as they live a few miles away – but the plans must have changed.
She doesn’t smile or apologize for being late. Instead she stuffs her hands in her pockets, her expression unreadable.
‘Nice to see you. Please, sit down.’
Deciding against getting off on the wrong foot, I make no mention of her keeping me waiting and motion her to the chair opposite me. She sits down wordlessly, her hands still in her pockets.
‘So, tell me . . . your mum gave me a little information on the phone and told me you’re studying for your A-levels and that you might need a bit of help with some of the set texts. So is there anything in particular you’d like to start with?’
