with the business being new and all …’
I shrug and let him in. He makes his way to the kitchen and looks down the length of the garden and then gives me the same assessment, making me wish for once that I’d washed my hair and put on a top that was not resplendent with baby sick; he has amber-coloured eyes.
‘You really need a tree surgeon for that,’ he says, nodding at a sprawling cherry tree. ‘But I guess I can do it. Yeah, it’s got potential, that’s for sure …’ He sighs again, wistfully, and I clutch my grid paper to my chest protectively.
‘I’ll get my stuff and get stuck in.’
Mr Crawley, who has come down for one of the mini-bottles of Evian that he keeps in the fridge, sees Gareth Jerome, opens his mouth and then closes it again.
‘Do you know each other?’ I ask, and Gareth Jerome holds out his hand to Mr Crawley, nodding.
‘No, I don’t think so. Heard of you, obviously,’ he tells Mr Crawley, who returns the greeting with an oddly grim smile.
‘All right?’ Gareth Jerome asks him.
‘I’m very well, thank you,’ Mr Crawley says, and then he turns on his heel and exits the kitchen without another word.
Gareth Jerome begins to bring through his tools, and, suddenly robbed of my purpose, I carefully fold my garden plan back into page seventy-three of The Garden Book and turn to the European laundry mountain which erupted suddenly shortly after Ella’s birth and which has never seemed to diminish since.
My spirits plummet to the tips of my toes and I reach for the iron.
I iron one of Fergus’s shirts, which I think is reasonable considering that in my adult life, which began at the age of sixteen when I’d finally felt I could leave Dad to it, I had sworn to never, never iron again. I had promised myself daily during all the years betweens Mum’s death and the day I got a residential place to gain a B. Tech in business studies at college that as soon as my life was my own I’d never touch a domestic appliance again.
Dad liked everything done around the flat the way Mum had done it. No, that’s too mild. He wanted – demanded – that everything around the flat should be exactly the same as when she was alive, everything. And I loved him and I wanted everything to be exactly the same too, as if keeping laundry day on a Monday and fish day on a Friday would somehow recreate my mum out of the empty spaces left by her absence. So I tried at first to help him voluntarily, and everyone said how good I was, a proper little lady looking after my dad, and I was proud of that. But then seven turned into ten, and by the time I was eleven I dreaded going home from school, dreaded letting myself into the long list of chores that Dad would have left out for me. The long list of tasks that I had to have finished before he got home from work. Iron Monday’s washing on a Tuesday; dust and vacuum on a Wednesday; clean the bath and loo on a Thursday; and every weekend to do the shopping and change the bedclothes, ready for the laundry on Monday. I tried telling him once that Mum never changed the bedclothes every week but every other week. He was furious, accused me of calling my mother a slut and sent me to bed crying my eyes out. After that, every night, straight after our tea, I’d wash up the pots and pans and go straight to bed to read one of my books to escape to any place but that place. It was around about that time he stopped kissing me goodnight.
Then, as I grew older, the battle of wills began, the arguments and accusations. I was ungrateful and selfish, he was domineering and lazy. We co-existed, furious with each other twenty-four hours a day for each one of my early teenage years. Even that, though, was better than the last few months I’d lived with him.
By the time I was fifteen I didn’t argue about the housework any longer because I didn’t have a choice. I’d let myself in from school and there he’d be, sitting in the corner in exactly the same place he’d been
I shrug and let him in. He makes his way to the kitchen and looks down the length of the garden and then gives me the same assessment, making me wish for once that I’d washed my hair and put on a top that was not resplendent with baby sick; he has amber-coloured eyes.
‘You really need a tree surgeon for that,’ he says, nodding at a sprawling cherry tree. ‘But I guess I can do it. Yeah, it’s got potential, that’s for sure …’ He sighs again, wistfully, and I clutch my grid paper to my chest protectively.
‘I’ll get my stuff and get stuck in.’
Mr Crawley, who has come down for one of the mini-bottles of Evian that he keeps in the fridge, sees Gareth Jerome, opens his mouth and then closes it again.
‘Do you know each other?’ I ask, and Gareth Jerome holds out his hand to Mr Crawley, nodding.
‘No, I don’t think so. Heard of you, obviously,’ he tells Mr Crawley, who returns the greeting with an oddly grim smile.
‘All right?’ Gareth Jerome asks him.
‘I’m very well, thank you,’ Mr Crawley says, and then he turns on his heel and exits the kitchen without another word.
Gareth Jerome begins to bring through his tools, and, suddenly robbed of my purpose, I carefully fold my garden plan back into page seventy-three of The Garden Book and turn to the European laundry mountain which erupted suddenly shortly after Ella’s birth and which has never seemed to diminish since.
My spirits plummet to the tips of my toes and I reach for the iron.
I iron one of Fergus’s shirts, which I think is reasonable considering that in my adult life, which began at the age of sixteen when I’d finally felt I could leave Dad to it, I had sworn to never, never iron again. I had promised myself daily during all the years betweens Mum’s death and the day I got a residential place to gain a B. Tech in business studies at college that as soon as my life was my own I’d never touch a domestic appliance again.
Dad liked everything done around the flat the way Mum had done it. No, that’s too mild. He wanted – demanded – that everything around the flat should be exactly the same as when she was alive, everything. And I loved him and I wanted everything to be exactly the same too, as if keeping laundry day on a Monday and fish day on a Friday would somehow recreate my mum out of the empty spaces left by her absence. So I tried at first to help him voluntarily, and everyone said how good I was, a proper little lady looking after my dad, and I was proud of that. But then seven turned into ten, and by the time I was eleven I dreaded going home from school, dreaded letting myself into the long list of chores that Dad would have left out for me. The long list of tasks that I had to have finished before he got home from work. Iron Monday’s washing on a Tuesday; dust and vacuum on a Wednesday; clean the bath and loo on a Thursday; and every weekend to do the shopping and change the bedclothes, ready for the laundry on Monday. I tried telling him once that Mum never changed the bedclothes every week but every other week. He was furious, accused me of calling my mother a slut and sent me to bed crying my eyes out. After that, every night, straight after our tea, I’d wash up the pots and pans and go straight to bed to read one of my books to escape to any place but that place. It was around about that time he stopped kissing me goodnight.
Then, as I grew older, the battle of wills began, the arguments and accusations. I was ungrateful and selfish, he was domineering and lazy. We co-existed, furious with each other twenty-four hours a day for each one of my early teenage years. Even that, though, was better than the last few months I’d lived with him.
By the time I was fifteen I didn’t argue about the housework any longer because I didn’t have a choice. I’d let myself in from school and there he’d be, sitting in the corner in exactly the same place he’d been
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