When her mum didn’t move, she opened her mouth and closed it a couple of times, before blurting, ‘I like Ollie and she did something nice for me and then you told her I steal stuff and she has to call me my stupid old name.’
Her mum waited for a few seconds. ‘Do you have anything else to say to anyone?’
Joan darted her eyes up towards mine for a microsecond. ‘Sorry, Ollie.’
‘That’s better.’ Her mum sighed. ‘I’m sorry, too.’
She straightened up, nodding her head in my direction. ‘Leanne. Thanks for lending the books. And forget what I said about her stealing stuff. That was… something different.’
‘Of course.’
As they walked away, I gave myself a mental slap. I’d made a thousand judgements about this woman, badly drawn tattoos scrawled across her arms and legs. A face with every soft angle chipped away. Eyes sharp and fierce. I did my best to ditch every ill-conceived one of them.
6
The next day, Saturday, my new bed arrived. Because I was still new to all this doing-what-I-want Dream Life, I had drawn up a carefully planned schedule for the day:
Get up when I want
Read as much as I want
Eat what I want, when I want
Swap disgusting old bed for lovely new bed
Do some more of what I want
Go to sleep in lovely new bed
This schedule was rudely interrupted before it even got started when I was woken up by more banging on my door. I stuck one hand out of the duvet and checked the time on my phone. Seven a.m.! On a Saturday! I would have buried my head under the covers and waited for whoever it was to go away, but then they started knocking on the living-room window.
Peering out with sleep-addled eyes, I saw to my dismay that I hadn’t closed the curtains properly, and there was a man now gesturing at me through the gap.
Thankfully, I was at least wearing a T-shirt and pyjama shorts. I waved in acknowledgement, and reluctantly heaved myself up. By the time I’d shuffled the five steps into the corridor, undone the lock and opened the front door, the man – and his van – were disappearing over the crest of Hatherstone Lane. And there, propped up along the wall of my house where anyone could help themselves as they walked past, were the huge boxes containing the pieces of my oak bed frame and extra-thick new mattress.
I rubbed my face a few times and went to put the kettle on.
‘No. I have a text and an email to confirm that delivery would be between twelve and two.’
I took another angry bite of bagel, while the person on the end of the phone waffled on about a blip in the system.
‘I’m not denying the blip; I’m asking you what you’re going to do about it. I paid extra for a specific delivery slot that didn’t happen, and more importantly I now have a double bed frame and mattress dumped on the pavement, while the old bed I paid for your company to take away is still upstairs, in my bedroom.’
‘Well, you should have asked them to take the old bed away,’ she droned back, as if – duh! ‘We had a blip on the system so they weren’t informed about that.’
‘I told you they left before I’d opened the door!’
‘Well, I’m sorry, madam, but I’m not sure what you expect me to do about it.’
‘I expect you…’ I took a moment to swallow another mouthful while trying to calm down enough to speak instead of shriek. ‘To refund me the extra delivery money, and then send someone out to take my new bed upstairs and then remove the old bed, as paid for.’
‘Certainly, madam. Let me check the system for you… One moment please… One moment… Yes, I’ve booked you a bed removal for the twenty-second of July.’
‘What!? That’s over two months away! I can’t leave a bed and a mattress outside my front door for weeks on end. And even if I could drag them inside, my house is tiny; there’s no space until the old bed is gone.’
‘Well, drag the old bed outside, then.’
‘Move an iron bed, single-handed, down the stairs and outside, where I have to leave it on the pavement until your company can be bothered to come and do the job I paid them to do today?’
‘I’m sure you can ask a friend to help.’
‘Really? For all you know I don’t have any friends!’
I hung up, eyes smarting with frustration.
I did have friends. I had Steph and her family. Who were on holiday in Cornwall for the week. I had Karina, who had taken Mum to Matlock for the day. I had… Joan.
I waited until nine o’clock, not wanting to disturb anyone’s weekend lie-in.
‘Hello?’ Joan answered the door eventually. She was already dressed in grey jersey shorts and the same T-shirt as the day before. She had The Fellowship of the Ring dangling from one hand, her finger propping open the page. ‘Oh, hi, Ollie.’
‘How’s everyone getting on – still in Rivendell?’
Her face lit up. ‘Under the Misty Mountains!’
We chatted for a few moments about the story, before I got to the point. ‘Is your mum around? I’ve had a mess-up with my bed delivery and I need an extra pair of arms.’
Joan’s expression went blank. ‘She’s at work.’
‘Okay. When will she be back?’
Panic flickered through her eyes, like a fish darting through a riverbed. ‘Not till this afternoon. And then she’ll need to sleep. She gets really tired after working all day.’
‘What does she do?’ I tried to sound curious, not concerned.
‘She’s a cleaner. She does Hatherstone Hall weekday mornings, and then some houses in the afternoons but on Saturday she spends the whole day at the hall. She goes on her bike.’
‘And then she sleeps? That doesn’t sound like much fun.’
‘She’s not very well at the moment. That’s why she has to sleep so much.’
‘Is there anyone else here to look after you?’
Joan lifted her chin. ‘I can look after myself.’
‘I’m sure you can. But I’m on my own all day today, too. It’s my first weekend living without my mum, so if you wanted to bring your book over, have some company, that would be fine.’
Joan pursed her lips. ‘Maybe. I’ll see how I get on.’
‘Okay, great.’ I turned to go, then stopped to add, ‘I’ve also got far too much food for lunch, if you wanted to help me eat some. I’m not used to shopping for one person, either.’
Joan gave me one sharp nod, and closed the door.
I took another look at the giant packages and decided it was time to meet my other neighbour, the one sandwiched between Joan and Leanne and End Cottage.
If I wasn’t so desperate I’d have given up waiting long before the front door finally creaked open. Was this how things worked in the countryside? You finished what you were doing, put the kettle on, faffed about for a few more minutes and then got around to answering the door?
But when I saw who’d answered it, my impatience was instantly replaced with a mixture of guilt and sympathy. The man who now hunched a good few inches below me looked as though it had taken every last ounce of energy just to open the old door. He had no hair on his head, though a bristling beard covered his chin. Dappled legs poked out of baggy cargo shorts, and he wore a T-shirt that said, With a body like this, who needs hair?