Chapter 17
It was my second Friday off since deciding that I had to do something about my pitiful life, rather than avoiding it by trying to fix everyone else’s on my days off. I pondered my new list, wondering whether to go for a run, do some cleaning or try searching online shops for clothes that didn’t make me look as if I were auditioning for Farmer Wants a Wife. Instead, my exhausted body decided for me, as, while still mid ponder, I ended up falling asleep.
It was almost lunchtime when I jolted awake. I tumbled off the edge of the sagging sofa onto a pile of Lego, wrestled the ringing phone from my pinafore pocket and saw with a mix of dismay and resignation that it was school. Isla had been struggling all week. Most days had been punctuated with tears, screams and even a few slaps, so this wasn’t a complete surprise.
‘Libby, are you free for a brief chat?’
It was Janet, the head teacher who’d been at Dad’s house for lunch. She’d never called me before. This couldn’t be good.
‘Is Isla okay?’ I pressed a hand against my fluttering heart. ‘I mean, I know she’s not okay. It’s been a difficult week. Her dad sprang the news about a baby on her, and?—’
‘She’s fine.’ Janet cut me off with the assertiveness of a professional woman with no time for waffling parents. ‘Relatively speaking. She’s told us all about her new baby sister, and seems very excited. What I wanted to talk about, if you don’t mind, is you.’
‘Um. Excuse me?’
‘Isla’s class have been looking at a topic called “My World and Me”. This included talking about their world, what they like about it and what they might like to change.’
‘Yes, she told me about it.’ A rock of dread began sinking to the bottom of my stomach.
‘Isla wrote a very imaginative story about how she’d like her mummy to meet a handsome prince who can take care of you all so, hang on, let me find the quote, “Mummy can stop being tired and sad and lonely because we can move into the prince’s palace.” She described wanting a bathroom that isn’t mouldy, and being able to eat proper pizza because the oven isn’t broken. Lights that work, so she doesn’t have to use a torch because she gets scared when it’s dark.’ Janet paused, as if waiting for me to reply, but I couldn’t speak.
‘Libby, is everything all right at home?’
‘Um.’ I lay back on the pile of Lego, the bricks digging into my back like a bed of nails. ‘The house needs a few repairs. Most of the lights work, actually. But I’m working on it. I’ve just been busy, with work and… everything.’
And nothing. Because I did nothing apart from work and apparently do an abysmal job of looking after my kids.
‘What I mean to say is, are you all right?’
‘Yes! I’m fine. Of course I get tired, I’m a single mum running a charity and a business. But why wouldn’t I be fine?’
Then I burst into tears. Years of held-back, stuffed-down-so-I-could-pretend-to-still-be-a-relentless-optimist tears.
It was not the brief chat Janet had intended. Twenty minutes later I was still sobbing. I suspected she’d stuck me on speakerphone and got on with some paperwork, but once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. I barely even said anything, just bawled.
Eventually, I managed to wrangle something of myself back together enough to apologise, weakly assure the head teacher that I was having a bad day but was honestly okay and if she asked my dad, he’d confirm that, generally speaking, I was coping fine. Isla had been reading a fairy tale about a girl living in a tumbledown shack who marries a prince, and we’d joked about someone fixing our broken oven. That was all. I was fine, really.
It would be fine.
The truth was, I realised once I’d hung up and buried my head in the sofa in mortification, it was a very long time since anyone apart from my sister or Dad had asked me how I was. It had been even longer since I’d given an honest answer.
So, what are you going to do now?Keep writing things on the new list until it’s as long as the old one, or finally do some of them?
The voice inside my head sounded disconcertingly like my mother’s. The thought of her turning up on my doorstep and finding all of this was enough to propel me into action.
I clambered up off the floor and found the new list, then wrote beneath it:
Stop ignoring your own parenting advice
Stop being a damn hypocrite
Be a good example to your kids for once
I added one more thing, that only made me cry again:
LEARN HOW TO LOVE LIBBY DONAHUE, AND THEN START ACTING LIKE IT
I arrived fifteen minutes early to my hair appointment the next day. Shanice, Hazel and the other staff were all busy with clients, so I took a seat near to Hazel’s workstation and kept my ears open.
‘How are you, anyway?’ the middle-aged woman having her roots touched up asked, after a protracted conversation about her recent diabetes diagnosis.
‘Oh, you know. Run off my feet trying to keep the four musketeers under control.’
‘I thought you had five kids?’
Hazel dabbed a bit more vigorously with the brush she was using to cover the woman’s grey. ‘Yeah, but Toby’s a dad now. As far as I’m concerned, if he’s old enough to have a kid, it’s up to him to stop acting like one.’
‘I always liked your Toby,’ the woman mused. ‘Even in his delinquent phase, when he smashed up the park gazebo, he did a lovely job putting it right.’
Hazel huffed but said nothing.
‘And you’re a granny now!’ her client went on. ‘That’s lovely! I can’t wait for one of mine to give me a grandbaby, though I can’t see it happening any time soon. You must be over the moon. All the loveliness of a baby and none of the responsibility.’
‘I wish!’ Hazel snapped, adding so much dye to the woman’s thinning hair her scalp was now glowing Raspberry Rebel. ‘They’re living at mine, so I’ve got the sleepless nights, baby junk everywhere and a hungover teenage girl snoring in my dining room. The only time she gets out of bed is to go out, use up all my hot water or empty my fridge.’
‘Ah. Perhaps you need to have a family conference, set some ground rules.’
‘I’m past talking and way past ground rules,’ Hazel practically growled as she stepped back to frown at her handiwork. ‘I’m too old for this crap, Pauline. I’ve laid down my ultimatum and now it’s their choice. Either I come home this evening to a spotless house, settled baby and a hot dinner or they can find someone else to sponge off. It’s not too much to ask them to clean up their own mess and cook dinner once in a while, is it?’
‘It certainly isn’t!’ Pauline said, cowering slightly. ‘Anyway, have you been watching that new crime drama with the actress from Nottingham? I can never remember her name, but she’s got a lovely way about her…’
‘Libby!’ Shanice strode over and grabbed a lock of my wayward hair. ‘I’ve been itching to get started on this for days. Why anyone who gets free haircuts would allow things to end up in this state is a mystery. Get in that chair and let’s sort it out.’
An hour later, my hair was sorted. When Shanice had asked for my thoughts about the cut, I’d ummed, aahed and mumbled about a new start and not wanting to look like a farmer’s wife until she’d burst out laughing and told me to sit back, relax, and let her do her thing.
It had to be said, her thing was fabulous.
The wild mahogany frizz had become shoulder-length, glossy curls that somehow made me look more mature and yet years younger at the same time. Shanice stuck some products in a bag, gave me a brief lecture on what to do with them and when to come back to the salon and then made everyone else give me a round of applause before I left.
‘Eh, Libby, I hope you’ve got somewhere fancy to show that off!’ Jade, who had also been one of the Bloomers and now worked in Snips as a beautician, called.
‘Even better, someone!’ The young woman getting her nails done laughed.
As the rest of the salon joined in, adding a couple of whoops and a wolf whistle, only one person flashed into my head.
If last night’s continuation of what seemed to be a slow-motion emotional breakdown had proven anything, it was that I was in no fit state to be dating anyone. But a drink and a catch-up with Jonah? Somewhere with a working oven in case we wanted some cake?
Now that I might be ready to handle.
In a fit of amazing-hair madness, as soon as I got home I opened my emails to find where Ellis had added his number as an emergency contact on the application form. Then, in a blatant breach of data protection, I messaged to ask if he and Ellis wanted a coffee sometime. I didn’t even read it through myself, let alone check with Nicky whether it was appropriate. Although, yes, I did then spend the rest of the day checking my phone while faking my interest and enjoyment in hearing the kids describe, on a seemingly never-ending loop, how amazing Brayden and Silva’s house was and how they had a soda stream, a hot tub and a giant television. Once they’d gone to bed, I got to spend my Saturday night waiting for the non-existent reply while agonising about what the hell I was thinking.
I only checked my phone for half the night, because the other half was taken up with something else entirely. It was nearly one in the morning when I heard a car slowing down outside. This was a quiet road, and any traffic was noticeable, but when the lights swung around to shine through my bedroom window, I sat up and paid attention.
I held my breath, hand clutching my phone as, after a brief silence, two doors slammed and then the car reversed off. Had someone got out? Who? Why? At what point should I call the police? Or at least Nicky?
The knock on the door sent my heart scrabbling up my throat.
Not a burglar, then. Or a murderer.
Then again, I thought as I shrugged into a big cardigan and gingerly opened my bedroom door, it could be a murderer pretending to have a flat tyre, or be lost, or some other pretext to get a vulnerable woman to let them into their house…
Another knock, slightly louder this time. I’d have to answer it, or Isla would wake up, and if she thought people were sneaking about in the middle of the night, she’d never sleep again. After tiptoeing down the stairs, I grabbed Finn’s plastic sword from the mound of junk at the bottom.
‘Hello?’ I called, aiming for assertive but ending up sounding very much like a woman scared witless. I inched along the dark hallway in the feeble glow of my phone torch, clicking the outside light switch before remembering that the bulb had gone months ago.
Was that a large shadow looming through the tiny window in the door, or was it my rattled imagination?
When they knocked for the third time, my instincts decided to be more afraid of Isla waking up than of whoever it was, and I flung the door open before my rational brain could overrule it.