Chapter 9 #2
Nina matched his smile. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’ She watched as he counted the notes, licking his thumb. She left with the roll of cash in her pocket, an amount that wouldn’t have paid her monthly food bill at The Tynings, but right now it was a lifeline.
‘You okay?’ Tiggy asked as they walked away.
It felt like they had conducted something illicit, the way her sister looked at her sideways.
Nina nodded. To have cash in her pocket that would top up her meagre funds gave her a feeling of instant relief.
She thought about her dad on a Friday night, walking through the door with a wider smile than usual and a playfulness to his demeanour.
He must have felt the same, happy to know that he could provide whatever might be needed, with his wages in his wallet; a brief moment when worry evaporated – a feeling that she could now relate to.
She then pictured her dad’s ashen face on a Monday morning and knew that this moment of relief would be short lived . . . I need a job.
They rode the bus home in silence, as if each considering how very much Nina’s life had altered in the space of a few weeks. They sat with thighs touching.
Something caught her eye in the charity shop, a little way along the road.
‘How do you put a window blind up? Is it hard?’ she asked Tiggy.
‘No. It’s easy. No more than a couple of screws into a wooden baton.’
Nina smiled at her sister as she rang the bell to call for a stop.
They returned to a note from Connor to say the boys had taken a rugby ball up to the common.
‘It’s funny. I used to long for them to spend more time together, to be closer. Yet right now I’m wishing they had their own friends. That would mean they were settled.’ She folded the note.
‘It’ll come.’
Nina ran a damp cloth over the glass of the French windows, removing the residue of dust and dirt.
She unhooked the net curtains and folded them neatly, in case Cousin Fred wanted them back.
Tiggy unpacked the tool bag she had grabbed from the pub and charged up her drill.
The white venetian blind was a little bent, a little grubby, but it had cost pence and Nina knew it would let in more light when open than the curtains, not only brightening the room, but when shut would also hopefully help keep out noise and draughts.
It would surely be better than the drab, dated, discoloured nets.
‘How come you’ve got a drill?’ Nina asked.
‘Was it your boyfriend’s?’ She didn’t know the name of Tiggy’s last beau, but all the men she had known her date were curiously interchangeable: quiet, moody drinkers with little drive and a penchant for a gamble.
She had always hated to see and hear about the men who traipsed through her sister’s life, knowing she could do so much better.
Tiggy slowly turned to face her sister with her drill in her hand.
‘Did you really just say that? Are you living in the 1950s? You are aware that you don’t need a penis to operate a power tool?
And I hear that if you are really modern, women can actually go out to work too and earn their own money!
Some of them even drive! But only if your husband agrees it’s a good idea, of course. ’
‘Very funny. You know what I mean.’ Nina unscrewed the light bulbs and hung the new paper ball lampshades she had also bought at the charity shop, instantly cosying up the space.
There was something about bare bulbs that to her felt like a constant reminder of their deprivation. This was much better.
‘Actually, I don’t know what you mean. You sound like one of those women with tiny waists who advertise products with a grin and have a set role as a housewife.
Imagine – all the chores in the house divided up by gender, with the little lady cooking and the man of the house going out to bring home the bacon – and that’s just how it is! ’ she offered sarcastically.
‘I guess that is kind of how it is, or how it was,’ she quietly acknowledged, a little shamefully.
She felt her sister’s stare bore into her. Tiggy drew breath. ‘Well, I’m not judging you, Nina. The only right way is the way that works for you. And you obviously feel that you and Finn worked.’
‘We did. In some ways.’ It was a small admission that maybe things hadn’t been perfect. There was a moment of silence.
‘I used to worry . . .’ Tiggy trailed off mid-sentence.
‘Used to worry about what?’ Nina stroked the ceramic white owl that she had grabbed as she left the house, a birthday gift last year from the kids. She had found it in the depths of a cardboard box that she had only just got round to unpacking.
‘About you.’ She paused, as if she wanted to say more. ‘But right now I’m worried about how we get this room looking fabulous!’ Tiggy clapped in an exaggerated fashion. Her sudden change of tone was an obvious diversion.
The two worked diligently, unwrapping a large, modern, abstract canvas that had sat in the downstairs cloakroom of The Tynings and had travelled along the motorway propped between the seats.
‘How come Mr Nasty and his cronies didn’t take this?’ Tiggy nodded at the piece.
‘Firstly it’s not valuable, just a print, but also I don’t think they spent much time in the little loo.
It was wedged behind the cistern. Truth be told, I never liked it that much, it was a space filler, but I grabbed it when I had the chance, as if I knew we might need a splash of colour in our lives.
And funnily enough, now I really like it. ’
They placed it on the mantelpiece and it did indeed lift the whole space, adding a welcome brightness, as well as a focal point.
‘That looks great.’ Tiggy stood back and admired it.
‘I wish I had some bookshelves.’
‘You could move the ones from the bedroom?’
‘That’s a great idea! I can find a smaller unit eventually for all my bits and bobs.’
They hauled the shelf along the narrow corridor and into the sitting room, where they manoeuvred it into position in the corner alcove to the right of the fireplace.
Nina unpacked her favourite books, including the ancient copy of The Complete Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
Tiggy ran her fingers over the weathered spine. ‘Ah, Nina!’
‘Yep. I treasure it.’
‘God! I always get really choked when I touch something Mamma has touched.’ She lifted the book to her nose and inhaled the scent of it.
‘Me too.’ Nina smiled.
‘I used to nag her to read to me all the time and she’d be busy cooking or sewing, and eventually she’d get so sick of me asking, she’d smile and nod and I’d go and jump up onto the sofa, as though that was the only place she could read to me, and you’d nestle in by my side, like a little magnet.
Mamma would throw that old fur rug over our legs. ’
‘I remember that. I remember the way it felt and smelled – like bonfires!’
‘Yes.’ Tiggy nodded. ‘It did smell like bonfires. Exactly!’
‘And that smell always makes me think of Mamma.’ She had only ever shared this with Finn.
‘Do you remember her getting sick?’ Nina lowered her tone, folding the duster in her hand.
Tiggy shook her head. ‘I didn’t know she was sick. But I do remember her being very tired and Dad doing all the chores when he got home from work, so I guess that was probably the start of it.’
‘I remember the day she died, Dad coming home to tell us.’ Nina lowered her voice.
‘I remember that too. You were very brave.’ Tiggy looked away.
‘I don’t think I was that brave, I think I just didn’t really know what was going on, not properly. And even though I was little, I wondered if there was anything I could have done to help make her better.’
Tiggy closed her eyes, clearly touched. ‘Oh bless you, honey.’
Nina recalled the way her dad had crouched in front of them, hitching his dark, corduroy trousers up his thighs, and giving a crooked smile that offered little by way of reassurance, before breaking the news that she had gone . . .
The ripples of that one event changed everything. Losing her mamma reversed her daddy’s life plan, sending him back to the bleak city in which he had grown up, where his parents would take a far greater role in her upbringing than anyone would have wanted.
She coughed to clear the sadness that gathered in her throat. ‘I feel sad that we didn’t get the life she probably wanted for us. And I hate that she missed so much,’ Nina said. The words made her think of Finn, the old Finn, and all that he would miss.
‘You just have to keep moving forward. What’s the alternative?’ Tiggy shook her head and pushed the book onto the shelf.
‘I’ve still got my little marble in its matchbox. I can hardly stand to touch it, especially now, when I have never felt less like I can conquer the world.’
‘Oh, your marble! I had forgotten about that. I remember her giving it to you and feeling quite jealous. Especially after she’d died, you used to get it out all the time. I thought it might have magical powers that let you talk to her.’
Nina looked up at her sister. ‘I guess it did in a way. I think Mamma might have known me well enough to know that I would need a talisman like that, something to focus on.’
‘Uh-uh.’ Tiggy shook her head. ‘I think she knew you well enough to know that one day you could conquer the world.’
Nina bit her lip.
‘You’re doing better than you think,’ Tiggy asserted as she made tiny crosses on the wall above the window where she was going to drill.