Chapter 17
‘Argh. Why won’t you work?’ Jenni shook her laptop in frustration. ‘Why are you looking for the printer? It’s right here.’
Unable to face the pictures of shame, and knowing that Tim and Lucy weren’t going in to the office that day, Jenni had decided to work from home too.
She’d got up at her normal time, fed Oscar, who had been waiting for her in the kitchen pretending he was starved, had a cup of tea, then changed into leggings and fleece and gone for a quick walk around the park.
Her physio had told her to make sure she did some exercise every day, and Jenni had started to enjoy her new routine.
The mornings were getting lighter, and each day the leaves on the trees were that bit greener, the plants a little taller, the flower-buds less tightly furled.
As well as the change in the season, Jenni also enjoyed seeing a new cast of characters on her walks: parents hurrying their children to school, a group of older women powerwalking around the park – Jenni would say hello to them by the gate and then again by the café as they embarked on their second lap – dog walkers in a tangle of leads, and cyclists on their commute.
It was a snapshot of her neighbourhood that she usually missed while travelling to the office, and somehow seeing the same people out and about each morning made her feel a bit more connected.
A smile from Mum in Red Coat or a nod of recognition from Man with Naughty Labradoodle made her day a bit brighter.
She’d returned to an empty flat. Oscar had gone out again and, after breakfast, she’d fired up her laptop to start work.
Stopping only for lunch, Jenni had steadily worked through her to-do list, checking items off and adding new things on, as well as answering emails, until the day came to an end.
She’d had just one more thing to do – print off a label – and then she’d call it a day.
But the printer and the computer had fallen out and she had no idea how to get them talking again.
Giving the computer another shake, she was about to start randomly pressing buttons when the doorbell rang.
Glad to be interrupted, Jenni shut her laptop and headed for the door, careful to make sure she had her keys with her so her front door didn’t swing shut behind her, leaving her trapped in the communal hall.
Hastily checking that her leggings weren’t the baggy ones with holes in – sartorial standards when working at home were pretty low – Jenni opened the door to find a delivery man on the doorstep.
Muttering about traffic and roadworks, he handed her a padded envelope and a small parcel before stomping off back down the path to his van.
Jenni tore open the jiffy bag. Aha, just what she’d been waiting for.
There had been several posts concerning missing cats on the street WhatsApp lately, and so, even though she knew he’d hate it, she’d ordered Oscar a lovely, bright green collar so that it was obvious he wasn’t a stray. But first, she actually had to get it on him
As if by magic, the rattle of the cat flap announced Oscar’s return from wherever he’d been hanging out that day.
‘Perfect timing!’ Jenni said. ‘Right, you, stay there.’
Distracting him with a large bowl of his favourite food, Jenni shut the kitchen door and locked the cat flap.
There was no escape now.
Moving calmly so as not to alarm him, she stretched open the green collar and knelt next to him. Gently, holding the collar wide, she reached over, securing it around his neck and quickly pushing the clasp together.
Oscar looked up at her and shook his head, momentarily distracted by the thing now around his neck.
‘That’s it, just keep eating, nothing to see here,’ Jenni soothed, tapping a few biscuits into another bowl. ‘Here you go. Have some Dreamies.’
Oscar, eyeing her suspiciously, but unable to resist, started crunching through the biscuits. Running a finger between the collar and his fur, and satisfied that it wasn’t too tight, Jenni stood up.
Oscar might not like it much, but if he did stray too far from home, at least it was clear now that he belonged to someone.
With Oscar sorted, Jenni turned her attention to the other package that had arrived.
Sliding the blade of a small kitchen knife through the excessive amount of tape used to seal the parcel, she was pleased to discover that the business cards she’d ordered were finally here.
She’d designed them herself and they were printed using eco dyes on untreated card.
Initially unable to think of a name for her business, Jenni had been inspired by the sight of Oscar clambering to the top of a pile of neatly folded T-shirts in the corner of the shed, and decided on ‘House of Oscar’.
And so, along with her contact details, the card was decorated with a small silhouette of a cat climbing from the ‘o’ to the ‘f’, which she’d drawn.
One less thing to worry about, she thought, although that didn’t reduce by much her list of things she needed to prepare. With the fair looming next weekend, she still had lots to get done, and now she’d finished the day job she needed to get back in the shed to re-fold and pack her stock.
She also needed to call Amy to check she could definitely help out on the day, pick up the wallpaper table from next door, which Jo and Nick were generously allowing her to use, print out a price list – she’d have to leave this for now, given the printer’s refusal to co-operate – and she also needed to get her float sorted.
The organisers had advised her to make sure she had plenty of small coins on the day, and she also wondered whether she should get one of those portable card readers.
Was she mad for assuming she’d sell anything at all? Jenni tried to quash the rising feeling of panic.
At the beginning of the year, she’d made a resolution to be more creative.
Her years with Alex had meant that, over time, she’d ended up neglecting her own interests.
It wasn’t that he’d stopped her from crafting or drawing, it was more that there were other things he preferred to do, like going out for the day, or staying in bed together watching telly, or meeting up with other couples for brunch, and she’d gone along with it.
When he’d left, all these things had stopped, leaving Jenni uncertain as to who she was anymore.
She’d had so many questions: what did she used to like to do?
How did she want to spend her time? She was better now at knowing how she wanted to fill her spare hours, but, when she’d seen the advert asking for stallholders at the fair, she’d felt fired up for the first time in a long time.
It had seemed a good idea to put down the deposit, but now she was regretting New-Year-New-You-Jenni’s decision.
Jenni looked at the clock on the oven. She had a couple of hours before her mum was due to call – they’d arranged to speak when Annie arrived in Wellington – so she decided to nip to the shops to get something for dinner before heading out to her shed.
As she pulled on her trainers and stuffed a bag for life into her coat pocket, Jenni found herself wishing that someone was heading home to her, carrying the shopping they’d picked up on the way, ready to cook and ask about her day while she drank a glass of wine.
She shook herself. There was no point thinking about all that. It was just her now and she was fine, she could cope.
But the feeling of longing lingered as she walked around the supermarket, finally throwing a single baked potato and a family bag of Giant Buttons into her basket.