Chapter 5 #2
Trevor grunted, and gestured to an upstairs window. ‘Stan won’t be out of his pit till the afternoon if I don’t wake him, hasn’t been since he was laid off from the biscuit factory. And no, he doesn’t know. You’ll have to tell him soon though, won’t you?’
‘I’ll worry about that later. Has he been looking for another job?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice, love. He likes his sleep, does your brother. He’s never had much enthusiasm for getting up since he finished working at the school. I reckon he needs something to get him going again. He misses those kids, you know.’
‘I know. Blame the cutbacks for that one. He was great as a teaching assistant; the children loved him.’ An idea was beginning to form in Mab’s brain, but she was afraid to let it happen; it was too obvious to work, surely. She looked around for her mother.
‘Mum’s in her studio. You’re not going to…’ Trevor’s voice tailed off, and he scratched his head; he hated his wife to be disturbed when she was creating one of her giant, swirling oil paintings.
‘I need to talk to you both, Dad. It’s really important.’
‘Oh. Well, I’ll put the kettle on and make some toast. That usually gets her into the kitchen. It might wake your brother up too. I bought one of those whistling kettles last week.’ They grinned at each other.
The grandly named studio was actually Mab’s old bedroom, another reason why her departure had been so popular.
Mab glanced around the kitchen. It was the only place in the house where she felt reasonably contented, probably because she’d spent so much time there.
Ria didn’t really go in for much cooking.
Mab had to smile as she looked at the vast Aga, imagining her mum trying to make cakes and jam on it when she hadn’t worked out how to warm up tinned soup properly yet.
The Aga was a beautiful deep blue, and the matching kettle sat on top of it, whistling gently.
There were herbs growing riotously in pots on the sunny windowsill and copper pans gleaming in the rack.
It was a restful place to be, and Mab had often wished she had her mum’s artistic abilities so that she could paint the scene.
She took the bread her father had carefully sliced and put it on the top of the Aga in the special grilling tool that Trevor kept for the job.
The blissful smell of toast soon filled the air; the bread was Dad’s own homemade wholemeal with added seeds, Mab noticed, sniffing appreciatively, at least as good as Beattie’s.
The kettle soon built up an impressive head of steam, shrieking so loudly that the old cat, Bernard, who had been snoozing on a heap of clean washing, leaped into the air and burst out of the cat flap.
‘This should get Stan up, love,’ said Trevor, as he set out marmalade, cherry jam and peanut butter. Sure enough, after a few moments, footsteps could be heard on the stairs, and the kitchen door banged open.
‘Hey – it’s Mucky Mabel!’ Her brother had always called Mab after his favourite children’s book character. As usual, she returned the compliment.
‘And it’s Flat Stanley. Still sickeningly flat, too. How do you do it? The amount of junk you eat, you should be as wide as me.’
Stan laughed. ‘It’s the healthy life I lead, mate, with all the gardening, jogging, power-walking…’
‘You’ve not started taking exercise, have you?’
‘No, I was lying.’ Stan punched her on the arm as he passed on his way to the toaster and she reached up and ruffled his hair, the same chestnut brown as her own.
Stan’s hair was long and wild too, and there was a wicked glint in his green eyes.
Mab supposed he was quite appealing; women fell for Stan in droves, but he was so unbelievably lazy that his relationships were usually short lived, due to lack of interest on his part.
He had done a media-based degree in London after school, but then seemed unsure of what to do with it.
The local primary school had snapped him up when he volunteered his services to help with computer studies – he had made some films with the children, and the head had even given him some paid work, but then the child he’d been supporting had left, and lack of school funds had meant that he was redundant.
The biscuit factory was the only place he’d worked since, and that job had lasted a bare three weeks.
Stan grabbed a piece of toast and gave it a thick coating of peanut butter.
He turned to Mab, just as their mother could be heard approaching down the hallway.
‘So, how’s the boring job these days?’ Mab stiffened.
She tried to signal to Stan to shut up, but he was too busy getting his second slice ready, and said blithely, ‘Still driving you mad? Must be about as much fun as watching a plank warp.’
Ria entered the room in a swirl of scarves and sandalwood perfume.
‘Darling! It’s lovely to see you,’ she said, as she kissed the air somewhere near to Mab’s left ear and sat down at the breakfast bar, crossing one long, elegant leg over the other. She was wearing a ruffled shirt, and violet leggings tucked into thigh boots today.
‘Wow, Mum, you look like a very sexy pantomime boy. Has the dramatic society asked you to be Buttons this year?’ said Mab, playing for time. Her mother was not easily deflected.
‘So what’s all this about a boring job, Mabel? I thought you loved working for Paul. He’s very fond of you. You’re the only one who can make his books balance.’
Mab took a deep breath. It was now or never. ‘Well, actually… erm… I’ve given the job up.’
Her mother laughed. ‘Oh, you are funny, darling. Now, sit down and tell us your real news.’
‘No, that is my real news, Mum, I’ve given in my notice. I’m going to be a… sort of partner in a new bookshop and café. I met a man yesterday and he asked me to work for him. And I’m leaving my horrible flat too,’ she added hastily.
Both Ria and Trevor were suddenly very still. After an agonising few seconds, Trevor put a tentative hand on Mab’s shoulder and said, ‘A man? Who? Where?’
‘Well, in the café. He’s the godson of my friend Angelica. Remember me telling you she’d died?’
Trevor glanced at his wife’s pale, shocked face and sighed heavily. ‘Are you sure you’ve thought this through, love?’ he said. ‘Have you met him before? What if it doesn’t work out? Where will you live?’
It was unlike her dad to ask more than one question per day. Mab picked the easiest ones to answer. ‘Well, I’m very much hoping it will work out, Dad, and Leo’s asked me to move in over the shop. Anyway, if the worst came to the worst, I could always move back here for a while, couldn’t I?’
There was another silence. Trevor and Ria looked at each other, and then Ria jumped up and began to stride around the kitchen, waving her arms to emphasise each point she made.
‘You can’t possibly be a partner in a business if you haven’t got any money to put into it.
This… this person is obviously much richer than you are, and you’ll just be taking handouts from him.
It’s all wrong. And you can’t move in with a man you’ve only just met – it’s…
it’s… unseemly. What about the—’ Ria stopped suddenly and glanced across at Stan.
So much for being an eccentric artist, champion of free love and the redistribution of wealth, thought Mab.
The interrogation that followed would have satisfied MI5; all possible arguments against the bookshop plan were wheeled out and repeated several times.
Ria pulled out all the stops, including tears, which caused Trevor to put a protective arm around his wife, and to look at his daughter with deep reproach.
As in her teenage years, the argument was destined to end with the words, ‘Stop it, Mab. You’re upsetting your mother. ’ Finally, Mab jumped to her feet.
‘Look, I’ve had enough of this – I’m trying to do something different with my life. All you two are doing is putting up ridiculous objections. I’m going now. I’m meant to be meeting Jess. She’s going to help us get the shop ready. At least she believes in me.’
Mab left, slamming the door behind her. She felt as if she was fifteen again, and not in a good way.
Why did it have to be so difficult? What was wrong with taking a risk now and again?
As she dashed down the drive and turned towards the town, she heard a voice calling her name.
She stiffened, and then realised that it was only Stan. He staggered to a halt, panting.
‘Bloody hell, Mabel, you don’t hang about when you get your mad up, do you?’
‘How do you stand it, Stanley? They just don’t listen, do they?’
‘They’re not so bad, really. They just worry, I guess.’
‘Huh. That’s a matter of opinion. Isn’t it time you moved out and had a life of your own too?’
Stan laughed. ‘And go where, exactly? I’ve not got a job at the moment either, as if that hadn’t just been pointed out to you, forcibly, several times.’
Mab thought for a moment. Should she? Could she?
It was totally the wrong way to go about things.
Leo should definitely be asked first but he’d seemed very relaxed about his living arrangements and the work in the shop wasn’t going to do itself.
Oh, why not? It was worth a try. She could always sell the idea to Leo afterwards if Stan was up for a challenge.
‘How about moving in with us at the bookshop? We’ll be needing someone to do the story time and organise the crèche,’ Mab said, giving her brother the benefit of her most encouraging smile. ‘And there’ll be no shortage of odd jobs to keep you busy. The shop’s in an awful state.’
‘You’ve got to be joking? Your bloke doesn’t know me from Adam, and I’ve never done anything like that. I’d be rubbish at it.’