Chapter 3
3
A bad night was followed by a worse morning. Eva was up before the crack of dawn, desperate to play dragons, a game in which the only actions involved her screaming, ‘Dragon!’ at the top of her voice and repeatedly whipping the duvet off the bed as she dived underneath it. And while George started the morning in his generally placid mood, it was while pulling on his trousers that Sarah’s phone beeped with a reminder message from the school.
Book Day , Sarah read from her screen, a sickening feeling rising its way up through her stomach. ‘How the hell is it Book Day? Drew. Drew! Can you get Eva? She’s unravelling the toilet roll again.’
Drew appeared at the top of the stairs. The last three years had seen him go from consistently clean-shaven to anywhere between light stubble and a full-grown beard. His hair had gone from short back and sides to some nondescript style, and his expression from one of eternal optimism to one who now took life with a heavy dose of scepticism.
‘What’s up?’ he called down. ‘What can I do?’
‘Stop Eva from blocking the toilet, for one. And work out what the hell I’m going to do for Book Day.’
‘Book Day? On the second week of term?’
‘Apparently so.’
Drew plucked the toilet roll out of Eva’s grasp, which resulted in her dropping to the ground and hammering her hands and feet on the floor.
‘Do you want me to have a look in the dressing-up box?’ he asked, ignoring Eva’s meltdown entirely.
‘Yes, see what you can find. Anything will do. See if you can find him a striped jumper, and I’ll send him as Where’s Wally .’
‘Do we have a striped jumper?’
‘No idea.’
Minutes later, Drew returned with a policeman’s helmet and a pair of plastic handcuffs in his hand.
‘Will these do?’
‘Who’s he going to go as? We need a character. We need to be able to say he’s someone. Otherwise, they'll think we just picked some random outfit out of the dressing-up box.’
‘But we did. Can’t we just say he’s dressed up as PC Plod?’
‘Is that a real character?’
‘I don’t know. Hang on a sec, I'll Google it.’
So as Sarah struggled to get a wriggling George out of his school trousers and into some blue tracksuit bottoms – while simultaneously stopping Eva from giving herself a concussion through her tantrum – Drew tapped away on his phone.
With George now dressed, next came the job of trying to tame the children’s unfeasibly frizzy hair into something remotely presentable. Of all the things to inherit, frizzy hair was, in Sarah’s book, only one step above her Aunt Greta’s moustache.
‘What do you need me to do?’ Drew held down Eva so Sarah could brush.
‘You need to go. You don’t want to miss your train.’
‘I’ve got five minutes still. Tell me what to do to help.’
Sarah looked around at the chaos. Every day since Eva had been born, her life had been a manic rush from one place to the next, and yet it still managed to surprise her exactly how chaotic it was.
‘Could you just grab his school bag and make sure his snacks are in it?’
‘Sure. What snacks does he want?’
Sarah stopped with the hairbrush in mid-air. ‘What do you mean, what snacks ? The ones you made last night. The carrot sticks.’
Drew’s eyes shifted from one side of the room to another. ‘Shit,’ he said.
Sarah’s jaw locked. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘It’s fine. He can just take biscuits.’
‘He’s not allowed biscuits. Or crisps or any type of food we have in the house.’
‘Surely we have some fruit or something?’
‘Have you been shopping?’
‘I thought?—’
‘It’s fine.’ Sarah returned to brushing Eva’s hair with a newfound vigour. ‘Just pick through the grapes. See if you can find a dozen that look remotely edible. I’m sure he can steal someone else’s if he needs to. Philomena always has a full organic buffet with her.’
It took another ten minutes before Sarah had finally bundled Eva and a poorly dressed policeman into the back of the car. In George’s backpack were the most insipid, wrinkled selection of grapes anyone had ever seen. It was just for one day, though, Sarah reminded herself. She would do some shopping in the afternoon. Just as soon as she’d washed the vomit and urine- soaked bed-sheets. And, she recalled with a shudder, survived toddler group.
Drew sat in his office. He’d only been at work for four hours, but it felt like he’d done three days straight. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the screen. This new programme was taking some getting used to. He’d worked as an analyst at Home Crew, an online supermarket, for seven years now, and each time he thought he had everything sussed, they would throw another spanner in the works, almost always in the form of a new operating system. What was it with the need to change computer programmes the minute the staff had got the hang of the old one? Who made these decisions? And who created these stupid platforms, with shortcuts that required you to hit five different keys in the exact right order to do one simple task? Did they ever think about asking the people who actually used the programmes what would make life easier? Maybe he’d retrain and become a programmer. Maybe that would be a solution to his and Sarah’s money problems. Although, he had enough trouble trying to programme the washing machine, let alone anything more complicated. Besides, he still liked their little house. It was true, they didn’t exactly have a lot of room to do things, but it was theirs, their family all snuggled together under one roof. Deep down, Sarah thought the same. He was sure of it.
Looking away from the screen, he pushed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He hated it. This wasn’t where he imagined his life. Not yet, at least. He had thought there’d be more time for adventure. More time to spend outside with his children. And he was only at the beginning. He had another eighteen years of this to go at least.
A rap on the doorframe woke him from his thoughts.
‘Good weekend, eh?’ said a cheery face.
When Drew had started work at Home Crew, Barry had already been there five years. Surprisingly (well, actually not that surprising when he really thought about it) Drew had been promoted ahead of him and had been moved out of a cubicle and into an office, which he wasn’t convinced was any bigger than his previous cubicle. The shift in power had done little to change their relationship, the only real difference being that at least Drew now got paid for cleaning up Barry’s messes. As such, he knew there was no point beating around the bush.
‘What do you need, Barry?’
‘Oh… well, now that you ask… I don’t seem to be able to log on to that new platform. You know, the one we’re meant to have sent through all our predictions on?’
‘And you want me to come and show you?’
‘Well, it’s just?—’
‘Here.’ Drew lifted himself off his seat and stepped back, clearing the pathway to his desk and computer. ‘I’m already logged on. Just fill in your numbers on mine, and I’ll sort the rest out.’ He had learned over the years that it was easier to let Barry have five minutes at his computer than try and work out how the heck he had messed up the system on his again.
‘Thanks boss.’
‘No problem. And I’m not your boss. I’m just a junior supervisor.’
Two minutes later, Drew shuddered as he snuck a glance over Barry’s shoulder while he tapped away at the screen. Already, Barry had managed to close two windows, open a dozen different tabs, and was about to open a game of solitaire.
‘Why don’t you just send your numbers to me in an email? I can input them for you.’
‘No, no,’ Barry continued to flash up one screen and then another. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’
Gritting his teeth, Drew stared out the office window that overlooked the dozen or so cubicles and tried not to think about how long he was going to have to spend sorting out whatever Barry had done. Or all the jobs that awaited him at home. He still had to put Eva’s new toddler bed together so the baby could take her cot. Sarah was a thousand times better at those types of things than he was, particularly when it came to making sense of page after page of ridiculous instructions that all these things came with. Perhaps he would see if she wanted to put the bed together instead, but then again, judging by the mood she’d been in lately, perhaps he was better off doing it himself.
Only when a hand went up in front of the glass window did Drew realise he had been staring at the same point throughout the whole of his internal monologue.
‘Morning,’ Polly mouthed from the other side of the glass.
Flushed, Drew raised his hand for a half-wave before hurriedly looking away.
Polly was one of three graduate interns at the company. Rumours had been rife that her position had been gained merely because her uncle was on The Board, but if there was any preferential treatment going on upstairs, Drew had seen no evidence of it. And there was certainly nothing about her work to give cause for complaint. It had only been a short time, but she was already far more on the ball than Barry. Besides, from what he had seen, her uncle, Casper Horton, didn’t give preferential treatment to anyone.
‘Men only say things like that when women are attractive,’ Sarah had responded when Drew had first told her of the interest around his new intern. ‘They can’t possibly believe a woman can be both highly intelligent and highly attractive.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Well, is she?’
‘Is she what?’
‘Attractive?’
Drew had waved his head a little from side to side in a decidedly non-committal manner. ‘Possibly.’
‘See,’ Sarah had replied. ‘My point exactly. It would be so much easier for you men if intelligent women came packaged in frumpy tweed skirts and glasses.’
Slipping his hands around her waist, Drew had pulled Sarah in towards him.
‘You’re intelligent, and you’re attractive.’ He’d begun to nuzzle his nose into her neck, with thoughts of nuzzling other places coming to mind. ‘Besides. I think you’d look good in a tweed skirt and glasses. My sexy secretary.’
His lips had barely made contact with skin when she pushed him away.
‘Really! That’s really how you’re going to objectify me?’ She had stepped back and placed her hands on her hips. ‘I have jobs to do, and so have you. The nappy bin hasn’t been changed all week, and I need you to get all of George’s old clothes out of the loft. I want to see if Eva fits into any of them now.’
Drew’s arms had fallen to his sides in defeat. ‘Oh, the glamour.’
‘Thanks for that. I’m all done.’ Barry’s voice once again brought Drew back from his thoughts and into the office. ‘Although, there’s something going on with your screen. It appears to be flashing.’
Clenching his teeth as he forced a smile-cum-grimace on to his face, Drew nudged Barry out of his seat.
‘No worries,’ he sighed, wondering what Barry had managed to screw up now.
Barry smiled gratefully before stopping at the door. ‘So, you coming for lunch?’ he asked.
Monday’s lunchtime fry-up had been a tradition at the Home Crew office for years. Thoughts of crispy bacon and fat sausages were the only thing that made getting out of bed on a Monday morning almost bearable. By the time twelve o’clock came around, Drew would be salivating ravenously.
‘I’ll meet you there,’ Drew said to Barry as he watched the rest of the staff heading for the door. ‘I just need to get some money out first.’
Having given up trying to fix the computer almost immediately, Drew left the building and turned right as he made the short walk up the road toward the ATM.
Dreaming of hash browns and fried mushrooms, Drew slipped his card into the machine. After a quick hesitation, he checked the balance then blinked repeatedly at the number on the screen. It was only the sixth of the month, he thought, checking his watch to make sure he hadn’t unknowingly fallen into a coma for a fortnight. How could so much money have gone already? He took a moment to do a quick scan of purchases in his head. There were the new shoes that George had needed, and Sarah’s car had had to go in for a service. They’d also taken his mother out for her birthday. But could those things really have made such a dent? Feeling decidedly less hungry, he selected a small amount of cash, took back his card, and headed over to the greasy spoon.
The rest of them had taken over their normal table in the corner where the waiter was already taking their orders.
‘Just in time,’ Barry said as Drew pulled out a chair and took his place. ‘I ordered you a full English and an Americano.’
Drew glanced at the menu on the table. The place was good value, with a full fry up for a tenner. And while it didn’t quite reach the standard of legendary , as was written in several places on the menu, it was damn good. Normally, he didn’t think about the cost. Ten pounds was hardly a lot to spend on lunch, especially when it was only once a week. However, if you took into account the bank balance he had just seen, it was a lot of money. Particularly with over three weeks to go until their next payday. He could just imagine Sarah’s face when she found out how much he’d spent on one meal for himself.
‘Actually,’ he grabbed the waiter’s attention before he could leave. ‘Could you swap one of those full Englishes for a bacon sandwich?’
‘Course, no problem.’
‘What?’ Barry looked at him with disgust. ‘Are you wimping out on me?’
‘I’m just not that hungry. I had a big breakfast with the kids this morning,’ he lied.
‘But we always have a fry up.’
‘Next time. Really. I just don’t think I could eat it.’
‘Well, don’t try stealing any of my hash browns,’ someone else around the table said.
Drew forced out a laugh. He was going to have to come up with another excuse for next week’s outing.