Page 1 of Her Fixer Upper

ChapterOne

‘This isn’t an all-inclusive resort, you know,’ barked the dinner supervisor as she caught me attempting to smuggle a couple of extra bread rolls into my handbag from the stack at the end of the counter.

‘They’re for a lesson on the Irish famine.’ I attempted to style it out, painfully aware that our exchange was attracting the attention of a gaggle of sniggering Year Eleven boys. I’d never live it down if they found out that this was a particularly pathetic attempt at economising as part of my mission to boost the funds in my savings account, which was optimistically labelled ‘House deposit’. The introduction of free meals for teachers had been the school’s way of compensating us for the fact that we’d not had a pay rise in three years. Naturally, we’d all have preferred the pay rise, but if free food was on offer, I was determined to make the most of it. Unfortunately, it seemed that the dinner supervisor had other ideas.

She looked back at me, the withering expression in her eyes enough to make the boldest sixth former want their mum. When she was certain that I was pinned to the spot by her gaze, she glanced across at the counter, making it clear what she wanted me to do.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered, putting the bread rolls back, and scurrying away to the teachers’ table at the far end of the canteen, the laugher of the Year Elevens following me across the room.

‘Surely living on stale bread from school isn’t going to make that much difference to you getting on the property ladder, Freya?’ said Leila, grinning at my sheepish expression as I sat down opposite her.

I tried to signal to my work bestie to stop, but it was already too late. Her comment had been overheard by my head of department, Mr Rhys, a man who had an opinion on absolutely everything and liked to give it, even if he hadn’t been asked. When he was around, I lived in a confusing state of fear and irritation, which didn’t exactly make for a relaxing working environment.

‘Still struggling to buy a place, Miss Hutchinson?’ he said, the words muffled by the cottage pie which he was chewing. ‘Perhaps if you gave up the avocado toast and fancy coffees you wouldn’t find it such a challenge. Young people these days have all their priorities wrong. I was onto my second property by the time I was your age.’ He shook his fork in my direction as he emphasised his point, bits of half-chewed mince dropping from his mouth onto the table as he spoke.

I fought so hard to stop my eyes rolling at his comment that they went watery. Had he seen house prices nowadays? By my calculations, it would take me approximately twenty-seven years of no coffees to get a deposit together by that means alone, by which time, of course, the goalposts would have changed again. And had he any idea how difficult it was saving anything at all when most of my wages went on overpriced rent and bills?

‘I’m allergic to avocados,’ I said in lieu of the angry speech I was too cowardly to deliver.

‘How’s your wife, Mr Rhys? And her family? They own that soft furnishings chain, don’t they?’ said Leila, sending the ghost of a wink in my direction.

‘She’s very well, thank you for asking,’ replied my boss, apparently unable to put two and two together to realise that the main reason he’d been onto his second property at the same stage in life as me was because he’d married an heiress. He then went on to tell us in great detail about his latest trip to the holiday home they owned on the coast. It seemed spectacularly unfair that some people had more than one property when I was still struggling to graduate beyond a rented room in a shared house.

I concentrated hard on my food so I didn’t say something I’d regret later. Overbearing as my boss was, I had to keep him on side. He kept dropping hints about creating a new role of Deputy Head of Department, a position I sometimes let myself daydream about in more confident moments. I probably didn’t stand a chance of getting it, but it would be good to have the recognition of my hard work, and the very modest pay rise which would go along with the title.

Mr Rhys carried on pontificating about his favourite theme of the falling standards of youth as he moved onto his second course of jelly and ice cream, both of which were such lurid colours that it didn’t bode well for the hyperactivity levels of our pupils this afternoon. Then at last he finished his meal and went off to supervise detention, leaving Leila and me with the table to ourselves.

‘I thought you were going to pour your water over his head when he started going on about “young people these day”,’ said Leila with a laugh. ‘Does he realise that he’s a walking, talking cliché?’

‘He’s never been particularly good at reading between the lines. He genuinely thinks it’s as easy as going to a mortgage adviser, asking for a loan, then collecting the keys of your dream home, whereas the last appointment I had, the guy struggled to keep a straight face while he was reviewing my application. Apparently I’m a “risk”. Never mind that I pay nearly twice in rent what I would on a mortgage, my lack of a megabucks deposit means that they don’t think I could afford one. It’s so frustrating. I spend all my time urging the kids to dream big, and telling them that if they work hard, they can achieve whatever they want. But I’m beginning to feel like I’m lying to them.’

‘You’ll get there one day,’ said Leila, unconvincingly.

‘Yes, but will it be before it’s time for me to move into a care home? That’s the real question. I swear every time I search on Rightmove, they add another zero on the end of the prices. I’m just grateful the school Wi-Fi won’t let me on the site anymore as it’s getting too depressing for words.’

Leila scraped some of her excess chips onto my plate.

‘Have these to cheer you up. You know what you need? Something to take your mind off it all. When it’s meant to be, it will happen, trust me. And in the meantime, why don’t you allow yourself to have some fun and join me and the gang for the pub quiz tonight? We’re celebrating surviving the first week back.’

I ate one of the chips and winced at the amount of vinegar Leila had doused it in.

‘I really shouldn’t,’ I said, the smug mortgage adviser’s face appearing before me as I remembered how high his eyebrows had risen as he’d read through my bank statements. It had been humiliating having to justify every tiny transaction, and he’d not even cracked a smile when I’d hastily explained that some money which Leila had transferred to me under the jokey reference ‘Hookers and poor decisions’ had actually been dosh she owed me for a Boxercise class we’d mistakenly signed up for. He had strongly implied that I needed to rein in my spending still further, which was going to be tough given that I spent most of my life behaving like a miserly hermit. But if I kept on turning down invitations to social events, people would eventually stop issuing them. I couldn’t sacrifice everything in my life for a potentially unattainable dream.

Leila caught the note of hesitancy in my voice. ‘Come on, it’ll do you good to get out. And it’s a decent prize – a free meal – so it’s practically an investment. Besides, we could do with your expertise on the team. We’re got music and sport covered, but your general trivia knowledge will be a great help.’

‘And there was me thinking it was my company you were after.’ I laughed. ‘Go on then, anything to delay returning to my current hovel. The pub will be heated, right?’

‘Tell me you’re not rationing the heating too? I know it costs a bloody fortune and you might as well be burning actual money for warmth, but it was minus two this morning, Freya. You’ll only make yourself ill if you don’t put it on.’

I sighed. ‘For once, this wasn’t my decision. Our landlord has the thermostat in his part of the house, and he’s seemingly completely impervious to the cold. He wandered into the kitchen the other morning dressed only in shorts and asked why the rest of us all had three jumpers on apiece. I’m seriously considering starting to wear a woolly hat indoors.’

Leila pulled a face. ‘I imagine semi-naked Steve was enough to put everyone off their breakfast.’ She checked her watch. ‘Right, I’m going to have to love you and leave you. The Year Seven netball tournament is calling. Pray for me. See you at The Taps later.’

I had my own challenge to face in the form of the Year Nine boys, who’d clearly all been given cans of extremely pungent body spray for Christmas and had applied it liberally. I made a mental note to warn my colleagues in the Chemistry department. If they lit a Bunsen burner around these lads, the whole school would be going up in smoke. The boys were in their usual ebullient mood, sniggering at in-jokes and trying to wind me up by moving their desks forward an inch every time I turned my back on them to write on the whiteboard. I pretended to be oblivious of their tricks and distracted them with a lively discussion on women’s suffrage. When the bell eventually rang to mark the end of the day, there were several more Emmeline Pankhurst fans in the room, but I was exhausted from the effort and fantasising about collapsing in a heap in a darkened room.

Leila caught me trying to sneak from the staff room to the bicycle racks so I could ride straight home.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said. ‘All work and no play makes Freya’s friends sad for her. Come on. You’ll feel better once we’ve beaten the team from the posh PR firm down the road. I swear I spotted them using Google at the last quiz. It’s time they faced their comeuppance.’

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