Page 32 of Her Fixer Upper

‘I don’t think the list is the issue here, Charlie,’ I said, walking away from him, disappointed that he couldn’t see it for himself.

I settled myself down at the front steps, levered up the crumbling slabs and scraped away the dirt and detritus that lay under them. Once I had created a smooth, clean surface I turned my attention back to the slabs, trying to work out which ones were salvageable. When I was part-way through mixing some cement to fix them back in position, Charlie hove back into view and cleared his throat to get my attention.

‘You’re looking sheepish,’ I said, as I glanced up. ‘You’ve got that expression on your face that used to appear when you pretended there was no chocolate left, but you’d actually stuffed the last piece in your mouth.’

‘I could have my moments of being a selfish little so-and-so,’ he said, with a wry grin. ‘But unfortunately, perhaps I haven’t changed as much as I thought I had.’

I rested on my haunches, and waited for him to continue.

‘I’ve come to apologise,’ he said. ‘You’re right, the list isn’t the issue. We’re house partners, emphasis on the word ‘partner’. My books are still packed up in boxes, but I don’t need my dictionary to know what that word means. We should be equals in this enterprise we’ve undertaken, and yet I’m falling into the habit of letting you bear the bulk of the burden by making you tell me what to do. I’m here to say that I’ve seen the error of my ways. I don’t need your lists, Freya, and I don’t want you to feel that you have to create them. We’re in this together, and I promise that from now on, I will take the initiative and try harder. Although I can’t promise that my efforts will be as successful as yours.’

‘As long as we’re both pulling our weight, that’s all that matters,’ I said. He was talking the talk, but I would reserve judgment until he followed through.

‘As per The Rules,’ added Charlie, with a grin. ‘Now let me have a go at finishing mixing that cement while you have a break. No point in you returning completely exhausted to face the kids at school. At least if I have to take a power nap during my working day, nobody is going to call me out on it.’

Between us, we spent the rest of the day working on the steps. And when I went to bed that night, I found a handwritten note on my pillow, a copy of the list of work that Charlie had compiled for himself. There was a smiley face at the bottom of it, and a rough sketch of a man and a woman juggling a bunch of work tools between them. I rolled my eyes at the childish image and scrunched the paper up, ready to throw it into the recycling. But something made me hesitate, and I found myself smoothing the paper out again and sticking it between the pages of my book.

* * *

The next morning, I experienced a pang of house separation anxiety while I was getting myself ready for work.

‘Do you need some help fixing a packed lunch?’ said Charlie as I whizzed around the kitchen, trying to avoid touching any of the surfaces now I was wearing my work clothes. It felt weird to be back in my trouser suit instead of my renovation uniform of ancient dungarees and a scarf wrapped around my hair.

‘Kind of you to ask, but I get lunch courtesy of school. Perk of the job. And if I was doing a packed lunch, I would definitely have made it last night.’

‘Of course you would have, Little Miss Organised. Well, have a good day at work, dear, and I’ll see you later,’ said Charlie, putting on the clipped tones of a posh 1950s housewife.

‘Thank you, I’ll look forward to my tea waiting for me on the table when I get in,’ I said, pretending to adjust an invisible tie. Then I dropped the act. ‘Seriously though, Charlie, are you sure you’re going to be okay working from here today? I know it’s your first day back with your normal workload, and it’s not exactly going to be a comfortable working environment. We’ve got humane mousetraps all over the place, and it’s still more like camping than anything else. Do you think you might be better off going to the local library?’

Charlie tapped the dongle which was now supplying us with broadband. ‘Have Wi-Fi, can work. Besides, why would I go elsewhere when I have a home of my own to work from?’

‘But there’s no electricity, and only a camping chair for you to sit in.’

‘Ah, but I have a power pack, and the camping chair is perfect for what I’ve got planned. I thought I’d sit out in the garden for a bit, make the most of the daylight. Lovely day for it.’

I peered out of the window. ‘Hmm, the weather looks a bit dubious for that. And I know it’s technically the summer term now, but I’m not sure the temperature has got the message about that.’

‘You worry too much, I’ll be fine.’ He checked his watch. ‘And hadn’t you better run? The bus is due in less than ten minutes, which I know in Freya-time means that you’re running late. Have a lovely day at school, and I’ll see you later.’

* * *

It was good to be back at work, talking to people about topics other than renovation tasks, and doing nothing more physically strenuous than standing at the front of my classroom and writing on the whiteboard. But between lessons, my thoughts kept on drifting back to Oak Tree Cottage, wondering how Charlie was feeling being there by himself and whether he was managing to get the work done that he wanted to. And when, just after midday, the heavens opened, it wasn’t just Charlie’s work that I was worrying about. Despite it being April, a month notorious for showers, it was the first time it had actually rained since we moved in. The surveyor’s report had claimed the roof was mostly sound, but what if it wasn’t? I couldn’t bear the thought of water pouring in, messing up the bathroom which I’d spent so many hours cleaning, and destroying all the tools and equipment we had in the house. And the space that used to be a window in my bedroom was still covered by nothing more substantial than cardboard, which would probably be turning to mush in this weather. I had visions of the rain moving in sideways, destroying the cardboard and then soaking its way through the floorboards down into the living room, seeping into the boxes of my worldly possessions that were lined up in there.

As my Year Nines settled into reading the next chapter of their textbook, I surreptitiously texted Charlie from under my desk, needing some reassurance that Oak Tree Cottage wasn’t falling down around his head. But no reply came, and I couldn’t even tell if he’d read the message. I told myself that he was probably busy doing his day job, but I couldn’t help worrying there was some deeper meaning behind his failure to reply, my overactive imagination telling me that the house was flooding, or, worse, that the ceiling had fallen in, leaving Charlie trapped in the wreckage. I knew I was being ridiculous, jumping to conclusions and being paranoid, but his radio silence did concern me. It wasn’t like he was obliged to reply to me, but he was normally very good at communicating, even if it was in the form of silly gifs and memes that he thought I’d find funny. This delay in response wasn’t like him, and it fuelled my niggling anxiety that something awful had occurred.

When the bell rang for breaktime, I decided to make a beeline for the staffroom so I could phone him, but Mr Rhys pounced on me as soon as I emerged from my classroom.

‘Miss Hutchinson, can we have a little chat?’

‘Umm, right now?’ I said, still itching to call Charlie for a status check. Normally I wouldn’t dare cross Mr Rhys, but by now I was imagining the whole house in rubble, Charlie pinioned beneath a ceiling joist, desperately calling for help but nobody hearing his cries. The last thing I wanted to do was have to negotiate a challenging conversation with my boss. Nothing good ever came out of an invitation for a ‘little chat’.

‘Yes, of course right now. Do you have anywhere else you should be?’ He frowned at me in a manner that would normally have me bracing myself in trepidation, if my anxiety levels weren’t already peaking because of my worries about Charlie and the house.

‘No, of course not,’ I said, pulling myself together with some effort. ‘Sorry, how can I help?’

It turned out that Mr Rhys’s urgent need for a chat was to make the surprise announcement that he was planning to take early retirement at the end of the next school year. Not only that, he informed me that he was telling me this before everyone else so I’d have more time to put in an application for the job he would be leaving. I gaped in astonishment. I had barely allowed myself to dream about becoming a Deputy Head of Department, let alone the actual Head of History. And for Mr Rhys to be suggesting it to me was an even more unexpected turn of events.

‘I think you’d stand a good chance, Miss Hutchinson,’ he said. I experienced a warm glow of pride at the unexpected praise. Maybe all my hard work hadn’t gone unnoticed after all. Maybe I really was good enough to go for the job. ‘After all, given that you have significantly less experience than me, your wage expectations would be much lower and you’d be better value for the school,’ he added, immediately crushing the seedling of hope that had started to sprout.

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