Page 8 of Knowing You
‘I scratched my ex’s car with my favourite screwdriver. Something I like to think I wouldn’t do now. He had the audacity to call the police,’ says Pauline. ‘I got on very well with the officer. We got chatting… that’s when I applied for a job in the force.’
‘Something good will come out of this too, sweetheart,’ says Kath. ‘I dated a doctor once. It turned out he was married. To get over him, I decided I needed a change of direction. That’s how I became interested in mental health and eventually specialised and became a senior nurse in that area.’
I smile at everyone. For the first time since Lenny and I broke up, I feel as if a dense fog of despair is thinning. That’s one of the reasons I like friends from an older generation. They give you perspective. A number of years from now and hopefully I’d hardly remember Lenny.
I go to the bar and buy another round of drinks, determined to make the most of the rest of the meeting. Arms linked, the four of us eventually walk back to the retirement home, exhausting our memories of previous romances. My first love was an assistant manager at the local bookshop where I had a Saturday job. It was then that I realised the most attractive thing about a man was the width of his reading list.
As we arrive back, Hugo pulls into the drive. His gran lives there too, and now and again our paths cross. A week after Lenny left, I still hadn’t mentioned the break-up at work. Then Hugo left for his annual two week skiing trip.
‘How was the snow? Not as slushy as here I hope,’ I say after greeting his gran. She goes over to the others and in minute detail describes the lamb shank Hugo bought her for lunch.
‘Fantastic,’ he says and looks me up and down. ‘But it’s you who looks like they’ve been on the slopes. I didn’t know you were on a diet. Which one are you following? The 5:2? Or the South Beach? Whichever one it is, you look great.’
Diet? Hardly, but over the last week or so, both Kath and Farah have said I look drawn. I believed them. I can’t sleep at night because I’m over-analysing where Lenny and I went wrong.
Hugo’s the first person to indicate that the single life suits me after all. I look down. My trousers do seem a bit baggy and now I think about it, the waist slips from side to side in a way it never had before. If anything, surely I look a bit of a mess? Yet for some reason, along with my friends’ camaraderie, Hugo’s comment makes me feel just a bit more resilient.
2001
We leave the park and get home before Mum, so Uncle Kevin and I play cards.
‘Oh no. Not again!’ Uncle Kevin shoots me a smile and holds his head in his hands.
I’ve won. I don’t know how. His maths is much better than mine. Lately, I’ve got the feeling he’s playing badly on purpose.
‘Don’t forget to take a pack of cards with you, Uncle Kevin. Your new friends might want to play.’
He gives my arm a squeeze.
‘It’s been a strange summer,’ I say.
‘Nothing wrong with strange.’ He smiles. ‘Sometimes that means exciting.’
Our tower block is being knocked down. I guess that might be exciting to watch. It was built in the olden days, when Mum was little. After another caught fire last year, it was decided that ours is too dangerous to live in. Mum says every cloud has a silver lining. It was a chance to move nearer to Uncle Kevin. She found another job waitressing. I said goodbye to my friends six weeks ago, at the beginning of the holidays – bad timing. Uncle Kevin picked us up in his shiny car and helped us move into our new ground floor flat. Really, it’s the bottom half of a small house with a garden to play in.
But then a few days after we moved, our cloud ran out of silver. Uncle Kevin got headhunted. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Makes me think of my favourite Horrid Henry story about cannibals. It means he got offered a job in America, the place where people eat bacon with pancakes, do cheerleading and own guns. He was going to say no – family was more important – but Mum told him not to be silly. It wouldn’t be forever. She’d wanted a fresh start anyway.
So he took it and promised to come home as often as he could, starting with Christmas. Uncle Kevin said we should move into his house. With his new job, he could afford to keep paying for thatanda new place abroad. But Mum got quite cross. She doesn’t like to take things for nothing. So theycame to a compromise– those are four of Mum’s favourite words. He’s selling his house but Mum accepted his car, huge telly and new freezer, like she’s sometimes accepted holidays when he’s taken us to Cornwall.
I tried to hide my upset but I think Uncle Kevin noticed because I came home from holiday club one day and he’d bought me a striped cat called Tinker. He got him from a place called the Cats Prevention Leak. Mum says I am old enough to look after something other than myself now. It is my job to give Tinker his biscuits and wipe his paws when he comes in from the garden if he’s been covering up his wee. I promise Tinker will have the cleanest feet ever. I enjoy keeping things neat and tidy, like my room. Uncle Kevin says I must be the only child that does and teases me.
‘Are you scared about starting something new?’ I ask and stare at the scattered cards.
‘I can’t decide whether the feeling is fear or excitement. It’s in the pit of my stomach. Sometimes it feels like water bubbles bursting and sometimes like heavy bowling balls dragging me down.’
‘That’s how I feel about tomorrow. I can’t wait to see the school library, but then what if no one wants to get to know me?’
Not that I had loads of friends at my old school. And that didn’t bother me. As long as I had my books, Mum and Uncle Kevin, I was happy. But it’s nice to have someone to talk to at break. To sit next to in class. Someone to pull faces with when the lesson gets boring. Someone to have around to play and eat chips with in front of the telly, if Mum’s in a good mood. And I had all of that in my old group of school friends. I was the quietest, but no one minded, apart from Lucy, the loudest. She said I should read less and concentrate on words that are spoken instead of printed.
Uncle Kevin leans across the table and takes both my hands. ‘You will make friends, Violet. You’re such a kind, caring person. Just give it time.’ He says a few other things. I don’t always understand what he means but there are three things he’s drilled into me. To be myself, work hard and be kind.
Would a dad make me feel better like this? I’ll never know because mine has never been around.
‘I’m sorry to leave after you and your mum moved near,’ he says and lets go of my fingers.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ I say. ‘I’ve liked you, Mum and me always being a three. It’s meant I don’t miss having a dad. We feel like a family.’
He reaches across and gives me a big hug. I must be brave. It wouldn’t be fair to Uncle Kevin to let him see me cry.
