Page 7 of The Art of Loving You

‘I see the work you do here, with the kids.’

After the local youth centre had closed down because of cutbacks, Jack had noticed an increase in crime – petty vandalism, fights breaking out. Gangs of hooded youths had hung around the car park, frightening his students. Leaving late one night he had exited the building to the pungent tang of aerosol. A boy had been spraying the wall with an intricate pattern.

I had flinched when Jack had told me he’d clapped him on the shoulder; I’d felt Jack was putting himself at risk. ‘You’re really talented,’ Jack had told the boy before he could react.

‘Yeah, gotta talent for trouble, me mum says.’

‘No. Really. The lines. The colours. Why don’t you come back tomorrow and show me what you can do on a canvas?’

‘Nah.’ The boy had shrugged. ‘Ain’t got no money.’

‘I’m not asking for any. See you at four.’ Jack had headed back to his car without waiting for an answer. He told me the less talking it through, the more chance the boy had of coming back the next day.

And he did. Liam he was called. He was fifteen then. Soon he brought a friend, two, three.

Jack had taken on an assistant, Faith – an ex-secondary school art teacher who had despaired about the creative cuts to the curriculum. With the extra help, Jack was in a position to apply for grants and offer free classes for the kids in the area, and over time they had built in popularity. Jack had told me that Aarav, the police community support officer, had called in to the studio and told Jack that crime on the estate had reduced; it hadn’t stopped completely, but still it was a smidgen of hope that despite the bleak picture the tabloids painted of broken Britain – the stabbings, the swell of hopelessness – that things could be improved with kindness, love.

With time.

‘So.’ Sid had coughed the cough of a lifelong smoker and we waited while he composed himself and carried on. ‘I’ve got this house that I can’t manage. It’s a performance to climb the stairs to the first floor, let alone the second. There’s outbuildings too. You could run retreats. Art holidays. Take kids from further afield. Those that ain’t never seen the countryside. The cows and the sheep.’

‘But …’ Jack glanced at me. I knew he was trying to find the right words to let Sid down gently.

‘I’m going into a home. Can’t manage any more. You could take the house, and …’ His vicious cough chopped his sentence in two. He popped a Polo mint out of his jacket pocket and began to suck.

My mind hopped from thought to thought while we waited for him to carry on. He couldn’t be giving us a house, surely? That sort of thing only happened in movies or books, a legacy from a long-lost relative or a gift from an anonymous benefactor, and it had me rolling my eyes each time.

If only that ever happened in real life.

But no. Sid explained, ‘I can’t just give you the house which is daft because I ain’t got no family since Norma passed and the bloody thing is mine. I’ve seen a solicitor and ’cos I’m moving into a home there’s rules and stuff. I’ve got to pay for me own care, but there’s a way for you to buy it on the cheap, all legal like. It needs a bit of tarting up, mind.’

Jack looked elated and crestfallen all at once. ‘Sid, the funding we’ve got, it wouldn’t stretch to renovations. Besides, there’s strict rules about what I can spend it on. I have to account for every penny.’

‘Don’t fret. I can put some money into a trust to help you out.Me and Norma were never blessed with kids to spoil so I ain’t short of a bob or two. Earned a decent wage as an engineer – got a generous pension too.’ Sid’s nicotine-stained fingers had strayed to his chin, scratching his nails against his grey bristles. ‘You’re a good lad, Jack. If I’d had a son, a grandson, I’d hope he’d be like you.’

Jack covered his heart with his hand. Our eyes met. I knew we were both thinking the same thing, wanting the same thing. Wishing that Sid was our family, that the house could be ours.

And now it was.

‘Weshouldtoast,’ Jack replied to Alice. ‘But not today. We don’t have any champagne. Libby hasn’t felt well and hasn’t been drinking and—’

‘I haven’t been drinking either.’ Alice sank down onto the bed, the mattress sagging under her weight, springs sighing. ‘I’m pregnant.’

For a moment there was silence before I spluttered, ‘But … how? Who? When?’

‘The how you should know. The who doesn’t matter. I’m due around 6 November according to Google. I … I think I’m pleased. I think …’ Her voice trembled. ‘Be happy for me, Libs. I can’t do this without you.’

It was hard to believe my little sister, my single sister, was going to have a baby. I felt many things in that moment. Sadness that she was doing it alone, worry she was only twenty-four, excitement I was going to be an auntie and, if I’m brutally honest, a twang of envy that she was doing it before me.

‘Does Mum know?’ I asked Alice.

‘Christ no.’

I wasn’t surprised Alice had told me before Mum, she was a flapper. Not in a stylish 1920s type of way but a worrier. No matter what the situation, she always seemed to know someone who had experienced the same, with disastrous results.

Nobody spoke, the atmosphere sombre until Jack clapped his hands together lifting the mood. ‘Right. This is cause for a celebration. A baby! I’m going to be an uncle. Bags I buy him his first paint set.’ Unlike Mum, Jack could always find the sunshine through the clouds. ‘I’m going to nip out and get us something fizzy. I can’t promise champagne but prosecco? You can both have a small glass can’t you?’

‘Absolutely.’ My throat was raw and the last thing I felt like was alcohol but Alice looked so young, so unsure. I wanted to prove to her that I was on her side. That if she was happy, then so was I. ‘Can you pick up a box of Lemsip too while you’re out?’

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