Chances. Freya North
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thought, If she’s reading a bloody book – if she’s reading a bloody bloody book . . .
His business philosophy was that his shop, That Shop, needed to make money, notwithstanding the average item price being around £10. Vita’s personal philosophy was that her shop, That Shop, should simply be somewhere people loved to go, to be heartened by lovely things.
She is bloody reading a bloody book.
‘Hi.’
Tim jerks his head at her book and raises an eyebrow.
‘Robinson Crusoe,’ Vita says, as if it vindicates any objection. ‘I read this fantastic novel about a young girl who was obsessed with Robinson Crusoe – so when I finished it, I started this straight away. Have you read it? I can’t believe I hadn’t.’
I’m gabbling. Still nervous around him – madness. ‘It’s a classic. Did you know Daniel Defoe is credited with inventing the novel? I even wonder whether “cruise” comes from “Crusoe”.’
‘This isn’t a desert island, Vita, it’s a deserted shop.’
He approaches the till and prints off a balance. ‘Christ alive.’
‘I know,’ Vita says gravely, ‘it’s been slow.’
‘I saw that mad old woman coming out,’ he says.
‘I don’t think she’s mad – just, you know, eccentric.’
‘She’s a thief, that’s what she is,’ Tim says. ‘Watch her like a hawk.’ He had caught the woman shoplifting last Easter. A small papier mâché rabbit. Not expensive – but a key seller at a time when they were shifting loads. He’d made her put it back. He’d done it tactfully and authoritatively. As though he was talking to a child. Vita hadn’t liked that at all. It was just a little Easter bunny.
She won’t be doing that again, he’d said to Vita.
Just now, Vita muses how it wouldn’t cross Tim’s mind that the old lady had been doing precisely that, on a regular basis, ever since. With Vita’s unspoken blessing.
She glances at Tim. Experiences a pang. Wonders how that could be, after so long. After everything.
‘Hey, Tim.’ It isn’t a question and, though she says it softly, she knows she shouldn’t have said it at all. He just looks at her. There’s nothing behind his eyes. It’s the neutrality that hurts the most.
When did he buy that new shirt? It suits him, it suits his dark grey eyes, his close-cropped hair the colour of slate.
‘Be in touch,’ he says as he leaves.
He doesn’t look back.
Tim is someone who never looks back.
Six years together, now heading towards a year since she left him. Vita looks at her watch and reprimands herself for having spent a daft amount of time lost in pointless reflection. She could have been reading. Or tidying. Or engaging with customers. Now look at the time. Sorry, Robinson, school’s out and the kids will soon descend, with their exasperated mums killing time to interrupt the drag of the remainder of the day. It’s Monday, though, and good for trade usually, on account of pocket money left over from the weekend.
She slips off the stool and goes to the store cupboard at the back of the shop, which is only slightly larger than the loo. She takes out a plastic antelope and a couple of other items and carries them back into the shop. Then she writes herself a Post-it note, sticking it next to the hook on which her jacket is hanging.
Order gorillas and lions.
Think Robinson, not Tim.
Oliver and Jonty
Oliver was washing up. He’d spilled water on himself and on the floor. His shirt had been clean and now the floor was dirty. The water was too hot and his hands were red. He needed a new washing-up sponge. There was no more room on the draining board. He’d used too much Fairy but as he still hadn’t fixed the cold tap it meant the water spurted everywhere each time he rinsed something. To the right of him, the dishwasher stood empty. Top-of-the-range, still under its extended guarantee. Unused for nearly three years. His wife had loved that appliance more than any of the others.
‘I could live without TV,’ she’d said, ‘I don’t mind laundrettes. But the dishwasher? I’d sell myself, rather than part with it – it’s the apotheosis of modern invention.’
He thought about that now; how only DeeDee could refer to something as dull as a dishwasher as the Apotheosis of Modern Invention. He thought about how she liked to say she didn’t have ‘hands that do dishes’. Not from any pomposity but because her hands really had been slender and soft – pale, silky, protected. She rubbed cream in as though it was a ritual. Tubes of the stuff remained. They were still there, on windowsill and bedside table, by the basin, by the phone near the front door. Some were scented with lavender, some with rose. Some were formulated for Norwegian fishermen. One was for babies’ bottoms. It was called Butt Butter. Her cousin in the States used to send it at regular intervals. This was the last tub. Oliver looked at his hands, redder by the minute. He should have taken his watch off.
Of all the things to miss, it was the simple sight of a meticulously stacked dishwasher he longed for most these days. And yet, it had been one thing that had wound them both up at the time. DeeDee hated him stacking it because she said he didn’t do it properly. She’d physically shove him out of the way, complaining how he didn’t maximize space the way she did, even accusing him of doing this on purpose (which was true). He’d hated her tutting and huffs and the exasperation written all over her face. It had made him sling stuff in on purpose. Put a mug in the wrong way up so that it filled with the sedimenty water. How ridiculous had that been? Both of them. Life’s way too short to fall out over a stupid dishwasher.
He’d called her a fucking control freak once. She’d gone stony cold and had said, I’m doing it for us – it’s the way I keep our home and if you want to make a mockery of that you can fuck off yourself. He’d said, Stop being so bloody melodramatic. Jonty, who had been about eight or nine, had said, What’s melon-traumatic? And she’d said, Mel-o-dramatic, darling, it’s nothing, just a silly word for a silly thing. So gently, so sweetly, so patiently that this had wound up Oliver even more. He’d stropped off to the pub. And later, when guilt had made him leave before closing time and he’d returned and unloaded the dishwasher, he’d had to concede how well she’d restacked it. One beer too many had made him annoyed that she could be right over something so trivial, exasperated that her natural fastidiousness, the high standards she placed on family and home and perfection, necessitated this crazy rigidity to maintain them.
That night long ago – when was it? – if Jonty had been nine-ish, it must have been a good five years ago. The dishwasher before this one. That night, back then, Oliver had slept in the spare room. And DeeDee had crept in during the small hours. And they’d shuffled closer and closer together, cuddling and kissing and pressing and offering silent apologies. Jonty had gone into their empty bedroom in the morning and wondered whether aliens had abducted his parents.
DeeDee would die if she saw the state of the house now. Or, rather, she’d die again.
Today, Oliver can still feel the muddle of conflicting emotions – like washing up with water so hot it feels cold. He likes to justify that, these days, it’s environmentally irresponsible to use a dishwasher. Especially since there’s only him and Jonty. And mostly they eat takeaways direct from the tubs. And the food they cook at other times rarely requires many utensils. Just plates, really, for pizza or cold cuts or beans on toast. They often don’t bother with knives. They use their forks – to spear, to scoop, to sever. They go through an industrial quantity of teaspoons each day.
‘Remember how Mum used to always lay the table? Including a spoon for pudding even though she invariably said, Help yourselves to fresh fruit?’
‘Yeah,’ says Jonty.