The Mistake I Made Read online

  ‘For free,’ I mirrored flatly. ‘That sounds just like Winston. Look, Dylis, if he gets back in the next five minutes, can you get him to run and pick up George for me? I’m late.’

  ‘But it’s not our turn to have him,’ she said, confused, and I could hear her flicking through pages; must have been the pages of her diary.

  ‘It’s not your weekend to have him,’ I explained, ‘but I’m very late. And it would really help if you could locate Winston and—’

  ‘Ticket, Roz,’ came a voice from behind.

  With the phone lodged against my ear, I turned, withdrawing a note from my wallet and handing it over. ‘I need a new book, Terry,’ I whispered to the aged attendant. ‘I used my last ticket this morning.’

  We made the exchange, Terry being a man of few words, and I went back to explaining the situation to Dylis. She couldn’t drive, so I didn’t suggest she should get George herself. She lived in Outgate, a hamlet a mile and half or so from Hawkshead. But Winston Toovey, my ex, who was obviously doing work cash-in-hand – had been since Christmas, if my suspicions were correct – was probably breezing about nearby, passing the time of day with folk, no real hurry to be anywhere whatsoever now that he was living with his mother and had absolved himself nicely of all major responsibilities. And since he didn’t always carry a mobile phone, we couldn’t locate him.

  I ended the call with Dylis, not for the first time filled with the urge to slam my phone against something solid. She got me like that. It was like trying to get information out of a child. Often, she’d slip up, make some comment about Winston she wasn’t supposed to – to me, in particular – and when I pressed her about it, she’d go mute and stare at her feet.

  Pressed really hard, Dylis would lift her head and look at me, woefully, as though she knew she was in deep, deep trouble. She would look at me as if to say, Please don’t tell Winston.

  I wanted to shake the woman. I wanted to scream: How can you let your son walk out and leave me with this mountain of debt? But I didn’t, because I was aware on some deeper level that Dylis’s dreamy, scatterbrained manner was the best she could do.

  By the time I reached the school it was 6.28.

  Twenty-eight minutes late.

  I pushed open the front door and was greeted by a silent corridor, naked coat hooks, the odd PE bag dangling.

  I took a breath and went into the classroom. The after-school club used the Year 1 classroom and, whilst waiting as George gathered up his belongings, I liked to look around at their first attempts at writing, at portraits of parents – which were often surprisingly true in their likeness, highlighting qualities perhaps parents wished they’d not (jug ears, shuffled teeth).

  Now George was seated on the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes cast downwards as he played on a Nintendo DS. He didn’t raise his head when I entered, even though he was aware of my presence. Instead he gave one quick flick of his head to shift his hair out of his eyes.

  Iona, the young woman in command of after-school club, glanced up from her desk and offered a wan smile. One to suggest that this really was going to be the last time.

  It was Friday. The sun was out. She was ready for a bikini top, shorts, flip-flops and a cold, dripping bottle of Peroni in the village square.

  ‘So sorry,’ I said emphatically. ‘I’m so, so sorry. George, quickly, get your things.’

  ‘Roz?’ said Iona.

  ‘I know. This is unacceptable. How much extra do I owe you?’

  ‘Ten pounds,’ she said. ‘We’ve had to start charging five pounds for every extra quarter of an hour, or parents don’t seem to see the urgency.’

  ‘Here,’ I said, pulling out a note, ‘take twenty. I know you can’t keep on—’

  ‘Roz,’ she said sadly, ‘it’s not the money. It’s my time. I’ve been here since seven-thirty this morning, and I have a life, you know?’ Iona didn’t raise her voice as she spoke. She was too professional to get angry in front of George. It was almost worse in a way. She spoke as if I were letting myself down. Letting my son down.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated. ‘It won’t happen again, I assure you.’

  ‘We’re going to have to call an end to this arrangement. It’s just not—’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said quickly. ‘Please don’t do that. I can’t manage without it.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t understand, Roz,’ she said. ‘I can see that you’re struggling. But you’re late practically every day, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair on us and it’s not fair on …’ She didn’t finish her sentence, simply gestured towards George, who was pretending not to listen as he collected his lunchbox from the windowsill. Having run out of biscuits, I’d stuck a peach yoghurt in there this morning and was now regretting it. The school had a policy of sending the kids’ rubbish home with them so you’d know if they’d eaten all of their lunch. That empty yoghurt pot would be supporting its own ecosystem.

  Turning back to Iona, I saw she was waiting for me to speak.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said honestly, as I thought through the logistics of the following week.

  Iona didn’t offer a solution. Unsurprising, really, since her patience had run out over a month ago. I’d had second chance after second chance.

  I could ask my sister.

  No. Today was her fortieth birthday. We were attending her party this evening and she was off to New York next week. My parents were too far away and I’d made a promise to my sister that I absolutely would not put on them again. I’d let them down in the past, and I couldn’t bear to ask for their help. At least not for a good while anyway.

  Winston was unreliable. He had left George waiting at the school gates more than once when he’d become fascinated by extreme weather and had gone off storm chasing at the coast.

  Iona cleared her throat. She was still waiting for me to speak.

  But then, oddly, as she attempted to stand, she winced.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked as I watched her adjust her weight, moving from one foot to the other.

  ‘Not really, no,’ she answered, and she sighed. Twice.

  ‘Oh, okay,’ she said eventually, her expression beaten, jaded. ‘Okay, Roz, one more chance.’ And before I had time to express my gratitude, before I had a chance to tell her I would absolutely not let it happen again, she reached down and lifted her trouser leg.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got ten minutes to have a look at my knee, have you?’

  3

  LOOKING BACK, I can see how everything was ultimately building towards this point, the point when life went off at a crazy tangent, but I think it was the note itself that was the trigger for the series of events that followed.

  DON’T GO INSIDE

  I SMELL GAS

  LOVE CELIA

  It was taped to my front door and had been put there by my neighbour. Celia had lived in the village for five years and was not a native; she was in fact a Scouser. But if you asked her where she hailed from, she’d say, ‘Southport, Lancashire’, in her best telephone voice. (Notice: Lancashire, not Merseyside. An important distinction, apparently.)

  When I first moved into the cottage we had a few run-ins – Celia getting herself into a state of fractious agitation if I left the wheelie bin at the end of the garden path for more than two days running, or if my living-room curtains remained closed while I was at work or, heaven forbid, if I left my washing on the line when her book club was in attendance. Celia was a terrible snob. A working-class woman who liked to let you know that she was than everyone else. It was terribly amusing and, unexpectedly, I had grown to love her for it.

  We reached an agreement early on whereby, because I didn’t have time to give the cottage the kerb appeal Celia deemed necessary, and because she lived in mortal fear of falling property values, Celia had a key to my place. Anything that was going to fray her nerves, I told her to address herself. So her husband would bring my bin in the very second the waste wagon left. I woul
d arrive home to find the fringe of grass edges neatly trimmed in the front garden, or small pink stains on the path where Celia had poured weed killer on my dandelions. Lately, I could feel her itching to affix a hanging basket or two, to match her four, but she hadn’t yet broached the subject.

  I pulled the note from the door. ‘Come on,’ I said to George, ‘let’s go to Celia’s.’ This was the last thing I needed, to be honest. We were supposed to be out the house again by 7.30 for my sister’s party. George needed feeding and we both needed smartening up. Glancing his way, I noticed some hair missing above his right ear. How I’d missed it earlier, I had no idea, because there was quite a chunk gone.

  ‘What’s going on there?’ I said, gesturing.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘George,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  A quick word about fibs. You’ve noticed, I’m certain, the inability of little boys to tell the truth. Don’t hold it against them. They’re simply afraid of making us cross. ‘George, I’m not angry with you, I just want to know why you’ve cut away such a large piece of your hair.’

  ‘I needed it for a creature I was making,’ he said.

  ‘Seems reasonable,’ I replied.

  We made our way down the path, out the front gate and along the short stretch of road to Celia’s. ‘I’m really thirsty. I need a drink, Mum,’ George said, and I said, ‘You and me both.’ The heat was fierce: thick, heavy air trapped in the basin formed by the surrounding fells. I pulled my tunic away from my midriff in a wafting motion, a lame attempt to get some ventilation. Sweat trickled down my skin, making me itch.

  Celia’s house was a detached cottage. Ours was a semi; the other side of my house was a holiday home. I never saw the owners. Instead there was a parade of similar kinds of people – folk who smiled if the sun was shining, were grim-faced and uncommunicative if it was not.

  Remember the village of Greendale, from the children’s television programme Postman Pat? Well, Greendale doesn’t exist, but it was modelled on Longsleddale, a spot over on the other side of the lake, and it’s close enough to form a fairly accurate picture of Hawkshead. Five hundred people live in the village and, aside from the holiday makers, everyone really does know everyone. Set amongst farmland (mostly used for grazing sheep), the stone or white-rendered cottages are bordered by dry-stone walls. Those of us in the village centre benefit from gas and mains drainage, those on the outskirts heat their homes with electricity, or more commonly oil, and have septic tanks. Everyone within a mile of the village centre has a small notice next to the loo, requesting guests not to flush anything other than the necessaries, and the smallest amount of toilet tissue. It’s something you’re used to if you’ve grown up with it. Like sterilized milk and half-day closing.

  Celia must have been loitering by her window, looking out for us, as the second we opened her gate she was at the front door. ‘Good Lord, George!’ she declared loudly. ‘What on earth have you done to your hair?’ I suppose he was kind of scalped above his ear. ‘He looks like that simple lad, Billy. You know, from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest?’ She was frowning, her chin retracted. ‘Doesn’t he, Roz?’

  ‘What does she mean, Mum?’ George whispered, worried, as we approached the house.

  ‘Nothing. Just an old film. Billy was the kickass hero,’ I lied.

  ‘You saw the note?’ Celia asked, and I nodded. ‘Come in, come in,’ she said and ushered us through. George removed his shoes automatically without being instructed to do so.

  ‘Did you call Transco?’ I asked her, and she didn’t answer. Instead she became momentarily flustered, telling George to ‘Go through to the back kitchen and find Dennis. He’s out there messing about with his tomato plants. And Foxy’s in the garden, too.’

  Foxy was Celia’s old dog. She was a spiteful, peevish little terrier who hated kids but for some reason allowed George access to her belly when she was in the right mood. She had recently started to refuse to walk on the lead. That is, unless, she was heading back home. So now Celia and Dennis could be seen driving to the other side of the village, early each morning, whereupon Dennis would deposit Celia and Foxy, and they would walk back. Celia was delighted with this ruse, proclaiming Foxy to be ‘almost sprightly’, even pulling on the lead.

  George traipsed off to find the dog, and Celia swallowed hard before speaking.

  ‘A problem,’ she began.

  ‘A gas problem,’ I said.

  ‘Afraid not. I put that note there to stop you from going inside. I didn’t want George to see.’

  ‘To see what?’

  ‘Prepare yourself, Roz, the bailiffs have been.’

  ‘What did they take?’

  ‘The lot. Well, all except the beds, because they belong to your landlord, apparently, who has also been slithering around, leaving his usual trail of slime, asking if I’d seen you. He left you a note demanding payment, I believe.’

  ‘I’m late with the rent.’

  ‘I did assume,’ she said. ‘Anyway, the three-piece suite has gone—’

  ‘I was paying that off,’ I interrupted.

  ‘As well as the dining-room furniture, the cooker—’

  ‘The cooker?’

  ‘They said that was on finance as well.’

  I sank down heavily on to Celia’s sofa. ‘It was.’ I sighed, remembering now.

  ‘I think they would have had your car away as well, if you were home. Good job I saw them, because they were about to break in through the front door. They said you’d be liable for the damage to that, too.’ She paused. Then said, ‘Bastards!’ emphatically, before continuing. ‘So in the end I let them in with the key. Sorry, Roz, but they had all the right legal paperwork. I got Dennis to take a look at it before, and he said you didn’t have a leg to stand on.’

  Dennis used to work in a solicitor’s. Doing what, I’m not entirely sure. Celia, naturally, liked to give the impression he was a solicitor, but I had noticed that Dennis had been quick to point out on more than one occasion that he was not really qualified to give advice.

  Sitting with my head in my hands, I told Celia that it was okay to use the key. ‘You did the right thing,’ I said, because she was wringing her hands and I could tell she wasn’t sure how I was going to react.

  ‘I thought it best to stick that note on the door, and then you could prepare George. Not nice for the child to get home and have no furniture.’

  ‘Did they take his PlayStation?’

  Celia nodded.

  ‘Bloody stupid thing to have anyway,’ I said. ‘Typical of his father. We can’t afford to put fuel in the car and he goes and buys him that. And of course George loves him for it. Thinks I’m Cruella when I can’t buy games for the thing.’

  ‘That’s men for you. No common sense.’

  ‘Christ, Celia,’ I said, the full weight of what had happened now dawning on me. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’

  I left George with Celia and went to inspect the house.

  The place had been gutted. They’d taken stuff I didn’t even know I owned until it was gone. Pictures I wasn’t particularly fond of. Cookery books I never had time to read but were part of my history, that time when I revelled in domesticity for a few short, wonderful months when George was born.

  It was like going back to the seventies when people owned nothing. When bare asphalt floors were the norm and orange crates doubled as bedside cabinets.

  There was even an ugly, gaping gash in the fitted kitchen where the oven ought to be. That’s when I made the decision not to face the problem tonight. George needed a quick bite to eat before we were to leave for Petra’s party. ‘Dress smart! Think cocktail dress!’ she’d inscribed on the invitation with a silver metallic gel pen. And so I headed back to Celia’s with a change of clothes for us both, ready to collect George, with a hasty plan forming in my mind:

  I would have one large glass of cold, white Torres Viña Sol in the King’s Arms (low ceilings, horse b
rasses, welcoming smell of beer hanging heavily in the air) while George shovelled down Cumberland sausage and chips, and then I would tackle the furniture crisis, explaining to George the reality of our new situation.

  The note from my landlord would just have to wait.

  4

  GEORGE SAT IN the front seat of the Jeep with a clip-on tie and a worried expression.

  ‘Will I have to go and live with Nanna Dylis?’ he asked, after I’d finished explaining what had happened to the furniture and given him a quick lecture on that basic principle: don’t spend more money than you have.

  ‘No,’ I replied, hoping he wouldn’t sense the uncertainty in my voice.

  We were just about to board the ferry to cross the lake to Petra’s house in Windermere, so George became silent. There’s a tricky bit that must be negotiated, where the ramp of the ferry meets the dip in the shoreline. If you don’t drive carefully you’re liable to take out the underside of your car. Not such a problem in a Jeep, but hell if you’re in a low-sitting sports car.

  Once I’d cut the engine and was neatly positioned I told George he could speak again if he wanted to.

  ‘This is because of Dad, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Honestly?’ I replied. ‘Yes. But there’s no point blaming him, because it gets us nowhere. What we’re going to do is put it out of our heads until after Auntie Petra’s party. Let’s enjoy ourselves tonight and worry about it tomorrow. We’ve got beds to sleep in, we’ve got running water, and we’ve got each other. We’ll be fine.’

  The truth was, though, we weren’t fine.

  When Winston left I could no longer make the mortgage payments on either our house or my business premises, and they were repossessed by the bank. Coupled with that, Winston had run up debts to the tune of twelve thousand on a credit card that was in our joint names, and now I was barely covering the minimal monthly payments.

  Though I couldn’t blame Winston totally.