We’ve lived here for the last eleven years, and it is a haven. I grow my own strawberries and raspberries, and have giant sunflowers on the patio in terra-cotta pots, borders bursting with lupins and cosmos and nasturtiums. Beautiful purple-blue aubrieta is rooted in the rocks around us, cascading in a riot of glorious color. We have a vegetable patch, and harvest carrots and potatoes and onions and herbs. I can lose days to gardening and to sitting out on the patio at the little table, a cup of coffee and a good book on the go.
We’re tucked away at the end of a quiet lane, miles away from real traffic, our only neighbors a nearby farmer who keeps donkeys in his field and occasionally rents space to families on camping trips.
It’s a little slice of heaven, on a less disgusting day. Today is not one of those days, and everything looks gray and damp, my flowers flattened by the weight of the rain, the path outside mired in mud. The waves are crashing onto the shoreline so powerfully that spray is bouncing up over the clifftops, pirouetting into the air before it is lost in the downpour.
I glance over at the field next to us, glad to see that the donkeys have all been taken into their stables. I notice the solitary motorhome that’s been there for the last week and hope the man who lives in it has wellies. Actually, I kind of hope he’s knee-deep in mud—the first day I saw him, I waved and shouted good morning, because that’s what you do when you live in the middle of nowhere. He just returned my wave with a half-hearted nod and closed his van door, as though horrified at the thought of seeing me. I have this effect on men.
I struggle over to my car, an ancient Nissan Micra. It starts on the third try, which I take as a good sign. It really should be chuggingoff to its final resting place in the heavenly scrapyard, but, as ever, I can’t afford a new one. I can never afford much, to be honest—which is fine. I’ve never been especially bothered about stuff, about things—but it would be nice to shed some of the stress.
It takes me about half an hour to get to the small town where I work. I’m an office manager for a company that makes carpets. Have to be honest, it’s about as interesting as it sounds, but the people are nice and it’s steady work.
I was only eighteen when I had Charlie, and soon discovered that my clutch of GCSEs and one year of A levels weren’t going to get me very far in the workplace. In the Olden Days—the days before I became the me I am today—I had dreams of being a writer. Maybe a journalist or a novelist—something creative and important and fulfilling. Now I dream of other things. Things like loo roll and still having some money in the bank at the end of the month.
When Charlie was two, his dad left us to go “find himself.” Apparently he thought he’d find himself somewhere in Europe and took off with a backpack and the last of our money, leaving me a note saying he’d be back when he was a “better version of himself.” That was sixteen years ago, and he still seems to be a work in progress.
I am past the stage where I harbor any resentment or anger about it—in fact, it was probably for the best. Sometimes, being on your own is easier than being with the wrong person. If you live with someone and expect them to help you, it stings when they don’t. When they’re gone, you know you have to do everything yourself, so you just get on with it.
One of the things I got on with was doing a course on office basics—how to use computers and spreadsheets and software, that kind of thing. It was a bit different than going to some fancy uni andlounging around discussing philosophy and Shakespeare, but it was definitely more useful at that stage of my life. It meant I could work, and earn money, and eventually find a job that paid enough for me and Charlie to move here. To this soaking wet corner of paradise.
There is never much spare cash after I’ve paid the rent and the bills, but it is enough. Charlie has had a stable life, if not a wealthy one. He’s been rich in love, I like to tell myself. School trips have been tough, and I’ve become an expert at hunting down acceptable clothes in charity shops, and, okay, I do cut my own hair—but it’s a nice enough life. We have each other, and the cottage, and Netflix. I mean, what more could a girl want?
Well, I think, as I arrive at work—maybe an umbrella.
There is a strange silence in the office as I enter, and at first I think the Big Boss is in, which always makes everyone go quiet. There are eight of us working here, which is just about enough to make the tea round challenging, but it’s generally a pleasant atmosphere. The business had been run by the same family for donkeys’ years, but they recently sold it to a big national company. Mr. and Mrs. Hedges, the previous owners, are now living in a villa with a pool in Lanzarote, and getting more and more orange every day. They eat out every night, start drinking at lunchtime, and send us all pictures of them singing in karaoke bars on a regular basis. As retirements go, they are living the dream.
It’s been an adjustment for us, being owned by The Man. We have things like Performance Reviews and Targets and HR Assessments now. We also have a regional manager, a thirtysomething man called Tim who likes to have us all sit in the meeting room and give us inspirational pep talks about the carpet business. Two things you would never expect to hear in the same sentence. We’re all supposed to tweet about carpets as well, but so far none of us have bothered—one reason to begrateful for the dodgy Wi-Fi at least. I am hanging my wet coat up on the rack, wondering why it’s so quiet, when my colleague Barb walks over to me. She looks pale, and her mascara is smudged. For me, this would not be a big deal—I try to make my makeup last a few days, if humanly possible. For Barb, though, it is a sure sign of impending disaster. She’s one of those perfectly tidy women who always has healthy food in clean Tupperware boxes for lunch.
“Are you okay?” I ask, wringing out my hair. “Is Tim here?” I whisper the last bit, looking around as though I might find him hiding behind a potted plant.
“Haven’t you seen the memo?” she asks, her eyes swimming with tears. Now that I look at her more closely, I see that the pink combs in her hair are also slightly askew. The end of the world is nigh.
“Erm... no. I’ve only just walked in.”
“Oh. I thought you might have checked your emails at home.”
No, I think—I did not have the kind of morning that lent itself to a calm checking of emails.I was too busy ignoring Charlie’s meltdown and managing my own chaos and using the last strip of paper towels in the loo, even though I know I shouldn’t because it might block it, and then I’ll have to get the landlord out. Again.
“The internet was down,” I say, because Barb doesn’t need to know any of that. “What is it?”
“They’re thinking of closing us down,” she says, each word laden with disbelief. “Too many overheads and not enough productivity apparently. It’s between us and a branch in Kidderminster!”
“Kidderminster?” I echo, frowning. “Where the f—flip is Kidderminster?”
Barb doesn’t like swearing, and I am a respectful human being, so I try to keep my foulmouthed tendencies in check around her.
“I don’t know... I think the Midlands? Does it really matter? It means we could all be out of a job, Jenny!”
She’s right, of course. It doesn’t matter. Kidderminster could be in Nepal, or on a hellmouth, or at the bottom of the Grand Canyon—it makes no difference. I am still pondering it, though, because questioning the geography of small towns in the United Kingdom is easier for me to handle than the panic that I know will soon engulf me if I let it.
I have made some poor choices in my life, and I have taken some wrong turns. All of them led me to Charlie, which I can never regret, but it has not been easy. Leaving my own family wasn’t easy. Raising a child on my own wasn’t easy. Finding stability in the wreckage wasn’t easy, nor was being both mum and dad to a growing boy. Bringing up another human being when you barely feel capable of looking after yourself is tough; you have to make so many decisions all alone, accept consequences all alone, budget and plan and cry all alone.
The only way I’ve gotten through all that is by employing a coping mechanism I call Just Don’t Think About It. I should probably write a self-help book: “Life getting you down? Just don’t think about it! Facing a divorce, bankruptcy, or an existential crisis? Just don’t think about it!” Of course, I have to think about something else instead—this time, the precise location of Kidderminster. Our rivals in the cutthroat world of carpets.
“I need to get a coffee,” I say, patting Barb on the arm. I haven’t had any, due to time constraints and the lack of viable milk in my own home. I bet that never happens to Barb. “Then I’ll read the memo. Don’t worry, Barb. It’ll be all right.”
“Do you think so?”
She asks me this with such sincerity, such hope, that I am momentarily taken aback. I know my life is a whirling dervishof insanity, but she doesn’t—she believes the calm and positive front I put on when I am around other people. I am Jenny James, Office Manager—the woman who always knows where the spare staples are and makes sure the printer doesn’t run out of ink and checks everybody else’s paperwork for them.
