Anyway, there I was, aged seventeen and in charge of the prescriptions, doctor’s appointments, and all the other stuff too. We’ve lived pretty quietly ever since, not leaving our little town much, not one of us setting sail for adventure.
‘Sorry, don’t mind me,’ Mum says, squeezing past, giving me a little reassuring rub on my arms as she goes, trying to make me feel as though I’m not horribly in the way.
They’ve barely needed me in the bakery in the past, only on days when one of them was ill, and that’s hardly ever happened. So far this morning all I’ve managed to do is keep their brews topped up, sweep the floors, and wipe down the big oven. Today’s decision to ‘help out’ feels especially futile because I could fit all that cleaning into my usual three o’clock wipe down and that only takes me an hour max. So I slink even further back towards the fridges and make myself look busy rearranging the little juice cartons as I listen to Dad happily working the till and calling comments over his shoulder, chipping in brightly with the customers’ conversations.
They’re happy, my parents, and perfectly at home, even if they do seem to have the same three conversations over and over again: the weather, the roads, and reiterations of the same small town gossip the customers have heard over at the butcher’s or at the corner shop on their way here.
Mum must have heard me sighing to the milk cartons because she turns and says, ‘Jude, you’ve been very helpful indeed, but why don’t you go and have a break? You could visit Gran again if you’re at a loose end?’
‘She’s on the New Start Village magical mystery coach trip today, remember?’
‘Ah yes, so she is,’ Mum says breezily. ‘Well, go check the post. Maybe one of your job applications got a reply?’
‘I think they’d email rather than write a letter,’ I mutter, feeling like a sullen teenager getting under everyone’s feet and in front of the entire queue of customers too – one of whom is my old high school maths teacher, Mrs Patterson. She’s raising an eyebrow at me.
I never was any good at maths and Daniel and I used to muck about something rotten in her classes. She told us once that we’d ‘amount to nothing without a solid grounding in mathematics’, but Daniel spends all his days doing actual applied maths working out dosages and prescriptions, and he’s in charge of the staff rotas for his team, so Mrs Patterson was wrong about him. Maybe she was right about me, though. I slink out the back door and upstairs to our place.
Nope, not one email in my inbox. I applied on spec to all three of the county’s libraries and our one bookshop, a big corporate thing, all celebrity bestsellers and hardbacks, but still an utter treasure trove for people like me, fifty minutes’ bus journey away at the retail park.
It’s hitting home that I hadn’t actually put much planning into a career after my degree, thinking that I’d be looking after Gran for many years to come.
What am I supposed to do with myself now?That’s been my mantra for days.
Daniel and I had a brainstorming session over his kitchen table last night and made a long list of job options. Most of them required special training or a Master’s degree or something else that would take time and money. Even tutoring kids for their English Higher exams isn’t a possibility without any teaching experience. ‘There’s always dog walking?’ Daniel had said, looking optimistic. ‘Or babysitting?’
‘Or I could get a paper round?’ I replied, flatly.
‘A job’s a job,’ he shrugged, and I looked back at our list. I’d written:
English tutor
Bookseller
Librarian
Book conservation type of job (does that even exist? Probably not, sounds too lovely to be real)
Our list may as well read ‘lion tamer’ or ‘hot air balloonist’ for all the likelihood I have of launching into any of those careers at twenty-nine. I found myself thinking that I could always try to get a loan and launch myself into more training of some kind. It was all just a bit overwhelming, to be honest.
Daniel, sensing my panic, topped up my wine glass and changed the subject but that only made things worse. ‘Have you thought about what you want to do for your thirtieth?’ I couldn’t help spluttering at my wine.
I had planned on dinner with Mack, so he could meet my family at long last, somewhere smart – and conveniently near his house so he’d be more likely to agree to come along in the first place. Hadn’t that idea burst like a bubble!
