“She’s had a difficult life.”
“What do you mean?”
Alex kept his voice low. “Before my parents divorced, they used to both work long hours at the takeaway, so Vera would often have me over after school. She’d cook me tea and let my friends come round to play.”
“Vera? But she hates kids—she’s always moaning about them at the library.”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know the full story, but I know that Vera and her husband, Fred, wanted to have children but for whatever reason they couldn’t. So, they sort of adopted me as their honorary grandson. Vera spent hours kicking a football with me in her back garden, and she used to make birthday cakes for all the kids on our street.”
“Wow. So, what happened?”
Alex lowered his voice even further and June had to lean in to hear him. “When I was ten or eleven, Fred left Vera. It was all very sudden: one day he was mowing the lawn and chatting to me about whether Man U were going to win the Champions League; the next day he was gone. Vera was a mess; I remember her crying on Mum. Then Fred sent her this letter, giving her a forwarding address for his post and telling her that he’d moved in with his mistress and their children.”
“What?” June burst out, and several passengers turned to look at her. “Oh my god!”
“I know, right? It turns out Fred had been having an affair for years and they had two kids together. He’d been leading this whole double life and Vera had no idea.”
“I can’t believe it. Poor Vera.”
“After that she stopped letting me go to her house and started moaning to my parents that I made too much noise. She stopped baking and never left home, and she lost all her friends. We moved about a year later when my folks separated, and I’ve hardly seen her since. I’m not sure she even recognized me.”
June thought of Vera in the library, her face twisted and sour as she watched the activity in the Children’s Room. June had always assumed Vera disliked kids, but maybe it was something else that made her so bitter: regret.
“We’re here,” Alex said, and June looked out the window to see them pulling up on Mawley high street.
She followed him off the bus and they crossed the road toward the Chequers. June couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in this pub, or any pub for that matter, and she was immediately alarmed by the noise and the number of people. But Alex steered her to a table in a quiet corner and then went to buy them both a drink. While he was gone, June’s mind drifted back to Vera. She imagined her at home, baking a birthday cake for one of the local children, and Fred walking in with his suitcase and telling her he was leaving. Vera would have begged him to stay, cried and tried to wrestle the suitcase from him, but Fred would have said—
“Here you go.” Alex placed a large glass of wine on the table. “Are you all right? You looked a million miles away there.”
“Sorry, I was daydreaming. Thanks for the drink.”
“I remember you daydreaming at school,” Alex said, sitting down opposite her. “You used to do it in English; you’d stare off into spacefor ages and then suddenly you’d start scribbling away. Your creative writing was always the best in class.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” June said, although she couldn’t help but smile. “But I do like to make up stories in my head; I always have. Sometimes, at the library, I watch people taking out books and try to imagine what their life might be like.”
As soon as the words left June’s mouth, she regretted them. She’d never told anyone except her mum, and out loud she realized how silly it made her sound.
“Ooh, let’s play it now,” Alex said. “What about that lady over there?”
“Oh no, we don’t have to. It’s just a stupid thing I do.”
“No, go on. See that lady in the butterfly dress? What do you think her story is?”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
June turned to study her. The woman must have been in her mid-twenties, wearing a pretty fifties-style tea dress and red lipstick. She was with a man wearing a linen shirt and chinos. June thought for a moment.
“Her name is Hannah. She lives with two friends in a flat full of clothes and laughter. She works in a dull office job, but at the weekend she and her friends dress up and go dancing until dawn. She dreams of doing something creative, maybe becoming a painter.”
“And who’s the guy? Is he her boyfriend?”
“No, but she wants him to be. They’ve been seeing each other for a few months but he won’t commit to her.”
“Why not?”
“Because he has a long-term girlfriend. She has no idea that he’s just stringing her along.”
