Over the last week, we’ve formed a kind of support group of two. We are very different people, but we have enough shared experiences and weird reference points to make it work. So far, the times that we’ve both felt overwhelmed have never coincided, and it’s been incredibly helpful to have someone to talk to.
The pin lands, and I make the twenty-minute drive to meet him. He’s driving a white van that belongs to the Starshine Cove council thingy, which is chaired by Connie and involves all of the village elders. I know they’re a force for good, providing all kinds of services for the local community and beyond, but I also still get slightly freaked out if I let the phrase ‘village elders’ take uptoo much space in my head. I start to imagine secret societies and late-night rituals and being chased around the woods by spooky strangers in black robes.
I park up Bettina, and shock Guy by banging on the side of the van door. He’d been staring into space, oblivious to the world around him. The world that currently involves other men in vans, planks of wood, bags of cement and mysterious looking machines that probably make sense to people with more practical skills than me.
I open the door and clamber up next to him. It’s quite exciting, and I wish I had a ham radio call signal so I could pretend I was a trucker.
‘Did you ever see that film calledConvoy?’ I ask him.
‘The old one with Kris Kristofferson in it?’
‘That’s the one! I used to love that. Found the concept of driving around living in a truck very appealing as a kid. Is that what’s going on here, Guy? Are you about to make a run for it, go all Smoky and the Bandit?’
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. It’s thick and slightly longer than it was when I first met him over a week ago, and it stands up in tufts when he’s finished.
‘No, I don’t think so. I just… You know we’re extending Miranda’s place?’
I nod. This has been the main focus of activity recently, a project that has been on the drawing board for a while but kept stalling due to a lack of manpower. Miranda and little Evan live in a cosy place at the back of Trevor’s Emporium, but it is basically a one-room set up that combines living area, sleeping space and kitchen with a tiny shower room.
From what I’ve pieced together, she moved to the village when she was pregnant, needing a fresh start in a place where people didn’t judge her. I totally get it and admire her courage – she was only nineteen at the time, which is young to be strikingout alone. I don’t know all the ins-and-outs of her life, because Miranda is a very private person, almost guarded. I’m guessing that life has not always been kind to her, though, and she has learned to protect herself the best way she can.
‘I do. It’s all very manly. I’m hoping to see you prancing around in a tool belt at some point. Maybe get myself some popcorn and settle in to watch you knock a wall through.’
He smirks a little, and I’m glad to have been able to cheer him up even slightly. ‘I do like that bit,’ he admits. ‘The knocking through, not the prancing. Something very relaxing about wielding a sledgehammer.’
‘If you say so. We all meditate in our own way. So, how’s it going? The project?’
I know he doesn’t really want to discuss the challenges of the extension, but it’s a way in to what’s really bugging him.
‘Good. Loud. Hard. Messy.’ He pauses when he’s finished his list, and raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Like all the best things in life.’
‘Attaboy! You’re getting the hang of it! So, is Miranda excited about it all? There’ll be a bedroom for Evan, won’t there? And a separate kitchen?’
‘Yes. It’ll be great for her, and maybe for James if he moves in too.’
‘That’s a big step, and with anybody else I’d say they were too young – but they seem incredibly committed to each other, don’t they? And he’s wonderful with Evan.’
I’m wondering if this is where the problem lies – does he feel like she’s making a mistake, potentially moving in with a man? Is he feeling protective but realising he has no right to lay down the law? It’s a complicated path to navigate.
‘He is. They’re both ridiculously mature for their ages, and I have no hesitation at all about James being in her life – not that it would matter if I did. She’s grown up just fine without me.’
I shrug, making no further comment. I wouldn’t say that Miranda’s life has been trouble-free – she was a single mum at nineteen, is estranged from her own mother, and is living in the back of a shop. None of that is a disaster, and she has carved the positives from all of it, but none of it screams ‘I’m better off without you, Dad!’ either.
‘So what’s upsetting you? What’s making you all moody and brooding?’
‘I don’t exactly know. She was talking with James about the future, and they were having this incredibly adult conversation about school catchment areas and stuff. James was full of plans for getting a promotion so they could afford somewhere bigger when Evan was older, and… Well, I wasn’t eavesdropping exactly, it was just like they forgot I was in the room, they were so involved in their plans. It was… it was good. I mean, I want her to be with someone like him, who’s stable and knows what he wants and is willing to work to make it happen for them. But then I started to wonder how I might fit into that future, or even if I did at all. Maybe I’ll just be the weird bloke who pops up every now and then and stays in a tent in Archie’s field.’
‘Maybe you will,’ I reply, making eye contact with him, almost against his will. ‘And maybe that will be enough for you and for them. Or maybe this will grow, and you’ll develop as a human, and, I don’t know, buy a motor home?’
He lets out a choked laugh, and I shrug helplessly. ‘I suppose my point is that you don’t know, Guy. This is all new to you, and to her. You’ve never laid down roots anywhere before, have you?’
‘No,’ he admits. ‘I’ve been pretty rootless.’
‘Me too, except I always had these – the roots of my childhood, this village. So I know that roots can be good, they can tether you in place and make you feel secure. But they can also wrap themselves around your neck and make you feellike you’re choking. There’s good and bad in any situation, isn’t there?’
He shuffles round to look at me, his green gaze probing. ‘But is that really true for most people? Or are we just extra screwed up? I have the awful feeling that it’s us. That you could give either of us exactly what we think we want, and we’d still find a way to fault it. To run away from it. It’s like we’ll never be satisfied.’
I shudder a little, because that really is a horrible and slightly too realistic concept.
