Chances

Chances

Freya North

For Mummy
Lovely, funny, beautiful – and so very very brave.
A woman of worth, indeed.
With love,
Your Chief Sherpa

Sitting in her shop, That Shop, on the stool behind the counter (an old console table which was for sale and had been since she opened three years ago), Vita kept her head down, nose buried in her book, yet managed surreptitiously to watch the elderly lady whilst wondering what she’d allow her to nick today. A fortnight ago, it had been a small jar of pastel-coloured guest soaps in the shapes of seashells. Prior to that, an ashtray, brass, in the shape of a Moroccan slipper. Vita didn’t think the old lady smoked, she thought her vice might be little more than the occasional sherry and shoplifting. Fascinating. And why had she stolen that tin of mini sparklers with ‘Wedding Wishes’ embossed on the lid? Not that Vita had minded – they were on offer anyway. The most expensive thing the lady had swiped had been the small pewter noughts and crosses set – but there again, no one had expressed any interest in it.

Sometimes, Vita could anticipate which object would be pilfered; at other times, she knew something had gone but it took her a couple of days to figure out quite what. She liked the fact that what was taken was dictated not by its value but by its desirability. Those sparklers had been cheap as chips but the little tin was so pretty.

Vita watched and tried to guess. The Gardener’s Handcream? The light-pull in the shape of a black cat? The old lady was currently admiring the candy-coloured dustpan set. Vita thought, She’ll never get that under her jacket. A couple of months ago, perhaps, when spring was late and it was still cold and the woman was swamped by a shabby old coat in Prince of Wales check. Today, she wore a light blouson a shade darker than her lilac rinse. What would she be able to squirrel away when true summer came? Did she choose her summer clothes on account of capaciousness of pockets? It was only June but the weathermen were predicting a heatwave for this summer. The shopkeepers of Wynford hoped so. Vita thought back to last summer and all that rain that had been so bad for business. It seemed such a long time ago now.

It was one of the animals! Vita detected a sudden lift in the old lady’s energy from near the rack at the back of the shop on which the plastic animals stood as if lining up waiting to board the wooden ark on the neighbouring table. Which, though? Which had gone?

Gazelle. Vita reckoned it had to be the gazelle. There were plenty of them left. In her experience, the children always made a beeline for the carnivores.

‘Nothing today, lassie,’ the woman said diplomatically as if, on some future occasion, with new stock, or just what she was looking for, she might be happy to part with her money.

When I was at school, Vita mused once the tinkle of the shop’s bell had subsided and she had the place to herself again, I stole for a little old lady just like you.

Tim thought, If she’s reading a bloody book – if she’s reading a bloody bloody book . . .

His business philosophy was that his shop, That Shop, needed to make money, notwithstanding the average item price being around £10. Vita’s personal philosophy was that her shop, That Shop, should simply be somewhere people loved to go, to be heartened by lovely things.

She
is
bloody reading a bloody book.

‘Hi.’

Tim jerks his head at her book and raises an eyebrow.

‘
Robinson Crusoe
,’ Vita says, as if it vindicates any objection. ‘I read this fantastic novel about a young girl who was obsessed with Robinson Crusoe – so when I finished it, I started this straight away. Have you read it? I can’t believe I hadn’t.’

I’m gabbling.
Still
nervous around him – madness. ‘It’s a classic. Did you know Daniel Defoe is credited with inventing the novel? I even wonder whether “cruise” comes from “Crusoe”.’

‘This isn’t a desert island, Vita, it’s a deserted shop.’

He approaches the till and prints off a balance. ‘Christ alive.’

‘I know,’ Vita says gravely, ‘it’s been slow.’

‘I saw that mad old woman coming out,’ he says.

‘I don’t think she’s mad – just, you know, eccentric.’

‘She’s a thief, that’s what she is,’ Tim says. ‘Watch her like a hawk.’ He had caught the woman shoplifting last Easter. A small papier mâché rabbit. Not expensive – but a key seller at a time when they were shifting loads. He’d made her put it back. He’d done it tactfully and authoritatively. As though he was talking to a child. Vita hadn’t liked that at all. It was just a little Easter bunny.

She won’t be doing
that
again, he’d said to Vita.

Just now, Vita muses how it wouldn’t cross Tim’s mind that the old lady had been doing precisely that, on a regular basis, ever since. With Vita’s unspoken blessing.

She glances at Tim. Experiences a pang. Wonders how that could be, after so long. After everything.

‘Hey, Tim.’ It isn’t a question and, though she says it softly, she knows she shouldn’t have said it at all. He just looks at her. There’s nothing behind his eyes. It’s the neutrality that hurts the most.

When did he buy that new shirt? It suits him, it suits his dark grey eyes, his close-cropped hair the colour of slate.

‘Be in touch,’ he says as he leaves.

He doesn’t look back.

Tim is someone who never looks back.

Six years together, now heading towards a year since she left him. Vita looks at her watch and reprimands herself for having spent a daft amount of time lost in pointless reflection. She could have been reading. Or tidying. Or engaging with customers. Now look at the time. Sorry, Robinson, school’s out and the kids will soon descend, with their exasperated mums killing time to interrupt the drag of the remainder of the day. It’s Monday, though, and good for trade usually, on account of pocket money left over from the weekend.

She slips off the stool and goes to the store cupboard at the back of the shop, which is only slightly larger than the loo. She takes out a plastic antelope and a couple of other items and carries them back into the shop. Then she writes herself a Post-it note, sticking it next to the hook on which her jacket is hanging.

Oliver was washing up. He’d spilled water on himself and on the floor. His shirt had been clean and now the floor was dirty. The water was too hot and his hands were red. He needed a new washing-up sponge. There was no more room on the draining board. He’d used too much Fairy but as he still hadn’t fixed the cold tap it meant the water spurted everywhere each time he rinsed something. To the right of him, the dishwasher stood empty. Top-of-the-range, still under its extended guarantee. Unused for nearly three years. His wife had loved that appliance more than any of the others.

‘I could live without TV,’ she’d said, ‘I don’t mind laundrettes. But the dishwasher? I’d sell
myself
, rather than part with it – it’s the apotheosis of modern invention.’

He thought about that now; how only DeeDee could refer to something as dull as a dishwasher as the Apotheosis of Modern Invention. He thought about how she liked to say she didn’t have ‘hands that do dishes’. Not from any pomposity but because her hands really had been slender and soft – pale, silky, protected. She rubbed cream in as though it was a ritual. Tubes of the stuff remained. They were still there, on windowsill and bedside table, by the basin, by the phone near the front door. Some were scented with lavender, some with rose. Some were formulated for Norwegian fishermen. One was for babies’ bottoms. It was called Butt Butter. Her cousin in the States used to send it at regular intervals. This was the last tub. Oliver looked at his hands, redder by the minute. He should have taken his watch off.

Of all the things to miss, it was the simple sight of a meticulously stacked dishwasher he longed for most these days. And yet, it had been one thing that had wound them both up at the time. DeeDee hated him stacking it because she said he didn’t do it properly. She’d physically shove him out of the way, complaining how he didn’t maximize space the way she did, even accusing him of doing this on purpose (which was true). He’d hated her tutting and huffs and the exasperation written all over her face. It had made him sling stuff in on purpose. Put a mug in the wrong way up so that it filled with the sedimenty water. How ridiculous had that been? Both of them. Life’s way too short to fall out over a stupid dishwasher.

He’d called her a fucking control freak once. She’d gone stony cold and had said, I’m doing it for
us
– it’s the way I keep our home and if you want to make a mockery of
that
you can fuck off yourself. He’d said, Stop being so bloody melodramatic. Jonty, who had been about eight or nine, had said, What’s melon-traumatic? And she’d said, Mel-o-dramatic, darling, it’s nothing, just a silly word for a silly thing. So gently, so sweetly, so patiently that this had wound up Oliver even more. He’d stropped off to the pub. And later, when guilt had made him leave before closing time and he’d returned and unloaded the dishwasher, he’d had to concede how well she’d restacked it. One beer too many had made him annoyed that she could be right over something so trivial, exasperated that her natural fastidiousness, the high standards she placed on family and home and perfection, necessitated this crazy rigidity to maintain them.

That night long ago – when was it? – if Jonty had been nine-ish, it must have been a good five years ago. The dishwasher before this one. That night, back then, Oliver had slept in the spare room. And DeeDee had crept in during the small hours. And they’d shuffled closer and closer together, cuddling and kissing and pressing and offering silent apologies. Jonty had gone into their empty bedroom in the morning and wondered whether aliens had abducted his parents.

DeeDee would die if she saw the state of the house now. Or, rather, she’d die again.

Today, Oliver can still feel the muddle of conflicting emotions – like washing up with water so hot it feels cold. He likes to justify that, these days, it’s environmentally irresponsible to use a dishwasher. Especially since there’s only him and Jonty. And mostly they eat takeaways direct from the tubs. And the food they cook at other times rarely requires many utensils. Just plates, really, for pizza or cold cuts or beans on toast. They often don’t bother with knives. They use their forks – to spear, to scoop, to sever. They go through an industrial quantity of teaspoons each day.

‘Remember how Mum used to always lay the table? Including a spoon for pudding even though she invariably said, Help yourselves to fresh fruit?’

‘Yeah,’ says Jonty.

But his father can’t tell what his son’s eyes are saying behind that lank curtain of dye-dark hair. It is one of those moments when Oliver considers how a teenager’s hair can hide a child’s eyes. And he is not sure what he’s meant to do about it.

‘You can dry.’

‘There’s only about two plates and a hundred forks, Dad. Let it all drain.’

His son is on his way out of the kitchen, to flick on the TV in front of which he’ll sit with his dad, quietly watching whatever crap might be on until they’re finally tired enough for bed.

Oliver looks at the draining board.

Only two plates. And just forks. It breaks his heart all over again.

‘Cup of tea, Jont?’

Bugger. No clean mugs again. He rinses out a couple with scalding water, using his thumbs to rub away the ring marks from previous brews.

I missed you today, DeeDee.

Is it OK to tell you that there are days now, almost three years on, when I don’t know if I’ve thought about you so I remind myself to? That one day recently I merely mentioned you in passing and didn’t pause after doing so? You were in and out of the conversation in a click. I was chatting to Adrian. Your name simply slid in and out of the conversation like a bird flying past.

Now I’m going to sit beside our son and watch TV till we’re knackered. We don’t put biscuits on a plate any more, DeeDee. We just eat them from the packet. And when Mrs Blackthorne comes – because she still comes – she has a week’s worth of crumbs to deal with. Today, though – today I miss you, darling.