Homecoming (33 page)

My mother packed a picnic for the bog. We’d have a few tin pongers or big tin cups the size of small saucepans to heat water for tea, plenty of soda bread, the home-made butter that was a deeper yellow than any butter I’ve ever seen since, and plenty of duck eggs.

My father would boil the eggs about noon and there was never a more welcome shout than the call to stop for a break. By evening, when your back ached from bending, little biting insects came out in force and sent us all home.

We’d all sit quiet in the cart on the way home, too tired to move, but we could always rouse ourselves later for the feast. My mother would fry great slabs of bacon with onions and sliced potatoes, and we’d gorge ourselves until we wanted to fall asleep at the table. That was a wonderful feeling, that was.

Connie didn’t want to join Gaynor’s book club.

‘You’d enjoy it,’ Gaynor said. She’d given up apologising over the Keith incident. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry and I mean it. I said too much and it wasn’t fair. You
don’t
have a list of attributes that no man will ever match up to.’

Except that Connie had come to the conclusion that Gaynor had a point. What was worse: being upset by an old friend being painfully blunt, or realising that the old friend was actually right?

‘Gaynor, thank you, but I’d hate to join your book club. Bet you ten euros they’re all women you know from the school run. I would have nothing in common with them.’

‘They’re not –’ began Gaynor crossly. ‘Oh, all right, they are. But we don’t talk about kids, we talk about books.’

‘And husbands and what to do when Josie’s French teacher is being a bitch, and should you get your eleven-year-old a phone in case he gets bullied on it via text message. Yes, Gaynor, I’ll fit right in!’

‘You’re so grumpy in your old age,’ Gaynor muttered.

‘Pot, meet kettle,’ said Connie.

‘What are you doing to grow your social life, then, Miss Smarty Pants?’

‘I was thinking of doing some charity work,’ said Connie, which wasn’t a total lie. She had thought about it but had done nothing. She knew from talking to Rae just how hard the work was and didn’t know if she was up to it. But saying she was thinking about it might get Gaynor off her back.

‘Rae, the lady who lives opposite, works with Community Cares. I’m thinking of volunteering.’

‘And how will that help you meet suitable men?’ Gaynor demanded.

‘It’s not about helping me meet suitable men,’ Connie said loftily. ‘It’s about having a life.’

When was everyone going to learn that she didn’t want to devote her time to meeting a man?

Saturday mornings were so lonely: Connie had never realised it before. There was no Nicky to talk to, nobody to get a cup of coffee for, nobody to clatter away in the kitchen making breakfast.

And Connie kept waking early on Saturdays, even though she wanted to sleep late. Her body clock refused to obey and she woke at half seven on the dot.

It meant she was one of the first weekend customers at The Nook, when they were still stuffing glossy supplements into the papers.

‘You’d need to be a weightlifter to manage all the papers, these days,’ groaned an elderly man hoisting two broadsheets and a tabloid into his shopping basket.

‘But it’s wonderful to have so much to read,’ said Connie, realising with a shock that this was the first conversation she’d had with another human being since she’d left St Matilda’s yesterday afternoon.

Rae was behind the counter in Titania’s Palace and Connie smiled at the sight of her.

‘Hello, Rae, beautiful morning isn’t it?’

‘Beautiful,’ said Rae.

Too late, Connie noticed that Rae’s dark eyes were redrimmed and she looked as if she hadn’t slept soundly in a week.

‘Oh, Rae, how are you?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Connie, please.’ Rae held up a hand. ‘Don’t be nice to me. I couldn’t stand it. I can only just cope today. Don’t ask why. But if anyone is in the slightest bit nice to me, I’ll collapse.’

‘Righto,’ said Connie. ‘I’ll have a latte with hazelnut syrup, and two almond pastries because I don’t think the waistband on my jeans is tight enough. I can still breathe.’

She was rewarded by seeing Rae laugh a little.

‘You’re a panic, Connie,’ said Rae lightly. ‘You should be on the stage.’

‘I know,’ quipped Connie, ‘but the back end of the horse part is already taken.’

This time, Rae didn’t laugh. ‘You’re not allowed to say stuff like that about yourself, Connie.’

‘OK, I was just trying to cheer you up.’

‘Not at your own expense,’ Rae said. ‘You see: you’ve done it, you’ve taken my mind off myself. Don’t let me hear you do that again or I’ll tell Eleanor.’

‘Don’t you dare. I don’t want to be therapied,’ Connie said. ‘I like being a mad spinster lady, and if Eleanor tries to sort me out, I might turn normal.’

‘There’s no such thing as normal,’ Rae said grimly. ‘We all pretend to be normal, you know. But nobody really is.’

The papers carried reviews of a play in the West End starring Katharine Hartnell. Connie wondered if Megan had seen them. Probably not. Megan said she never read newspapers any more.

‘I’m afraid I’ll see my name in them,’ she said.

Connie nodded as if she understood totally. Unless she got the million cats and ended up appearing on the mad-cat-lady-who-abuses-her-animals television show, there was no way in hell
she’d
ever be in the newspapers.

She was ordinary. That was her problem, she decided miserably: being ordinary. There was nothing special about her. The only person who’d ever thought she was special was Keith, and he’d gone.

On Monday afternoon when she got home from school, Connie noticed the little girl from the basement flat next door sitting alone and forlorn on the steps up to the house. Since she could be only nine or ten and Connie had never seen her without her dad, she decided she’d better investigate the matter.

‘Hello,’ she said.

The girl looked up. Her face was small and freckled, and she had inquisitive blue eyes. ‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Are you all right? Is your dad late or –’ Connie wondered what to ask. ‘Is someone coming to take care of you?’

‘I walk home from school with my friend, Lilly, to her house, but today she hurt her knee and had to go to hospital and I came home myself.’

‘Right.’ Connie digested this information. ‘Is your dad home soon, then?’

‘He gets home at six.’

It was a quarter to five. Connie couldn’t leave this child sitting out on the step for another hour and a quarter.

‘You could come into my apartment and wait for him?’ she suggested.

‘I’m not allowed to talk to strangers or go anywhere with them.’

‘That’s very good advice,’ Connie agreed. ‘I’m a teacher and I understand that. If you know your dad’s phone number, we could phone him to check what he thinks. Does he know you’re on your own?’

The girl shook her head. ‘I had a mean teacher once. She got cross all the time. Are you a mean teacher?’

‘I only get cross once a week and I make sure I’m not in the classroom when I do it. I go into a park and get mad there. Isn’t that a good plan?’ Connie said. ‘I’m Connie. What’s your name?’

‘I’m not allowed to tell strangers my name.’ The girl smiled up at Connie happily.

‘OK.’ Connie took out her mobile phone and handed it to the girl. ‘You phone your dad and tell him what’s happened, and then I’ll talk to him.’

‘This is a boring phone. My dad’s one has a screen you touch and you can play games.’

‘I bet you can work a computer really well, too,’ Connie said thoughtfully.

‘Yes, I’m very good at it. Dad says I’m a genius.’

She dialled a number and waited patiently. ‘Hi, Dad, it’s me. Lilly hurt her knee and I’m on the step at home and this lady teacher who isn’t mean and goes into a field to be mean there says I can come to her house and play. But I said I can’t talk to strangers. Her name is Connie. She’s the crazy lady next door you said got angry when you parked in her place but she isn’t angry now. And I told her about Miss Rochester my teacher and she has a boring phone and do you want to talk to her?’

Connie listened and bit her lip.

The voice on the other end of the phone talked urgently and the girl listened and then handed the phone to her.

‘My dad,’ the girl said.

‘This is Steve Calman,’ said the voice. ‘Ella’s message is a bit garbled. What exactly’s going on?’

‘I’m Connie O’Callaghan from the house next door and I saw her sitting on the step outside your apartment. I know I’ve never seen her on her own before, so I came over. I teach in St Matilda’s down the road, I’m used to children. Well, older girls, it’s a secondary school, but still. I think the girl she normally goes home with had an accident, and Ella came home on her own. I said she could come into my apartment until you get back. I totally understand if you don’t want that. We can wait outside together till you get here.’

Connie exhaled.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ Steve said. ‘She’s never on her own. Three days a week, she gets picked up by her friend Lilly’s mother, Fee – she works as a childminder and she takes Ella for me until I get home from work – and I don’t know what happened, or how she came to get home on her own. It’s not far, but she’s not used to it –’

Connie could hear the panic in his voice.

‘It’s fine,’ she said soothingly. ‘She is absolutely fine. She wouldn’t even tell me her name because you’ve told her not to give it to strangers.’

Ella beamed up at her.

‘Can I tell her my name now, Dad?’ she roared in the direction of the phone.

‘See?’ said Connie. ‘She’s fine. She can still come to me. I have no men around my home, no strange loopers, it’s just me and I was going to mark essays and have a cup of tea. She can sit and watch TV till you get home. I promise I won’t be a mean teacher person, Ella,’ she added.

Ella grinned her impish grin.

‘Or we can wait on the step until you get here.’

‘No, no. That would be fantastic, if you could bring her to your place.’ He still sounded upset.

‘I understand your fears totally. You can phone Matilda’s and they’ll tell you I’m a teacher there and –’ Connie racked her brains for other proof of her trustworthiness. ‘Rae in Titania’s Tearooms knows me. I’ve lived here for eight years. I used to share with my sister, Nicky – you know, pretty blonde girl. She just got married.’

‘I know her,’ he said.

Connie grinned. Everyone remembered Nicky.

‘I’m sorry about the whole crazy-lady-next-door thing,’ he added.

‘Forget it,’ she said briskly. ‘You have my mobile phone number now and my apartment is 2B in the house beside yours. Does Ella have a snack after school?’

‘Chocolate cake and 7UP,’ Ella said loudly.

‘A sandwich and a glass of milk,’ her father said.

Ella shook her head. ‘Chocolate cake and 7UP,’ she whispered.

‘Slug juice and beetle buns?’ Connie whispered back.

Ella’s laugh was explosive.

‘You talk to your dad for a moment,’ Connie said, handing the phone back.

Ella listened quietly and nodded at whatever her father said.

‘Love you too,’ she said and pressed the ‘end’ button.

She picked up her school bag and looked enquiringly at Connie. ‘Do you really have slug juice?’

‘Only for emergencies,’ Connie said. ‘It’s very expensive.’

Ella was only a small person but she filled Connie’s apartment in a way it hadn’t been filled since Nicky had left. She left her coat and schoolbag on the floor by the door, took off her shoes and left them where they lay, and walked around looking at things.

She loved Connie’s many candles, and her earthenware birds and the red cushions with the gingham hearts on them. She picked up ornaments, running her tiny fingers over them, then putting them back in exactly the right place.

‘Oooh, I love this,’ she kept saying, touching, examining, rushing from place to place. She spent ages gazing at the pictures of Nicky’s wedding, taking one big group photo and looking at it steadily.

Connie watched her from behind the counter in the kitchen, making very slow work of getting a glass of milk and a sandwich. She had nothing interesting to eat in her cupboards, so it would have to be the healthy snack Steve wanted her to have.

She wondered what Steve and Ella’s story was. Where was her mother?

Connie only had a vague impression of Steve Calman and he was a big man, the sort of person she imagined wearing a hard hat and working on a building site, whereas Ella was a pixie with neat, skinny limbs and a tiny heart-shaped face. Ella’s mother must have been a pixie person too. No wonder he’d noticed Nicky.

When Ella had finished her exploration of the living room, she looked enquiringly at Connie. ‘Can I see everywhere else?’ she asked politely. ‘I don’t get to see many houses. I’ve seen Lilly’s and it’s nice but untidy. And Petal lives in a flat, ‘cos her mum’s divorced. Can I see your room? Please?’

Connie grinned. ‘Sure. But after your snack.’

At the table, Ella sniffed the milk cautiously. ‘Is this slug juice?’ she asked.

‘No, I was teasing. It’s plain old milk and a cheese sandwich. I’m sorry I don’t have anything more interesting.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘I have profiteroles in the freezer.’ Keeping them there was a great way to diet. That way, it took half an hour for them to defrost and normally, she couldn’t wait long enough, so the desire for the sweet thing would be gone by then.

‘What are proff…poff…– those things?’

‘Little cakes with chocolate on the outside and cream on the inside.’

Mouth full of sandwich, Ella made a thumbs-up sign.

Connie drank her tea and wondered why it felt different to have a child in her home instead of standing in front of a classroom of them. Yet it was different. She felt responsible for this little person in a strange way. In class, she was responsible for the girls’ learning and for their wellbeing in school, but that was a shared responsibility. Their parents, other teachers, a whole host of other people were involved. But now, with Ella,
she
was totally in charge.