I could always just borrow the book, but I don’t like giving them back once they’re in my possession. I don’t want anything that enters my house to leave it. I’m not one of those hoarders you see in TV documentaries who live like moles in their own homes, burrowing their way through skyscrapers of crap-filled boxes they can’t bring themselves to part with. Maggie’s a bit like that. The basement was like a rubbish dump until I cleared it out a couple of years ago. But meaningful things, like her books, I’m reluctant to dispose of even when she’s finished them. So they remain forever on my shelves, their pages slowly yellowing, unlikely to be opened or touched again.
My stomach roars and I note from the clock above the reception desk that it’s lunchtime already. On my way to the staffroom, I notice an elderly person with a trolley by her side, one of those tartan-covered ones that every woman over the age of seventy pushes. Even from this distance, I can smell her. She leaves a bitter taste in my throat and for a moment I try not to breathe in around her. Her odour is the reason why no one is sharing her table.
Her hair is a shock of white and silver, matted in places, and reaches her shoulders. Her eyes are a milky blue, her skin a mocha brown and her clothes tatty and unwashed. I don’t know her name and as far as I’m aware, she isn’t a library member. But she is a regular here, more frequent in the winter months when she’ll lurk at the back of the room absorbing warmth from the cast-iron radiators. She’ll take her scarf, socks and shoes off and spread them out across the tops so that when it’s closing time, her feet will remain warm for a little while when she’s back in the unforgiving cold. She favours romantic fiction, especially those soppy Mills & Boon books. Sometimes she devours two in one sitting. It’s a safe bet she’s yet to find the same happy ever after as the characters she reads about.
I return from my locker with my packed lunch – a sausage roll, a red apple, ham and cheese sandwich and can of lemonade. I drop them into a plastic bag and place them on the table next to the old woman. When she understands what I’ve done, she looks up at me and for a second, I swear I can see Maggie in her grateful eyes. Without offering her an explanation or awaiting a thank you, I leave her alone.
‘You shouldn’t feed the pigeons,’ says Steve as I pass him. He’s seen what I’ve done. ‘They’re vermin.’
‘I hate watching people suffer,’ I reply, and make my way outside to buy my lunch instead.
I don’t know what that woman has lost to end up trapped in the life she lives now, but I know how it feels to have your world thrown from its axis through no fault of your own.
CHAPTER 6
NINA
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER
The weight of the textbooks in my schoolbag makes a heavy thump when I let it fall to the floor. I kick my ugly, clunky, black lace-ups into the cupboard under the stairs and rush upstairs to my bedroom and swap my uniform for my tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. While school uniforms are okay for kids, it’s not fair that teenagers should be forced to wear them.
‘Hello,’ I shout as I head back downstairs, but there’s no response. There must be somebody here because the front door was unlocked and Mum never works later than 2.30 p.m. at the surgery. She says she doesn’t want me coming home to an empty house like she had to when I was her age. I keep reminding her that I’m nearly fourteen and that I can survive alone here for a few hours without burning the place down.
I pick up the remote control and switch on children’s TV. The programmes are a bit babyish but I like background noise as I do my homework. Dad says he doesn’t know how I can concentrate with all that noise; I remind him I’m a girl and it’s been scientifically proven that we can multitask better than boys. I read it in Just Seventeen magazine so it must be true. Besides, I’ve only got an English lit essay about the Brontë sisters to finish tonight and they’re my favourites. Although I do still have a soft spot for Malory Towers and Judy Blume. I’ll do an hour before Neighbours comes on and if I’m lucky and Dad is late home from work, then I’ll get to watch Home and Away too. He hates the Aussie soaps.
Mum has usually come to find me by now to ask me about my day. Half the time I mumble one-word answers and tell her to move out of the way of the telly. But her not being here means curiosity’s getting the better of me, so I look for her instead. She’s not in the kitchen, or upstairs on the first floor or in the attic they’ve just had converted. Everyone else has been getting conservatories, but we’re the first house in the street to extend up and convert the cellar into a basement floor. Dad says when we come to sell in the next couple of years, the profit we’ll make will have made the expense worthwhile. I keep trying to talk him into letting me swap bedrooms and move up there. He says no, but I’ll wear him down eventually. I always do.
I gaze out from the window at the top of the stairs and into the garden, where I spot Mum. She’s standing by the washing line, a towel in her hands and a full basket at her feet, but she’s not moving. It’s like I’m watching her on videotape and someone’s pressed pause. I knock on the glass but she doesn’t flinch. That’s not like her.
By the time I reach the kitchen, she’s made her way indoors. Her eyes are red and puffy, like mine when my hay fever kicks in and I want to claw them out.
‘Didn’t you hear me come in?’ I ask, and I can tell that her smile is forced because I do the same when I get a birthday or Christmas present I don’t like, so as not to offend. ‘Is everything okay?’ But I’m not sure I actually want to know.
‘Just give me a minute to finish hanging up the rest of the washing,’ she replies, and her voice is all sing-song-like. Like her smile, she’s putting it on. She’s acting weird; I don’t like this.
I glance at the basket and all she’s washed are bathroom towels, tea towels, dishrags, dusters and even those fluffy mats she puts under the toilet pedestal and by the side of the bath. I’m a bag of nerves as I wait until she comes back inside.
‘Come here,’ she says, and beckons me to join her at the kitchen table. She sits by my side, removes a tissue from under her sleeve and dabs at her eyes with it. I don’t know what she’s about to say.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ she begins. ‘It’s about your dad.’
My stomach does backflips and I clamp my hand over my mouth so quickly that it hurts my lips. Now I know what she’s going to say and I want to throw up. The same thing happened to Sarah Collins at school last Christmas. She was called out of geography class and then Mrs Peck told her that her dad had been in an accident on his motorbike and her mum was on her way to come and collect her. She’s the first person I know who has lost a parent.
My dad is my world and I don’t want to be in a world without him. ‘Is he dead?’ I ask.
Mum shakes her head and suddenly, there’s hope. ‘No,’ she says. ‘He’s not, darling. But . . . but I’m afraid your dad and I won’t be living together any more.’ She puts her hand on my arm. Her skin is cold. ‘This morning, when you were at school, your dad told me he couldn’t be with us any longer and that he had to leave.’