Chances

Despite all this, despite the black-and-white fact that it’s Vita’s name on the title deeds – the first time she’s owned property – sometimes, it still feels as though she’s squatting, as though she’s in transit, that this can’t be her destination. She’s made the house very nice – but occasionally, she still feels her real home must be elsewhere. Not Tim’s place, not now. Sometimes it simply feels that Pear Tree Cottage can’t really be the place she’s meant to live. She may well have signed the transfer papers, the mortgage, and a million other forms – but when did she sign up to living alone in her mid-thirties?

In the days just before she completed on the property, in the New Year, and just after she moved in, Vita desperately regretted the purchase. It was legal and binding and it meant that nothing could remain up in the air with Tim. He’d paid her off. She’d taken his money and invested it in the foundations of a house that in turn was apparently going to provide the foundation stone on which she’d be building her new life, or so her friends kept saying.

During those early weeks, when she was exhausted and dusty and unnerved, guilt seeped in – on paper, she had her very own place, her friends had bedecked it with hope and good wishes and lovely moving-in gifts, her mother had poured money into it. How could she feel so ambivalent when she had such good fortune? She didn’t want to record an answering machine message in the first person singular. She didn’t want to cook for friends and then clear up on her own once they’d gone. She didn’t want to stay in and watch a DVD by herself, nor, however, did she want to go out and then have to return on her own to an empty house. She was in limbo and so she didn’t quite unpack. There are still a few boxes left to do, even now. Instead, she filled her time painting. White. White everywhere, apart from that one wall of faded floral paper. Coat after coat. Litres of the stuff. It wasn’t a whitewash; Vita was providing herself with nothingness all around to contradict the emotions at loggerheads within.

Six months and two seasons on, she doesn’t quite love her little house, but she does like it very much. What she still doesn’t like is leaving and coming back during the working week. At That Shop, her link with Tim and the past remains and weekdays are comparatively unchanged. He’ll come in and print off a till balance. She’ll email him about an order. They’ll discuss takings and promotions and what’s to be done with the useless Saturday girl. The bills and statements come in, addressed to them both. There they are on paper, side by side still, in it together, partners. She doesn’t see it as a stumbling block to the steady progress of moving on, she sees it as a safety net.

But Tim’s made no secret of the fact that when business picks up, they should sell. Their only tie to each other is now financial. They remain bound to each other. And Tim has made it clear that it’s a bind.

Michelle and Candy

‘It’s the first time she’s ever missed Jakey’s birthday.’ Michelle nudged Candy that the traffic lights were on green. ‘I know she’ll be mortified when she finds out.’

‘Was Jake all right about it?’ Candy crunched gears and drove ahead. ‘Damn, I could’ve taken a crafty back-double down there.’

‘He’s ten years old. I don’t think he’ll be emotionally scarred because his godmother forgot his birthday – but he’d calculated in advance how many presents he was due and he told me tonight, before I left, that he’s going to sack Vita if she still hasn’t remembered.’

‘Scamp.’

‘Bless him.’

‘He’ll go far.’

‘He’s a boy genius.’

‘You would say that. You’re his mother.’

‘You’ll be like that about Amelia.’

‘Oh, I already am – she may be only nine months old but you do know she’s the most beautiful child ever to have been born and staggeringly gifted too.’

‘Come on, bloody traffic.’

Candy passed Michelle her phone. ‘Let her know we’re going to be late. Tell her it’ll give her time to wrap Jake’s present.’

‘V, it’s Mushroom – yes, late as always. Actually, it’s traffic this time. Honestly! We’re on our way – with wine and delectables from Marks and Sparks. See you in a mo’.’

‘Is delectables a word?’ Candy asked.

‘It’s perfect.’

‘Mrs Sherlock, don’t you think you’re too old to be called Mushroom?’

‘She couldn’t pronounce Michelle when she was little. Granted, it’s not the most beguiling of nicknames.’

‘But you like it.’

‘I do.’

‘And yet you call her V, which she hates.’

‘I know.’

‘She gave me short shrift the one and only time I tried it.’

‘I’ve known her my whole life – you’ve only known her since school, remember.’

‘Ner ner!’ Candy laughed. Then she paused. ‘I haven’t actually seen her since the Easter egg event at her shop. It’ll be good to see what else she’s done to the house – though I can’t believe there was any more minging old carpet to rip up. And there’s only so many times you can paint a wall white.’

‘She’ll put the colour back into her life when she’s ready, Candy.’

‘Or subtle shades of Farrow and Ball – I bought her a subscription to LivingEtc for Christmas.’

‘I bought her a deckchair emblazoned with “Keep Calm and Carry On”.’

For Candy and Michelle, seeing Vita barefoot was a great sight. Not that she had particularly stunning feet – just that, to her closest friends, it made her look so at home, standing on her doorstep with no shoes on. It also spoke of the warm weather, that summer was truly coming, that socks wouldn’t be needed for months, indoors or out.

Michelle and Candy waxed lyrical about the Victorian tiles on the front doorstep even though most were cracked or chipped, and as soon as they were over the threshold, they continued their assault of compliments, gushing about the floorboards as if Vita had sawn them herself instead of simply ripping up the old carpets. Both had been to the cottage many times and could see that she’d done little more to it since they were last there. Still, they cooed over her soft furnishings, ran their hands over windowsills and doors and told her the kitchen smelt amazing, even though she was merely heating up the finger food they’d brought with them.

Their enthusiasm was excessive – especially as neither saw her staying there indefinitely. They saw the cottage as a good, solid foothold on her road to independence, a good thing financially – she’d bought just at the right time – but ultimately wouldn’t the hip-and-happening canal-side development better suit a single woman in her mid-thirties?

‘Let’s eat outside,’ Vita said.

‘Have you done much to the garden?’

‘Come and see.’

Michelle and Candy brought out a kitchen chair each and Vita followed with cushions. To make room for the extra chairs, Vita scurried about moving the pots of pansies, a galvanized trough with chives and thyme doing well, a trowel and a plastic watering can. The deckchair that Michelle had bought her was positioned to catch the last of the sun that lingered on the small paved area right outside the kitchen door as if blessing it. It couldn’t really be called a patio – just as the small patch of grass couldn’t be called a lawn; nor could the bed which ran the short length to the back of the garden be called a herbaceous border. But Vita’s friends noted the planting she’d done – just busy-lizzies and geraniums but a quick colour fix to welcome the summer nonetheless.

‘I really need a table – sorry, laps’ll have to do.’

‘What’s in the shed at the back?’

‘Spiders.’

Back in midwinter, when she’d first shown them around, Vita had gone on and on about trees being the cathedrals of the natural world while Candy had described the pear tree as more like a derelict sixties tower block. The tree had seemed so dark, so overbearing and ominous with its thrust and scratch of bare branches, its dense trunk. Today, it struck Michelle and Candy as a more benign presence, like an over-the-top prop at a Hollywood wedding, billowing with blossom which wafted down gently around them like confetti, like manna, like fake snow in a department-store window display at Christmas. Soft and pretty – if you ignored the little brown bits which were surprisingly itchy. Vita, however, was grinning at it inanely.

‘Who needs acreage and fancy shrubs when you have something like that in the garden,’ she said. ‘The tree is the garden!’

‘Can you imagine the amount of pears you’re going to have,’ said Candy, with slight unease. She wasn’t entirely sure whether each flower on Vita’s tree equalled a future fruit.

‘I know!’ she said, ignoring the point. ‘I thought I might try making chutney or something, perhaps a cordial – and I could bottle it and do labels and sell it in the shop.’

‘Tim’ll love that,’ Candy said under her breath.

‘I heard that,’ Vita said.

‘How is the charming son-of-a?’ Candy asked.