Page 81

May 2022

It’s early evening and still warm in the garden.

Joanna and Lucy have gone to a friend’s house, and Ben sits at the picnic bench with a pencil in his hand and an open notebook in front of him.

He taps away at the calculator app on his phone and writes down the results in a long column of figures.

His soft two-week-holiday beard has more than a sprinkling of white, and he strokes it as he concentrates.

Tess, grass-stained after emptying armfuls of lawn clippings onto the compost heap, plonks herself down on the bench opposite him.

‘Georgia and Stan are coming for lunch on Sunday. They’ve been vaccinated and Georgia told me that nothing but an edict from the First Minister herself would stop her from being here – and even then she would be inclined to be disobedient.

It’s Stan’s birthday, so I want to make sure there’s a good spread.’

Ben abandons his arithmetic and looks up.

There is grass in her hair and a smudge of earth on her left cheek.

‘The girls will want a Colin the Caterpillar cake.’ He blows gently into the air.

‘With candles.’

She smiles.

‘Of course they will. We can get one at Marks and Sparks in Morningside.’

He doodles a pattern of intersecting 2 and 5 symbols in his notebook.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask if you think there might be more lodgers eventually?’

Tess can see his design from across the table.

‘Probably not while you’re here.’

He draws more numbers, linking them together with swoops of his pencil.

‘You know, it’s been nearly a year since we moved in, but I’ve never felt able to ask you .

.?.’

‘Ask me what?’

‘Well, I’m assuming you aren’t a former prisoner, although nothing is impossible.

And there are no children here with you.

So that leaves .?.?.’

She sticks to the facts.

‘I was dumped.’

He is embarrassed at having asked the question.

‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Well, not dumped exactly. It’s a bit more complicated than that.’

She wonders how to explain in a way which won’t alienate him.

‘My ex and I always said we didn’t want children, but he changed his mind.

I remember telling Fiona at the time that other people’s kids were fine, I just didn’t want any of my own.’

She decides on the spur of the moment to be totally honest. ‘I think he must have been thinking about it for a couple of years before he actually said something. With hindsight there were all sorts of clues but I couldn’t see them at the time.

I think he wanted me to be the one to end it because then it would have been my fault, and not his.’

He doesn’t know what to say.

‘Pretty much overnight I went from being one half of a couple to being completely and utterly wrecked. I tried to put on a good face and pretend I was coping, but the truth is that I was suddenly unattached, or separated, or solo, or whatever you want to call it.’ Her voice drops to barely a whisper.

‘But not in my heart.’

Ben thinks about reaching out across the table, but decides against it.

He picks up his pencil again and doodles a few more numbers instead.

‘When Zoe died it happened so fast, I felt as though I couldn’t breathe.

One minute she was her usual self, planning trips to the beach at Portobello with the kids, and reading the paper, and drinking coffee, just doing all the normal stuff.

And then she was gone in less than a week.’

Tess shakes her head.

‘I’m sorry. I’m not for a minute saying what happened to me is as bad as what you went through.’

‘I know you aren’t.

Doesn’t mean I can’t relate though.

It’s four years since she died and I loved her to bits but I was absolutely furious with her for leaving us.

They say grief is not a logical thing, and it’s true.’

He pulls himself back to the present.

Tess rubs her dirty palms together slowly.

‘It’s not something we have any control over.

It just smashes its way in.

One minute you are loved and safe, and the next, it’s all gone.’

She examines the green tinge on her fingers, left by the grass.

‘A distant acquaintance told me recently that he has three kids now, so I guess that means he got what he wanted. I suppose it probably wasn’t exactly easy for him either.

These things are difficult for everyone.

I’ve seen enough broken hearts in this house over the last eleven years to know that.’

‘So when you came here, did Georgia look after you?’

Tess shakes her head.

‘Absolutely not. Nobody here is looked after. Annie started it all, Georgia took over and now it’s my turn.

Number 25 offers people somewhere to stay at a time in their lives when they have no idea how to wash, or eat proper food, or speak in whole sentences, let alone organise things like going to the dentist. When I took over from her, Georgia told me that everyone takes a different amount of time.

Some need six months, others need a year or even longer.’

‘Time to do what, though?’

‘To reach the point where they can think about what comes next.’

‘Gotcha.’ Ben closes his notebook.

‘The girls kept me busy, but it wasn’t until we moved here last summer that I was able to make a proper start.’

He thinks about Zoe, and what she would want for them.

This isn’t the life they planned together, but he is sure she would approve of the line of walking boots in the hall, and the waterproofs hanging on the hooks above them, always ready for the next adventure.

Number 25 is not a magazine-perfect house, despite the neatly paired socks and never-late library books.

In the kitchen the girls’ colourful paintings of the four of them are stuck to the freezer door, and Tess never makes any attempt to remove them until the next piece of art arrives.

After a year of sharing veggie chilli and visits to the library, and coping with forgotten homework and vomity sick nights, they bumble along pretty well, but they are not a couple and are very careful not to stand on each other’s toes.

Despite this, there are new acronyms in the house, the kind of secret code created by families, which no one else understands.

The girls have shortened the important instruction to “Count The Stairs” to “CoTS” and they all use it whenever they are staying away in a youth hostel, because no one wants to be weird in public.

Ben thinks about how relaxed and settled the girls are now and how much everything has changed.

He wonders, not for the first time, if he is brave enough to have a conversation with Tess about how much she matters to him.

They sit quietly together, enjoying the evening, and not feeling any further need to talk about the past.

The side gate creaks as it opens.

Tess catches half a glimpse of movement near the house.

‘Are you expecting someone?’

Ben gets to his feet.

‘I’ll go,’ he says, ‘it’s probably something to do with the girls anyway.

You know what they’re like.

They’ll have left some important possession behind, it’s always happening.’

He comes back a couple of minutes later with a tall woman, who looks distinctly nervous.

‘This lady is looking for Georgia. She says her name is .?.?.’

Tess finishes his sentence.

‘Nicola?’

The woman looks even more anxious.

‘Have we met before somewhere?’

Tess has often thought about what she would say if Nicola ever knocked on the door.

‘We haven’t, but Georgia is a friend of mine.

I started out as a lodger here too, more than ten years ago, so you and I have something in common.’

She smiles and points to an empty chair beside the bench, an invitation to sit down with them in the sunshine.

Nicola is still standing, unsure of the welcome.

‘I wasn’t sure if it would be alright.’

Tess keeps talking, explaining, trying to put their visitor at ease.

‘Sometimes people come to see us, and others stay in touch by phone. Georgia is always delighted to hear what everyone’s been doing.’

She leans forward, hoping to encourage a response.

‘I think I may have seen your photo in the office?’

Nicola risks a hesitant smile, and sits down on the chair.

‘I remember that day. It was really sunny and I was squinting into the camera but she said it didn’t matter.’

Ben takes his lead from Tess.

‘You aren’t disturbing us.

I live here too, with my daughters.

Being a lodger has been an interesting experience.’

He has no idea who this woman is, but Tess doesn’t look as though she needs any help.

He picks up his notebook.

‘I think I’ll go and make us all a cold drink.’

He leaves them to chat, and heads for the kitchen, hoping against hope that the girls have remembered to refill the ice cube tray.

Tess knows there is nothing for Nicola to worry about.

All she can do is try to make her feel comfortable.

She smiles again at her fellow lodger.

‘A long time ago, Georgia told me that one day you would come back to number 25. I can’t wait to let her know you are here.’

If you can’t get enough of Natalie’s enchanting stories then don’t miss out on her debut novel The Sewing Machine , a Waterstones Scotland bestseller.

Two families. Three secrets.

Millions of stitches.