She would save all the money she found, and she would buy them a little house, just like in the book she was reading with the girl who found an abandoned cottage and made it her home. Clara had so many dreams of her and Mum leaving in the night-time, bags packed, being quiet so they didn’t wake Dad. His drunken snores were a sign he was out for the night but you couldn’t be too careful. Once she thought he was asleep but when she walked past him, he grabbed her on the arm so tightly that he left finger marks and Mum was called into the school to explain.
Last night Dad and Mum were yelling because he was flirting with a girl at the pub. She hated it when they talked about things like that. Once she had seen Dad with a lady she didn’t know at the park, and he was holding her in a way she hadn’t seen him ever hold Mum. She knew not to say anything to Mum though; that sort of thing was for adults, not for children to tell secrets about.
But Clara didn’t like to think about those times. Instead, she imagined a little thatched cottage with a little dog all of her own and chickens in the yard, and she and Mum making cakes in the kitchen.
She would have a best friend like the little girl in the book she read who lived down the road and they would have all sorts of adventures together.
Oh yes, this was the perfect plan. She just had to work out a way to escape from Dad somehow.
So, night after night, Clara planned their escape, writing it all down in a notebook by torchlight under the covers. Her Safety Book, she called it, hidden away behind the skirting board where Mum or Dad couldn’t find it and where all of Clara’s wishes lay, waiting for her to make them come true.
10
Clara had been lying in her cold bedroom on her mattress with her old wooden bedframe lying outside on the long grass when Rachel called. Clara prayed the rain would stay away but English summers were always unpredictable.
She had cleaned the bedroom as much as she could, which meant she’d swept, dusted, washed the windows and sills and skirtings, and scrubbed the bathroom as much as she could but the pink tiles and pedestal basin needed better cleaning products than what she had. Thankfully the last owner, Sheila Batt, according to Tassie, had put a working toilet inside, the one she hadn’t died on according to Tassie again, and Clara had cleaned it but it was certainly not the dream space she had imagined.
There was no television, no internet, and Henry and Pansy had retired for the night into their van. Henry had offered for her to stay in the van but honestly, she had no idea where she would fit, and besides, she didn’t want to intrude. No, she had made her bed, so to speak, and she had to try and sleep in it.
Henry had popped off to the local chippie and brought back a selection of fried treats for dinner and served them all in the little van. Pansy was thrilled about the dinner, telling Clara that she thought that when she grew up she would own a fish and chip shop.
The van was cute, with a little bunk bed for Pansy and a double bed for Henry below. There was a galley kitchen and a sofa, which Henry said turned into a bed, and a sweet little bathroom. The style was cute and homely and probably was put together by Henry’s wife.
‘Your van is what I would like my cottage to look like,’ she admitted, after Pansy was in her bunk with the iPad watching her favourite TV show before bed.
‘It was all Naomi,’ he said and Clara inwardly acknowledged her instinct for seeing the woman’s touch. It was in the cushions and the rugs and the sweet curtains and the teacups with pink polka dots on them.
Clara sipped her beer and ate a chip.
‘How did she die?’
‘Ovarian cancer; it was quick and it was ruthless. Spread everywhere. She thought she was pregnant at first but it was already on the march when she was diagnosed.’
‘What a shit of a disease,’ said Clara shaking her head. ‘Completely rubbish, isn’t it? You think about all those idiots who are wasting their time in life and then you think about your wife, and the snuffing of her candle far too early when she probably had a lot she still wanted to do.’
‘She did,’ said Henry leaning forward over the small booth table. ‘She had so much left to do – we had things to do together.’
Clara nodded and sipped her beer. ‘Life brings some absolute turds sometimes, doesn’t it?’
Henry laughed. ‘It has its moments.’
They were silent for a moment, and Clara felt something shift between them. She wasn’t sure what it was but it was something unusual and special, a connection perhaps. Nothing too big but at least it was an understanding.
‘I should go to my crumbling castle now, and you said you were giving me a quote and list?’
Henry went to the pile of papers on the small desk and pulled out a folder with embossing on the front.
‘Take it and read it and we can chat in the morning,’ he said.
Clara touched the front of the folder.
HENRY GARNETT AND DAUGHTER
THATCHER, HANDYMAN, ARTIST, GARDENER.
‘Do you do all of these?’ she asked, looking up at him.
‘Pansy is the gardener and artist but I hold my own.’ He smiled.
*
Gosh, he was lovely, she thought later when she was sitting in her bed, wearing a parka and her boots, even though it was summer. No insulation in a place will do that, Henry had told
