Layla’s visits brought a bit of normality for Veronica. She might be the weird lady from number nine, but she had a friend in Layla, and Charlie too. ‘What’s that tucked under your arm?’
‘The kindness calendar, of course.’
‘How could I forget something so important?’ Veronica smiled. The kindness calendar was something Layla had started at school well before the long summer holidays set in and the children were all tasked with carrying on with the allotted tasks during their break. ‘Now, how does chocolate milk and a slice of carrot cake sound?’
Layla followed her into the kitchen and sat herself down at the little wooden table as Veronica cut the cake. ‘Did you use the carrots from our veggie patch?’
‘Of course I did, you gave me enough before you went away!’ Veronica poured the chocolate milk and handed it to Layla. ‘I want to hear all about your holiday – how was Wales?’
‘I loved camping.’ Layla’s dark ginger bobbed hair swung as she animatedly told Veronica all about the muddy field they’d stayed in, the trek to the toilets in the middle of the night, the cows at the farm nearby who’d woken them with their mooing every morning. ‘They were so loud, worse than my alarm clock when it’s time to get up for school.’
‘It sounds as though you got plenty of fresh country air.’ She looked at the rolled-up kindness calendar Layla had set down on one of the chairs. She was a part of it now that she was teaching Layla to play the piano and being involved had lifted something in Veronica, it made her feel as though despite her limitations, the big wide world out there hadn’t been completely taken away from her. ‘Did you manage to do any of the calendar while you were away?’
‘I ticked off “Be a Good Samaritan”. That was easy. You could do anything.’ She didn’t leave a crumb behind from the cake. ‘We helped two people who couldn’t put their tent up. The wind made it really hard and they needed more pairs of hands. I got to hammer in the tent pegs with the big wooden mallet – I like doing that.’
‘It was very kind of you.’
‘The people let me take photos with daddy’s phone too because then I can show the class when we go back to school.’
‘Let’s look what else there is for this month?’ Veronica unrolled the calendar to look at the squares. The children hadn’t been inundated with items; you could probably do them all in a week if you put your mind to it, Veronica thought, but she approved of how the children were having to come up with ways to help people with simple things. She pointed to a square. ‘Now this one is easy: pick up litter.’
‘I picked up some litter in Wales; one man was very naughty and left behind empty tins and a box from his tea bags.’
‘Very naughty,’ Veronica admonished.
‘I put it all in the right bins – rubbish and recycling.’
‘Why haven’t you ticked the item off yet?’ Usually Layla usually put a big coloured line through the square the second she’d completed another task.
‘It was only one bag; I’d like to do more first. Daddy said I can go over the road to the playground and pick up any rubbish there.’
Veronica zoned in on another item on the calendar. ‘What will you do for this one?’ The square had the words ‘Help a local’. Talk about ambiguous.
‘My teacher says that’s the good thing about the calendar: it makes us think. I want to come up with something really good.’
‘Then we’d better put our thinking caps on, hadn’t we?’
Veronica was always happy to listen to Layla natter away. She rabbited on at ten to the dozen and the sound filled the lonely walls of Veronica’s home. It wasn’t exactly quiet with Sam and Audrey both living here, but they both spent a lot of time in their rooms, avoiding her and steering clear of each other. It was amazing how three people could live under the same roof and yet Veronica still felt lonely. At least she had until Layla had come. It was the highlight of her day, not just today, but every day she showed up.
Layla talked about how the community mosaic wall was coming on, how she and Charlie had been down there already and played a part sticking pieces of broken china to the wall which separated the community centre from the road. Veronica longed to be a part of it. Even Audrey had been smashing up china and gone down there to join in, although Veronica wondered whether Audrey’s favourite part was the destruction of bowls, cups, and any old crockery. It was a good way to vent her frustration if watching her from the window was anything to go by.
Veronica told Layla all about her latest visitor to the house. She’d already met Audrey of course, but Sam was new.
Layla’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘It’s nice you have company,’ she said after a considered pause.
‘Yes, I suppose it is. And I was thinking we should give the piano playing a rest this week,
