I shake my head. I don’t really like going out. I haven’t got agoraphobia or anything, I just like being in my house, watching movies, reading. I like going out sometimes but as a couple. I don’t want to go to dinner and clubs and pubs with the girls.
I never have.
I’ve always been in a couple, ever since I was sixteen but Jess won’t let it go.
‘It’s better than sitting in on your own on a Friday night,’ Jess says. ‘So, what did you do?’
My face is burning.
‘Mum!’ Charlotte calls from the living room. ‘The remote’s not working.’ I add bacon to the pan and I can hear it sizzling, much the same as my face. ‘There aren’t any batteries in it.’
‘Get some from your DS.’ I shout back.
I swear to God I am never using a vibrator again. I’m going to wrap it in newspaper and put it at the bottom of the bin.
I can’t believe the places my mind went to last night.
‘You’ve been busy,’ Luke says, glancing around. The house is gleaming and, for once, I’ve got some make up on.
I really am making an effort.
We eat our bacon sandwiches and finally we address the real reason that Luke is here.
‘You need to get a job.’ He’s as blunt as ever. ‘No bank’s going to approve you without proof of income.
‘It’s too soon.’
‘It doesn’t have to be a big job,’ Jess says. ‘They just need to see you’ve got some form of income’
‘I can’t think of working,’ I shake my head. ‘It’s way too soon.’
‘Lucy,’ Luke snaps. ‘Most people get two weeks compassionate leave. You’ve had six, nearly seven.’
‘It might be good for you to get out a bit.’ Jess is far gentler than Luke. ‘I can make a couple of calls.’ I feel this sort of lurch of hope as she chats on, because she knows someone and they’re looking for personal shoppers. I could do that, I think. I know all the labels and I love clothes and I could really do that but then I feel my eyelashes fluttering in a rapid blink as I realise Jess is not talking about Debenhams, she’s talking about the supermarket.
‘No!’
Fuck that!
‘No.’ I shake my head as I say it again - I am not doing other peoples shopping for a poxy five quid an hour. ‘It’s hardly going to cover a mortgage.’ Not the one I plan to take out on the house anyway.
Except, Luke has other ideas, because it’s a tiny mortgage that he’s suggesting I apply for.
I wanted a year.
He can maybe wrangle a year.
But I’m going to have to work for it.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
I’m too embarrassed to go to Ricky to get my roots done and so two weeks later, I find myself in my local supermarket, buying a home bleaching kit and hair dye.
I’ll be working here tomorrow.
I’ve got this very wobbly arrangement with Simone about dropping off and picking up the children. Charlotte is not pleased that I’m starting work and she questions me as I try to sort out my hair.
‘So what do I do when I get home?’ She’s standing at the bathroom door as I part my hair and smear peroxide over my roots.
‘What you always do,’ I say to her. ‘Go on Facebook. Or you can stay at Simone’s till I get home – I’ll be back by five.’
‘I don’t want to go to go there after school.’
‘Charlotte.’ I am doing my best to be patient, I know it’s a change, I know she’s used to having me home but I’m doing this so that bigger changes don’t have to happen. ‘It’s two days a week that I won’t be here after school.’
‘And some weekends,’ Charlotte says.
‘Charlotte…’ I look at her in the mirror and her eyes are so accusatory as they meet mine. ‘Lots of mums work,’ I point out. ‘Felicity’s mum works.’ Charlotte just stares at me for a full a minute, she doesn’t say it but I know she’s thinking it.
Felicity’s mum and her other friends mums have careers or hobbies or just live at the gym or shops.
They don’t work at the supermarket.
My shift starts at eleven and will finish at four forty five.
I’m told what to do, in a painfully slow voice, by this really annoying woman, whose name is Yolanda. She keeps calling me “love.”
‘You have to be thorough, love, and you have to be quick.’
I have a special trolley and it has a board that holds the computer printout of the