for the OED, that I was involved with the history of language, how words and meanings have changed over time, and that my job was to help record that.
I could see, like many people, they didn’t really grasp it. They seemed to decide that I worked for the Concise English Dictionary, that my role was not to document the changing meaning of words but simply to spell them.
‘We could do with some help with spelling around here,’ Ailsa said, reaching one arm back to touch Max’s leg.
‘Max has a learning difficulty. Or a learning difference as I think we’re now supposed to call it.’ Tom laughed, not exactly unkindly.
Ailsa sighed. ‘It means homework is torture. It’s all spellings.’
‘This week they’re impossible,’ Max said. ‘I mean how am I supposed to learn, like, “accommodation”.’
‘Two cots, two mattresses,’ I said.
He swung his head to eye me with suspicion. ‘ “Necessary”.’
‘One cap, two socks.’
‘Or what about, like . . .’ He wracked his brain. ‘ “Rhythm”?’
‘If you could say a sentence without saying “like”, it would be a start,’ Tom said.
I thought for a moment. ‘Rhythm helps your two hips move.’
Bea slipped off her father’s lap and grabbed a rucksack off the floor. She pulled a piece of loose paper out and started reading out the list: ‘ “Harass”. “Embarrass”. “Forty”. “Excellent”. How can Max not know “excellent”? Maybe because he never sees it written at the end of his work.’
‘Bea,’ Ailsa said warningly. ‘Don’t be mean.’
I started improvising, coming up with mnemonics for each of the words listed, sprinkling in as many swear words as I could manage. Ailsa was looking doubtful but when Max started to repeat the spellings back to me, she laughed and said: ‘Move in, please, and do his homework with him every day? I’ll pay you! Don’t you think, Tom?’
He smiled thinly. ‘If I couldn’t spell a word when I was his age, my father used to tan me until I got it right. That’s one method.’
‘I think Verity’s is rather better, don’t you? Well I do anyway.’ She reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘Thank you.’
I took another sip of my gin and tonic. It really was quite stonkingly strong. I sat back in my chair, crossing my legs at the ankle. I began to feel strangely comfortable, to imagine myself sorting out this little family.
‘So, Verity,’ Tom said. He’d been looking at me. ‘You have a dog.’
‘Yes I do,’ I said. ‘She’s a terrier-cross, a rescue – wire-haired – big squirreler.’
‘Is it squirrels then that he’s barking at in the garden?’ Tom said.
Ailsa was watching him, with a placid smile. Her fingers had begun again to fiddle with her hair, isolating a strand; she gave it a little tug. It was something I would later see her do often.
I put my glass down on the table. I’d left a ludicrous pink lipstick mark on the rim; I wiped at it with my thumb. ‘Yes. Or foxes. She—’ I paused for emphasis. ‘Also likes a fox.’
Smoothing my skirt, I noticed a stain just above the knee where I had spilt some tomato sauce opening a tin of baked beans.
‘One suggestion,’ Tom said reasonably. ‘One way in which the foxes might bugger off and the dog shut up is if you cut your garden back a bit. As I said the other day, it’s only neighbourly of you to clear some of that undergrowth; all those weeds, goodness knows what’s in there. We’re trying to make a nice garden here and we don’t want all that unknown stuff propagating in ours. The ivy’s creeping everywhere. And those trees of yours – the holly, the apple, etc – they’re blocking out a lot of our light.’
I rubbed my wrists where the elastic in the gathered sleeves on my new top had left a crinkled line of indentations. As the silence tightened, I was aware of something growing taut inside me too. How foolish I’d been to think they might be interested in my company.
I sat up straighter. I tried to think about the mnenomics and to be grateful for the gin. I smiled into their expectant faces and said, ‘I’ll have a little prune, then.’
Tom’s jaw relaxed. ‘That’s great news.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Super.’ He nodded at Ailsa and, pushing his chair back, walked over to his phone which he had left charging on the side. ‘If you’ll excuse me a second,’ he said. He began scrolling through his messages, then tapped out one of his