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And then I take Brutus out.
Today’s the first time I don’t have to tug him over the threshold.
I think he may actually like me.It’s a rush to get home and change before heading out to my New Start meeting.
My heart is in my mouth as I plaster a smile on my face and push my way between the swing doors.
Amy Randall, Amy Randall, Amy Randall.
“Hi, I’m Amy,” I tell the gathered volunteers, and one of them steps forward with his hand outstretched. His smile is big and bright.
“Frank Peterson,” he says. “We spoke on the phone. Really pleased to have you here, we can always use another pair of hands.”
I tell him I’m really pleased to be here, too. That I hope I can be of use.
I’m lucky, because this place is so busy and understaffed that they barely have time to ask me any questions about my fake life. I smile and muck in as best I can, chopping up vegetables for soup and stirring the big steel pans.
It’s hard work, but good work. The people here are full of smiles and effort. There’s a genuine sense of community that I haven’t felt for a long time, not since I was part of an estate clean-up team back at school in the summer holidays. It feels a lifetime away.
It doesn’t take much time before I’ve forgotten all about being here on a mission, and instead believe I really am part of the team, just doing my bit, the same as they are.
It becomes a lot more real when we load up the trays with soup mugs and venture out onto the street.
It’s bitter cold out, even with my mum’s old fluffy scarf up around my ears. My fingers feel numb as I hand out food to the people who need it, and I get it, I get why Alexander Henley goes so far out of his way to do this.
These people, the ones with nothing to their name and every reason to be bitter, are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. They take everything with thanks, and ask me about my day with genuine interest, like they haven’t got better things to worry about than my cruddy life away from here.
Frank knows everyone, literally every single person that comes up to us. I follow him as he makes conversation. He asks one guy about his bad leg, and some poor old woman about her grandkid’s birthday last weekend. She tears up as she tells him she got to spend time with him at the foster shelter, and I tear up too, because there is something so real and so raw about this place and these people, something so sad and so warm all at once.
I’m so homesick for my old life that I have to fight the urge to curl into a ball and never get back up. I twist my cold fingers in the tassels of mum’s scarf and push the pain back inside, dishing out those hot soups to those less fortunate than I am and counting my limited blessings.
At least Joe and I have a roof over our heads. It may take every penny I earn to run the place and keep it that way, but Joe always has food in his belly and warm cuddles at night.
Maybe that’s why Mr Henley comes here, to feel gratitude for his lot in life.
Who knows.
I guess Frank does, because on the way back to the kitchen he tells me how he works at all three branches, how once he started this work he couldn’t just walk away at the end of the evening.
Looking after people on the street is everything to Frank. His volunteers are like a second family to him, he says, and so are the people out there in the cold.
I wonder if Mr Henley is like second family to him. The thought feels weird.
I help him pack away, even after everyone else has gone, and he’s turning off the lights for the evening when he asks if I’ll be back next week.
I tell him I’ll definitely be back next week, and every week after that if he’ll have me.
He calls me Amy and I smile like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
The weirdest thing about all this?
On my way back to the underground I realise I’d be back next week regardless, Mr Henley or no.Chapter FifteenAlexanderMM.
Maybe she’s a Margaret or a Millicent or Mollie. A Mary, or a Maddie, or something trendy like a Miley.
Mary Moore.
Miley Montgomery.
Margaret Mackenzie.
I could just look her up on my employee database, of course. A few keystrokes and I’d have every M name on our books at my fingertips.
But I don’t.
There is something so ethereal about this girl’s presence in my home. One wrong move could blow that sweet illusion away.
