Chapter Three
Ashleigh – 34 Tilgate Road, Brighton
‘We need dog food and gravy,’ Nan announced from her favourite armchair. It faced the television, which was usually either showing cosy mystery series or true crime documentaries, but Ash knew that wasn’t why Nan liked sitting there. It was because that seat enabled her to see halfway down the street if the curtains were open and there was enough light – numbers 25 to nearly 49 on the opposite side, before the road gradually went uphill and curved away. Over a dozen houses to watch, with their comings and goings.
‘Gravy?’ Ash paused on her way through to the kitchen. ‘I’m sure I got some last week.’
‘Yes, one of those piddly little tubs,’ Nan said absently, pushing her reading glasses back into her short pale blonde hair and lifting her chin slightly so she could see better out of the window. ‘You need to get a big jar of the stuff. Otherwise it never lasts.’
It didn’t last if you literally drank it like hot chocolate. Ash had stopped buying the big jars at the supermarket when she realised that her nan would regularly make herself a mug to sit down with at least once in the afternoon. They didn’t stock the reduced-salt version in large quantities – perhaps because they thought if you cared about your blood pressure, you were unlikely to have more than one serving a week on your roast.
Ash made a non-committal noise and carried on into the kitchen, but Nan wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily.
‘You won’t forget will you?’
‘No, of course not,’ Ash called back and shook her head at Simon, their little Cav-a-Jack crossbreed dog, who was watching her with his liquid brown eyes from beside the back door. ‘And you need food, do you?’ He pricked his ears up and started slapping his tail against the beige linoleum. ‘No, I didn’t mean right now.’ She sighed. ‘Has Simon been fed?’ She raised her voice again so Nan could hear her.
‘Yes. Don’t let him try and get more out of you.’
‘Nan says no.’ Ash opened the bread bin and pulled out what was remaining of their white loaf, then grabbed the cheese from the fridge. By the time she’d moved back over to the counter, Simon was across the kitchen, sitting in the exact same position he’d been in at the door, like he’d teleported when she wasn’t looking. And now he was dribbling.
Ash sliced him a tiny bit and threw it to him. He caught it neatly, smacking his chops around the savoury taste and making so much noise, he was bound to get her in trouble. She tried to shush him, but he just looked at her with his adorable melty eyes. ‘I’m not giving you any more. Go on. Stop looking at me like that,’ she whispered.
He blinked and trotted happily out of the kitchen, leaving her to finish making her cheese on toast in peace. She probably should have taken her elf costume off, to avoid getting grease on it, but she was ravenous now. The afternoon in the large marquee watching a mind-numbingly boring health and safety presentation video shouldn’t have used up much of her energy, but they hadn’t got all the heaters working yet and she’d probably shivered off half a day’s worth of calories.
She put the cheese back into the fridge after popping her toast under the grill and a rectangle of thin card pinned underneath a magnet of the Eiffel Tower caught her eye. Her friend Beth’s wedding invitation had been on the fridge since September and there was less than a month now until the wedding. Ash still hadn’t got a clue what she was going to wear, what gift to buy the couple and who – if anyone – she was taking as a plus-one. She was meeting up with Beth in a couple of days, so she’d have to say sorry for not confirming sooner. Knowing Beth, she wouldn’t be too worried. Ash couldn’t imagine her as some kind of bridezilla.
They’d gone to primary school together back when Ashleigh lived with both her parents in Eastbourne. Then there was the divorce and her mother bringing her to live with Nan. But she and Beth had always kept in contact, even when it got harder to see each other, like when Beth moved to London to live with her Flash-Harry boyfriend.
Thankfully, that wasn’t who she was marrying. Ash might’ve worried at how quickly things had progressed for her friend, going from a break-up and moving back to the village of Loganbury where her mother ran a hotel, to getting engaged to Nick, all within the last year. But Ash had met Nick a couple of times now and he was in a league apart from Beth’s old boyfriend: gorgeous, kind, sort of awkward but funny and totally, utterly smitten with Beth.
Ash had to assume that was a good start to a marriage, even if she was by no means a relationship expert. After all, she’d never exactly had a stellar example from her parents and that was probably why she would most likely end up taking her other longest-standing friend, Romesh, to the wedding rather than a date.
The charcoal scent of burning bread tickled Ash’s nostrils and she leapt for the grill, just managing to pull out her food from beneath the heat before it set off the fire detector. She plated up her slightly smoking cheese on toast, dropping it as the blackened crust burnt her fingers.
‘Ashleigh?’ Nan called, just as she sat down at the table and took a big crunchy bite.
Uh-oh, Simon better not have climbed up on Nan’s lap with cheese crumbs all over his chops. Ashleigh left her plate and stuck her head back into the living room again. ‘What’s up?’ she said after swallowing her mouthful.
‘Look at that idiot, Thomas.’ Nan jabbed her finger towards the window. ‘He’s putting decorations up already. First of bleeding December. Bloody eyesore it’s going to be as usual, flashing away behind the curtains every night like the police are parked outside. Good job I don’t have photosensitive epilepsy.’
Ash leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, relaxing, now she realised Nan was just spinning the same old vinyl about their neighbour’s exterior Christmas lights. The whole street decorated the outside of their houses – it was a tradition. They even had a street party night every year to turn them all on at the same time, collecting money for charity, and everyone came out to share mince pies and mulled wine. It was a nice gesture.
But their house, number 34, was like the one faulty bulb in a string. They never put up outside lights and barely decorated inside. One stingy little tree, which went up a week before Christmas. When she was younger Ash would get an advent calendar too, but that was it. “Commercial nonsense” Nan called it. Being a misery guts, Ash was more inclined to believe.
She thought about her mum’s comment on the phone earlier about the lack of festivity in the house. It probably wasn’t a very enticing prospect to come here for Christmas when Nan barely celebrated it.
She grabbed her toast and munched on it, providing Nan with the audience she needed so she wasn’t just delivering her lecture to Simon. The poor dog probably had to listen to the whinging enough throughout the day, now Nan had fully retired from being a nurse.
‘Can you put the rubbish out on your way to the shops? The bin men will be coming in the morning. You know they used to come inside the gate to get your bin if you’d forgotten; now they won’t. Not even with a garden like ours where you can see the blasted bin from the street. Ashleigh?’
‘Oh. Sure.’ Nan had moved so seamlessly into a new bugbear that Ash had almost been caught zoning out. ‘You know they’re not allowed to come into the garden, Nan.’
‘Yes, but why? Stupid red tape no doubt. Some idiot probably sued them for trespass, rather than realising it was justhelpful. Honestly, common sense is dying because of health and safety.’
Ashleigh rolled her eyes, even though she could almost see her point after spending twenty minutes of her life that afternoon having a man in a video explain to her how to pick up a box correctly. ‘It’s no hassle for me to do it. In fact, I’ll do it now, in case I forget.’
‘Thank you. And, Ash?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t feed Simon cheese. He’ll get fat.’
