At least she’d managed to tick off the other major item on her to-do list – finding a school for Jack. She’d applied to all the local primary schools as soon as she’d got back to Dublin after their first visit to the cottage, but enrolment had started the previous year and she hadn’t been sure she’d get a place so late in the day. The process was made even more difficult by the fact that it was the school holidays, but to her enormous relief she’d heard last week that they had a place for him in the school in town. Now she just had to find him a childminder for when she started work.
After lunch, they spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around town, drifting in and out of shops. Karen bought Jack a dolphin soft toy and they got ice creams which they ate as they walked back to the cottage.
‘Do you want to tackle more of that lot?’ Karen said when they were home, nodding to the packing boxes in the living room that hadn’t been emptied yet. ‘Or we could go to the supermarket and do a big shop while I have the van here.’
‘You’ve done more than enough donkey work.’ Lou smiled at her friend. ‘But a trip to the supermarket would be brilliant. Thanks.’
Later, after they’d packed away the shopping, Lou made Jack a quick supper of pasta. Then she took him up to bed and read him a story.
‘Do you like your room?’ she asked, putting the book aside.
He nodded.
‘It’s like your bedroom back in Dublin, isn’t it? You’ve got your capybara lamp and your stick-on stars.’ She tickled his arm in the way he liked.
‘It’s very quiet here,’ he whispered.
‘Yeah.’ Lou tilted her head, listening for sounds but there was nothing – no sirens wailing, no drunkards shouting, no nighthawks shrieking as they made their way home from clubs in the small hours, no thumping bass or rap lyrics blaring from passing cars. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it? Peaceful.’ She smoothed the duvet around him. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yeah.’ He sighed sleepily. ‘It’s a bit spooky.’
Lou laughed. ‘Yeah, I guess it is. But you’ll get used to it.’
Jack looked a little uncertain.
‘And if you don’t like it here, we’ll just go back to Dublin lickety-split.’
‘How? Someone else will be living in our flat. We’ll have nowhere to go.’
‘Don’t worry about that. We could sell this house and buy a new place in Dublin with the money – a much nicer place than our old flat.’
‘Can we?’ Jack perked up.
‘Of course. But not right away. We’re going to give this place a go first, okay? Fair?’
‘Fair.’
She studied his face and he seemed happier. ‘And I think it’s going to be fun living here,’ she said brightly. ‘You can go to the beach anytime you want. We have our secret door and our own path down to the seafront. We can go on boat trips and there’s an aquarium.’
‘Do they have sharks?’ Jack asked, his eyes widening.
‘I think they do. I’m not sure. We’ll have to check it out.’
‘Can we go tomorrow?’ Jack asked eagerly.
‘Maybe next weekend. I still have a lot to do, sorting this place out, and I have to look for a job.’
‘Do you think you’ll get one?’
‘Yeah, easy-peasy,’ she said with a breezy confidence that was all for Jack’s benefit. ‘I’m good at getting jobs.’ That had been true of her so far. She was proud of the fact that she’d never been unemployed for more than a few weeks at a time in her life. She just hoped her luck wasn’t about to run out.
She tried to stave off money panic. She’d saved enough for them to live on for a month or so until she found work, and there was no more rent to pay. The house was theirs and if the worst came to the worst, at least they had a roof over their heads that no one could take away from them. They’d be okay. But she knew she wouldn’t really relax until she’d found a job.
When she went back downstairs, she and Karen opened a bottle of wine and sat on the sofa, grazing on crusty sourdough bread, cheese and salads they’d bought at the supermarket.
‘Thanks again for all your help,’ Lou said, raising her glass to Karen. ‘I don’t know how I’d have done it all without you.’
‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to.’ She crashed her glass against Lou’s and took a sip of wine.
