Page 12 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

Finding a babysitter for a couple of hours one evening might have been easier than trekking to Huddersfield on the bus, Taylor thought later. There wasn’t a direct route, so she had to change at Halifax and it was a complete faff. But it was worth it. Tarquin informed her that the landlord had agreed to pay for a thorough clean, the removal of the rubbish and the manky carpets.

What was more, he’d contacted her landlord for references – ‘no need to worry, all good’ – and persuaded him to put the place up for sale once she moved out. ‘You can basically be in your lovely new place in – shall we say ten days? Or would a fortnight be better?’

So soon?

Although having a proper bed to sleep in couldn’t come soon enough, she’d have to pack. Organise a man with a van to move her furniture. Tell all her clients. And – the thing she was dreading most – tell Max.

Max was not going to take this news well at all.

*

Taylor always felt anxious when she picked Max up from school; even when Mrs Green didn’t greet her with a face like thunder and a list of her son’s latest misdemeanours. It was Max’s sullen face that concerned her most. The way he’d mumble, ‘I’ve had a really bad day.’

Or: ‘I hate school.’

Or if he’d had a really, really bad day, he’d say, ‘I hate myself.’

Taylor didn’t know how to help him. She didn’t know how to teach him to make friends, or console him when no-one had sat next to him in the dinner hall, or get him to be patient when he’d finished all his maths way before everyone else.

And he still had years and years of schooling to go. Life was hard enough for him without her decision to move house. She’d have to tell him today, as she needed to start packing up their belongings. Besides, the longer she left it, the more she’d worry about it. Best to get it over and done with quickly. Like ripping off a plaster. Fingers crossed he’d had a reasonable day at school; that would make telling him ten times easier.

The gates opened and a throng of excited mothers, a couple of dads and an overwhelmed-looking grandma poured into the playground, searching for their little charges. Max, of course, was nowhere to be seen. It was strange that a boy who disliked school so much was always the last out of the classroom at the end of the day; you’d have thought he’d be itching to leave, but no. Not Max. He’d be pedantically reorganising his pencil case for the following day, rearranging the contents of his locker, double- and triple-checking that he had his homework and his reading book in his bag.

At least she’d never had to make an emergency dash to school on a Tuesday because he’d left his PE bag at home, and she never even had to remind him to do his homework. It would be the second thing he did after they reached home, as soon as he’d had a glass of milk and a chocolate digestive.

The moment she saw him, she knew he’d had a terrible day. He was scowling. His eyes were red. Was that ketchup on his shirt? Or red paint? Or blood? Please don’t let it be blood. And his legs were muddy. Max wasn’t the kind of boy who liked getting muddy.

It was obvious that there had been an incident, even before Taylor noticed Mrs Green hotfooting it after him, even before she heard the dreaded ‘Can I have a word?’

‘What’s happened, Max?’ whispered Taylor, kneeling down in an attempt to be at his eye level, only now he was eight kneeling down actually made her shorter than him.

Max shook his head but said nothing, and then Mrs Green was bearing over them both.

‘Can I have a word?’ The teacher sounded even more uptight than usual. ‘There’s been an incident.’

*

Perhaps she shouldn’t tell him today, Taylor thought as she popped a large frozen pizza into the oven. Max hadn’t spoken a word on the way home, and had now taken his glass of milk and chocolate biscuit to his room; he normally drank it sitting on the sofa and then sat at her sewing table doing his homework, but his school bag remained unopened where he’d dumped it in the hallway.

The meeting with Mrs Green had not gone well. The incident in the playground had left Max with a bloody nose, but his teacher insisted that he had lashed out first, and that violence was ‘not acceptable under any circumstances at Essendale Primary’.

Violence wasn’t acceptable, but relentless teasing was apparently okay, Taylor had thought. Max wasn’t a violent boy, she’d explained. He was just desperate for them to leave him alone. Mrs Green had been unsympathetic, and Taylor didn’t know what else she could do.

She crept to Max’s door now. It was ajar, so she could peep in without him seeing her. He was engrossed in his model railway, calmly moving the trains around the track and making little engine noises. Ever since he was a toddler, trains never failed to cheer Max up. Whilst other children might be pacified with sweets, with Max it was trains; he’d sat for hours in front of old DVDs of Ivor the Engine and Thomas the Tank Engine.

As she watched her son moving a dark green engine into the sidings, she wondered if he’d like The Railway Children DVD that she’d picked up in the Oxfam shop. Perhaps it was a bit sentimental for Max, but he liked steam trains, and it would certainly lift her mood to watch her favourite childhood film.

And it featured a house move; after her husband was wrongfully imprisoned, Mrs Waterbury packed up the family’s belongings and moved to a little cottage in Yorkshire with her children: Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter. Perhaps this might help her broach the subject of their imminent move.

She coughed and Max looked up from his trains.

‘Pizza’s nearly ready. And I’ve a film for us to watch. I think you might like it. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but there are trains in it.’

*

Taylor’s cheeks grew wet as Bobbie’s father was led away by the two policemen. She loved everything about this film. It was her mother’s favourite, and growing up it had been hers too.

She glanced at Max. So far, he hadn’t seemed interested, except when Peter, the youngest of the three children, received a model engine as a Christmas gift.