Page 8 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

She’d always had a thing for men who had a bit of flair when it came to clothes, men who, like her, weren’t afraid to stand out. This guy certainly had his own unique style. She wasn’t looking for romance – dating had proved impossible because of Max – but if she were…

‘Let’s get started,’ he said. ‘I’m Tarquin, and – as I’m sure you’ve guessed – this is the lounge. Newly decorated. It’s unfurnished, but the landlord is willing…’

Taylor’s mind drifted away from his words. When she’d spoken to him on the phone, he hadn’t mentioned that this would be a group viewing. She eyed up the other people; like her, they looked like they were dressed for a job interview, but she’d put money on none of them having cut their own hair.

‘Any questions?’ Tarquin said. ‘If not, let’s take a look at the bedrooms.’

‘How much do you think we’ll need to offer?’ said a man to his wife, as the small crowd of people shuffled their way along the narrow hallway.

Offer? Taylor thought.

‘At least one hundred over what they’re asking,’ the wife hissed back. ‘But we’ll discuss it later.’

One hundred over? At least?

Taylor hadn’t realised that was how it worked these days. She’d known there would be other interested parties, given the shortage of properties to rent in the local area, but not that she’d effectively be in a bidding war. She didn’t stand a chance.

The bedroom wasn’t a bad size, but the décor was bland and neutral. Taylor could picture it with Max’s toys on the shelves, his beloved Thomas the Tank Engine poster on the wall – he was a bit too old for Thomas but he still loved that poster – and his Spider-Man duvet on the bed, but deep down, she knew the flat would never be theirs.

When they’d looked round every room, Tarquin took a pile of forms from his folder and said anyone who was interested in renting the place should fill one in.

Taylor didn’t bother taking a form. She didn’t want to be defeatist, but she knew she had no chance and she hated rejection. She’d already had more than enough to last a lifetime.

The biggest rejection of her life was without a doubt the day that John left. It had hurt all the more for the fact that he hadn’t only rejected her, he had rejected Max too. If that wasn’t bad enough, they had moved to Essendale only a few months earlier at his insistence. He’d abandoned her with a toddler in a strange town where she knew no-one.

John had said he felt too young to be a dad. That he needed ‘to do his own thing’. He’d moved to London, returning only once or twice a year to visit his son. Taylor longed to tell him that she felt too young to be a mum. That she hadn’t signed up for this. That she’d wanted to be a fashion designer, and maybe she’d have managed that somehow if he hadn’t got her pregnant. But she said none of those things, because at the end of the day, she loved Max and what difference would it have made anyway?

But she did resolve that she would never depend on anyone again. From then on, she resolved that ‘independent’ rather than ‘spontaneous’ would be her middle name. She had thought she couldn’t live without John, but she’d learned that she could. She didn’t need a man in her life. Not now. Not ever.

Not even if they did look like Tarquin.

She hurried away from the flat, blinking away tears. She had allowed herself to believe that this place might be hers, but it was hopeless. No landlord would consider renting to a single mum, if other people were offering more money. She was stuck with the flat she had; with the life she had.

She wasn’t happy and, what was worse, Max wasn’t happy, but she didn’t have a clue how she was going to change things for either of them. Her work was dull, as most of her clients only wanted repairs, she couldn’t find a bigger place to rent and Max’s teacher seemed to blame him for everything.

And there was never time to think. Never time to ponder solutions to what she might do differently or how she might change things for the better. Never time to dream. She got up in a morning, folded the sofa bed away, packed the bedding into the blue IKEA bag, got showered and dressed, got Max showered and dressed, ate breakfast then did the school run. Then it was sewing, sewing, sewing until it was time to pick him up again and cook his dinner. She’d play with him for a bit or they’d watch TV – Max would always choose a documentary, which was never Taylor’s thing, but she still enjoyed the togetherness of it – before he went to bed, and then she did some more sewing or cleaned the kitchen or tackled the laundry.

She didn’t get time to read a novel, and her weekly fix of The Great British Sewing Bee was her only treat. She couldn’t remember when she last went to the cinema or perused the shops for half an hour. Not that Essendale had a cinema or that many shops, but it would still be nice to peruse the ones there were.

She stopped outside the Oxfam shop.

‘Spontaneous,’ she said to herself. ‘Come on, Taylor, you used to be spontaneous. Go and spontaneously peruse the Oxfam shop.’

She went inside, heading straight for the children’s clothes.

Max was fussy about what he wore. He’d complain if fabric was too scratchy; no, not just complain, but refuse to wear the garment in question. To Taylor’s dismay, he didn’t like bright colours, preferring muted tones of greys and browns. He wouldn’t even wear blue because his dad was a Liverpool supporter and blue was the colour of Everton, the city’s rival team. This struck Taylor as being particularly ridiculous; Max didn’t even like football and he hardly ever saw John. She found one brown T-shirt in his size but when she pulled it from the rail, it had a bright red racing car on the front. He’d never wear it. Finding clothes for him was so damn difficult.

In fact, Max was a difficult child full stop. He insisted that meat and vegetables were served on two separate plates and wouldn’t eat them otherwise, especially not if they’d touched. He wouldn’t eat anything with a sauce, but often smothered his food in ketchup. He’d balk at mashed potatoes unless it was guaranteed completely lump-free and he wouldn’t eat anything small and round; peas, tomatoes, cherries and grapes were definitely off the menu and as for sprouts… well, she couldn’t imagine Max ever eating a sprout.

He was quite a worry. He didn’t socialise with other children. She’d tried sending him to Cubs but he’d hated it. He didn’t like sport – a great disappointment to his father, but then she got the feeling that Max’s very existence was a great disappointment to John. The only books he liked to read were factual ones about trains.

In the end, she chose a pair of jeans for him in such a dark shade of blue that they almost looked black and a steam train annual from the 1970s that was in reasonable condition and was in the bargain box. She was heading to the till to pay when a DVD caught her eye. The Railway Children. It had been her favourite when she was a child, and her mother’s favourite too. Taylor sighed; since her mum had remarried and gone to live in Spain with her new husband, Max saw as little of his gran as he did of his dad. She picked up the DVD and read the blurb on the back, even though she knew the film so well that she could recite whole chunks of the script. She’d probably never have time to sit and watch it, but it was only a pound so why not?

Taylor left Oxfam with her purchases in a brightly coloured tote that she’d made herself and a sense of elation. Buying three items in a charity shop would be a small thing to most people, but this break from routine had done her the power of good. She had (almost) forgotten the disappointment of not getting the flat.

‘It was never going to happen,’ she said to herself. ‘You knew that really.’

And then she passed the board game café and thought how nice it would be to drink a mug of coffee that someone else had made for a change. So even though there was a mountain of sewing jobs waiting for her at home, she pushed open the door and went inside.