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‘I’ll fetch an ashtray,’ I said.
Neither me nor Mark smokes but Katie’s boyfriend and a few of our friends do, or did when we used to have them round, so we do keep an ashtray in the house.
I dashed into the living room. The ashtray wasn’t in the usual place on the sideboard, which wasn’t unusual, if you know what I mean. I knew where it would be, even though I’ve told Katie a thousand times that we don’t smoke in the house and that her boyfriend is not exempt. I dashed up to her room, pushed open the door, felt it snag against clothes on the floor.
‘Mum!’ One syllable, into which my daughter managed to muster a world of disdain, before she threw the duvet over her head, an action that muffled but failed to disguise the ‘What the fuck?’ that followed.
‘Good morning to you too, darling.’ I grabbed the ashtray – home to some shady-looking butts of the hand-rolled variety, if you know what I mean, and four mugs from her chest of drawers, kicking her pile of dirty clothes out of my way as I left, all the while trying not to breathe in a smell so rank I thought it might stick in scales to the back of my throat. The mugs were half full of a brownish liquid that might once have been coffee, mini flotillas of grey-green discs bobbing on the surface. I love Katie, don’t get me wrong, but she’s an absolute pig in knickers sometimes.
Ingrid seemed to be taking a tour of the kitchen when I got back. When she saw me, she returned to her chair and lit up, slid the lighter back into the packet and blew out a jet of smoke, obviously no intention of stepping into the garden like our friends do. Still, she could have been sitting on a spike for how uncomfortable she looked. She’d blagged her way into my home but it was as if she no longer wanted to be there. As if she wanted company like a vase with a hole in the bottom wants water: she seemed to want to be filled up, only to let it run out of the bottom. I wondered if her chewed-off piece of thumbnail was in her pocket or whether she’d chucked it on the lino or what.
‘So where did you move from?’ I asked her once I’d rinsed and dried the ashtray and sat down.
‘Helsby way.’ She flapped at the smoke. ‘It’s so hard coming to a new place.’ She dropped her hand to her lap, the better to pick at her nails.
‘It is,’ I said, no clue really, as I’ve only ever lived here.
‘Especially if you don’t have kids or a job. I suppose I’m feeling a bit lost.’ Her accent sounded like she was from the north-west, like me, but posher. The Wirral, maybe.
‘Have you plans to get a job?’
She nodded sadly, as if employment were a personal tragedy. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to. The joys of an addict for a husband.’ She met my eye. Hers were filmed in tears. ‘Ex-husband, I should say.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’ I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t want to know, to be honest. Addicts frighten me a bit, and I’m ashamed to say this, but I was shocked as well. To look at her, you’d never have thought. ‘So, what kind of work are you looking for?”
She shrugged. ‘Maybe a gallery assistant? Or a music tutor. I play the flute. I thought I’d ask at the Brindley – you know, the arts centre on the canal?’
‘Yes.’ I wondered why she’d think I wouldn’t know the arts centre if I’d lived here all my life. Sorry, I mean I knew why and I bet she didn’t think I read books either when actually I’m an avid reader. But it was fine; I’m used to people underestimating my intelligence.
We chatted for a bit. I told her I’d not been to uni – financial reasons. That I had two kids, one at uni, one still at home. She told me her ex was a businessman but not which business specifically. Small talk really, until the conversation stalled.
‘Maybe I’ll open a café,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m quite a good cook.’
Maybe you need more than a flute and a flair for quiche, I almost said. Business smarts, for example, and capital, which had presumably disappeared up her ex-husband’s nose, but who was I to say? She was a bit dolly-daydream, I thought. A bit dippy in the way you can afford to be when you’ve never had to work.
‘I work in the old town.’ Never being asked a question makes you good at volunteering information about yourself. ‘The Barley Mow, you know? The pub on Church Street.’
She stared at me, her eyes wide and clear. I wondered if she was Swedish, taking in her blonde hair, the length of her limbs, her first name. I smiled. At least she was looking at me.
‘I used to live in a house,’ she said, apropos of nothing at all. ‘Victorian. Detached. Now I have a one-bedroom flat.’ She gave a half laugh, as if she found it funny, which I doubted she did. ‘We had a garden twice the size of this. Three times, actually.’ She looked out of the French windows at my garden, gave a wistful smile and stubbed out her cigarette. The butt had lipstick on it, even though she was still in her nightie. ‘Now I have an equal share of a tiny lawn with two half-dead potted geraniums, whoop-de-do.’
The rattle of the kitchen door handle startled us both. It was Mark, dressed and ready for work. He saw Ingrid and pulled his mouth into a smile of sorts, which was more than he usually managed.
‘Mark, this is Ingrid,’ I said. ‘She’s moved into one of the flats across the way.’
Ingrid smiled, showing an even set of teeth. ‘I was just admiring your beautiful garden. You must have very green fingers.’ She wiggled her own fingers, in case he didn’t know what fingers were.
Mark nodded and opened the fridge. He pulled out his packed lunch, held up the Tupperware, as if to show it to us. ‘I’m off then.’
Ingrid pulled her robe around her and stood up. ‘I should go too.’ She smiled at me. ‘You probably need to get on. It was nice meeting you.’ Another second and she was following Mark out of the house. I went as far as the kitchen door, watched them leave.
‘ICI,’ I heard Mark say, and, ‘Castner Kellner,’ and, ‘Chemical processing engineer,’ and, ‘Just in the labs, you know.’
It sounded like he was answering an interrogation.
‘I’m actually looking for work,’ I heard her say, scampering after him like a puppy, a feat for someone so tall and thin. ‘Do you know if they have any vacancies?’
A warm jet of air shot through my nose. What, love? I nearly called out. Safety flautist? Piping the workers out of danger to a laid-on buffet? It’s an industrial chemical plant, for God’s sake, with 30,000 employees, not a cultural centre with walk-in café.
