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Her lip trembled, and instinct forced a lump into my throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I should go to the new estate manager, Veronica whatever-her-name-is, but, you know. She’s not you, Sophie. I needed to see you.”
“What’s happened?”
“It’s Dad,” she said. The tears welled up in a flash, and my own threatened to join in. “He, um, had another stroke last week. He… I’m afraid he didn’t make it.”
Real grief knocked me sideways. His cheerful grin as he helped with the Community in Bloom initiative, his willingness to muck in and help with the estate. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “So, so sorry.”
She waved thanks and took a breath. “I need your help, with the tenancy stuff. I’ve sorted out Mum’s stuff with the benefits, I just need the tenancy transferred to her sole name.”
“Of course.” I took the paperwork, flinching at the copy of the death certificate.
“And the garage,” she said. “I’ve cleared out his tools, as much as I can, anyway. Mum can’t face it. You know how he loved that place, his little workshop.”
I smiled sadly. “I know. I’d always find him down there.”
“He liked the quiet,” she said. “Helped him think. Away from Mum’s nagging, he used to say.”
I smiled along with her, trying my best to keep it together. “You want me to end his tenancy?”
“Please.”
I took the key. “I’ll sort out the paperwork. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“Thank you,” she said. The tears dropped from her eyes freely and she made no attempt to brush them away. “He liked you,” she smiled. “Said you were a good lass. We all miss you, Sophie, it’s not the same without you.”
“I miss you all too,” I said. “I’m on East Veil now, not so far away.”
“Maybe you could call in sometime. We’ve got the young mum’s support group up and running now, meets on a Tuesday.”
“I’d love to.”
“I’d better let you get on,” she smiled. “Hope we see you again soon, under happier circumstances.”
“Me too.”
I broke protocol completely by pulling her in for a hug. I held her tight for long moments in the meeting room, and she sobbed onto my shoulder like a broken child. My eyes were wet with tears when she pulled away, and I struggled for composure as I waved her off. I sat at the desk in that poxy little room and cried. Cried for Derek Headley, for Helen and her mum. Cried for Haygrove and my old job. Cried for me, too, cried for something I couldn’t place, some deep-seated fear of missing out on life, on not seizing the fleeting gifts that life offered up to me. Life is short, and fragile, so fragile.
Then I went back to my desk.
I stared at the garage tenancy screen, hovering the mouse over the terminate button. Derek had been renting the garage for ten years, rent always paid on time, in cash, with no client visits necessary.
I gripped the garage key in my hand, taking a moment in remembrance of Derek Headley and his happy smile.
“Only live once,” he’d said to me, after a ten hour stint in the community garden. “Gotta make it mean something, else what’s the point?”
I made it mean something.
I put the key in my handbag and got the hell out of there.
I got the tube down to East Veil and wandered round in a daze, ignorant to all its dangers, its rabble of violence and seediness, and drugs and fear and hate. I passed unhindered and unnoticed, until I found Callum Jackson.
He was rolling a cigarette outside Al’s while Casey tucked into a piece of old fish by the bins. He didn’t see me at first, not until I was practically in his arms.
“Soph?” he managed to mutter before I was on him. I wrapped my arms around him without care, barely registering the cackles from the crowd on the benches down the way. He flinched as I gripped him, but it only took a heartbeat before he held me back, his lips on my hair as I cried into his hoodie. “Jesus, Soph, what’s happened?”
I shook my head, unable to find words. He didn’t push me, just held on tight until I was ready to speak. “Missed you,” I said. “Come home with me. Please, just come home with me.”
“Now? For the night, like?”
