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‘You all right, love?’ he asks as he stacks boxes.
Inside those cardboard boxes are all the memories from my childhood, attached to various items. The good memories, the bad – speaking of which, the removal man has just revealed an ugly one, by rolling up the rug that used to be next to my bed.
I stare down at the ding in the wooden floor. Another ghost. It catches the removal man’s eye.
‘Oh, God, I remember that happening like it was yesterday,’ I tell him. ‘There’s only a year or so between me and my sister. Anything I got before her – or anything I had that she didn’t want until she saw me with it – made her so jealous.’
On this occasion in particular, it was my rainbow-coloured Beanie Baby rabbit that she decided she had to have, after previously mocking me for having such a childish toy. I don’t remember how old I was – but we were still quite young.
‘It all happened so quickly. I was lying on my bed when she came in and decided she was taking a toy from me,’ I explain, grabbing a small box, heading downstairs with the removal man. He does genuinely seem interested in what happened, unless he’s just being polite. ‘She tried to grab it from me – something she often did when she wanted something, and sometimes I let her – but there was no way I was going to give it up that day, so I kept tight hold of it. I don’t remember how long we struggled with it, probably not that long, although it felt like an epic battle at the time. Eventually, when she couldn’t hold on any longer, she let go, sending me back with a force that knocked the lamp off my bedside table. My sister scarpered as soon as she realised something might be broken. I averted my eyes, too terrified to look, terrified that the bedside lamp I’ve had for as long as I could remember – one that was my mum’s when she was a young girl – was broken and I could have cried with relief when, unbelievably, I finally looked down and it was absolutely fine. The floor, however, was not.’
‘That’s siblings for you,’ the man says through a smile. ‘You’d never think she was the type, talking to her now.’
‘My sister, what, is she here?’ I ask, surprised.
‘Yeah, she’s down at the van with Tommy,’ he replies. ‘Although they’re flirting up a storm. That’s why muggins here is doing all the work.’
‘Well, that does sound like her,’ I say with a laugh.
My smile quickly falls as we reach the front door.
‘That rug has been hiding that mark on the floor for maybe twenty years,’ I muse. ‘The day I dragged it across the floor, supposedly as a temporary fix, while I figured out what I was going to do about it, marked the start of this fear that Mum would find out. Eventually I would forget it was there, being reminded of it less often, no longer feeling that guilty burn in my feet when I would get in and out of bed each night. I hadn’t thought about it in years and years, until you uncovered it today, and it’s just hit me.
‘Mum is never going to know. She’s never going to discover it. It weighed so heavy on my mind, for so long. Mum loved her wooden floors, that’s why I was so scared of her discovering what had happened, and why I had to make out like I wanted the responsibility of cleaning my own room from a young age – which was not fun at all – but she’ll never know, she’ll never walk on her prized wooden flooring again.’
The removal man places the rug down in the garden and gives me a gentle pat on the shoulder, very much at arm’s length, but I’ve got a lot of time for men who are never quite sure if it’s okay to touch women – even if they mean well – so it’s appreciated.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ he tells me, his genuine sympathy apparent in his tone. ‘I can’t even imagine what you must be going through, losing your mum, it must be so difficult. I’d be a mess if my mum died.’
‘Died?’ I repeat back to him. ‘My mum isn’t dead.’
‘I’m so sorry, I just assumed, with you being so upset…’
Oh, no, now he looks like he feels even worse. I need to iron this out, as quickly as possible.
‘I’m not upset because she’s dead, I’m upset because she’s moving in with me.’
The man quickly withdraws his hand of support, his face shifting from confusion to something somewhere between feeling embarrassed and judging me with his eyes.
I don’t suppose that came out exactly as I intended it to, although I’d be lying if I said I was happy about the situation.
The main reason I’m so upset to be emptying my mum’s house is because it’s the house I grew up in, the one I lived until I left for uni, built on a plot that she and my dad picked out when it was nothing more than a patch of dirt. My mum has sold our childhood home to buy somewhere smaller now that it’s just her, which makes sense… it’s just so difficult to see the place go.
As if that’s not bad enough, originally, when plans were being made, I told her that she could stay with me for a night, before collecting her keys to the new place the next day. Unfortunately, due to a whole mess of circumstances with the chain on her buyer’s side, and the newbuild Mum is buying not being ready due to delays, her one-night stay in December has turned into her moving in for the foreseeable, until the new year, at least.
For someone so used to living on her own, who has gone to great efforts to arrange herself a nice, quiet Christmas period alone in her finally finished house project, the thought of having to live with my mum again isn’t something I’m jazzed about.
‘That’s her over there,’ I tell him, pointing my mum out, over by the removal van.
‘That’s your mum?’ he replies in disbelief. ‘I thought that was your sister!’
I sigh. I hear that all the time these days.
‘Billie, my darling, how’s it going?’ she asks as we approach the van.
I might be feeling like crap about this entire situation, but Mum is positively glowing. She looks cold, with her coat belted up tightly, and her pink cheeks – oddly it suits her, though, it’s like the kind of healthy look I try to achieve with blusher, only to end up looking like a clown. I doubt the weather is suiting me so well. I’ve only been back outside for a few minutes and I can feel my nose trying to run, so I sniff hard. So attractive!
‘Yeah, all good,’ I reply. ‘I emptied the fridge and the freezer of the last bits – Elliot had one last stab at being the world’s nosiest neighbour, but otherwise I think the place is pretty much emptied, apart from a couple of boxes.’
