Authors: Anouska Knight
‘A
RE YOU LOSING
weight, sweetheart?’ Mum fretted as we pulled off the main road.
‘No, Mum,’ I said, pulling down the passenger visor, shielding my eyes from the morning sun. It was always nice here, as if the mill had its own personal reserve of sunshiny skies.
‘Is there anything you fancy for tea tonight? I don’t want you getting ill.’
‘I’m not ill, Mum. Don’t fuss. Actually,’ I said, waiting for the inevitable murmurs of approval, ‘James is coming to pick me up later. I’ll probably grab something while I’m out.’
‘Oh,’ she said, surprised. ‘Does that mean you won’t be at the house for our brainstorming evening? We’re discussing the fundraiser at the community centre, and ideas for recreational clubs we can run there, to bring some money in.’
‘I am not ready to join the bloody WI, Mother. Not yet.’
She patted my knee. ‘I know, sweetheart. But you need to keep your pecker up.’
The hedgerows broke from view, unveiling the stone and timber mill like theatre curtains drawing before the first act. As anticipated, an
ah
of delight escaped from Viv. Movement from the upper balcony of the mill drew all eyes up there, to the figure standing between the open double doors.
‘Is that him? Hotbuns?’ Mum asked, peering under her sun visor. I turned around to look at her. ‘Phil told me all about him,’ she said, nodding knowingly. Why wasn’t I surprised? ‘She said she can’t decide whether he’s disabled or not, the funny girl.’
‘He’s not disabled, Mum. And that guy up there is Carter.’ I sighed.
‘Carter? Well, what is he doing?’ Mum asked, paying less attention to her driving by the second.
‘Yoga, I think.’
Carter pulled one foot up into the inside of his other leg and rested it there, his hands slowly rising until they met in an arch over his head. From the waist down, he looked like an Aboriginal on walkabout, the rest of him wouldn’t have looked out of place at a
Swan Lake
recital. He even had the chignon, neatly atop his head.
‘Do you think
he
might be up for joining the WI?’ Viv asked sarcastically. ‘We could do with a yoga expert. I think I’ll suggest that tonight.’
‘Probably,’ I mused. Carter would probably do anything for a stick of liquorice.
With Ofsted threatening an inspection, Mum said a
quick goodbye and practically burnt rubber getting back out onto the lane. I walked the long way around the back of the mill, so as not to disturb Carter with the annoyances of noisy kitten heels on the gangway beneath him. He probably wasn’t trying to pull a crane pose out of the bag, but I didn’t want to risk throwing him off just in case.
I’d nearly come right up on the mill’s kitchen doors when I noticed the motorbike in the rear yard.
Rohan wanted a simply designed kitchen, freestanding handcrafted open units that I’d begun planning spatially. I’d already touched base with three local carpenters to produce the framework, oak to match the exposed beams throughout the mill. Each had agreed to come back with quotes within twenty-four hours of me forwarding them the drawings, which I would, by Friday, so long as Rohan agreed the appliances we’d need to fit in there. I opened my satchel taking the drawings and brochures I’d collected from Cyan’s samples library yesterday, and began walking the balding waterside path towards the boathouse.
A bug flittered around my head as I negotiated my way across the grass, heels desperate to sink into the still-soft ground. Today, I realised, felt like the first real nod that summer was finally on its way. It was the first day I hadn’t bothered with a jacket, warm enough in a cotton shirt and charcoal wide-leg trousers. I’d bundled my hair up, pinning loose curls out of the way after spending an irritating amount of time yesterday tucking it all behind my ears.
The door into the boathouse was closed when I reached it. I raised my knuckles to knock, then held off for a second while I considered the time. It occurred to me for a moment that Rohan might still be sleeping. I’d taken it that he worked from home, but he’d already pointed out that he didn’t have a schedule as such to get up for. I was still chewing over that thought when the door swung open. A petite woman with surf-blonde bed-hair stood the other side. I smiled awkwardly, glancing down at the motorcycle helmet in her arms, wondering how it was she could have bed-hair yet perfectly applied eyeliner flicks.
I tried not to look awkward. ‘Sorry, is … Rohan in?’
She was appraising me, too. She stepped forward a little as Rohan, still subdued with sleepiness and the exhaustion of other night-time pursuits, came to stand behind her. He ran one hand up the back of his head, the other clamped firmly around the bed-sheet tucked around his waist. It wasn’t seeing the flat expanse of his broad chest that made my cheeks burn up, or the way his stomach muscles bunched and relaxed like an undulating river current, but the girl, watching me as I tried to avoid looking at it all.
A small, shrewd smile and she looked just as she had in the photos stuck to the wall behind her.
‘Morning,’ she said.
‘Hi.’
She wriggled out through the doorway past me. Neither Rohan nor the girl said a word to each other before she walked back up the path towards her motorbike.
‘Coffee?’ he asked, walking further back into the workshop. His voice was still gritty with inertia and other, more vigorous things probably. I bumbled in after him, the woman’s accusatory smile still clear in my mind like a strobe of light that doesn’t disappear when you close your eyes to it.
As he moved down the boathouse, I caught the whelk of bruising riding bluish purple up over the back of his ribcage. He needed to forget the brace contraption he and Carter were so preoccupied with and start inventing something that would better protect the rest of his body.
‘Um, I just wanted to … run through a few things with you,’ I said, regarding the papers in my arms, all accurate and comprehensive and crisply folded. I was suddenly conscious that the world was divided into two types of women: the sexy motor-girls with wild hair and feline eye flicks, and the starchy cold-callers with their paperwork and Smeg appliance brochures.
My eyes slid over towards the post-apocalyptic sofa bed. Rohan disappeared behind a makeshift hanging rail the other side of the crime scene. ‘Fire away,’ he called, his voice steadily coming back to life as he dressed.
I looked back at the door. ‘You know, we can do this up at the mill, when you’re ready. I’ll go and wait for—’
‘But you’ve just walked down here,’ he countered. ‘Grab a seat, I just need a minute.’ I silently puffed out my cheeks a little and gave a parting glance to the boathouse’s open door. I opened out a brochure and stared
hard into it once Rohan emerged from his modesty screen, still shirtless but thankfully donning a pair of long canvas shorts. ‘Let’s have us some coffee; I need a coffee.’ There was a new inflection to his voice, a detachment I hadn’t heard before now.
He moved around the kitchenette while I pretended to study a table of information I already knew by heart. The shorts weren’t safe enough for me to look over there, exposing his prosthetic leg below, and naked torso above. I briefly wondered which of these two poles would ultimately hold more sway with Phil, pulling her to her final verdict on Rohan Bywater’s physical status. Disabled or Abled? With only a pair of canvas shorts between them. From here, Rohan Bywater very definitely looked able-bodied.
‘We need to run through what you’d like in the kitchen, appliances and worktops,’ I said, flicking to a page I’d already dog-eared for him. Rohan pushed his head through a baggy red tee. The colour seemed to darken his skin and lighten the brown of his hair, all at once. ‘I know they’re expensive, but there’s a composite in here that I think will be perfect for you. It’s incredibly hard-wearing, and we can look at the moulded sinks, which will be more hygienic if you boys are going to be rinsing things like injuries off in there.’ Bywater brought two milky drinks over, taking the stool opposite, and began flicking through another of the brochures. ‘There’s more scope for colour, if you wanted to go with something like Corian, or if you
want to remain more neutral, a granite would be another option.’ Rohan eyed the notes I’d already made in the margins and gave a long drawn-out whistle.
‘Two to seven hundred pounds per linear metre? What’s it made from, crack cocaine?’ he laughed.
I sat up straighter. Rohan closed the brochure and took a long drink from his mug, pushing the other closer to me. ‘I want the mill to look good, for sure, but other than having the place sale-ready, I’m not that precious about what you do here. I trust your …’ he began to move his hands flamboyantly, ‘
vision
.’
I tried not to smile at him mocking my industry. ‘Sale-ready? You’ve only just bought it.’
‘I know,’ he said matter-of-factly, ‘but I get itchy feet, I don’t tend to stay in one place for long. In a couple of years, when the time comes, I’m going to want a quick sale.’
Itchy feet? Athlete’s foot wouldn’t drive me from this place. I’d dreamt of raising a gaggle of children in a home like the mill, who hadn’t? Rope swing over the water, family dog frolicking in the river behind … I’d hack off my itching feet with a rusty butter knife before being walked off by them anywhere else.
I picked up my drink. ‘So how far are you trusting my vision, Rohan? This house deserves a certain standard of finish. Buyers will expect it.’
‘Agreed. But I’m not paying crazy money for worktops. You’re right, they look great but if I had money to burn,
I’d probably spend it on another set of ramps, or a new truck – not something that will endure rigorous cucumber slicing for the next billennia.’
I hadn’t taken full-fat milk in my drinks for years, but Rohan was awakening my appreciation for frothy coffee. ‘You might have a lot of cucumber slicing to do some day,’ I offered, taking a sip. ‘My mother used to cram the stuff into my school lunchbox, five days a week.’
Rohan smiled. ‘You don’t like cucumber?’
‘Not now,’ I said, enjoying the silky smoothness of creamy coffee.
His smile grew into a grin, the first one this morning. ‘Maybe you should have asked your dad to pack your lunch, might’ve got the odd tomato instead?’
I took another satisfying gulp. ‘His arms weren’t quite long enough to reach all the way back into his murky past to our chopping board, unfortunately.’ I smiled.
Rohan nodded to himself, holding his smile out of courtesy, I suspected.
‘I don’t think I need to worry about school lunches. I’m kind of a one-man band. Carter gets jealous otherwise,’ he joked.
I wondered what Carter thought about the blonde who’d just left, before engrossing myself in the five-burner hobs section.
‘What?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘The cock of the eyebrow.’
A warmth started to spread across my cheeks, damn it, my eyebrows already trying to cock around again.
‘Ah, I get it.’
‘Get what?’ I replied dubiously.
‘The look. I get the look. Megan, who you kinda met just now, she’s an old—’
‘Honestly, it is
none
of my business.’ I didn’t mean to cut him off.
He nodded to himself while I progressed to the cooker hoods, wishing I’d have just let him finish. ‘So, do you still see your dad?’ he finally asked.
His question caught me off guard. ‘Um, occasionally. When he’s allowed to revisit the inhabitants of his old life.’ I smiled, sounding irrefutably like my mother. I was making excuses for my father’s lack of interest – I don’t think Petra had ever locked him in the wardrobe to stop him coming to see us.
‘Maybe he thinks it’s better for
you
that he keeps his distance?’ And for the second time, Rohan had thrown me off balance.
‘What kind of sense does that make?’ I asked, taking the bait.
Rohan frowned. ‘I’m just saying, maybe he thinks he’s not a good enough father to impose himself on you too often?’
I wasn’t really sure where we were heading with this, so I decided bowing out was the best option. ‘Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘Parenting is daunting for some, I guess. Complicated.’
But the sentiment flopped out of my mouth like a slice of flaccid cucumber.
‘Pretty
un
-complicated, if you ask me,’ he said, leaning against the workbench. ‘If you think you’re not going to do a good job of it, why even try when the stakes are so high?’
‘Those are fairly ambiguous parameters you’re talking about there. Define
not going to do a good job of it
.’
Rohan seemed surprised by me now. ‘People are who they are.’ He shrugged. ‘Some are better at nurturing, some aren’t. Some know their own limits and try to work around that. It’s no good expecting a person to be something they’re not, just because you like the way the idea sounds.’
I wasn’t sure I understood. ‘So, you’re saying it’s okay
not
to bother, with your own children even, so long as you’re upfront about it?’
‘No, I’m just saying it’s always better to be upfront. You can’t hide from who you are. It’s like, I know I’m never going to get a nine-to-five job selling mobile phones. I’m not going to kill myself working in a job I hate so I can pay for a timeshare in Costa del England, and I’m definitely not going to ever settle down and have a bunch of kids to worry about. None of those things are me. None of those things will ever be me,’ he added, sinking those last few words into his cup.
It was foolish to feel resentful towards his certainty, but I did. How did he know how he would feel in another ten
years’ time, when his friends were all enjoying their own families and the right woman came along? I understood the principles of freedom, but to shut any door indefinitely … that I couldn’t understand.
‘You know, you should never say never. Children change people.’
He shook his head. ‘Not all people can be changed, Amy.’
Well, at least he was upfront about it. I decided against adding anything further. Rohan had obviously had enough, too. He gathered up our cups and walked casually away from the workbench. ‘It should be harder for people to have children. No one messes up a kid more than a bad parent.’