“Listen, I’ll make an exception this time because you guys are doing a good thing. I admire your get-up-and-go. Wait here.”
Because you can’t be too careful, I shut the door on them while I find my purse. I used to think being a grown-up meant having an abundance of loose change lying around — in pockets and bags, on the kitchen counter. Not small fry like coppers, but the big fellas: fifty pences, one-pound and two-pound coins. But all I can scratch together is about a quid, not even. When I open the door again, Liam is kicking the bin with moderate force.
“Stop that,” I say, and to my surprise he does. “I’m afraid this is all I have.” I offer my handful to Tom. He looks at it with undisguised disdain.
“We could go to an ATM?” he suggests, brightening for a moment.
“I don’t think so,” I say, and his face falls again. He picks his way through the coins, counting out loud. It’s painful.
“…forty, fifty, fifty-five, sixty, seventy, seventy-five, eighty, eighty-two.” He looks up as if to confirm that this is my final offer. “Eighty-two p,” he repeats. I nod, a little sheepish. He pockets the cash and carefully writes, £00.82, on his creased piece of paper. “What name shall I put?”
“Oh, don’t bother with that,” I say, stepping backward and starting to close the door.
“You have to. Our teacher said. Oh yeah, and do you pay tax?” He hands me the pen and paper.
“Excuse me?” I scribble something illegible, too embarrassed to put my real name.
“If you’re a British taxpayer, we can get extra money. Uh…” He looks at Liam.
“Twenty percent,” says Liam. He gets out an iPhone and prods the screen a few times, calculating. “That would bring you up to…ninety-eight point four p.”
“No, I’m sorry, I’m not. I was, and I will be again, but you’ve caught me between jobs, I’m afraid.” I wonder how it has come to pass that I’m apologizing for my life choices to strange youths on my doorstep. “By choice. I wasn’t fired or anything.”
“Never mind,” says Liam.
“Yeah, not to worry,” says Tom. The coins in his pocket crunch musically as they saunter off up the street.
Those who can
“What about teaching?” I ask.
Luke is shaving at the sink; I’m perched on the edge of the bath, imagining myself — long skirts, low bun — reading from a huge storybook to spellbound children gathered on a sun-flooded carpet.
“What about it?”
“As a job. For me.”
He lifts his chin to scrape underneath. “What would you teach?”
“I don’t know. Primary?”
“You need to know math.”
“I know math!”
“What’s thirteen times fifteen?” he asks, meeting my eyes in the mirror.
I don’t even try. “They only go up to twelve in primary school.”
“Hm.” I flinch as he cruises the Adam’s-apple bump.
“Think of the holidays — how great that will be when we have kids of our own.”
He frowns in the glass, enhancing top-lip access. “I’m wondering where this teacher thing has come from. Feels a bit sudden.”
I look into the bath, at the grayish flotsam stranded at the far end. “So, do you not want to have children, then?”
“I never said that.”
“Just not with me.”
“Didn’t say that either.”
“Oh. ’Kay.” I turn on the tap, batting the flow toward the debris, trying to rinse it away. “And…when…do you think you might want to?”
He turns his face one way, then the other.
“When you’ve worked out what you want to do, we’ll talk,” he says, fluttering his razor in the water.
Honesty
Stop saying “great” so much. Also “wow!” “interesting” and “amazing.”
Hm
So, I think, watching our Good White Towels blush slowly pink in the washing machine, that really is a thing that still happens in this day and age, after all.
Time
“I’m just trying to understand what it is you do all day.” Luke has a knuckle in one of his eyes, and I can see he’s really trying. On the table are a check I told him I would cash and a parcel for his sister I told him I would mail.
“I know it sounds strange,” I say, “but the more time you have, the less time you have. Every moment becomes so precious.” He’s looking up at the ceiling, inflating his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll do it tomorrow,” I say, and he nods and blows the air through his teeth.
It’s good of him not to mention his own job, which — when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of the thing — is all about giving people more time.
Give and take
Just after we started going out, Luke got shingles and was wiped out for a week. I bunked off work for two days to watch daytime TV by his side, play Scrabble and prepare nourishing invalid food (chicken broth, whole wheat toast, orange wedges, grapes) — except one evening when he hit rock bottom and I ordered Domino’s as a special treat.
Sick-Luke was wretched and ashamed: he had the tragic air of a disgraced politician. “But you don’t understand: I’m never ill,” he kept insisting.
“Good. Because I’m never this nice,” I’d reply, easing him into a warm bath or fluffing up his fever-flattened pillows.
Of course
“Listed and historic buildings are particularly vulnerable to structural damage from buddleia, with annual maintenance costs estimated at nearly £1 million.”
No wonder the heritage people didn’t embrace Adam Buddle, or by extension, me.
Reassurance
“Let’s try looking at it another way. What do other people say your strengths are?” inquires Ann, the enormously patient “Career Genie” I found online and phoned at a very low ebb.
“I really can’t think of anything.”
“What about Mum and Dad? I bet there are things where they would say, ‘Oh, Claire’s really good at that.’ ”
When I was growing up, my parents held an unwavering, blanket belief in my abilities that I took for granted; lately, though, I’ve been plagued by the sense that I’ve failed to deliver on all those high hopes.
“Um, sometimes they’ll phone me for help with the crossword?”
“Logic, communication, language skills,” Ann says, clacking her keyboard. “That’s a good start. Come on, something else.” There’s a long stretch of silence. “It can be anything, no matter how small or silly.”
“I’ve…I’ve had compliments about my scrambled eggs.”
“Well, that’s all about good time management,” says Ann, proving she at least has found her vocation.
Rush hour
Maybe I haven’t been working all day in the traditional, office-bound sense, but I’m still a person trying to get somewhere too.
Conflict resolution
I meet one of my uni friends, Rachel, for a drink after work (her work). She’s spent ten minutes analyzing a string of texts from a human rights lawyer, which are by turns flirtatious and brusque.
“What should I say to this?” she asks, showing me a reply that’s just come in.