The back up man, p.6
The Back Up Man, page 6
The Willows was the name etched on to a small wooden plaque on one of the outside walls of her parents’ house. Anya’s mother had bought it at the garden centre near Drymen six months ago, hoping that it conferred a sense of authenticity. It appeared that this was catching on.
‘Oh, hi. Yes, she mentioned you might call.’
‘Did she now?’ Fiona Morton sounded pleased; Anya could sense her impressive chest puffing out with pride. ‘Now I’ll get right to it – she says you need a job.’
Anya attempted to interrupt but was not heard.
‘And I’ve got one for you. My granddaughters are looking for someone to mind them for a few hours after school.’
‘Yes,’ Anya managed.
‘And your Mum said you’d be brilliant. It would be every weekday, although you wouldn’t have to pick them up from school. Their mum – my Aimee – she does that. But it would be a bit of homework, nothing too taxing. You can start on Monday. Can I give you Aimee’s number and address? She’s expecting you – needs you there about 4.30 p.m. Have you got a piece of paper to hand?’
Anya remained rooted in horror.
‘Um, no, I—’
‘What am I thinking! I can just send it to you in a text message!’ A light laugh. ‘What must you all think of us lot? Living in the dark ages! Pen and paper indeed! I’ll send it over to you in a minute.’
Fiona Morton laughed again for a few beats too long, until she finally appeared to run out of steam. Anya felt a pitch of vertigo.
‘Thank you,’ she managed weakly, ‘but I’m—’
‘Oh, no need to thank me!’ she purred. ‘You’re doing me the favour, honestly. Aimee’s been so stressed with trying to find someone new after the last girl quit, so this is just really helping her out of a bind. I’ll send the details now. Love to your mother!’
As quickly as the tornado had arrived, it departed, and Fiona Morton rang off. But there was another gust incoming. Just as Anya had begun to feel a cool, creeping sensation travel from the tips of her toes right up into her chest, her phone trilled again.
Mutely, Anya pressed the green phone button.
‘Anya! It’s Mum again. Just a quick one this time. I’ve spoken to Fiona and she’s going to be in touch very soon.’
Her mother sounded pleased at her efficiency; Anya clenched her jaw.
‘Yes, she’s already called, actually.’
She assumed that her tone would convey her grim fury, but her mother seemed not to sense anything amiss.
‘Has she! Well, that woman gets things done—’
‘Mum, stop!’ Irene stopped abruptly. ‘Listen to me. I don’t want to be a childminder!’
There was a brief, icy pause. Anya noted her breath was slightly ragged.
‘I see.’ Another pause; now Anya could hear the blood roaring in her ears. ‘Well, I’m afraid beggars can’t be choosers, Anya.’
‘I only quit my job yesterday!’ Was it really only yesterday? Time had stopped making sense. ‘You haven’t even given me time to find something on my own, Mum! I told you, I have a plan – I’m thinking of turning Anya Eats Too Much into a catering company—’
‘Stop it.’ Her mother’s voice was sharp now. ‘You will take this job. Fiona’s made you a generous offer and you could do a lot worse.’
Anya could feel the childish tears threatening.
‘But I told you, I have an idea, I was going to—’
‘You don’t have another job, Anya, and you don’t have a plan,’ Irene interrupted, flatly. Anya could hear the sound of a teaspoon hitting the inside of her mother’s coffee mug. ‘And pet’ – it was clear that ‘pet’ was not being deployed here as a term of endearment – ‘I know that what’s happened with Connor is dreadful, and I’m truly sorry you’re suffering. But the answer isn’t to lie in bed all day at Claire’s and wait for someone to come in and offer you a brand-new job and a brand-new flat and a brand-new life. You have to do something. You’re going to be at Aimee’s on Monday and that’s final.’
The worst part was knowing she was right, although there was no way Anya was surrendering that easily.
‘But—’ she tried.
‘Final, Anya.’
She rung off.
Anya closed her eyes and took three deep breaths.
When she was finished, she realized she still felt like strangling someone, so she pulled her laptop on to her lap, googled ‘fancy utensils’ and spent £23 on a pestle and a mortar shaped like a stone pig. Afterwards, she felt a little bit better.
Her hair was wet from the shower, and Anya brushed it roughly with her fingers. Somehow, she’d made it to almost midday of this shapeless, elastic day. She thought of the Berners Bilton offices, of her empty desk, computer dark. Everyone would know by now what Anya had done; those who hadn’t witnessed her downfall would have been told in hushed tones by the printer, or in the tiny kitchen, by the sticky microwave.
She wondered whether the grapevine had yet delivered the news to Connor. She hoped not, because if he already knew, that meant he hadn’t texted her to find out if she was OK. She hoped he was still to hear and that when he did, he’d send her a message.
She shook her head.
‘Stop it.’
Lurching off the bed again, she navigated the chaos of spilled suitcases and tote bags stuffed with novels and boxed-up cookbooks and utensils, pulling on jeans and her ‘cooking’ shirt – a baggy, ancient navy blue one of her father’s that she’d rescued from a bag destined for the charity shop one distant Easter weekend – and then plucked a cookbook from the pile on the floor. It was one of her favourite vegetarian chef’s ‘best hits’. Anya thumbed through it until she landed upon a recipe for a meat-free kheema, the beef substituted for lentils and chickpeas rolled in ginger and garam masala. She took a picture of the page and then set off to the Tesco Metro.
Back in the kitchen, she heated oil and onions, ginger, garlic and garam masala and chilli, adding tomato paste and peas, lentils and chickpeas, dutifully catching the flecks of spices with a wet cloth, as Claire had asked. The hob in Connor’s flat was always in a state – blobs of tomato purée cemented to the tiling behind the stove, scattered rice and spices, barely time to clean it before Anya’s next adventure – but at Claire’s she felt her interloper status keenly. She still only hazarded cooking when she knew her cousin was out or busy watching something stern and joyless in the living room.
When she’d finished cooking the curry, she spooned a portion into a shallow bowl – all of Claire’s crockery matched – and added a dollop of yoghurt. She sat at the kitchen table and ate her lunch, enjoying the feeling of ginger and garam masala fizzing on her tongue. She opened a Note on her phone and typed a title: @anyaeatstoomuch. Underneath, she added: ‘Vegetarian kheema recipe – plus a naan’.
She spooned another dollop of yoghurt straight from the tub and then put the rest of the curry into a Tupperware in the fridge and sluiced the pans down. She ran a cloth over Claire’s surfaces again, just in case, pausing to scratch at what looked like a fleck of garlic with the nail of her index finger.
Then she tiptoed back up the stairs to her bedroom. After the high of cooking, she felt a little low and pointless, the universe’s spare part, so she emailed Tasha back. It was 2.30 p.m., which meant Tasha would be awake soon.
To: tasha.kelner@penandpencil.com
From: anyamackie@gmail.com
Re: S-O-fucking-S
It’s almost morning where you are – in fact it’s 6.30 a.m. – and that feels like the sort of time high-achieving people like you get up. In fact, you’re probably reading this on your Peloton right now. I just made a curry for four and then ate half of it and am sitting on my single mattress in Claire’s room in the middle of the working day. If someone put me on a Peloton I’d vomit lentils.
I haven’t spoken to Connor once. I keep getting this thing where I see someone in Tesco Metro and am convinced it’s him and my blood runs cold. And in the mornings, it still feels strange he’s not here.
Claire’s house is creepy. They have all this furniture made from hardwood so dark it’s nearly black with all these sharp, unfriendly edges. And Richard is really obsessed with energy-saving lightbulbs, which I know is good for the environment but means it’s really gloomy, so you don’t see one of the sharp tables or sets of drawers until you’ve walked into it. Also, she has this weird antique doll from her grandma – her dad’s side, not the one who’s related to me – on a shelf that has a sort of Mona Lisa, always-watching-you, thing going on. I feel homesick but I’m not totally sure what for.
But there is some good news: I have a new job! The (enormous) downside is it’s a babysitting gig that my mum got me. Imagine me looking after kids, Tasha. Also, they are twins. AM I IN A HORROR FILM!?
But you got to me with that food line, you sly dog. Do you really think I could do something like a catering company? I’d have to make a website and maybe get an accountant. Is that mad?
Vancouver sounds like f***ing paradise. Are you going to get really into ice hockey? I feel like you’d be good at ice hockey. You are naturally quite aggressive. Although maybe you’re too tall. How’s work? Can you WhatsApp me a picture of Loic please?
I promise I won’t jump off a bridge today, though we’ll see how I feel after my first day at my new job (imagine me silent screaming right now). Obviously, you and Paddy would have to do a joint speech at the funeral. Maybe Georgie could do a mournful dance.
Please can we FaceTime soon. I miss you a lot. I also have a lot of time on my hands.
Xxxxx
Feeling fidgety, Anya waited for ten minutes, just in case Tasha replied right away, but nothing came. She closed her laptop lid and drifted towards the window. The heavy curtains were still drawn, so she opened them on to the quiet street below. Hamilton Drive was a long terrace and the doors of the houses opposite like so many unblinking, unfriendly eyes. After a few moments of staring into the quiet mid-afternoon, she stepped away from the windowsill. Perhaps she was thirsty.
In the kitchen, she flinched: Richard was bending over the fridge, bottom bobbing. He straightened and she noticed he was eating her curry straight from the Tupperware with a huge spoon.
‘Thanks for lunch,’ he grinned, and she noticed he had a lentil stuck in his teeth.
6
It was drizzling and Anya’s phone was getting wet. She wiped the screen with the corner of her trench coat and squinted into the map. It insisted this was the right street – its smart sandstone houses growing darker in the rain, like the colour of bad tea – but she couldn’t work out which side number 36 would be on. Many of the houses had names, not numbers; a few sported golden plaques, with the titles of what Anya assumed were solicitors or high-end dentists.
She and Connor regularly used to wander around these roads, Anya dreaming of a shapeless, sunlit future. They’d definitely mooched this way in the summer, a meandering route on their way back from the cinema.
‘Do you think someday we’ll live somewhere like this?’ She’d been marvelling at the tall, crenellated ceilings glimpsed through elegant, elongated windows. Connor hadn’t answered, and Anya squeezed his arm. ‘I can definitely see us in Park Circus.’
‘I suppose we could always try winning the lottery.’ He snorted.
Anya blinked fast, trying not to think of Connor, focusing her energy instead on dreading the afternoon ahead. A man in white jeans came out of one of the houses followed by a woman in heeled suede boots. Anya considered asking one of them which was number 36, but as she hesitated, they climbed into a 4x4 with blacked-out windows.
Eventually she found it. Number 36 was another long terraced house, behind a polished dark door with a big ornamental knocker. Through the big window to the left of the door she could see a huge living room with a grey sofa and a vast gilt mirror.
Anya had spent the whole weekend dreading this moment, muttering darkly as she tried to reorganize the chaos of her bedroom, chewing her lips as she stared at her phone willing Connor to text. Her dread had reached fever pitch now, but she didn’t have time to fret because she was almost late. And so, with one long ragged breath, she pressed the cool metal button of the doorbell. Somewhere in the distance sung a low minor note, followed by a dog’s yap.
The door was opened by a woman with expensive bottle-blonde hair that fell in loose, corkscrew curls. She wore spray-on jeans, thigh-high suede boots and a white, fairly transparent blouse. Her chest was similarly apportioned to her mother’s, although rather perkier. She looked expensive and Anya felt dowdy in her Vans and ancient knitwear.
Aimee glanced Anya up and down, clearly coming to a similar conclusion.
‘Are you Anya?’
‘Yeah, hi.’ Anya stepped forward and offered her hand. Aimee took it lightly and then dropped it.
‘They’re in the kitchen.’
With barely any time to be taken aback, Anya followed Aimee into a large hallway with a checkerboard flooring and more gilt mirrors everywhere. A large staircase with a plush silver carpet curled out of the hall on to a landing, but Aimee continued down the hallway. A warren of high-ceilinged rooms led off this main route – yet more mirrors, a few sprigs of twig in long clear glasses, Bose speakers on every surface – until they reached a kitchen, which glinted with chrome.
Two identical redheaded girls, with their hair in neat pigtails, perched at the kitchen island, jotters open in front of them. They presented a sort of mirror image: both with arms crossed, heads cocked, a smirk playing about their rosebud lips. They were spectrally pale, and had a smattering of freckles about their small, upturned noses. They wore identical school uniforms – complete with their scratchy wool blazers – which Anya recognized as belonging to the rival, and far better, school than the one she herself had attended.
‘Rosie, Rachel, this is Anya.’ Their mother waved a lazy hand in Anya’s direction, and then started tapping at her phone with long, frosted fake nails. She wandered back towards the hallway before she remembered. ‘She’s your new babysitter.’
The girls said nothing, although an identical smile stretched across both faces. It was not a warm one.
Aimee had paused in the doorway, still tapping away at her phone. ‘Maybe you could do their homework with them.’ She looked up. ‘Girls, do you have homework?’
‘Yeah,’ said one of them. ‘English.’
‘Great,’ Aimee was walking away again now and her voice sounded faraway, ‘why don’t you do that then. I’ve got a call now.’
For a few moments there was silence, apart from the disappearing sound of Aimee’s heels clicking on the smart floor in the hall. When this had stopped, Anya waved and instantly regretted the awkward, self-conscious gesture.
‘Hi, then. I’m Anya.’
In response, one of the children snorted.
‘I’m your new babysitter.’
‘Duh,’ said the other one.
Anya smiled tightly and observed they both appeared to be blinking almost in unison. She pointed at their blazers.
‘I went to Kelvinbridge Academy.’
‘Unlucky,’ said one of them.
Anya was trying to think of a response to this while in tandem, both reached for their schoolbags and extracted a jotter and textbook each. At least their pencil cases had their names on them, so she could tell them apart, albeit briefly.
‘What kind of homework do you have?’ She moved tentatively closer to them.
Both scowled.
‘English,’ Rosie said very slowly, as though speaking to someone very stupid.
‘Sorry, yes,’ Anya slithered into the third stool at the kitchen island. She was also still wearing her coat, and awkwardly shrugged out of it and left it resting in her lap, damp on her knees. ‘I just mean what type of thing. Like, spelling, or the alphabet?’
The girls exchanged a glance.
‘We’re eleven,’ Rosie said pityingly. ‘We know the alphabet.’
‘Of course.’ She was starting to feel a little desperate. ‘Well, why don’t you show me?’
They both ignored her and instead started wordlessly scribbling, hands cupped protectively around the pages, their heads down and close to one another.
For twenty minutes, Anya barely dared to breathe as the twins scribbled. She watched the wall clock above the kitchen door and tried not to picture her empty desk at Berners Bilton and the salary that was no longer being deposited into her bank account on the fifteenth of every month. The house was silent – she had no idea where Aimee had gone – and smelled of something sweet that made Anya’s nose tickle. The cool from her damp trench coat continued to seep into her jeans.
Eventually – and again, almost in complete unison – the twins appeared to finish. Rosie whispered something inaudible to Rachel.
‘We’re going to get changed now.’
‘OK.’
‘And then we’re going to play football in the garden.’
‘Great.’
‘You have to go in goal.’
Was she mistaken, or was that a synchronized, malevolent grin?
‘OK.’ At least she’d worn trainers. ‘I’m not very good—’
The girls had already left. While they changed, Anya cased the kitchen, keeping an ear cocked for Aimee’s heels or the twins rattling across the floors.
From the contents of her cupboards, Aimee did not look like someone who cooked a lot. One was entirely empty except for a multipack of lunchbox-sized raisins. Another cupboard had a carton of Special K, a bottle of extra virgin olive oil and a (sealed) packet of sushi rice. The fridge was similarly dispiriting: oat milk, several containers of pre-prepped salad from a company called Detox Queen; nothing that looked like food that children would like.
Still, the kitchen was flash. Although it seemed likely they were virtually unused, Aimee seemed to have all of the mod-cons: state-of-the-art espresso machine; a shiny Nutribullet; pestle and mortar, vegetable steamer and shiny, stainless-steel pans suspended above the pristine hob, like a pre-fab, ultra-kitchen. She stroked one of the saucepans longingly.
