Page 5 of Waiting for a Bright New Future

There was a collective intake of breath. He thought he’d spoken to his sister in his head but he’d said the words aloud.

“Sorry. I meant to say that I accept the one-year grace period.”

Robert and George smiled. Mr Finch looked satisfied that he didn’t have to handle a messy dispute.

“Help yourselves to more coffee. I’ll get a document drawn up to reflect this discussion for your signatures.”

After they’d all signed and Mr Finch wielded his fountain pen as witness, Robert and George made a big display of pumping Stuart’s hand and wishing him well for the next twelve months.

Then they were gone and Stuart was left with the anxious feeling that he’d made the wrong decision and a big, black pit of fear in his stomach.

Chapter Five

The house hung stale and heavy around him. Eric had offered little in the way of company but just knowing there was another living, breathing human in the house had made a difference. Stuart walked around each of the empty rooms. When you’d lived in a place for decades, you didn’t notice it anymore. Now he considered it as an outsider might. An outsider who might judge Stuart himself by the place in which he lived. The wallpaper was grubby, especially in the stairwell. The carpet on the bottom step was worn thin. His father’s old study had become a dumping ground for stuff that didn’t have a proper home: the walking frame — obsolete since Eric became completely bedridden; two old desktop computers — kept to avoid hackers extracting bank details; a train set and boxes of Lego — Stuart had rescued these from the loft when his nephews were young, but the boys had turned their noses up and immersed themselves in gaming consoles that Stuart didn’t understand.

You’ve let the place go, Stuart.

“I know, I know.” His voice sounded odd in the empty house.

You’ve let it moulder away. If houses wore clothes, this one would be wearing an egg-stained tank top, shirt-sleeve garters and frayed braces. Please don’t tell me you’re going to live the rest of your life like the man that time forgot.

“Don’t rub it in. I know I need to make changes.”

I’m watching and waiting. Remember when you were a shiny new teacher with ideals about connecting with the teenagers in a way your teachers never had? You had a mullet haircut and never dropped into that corduroy, geography-teacher stereotype. Let’s see a return of that confidence, please.

“I’m trying. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Sandra hadn’t spoken to him with such regularity in decades and now, suddenly, she was a constant presence in the wings of his mind. It was probably a bad sign on a mental-health barometer, but very welcome in the vacuum that was his new life.

The conversations with his dead sister had started when he was small. For a long time, he’d never questioned the photo of two tiny babies on the sideboard, one dressed in pink and one dressed in blue. Then one day his parents had argued, not noticing him behind the settee with his train set.

“It would’ve been different if Sandra had lived instead of Stuart.” His mother’s voice had been a mix of anger and upset. “At least then I’d have someone to fight my corner. Someone who might understand the tedium of washer-loads of football kit and the work made by mud constantly being trodden in and out.”

“I wanted Sandra to live as well! Not to become an assistant housekeeper to you but to add some gentleness and a balancing influence to the house.”

“Which I can’t provide because I’m too busy clearing up after you lot. I wanted a third child like a hole in the head but I’m left with all the extra work.”

The conversation confused Stuart and he waited until the next day to ask his mother about Sandra. They were walking to school, his legs taking two steps to keep up with each of her urgent strides. She stopped abruptly when he asked the question. Stuart’s own momentum carried him forward until his movement was sharply arrested by his mother’s arm.

“Sandra?” she repeated, as though she had never heard the name before.

“I heard you and Dad saying you wanted her instead of me.” He hadn’t meant to say that but the hurt had stopped him going to sleep the previous night and now it came tumbling out. “You don’t like me because I’m not a girl.”

His mother crouched down, held his shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Daddy and I love you very much, Stuart.” Her voice sounded like shewantedto make it loving, but she didn’t do it quite convincingly enough.

He wanted to believe her but a strange feeling made him not trust his mother’s words for the first time ever. “What about Sandra?”

“Sandra was your twin sister.” Now his mother spoke almost in a whisper and he had to lean towards her to hear. “You were both born at the same time but she died when she was a week old.”

Stuart was big enough to understand death. “Is she buried in the garden like Goliath? Is she in heaven? Can I talk to her, like you said I can still stroke Goliath in my imagination?”

“Yes, you can talk to her in your imagination. I would like you to do that.” Then his mother had given him a bigger than usual hug and spoken quietly into his hair. “It will keep her memory alive.”

After that he and Sandra had started conversing in his head. Sometimes the conversation felt so real that Stuart said the words aloud. His mother was always pleased when he reported back on the conversations; she would sit him on her knee and hold him close, eager to hear everything Sandra had said.

So, what’s your plan?Sandra said to him now. Where do you go from here? You’re going to be kicked out of this dowdy museum by your own family. You’ve got no job. The future’s not exactly bright, is it?

“I know, I know. Don’t get sharp with me.” The last thing he needed was the voice in his head turning against him as well.

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