‘OK. Sit down.’ I do. It’s like a kind of mind control thing she’s got. She says sit, I sit. She says clean up, I clean up. She says we’re walking twenty-six miles round London during the night, I’ll even do that. I am powerless against her penetrating stare and firmly set jaw. I think she can speak to snakes too. She’s rummaging through her bag now, and eventually pulls out a piece of folded-up paper, which she spreads out on her lap. ‘Daze, we have got our work cut out for us.’
I nod. ‘Right. Uh-huh. Yes. Sure. What do you mean?’
‘I mean the guidance says that to walk a marathon it takes at least twelve weeks’ training. We have seven. It’s going to be tough, but it’s do-able.’
Twelve weeks’ training! For walking? Who writes these guidance things? Some eighty-year-old granny with arthritic ankles? No, no, actually I bet it’s the trainer manufacturers. Of course. They’re onto a winner there. Put it out that walking twenty-six miles will require three months’ training, national panic ensues, trainer sales hit the roof. Classic herd mentality at play. They must think we’re such brainless idiots who can’t think for ourselves, while they rub their hands together and count their ill-gotten gains. They didn’t reckon on me though: I see straight through their wicked plans.
‘OK,’ I say, nodding.
Abs looks up from the sheet of paper on her lap and eyes me seriously. ‘But before we start training,’ she says ominously, ‘there’s something else we need to tackle.’ She raises her eyebrows, apparently waiting for me to fill in the missing blank. I don’t want to though. I’d quite like that particular blank to stay missing. I look away quickly before her eyes compel me to do her bidding, but I’m just a fraction of a second too late. ‘Daisy,’ she says, as if she’s trying to get me to own up to smashing something. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’
I do. She’s right. Of course. As if to reinforce the message – as if it needed reinforcing – I catch a brief glimpse of the ‘For Sale’ sign through the window, the small ‘Sold’ panel in its centre drawing the eye like a blood stain. The house is sold. I have to move out by Friday. It’s Monday.
‘Yes,’ I say quietly.
‘Yes,’ she agrees, more forcefully.
But that’s easy for her to say. It’s not her that’s got to do it. And it’s a complicated business. She doesn’t understand that you can’t simply pack all your belongings away and move out; there are things that need to be done first. I mean, I haven’t got any of the stuff I’ll need – cardboard boxes, marker pens, tape …
‘I’ve got a load of boxes, pens and tape in the car,’ she says helpfully.
‘Oh that’s helpful. Thanks.’
‘Right. Let’s do this.’ She slaps her hands on her thighs and stands up. ‘I’ll get the bits from the car, you get upstairs and start sorting out your stuff.’ She performs an elaborate comedy ‘I’m-about-to-dash-off’ move, swinging one arm and leg backwards across herself, holds it, then trudges off slowly.
I raise myself off the sofa, feeling as if there are suddenly a million tons of air pressing down on me. It makes moving around unimaginably difficult.
‘What the hell are you still doing standing there?’
Ah, she’s back already, staggering into the room under a giant stack of flat cardboard boxes. She’s peering at me round the side of them, and even though more than half her face is obscured by ‘Young’s Frozen Fish’, she still manages to look disapproving.
‘Get upstairs and start getting your clothes out.’
‘OK.’
When Mum and Graham both got so ill at the same time, Naomi and I decided that I would move back in with them, to help care for them both. Of course it should be me; Naomi was living in domestic bliss with Russell, I was sharing a rented house with three other girls. It made sense. I packed my stuff up into boxes then and made myself at home in my mum’s spare room. It was only ever a temporary set-up, but it was horrific knowing it was only temporary. Knowing why it was only temporary.
Upstairs in my room I start pulling all my clothes out of the drawers and wardrobe, but most of them are on the floor so I just scoop them up and dump them on the bed. Then I stare at them. Then I sink down onto the edge of the bed. There isn’t much there, not really, not for three years of my life. Tee shirts, jeans, socks, pants. Swimming costume. Not that the length of time you live somewhere should have any bearing on how many clothes you have. But three years I’ve been here, and all I’m taking with me are a couple of boxes of clothes and some toiletries.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t like to take more. Right here on the dressing table is a gorgeous photo of the whole family – Mum and Graham and all of their combined children – on their wedding day. I’d love to take that with me, but I can’t. I’m not allowed. I pick it up and move it reverentially towards the pile of clothes on the bed, holding it as if it were a photo of Elvis reading The Times on the tube in 2001. Perhaps I could just squeeze it in, between my knickers? Who would ever know? But then the thought of my stepbrother Darren’s face in between my knickers makes my lip curl and I replace the picture on the dresser. It’s just not worth it.
A few minutes later Abs appears with a newly three-dimensional box in each hand and we spend the next hour or so filling them with my things and carrying them out to her car, then starting again. There are a few things downstairs too that are mine – laptop, some CDs, all my DVDs – and once they’re in, and the bathroom is cleared, we’re done.
‘That was quick,’ I say, as we stand together in the hallway. She squeezes my arm, and I look at her gratefully. Then I realise that she’s not squeezing my arm to say, ‘I know, this is really hard, but I’m here for you, my friend, and I will help you get through it.’ This particular arm-squeeze means
‘We’re not done yet, Daze.’
Turns out she thinks we need to clean the entire place, really thoroughly, before I quit it forever. She says it will put me in a good light. She says I owe it to my mum. She says I can’t ever let anyone find out what a complete and utter disgusting slob I’ve been for the past few months.
‘Oh my God, Daze, that girl is such a terrible slob,’ Naomi’s scandalised voice comes back to me, in a conversation we had about a girl called Heidi who flat-shared with her for a while a few years ago. ‘There’s always at least two pairs of shoes left in the hallway, letters on the bread bin, a knife in the washing-up bowl, and she never puts her jacket away in the cupboard. Always leaves it on the sofa!’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’ I was as appalled as her at these disgusting character flaws. ‘What does she expect to happen to it there? The cleaning fairy will put it away?’
‘Huh, yeah, no doubt. I’m not sure how much more I can stand. May have to burn it.’
‘Bring it on!’
Somewhere along the road, my exacting standards for cleanliness have taken a bit of a nosedive. ‘You’re not a disgusting slob,’ Abs says now, ‘but people will think you are when they see …’ she indicates the entire house with a wide sweep of her arm ‘… this.’
Twenty minutes later I know she’s right when I find what once was either a chocolate Hobnob or lasagne in a mottled beige arc by the dining room door. I glance over at Abs, currently positioned rump-end towards me as she scrubs at some other disgusting bit of filth on the carpet, and I feel glad that she can’t see the disgusting bit of filth over here. Because I’m definitely going to keep my dignity as long as she doesn’t see this particular stain. The fact that she’s already seen the mouldy coffee cups, the stale pizza crusts, the coffee spills and the unopened post will have no bearing on her opinion of me.
Actually, knowing Abs, it won’t.
I met Abby just over four years ago in a queue in Tesco. It’s an electrifying story. I only had a basketful of items,