I swallow hard, biting back a retort.
Panic is simmering inside me. I want to swing round and tell him to leave right now, but I can’t do that in front of Eva. I can’t show her I’m afraid of him. I have to stay calm. And I can’t risk angering him, otherwise we could find ourselves out on the streets with nowhere else to go. I haven’t got a proper rental contract.
If it was just me on my own, I’d tell him to bugger off and I’d sleep on a park bench. But I can’t. I have to protect Eva…
He bangs his empty mug down on the table deliberately loudly to make Eva jump. Then he laughs at her reaction and ruffles her hair, and I squirm inwardly, wanting to wrench his hand off her and shout at him to get out.
Stay calm, stay calm.
I arrange my face into a pleasant expression. ‘Look, Jaxon. In future, could you phone me to let me know that you’re coming round? Then I can make sure we’re in. It’s just…we got a shock when we saw that the door was open.’
‘Did you? Aw, that’s terrible.’ He adopts a clown’s sorry expression, his hand clutching his chest. ‘Naughty Jaxon, eh?’ He laughs and a shiver runs down my spine. I shouldn’t have said anything.
‘Right, I know when I’m not wanted,’ he snarls, with one of his sudden mood changes. His fists are balled at his sides, his eyes narrowed, and I’m suddenly afraid he might actually lash out. ‘I’ll go now but you can forget any special treatment in future. Your rent’s going up.’
Shock turns my stomach over. I can barely afford the rent he charges me now. Once my wages from the café start coming in, I’ll be able to pay more – but that means I won’t be able to save up to get us out of here.
The feeling of being trapped and powerless is suddenly overwhelming and I sink down into a chair. Eva slips off her seat without a word and comes to stand next to me, and I draw her close, hugging her tightly. She knows something’s wrong and that’s what I hate the most.
Then Jaxon’s face splits into a grin. ‘Joke!’ he shouts, pointing at us. ‘Ha-ha, your faces, the two of you. Brilliant!’
He bends to ruffle Eva’s hair again but she squirms away from him. ‘Your mummy has no sense of humour. And she doesn’t appreciate my friendship and all I’ve done for her. But we’re friends, aren’t we, Eva?’ He winks at her.
Eva just stares up at him and my hold on her tightens.
I let my breath out slowly as he walks away, the sound of his shoes clunking on the floorboards as he heads down the hall.
‘I’ll phone next time I’m coming,’ he shouts. ‘Or then again, maybe I won’t.’
The front door slams, echoing in the silence.
Later, after Eva’s in bed, I sit in the cold, bare living room, hugging the teddy Mum bought her for her last birthday and desperately wishing my lovely mum was here right now to cheer me up.
A pang of loneliness washes through me.
I feel as if I’m being slowly sucked down into a bottomless pool of mud. The on-going battle to keep our heads above the surface is exhausting, especially when I’m trying to remain cheery all the time for Eva.
I rarely feel like giving in. I’ve always been a determined sort of person. But tonight, I feel worn out, trapped and helpless. Like a shadow of the person I used to be.
What if I drag Eva down with me?
‘Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.’
– Maya Angelou
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Ross abandoned us, moving out of the flat we’d shared to be with his new love, I stayed in Aldershot and tried to hold it together. I was still working in the tap warehouse, but this time as an employee of the new owners. But it was tough. I hated sending Eva to a child-minder when she was so little, but I was so determined to provide for us without any help from anyone else that I couldn’t see any other way.
Finances were tight and although I had a lump sum from the sale of the business, I found my savings dwindling at an alarming rate, especially with child care to pay for.
The December that Eva turned two was the worst Christmas ever. I was starting to get behind with my rent and however many extra shifts I worked, I never seemed to be able to get out of the red. The worst was when, the week before Christmas, I reached the limit on my credit card. I was at the till with presents for Eva and my card was refused.
I hit rock bottom and I panicked. I owed a month’s rent but I had no money in my current account for food, let alone making Christmas special for Eva.
Riding home on the bus, I picked up a free newspaper and saw an advert for a money lender. The way they described it seemed pretty straightforward. Borrow two hundred pounds and pay it back when you get paid. I hated doing it – I’d heard all the warnings about mega interest – but what about Eva? It was Christmas! As long as I paid it back over the following few months, it would be fine.
So I took out that loan, never imagining the grief it would cause me.
The following March, I was forced to give up the flat and my independence, and move from Aldershot to Sunnybrook, to live with Mum.
She was renting a little two-bed flat just off the high street and it was a bit of a squeeze, but we managed. I did feel lonely, though. At least I’d had friends in Aldershot, although I hadn’t see much of them lately as I’d been working all the hours and looking after Eva. But in Sunnybrook, I knew no-one except Mum. That’s why I was so grateful when Katja, our next-door neighbour, introduced herself and we got talking.
Mum had already booked a holiday in Corfu, and she went off in the June – and came back tanned and in love! Nico owned the little taverna where she’d been staying and they’d clicked straight away. He was a widower, and in the photos he looked lovely. Tall, grey-haired, with a kind face. There were pictures of the two of them together, and Mum looked really happy.
I was so pleased for her. She’d brought me up alone ever since Dad left us when I was just three, and she’d devoted herself to looking after me, never thinking about herself. It was time she found some happiness in love, and she booked to go over to visit Nico again in the August.
It was when she returned that she dropped the bombshell.
Nico had asked her to go and live with him in Greece and she’d decided, after a lot of soul-searching, that this was her time, and she’d said yes.
My feelings at that time were all over the place. I was delighted for Mum but I was panicking inside at the thought of life without her. She’d been my rock when we first decamped to Sunnybrook, and now that she was leaving, the future seemed uncertain again.
But I never let her see my anxiety over her decision. I wanted her to be happy. She deserved it. I would cope…
Waving her off was hard – Mum hated it even more than me and Eva, who sobbed inconsolably to see Nanna walk away – but I’d told her about the new job I was starting the following week, which meant at least she didn’t have to worry about us surviving.
Mum didn’t have much in the way of savings, but she left me a few thousand to see me through until I got paid.
But there was no job. I’d lied just to make her feel better about leaving.
I took over the rental on Mum’s flat, and I sent out literally hundreds of job applications, with no luck at all. I was growing desperate but keeping up a happy front when I spoke to Mum on the phone. The money was running out and there was still no job in prospect. I put myself on the council housing list but was warned it could be months, even years, before we made it to the top.