“Well, if your own mother can’t tell you the truth, who can? But there’s no point in sitting around and moping about the bad decisions you made. You should go running with your sister.”
Running with her sister would be another bad decision. Not only would it mean leaving the house, which meant bumping into Steven, but Martha would lag behind, which was pretty much the story of her life. She’d always been ten steps behind her sister, and there was no chance of her forgetting that.
Martha knew she wasn’t as pretty as her sister. She wasn’t as thin as her sister. She didn’t make great choices like her sister.
She knew all the things she wasn’t but wasn’t sure what she was, apart from sturdy.
She made a great cappuccino and was good at talking, but that was more of a flaw than a skill. Martha would talk the hind leg off a donkey her mother would say, a statement accompanied by an exaggerated eye roll. If there was an award for who talked the most, Martha would win it.
She might not be as smart as her sister, but she knew enough to understand that living with people who made you feel worse about yourself wasn’t good for the soul. She needed a job and a little place of her own, but there was no chance of either in London.
After everything that had happened, she’d had no choice but to move back with her parents. She hoped they didn’t reach the point where they killed each other.
“Hi, Martha!” Pippa bounced down the stairs, hair swinging in a sleek ponytail. “How is Steven? Still behaving like a shit?”
She couldn’t even lose at love without her sister knowing.
Martha looked gloomily at the shiny ponytail. Pippa even won at hair.
“Pippa! Don’t you look a picture.” Their mother beamed. “Are you off to work? Treating anyone famous today?”
“Day off. I have a yoga class in thirty minutes. I need something to eat before I leave.” Pippa headed for the kitchen and Martha followed her.
She’d made cupcakes the day before using her grandmother’s favorite recipe, and there were still a couple left. She offered one to her sister who shook her head.
“No thanks. I’m making myself a green smoothie.”
Winning at the healthy diet too, Martha thought, watching as her sister dropped apple, spinach, cucumber and various other healthy ingredients into the blender and proceeded to whiz it together into an unappetizing-looking pale green liquid. If Martha had found a blob of it on the kitchen surface she would have covered it in antibacterial spray.
Her mother reappeared. “Don’t forget to clean the kitchen floor, Martha.”
Her life was so exciting she could hardly bear it.
She finished the cupcake and unlocked the back door. Across the fence she saw their elderly neighbor, Abigail Hartley, struggling to hang her sheets on the line. The edges were hanging perilously close to the ground.
“I’ll do that for you, Mrs. Hartley.” Martha sprinted round the side of the house and into the adjoining garden. “You shouldn’t be doing that with your arthritis.”
“You’re a kind girl, Martha.”
“It’s no trouble.” At least Abigail thanked her for helping with laundry. In her own house everyone took it for granted.
“I struggle to lift my arms above my head.”
“I know. It must be so hard for you.” Martha pegged the sheets securely. “I’ll come back later and bring them in so don’t worry about that.”
“You’re very flexible and strong.”
Flexible. Strong.
No one hung sheets like she did. She was winning at laundry.
Mrs. Hartley tried to push money into her hand and Martha was appalled that for a moment she was tempted to take it. Right now she couldn’t even afford to buy a new hair clip and every little bit helped.
No way. The rest of her family might not like her very much, but if she started taking money for helping friends and neighbors then she wouldn’t like herself either.
“I don’t need payment.” She almost said that it was a pleasure to do something for someone who appreciated the effort, but that would have felt disloyal. Family were family, even when they drove you to screaming pitch. “Happy to help.”
“Was that Steven I saw just now?”
“Yes. I can’t get him to leave me alone.” Martha checked that the sheets weren’t going to blow away.
“You’re upset.” Mrs. Hartley patted her arm. “Don’t worry. Plenty more fish in the sea.”
Martha had no interest in fishing.
Why did people commit to each other? She had no idea. She’d had years of experience of watching her parents together and frankly there was nothing about their relationship that inspired her. Her mum was always yelling at her dad, who had selective hearing. There wasn’t a lot of affection on display.
But what did she know about relationships?
Nothing it seemed.
“Mum wants me to be a high-flying career woman, but for that I’d need a career and right now that’s not looking good. There are more people than jobs.”
“But someone has to get the job. And that someone could be you. A girl like you can do anything she wants to do.”
Her grandmother would have said the same thing, and although it sounded great it did nothing to lift Martha’s spirits. “That’s kind of you, Mrs. Hartley, but not quite accurate.”
“You can’t wait around for a job to fall into your lap. You need to put yourself out there.” Mrs. Hartley stuck her chin forward. “What’s your dream?”
Her dream was to be happy and look forward to each day, but that was never going to happen while she was living with her parents. She needed to be independent. She needed to not feel like a failure. She needed to get Steven out of her life.
And all that needed one thing—
“My dream is to find a job.” She picked up the laundry basket. “Any job.”
“Nonsense!” Mrs. Hartley waggled her finger. “You need to find something you’re going to love.”
“What did you do?”
“I worked at Bletchley Park during the war with all the codebreakers. I can’t tell you more than that or I’d have to kill you and dispose of your body.” Mrs. Hartley gave an exaggerated wink. “It was all very secretive and in those days we didn’t gossip the way everyone does now.”
Martha tried to imagine her mother in Bletchley Park. There wouldn’t have been a secret the enemy didn’t know. “I bet you were a force to be reckoned with.”