Advent
10 December 2017
I wake up on the sofa and the fire is dead and messy black. Stray scraps of wood from the shelves everywhere. The axe buried nose-first in the floor by the stairs. Mum is in the bedroom, and she's ill. Shivering. Huddled underneath the covers. Her face is the same colour as a new sheet of paper.
I ask her what's wrong, but she doesn't reply. She sits up slowly bringing the covers with her and squints at me like she doesn't know who I am. She covers her eyes. "I'm sorry. Ugh. I'm so sorry."
Mum has to sleep. I check the whole cottage for food. We've eaten all the bread and bacon, and there's nothing proper in the kitchen. The pears and apples in the fruit bowl are plastic. We should have burned them. In the cupboard there are little glass jars of herbs and spices and flavourings and sesame seeds and nothing you can actually, really, properly eat.
Mum is asleep. I get my coat and my hat and my scarf and my gloves. It's not that cold out in the daytime, but I don't want anyone to look at me. Mum left her wallet on the table. It's okay. We need food. I know she'd say it was okay.
From the outside the cottage looks like this:
I pick a direction and start walking and for a while there are just hedges and fields. Nothing and nothing. Not even cars on the road. Eventually there's a postbox and a bus stop all on their own. Then there's another cottage, and another one after that. Then a proper house with a gravel drive and two cars outside. And then, finally, a little shop.
I buy more bread and bacon and eggs and cereal bars. I buy lots of chocolate. I want to buy teabags, because grown-ups like tea and it's the kind of thing you give to someone who's ill, but there are so many different types I don't know where to start.The old lady behind the counter leans right over to look at me. All the bits of her face are very close together. Her eyes and nose and mouth all clumped up in the middle of her head. You here on holiday, is it? I nod and hold out the tenner before she's ready for it. I keep holding it out as she taps prices into the till. There isn't much change from it. Just a couple of coins. The bag is heavy and thin and feels like it's going to split. The woman watches me all the way down the road.
Back at the cottage I can't figure out the kettle, but I climb up on the counter and make some toast. I eat a cereal bar while I'm waiting for it to pop up. I put it on a plate. There's no butter or jam. I forgot. But toast is good. I take it into Mum and put it on the bedside table and climb into bed with her so that I'll be there when she wakes up.