The Pole Renovacy Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Since May had given him the cookery book, Tad would have a go at learning to cook! Pancakes looked easy – and the ingredients were cheap. And he was impressively good at flipping them! It was fun, too. He’d almost forgotten that simple things could be fun. “Wow,” May said when she saw them on the plate, eyes wide with surprise.
“Hey, it was nothing,” Tad said, doing the cool dude act. But secretly, he was really pleased with himself. “All thanks to the book you gave me for Christmas.” May had gone to school in a passably good mood. Ice was playing happily with his red car. Tad settled down with the cookery book to try and learn another recipe. The house was beginning to look like a cosy little home, and since he’d painted it, washed the bedding properly and bought new loose covers for the settee and armchair, it no longer smelt either. Maybe they’d turned a corner. He flipped through the pages. Ratatouille looked fairly simple, and they grew all the ingredients themselves. He’d start with that. Maybe they could think about getting chickens. Tad went outside to see where he’d put them if they did. As he pulled his jacket on, he felt the outline of his phone in its pocket. So that was where it was! He fished it out and looked at it. He really didn’t miss being able to use it. The endless messages when Star was getting worse, and there was no good news to give in reply. And afterwards, the inability to get away from well-meaning (maybe) but interfering (definitely) people. Especially Alicia Harbottle! Hid grip tightened painfully on his phone as he thought of her.
“Wouldn’t it be better if..?” “Shouldn’t you be doing..?” “Have you thought of..?” “I think the best thing would be..?”
And, worst of all, when she started on, “How can you afford..?” “Wouldn’t the children be better off..?”
With someone else. That was what she meant. When May turned up at school in the same clothes for five days in a row and her hair unwashed, he’d seen the Bad Parent look very clearly on her face. They’d moved before she could act on her (unfounded) suspicions. And deleting her from his contacts had felt sooo good! “Yep, this looks like a normal family,” Tad thought that evening. He was boning up on DIY skills – paying other people to do things for him just wasn’t an option! Ice and May were playing peek-a-boo, with much giggling, in the ten minutes left before Ice’s bedtime. May had done her homework with no protests and no nagging. The place was clean and tidy.
“It’s a new year. And this feels like a new start.” Tad had dropped May off at the stadium – the school had been given free tickets for the match, and she’d gone with her friends – and headed for the laundromat, to kill two birds with one trip.
“Hi, I’m Lenny. Your kid’s cute – don’t worry, mate.” Ice had looked up at Lenny, clasped his leg and begun babbling to him about his red car. Tad had peeled him off, apologising, but Lenny had just laughed.
It was quite nice to chat to another bloke – way better than bumping into May’s teacher! He’d relaxed too soon. The door opened, and in she came! Ice recognised her and ran over with such enthusiasm that she had to catch him as he nearly fell flat on his face. Ice promptly clung to her and started talking about his red car again!
Still, she couldn’t complain about May not doing her homework this time. And he was getting all the notes – about the match, about May’s school trip. His threat had worked. He broke off his chat with Lenny and went to retrieve Ice, who was still clinging to Miss Chandler like she was his new best friend.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind.”
No, but I do, Tad thought. Though he hadn’t minded Ice chatting to Lenny.
“Actually, I’m glad I bumped into you. I wanted to say how much better May was doing at school, and how well she’s doing her homework.” She peeled Ice off and put him down, smiling at them both before she went to deal with her washing. Tad checked his own machine and then decided he might as well be civil in return.
“Thanks for telling me that about May. Is there anything she needs a bit of extra input with? I think she’s cracked the decomposition in subtraction now, but you’d know better than me about that.”
It had been a bit of a struggle, but they’d got there – once Tad had turned it into money and shown her how it worked. “Imagine there are only tens and ones and no other coins at all…”
Hang on, she’d got that bad parent look on her face again. What now? “Since you mention it, I think May was upset…”
“Upset? By what?”
Had someone been bullying her? Maybe it wasn’t a Bad Parent Look. Maybe it was genuine concern for May.
“Umm…that she couldn’t see her mother over Christmas. She said to me that Mummy couldn’t be there…” It hit Tad like a runaway train. Just when he’d been thinking they were getting somewhere, May let him in for this! He had two choices – explain to her that Star was dead, or get angry. Angry was way easier and safer.
“My family affairs are none of your business,” he hissed – he didn’t want to freak Lenny out, or Ice. “Can you just concentrate on educating my child please? That’s what you’re paid to do.”
He was going to have to do his washing on a school day, when there was no danger of running into Miss stick-her-nose-in Chandler. Out of the frying pan and into the fire! What was he going to do though? Why was May pretending Star was still alive? And how did he talk to her about it? He was still cross with her for letting him in for such a hurtful comment. He just didn’t know where or how to start. And three weeks later he was still no wiser as to how to handle things. He needed Star! He was coping with Ice, but bringing up a girl was obviously totally different.
He flipped open the lid of the dumpster and braced himself for what lay ahead. This wasn’t doing his clothes much good. Perhaps it was just as well he didn’t have either the time or the freedom to go to the gym any more. “You stink,” May said, with more truth than politeness. “And this is so embarrassing. I don’t know what to say to people when they ask what you do.”
The fact that Ice was in his arms helped Tad keep his temper; and he was glad of that afterwards. What he’d wanted to say wouldn’t have helped anything. His tone was still a bit terse though.
“Why don’t you tell them that I’m an artist?"
Add that to the lies you’re already telling, he thought. I used to be one once, but I'm not now.
“And you don’t suppose that I enjoy this, do you? Being filthy and smelly? But it pays our bills.”
They went home in silence.