where Auntie Megan might be going to live. You can have a few minutes more to play, and then I want you to get ready to go and see it.’
‘It might look a bit of a mess,’ Megan told the children. Mrs Carter had warned her that work was still going on. ‘The workmen are trying to fix up the outside of the building.’
‘Me take my tools and fix it,’ Josh stated, his eyes widening with excitement, his little chin jutting with determination.
Jenny smiled. ‘I don’t think we can stop him,’ she murmured. ‘He takes his toolbox everywhere with him.’
Ben resisted at first, but Jenny drew in a deep breath and explained again what they were going to do. Over the years she had learned that it didn’t do to hurry him or spring anything new on him.
Half an hour later, they set out. It didn’t take them long to get there, and from the first Megan was impressed with what she saw. The flat was in a neat block of houses built of mellowed red brick, and it was clear from the outside appearance that the property had been well maintained.
Megan looked at the children. ‘Shall we go in and have a look?’
‘Me go.’ Josh was keen to get inside, but Ben hung back.
He dug his heels in, and when Jenny tried to gently coax him into going with them he began to shriek in protest.
‘You can’t stay out here,’ Jenny told him firmly, and when he continued to hang back she led him forward, telling him all about what they were going to see.
Megan marvelled at her patience and began to unlock the front door. Ben immediately tried to reach up to lock it again.
‘He’s got a thing about locks,’ Jenny said in a rueful, harassed tone. ‘And handbags, and briefcases—come to think of it, he has a problem with anything that needs to be opened and closed.’
‘Perhaps it’s just locks and clasps,’ Megan suggested as they walked into the living room.
It was a large room, furnished simply with a softly upholstered lounge suite that blended easily with warm-coloured curtains and carpet. There was a glass-fronted display unit along one wall and a neat writing desk along another. That would be useful, Megan thought, when she had to concentrate on her studies in the evenings.
Warm afternoon sunlight filtered in through a wide window, and she went to look out. The view was magnificent.
She said happily, ‘Come and look at this, Jenny—I can see the park from here. Isn’t that lovely? We’ll be able to take the children to play there.’
Jenny came over to the window and looked out. ‘You’re right, that’s fantastic. What a glorious view.’
Josh had already rushed forward and was tugging at his mother’s skirt, anxious to see for himself. Jenny picked him up and showed him the view of the parkland with the river meandering gently in its midst.
Megan turned to look at Ben. ‘Would you like to come and look?’ she asked him.
Ben hung back, and she added, ‘I bet you could draw a lovely picture of this. You like drawing, don’t you? I brought some pencils with me. You could do a picture of the ducks sitting on the water.’
Her words didn’t have much effect on him, and Jenny said quietly, ‘You know, sometimes I wonder if he can hear properly. If he can’t, perhaps that’s why he gets so frustrated and acts up. I don’t know what to do. It’s as though I can’t reach him at all, and it makes me so unhappy. I can’t think why he’s the way he is.’
‘It’s possible that he’s a little bit deaf, I suppose,’ Megan said. ‘I can make arrangements for him to be tested if that’s what you want.’ She wasn’t altogether sure that that was Ben’s problem, though. There were times when he seemed to hear the faintest of sounds. ‘Do you think part of his problem could be that he’s missing his father?’
Jenny was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Perhaps. It certainly doesn’t help, but I don’t think it’s just that. His behaviour seems so odd at times, and there were problems long before Tom went away. It’s just that it’s so much more difficult for me to cope since he left us.’
Her shoulders slumped a little. She looked tired and depressed, Megan thought, and it was hardly surprising. Looking after two young children was a lot for anyone to cope with singlehanded.
‘Tom does keep in touch, though, doesn’t he?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t you say that he talks to the children on the phone and comes to see them every week?’
Jenny nodded. ‘Yes, he does. It’s not the same as having him around, though. The children miss him.’
‘I’m sure they do.’ Megan made up her mind there and then that she would try to have a word with Tom fairly soon. He and Jenny had always seemed like a happy couple to her, and she would never have imagined that he would want to leave his family. It seemed so out of character for him to behave that way.
They looked around the rest of the flat, and Megan was pleased to see that there was a little balcony running around the back of the building, looking out onto the park. At the moment it was cluttered with ladders and various bits of equipment left behind by the workmen, and that surprised her a bit. She would have expected them to clear up at the end of the day.
Still, when they were finished, she guessed that she would be able to sit out here on a warm afternoon and relax. She smiled, seeing that Josh was already in his element, taking out his plastic toy hammer and bashing everything in sight.
‘What do you think?’ Jenny asked, raising her voice above the din he was making. ‘It looks good to me. Do you think you’ll take it?’
Megan nodded. ‘I do like it. I think I could settle in here fairly quickly.’
Once she had made up her mind, everything was set in motion fairly quickly, and by the weekend she had moved in. She had told Mrs Carter that she didn’t mind if the workmen were around for a short time.
She soon got to know the people who shared the building with her. Her immediate neighbour was a woman in her early thirties, a single parent who had two young boys. The children came to see her as she was carrying boxes into the flat, offering to help her.
‘OK, thanks,’ she accepted with a smile. ‘I could do with a helping hand.’ Jamie, the youngest, was eight years old and wanted to know everything about her. His older brother, Jack, was ten.
‘Did you have a removal van come and bring all your furniture?’ Jack asked.
‘No. Most of the furniture was already here.’
‘My dad helps people move house,’ Jack volunteered. ‘He doesn’t live with us any more. He has a van and he goes around moving furniture for people. He says it does him in, with all the lifting, but that’s because he smokes. Do you smoke?’
‘No, Jack. I never have done. I don’t think it’s very good for you.’
Jack mulled that over. ‘It makes my dad cough. He says he’ll have to cut down… I think maybe I won’t start smoking.’
Megan nodded. ‘I think you’re very wise.’
They
