Amanda Robson - Envy

I sit, feeling empty inside. Coping with each day has, for many years, been a struggle. A plethora of temporary jobs. No focus. But it’s become easier in the last six months. Since I started to follow you. Since I started spending time with Mouse. It’s raining today, so I cannot follow you. When it rains I need to check on Mouse.

Mouse lives in the flat directly above mine. I pad up the communal staircase.

‘It’s Erica,’ I shout through his letter box.

Slowly, slowly, the door opens. I step straight into his living room. He stands in front of me, agitated.

‘Wotcha.’

‘Wotcha, Erica,’ he replies.

I high-five him. He high-fives me back. A ritual between us, the result of watching too many American films together. I cast my eye around his flat and feel a tremor of envy. His father bought it for him, and helped him decorate it. It has central heating that works, and is beautifully appointed. IKEA furniture. Copious kitchen equipment. But then Mouse is vulnerable and he really needs his father’s help. I must not resent the good fortune of a friend.

He walks into the sitting area of his living room. I follow him. He stalks up and down in front of the window, wringing his hands and glowering at the rain. I walk over to him and put my hand on his arm.

‘The rain isn’t going to hurt you.’ I pause and look into his anxious face.

Grey-brown eyes stiffen. ‘It wants to.’

‘It can’t, remember? As long as you stay inside.’

His eyes soften. He frowns. He sighs and flops down into the middle of the sofa. I sink into the easy chair opposite him.

Mouse. Thirty years old. Nicknamed Mouse because of his timid personality and grey-brown hair.

‘What’s up?’ he asks.

‘Been busy.’

‘Because of Faye?’

‘Yep.’

He leans across and takes my hands in his, face pressed towards mine. ‘But you’re here today.’

I squeeze his hands. Mouse has difficulty reading emotions and suffers from phobias. I have confidence issues because of my upbringing. Perhaps one day I will be able to overcome them. But Mouse won’t recover from his issues. He just has to learn to live in this world despite them. That’s why Mouse’s father has done so much to support him. Mouse’s father is my hero. I wish I had a father like that. But I do not have a father. My mother never knew who my father was.

We sit in silence for a while.

‘I’ve bought something at the charity shop,’ Mouse eventually announces as he pads across the room. ‘I’ll show you.’

Rain forgotten now that I’m here, he opens his living room cupboard and pulls out a large cardboard box. He places it in the middle of the sitting area, lifts out a silver and bronze chess set, the pieces finely etched, and puts it on the floor. He stands up, shoulders back in pride.

‘That looks fantastic,’ I tell him.

He smiles at me. A broad, effervescent smile. When he smiles, despite his rough-hewn features, Mouse is good-looking.

‘Do you want to play chess with me?’

‘You’ll have to teach me.’

‘That’s fine. I bought it for both of us so that we could play together.’

My heart lurches. What would I do if I didn’t have Mouse?

I close my eyes and feel again my mother’s heat as I lay clamped against her, waiting for her to wake up. I feel her breath steady and even, not the agonising rasping I heard when I first called the ambulance. Eleven years old. A man stepping towards me, to prise me away. A man who smells of nicotine and mint. The social worker in charge of my case. I shudder inside and push the memory away. My mind is back. Back in Mouse’s comfortable flat.

‘Come on, Erica, I’ll teach you how to play chess,’ he says, flicking his grey-brown locks.

Home from the gym. In my bedroom, trying to rescue my hair. I have managed to wash it. But Georgia has woken from her morning nap, so drying it will be a problem.

‘I’m not Georgia any more,’ she tells me. ‘I’m a kangaroo.’

She bends down, face plastered in a mischievous grin. ‘I need to do my hopping practice.’ She begins to hop around our bedroom. Even though she is only three years old, she is heavy enough to make the floorboards vibrate. I shouldn’t have let her sleep for so long. Now she is full of energy. She picks up my Chanel perfume.

‘Kangaroos like perfume,’ she announces, spraying it into the air around her.

I snatch it away and put it in a drawer. ‘They don’t like perfume. They like grass.’

‘Come on then, Mummy, let’s go outside and get some.’

‘I can’t go outside, I need to dry my hair.’

‘Well I’ll go then,’ she says, jumping towards the door.

I lean across and lock it. ‘No. No. You can’t go alone. I’ll come outside with you later.’

‘OK, Mummy, I’ll wait.’

She jumps up and down on the spot. She bounces towards the dressing table, and picks up my new eyeshadow.

‘Kangaroos like wearing make-up too.’

‘No they don’t. Kangaroos like sitting on their mummy’s bed watching films.’

I sweep her into my arms and lift her onto the bed. I snap the TV on and find The Jungle Book , her favourite film, on Amazon Prime. I sit at my dressing table, brush my hair and switch the hairdryer on. She slips off the bed and moves towards me. She shakes my leg to get my attention.

‘Where do shadows come from?’ she asks.

I snap the hairdryer off. ‘Go back and watch the video. Ask Daddy tonight,’ I suggest. ‘He knows that sort of thing.’

Phillip knows so many weird random facts. As soon as I met him I admired his intelligence.

She tosses her head disapprovingly. ‘You just want to dry your hair, not talk to me, Mummy.’

‘I need to dry my hair, Georgia – it’s wet.’

She stoops into her kangaroo position again, hands like paws, bent in front of her chest. I scoop her in my arms and place her on the bed again in front of The Jungle Book . I sit next to her with my arms around her, to try and calm her. Then when she is engrossed in the movie, I creep away and continue to blow-dry my hair. When I have finally finished smoothing my hair, I turn the TV off.

‘Come on, we’re off to the shops,’ I announce.

She wriggles off the sofa and slips her hand in mine.

‘Can I walk, Mummy? Leave the buggy here?’

Her walking is more of a totter than a walk. But she smiles at me, and as soon as I see her smile, I melt. So after wrapping up against the rain, brandishing a brolly this time, we leave our modern town house, holding hands. Georgia is now tired of being a kangaroo. Just when I would like to go quickly, we move like snails. Turning the corner past the line of fine Victorian houses, towards the high street. Right onto the main road. Past the green, beneath the bridge. Dust from passing traffic spitting into our faces as we slowly progress towards the centre of town. At last we arrive at a narrow doorway between the bank and the chip shop. The entrance for Serendipity Model Agency. The scent of the chip shop assaults my nostrils as I press the buzzer. The speaker attached to the buzzer vibrates. I lean my weight on the door and we tumble inside.

Slowly, slowly, still holding hands, we pad upstairs to Serendipity Model Agency, run solely by my agent, Mimi Featherington. She has ten clients, and a room above the chip shop that always smells of burnt fat.

I knock on the glass door at the top of the stairs.

‘Come in,’ Mimi invites, opening the door to welcome us. ‘How lovely to see you.’

Georgia stares at Mimi’s purple Mohican hair. Mimi, a forty-year-old punk rocker, with a neat face spoilt by a plethora of pins sticking into it. We follow Mimi into her office.