Lisa Owens - Not Working

“Delicious,” I say, reaching for one. “I hope you didn’t go to this trouble just for me.” She swats at my wrist with a tea towel.

“Indeed I didn’t. I’m having the girls round for tea. They’re coming at five. That’s why I said, if you remember, that today didn’t really suit. Here.” She hands me the biscuit tin. I open it and peer in at a few sorry digestives lying at the bottom. I take a bite of one; it’s lost any crunch it may once have had, and tastes of damp, but I finish it anyway.

We sit at the kitchen table drinking tea from mugs that used to be red but have turned a whitish pink through decades of dishwashing cycles.

“I hear you’re having a bit of trouble finding a new job,” says Grandma. “How long has it been now — a month?”

“I’m not having trouble.”

“Was the old one really so bad you couldn’t wait to find something else before you left?”

“I was afraid if I waited, I might never get out. That job was never meant to be my career —I was just so relieved someone out there was willing to hire me.”

“Mm,” says Grandma.

“And then, suddenly, years had passed, and I knew if I was going to get anywhere, I had to leave. I need this time to take stock.”

“I see! Well! All right for some.”

“It’s not like that. I have savings.”

“Faye got another pay rise — did you hear? Would you ever think about accountancy?”

“Numbers aren’t my strong suit.”

Grandma nods. “You must have got that from your father’s side. Here.” She pushes the biscuit tin toward me. “Have another,” she says in a kindly, compensatory tone.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

She sighs. “They were your grandfather’s favorite. Never liked anything I made as much as those.” Along with most of his generation, Gum hated waste. When I stayed with my grandparents as a child, anything I left on my plate would boomerang back next mealtime: gray carrots at breakfast, cornflake mush at lunch, sandwich crusts at dinner. Gum wore the same pair of sandals every summer for thirty-four years, and famously stopped talking to my mother for weeks in the wake of a guerrilla spring cleaning, when she got rid of multiple food items so old they preexisted sell-by dates. Grandma told me at the funeral she knew the end was nigh when he started throwing away tea bags after only one soak. “It was as though a light had gone out,” she said.

“So, is there anything I can do to help while I’m here?”

Grandma raises a hand and strikes it dismissively through the air. “You can’t do anything. Just drink your tea.”

“Are you sure? I could change your sheets, or do some cleaning, or…run down to the shops if there’s anything you need?”

She’s shaking her head.

“Stuart changed the bedding with me this morning. And Faye comes and vacuums once a week. The twins take it in turns to help me with the shopping — you’d be no use: you can’t even drive.”

“I can drive, Grandma. I passed on my first try, remember? I just don’t have a car.” I wonder if senility is maybe setting in. In the eyes of the family, passing on my first try has been my greatest achievement to date. My mother failed three times, and Grandma herself took five attempts — and that was in the old days when everyone passed.

“Same thing, isn’t it? What’s the point of having a license if you don’t bother to use it? Finish the biscuits, that’s what I’d ask you to do.”

“Oh, go on, then.” I dunk a broken piece in my tea and half of it dissolves and disappears. “Please think about something I can do. Laundry? Some gardening?” I had no idea my cousins were so considerate: I’d always believed myself to be the thoughtful grandchild. I feel bad that I’ve done nothing, while they’ve seemingly been running her household between them. They must think I’m terrible.

“You can cut my toenails,” Grandma says.

“Yep, yes, sure, okay,” I say, straight in. “I can definitely do that. You mean now?”

“Claire,” Grandma says, “I’m joking. You don’t help out — that’s fine; it’s how you are. I remember what being your age was like — of course, I had four children under eight then, but modern life is different. You’ve got an awful lot on.”

—

At home that evening, I’m still seething.

“She wouldn’t even let me do one laundry cycle! It’s not fair, telling someone they don’t help when they’ve just offered to do absolutely anything for you!”

“Speaking of washing,” Luke says, “I’m nearly out of clean shirts.” He raises a hand when my mouth drops open. “I only mentioned it because I’m putting a load in, and wondered if you had anything that needs washing.”

“Please,” I say. “You haven’t done a single load the whole time we’ve lived together. This isn’t the time for grand gestures.”

“I love you,” Luke calls, as I storm into the bedroom to gather the laundry for a white wash.

It’s the little things you miss: free pens, notebooks, coffee, the color printer. The incidental conversation.

On my way back to the flat from another cafe stint, I see a woman around my age sitting on the curb, gripping handfuls of hair and racked with sobs. I think about approaching her to ask if she’s all right, but then remember an article I read about someone who was stabbed after asking a teenager to be quiet on the bus. My mother’s mantra rings loud— Don’t get involved! — and for once I listen. As I draw level, I give the girl a supportive half-smile/half-grimace, and she looks at me through red-rimmed eyes, choking on huge, gasping breaths.

—

At home, I feel terrible and ring Luke. He’s laughing as he answers; I can hear a female voice in the background.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s up?”

I tell him about the girl. “What do you think?”

“You left her there on her own?”

I snatch up my keys. “Is that bad?”

“Her parents must be going crazy. Did you call the police?”

I pause on the stairs, one foot dangling midair. “Her parents ?” Then I realize. “Hang on, she’s our age.”

“Ohhh. You said girl . I assumed child.” I sink down onto the stairs, rest my head against the banister spindles. “Well then,” he continues, “she’s probably fine. Maybe she had a fight with her boyfriend or something.”

“Mm,” I say, chewing at the skin around my little finger. “Maybe.”

“If you’re going to lose sleep over it, why don’t you go back and ask her?”

“I might get into something too big to handle — I mean, she was really upset,” I say. “Hey, what was so funny?”

“What?”

“You were laughing when you answered the phone.”

“Was I? Oh. Can’t remember. Probably nothing.”

When we hang up, I run back downstairs to see if the girl is still there, but she’s gone.

Sleep and wakefulness bicker all night and I think, Why can’t you two just get along?

My ex-colleagues invite me to a bowling night to celebrate three birthdays that all fall in the same week. There are drinks at the office beforehand. It’s the first time I’ve been back since I left, and the place is different, though I can’t figure out what’s changed. I go and look at my old desk, which is now immaculately kept by my successor: a young (but balding) gun named Jonathan. His default expression is one of sulky surprise, which I put down to the premature departure of his hair, because he’s certainly not at all curious to meet me.