Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller (best large ereader txt) 📕

twirls the pasta on her fork and doesn’t ever bring it to her mouth.

Jeanie has twenty pence remaining from the money she spent at the shop. Julius adds the change from his pockets and the thirty pounds from his wallet that he was given for helping with the chicken shed. There is nothing to add from Dot’s purse, they’ve already searched it and her handbag for the missing money.

“I heard there’s a food bank in Devizes,” Julius says without looking at her.

“We’re not going to a food bank, Julius. We have a whole garden full of food.” She points outside and doesn’t tell him about the box she saw in the shop.

“When are you going to realize that there’s nothing wrong with asking for help, or taking it when it’s given? All those middle-class kids who can just ask the bank of mum and dad when they need some help. This isn’t any different.”

“But we aren’t kids any more.”

“No, we’re fifty-one and we need a hand. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us.”

“Anyway,” Jeanie says, “who have you been telling that we’re short of food?”

Julius shakes his head, doesn’t answer. “I asked Wheilden if he’s got any more work, but he doesn’t.”

“I’m sure not everyone has paid you what they owe.” Jeanie means Shelley Swift, but she isn’t going to say the name. “You need to ask for it.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“When you stop acting like my mother and telling me what to do.”

“What about money for your tobacco? I suppose you kept some back for that and for your pints with your drinking mates in the Plough.”

“And you’re not going to spend anything on that bloody dog?”

Maude, on the sofa, lifts her head as though she knows she’s being talked about.

“I don’t think you understand. We’re going to lose the cottage.” Jeanie puts her palms on the table. The creature is in her throat. If she opens her mouth wide enough and screams, it will come sliding out, newborn and slippery, ready to fight.

“I understand! I bloody understand.” He shoves the edge of the table towards her and she moves back from it. “We don’t owe any money to Rawson, and he can’t evict us. I’m going round there. I’m going round there right now.”

“Now? It’s after ten.” In the mood Julius is in, she’s worried he might make the whole situation worse.

“Now.” He pulls his coat and cap from the peg, jams his feet into his boots, and grabs the thirty pounds from the table. For a second he looks at the money; then he slaps down a ten-pound note and leaves before Maude is even off the sofa.

For five minutes Jeanie sits at the table and then, in an act of economy which gives her a momentary boost, she extinguishes the three oil lamps and, lighting a candle, resumes her search of the cottage for the missing money.

In half an hour Julius returns. Jeanie is on her knees putting rarely used crockery back into a dresser cupboard. “Well?” she says.

“They weren’t there.” He sits heavily on the sofa next to the dog. “No lights on, nothing. I went and woke Simons. He wasn’t too happy. He said they’ve gone away. Ten days, two weeks, he wasn’t sure. Greece or somewhere. They don’t even need our money.”

In the morning Jeanie spends nine pounds fifty-seven in the shop, buying most of the necessities she couldn’t afford on Monday: more pasta, toilet rolls, tins of baked beans, toothpaste. Outside she stares at the few handwritten advertisements slotted into a plastic sleeve hanging on the inside of the window, trying to puzzle them out. In the shop, a young man with acne peppered across his forehead is placing glossy magazines along the shelves.

“I was told there was a card in the window advertising for a cleaner,” Jeanie says to him, waving her hand vaguely towards the front of the shop. “But I couldn’t see it.”

“Probably thrown away,” he says, carrying on with his work. “They’re only up for a couple of weeks.”

“My friend said there was definitely one there about a cleaning job.”

The man huffs and, holding his stack of magazines to his chest, goes outside and Jeanie follows. He scans the cards. “Nope, must have been chucked out.” He starts to go back inside.

“Is there one about gardening?” Jeanie leans in and squints. “Did you write these? The handwriting is shocking.”

He comes back and looks over them again, taps the glass. “That’s it.” He reads it without enthusiasm: “Female gardener required by female householder, for lawn mowing and other basic gardening. One to two afternoons a week.”

“Have you got a pen?” She feels around in her handbag.

“Take a picture on your phone,” he says.

“Maybe you could write the phone number down for me?” She knows there’s no pen in her handbag, what would be the point, and besides, the numbers won’t stop jumping. The young man has already gone in. After a moment she follows him and pretends to browse the newspapers on a stand beside the window. When his back is turned, she reaches over and takes the card out of the plastic pocket and slips it into her handbag.

13

On her way home, Jeanie takes a detour up Cutter Hill. She gets off the bike and wheels it slowly, aware of the speed of her heart; making sure she pauses when she thinks she needs to. It’s a couple of miles out of her way, but just as she remembers, the red public telephone box is outside the Rising Sun Inn, which last closed its doors two years ago. As a young child, when she was off school, she would have to come with her mother to this phone box which smelled of wee and old cigarette breath. Dot brought a little bag of twopence pieces and used them to make boring telephone calls about bills and appointments, sometimes lifting Jeanie up so she could press the coins into the slot. The calls seemed to last for ever and