The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

hint of … well, not irritation exactly in her voice, but she does sound vaguely exasperated.

God. She must think I’m such a mess. Losing things all the time, and now I don’t even know how to work my own central heating …

‘I’m just about to call an engineer, Mum. I’m so sorry,’ I shout back and, fighting tears again, I pull my mobile from my pocket and start looking for a number.

Chapter 19

It’s Monday again, and as I sit down at my desk I feel a sense of relief. I’m actually glad to be here today, busy though I know it will be, because the weekend was, in the end, just one stressful incident after another. The heating problem was weird; by the time I’d finally tracked down an engineer, the house had started to cool down, and by the time he arrived an hour and a half later it was back to its usual comfortable temperature again. He listened patiently as I tried to explain that only a couple of hours earlier it had been unbearably hot, prodded the control panel for a minute, and declared it to be in perfect working order. Then he charged me a hundred pounds for the emergency call-out and left again with a wry smile on his face.

‘He thinks I’m an idiot, doesn’t he?’ I said to Mum when I’d closed the door behind him and re-joined her in the kitchen.

‘He thinks I imagined it. Thank goodness you were here, or I’d think I was imagining it too!’

Mum smiled, deftly chopping a potato into thin strips for chips.

‘You definitely weren’t imagining it. It was boiling. I thought I was going to pass out!’

She picked up another potato and began to peel it, then stopped and looked at me.

‘But darling … do you think it might have been you? After all, he said there’s nothing wrong with the system, didn’t he? Did you maybe turn the thermostat up and then forget about it? And then turn it down again? You know how forgetful you’ve been lately … It’s just that I certainly didn’t touch it – I have no idea how to work things like that – and I doubt the kids did …’

Her voice trailed off and I stood and stared at her for a moment, my mind racing. Could it have been me? I do sometimes turn the thermostat up and down as I pass the control panel in the hall if the house feels too warm or too chilly, but I had no recollection of doing that that day. And I’d never turn it up that high. And yet, Mum was right – the children had never, to my knowledge, fiddled with the central heating controls. So, was it me? Did I do it, and forget, and call the engineer out and pay him all that money for nothing? A little shiver ran up my spine. This was bad, if so. I really was losing my mind …

‘Or,’ Mum said suddenly, ‘and I hate to suggest this because I know how fond you are of her and I do seem to keep bringing her up in a negative way but … well, what about Robin?’

‘Robin? I don’t understand.’

‘Well, obviously I don’t know how your heating works, as I said, but she seems to be a savvy kind of person …’

She hesitated for a moment, putting the potato peeler down on the chopping board.

‘Well, when she was here yesterday could she have set the timer for the heat to come on high this afternoon and then turn off again? Mistakenly, of course,’ she added hurriedly.

‘But why?’ I said. ‘She never adjusts the heating, as far as I know. Why would she even go near it? No, I don’t think it was Robin.’

Mum shrugged.

‘OK. But if it wasn’t you, or me, or the children …’

She picked up the peeler again and I stood watching her, thinking.

Robin? No! But again, Mum’s right … Robin is the only other person who’s been in the house in the past twenty-four hours. But to fiddle with the central heating makes no sense. None of it makes any sense …

I’ve given up thinking about it now. It’s going to drive me crazy. Maybe it was nobody. Maybe it was just a blip in the system, despite what the engineer said. It all seems to be working fine now, and I don’t have time to dwell on it any further. Yesterday, Sunday, was another busy one. I finally got the bloody trampoline assembled, after a trip to B&Q first thing to buy another spring puller, and I’m actually delighted with it. It looks good down at the bottom of the garden, and the children are going to be so thrilled to see it this evening, so excited to try it out. I visited Dad again in the afternoon, promising to record some video footage on my phone so he can see the children jumping. Then I had a nice movie night with Mum, nothing too strenuous, but I still feel exhausted this morning and I have so much to do today. It goes quickly though, and I power through my to-do list with the assistance of numerous mugs of strong tea and a large chocolate bar after my lunchtime chicken salad.

By four forty-five I’ve ticked off the final item on the long list and I sit back in my chair with a contented sigh, quite surprised and impressed by my own productivity.

‘Not always a woolly brained twit then,’ I say out loud to the cheese plant in the corner. ‘Actually finished that lot early, don’t you know.’ Then I roll my eyes.

I’m talking to plants now. The plant really doesn’t care. Shut up, Beth.

On the shelf to my left, my mobile phone starts to vibrate and I reach for it and check the display. It’s a call from my house phone, and I answer with a smile, expecting it to be Finley or Eloise enthusing about the