Although landlords have a habit of finding things out. Surely he would have had no complaints? If changes werent structural and no damage occurred. What could he say?
Oh but he would find something. They always do. Any excuse to keep the deposit. The cupboard shelves, he would have had something to say about them. They were high above Sophie’s bed and couldnt be reached without stepladders but he definitely would see them. How could he miss them?
Mo built them before the bed went in. You had to twist about to get up because you couldnt set the ladders inside the cupboard, you climbed up then twisted and reached across; and the stepladders were old and shoogly; greasy and oily into the bargain; horrible old things. Everybody in the house used them and they were just horrible.
In this place everything was old. Nothing worked. Especially if she was using it. What worked for Helen? Nothing. It didnt matter what.
It was true.
No it wasnt. It was not true at all, and she was stupid and foolish for thinking such a thing and she had to stop it stop it, stop thinking negative thoughts all the time, things were good. They were.
But what would the landlord do if he saw the shelves? Surely it was structural if you interfered with the walls? And you werent supposed to do anything structural.
That was Mo. He interfered. He did. Walls came under fittings, you werent to touch fittings, it was interfering and you werent to interfere. He went in and did things, and that was the shelves, building them and so high. And he kept heavy stuff up there; old computers and bits and pieces; cables and connections, leads and other stuff, all fankled together. He hunted the secondhand shops and came home with junk. Ancient junk. Why did he do it? There was nothing in them. Spare parts, it was stupid. Two old video machines under the bed my God why did he keep them? outmoded junk. What a waste of space. Spare parts for what? The IT industry didnt work like that. She knew enough to know junk when she saw it, and that was junk. It was all relics. The technology changed every couple of years. Less. It had to. That was how the industry worked, that was profit and loss, people had to be buying and people had to be selling. And like the ones that made the things, them too, the people doing the actual jobs, poor people in foreign countries, whatever they did for a measly pittance of a wage and catching all the cancers. Mo wanted to talk about them and that was good but he didnt make the other connection. A man he knew worked down town selling the stuff, why didnt he ask him? That old junk was not going to be useful and come in handy; it would sit up there gathering dust. Why clog up your home? What was the use of that? eBay, nobody was going to buy these things on eBay. Even if they did, a pound here and a pound there. And these big hi-fi speakers on the top shelf. What were they for? They were completely obsolete. Things became obsolete because they had to be so people were forced to update. Everybody knew that. Mo was clever but he could be thick. He had blank spots. All men did, it was like a gender issue. They did things that were silly. They didnt see the consequences. Mo said the shelves were strong but they had to be strong because what happened if they fell down? so that was not an answer. Even the walls themselves: what if they fell down, because of all the shelves and all the heavy objects piled on top of them? This wasnt Glasgow where you got big thick sandstone lasting a hundred years. The buildings here were flimsy, their wee thin bricks, the big bad wolf could have blown it down. She got sick of talking about it. He wore her down. Not everything was a joke. When you looked up to the ceiling and saw the stuff all piled high, then down below and it was Sophie’s bed! My God!
Oh but the walls would never collapse. It was just her worrying.
Even the nails, see the nails.
Mo showed her them. They were big strong nails. They were too. Helen could see they were.
Nothing would happen. He called her ‘girl’. Dont worry about it girl. What did he mean by that? As if ‘girl’ because she was a ‘girl’ and a girl was a child like not an adult and not to be taken seriously. It was annoying. They said ‘girl’ in London but so what? Mo wasnt even a real Londoner he was Middlesex my God he said it often enough, ‘Middlesex’, like being proud of Middlesex. Danny the driver said ‘girl’ too. She didnt like it from him either. ‘Girl’, it was not like an adult.
What did it matter? She closed her eyes, although thoughts of her ex, his image; she was too tired to shudder. Why could she not be rid of him forever? It wasnt fair that his image could still be there and come into her brain, not after such a long time. Why could she not wipe it out? If the brain was a computer. People say that, as though things can be deleted and then erased, but the brain is not a computer, things cannot be erased, not like that.
Even now her main worry — laughable, so laughable — that she might turn a corner and bump into him. She knew he was in Glasgow and there was no reason to worry but she did. So it was like why? He would never come to London. Except perhaps it was a new job, and he came down for it, if she was with Mo, and Sophie too, Mo walking with them and it was hand in hand and they turned a corner and there he was. But he would never do it, he would never leave Glasgow and there was no reason ever to worry, never more, he could do what he liked. She could too. She could. It was up to her; if she wanted to do something she could do it.
Oh God.
Mo was nothing at all like her ex. Nonsense even thinking it. Only he could be silly. She liked it about him but also she didnt like it.
But the walls wouldnt fall down. She accepted that. She did. Mo knew what he was doing. She didnt have to nag him, if you could call it nagging. That was what he called it though with a smile on his face to make it a joke; but it was still nagging. That was what he thought about Helen safeguarding and protecting her child, he called it nagging. But if one hair on her little girl’s head was ever hurt by one single thing relating to these damn shelves, one thing, that was all, then that was that.
She was not going to lose her temper about it. Only if anything happened, if anything ever happened.
But that was why she worried and why she nagged him so that it wouldnt happen and it wouldnt be too late and it didnt matter if he sighed or how much he sighed. She was not a silly child. He got exasperated. It was his word, exasperated. She exasperated him. She felt like slapping him never mind exasperated, he exasperated her. Then when he laughed. She hated that. It was like — why did he do it? As if she was thick, she wasnt thick. Why did he make her feel that way? It was a thing about Mo and why Helen compared him with her ex. Of course she did, it was natural. He had mates from the restaurant. One came to the house and Helen saw him smiling at something Mo said. Helen knew it was about her, whatever Mo said. Else why whisper? Mo had whispered. He did it so Helen couldnt hear. What other reason was there? So she was the one excluded, so it was about her.
Why else would he have whispered? It was like speaking in Urdu. His mate did that until Mo corrected him because with Helen there, it was just bad manners. So was whispering if it excluded people. Especially matters between a man and a woman, these are private things, it could be anything, sex or whatever, if it was about her he was speaking, that was horrible, like behind her back and in the same room too, it was horrible, so so horrible, any man that could do that. Helen just could not ever, ever, never ever. She would never stand for it, how could she she never ever
That was a trust. He would have broken the trust. She had trusted him and he had broken the trust. That is how it would be. There was no excuse. She had trusted him, even with her own daughter. My God, if ever Sophie suffered. That was the one thing, if ever one thing happened, one little tiny thing.