The same definitely couldn’t be said for adults. It wasn’t a problem specific to Thussock, of course, but it seemed particularly prevalent here. There were plenty of other parents in the room, almost exclusively mothers and (she presumed) grandmothers, but none of them seemed particularly keen to welcome a stranger. No one was going out of their way to be rude – plenty of folk had acknowledged her when she’d arrived – but those nods and mumbled hellos were the full extent of their interaction. There had been a roughly equal number of people sitting on all sides of this room at first. Not now. Now, apart from a couple of other stragglers, there were two larger groups of women on either side of the kitchen serving hatch, leaving Michelle on her own at the other end of the hall.
You’re just paranoid. It’s perfectly natural. You’re the new girl. It’s up to you to make the first move.
Clutching her purse, she walked up to the hatch. ‘Could I have a cup of tea, please?’ she asked the first lady she made eye contact with.
‘What’s that?’
‘A cup of tea, please.’
‘It’s your accent,’ the woman grunted as she poured Michelle’s drink.
‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Fifty pence.’
Michelle gave her a pound. ‘Keep the change for the funds. Can I take a biscuit for my boy?’
‘That’ll be twenty pence.’
Michelle gave her another fifty, despite having already overpaid. Keep trying, she told herself over and over. ‘We’re new here. Just moved here from Redditch.’
‘Thought we’d not seen you before.’
The woman was almost monosyllabic, as if small-talk in Thussock was taxed.
‘Nice hall you have here.’
‘It does the job.’
‘Do you meet here every day?’
‘Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, Thursday afternoons.’
Michelle just nodded, her questions now beginning to sound as forced as the woman’s replies. The door into the kitchen opened, and another woman put her head through. ‘Do we have more fruit juice in the stores, Sylvia? I can’t find any.’
Sylvia – the woman Michelle had been talking to – appeared to visibly relax when she talked to her friend. ‘I’ve not seen any. I thought Bryan was supposed to keep everything stocked up. He’s bloody useless, that one. I can see why Betty’s the way she is.’
‘Don’t get me started on Betty, love. You’ll never believe what she’s gone and done now…’
They moved out of earshot. Michelle stopped listening but kept watching. Sylvia was unrecognisable now, all the frostiness and reticence gone. She was laughing and joking with her friend and Michelle couldn’t help wondering, are they laughing at me? She picked up her tea and George’s biscuit and walked away.
She was getting better with the accent, but people were still occasionally hard to understand. She was sure she’d just heard someone mention Ken Potter’s name. Wasn’t that the man whose house Scott had been delivering to yesterday? The man who…? She stopped herself from jumping to conclusions. They might know him. Her ears better attuned now, she listened in. ‘S’terrible,’ a young mum cradling a new-born was saying to three friends gathered around her. ‘We were just saying this morning how we’d seen him in town at the weekend, carrying on like he owned the place as always.’
‘Funny bugger,’ one of the other girls said. ‘I always said there was sumthin’ wrong about him.’
‘You say that about all the blokes in Thussock.’
‘Aye, that’s ’cause they’re all no good!’ a third girl joked. The women laughed, and Michelle sidled a little closer, sipping her piss-weak tea.
‘Terrible business, that,’ she said. She half-expected the entire room to fall silent and for everyone, even the kids, to stop and stare at her, like a clichéd scene from a horror movie. But they didn’t. Instead, one of the women acknowledged her with a subdued ‘aye’, then turned back and continued talking to her friends. She closed the circle, moving ever-so-slightly to her left, positioning herself so she had her back to Michelle, preventing her from edging into their group. The snub was subtle but definite. Their conversation continued, the accents a little stronger than before, harder to make out. Michelle couldn’t clearly hear what they were saying, but she managed to pick out a few choice phrases amongst the mutterings. ‘No one else’s business… Folks should mind their own…’
Each of these knock-backs, although individually insignificant, were beginning to wear her down. She took her tea and George’s biscuit back over to where she’d been sitting. It’s only natural, she told herself, it’s not personal. I’ll take my time. We’re here in Thussock for the long-haul. There’s no rush…
George saw the biscuit before he saw his mother. He came running over, babbling excitedly in child’s half-speak about his game and his new friends. Michelle perfectly understood her son’s mix of full words, truncated words and nonsense, and the fact she was so tuned-in to his immature language was reassuring. She wasn’t alone.
Biscuit demolished, George didn’t have any reason to stay. He ran off again and Michelle was so focused on him that she didn’t notice someone sitting a few places to her left. ‘You’ve not been here before, have you?’ the woman asked. Michelle looked up fast. ‘Sorry, did I startle you?’
‘A little,’ Michelle said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m miles away this morning.’
‘Don’t worry about it. So are you new to the area?’
‘Just moved in. My husband’s been up here for a couple of weeks getting the house ready, but the rest of us came up this weekend just gone.’
‘And how are you finding it?’
‘Oh, fine…’ she said, deliberately evasive.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Why? You sound surprised.’
‘I am. Thussock’s a bit of a dead end if you ask me.’
‘I was trying to be polite.’
‘I shouldn’t bother. You’re not from round here, are you?’
‘You can tell?’
‘The accent kind of gives it away.’
‘We’re from the Midlands. Redditch.’
‘That by Birmingham? I was gonna say you sound like you’re from those parts.’
‘Not a million miles away.’
‘No, a million miles away is what you are now.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘This place. It can feel like another planet.’
Michelle felt herself relax. ‘You don’t know how relieved I am to hear you say that. I thought it was just me. Just us.’
‘Ah, no. I was exactly the same when I first arrived. I moved here with my folks almost ten years back. Thussock definitely takes some getting used to.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘I remember thinking how everybody else seemed to know what was going on but me. It was like they were all in on some big secret.’
‘That’s exactly it.’
‘There’s no secret, though. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘And you will get used to it.’
‘I’m not so sure…’
‘No, you will. Once you get tuned in to this place you’ll be all right. It’ll all start making sense in no time.’
‘I hope so.’
‘It will. Trust me.’
Michelle thought she was probably just saying that to make her feel better. ‘I’m Michelle, by the way,’ she said. ‘Michelle Griffiths.’
‘I’m Jackie. Is that your boy?’ she asked, pointing at George.
‘That’s him. That’s George.’
‘Oh, but he’s adorable.’
‘When he wants to be. Where’s yours?’