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The house was clean as a whistle. Jen had spent all day cleaning it, best she could when in the throngs of moving house. ‘Look for the positive,’ Dylan always said. And the positive today was that the altercation had resulted in her having the day off work and her card was not marked for being late.
Maisy tucked up in bed she collected the cleaning materials that she had been using together in a bucket and carried them downstairs. As she passed the radiator in the hallway she ran her duster, she carried in her hand over it. She hummed softly to herself. This house was very different from The Station House, for one it had a roof with no holes that let in the rain and the wind. The thought made her smile.
It was dark outside and with no call from Dylan Jen climbed in the shower. Rubbing soap into her body she was lost in the moment, rubbing and cleansing every spot over and over again until shampoo seeped into the abrasion on her face and, reminded her of the foul creature who had caused it.
Max’s eyelids flickered once, twice and then opened wide when he heard her footsteps on the stairs. Jen’s slippers scuffed on the kitchen floor, echoing off the bare walls as she stepped out of the hallway. Droplets of water ran down her back from her wet, loose hair. She patted the dog’s head in passing and Max stretched his limbs out upon his padded dog bed that lay next to the radiator. From where she stood with her back to the oven she couldn't see the colour of the far wall in the dining room, so high were the cardboard, packing boxes piled.
‘You’re going to get such a shock mate,’ she said to Max as she got a scented candle from the cupboard and peeled away its wrapper. ‘There’s no radiators in the kitchen at the new house – in fact there isn't a kitchen as such, not yet anyway,’ she said, chuckling at his cock-eared reaction to the tone in her voice.
Jen picked up the candle. The clock struck ten and Max immediately sat up. His yawn was audible. She opened the back door at his begging and instantly the draught blew the candle out. Her shoulders dropped. There was no point relighting it she decided as fatigue came upon her. When Max returned from the garden Jen shut the door with her foot and turned the key in the lock.
That night as she kissed Maisy's sleeping head she felt a surge of love and excitement. Her young daughter smelt of soap, and her bedding of fabric softener. Jen had an urge to climb in beside her rather than face the cold bed she could see awaiting her. Her eyes were drawn through the door to her keepsake box that stood at the entrance to their bedroom and all of a sudden the move to The Station House, the next stage on her life’s journey, felt very real. She collected the box as she passed and popped it at her side of the bed for opening.
Quickly and effortlessly she slipped out of her dressing gown, most unusual of her, leaving it where it fell, and jumped up on the bed.
When Dylan arrived home he found her nestled between two pillows surrounded by bits and pieces of her childhood, so seemingly insignificant, yet each an important facet of her life. He lay beside her and she gently held the conch shell to his ear. ‘Can you hear the sea?’
He nodded.
She giggled.
‘When I was little and couldn’t sleep, because I said I couldn’t hear the sea. Mum found the shell to appease me.’
‘And did it do the trick.’
‘It certainly did.’
Dylan picked up what looked like a piece of stone from it’s resting place on a bed of cotton wool. ‘And this?’
‘Ah, now that’s my most prized possession, my first fossil hunting trip on Compton beach I found this tooth which scientists believe belonged to a previously unknown carnivorous dinosaur. In fact an early relative of Tyrannosaurus Rex we were reliably told by a scientist who wanted to borrow it for a year and put it in a museum - I wasn’t having any of it though.’ When the smile dropped from her lips she looked thoughtful. ‘It opened my mind to the vastness of creation and what had been living on our Island millenniums ago. She took the tooth from Dylan and popped it back in the cufflink box her father had given to her for its safe keeping. Next she plucked out a pearl neckless that her grandfather had given her grandmother. Jen gave a little laugh. ‘Grandma always thought it worth a fortune. She held it carefully in the palm of her hand and stroked the flaking varnish upon the pearls. ‘It was priceless to her, and very precious to me.’
Dylan didn’t need to ask Jen questions about her early life. It was all in the box. ‘You want tangible evidence of my childhood? It’s here in abundance!’
‘Do you know something?’
‘What?’ said Jen. A glow about her face when she turned to look at him. He kissed her on her lips.
‘I’ve never been the jealous sort.’ Dylan raised his arm to allow her to lay her head upon his chest. ‘But, do you know I am jealous that your parents shared their past with you, and you have it to share with our children.’
It was true she knew little about Dylan’s family – and so did he.
‘Tell me about your childhood, your brothers and sisters?’
As always Dylan brushed her questions off in a carefree way. ‘There’s nothing to tell. I haven’t seen any of the gang for years.’
Jen frowned. ‘Doesn’t that bother you?’
He smiled. ‘It’s not that I don’t care. We’ve just never been a family who live in each other’s pockets.’
‘What was it like when you were all small? Did you all play together? Did you all eat together around the table? Did you have turkey and pull crackers on Christmas Day?’
‘I guess we must have done. I remember Dad once cutting a log from the tree outside The Station house for our Christmas table decoration.’ There was silence and when Jen looked up at him she half expected him to be asleep but, his eyes were open and staring at the ceiling, thoughtfully, as if straining to recall. ‘Our Charlie kept chickens,’ he said. ‘I remember him wringing their necks, and mum plucking the feathers out on the dining room table. He was quite the entrepreneur our Charlie. Our Ronnie, he was the studious one. He taught himself to play the guitar, was in a band and he owned a scooter. Now our Kirsty,’ he chuckled. ‘I remember her asleep in a drawer – she was born there...’
‘No way!’ Jen’s eyes were wide. ‘Did you sleep in a drawer?’
Dylan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Probably, when I was a baby. I think we all must have. And what if I did, it didn’t do me any harm did it? Our Dawn, she’s the baby. The last time I saw her she was drunk at an office party I got called to, and with her tear-stained face, she was still really pretty.’
‘What do you say we invite them all round to the house, when it’s finished?’
Dylan didn’t want to pour cold water on her dreams, this was her fantasy to bring his family altogether again, after all wasn’t it?
