Christmas at Bay Tree Cottage. Linn Halton B.
Anita only tells me things when it suits her. It’s hard enough when a family splits up, let alone putting up with an ex who doesn’t feel the need for two-way communication. She’s happy enough to share information when she wants me to fetch and carry, but other than that I rarely get to hear what’s happening. As I slip the phone back into my pocket and straighten, I take a moment to draw a deep breath. My eyes scan the ridge on the opposite side of the valley. A small, light aircraft is taxi-ing along the airstrip on the hill and I watch as it appears to bounce a little. The noise from the engine carries on the breeze, sounding mechanical, as old planes tend to do. Life is such a contrast at times.
I clamber down the ladder, stopping only to knock on Mrs James door to let her know I won’t be around for an hour.
‘Sorry, Mrs James, I need to run an errand, but I’ll get back here as quickly as I can.’
She blinks, as if slightly taken aback by my words and I kick myself, thinking I should have said I needed to pick up some supplies.
‘Oh, that’s … um … fine. And call me Elana, please.’
She’s a good-looking woman, but she wears an almost constant frown. She’s probably only in her mid-thirties at most, but that overly serious disposition is ageing. Take now, for instance. She only opened the door about a foot and is peering out at me from the tiny gap. I mean, who does that? I’m not some stranger, I’m her building contractor and yet, on the other hand, she’s just asked me to call her by her Christian name. Talk about mixed signals – guess I’ll never understand women.
‘Okay. Thanks, Elana. I’ll be back shortly.’
Eve did mention that her neighbour works from home and I was to keep the noise down whenever possible. Rather remarkably, I didn’t laugh, but managed to keep a straight face. How can you not make a noise when you’re working on a roof? I need to hammer and saw at the very least and there’s no way to do that without making a fair bit of noise.
Anyway, I didn’t know her name was Elana. Unusual, but it suits her. She’s rather different, a little posh I’d say. She has this mop of curls, the sort of hair that won’t be tamed and her little girl is like a mini version of her. It’s quite a contrast to her general demeanour, which is rather serious, based on the little interaction we’ve had so far. Still, I’ve done the polite thing, now I’m off to sort out Anita.
***
I don’t know why I fall for it every time. When I arrive at Anita’s apartment with the medicine, Joe is running around in the background looking his usual boisterous self. His face breaks out into a big grin the moment he sees me but Anita doesn’t invite me inside.
‘That took you a long time.’ She scowls as she takes the box from me.
‘I was on the roof of a cottage, halfway up a hill on the edge of the forest. I left as soon as I received your call, but it was a thirty-five-minute drive. So what exactly is wrong with Joe?’
As I peer over her shoulder she continues to bar my way, making it clear I’m not going to grab a cuddle from the little fella.
‘He seemed a bit hot and he was pulling his ear.’
‘Well, he looks okay, now.’
‘Yeah, but kids are like that. They bounce back quickly. See you at the weekend.’
With that Anita shuts the door. I hear a yell from inside as Joe protests, but I know there’s no point in trying to grab a few minutes with him. The court order says Saturdays ten until four, and Anita has no intention of showing any sort of flexibility.
It’s tough being the parent who isn’t the primary carer, but I have to work. I’m not saying it’s easy for Anita either, but if she could only relax and let me help out I could easily have him more often. The problem is that the system is more about one solicitor against another, rather than common sense coming into play. And, not wanting to sound sexist here, but it favours the mother. Now I don’t disagree with that, the mother-child bond is unique, but Anita constantly complains about being a single parent. She is a mother coping on her own for seven nights and six days a week, but that’s her choice. I’ve offered to have Joe at weekends, and weekday over-nighters, if she’s in need of a rest. And yet, in court, all I ended up with was six hours on a Saturday.
Whatever I do is wrong and no one seems to understand that it’s not fair. Anita left me, disappointed when I gave up my lucrative career in software design to help Dad out with the business. It’s a small operation with a total of five of us covering most of the skill sets, from our electrician, to myself, the general builder/roofer. Was I happy to be back in the profession I’d trained in when I left school? No, and Anita knows that, but this is all about family. The pride my dad now has seeing ‘& Son’ on those letterheads, is priceless. More importantly, Mum doesn’t have to worry quite so much about the effects of his high blood pressure. It’s under control again at the moment, but a dizzy spell when you’re thirty feet plus in the air is a real scare. It isn’t just roofing work, but anything off a ladder, or scaffolding, now makes her worry about him, so it’s my job to keep that to a minimum.
If the price I paid is that I gave up my dream to maintain his, then what choice did I have? The livelihood of five families is on the line here.
Besides, regrets are something I can’t afford at the moment. Having to pay maintenance for both Anita and Joe until he goes to pre-school, and Anita can get a part-time job, is understandably costly. The mortgage on our old apartment is expensive, but Anita said it was unfair to expect her to move into something cheaper. Thankfully, the tiny bedsit I rent is a good price and my needs are modest. I enjoy my own company and, to be honest, when I’m not working or with Joe, then I’m on the computer. Jeez, that makes me sound like a saddo, if ever I heard a sob story. But at the moment I can’t contemplate having anyone else in my life to complicate it even further.
Ironically, the guy Anita left me for wasn’t in the picture for long. It takes a special person to take on someone else’s son and accept the situation; plus the fact that I had no intention of absenting myself from Joe’s life didn’t go down too well. Anita was appalled when he suggested she hand over Joe to me, so they could ‘start afresh’. The wake-up call made her bitter, because I think she began to realise that my loyalty wasn’t quite so boring after all. Maybe stability was actually a big positive over wanting to socialise and party all the time. But then, she’s still only twenty-two years old and at twenty-four I’ve had a couple more of those so-called delightful party years. Personally, I thought it was all a bit over-rated, if I’m honest. Getting drunk and chatting up women just to be one of the lads was often mind-blowingly boring. And yet it was how I met Anita. She was out on a friend’s hen party at the time.
Anyway, it is what it is. The truth is that we were simply too young when we had Joe, despite being delighted when we found out Anita was pregnant. But I guess I’d always wanted to be a part of a stable family unit of my own, because my parents are so happy together. I’m used to family life, whereas Anita feels she’s been robbed of her freedom. She’s torn between a mother’s instinctive love for her child and the hopeless feeling of being tied down, with a level of responsibility she couldn’t even comprehend in the beginning.
Now she takes her frustrations out on me and I have to be man enough to accept that, because no matter what happens, we created one great little kid.
***
‘Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?’
I look down over the edge of the roof to see Elana James shouting up at me, hands cupped around her mouth. You can’t shout quietly, lady, it’s a long way up. Admittedly she’s rather reserved and it’s kind of her to make the offer, so I hold up one hand in acknowledgement and shout back, ‘Thanks, tea, I’ll be down in five.’
It’s about time I finished, anyway, so I adjust the tarpaulin and check everything is watertight for the night. I found a lot of broken slates that also need replacing and the order will be delivered in the morning. By tomorrow night I’m hoping the roof repair will be in hand and then I can start thinking about the work on