We live on a small estate on the edge of town. It's not a big estate by any means, less than 100 houses or so, and mostly supported housing, so a fair number of single parent families. As most single parent families are women led, you get the makeup of the estate. A flurry of activity at school start and end time, and not a lot in-between.
Jools works most of the time in a security firm, with the odd day working from home, which she usually manages to spend at the gym. I work from home with occasional site visits when I cannot achieve what I need over Zoom. Working from home means about an hour or two of deep activity and the rest of the time on YouTube or Netflix. It is not exactly a hard life, until things go awry, and then it can be a week or so of fourteen hour days, lots of Zoom calls and, unusually, a few site visits requiring an overnighter. That, thankfully, is rare.
But, on a usual day, I am spending a lot of time looking out of the window watching people come and go, the ladies walking their offspring to school, then coming back, usually with a bag of groceries from the local shop, perhaps, I guess, a selection from the reduced aisle, just keeping costs down, eating day by day. Sometimes it is a man sitting in his car for hours on end, using his mobile. Why not in his house? What does he not want his family to hear? Is he, perhaps a drug dealer? He does get a fair number of visits from cars that just pull up next to him, words are exchanged, perhaps something is handed across, I can never see well enough from my vantage point, and then the visiting car drives off. I am not getting involved in that, too dodgy and too risky. He and I exchange greetings occasionally, but that is as much as.
I had been to the Gym, the one I use is on the other side of town, the local ones are over twice the price and full mostly of muscle boys pumping iron and flexing whilst looking in mirrors. Not for me. I just use a few of the exercise machines to try and get a tone and build a little strength. I am an office boy, not a gym hunk.
The rain was absolutely hammering down when I left the gym, and I got soaked just going to the car. Weather, they just can't get it right these days, if rain had been forecast, I would have taken a coat, but it wasn't and so I just had my gym gear on. Luckily it is a wicking fabric and dries quite quickly. As I was approaching town I saw a very bedraggled girl at the bus stop, she lived on our estate but apart from the occasional nod of hello, I knew very little of her, not even her name, I think she had left school, but what she actually did, I had no idea. I pulled the car up next to her and wound the window down.
"Are you going home, you are soaked, do you want a lift back?" I called out to her. She nodded and got into the car. She really was soaked, almost literally to the skin, her clothes clung to her becoming almost transparent with their wetness. 'Crikey' I thought, 'I hope mine aren't see through too.
"Thank you," she said, "I must have missed the bus, and it is half an hour to the next one and I can't afford an Uber."
"Oh no problem, and if it had been me, I would have no idea how to get an Uber, and even if I did, they would probably refuse to let me in because I was too wet or something equally stupid."
She laughed a little and hugged her arms to her chest. I had the heater on full and blowing full bore, but I doubt she would even begin to dry out before we got home. It took about fifteen minutes to get back to the estate, "You'll have to tell me which one is yours, I only know approximately which one you live in."
"It's number 33, just on the bend."
I pulled up outside her house, "Right then here you are, home safe, I am on the other side at number 16."
"Yes, I know," she said, "do you want to come in and have a coffee, as a sort of thank you for saving me and driving me home?"
I had pretty much dried out by now so had no fear of inappropriate weather related clothing malfunctions, had little else to do for a while and thought 'why the hell not?'
"Yes please that'll be nice."
I followed her to the house, both of us rushing through the rain and we were in quickly without me getting too wet again.
"Our houses are the same. You know where the kitchen is, put the kettle on, I will go and change out of these wet clothes' she said over her shoulder as she ran upstairs. Yes, very wet clothes, nothing really left to an imagination, and my imagination is somewhat fertile.
I walked through to the kitchen, it was untidy, dirty dishes waiting to be washed, a gap where a dishwasher would go. I filled the kettle and as it came up to boil I looked through the cupboards looking for mugs and coffee. In the fridge I found some oat based milk, not any regular cow juice. That started me wondering if her and her mum were vegan? I have no issues with veganism as a food culture, just some of the extreme politics that seem to go with it do tend to irk me.
She came down, wearing a robe with a towel wrapped around her head. "Right then, I think I found everything," I said, "how do you have your coffee and are these mugs I found okay to use?"
"They are fine, just black, mum has some oat stuff in the fridge if you want milk and I can find sugar if you need that."
I made her a mug of black coffee and myself a white coffee using the 'oat stuff' from the fridge. She topped her mug up with cold tap water. "Let's go and sit in the lounge' she said walking off out of the kitchen.
'I don't know your name" I said, "in fact I don't know much about you at all."
She sat in the single chair; I sat opposite on the sofa. There was a small side table that I put my coffee on. I didn't get the sense that they cared about coasters or the such.
"Oh okay, mum is Lena, I am Henry, which is short for Henrietta which is the stupidest name ever given to a girl and so I have a boy's name. Dad fucked off years ago, can't even remember him, and I blame him for my stupid name. I am learning hair cutting and lashes but the salon I am at is stupid and I hate it."
Okay! Crikey she poured that out. "Okay Henry, nice to meet you. I am Jason, my OH is Jools. I am a consulting engineer and I work mostly from home. Jools usually works from an office in the commercial estate on the edge of town. We don't have kids with each other, this is a second marriage for both of us."
Bit of a full and frank exchange going on here, I kind of followed her lead I guess, odd for me, I am usually quite introverted, but I think her open approach may have bought me out of myself a little.
"Been to the gym?" she asked, "only you don't look dressed for much else, or do you normally walk around like that? Wearing shorts, I thought you might be a postman, only ours wears shorts all the time."
"Yes, no rain was forecast so I just had my gym gear on, and was pissed off that it was chucking it down when I came out of the gym. I got soaked just running to the car." Well, if she is going to drop F bombs, I can use fruity language too.
"Yes, I saw how wet your clothes were when I got in the car, but yours dried quickly, unlike mine, which were still wet and disgusting when we got back. Probably ruined."
"Funny how clothes get all transparent when they are wet." I do need to engage my brain before I open my mouth sometimes. I am stupid. Stupid thing to say.
"Oh, right. Well, I hope you enjoyed the view."
Christ. I picked the mug up and started hiding my face behind it as I drank the coffee. The oat stuff wasn't too bad, okay in coffee, not sure how it would taste in tea, Earl Grey is not that forgiving of milk, and Earl Gray is what I usually drink.
