I briefly wondered whether it was time to look at buying a car. Having my own transport would make everything so much easier. But until I had a reliable source of income – and how could that happen, with a baby? – I wasn’t comfortable blowing that amount of savings.
The plus side of having no transport was the excuse to spend more time with Beckett, until our friendship was secure enough to no longer need one. I did feel an appropriate pang of guilt that this would take up both time and petrol, but I would find ways to repay him if he didn’t want money, and it was pretty obvious that Beckett needed more enjoyable things to do with his time.
The answer came to me during a 2 a.m. feed.
Mary
I have the perfect way to pay you back for driving me about and everything else
To my surprise, he answered almost instantly.
Beckett
I told you. I don’t want paying back.
Mary
Why are you still up at this time? Have you and Gramps been out partying?
Beckett
Why do you find it so difficult to accept help?
Mary
I asked first
Beckett
Yes, we’ve been out partying. If ‘partying’ includes lighting a bonfire in the garden while wearing only long johns and slippers.
Mary
Sounds like my kind of party. I didn’t take you for the kind of guy to wear long johns
As soon as I’d sent that message I regretted being flippant about something so horrible. It was the middle of the night, and my head was full of fuzz, but that didn’t make it okay.
Before I could think about it, I called him.
‘Hi.’
‘That was really insensitive. I’m sorry. You said the middle-of-the-night stuff was the worst. I shouldn’t have made a joke.’
‘I told you, laughing about it keeps me sane.’
‘Are you okay to talk? Is Gramps back in bed?’
Beckett sighed. ‘Yeah. For now. I’m only grateful that him banging about looking for matches woke me up.’
‘Is there any way you can stop him getting into the garden, like hide the door key?’
‘I’ll sort something out.’
‘So, you normally work during the day and are up at night putting out fires?’
‘I usually worked the evening shift because it fitted with Tanya’s hours.’
‘How do you cope? When do you ever get time to relax or have fun?’
