Narrow Minds by Marie Browne

gathering and held my breath, this was NOT the time for a good cry.
    Amelia grabbed one of the clean glasses and filled it with Southern Comfort. Holding it out toward me she gave me a big grin. ‘Don’t give up yet.’ She stared out of the window at the sleet. ‘If it’s like this in December, just imagine what it’s going to be like in February.’ She pushed the glass towards me. ‘I shouldn’t think spring even turns up here till about June, everybody will be completely fed up with it by then.’
    I stared at her over the rim of the glass. ‘When did you get so sneaky?’
    Amelia blushed. ‘Sometimes you just have to wait for the right time to make your point.’
    â€˜And your point would be?’
    She flicked a nervous glance toward the living room. ‘Let’s just say we’re all hoping for some big changes in the New Year.’
    With that slightly enigmatic statement, she dropped the tea towel on top of the unfinished washing up and sailed out of the room.
    Oh dear; Amelia in that sort of mood wasn’t going to be good news for anyone.
    * * *
    As January and February slipped slowly away, I was still having no luck finding a new boat. Once again, everything was either too small or too expensive. I was also really concerned about our finances. Every week Geoff’s wages just failed to cover our expenditure. Little by little we were eating away at the savings, a couple of hundred quid here, a set of new tyres there, we just needed the car serviced, the kids needed new shoes. As the savings went down, my boat search became more frenzied. Boats I wouldn’t have considered three months ago were now out of our price range and I was becoming slightly panic-stricken about the whole thing.
    I worked out that at our present rate of spending we had less than three months before we wouldn’t be able to buy a boat at all. I firmly ignored the little voice in my head that suggested we may already be at that point. I wasn’t going to listen to that rubbish, I couldn’t let myself listen to that rubbish, if I did, I might well be inclined to just give up and there was no way I was going down without a fight.
    I stared out of the window at the sleet-filled rain and deliberately screwed my pages of calculations up and threw them, with a certain amount of vindictiveness, into the already overflowing wastepaper basket. Typically, I missed and it bounced off across the carpet. I sighed and bent down to pick it up.
    The only place to put the computer desk, printer and all the other IT paraphernalia we owned was a nice little niche under the stairs. As you walked in the front door you found yourself immediately in the living room with the stairs to your left. The space beneath them made a fairly good office. Unfortunately the stairs were wider than the computer table and as I stood up I smashed my head into the underside of the polished wooden treads. The sudden pain brought tears to my eyes and I staggered over to grab the back of the sofa, trying to stop my eyes watering. Honestly it was only the bump on the head that made me cry, nothing to do with the finances, and as long as I kept telling myself that I was fine. I gave the offending piece of paper a vicious kick telling myself that I just needed to talk to Geoff about the whole thing, between us there wasn’t anything we couldn’t accomplish.
    Unfortunately it had become almost impossible to talk to Geoff about it. In fact it had become almost impossible to talk to Geoff about anything. Completely engrossed with the stupid online game, he had taken to coming home from work, eating dinner and getting straight on to the computer. I was seriously considering hitting either him or the equipment with a very large hammer. There was, of course every chance that I was being unreasonable so, as usual, I took my woes to Helen.
    â€˜He doesn’t talk to me any more,’ I ranted at her one evening