So a helmet had been duly purchased, in black, not pink, and Pip could now get herself into town and back without the humiliation of having to ask for a lift.
It had been a struggle at first; any encounter with a road made her heart rate soar. But gradually, she had got used to it, and now she could just about deal with the country lanes without too many panics, although she often got off and pushed when the traffic got heavy.
The Have a Heart charity shop sat on the main shopping street in the town, and was run like a military operation by a distant friend of the family. Volunteering there had been her mother’s idea to try and ‘take her out of herself’。
‘It’ll do you no end of good, Pip,’ she’d said. ‘Getting out of the house and meeting people is probably just what you need. And it’ll give some structure to your days, too.’
Pip was less sure. She had barely even been in a charity shop, let alone contemplated working in one. But her mother was right; she did need something to do, and it began to feel, to a small degree at least, like a way of giving something back. Of course, it went no way to appease her guilt, but she hoped it might send a message to anyone who was watching that she was trying to atone.
The shop work was remarkably unchallenging, which was exactly what she needed, and it kept her mind busy, so she didn’t spend all day thinking about the accident. Its main benefit, however, was that it got her away from the claustrophobic atmosphere at the farm.
As she approached the shop door, she saw the usual pile of abandoned black bin bags disgorging their contents across the doorstep. It was the same most days. Audrey had placed a laminated sign in the window kindly requesting that people deliver their donations when the shop was open, but nobody took any notice. Pip wondered whether this was a matter of simple convenience, or whether it was really just embarrassment at being associated with their cast-offs. Some of the items that people left were barely fit to be used as rags, let alone sold on for future wear.
Pip locked her bike to a drainpipe and dropped her helmet into the basket in full confidence that it would still be there when she returned at the end of the day. Then she went to sit on the bench opposite to wait for Audrey to open up. A couple of minutes later her boss came bustling down the pavement towards her. Head down, she walked fast, as if she were carrying out a vital but rather tiresome mission, sidestepping anyone in her path without raising her gaze. When she reached the shop, she stared at the pile of donations and shook her head vehemently, her grey perm barely stirring. Pip could see her lips moving with muttered curses.
She stood up and moved to the edge of the pavement. Some days merely standing this close to the road would be enough to trigger a panic attack, but today she was fine, and she crossed without incident. There was no predicting how she’d be from one day to the next. Some days, the road posed no problem at all, but on others it was all she could do to stand within ten feet of it. Not knowing how she was going to react made her more anxious still. The whole thing was a downward spiral that she couldn’t seem to crawl out of.
Audrey was still muttering under her breath, her consonants spiked and vicious, when Pip reached her, her heart sinking. It was going to be a long shift if her boss was in a bad mood before the day had even begun.
She girded her loins and mustered a smile. ‘Morning, Audrey,’ she said as brightly as she could manage.
Audrey looked up and rolled her eyes heavenwards.
‘I don’t know why I bother putting up a sign. I really don’t. Do they think we have nothing better to do than carry their stuff around for them?’
In fact, they didn’t have anything better to do. It was a matter of a few feet from the door to the room where they sorted the donations, and Pip couldn’t understand the hardship that Audrey seemed to feel so keenly, but she knew better than to pass comment.
‘I’ll bring it all in,’ she said instead. ‘You go and put the kettle on.’
Audrey gave her a tight little nod, but no smile, and kicked a plastic bag out of the way so she could open the door and step inside.
Pip began to shift the bags from the door to the table one at a time. So little happened here that any study of time and motion was irrelevant, and if she made five journeys and the task used up five times as much time then that was a bonus. The contrast between this and her life in London couldn’t have been more marked.
She opened the neck of the first bag and peered in. Its contents were neatly folded, which boded well. Audrey would be pleased. She liked to get decent-quality stock, although dresses like these from Marks & Spencer or Next weren’t Pip’s idea of decent. Her mind flew to the racks of designer labels that were hanging, unworn, in her wardrobe in Dominic’s flat. Rose had far more sophisticated tastes than she allowed Pip to have, and none of her London finery had made its way up to Suffolk. Now she was here, she had adopted a bland and anonymous style: jeans paired with high street tops just like everyone else wore and, as the weeks rolled by, she could feel herself slowly morphing from Rose back into Pip.