Free Eggshell Days by Rebecca Gregson Page B

become frenzied stripping. Suddenly, with that enticing glimpse of smooth gray flag, they saw a whole new world. Craftsmen-built units in sycamore, polished granite tops, a light-filled living space, part workshop, part heart and soul. Easy meals, music, newspaper mornings, homework and flapjacks.
    â€œWe could knock through to the store.”
    â€œRun a massive sofa along one wall.”
    â€œNo stainless steel. I hate stainless steel.”
    They developed their own techniques. Sita used a paint scraper to make sure she got under the loose pieces, Emmy just picked and pulled, taking her chances. Piles of discarded lino mounted up between them, and every now and again they found themselves pulling at the same bit. When that happened, they took more care, enjoying the challenge of seeing how big a strip they could draw before it broke. Sometimes, where the glue was bone-dry, the vinyl shattered and sent splinters shooting across the floor. Other times, where moisture had got into it from a spilt drink or rising damp from the suffocated slate, it was like wet wallpaper, coming off in dank layers.
    It was a filthy but all-consuming task, so only when Sita’s bottom bumped the table leg did they stop to assess the situation.
    â€œWe need to move the furniture,” said Emmy urgently, her cheek smeared with the lino’s black glue. “Why don’t we carry it all out onto the lawn?”
    Jonathan, back from the first, surprisingly easy, school run and expecting to find them where he’d left them, drinking coffee and bitching about Kat in the kitchen, ran into them in the hall. He was just in time to see them take a chunk of plaster off the wall with the table corner as they passed.
    â€œWatch out! What are you doing?”
    â€œWaxing each other’s bits,” Emmy said. “What does it look like?”
    â€œIt looks like you’re wrecking the joint.”
    â€œYou do it, then,” Sita said, putting her end of the table down. “I need to get out of these pajamas.”
    â€œMe too,” said Emmy. “Jon, go and get Niall out of bed and tell him we’ve got more humping for him to do.”
    *   *   *
    Two hours later, the circle of freshly mown grass in the middle of the drive outside the front door looked like the dregs of a house-clearance sale. The kitchen table, the chairs, the settle, the top of the Welsh dresser, the leather armchair, the bottom of the Welsh dresser, and the old electric cooker that no longer worked were stacked in a precarious pile in the center. Around it were boxes containing crockery, saucepans, Tupperware boxes without lids, rusting cake and biscuit tins, tartan Thermos flasks, ancient food mixers, enamel teapots, wooden and steel canapé dishes, corn on the cob skewers and far too many smoked glass trifle dishes. They had taken every single thing out of the kitchen which was now not much more than an echo, but less was already more. Even the boys could see that.
    â€œDid Toby ever buy anything after 1970?” Niall asked, prostrate on the lawn. It was still only eleven o’clock in the morning but his second beer was going down very well.
    Emmy put her foot on his chest, and held open a black bin bag.
    â€œNo. He wasn’t materialistic, remember?”
    â€œRight, that’s the tea break over,” Sita said. “Let’s get on.”
    â€œI don’t think we should let half this stuff back inside,” Emmy said, flicking the black sack. “Everything we think we can live without goes in here.”
    â€œYou’re not going to chuck it away, are you?”
    â€œNo, I’m going to car-boot it next weekend at the playing field in Cott. I saw the advert on the gates yesterday. It’s a fiver a car. It’ll be a good way to meet people.”
    â€œYeah, right.”
    â€œYou’ll be suggesting a feckin’ barn dance next,” Niall said, lifting his head and squinting