Claire heaved a tired sigh and stretched her neck, it had been a really, really long day. She'd been tempted to call Leta and cancel but knew she'd just be miserable with herself if she did. She'd always prided herself on being compassionate and hardworking and reliable. She had been the sort of girl that teachers called 'Mature beyond her years' and she liked being that girl. That girl got praise, and responsibility. That girl had been trusted with their parents car, even when her older brother wasn't.
Dan had hated that. She'd been seventeen and had a set of keys to the car while he, at nearly twenty, still needed to get lifts to parties. Then, of course, he'd gone off to London to finish his degree there, and Claire didn't see him properly for years. By the time she'd made it London, keen to begin work as a documentary maker, tackling the hard issues hitting the capitol, she'd hardly recognised her brother. He had used to look gangly and pale, nervous and twitchy. Now he had mad hair and a bit of a beer belly. He still acted the same, mostly, being too protective when she didn't want him to be and an insensitive jerk when she actually needed someone to talk to.
They'd avoided each other mostly. It was a big city and they lived in very different areas - until Claire lost her funding, and her flat. She was ready to pack it all in when her mum called to inform her that she'd spoken to Dan's housemate and that Claire could stay there until she was back on her feet, as long as she remembered to be polite and mind her own business.
It'd been a bit strange truth be told, and when she'd met Jones she hadn't been able to imagine her mum chatting to him about anything but he'd been friendly enough, and she'd been grateful.
But she couldn't deny that things felt like they were slipping away from her a bit. She felt that, somewhere along the way, she'd lost the girl who was always on time and eager to help others and had instead become just another London twat. No one was interested in her documentary because it wasn't funny or edgy, it didn't have drama or X-factor appeal. It was just a film about people trying to help themselves and one another. She'd wanted to show people a side of London that they didn't know, but it turned out she didn't know much either.
"You still with us? Or have you wandered back to Bradford?"
The voice next to her made her jump and Claire looked up sheepishly before going back to serving soup to the queue of hungry people in front of her.
"Sorry."
Leta shook her head, half mocking Claire for her daydreaming and half in recognition of her tendency to worry. She put down the last tray of bread rolls she'd brought out from the kitchen and both women surveyed the small group of individuals currently making use of the soup kitchen. It had always struck her as horribly depressing - gray clothes and a grayer smell and just... sad - but she'd never actually pictured someone she knew among that group.
"Listen," Claire said, trying to sound casual, though from Leta's eyebrow she knew she was failing. "You've worked here a long time. You wouldn't happen to remember... someone who might have come here in 1995 or 96? His name's Jones now, but it might have been Tom back then. He would have been around sixteen and-"
"Are you really asking me if I remember a kid who may or may not have come to this shelter over seven years ago? You serious?"
Claire slumped. She served the last man in the line and let her soup ladle fall into the pot with a clang and immediately regretted it when her apron, shirt and arms were splattered with a fine spray of soup. Now she was going to smell of carrot and coriander for the rest of the night. At least she could go back to Pingu's and know she'd get a decent shower without people interrupting to use the loo or to look for an important piece of electrical equipment they might have left in the bath!
She tried to pull herself together, to seem less like she was about to just collapse in a sobbing puddle in front of Leta because the director of the Inner South Soup Kitchen was not the sort of woman to put up with that sort of thing. She was a lovely woman but she'd gone from being homeless with three young kids and limited English, to being the owner of a successful small business and head of one of the best soup kitchens in the city.
When Claire had approached her about wanting to learn more about London's homeless for her film, Leta had put her to work instead, and it had been an education. She was a hard but fair taskmaster but she wasn't the coddling sort.
"Kind of serious, yeah," Claire mumbled as she picked up the soup pot and walked out to the kitchen to begin the washing up.
"Oh, Claire-bear," Leta chuckled, following with the other pots and empty trays. "You got another project you're trying to redeem? You can't fix everyone, you know that? And not everyone's going to see the world your way."
"I know, I know. It's just," Claire filled the sink and glared at the bubbles like they could give her the words she needed to tell the story without getting herself into more trouble. "It's my housemate actually. He was homeless and..."
"And you want to know why he never told you about it?" Claire looked up, but Leta gave her a wide grin that showed the gaps in her teeth and that seemed to see everything Claire was trying to hide. "You don't need to tell me, I know that look. But Claire, these are people, not sympathy cards you can drag out to teach other people to be better humans. Most folks who've been homeless don't advertise it. They'd rather forget it. They're ashamed of it. And a sixteen-year-old kid? Well, I'd be surprised if he'd come through it without a few nightmares."
"But I want to help."
Leta raised an eyebrow but Claire stood her ground. She'd been practicing Leta's fierce look and she really did want to help.
"This housemate... he the noisy one you threw a shoe at a few weeks ago?"
Claire grimaced. Leta never forgot anything. She hadn't scolded Claire at the time, she'd just stored the information away until she could use it to best effect. She would probably get along brilliantly with her mum, Claire thought, they'd trade stories on Claire's misadventures and make her feel like she was five-years-old again. But Leta did have a point.
"Maybe."
"You sure you want to help? Or d'you just feel bad for not liking him much?"
Talking with Leta was like losing in a knife fight sometimes and Claire needed to take a deep breath before she continued. Leta was good at telling the truth, and the truth really hurt.
"I do want to help."
"Good. Then leave him alone. I don't know who he is but those kids go through too much, see too much. You want to help? Don't push. Don't press those buttons. It might satisfy your curiosity but it'll just be painful for him. And don't get mad when he doesn't trust you. Often they don't trust anybody for a long time."
"He trusts my brother."
"Really? The 'misanthropic, sarcastic, writer' brother?"
"Yeah."
"Well good. Leave your brother to it. Scabs don't heal if you pick at them... And pots don't get clean if you just stand there like a rag doll instead of scrubbing."
Claire laughed and set to cleaning the pots while Leta went back out to do the rounds of catching up with the regulars and greeting the newcomers. She was the sort of woman Claire wanted to grow up to be but she didn't think she was doing a great job getting there.
It was good advice though. She'd messed up horribly with Dan and Jones, in a lot of ways, and every time she tried to be the mature, adult one she ended up just arguing and making things worse. And even if Dan and Jones were strange and annoying and ignored everyone but at each other, at least she knew that they had each other and weren't just isolating themselves. And it seemed now that they had reasons for being insular, reasons that were none of her business.
She still had to make it up to them, though. She didn't know how, but it needed to be done. Then they could get the whole horrible mess sorted and forgotten and move on with their lives and-
Her phone began to ring, an obnoxious tone that Nathan had set on there and she hadn't been bothered to get rid of yet. Wiping her hands she dug the phone out of her back pocket, thinking it was probably Toby calling again to ask her if she was alright, or maybe Pingu (which made her blush, because who would have thought Pingu could be like that in bed) then nearly dropped the thing when she saw the caller ID: MUM.
"Shit," she whispered, her thumb hovering over the call button. Maybe her mum didn't know anything about the article yet, maybe this was just a random call - there had been more of those in the last couple of weeks - but there was only one way to find out. "Hi, mum..."
"Hello love, I've just been on the phone to your brother, and-"
"Shit."
"Well you could say that..."