Jenny James Is Not a Disaster

by Debbie Johnson

Genres: Disaster Fiction; Women's Fiction; Humorous Fiction

Synopsis

Sometimes it takes life falling apart . . . to piece yourself back together.

Single mum Jenny is on the edge of disaster. Her job is downsizing, her car won't start, her son is a teenager (enough said) . . . and it just won't stop raining. So when her darling cottage on the Norfolk coast literally falls off a cliff, taking all of her son's baby photos, her beloved couch, and almost taking Jenny herself down with it, it's the ridiculously traumatic cherry on top of her ridiculously catastrophic week.

With no job, no home, and the painful stirring of memories from when Jenny was alone, broke, estranged from her family, and pregnant, she takes a drastic step to start new. She and her eighteen-year-old son, Charlie, join their nomadic neighbor, Luke, and his dachshund, Betty, in his campervan on a road trip around England. From hiking historical sites to riding rollercoasters at amusement parks, each new stop drives Jenny forward and reminds her of the dreams she gave up long ago.

But more than that, each new destination--pulled from a hat based on random prompts like "Brontë sisters" and favorite songs--brings Jenny closer to her son, and the painful past she tried to outrun. As old wounds and difficult reconciliations open Jenny's eyes to the mistakes of her past, she is able to navigate what, and who, she would like to be a part of her future.

Release date: July 9, 2024

Publisher: Harper Muse

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter 1

There are some things that would be so useful in modern life, I often wonder why nobody has bothered inventing them yet. With so many clever people in the universe, surely someone should have come up with more quick fixes? More ways to smooth out the niggles of everyday existence?

For me, this list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Shoes that come with retractable high heels—one minute you’re all tall and swanky and looking professional; the next, you pop the pointy bit into a cunningly designed compartment concealed in the sole, and you’re walking on air in comfy flats. No more shoving ballet flats in your handbag.
• A breathalyzer attached to your phone that automatically shuts it down if you’re over the limit—no more drunk texts or 3:00 a.m. phone calls that you eventually remember the next morning; you know, the ones that come back to you in fragments like a dream sequence and are so embarrassing they make you want to put your head in a blender.
• A very specific GPS app that could help you locate things that are missing in the house—for example, “your car keys are in the fridge,” or “the TV remote is down the side of the big sofa,” or “your sanity is in the recycling bin.” You’d be able to choose the voice it used so it could be Chris Hemsworth saying it in his Thor voice, rather than someone who makes you feel like your mum’s nagging you.
• Some kind of video game—possibly social-media based, like maybe on TikTok with some cool music?—that gives teenagers points every time they actually manage to put a pair of dirty underwear in the laundry basket instead of leaving them on the floor. It could be huge—like Grand Theft Auto with boxer shorts instead of guns.
• A delivery system—possibly by drone—that can bring an iced coffee and a box of cheesy chips to your car when you’re stuck in long traffic jams. And while we’re on that subject, a car seat that doubles up as a commode for lady drivers—I know, that’s a bit gross, but there’s nothing worse, is there? You’re stuck in traffic, wondering when you’re going to get home, questioning if you’ll ever get off the motorway, and even worse you’re absolutely busting for a wee?

I think I’ve peaked with that last one, now I come to think of it. Anyway—your list might be different, depending on your circumstances, and some of these might even have already been invented without me being clued up enough to notice, but I’m sure you see what I mean. There are just so many ways life could be improved.

I’m the sort of person who struggles to assemble flat-pack furniture, so I’m never going to become an inventor. If I was, though—if I had a sudden change of fortune—I’d give it a go. I have so many ideas.

Even more tempting than the ones on my list, the thing I’d really love to have is some kind of early warning system for what your day is going to throw at you. Like a weather forecast but for living. Not so much Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but stuff like “mainly boring, but with a sudden spike in adrenaline at 8:00 p.m. during the National Lottery draw,” or “predominantly stable but with some tears edging in after dinner.”

We wake up every morning, and we go about our business. We eat, we wash, we dress, we get grunted at by our children, we go to work. We do these things over and over again, without ever

 knowing what that day has in store for us. How the hours between opening our eyes and closing them again might unfold.

We don’t wake up assuming that something amazing is going to happen, or something terrible, or something so mind-bendingly weird that our lives will never be the same again. If we had some idea, some inkling, some intuition, someone telling us in that Thor voice that we needed to be careful, then maybe everything could be calmer. We could take a different turn in the road and avoid the banana skins lying in wait for our unsteady feet.

I say this, but part of me also wonders: What would we miss out on if we never took the occasional tumble? I think that sometimes, just maybe, we need to lose our balance before we can find it again. That we need to take a few steps back before we can move forward.

The day everything changed for me started like any other day—and it ended with me losing everything I owned, everything I planned for, everything I thought I held dear. Everything I assumed I needed.

Ironically, it turned out to be the best day of my life. I can say that now, with hindsight, and the distance of time and experience. Back then, though, I thought I’d never get up again, never find that balance. Back then, I felt like giving up. Like lying down on the ground in a fetal ball and crying for help that I couldn’t ever see coming, waiting for a cavalry that was never going to gallop across the horizon. I felt alone, and scared, and helpless.

Now I feel none of those things, at least most of the time. If I’m stuck in a small place with a wasp, maybe all three, but only on a temporary basis. Now I am stronger and more confident than I have ever been—and it all started on the day I lost everything. I wish I could go back to then-me and reassure myself, tell myself it would all be okay in the end. Just give myself a great big cuddle. But then-me probably wouldn’t have listened—I was too lost, too closed off. Clinging too hard to the things I thought kept me stable. Maybe that’s another thing I’d like to invent, now I come to think of it. A Hindsight Machine—one that sounds like someone comforting, maybe Oprah Winfrey or Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson or Mrs. Weasley or whoever makes you feel safe—telling you to take a deep breath. Telling you that it’s not as bad as it seems. Telling you that everything will be all right in the end—that when you fall, there will always be someone to lift you back up. That, in a year’s time, this will seem amusing, or irrelevant, or actually exactly what you needed, even if you don’t feel like that right now.

So, this is my story. A story of falling and getting back up again. Of stepping back and moving forward. Read it in whatever voice you like—for me, that will be my own voice.

The voice I’ve finally found, and the voice I finally listen to.

Chapter 2

My name is Jenny James, and I’m having a very bad day. In fact, it’s such a Very Bad Day that it probably deserves capital letters.

It started with my son, Charlie, screaming at me because the internet was down. Charlie is eighteen and, more often than not, the light of my life. He is a thoughtful and gentle soul, empathetic and emotionally intelligent beyond his years—unless something gets between him and the information superhighway. When that happens, he becomes a complete bastard.

Even though it’s not my fault, I somehow end up being the one who gets yelled at. I suggested sluggishly that he try calling the company that actually provides our broadband, but that had about as much effect as when I ask him to pick his own dirty socks up off the bathroom floor—i.e., zero. Isn’t it weird how this current generation is connected to the matrix twenty-four hours a day, but they’re scared of talking to an actual human being on the phone?

From that point on, nothing improved. I pulled a run in two pairs of tights trying to dress myself while exhausted, and had to patch the second pair up with nail varnish. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, but the tights were black and the nail varnish was neon pink.

After that, the fun really kicked in—the milk was sour, I broke a nail trying to hook breakfast out of our ancient toaster, and I discovered when it was too late to retreat that we’d run out of loo roll. There was definitely some there the night before, which meant it had disappeared into Charlie’s room—and that’s something that no sane mother likes to contemplate.

Welcome to my life—8:30 a.m. and already a complete disaster zone.

I open the front door and am greeted with torrential rain. This doesn’t come as a surprise, as I have been greeted by torrential rain every single morning for almost a month. It is early July, and the great British summer is probably leading to a rush on ark-building supplies. It’s the kind of weather that is so bad, it gets its own segment on the local news every evening—Freak Summer Storm Update, with nifty graphics and the weatherman finally getting his shot at the big time.

Up until now, it’s just been rain—but I have a vague memory of there being warnings about today reaching peak crappiness, with strong winds and scary weather symbols pinging up all over his little map.

As soon as I am outside, I feel it. My hair blows up around my face, and I have to hold my skirt down with my hands. The shrubs are shaking, the wind is whistling over the clifftops, and the sea is wild and angry. In fact, it’s furious—maybe because the internet is down again, who knows?

Our little cottage is on the coast in Norfolk, and on less disgusting days, emerging from it always lifts my spirits. It’s perched near the edge of a cliff, far enough away not to be scary, close enough to feel exhilarating. In front of the house, we have a long strip of garden that meanders down to join the coastal path, a cute little gate at the end. When the sun is shining, it’s breathtaking—endless views out over the sea, dazzling light and shade playing on the waves, the only sounds those of nature. And sometimes Charlie on his Xbox.

We’ve lived here for the last eleven years, and it is a haven. I grow my own strawberries and raspberries, and have giant sunflowers on the patio in terra-cotta pots, borders bursting with lupins and cosmos and nasturtiums. Beautiful purple-blue aubrieta is rooted in the rocks around us, cascading in a riot of glorious color. We have a vegetable patch, and harvest carrots and potatoes and onions and herbs. I can lose

days to gardening and to sitting out on the patio at the little table, a cup of coffee and a good book on the go.

We’re tucked away at the end of a quiet lane, miles away from real traffic, our only neighbors a nearby farmer who keeps donkeys in his field and occasionally rents space to families on camping trips.

It’s a little slice of heaven, on a less disgusting day. Today is not one of those days, and everything looks gray and damp, my flowers flattened by the weight of the rain, the path outside mired in mud. The waves are crashing onto the shoreline so powerfully that spray is bouncing up over the clifftops, pirouetting into the air before it is lost in the downpour.

I glance over at the field next to us, glad to see that the donkeys have all been taken into their stables. I notice the solitary motorhome that’s been there for the last week and hope the man who lives in it has wellies. Actually, I kind of hope he’s knee-deep in mud—the first day I saw him, I waved and shouted good morning, because that’s what you do when you live in the middle of nowhere. He just returned my wave with a half-hearted nod and closed his van door, as though horrified at the thought of seeing me. I have this effect on men.

I struggle over to my car, an ancient Nissan Micra. It starts on the third try, which I take as a good sign. It really should be chugging off to its final resting place in the heavenly scrapyard, but, as ever, I can’t afford a new one. I can never afford much, to be honest—which is fine. I’ve never been especially bothered about stuff, about things—but it would be nice to shed some of the stress.

It takes me about half an hour to get to the small town where I work. I’m an office manager for a company that makes carpets. Have to be honest, it’s about as interesting as it sounds, but the people are nice and it’s steady work.

I was only eighteen when I had Charlie, and soon discovered that my clutch of GCSEs and one year of A levels weren’t going to get me very far in the workplace. In the Olden Days—the days before I became the me I am today—I had dreams of being a writer. Maybe a journalist or a novelist—something creative and important and fulfilling. Now I dream of other things. Things like loo roll and still having some money in the bank at the end of the month.

When Charlie was two, his dad left us to go “find himself.” Apparently he thought he’d find himself somewhere in Europe and took off with a backpack and the last of our money, leaving me a note saying he’d be back when he was a “better version of himself.” That was sixteen years ago, and he still seems to be a work in progress.

I am past the stage where I harbor any resentment or anger about it—in fact, it was probably for the best. Sometimes, being on your own is easier than being with the wrong person. If you live with someone and expect them to help you, it stings when they don’t. When they’re gone, you know you have to do

everything yourself, so you just get on with it.

One of the things I got on with was doing a course on office basics—how to use computers and spreadsheets and software, that kind of thing. It was a bit different than going to some fancy uni and lounging around discussing philosophy and Shakespeare, but it was definitely more useful at that stage of my life. It meant I could work, and earn money, and eventually find a job that paid enough for me and Charlie to move here. To this soaking wet corner of paradise.

There is never much spare cash after I’ve paid the rent and the bills, but it is enough. Charlie has had a stable life, if not a wealthy one. He’s been rich in love, I like to tell myself. School trips have been tough, and I’ve become an expert at hunting down acceptable clothes in charity shops, and, okay, I do cut my own hair—but it’s a nice enough life. We have each other, and the cottage, and Netflix. I mean, what more could a girl want?

Well, I think, as I arrive at work—maybe an umbrella.

There is a strange silence in the office as I enter, and at first I think the Big Boss is in, which always makes everyone go quiet. There are eight of us working here, which is just about enough to make the tea round challenging, but it’s generally a pleasant atmosphere. The business had been run by the same family for donkeys’ years, but they recently sold it to a big national company. Mr. and Mrs. Hedges, the previous owners, are now living in a villa with a pool in Lanzarote, and getting more and more orange every day. They eat out every night, start drinking at lunchtime, and send us all pictures of them singing in karaoke bars on a regular basis. As retirements go, they are living the dream.

It’s been an adjustment for us, being owned by The Man. We have things like Performance Reviews and Targets and HR Assessments now. We also have a regional manager, a thirtysomething man called Tim who likes to have us all sit in the meeting room and give us inspirational pep talks about the carpet business. Two things you would never expect to hear in the same sentence. We’re all supposed to tweet about carpets as well, but so far none of us have bothered—one reason to be grateful for the dodgy Wi-Fi at least. I am hanging my wet coat up on the rack, wondering why it’s so quiet, when my colleague Barb walks over to me. She looks pale, and her mascara is smudged. For me, this would not be a big deal—I try to make my makeup last a few days, if humanly possible. For Barb, though, it is a sure sign of impending disaster. She’s one of those perfectly tidy women who always has healthy food in clean Tupperware boxes for lunch.

“Are you okay?” I ask, wringing out my hair. “Is Tim here?” I whisper the last bit, looking around as though I might find him hiding behind a potted plant.

“Haven’t you seen

 the memo?” she asks, her eyes swimming with tears. Now that I look at her more closely, I see that the pink combs in her hair are also slightly askew. The end of the world is nigh.

“Erm . . . no. I’ve only just walked in.”

“Oh. I thought you might have checked your emails at home.”

No, I think—I did not have the kind of morning that lent itself to a calm checking of emails. I was too busy ignoring Charlie’s meltdown and managing my own chaos and using the last strip of paper towels in the loo, even though I know I shouldn’t because it might block it, and then I’ll have to get the landlord out. Again.

“The internet was down,” I say, because Barb doesn’t need to know any of that. “What is it?”

“They’re thinking of closing us down,” she says, each word laden with disbelief. “Too many overheads and not enough productivity apparently. It’s between us and a branch in Kidderminster!”

“Kidderminster?” I echo, frowning. “Where the f—flip is Kidderminster?”

Barb doesn’t like swearing, and I am a respectful human being, so I try to keep my foulmouthed tendencies in check around her.

“I don’t know . . . I think the Midlands? Does it really matter? It means we could all be out of a job, Jenny!”

She’s right, of course. It doesn’t matter. Kidderminster could be in Nepal, or on a hellmouth, or at the bottom of the Grand Canyon—it makes no difference. I am still pondering it, though, because questioning the geography of small towns in the United Kingdom is easier for me to handle than the panic that I know will soon engulf me if I let it.

I have made some poor choices in my life, and I have taken some wrong turns. All of them led me to Charlie, which I can never regret, but it has not been easy. Leaving my own family wasn’t easy. Raising a child on my own wasn’t easy. Finding stability in the wreckage wasn’t easy, nor was being both mum and dad to a growing boy. Bringing up another human being when you barely feel capable of looking after yourself is tough; you have to make so many decisions all alone, accept consequences all alone, budget and plan and cry all alone.

The only way I’ve gotten through all that is by employing a coping mechanism I call Just Don’t Think About It. I should probably write a self-help book: “Life getting you down? Just don’t think about it! Facing a divorce, bankruptcy, or an existential crisis? Just don’t think about it!” Of course, I have to think about something else instead—this time, the precise location of Kidderminster. Our rivals in the cutthroat world of carpets.

“I need to get a coffee,” I say, patting Barb on the arm. I haven’t had any, due to time constraints and the lack of viable milk in my own

home. I bet that never happens to Barb. “Then I’ll read the memo. Don’t worry, Barb. It’ll be all right.”

“Do you think so?”

She asks me this with such sincerity, such hope, that I am momentarily taken aback. I know my life is a whirling dervish of insanity, but she doesn’t—she believes the calm and positive front I put on when I am around other people. I am Jenny James, Office Manager—the woman who always knows where the spare staples are and makes sure the printer doesn’t run out of ink and checks everybody else’s paperwork for them.

“Yes, I do,” I reply, putting as much oomph into the claim as I can. If Barb disintegrates right now, I’ll join in, and we’ll both end up crying. It will be a decision that will work out badly for both of us.

I nod at the rest of the staff but stay silent as I make my coffee, drinking it out of a World’s Best Granddad mug simply because it is the biggest one in the cupboard. If there’d been a bucket handy, I’d have used that instead. I settle down in the small office that is my domain and log on to my computer. First things first, because I have a clear sense of my priorities right now, I google Kidderminster. It turns out to be a market town in Worcestershire. Clearly a hotbed of evil.

Next, I check my emails and open the dreaded memo. I scan through it but learn little more than what Barb has told me. It is couched in corporate terminology to soften the blow and make it all seem more reasonable—benchmarking, economies of scale, blah blah blah, but the cold fact remains: the axe is hovering over our heads, and Tim is wielding it. A decision will be made next week, it explains, and all staff contacted in person.

I am scared, and I am worried, and I am starting to feel a little tremble in my hands. I have worked so hard for the small life we have, and I sense it starting to crumble around me. It’s not like this is my dream existence, but the thought of starting again makes me feel weak.

I tell myself to stay calm. That I am not the same person I was all those years ago. That I have skills, experience, a decent résumé, references. That I will be able to find another job.

Except . . . well, times are tough, aren’t they? It always feels like times are tough, but right now it’s true. You can’t watch the news without there being some story about layoffs or factory closures or the soaring cost of living. There was a piece in the local newspaper—the free one that comes through the door—recently about there being 120 applications for one job at a McDonald’s.

What if I end up being one of those people, fighting for a minimum-wage job? What if I can’t afford the rent, or petrol, or, heaven forbid, Charlie’s Spotify account? I already shop at the cheapest places I can tolerate, and there just isn’t much

slack—there are very few ways I can cut back without making life a complete misery. I budget for one bottle of wine a week as my own luxurious treat, and right now I feel like I could do with increasing that, not cutting it out.

When Charlie was little and his dad left, we lived in a series of one-room flats that have left me haunted. Most of the people who lived in the same buildings were nice, just down on their luck—but some of them were not so nice. Some of them were scary, and aggressive, and intimidating. Looking back, I understand that many of them had problems with addiction or their mental health, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.

It was a horrible period of my life, and I can’t contemplate going back to it. It took me years of hard work and many missteps to get to where I am today, to our cozy cottage and a sense of security that now feels threatened. Even if Charlie is now eighteen and thinks he’s all grown up, he’s still my baby, and it’s my job to give him the very best I can.

I bloody hate Kidderminster. And Tim. And carpets.

And the whole damn world.

The rain is crashing against the windows, and a crisp bag flies up in the wind and splatters across the glass. I stare at it—cheese and onion flavor. My least favorite crisps. A bad omen.

I see Barb looking in at me, a questioning expression on her face. I force a smile onto mine and give her a little wave. I hope it is a wave that says, “Look how calm I am—it’s all fine!” not a wave that says, “The end of the world is nigh!”

My phone pings and I pick it up, fighting the urge to throw it through the window. It is rarely good news. I find a smile when I see it is a message from Charlie. “Sorry I was a dick this morning,” it reads. “PS—the internet is back. And the milk is off. And we need bog roll.”

I reply with a series of random emojis that have no meaning whatsoever. My mood is complicated, in the way that only a stream of small cartoon faces can ever express.

As soon as I’ve finished my reply, the phone pings again. This time, it’s not so pleasant. It’s from the bank, informing me that I am seventy-two pence past my overdraft limit, and that if I don’t pay in this grievous amount by midnight, I’ll be charged twenty-five pounds. I consider replying, but there are no emojis that fully convey the way I feel about this. Now I’ll have to go to the bank later and put a pound in, one of the last twenty of them in my purse—but it’s payday soon, I remind myself. Though how many more paydays I’ll have is a matter of some conjecture right now.

The day moves slowly, all of us quiet and gently downtrodden, flattened like my lupins in the rain. We are kind to one another, there are more teas and coffees than normal, and we all get on with our work. Heaven forbid our productivity rates should slump at a time like this.

It is hard to concentrate, and I have to redo several pieces of work because my mind has suddenly taken on the characteristics of one of those baboons that tries to pull your windshield wipers off at a safari park. Leaping all over the place, loud, smelly, 

nimble, bare-arsed.

I keep finding myself dragged back to those one-room apartments, and each time I do, it gets worse and worse. I imagine Charlie falling in with drug dealers or gangs, and myself becoming an alcoholic, and before long we are both just toothless drudges, like the poor people in those Hogarth paintings of gin mills.

My resilience is low, and I am glad to be working in an office full of other people. While I am around other people, I will be able to hold it together. While I am around other people, I will be able to smile and joke and fully inhabit my Brave Face. I will be able to stay strong for their sake, if not my own. I am aware, of course, that eventually I will be alone—that I will be back in my little cottage on the edge of the world, with a glass of wine and a luxurious new multipack of bargain-basement toilet tissue.

Then I will have to face up to this. I will have to think about the future, and finances, and all those sorts of grown-up things that make me want to run screaming into the hills. My life might not be a party, but it is solid—Charlie is solid, and that’s what matters. Keeping his life on an even keel, where all he has to worry about is the occasional internet break, is the most important thing in my universe. He might think his life is boring, but he has no idea how lucky he is—boring is a luxury, a privilege. Boring takes effort.

After what feels like at least ten days, my shift is over. We all troop out of the building, Barb staying behind to lock up, with promises to take care and stay cheerful and not think the worst. I have a weird vision of a group of strangers, somewhere in Kidderminster, doing exactly the same.

Charlie has messaged me to say he is in town, and he will meet me for a lift home. We make our arrangements, ...