A Few of the Girls (32 page)

They never missed a Saturday lunchtime, all four of them coming from different places and taking the corner table in Kriti, the Greek restaurant. They were well-established regulars now: Yanni would run up with the basket of bread and the dish of olives, and dust down the chairs for them.

They were nice people, he told his wife: two couples, longtime friends, easy to please, telling each other news, always happy.

Julie came from her shift in the florist's. It was a part-time job, just on Saturday mornings. Five hours, eight to one, nice extra cash, and at least it kept her out of the other shops, she would laugh. She liked it there, opening up the shop, waiting for the flowers to come in from the market. In a way she would have liked a full-time job there instead of at the cash desk in the butcher's shop. Everyone was in a hurry there, and there wasn't the same feel about taking money for fillet steak or lamb chops as there was for ten white carnations laid against ferns, or giving advice about how to keep a little cyclamen from flopping immediately.

But they didn't need her full-time, they said. There really wasn't the work. They had hoped that the new office block nearby would fill up and then there would be loads of customers. But it had been slow. It had been a fairly tough area once and businesspeople hadn't wanted to relocate to an area without a good name.

But because of supermarket shopping and hairdressers in the area they could offer her Saturday work—there were always lots of orders to fill on a Saturday morning. They came with messages saying “Thank you” and “I love you” as well as “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations.”

Once there had been a huge bouquet with just a one-word message:
Sorry.
Julie had told the others and they spent the whole lunchtime wondering what anyone could have done that warranted fifty pounds' worth of roses.

Julie's husband, Bob, went to see Flora, his daughter from his first marriage. There was a problem every single Saturday morning. Either Flora's mother would call and say the girl hadn't got up yet, or Flora would arrive herself, in tears over something. It always upset Bob, and Flora had to be consoled by a visit to the shopping mall to buy a new CD.

It would take Bob an hour or so to unwind when he got to Kriti. He looked pale and tired. Julie's heart went out to him but she would pat his hand and say it would all be all right. It always was, anyway. Neither would she tell him that Flora was as devious a sixteen-year-old as anyone was ever likely to meet, who knew exactly how to manipulate her father. No, it was better that they should be with Brian and Carol, where nothing would be said but all would be understood. And soon Bob would be smiling again.

Carol came to Kriti direct from work. She ran a recruitment agency with two other women. Saturday was one of their busier days. Women who were working Monday to Friday but who wanted to change jobs liked to come in on a Saturday and see what else was on offer. Carol's two partners were women with small children and they often found it hard to work on Saturdays. Of course, Carol and Brian had small children too, but then Carol was a genius at getting people to look after them. She had such a support system organized that you would have to look at her with awe.

They all said that Carol could run the universe—and she agreed. Or she said she could have a fair shot at it anyway.

Brian's mother lived in a granny flat in their house. Well, that was the theory, but in reality she lived with them. Not a happy camper, Brian's mum. Every Saturday morning she liked to be taken out to the hairdresser, or the chemist, for a little look around the shops and for a coffee with two other old ladies. Then Brian would drive her home, serve her lunch, and head out for Kriti, where he would be more than ready for the one treat of the week which could not be interrupted by the sound of his mother's stick knocking on a wall.

The two young girls at the next table had a selection of holiday brochures and were debating where they should go.

“Doesn't it make you feel old?” Julie said. She wasn't remotely old, only mid-thirties, in fact. She had been to France on a grape-picking holiday once. And she had gone with her mother on a four-day coach tour of Belgium. But she had never really traveled for sheer pleasure, not like those two kids were planning. She had never got onto a charter flight for two weeks in the sun without a care in the world.

When she and Bob married, they went on a honeymoon to Cornwall, which was lovely; but they had to be back for Saturday so that Flora would know that she hadn't lost her daddy permanently just because he was married to someone else.

“I don't think I'd like that kind of holiday, even if we did have the time,” Carol said. “You know, screaming teenagers, discos, wet T-shirt competitions…”

“I don't know—wet T-shirts…” Brian made a feeble joke. “Doesn't sound all that bad to me.”

“It wouldn't have to be a big, high-rise place,” Julie said. “It could be small and quiet, a villa near the sea maybe.”

“A nice walk in the evening into some bar by a harbor and dinner in the open air,” said Bob, who had just recovered after this morning's onslaught from Flora.

“And our own balconies to snooze on,” Carol said thoughtfully. “With no sound of telephones ringing anywhere for miles!”

“And we could have a little bit of culture as well,” Brian suggested.

“Just a little,” the others agreed, and realized that they were actually planning their first holiday together. They had an extra bottle of wine to celebrate the decision. Yanni asked them what was the occasion.

“A holiday abroad,” Julie explained. “I know it doesn't seem such a big thing—millions of people are setting out on them every day—but somehow we four didn't manage to.” They were quiet for a moment looking back on all the years when they hadn't headed off for the airport like everyone else. And the reasons why. But that was behind them now. They knew this, and there was a great sense of excitement.

“And where will you go?” Yanni asked.

They had no idea.

“I hope very much that you go to my country. Greece is a beautiful place.” He pointed to the pictures on the restaurant wall, pictures that now had a new significance. A ruined palace, a fishing village, white buildings covered with flowers. Anything was possible. They agreed to have the brochures next week and they went home in high good spirits.

Julie unpacked her shopping and stacked it in the kitchen; in the little basket where they put receipts she saw one from Bob's credit card. It was to a boutique for forty-nine pounds, seventy pence. She sat down on the kitchen stool to get over the shock.

More than she had earned all morning, standing in a drafty flower shop where the door was open letting in an east wind. Nearly fifty pounds he had spent on that monstrous girl. And judging from Bob's strained face when he had arrived in the restaurant, Flora had obviously not been sufficiently grateful even for this huge generosity. So her husband had bought something that cost fifty pounds in a shop where Julie would not even dare to
walk in
on account of the prices.

Could she really let them go on like this? Father and daughter caught in a love-hate trap that was bleeding their savings account dry, without bringing any happiness to either of them. Surely someone should put a halt to this before it drove everyone insane. But then, was she the right person to do it? Was it worth all the drama and confrontation that would be involved? Perhaps a wise woman would stay out of it.

Julie felt her hands shaking as she stored the detergent in its place on a shelf. She had walked to a discount store further away to save pennies on this packet—
pennies,
while her husband had spent fifty pounds to placate a selfish teenager whom nothing would please, not even the return of her father to be a full part of her life. Flora only wanted Bob on Saturday mornings, she just needed to make him feel guilty the rest of the time. This ceaseless attempt to buy her affection must stop.

Yet Julie was loath to bring the subject up. Bob worked so hard in that television center, with the house calls, and lugging huge boxes up and down stairs. She really wanted him to have some breathing space before going back to work on Monday morning. But then suppose that he gave Flora so much money there wouldn't be enough left for their holiday?

Julie picked up a fifty-pence coin and spun it. Heads she'd tackle him about the purchase. Tails she would let it pass.

Bob came into the kitchen, smiling at her warmly.

“You're a very good girl, Julie,” he said. “Did I ever tell you how easy it is to live with you?”

“What brought this on?” she asked.

“Just to come in and see you spinning a coin like a child—I don't know, it's very endearing.”

She let the coin fall and didn't look at which side was up. Instead, she put her arms around his neck.

“It's dead easy being married to you too, my love,” she said. And they went upstairs together.

Later on that evening, when she was getting the supper, Julie found the coin; it had landed head side up. Fate had meant her to confront him, tell him that these payments to his disaffected daughter must go on no longer. But then fate can come at us in different ways. Bob had just walked into the kitchen at that moment and said that he loved her. They had spent the afternoon in bed. Wasn't that much better than any confrontation? Julie was sure that it was.

Over in Brian and Carol's house, the supper of cold chicken salad had been placed on the table by Maria, the au pair. She had been with them for four years now and was part of the family. Carol always said that if you spent the money building a small bathroom and gave them a television in their own room, then there was no problem with au pairs. The real strains only came when they lay in your bath all day and sat in your sitting room looking at rubbish on television all night. It couldn't have been quite as simple as this, but anyway, for Carol it seemed to work.

There they were, Maria about to go out for the night, the seven-year-old twins, all clean and shiny in their dressing gowns, were going to hear their bedtime story. It was about a huge, good-tempered, vegetarian monster who loved eating nettles and thistles and playing with little boys and girls. Matt and Sara loved this story.

Brian had just begun to read in that slow, measured voice he used in the classroom, making sure every word was heard. Halfway through the first page, the knocking on the wall began.

“I'll go.” Carol started to get out of her chair.

“She's my mother,” Brian said, handing the book to Carol.

“Right, kids, you've got me,” Carol said.

“Dad reads better,” Matt complained.

“Will we play a game until Dad gets back?” Sara suggested.

“It might be very late though, might be well past your bedtime,” Carol said doubtfully to her daughter. That's exactly what Sara had hoped.

The children were asleep, and Carol had her papers all over the dining room table when Brian got back. She was lost in her work, and didn't seem at all annoyed that he had been gone for over an hour. She gathered the spreadsheets together.

“Sorry, love,” he said.

“Not at all, gave me time to look at those figures,” she said. Carol took a lot of work home with her—she had been thinking of building an extra little office area under the stairs. You saw such marvelous conversion jobs in the advertisements.

He didn't explain what his mother had wanted: it didn't matter anyway; it was always one thing or another, or just nothing at all. Brian took away the cloth that covered their chicken salad.

“Lucky it was cold,” he said, trying to rescue something from the evening.

Carol pushed her glasses back on her head.

“It always is on Saturday nights, hadn't you noticed? She always calls you on a Saturday around this time. That's why we have cold chicken.” There was no complaint in her voice. It was just the way things were.