Best of Friends (14 page)

“Have it your way, Jess. Don’t join in and see where that gets you in life. Nowhere, that’s where. Well, you can stay late after class and put all the batons and line markers in the games shed. And leave the key with the caretaker.”

Games was the last class of the day and if she had to stay late, she’d miss her bus to the station. Mum would go mental.

“I’ll do it with you,” said Steph, when Hutton had stalked off to organise the five-a-side tournament.

Jess shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

“I will,” insisted Steph loyally.

“You can’t. You’ve got your maths grind tonight,” Jess reminded her in a shaky voice.

“Shit, yeah. Lucky you for having a dad who can give you grinds.” Steph was falling behind in maths and had extra lessons, nicknamed “grinds,” with a private teacher to coach her for the exams.

Jess grinned for the first time that afternoon. “Dad doesn’t be-lieve in grinds. He thinks they’re a sign of bad teaching.”

“What did he send you here for?” demanded Steph. “Without grinds, the whole school would grind to a halt. Grind, geddit?”

“Funny ha ha,” sighed Jess.

“How about we go to the movies on Saturday?” suggested Steph after a moment. She was desperate to cheer Jess up.

“I mightn’t be able to get away.” Jess sighed again. “I’m babysit-ting for the Richardsons on Saturday night and Mum says I’ve got to get my study done in the afternoon.”

“Tell her you’ll study when you’re babysitting.”

By the time she’d put away all the sports equipment, Jess felt ut-terly weary. She’d have a bath at home rather than a shower in the creepily deserted girls’ changing room, she decided, pulling her coat on over her gym gear. At the bus stop, she rang home to say she’d be late but nobody answered and the machine wasn’t on. She was about to try her mother’s mobile when the bus trundled along, packed to the gills with rush-hour commuters. There was no way she was going to have one of those childish conversations along the lines of “I’ll be late, Mum, don’t worry” with a packed bus listening, so she found the last seat upstairs, switched on her Discman and turned the sound up.

The train was packed too. Every seat was taken and bad-tempered passengers with briefcases, pushchairs and bags of shop-ping were crammed into every available gap.

With nowhere to sit, Jess squeezed into a space against the wall at the end of the carriage, her bag at her feet, and tried to drown out the boredom of the journey with music. When she looked up, she saw the guy from the year above pushing a path through the crowd to get a space and, incredibly, Jess thought for one minute that he smiled briefly at her. Tired, crampy and fed up, she wasn’t going to risk smiling back and looking stupid, in case she’d imag-ined it. But then he made his way across the compartment and leaned against the last bit of free wall in Jess’s section. This time she knew she hadn’t imagined the rueful smile, so she sent him a fleet-ing one back, before dropping her gaze again. Wow! It was the first bit of light in an otherwise horrible day.

But it was to be the only bit of light. When the train lumbered into Dunmore station, chugging even more slowly than usual with its enormous load of disgruntled commuters, Jess could see her mother standing anxiously on the platform, all wrapped up in that ridiculous chocolate fake-fur coat she loved. Her eyes were franti-cally searching every carriage as the train pulled in.

“Jess!” she shrieked, rushing forward to grab her daughter when Jess stepped wearily down onto the platform. “I’ve been so worried. I tried to phone and there was no answer on your mobile…”

Jess glared at her to shut up, but Abby was far too relieved even to be aware that she was making a scene.

“Chill, Mum,” snapped Jess. “I did phone to say I’d be late but you weren’t there and the machine wasn’t on.”

Trying to disentangle herself from her mother, Jess could see the guy from her school loping off down the platform towards the foot-bridge. He’d never smile at her again, that was for sure. Not now that her mother had made it plain that she was a kid who wasn’t safe to let stay five minutes behind after school. Cool guys in fifth year didn’t hang around with kids.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” demanded Abby.

“Didn’t hear it,” muttered Jess.

“You shouldn’t have your Discman so loud that you don’t hear the phone,” her mother said loudly. “Have you any idea how worried I was?”

“For God’s sake,” Jess said furiously, “everybody’s watching. You’re not on bloody TV now.”

They drove home in frosty silence, even the lively banter from the drive time DJ failing to crack the ice.

Abby, who’d felt guilty about her little detour into the past with Jay, and had been wondering if she should tell Tom, and who’d raced to the station after getting home and finding Jess hadn’t re-turned from school, was furious with her daughter for not phoning to say she’d be late.

What had happened to Jess, she thought grimly. Her lovely, smil-ing daughter had been replaced by this sullen, angry teenager who bit her mother’s head off every time she spoke. What had Abby done wrong? Or, she thought suddenly, was there something both-ering Jess, something serious?

She tried again when they got home.

“So how was school?” she asked brightly.

Jess thought of the awfulness of the day and stupid Mr. Hutton picking on her unfairly. Worse was what the boys had said to her. It wasn’t her fault she was tall, lanky and flat-chested. She wanted to ask her mother how she’d been when she was a teenager, but then her mother was small and pretty and confident. How could she know how Jess felt? Mum was always going on about how she wished her boobs were smaller because she hated looking “busty.” How unfair was that?

“We’ve got tons of homework,” Jess said, which was true. “How are we supposed to revise anything when we’ve all this work to do?” she demanded, wrenching the fridge door open. She deliberated and then took out some cheese and made herself a sandwich.

Abby felt a surge of relief. That was the reason behind Jess’s bad temper: nothing more sinister than too much homework.

“They wouldn’t give you homework unless they thought you needed it,” said Abby, ever the deputy headmaster’s wife. “And you won’t want to eat your dinner if you eat that sandwich.”

“I’m not going to have time for dinner,” snapped Jess. “I’ll be doing my homework.” With that, she stormed upstairs.

“Sorry, Jess,” Abby yelled in contrition after her. “I didn’t mean it like that, but the teachers know you have to get the courses finished before the exams, and I know it’s hard right now but it will be worth it in the end…”

The only reply she got was the slamming of Jess’s bedroom door.

Abby began to make Jess’s favourite dish, a vegetarian lasagne that took ages to prepare. If Abby couldn’t get through to Jess to tell her how much she loved her, she’d show her.

The lasagne was cooling, untouched despite many calls upstairs, and Abby had given up and gone into the living room to eat a for-bidden packet of crisps and watch the soaps when Tom arrived home.

“How was your day?” he asked, throwing his bulging briefcase onto one of the armchairs.

“Don’t ask,” she said, and was about to elaborate on what a pre-cious little madam her client had been and how Jess was upset over her homework and how terrible Abby felt when she couldn’t com-municate with her, and guess who she’d bumped into today, but Tom didn’t give her a chance to continue. He was just aching to talk about
his
day.

“I know the feeling,” he muttered, loosening his tie and throw-ing that onto the armchair to join the briefcase. “Some joker in sec-ond year set the fire alarm off this afternoon and we couldn’t turn it off. Seems the expensive new system we got in last year has a fault and we had to get a guy out from the company who installed it to deal with it. And then,” Tom sank onto the other armchair, “Gina, you know, the new physics and maths teacher, tells me she can’t cope and she wants to hand in her notice. She didn’t think teaching boys was going to be as hard as it’s turned out. Stupid cow. And I swear that Bruno always takes the day off just when there’s trouble brewing. He must be bloody psychic. He gets the headmaster’s salary and no trouble, and I get the deputy head package and every bloody disaster possible.” He shifted in the seat to get comfortable and began to look around for the television remote. “What’s for dinner?”

Abby counted to ten. “Vegetable lasagne,” she said evenly. She went into the kitchen, cut Tom a portion and stuck it in the mi-crowave with a loud clatter. Adding some limp lettuce from the fridge and a few baby tomatoes she couldn’t be bothered to wash, she dumped the whole lot on a tray and plonked it on the table in front of her husband.

“Thanks,” he grunted.

Abby got herself a second glass of wine and another packet of crisps, and went upstairs. She knocked tentatively on Jess’s door.

“Hi, Jess, it’s Mum. Can I get you anything?”

“No,” came the reply.

Abby went into their own room, switched on the TV and settled herself onto the bed with her snack. So much for the moral dilemma over telling her husband about Jay. She couldn’t believe she’d even worried over it. Clearly Tom wouldn’t have cared less if she’d pushed Jay up against the hot-water bottles in the chemist’s, wrapped her legs around his waist and French kissed him while the people queuing for their haemorrhoid prescriptions watched. So long as Tom got his dinner and had someone to listen silently to his moans about his day, he didn’t need anything else. Why bother telling him about her chance meeting with an old flame? If Jay rang to set up the foursome for dinner, then she’d mention it. For now, she’d just keep it to herself, along with that disturbing sensation she’d felt when Jay had touched her.

seven

T
hat weekend, Lizzie couldn’t resist the roses at the Saturday market. Their velvety crimson petals were just beginning to unfurl and she thought how beautiful they’d look in the old crystal vase standing on the polished hall table. Throwing caution to the wind, she bought two bunches and was rushing down Main Street to her car, face framed with the fat bouquets, when Mrs. Hegarty, one of the surgery’s most constant visitors, appeared from the post office.

“Oh, Lizzie, what beautiful flowers,” cooed the old lady.

“Aren’t they?” said Lizzie, admiring them. They didn’t smell, not like her own roses, but those wouldn’t be out for ages and there was something so nice about coming home to that flush of rosy colour.

“From someone special, I hope?” continued Mrs. Hegarty.

Lizzie grinned. “You could say that,” she joked, but before she could point out that the someone special was herself, Mrs. Hegarty had taken a wild leap to the wrong conclusion.

Her tiny wrinkled face, round as a crab apple, softened. “Ah, dear Myles. Give him our regards. It’s lovely the way you two meet up and stay such friends.” Mrs. Hegarty’s sloe eyes twinkled. “We’re all always hoping that you pair will see sense and get back together again.”

“Well, I am going to meet him,” began Lizzie because Myles had asked to see her urgently, and for once he hadn’t said what it was about. They didn’t meet that often, although they spoke on the phone about the kids, but today’s meeting sounded different. What had he said? “I’ve something I need to talk to you about.”

But Mrs. Hegarty’s mind had moved on to the absorbing subject of her husband’s varicose veins.

“They’re at him again and he’s tormented with them. I said, if only you’d wear support stockings, Liam, I said, you’d be fine, but oh no, men don’t wear them, he said. So I said …”

Mrs. Hegarty’s monologue went on and Lizzie waited patiently. Some of the people in Dunmore considered her on a par with the doctor, as if all Dr. Morgan’s years of medical training had somehow rubbed off and Lizzie was perfectly able to diagnose all manner of illnesses.

“He should call in to the surgery,” Lizzie said, as she always did. “I should rush, Mrs. Hegarty, I’ll be late.”

“Ah.” Mrs. Hegarty was all smiles at the thought of Lizzie rush-ing to see her ex. What with that and the confusion over the flowers, it would be all over town that the Shanahans were getting back together. Lizzie sighed. Chinese whispers was Dunmore’s favourite occupation. But she was smiling as she bade Mrs. Hegarty a fond goodbye.

As she drove out of town with the ancient Golf clanking gears noisily, Lizzie’s eyes were drawn to the bouquet lying on the passenger seat. Myles had never been much of a man for flowers. He liked to buy either practical presents or gift vouchers.

“What’s the point in me buying you a fleet of things you don’t need,” he’d smile, “when I can get you a voucher and you’ll pick out what you really want?”

It had made perfect sense to Lizzie. Men hated shopping. The world and his wife knew that.

In a small Italian coffee shop scented with amaretti biscuits and freshly crushed coffee beans, Myles waited for Lizzie. He’d attempted to speed through the crossword but he was just too nervous. Throwing the paper down on the seat beside him, he fiddled with his Palm Pilot, counting how many months there were until Debra’s wedding. Three and a half. Three and a half months to sort it all out and hope the whole family could come to terms with his news.

He hadn’t planned for it to happen. Well, who’d have thought it would? Certainly not Myles. When he and Lizzie had split up, he hadn’t thought he’d meet anyone else. That hadn’t been on his radar at all and it wasn’t why he’d left Lizzie.

Male friends all assumed he’d wanted out of his marriage because he was bored and wanted to be footloose and fancy free. But it wasn’t that. Myles and Lizzie had had to get married and for all his married life Myles had thought of a time in the future when he’d have done his duty and could do what he wanted to in life. He didn’t regret a second of his family life, it was just that he knew there were sides of himself that he could never express with Lizzie and he wanted to explore these while he still had the courage. Freedom to be his own person had been the spur—not the freedom to make notches on his bedpost. The very notion of that was ridiculous. Myles had no illusions about his chances of turning into Warren Beatty once he was no longer married. His appearance reflected his character: understated.