Best of Friends (66 page)

Jess didn’t know what it was, but sometimes, when she wanted to say something comforting to Mum, she just couldn’t manage it. It was like she had to let off steam with her mother, and there was no room for her to hear how hurt and upset Mum was back.

Then, Jess would feel guilty and mean for not supporting Mum. She’d looked so sad when she dropped Jess over to Dad’s place on Friday, like she was going to cry or something, and when she’d driven off, Jess had been overcome with this desire to phone Mum on her mobile and say, “I’m really sorry, I know you’re upset but I had to go away with Dad this weekend and I’ll be back soon.” But she hadn’t. Then as soon as she got inside Dad’s front door, he was all businesslike, checking their travel documents, and the chance to phone had passed.

They were flying to London and then they’d rent a car to drive to Kent. Dad loved organising holidays, sorting out tickets and money. And Mum was so dreadful at that type of thing. That was why it always worked so well when they went on holidays as a threesome—Dad would do the boring things like tickets, and Mum and Jess could just have fun. But that wasn’t going to happen ever again.

On the plane, Dad flicked through the duty-free brochure. “Is there anything you want in here?” he asked Jess.

“Dad, just because you and Mum have split up, you don’t have to keep buying me stuff,” she said. “Mum bought me a really ex-pensive pair of sunglasses in Florida and now you want to buy me something else. I’m not a stupid kid, you know. I understand that divorce can be expensive.”

Her father looked crestfallen.

“I don’t mean to be horrible,” Jess went on. “It’s just that I am sixteen and I do know about money. We won’t have as much, I know.”

“You’re not to worry about money,” Dad said then. “We’ll have enough, I promise.”

Jess rolled her eyes. Dad just didn’t listen, did he?

Travelling was tiring, Jess decided later that evening as they crawled along the motorway in a tailback that looked as if it was hundreds of miles long. Or maybe travelling was only tiring when you were going somewhere you didn’t want to go. She’d loved going to Florida, but getting to Aunt Caroline’s was definitely exhausting, though Dad had been chirpy for the whole trip, as if it was all great fun.

“It’s great to get away for a weekend,” he said, seemingly unper-turbed by the fact that the car was going at about five miles an hour. “And it will be good for you and me to spend time together,” he added.

Jess thought that they probably wouldn’t get that much time on their own together at all—Aunt Caroline tended to monopolise Dad when she got the chance.

“I wonder, will the boys be home for the weekend?” Dad asked out loud. He was talking about David and Ross, Jess’s cousins. They were both a lot older than her, in their early twenties, and she didn’t know them very well. “Although I think Caroline said they weren’t going to be there,” Dad added.

At least that was something, Jess thought with relief. There would have been nothing worse than having to spend the weekend with her cousins being expected to mind her the whole time.

Aunt Caroline and Uncle Phil lived in an old terraced house in a bustling town just off the motorway. Dad parked the car, and he and Jess were just stretching after their long drive when Aunt Caro-line raced out of the house and flung her arms first around Jess and then around Dad. Aunt Caroline was tall like Dad, but there the similarity ended. Big and bustling, she wore what Jess felt were hor-rible granny clothes and had a velvet hairband holding back her dark hair.

“How are you both?” she cried, as if they were survivors from some terrible accident. “I was so worried about you getting here tonight. Come on in, come on in,” she rattled off. “I’ve supper ready, if it’s not burned to a crisp in the oven. Oh, you poor, poor things. The traffic is dreadful, isn’t it?”

Jess remembered what was so irritating about her Aunt Caroline. She never knew when to shut up. She meant well but her constant stream of conversation was instantly annoying.

Inside the house, there were more hugs and probing “How are you, Tom?” comments from Caroline before she showed Dad and Jess to their rooms.

Jess’s bed was in a tiny boxroom that was obviously also used as a study because it had a desk and a computer stuck in one corner. Sit-uated right at the top of the house, the room was cosy and at least away from everyone else. Grateful for that, Jess finally shut the door on Caroline and plonked herself down on the bed.

Peace at last. But it wasn’t for long. Jess had barely had a chance to change her T-shirt when Caroline was roaring up the stairs that dinner was on the table and girls who wanted some had better rush downstairs quickly and wash their hands. Jess grimaced at her re-flection in the wall mirror. Did Aunt Caroline think she was still ten?
Girls who wanted dinner had better wash their hands
indeed!

Jess hadn’t planned to bother with make-up, but now she drew in a fat brown line of the eyeliner Steph had given her for her birth-day and added mascara just to make the point to her aunt that this girl had grown up.

Downstairs in the big kitchen, Dad was sitting in a comfortable seat with a glass of wine in his hand, while Uncle Phil carved a joint of roast beef and Aunt Caroline fussed about with vegetables, gravy and trimmings. Caroline really didn’t look like Dad. She looked like a different generation altogether with her long cardigans, her silky blouses, her pearl earrings and her fondness for long plaid skirts. Jess thought of Mum, who wore funky modern clothes and never looked her age. Mum would have used Aunt Caroline’s beige silky blouse for a duster.

She slipped into a chair and Caroline put a big plate of roast beef in front of her.

“I don’t eat meat, Aunt Caroline,” Jess said politely.

“Nonsense,” said her aunt. “A growing girl like you needs red meat. Eat up, we don’t have any of that vegetarian nonsense in this house.”

Jess looked to her dad for back-up as she didn’t want to be rude. She hadn’t eaten meat for nearly three years, and she wasn’t about to start now. But Dad gave her an apologetic look across the table, as if to say, “Go on, eat it, don’t upset your aunt.”

Jess stared back down at the plate. She couldn’t eat meat and she didn’t want to eat vegetables that had touched meat. Why hadn’t Dad said anything to Aunt Caroline? Mum would have: Mum would have told her straight off.

Jess was hungry, but she only allowed herself to nibble the veg-etables that hadn’t been near the offending roast beef. Aunt Caro-line kept shooting her disapproving glances, her lips pursed like a prune. To make up for all the food she couldn’t eat, Jess ate lots of garlic bread. If Aunt Caroline said one word to Jess, she’d tell her in no uncertain terms that she didn’t eat meat and that was it.

Luckily, Caroline said nothing about the untouched food on her niece’s plate. Instead, she directed most of her talk to Dad, which was fine with Jess because it meant she didn’t have to answer ques-tions. A lot of Aunt Caroline’s conversation revolved around what she called “the you-know-what.”

Jess figured out that this meant divorce or separation. It was as if Caroline didn’t want to actually say the words with Jess present. Did she think Jess was six instead of sixteen?

“It’s not the end of the world and you just have to look forward to the future,” Aunt Caroline said several times. “Lots of people get on with their lives and are perfectly happy, Tom.” She patted Dad’s arm a lot. He’d have a bruise in the morning, Jess thought to her-self. Aunt Caroline was a big woman.

Jess helped tidy up, and then Aunt Caroline brought out a huge syllabub-type thing from the fridge. Pale pink and glistening, it wobbled horribly in its bowl and Jess thought she’d be sick if she had to eat any of it.

“I don’t really like desserts,” she said quickly, in case she was forced to eat some.

“That’s all right then,” said Aunt Caroline in the sort of voice people used when they were trying to humour difficult children. “Would you like to run along and watch some television?”

Grateful for the reprieve, Jess ignored the patronising way her aunt had said it, and smiled “yes.”

She asked if she could get herself a glass of orange juice from the fridge, then headed for the living room. From the comfort of a big armchair, she could hear the buzz of conversation from the kitchen, and she knew that Aunt Caroline was really talking about the di-vorce now.

Sometimes, fragments of conversation drifted across the hall into the living room.

“I always knew you shouldn’t have married her,” Aunt Caroline said in a distraught, tipsy voice. “I always knew she wasn’t the woman for you. Mother knew it too, but would you listen to us? No.”

Jess flicked around with the television zapper until she found something she liked watching. She turned the volume up. She didn’t want to listen to Aunt Caroline running down her mother. And it didn’t sound as if Dad was standing up for Mum, either. Jess knew that it was Mum’s fault that they’d split up. She knew that Mum had done a terrible thing but she was sorry for it. She would have loved Dad to come back. But Dad wasn’t giving her a chance, was he?

Even with the TV loud, she could still hear some of the conver-sation from the kitchen. Now Caroline was going on about Mum’s career and how that had ruined the family. That wasn’t a fair thing to say, Jess thought. Mum worked really hard and her money had meant a lot to the family. So, Dad had found it difficult when Mum was earning more money than he was, but men were funny about money, Jess knew—she read
Cosmopolitan
magazine sometimes—but guys had to deal with this, didn’t they? Surely what was important was that the family as a unit was making a living, not who was making most of the money. And Jess was proud of Mum for what she’d done with her life. None of her friends’ mums had ever achieved anything like Mum had. Jess used to say that having a famous mother wasn’t anything to write home about, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t secretly proud of her.

And Dad needed to understand that. If ever they got a chance to talk during the weekend, Jess promised herself that she’d tell him so.

She turned the TV up even louder. Aunt Caroline would proba-bly complain but tough titty. By the sounds of it, they were getting through plenty of wine in the kitchen. They probably couldn’t hear themselves anymore, never mind the TV.

The next morning after breakfast, Steph rang Jess on her mobile.

“How’s it going, babes?” she asked perkily.

“Don’t ask,” Jess said.

Aunt Caroline had actually provided Coco Pops for her for breakfast, which was nice, in that it meant her aunt was trying to be thoughtful, but irritating because she’d got it wrong.

“They still think I’m a kid,” she told Steph angrily. “I’m surprised Aunt Caroline didn’t go out and buy some
Thomas, the Tank Engine
books and leave them in my room along with some crayons and a join-the-dots pad.”

“Ouch, Coco Pops, that’s bad,” said Steph. “You should have borrowed my Wonderbra and black chiffon top,
then
they’d know you weren’t a kid.”

Jess laughed. “You know I don’t have anything to put in your Wonderbra, so I’d look even more of a loser then—just someone who wanted tits and didn’t have them.”

“Why don’t you go out, buy some cigarettes and hang around the back garden smoking and looking moody,” Steph suggested. “That’s what I do whenever any of my rellies carry on like I’m a kid. That soon makes them see that I am a woman.” She pronounced the word “woman” with a twang. “That and my see-through chiffon shirt.”

Jess smiled at the thought. “Aunt Caroline would probably have me carted off by social services if I turned up with a packet of fags. She’d also have whoever sold them to me arrested. I hate being here,” she added gloomily. “She keeps making remarks about Mum all the time. At least last night she waited until I was out of the room, but this morning she said several things when I was there, really hurtful stuff.”

“I just don’t understand it,” her aunt had said as she cooked breakfast for her brother. “How could any mother live with herself when she’s using her family to get cheap publicity for some hopeless tabloid television show. Disgraceful, that’s what I call it.”

Jess waited for her dad to stand up for Mum but he didn’t.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Aunt Caroline,” Jess said coldly. “Mum isn’t like that. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about what was happening. The papers are interested in her because she’s famous. If you want to bitch about her, please don’t do it when I’m here.”

She left the room feeling so angry she could barely see straight. She knew Aunt Caroline would be pissed off with her for the whole of the rest of the weekend and probably Dad would be too, but she didn’t care. Abby was her mother and she expected Caroline at least to respect her.

“Old people have no sensitivity,” Steph agreed, when she heard the story. “Just ignore the bitch. She’s probably jealous ’cos your mum is kicking and she’s an old crone. What sort of town is it any-way? Can you go out shopping and spend the day ignoring them?”

“Good idea,” said Jess.

She slammed the front door deliberately when she left. She didn’t care. Let them see that she was angry. She walked down the main street and began to wander in and out of clothes shops, thinking of how much more fun she’d have had if Steph was with her. Nobody could shop like Steph. At least she had some money. Mum had given her some before the weekend, saying that she knew that Jess might like to get away on her own for a while. Mum had been right about that.

She’d been gone about an hour when Dad rang.

“Hi, Jess, is everything OK?” he asked anxiously.

“Everything is fine,” Jess said in cool measured tones.

“Listen,” Dad said hesitantly, “I’m sorry about earlier. Caroline didn’t mean to say those things about your mum—”

“Yes, she did,” Jess said firmly, “and, what’s worse, you didn’t cor-rect her. I didn’t come over here to listen to people bitch about Mum all the time. I thought you were both going to act like adults about this break-up.” There was silence at the other end of the phone.