Every Good Girl (27 page)

Nina and Sally were in Art and Soul early in the morning before the gallery's opening time, sitting on the floor unpacking boxes of greetings cards. The cards were hand-painted watercolours of beaches, with tiny shells and little fragments of striped fabric stuck on them. Quite a lot of the bits of decoration had fallen off, leaving a gritty heap at the bottom of the box.

‘What do you think these bits are meant to represent?' Sally asked, holding up a square inch of blue and white fabric.

‘Deckchairs? Windbreaks?' Nina suggested. ‘Titchy little hankies, the sort that men in cartoons tie on their heads in the sun?'

‘I think I'll just stick some back on at random. No-one'll notice.'

‘No-one but the artist. She's bound to come in and check what we've sold. They always do.'

‘That's true. It's as if they can't quite let go, a bit like driving a hundred miles to drop in casually on your child when he's gone off to college, and then being surprised when he isn't overjoyed to see you.'

‘I hope I don't feel tempted to do that when Emily goes. She'd probably pretend she didn't know me.'

‘You won't, don't worry. It's mothers of boys who do that sort of thing. You know what we're like, we just can't believe our little soldiers can actually work a launderette or open a packet of biscuits without Mummy's help.' Sally was laughing, but then became more serious. ‘But then you see, they seem to be so much more loving than girl-children. They don't insist they don't need us and battle for their freedom from the day they're born like girls do. So it's rewarding and you just carry on letting them need you for as long as they'll let you.'

‘Just as well I only had girls then,' Nina told her. ‘I don't honestly think I'd treat boys any different, and then they'd blame me for ever for getting it wrong.'

Sally looked thoughtful. ‘It's more to do with the way they treat you,' she said. ‘In the end you have very little choice in it, you just take your cue from them.'

‘My mother, she thinks . . .' Nina began, then hesitated, trying to recall exactly what it was that Monica
had
thought. What had she been most worried about, Graham's moonlight wanderings on the Common or the possibility that he was meeting someone?

‘Thinks what?' Sally prompted gently, putting the cards down and rearranging her large legs on the gallery carpet.

‘I
think
she thinks Graham's seeing someone secretly. At least, he goes out at night looking shifty and says he's going bird-watching out on the Common,' Nina told her.

Sally chuckled, ‘Well I won't say “What do you mean ‘secretly' at his age” because I know what their set-up is. But why does she think so and what is she planning to do about it? Send a private detective out to
have him followed? Give him a clip round the ear and keep him in for a couple of weeks till he comes to his senses?'

Nina stood up and stretched her stiff limbs. ‘No idea,' she said, going through to the back room and filling the kettle. She felt slightly queasy, which she put down to having only had a half-ripe pear for breakfast, and in immediate need of a cup of milkless tea. ‘I think she should simply mind her own business.' She stood in the doorway and looked back at Sally. ‘And I'm going to tell her to do exactly that.'

Sally laughed, ‘OK go ahead, Graham will be right behind you!'

Lucy seemed to be feeling strangely benevolent towards Sophie, considering the way Sophie had stolen the Barbados modelling job from her. On the evening before Sophie and Megan were to leave, Lucy wanted to go across the road to deliver a carefully wrapped goodbye and good luck present.

‘You don't have to come, I can go by myself,' she insisted to Nina, fending off any threat of being accompanied. Nina was busy hanging up a new emerald and sky blue blind at the front window of the basement, standing precariously on a chair and wishing she'd remembered that it was quicker and easier to attach all the cords before the final hanging, not after. She felt vaguely conscious of being watched as across the road, up at his study window, she could just make out Paul working at his drawing board. There were quick pale flashes as his face turned this way and that, so he might well be having a proprietorial stare up and down the road as he worked, just as Emily had thought. He probably thinks I'm watching
him
, Nina decided, climbing down from the chair and
looking for her shoes under the sofa.

‘Sorry Lucy, but I'm coming with you – and I will be till they've caught that man,' Nina said, heading her daughter off at the back door.

‘But we're miles from the Common, and if you stay here and watch from the window you can even see me every bit of the way!' Lucy protested.

‘We're not miles from the Common, it's just yards. Metres, if you understand that better. And besides, whoever it is has to use the streets to get there so he could be anywhere. So I'm coming with you.' Lucy scowled and Nina became acutely suspicious. ‘What exactly is this present you've got for Sophie? Can I have a look?' She reached for the package but Lucy snatched it out of her way. ‘No! Don't, it's fragile!'

Lucy hid the package behind her back. Nina had caught sight of the label which read
Not to be opened till you're on the beach
in multicoloured ink. Lucy had clearly spent some time working on this. The wrapping paper was hand-made too: pale blue paper painted with palm trees and sandy islands. Nina would have felt touched at her daughter's generosity of spirit if Lucy wasn't looking so decidedly shifty. They stood together at the door glaring at each other, Lucy with the gift still firmly protected behind her back.

‘OK.' Nina relented, for whatever it was it was surely private between Sophie and Lucy, some giggly secret that was none of her business. ‘Let's just take it over to Sophie and give it to her then. I want to wish her and Megan a happy time too.'

Halfway across the road Lucy suddenly stopped. ‘Mum?' she asked tentatively.

‘What is it darling? Come on quick, we'll get run over.' Nina took her hand but it was like dragging at Ghenghis's lead when he'd got the scent of a rabbit in
the opposite direction. Feeling foolish, wondering if Paul could still see them from upstairs in his study, Nina allowed Lucy to pull her back to the pavement. ‘What is it, Lucy?' She put her arms round the girl and pulled her gently against her. ‘Are you still feeling a bit upset that it isn't you who's going? Because if you are, it's not so terrible. It would take a saint not to be the teensiest bit jealous.' Especially, Nina thought privately, as Lucy had not been offered so much as an audition or a quick go-see since the day she'd behaved so appallingly.

‘No honestly, Mum it's not that.' Lucy pulled back and her large blue cat-eyes gazed up wide and wondering. ‘I was just thinking, I hope I can really trust Sophie not to open this present as soon as I'm out of the door. What do you think?'

Nina laughed, ‘Good grief Lucy, only you can know that, she's your friend. If you don't want her to open it why are you giving it to her?'

Lucy pouted. ‘I just
am
. Come on then Mum, let's just go.' Nina took note of the pout. Lucy, in a mood, looked alarmingly sexy. It crossed her mind that the word ‘jailbait' was an ugly and badly thought-out term, as if any man perceiving sexual allure in a child was an innocent party, cajoled and tempted. If Lucy really wanted to continue modelling, she decided, it would have to wait till she was old enough to be doing the choosing about how seductive or not she could be.

Megan opened the door looking unusually flustered. ‘Oh it's you,' she said rather rudely as if she was expecting someone else and was disappointed.

‘I'm sure you're busy, we're just here so Lucy can give something to Sophie,' Nina explained. Paul clattered down the stairs towards them. ‘Don't keep Nina out on the step!' he admonished Megan, ‘Come in Nina
and have a
bon voyage
drink!' Megan glared at Paul but smiled at Nina. ‘Yes, do,' she said. ‘I'm sorry, I've got my mind on the packing. Sophie seems to want to take all her army kit and I've got to find a moment to sneak her camo sweater and boots out of her case while she's not looking.'

‘At least you've persuaded her she won't be needing her woolly balaclava,' Nina commented, noticing it hanging with coats.

‘Oh, yes, after a struggle. She'd only gone and wrapped Paul's Swiss army knife in it and hidden it in her bag. Can't you just imagine the fuss at the airport?'

Nina followed Paul and Megan through to their kitchen where an opened bottle of wine and two glasses were already out on the table. Paul fetched another glass from the dresser.

‘Not for me, thanks,' Megan said, pulling a bottle of mineral water out of the fridge. ‘He doesn't seem to take any notice of this!' she said to Nina with a grin, patting her round stomach. ‘He just thinks life goes on exactly as usual and then it's born, magic! Even Sam sometimes asks me if I'd like a rest and pats the sofa cushions for me.'

‘That's very sweet of him,' Nina agreed. ‘Does he mind you going away with just Sophie?'

Paul handed her a glass of Chardonnay. ‘Oh he won't mind,' he answered for Megan. ‘Sam and I will just hang out and do boys' stuff.' Megan made a face. ‘Like stay up too late, guzzling pizza in front of the box!' she said. ‘Henry's already been round, discussing the big-screen football that's going to be down at the pub. They've promised to let Sam come with them to watch an afternoon match. All that smoky atmosphere and puddles of beer.' She shuddered. ‘Still, you can keep
an eye on them for me, can't you? See they don't starve?'

Nina laughed, sure she was joking, but Megan looked anxious for some reassurance. She couldn't be serious, surely? Did she honestly imagine one grown-up male couldn't be trusted to manage alone with his own child in his own home? Paul sat smiling inscrutably into his glass, looking rather like a teenager with plans teeming in his head for when the parents are away. Nina wondered what those plans were. Possibly they were like the ones Joe used to have, something to do with while the cat's away . . .

‘I'm sure everything will be fine. After all, it's only ten days,' Nina told her. ‘You just go and enjoy yourself and don't waste time worrying whether Paul's cut his finger opening a tin.'

‘So what was the present? Can you tell me now?' Nina asked Lucy as they went back across the road to home. Lucy was smirking, which wasn't a good sign. ‘Just suntan cream,' she said, her eyes still suspiciously wide with false innocence. Nina allowed herself to feel relieved. Somewhere at the back of her mind she'd had a horrible feeling her thwarted daughter might have bestowed on her unsuspecting friend a cute little box containing something disgusting – Genghis-shit maybe, or a couple of gift-wrapped slugs from the garden. Something, anyway, that would ensure her opinion of this trip didn't go unrecognized.

‘What did you think I'd given her?' Lucy's voice rose and she stopped and faced her mother as they reached the gate. ‘Something horrible, I suppose. Do you really think I'm like that? That's so unfair! I hate you!' Lucy dashed ahead into the garden and round to the side gate. It was locked. Emily must have gone out after they'd left and bolted it from the other side.

‘Sorry Lucy,' Nina said, catching up with her and leading her back towards the front door. ‘You can't blame me for wondering, after how upset you were.'

‘Yes I can. You don't trust me. Families should trust each other.
Dad
would have trusted me,' Lucy raged. Inside the house she stormed into the sitting room and switched on the TV. On her way down to the kitchen Nina could see her through the open doorway, stiffly upright on the sofa, arms folded belligerently and a scowl crumpling her pretty features. One foot was swinging angrily to and fro like the tail of a cross cat, and her toe was making provocative contact with Genghis's ear as he lay dozing. She suddenly wished Joe was there to witness this display, Lucy's first serious pre-teen sulk. He was going to miss an awful lot of ‘firsts', and for him, or possibly for her, she found that she minded quite a lot.

In
Man-Date
it said, in Chapter 8, that you should never follow up on a date by ringing the man. You must wait for him to call, the idea being that he was so grateful for your delightful company that he would be sure to ring up and thank you. Problem was, it seemed you needed a man who'd either read the same book or had natural inbuilt wondrous manners. The book didn't cater for any other type – they were the ones you were supposed to dump.

Emily lay on her bed surrounded by school books and shoved her fingers hard into her ears so she wouldn't hear whether the phone rang or didn't. If she was going to revise the path to Othello's downfall she would need to get earplugs to cut out all distractions, or the sad lack of them.

Chloe kept asking if Simon had called and now Nick had got the idea and started having digs about her
Older Bloke. It could only have been Chloe who told him, the two of them seemed to be ganging up sometimes, giggling together in the lunch queue, sharing their geography notes and making gruesome plans for the field trip that involved lots of vodka and midnight visits to each other's rooms. When Nick talked to Chloe he laughed a lot and got very close to her and she sort of leaned on him at the same time. They were so close, Emily noticed, that Chloe was brushing
his
dandruff off
her
shoulders. It was her own fault – if you fight people off for long enough, in the end they get the idea.

Jennifer had changed out of her uniform. Graham almost walked past her as he pushed open the A & E main door, thinking she was a patient's relative, hanging about outside for fresh air or a cigarette.