I Think I'll Just Curl Up and Die (3 page)

‘Why don't we all go to The Stomping Ground on Saturday and Sumitha can bring him!' said Laura, giggling. And I might get to see Jon, she added silently.

‘Great idea,' agreed Chelsea.

Sumitha was not at all sure she wanted to share one second of Bilu's stay with anyone else – but on the other hand, it would be ace to be able to show him off. Her very own boyfriend – and one with a car at that.

‘How was Brittany, Laura?' asked Jemma, suddenly eager to get away from the subject of boyfriends. ‘Did you manage to dispose of the Bestial Betsy?'

‘No chance,' said Laura gloomily. ‘That woman is seriously weird. She kept dashing off to markets to buy oysters and weird cheeses that smelled like cow's dung, and she wears flowers in her hair and has conversations with trees. Insane or what?'

‘What are her kids like?' asked Jemma.

‘Beyond wet,' declared Laura. ‘Mind you, with a mother like that, what chance have they got? There was this huge row one night because Sonia wouldn't let Daryl – who's so uncool you wouldn't believe – play ping pong. My dad told her to grow up and she went mental. I mean, seriously. She yelled at him and said, “You're not my dad, and you can't tell me what to do!” and when my dad tried to reason with her, she just screeched that she hated the lot of us and wished she was dead. Then she ran off.'

‘So what happened?' asked Sumitha.

‘I went to look for her – to get away from Betsy's wittering on about the poor little soul and what a rotten so-and-so my dad was to annoy her. I found her on the beach howling her eyes out. I couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for her – after all, she's only eleven. She was sitting there, hurling bits of shell in to the sea and saying how much she hated my dad, and how she wished he would disappear forever and how her mum ought to know better than to take up with a man like him.'

‘Sounds pretty much like what you say about your mum and Melvyn,' commented Chelsea.

‘Well, I know, but I mean – you simply can't compare my dad with that geek, can you?' demanded Laura. ‘My dad's way intelligent, and brilliant fun and she's blimmin' lucky to have him.'

‘Well, at least your dad is happy,' said Jemma soothingly.

‘Yes, but now my mother's acting all weird. I only have to say half a word and she snaps my head off. She moons around all morning in a dressing gown looking pallid. Actually, what I'm hoping is that she's had a big bust up with the idiot Melvyn while I was away. She hasn't said anything, but she's been really quiet.'

‘That's a bit rough on your mum,' said Chelsea, who secretly couldn't see what was wrong with Melvyn.

‘No, it's not!' shouted Laura. ‘It's time she saw sense. She'll get over it, and anyway, he was never right for her.'

‘Says who?' asked Jemma, a tad ill-advisedly.

‘Says me!' snapped Laura. ‘It's all right for you. Your mum and dad are together. You,' she added emphatically, ‘are not the traumatised child of a broken home.'

The others said nothing. They all knew better than to tackle Laura when she was having a drama-queen moment.

‘Did you meet any dishy guys in Paris, Jemma?' asked Sumitha, for whom any conversation that didn't offer the chance to extol Bilu's virtues held little interest.

‘Not really,' admitted Jemma reluctantly. ‘Not that I didn't chat to loads of cool guys,' she added hastily, ‘but it's a bit difficult to get off with someone when Mr Horage hovers over you like a sentry and Miss McConnell keeps marching you off to see more museums.'

‘Bor-ing!' said Sumitha, doing a mock yawn behind her hands.

‘No, it was good fun really,' insisted Jemma. ‘It was just so great not having Mum clucking over me like a headless chicken all the time. Mind you, she's making up for lost time now. I've found this cool diet to go on and now my mum thinks I'm going to fade away to nothing.' She paused, hoping that everyone would chorus ‘Oh but Jemma, you've got a lovely figure, you don't need to diet!' They didn't.

‘What about this guy that you met in Spain?' Sumitha asked Chelsea, deftly steering the conversation back to boys, ‘Does that mean you've gone off Rob?'

‘No way,' said Chelsea. ‘Rob's much nicer. Juan was just useful for the holidays. He followed me everywhere – it
was quite cute. And he kept buying me drinks and chocolate – he even bought me flowers one time.'

‘Wow!' said Jemma. Why couldn't someone buy her flowers?

‘Anyway,' said Chelsea, tossing her chestnut curls and pursing her lips, ‘I got fed up with him – he was only after one thing.'

The others looked impressed. To date, no one had been after anything with them other than a share of their French fries.

‘You mean … ?' said Laura.

‘So what happened?' enquired Sumitha, who felt it might be as well to find out more on these matters.

‘Nothing,' said Chelsea airily, ‘I told him to get lost.'

The others nodded in approval.

‘You've got to be really in love for that,' said Laura, with the voice of one who knows.

‘I'd be scared,' said Jemma, honest as ever.

‘You will know when you have met the right person,' intoned Sumitha, wrapping her arms round her chest and giving herself a little hug. ‘You just know.'

Chelsea said nothing. She wasn't going to let on that Juan had told her he was tired of going round with a kid. A girl has her pride. ‘Should be good this term,' she said brightly in an attempt to divert the conversation away from the passion she wished she could've got a taste of. ‘What with
Oliver!
and everything. Are you going to audition for the Artful Dodger like Mr Horage suggested, Sumitha?'

‘I might,' said Sumitha. ‘But only if they don't have any rehearsals at weekends, because Bilu will want me to be free to see him.'

At that moment, Mrs Farrant appeared at the bedroom door. ‘Thought you might be peckish, petals,' she cooed. ‘I've bought you up some snacks and some drinks.'

‘Thanks, Mrs Farrant,' they chorused.

‘Oh MUM!' said Jemma, as her mother placed the tray on the bedside table. ‘Not animal biscuits! Puh-lease!'

Monday morning brought about a mixture of high hopes and rude awakenings in several households in Leehampton. At 47 Billing Hill, Jon Joseph was gulping his breakfast in the hope of being out of the house before his father launched into his usual first-day-of-term pep talk about consolidated effort, aiming high and buckling down. Dad may have finally accepted that his son had no wish to go to Cambridge and wanted to do art instead, but that didn't stop him exhorting him to hit the heights and put Lowry in the shade.

His father, however, appeared to have other things on his mind.

‘I can't find my red pinstripe shirt!' Henry Joseph bellowed down the stairwell.

‘It's in the ironing basket,' replied his wife Anona calmly, wondering why it was that her husband needed to exercise his vocal chords as if trying to communicate with Belgium.

‘But I need it today!' Henry bumbled into the kitchen, looking faintly ridiculous in a pair of green boxer shorts and yellow socks.

‘So iron it,' replied his wife mildly, ticking off a list as she packed her bag.

Henry stopped dead in his tracks. ‘But you always iron on Sundays,' he said.

‘So this week I didn't,' said Mrs Joseph, turning to him. ‘If you remember, I start my Interior Design course today and I have had more important things to think about than whether the household laundry is up to scratch. Now where did I put those new pastels?'

‘Now look here, Anona,' blustered Henry, his fat cheeks taking on a somewhat mulberry hue. ‘I've got a job to go to. Who is it who will be bringing home the cash now that you've decided to opt out of the job market?'

‘You, dear, for the time being,' replied his wife calmly. ‘Ah, there they are.'

‘Precisely!' expostulated Henry smugly. ‘And just because you're doing some course, you can't expect me to go to work in an unironed shirt.'

‘Of course not, Henry my sweet. As if I would,' Mrs
Joseph smiled beatifically. She had been thinking about this sort of scene for some time and at last she had had the courage to put herself first – calmly and without a fuss. She felt exhilarated. ‘There's the iron – the board's in the cupboard. I'm off. Have a good day, dear.'

She turned to Jon, who was stuffing the remnants of a slice of toast into his mouth and trying not to laugh.

‘Jon? If you want a lift to the bus stop, you'll have to come now. I don't want to be late for registration.'

Jon grabbed his rugby kit and school bag and grinned. He had a feeling his dad was finding it hard to accept that Mum was heading into the big wide world.

‘Bye, Dad!' he called.

His father, clutching a shirt and viewing the iron with the same degree of suspicion as he would greet a boa constrictor, said nothing. It's difficult to talk when you are in a state of advanced shock.

Next door, Jemma Farrant was trying to work out how many calories there were in a blueberry and mango yogurt and one slice of crispbread (no butter, small smear of Marmite). It wasn't easy because on one side her father was holding forth about the importance of the coming school year and the necessity for hard work and the production of superior coursework, and on the other her mother was getting very worked up about Jemma's uneaten Weetabix.

‘Jemma, love, don't you feel well?' she asked, anxiety creasing her forehead.

‘I'm fine, Mum,' sighed Jemma.

‘You must eat to keep your strength up,' insisted her mother. ‘You've got a busy term ahead. Come on now, petal.'

‘Mum, I've told you, I'm on a diet. I've had a yogurt and I'm not hungry. And don't call me petal,' retorted Jemma.

‘But darling, it's so silly to diet at your age – you need all your strength. And besides, you're not fat, not at all.'

Jemma said nothing.

‘Andrew, say something,' said Claire, turning to her husband.

‘Something,' said Jemma's dad.

Ginny Gee waved Chelsea off to school, phoned the office and said she had a touch of Spanish tummy and would be in tomorrow and flopped into an armchair. How come, she thought, her daughter could throw on a cheap skirt and cropped top from the market, wield an eyeliner for five seconds and look like something out of the centrefold of
Style Hi!
while she, Ginny Gee, Agony Aunt and Columnist, was beginning to look saggy and baggy even when dressed in Chic Elite designer clothes?

She poured herself a large mug of coffee and started thinking. Things were not looking good. For one thing, that Barclaycard bill had only been the tip of the iceberg. She knew full well that within a few days MasterCard would be requesting money, the building society would feel obliged to remind her that the last mortgage payment was overdue, and it seemed highly likely that the exhaust would fall off her car the moment she tried to drive it.

The fact was, she loved spending money. And the older she got, the more she loved it. Shopping, whether for clothes or books or simply a new jug for the kitchen, was to her like aspirin to a headache; an effective, if only temporary, relief from the worries and problems of everyday life.

The trouble was that, although she wouldn't admit it to anyone, she wasn't enjoying work as much as she used to. Since winning the Regional Feature Writer of the Year Award, everyone at the paper had expected her to be even more sparkling and thrusting and lively than before and frankly, it was all getting a bit much. The holiday had been great but for the first time ever, she had had no desire to get back to work. In the past she would never have pretended to be ill – in fact, in the past she went to work even when she really was ill.

Barry had been really off with her since yesterday. Oh, she knew she shouldn't really have bought all those clothes but she had to do something to keep her spirits up. She hated getting older, putting on weight and coping with those ghastly hot flushes that made her look like a beetroot and feel like a cauldron of curry. The odd new skirt or pair of shoes made all the difference. And now it seemed she couldn't even have those.

Still, moping wouldn't do any good. She'd phone Ruth Turnbull. Ruth would be a good source of money saving tips – she had had two years of being hard up before Peter sold the family home – and she had managed. Besides, it was time they had a natter. She refilled her coffee cup and went to the telephone. At least it was only a local call, she told herself. And a good gossip was worth its weight in gold.

Laura was just going out of the front door when the phone rang. Perhaps it was Jon, she thought, desperate to see her after so long. She grabbed it on the second ring. ‘Leehampton 870775, Laura Turnbull speaking.'

It wasn't Jon.

‘Oh, hi, Mrs Gee – yes great, thanks. I'll call Mum for you.' Laura yelled up the stairs. ‘Mum, it's Chelsea's mum for you.'

Silence.

‘MUM! Telephone!'

Laura galloped up the stairs two at a time and hammered on the bathroom door.

There was the inimitable sound of heaving.

‘Are you OK, Mum?'

‘No, I am not flaming well OK!' groaned Ruth. ‘Go away.'

Laura pounded back down the stairs.

‘Mum's not feeling too good, Mrs Gee – she says she'll call you back. Pardon? OK, I tell her you'll call again later.'

Laura hung up and hesitated. She wanted to dash to the bus stop in case she caught a sight of Jon on the Bellborough bus. On the other hand, she supposed she ought to stay and see if Mum was all right.