Moderate Violence (4 page)

“In a hurry?” he asked.

“Things to do,” she said over her shoulder, hauling
open the swing door to the shop floor.

“See you next week, maybe.”

“I doubt it,” said Jo, and set off for the bus stop.

* * * * * *

“But you like Ed, don’t you?” asked Pascale.
“Holly told me you do. Didn’t you, Hol?”

Holly, Pascale and Jo were in the school library,
whispering. “I
do
like Ed, but
not in the going-out-with sense, obviously,” explained Jo.

Pascale frowned. “Are you telling me my boyfriend’s not
fanciable?”

“No, of course not. But isn’t Tom Clarke your boyfriend
now?”

“Jo, how can you be so
stupid
?”
Pascale looked at Jo critically. “And by the way, did you know you’ve got a
spot coming on your cheek?”

“It’s not a spot, I walked into a rose bush.”

“A
rose bush
?”
said Holly and Pascale together.

Mrs Alder, the librarian, passed by their table, her
lips pursed in a silent “Sh!”

“I can’t stand this,” said Holly, closing her folder. “Let’s
go.”

“But we’re revising,” said Jo.

“No we’re not, we’re talking about boys. And study
leave starts next week, thank God.”

It was a perfect May day. The windows were open to the
kind of sunshine that made Jo suddenly remember what summer felt like. It was
the first period after lunch, and the bench under the blossom tree at the edge
of the field was empty. Holly sat down at one end of it. “Tell us about this
job, then, Jo,” she said.

Gordon had called the afternoon before and, to Jo’s
great surprise, had offered her the job. She assumed one of the others must
have been hit by a bus or been offered something better somewhere else.

“Do you get money off the clothes?” asked Pascale. She
was standing with her back to the sun, which lit the edges of her plentiful
hair and threw the face that launched a thousand crushes into shadow. Even as
Jo said the words she could feel herself regretting it.

“Twenty percent.”

“Ooh! Can you buy things for other people?”

“I expect so, if I pretend they’re for me.”

“Shotgun first go, then!” Pascale settled herself and
her pile of books next to Holly, barely leaving room on the bench for Jo. “I’ll
come and try some things on this Saturday.”

“No you won’t,” said Jo. She sat down on the grass. “I’ve
got to buy some things to wear while I’m working, and there’s a limit on what I
can spend. They’re not completely stupid, you know.”

“So who else works there? Anyone nice?” asked Holly. Her
whole face was smiling. She looked ridiculously pretty, as she always did. She
was more beautiful than Pascale in every way except possibly her one crooked
front tooth. But the boys still went for Pascale. Since when had boys been put
off a beautiful girl by a wonky tooth? Jo had abandoned the search for an
explanation years ago.

She knew she shouldn’t tell them, but she couldn’t help
it. “I don’t start until Saturday, so I don’t know which of the two other
people who were interviewed got the job. But they both looked
OK.”

“Anyone from Kingsgrove?” asked Pascale.

“No, they’re more like college students,” Jo told her. She
paused, trying to picture OBH Girl and GL Boy. She couldn’t, after such a brief
acquaintance. “Or maybe they’re just people who want a part time job that might
turn into a full time one.”

Like me, she thought.

Pascale had her boy-detecting antennae flashing. “So
when you say they look OK…”

“All right, Cal,” said Jo. “One of them’s male. And
yes, he’s quite good-looking. But that’s all I know about him.”

“And he might not have got the job, so you’ll never see
him again anyway,” observed Holly sensibly.

“But there’s a chance you
will
,” insisted Pascale. “How sweet! Our little Jo in a shop
all day with a good-looking boy!”

Holly leaned towards Jo, the sun full in her face,
brightening her hair to an even more blazing gold than usual. “Don’t listen to
her,” she said. “Jealousy’s rotting her brain cells. Personally I hope the
girl
got the job if it’ll shut Pascale
up.”

“So do I,” said Jo, though this was untrue. Making
Pascale jealous was a novel experience. “And by the way, look who’s turned up.”

Mrs Cadwallader, the Deputy Head, crossed the field and
gave them a look of loathing. “Have you permission to be out here, girls?”

“Yes, miss,” said Holly, who was always the boldest in
these situations.
Fairly adult
indeed. Holly was always doing thoughtful things like defending Jo against
Pascale’s shamelessness. Yet here she was, lying with demure proficiency to Mrs
Cadwallader like every actress’s portrayal of a schoolgirl.

“Well, I just hope you
have
,”
said Mrs Cadwallader uneasily.

The bell rang. Sandwiched between Holly and Pascale as
they walked across the field, Jo longed to be left to herself. When they
reached the crowded corridor, she quickened her step.

Holly immediately caught up. “So what are we doing on
Friday?” she asked. Someone’s bag clouted her in the chest. “Excuse
me!
Are you trying to kill me? God, this
school’s full of hooligans. Can’t wait till Sixth Form. I could have given that
clown a punishment if this was next year. I mean, we should go somewhere to
celebrate the start of study leave.”

“Um…” Jo didn’t consider several weeks of being in the
house all day with newly-unemployed Trevor a cause for celebration. “Press
Gang?”

Press Gang was a café-bar. Until a couple of years ago
it had been an ordinary riverside pub, but new management had restyled it. The
dark wood interior had been replaced with polished floors and metal tables, and
the bar now served coffee, cakes and cocktails. It now seemed to be more of a
café really, and it was generally accepted in the neighbourhood as a gathering-place
for anyone who was too young to get into a real pub. Jo didn’t like it much. The
garden tables and benches were sticky, the ashtrays seldom emptied, and you had
to check your change.

“We
always
go to Press Gang,” complained Holly. “What about a Chinese instead?”

“Since when have I eaten that muck?” asked Pascale, who
had caught up too. “
And
it’ll
only be the three of us,” she added gloomily. “Ed works at Burgerblitz till
eleven thirty on Friday nights.”

“Tom Clarke?” suggested Jo.

Pascale stopped, ignoring the two people behind her who
walked into her. She gave Jo’s shoulder a small push. “Will you just
shut up
about Tom Clarke?”

Mr Phipps was already in the Maths room, writing on the
board.

“What’s up with Cal?” whispered Jo as she and Holly sat
down at the front with the no-hopers. Pascale was good at Maths, so she sat in
the back row. But even if she hadn’t been, Mr Phipps would have put her there. He
knew that if he wanted the boys to do any work he mustn’t let them see her. Even
her back view.

“Tom didn’t bite, I think,” said Holly, searching her
pencil case busily.

Jo suddenly felt, very strongly, that she didn’t want
to go to Press Gang with Holly and Pascale, or Tom, or Ed, or anyone, on Friday
or any day. From nowhere the memory of pressing her cheek into the DVD flooded
her head. Unconsciously she raised her hand to the wound. The mark had scabbed
over, and Jo had picked the scab off and blobbed make-up on the crater, which
was why Pascale had assumed it was an incipient spot. But it wasn’t a spot, it
was a cut she’d inflicted on herself. The DVD case resting against her cheek.
The feeling of pressing down on it. The sudden jolt of pain. More pressure,
more pain, growing and growing, blotting everything else out…She took a deep
breath, suddenly feeling dizzy and nauseous. “Look, Hol, you two do what you
like, but I think I should get an early night on Friday as I’m starting work in
the shop the next day.”

 Holly started to say something, but at that moment Mr
Phipps roared for the class to shut up, so Jo didn’t have to answer her, or
even look at the astonishment on her face.

* * * * * *

His name was Toby.

On that first morning, Jo hardly saw him as he worked
upstairs in Menswear, supervised by Gordon. Downstairs in Womenswear Jo tried
to take in what Eloise was explaining. Eloise was patient, but training Jo had
to be fitted between serving customers. It was slow work.

“Look, Jo,” Eloise said at half past eleven, glancing
round the crowded shop. “There’s new summer stock in the stockroom to be
sorted. T-shirts. Will you unpack them and put them on hangers? When you’ve
done that you can go to lunch. Just tell me when you’re going.”

Eloise needed a break from having to look out for Jo,
and Jo couldn’t blame her. “OK,” she said, watching Eloise wrap up a raspberry
mini-skirt for a woman who looked at least thirty years too old to wear it. Of
course, it could have been for her daughter. Or granddaughter.

“Just make sure the size on the T-shirt is the same as
the size on the hanger,” said Eloise. “They’re already priced. Here’s the card
for the stockroom door.”

Even someone as new as me can do a simple job like
this, thought Jo. She smiled with what she hoped Eloise would think was
confidence. “Right. I’m on it.”

Rose and Reed’s classy decor ended when you pushed the
door marked
Staff Only
. The
office where Gordon had interviewed Jo was the only room with a window. Everywhere
else was below street level. There was the stockroom, a tiny toilet and the
optimistically-named Staff Room, which was an oblong space with a lockable
cupboard for employees’ belongings, two hard chairs and a kettle. These rooms
were artificially lit, with no air conditioning and nothing on the walls except
staff rotas and a notice about fire regulations. Jo slid the card Eloise had
given her down the slot on the stockroom lock, feeling as if she were
descending into a bunker to await the end of the world.

It looked to Jo as if there were more T-shirts than
every branch of Rose and Reed could sell in the entire summer. They filled
three huge boxes, one of which had been damaged, so that its polythene-bagged
contents had slid out like lava across the floor. Jo looked around. “So where
are these hangers, then?” she muttered.

Toby’s head came round the door. “You talkin’ to me?”
he said, like Robert De Niro in
Taxi Driver
.

Jo went pink. “No, I didn’t know you were there. I was
just wondering where the hangers are. I’ve got to put these T-shirts on them.”

He came in and looked around. “Nice place you’ve got
here.”

Jo couldn’t think of a reply, so she shrugged.

“I’m on my lunch hour,” he announced. “I’ve got to go
now because Gordon wants his lunch later, and there’s only the two of us up
there. But I could run out for a sandwich and come back and help you. This
looks like a big job.”

Jo tried to refuse, but he ignored her. “Look, why
don’t I get you a sandwich too? You hungry?”

“Yes, but you don’t need to do this.”

“What do you like? Meat or veggy? Cheese?”

“BLT’s my favourite.” Jo tried to listen to herself. She’d
only exchanged a few sentences with him in her life, and now he knew her
favourite sandwich. If he asked her what size her bra was, would she tell him?

“BLT it is, then. And a Coke? Or juice, or water?”

“Diet Coke would be good. Thanks.”

“No problem.” He started to close the door, then opened
it again. “The hangers are in a box behind those rails,” he told her. “The
sizes are all mixed up, though.”

“Thanks,” said Jo again.

When he’d gone she stood in the middle of the stockroom
floor and sighed. She felt like the miller’s daughter in
Rumpelstiltzkin
, a story Tess had
eventually refused to read any more because four-year-old Jo always started
crying when Rumpelstiltzkin demanded the newborn baby. The miller’s daughter
couldn’t spin straw into gold, and Jo wasn’t confident she’d be able to unfold
and hang up all these T-shirts on the right hangers. But the miller’s daughter
still got her prince.