When Good Friends Go Bad (22 page)

'Ah Miss Bedlow, we mustn't keep meeting like this.' Tom Dugan's voice came from behind Jen's left ear. She'd been studying the old school photos someone had pinned on boards all along the corridor. 'People might talk.'

She turned around. 'Oh, let them,' she quipped back. 'Too late to expel me now.'

'Are you in any of those?' He removed some reading glasses from his inside jacket pocket, placed them on the bridge of his nose and peered closer. 'Where did they all come from?'

'I expect people sent them in or emailed them,' she shrugged. 'Those eighties hairstyles – hilarious, eh?'

'The Maggie Thatcher milk-snatcher years. Power dressing, shoulder pads and Harry Enfield waving his loadsa money about. Who'd guess we'd look back on them as the good old days.' Tom removed his glasses and began walking along the corridor with her towards the gym. 'Are you married, Jen?'

'Yes . . . I mean no. Recently divorced. You?'

'It didn't work out for me either. I'm what you call an incurable romantic. Maybe I never met the right woman,' he said wryly. 'I thought I did once but . . .' He looked suddenly wistful. 'I loved not wisely, but too well. Oh help, do you remember this record?'

Wham's 'Careless Whisper' was playing at top volume.

'God, George Michael. I had such a mammoth crush on him. Broke my heart when it came out he was gay.'

He smiled and held out his elbow. 'Fancy a dance?'

'Oh go on then.'

He led her on to the dance floor, still chatting. 'So the four of you have stayed in touch all this time?'

Jen had to raise her voice to be heard about the din of the music. 'On and off.' It was too much bother to explain.

'I thought you'd be old and frail,' she said as Tom grabbed her right hand with his left and whirled her round. 'Crooked stick, rheumy eyes, Zimmer frame.'

'Hey, I was one of the youngest on the staff, you know,' he laughed as he moved. 'A rookie. This was my first teaching job.'

'No! We must have been a nightmare.'

'Oh, it wasn't so bad.' He swung her back again.

'So you decided not to come in uniform?' he asked, indicating a pair of gymslip-clad women joking with a guy drunkenly displaying the old school tie knotted around his head. 'I reckon you're one of the few that could probably still fit into yours.'

Had she heard right? Was Mr Dugan coming on to her, or was she imagining the little spark between them? Blinking, she averted her eyes from his gaze, pleased by the compliment, yet half expecting to see Georgina and Meg falling about with laughter as they watched her. She was so out of practice – she felt like a sixteen-year-old pretending to be grown-up.

'Just as well I didn't,' she responded, alcoholic courage overcoming embarrassment. 'Everyone's been telling me my skirt was so tiny it looked like a handkerchief.'

'Really?' He raised his eyebrows in devilish fashion. 'We teachers weren't allowed to notice things like that.'

'You mean not unless you were measuring them for detentions?' She batted her eyelids, growing bolder.

'Yes, well, the job had to have some perks.' He grinned at her. 'Don't mind me, I'm teasing. So, any kids?' He twirled her and pulled her so that her back was against him, rocking from side to side.

She felt her cheeks grow even hotter at his proximity. 'Just Chloe, she's nine.'

He spun her round to face him, no longer in time with the music.

'I can't say I'm terribly sorry you're single again, Jennifer Bedlow.' They'd stopped swaying but his hand still clutched hers. The record came to an end and they broke apart.

Jen's cheeks were still burning two dances later. She'd had a few glasses of wine and her former English teacher was clearly flirting greedily with her. Not only that, she was really quite enjoying it much to the disgust of some white-haired old man who was staring at them disapprovingly over the top of his gold-rimmed spectacles.

The opening notes of 'Karma Chameleon' warbled in the air and Jen had a sudden flashback of dancing to it in her bedroom with Rowan around the age of thirteen, back in the days when they'd attended the weekly disco at the local church hall. Being a musician's daughter, Meg unsurprisingly moved like someone who'd been dancing since a toddler, letting the music carry her away. Georgina found it all too strenuous with the excess weight that she carried. But Rowan and Jen, well, they'd practise for hours so they wouldn't look silly in front of everybody.

'Forward two steps, left foot, back together, side twist, side twist.' Rowan showed her how.

'Isn't it forward back, forward back, side twist, side twist?' Jen had argued.

'That's not the way Boy George did it on
Top of the Pops
the other night.'

'Jenny, Rowan – can I come in?' Jen's dad poked his head round. 'All right, darling? I'm just popping to Sainsbury's. You two OK on your own?'

'Of course, Dad.'

'Don't do anything I wouldn't do.'

'Yes, Mr Bedlow,' Rowan smiled. 'We won't.'

They heard his feet running downstairs and Rowan turned to Jen, her eyes shining. 'Oh, he's so sweet,' she gushed.

'Sweet? My dad? You must be joking.'

Jen was just reaching those dangerous teenage years where sometimes she loved her dad more than anything else in the world and other times she couldn't imagine anyone more dense or annoying.

'I wish my da was still alive. Hey, wouldn't it be the best if your da and my mam fell in love and married!' Rowan linked her little finger to Jen's in their secret handshake, 'I'd be a Bedlow then and we'd be sisters.'

'Yeah, it'd be cool,' Jen had laughed, although thinking the last thing she'd want was Rowan's mum for a stepmother. But they'd gone through a spell of fantasising about the family they could be. Calling each other 'sis', even telling shopkeepers and other strangers they were twins, which was hysterically funny to them both because they looked nothing alike. More than once it had thrown them into such helpless giggles that they'd been sent packing from a shop before they could buy anything at all.

'. . . in time,' Tom was saying.

'Pardon?' Jen looked up at his wistful expression, realising she'd not heard a word he'd said.

'I was saying how it's odd coming to Ashport-on-Sea. A real step back in time.'

'You're right there.'

'Karma Chameleon' had faded out to be replaced by 'All Around the World', an old Lisa Stansfield classic

They danced closer now, humming along, his chin nestling into her hair. It felt good to be in someone's arms. Flattering to have the attention. He was stroking her back. Gentle, little circular movements, but it made her go all a-quiver. She was feeling dangerous tonight. Dangerous and decadent.

The music came to a halt and they pulled apart. It was already approaching ten o'clock, and more people were leaving now than arriving. Jen had to resign herself to the fact that Rowan wasn't going to show.

'Drink?' He led her towards the bar.

'Mmm. Please. White wine.'

Meg trotted over, looking slightly bleary. 'You'll never guess who I just met?'

Jen grinned. 'Tom, remember Meg Lennox? Say hello to Mr Dugan, Meg.'

'Hello, sir.' Meg's mouth tightened in disapproval as she glanced at Jen's hand clutching his elbow.

Tom smiled. 'Hi, Meg. Great to see you again. Can I get you a drink?'

'Jen, guess who I just met,' Meg persisted, ignoring Tom's offer. Jen shrugged, irritated that Meg couldn't take two seconds to be more polite to him. Meg sighed in defeat. 'Gregory Henshaw! He was the one Rowan went out with for a week and then I made out with him a few times because really Rowan hadn't liked him in the first place, but I thought he was quite cute and she didn't mind, so. Anyway, even Georgina admitted to having been on a date with him. He was our shared boyfriend!'

'Ah, high school,' Tom sighed. 'Those were the days.'

'You all got off with him? Where was I?' Jen demanded.

'How would I know?' Meg sounded pissed off. 'Riding your nags? Snogging yourself senseless with Aiden?' It hit Jen like a slap. Meg was only repeating what she'd heard Beryl Johnson say earlier that evening but still, under their current alliance, diplomacy had prevented them all from mentioning that topic until now. She let go of Tom's arm, feeling suddenly under attack.

'Would you like anything?' Tom repeated to Meg missing the tension.

'No ta,' Meg said dismissively.

In silence they watched him approach the person behind the makeshift bar table, pointing to one of the open bottles. Jen grabbed Meg pulling her a few feet away.

'What's up with you?' Jen hissed as glasses were filled and Tom counted out pound coins. 'Why are you being so blinking rude?'

'What's up with me?' Meg hissed back. 'You've been smooching on the dance floor for the last twenty minutes or more. Aren't you a little old to be playing teacher's pet? We're supposed to be . . .'

She broke off. Tom was back, holding a glass of wine out to Jen.

Cautiously Jen took a sip. It was the same vinegary disaster she'd been drinking all evening, Chateau Piss-de-Chat, but after the fourth or fifth glass you no longer shuddered. 'So any leads on Rowan?' she asked, forcing herself to sound casual in front of Tom.

'Nada,' Meg replied. 'How's your search for info going?' She glanced meaningfully from Jen to Tom. 'Hard at it, are you?' she sniped, her voice laden with sarcasm. 'No
worm
unearthed. Oops, I'm sorry, I mean no stone unturned.'

'Exploring every avenue,' Jen answered, waving her glass tipsily and refusing to be baited. She was having too good a time.

'She even sent me out there,' Tom offered, putting an arm over Jen's shoulders. 'Scouring the room for signs of Rowan.'

'Well, she seems to have disappeared off the earth.' Georgina suddenly appeared at Jen's right shoulder. 'Hello, Mr Dugan.'

'Tom,' Jen corrected as Georgina formally shook his hand. 'Mr Dugan makes him feel old.'

'Come on,' Meg grabbed Jen's arm and tugged her forward. 'I need you to sort out the ticket box.'

'What ticket box?'

'It was meant to be your shift,' she said testily. 'It's on the rota chart.'

Baffled, Jen allowed herself to be marched swiftly across the hall, feeling guilty for abandoning Georgina once again. Oh well, Tom would look after her.

'There is no ticket box,' Meg admitted when she finally halted in the girls' toilets. On the wall next to the sink was an extremely inaccurate picture of a penis, below the words 'Mick Morris is a prick'. 'I was just rescuing you from that slimebag Dugan.'

'He's not a slimebag,' Jen said, offended. 'What the hell's up with you tonight? He's actually very nice. I remember us talking once about which teachers we could go for and you said Mr Dugan was at the top of your list.'

'Oh
puleeze.'
Meg's eyes glittered like bottle-green glass through her jet-black kohl eyeliner. 'The dude liked to get high and so did I and that was about all he had going for him.'

'You smoked dope with a teacher?' Jen was shocked.

'Maybe I didn't actually smoke it with him but he bought it from Herb. Quite a few of them did.'

Her pinched little face staring back at Jen in the mirror suddenly looked intense and shrewish. 'I wouldn't care,' her tone hardened now, 'but it seems suddenly you're so hot for him you've forgotten all about why we're here.'

Jen clutched the sink, feeling groggy, her head spinning from the wine and the injustice of the remark. And even if it had been true, so what? If she were just enjoying herself for once . . . How dare Meg criticise her like that? After they'd all gone so far out of their way to help her. And what was it all for, anyway?

'I don't trust Meg,' Aiden had said, the day he'd dropped her phone round. 'She's always been purely out for herself. And this angel-message business, you must know it's bollocks. Been snorting angel dust more likely. What do you think she's up to?'

'She has the pact with Rowan.' Jen frowned, wondering what he was getting at.

'You believe that?'

'You don't?' She was surprised. Hadn't he been the first to suggest they help Meg? What had changed his mind?

'It makes no sense.' He shook his head. 'She's flown thousands of miles so that if her cancer proves fatal someone she hasn't seen for twenty-two years will take her kid. Think about it.'

She did. It sounded ridiculous.

'I don't think that's the whole reason she came.' She felt like a defence lawyer, handed the case with half the files missing on the morning of jury summation. 'She said she was getting medical tests.'
And her angel told her.
Did Jen believe in angels? Evidently Aiden didn't.

'For this so-called lump? What, they don't have oncologists in the States now? Has she told you any more? Like what the results were?'

'Maybe she hasn't got them back yet.' Jen had to admit she thought it odd. Surely it would be criminal to keep people in suspense this long.

'How many weeks can it take,' Aiden echoed her thoughts, 'if it's life-threatening?'

'She'll tell us when she's ready,' Jen had said firmly, dismissing the nagging memory of Meg's many childhood fabrications that had turned out to be untrue.

'I hope so. I don't trust her.' His hand landed warm and heavy on Jen's shoulder, his eyes shone with concern. 'I hate to be the old cynic saying watch your back. But watch your back.'

Now in the toilets, where they used to hide smoking between classes, Meg was staring accusingly at her as if she'd forgotten everything they were doing was all for her. The ungrateful cow. In a rush it all came back to Jen. How jealous Meg had been of any boy who liked Jen instead of her. How tough she'd made it for her and Aiden when they first got together. Meg could be such fun, it was easy to forget she could also be incredibly self-seeking.

'It's got nothing to do with Rowan, has it?' Jen said. 'You're just rattled because Tom likes me better and you used to have a thing for him.'

'Don't be a moron.' Meg threw her a withering look. 'I'm ticked because this might be our last chance to ferret out any potential trace of Rowan and you're just pissing it away on some creep that Linda Petroski says . . .'