Gorgeous Reads for Christmas (Choc Lit)

by Sue Moorcroft

  His bag was ridiculously heavy. He stashed his afternoon books in the locker.

  ‘Hey, Ross.’

  He turned, with a grin. ‘Hey, Amy! How you doing? Hardly see you these days.’

  What he meant was it was nice that she had stopped ignoring him. He’d been sorry that Amy had taken his getting close to Casey as a sign that she’d been dumped. When he’d closed his locker, they fell in step along the corridor, he heading for Mr Cooper’s registration group, her for Mr Sharpe’s.

  Amy’s fair hair was twisted into a rope over one shoulder, shedding on her navy school sweatshirt. ‘I never see you, Killengrey, doesn’t that girlfriend of yours ever let you off the lead?’

  He laughed. ‘Casey’s not my girlfriend.’

  Amy sniffed. ‘All the more reason to get a life away from her.’

  ‘She’s my friend.’

  They stopped by rooms 56 and 57 and leaned on the radiators. None of the cool kids went into registration until the last possible minute. ‘You used to have loads of those, before you took up with Casey McClare.’

  He stared at her. ‘I have got loads.’

  She pushed the rope of hair back. ‘So why do I keep seeing Ben and Jonny out without you?’

  It was an uncomfortable thought; maybe he ought to make a bit more effort, maybe on the evenings when he didn’t see Casey.

  Later, Ross made sure to walk out of school with Ben and invite him round that evening.

  Ben said. ‘I’ve already arranged to go out with Jonny and Amy.’

  ‘I might come.’

  Ben shrugged. ‘If you like.’

  They were almost at the main road where their routes diverged. ‘Phone still going all right? Only I’ve got some of those that Casey’s mate reconditions, if you’re interested.’

  Ben flushed. ‘I’m OK, thanks.’ He turned and walked quickly towards his home without telling Ross where to meet up that evening. He shrugged, and got his phone out to text Casey. He’d sold an iPod, today.

  She was waiting on the usual bench near the junction of Queen’s Road and King’s Road. ‘Here you are,’ he said as soon as he plumped down beside her. ‘Fifty quid.’

  Casey beamed. ‘Give me forty, then, I’ll pass it on to … Colin.’

  Instead, he handed over the whole fifty. ‘You have my share.’

  She beamed even more widely ‘Let’s go get chips. I’m starving.’

  Outside the chip shop, they saw Ben, Jonny and Amy. As he and Casey queued, Ross saw through the window that Jonny and Amy stood dead close together. Ben looked a bit lost, standing alone and messing with his phone. Ross’s stomach tightened. Ben had been his best mate forever.

  ‘We could hang out here,’ he said as Casey led the way out of the chip shop, stabbing hungrily at her chips with a wooden fork.

  Turning on her heel, Casey simply walked away. Ross hesitated, then followed, feeling slightly stupid. ‘What’s up?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing. I just saw the time. I’m going.’ But then she stopped, staring at a bedraggled figure that had suddenly appeared, his leather jacket ripped and a can of lager in his grubby hand, beard and hair straggly and unwashed.

  Ross stepped up beside Casey, protectively. ‘It’s OK. Just some old wino. Wait till he’s gone.’

  The man staggered to a halt. He wasn’t a big guy; smaller than Ross but still bigger than Casey. ‘Gimme some change. I need a cuppa tea.’

  ‘Got none,’ Ross said, briefly.

  ‘Anything will do.’ The man smiled winningly at Casey, displaying more gaps than teeth. ‘You must have somethin’.’

  ‘Piss off!’ Casey snapped.

  Then suddenly the man was shouting, right in Casey’s face, close enough that Ross could see the seams of dirt engrained in his skin. ‘Gimme some change! I need a cuppa tea!’

  He thrust out his hands and Ross didn’t wait to see where the wino intended them to land. He dropped his cone of chips and planted his hands on the man’s skinny shoulders under his slimy old jacket, and shoved. The man staggered and fell over. Slowly, in the horrified silence, he rolled back to his feet, still clutching his can of lager, hardly seeming to have spilled a drop. As if nothing had happened, he weaved away along the pavement, around the corner and out of sight.

  Casey hadn’t moved.

  ‘You OK?’ Ross asked, awkwardly, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

  His touch seemed to bring her back to life, and she shook it off. ‘That was my dad. Leave me alone.’

  Frozen, Ross watched her stump away, head down and hair flying in the breeze. Then, aware of the others, their expressions registering surprise and sympathy, glanced down at his scattered chips, lying on the pavement in a cloud of steam and vinegar.

  Ben, Amy and Jonny looked on, unspeaking. ‘See you later,’ Ross managed and as he set off up the hill towards Eaton Road the comments they didn’t make about Casey’s behaviour followed him home like sly dogs.

  Ten minutes later, he shoved open the door into the house.

  ‘Hi, Ross,’ Darcie called.

  He threw a glance into the sitting room as he passed. Darcie was lounging across one of the chairs, feet dangling, Kelly curled up in the other, both looking away from the TV with ready smiles.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, briefly, not pausing.

  ‘Casey not with you?’ Darcie called after him.

  He went into reverse. ‘You’d be able to see her, if she was, wouldn’t you? You can’t see her, so she’s not.’

  The smiles fell from both their faces, to be replaced by surprise from Kelly and faint shock from Darcie. It gave him a small angry feeling in his guts. He made once more for the safety of his room, catching Kelly’s muttered, ‘Wow. He’s gone into teenager mode, has he?’

  And Darcie, sounding troubled. ‘I think he’s worried about his friend, Casey. She doesn’t have a good time at home.’

  Reversing sharply into the sitting room doorway once more, he speared his sister with a glare. ‘What do you know about it?’

  Slowly, Darcie’s eyebrows rose, telling him that he was out of order. ‘I know what you wanted me to know when you took me to see her home, Ross.’

  His anger grew. Anger for Casey, anger at Casey. Unreasonably, he felt that Darcie was somehow contributing, sitting there in their nice warm house and talking to him with that teacherish note of warning in her voice. He didn’t know whether to tell her about the incident with the rank old wino, whether she’d think worse of Casey for it. ‘Well, you did fuck all about it, didn’t you?’ he snapped.

  A heartbeat of silence. ‘I don’t think you ought to talk to me like that,’ Darcie said, coolly. ‘What would you like me to do?’

  And he felt about ten again, inarticulate through swirling emotions. He wanted his mum and dad with a sudden fierce longing. Everyone else he knew had at least one of their parents around. It wasn’t that he wasn’t cool with Darcie. He was. But your sister wasn’t meant to turn into your mum, trying to understand you when you felt like crap, telling you off when you acted out, giving you money and talking over your career options with you and vetting your friends. And telling you what constituted help and what constituted betrayal, when things were going badly for them.

  Those were your mum’s jobs.

  Your sister should just be your sister, treating you like a nuisance sometimes and living her own life, and coming up with cool presents at Christmas. He and Darcie were equals, the same height on the family tree.

  You shouldn’t feel like such a shit when you made your sister feel bad. And she shouldn’t make you feel bad when you were cold with misery, anyway. ‘Just forget it,’ he snapped.

  Chapter Eleven

  Monday was one of Darcie’s days off. Ross got up ready for school, face shuttered.

  Hating the tension between them, Darcie gave him extra lunch money and a hug. ‘You know, Ross, there’s not much I can do about Casey’s home life. Can’t you get her to speak to a teacher, or someone? I’m not related to her.
Anything I do will surely be seen as interference.’

  He shot her a thoughtful glance, taking milk from the fridge. ‘You don’t even like her.’

  ‘I don’t know her,’ she temporised. ‘But if you’re truly worried about her, you should suggest she asks for help from someone with a bit of power.’

  He nodded, hesitated as if considering saying more but thinking better of it. ‘Got to go.’ And he left, leaning under the weight of his backpack as if it was stuffed with rocks.

  Darcie pottered through the usual day-off chores, filling the washing machine, running the vacuum cleaner around, writing a shopping list. At the supermarket, she used the ATM, gathering up the crisp twenties and tens it disgorged. She must repay the £40 she owed Jake as soon as possible but he wouldn’t be at the gallery shop today. She didn’t know whether he was still surfing Kelly’s sofa or whether he would have moved into Auntie Chrissy’s house already.

  It was as she was wheeling her trolley over the tarmac that she received a text message from Ross. The students absolutely were not allowed to take mobile phones into school, but it was a rule almost impossible to implement. She paused to read. Casey not here. Not answering txts.

  She answered. Any of her friends heard from her?

  - Nope. Think her dad might b hanging around

  - Perhaps u should tell her form teacher u r worried?

  - Dunno. Gotta go in now

  Darcie’s route from Tesco to Eaton Walk took her down King’s Road. On impulse, she diverted into the Blossom End estate, parking within sight of the house Ross had shown her. It wasn’t hard to recognise, with its filthy net curtains and garden ornaments of discarded household appliances. She didn’t really think that Casey would be in trouble.

  But … what if she was?

  She got out and crossed the green with a firm stride, her keys in her hand. The grass in front of the house had grown so tall it was beginning to fall over, exposing more rubbish. One window was still boarded up.

  Darcie, trying to squash down an entire flight of butterflies swooping into her stomach, rapped at the door. After a pause a gaunt, grubby woman in a droopy T-shirt and washed out leggings opened it. She stared at Darcie owlishly.

  ‘Mrs McClare?’

  The woman frowned.

  Darcie tried to be clearer. ‘Are you Mrs McClare?’

  ‘Me?’ She retreated behind the door as if worried that Darcie would somehow force Mrs McClareness on her. ‘No.’

  A fat man slouched into the hall. He was even grubbier than the woman, shirt-front blotched with what looked like beer, worn and rubbed shiny trousers unfastened below a big belly. Darcie tried again. ‘Mr McClare?’

  With a sidelong glance at Darcie, the man addressed the woman. ‘Woss she want?’

  The woman shook her head again. ‘Someone called McClare.’

  ‘Woss she come here for?’ The man turned and began to tread heavily up the ropy old stair-carpet. ‘Tell her we ent go no McClares, so she can fuck off.’

  Darcie made one last try before the door banged in her face. ‘Are you Casey McClare’s mother?’

  The woman shook her head again. ‘Never heard of her.’

  Darcie had gone home and unpacked her shopping in a haze, worries warring as to what to do next. Obviously, Ross had to know what had happened. But she felt a strong need for more facts. Casey must live somewhere. If not at the horrible home, then where? Why had she lied to Ross? The situation smelled of trouble. And Darcie preferred her to be the one to discover why, rather than find Ross up to his neck in something stinky.

  She knew where Amy lived and that there wasn’t much love lost between Amy and Casey. She went and parked in Amy’s road to intercept her on her way home from school, feeling uncomfortably like a seedy private investigator. Finally Amy came wandering into view. She hesitated, warily, at finding Darcie lying in wait for her.

  Darcie tried to sound casual, aware of the teenage habit of clamming up in response to an adult trying to get something on another kid. ‘Hey, Amy. I’m trying to find Casey. I thought I knew where she lived but I’ve been to the wrong house today. Which court at Blossom End is it?’

  Amy twirled her hair, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know where she lives.’

  ‘It’s about a surprise for Ross,’ Darcie said, encouragingly, economy with the truth being justified by her need to discover what Casey McClare was up to and whether Ross was likely to get hurt. ‘That’s why I can’t ask him.’

  Amy shrugged. ‘My friend Layla should. They had to do an assignment together, once.’ She dropped her bag onto the pavement and pulled out her phone and quickly made the call. When she rang off, she was frowning. ‘Layla says she doesn’t live at Blossom End. She’s got it written on her Design folder: 22 First Avenue.’

  Heart beginning to thump, Darcie said, ‘Thanks.’ First Avenue was in an older, OK bit of town, about a mile and a half away from Blossom End. ‘I’ll check it out.’

  First Avenue was a street of red-brick semis. Number 22 had a trim lawn and a newish Volkswagen in the tiny drive.

  Darcie ding-donged the door bell.

  The woman who answered looked about forty. She wore the dress-and-jacket uniform of Murton’s, an edge-of-town furniture store, and was fiddling with an earring. ‘Yes?’

  Darcie introduced herself. ‘Is Casey McClare your daughter?’

  The woman frowned, still battling with the earring. ‘That’s right. I’m Lynda McClare.’

  O-kay … ‘Ross Killengrey’s my brother. May I have a chat with you about Casey?’

  Wendy dropped her hands from her ear abruptly. ‘You’d better come in.’

  Darcie hesitated. ‘Is Mr McClare here?’

  ‘No.’ Lynda McClare led the way briskly into the sitting room, two rooms knocked into one then divided again by placing the sofa where the wall used to be. A good sofa, probably bought with Murton’s staff discount, in a pleasant and comfy room. Darcie was having a hard time placing the wino Ross had described as Casey’s dad in this pin-neat home.

  Lynda regarded Darcie with a trace of hostility. ‘I don’t know any Ross whatever-you-said. What’s he got to do with Casey? Did you say you’re his sister?’

  Darcie explained quickly that she was Ross’s guardian, and why. ‘Casey spends quite a bit of time at our house.’

  ‘Casey’s never mentioned him.’ Wendy stared, a frown puckering her forehead like a pulled thread. ‘She usually says she’s at her friend Zoë’s house, in the evenings.’ She looked uncertain. ‘So what’s going on? Is she doing something at your house that she shouldn’t?’

  Darcie perched on the edge of a chair uneasily. ‘No. She began to visit the house like any of Ross’s friends. But recently he’s become concerned for her.’

  Lynda’s hostility visibly increased. ‘I can’t get my head round this. Why would she lie about where she was? Why is he “concerned” for her? Is Ross her boyfriend?’

  ‘They’re no more than close friends so far as I know.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Lynda repeated.

  They stared at each other across the neat, ordinary room. Cars swished by outside, birds sang in the shrubs. Darcie swallowed. ‘Casey tells Ross that she has an underprivileged home life. That she lives in a filthy and dilapidated house in Blossom End with a mother who can’t cope, and she’s had trouble with her father.’

  Lynda gaped. ‘Her father? What kind of trouble could she have with him?’

  Darcie felt her colour rise. She tried to make her tone neutral. ‘She says he’s abusive and lies in wait for her.’

  ‘But it’s total rubbish!’ Lynda jumped to her feet. ‘And you say all this information comes from Casey?’

  Rising warily, Darcie jammed her hands in her pockets. ‘Sorry. But that’s what she says.’

  A silence. Then, Mrs McClare gave a half-laugh. ‘Casey hasn’t got a father.’ Another silence. Lynda lit a cigarette, noisily, with a match, striking it with a big zzzipppp and tilting her head extra
vagantly to suck in the flame. She blew a stream of smoke. ‘Or, at least, not one she knows. He left. A baby was too much responsibility for him.’ She smoked silently for a minute, alternately staring at the floor and Darcie.

  ‘I’m due at work,’ she said, eventually. ‘I’ll have to ring in sick.’ She’d become so pale that her saleswoman’s make-up stood out like a mask. Darcie hovered whilst Lynda rang her supervisor and then made mugs of strong coffee. ‘Casey’s been a storyteller all her life, but this just about takes the biscuit. God, what am I going to do with her?’ She drew on a fresh cigarette as if trying to inhale it whole. ‘I’m afraid I know why she’s doing all this attention seeking. It’s Freddie.’

  ‘Freddie?’

  Lynda crushed out her cigarette. ‘He’s my boyfriend. Has been for five years, but Casey hates even the sound of his name. If Freddie walks in the door, Casey walks out – which is why she spends so much time “at Zoë’s”. I talk and talk to her about the situation and that I’m entitled to a life, but ... I don’t know if she’s got some hazy idea that if I stay single her dad’ll turn up one day.’ She laughed, bitterly. ‘He won’t. And if he did she’d be in for a sad disappointment. He’s a loser.’

  Any reply Darcie might have made was interrupted by the opening of the front door and Casey’s voice loud in the hall.

  Darcie and Lynda waited in silence as Casey and a woman in her thirties strolled in, laughing together, hands linked, the woman asking, ‘This boy who’s got the stuff, how much has he sold?’

  When they saw their reception committee, they froze. The woman had the same sooty eye make-up and black-dyed hair as Casey, and wore a black embroidered dress.

  Lynda jumped up. ‘Casey, who the bloody hell’s this?’

  The woman swung on her heel and hurried from the house.

  Lynda groped behind herself and dropped down into her chair again, her hair falling over her pallid forehead. ‘Who is she, Casey? She must be thirty-five, what the hell are you doing acting so chummy with her? And why haven’t you been to school?’