Moderate Violence

by Veronica Bennett

  She stripped off the lacy knickers and inspected them for bloodstains. They seemed OK.

  She put them and the matching bra in the laundry basket. She’d probably never wear them again. Then she spent a long time in the shower, washing again and again. She shampooed her hair three times, too. Then, still wearing her dressing gown, she put a fresh plaster on her leg and sat down at the computer.

  It was Sunday. Toby’s day off was Monday this week, so he’d be at work today. After work, though, maybe he’d call her. Or maybe she’d call him. And if neither of them called the other, she’d see him when he came into work on Tuesday. By that time, surely something would have to happen.

  Jo didn’t know what she wanted to happen, though. If this was Toby’s opportunity to dump her, and he took it, would she care? If she dumped him, would he? If not, why were they together in the first place? And if they did split up, how would they go on working together in the same shop, day after day for the rest of the holidays, or longer?

  She studied her reflection for a few moments, then she got dressed in jeans and an old top. After sitting on the edge of the bed for five minutes, fingering her phone, she called Pascale.

  “Can I come round?” she asked. “I want to talk to you about something. Not on the phone.”

  “Of course!” said Pascale happily. “Hope it’s scandal!”

  “It’s not,” said Jo. “See you in half an hour.”

  Pascale lived in a boxy white house in a row of boxy white houses between older, redbrick villas. Some residents had trained flowers round their doors, or put up fancy shutters. But Pascale’s house remained unadorned. Jo always thought it looked like a square igloo.

  “Hiya!” Pascale, barefoot and looking like an artist’s model in a flounced skirt and with her hair unbrushed, took both of Jo’s wrists and dragged her into the hallway. She examined Jo’s face critically. “Are you sure you’re not ill? Even you aren’t usually this pale.”

  “Maybe I need some sun,” Jo reassured her.

  Pascale’s hands moved to Jo’s elbows, and she shook them gently. “Come on, cheer up!” Her fingers found the plaster on Jo’s left arm. She pushed up the sleeve of her blouse. “What’s this? Have you hurt yourself?”

  “Mosquito bite,” said Jo.

  Pascale frowned. “Must be a huge bite.”

  “I picked it and it got infected.”

  “Silly!” scolded Pascale, releasing her. “Let’s go in the garden.”

  They went through the house to a tiny lawn on which two sun loungers and an umbrella had been set up. “Where are your parents?” asked Jo.

  “Shopping. We’re going to Spain tomorrow remember. Got your sunblock on?”

  Pascale plumped herself down on the more comfortable of the two loungers and pulled her skirt up almost to where her knickers ended. “Must get my legs brown. I’ll get us something to drink in a minute when Poisonous is out of the kitchen.”

  Pascale’s brother was called Poins. Jo often wondered how Pascale’s parents, people apparently so unimaginative that they couldn’t even put a pot plant beside their front door, had come up with their children’s exotic names. She felt rather sorry for Poins, who was a cheerful boy of about eleven. The sort of boy who played with Meccano. He had once told her proudly that his name was in Shakespeare, though he didn’t know which play. Jo had been determined to find out for him, but only remembered this when she happened to see, or hear about, Poins.

  “Did he ever find out which Shakespeare play his name is in?” she asked Pascale.

  “What do you mean? He’s always known. It’s in Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2. Dad told him that when he was really small, and he’s always trotting it out. He used to say it to strangers on the bus.”

  “Oh,” said Jo. Perhaps she had misunderstood.

  “Now, shoot.” Pascale folded her arms and put on her what-seems-to-be-the-trouble face. “Hol and I thought you and Toby might be having…you know, The Night. West End restaurant and all that. So did you?”

  Jo lay back on the lounger. “Nope.”

  “Why not? Was there some problem?” This was what Doctor Pascale liked to diagnose, ponder, and treat.

  “Well, only the same old one,” said Jo.

  Pascale made an exaggeratedly horrified face. “You mean you still don’t know if you want to? Jo, it’s been months!”

  “Two months and one week.”

  “What’s been going on, for God’s sake?”

  Lying on the sun lounger was making Jo feel too much like a patient on the psychiatrist’s couch. She sat forward, her hair swinging over her face. “It’s been OK, Cal. You know, kissing.”

  “Proper kissing?” asked Pascale sharply.

  Jo sighed. “Yes, a bit of tongues. But last Friday, something happened that changed how I felt. I suddenly realized how much I like him, and he was kissing me, and everything just seemed really nice. Last night, though, when he’d taken me out to that posh restaurant, and he wanted to do it, I just couldn’t. I felt such a cow.”

  Pascale put her mouth into a line. “Last Friday, when everything seemed so nice, you didn’t tell him you love him, did you?”

  Jo said nothing.

  “Don’t you know anything, Jo?

  “Look, I just did it,” said Jo, exasperated. “It felt right at the time.”

  “What did he say?” said Pascale in a prosecuting-counsel voice.

  “He…well, he was pretty nice about it.”

  Pascale’s eyes were ablaze. “No, what did he actually say?”

  “He kind of changed the subject.”

  “Oh, Jo!”

  “I know, I’m stupid. It’s just that – ”

  “It’s just that he’s doing what blokes always do and you’re sitting there letting him. Put up a bit of a fight, for the sisters. Girl Power!”

  Jo looked at Pascale, expecting her to run her hands through her hair, like actors when they had to show frustration. But she was sitting very still, her face in the shade and her legs in the sun, frowning and thinking.

  “You’re too soft, little Jo,” she said. “You need to toughen up and play the game a bit. I bet when he thought he was going to get it and didn’t, he was horrible to you, wasn’t he?”

  Jo didn’t say anything for a moment. Pascale was right on both counts. She was too soft, and Toby had been horrible to her last night. But it wasn’t as clear-cut as Pascale thought. “I don’t blame him, though, Cal,” she said quietly. “It was my fault.”

  Pascale let out a strangled shriek. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this! Of course it wasn’t your fault! You weren’t horrible, he was! Jo, you really have got to be a bit more hard-nosed!”

  This was insane, thought Jo. Two girls sitting in a garden discussing how to be hard-nosed. Did boys do this? Jo doubted it. “So what do I do?” she asked obediently.

  “Right.” Pascale sat forward. “Don’t contact him. No call, no text, no email, nothing. If he contacts you, ignore him. When do you next see him at work?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Well, get there early, before he does. When he arrives, pretend to be talking on your phone. End the call fast when he sees you, as if you’re talking to someone you don’t want him to know about. Then bustle away as if you’ve got something really important to do.”

  “But he usually gives me a kiss when he comes in.”

  “Jo, you’re not going to get near enough for him to kiss you! And ignore him while you get on with your work.”

  “He’s upstairs in Menswear most of the time, anyway,” said Jo, imagining the scene. “But he might corner me in the stock room.”

  “If he does, don’t let him ask you anything. You know, the ‘have I got the plague or something?’ questions they always ask. Especially don’t let him get away with that ‘wrong time of the month, is it?’ bollocks. The trick is to start talking before he does.”

  “What do I say?” Jo wondered if she should be taking notes.

  “You
say ‘If you want to apologize, Toby, I’m listening. If you don’t, then piss off.”

  Jo laughed in spite of herself. “Like a teacher! Well, not the last part, but – ”

  “But nothing. Just do it. If he cares the smallest bit about you, he’ll come up with some pathetic excuse. Or perhaps a good one. It depends what level of bullshitter he is. Some boys can bullshit for England.”

  Jo said nothing. She was thinking about the DVD labels. Toby, with his vague ambitions and nameless, faceless friends did have the makings of a top class bullshitter. But there wasn’t a label to describe that.

  “Come on,” Pascale said, getting up. “Let’s get drinks.”

  “I’ll forget all this stuff the moment I see him, you know,” said Jo as they went into the kitchen.

  Pascale opened the fridge. “Look,” she said, leaning on the door, “just remember that you’re asking questions, not him. Of course, you can let him ask when he can see you again, and of course you say you’re busy and you’ll call him. Don’t let him be the one to call you, and don’t be the one to suggest seeing him again. He’s the one in the wrong. Now, what do you want, Coke or apple juice? Or just water?”

  “Apple juice.” Jo was still dubious. She knew from experience that even when the other person was in the wrong she’d end up apologizing. If you liked someone, that’s what you did in order to keep them liking you. “What if he dumps me?” she asked, taking the glass from Pascale, trying to control the wobble in her voice.

  “He’s not going to,” said Pascale with decision. “If there’s any dumping to be done, you’re going to do it.” She smiled gleefully. “You, me and Hol have got a one hundred percent record on not getting dumped, Jo. And you’re not going to be the one to spoil it, are you?”

  Chapter Nine

  Jo tried to get to work early on Tuesday, but the bus got stuck in traffic. She’d only taken one-and-a-half steps into the shop when she found her nose buried in Toby’s T-shirt. He held her so tightly against his chest she couldn’t move.

  “Snog on your own time, you two,” said Gordon airily as he passed.

  Jo slid her hands between her chest and Toby’s, and pushed. He didn’t move, but he got the message. When he released her, his expression was a mixture of a hard frown and a timid smile. “What’s the matter?”

  Jo didn’t know what to do with her own face. If she smiled, it would look as if she wasn’t upset any more, which she was. But if she didn’t smile, she would look like the humourless martyr she put so much effort into not being. In the end, she settled for raised eyebrows. “What do you think?” she said coldly.

  Put up a bit of a fight, Pascale had said. Be tough and play the game.

  Toby followed her down to the Staff Room. Her fingers shook as they searched her bag for her identity tag. She untangled the ribbon and put it round her neck. As she flipped her hair out from underneath it she saw that Toby was staring at her, his face muscles loosened by surprise.

  “Is this because I didn’t phone you?” he asked. Then he seemed to register something, and his eyebrows collided in a frown. “Did you phone me? Because if you did, you wouldn’t have got me. Someone stole my phone.”

  “Really?” Pascale had suggested Toby might come up with an excuse. “And no, I didn’t phone you.”

  “Oh. Well, I had no note of your number, or your landline. In fact, you’ve never given me it, have you?”

  His voice had become reproachful. Jo forced herself not to apologize.

  “I never even thought about it,” she told him. “But you could have called a directory. You know my address, don’t you? Trevor’s listed under Probert, T., funnily enough. Or if you were really clever you could have asked Gordon when you got to work yesterday.” She tried to keep her voice calm, though being sarcastic made her feel sweaty.

  Toby fiddled with the side of his hair. “I bet even if I had got your number, you wouldn’t have picked up.” He made a faint attempt at a smile. “But anyway, I didn’t come to work yesterday.”

  Jo was surprised. “Why not?”

  “I was sick.”

  “What was the matter?”

  His face tightened. He was bracing himself either to lie, or confess the truth. “I…um…I got my drink spiked.”

  Jo let out an unamused laugh. “Toby, it’s girls that get their drinks spiked.”

  “Not necessarily. I was in this club in the West End, and I just sort of fell asleep.”

  “In the club?” she asked incredulously.

  He nodded, still fiddling with his hair. A sure sign of a liar. “And when I woke up my phone was gone.”

  “And then?” This was getting stupider and stupider.

  “I don’t remember. I was drugged. My mate Mitch must have got me out of the club, because I woke up yesterday on the floor of his flat. I used his phone to call work.”

  Jo was scornful. “So you know Rose and Reed’s number off by heart, but you don’t know mine?” Her voice almost cracked, but she tensed her muscles and tried to breathe evenly.

  Toby was regarding her sorrowfully. “I’m sorry, Jo, I just like clubbing, and you’re too young to get in.”

  Jo couldn’t look at him any more. She opened the cupboard where they kept their possessions while they were in the shop. Toby’s wallet lay in its usual place. “They didn’t take your wallet, then?”

  “No.” Toby’s voice was small and unconfident, the unrehearsed lines sounding very different from the prepared ones he’d come out with about the spiked drink. “They only seemed to want my phone.”

  Jo deposited her bag and turned round. “Hardly seems worth going to the trouble to drug you, does it? Did you go to the police?”

  “Of course not. What could they do?”

  “They could tell the management of the club to watch out for people ‘falling asleep’ on their premises, couldn’t they? Maybe catch the guy at it?”

  “Or the girl,” said Toby with a flash of inspiration. “I bet it was a girl. Less suspicious.”

  “Yeah, maybe. What’s the name of the club? I’ll phone and tell them that some girl’s spiking men’s drinks to steal their phones. I’m sure they’ll believe me.”

  Toby’s patience was thinning. “Look, Jo, this isn’t fair. Why can’t – ”

  “Fair?”

  She put all the outrage she could muster into her stare. Her eyes smarted. Toby didn’t speak. He just went on looking back at her, and after a few seconds some force buzzing between their brains made him realize. He slumped against the wall, closing his eyes and opening them again. “Oh, God. You’re really pissed off about what happened on Saturday night, aren’t you?”

  Jo noticed the pink rims around his eyes, and the bruise-like smudges underneath them. Hangover? Insomnia? Tears? Don’t give him the chance to ask anything, Pascale had advised. Answer a question with a question, like Holly does. “What gives you that idea?” she asked testily.

  Toby was silent. He took a brand-new phone out of his pocket and pressed some keys. “Give me your number again,” he said steadily. “And your landline.”

  Jo ignored this. He’d got away without an apology, either for Saturday night or for not phoning her. She felt like she’d been horrible to him for the sake of her pride, and Pascale’s instructions, but she also felt mildly pleased that she was able to do it. Suddenly, what she had to say next took shape.

  “Please don’t lie to me any more, Toby. I can’t stand it.”

  The grey of his eyes looked dark against the pallor of his face. “What does that mean?”

  She didn’t answer. He fingered the phone in his hand, turning it round and round, not looking at Jo. Then he seemed to come to a conclusion, and took in some breath. “Jo, if there’s something you want to say to me…”

  He was interrupted by Eloise coming downstairs from the shop. “Come on, you two,” she urged in exasperation. “Gordon’s going nuts up here!”

  Toby fingered the phone a bit more, then thrust it into the cupboard and
started up the stairs. Eloise gave Jo a meaningful look as Jo locked the door behind them. “What’s up with him?”

  “Hangover.”

  Eloise laughed. “I like to see a bit of loyalty in a girlfriend! You know he threw a sickie yesterday, don’t you?”

  “Yep,” smiled Jo. “And if you didn’t already know, I’d tell you.”

  Eloise laughed again, and squeezed Jo’s arm. “You go, girl!”

  * * * * * *

  When Jo got home from work Trevor was playing chess with Ken at the dining table. She expected her father to nod without looking up from the board, but he surprised her by raising his head and addressing her.

  “I’m off to Wales tomorrow,” he announced, “to see Mord. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, so Tess’ll be staying here.”

  “Why?” asked Jo in frustration. She sat down. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  Trevor moved a bishop. “She doesn’t think so.”

  “And what do you think? You know what she’s like.”

  He looked at her from under uncombed hair. “The only way to stop her nagging you, Jo-girl, is to give in on this nonsense about leaving school.”

  “Trevor, please don’t call me Jo-girl.” She looked at Ken, who gave a self-conscious smile. “Hello, Ken,” she said.

  “Hello, Jo.”

  He went back to studying the chess board. Jo knew he was embarrassed, and felt sorry for him. She gave Trevor a hard look. “So you’re definitely doing this thing with Mord, then, are you?”

  “We’re discussing it,” he told her. “I can’t make any definite plans until your mother calms down a bit, and you know…”

  “…what she’s like?”

  Trevor shoved his hair off his forehead with the back of his hand. It fell forward again immediately. Jo tried to observe him objectively, as if he were a stranger. If she saw him on the Tube, or sitting in the corner of a café reading a newspaper, what would she see? A forty-ish man who looked like he could do with a good meal, a good wash and a haircut? Would it even cross her mind that he might be someone’s dad? “Trev,” she said tolerantly, “I don’t think living with me is exactly going to calm Tess down.”