by Julie Cohen
‘Keep your face forward,’ said Mr Singh, and he put an exam booklet on her desk.
Lydia drew in a deep breath and concentrated on writing her name and student number on the booklet. Concentrated on keeping her heart-rate down, on thinking in French. Erin had probably blown sixteen million kisses today. She was a big kiss-blower.
‘You may begin,’ said Mr Singh.
Erin caught up with her at the end of the corridor. She had Olivia and Sophie with her, though no sign of Bailey. ‘How’d the A level go?’
Lydia nearly sagged with relief. ‘It was all right, I think. How was yours?’
‘It didn’t go so well. I think I could have used a kiss for luck.’
Sophie giggled and Lydia nearly stumbled. Erin was smiling, that mean smile that she often had.
‘Un baiser,’ said Olivia. ‘Isn’t that how you say it at A level? Très romantique.’
‘Where are you going now?’ Erin asked her. ‘Going to find Bailey? Or Avril?’
‘I’ve got another exam,’ Lydia managed.
‘All right, see you later, darling. Ta ta.’ Erin wiggled her fingers at Lydia, and both Sophie and Olivia giggled this time.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jo
‘HEY, NEIGHBOUR.’
Jo looked up from her rose bush. Marcus was standing on the other side of the hedge. Her heart leaped and she lowered her secateurs.
Oscar beat her to it, though. He ran over to the hedge, clutching the bunch of dandelions he’d been picking. ‘I have super eyes!’ he told Marcus. ‘I am a superhero!’
‘Well, that is fantastic,’ said Marcus. ‘Who are the flowers for? Your mummy?’
‘Lyddie. She has exams.’
Iris toddled up behind him, waving two more dandelions clenched in her chubby fist. ‘I pick too!’
‘They look great. First exams today, eh?’ Marcus looked over at Jo. ‘How’d they go? I haven’t seen her since before half-term.’
‘She’s not home yet; she’s probably gone for a coffee with Avril. I’m making a bouquet for her room, and cooking her favourite for dinner.’
‘And I’m helping,’ said Oscar.
‘Oscar is really into helping at the moment,’ said Jo. She came up closer to the hedge, close enough so that she could touch Marcus through the gap, if she dared. ‘He’s been fetching and carrying stuff for Honor all week. Iris, too, when she can. They’ve been a real help to her, and to me.’
‘You have a bit of pollen on your cheek.’ Marcus reached over and brushed it off, his thumb lingering on her face. ‘It looks lovely.’
Jo held out her roses so that he could smell them. ‘You’ve got a bit of pollen, too,’ she said, and took off her gardening glove so she could run her finger over his lower lip. He touched it with his tongue, and she whispered, ‘Naughty.’
‘I’ve been waiting for days to be naughty,’ he whispered back. ‘But someone hasn’t been free.’
‘I’m going to be a flower girl,’ said Oscar.
‘No,’ said Jo, ‘Iris is going to be a flower girl. You’re going to be a page boy. For my ex’s wedding,’ she added to Marcus. ‘His fiancée is coming over in a bit to measure the children for their outfits.’
‘This is the famous au pair?’
‘The famous au pair.’
‘You let her in the house?’ he said in a low voice.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t have much choice. It’s all very civilized.’
‘I wouldn’t find it easy to be civilized in that situation, I must admit.’
‘He’s their father, and she’ll be their stepmother.’
‘I suppose I’m protective.’ He leaned over the hedge and said to Iris, ‘Want to come over here for a minute? I’ll give you something to help you be a flower girl.’
‘No,’ said Iris, raising her arms to him. He hesitated, clearly not certain whether to go with her words or her actions.
‘She’s going through a “no” phase,’ said Jo.
‘No!’ Iris repeated, waving her arms at him and jumping to be picked up, until he gave in and lifted her over the hedge to his garden.
Oscar raised his arms too, saying ‘Me! Me!’ until Marcus also lifted him over.
Jo watched her lover set her son down, a little bit concerned that both of her children went so easily with a stranger. Then again, Marcus wasn’t a stranger, not to Jo …
But neither was her relationship with Marcus something you could tell the children about. She thought about how angry she’d been when Richard had announced that Tatiana was moving in with him and would be spending weekends with the children. How humiliated she’d been, how wrong it felt that her children were part of this illicit relationship. It was hardly any different, was it, letting her children spend time with the man she was having sex with in secret?
‘We probably need to be a little bit careful,’ she said quietly.
‘Don’t worry, I’m safe with children, I’ve been CRB checked for my job,’ he said, his head turned away towards the children. For the first time since she’d known him, his voice had an edge to it.
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘I know what you meant. I’ll only have them for a minute.’
They disappeared from sight behind the hedge, and Jo heard them whispering. She shot a look back at the house, to see if Honor was peering out of the window or if Tatiana had turned up yet, but she didn’t see anyone. Putting her glove back on, she began trimming the thorns off the early roses she’d cut for Lydia’s room.
How would people view her, if they knew? Would she be the object of attention and gossip again, this time for something that she’d done herself? She remembered those horrible days after Richard had left, alone in the park, struggling to carry on as normal when she knew that everyone was talking about her. This time, would the whispers be about not Poor Jo, Left For The Au Pair, but Pervy Jo, Shagging The Young Neighbour? Cougar Jo, Carrying On With Her Daughter’s Teacher, And In Front Of Her Young Children?
It was like an episode of one of those staged reality shows that Jo watched sometimes, guiltily knowing she should be doing something else.
Oscar laughed.
‘Shhh,’ she heard Marcus whisper. ‘Do you remember what to say?’
‘No!’ declared Iris.
She couldn’t see Marcus, who was hiding behind the high bit of the hedge, but she could see his arms as he lifted her little daughter over and deposited her carefully on the ground. She held an enormous bouquet of sweet peas and ferns. Iris toddled a few solemn steps towards Jo, and then held up her bouquet.
‘For Mummy,’ she said, and put it into Jo’s hands.
Oscar was lifted over too, holding a small bouquet of violas added to his bunch of dandelions. He ran to her instead of copying Iris’s flower-girl gait. ‘These ones are for Lydia!’ he cried. ‘Marcus said I could have them and give them to her from me.’
Marcus appeared in the gap, a bit of fern on his collar. Jo, her hands full of flowers, sorry for her thoughts about cougars and reality television, said ‘Thank you.’
‘You don’t have to give them to Lydia if you don’t think it’s appropriate. I won’t be offended.’
‘I … I might say Oscar picked them.’
‘And so he did. But I hope you’ll keep the ones from Iris.’
She nodded, sniffing their perfume. She had accepted a thousand bouquets from her children, buttercups and daisies and dandelions in yellow or blowsy fluff, but when was the last time a man had given her flowers?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘It frustrates me to be on the margins of your life,’ he said to her. ‘I can get tired of feeling like a dirty secret.’
Tatiana came round the side of the house. ‘Hello, my darlinks!’ she called to the children. ‘I’m here!’
‘Is that her?’ Marcus asked.
Jo nodded. ‘I have to go. I’m sorry. Thanks for the flowers.’
‘Meet me later. I’ll be here.’ His gaze fli
ckered to Tatiana, waiting by the side of the house, and back to Jo. ‘She doesn’t look like much competition. Your ex is crazy.’
‘I’ll text you,’ she murmured, and gathered up Oscar and Iris to shepherd them back to the house.
Tatiana was waiting for them by the back door. ‘Oh, flowers?’ she asked Oscar, holding out her hands. ‘So pretty.’
‘They’re Lyddie’s,’ he said, going past her through the door on his sturdy legs.
‘Hello, Tatiana,’ said Jo, looking behind her for Richard.
‘I’m here alone,’ said Tatiana. ‘Richard is at work. I knocked, but no one answered.’
‘I was in the garden, and Lydia is out. I would have thought Honor would answer, though?’ Jo went inside. Her mother-in-law was sitting on the sofa, hands folded, gazing serenely into the middle distance. ‘Honor, didn’t you hear the door?’
‘I thought it was a nuisance caller,’ said Honor.
Jo frowned at Honor, who appeared unfazed, and then shrugged at Tatiana. ‘Would you like some tea? A cold drink?’
‘Oh, I can get.’ Tatiana took a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with cold water from the filter in the fridge.
Jo, her hands full of flowers, opened a cupboard door with her foot and peered inside. ‘Now where are those vases?’
‘Let me do it,’ said Tatiana. Stretching her long body, she reached for the cupboard over the fridge. ‘Do you want the big one?’
‘Er … actually the big one and a little one. Please.’
Tatiana took down a glass vase and a smaller porcelain one that had come from Jo’s mother’s house. Without checking with Jo, she took them to the sink and began to fill them with water. Jo watched her, suddenly remembering how there had always been arrangements of flowers in the house when Tatiana lived with them. She had always assumed that Tatiana had bought them, that it had been a little nice touch. What if they had actually been presents for Tatiana, from Richard?
‘These are for Lydia,’ Jo said, arranging the roses she had cut along with Oscar’s bouquet of dandelions and violas in the porcelain vase. ‘She did her first exams today.’
‘Oh, how exciting,’ said Tatiana, taking a tape measure out of the pocket of her slim cream-coloured trousers. ‘Iris, darlink, come here, I will measure you for pretty dress. It will be pink and sparkly.’
‘No,’ said Iris.
‘You do not like pink?’ Tatiana shot Jo a look. ‘I thought she liked pink.’
‘She’s going through a—’
‘Are you the au pair?’
The two of them froze at Honor’s voice. It was clear and commanding. Honor still sat on the sofa, gazing into the middle distance. Oscar had sat beside her.
‘I used to be au pair,’ said Tatiana. ‘Now I will marry Richard next month. Are you the grandmother?’ She went to Honor, and held out her hand for Honor to shake.
Honor did not take it. ‘Poshla von otsyuda, blyad, kotoraya spit s chuzhimi muzhyami,’ she said.
Tatiana turned pale. ‘I—’
Oscar twisted up to look at her. ‘What were those funny words, Ganny?’
Honor turned her head to look directly at Tatiana. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
‘Nu?’ Honor said.
‘I – yes. I mean, no. I mean … I will go.’
Tatiana shoved her tape measure back into her trousers and hurried out of the door. It swung closed behind her and Jo heard the engine of her car starting up outside.
‘What did you say to her?’ Jo asked, wide-eyed.
‘It was Russian,’ Honor said to Oscar, and to Jo she said, ‘I told her to get out of your house because she was a husband-stealing whore.’
Jo stared. Oscar blinked.
‘What’s a whore?’ he asked.
The door opened again with a bang, and Jo jumped, ready for Tatiana to come back into the house, yelling at Honor in Russian. But it was Lydia. She threw her bag down next to the door and started for the stairs without acknowledging anyone.
Jo hurried to her. ‘How were your exams, sweetheart?’
‘Fine.’ She thumped up the stairs and Jo heard her bedroom door slam.
‘It doesn’t sound as if they were fine,’ said Honor. Her voice was entirely calm.
‘Why did you say that to Tatiana?’
‘Because it is true, and also because it galls me to see you welcoming someone like that and letting them make themselves at home. You are too accommodating for your own good, Jo.’
Jo bristled. ‘Are you saying that I let her come in here and steal my husband?’
‘No; he made his foolish choices all by himself. I am saying that now that she has done it, you have no reason to let her assume that she is in control here, where you live.’
‘Well, I …’ She thought of how Tatiana had known where the glasses were, and where the vases were kept. ‘I’m trying to be nice.’
‘There’s niceness, and then there’s insanity. Do you think that Lydia is upset about something?’
‘I’ll go and check.’ Jo put her sweet peas in water, picked up the porcelain vase with Lydia’s flowers and went upstairs with it. Faintly from the living room she could hear Oscar asking again, ‘What’s a whore?’
Oh God. She’d deal with that later. She knocked on Lydia’s closed bedroom door. ‘Sweetheart? Are you all right?’
No answer.
‘Did your exams go OK?’
Stomping feet, and the door opened a bare inch. ‘My exams were fine, there’s nothing wrong with my exams, don’t worry. Can I get a little privacy for like five minutes, please?’
‘OK,’ said Jo. ‘But Oscar picked these for you, to say congratulations.’
Lydia’s hand came out and took the flowers. She made to shut the door again, but Jo put her hand out.
‘I’m making chicken cacciatore,’ she said quickly. ‘And you don’t have any exams tomorrow morning, do you? Do you want to ring Avril and ask her if she wants to come for tea, as a celebration?’
‘Avril didn’t have exams today.’
‘Well, that’s fine, she can come anyway.’
‘Avril has a boyfriend.’
Jo bit her lip. ‘Oh. I … I understand.’
‘You don’t understand anything.’
‘But I do, sweetheart. I thought we hadn’t seen her around very much. Lydia, don’t worry. Avril’s not the type to forget who her friends are.’
‘Isn’t she?’
‘No,’ said Jo with conviction. ‘She’s a nice girl, and you’ve been inseparable for ages. It’s bound to feel strange when she starts seeing someone. But you can still have good times together, the two of you.’
‘Can we?’
‘Of course you can! Why don’t you ring her anyway and see if she’s free? She probably needs a break from revision, too. You don’t want to work all the time, sweetheart, you’ll just burn yourself out. You need to have a little bit of fun every now and then, you know.’
‘A little bit of fun?’ Lydia’s face was half cut off by the door, but she was regarding Jo incredulously. ‘You think this is fun? You think any of this is fun?’
‘I can see that it’s very stressful, but it’s only the beginning. You’ve got weeks of exams yet. Be a little bit easier on yourself, darling.’
‘I’ll be easier on myself when you stop nagging me to have fun!’
Lydia slammed the door. Considering it had only been open an inch or two, the noise was surprising. Jo gazed at it for a few moments, then heaved a sigh and went back downstairs to send Marcus a sneaky text, and also to make up an innocuous meaning for the word ‘whore’.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lydia
MUM WAS RIDICULOUS. How could someone always try to see the bright side? How could she think that everything could be solved by making someone’s favourite dinner? Offering her sympathy and pats on the back as if she was five years old, empty platitudes promising that she and Avril would still have good times together when she didn’t have a clue
about how Lydia felt about Avril?
Lydia was aware that she was being unfair; her mother didn’t know how she felt because she hadn’t told her. But there was a certain wild freedom about striking out at her mother when she’d been worrying about veiled threats from her friends. And besides, she’d left her phone at home during her exam, and she needed to check whether Avril had rung. All the way home she’d been picturing scenarios about Erin ringing Avril and telling her that Lydia had kissed Bailey. Imagining Erin’s vicious grin and Avril’s eyes widening in horror. Trying to work out how she’d explain it, whether she could blame Bailey – which seemed unfair, but still, Bailey had been the one to talk, hadn’t she? Or another story she could make up. They were acting out a film scene? She was actually just applying lipstick? She slipped and her lips met Bailey’s?
She couldn’t make up a story. She would have to tell the truth.
She should have told the truth ages ago, then she wouldn’t be facing this now. Should have told the truth from the start. And given up the intimacy with Avril, the easy trust, the stolen touches and glances, all of which were precious, and all of which were based on a lie.
Feeling sick, Lydia picked up her phone from her bed. There were no missed calls and no messages.
Avril didn’t know then. She sagged onto the bed in relief. She would still have to tell her, but she could do it in her own way. She’d say that she was lonely, and experimenting. She’d say she’d suspected for a while. She’d say she’d never had any feelings about Avril. Of course not. They were just best friends.
It would be horrible. It would be another lie. But at least things could carry on, not so different from usual. Things might even be better.
Her phone beeped, and she looked more carefully at the screen. There were over fifty Facebook notifications. As she watched, it turned to fifty-two.
Her hands were cold. She clicked up her profile. The first thing she saw was a comment from Darren Raymond.
Hey LL I hear your a lezza now is that how you know what pussy tastes like
