by Mel Sparke
“Ta na!”
Cat flung open a door and pushed Matt inside, with a flourish of her outstretched arm.
“All I’ve done for the moment is stick a couple of posters up and get a new rug,” said Cat. “And all these throws make a big difference, don’t they?”
Matt hadn’t a clue what a ‘throw’ was, but everything in the room - headboard, chair, dressing table, window - was all covered in thin red or pink sheets of silky material he’d never seen before, so it made sense to assume that these were the throws. He had a cotton one covering his sofa bed downstairs, only he hadn’t known before that the big square of material actually had a proper name.
“Anna took me to a brilliant Indian shop up in the city for all this sari material. She’s got some in her place, remember?”
Matt nodded and stared around the room, dumbstruck.
“Yeah, she chucked them over all that rubbish furniture Nick put in the flat,” Cat pointed out. “Not that I’m saying the furniture in here’s rubbish! But then, things like that dressing table aren’t exactly a work of art, are they?”
The dressing table. Of all the things in the house, it was the most potent reminder of Matt’s mother. In fact this whole room was - it had been his parents’ bedroom before they split up. Before his dad, as a born-again bachelor, had made a fresh start and switched to the bedroom across the hallway. Which now, presumably, he was sharing with Cat’s mother, Sylvia.
“I think I need to lie down for a while,” muttered Matt as the general weariness and weirdness of the day finally caught up with him.
CHAPTER 3
BRIGID TURNS AGONY AUNT
“Could I speak to Maya Joshi, please?”
‘Yes, it’s Maya here,” said Maya, trying to identify the vaguely familiar voice at the other end of the line.
“Maya? Hi! It’s Vikki Grant - Cat’s mate from college!”
Vikki didn’t need to introduce herself. Now she’d dropped the polite telephone voice and started talking normally, it was obvious who she was. Just as you couldn’t mistake Vikki in the flesh, her larger-than-life, friendly voice was once heard, never forgotten.
“Hi, Vikki!” smiled Maya. “How are you?” Maya hadn’t seen Vikki in a while, not since Cat had brought her along to the Dansby music festival a few weeks back.
“I’m good!” boomed Vikki. “But listen, I need to ask a favour…”
“Go on then,” said Maya, intrigued.
“Have I remembered this right? Did you tell me once that you’ve got a little brother?”
“That’s right,” Maya laughed, wondering what was coming next. She could hear Ravi now, giggling in the living room at some cartoon on CITV. “Why? Do you want to borrow him?”
“Yes!” said Vikki. “Well, maybe. It depends how old he is…”
“He’s eight. So what do you want him for?”
“Well, me and another girl from my class are running a drama workshop for kids, aged seven to ten, this Saturday - you know, to get experience for our course,” Vikki began to explain. “Anyway, I’ve put up loads of posters for it, but I’m petrified that nobody will turn up! That’s why I was thinking, if you could bring—”
Vikki stopped, obviously stuck for a name.
“Ravi,” Maya helped her out.
“Yes, well if you could bring Ravi, then at least we’d have one child there to teach!”
“No problem - he’d love that,” Maya assured her. “And did you know that Kerry’s got a brother too? He’s the same age as Ravi and they’re really big mates. I could bring him along too, if you want.”
“If I want? You’ve saved my life here, Maya! I owe you!”
“No problem. So what’re the details? What time and where?”
“It’s from 1.00 till 4-00 pm, in the main hall at the Downfield Adult Education Centre. Do you know it?”
“Do I know it?” smiled Maya. “That’s where my photography club is - in one of the outside huts.”
“Wow, really?” Vikki gasped at the coincidence. “I didn’t know that! When I’ve heard you talking about it, I just assumed it was at your school or something.”
“Well, speaking of the club, and since you owe me one…” said Maya, a thought coming into her head. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“What’s that? Wednesday? Nothing. Why?”
“Would you come and sit for me?” Maya asked tentatively. “It’s my club night tomorrow and we’ve got a great little studio area. I really need more practice on my portraits and I’d love to take your picture!”
Maya had toyed with the idea when she’d developed her photos from the festival. Vikki had been in loads of the shots and, with her dark brown skin, full-on dress sense and amazing character, she just shone out of the frame. But Maya hadn’t got round to doing anything about it, and with summer holidays started, she wasn’t sure if Cat would still be so frequently in touch with her college friend.
“Too right!” Vikki boomed enthusiastically. “I’d love to get some photos done that I can use as publicity shots! I know I’ve got another year of my course to go, but you can never start sending out your CV to agents too soon!”
“Well, you know where to come - so maybe you could turn up about 5 o’clock?” Maya suggested.
“Absolutely - you’ve got a deal! See you tomorrow, Maya!”
“Bye!”
Maya smiled as she put down the phone. It was perfect. On Saturday night, when they were out, Maya’s boyfriend, Alex McKay, had told her about a photography competition he’d heard about - a competition open to camera clubs around the country. Maya had been really excited about the idea - she’d come second in a local competition the year before - but had been struggling ever since to come up with inspiration for it. A portrait of Vikki might be the very thing…
“You’re looking pleased with yourself!” said Brigid, glancing up from her slicing and dicing as Maya came into the kitchen.
“I suppose I am,” Maya smiled, stealing a piece of carrot off the chopping board.
“I take it that was your young man on the phone then?” teased Brigid.
“No - no it wasn’t Alex…” Maya’s smile slipped away.
“What’s this? No smile for him?” Brigid frowned. “You two haven’t had a fight now, have you?”
Maya flopped down on a kitchen chair and crossed her arms. “No, we haven’t had a fight. Nothing like that.”
“Well, what is it?” asked Brigid. “You don’t look the picture of young love there at the moment, if you don’t mind me saying…”
Maya didn’t mind anything Brigid had to say. The older woman might only look after the family for a few hours a day while Maya’s parents worked, but she knew and understood Maya a lot better then her mother or father ever did.
“No, we’re really happy,” said Maya. “It’s nothing…”
“It has to be something, if you say it that way!” Brigid pointed out astutely.
Maya glanced nervously over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen door.
“Don’t worry - Miss Bat-Ears is out somewhere!” said Brigid, with a wink.
Maya understood exactly what Brigid meant -that she could relax and talk freely, without fear of Sunny hiding in dark corners and listening in, which she regularly did.
“Well, we’re still really happy and I do really love him,” Maya began, “but it’s sometimes… it’s just that this age thing seems to be getting in the way.”
The ten-year age gap between Maya and her photography tutor had caused ripples among her friends and family at first, but Maya had tried her very best not to let it bother her. But more and more lately, that decade between them had thrown up niggles and doubts that she simply couldn’t ignore, no matter how much she loved him.
“Is it about sex?” asked Brigid matter-of-factly.
“No!” Maya responded, feeling her face flush at the forthrightness of the question. No one, not even her closest girlfriends, had been that blunt. Mainly, Maya knew,
because they understood how private Maya was about certain aspects of her life. What exactly she did - or more accurately didn’t do - with Alex was not up for general discussion.
“No, it’s nothing like that!” Maya repeated.
But that wasn’t entirely true. Alex had suggested that she went with him up to the Edinburgh Festival in August and she understood the implication of that only too well. For once, Maya had been glad to blame her parents and was almost relieved that she could use the excuse of them having booked a family holiday for the same time. But it was a subject too delicate, too sensitive, for Maya to talk about, even to Brigid, whom she trusted with most things.
“So if it isn’t sex, what is it about the age business that’s bothering you?” asked Brigid, without a trace of embarrassment.
Maya tried to compose herself, and be as plain and direct as the older woman.
“It’s just that it makes me a bit sad sometimes, the way Alex doesn’t seem to want to spend time with my friends,” she explained. “It’s as if he thinks they’re too juvenile. Not that he’s ever put it quite like that…”
“But he usually comes with you to see your friends in their band, doesn’t he?” said Brigid, referring to the crowd’s regular Thursday night outing to the Railway Tavern to watch The Loud play.
“Yes, but that’s more to do with the fact that he’s mad about music in general, I think,” shrugged Maya. “I mean, you’d never catch him coming down and hanging out with us at the End.”
“The café?”
Maya nodded. “And even when we go and see the band, I can practically see his eyes glazing over if Cat starts going on about cute boys she fancies, or Kerry moans about what time her parents expect her home.”
“I see. And how do you feel with his friends?”
“Um, OK, I suppose,” Maya mused. “Some are really nice. Others… well, some of them don’t seem to try that hard to get to know me.”
“Well, I have to say that it’s a real shame if one partner isn’t so keen on the other’s friends, because friends are so important,” said Brigid, reaching out for a red pepper to chop. “But saying that, you can’t force people together. And as long as you keep on making plenty of time for your friends as well as your boyfriend, I think that’s all right.”
“I suppose so,” shrugged Maya. “I mean, as much as I love Alex, I love my friends too. I’d never drop them for him.”
“And he’s not asking you to, is he, love?”
Maya shook her head.
“Well, there you go. Have fun with your friends, and have fun with Alex, and stop worrying about it!” Brigid smiled warmly. “And remember, when you’re going out with someone, you’ve got to make a few compromises along the way. It’s not as if everything can go 100 per cent the way you want!”
“You’re right,” Maya smiled back.
Sitting at the kitchen table, she suddenly felt as if a storm cloud had lifted; a cloud that she hadn’t realised was still there, but had been hovering over her head for weeks, casting a shadow over her relationship with Alex.
And really, there’s nothing to stress out about all! Maya thought to herself, feeling almost lightheaded with relief.
“‘Scuse me!” she said, getting to her feet.
“Where are you off to?” asked Brigid, with a twinkle in her eye.
“I’m going to phone my lovely boyfriend!” grinned Maya. “And I’m going to tell him how lovely I think he is, since I haven’t done that for a while!”
Yet even as Maya headed for the door, a little niggle of doubt crept back into her thoughts. After all, talking things over with Brigid was fine in theory - but real life had a tendency to be a bit more tricky…
CHAPTER 4
CAT THE CUCKOO
Anna hurried to answer the door.
“Hi!” said Matt, who was standing on her doorstep looking slightly dishevelled. “Sorry I’m late. I completely conked out for a few hours. I only woke up twenty minutes ago.”
“No problem,” said Anna, standing to one side to let him in.
Instead of squeezing past as she’d intended him to, Matt threaded his hands into her hair and gave her a long, soft kiss, pressing her against the door. Anna wrapped her arms round her boyfriend and felt her stomach flip as she realised how much she’d missed him while he’d been away.
“When you didn’t turn up at the end of my shift, I phoned your house and Cat said she could hear you snoring from downstairs,” she told him when at last they broke apart.
“Urghhhhh…” moaned Matt, pulling away and striding towards the tiny living room. “Don’t!”
“Don’t what?” asked Anna, joining him as he collapsed on to the sofa.
Matt swivelled round so that his long legs dangled over one arm of the small two-seater sofa while his head rested comfortably in his girlfriend’s lap.
“Don’t remind me that Cat lives in my house!” he whined.
“Sorry - you’re still reeling a bit from the shock, aren’t you?” Anna smiled down at him, stroking his forehead.
“Reeling from the shock? I feel like I’ve just been hit by a 40-tonne juggernaut!”
“Spoken to your dad yet?” Anna asked tentatively.
“No, he’s working late apparently. To make up for taking the day off tomorrow - when he’s supposed to be meeting me at the airport,” Matt growled sarcastically.
“Huh?”
“My dad is so crap,” sighed Matt, “that not only has he installed two new people in our house without giving me the tiniest little hint, but he also gets the day wrong that I’m supposed to come home!”
“Still, you could look at it like this,” said Anna, scrabbling to come up with something vaguely positive, “it’s maybe a case of better the devil you know…”
“Huh?”
“Well, your dad works all over the place, doesn’t he? He could have got involved with some woman you’d never met. You could have come home today to find a total stranger and her eight kids had moved in.”
“Anna, that’s a rubbish argument,” Matt muttered.
Anna knew it was, but it was all she could think of. She was usually very good at coming up with good advice and comforting words, but she knew in this case that all Matt could really do was get used to the idea and make the best of it. But that would take time. At the moment, she could only imagine how unsettling it was for Matt; it probably felt as if Cat and her mother were a pair of cuckoos coming into his nest, all ready to crowd him out.
“But think about it, Matt,” Anna continued, still trying to reassure him. “It’s weird for Cat too. It can’t have been easy moving out of a home you’ve lived in for years and moving into someone else’s home. She’s probably finding it just as unsettling as you are!”
Anna knew the other friends in their crowd wouldn’t have exactly put it that way; Cat had been practically ecstatic for the last couple of weeks, thrilled to pieces with her posh new address.
“She’s feeling unsettled? Are you kidding?” scoffed Matt. “You didn’t see her when I arrived home earlier! She was bouncing around in my living room to some exercise video, dressed in a couple of strips of Lycra that would have problems covering a Barbie doll’s bits! Trust me -she didn’t look unsettled. In fact, she looked very settled from where I was standing!”
“But, Matt, she’s your friend!” Anna said soothingly. “It’s not her fault she’s there. You’ve got to give her a chance, you know.”
“Well, you would be on her side,” Matt replied, suddenly sitting upright.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anna frowned, wondering why he’d moved away from her like that.
“Well, you two seem very chummy all of a sudden. I mean, you helped her go shopping for stuff for ‘her’ room, didn’t you?”
“Matt, you sound like you’re jealous!” Anna exclaimed. “Look, this isn’t some playground fight where I’m taking sides with Cat over you!”
“Yeah, but I can’t believe you didn’t tell me wh
at was going on! And I know that she told you not to, but I still think you should have thought about how I’d have felt, instead of listening to her!”
With his chin nearly resting on his chest and his bottom lip almost sticking out, it was suddenly easy for Anna to see what Matt must have looked like as a hurt and lonely kid, back in his hated boarding school days. And seeing him like that, she couldn’t get angry back - he looked too sad and sorry for himself.
“Listen, I didn’t do it for Cat,” she reasoned. “I did it because your dad asked; because he wanted to tell you himself. OK?”
Matt shrugged.
“And anyway,” Anna continued, “don’t worry about how things will be with Cat. The day I went shopping with her, she was being very sweet about the whole thing. She told me she knows it’s going to be difficult for you to have her and her mum around, and she says she’s going to try really hard to make it work out.”
In truth, that wasn’t exactly the way Cat had phrased it.
Anna replayed the scene in her head: Cat had been sitting opposite her in the café at the station in the city while they waited for their train back to Winstead. “Matt’s going to flip right out, isn’t he?” Cat had said as she sat surrounded by bags of goodies for her new room. “He’s going to flip out and he’s going to hate me and my mum’s guts for daring to come and live in his big old house. But he’s going to have to like it or lump it, isn’t he?”
“Er, well, it’s going to be difficult at first,” Anna had tried to reason with Cat, “but it’s going to be a lot easier on him, and you, if you try to be nice to him when he first finds out. Just till he gets used to the whole idea…”
Anna knew she was just going to have to keep her fingers crossed that Cat would keep her cool and not wind Matt up too much, and that Matt wouldn’t be moody about the situation for too long and set Cat off. It was going to be like walking an emotional tightrope for a while, Anna could see.
