The Goodmans

by Clare Ashton

  Abby’s poker face dissolved in a flare of arousal when Jude touched between her thighs. “Oh,” Abby gasped. “I see.”

  Jude looked sublime nesting beside her in the white duvet, her features softened by their love-making and the affection with which Jude regarded her.

  “I don’t know how,” Abby said, “but you seem more beautiful today. And believe me, I have admired you often.”

  The full curving lips of Jude’s mouth broke into a bright smile. She reached out and stroked Abby’s cheek. “It has to be said, Dr Hart, the post-coital glow suits you too. Very much.”

  They stared at each other, at sea in each other’s loving gaze, snug beneath the duvet and with the afterglow of their passion. Abby could have spent hours doing only this but suddenly frowned.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Bloody starving, and I really need a wee.”

  Abby laughed.

  “I didn’t want to move though,” Jude said. “I want to stay here all day.”

  “Me too,” Abby said. Then “Cake! We’ve got cake. Nip to the loo and I’ll bring some cake up.”

  “Deal.”

  Jude leapt out of bed, but Abby lingered for a moment. Whether it was intentional or she was stricken by the sight of her friend’s naked body was moot, but sit and admire she did. Amber waves of hair flowed over athletic shoulders, reaching down to curving pale breasts and an exquisite bottom worthy of a Botticelli painting.

  “Nyumm,” Abby murmured.

  Jude glanced back. “Get that cake.”

  “M’on it.” Abby said, clearing her throat and leaping out of bed. “Honestly.”

  Abby looked around for her dressing gown but couldn’t see it anywhere. Then a tinkling noise came from the bathroom. It was funny. Never had the sound of someone having a wee inspired such an ecstatic smile. Abby listened, with a silly grin on her face. Jude was here again. In her home. Naked on the loo with bathroom door wide open. It was lovely.

  “Cake!” Jude shouted. Abby could hear the laughter in her voice.

  “Yup. S’coming.”

  She tip-toed from the room and down the stairs, nervous energy in her legs. She heard Jude return to the bedroom and hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. She listened to the crinkle of the duvet pulled back and the sigh of mattress as Jude settled back into their bed. Abby’s smile broadened.

  “Jude is in my be-ed,” she half chanted, half sang in her head. Then out loud, “Jude is in my be-ed,” and she tip-toed a jig into the lounge in time with her song.

  She stopped, dead, in the centre. Come on. Play it cool. Be calm. Then her delight rose up her chest again and she couldn’t keep down her joy.

  “Jude is in my be-ed. We had great se-ex.” And she rolled her shoulders and jigged to the kitchen.

  “We had incredible se-ex.”

  Crap. The windows. Daylight was flooding through the door and windows either side, enough for a street-wide, full-frontal. She whisked the curtains shut and pulled down the blind on the door, and locked it. In fact, double locked it. Wouldn’t want people walking in on a screaming orgasm would she. She would just die.

  “There,” she brushed her hands together.

  Then, “We had incredible se-ex. And we’re having coffee.” She sashayed over to the kettle. “And we’re having cay-ake. It is chocolate cay-ake.”

  And as the kettle began to sing, she realised she might be, a little bit, ecstatically and overwhelmingly happy.

  Jude was in her bedroom. And that had been some sex. Abby groaned and her insides caved at the memory of their caresses. Jude had even kissed her. It made her weak at the knees all over again.

  She’d longed for Jude over the years, but never had she dared hope they’d be together or have anything like that in bed. She closed her eyes. That was wonderful, mind-blowing, clit-lickingly good sex. And Jude. A rush of heat filled Abby. Dear God, she hadn’t expected Jude to be so enthusiastic. That was one of the best surprises of her life.

  “Oh,” she moaned, then she smiled. “And we’re having cay-ake.”

  Life really didn’t get much better.

  She swayed more gently on her return, plates of sliced cake in one hand, two mugs of coffee in the other, very aware of her naked and vulnerable nipples and thighs and all the bits in between.

  When she stepped into the bedroom she hesitated. Jude lay supine on the sheets, hand behind her head with hair flowing across the pillows. She was like a classic reclining Venus with her pale breasts and arm draped over her virtue.

  Abby may have gasped. She definitely blushed. And automatically she looked away.

  “Come here,” Jude said. “Put those down and come here.”

  Abby obediently arranged the refreshments on the bedside table and sat next to Jude. Her friend took her by the hand and seemed to will Abby to look at her.

  “I think after that,” Jude smiled, “after I’ve kissed your clit and you’ve touched me inside,” she was starting to giggle, “that you’re allowed to look at me when I’m naked.”

  Abby blushed deeper, but couldn’t help snigger. It was going to take a little getting used to, being free to appreciate Jude whenever she liked, but she would manage.

  She shuffled next to Jude and they sat together, propped on the pillows, soft bottom next to ample cheek, naked arms and breasts brushing together. Abby passed a small plate with a large piece of cake and peered down at their naked bodies. She couldn’t stop grinning.

  “You’re in my bed,” she said, her grin getting wider.

  “And we have chocolate cake.”

  “It’s bloody perfect.”

  Jude laughed. “Have you been drinking downstairs?”

  “No,” Abby said, indignant, but she still grinned. “I’m just incredibly happy.” She was tipsy on nerves and euphoria, and there was no point denying it.

  Jude looked at her, an indulgent expression softening her face. “I love you, Abby. In every single way. I don’t think I’ve been this happy or so exquisitely fucked in my life.”

  Abby smiled, then her heart sank. Jude reminded Abby a little of Maggie then, with her humorous vulgarity.

  “We have to tell people, don’t we? We’ll need to tell Maggie.”

  “No, we don’t,” Jude whispered and she touched her chin so she’d look her in the eye. “I won’t deny it if anyone asks. I’ll never hide how I feel for you. But let’s enjoy each other a while before we let the world in.”

  Chapter 31.

  “No,” Maggie growled. “No. No. No.”

  She wasn’t having that. It was a sight to make her soul sicken and temper burn. She marched towards the church gate, her fiery breath clouding in the early morning air.

  “Un-fucking-believable!” She glowered at the courtyard. A small group of people surveyed the building, one dressed in a suit and high-visibility vest, the other two a rotund middle-aged mother and her wealthy son.

  So that’s who it was. That’s who wanted to develop the church. Mrs bloody Petty and her son. It was unbearable. Yes, there was the social injustice of it all, but Maggie was buggered if she was going to let her sodding, bigoted neighbour grab the heart of Ludbury.

  Maggie clenched her fists and blew an enormous cloud of disapprobation into the air. She’d dismissed her own plans for the church as delusional when she’d discussed them with Richard and Eli, even though both had been enthusiastic, but there was nothing like a personal grudge to fuel the fires of determination.

  Maggie turned on her heel. No, this was unsupportable. People homeless in Ludbury. People having to beg to use the food bank while others lorded over the town. Maggie marched through the square, past the Georgian terraces sweeping down the side of the citadel. Past the grand station and luxury flats built on the foundations of council houses and the welfare state. Further still, beyond the old town boundary where planning was more lax and houses built more cheaply, and the pastels of the old town gave way to the grey of the new.

  She glanced up towards her dest
ination on the hill opposite, the 1960s school block where she’d worked since her late twenties and where today she had been called in as a supply teacher.

  Christ, her legs ached and breath laboured. She seemed to have lost her fitness without her daily walk to school and she sat on a garden wall to rest awhile.

  “Bollocking hell,” she rasped.

  How had she become so unfit? She made a mental note to buy an annual ticket to the swimming pool, then she mentally scribbled the note out. Who was she kidding? She loathed swimming. She’d have to think of something else. But it definitely wasn’t frigging yoga.

  She was late. The streets were empty of teenagers excepting the usual stragglers, the ones people called lazy, the ones which did a paper round before school because their parents couldn’t afford pocket money. She recognised a group of youths who’d left school the year before with few academic qualifications although not lacking ability in other areas. They kicked a can around the pavement and sat in a huddle with their hoodies up. She imagined there was little for them to do and nowhere to go.

  As she sat catching her breath, she watched an old homeless man, looking wet and dirty from a night outside. He lurched his way past the youths in painful steps.

  “Fucking hell, he stinks,” one of the youths cursed.

  “Shut up, man,” another said, and he elbowed his friend in the ribs. “Here you go, mate,” the youth said, and he stood up and handed the old man a can of soda from his pocket.

  Maggie didn’t know whether to be heartened or to despair. It was a different world beyond the historic walls of Ludbury. How quickly she’d forgotten. But at least the youth had achieved one act of kindness this morning and had done more than Maggie to alleviate the old man’s condition.

  She stamped to her feet irritated by the whole world, mainly by her perpetual inaction.

  “Good morning!” she announced as she strode into the classroom. She dropped her bag on the wooden desk at the front and surveyed the room of fifteen-years-olds that she’d taught the year before. She expected a murmur of discontent this early in the morning from the nocturnal teens.

  “Mrs Goodman!” a girl cried out.

  The class shuffled to attention.

  “Miss. You’re back,” a greeting boomed from a rotund boy not used to his man’s voice.

  “Are you back for good?” another called.

  Maggie smiled and leaned back against the desk, arms crossed in satisfaction. “What a lovely welcome,” she said peering over her glasses. “Regrettably, it’s only for the day, while Miss Detrain is absent.”

  “Shame. We’ve missed ya’,” the booming voice said.

  “Thank you.” She nodded in his direction. “That’s cheering to hear.”

  She noticed an empty seat at the back and after scanning the rows of faces asked, “Where’s Tyler?”

  “He’s off again,” Dan replied from the front.

  Dan was a confident boy, a man already in stature and voice, his broad shoulders and physique ludicrous in the modest school seat.

  “He’s in hospital with his asthma.”

  Maggie’s shoulders sank. Tyler, the poor kid, was in and out of A&E with attacks, not helped by the pervasive mould that grew in his home. The boy even had rickets. The contrast between his malnourished frame and the alpha boy Dan in the front row was absurd and sickening in modern-day Britain.

  Maggie shook her head and growled beneath her voice.

  “What’s up, miss?” Dan asked.

  She spun back to the class, ready to fob them off and ask where they should pick up, but she hesitated. She looked over the faces of nearly adults, soon to be released into the world, and people who would inhabit it for longer than she.

  “Right,” she said. “Before we start, I’d like your opinions.” She looked around the class. She had their attention. “What do you think about living in a town with Michelin-starred restaurants in one street, and in the next people malnourished with diseases we associate with Victorian poverty? Do you think that’s fair?”

  The class shuffled, some frowning at the unusual start to the lesson, others seeming more than happy to delay the teaching, others again deep in thought.

  “Well, it’s not right is it, miss,” a girl from the front said.

  A boy from the back crossed his arms and leant back in his chair before claiming, “My dad says people should get off their arses and work harder and stop buying shit.”

  Maggie nodded to indicate she’d heard. “Do you think everyone who can’t afford food is lazy?”

  “People can always work harder,” the boy said.

  “No, they can’t,” said the girl at the front. “My aunt’s a nurse and works every shift she can, and she still has to come to ours for a decent dinner.”

  “Precisely,” Maggie said. “The inequalities in our society have become so extreme that even if you have a full-time job, pay can be minimal, your landlord takes the lion’s share and you’re left with nothing to feed your family.”

  “It’s been the government’s fault, hasn’t it,” the girl said.

  “Well, I think you all know which way I lean politically, but even if there’s change it will be slow. So what can we do now?”

  “Do?” the girl said.

  Maggie shrugged. “I want your ideas on how to help.”

  You could hear a pin drop. Nobody moved. One or two rolled their eyes and looked as if they’d rather be anywhere else, but they were mainly shocked that anyone had asked them for a solution.

  “My mum puts things in the food bank basket,” the boy with the booming voice offered.

  “Yeah, mine too,” the girl at the front said. “Especially at Christmas.”

  Maggie smiled. “I do the same, but they rarely get the right food, in the right quantities and at the right time. People need food year round and unfortunately people’s generosity can be quite seasonal.”

  “My mum says you should give food banks money instead,” the girl piped up, “so they can get what’s needed.”

  “Yes, and she’s right. But people don’t like giving money. They’re more likely to donate food.”

  Dan, the alpha boy who’d been listening intently sat up in his chair. “They should tell people what they need then. Give them reminders when they shop and let them know what’s running out.”

  Maggie thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s a good idea, but resource intensive. These places are run by volunteers and collection points are spread throughout the town. It’s quite an overhead to keep so many sites up-to-date.”

  “What about using technology, miss?” Dan said.

  Maggie suppressed a roll of the eyes, then mentally kicked herself for being a technophobe. She drew herself up straight. “How can technology help?” she said with a more open mind.

  “You could let people know on their phones, couldn’t you?” Dan replied.

  “True.” Maggie nodded.

  “You could get people to sign up, then the food bank could send out a reminder every week with a list of things they need most.”

  “Why not?” Maggie smiled. “Do you think people would sign up?”

  “Might if you give them an app,” came a voice from the back of the class.

  Maggie peered over the heads to see the familiar face of Anisha Patel, a bright girl who held no shame in her intelligence, a product of her able and confident mother who managed the surgery in town where Abby worked.

  “An app?” Maggie said.

  “People love a colourful app,” Anisha replied. “Put a poster in the shops to ask people to download it. They can get rid of it any time and can’t be spammed like when they give away their email address.”

  Maggie mulled it over. “Actually, I think you’re right. It might even be popular with old farts like me.”

  The class sniggered.

  “But that’s going to cost….God knows how much,” Maggie said.

  “I could write one,” Anisha replied. “I could develop an app.”
<
br />   “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’d take me a couple of days to do a prototype. More for the real thing, but not long.”

  Maggie surveyed the room for signs of dissent, but found none. They were all looking to her, waiting on the edge of their seats for her pronouncement.

  “She’s good, miss,” came a confident voice. It was Dan at the front, the alpha boy. “Trust her. Let her put something together for you.”

  Murmurs of approval rippled around the class.

  What struck Maggie then, between the handsome boy at the front enabled by his popularity, and his approval of the intelligent girl, was that it was he who blushed at the situation. Anisha looked at Maggie, patiently waiting and assured in her own abilities, pleased at the boy’s support but not needing it for her resolve. Dan peeped back, gave the girl a smile and flushed a little deeper. He was clearly smitten.

  Maggie sat down, removed her glasses and looked over the expectant young faces, all waiting to see if she approved of their proposal. And in the first time in an age, along with her burden of responsibility, she felt hope.

  “Well, why not.” She laughed, and the class rumbled with excitement. “Let me talk to Dean at the food bank, and see if they’re interested. Then,” she shrugged, “let’s do it.”

  Chapter 32.

  Maggie walked back to the citadel at the end of the school day with greater alacrity, her mood and energy buoyed by the teens.

  The market was in full swing as she passed though the square, stalls busy with after-work trade. She wandered between rows, eyeing the morsels of Mediterranean antipasti on one side, inhaling the spicy vapours of Middle Eastern offerings on the other, her senses overwhelmed. What a contrast indeed.

  The clientele were well-heeled locals and tourists alike, including Caroline Argent who lingered at the Mediterranean stall. She looked as austere and impeccable as ever – blue blazer, floral scarf, blonde hair swept to perfection. Maggie stared ahead, pretending not to have noticed, but as the church came into view she hesitated.

  She gathered herself and walked back to the stall.