No Place For a Man

by Judy Astley

  ‘Welcome to the club!’ Eddy grinned at Jess and pointed at the wine bottle. ‘Fancy another? Celebrate Matt’s release from the daily grind?’

  ‘What’s to celebrate?’ Jess asked.

  Eddy nudged Matthew and winked at him. ‘Plenty to celebrate, plenty! He can join our gang.’

  ‘Gang?’ Jess giggled. ‘You sound like something out of Just William.’

  ‘Oh we are.’ Eddy leaned forward, his long, thinning dyed-brown hair dangling on the table. He smelled rather prettily of rose water. ‘There’s me and Micky and Ben and a couple of others, you know, we go round, have fun, make trouble. Sometimes we even get Wandering Wilf to stop his marching and sit with us for a bit. A new face is always welcome.’

  Jess called Ben over for the bill, but he brought another bottle of wine instead. Matthew and Eddy looked at each other and at the bottle. Ben pulled up another chair and sat down with them.

  There was an air of inevitability. Jess could see some kind of session looming. ‘OK, I’ll leave you to it, Matt. I’ve got to get some work done so I’ll see you later. Bye all of you. Have fun.’

  ‘Oh we will,’ Eddy called after her. As she neared the door she could hear the three of them giggling together and caught the words ‘Out on the loose’. She didn’t want to think about which one had said them.

  Three

  Natasha’s school bag was too heavy and as she trudged home from the bus stop she imagined it must feel exactly like this to lug along a dead body in a sack. It was certainly almost as depressing a load. Julia Perry High School gave them far too much homework in her (and just about everyone in the school’s) opinion. She was very much in envy of Mel, a former friend from primary school, who had gone at eleven to Briar’s Lane comprehensive and now spent a lot of after-school leisure time hanging round in the square in front of the Leo, smoking and mucking about with her mates. It was the kind of aimless, can-kicking hanging about that the grown-up Grove residents disapproved of, as if the term Crime Wave was the definitive collective noun for more than three teenagers grouped together. Natasha would love to join in, just so she could sometimes feel less as if she was on a schoolwork treadmill heading towards a string of A-grade GCSEs. It wasn’t as if Mel’s school did exams that were any different from hers either, and Mel had been clever enough, but Briar’s Lane wasn’t frantically keeping up a league-table position. She and Mel didn’t really talk any more though, just nodded a shy hello like a pair of old lags acknowledging long-past shared crimes.

  People from different schools didn’t mix much, except on summer Saturday or Sunday nights down on the riverside where there’d be some intermingling. The boys, when it came to the question of who’d spilled whose drink, would occasionally intermingle to the extent of throwing a puny punch. A girl might get up enough social courage to ask a stranger either a) where she’d bought that skirt or b) what did she think she was looking at? Mel had a harsh bawdy laugh that Claire said was loud enough to shatter Kookai’s shop window and sometimes on hot nights, when Natasha was battling with maths up in her bedroom, she was sure she could hear it above the high-street traffic.

  There was music coming from Eddy-up-the-road’s house. As she walked towards it she recognized the twangy, dated guitar sound of his one big hit. According to her mum he’d been famous in his time, a singer with some tired Seventies group called Spidercrunch that Natasha had never heard of. He was retired now, which she considered good news: his seemed to be one of the few wrinkly old bands that wasn’t forever trying to relight a burned-out career, cluttering up the charts and making themselves look stupid trying to seem cool on Top of the Pops. Her dad had said Eddy existed on ever-decreasing royalties topped up by occasional revival concerts, Internet reissues and once, cringe-makingly, she’d seen him on the Who-Did-He-Used-To-Be? line-up on Never Mind the Buzzcocks where he’d been dressed in a frilled pirate shirt, introduced as Never-Ready Eddy and looked as if he was about to weep. Eddy’s windows didn’t have any curtains at all, not even in winter, as a kind of anti-suburbia style statement. There wasn’t a single resident of the Grove who didn’t slow their pace to stare into the purple-walled, knocked-through sitting room with its scarlet piano and cowhide-and-chrome-trimmed bar, complete with a full range of spirits in proper optics. Now, as Natasha hauled her burden past Eddy’s, she could see the back of her father’s head through the window. He was sprawled on the pink paisley sofa and she could tell by the way his shoulders shook and his head went back that he was laughing. He didn’t often laugh like that at home. Perhaps, she thought, it was something to do with not having a job any more. She could quite see that not having to go to work would make you very, very happy.

  The boy from the railway was leaning against the gatepost outside number 46, almost opposite Natasha’s own house. She felt a lurching pang of shock when she looked up and realized it was him. Did he, she wondered immediately, know that it was her? Had he ever actually noticed her? As she drew level she slowed down, keen to make contact of some sort but unsure how not to make a complete idiot of herself. He was taller than she’d thought he’d be, dressed completely in black (ancient-looking leather jacket that looked like he’d stolen it from a dead biker, scuffed combats, black Converse shoes, all noted to report to Claire).

  ‘Hi.’ His voice was so quiet that for a moment Natasha wondered if she’d imagined that he’d spoken. She stopped and turned to look at him. He wasn’t smiling. He was still leaning on the gatepost, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched as if it was cold, though it was a bright spring day with a lazy late-afternoon warmth.

  ‘You live over there?’ The boy’s head indicated her own house across the road and she looked over at the vase of purple and white stocks that her mother had put on her desk in front of the window. The room would be full of their scent.

  ‘Yeah.’ Natasha could feel her face turning pink. He must have seen her looking at him. She stared down at her feet, willing the blush to disappear.

  ‘I’ve seen you,’ he said, ‘up at your window. You were watching me.’

  ‘Not really.’ She felt offended by his conceit. ‘I mean if you muck about on a busy railway line you can’t expect people not to watch, can you?’

  ‘What, in case I get run over by a train? You want to make sure you don’t miss that.’

  Natasha laughed. ‘Too right. Not much happens round here. Don’t want to miss the big event.’

  He was smiling now, a crooked grin but perfect teeth. His hair didn’t look very clean – it was too long, and a dull dark brown as if he’d spent a lot of time in a dusty room. He looked about nineteen. She didn’t think he could be younger, he was too cocky.

  ‘So is that your bedroom, round the back, where I see you?’ The soft, low tone to his voice made the question sound mildly obscene and Natasha could feel the blush coming back.

  ‘Yes. I do my homework up there too. That’s why I see you – it’s not like I’m looking out specially.’ She felt confused, defensive. ‘Anyway, where do you live, what are you doing out there?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘I live down by the allotments. Can’t miss it, it’s the blue Sierra.’

  Natasha was puzzled for a second. ‘You live in a car? No-one lives in a car!’

  The boy shrugged again. ‘They do. I do. Not all the time, but for now. It’s a good car. Any chance of a cup of tea?’ He flashed her a devastating smile, confident of a yes-answer.

  ‘Er …’ Natasha thought quickly. Was anyone home? Did she want them to be?

  ‘It’s OK, your mother’s in. I saw her,’ he said. ‘I’m good at mothers.’

  Jess flicked through her index cards and tried to remember the last time she’d written a piece about what the girls were currently wearing. It was a good old standby when she was running short on ideas, and the one that had started her off as a journalist. ‘Shop Horror’ had been the tag-line of the first piece she’d ever written: a fast, furious thousand words blending outrage with amusement sent on spec to t
he Gazette, all sparked off by catching sight of black lace hold-up stockings for six-year-olds, along with lurex bra-tops and miniature G-strings, in a nationwide high-street store. Who on earth, she’d thought, would dress their child up to be a paedophile’s wet dream? Would a girl hardly out of babyhood really feel comfortable (in fact did anyone, really?) in cheese-wire knickers? The features editor had enjoyed her style, printed the piece only days later, invited her to send in occasional articles as and when she thought of them and then, after the success of Teen Spirit, offered her the column she was still writing.

  Jess counted backwards, working out that over that time there wasn’t much about her trio of adolescents she hadn’t covered. She’d written about changing schools, the deep traumas of broken friendships, first periods, exam pressure, dead pets, school trips – just about everything that the average broadsheet-reading family would recognize. It seemed a bit desperate to recycle old articles but the only new topic on her mind at the moment was Matt’s redundancy. It didn’t seem to be on his, though, and she felt as if she was thinking ahead (in the general direction of ruin and disaster) for the two of them.

  It was getting late and Matt still hadn’t returned from the Leo and the girls would be back any minute. Her afternoon had been busy – busy enough for her to push away the waves of panic about the future. She’d roughed out the piece for the Independent, taken chilli con carne out of the freezer for supper and put together a salad to go with it, phoned the plumber about the strange whining noise from the pipes in the loft, checked her e-mails for any word from Oliver (nothing yet) and scooped up the first heap of his abandoned laundry into the washing machine. A small moth of resentment was fluttering inside her. Matt was going to swan back home in his own time (for all time was his own now, wasn’t it?), in a good mood, relaxed, pissed as a rat and looking for a snack to sponge up the alcohol. He’d open the fridge, forage around picking up the yoghourts and commenting on long-gone best-before dates, then he’d rummage in the bread bin, make a toasted honey sandwich and leave crumbs and three knives covered in butter and gloop scattered around on the worktop. After that he’d start on the crisps, which would make him thirsty again and she’d hear the swoosh of a can of beer being opened … She took a deep breath and reminded herself that although all this might be about to happen, there was no point getting herself worked up into a fury when it actually hadn’t yet. And, more important, there was no point complaining when it did. Matt wasn’t a child, he was entitled to live as he chose in his own home. He’d be pretty sure to point that out too.

  ‘Mum? Are you in?’ Natasha’s head appeared round the door. Jess waited for the rest of Natasha to follow but she kept herself draped across the doorway, blocking the space, waiting.

  ‘Oh hi Tash, good day?’ The girl looked shifty and Jess took another large breath and waited to hear that she’d been expelled, got pregnant or robbed the post office. Might as well get all possible disasters out in the open in the same week, she thought, surrendering herself to the worst that fate could deal.

  ‘Not bad, just usual. Er, Mum, I’ve got someone here. Can we go and make a cup of tea?’

  ‘Well of course you can! Why do you think you need to ask all of a sudden? Oh and one for me while you’re at it, please Tash.’

  She heard the two pairs of footsteps thumping towards the kitchen. Mildly suspicious, for who was this mystery person? Jess got up to follow, to go – on the pretence of finding biscuits – and meet the friend whom she had not, and she was sure it was no oversight, been allowed to see. She retrieved her shoes from where she always kicked them off under the desk and wasted a few minutes shuffling papers around.

  ‘There’s a new pack of chocolate Hobnobs in the cupboard.’ Jess loudly announced her impending arrival from halfway down the hall, recalling quite well that it was a teen law as unchallengeable as that of gravity that friends you didn’t introduce to your mother had to be of the opposite sex. She was sure that neither of them would want her to catch them in a passionate clinch crushed against the fridge.

  Natasha was leaning back against the sink, her arms folded across her front and her long caramel-coloured hair hiding much of her face. The boy, a lanky, dark-clad creature, was sprawled across two of the kitchen chairs. He had a sort of slender elegance about him, taking up a lot of space without looking awkward. There was a vague stale smell of cigarettes and the not-so-elegant hint of feet, a sharply remembered tang of Oliver.

  ‘Oh hello,’ Jess said brightly, grinning at the boy, ‘I’m Jess, Natasha’s mother. I’ll just find those biscuits for you.’ Natasha scowled but knew well enough the process for getting her mother out of the way.

  ‘Er, Mum this is …’

  ‘I’m Tom. Hello.’ The boy didn’t stand up (did any of them?) but held out his hand to shake hers. She felt quite touched by his formality – unheard of in youth, and he couldn’t be much older than Natasha – and by his rather pitiful air of neglect. His hair could do with a wash and his hands looked as if they’d spent several months working on car engines in garages that didn’t quite run to Swarfega. She guessed that he wasn’t a St Dominic’s pupil – the boys from there had that scrubbed, fresh-faced eager look as if they were all about to become those terribly young and vulnerable-looking policemen. This one, with a silver arrow pierced through his eyebrow (which wasn’t allowed even at Briar’s Lane), his general dustiness and shadowy eyes, looked … well dangerous, attractively dangerous. Jess busied herself putting biscuits onto a plate, adding more milk to her tea. She could feel Natasha’s tension beside her. ‘So Tom, are you from round here?’

  There was a suppressed groan from Natasha. ‘Go ahead Mum, why don’t you ask him for … what’s it called when you go for a job? References?’

  ‘I live round the corner, up the road. By the allotments,’ Tom told her, ignoring Natasha. He gave Jess a lazy, catlike smile, his large dark eyes narrowing. ‘Natasha told me her grandad’s got an allotment. They’re neat, up there, like all the owners really care.’

  ‘They do,’ Jess told him. ‘My father has had his for forty years. The council keep threatening to sell the land off for housing but these old gardeners are tough opposition. Dad’s declared his patch the People’s Republic of SW14 and run a flag up on his shed.’

  Tom laughed. ‘The shed that’s bright red? That’s one cool shed. What’s the flag?’

  ‘Good old-fashioned hammer and sickle. Dad never quite got over the break-up of Soviet Russia. It depressed him no end. He’s away in Cuba just now, having a look at the last bastion of true Communism while Fidel Castro’s still in charge.’

  ‘Tom doesn’t want to know …’ Natasha hissed the words at her.

  ‘Oh I do!’ he told her. ‘People’s families are interesting. Specially if you don’t have one.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Jess sat down and looked at him. No wonder he looked so neglected. If he was a dog, Battersea would need to tidy him up a fair bit before he was put up for rehoming. Natasha was glaring at her, but Jess wasn’t going to be sent away, not just yet.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got foster people. Nice ones. It’s OK.’ Tom shrugged. Jess could see his face closing down as if he’d said too much. She could sense pain somewhere and hoped Natasha would be kind to him. Not too kind though. The girl was still only fifteen.

  ‘Right, well I’ll get back to work.’ Jess took her tea and a couple of biscuits and left the two of them alone. She had the feeling that Natasha didn’t really know this boy too well – she’d noticed that Tom had been swift to tell her his name himself as if Natasha didn’t actually know it. She wondered where they’d have met. Girls from her school tended to team up with the St Dominic’s lot, being socially and academically equivalent. Parents of children from both schools were comfortable with that. It was as if the schools had been paired off by a dating agency matching similar incomes, class and interests. If there was trouble to be got into everyone played by the same rules: parents could afford private abortions in case of sex
ual accidents. These teenage boys weren’t about to have their path to the essential law degree hampered by an expensive scuffle over child maintenance. If schoolwork fell apart there was a good selection of nearby Kensington crammers for extra holiday courses and if it was a matter of drugs, well, most of the parents still went in for a spot of after-dinner dope themselves. For serious sorting out there was even the Priory nearby for some outpatient counselling or long-stay readjustment. Jess’s father, George, felt that private education led to a form of social apartheid, reinforcing the separation of rich and poor. Sometimes, as when she noticed the gradual loss of contact between Mel and Natasha, she knew he had a point. He’d much approve of Natasha’s new friend, Jess thought wryly. Probably invite him to look over his collection of Karl Marx memorabilia.

  * * *

  Zoe knew about this sort of thing. Her mum wrote about it all the time. She’d know what to do, which was obviously why she was the one Emily had chosen to tell. She only wished that, right now, she knew the right thing to say to Emily.

  ‘You mustn’t tell anyone. Promise, really promise,’ Emily sobbed.

  ‘Course I won’t tell,’ Zoe said, reassuring for the fifth time. The two girls sat on the allotment bench watching a woman in a big flouncy velvet skirt and purple boots hoeing between rows of vegetables. Zoe wondered what they were. Could be leeks, she thought, or they could be onions. Grandad would know and he probably grew better ones. He’d been way ahead of his time, growing everything organically, not just because it was better for the eater but because he was sure that spraying chemicals about rotted gardeners’ brains. Emily was quite good at crying quietly so the hoeing woman took no notice of them. It was just as well it wasn’t Natasha sitting next to her with this kind of problem, everyone would hear her wailing about it for miles around. Whatever she’d promised Emily, though, someone who could be more effective in the practical sense would have to know sooner or later. It would be best in the long run to tell Emily’s mum, for one thing they’d need money – an abortion wasn’t going to be within pocket-money range – but Angie wasn’t used to having her mid-week afternoons interrupted by her own children. Emily was supposed to be seventy miles away, safe and cosy in her boarding school. Angie was probably up at the gym having an aromatherapy massage or her toenails revamped or something.