by Judy Astley
‘Your mum should have let you stay at school here with us,’ Zoe said, thinking aloud.
Emily looked confused. ‘Why? Don’t girls get pregnant at your school then?’
Zoe shrugged, ‘Well, some I suppose. I mean, well, instead of getting pregnant you could have just gone down the road to Boots and bought condoms and stuff if you hadn’t been shut away miles from the shops couldn’t you?’ She couldn’t actually imagine, herself, shopping for that sort of thing, at fourteen you really didn’t want to think about the embarrassment factor if you didn’t have to: she’d only just got to the point of not blushing handing over money for Tampax at the checkout. Emily looked way too young as well. She was so thin, her legs looked like Bambi’s and she often walked with her hands folded across her front as if she hadn’t got used to having breasts. Her long brown hair was thin too and flopped miserably each side of her face. Zoe would bet she never got asked for ID when she requested a half fare on the bus.
Emily came up with half a grin. ‘Yeah that’s a good one. That means I can blame the school. I like that but I don’t think my mum will go for it. And we’ll both get expelled when they find out.’
‘You’re joking!’ Zoe was outraged. ‘I don’t think that’s an expellable thing at our school. And both of you? Why?’
‘Betrayal of trust or something. No shagging is in the rules, written down. “Any boy and girl caught …”’
‘They actually caught you at it?’ Zoe giggled, ‘How embarrassing!’
‘No, course they didn’t, but when I start to get fat, that’ll be pretty obvious. And they’ll know it was Giles. Giles and me, we’ve been together since last year. Everyone knows, even the teachers make jokes about us. If we sit together in class they call us the Happy Couple.’
‘You could lie.’
‘What, to save him? Why should I? After he asked if it was really his? There’s only been him, and only that once. He knows I’m no slapper, the bastard.’
Zoe shrugged. She didn’t know what Emily got up to at school. She’d assumed it was all hockey and compulsory cross-country running and lashings of prep, like in Enid Blyton. Now she wondered if all they ever did was screw each other senseless behind the gym or whatever, out of sheer boredom. If that was it, then maybe it was the school’s fault for not letting them just laze about watching telly. That was something that really sapped the energy.
This all felt unreal. It had been a shock just to have found Em waiting outside school for her. It was an even bigger shock to find that she, Zoe, was the only person Emily wanted to tell about her pregnancy. They’d been at the same playgroup, so if it was something to do with being her oldest friend, well she certainly qualified. But not her closest friend, surely. Since Emily had gone off to her Oxfordshire school they hadn’t really had that much to do with each other. Angie liked the single life and in the holidays Emily and her brother Luke always seemed to be away at pony-club camps or skiing or spending time with their father in Italy. Matthew had said it was to keep them from scuffing Angie’s elegant beechwood floor and lounging about making the primrose suede sofas untidy.
‘Do you remember when you fell out of that tree?’ Emily pointed to the low-branched oak on the railway side of the allotments, just beyond Zoe’s grandfather’s scarlet shed.
‘I broke my arm.’ Zoe smiled. ‘I must have been about eight I suppose. I remember they called it a greenstick fracture and I kept saying that it wasn’t, it was me that was broken not the tree branch.’
‘Seems so long ago.’ Emily sighed, hugging her arms round her thin little body.
‘It was. We’ll soon be fifteen, halfway through our teens. Halfway from ten to twenty.’
‘Too young for babies.’
Zoe could hear the threat of tears in Emily’s voice again, but could only agree, ‘Yes. Definitely too young for babies.’
‘I think I might take up tennis again,’ Matt was saying as he stacked the dishwasher after supper. ‘I think I’ll join that gym you go to, get fit. We could go together.’ He patted his stomach and Jess grinned at him.
‘We could. And in the car you could listen to Angie talking about her latest love, or should I say lust, interest. She collects them you know, young builders and plumbers and what-have-you. It’s what she means when she says she’s “got the men in”. And then she tells me all about it on the way to the gym.’
Matt looked doubtful. ‘Blow by blow as it were? Does she have to? Perhaps she won’t if I’m there.’
Jess laughed. ‘But there goes my entertainment!’
‘OK, I give in. You don’t want me crowding you, I know. I’ll mooch round the park, pick up a tennis partner there. Or drag Eddy out. He’s OK. Should’ve got to know him better before. You don’t get time, wasting all day in an office.’
‘Tennis would probably kill him.’
‘True. Listen, you didn’t mind me staying in the Leo this afternoon did you?’ Matt put the last of the glasses in the dishwasher and then put his arms round Jess. She snuggled against him, remembering how she’d thought she’d felt safe like that, all those years ago when she’d first met him. It was probably from reading too many drippy romances in which the heroines frequently leaned their pretty heads against hunky chests and felt secure and adored. This had been purely in the interests of research – Jess’s earliest writing attempts had been romantic fiction, rather too cynically told to be acceptable. These days cuddled up to Matt she just felt comfortable – there was no such thing as secure – and thankful that with her ear against his shirt she could still make out a strong and regular heartbeat.
‘Is that how you’re going to spend your days? Hanging out in the pub with a clapped-out old rock star?’ she asked, hoping it didn’t sound as carping to him as it did to her.
Matt pulled away and looked at her coldly. ‘No. Not every day. But when I do I’m not going to ask for permission.’
‘But you just did! You just asked if I minded!’
‘I asked if you’d minded about this afternoon. We didn’t really have much of a discussion in the Leo, I thought you might have wanted to continue it at home, that’s all.’
‘Oh right. Well “at home” I had work to get on with so no, I wouldn’t have been able to spend hours chatting to you about what you’re going to do with the rest of your life. Anyway it looks as if you’ve already decided that one.’
‘Course I haven’t. We could try again tomorrow, a nice long boozy lunch, just the two of us, no interruptions.’
‘Can’t. I’ve got an editor lunch, Paula from the Gazette. She wants to talk about the column and some other stuff.’
‘Oh well, if that’s more important …’
‘Of course it is, especially now! Anyway I’m not cancelling – I like Paula.’
‘I like Paula, I could come too. Or would that be crowding you as well?’
Jess almost relented. Matthew and Paula got on well: she’d been to the house several times, been sweet to the girls, flirted mildly with Oliver and laughed at Matt’s jokes. But this wasn’t social, this was work.
‘Let’s put it this way,’ she said eventually. ‘You didn’t used to take me to your business lunches.’
Jess knew they were being juvenile. If she’d been listening to any of her children having this discussion she’d have told them quite firmly not to be so silly.
‘Mum and Dad, you’re shouting! We can’t hear the telly and Friends is on!’ Zoe stood in front of them like a cross referee. Jess wondered which of them would be awarded the yellow card.
‘Sorry Zo. Just having a frank exchange of views,’ Matthew told her.
‘Is Natasha with you?’ Jess asked suddenly.
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Just wondered. She didn’t say much over supper.’
But Zoe was already out of the door, back to her favourite spot on the sofa, curled up with the cat and with her bare feet tucked away under a cushion.
‘What’s that about Tash?’ Matt asked. There seeme
d to be a truce, Jess thought, brought on simply by a change of subject.
‘Nothing, really. She brought home a boy today.’
‘She’ll bring home dozens of those. She’s a bit of a stunner, our Natasha. I’ll get the shotgun polished and ready, if you like.’
‘No need for that, I hope! No, this one was strange. He looked like he’d been sort of abandoned, like a lost puppy. He doesn’t seem to have a family.’
Matt reached into the fridge for another beer. ‘Want one?’ he asked. She shook her head, trying not to wonder how many alcohol units he’d packed away that day. ‘So, not one of the usual posh boys,’ he said. ‘More the type old Angie would fancy?’
‘I think he’s a bit young even for her! I think he’s been in care, something like that. He looks damaged.’
‘A learning experience for Tash, then. Your dad would be pleased, having her exposed to someone who’s done without the comforts of capitalist privilege.’
‘You make the boy sound like something educational we’ve bought for her to play with. And that reminds me. Dad’s back from his holiday on Thursday. He said he’d come over when he’s checked over the allotment.’
‘Better get him to bring something to eat with him,’ Matthew suggested. ‘After all, we can’t afford to entertain now there’s only one of us earning.’
Four
‘Why do they put “pan-fried” on the menu? Is it supposed to make it sound posher than just “fried”? Or less fattening, do you think?’ Jess was laughing as her lunch arrived. She looked down at the delicate arrangement of prawns perched precariously on top of a scaffolding of French beans and strips of celeriac and felt a childish urge to scatter the elaborate still life across the comically oversized plate on which it sat.
Paula Cheviot, editor of the Sunday Gazette’s Comfort Zone section, was opposite Jess at the inadequately small table in one of central London’s currently hyper-smart restaurants. She didn’t reply with an agreeing giggle as she normally would but looked a bit puzzled, as if Jess had questioned one of life’s acknowledged truths – such as did moisturizer really make that much difference. Slowly, Paula picked up a rocket leaf and nibbled at it, a look of intense concentration on her face. She had something on her mind. Jess could tell by the small frown lines. Paula never normally allowed such things to rumple her flat matt skin, for that would lead inevitably to the appointment at the clinic to have her forehead injected with botox into a paralysed (but smooth; divinely, age-defyingly smooth) expression of mild surprise.
Jess, in the process of loading her fork full of prawn, felt her appetite trickle away like chilled bathwater down a drain. Paula’s phone call two days previously, the apparently spontaneous suggestion that it was high time they got together for lunch and a gossip, suddenly seemed like a carefully calculated ruse. It was a trap. Jess put her fork down, suddenly shaky with the foreknowledge that she, like Matt, was about to be fired. His-and-hers dole cheques looked more than likely. After all, things went wrong in threes, didn’t they? There’d be this, and then something would happen to Oliver in Australia, or the girls would be expelled from school.
‘Oooh. This is delicious. Such a treat.’ Paula’s usual smile reappeared as she munched a delicate mouthful of duck with a coriander and lime dressing. ‘How’s yours?’ she asked, her social skills back in place and the fleeting moment of seriousness gone.
‘Fine.’ Jess tried to rekindle her appetite, taking too large a mouthful of white wine and almost choking. She could have been wrong – Paula’s mind might simply be full of which new-age diets to select for the next issue, or whether to commission someone to do a piece on Smart Cats.
‘It’s occurred to me lately,’ Paula then began, playing nervously with her silver Tiffany bracelet, ‘that perhaps the time has come for us to take a little trot down a different bridleway with your input at the Gazette, workwise.’
Here it comes, Jess thought, trying to maintain her breathing at a rate steady enough to keep her from faintness.
‘You mean, change the format?’ she prompted, praying that Paula didn’t mean ‘change the writer’.
‘Mm.’ With infuriating slowness, Paula worked her way through some more of her lunch. Jess was finding it hard to swallow a tiny piece of a French bean.
‘Of course we love your column. Wouldn’t be without it. Sweetly domestic chaos. Readers like that, makes them feel better about their own dysfunctional lives.’
‘Glad to provide a service.’
‘And you have, sweetie, you have, quite admirably. And for such a long time.’ She reached out and gave Jess’s wrist an electric little stroke. Her fingernails were perfectly manicured: evenly square-ended to look businesslike, but frosted candy pink for a hint of the girl within.
‘Of course we absolutely don’t want to lose you,’ she went on. Jess’s heart sank still further. The words sounded like a guillotine being jacked up ready for a long and vicious drop. ‘We’d like to keep Nelson’s Column going for at least another six months. There’d be sackfuls of letters to the Ed if we suddenly cut you out.’ Paula giggled prettily. ‘People look forward to your page, they need a kind of running-down phase, wean them off slowly.’
Jess pushed her food around with her fork, arranging the delicate pink of the prawns in a circle around the beans. Paula munched her way through her plate of warm duck salad and Jess watched fascinated: Paula had started with the lower left segment of the plate and was eating steadily across towards the top right. She reminded Jess of a termite, and she wondered if Paula approached other things in her life in the same way. She succumbed to the irresistible vision of her editor in bed with some gym-toned hunk, nuzzling her way down his body from right earlobe to left big toe, with a few savouring stops along the way.
About halfway across the plate Paula resumed her speech. ‘I would like to run a few new ideas past you, Jess, see if you feel up to something a little more challenging. We had a meeting and thought it could be a good idea to send you out to do new things, and then you report back, the kind of thing which might strike the average reader in terms of, “Oh I’ve always fancied having a go at that.” And if it works, well super. What do you think?’
‘Sounds interesting. What kind of thing did you have in mind? Not abseiling down Canary Wharf, Paula, please.’ Jess tried to sound perky and to look as if being ‘challenged’ was something that she was keen to rise to. The gnawing dread was still there though, along with a mild feeling of being cheated: if she’d suspected this lunch was more than just a jolly let’s-catch-up chat session she’d have made more effort on the looks front. She’d have bought something new to wear, rather than making do with her much treasured but four-year-old Ghost jacket. She also wished she’d had Philip at Hair We Are trim her rather shaggy hair into the kind of short sassy cut that could hold its own here so close to Sloane Street. Her highlights needed a bit of toning down too. The last colourist couldn’t quite believe that not everyone with mid-brown hair had a hidden craving to be blonde and had dabbed on chunks of pale gold with happy enthusiasm, radiantly confident of client satisfaction.
Around them, fellow diners looked as if they were having a much better time. Their feet beneath tables were surrounded by plenty of evidence of what Natasha called Big Bag shopping, plundered from the most delicious stores. Now, with Matt’s career over and her own clearly on some kind of test drive, she’d be limited to the Small Bag variety, if any at all.
‘We could have pudding,’ Paula suggested as the waiter took their plates away. ‘Shall we?’ Paula was leaning forward and sparkling her eyes at Jess as if the eating of a crème caramel was a huge and wicked temptation comparable with shoplifting at Harvey Nicks. The idea of something sweet was quite appealing, Jess thought, like a piece of chocolate when you’re a child and you’ve hurt yourself.
‘OK. I always love to have the kind of pudding I’d never be bothered to make at home. It’s like cocktails. A home-made piña colada just doesn’t have the same zing, does it
?’
Paula’s delicate fingers waved a little, as if she was just catching a thought. ‘Now cocktails, that’s one of the things I was thinking of.’
‘You were?’
‘We could send you out to do a course, learn how to make the perfect margarita, that kind of thing. And have you ever had a proper fitting for a bra? Or gone on one of those ghastly “flowers for the dinner party” courses?’
Jess laughed. ‘No to all of them. Except the bra thing, and that was only because I was pregnant.’
‘Well there you are then.’ Paula leaned forward and smiled broadly. ‘Lots to do, plus any ideas of your own you can come up with. It’s more money of course, because it’ll take up more time. And we send you out with a photographer. It’ll be fun.’
That was an order. It probably would be fun. And the words ‘more money’ were very welcome. For a while, too, there would still be Nelson’s Column as well, so she’d be earning quite a bit, enough to keep her from feeling like nagging at Matt quite so much anyway. Jess at last relaxed and plunged her spoon into her raspberry parfait. ‘And so, Jess,’ Paula began as Jess started to enjoy herself, ‘how is that gorgeous husband of yours?’
Matthew was in the attic, still not dressed though midday had long since been and gone, sitting on the bed reading the Creative and Media vacancies in the Guardian. The paper was three days old but he assumed most of the jobs were still on offer, at least till the first wave of fast young things had had their e-mailed CVs downloaded and read. The problem was that he didn’t want to apply for any of them – it was Jess who’d bought the paper, thinking she was being helpful and with a careful look on her face as if she was trying hard not to ask him why he hadn’t rushed out first thing on Monday morning to buy it himself. He didn’t want to waste any more of his life trying to pretend to people that they were exactly as wonderful as they thought they were, and that those aspects of their lives/work/reputations that they wished the world to know about were the most fascinating things on the planet. He’d spent twenty-two years being, well what had he been? Surely there had to be a better word to describe his working persona than pleasant. There wasn’t. He’d spent all his working life buddying up to clients, colleagues and media reptiles to put other people’s messages across. It was time he had a message of his own, something for those Out There to take notice of. His job had been the equivalent of a wall emulsioned in safe magnolia: simply a bland background for enhancement of someone else’s artwork. Somewhere, deep inside, he could feel the long-dormant stirrings of a creative impulse. It was time for it to come out.
