by Ali Mercer
‘You’ll have seen the bits I underlined, then.’
‘Yes, those were the bits I read.’
She shifted the roses into the crook of her arm so she could put the book back in her bag. ‘I’m embarrassed now,’ she said. ‘Were they corny?’
‘No. Not corny, and not embarrassing,’ he said firmly. ‘Look, I was wondering if you might… you know… like to go out with me sometime?’
He was nervous. He looked as if he’d readied himself for disappointment, as if he was half expecting to hear that she already had a boyfriend or just didn’t want to take things any further. He seemed like someone who might be capable of taking no for an answer.
Her heart was doing somersaults. She found she was smiling.
‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘Oh yeah. That would’ve been a good place to start, wouldn’t it? I’m Mitch. Mitchell Moran.’
‘Well. That’s memorable.’
‘Yeah, well, Mitchell is my mother’s maiden name. I guess she must have wanted to hang onto it.’
‘I’m Rachel Steele.’
He grins at her. ‘I like it. Strong name. Though I would have still liked you if you were called Puddlefeather or Milkflop or something.’
‘You would?’
‘Of course I would,’ he said.
She drew a deep breath. This was making her dizzy. She couldn’t smell the roses, but she could smell him – a clean, lemony, masculine smell that made her want to come closer, to find out what it would be like to touch him.
‘I would like to go out with you…’ she said.
He looked relieved, but only partly. ‘OK, great, but I’m sensing that there’s a but coming.’
‘But right now I have to get back home. Are you catching the bus? If you are, maybe we could go together.’
He beamed at her. ‘Yes. Good. Let’s do that.’
They set off towards the bus stop, making their way through the crowds of shoppers. Without even thinking about it she reached out and took his hand. It felt all right. It felt better than all right; it felt like something she’d been waiting all her life to do, and would be doing many times again.
Something was happening to her, something important. Her world was tilting on its axis. Was she scared? Maybe. But the thought faded as quickly as it had come. It was as if he was a promise that she was wrapped up in already.
Just before the bus stop was a newsagent’s that had already closed for the day. It was slightly set back from the other shops, and she drew him into the sheltered space in front of it.
‘Might as well get out of the wind while we’re waiting,’ she said.
He let go of her hand and reached up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. The gesture was so tender it took her breath away. And then somehow they were kissing. Everything tiptoed away: the shops, the buses, the passers-by, Pinkney’s, the home that was waiting for her. Her eyes were closed and she was conscious only of the two of them and the unseen glow of the Christmas lights, stars and candles and snowflakes strung overhead as if to illuminate their meeting.
She was melting and it was heaven. This was it. This was what love was like: being treasured. Like embracing in a shower of gold.
Forty-Four
Becca
They are going to sing an a cappella version of ‘Love Me Tender’, and from somewhere, genuine white, rhinestone-studded, flared Elvis costumes have been acquired; they’re meant to wear their hair in quiffs and gyrate gently, playing it for laughs.
It is pretty much the very last thing Becca feels like doing, but that is not in the spirit of the competition. It is important to be game, to give it your best shot, to try your hardest for your house. The costume helps. A costume always helps, especially one as outrageous, as different from anything she would normally wear as this.
She takes her place on the stage next to Amelia. They sing and shimmy together as if they’re the best of friends, and are rewarded by a storm of applause. And it feels good – too good, like something that’s probably bad for you, like being drunk might be, or other things that Amelia does that Becca has decided not to. Suddenly everything makes sense: this is what life is about – this giddy feeling, which is completely out of her control but in a good way, the best possible way. It is a triumph, so much so that when the scores are announced later it comes as a slight anti-climax to learn that their house has won the cup.
After the bell rings to mark the end of the day they all pour out into the sunlight. Some head for the coach that will drop them off at outlying villages; a few have parents waiting in the car park; others fall into twosomes and threesomes and foursomes to walk to homes in Kettlebridge. Becca aims to bob along in mid-field, trying, as usual, to be inconspicuous. She notices the other girls putting up umbrellas before she feels the first drops of rain.
She doesn’t have one. Or rather, she does, somewhere, but she never has it when she needs it. Mum used to occasionally nag her about that kind of thing. Dad never does.
Someone just behind her says, ‘Need one of these?’
It’s Amelia, whose umbrella is already up – she likes to avoid getting her hair wet, and complains of frizz, though it always looks immaculate. She comes closer and holds her umbrella over Becca.
‘You were good today,’ she says. ‘Everyone said our Elvis routine was the best.’
‘You were good, too.’
The street brightens for a moment as the sun emerges from the clouds; then, just as suddenly, it is gloomy again, the wind gusts and it begins to rain properly. The pavement is spattered with spots of damp one minute, dark and sleek the next.
‘Why have you been avoiding me?’ Amelia asks suddenly.
‘I haven’t,’ Becca protests.
Amelia rolls her eyes. ‘Liar.’
‘We’re talking now, aren’t we? How are things going with Ollie?’
‘Really good, actually. Is it because of Ollie that you don’t want to hang out any more?’
‘It’s not because of Ollie.’
‘A-ha! Then you admit it is because of something.’ Amelia aspires to become a lawyer in later life, and occasionally makes a point of pouncing on other people’s declarations. ‘So what is it?’
By now, the tide of end-of-day schoolgirls has mostly dispersed. The rain is falling steadily and the road is almost just a road again, with a few anonymous passing cars splashing through puddles and next to no pedestrians. No one will overhear, and anyway, Becca can’t think of anything to say but the truth.
‘I just don’t think we’re into the same things,’ she says. ‘You know, the shoplifting and smoking and all of that.’
Amelia takes this in, is almost affronted, then decides to be amused.
‘Oh, that stuff? That’s nothing,’ she said. ‘You know I was off school the other day? Well, I wasn’t sick. Ollie and me both skived off and went to London. So much better than this boring dump of a place. Who wants to hang out in Kettlebridge? Come with us next time, if you like. I promise you, you’d love it. It makes you feel like you’re really alive. Being here just makes you feel like you’re asleep.’
‘Yeah, I don’t think so, thanks all the same.’
‘Well, I think you need to get over yourself and lighten up. If you knew what I know, you wouldn’t care so much about doing what people tell you to.’
‘If I knew what? What are you talking about?’
Amelia’s face is bright with the thrill of a secret she’s about to disclose.
‘It’s pretty disgusting. I’m not sure I should tell you. You might not be able to take it.’
‘I think you’re going to tell me,’ Becca says. ‘I think you want to.’
‘Only because I think you ought to know. But you’re going to be shocked.’
‘Try me.’
‘OK. Well, you asked for it. I found out my mum’s passcode the other day, and had a look at her phone. And guess who’s been texting her? Your dad.’
‘So?’
&n
bsp; ‘So ugh. He was like, Call me, we need to talk. I miss you. Kiss kiss.’
‘So he wants to talk to her. Big deal.’
‘He misses her, Becca. You don’t miss someone just because you vaguely know them and have kids in the same class at school. He’s been doing her, and she’s too dumb to even get a shitty second phone for him to talk to her on and hide it, like you’re supposed to do when you’re having an affair.’
‘Oh, come on. Your mum and my dad are not having an affair.’
‘Well, if they’re not now they were. It’s gross, isn’t it? Sorry to break it to you, Becca.’ Amelia doesn’t look sorry – actually, she looks like she’s just scored a triumph. It had always annoyed her when Becca was defensive about her parents; she was harsh about her own, especially her mother, and clearly would have felt vindicated if Becca had joined in.
‘I just think you’ve got it wrong.’
‘It’s evidence, Becca. You can’t write it off just like that. It’s the facts. Of course they don’t want anybody to know. Least of all us. If they’re carrying on like that, what right do they have to tell us what to do? I don’t know about you, but I’m going to do exactly what I want from now on and I’m not even going to feel bad about it. They’re just a bunch of hypocrites.’
‘You want to believe that. Even if he did say Missing you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were having some great big secret affair.’
‘Um, it kind of does, actually. Why else would he have said it? Think about it, Becca. Just open your mind for a minute. All that drama last year, on your birthday? When your mum turned up and started smashing things and hit your dad? She knew. She was on to them. She just didn’t have any evidence. And then your dad somehow managed to persuade her she was just a crazy lady. Which she pretty obviously was as well, but I guess if your husband is cheating on you and lying to you about it you maybe would go a little bit crazy.’
‘Why are you so keen to believe it? It’s your mum you’re talking about!’
Amelia tosses back her long blonde hair. ‘You know what your problem is, Becca? You need to grow up. You can’t just carry on living in some sweet little dream world where everybody’s nice. People are not nice. They’re horrible. You might as well accept that and have as good a time as possible.’
A car pulls up next to them; it’s Henry Chadstone in his Mini.
‘About time,’ Amelia says. ‘I’ve got to go. Call me if you want. I’m not doing anything tonight.’
‘Does your mother know you know?’
‘Yes.’ She eyes the downpour. ‘She’s being very nice to me. I think she doesn’t want me to tell Dad.’ She holds the handle of the umbrella up for Becca to take. ‘Here, have this. You can give it back to me tomorrow.’
Becca takes the umbrella. ‘Thanks.’
‘Look, I know it’s a shock,’ Amelia says. ‘Even I was shocked, and I already think my mum’s a total bitch. But it’s better for you to know, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure what I know.’
‘You know enough, don’t you? You don’t want all the gory details. Are you all right? You look kind of weird. Like you’re about to faint again.’
Henry hits his car horn. Becca says, ‘You’d better go.’
‘Just try not to take life so seriously, OK? You’ll never get out of it alive.’
Becca attempts a smile. ‘OK. I’ll try and remember that.’
‘I don’t know what you’d do without me,’ Amelia says. ‘You’d be soaked, for starters.’
She grins and turns away and hurries through the drenching rain to the Mini, and waves vigorously as Henry speeds away.
As soon as she has gone Becca closes the umbrella and puts it down.
Sometimes, when she was little, her dad had let her go out into the garden and run around in the rain. Not the kind of thing her mum had approved of. It had felt wild and magical and free, a chance to do the exact opposite of what you were supposed to do.
And now she will never be able to see him in the same way again.
Maybe this is what being grown up is? Perhaps Amelia is right, and there’s no point in trying to be good.
Her hair is dripping, her face is coated with water, her jumper and skirt are dark and sodden. It is astonishing how quickly it is possible to be wet through.
Forty-Five
She is sitting at the bottom of the stairs taking her shoes off when her father calls out, ‘Becca, could you come in here a minute?’
He sounds a bit odd. No, worse than that – desperate, as if he has been taken hostage but can’t let on. She wants nothing more than to retreat up to her bedroom and get into dry clothes, but instead she responds to the summons and goes through to the kitchen.
Oh, crap – Leona is here, yet again. Leona, the strange tea-towel lady with the bangles and charms. Becca is not madly keen on Leona coming to the house all the time, but has her and the business venture – upcycled furniture, jazzed-up old tat, whatever – pegged as one of Dad’s phases, like tai chi or growing his own vegetables, which means it won’t last.
The two of them are sitting at the kitchen table, almost as if they’ve been waiting for her.
‘You’re soaked,’ Dad says.
She can hardly bring herself to look at him. He is the dad who let her romp in the garden and the dad who has maybe been doing something bad with Mrs Chadstone, and now she’s in the room with him it’s impossible to reconcile the two.
‘Yeah, forgot my umbrella,’ she says.
‘We should look into umbrellas,’ Leona says, gazing into the middle distance as if she can see a bright future there. ‘Umbrellas and pac-a-macs. Also, what about wellies? Some people will pay an absurd amount where their children are concerned.’
‘I should probably go get changed…’ Becca says, moving back towards the door.
‘No, wait,’ her father says, and it’s an order. He never usually talks to her like that.
What the hell? Becca has the exact same feeling in her stomach that she gets when a lift suddenly plummets downwards.
‘Sit down.’
Becca sits. She has left a trail of damp footprints behind her, and her hair is still dripping a little. Neither of them seems to notice, or care.
But her mother would have cared. Her mother would have insisted on her going up and putting on home clothes and drying her hair, and would have probably made her a hot chocolate, too.
She used to do things like that… When she could, when she was here.
‘We have some news,’ Dad says. ‘Good news. You and Leona here are going to be getting to know each other a bit more. I know Leona wants to spend some time with you over the summer holidays, go shopping and whatever.’ He gives Leona a sickening special smile, like he adores her or something. She doesn’t look at all sure about what he’s saying, but smiles back at him anyway. ‘We should all make the most of it,’ Dad carries on, ‘and try and have a relaxing summer before… uh… the new arrival.’
Becca squints at him as if this might help things to come into focus. It doesn’t. What’s he talking about?
Now Leona is smiling at her. Disconcerting, especially as the smile is a sympathetic one. Part of Becca wants nothing more than to jump up and run away. Another part of her wants to thump the table and accuse her father of what she heard this afternoon right in front of this slightly dippy, tattooed, weirdly dressed woman, and see what the pair of them make of that.
‘I hope we can be friends,’ Leona says.
‘Yeah, well, thanks very much, but I don’t actually really need any more friends.’
Dad and Leona exchange looks. Dad leans over and takes Leona’s hand and keeps holding it.
‘You shouldn’t speak to Leona like that,’ he says manfully, and all of a sudden it’s as if Becca’s an outsider, someone who needs to be shut out in the dark. ‘Leona and I are in love, and Leona is having our baby. You’re going to have a little half-sister or brother. Sister, we think, though Leona doesn’t want to know
for sure.’
He squeezes Leona’s hand more tightly, pulls her towards him. Oh, God, it’s disgusting – she’s beaming and he looks proud. Then they turn to Becca with a painful kind of hope, as if they seriously believe she might be happy for them.
She’s dumbstruck. This is really happening and there’s no way out.
‘But you barely know each other. You only just met,’ she says. As if that has anything to do with it. All it takes to make a baby is sex, and people seem to do that with pretty much anybody, as soon as they get the chance.
‘I know it must be a shock,’ Leona says. ‘But when you’ve had time to adjust, I think we could all be really happy together.’
‘You’re going to move in here? With the baby?’
‘Well, yes, of course with the baby,’ Leona says with an indulgent smile. She glances lovingly at Mitch – Becca wishes she could shout at them to stop doing that – and rests her hands on her tummy as if it’s the best thing ever.
She’s weirdly fat there. Now Becca has noticed it she can’t see how she had missed it before.
Oh God, the thing that’s in there is going to come out, and then Becca will probably be expected to cuddle it and coo over it, too.
‘Does Mum know about this?’
Another exchange of glances. ‘Yes, we told her,’ Mitch says.
‘Right. I’m guessing that went down well.’
Leona shrugs. ‘It’s a big change. But you’ll all get used to it. You’re going to have to. Because this baby isn’t going anywhere.’
She caresses her tummy with an almost fanatical look of pride and devotion, which just makes Becca even angrier than before.
‘I know this is… complicated,’ Leona continues. ‘But Becca, this is a good thing. Don’t fight it. It’s a new life. One day, I promise you, you’ll love this child in a way you can’t now imagine. In the meantime, we’re all just going to have to do our best to be kind and considerate of each other.’
‘Considerate? That is just total bullshit,’ Becca says.
She has never sworn at anyone before. It feels pretty good and very bad at the same time. Her dad’s face is almost unrecognisable, set and unsmiling. She realises how lovingly he usually looks at her, how fond and indulgent he is.