‘I found this,’ he said shortly.
‘Ah yes,’ said Ginny. ‘Well, it came the day we left for Spain and I didn’t want to spoil the holiday atmosphere so I … ’
‘So you hid it in the toaster – brilliant!’ said Barry. ‘Ginny, this bill is for £1,396. What in the name of goodness has been going on?’
‘Well, these things mount up,’ began Ginny, wishing she had had the foresight to put the bill in her knicker drawer. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Frankly, no. Half this stuff is totally unnecessary,’ snapped Barry, scanning his eyes over the list of purchases. ‘You are simply going to have to cut back.’
‘Well, if you got a job, maybe I wouldn’t have to,’ shouted Ginny. ‘If you spent more time job hunting and less time messing about with gourmet recipes, we might be better off.’
Barry had been feeling rather guilty about his lack of success in the job hunting stakes and didn’t need reminding of the fact by his wife.
‘I have an image to keep up – I’m in the public eye,’ continued Ginny. This last year she had discovered that it takes a lot of hard work to look good when bits of you that you forgot you had started flopping and sagging all over the place. Getting older was not something Ginny could easily accommodate.
‘Oh yes, I forgot – the local rag demands that its feature writer dresses solely in Joseph and Karen Millen, does it? And of course, when you’re on the radio, everyone can see your designer gear, can’t they? Well, we have a house to run and Warwick to put through university and … ’
Upstairs, Chelsea heard the rising tones of unrest and firmly shut her bedroom door.
‘Did you miss me?’ she asked Rob.
‘What? Oh – er, yes, course I did’ said Rob. ‘What with Jon away too, there was no one to have a laugh with.’
Laughing was not precisely what Chelsea had in mind.
Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. What was it her mother was always going on about? ‘If you want something in this life, Chelsea, you have to go out and make darned sure you get it.’
She leaned over and kissed Rob on the lips. He looked surprised – although not totally displeased. But he didn’t kiss her back.
‘Rob, you do like me, don’t you?’ said Chelsea.
‘What? Oh, er, yes – of course I do,’ replied Rob, suddenly showing an intense interest in his thumbnails. ‘You’re cool.’
Chelsea felt a warm glow. As romantic avowals went it might not win prizes but it was the best she’d received to date.
Maybe things were looking up, she thought.
In the kitchen things were definitely on the downward slope.
‘OK, OK, no need to go on,’ Ginny snapped. ‘Anyway, while you’re so busy criticising everything I do, what about you? When are you going to cut back on all this designer food?’ She waved a tanned hand in the general direction of the trout. Barry glanced at them in surprise, as if they had just surfaced from a nearby stream and placed themselves in his kitchen.
‘Ah – but if I am going to enter the ITV Superchef competition, I need to work with quality ingredients,’ said Barry hurriedly. ‘A couple of pheasants and the odd pound of okra once in a while is hardly the same as a clutch of designer suits and the odd Prada handbag!’
Ginny sighed. ‘OK, OK, I’ll make a pact with you. I’ll cut back on my personal spending if you make a real effort to find work. Any work. Soon. Like tomorrow. OK?’
‘OK,’ sighed Barry. He had really quite enjoyed his ten months at home since Freshfoods made him redundant. He’d never been one of these high flying chaps with their eye on the boardroom. Give him a pile of pasta and a few prawns and he was happy to create culinary delights all morning. If only people would pay him for inventing twenty things to do with a haddock. But Ginny was right. He’d have to do something.
They would all have to do something or they would be in the soup. Hang on a minute. Now that was a good idea …
Chapter Six
Love Is in the Air
‘So come on, Sumitha, tell us everything!’ said Chelsea. It was the last Saturday of the holidays and the first chance she had had to get together with her friends and catch up on all the gossip. The venue was Jemma’s bedroom, because Laura was hoping for a glimpse of Jon. This explained why she was sitting on the windowsill getting pins and needles in her bottom and a crick in her neck from swivelling her head every ten seconds to peer into his front garden.
‘What about this amazing guy?’ encouraged Laura. ‘Jemma said you liked him even better than Jon – do you really?’ she added hopefully.
Sumitha flopped down on Jemma’s floor cushions, ran her fingers through her hair, and sighed.
‘He is,’ she said, ‘just divine. He’s seventeen, has a body to die for, a wonderful smile and,’ she paused for maximum effect, ‘a car.’
‘Wow!’ said Chelsea, ‘Is he rich?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Sumitha nodded. ‘And next weekend,’ she added dreamily, ‘he’s staying at our house.’
‘How come?’ asked Laura, frowning. ‘I thought he lived in Calcutta.’
‘No, his family just spend the summer holidays there with the grandparents. His mum and dad live in London but they travel a lot, and guess what?’
Everyone looked expectant.
‘Bilu is a boarder in the Sixth Form at – you won’t believe this – Bellborough Court!’
That it so not on, thought Jemma. She’ll get to see him all the time, I’ll be the only one left without a boy.
‘That’s where Jon goes,’ interrupted Laura, her interest suddenly increasing ten fold.
Sumitha glared at her. For once she had centre stage and she was not about to give it up to Laura.
‘Yes, well, my dad was talking to Bilu’s dad at my cousin’s wedding and it came up in conversation. So Dad said he could stay with us some weekends when his parents were away.’
‘But I thought your parents were really iffy about boyfriends,’ said Jemma, clutching at straws.
‘That’s the great thing,’ said Sumitha, hugging her knees in excitement. ‘Because his family are related by marriage to my cousin’s aunt, or something like that, Dad sees him as part of our extended family. And he keeps saying that it is good for me to have the company of a “nicely brought up Bengali boy who shares our standards”. ‘She giggled. ‘He might not say that if he had seen us at the mela.’
‘The what?’ said Chelsea, abstractedly picking pink nail polish off her big toe.
‘Oh, it’s a fair they have for Rathajatra – to celebrate the monsoon rains coming,’ said Sumitha. ‘Everyone goes and Bilu took me – well, the whole family went actually, but we gave them the slip.’ She giggled. ‘Bilu bought me jasmine flowers and held my hand.’
‘So you really like him?’ said Laura, wishing that Jon had held her hand just once.
‘I am,’ said Sumitha, ‘deeply, passionately in love.’
Great, thought Laura. That’s Sumitha out of the way. From now on, I can have Jon all to myself. All she had to do now was convince Jon of that fact.
‘So when are we going to get to meet this guy?’ asked Jemma. Perhaps he’d be really gormless and ugly and then she wouldn’t feel so bad.
‘Why don’t we all go to The Stomping Ground on Saturday and Sumitha can bring him!’ said Laura, giggling. And I might get to see Jon, she added silently.
‘Great idea,’ agreed Chelsea.
Sumitha was not at all sure she wanted to share one second of Bilu’s stay with anyone else – but on the other hand, it would be ace to be able to show him off. Her very own boyfriend – and one with a car at that.
‘How was Brittany, Laura?’ asked Jemma, suddenly eager to get away from the subject of boyfriends. ‘Did you manage to dispose of the Bestial Betsy?’
‘No chance,’ said Laura gloomily. ‘That woman is seriously weird. She kept dashing off to markets to buy oysters and weird cheeses that smelled like cow’s dung, and she wears flowers in her hair and has c
onversations with trees. Insane or what?’
‘What are her kids like?’ asked Jemma.
‘Beyond wet,’ declared Laura. ‘Mind you, with a mother like that, what chance have they got? There was this huge row one night because Sonia wouldn’t let Daryl – who’s so uncool you wouldn’t believe – play ping pong. My dad told her to grow up and she went mental. I mean, seriously. She yelled at him and said, “You’re not my dad, and you can’t tell me what to do!” and when my dad tried to reason with her, she just screeched that she hated the lot of us and wished she was dead. Then she ran off.’
‘So what happened?’ asked Sumitha.
‘I went to look for her – to get away from Betsy’s wittering on about the poor little soul and what a rotten so-and-so my dad was to annoy her. I found her on the beach howling her eyes out. I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for her – after all, she’s only eleven. She was sitting there, hurling bits of shell in to the sea and saying how much she hated my dad, and how she wished he would disappear forever and how her mum ought to know better than to take up with a man like him.’
‘Sounds pretty much like what you say about your mum and Melvyn,’ commented Chelsea.
‘Well, I know, but I mean – you simply can’t compare my dad with that geek, can you?’ demanded Laura. ‘My dad’s way intelligent, and brilliant fun and she’s blimmin’ lucky to have him.’
‘Well, at least your dad is happy,’ said Jemma soothingly.
‘Yes, but now my mother’s acting all weird. I only have to say half a word and she snaps my head off. She moons around all morning in a dressing gown looking pallid. Actually, what I’m hoping is that she’s had a big bust up with the idiot Melvyn while I was away. She hasn’t said anything, but she’s been really quiet.’
‘That’s a bit rough on your mum,’ said Chelsea, who secretly couldn’t see what was wrong with Melvyn.
‘No, it’s not!’ shouted Laura. ‘It’s time she saw sense. She’ll get over it, and anyway, he was never right for her.’
‘Says who?’ asked Jemma, a tad ill-advisedly.
‘Says me!’ snapped Laura. ‘It’s all right for you. Your mum and dad are together. You,’ she added emphatically, ‘are not the traumatised child of a broken home.’
The others said nothing. They all knew better than to tackle Laura when she was having a drama-queen moment.
‘Did you meet any dishy guys in Paris, Jemma?’ asked Sumitha, for whom any conversation that didn’t offer the chance to extol Bilu’s virtues held little interest.
‘Not really,’ admitted Jemma reluctantly. ‘Not that I didn’t chat to loads of cool guys,’ she added hastily, ‘but it’s a bit difficult to get off with someone when Mr Horage hovers over you like a sentry and Miss McConnell keeps marching you off to see more museums.’
‘Bor-ing!’ said Sumitha, doing a mock yawn behind her hands.
‘No, it was good fun really,’ insisted Jemma. ‘It was just so great not having Mum clucking over me like a headless chicken all the time. Mind you, she’s making up for lost time now. I’ve found this cool diet to go on and now my mum thinks I’m going to fade away to nothing.’ She paused, hoping that everyone would chorus ‘Oh but Jemma, you’ve got a lovely figure, you don’t need to diet!’ They didn’t.
‘What about this guy that you met in Spain?’ Sumitha asked Chelsea, deftly steering the conversation back to boys, ‘Does that mean you’ve gone off Rob?’
‘No way,’ said Chelsea. ‘Rob’s much nicer. Juan was just useful for the holidays. He followed me everywhere – it was quite cute. And he kept buying me drinks and chocolate – he even bought me flowers one time.’
‘Wow!’ said Jemma. Why couldn’t someone buy her flowers?
‘Anyway,’ said Chelsea, tossing her chestnut curls and pursing her lips, ‘I got fed up with him – he was only after one thing.’
The others looked impressed. To date, no one had been after anything with them other than a share of their French fries.
‘You mean … ?’ said Laura.
‘So what happened?’ enquired Sumitha, who felt it might be as well to find out more on these matters.
‘Nothing,’ said Chelsea airily, ‘I told him to get lost.’
The others nodded in approval.
‘You’ve got to be really in love for that,’ said Laura, with the voice of one who knows.
‘I’d be scared,’ said Jemma, honest as ever.
‘You will know when you have met the right person,’ intoned Sumitha, wrapping her arms round her chest and giving herself a little hug. ‘You just know.’
Chelsea said nothing. She wasn’t going to let on that Juan had told her he was tired of going round with a kid. A girl has her pride. ‘Should be good this term,’ she said brightly in an attempt to divert the conversation away from the passion she wished she could’ve got a taste of. ‘What with Oliver! and everything. Are you going to audition for the Artful Dodger like Mr Horage suggested, Sumitha?’
‘I might,’ said Sumitha. ‘But only if they don’t have any rehearsals at weekends, because Bilu will want me to be free to see him.’
At that moment, Mrs Farrant appeared at the bedroom door. ‘Thought you might be peckish, petals,’ she cooed. ‘I’ve bought you up some snacks and some drinks.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Farrant,’ they chorused.
‘Oh MUM!’ said Jemma, as her mother placed the tray on the bedside table. ‘Not animal biscuits! Puh-lease!’
Chapter Seven
I Don’t Like Mondays
Monday morning brought about a mixture of high hopes and rude awakenings in several households in Leehampton. At 47 Billing Hill, Jon Joseph was gulping his breakfast in the hope of being out of the house before his father launched into his usual first-day-of-term pep talk about consolidated effort, aiming high and buckling down. Dad may have finally accepted that his son had no wish to go to Cambridge and wanted to do art instead, but that didn’t stop him exhorting him to hit the heights and put Lowry in the shade.
His father, however, appeared to have other things on his mind.
‘I can’t find my red pinstripe shirt!’ Henry Joseph bellowed down the stairwell.
‘It’s in the ironing basket,’ replied his wife Anona calmly, wondering why it was that her husband needed to exercise his vocal chords as if trying to communicate with Belgium.
‘But I need it today!’ Henry bumbled into the kitchen, looking faintly ridiculous in a pair of green boxer shorts and yellow socks.
‘So iron it,’ replied his wife mildly, ticking off a list as she packed her bag.
Henry stopped dead in his tracks. ‘But you always iron on Sundays,’ he said.
‘So this week I didn’t,’ said Mrs Joseph, turning to him. ‘If you remember, I start my Interior Design course today and I have had more important things to think about than whether the household laundry is up to scratch. Now where did I put those new pastels?’
‘Now look here, Anona,’ blustered Henry, his fat cheeks taking on a somewhat mulberry hue. ‘I’ve got a job to go to. Who is it who will be bringing home the cash now that you’ve decided to opt out of the job market?’
‘You, dear, for the time being,’ replied his wife calmly. ‘Ah, there they are.’
‘Precisely!’ expostulated Henry smugly. ‘And just because you’re doing some course, you can’t expect me to go to work in an unironed shirt.’
‘Of course not, Henry my sweet. As if I would,’ Mrs Joseph smiled beatifically. She had been thinking about this sort of scene for some time and at last she had had the courage to put herself first – calmly and without a fuss. She felt exhilarated. ‘There’s the iron – the board’s in the cupboard. I’m off. Have a good day, dear.’
She turned to Jon, who was stuffing the remnants of a slice of toast into his mouth and trying not to laugh.
‘Jon? If you want a lift to the bus stop, you’ll have to come now. I don’t want to be late for registration.’
Jon grabbed his
rugby kit and school bag and grinned. He had a feeling his dad was finding it hard to accept that Mum was heading into the big wide world.
‘Bye, Dad!’ he called.
His father, clutching a shirt and viewing the iron with the same degree of suspicion as he would greet a boa constrictor, said nothing. It’s difficult to talk when you are in a state of advanced shock.
Chapter Eight
Figuratively Speaking
Next door, Jemma Farrant was trying to work out how many calories there were in a blueberry and mango yogurt and one slice of crispbread (no butter, small smear of Marmite). It wasn’t easy because on one side her father was holding forth about the importance of the coming school year and the necessity for hard work and the production of superior coursework, and on the other her mother was getting very worked up about Jemma’s uneaten Weetabix.
‘Jemma, love, don’t you feel well?’ she asked, anxiety creasing her forehead.
‘I’m fine, Mum,’ sighed Jemma.
‘You must eat to keep your strength up,’ insisted her mother. ‘You’ve got a busy term ahead. Come on now, petal.’
‘Mum, I’ve told you, I’m on a diet. I’ve had a yogurt and I’m not hungry. And don’t call me petal,’ retorted Jemma.
‘But darling, it’s so silly to diet at your age – you need all your strength. And besides, you’re not fat, not at all.’
Jemma said nothing.
‘Andrew, say something,’ said Claire, turning to her husband.
‘Something,’ said Jemma’s dad.
Chapter Nine
Agony Mother
Ginny Gee waved Chelsea off to school, phoned the office and said she had a touch of Spanish tummy and would be in tomorrow and flopped into an armchair. How come, she thought, her daughter could throw on a cheap skirt and cropped top from the market, wield an eyeliner for five seconds and look like something out of the centrefold of Style Hi! while she, Ginny Gee, Agony Aunt and Columnist, was beginning to look saggy and baggy even when dressed in Chic Elite designer clothes?
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