Elliot had never known her to have a boyfriend. He had asked her about it once or twice, as a few kids he knew had parents who’d remarried, but her stock response had always been that he was the only man she needed in her life.
Apparently that was no longer the case.
The weird thing was that Wendy had asked Elliot if he minded.
‘What do you mean?’ he’d replied, wondering if he’d heard her correctly.
‘A man I work with – his name is Dr Nesbit – has invited me out for dinner next Saturday. How would you feel about that?’
‘I dunno,’ he’d told her, confused. ‘What’s it got to do with me?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to do anything that might upset you, darling. Nothing’s more important to me than you and I don’t want you to think I’m trying to replace your father or anything, because that’s not it at all. It would just be a nice evening out with a colleague whose company I enjoy, who happens to be a man.’ She paused before adding: ‘Also, if I go, I obviously won’t be around that night. You’re a bit old for a babysitter, but I’d rather not leave you home alone. We’d have to sort something else out.’
‘Like what? Where would you be going and what time would you get back?’
‘I’m not sure yet, but I thought perhaps you could spend the evening at Lisa’s house.’
‘I guess. It depends if she has anything else on.’
‘Would you like me to contact her parents?’
‘Okay.’
Within an hour she’d spoken to Christine, Lisa’s mother, who’d offered to put him up for the night. So that was that. The speed with which Wendy had made these arrangements showed how keen she was to go on the date. So Elliot found himself carried along with it. How could he say no? What kind of a selfish idiot would that make him?
‘Have fun, love,’ she said, kissing him goodbye as he set off for Lisa’s house with his sleeping bag and other overnight gear squashed into the Head holdall that usually contained his school books.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Elliot replied. ‘See you tomorrow.’ Part of him wanted to wish her a good night, but he couldn’t get the words out, so instead he waved and smiled.
Walking the short distance to his friend’s house, daylight already starting to fade, he questioned what exactly he was worried about. Wasn’t it about time that his mum did something for herself, rather than for him? He knew it was, but still the whole idea of her going on a date freaked him out. What if she fell in love and, next thing, she wanted to settle down with this Dr Nesbit? Elliot didn’t like the sound of that. He was happy with things as they were. They’d managed fine so far, the two of them. He had no need of a stepfather.
And yet he was getting older. He’d be fourteen in June. In a few years, if everything went to plan, he’d be leaving home for university. If his mum hadn’t met someone by then, she’d be left all alone.
Calm down, he told himself. He knew that he was overthinking matters. It was just one little date.
But then Lisa made a joke about it soon after he arrived at her house, asking what his new daddy was called.
‘Oh, come on,’ his friend told him, lying on her front on the bed, chin resting on her hands. ‘I’m only joking. No need to look so miserable.’
‘I’d rather not think about the whole date thing. That’s all.’
‘Why not? It’s nice for your mum to get out for once. Who’s it with, anyway?’
Elliot shrugged. ‘Some guy she works with. Dr Nesbit, he’s called. I’ve not met him.’
‘A doctor? Ooh, very nice. He’ll have plenty of money, then.’
He scowled. ‘Please don’t.’ Then he made a point of changing the subject by asking Lisa how that morning’s hockey match had gone.
‘We lost,’ she replied. ‘So that wasn’t good. But I got chatted up by a cute boy afterwards, which made up for it.’
‘Oh? Who was that?’
‘Sean Ferguson from two years above us. Do you know him?’
Elliot, sitting on the edge of the camp bed Lisa’s mum had made up for him, fought not to wince. ‘Sure. What was he doing there?’
‘He should have been playing on the rugby team, but he was on the bench after spraining his ankle during practice. Their match finished a bit before ours, so he and a couple of other lads came over to watch us.’
‘And he asked you out?’
Lisa rolled on to her back and giggled. ‘Maybe. He’s really funny, you know. He was doing all these impressions of the other lads on the team. I always thought he was fit, but I’d never really spoken to him before.’
‘So did he ask you out or not?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted eventually. ‘There’s a funfair on near school next Friday evening and he asked if I wanted to go with him.’
‘And?’
Lisa lowered her voice. ‘Don’t say anything to Mum or Dad, because I’m not going to tell them why, but I’m hoping to stay at Hayley’s house that night and we’ll go together. She fancies one of the other boys who came over to talk to us – this lad called Mark who goes to Westwich High – so it’ll be like a double date.’
Hayley was one of Lisa’s hockey teammates. Elliot had met her a handful of times and hadn’t taken to her. She’d always looked straight through him, presumably because he wasn’t on the rugby team or in any way fanciable to her. She lived in Westwich, a stone’s throw away from Queen Anne’s, and Lisa had stayed there several times previously, ahead of early Saturday matches.
‘Why not tell them the truth?’ Elliot asked, making patterns in the deep cream carpet with his feet. Doing so cast his mind back to the original brown carpet and green walls – long since painted white – from the time of his old pal Christopher, who he hadn’t heard from in ages. But Lisa’s reply jerked him straight back to the present, the memory fading as quickly as it had emerged.
‘Because we’re playing away in Blackpool the next morning and it’ll be an early start to get there on the coach. I know for a fact that Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me go out if I asked them. But Hayley’s mum is dead relaxed, so she won’t care – and she won’t tell them either, if I ask her not to.’
‘Right.’
Elliot was taken aback by this, although he didn’t let on. He couldn’t imagine himself deceiving his mum in this way. Technically Lisa wasn’t lying to her parents, but the avoidance of truth was deliberate enough to amount to the same thing.
And all because she was desperate to go on a date with Sean Ferguson. If Elliot had been given a choice of boys to select as decent potential partners for Lisa, Sean wouldn’t have even been on the longlist. He was renowned as one of the toughest in his year. So far their paths had never crossed. However, Elliot had seen him brawling in the yard with other lads on several occasions, usually surrounded by boys chanting ‘fight’.
The last time had only been a month or so earlier and had been a particularly brutal clash between Sean and another scrapper. There had been lots of proper punches thrown, unlike most fights Elliot had witnessed at King George’s, which were usually more like bad wrestling matches. A teacher had eventually broken it up; the next day both lads had been covered in cuts and bruises.
Sean also had a reputation as a loose cannon on the rugby pitch. This and the fact he’d once dislocated his arm had earned him the nickname Riggs, after Mel Gibson’s character in the Lethal Weapon movies. Not that he looked anything like Mel Gibson. Despite being in good shape physically, Sean was ugly, as far as Elliot was concerned. He had these strange ears that were small but still managed to stick out too far and his nose was slightly bent in the middle, presumably from being broken at some point.
Elliot was sure he’d also seen Sean hanging around with his friendly neighbourhood bully and bus enemy Samo, although he didn’t have the heart to mention this. Neither did he tell her that Sean was the typical kind of lad who’d find it hilarious to tease him for being fat or to allege that he was gay.
Elliot had long since given up trying to se
cond-guess Lisa when it came to the boys she liked. They were usually sporty and often a little older than her, but there the similarities ended. At one point she’d gone out with his friend Neil, of course. But to Elliot’s relief, that relationship hadn’t lasted more than a couple of months. He’d found the whole thing rather uncomfortable, but with hindsight, Neil was the best of a bad bunch.
Not that Elliot would say that to Lisa. He’d learned to avoid passing judgement on her boyfriends, even after they’d split up, having told her that one such ex was a loser, only for them to get back together. That had made things awkward between them, including a short period of not speaking. So these days Elliot knew to bite his tongue.
Secretly, he still fancied her, but it wasn’t like he ever expected to do anything about it. He’d never told a soul either, sticking to the line Lisa sometimes used that they were best friends and didn’t see each other that way. She clearly meant it. Sometimes she even behaved like he was one of her female friends, walking around in her underwear in his presence, for instance; asking him questions like if he thought her boobs had grown or whether they looked good in a certain bra. He played along in these instances, pretending to be totally at ease, although inside he felt anything but.
Wendy and Lisa’s parents were totally blasé about the pair of them hanging out together. Despite being teenagers now, it was still normal for them to stay the night at each other’s houses, sleeping in the same room, as they would tonight. Elliot knew for sure that Graham and Christine wouldn’t allow a boyfriend to do the same. Neither would his mum, in the unlikely instance that he invited a girlfriend over to stay the night. The only reason either of them had ever been threatened with having this privilege revoked was when they’d been caught chatting too late into the night.
Even Jamie, Lisa’s younger brother, had long since grown bored of making jokes about them being in love. There had been a time when he’d seemed to enjoy nothing more than pretending to snog his fist at the door of his sister’s bedroom to wind her up. Now he barely blinked an eyelid whenever Elliot called round. He was usually too busy playing football, if not crowing about how many goals he’d scored that week and how he planned to go pro one day.
Despite not understanding the football obsession, Elliot had grown fond of Jamie, who he considered like a stand-in younger brother of his own. He was always full of beans and made mealtimes at the Bensons good fun with impressions of his teachers and a range of celebrities, from sports pundit Jimmy Hill to Will Smith, star of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, his favourite TV show.
‘Do you know Sean much, then?’ Lisa asked, twirling her hair with her right hand, still lying on her bed.
‘Not really.’ Elliot stood up and looked out of the window at the road below, where the early evening darkness was interspersed by orange pools from the street lights. ‘I’ve seen him around school and that, but I doubt he knows who I am.’
‘Is he a bit of a joker?’
Elliot shrugged, not having the heart to tell her that he was best known for fighting. ‘I’m not really friendly with many of the boys in that year,’ he said. ‘And he’s in the rugby crowd, which I’m not. I could ask Neil, if you like. He might know.’
‘No, thanks,’ she replied, as expected. Who would want their ex’s opinion on their new love interest?
‘So where’s your mum going on this hot date of hers?’ she went on.
‘Oh, not that again,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Some Italian in the city centre, I think. I don’t know what it’s called.’
‘He’s taking her into Manchester? Must be serious.’
He turned back from the window to look at his friend. ‘Don’t joke about it, Lise. I feel weird about the whole thing. Mum going on dates isn’t something I’m used to.’
Lisa wrinkled her nose and sat up on the bed. ‘Hasn’t she had any boyfriends since your dad died?’
He shook his head. ‘And that suits me fine.’
‘So why now?’
‘Because I’m getting older, I guess. I don’t need her as much as I used to.’
‘You want her to be happy, don’t you?’
‘Of course. It’s going to take some getting used to, that’s all.’
He was distracted by the sound of someone – almost certainly Jamie – running up the stairs. Sure enough, a moment later Lisa’s little brother appeared at the door, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a Liverpool FC shirt. That was his team, much to the disapproval of Graham, his dad, an ardent Nottingham Forest supporter. ‘All right, losers. Tea’s ready.’
‘Hello, squirt,’ Elliot said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Don’t you “squirt” me,’ Jamie replied with a grin, raising his fists like a boxer, then ducking and weaving at the door. ‘I’ll be bigger than you soon. Then you’ll see.’
‘That’s big talk for a little guy,’ Elliot replied, holding his own hands up in a martial arts style. ‘You know I’m a black belt in karate, right?’
This made Lisa laugh. ‘Is that an honorary award for watching The Karate Kid enough times?’
‘Damn. My secret’s out. What’s on the menu tonight?’
‘Pizza, of course,’ Jamie replied. ‘What do you think? It’s Saturday.’
CHAPTER 22
NOW
Monday, 23 July 2018
‘You!’ Ben yelled at the woman banging on his car window.
It seemed a strange response to Elliot, who’d got over the initial shock of the noise and was now more concerned that she didn’t cause any harm or damage. Who the hell was this crackpot, with her yellow teeth and whiskery mole, and what did she want?
‘Get lost,’ he said, waving his hand at the window, signalling for her to leave them alone. Then he told Ben and Chloe not to worry. ‘It’s okay. The doors are locked. She can’t get in.’ He turned back to look at the road ahead. ‘The lights will change in a minute and I’ll be able to pull away.’
‘No, don’t,’ Ben cried out, drawing Elliot’s attention to the back of the car again. ‘I know her. She was on the bus with me earlier. I think she has my—’
Before Ben could finish his sentence, the scruffy woman answered it for him by reaching inside her grimy parka and pulling out a brown leather shape. She held it up against Ben’s window and mouthed something Elliot couldn’t understand.
‘Yes, look. She’s got my wallet! Could you pull in?’
Elliot and Chloe eyeballed Ben in unison.
‘Seriously, mate?’ Elliot asked, open-mouthed.
‘Yes!’ He was scrabbling for the window winder – a manual one, which his hand eventually grasped – but it must have been seized up, as he didn’t seem to be able to get it open.
A sudden angry din of car horns drew Elliot’s attention back to the traffic lights, which he saw were now green.
‘Crap. The lights have changed,’ Elliot said. ‘There are heaps of cars behind me. I don’t think I can pull over.’
Before anyone could stop him, Ben unlocked his door and swung it open. ‘Quick. Jump in,’ he said to the woman, sliding across to the other side of the back seat. ‘We can’t stop here, but I’m sure we can pull in around the corner or something.’
She did as he said, to the accompaniment of more blasting horns, and then finally Elliot was able to pull the car away, waving an apologetic hand in the rear-view mirror in a bid to placate the angry motorists behind.
‘Hello again,’ the woman said calmly to Ben, as if getting in a car with him and two strangers was the most normal thing in the world. Handing him the wallet, she added: ‘I believe this is yours. You dropped it on the bus. I did try to tell you that after you got off, but—’
‘Yeah, I’m so sorry about that,’ Ben replied. ‘I totally got the wrong end of the stick. I thought—’
‘Um, is anyone going to tell me what’s going on here?’ Elliot piped up, having opened his window to counter the eye-watering reek that had entered the car along with Ben’s odd guest.
He’d taken a right tu
rn after the traffic lights into a quieter road and was now scouring the vicinity for somewhere safe to stop.
‘He’s got an unusual accent on him,’ the woman said to Ben, unfazed. ‘Where’s he from?’
‘Elliot’s from here originally,’ Ben replied, ‘but he’s lived in Australia for the past twenty years.’
‘So you know my name now,’ Elliot said, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror as he indicated right and turned the car into a small pay and display car park. ‘But I’m afraid I’ve no idea who you are and how you ended up with Ben’s wallet.’
He pulled into a parking bay and stopped the engine, before turning to face the two of them in the back seat, as Chloe did the same. ‘So?’
‘I’m Cassandra,’ the woman replied in her croaky voice, giving him a little wave and a smile. ‘But everyone calls me Sandie. Ben and I met on the bus into town earlier. He dropped his wallet; I picked it up. By chance we happened to run into each other again. I spotted him through the car window as I was walking by. What are the odds? Funny old world, isn’t it?’
He turned to Ben. ‘Is that right?’
‘Pretty much. She sat next to me on the bus and we chatted. I thought—’
‘That I’d nicked it off you, right?’
Wincing, Ben looked down at his feet. ‘I really am sorry about that.’
‘Why did you think I was trying to get your attention after you got off?’ Sandie asked him.
‘I, um, thought you were rubbing it in. You know, that you’d tricked me or whatever.’
She took a swig from a water bottle that Elliot suspected had been refilled with either gin or vodka, since there was a strong whiff of alcohol about her, mixed in with body odour and other unpleasant smells he preferred not to identify.
‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘I must have made a great impression. At least that explains the lovely hand gesture you gave me.’
Elliot had no idea what she was talking about, but Ben did, judging by the beetroot colour of his face.
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