Sugar Secrets…& Freedom

by Mel Sparke

  “Hey, Joe!” she said cheerily to the stooped back and hunched-up shoulders in front of her.

  “Hi,” said Joe flatly, giving her a cursory glance over his shoulder.

  “How’s your first day going?” Sonja asked, keeping up the bright tone in her voice as she strode over and parked her bum against the draining board. There was no way Joe could avoid her now.

  “All right,” he answered, staring steadfastly at the bubble-filled sink and the pot he was scrubbing.

  “And the weekend? How was it at your dad’s?”

  Joe said nothing, but stopped mid-scrub.

  “Listen,” said Sonja, more quietly now, “I spoke to Matt on the phone this morning – he told me about your dad’s girlfriend losing her baby and everything…”

  Joe lifted and dropped his shoulders miserably.

  “That must have been awful, but at least you were there for your dad.”

  Sonja noted Joe’s lack of reaction – she obviously hadn’t hit the right button.

  “And it must be weird for you, thinking you nearly had a baby brother or sister…”

  Joe shuffled and Sonja knew from that tiny reaction that she’d said enough; it was down to Joe now.

  “Yeah, that’s done my head in a bit…” he finally responded, without making eye contact. “But it’s more than just the– the baby.”

  “What? What’s up, Joey?” she asked patiently. Like Maya, she knew that Joe needed a bit of gentle coaxing to get his innermost feelings out in the open.

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said, giving Sonja an apologetic look.

  “What about Ollie? Have you spoken to him about… whatever?” she asked, knowing that the bond between the boys ran deep.

  “Nah,” Joe shook his head. “I think he’s a bit wrapped up in stuff at the moment.”

  “Stuff?” said Sonja, stumped for a second. “Oh, I get it. Stuff like Kerry, I suppose?”

  “Yep,” nodded Joe with the hint of an ironic smile on his face. “He finished his shift a while ago and went into town to buy her a one month and three days’ anniversary present or something.”

  Sonja laughed. If Joe could make a joke, then it couldn’t be all bad.

  Still, pity his best mate can’t see how Joe’s feeling, she thought with irritation.

  “Well, I’m not deserting you, Joe. I’ll listen,” said Sonja, sliding along the edge of the draining board and bumping him cheekily with her hip.

  “Nah,” smiled Joe ruefully. “I won’t, if you don’t mind.”

  “Please yourself,” grinned Sonja, scooping up a handful of soapy bubbles and daubing them on his nose.

  When Nick returned, Joe got ready to leave by the back door. He didn’t fancy going through the café itself in case Sonja and the others were still there, among the gaggle of childminders and babies who’d congregated for afternoon tea and wailing. Sonja, full of good intentions, would be all set to push for a full confession. Again.

  “Thanks for today, Joe. Same time tomorrow?” said Nick, tying on his white apron.

  “Yeah, sure,” nodded Joe, pushing open the heavy door.

  Stepping out into the tiny back yard, he was greeted by three familiar faces. Sonja, Cat and Matt were all perched on old milk crates, and obviously waiting for him.

  “Surprise!” shrilled Cat inappropriately.

  “You didn’t think you’d get away with mumfing about on your own, did you?” grinned Sonja as Matt shrugged sheepishly by her side.

  Joe allowed them to lead him down to one of their favourite spots by the river. Far from being pressurised into talking about the weekend, he now sat listening to Catrina and Matt comparing notes on their problematic families.

  “No way. Uh-uh,” Catrina shook her head at Matt. “My situation’s much worse than yours.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Matt heatedly, rising to the bait. “My mother is so wrapped up in her pink’n’fluffy pretty little daughters and her perfect new life that she can’t be bothered with her angst-ridden, acne-covered teenage son.”

  “When have you ever been troubled with acne, Mr Perfect?” interrupted Sonja, squinting against the late afternoon sun as she stared at Matt’s practically male-model-style handsomeness.

  “Before I knew you lot,” he answered defensively. “I wasn’t always this gorgeous, y’know.”

  “Oooh!” gasped Cat at his mock arrogance and chucked a handful of grass at him.

  Spitting out the blades of grass that landed on his teeth and lips, Matt tried to continue with what he was saying.

  “I mean, even before she left, she and dad chose to make me a boarder at a school that was just down the road! How would any of you feel if your parents did that? And you can bet my precious half-sisters aren’t going to be bundled off to some poxy boarding school…”

  Joe nodded as he carried on chucking tiny pebbles into the river. He knew this was all for his benefit. They were trying to make him feel better about his own broken home.

  “Yeah, fair enough,” Cat conceded. “But at least you and Joe know where your runaway parents ended up. I wouldn’t know how to find my dad – he could be living it up in Rio or down and out in London for all I know. He could be bigamously married to his fourth wife and have enough new kids to make a football team. Or he could be dead.”

  Joe shuddered at her last morbid – but feasible – point. It did put his own situation, unpleasant as it was, into perspective.

  “OK, OK,” he gave in. “I know you all want to know what’s happened.”

  “Yeah, but not ‘cause we want to get the gossip or sell your story to the papers,” said Sonja, pushing herself up from her reclining position on the grassy river bank. “We just want to know ‘cause we care about you and you’ve just been through a really freaky experience.”

  “I know,” sighed Joe. Keeping what his father had told him to himself was giving him a skull-crushing headache. “Well, with what happened… It got me and my dad talking about stuff. Like why he left us and everything.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” asked Sonja hopefully.

  “Kind of. But then he said something about my mum. He said…” Joe took a deep breath. “He said he wasn’t the only one who’d gone off with someone. He said that she had been fooling about with someone too.”

  “Your mum?” squealed Cat in disbelief. “But your mum’s like a – a Sunday school teacher, she’s so goody-goody! The word ‘mumsy’ was invented for your mum! She’s got as much chance of having an affair as Snow White. She’s—”

  “And you’ve got as much chance of being tactful as I have of going out on a date with Michael Owen tonight!” snapped Sonja, attempting some damage limitation on her cousin’s careless mouth.

  “Did he tell you who with? Or when?” asked Matt.

  “Not exactly,” Joe shrugged, although he didn’t feel exactly casual about the whole affair – he’d hardly slept for running it over and over in his mind. His own put-upon, badly treated mother acting the same way as his dad? He couldn’t take it in.

  “He said I’d have to ask her, if I wanted to know more.”

  “And did you?”

  Joe looked at Sonja, and at his other two friends, and felt a certain amount of comfort at their concern.

  no

  “Nope,” he shook his head. “I couldn’t.” “God, Matt,” said Catrina, staring at him with a beseeching gaze and reaching across the grass to pat his hand. “Brings it all back, doesn’t it?”

  For a second, as he watched his normally feuding friends’ eyes lock together, Joe wasn’t sure if Catrina was talking about family traumas or something else altogether…

  CHAPTER 13

  SMILE, PLEASE!

  “This is fun!”

  “Ravi, get down from there,” Maya chastised her brother gently, pulling his outstretched arm away from the mad-eyed bull and its alarmingly huge horns.

  “Hey, Maya, let me take him off your hands for a while. You haven’t managed
to get any pictures yet, have you?”

  Maya smiled at Brigid’s niece gratefully.

  “Thanks, Ashleigh,” she smiled and rummaged in her pocket for her purse. “Here’s some money for an ice cream for him…”

  “Yeah and I’ll take him over to the bouncy castle too, so take your time. Just meet us there when you’re finished.”

  The bouncy castle lay at the far end of the grounds set aside for the agricultural show, but the yells of bouncing children could be heard clearly over the noise of steam organs, mechanical machinery and mooing.

  Breathing a sigh of relief at the prospect of some freedom, Maya turned and glanced around the crowded country park and wondered where to start.

  When everyone from the photography club had gathered at the minibus earlier in the afternoon, Alex had been keen to point out to everyone the potential of the agricultural show.

  “I know it sounds stuffy, but think about it,” he’d said as a few dissenting groans had broken out when he’d told them where they were headed for their field trip. “Yes, so it’s not glamorous, but an amazing amount of different people go to these shows and you could end up with some brilliant portraits for the competition.”

  “Will they accept a photo of a sheep then?” a boy whose name Maya couldn’t remember had piped up from the back of the bus.

  “Nothing in the rules to say they wouldn’t,” Alex had joked back. “But apart from farm animals, think about taking pictures of some of the characters who’ll be there: crusty old farmers, prim old dears selling homemade jam, little brothers even!”

  He shot an amiable glance at Maya, who’d been forced to take Ravi along with her for want of a better idea of what to do with him all afternoon.

  “Oh, Ravi,” she sighed under her breath as she set off towards a sea of large canvas tents to her left where a flower and vegetable show was advertised.

  After her friends had beaten the guilt out of her on Saturday night at Sonja’s sleepover, it had come back with a vengeance now that she’d dragged her little brother into the frame. Now he’d have to lie as well.

  “Ravi, you understand, don’t you?” she’d spelt out to him on the minibus earlier. “You can’t tell anyone about this, OK? Not Mum and Dad, not Sunny, not your friends – all right?”

  “What about Brigid? Can I tell her?” he asked, staring up with his serious big eyes.

  “No, not even Brigid,” Maya had said firmly. She knew Brigid would keep Maya’s secret – especially since she’d put the idea of the club in her head in the first place – but didn’t want to get her easygoing friend into any trouble, should her parents ever find out.

  Ask first, ask first, she reminded herself of Alex’s advice for snapping potential subjects as she strolled around.

  The Konica that Joe had lent her the day before (he said his dad never used it and was happy for her to borrow it for a while) felt reassuringly heavy and professional in her hands. She’d spent some time in her room that morning, familiarising herself with the light meter and focus. Now all she had to do was find someone’s photo to take.

  She had no high hopes for the roll of snaps she’d eventually rattled off at Sonja’s on Saturday on her rotten old camera, and didn’t expect any miracles when she got a chance to develop them later on (once Ravi was safely dropped off back at home) in the clubhouse darkroom.

  Time’s running out, she acknowledged to herself, scanning the crowds for potential portraits. I’ve got to get something today!

  On the approach to the tents, she saw them: two tweedy old farmers leaning up against a metal fence, staring at some rare breed of pigs the way Ollie drooled over manuals about vintage Vespas.

  “Excuse me,” she interrupted the men from their reverie. “I’m doing a project for a photography club. Would you mind if I took your picture?”

  The men regarded her as if she was some exceptionally rare breed of alien – with surprise, distrust and awkwardness. It took a second for her to work out why. Except for the odd moron at school both in the city and in Winstead, she was always just Maya to anyone who came across her. To these grumpy old men, a young, pretty girl talking to them was bizarre enough; a young, pretty Asian girl was something they just didn’t know how to deal with.

  “Maya? Can I show you something?” a voice cut through the strained silence.

  Maya flipped round to see Billy at her side.

  “Sure, Billy,” she nodded enthusiastically, desperate to get away from these strangely staring men. She followed as Billy led her off towards an old-fashioned pitch-your-strength fairground machine.

  “Sorry to drag you away, but that didn’t look much fun,” he smiled at her, his piercing blue eyes gazing into hers. “And anyway, I need a hand…”

  Maya watched as he quickly clambered up a metal railing and balanced precariously on the second-to-top bar.

  “Can you just stand in front of me, so I can lean on you? I want to take a photo of this guy trying to hammer that machine…” he pointed at the colourfully painted pitch-your-strength “…and I think this angle would be more interesting.”

  “Sure,” Maya agreed, already feeling his shins leaning into her back. It felt strangely nice, even though his knee was sticking uncomfortably into her neck.

  “Maya?” Billy said from his elevated position, after a few clicks of the shutter.

  “Yes?” said Maya, carefully moving her head up to look at him, so as not to disturb his balance.

  Smiling down at her, Billy hit her with a question which surprised her so much that she nearly toppled him backwards into the neighbouring sheep pen.

  “Could we maybe go out together sometime?”

  CHAPTER 14

  OH NO YOU DON’T!

  Old school reports from primary school… a copy of a fading newspaper that featured a photo of Sunny in a school play, aged six… a pack of coloured felt pens that must have long since dried up… an old identity tag that belonged to Tia, the cat before Marcus…

  “What are you doing?”

  Maya thumped shut the lid of the wicker basket at the bottom of the hall cupboard at the sudden sound of her sister’s voice.

  “Just going through some old stuff,” she said vaguely. Maya had been looking again for her school photography pictures, with no luck.

  “What sort of stuff?” Sunny persisted, her arms folded defiantly across her chest as if she was some hotshot, Ally McBeal-type interrogator.

  “Nothing much,” Maya answered her dryly, rising up and closing the cupboard door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get ready. I’m going out.”

  “Where are you going?” asked Sunny, following her sister up the stairs.

  “My room,” said Maya, hoping a small dose of sarcasm might get Sunny off her back.

  “Not now, I mean where are you going tonight?” said Sunny, trailing after Maya into her room and flopping on to the bed.

  “Out with Sonja and everyone. Just the usual Friday night,” she shrugged.

  Maya had a little rule about lying: repeat the lie as seldom as possible, so it didn’t feel like such a bad thing to do.

  “Yeah, but where?” asked Sunny, languidly banging one trainer-clad foot against the bed.

  “Just the End for a while and then to the cinema,” said Maya, mentally kicking herself: she’d already spun her parents the going-to-the-movies story and now here she was, letting the lie be spoken out loud again.

  “What film are you going to see?”

  “I don’t know yet,” answered Maya through gritted teeth as she pulled clothes out of the wardrobe.

  “And is that the dress you’re going to wear?”

  “Yes,” said Maya, unhooking the straps of her plum-coloured sheath dress from the hanger.

  “Bit fancy just for going to the pictures, isn’t it?” said Detective Sunny, lying sprawled on the bed, gazing at her big sister as if she could read her mind.

  “Aaaark!”

  Before Sunny could continue her line of questioni
ng, she was interrupted by Marcus jumping lithely up on to Maya’s bed.

  “Hello, baby!” Sunny cooed, scratching the cat’s head.

  Undoing the buttons of her shirt to get changed, it struck Maya how much alike Sunny and Marcus were – skinny, long-legged, with big, brown, almond eyes that were full of mischief. They were both unashamedly nosy and had a talent for getting what they wanted.

  But at least Marcus is cute and loveable. thought Maya, remembering all the occasions when Marcus curled his way affectionately around her legs. There was nothing cute and loveable about Sunny.

  Maya slipped the dress over her head, pulled off her jeans and stepped into some flat, strappy black sandals. She’d fix up her hair and make-up later, in the loos at the café where she was meeting the others for their girly night out – no need to get Sunny started with any more “Why are you making such an effort?” comments now that she was distracted by playing with Marcus on the bed.

  She nearly made it.

  “What’s in the bag?” quipped Sunny as Maya grabbed a little lace cardi and hauled her big black hessian saddlebag on to her shoulder.

  “Nothing,” Maya found herself lying again, slamming her bedroom door behind her as she left.

  “Jeez, what have you got in here – a brick?” moaned Cat as she held Maya’s bag.

  “No,” said Maya, looking up from a crouching position as she adjusted the strap on her sandal. “It’s my new camera – well, Joe’s camera.”

  “Aw, you shouldn’t have bothered bringing that with you tonight! How can you dance lugging that thing around?” said Sonja disappointedly. As Entertainments Organiser for the evening, she wanted everyone to have fun – and if Maya had brought her camera and planned to take photos for this competition of hers, it could really put a damper on the night.

  “But I just thought, y’know, girls out on the town, all dressed up – it could be perfect for my project…” Maya answered apologetically. She stood up and took her bag from Cat as the three girls continued walking along the high street.