Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles (16 page)

Wednesday 12 March

The furthest reaches of my wardrobe, 7.45 p.m.

I’m getting quite
good at this hostess malarkey. Obviously my dream is to go to France and become part of the Parisian literary scene, to smoke a lot and wear a beret. But if I can’t do that, I could always go into catering. With fifteen pounds from the biscuit tin I have bought three chicken breasts, a bag of tiny potatoes, a large packet of ready-washed salad, a jar of mushroom sauce and a treacle tart. Oh, and a box of chocolate-chip cookies to console Cyril and Marie because they’ve had to go to bed early I was thinking of a way to get wine, but that bottle of white is still in the fridge from Bert’s abortive puke visit. New World, but can’t be wasted.

Mr Spence was stripping the bathroom when I got in from school. I went in – twice – to warn him that we are having company and to make sure he was ‘all tidied up’ before Mother gets home. By ‘all tidied up’, of course, I meant ‘got the hell out’. He said, ‘Okey-dokey, chokey lokey,’ and ruffled my hair like we were the best of friends. I smoothed it down immediately.

I said tartly, ‘It’s beginning to look like you’re going to be working in our house forever.’ I think he got the message because, unusually for him, he left before Mother arrived. Hooray.

I’ve just spent a good half an hour in front of the mirror trying to work out what to wear. Something odd seems to have happened to my clothes. They all look moth-eaten and dowdy, or downright weird. Do I really wear that yellow shirt under the green velvet pinafore? Or that dull ‘school’ skirt (John’s right) with the stripy tights? Just now, I long for something more elegant. I tried on some of Mother’s work clothes – the black skirt and roll neck that make her look so chic. But I couldn’t do up the skirt, and the roll neck made me look like a sack of puppies.

I looked at myself in my underwear. I’ve got red and white blotches on my thighs and my tummy sticks out. My legs are all right. I wish I had smaller boobs. My bra, my Fantasy, seems to draw attention to them. I’m aware of them in a way I never used to be. They are just there. They’re like a whole new part of me; they get everywhere first. And other people seem to notice them too. I even saw Joseph Milton looking at them the other day. I had to whack him with my bag.

In the end I’ve put on my paisley ski pants and a pink T-shirt. I’ve been experimenting with one of Mother’s old eyeshadows I found in the bathroom. I look awful. Like a raccoon with a hangover.

Oh, lawks. Time is moving on. He’ll be here soon.

I got my instructions from Julie at school today Do camouflage the rug rats. Don’t hog the conversation. Do go to the loo for long periods of time to give them a chance to talk. Don’t let him leave early. Do put on romantic music. Do go to bed early myself.

I’ve plumped up the sofa-bed cushions. I’ve laid the table. I’ve dusted the TV. The food’s ready… Mother’s set the tape for ER, but she hasn’t changed. She hasn’t had a rose-and-geranium bath either. She’s very relaxed about it all, unlike me! Oh, I wish I didn’t feel so nervous.

Doorbell. HELP!

My bedroom, 11.30 p.m.

I’ve left my door open and I can hear the occasional peal of laughter above the music. The CD seems to be on repeat and no one has noticed. I should get into my pyjamas, but I can’t stay still. I can’t go to bed until he leaves. They’ve both got work tomorrow. This can’t go on much longer.

He looked twitchy when he arrived, handing me a bottle of wine – not New World, but French! – and a foursome of Cokes, and sort of peering in past me like he was worried what he might find. He had on different jeans from the ones he had on in the shop; these were stonewashed in places, dark blue with artificially faded grooves across the thighs and knees. And he was wearing a black leather jacket over a thin black polo-neck jumper, which I didn’t really like. I think he needs light, or bright, colours to compensate for the darkness of his colouring. Not that I said anything, of course.

Mother was washing up the children’s fish-finger plates and came out, drying her hands on a tea towel. She looked taken aback when she saw him. I suppose she might have been expecting someone much older, like Mr Leakey senior, retired. I introduced them, and they shook hands. A little while later, Mother went upstairs to check on Μ and C, and when she came down she’d refreshed her lipstick.

It was a bit awkward at first. From the kitchen, where I was fiddling about with the grill pan, trying not to set light to the chicken breasts, I could hear faltering attempts at conversation, to do with retail and market forces. At one point I heard them talking about me – my ‘maturity’ (yikes). But then she, not very subtly, went over to check the video and he asked what she was taping and she said, ‘
ER
,’ and he said, ‘But I love
ER
,’ and before I knew it (which was actually after quite a bit of time as the chicken didn’t seem to be quite cooking
through
) they had sat down together to watch it. When the meal was finally ready, Mother asked if they could have it on a tray and I got quite snippy. ‘I’ve laid the table,’ I said. After that, it all went with a buzz. He wasn’t grumpy like he can be. He told lots of jokes and did impressions of some of his customers. He didn’t even look annoyed when the conversation came round to the war and Mother said she thought those pictures of the injured and dead people looked ‘manufactured’. He simply said, ‘Well, I don’t know. The pictures may be used as propaganda, but that doesn’t mean the bombing didn’t happen.’ And she shrugged, but not rudely, more as if perhaps she agreed, after all.

I’d still be down there if it wasn’t for Julie. She rang during supper. ‘You still up?’ she hissed.

I was still laughing from John’s impression of the Zantac drug rep. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Supper was rather late in the end.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t still be there. Go to bed. Leave them.’

‘But – John hadn’t stopped for my phone call. He was opening an invisible briefcase with the self-important flourish of a cabinet minister. Mother had thrown back her head to laugh. ‘It’s early. It’s only…’

‘Ten thirty. Bugger off.’

‘But we haven’t had pudding.’

‘Connie.’ There was a warning in her voice.

I felt my knees go weak. ‘OK.’

I went back to the table. Mother’s feet were resting on my empty seat. She moved them out of the way when she saw me, but I didn’t sit down. I poured them both another glass of wine (they’d drunk Bert’s white and were on John’s red) and said I was turning in. John stood up to see me off. He thanked me for inviting him, said what a change chicken à la mushroom made from bacon sandwiches and, checking his watch, said he should be heading off himself.

‘But –’ there was something hard in the back of my throat preventing the words from running smoothly – ‘you haven’t had your pudding yet. It’s… it’s treacle tart.’

‘I’m too full,’ said Mother languidly from the table.

I snapped, ‘I bought it for John.’

I saw her incline her head very slightly. John widened his soft brown eyes a fraction, then laughed. ‘Treacle tart,’ he said. ‘My favourite. Well, if you’re not longing to get rid of me… Maybe we could take our bowls through and watch the end of
ER
?’

Mother nodded her agreement. So I got their treacle tarts and kissed Mother to say sorry for being short with her. Then I came up here.

That was
hours
ago! Or an hour anyway. And since then I’ve been pacing the room, pausing to strain my ears at the door to see if I can pick up what they’re saying, then pacing over to the window, then to the bed, then back to the door. I’m feeling weird, left out and resentful, grumpy and anxious. My head feels as if there are drill holes all over it. My eyes ache. It seems wrong that John, who is
my
boss, after all, should be downstairs on his own with Mother. I think maybe he’s too young for her. Isn’t he closer to my age? There’s another giggle. What’s he saying now that’s so funny? They’ve hit it off, haven’t they? It’s worked. But I wish they’d be quiet. Some of us have school tomorrow.

I know what the problem is. It’s… it’s
unprofessional
.

Thursday 13 March

Bed, 9 p.m.

Mother hasn’t said
much about John since last night. I thought she would be full of him at breakfast, but she was too busy chatting to Mr Spence about his evening. (He’d gone to the greyhounds which – ‘ooh la la’ – she seemed to find fascinating.) The washing-up was still in the sink from the night before: the grill pan with the bits of chicken suspended in cold fat, the pot with the dried-up mushroom sauce. I tried to show my irritation by washing up loudly and sighing in an exasperated way. But no one seemed to notice. Mr Spence had moved on from greyhounds and was making silly Donald Duck noises for Marie.

Then Mother, who was putting her mascara on at the kitchen counter, said, ‘Constance had her first little dinner party last night. Which is why she wanted you out of the house!’

He said, ‘Oh, I see,’ in a rather meaningful way and looked relieved, which he had no right to. Mother must have seen my expression because then she said, ‘And very nice it was too,’ and gave a little laugh. Mr Spence laughed too. And then they went upstairs to discuss the new tiles in the bathroom and they were still doing that when William called for me.

I told Julie all about it at school. ‘A triumph, then!’ she said. And she started talking about Ade, the big pash of her life, which has survived even her illness. ‘He’s not afraid to show he cares,’ Julie says. I would have thought it would put her off, but it hasn’t. On the way home I bumped into Delilah, who is gearing up to her party. She’s asked William – ‘dear Will’ – to go on the door and he’s said he will. Mug.

Everything was normal this evening until about 8.30 p.m. when the phone went. Mother answered it. I didn’t think much of it – I was about to take Μ and C up for bath and bed – but when I came back down again half an hour later she was
still on the phone
. She was curled up in one corner of the sofa, with her feet tucked under her, and her head back, and she was talking softly and laughing from time to time. I made her some tea, which she acknowledged with a slight tilt of her head, but she didn’t hang up. When I put the TV on, she went through into the kitchen. Finally I came up here.
And she’s still on it
.

I could have sworn I heard her say ‘John’