No Place For a Man (21 page)

He picked up the remote control and switched on the TV. A couple of the usual punters, two British ex-footballers and a Dutchman were discussing the FA Cup Final. The Brits, he thought, looked so awkward, trussed up in stiff, dull suits and with ill-matched ties that looked as if they’d been chosen by their children
and had to be worn to avoid upsetting them. By contrast, the Dutchman was easy and relaxed in a polo shirt and a beautifully cut jacket. We Brits can’t do casual, Matt thought as he allowed the discussion to drift into focus and shift his brain’s attention away from Natasha. In fact the Brits couldn’t seem to get their heads round the concept of leisure at all. He thought about men in summer, on the hottest days wearing shorts that tended to be that bit too short, with the wrong sort of shoes or the old cliché of socks-with-sandals.

Perhaps, he thought idly, I’ll set up a consultation for companies, try to teach them how to grasp the dress-down concept of office-wear, and kick-start the unthinking design-ignorant desk-man into confidence in his own taste, rather than clinging to the dreary comfort of a suit-and-tie uniform. At this point Matt tried very hard to concentrate on the football: somehow, he worried, the idea of an actual occupation had taken root in his brain. Of all the daft ideas he and the others at the Leo had been coming up with, this was one he actually thought he could pick up and run for goal with. It was too frightening.

‘So can I stay with you? Just for a little while?’ Natasha watched Claire putting on her lipstick. She observed closely the way Claire’s mouth parted slightly and pouted, and had to stop herself copying. Claire and make-up were made for each other: mascara never flecked like dead baby flies onto her cheeks. Eyeshadow never disappeared into creases and blusher didn’t make her look as if she was trying to resemble the kind of dolly you won at the fair.

‘I suppose. I’ll have to ask Mum though.’ Claire
wasn’t as welcoming as Natasha had thought she’d be. Perhaps it was because of what she’d done. She’d told her about being found with Tom and hoped Claire would help the mood to lighten, perhaps think it was funny. But Claire didn’t. It crossed Natasha’s mind that perhaps she was jealous, as if it wasn’t what she’d had in mind, Natasha getting ahead of her like this.

‘We weren’t even having sex,’ Natasha had felt the need to explain when Claire had been a bit cool, the cold sort not the good sort. ‘I just, well he needed somewhere to stay.’ It sounded lame, put like that. She half-expected Claire to ask, ‘Why didn’t you have sex? You might as well have done.’ She didn’t know what she’d say then; she’d have to admit that what she meant was ‘We didn’t do it
in the house
’ which had been because she was in her own home, with other people around. She didn’t want to tell her about when they were down by the railway, she didn’t want Claire being all condemning and spoiling it. The picture of Mel in the car with Tom flashed through her mind. She hadn’t mentioned that to Claire either and she was glad now that she hadn’t. It involved too many more awkward questions, like whose was the car? How come Tom, who was actually only sixteen, was driving it? And was he doing all that sex stuff with Mel too?

Jess wished she and Matt had gone out now, then she wouldn’t have had to spend the day wondering when Natasha would return. If they’d gone out, taken the car, it would have made it easy for Tash to come back in the house, just be there as if she’d never been away and they could find some way of all muddling along again. Instead, she’d spent the rest of the day doing mindless chores: cleaning the kitchen (including taking everything
out of the fridge, washing every shelf and reloading) with one eye on the clock, another on the job in hand.

‘Has she just stormed out for a while to show that she can or has she run away?’ she asked Matt eventually, when at nearly seven that evening there was still no sign of her. ‘I mean suppose she’s run off somewhere with Tom, should we call the police?’

Matt opened the pristine fridge and upset the symmetry by removing a couple of bottles of beer. ‘And say what? “We’ve got a fifteen-year-old daughter who’s been out most of the day”? I think they’ll want it to be at least an all-nighter before they get interested, especially round here. This bit of London is full of girls of her age staying out: the middle-class ones with over-liberal parents
and
the others. Covers almost everyone. And Zoe isn’t back yet either, they’d want to know why you’re not just as worried about her.’

Jess opened one of the beers and drank straight from the bottle. Cleaning was thirsty work but had been suitably mind-numbing when she needed it. Certainly in the kitchen she hadn’t left much for Monica to do on Monday. There was even a lamb casserole in the oven, one of those comfort-food items that was supposed to stick families, as well as your ribs, together.

‘Tasha’s probably at that friend’s house,’ Matthew suggested. ‘Claire, the one I saw her with the other day.’

‘I just wish she’d ring if she is. I want her to know we want her to come home. She hasn’t taken her mobile, she said last week that it had run out of time – I think that was a hint that I was supposed to buy her a voucher.’

Matthew hugged her. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll turn up.
Nights are still cold. She won’t be out on the streets. Give her a call at Claire’s, I’m sure she’ll be there.’ Just then the front door was slammed shut but it was Zoe, not Natasha, who came running in.

‘Mum, Dad, come quick! Emily has collapsed and I can’t get her to wake up! Angie isn’t there, she’s gone out with the bloke who delivered the new fridge and …’ She stopped, gasping for breath. ‘Come
now
!’

Emily was lying in her mother’s kitchen, sprawled out on the floor with her legs at strange angles like a corpse in a bad TV drama.

‘Shall I get an ambulance?’ Zoe stood hopping from foot to foot, biting her thumb. ‘Emily! Get up!’ she yelled, prodding at the girl with her toe.

‘No, don’t kick her, that won’t help,’ Matt said. ‘Let’s put her in the recovery position and see how she goes from there. An ambulance might be a good idea.’

‘No!’ Emily opened her eyes and groaned. ‘I’m OK, I’m just feeling a bit woozy …’ Her eyes rolled in her head, quite terrifyingly, Jess thought. She took Zoe’s arm and pushed her out into the hallway.

‘Zoe, has she taken anything?’

‘What? Like what? Only aspirins. She’s always taking aspirins. She says her head hurts.’

‘Has she eaten anything?’

‘No.’ Zoe’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I told you, she never eats. You were supposed to tell Angie.’

‘I know. I haven’t seen her since you mentioned it though.’

‘But you’ve had ALL DAY!’ Zoe wailed. ‘Angie was
here
this
morning
. You could have come over. You could have talked to her! All you think about is Natasha! Suppose Emily dies?’

Then it will be all your fault
was the bit Zoe wasn’t
saying. ‘She isn’t going to die, not today anyway,’ Jess told her. Matthew had hauled Emily up and sat her on one of Angie’s slinky kitchen chairs. He looked at Jess, indicating without Emily seeing that she weighed about as much as a kitten.

‘Come back with us,’ Jess told Emily. ‘We’re going to give you something to eat and drink, nothing big or heavy, just enough to keep you upright. And then when your mum gets back I think we all need to have a talk about what’s been going on, don’t you?’

Emily nodded miserably and gave Zoe a feeble smile. ‘Thanks a lot Zoe, now you’ve really landed me in it.’

The answerphone was on. Natasha listened to her own voice (gratingly bright and overeager, as if she was about twelve) asking her to leave a message after the beep, decided she couldn’t, on the spur of the moment, think of the appropriate attitude to come up with and hung up quickly.

‘They’ve only bloody gone out, haven’t they? You know, like they don’t care?’ she complained to Claire. They were sitting in Claire’s kitchen where they’d been for the past two hours. Scattered remains of pizza base lay strewn about on the table among several empty Coke cans. Claire picked up a shaving of pizza crust and put it in her mouth.

‘They could be trawling through the streets looking for you,’ Claire said. ‘It’s only eight o’clock. You could have left them a message, let them know you’re OK.
We’re
the ones who should be going out.’

Natasha pulled a face and slumped over the table, her head in her hands. ‘I don’t feel like going anywhere.
I’m too depressed. I can’t believe Tom was with Mel, how does he even
know
her?’

Claire gathered up the pizza debris, loaded it into the box it arrived in and went to squash it all into the bin.

‘You keep going over the same old stuff, Tash, you’re beginning to sound like one of those whingers off
Neighbours
or something. It’s getting boring. Can’t we just go into Richmond or Putney and see what’s going on? I want a life, I don’t want to waste a Saturday night, even if you do.’

‘OK, OK, I’ll come.’ Natasha ran her hands through her hair. ‘My hair feels filthy though. I only washed it yesterday.’

‘That’s town living for you. You were out in the rain this morning, getting pollution poured all over your head.’

‘And aircraft fuel and other stuff.’ Natasha giggled. ‘Eddy-up-the-road’s always saying we’re being bombed from holiday flights with shit and kerosene. You’ll have to lend me something to wear,’ she said. ‘I only brought stuff to be warm sleeping in a car in, not stuff to go up the pub.’

Talking about Eddy reminded Natasha of the day she and Tom had climbed into his house. Tom might be in someone else’s house right now. He might be pulling Mel onto another crease-free embroidered duvet cover. Maybe there were loads of other girls too: other people’s homes where he got friendly with the mum so he could have a permanent supply of good food and somewhere warm to be. He hadn’t climbed in through her window every night, and he hadn’t died of cold in the Sierra, so perhaps he had a sort of rota. She didn’t want to think about it. Claire was right, they should go out and get themselves some life.

*  *  *

It wasn’t easy to convince Angie that there was a problem. Jess didn’t blame her – it must be a nice comfortable life having her children tidied away at school in the termtime. The school was being paid to take care of Emily and Angie had trusted them to do exactly that, assuming they would not let her merely limp through the term with a growing eating disorder and then send her home to have a serious health crisis. Luke never had any problems, Angie tried to reason, and she’d brought them up the same, so what had to be so different about Emily? Emily, persuaded with difficulty to drink some orange juice, eat (tediously slowly, barely a crumb at a time) half a slice of toast and then forced to stay sitting at the kitchen table until it was too late for her to go and sick it up, was now in Zoe’s room complaining that there was nothing wrong with her.

‘Why did nobody say anything? Why haven’t I had a letter?’ Angie wailed to Jess. Jess could hear denial in her voice: if there hadn’t been a letter, if whoever had been allocated the role of Emily’s pastoral carer hadn’t got in touch, Angie was reasoning that surely it wasn’t that serious.

‘But you can see for yourself. Look how her clothes hang on her, and how her face has caved in. And next time she passes out she might not be in the safety of her own home, with people who care about her.’ Jess was trying to keep her patience. At the back of her mind she was still thinking about Natasha and the morning’s row. Helping Angie come to terms with Emily’s problems, it occurred to her that maybe they should just swap daughters, see if they could do any better with each other’s than they had with their own.
At least now she knew where Natasha was, and was hugely relieved she hadn’t run off with Tom. Claire’s mother Veronica had phoned and said (very quietly, for fear the two girls would hear her) that it was all right for Natasha to stay one night, but after that she was going to have to tell her to go home. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to be a refuge for runaways, she’d admitted. ‘My older daughter’s best friend once had a family, er, upheaval, and moved in for three months, which was
not
convenient, so of course, you can quite understand …’

Jess was uncomfortably conscious of being pushed towards expressing excessive gratitude while at the same time being warned off from expecting any more than the one stingy night’s bed and board for her daughter. Claire, over the years, had spent many a whole weekend giggling nights away in Natasha’s bedroom and she’d spent a damp week in a Devon cottage with them one summer. But then that was when times were good and easy, not to mention more innocent. Perhaps, Jess had thought, attempting to feel charitable, Veronica was concerned that Natasha shouldn’t think she was taking sides. Less charitably, she also suspected that Veronica might not want her darling daughter to be infected with whatever bad behaviour her friend was up to. Veronica, a pillar of the local Conservative party and an eager school PTA participant, would not wish to be mistaken in any sense for a liberal parent.

‘So what do I do?’ Angie sat chewing her nail extensions and looking desperate. ‘I’m supposed to be going out with Steve tonight. Can Emily be left? Do I have to stay in with her and get her to nibble biscuits every ten minutes?’

Jess felt quite sorry for her, but sorrier for Emily. Angie hadn’t a clue about any illness that couldn’t be cleared up with a couple of paracetamol and a few extra hours in bed.

‘I’ll find some phone numbers for you,’ she said, rummaging through the filing drawer in her desk where she kept a bulging file of references that might come in useful for work. ‘There are people who can help but you have to trust them. I can’t pretend the process is likely to be easy. She might have to stay in a hospital for quite a while.’

‘Oh she won’t want to do that,’ Angie laughed. ‘It’s the holidays. She wants to be out having fun. But then …’ Angie pulled on a piece of her hair. ‘She hasn’t got the energy, really, has she? Poor girl. If only she’d said something.’

‘She couldn’t have. That’s part of the problem,’ Jess told her gently. ‘If she’d been able to do that she’d have been halfway to getting herself better.’ She pushed a sheet of paper at Angie. ‘Here, take this, make the calls. Steve will still be around tomorrow.’