No Place For a Man (26 page)

‘You know with pastry,’ Jess said, gazing at the immaculate pie when she was on the outside of most of the glass of wine. ‘When it says in recipes, “Roll out pastry and rest in fridge for half an hour”?’

‘Yeah, what about it? I did that, with this one.’

‘No, what I mean is, sometimes I read it too fast and I think they mean me, that I should rest in the fridge for half an hour.’

‘Are you nuts?’ Angie, who’d downed her first glass of wine extremely fast, was going pink and starting to giggle. She opened the fridge again and pulled out a new bottle. Jess reached behind her for the cutlery drawer and felt around for the corkscrew. ‘Here you are. And it’s all ours, Matt’s down the Leo which makes a bloody change. No I’m not nuts. I just take things too literally. I fail to interpret. I saw a sign that said “CAB volunteers wanted” and I thought, why would people want to drive taxis without being paid for it?’

‘So what was CAB?’

‘Citizens’ Advice Bureau.’

‘You
are
nuts.’

‘I didn’t interpret Tom too well.’

‘That’s because you’re a nice person, not all suspicious and nasty.’

‘No it’s not, it’s because I’m basically superficial and sort of non-delving. I thought the “Keep away from fire” labels on clothes were an instruction for the wearers, a kind little reminder, not a warning that the fabric was dodgy anywhere near a match. I’m gullible.’

‘Well if you’re gullible, I’m as thick as a plank. For months I’ve watched Emily getting thinner and thinner and all I thought was “Oh good, she’s losing that puppy fat at last.”’

Angie, fast getting drunk, leaned closer to Jess. ‘Are you wearing your nice new bra?’

‘I am as it happens. Mrs Cutler would be proud of me.’ She started to giggle.

‘Me too. And,’ Angie stood up and hiked her skirt up, ‘I went back to the shop and look what I bought …’ She revealed the marabou-trimmed pink knickers, a couple of slivers of silk held together with ribbon and feathers.

‘Oh, so poor Eddy didn’t get them!’ The two of them fell across the table, laughing. The pie trembled in its dish. ‘Shall I put that in the oven?’ Jess wiped her eyes, looked across at Angie and the hysteria started again.

Then the kitchen door was flung open. ‘So glad you’re having such a brilliant time! You don’t bloody care about anything really do you? It’s all just a laugh to you!’ The door slammed shut, then the front door and Natasha disappeared into the cold dark night.

She hadn’t taken anything at all with her this time, not so much as a jacket or a door key. Natasha was frozen before she even reached the end of the Grove. She wrapped her arms tight round her body and made her way fast towards the square. The lights of the Leo looked like a ship on a miserable dark sea, no other
buildings around seemed to have any life in them. Bloody suburban death, she thought as she walked, this place is the pits. For the first time, she hoped Mel might be hanging around – she needed someone to talk to – but it was seven o’clock, there was no sound of raucous laughing, no sign that Mel existed. Everyone on the planet must be having supper, everyone with a normal family life. Everyone except her and Tom, wherever he was.

Natasha was too scared to go down to the railway. In the dark she wouldn’t be able to see the live rail, wouldn’t dare pick her way along the wrong side of the fence to the lovely soft hollow that she and Tom liked. Or
used to
like, she thought sadly. It probably was all past now, it couldn’t be long before he was caught. She couldn’t believe he’d dropped that phone by the stairs. Never, in the (admittedly short) time she’d known him, had he been even the slightest bit careless. She remembered him leaving Eddy’s bedroom door open for the big ginger cat, and making sure that the window he’d climbed in through was open exactly the same amount when they left.

At the Leo, Natasha stopped and looked through the window. Her dad was there sitting at the bar with Eddy, talking to Ben and Micky. They were probably talking about her, she thought, probably having a laugh about it just like her mother. She just didn’t get adults: one minute her mum was treating the whole thing as the biggest disaster that could ever happen and the next she was in the kitchen, pissed up and howling with hilarity with Angie like it was any other day. Come to think of it, Angie didn’t have much to laugh about either at the moment. No wonder Emily had got herself an eating problem – she was probably,
subconsciously, trying to do that thing where you avoided turning into a grown-up. And when you looked at what they were like, who could blame her?

Natasha waited by the allotment gates. Peering over the top of the fence, she could just see the Sierra. It looked even more decrepit in the dark, and reminded her of a small dead animal rotting under a tree: just a little bit more of it disappearing each day, blending more and more easily into its surroundings. She didn’t need to go any closer to see that Tom wasn’t there. Perhaps he wouldn’t be ever again. She felt very much alone and was ashamed to find that she was quite enjoying the feeling. Oliver would have taken the piss and called her a drama queen, she thought. She missed him quite dreadfully just then. None of this would have happened if he’d been around. It wasn’t that he was some kind of super-hero, just that she’d never have dared let Tom into the house in the night. Also it was quite likely that Tom and Ol would have been friends too and everything would have been less … well, less intense. That blokey, talking-about-football thing they all did would have been bound to take the edge off the exclusivity she and Tom had. Her parents would have thought it was healthier too.

She wondered where Oliver was, right now. It was nearly eight here in London. In Australia it would be anything from about eight to ten hours ahead of her. He’d be asleep. He might be asleep with a girl somewhere, in a hostel, in her home, on a beach, whatever. Or he might be by himself, camping under a backpacker’s moon out in the bush. She wished he’d come back: she wasn’t making much of a job of taking over being the eldest. And it really was like a job: she was supposed to be there for Zoe and not to give her
parents a ton of grief and she was failing horribly. Lucky Oliver had escaped and was
free
: absolutely untroubled by responsibility and the need to please anyone but himself. They were all like that, all the males she came across in her life at the moment, even her dad who probably should have more on his mind than most.

If Oliver was here now, she thought, what would he tell her to do? As if by round-the-earth telepathy she could hear his voice: ‘Go home Tash, you silly sod, just go home.’ She turned round and walked back towards the square. School started again in the morning. There wasn’t any point making things worse by not being there.

‘…
as if the house shrinks in proportion to the length of the school holidays. Every room has at least two abandoned pairs of shoes in it, as if staking a claim to the space on behalf of their owners. Trainers, like metal coat hangers, breed if they’re left to hang about too long. Zoe’s homework takes up no space at all because it is so rarely allowed out of her bag …’

Paula would have to lump it, Jess thought as she typed. No way was she going to write about being burgled by her daughter’s boyfriend in a flurry of merry quips as if the whole thing was no more traumatic than having an unused scratchcard fall out of your pocket. Natasha had stormed off to bed the night before, with Jess conscious of her humiliation at having had to ring the bell and be let in. Paula, when she’d told her what had happened, had mostly been concerned that the burglar wasn’t making his steady way along the Grove (as if he was collecting the Red Cross envelopes) on his way to
liberating Eddy’s guitar collection, which was all he possessed by way of a pension fund.

‘Do you think I should move in with him?’ Paula then asked anxiously, as if her constant overnight presence was all Eddy needed to protect him from the teenage thief.

‘Well, only if you really want to,’ Jess told her. ‘And has he asked you to? I mean, isn’t it a bit soon?’

‘Oh, he hasn’t exactly
asked
. But he doesn’t like me going home, you know,’ here her voice dropped to a near whisper, ‘
after
. I have to go back to the flat most nights, to feed Miu-Miu and do her litter tray.’ Jess imagined Eddy having to wake up from a deep post-coital sleep to do the good-manners thing of saying good night, possibly (for he was quite old-fashioned) calling for a taxi and accompanying Paula down to the front door. No wonder he’d rather she stayed overnight – he was not of an age to relish interrupted sleep.

‘But what about your flat? It’s so exactly the way you like it.’ Jess thought of the clutter-free white space in Kensington, the slender glass vases containing scrupulously exotic single blooms and the creamy-beige suede sofa, exactly the same macaroon shade as the soft little ears of Paula’s cat. The jewel-and-citrus colours of the walls in Eddy’s house, on the other hand, made your eyes sting. She couldn’t at all imagine Paula relaxed on the pink paisley sofa, gin and tonic in hand, with Eddy’s massive ginger tomcat kneading holes into her Joseph leather trousers. Nor could she imagine her attempting to cook in his haphazard kitchen. From what she could remember, from a party the previous Bonfire Night, his cavernous lime green American fridge contained nothing but beer and prepacked, brick-sized slabs of Red Leicester cheese in
readiness to be sandwiched between the thickest possible pre-sliced white bread. Paula was more of a pesto and pasta girl, with Parmesan of translucent slivers. If she ate a cheese sandwich it would have been ordered in from Pret A Manger and contain the best Brie, rocket, organic cherry tomatoes and some quality dressing of fine olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Still, maybe it was true what they said about opposites.

‘I’d rent the flat out,’ Paula went on. ‘To be honest, from the Grove it’s just as easy to get in to the office. And besides, perhaps it’s time I went in a bit less often. There are other things besides work. I know Matt’s just realized that, though I don’t want to have to wait to be sacked to find out.’

Oliver, when Jess checked her e-mails, was now full of the delights of Sydney.

‘This place is just awesome – like all that stuff you see on telly is really here. Crossed over the famous bridge at dawn this morning on the way in and there’s the Opera House, looking like something out of a movie. I was stoked. Staying in King’s Cross area sharing a dormie with three guys who have to get up at five for work and none of us sleep till three anyway. This is a party city …’

In a reversal of the traditional postcard, Jess said to herself, ‘Wish I was there.’ The bliss of escape … Quite impossible though, she thought briskly as she shut down the computer. Besides, imagine leaving the house clear for Tom to wander back in at his leisure and extract any little valuables he hadn’t had time or carrying capacity to liberate the first time.

George wished he hadn’t looked. The Sierra’s boot was crammed with what could only be described as light
electrical goods, which were so obviously stolen that the boy might as well have written ‘Swag’ in the dust on the paintwork. The back seat held the bigger stuff, a couple of TVs and a computer monitor covered with a blanket, all in this unlocked car. Tom clearly trusted his fellow citizens far more than they could trust him. George hadn’t seen him yet today, though no doubt he’d be turning up to shift the stuff to somewhere where he could exchange it for cash. He put the boot lid down as soundlessly as he could, so as not to attract the curiosity of Val who was fitting cardboard collars round the bases of her young cauliflower plants as a defence against cabbage root fly. He’d taken one of the smaller items from the car boot and now went into the shed to collect his reading glasses. There was one of those little gold printed name-and-address labels stuck on the side of the Walkman, the sort you ordered by the thousand. He’d seen them before at Jess’s place. He put the glasses on and read the label: ‘Zoe Maria Nelson’ it said, followed by her address.

Natasha and Claire spent the morning break in the cloakroom, lying flat out on the benches like a couple of tramps dozing in the park. Natasha had enough to be unhappy about, she thought, she didn’t need Claire giving her a hard time as well.

‘Maybe your parents are right,’ was Claire’s verdict when Natasha told her all that had happened. ‘I mean, do you really want to go out with a criminal?’

‘You don’t get it, do you.’ Natasha sat up and stared down at her so-called best friend. ‘There’s more to him than just the criminal bit. I didn’t even know he was when I started liking him.’

‘Yeah, but you know now,’ Claire pointed out,
leaving Natasha feeling as if she’d been set adrift. Nobody at all understood. She hated this school, hated its poncy assumption that everyone, really, wanted only to be nice and firmly middle-class and stuffed to the eyeballs with academic qualifications. There wasn’t one girl in the school who could imagine a post A-level life that didn’t include going to university at their mummy and daddy’s expense. Not one of them, she thought with a certain amount of arrogance, would dream of saying, ‘Oh I’m going to leave at sixteen and be a hairdresser (or a plumber or whatever).’ This was a sausage machine for the professional classes; they’d all emerge with their grades more intact than their virginity, full of useless information about oxbow lakes and the causes of the American War of Independence but completely ignorant of anything that might be of practical use. Not like Tom, she thought. He might get by on other people’s stuff but at least he could survive, like an animal, on his own. None of this lot, she thought with increasing exaggeration as she watched Claire re-applying her mascara, could so much as make themselves a sandwich: they thought they came in cellophane packaging from Marks & Spencer.

‘I’ve had enough of this place. I’m going to leave as soon as I’m sixteen,’ she told Claire.

Claire turned away from the mirror and looked, at last, interested. ‘Oh? Good idea. I think the sixth-form college would be much more fun. I might join you.’

Natasha laughed. ‘You know Claire, there’s more to life than being stuffed with useless facts. When I say
leave
I mean exactly that.’ She looked out of the window towards the high gates at the entrance. They reminded her of prison. Something out of place caught her attention and she screwed up her eyes. There was
someone leaning on the ironwork, someone whose body shape looked thrillingly familiar. Adrenalin flooded in, and she hoped Claire wouldn’t notice how flushed she suddenly was. Claire, though, had moved on to perfecting her eyeliner. Natasha smiled at her by way of the mirror and said, ‘In fact I think I’ll go now. Why wait?’