No Place For a Man (27 page)

‘What do you think the upper age limit is for joining the police?’ Matt leaned back on Eddy’s pink sofa, stretched his legs out in front of him and gazed down at the length of his body. It looked strong enough, firm enough to him. If it needed a bit of toning, that wouldn’t be a problem. And they were short of good cops, weren’t they? Most of the ones he’d seen lately looked about twelve. They must be in need of more mature ones who could trot around with the youngsters and help them be taken a bit more seriously.

‘You can’t join the pigs man,’ Eddy slugged some more beer and took a deep toke on the joint. ‘I mean you’re the wrong sort. You’d give them a good name.’

‘Do you know, they’ve offered us victim support? We can get some sort of cop-counselling because of the burglary. You get offered it for everything apparently, even if it’s just your bike being nicked from outside the pub.’

‘You mean, just cos they’ve been nice to you, you want to join them?’ Wilf was puzzled.

‘Of course I’d only want to do it part-time. And not weekends. And possibly not summer either.’

‘Or Christmas, and definitely not New Year’s Eve,’ Wilf added. ‘You don’t want to deal with all the drunks.’

‘And not traffic control. Because I don’t care about
traffic being controlled at all.’ Matt passed the joint on to Eddy. ‘In fact maybe I’ll think of something else.’

‘Good idea.’ Eddy nodded slowly and for a long time. ‘You don’t want to go arresting people for this either,’ he waved the joint towards Matt, ‘I mean you’d end up dobbing your mates in.’

‘No I wouldn’t.’ Matt was indignant. Eddy’s head shook from side to side this time, with the same deliberate slowness. ‘You would you know, you’d get corrupted, you’d end up as one of them. It happens.’

‘Sad isn’t it?’ Wilf said.

‘Tragic,’ they agreed.

Natasha’s form tutor had one of those voices that seemed to assume all replies to her questions would be out and out lies. Jess could feel something rising where she assumed human hackles would be as the woman spoke to her on the phone, asking, ‘Would you tell me what good reason Natasha had for being absent yesterday, during the time following on from morning break?’

No ‘please’ or apology for disturbing her, Jess noted. She fought down an urge to say ‘And what’s the magic word?’ guaranteed to irritate the woman into reserving perhaps an unnecessarily dire punishment for the wayward Natasha. Instead, caught without a handy whopper ready-prepared for her daughter’s defence, she admitted, ‘Er, no, not offhand, I couldn’t.’ Pompous cow, she thought, as she tried at the same time to assimilate the gist of what the woman was getting at. So Natasha had skived off, which wasn’t terrific news, and certainly from Jess’s point of view was
potentially hugely worrying. But the form tutor made it sound as if she was the first girl in the school’s history ever to have done it and that only dire failure and disgrace could follow.

‘… obviously not something we tolerate at Julia Perry …’ the disembodied voice continued.

‘Obviously,’ Jess concurred. ‘But she should be in school now, perhaps you could find her and try asking her where she was?’ Surely the woman could have done that in the first place, she thought, unless of course, Natasha, now,
wasn’t
there.

‘Oh we have. She
said
she’d had a migraine.’ Jess wanted to cut in smartly with ‘Well there you are then’, but the tutor continued, ‘But she hadn’t reported to the school nurse and she didn’t turn up to any lessons after the morning break. In future, if Natasha needs to go home for any reason, she must have a note, or at the very least, a phone call from a parent.’

‘Did she mention to you that we’ve been burgled, or that she has been having rather a difficult time at home lately?’ Jess rallied, conscious that this might come across as a series of excuses but that the school perhaps should know that there might be more to Tash than simple unprovoked naughtiness.

‘She hasn’t said anything.’ There was a wariness in the tone: ‘difficulties at home’ too often led to divorce and a cessation of the family’s fee-paying ability.

‘Has anyone asked? I remember your prospectus does emphasize a certain amount of pastoral care.’

There was a whistling intake of breath down the line. ‘If a girl has family problems, obviously we do all we can to accommodate any special needs, but the fact remains Natasha left the premises in flagrant contravention of the rules …’

Jess, still fuming at the woman’s tone, returned to her computer after the phone call. She couldn’t really understand why she’d had to be involved and rather wished no-one had told her. Natasha might have walked out of school through hatred of maths and simply mooched around the shops all day. Or she might have gone off somewhere with Tom. It would be hard to work out how she’d have contacted him, though: presumably he was on the run somewhere and if the phone he’d dropped at the bottom of the stairs was the only number she had for him, then Jess couldn’t see how they’d got together. Whatever she’d abandoned the school day for, Natasha had apparently been sentenced to two weeks ‘on report’, which meant being signed in and out of all lessons, along with having to spend all her breaks and lunchtimes wasting time on a chair outside the staffroom. At least, Jess thought, that would give her plenty of time to get her homework done.

With the idea of selecting some of the best of her articles to put together for a potential book, Jess carried the i-Book to the kitchen table and started looking at her past year’s work. It was, she thought, a bit like reading old diaries, though in this case the mood was perpetually light and her articles lacked any of the self-pitying grumbling that diaries tended to contain. The tone of the articles seemed to come from a distant, enviably carefree age. There was the chirpy account of Zoe’s week at Pony Club camp (hilarious, had been Paula’s and the readers’ verdict), a piece about the delights of having six massive, perpetually hungry to the point of midnight-fridge-scavenging, friends of Oliver’s to stay (without warning) on their way back from Glastonbury, and something of a fill-in, when
she’d run short of ideas, about parties of men let loose in French Channel port supermarkets.

As she sorted through them, arranging the pieces in some kind of order so that she could make a Year in the Life theme for the book, it crossed her mind that Nelson’s Column, in its current happy-dappy form, really was coming to a natural end. It wasn’t going to be possible, or even desirable, any more, she realized, to use her own family as material. Natasha had been right; the girls (and Oliver) were entitled to privacy. She could hardly believe now that she’d thought it would be a major career catastrophe when Paula had suggested running the column down over the next few months, and encouraged Jess in the direction of a different kind of writing. Right now, with all that had happened, she was wondering what on earth she’d have done if Paula
hadn’t
thought of it.

‘OK, take a look at this.’ Matthew dashed in through the back door, opened a large carrier bag and tipped a pile of fabric swatches onto the table. ‘What do you think?’ He was beaming, clearly anticipating a hugely positive response.

‘Ooh such lovely colours, but what am I looking for? Something for curtains, a dress, cushion covers, what?’ Jess picked through them. She recognized a couple of classic Liberty Tana lawn flower prints that reminded her of party dresses she’d bought for the girls when they were little. There were some strips of gorgeous dewy-textured silk in enough brilliant colours to run up a new Technicolor dreamcoat for Joseph, plus a larger length of purple satin.

‘I rather fancied the satin myself, so I thought I’d get an extra big bit.’ Matthew picked it up and smoothed it against his face. ‘Mmm, feels sexy. And that colour,
gloriously royal and perfectly papal. I could live with that. Not that I would be, of course.’ He folded the fabric carefully and went to switch on the kettle. ‘Coffee?’

‘Yes please. So what are these for? What do you mean about not living with it?’

‘Because I’ll be dead.’ Matthew gave an ‘isn’t that obvious?’ look. ‘It’s a few ideas for possible coffin linings. Thought I’d run a few samples past the lads, see what they think.’

Jess dropped the swatch she’d been looking at as if it was about to threaten her own mortality. ‘Matt, you’re not
serious
? Tell me honestly, has it really become your life’s ambition to be an undertaker?’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t be hands-on. You need qualifications and experience for that. I’ll be a sleeping partner,’ he corrected. ‘Hey that’s really funny when you think about it,’ he chortled as he poured water into the cafetière.

‘Yes, very nearly,’ Jess conceded.

‘Oh come on Jess, lighten a little. I was just passing Liberty and thought I’d pop in, you know?’ He scooped up the fabric pieces and shoved them back in the bag.

‘It’s starting to get to me,’ he went on. ‘All this having time on my hands and nothing to do with it. It’s different when it’s time off, because that’s time off from something to get back to. This is forever-time-off and I can see it might drive me crazy in the long term.’

‘You mean you aren’t going to hang about in the Leo for ever, drinking beer and gossiping?’ Jess teased.

‘Well I wouldn’t mind, I suppose. It’s a very convivial place and being sociable is something I’m good at. But no-one’s going to pay me to do that and even I can see the money will run out one day.’ He put a mug
of coffee on the table next to Jess. A couple of drops trickled down the side and spread themselves into the purple satin and Matthew stared at them, looking dejected.

‘I dropped in at the office,’ he said quietly. ‘I know I said I wouldn’t but, well I thought I’d say hallo, see what they’re all up to.’

‘So how was it? Everyone pleased to see you?’

‘Sort of.’ Matt thought for a minute. ‘It’s hard to tell what they really think. I mean to be honest, I felt a bit like a spare part. Which of course I am. I don’t think anyone knew what to do with me – when you’ve been fired you’re just an embarrassment if you turn up again.’ He gazed into his coffee. ‘I wish I hadn’t gone there now. They probably thought I was missing them all or that I was hoping they’d realized I was completely indispensable.’

‘And are you?’ Jess asked quietly.

Matt grinned. ‘Fuck, no! Felt sorry for them all as it happens. But – it would have been great to go in there and say, “Hey suckers, I sure as hell fell on my feet!” I should have realized the only question each and every bugger was going to ask was “So what are you doing now?” Right now, there’s no real answer to that.’

Jess spluttered into her coffee. ‘You could have shown them your coffin linings, taken a few early bookings!’

‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’

It went against the grain to call the police but it had to be done. In spite of their being, in his opinion, agents of the nation’s would-be oppressors, they were the only ones who could deal with this. George had left it overnight already and there was every chance that the
boy had been back with a car that actually worked and taken everything away. He still had Zoe’s Walkman of course, but that would be pretty pitiful compensation if he had to admit to Jess and Matt that he’d put off bringing in the law till all their electrical goods had gone walkabout again. What did feel good though was being able to call Jess and tell her that everything she’d had stolen had been found, presumably none the worse for being stored in the old Sierra. It was just a shame about that boy. He’d had the makings of something better than a petty thief – and not even a very good one at that.

‘Hey Tash!’ Zoe caught up with her sister in the school’s back courtyard as they were about to leave for home. ‘I rang Mum to ask about the field-trip money and guess what! Grandad’s found all our stuff and we’ll get it all back again!’ Even as she bounced with excitement she realized Natasha was probably the last (or certainly the second to last) person that this was good news for.

Natasha stopped walking and stared at Zoe. ‘Where did he find it?’

Surely she didn’t really need to ask – Zoe felt confused. ‘In the old Sierra of course, where your thieving boyfriend stashed it.’

‘It might not have been him.’ Natasha glared at Zoe. ‘Everyone’s just assuming.’

Zoe laughed. ‘Oh come on Tasha! You know it was him! It’s obvious!’

‘Yeah, well …’ Natasha shrugged. ‘Listen Zoe, I need just one more favour from you, the last one I’ll ever ask you, ever in my whole life, I promise.’

Zoe started backing away, scared of what she was
going to say. ‘Not if it involves Tom,
please
Tash. There’s been enough trouble from keeping stupid secrets already. I’m not covering for you, not any more.’

Natasha grabbed her arm to stop her running off and hauled her towards the school gate with her and pointed across the road.

‘Look, he’s over there, in that black car,’ she hissed. ‘He’s waiting for me. I just want to see him for an hour, then I’ll be home. I promise. Nobody else needs to know. Just tell Mum and Dad I’ve gone to Claire’s, that’s all.’ She almost let go of Zoe, then renewed her grip. ‘No, second thoughts, tell them we’ve gone to the library to look something up for homework. If they think I’m at Claire’s they might phone. I don’t seem to be trusted too much at the moment.’

‘Well what do you expect?’

‘God, Zo, you really don’t get it do you?’ She let go of her sister’s arm and raced off, running into the road without looking and making car tyres screech. Zoe watched as Natasha hurled herself into the car and flung herself on Tom. Then she turned away, she didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to see or know anything, especially not another bloody secret. Didn’t these people have anyone else to offload onto?

‘Ever been to a fortune-teller, sweetie?’ As ever, Paula’s voice was crammed with enthusiasm. Every idea she had seemed to thrill her completely to pieces. It made Jess laugh every time – the exuberance was delightfully catching.

‘I can’t say that I have,’ she admitted. ‘But I sometimes read my horoscope. I forget it again immediately though so I never know if it’s right.’

‘Oh me too, me too. But if we sent you to a proper one, someone with the full kit, crystal ball, tarot cards, palm skills, the lot, would you try and write something down that you
could
remember and then share it with your loyal public?’