The Art of Friendship (18 page)

‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Janice truthfully, glad that for once her son wasn’t the cause of trouble. ‘But then they did go out and leave the kids to it. What did they expect? Apparently there were quite a few gatecrashers. It’s not the kids you know that you have to worry about. It’s the ones that turn up uninvited.’

‘That’s funny,’ said Patsy, frowning. ‘Laura never said anything to me.’

Janice shrugged. ‘Maybe she didn’t want to get into trouble?’

‘It’s not like her,’ said Patsy, quietly, pushing the untouched glass of wine away.

‘What’s Laura doing for her eighteenth in June?’ said Clare.

‘What?’ said Patsy, giving her head a little shake. ‘Laura’s birthday? You know, it’s odd but she hasn’t asked for a party either. In fact she’s hardly mentioned her birthday at all.’

‘She’ll be too preoccupied with revising for her exams,’ said Janice. ‘Can’t get a word out of Pete these days.’

Patsy stood up suddenly. ‘You know what, I think I’ll call it a night,’ she said. ‘I have to work in the morning.’

And she was gone in seconds, leaving Janice and the others pondering if she was really coping with Martin’s redundancy, or falling apart.

When she got home at ten thirty, Patsy drove into the driveway, parked bumper to bumper behind Sarah’s car and cut the engine. Then she sat in the quiet stillness for a few moments, staring straight ahead. She tried to put aside the nagging unease she felt concerning Laura. Her daughter was facing a difficult time what with exams looming and now her father’s redundancy. Of course she was worried and out of sorts – they all were.

Janice’s news about Pete had shocked her and she felt for her friend in her distress. Whoever Pete’s father was, Janice was quite determined that Pete should never find out. Janice must, Patsy concluded, have sound reasons for not wanting him to know. And none she could think of was a pleasant scenario…

Patsy counted her blessings, an exercise learned on her mother’s knee and one guaranteed to make even the most dire situation seem better. She had what millions of people all over the world would never know – a warm and comfortable home, food on the table, access to healthcare and a healthy, happy family. On top of that she and Martin had enjoyed many luxuries: two cars, foreign holidays, nice clothes and all the trappings of a middle-class lifestyle. The girls had never wanted for anything.

Yes, Patsy knew she ought to be grateful every day, and was ashamed that she had not been. Not until her lifestyle was threatened had she truly appreciated it.

Martin would get a job eventually, she told herself, and meantime, if they had to tighten their belts, it would be good for them all. It would make them appreciate what they had all the more. They would find a way to get Laura
through uni. Everything, she told herself, was going to be alright.

She got out of the car and glanced up at the house, where lights were blazing in almost every window. The girls hardly ever switched the lights off when they left a room. As part of their new economy drive, that was a habit that would have to change. Not only did it waste money, but it was environmentally unfriendly as well. Patsy smiled, seeing for the first time how saving money had the potential to provide a feel-good factor. She tripped lightly up the steps to the front door, put her key in the lock, turned it and pushed the door open.

As soon as she stepped across the threshold, she knew that something was wrong. All the recessed spotlights in the hall were on, flooding the place with light like a stage. And when she caught sight of Sarah at the end of the corridor, carrying a box of tissues in her right hand, her daughter froze. She stared at Patsy and then, as though she could not bear to look at her, she disappeared into the kitchen without a word.

Patsy pushed the door closed, dropped her bag on the floor and walked slowly up the hall. She thought she heard the sound of crying. Cold fear gripped her. She put her hand to her breast, her chest so tight it was difficult to breathe.

‘Sarah?’ she called but there was no answer. She could hear the sobbing more clearly now and the muffled sound of a man’s voice. Then the tap-tap-tap of knuckles on wood.

The crying was coming from the downstairs loo. She was drawn towards the sound, mesmerised with fear. When she reached the end of the corridor and the door came into view, she saw Martin leaning against it, his left cheek pressed against the wood and his right fist held aloft, bunched into
a ball. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery, and his nose was red like an alcoholic’s.

When he saw her, Martin closed his eyes, opened them again and his Adam’s apple moved up and down. His fist dropped to his side and he stepped away from the door. He could not look her in the eye.

‘Martin?’ she said. She reached out a hand and touched him on the bicep. He responded by turning his face to the wall. Fleetingly, she wondered if he’d cracked. If the pressure had led him to have some kind of breakdown.

But that would not explain the sobs coming from the loo. She stared at the pale oak door. Sarah had gone into the kitchen. It had to be Laura in there. Something was wrong with Laura. And, whatever it was, it had reduced her father to tears. Her heart began to pound but she took a deep breath and willed it to slow again. Panic would only make things worse.

‘Martin,’ she said, surprising herself with the calm, low voice that came from within her. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘It’s Laura. She’s…’ he began and faltered. He held his left hand out towards the door, the way an usher shows you to your seat in the theatre, as if that gesture by itself explained all. Then his hand dropped to his side. He pressed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand on the bridge of his nose, unable to speak.

Patsy turned her attention to the door once more. Her heart was racing now, out of her control, and she no longer tried to contain it. She tried the handle – locked, and put her hand on the brass fingerplate, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She considered if she had the strength to kick it down. ‘Laura?’ she called but there was no answer, only quiet weeping from within.

‘Is she hurt?’ said Patsy, her hand still on the door handle.

Martin shook his head.

‘What’s wrong with her, Martin?’ she shouted, all semblance of calm gone. ‘For God’s sake will you tell me what’s wrong?’

‘Mum,’ came a voice from behind. It was Sarah. ‘Come away from the door. Come into the kitchen. Laura’s…she’s fine.’

Immediately Patsy’s heartbeat slowed. She wiped the perspiration from her palms on her skirt. But if Laura was fine, then who was crying behind that door?

Patsy swivelled round to see her eldest daughter standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Her arms were folded across her chest, her hair was scraped back severely from her pale and sallow face, the colour of uncooked pastry. Sarah turned and walked into the kitchen. Patsy followed. Sarah came to a halt in the middle of the room and Patsy noticed that her mascara was smudged under her eyes and she was shaking, like a puppy removed for the first time from its mother.

‘Please, Sarah. Will you just tell me what’s going on?’ urged Patsy.

Sarah glanced at her father who had followed Patsy into the room – and in the end it was he who spoke. He stood between the women, equidistant from them both, the third point of a triangle. He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair.

‘Laura’s pregnant, Patsy.’

‘Dear God, no,’ said Patsy.

She looked at Martin’s face, then Sarah’s, then looked away because their expressions confirmed what she did not want to know. She cupped her hands over her mouth and nose and, at the same time, her legs buckled beneath her. But Martin was there. He caught her under the arms, held her upright and she heard him say, ‘Let’s get you sitting down. Sarah, get your mother a glass of water.’

Next thing she knew, she was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs with a glass in front of her. She did not touch it. Laura pregnant? It was simply impossible. She was little more than a child herself. She didn’t have a boyfriend. And yet…she thought of the changes she had noticed in Laura over the past few weeks and how she had attributed them to the stress of exams. Had she been too busy worrying about Martin that she had closed her eyes to Laura’s plight?

She remembered that night when she’d sat on Laura’s bed and stroked her hair. Had Laura tried to tell her she was worried then? Had she been too preoccupied to notice? Had she failed her? Not just then but before. Were she and Martin, by some deficiency in their parenting, responsible for this catastrophe? She looked up at Martin.

‘Please tell me it’s not true,’ she whispered.

He put both hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. ‘I wish I could.’ Then he sat down and folded his arms. He stared straight ahead, his lips set in a tight, grim line.

Sarah sat down opposite her mother at the table and let out a long, weary sigh. ‘I can’t believe she’s been so stupid.’

No-one refuted the comment – it lay there on the table between them, small and mean, until it occurred to Patsy that they were all making a huge assumption.

‘Sarah,’ she said, her face tight with pain, ‘did she say how it happened?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘No.’ She looked at her father.

‘She came into the kitchen and I’d just made a cup of tea and she sat down here beside me.’ Martin pointed to a chair, his face pale. ‘She just started to cry and then she told me.’

‘Did she say how many weeks? Who the father is? When did it happen?’ Patsy catapulted the questions at the blank faces of Martin and Sarah. ‘Has she been seeing someone, Sarah?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Not that I know of.’

Had she been raped? Patsy put her hand on the cross around her neck, closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.

‘Patsy,’ said Martin’s voice. She opened her eyes. ‘We don’t know anything. As soon as she said it, she ran out of the room and locked herself in the loo.’

‘Oh, Martin,’ said Patsy and a lump formed in her throat. All her dreams and hopes for Laura flashed before her: university, graduation, a career, husband, children. A pregnancy – a
teenage
pregnancy – would jeopardise it all.

Patsy heard the click of a door opening and the three of them looked up. Laura came into the room, shuffling like an old woman. Her lovely blonde hair was all messed up, her face was bright red and she had black rings of kohl
around her eyes. As soon as she made eye contact with Patsy she burst into tears.

Immediately Patsy went over to her, put her arms around her daughter and pulled her to her breast. Laura rested her head on her mother’s shoulder and wept, her entire body vibrating with each sob. Silent tears ran down Patsy’s cheek and she stroked the back of Laura’s head and whispered, ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart,’ over and over. And all she could think about was that some man had defiled her precious child.

‘Laura, love,’ she said at last, when Laura’s cries had eased a little. ‘Shush, there now. Listen, sweetheart, there’s something I need to know.’ She lowered her voice and whispered into Laura’s hair, ‘Did someone force you to have sex with them?’

Laura pulled away, dabbed at her face with the saturated tissue and said, with a vehement shake of her head, ‘No.’ Then she peeled away from her mother, threw the soiled tissue on the table and ripped another one from the box her sister had left there.

Some of the tension that was built up inside Patsy like a tightened elastic band subsided. Laura had not been raped, thank God.

Patsy followed her daughter over to the table and sat down. The anxiety she had experienced on first hearing the news had been replaced by an indescribable sadness.

‘Laura,’ she said. ‘Talk to us.’

Laura eyed her warily and Patsy blinked and said, ‘Noone’s going to be cross with you.’ She looked at Martin. ‘We just need to…to find out a few facts.’

Laura sat down and put a strand of hair in her mouth and chewed on it – something she had done from childhood when stressed or worried.

‘Are you absolutely sure you’re pregnant, Laura?’ said Patsy.

‘Yes,’ she said and sniffed. ‘I bought a kit from Boots. I did the test twice.’

Patsy swallowed and, fighting back the tears, thought of all the things she wanted to know – and the things she didn’t. But the hurt was so deep. The disappointment was like a physical pain in every bone in her body. So instead of asking questions about the where, when and who, she found herself saying, ‘How could you, Laura? How could you throw everything away?’

Fresh tears cascaded down Laura’s face, and Sarah said, ‘This isn’t helping, Mum.’

Martin cleared his throat. ‘Your mum’s just upset, Laura. We both are. We just can’t understand how…how this could’ve happened to our…’ He broke off then and held a closed fist to his lips.

Laura lifted her head and blew her nose and when she was composed again, Patsy said, ‘Will you tell us what happened, Laura?’

She nodded. ‘It was at Jason’s party. I was there with Louise and Catherine.’

Patsy thought back to what Janice had told her about the party – the house trashed, the gatecrashers. It sounded like a seedy affair. Laura should never have been there. Patsy should’ve made sure she wasn’t.

‘We were all just hanging out,’ said Laura. ‘And Kyle Burke came in and me and him got talking.’

‘Kyle Burke!’ exclaimed Patsy and she looked at Martin.

‘It’s not Kyle,’ said Laura quietly and she stared red-faced at her hands folded in her lap.

Patsy covered her mouth with her hand, resolving not to interrupt again.

‘Kyle and you were talking…’ prompted Martin gently.

‘Yes and we…well…we were all just hanging out. You know. Having a laugh.’

‘Were you drinking?’ said Martin.

Laura nodded, still staring at her lap.

‘What? What were you drinking?’

‘Bacardi Breezers mostly.’

Martin looked at Patsy, nodding slowly, as if confirming something to himself. ‘Were you drunk?’

‘I don’t think so. I mean, I had a few drinks. But I wasn’t off my face.’ This brought forth a fresh wave of tears. But Laura quickly wiped them away and composed herself.

Patsy thought back to the night of the party. She and Martin were in bed asleep when Laura came in very late. They had not seen her until the next morning. They should have checked on her. They should not have given her so much freedom. They should not have trusted her so blindly.

No-one spoke. Dripping water from the tap drummed out a rhythmic beat on the stainless steel sink. Patsy waited for Laura to go on, to tell them what they were all waiting for. She bit down on her knuckles until it hurt.

‘It was about twelve and we were thinking of leaving,’ said Laura at last. Patsy held her breath. ‘And then they came in.’

‘Who? Gatecrashers?’ said Patsy, releasing her breath in a rush, unable to hold back any longer.

‘No, Pete Kirkpatrick and his friends.’

The blood drained from Patsy’s face at the mention of Pete’s name. What had he got to do with this?

‘Pete came straight up to me and starting chatting like we were old buddies. And you know the way he’s kind of good-looking and some of the girls fancy him – well Amy Ritchie does anyway.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I don’t really know what happened after that…well, I do know. But I don’t know why I went along with it.’

‘But I thought you didn’t like Pete?’ said Patsy, her voice choked.

‘I don’t. Not really. But he was there and he was telling me how gorgeous I was. When he asked me to go upstairs with him, I went.’

Patsy covered her ears with her hands but she could still hear what Laura said next. ‘Don’t do that, Mum. I’m not a child. It’s not as though it was my first time.’

Patsy closed her eyes and stifled the strangled cry that almost escaped her lips. Not her first time! Laura had had casual, mindless sex with someone she didn’t even like – and it wasn’t the first time!

‘I thought he would’ve had condoms,’ went on Laura, talking so matter-of-factly it made Patsy blush. ‘But he didn’t and by then it was too late.’

No-one said anything. Patsy was truly shocked. She looked at Sarah, who was staring at Laura in astonishment.

Patsy felt the anger build up at Laura. She made it sound like a recreational activity, like tennis or shopping. She and Martin had somehow failed to instill in Laura the notion that sex was something valued and sacred, something to be cherished and shared with someone you loved. Not some guy who picked you up at a party. Not a creep like Pete Kirkpatrick.

‘Oh, Laura,’ said Sarah. ‘Since when did Pete Kirkpatrick ever give you, or me, the time of day?’

Laura looked at her sister with those big blue eyes and frowned. ‘What’re you saying?’

‘Didn’t it occur to you that he was after something?’

Laura, wide-eyed, shook her head. ‘Not at the time. But afterwards, he went off with his friends and ignored me for the rest of the night. I knew I’d done a stupid thing. I came home and just tried to forget about it.’

The naïvety of this woman-child broke Patsy’s heart. Laura had been foolish, certainly, but she had also been used. Pete Kirkpatrick had taken advantage of her.

Martin, who had been quiet for some moments, suddenly brought his fist down on the table so hard it made everyone jump. ‘The little shit! That little bastard,’ he said, staring at the kitchen wall. Then he turned his gaze on Laura, specks of spittle on his lips. ‘I’m ashamed of you.’

Laura hung her head and let out a little sob. Sarah put her hand on her sister’s back and rubbed it in a circular motion.

Martin’s face was tight with rage, every muscle tensed. His eyes bulged in his head.

Patsy put a restraining hand on his forearm. His muscles were taut like Patsy’s nerves. She applied gentle pressure with her fingertips and his fist unfurled slowly like a flower.

‘Why did you go with him, Laura? Why?’ said Patsy. ‘You don’t even like him.’

Laura shrugged in a defeated, worn-out way. ‘I don’t know.’

There was a long silence. The facts, in all their lurid detail, lay on the table. Patsy’s imagination stepped up to fill in the missing gaps in the story, too lucidly for her liking. She couldn’t bear to think about Laura and Pete together. It made her feel sick. If she had never warmed to Pete Kirkpatrick, now she hated him with every fibre in her body. ‘Does he know?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Laura and tears seeped from her eyes again. ‘I tried to tell him a couple of days ago. But he wouldn’t listen. He told me to stop bugging him. He said that I was an embarrassment.’

Martin swore, using such colourful expletives, it made Patsy wince. Fury swelled up inside her. Pete was even worse than she had thought. He was a monster. Then her fretting
mind latched onto the fact that Laura was about to sit the most important exams of her life so far.

‘Oh, God, what about your exams?’ said Patsy.

Laura sniffed. ‘What about them?’

‘You can’t sit them in this state. There must be some sort of process by which you can defer them.’

‘On what basis, Mum? That I’m pregnant?’

The words stung Patsy like little darts. ‘The doctor would give you a letter, I’m sure. To say you were suffering from…from stress.’

‘And then what? I’d lose my place to study psychology at uni. I’d lose a whole year.’

‘Laura,’ said Patsy and she looked involuntarily at her daughter’s stomach. ‘What makes you think you’ll be going to uni in September?’

The colour drained from Laura’s face. ‘I hadn’t thought,’ she said. She touched her flat belly and Patsy had to look away. The idea of Pete Kirkpatrick’s baby growing there was grotesque. ‘I know that sounds stupid but I hadn’t thought that far ahead…I can’t picture myself with a baby.’

And neither could Patsy. Laura was little more than a child herself, not so much physically but emotionally. She wasn’t ready to be a mother, in any sense of the word. But a baby was on its way and, unless something was done about it, Laura would be forced to become a mother whether she liked it or not.

Patsy looked at Laura’s tear-stained face and she was fuelled by two emotions, compassion and fury, the latter of which threatened to spill out at any moment. She thought it better that Laura went before she said something she regretted. ‘Laura,’ she suggested suddenly, ‘why don’t you go to bed now? It’s very late. You must be exhausted.’ Patsy stared hard at Sarah, who nodded, got up and took Laura
by the arm and led her out of the kitchen. Martin and Patsy sat in shocked silence.

Patsy sighed and pressed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. ‘You know, I always worried about Sarah more than Laura. I was always on at Sarah to go out more, to spend more time with her friends. I told her that she sat at home too much and that she should socialise more like her sister.’

She thought back to how, only a few months ago, she’d congratulated herself, and Martin, on their parenting skills. There was no doubt about it, Janice and Keith had raised a heartless, self-centred, arrogant child. But had she and Martin done much better with Laura? They’d produced a promiscuous daughter who appeared to have difficulty distinguishing right from wrong and who was either too naïve or too stupid to know when she was being used.

‘I just can’t believe I was so blind. There’s nothing wrong with Sarah, Martin. She might be a bit sensible but she’s grounded. It was Laura I should’ve been watching all along.’ She paused, trying to pinpoint what it was, in this whole debacle, that troubled her so deeply – apart from the fact of the pregnancy itself. It was Laura’s attitude. ‘Laura doesn’t seem to have a moral sense, Martin. She doesn’t seem to think that what she did was wrong. Stupid, yes. But wrong, no.’