Читать книгу Best of Friends - Cathy Kelly - Страница 13

Three days later, on Friday morning just after nine, Abby pulled up outside a big house in a swish Cork suburb for a private decluttering job. Many people thought that Abby no longer took on private commissions since her television success but, in fact, the opposite was true. Although television paid well, it wasn’t as lucrative as everyone imagined. The big sums of money bandied about in the who’s-earning-what articles in newspapers were generally wrong and often represented what Abby would earn if she sold herself and her entire family into slavery for ten years. A successful television series meant a reasonable amount of money in the bank and the possibility of making more money if the series kept on attracting high ratings. It did not mean, as lots of people thought, that someone came round to her house with a Vuitton holdall stuffed with tenners. Private jobs were her bread and butter.

This morning’s job was one she felt wary of: Tanya Monaghan, a local socialite much given to appearing in the gossip column photos, wanted Abby’s help to declutter her life. Fair enough. Except that Abby had a sneaking suspicion that Tanya’s house didn’t need anything in the way of de-junking and that she merely wanted Abby’s services because of the fame factor. It was like having your dinner parties catered by a famous chef or your garden landscaped by a well-known gardener.

‘Abby Barton – you know, from the television – well, she sorts the house out for me,’ Tanya would say airily.

There was an intercom built into the wall beside the electric gates of the Monaghan home. Tanya’s husband, who was some sort of construction magnate, was clearly rolling in funds. Abby lowered the Jeep window.

‘Abby Barton for Mrs Monaghan,’ she shouted into the intercom.

‘Come in,’ said a gentle, heavily accented voice. Not Tanya’s, Abby was sure. Therefore the voice of some hired help, which meant the whole house was probably spotless as it was. She parked on a flawless gravel drive and didn’t have to ring the doorbell before the door opened. A shy, dark-haired woman in clumpy shoes smiled at her.

‘Welcome,’ she said in her quiet voice.

Tanya appeared from the top of the staircase. ‘I’ll take over, Manuela,’ she said dismissively.

‘Thanks,’ Abby said politely to Manuela, who shot her a friendly look as though to say nobody in this household thanked her very often. Abby would bet her day’s wages that Manuela could tell some stories about her employer. Perhaps they could compare notes afterwards.

‘Nice of you to drop in,’ said Tanya, waving a languid hand in Abby’s direction. A skeletal blonde with size six hips in pink Versace jeans, she was coiffed to within an inch of her life and, from the studied bored look on her face, was clearly determined not to be fazed by her celebrity house declutterer.

Ms Size-Six-Hips lit up the first of many cigarettes and took Abby on a tour of the house. It was so big that Abby was glad she’d worn flat shoes. It was also as perfectly tidy as a house in a style magazine. They went upstairs.

‘As you can see, I haven’t any room in here,’ Tanya said when they reached a dressing room roughly the same size as Abby’s own bedroom. With clothes crammed into every space, it was definitely the messiest room in the Monaghan house, but still nowhere near the scale of disaster that Abby had encountered on the show. One family had lived for three years with all their clothes stored in plastic bin liners because their wardrobes were jammed full of really old clothes and nobody had been able to face tackling either the mouldy wardrobes or the moths. Compared to that, Tanya’s dressing room was perfect enough to stand in for a clothes shop display.

‘Do you think you can sort it out?’ Tanya said, not looking at Abby but scrutinising an immaculate nail.

Abby thought of the endless perfect rooms, which required little work. It would be wrong of her to take on a job where there was none. Only this room needed anything doing to it, and judging by the labels hanging from many of the obviously unworn clothes, the main solution would be to take away Tanya’s gold credit card. The money for the commission would be nice but Abby was intrinsically honest. Besides, she wasn’t in the mood for spending much time with the self-obsessed and rude Tanya Monaghan.

‘Tanya, there’s not a lot to do here,’ she said bluntly. ‘This room needs a day’s work but that’s all. I couldn’t take your money for nothing.’

‘Well,’ Tanya looked almost offended at the idea that her house wasn’t suitable, ‘can’t you do something?’

‘Tanya, it would be wrong of me to say the whole house needs doing. You’ve no clutter at all.’

‘This room, then,’ Tanya said eagerly.

‘OK.’

‘Great. I’ll send Manuela up in case you want tea or coffee,’ Tanya said, smiling now she’d got her way. ‘I have to go out. I’ll be back much later. Have fun.’

And she was gone, leaving Abby feeling decidedly irritated.

Working in Tanya’s dressing room had another big minus, Abby decided when she’d finished the job and was pulling on her jacket: those floor-to-ceiling mirrors were as unforgiving as the ones in the hairdresser’s, and magnified every line. She should have asked Tanya for advice on plastic surgery. Tanya would be the sort of person to know where to go to have eyebags miraculously lifted. The only problems with surgery, Abby decided, were that it hurt and there was always a risk of it going wrong. Look at all those women with lips that looked like inflated Lilos. No, Abby only wanted surgery if she could be guaranteed that she’d look herself, only younger.

On her way home, she stopped at a row of shops to buy a banana and some bottled water to keep her going. Emerging from the shop, she passed a glossy chemist’s and the lure of shiny new lipsticks drew her in. She’d had a dull but lucrative day. She deserved a treat, like a new lippie or maybe some nail varnish. After an enjoyable ten minutes dawdling at the beauty counter, Abby decided to buy a new, even more expensive eye cream as well as a lip-plumping lotion, an ultra-moisturising face mask and, to cheer herself up, a mascara that promised spidery lashes like a sexy French actress. With huge jet-black lashes batting, perhaps nobody would notice Abby’s crow’s-feet. As her credit card was processed to debit a horrifyingly large sum, Abby decided that an eye lift would still be cheaper in the long run. Still, she signed the bill, turned away from the till and went whomp straight into the raincoated body of a man.

The impact winded her and she dropped her bag of make-up to the ground with a loud clank.

‘Excuse me,’ she muttered, not looking at the man but bending down to retrieve her package, hoping nothing was broken. Clumsy and wrinkly. Was there no end to her talents? No wonder her husband was bored with her.

‘Abby Barton,’ said an amused voice. ‘Long time no see.’

Crouched down, she peered up at the voice and her stomach lurched the way it did when she drove the Jeep at high speed over bumps in the road.

The owner of the expensive-looking raincoat, staring down his long aquiline nose at her, was Jay Garnier.

A man she hadn’t seen for what…eighteen years? Nineteen? At somebody’s wedding, if she remembered correctly, when she’d wondered in advance if the old magic would be there and had been mildly upset when Jay had rolled up with an exquisite Brazilian girl with blue-black hair and a slim waist measurement which, even so, was undoubtedly a higher figure than her age.

‘Typical,’ everyone had said, watching them whirl round the dance floor, two tall lean figures moving in time to the music as if they were alone and just about to fall into bed. ‘Jay always found the best-looking girls.’

And Abby had consoled herself that she’d been one of Jay’s girls, once, and that everyone knew he moved on and the trick was not to be bothered by it. To show Jay exactly how not bothered she was by his not even coming over to say hello, Abby had flounced round the floor with her current boyfriend – the one before Tom – and got terribly drunk on pineapple daiquiris.

‘Abby,’ he said now, ‘I can’t believe it’s you. It’s so wonderful to see you – you don’t know how thrilled I am. You’ve made my day!’

Abby melted. It wasn’t just seeing him that made her feel twenty years younger, but the way he said her name. His voice had always been bewitching, low, husky. He never spoke loudly. Linda, her flatmate at college, who had never liked Jay, said he spoke softly simply to get women to lean closer to him, so he could pounce. But Abby disagreed. She could remember Jay talking to her as if she was the only person on the planet, his misty grey eyes locked with hers, passion smouldering.

‘I’ve never felt this way about anyone in the world,’ he’d said. She’d felt the same. Of course, it couldn’t have lasted; they both knew that. Holiday romances didn’t.

‘It’s so wonderful to see you.’ Jay pulled her to her feet, and his arms were around her, and in that instant, Abby hugged him back tightly. He’d barely changed. The strong profile and the chiselled jawline were the same, the jaw only softened by the unexpectedly full lower lip that was now curved up into a delighted smile. He still looked fit enough to play a ferociously aggressive game of rugby and his hair was the same dappled chestnut, although shorter than it had been in college. He certainly didn’t look forty-two, which was what he had to be – Abby’s own age.

He held her at arm’s length and stared appreciatively at her. ‘You look fabulous, Abby. Do you have time for a quick drink and a catch-up?’

They sat in the bar of the hotel across the street and reminisced. Abby had kept in touch with some of the college gang, and, jittery with a strange excitement whenever he accidentally brushed against her, she kept up a stream of conversation about them, discussing how Peter and Fiona had got married after all and now lived in Stockholm, and how Denessa had lived near Abby in Cork until a few years ago.

Jay, who was in Cork on business, lived in Dublin and ran the sales division of a successful office supply company there. He was married to a woman named Lottie and somehow, Abby wasn’t sure how, he gave a resigned impression that all wasn’t well in the marriage. Abby’s soft heart was moved at the way he shrugged and said wryly that even the best marriages went through difficult patches, didn’t they?

‘The boys are five and seven, and they’re great,’ he said. ‘How about yours? You’ve got a daughter, haven’t you?’

With relief, Abby talked about Jess and Tom, giving Jay the interview version of her life: how thrilled she was with the fame but that her family life was more important than anything else.

Jay told her about his two young sons, saying he’d married late and that the boys were keeping him young.

‘I’m afraid I must go,’ he said finally, when they’d talked for over an hour. ‘I’ve another meeting.’

‘Of course,’ said Abby. ‘Me too. Another meeting, I mean.’

His fingers brushed against hers as they both reached for the bill and Abby again felt the strangest sensation electrify her body. For a moment, she just sat and stared at Jay’s outstretched hand.

‘Let me pay,’ he insisted. ‘If you can’t let an old friend buy you a drink, who can? And I’m a very old friend,’ he added, laughing. ‘Look at the grey hairs.’

Abby laughed easily. ‘Not so old,’ she said. ‘You don’t look a day over thirty-seven. I can only assume you have a portrait in the attic like Dorian Gray.’

‘Look who’s talking.’ There was a relaxed, teasing quality to his voice and Abby smiled back as he leaned over and touched her hair. ‘You look fabulous. Fame agrees with you, Abby.’

Their eyes met and, at that instant, she was able to identify the sensation she’d experienced when he’d touched her previously: the exquisite thrill of sexual attraction. Like the tail flick of an electric eel, desire rippled throughout her body, sending every nerve ending onto high alert. And just as quickly, Abby knew how dangerous it would be to admit this to Jay. How embarrassing to behave like that with an old boyfriend, a married old boyfriend at that.

The air of savoir-faire she’d worked on so hard for her television persona came to her rescue just in time.

‘You charmer,’ she said, her voice deliberately light. ‘I bet you say that to all your old flames.’

‘No.’ Jay’s easy smile was gone. ‘I don’t.’

‘Well, don’t say it to me,’ she said, falsely stern. ‘I’m an old married lady and I’ve forgotten how to flirt.’

‘Bet you haven’t,’ he replied lightly. ‘You were always a temptress.’

And they were back on safe ground, teasing merrily, two old friends delighted to see each other and happy to reminisce about the past.

‘We must have dinner sometime,’ Jay said, getting to his feet.

Abby, halfway through searching in her handbag for her keys, hesitated. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

‘I’d love to meet Tom, and I know you’d adore Lottie,’ Jay went on.

‘Fantastic,’ Abby said heartily, relief mingling with disappointment. It would have been nice if he’d felt the same attraction she did, but it was easier that he didn’t. Her life was complicated enough. ‘Dinner would be wonderful. Here’s my card and we can set it up.’

The thought of Jay filled her mind all afternoon. There was something wildly exciting about meeting someone who made her feel young and attractive in a way Tom just didn’t any more. And Jay had been so focused on her, he’d given her his full attention, which was something she certainly never got at home these days. Dinosaurs had roamed the earth the last time she’d received anything like as much attention from her husband and daughter. Of course, old friends were always going to be interested in every detail of your life. Catching up, that’s what Jay had been doing – she knew that. But it had been fun, Abby thought wistfully. Great fun.

Four miles away, Jess and Steph were not having fun at all, shivering like whippets in their thin Aertex shirts amongst a class of students on the school football pitch. Mr Hutton, the games teacher, stood at the front and explained that the afternoon sports session would be fun: relay races and five-a-side football to take the fourth years’ minds off the impending exams. Whatever about the exams, nothing could take their minds off the cold wind, which was whistling up from the harbour with the malevolence of a nuclear-powered Jack Frost. Their track-suit tops were all piled on benches behind them because, as Mr Hutton said, ‘You’ll all be roasting after a few minutes of the relay races.’

‘I don’t know why he thinks this is going to help us relax,’ growled Steph, rubbing her arms frantically to get warm. ‘He’s all right: he’s wearing a bloody fleece.’

‘I hate games,’ muttered Jess. Her arms were turning blue and she’d got her period that morning in French – cramps with jaws like pit bull terriers were gnawing at her belly. She couldn’t bear to think about running in a stupid relay race, never mind actually doing it. But she couldn’t say anything to horrible Mr Hutton. How did they expect girl students to talk about period pains to male sports teachers? It wasn’t on. Her mother had always moaned about having gone to an all-girls school but there had to be some advantages.

‘Line up,’ shouted Mr Hutton joyfully.

Shuffling miserably, the students lined up, with Steph getting shoved to the front of their group, three people ahead of Jess.

‘Sorry,’ Steph mouthed, peering back along the ranks.

Jess gave a resigned shrug.

In the team beside her stood Saffron, her shining blonde hair tied up in a jaunty ponytail, her skin clear and fresh. As if to remind Jess of its existence in the face of such glowing perfection, a pimple on her forehead started to throb. Great. Throbbing forehead and throbbing belly.

Hating everything and everyone, she stared stonily ahead and tried to ignore Derek and Alan on her other side ogling Saffron’s high, jutting breasts, which completely filled out her tiny sports shirt. Jess shot the droolers a quelling look but they simply didn’t notice her, their hormonally operated eyes glued to Saffron’s chest. Ignored again. The story of her life, Jess thought miserably. Not that she wanted two Stone Age morons to look at her but still, it would be nice to turn heads the way Saffron did.

‘GO!’ shouted Mr Hutton and the first runners shot off. Everyone else shuffled up unwillingly in their lines. Only Mr Hutton and the insanely competitive guys from the football team were cheering. The rest seemed just as bored as Jess.

‘It’s going to be fabulous.’

Jess tuned into what Saffron was saying in a low voice to her cronies.

‘The tickets are limited to fifth and sixth years but Ian says you lot are all welcome, he’ll sort it out. I can’t wait.’

If Steph had been with her, Jess would have rolled her eyes theatrically. The class blondes were always talking about some party or another. This time it was the dance on the night of the interschool soccer cup. Like, boring.

‘…and it’s boned, so it, you know, really pushes them up.’ Saffron demonstrated having her boobs pushed up so high she could rest her chin on them. Jess didn’t know which was worse: the hot gasps from Alan and Derek, or the thought of Ian’s gorgeous face when he saw Saffron all wrapped up like a Christmas cracker for him, boobs spilling out of her dress and the ‘Open’ sign flickering in her eyes.

It all came down to tits, didn’t it?

The guy ahead of her sprinted off and Jess tried to look ready for her turn. She stretched her stiff calves, aware that she hadn’t limbered up properly. And what if she dropped the baton? She hated relay races.

Her team-mate reached the other end and turned back. More people were screaming support now and it was easy to see which team was winning: the footballers, whose line-up somehow managed to consist of the fittest guys in the class and no girls. Jess began to jog on the spot. Her team-mate was close, closer, he shoved the baton at her and she fumbled it. Then it went flying. Jess dived into the mud after it, grabbing at it frantically as it rolled out of reach.

‘Come on, Jess, put some effort into it,’ yelled Mr Hutton.

‘Come on, Jess,’ howled her team.

Her cold fingers grasped the baton and she lurched to her feet and into a clumsy run. The people she was running against were already on the return journey and Jess did her best. But the combination of embarrassment at her mistake and the rumbling ache inside conspired against her. Her legs felt leaden, like in a nightmare in which ghouls were getting closer but her feet were stuck in quicksand.

‘Jess, Jess, hurry up!’ shrieked everyone as she turned for home, to see the other runners nearly there. She put all her energy into the dash back and thrust the baton hurriedly into the final sprinter’s hand. Panting, she turned to see that it was too late. Her team would be last. And it was her fault.

‘Tough luck, babes,’ sympathised Steph, patting her arm. ‘I thought Hooty was going to have a heart attack when you couldn’t pick up the stick. Somebody should give that guy a chill pill. Sports are so not cool.’

‘Yeah, you said it,’ muttered Jess, still feeling as if everyone was looking at her and mentally branding her a clumsy idiot.

The football boys won, to much wild screaming, particularly from Saffron’s gang.

‘Well done,’ squealed Saffron, flicking her ponytail flirtatiously towards Tony, the best-looking of the winners. This husky-voiced giant sat near Jess in maths and had once picked up her silver gel pen when it had fallen onto the floor and handed it to her.

‘Thanks, Saffron,’ said Tony, giving the girl a smile of such promise that Jess felt scorched just by being near it. ‘You were pretty hot yourself.’

Jess knew that if Tony had said anything so sexy to her, she’d be staring at him stupidly, mouth open to display the horrible inside of her train-track braces. Saffron merely smiled out from under darkened lashes – definitely covered with forbidden mascara, Jess thought grimly – and winked knowingly at Tony.

Jess watched them both surreptitiously. Despite hating Saffron on one hand, she had a grudging respect for her on the other. Somehow, Saffron had solved the mystery of guys. She didn’t wait for them to throw her a crumb of conversation in the lunch queue. She didn’t lie in bed at night wondering if they’d noticed her. She went out and got them, like a cowboy roping a bullock. What was more, she didn’t panic that Ian would find out she’d flirted with Tony. For a brief, enjoyable moment, Jess imagined herself comforting Ian and hearing him say: ‘I never thought I’d get over Saffron but she wasn’t my true love. You are, Jess. I’m so glad she’s going out with Tony. It’s given me the chance to…’

‘…pick up the baton without fumbling and run with it.’

Bewildered, Jess left her dream world to focus on the real one and found Mr Hutton loudly lecturing her about team sports, meaning team work. ‘If you didn’t want to be in the relay, you should have said something, Jess,’ he added.

Stung by the unfairness of this, Jess was about to blurt out that the relay race would have consisted of five people in total if the class had any choice in the matter, but he barged on with his comments. ‘That’s what games are about. Joining in and doing your best for the team. You’re tall and athletic – you ought to be as fast as any of the boys,’ he went on.

‘Yeah, Jess is nearly a boy,’ sniggered Derek to Alan, staring meaningfully at her T-shirt.

Flushing with rage and misery, Jess looked down at her feet and realised that she was covered with mud from her frantic grappling for the baton.

If Mr Hutton had possessed even a single intuitive bone in his body, he’d have realised that Jess was staring down at the ground because she didn’t want anyone to see the tears welling up in her eyes. But Mr Hutton wouldn’t have known how to spell intuitive and decided that the lanky Barton girl was giving him cheek by her very attitude. She wasn’t even looking at him when he was talking to her.

‘Have it your way, Jess. Don’t join in and see where that gets you in life. Nowhere, that’s where. Well, you can stay late after class and put all the batons and line markers in the games shed. And leave the key with the caretaker.’

Games was the last class of the day and if she had to stay late, she’d miss her bus to the station. Mum would go mental.

‘I’ll do it with you,’ said Steph, when Hutton had stalked off to organise the five-a-side tournament.

Jess shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

‘I will,’ insisted Steph loyally.

‘You can’t. You’ve got your maths grind tonight,’ Jess reminded her in a shaky voice.

‘Shit, yeah. Lucky you for having a dad who can give you grinds.’ Steph was falling behind in maths and had extra lessons, nicknamed ‘grinds’, with a private teacher to coach her for the exams.

Jess grinned for the first time that afternoon. ‘Dad doesn’t believe in grinds. He thinks they’re a sign of bad teaching.’

‘What did he send you here for?’ demanded Steph. ‘Without grinds, the whole school would grind to a halt. Grind, geddit?’

‘Funny ha ha,’ sighed Jess.

‘How about we go to the movies on Saturday?’ suggested Steph after a moment. She was desperate to cheer Jess up.

‘I mightn’t be able to get away.’ Jess sighed again. ‘I’m babysitting for the Richardsons on Saturday night and Mum says I’ve got to get my study done in the afternoon.’

‘Tell her you’ll study when you’re babysitting.’

By the time she’d put away all the sports equipment, Jess felt utterly weary. She’d have a bath at home rather than a shower in the creepily deserted girls’ changing room, she decided, pulling her coat on over her gym gear. At the bus stop, she rang home to say she’d be late but nobody answered and the machine wasn’t on. She was about to try her mother’s mobile when the bus trundled along, packed to the gills with rush-hour commuters. There was no way she was going to have one of those childish conversations along the lines of ‘I’ll be late, Mum, don’t worry’ with a packed bus listening, so she found the last seat upstairs, switched on her Discman and turned the sound up.

The train was packed too. Every seat was taken and bad-tempered passengers with briefcases, pushchairs and bags of shopping were crammed into every available gap.

With nowhere to sit, Jess squeezed into a space against the wall at the end of the carriage, her bag at her feet, and tried to drown out the boredom of the journey with music. When she looked up, she saw the guy from the year above pushing a path through the crowd to get a space and, incredibly, Jess thought for one minute that he smiled briefly at her. Tired, crampy and fed up, she wasn’t going to risk smiling back and looking stupid, in case she’d imagined it. But then he made his way across the compartment and leaned against the last bit of free wall in Jess’s section. This time she knew she hadn’t imagined the rueful smile, so she sent him a fleeting one back, before dropping her gaze again. Wow! It was the first bit of light in an otherwise horrible day.

But it was to be the only bit of light. When the train lumbered into Dunmore station, chugging even more slowly than usual with its enormous load of disgruntled commuters, Jess could see her mother standing anxiously on the platform, all wrapped up in that ridiculous chocolate fake-fur coat she loved. Her eyes were frantically searching every carriage as the train pulled in.

‘Jess!’ she shrieked, rushing forward to grab her daughter when Jess stepped wearily down onto the platform. ‘I’ve been so worried. I tried to phone and there was no answer on your mobile…’

Jess glared at her to shut up, but Abby was far too relieved even to be aware that she was making a scene.

‘Chill, Mum,’ snapped Jess. ‘I did phone to say I’d be late but you weren’t there and the machine wasn’t on.’

Trying to disentangle herself from her mother, Jess could see the guy from her school loping off down the platform towards the footbridge. He’d never smile at her again, that was for sure. Not now that her mother had made it plain that she was a kid who wasn’t safe to let stay five minutes behind after school. Cool guys in fifth year didn’t hang around with kids.

‘Why didn’t you answer your phone?’ demanded Abby.

‘Didn’t hear it,’ muttered Jess.

‘You shouldn’t have your Discman so loud that you don’t hear the phone,’ her mother said loudly. ‘Have you any idea how worried I was?’

‘For God’s sake,’ Jess said furiously, ‘everybody’s watching. You’re not on bloody TV now.’

They drove home in frosty silence, even the lively banter from the drive-time DJ failing to crack the ice.

Abby, who’d felt guilty about her little detour into the past with Jay, and had been wondering if she should tell Tom, and who’d raced to the station after getting home and finding Jess hadn’t returned from school, was furious with her daughter for not phoning to say she’d be late.

What had happened to Jess, she thought grimly. Her lovely, smiling daughter had been replaced by this sullen, angry teenager who bit her mother’s head off every time she spoke. What had Abby done wrong? Or, she thought suddenly, was there something bothering Jess, something serious?

She tried again when they got home.

‘So how was school?’ she asked brightly.

Jess thought of the awfulness of the day and stupid Mr Hutton picking on her unfairly. Worse was what the boys had said to her. It wasn’t her fault she was tall, lanky and flat-chested. She wanted to ask her mother how she’d been when she was a teenager, but then her mother was small and pretty and confident. How could she know how Jess felt? Mum was always going on about how she wished her boobs were smaller because she hated looking ‘busty’. How unfair was that?

‘We’ve got tons of homework,’ Jess said, which was true. ‘How are we supposed to revise anything when we’ve all this work to do?’ she demanded, wrenching the fridge door open. She deliberated and then took out some cheese and made herself a sandwich.

Abby felt a surge of relief. That was the reason behind Jess’s bad temper: nothing more sinister than too much homework.

‘They wouldn’t give you homework unless they thought you needed it,’ said Abby, ever the deputy headmaster’s wife. ‘And you won’t want to eat your dinner if you eat that sandwich.’

‘I’m not going to have time for dinner,’ snapped Jess. ‘I’ll be doing my homework.’ With that, she stormed upstairs.

‘Sorry, Jess,’ Abby yelled in contrition after her. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, but the teachers know you have to get the courses finished before the exams, and I know it’s hard right now but it will be worth it in the end…’

The only reply she got was the slamming of Jess’s bedroom door.

Abby began to make Jess’s favourite dish, a vegetarian lasagne that took ages to prepare. If Abby couldn’t get through to Jess to tell her how much she loved her, she’d show her.

The lasagne was cooling, untouched despite many calls upstairs, and Abby had given up and gone into the living room to eat a forbidden packet of crisps and watch the soaps when Tom arrived home.

‘How was your day?’ he asked, throwing his bulging briefcase onto one of the armchairs.

‘Don’t ask,’ she said, and was about to elaborate on what a precious little madam her client had been and how Jess was upset over her homework and how terrible Abby felt when she couldn’t communicate with her, and guess who she’d bumped into today, but Tom didn’t give her a chance to continue. He was just aching to talk about his day.

‘I know the feeling,’ he muttered, loosening his tie and throwing that onto the armchair to join the briefcase. ‘Some joker in second year set the fire alarm off this afternoon and we couldn’t turn it off. Seems the expensive new system we got in last year has a fault and we had to get a guy out from the company who installed it to deal with it. And then,’ Tom sank onto the other armchair, ‘Gina, you know, the new physics and maths teacher, tells me she can’t cope and she wants to hand in her notice. She didn’t think teaching boys was going to be as hard as it’s turned out. Stupid cow. And I swear that Bruno always takes the day off just when there’s trouble brewing. He must be bloody psychic. He gets the headmaster’s salary and no trouble, and I get the deputy head package and every bloody disaster possible.’ He shifted in the seat to get comfortable and began to look around for the television remote. ‘What’s for dinner?’

Abby counted to ten. ‘Vegetable lasagne,’ she said evenly. She went into the kitchen, cut Tom a portion and stuck it in the microwave with a loud clatter. Adding some limp lettuce from the fridge and a few baby tomatoes she couldn’t be bothered to wash, she dumped the whole lot on a tray and plonked it on the table in front of her husband.

‘Thanks,’ he grunted.

Abby got herself a second glass of wine and another packet of crisps, and went upstairs. She knocked tentatively on Jess’s door.

‘Hi, Jess, it’s Mum. Can I get you anything?’

‘No,’ came the reply.

Abby went into their own room, switched on the TV and settled herself onto the bed with her snack. So much for the moral dilemma over telling her husband about Jay. She couldn’t believe she’d even worried over it. Clearly Tom wouldn’t have cared less if she’d pushed Jay up against the hot-water bottles in the chemist’s, wrapped her legs around his waist and French kissed him while the people queuing for their haemorrhoid prescriptions watched. So long as Tom got his dinner and had someone to listen silently to his moans about his day, he didn’t need anything else. Why bother telling him about her chance meeting with an old flame? If Jay rang to set up the foursome for dinner, then she’d mention it. For now, she’d just keep it to herself, along with that disturbing sensation she’d felt when Jay had touched her.