Читать книгу Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists - Erin Knight - Страница 23

17

Cleo thought she could taste a hint of blood at the back of her throat. Any second now she’d cough up a lung. ‘Good God, Evie, people do this for fun?’

‘Doesn’t Sarah do it for fun?’ panted Evie.

‘Sarah? Will and Max’s mum Sarah? Not likely!’ One of the reasons Cleo had quickly become drawn to Sarah (aside from Harry and Will’s mutual love of karate-chopping Evie’s Barbie lunchbox on their very first day at Hornbeam) was their shared hatred for exercise. Cleo actually went one further and harboured a quiet loathing for exercisers themselves, specifically those women who spent their mornings in gym gear, transforming themselves like little keep-fit butterflies into full make-up and Uggs by afternoon pickup.

‘Mr Hildred’s always telling the Year Eleven boys how men flirt with her. Does she go running over the bluff with him? She is quite trim . . . for an older woman.’

‘Who, Sarah? She’s thirty-nine, Evie.’ God, it was too hard to speak. She was going to collapse on the sand in a minute, give herself to the shore like a resigned whale. The thought alone weakened her. She held a hand up in defeat. ‘I think I’m dying, Eves.’

Evie slowed and planted both hands on her knees. ‘Come on, Mum, just down to the jetty and back. One last push.’

Push? Push? Cleo had pushed two 6lb babies out of her body with only the midwives to scream at – that was pushing. This was plain horrific. ‘I can’t, Eves, I can’t make it. I know I probably look like a runner, but this . . . this was never for me.’ She batted a hand weakly at Evie. ‘Go on without me, I’ll watch.’

Evie straightened up and winced towards the ocean. Cleo caught a glimpse of the little girl she used to watch paddling along the shore, dipping her bottom in the water, shrieking with delight as the tide slid over her feet. She’d been going to save this for later. ‘Eves, I was thinking, in bed last night . . .’ Evie set her hands on her hips, Cleo’s little girl gone again, a frowning teenager with boobs and dilemmas in her place. ‘These remarks, on your Facebook account and things . . .’

Evie looked towards the ocean. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Surprise, surprise. Teenage girls didn’t want to nip nasty little social issues in the bud with help from the school shrink, they wanted to do it with alcopops and tremulous diary entries. Sam thought Cleo was overreacting of course, but what if it wasn’t just a bit of name-calling? What if Evie really was teetering on the edge of some seismic social shift at school? What then? One mismanaged move and all this Facebook business could throw a great big jagged fault line right down the middle of her GCSEs.

‘That’s what I’m afraid of, Eves. So Dad and I were wondering if, just hear me out, if you wanted to . . .’ How was she going to put this? ‘ . . . go and have a chat with Mr Hildred? If you’ve anything on your mind? You don’t have to come to me or Dad, although that’s obviously what we’d really like you to do, but if you don’t want to there are other options, and Jon, Mr Hildred, is so easy to talk to and he’s very discreet. He has to be, doesn’t he? And he knows the laws of the school jungle and, well, I know you’re good pals with Cassie and you talk to her but—’

‘Fine.’

Cleo squinted into the hazy morning sun. ‘Sorry?’

‘I said fine. I’ll speak to Mr Hildred.’

Cleo blinked. ‘Oh. Okay then.’

Evie’s face relaxed. ‘So are we going for the pier or not?’

‘Do we have to?’

Evie’s attention shifted towards the harbour. ‘Look, that’s all you need, Mum. A motivational T-shirt.’

Cleo pushed sweaty curls back across her head. Great. Rachel Foley was power-walking along the beach in a snazzily patterned pair of Lycra leggings and a This Girl Can top.

‘Cleo! Evie! Hiya!’

Rachel stepped up her hip-wiggling and sped along the sand. She was a big-boned girl with enviable glossy auburn hair and a perennially happy face that Cleo both liked and disliked, depending on the day. Cleo reminded herself not to hold Rachel’s social circle against her; she couldn’t help Chloe being in Year 1 at Hornbeam along with the offspring of baguette-fiend Lorna Brooks and Olivia-bigmouth-Brightman, Juliette’s rabid bloody sidekick.

‘I thought it was you! I didn’t know you jogged. Mother-daughter time, how lovely!’

Was Rachel wearing full make-up? This early? Cleo squinted. Yes, yes she was. Blusher, lippy, the lot. Even Evie had toned it down after dragging herself out of bed. The eyebrows had made the cut, mind. ‘Hello, Rachel. Evie and I were just blowing away the cobwebs, weren’t we?’ And the odd lung.

‘Of course! You open later on Wednesdays, I almost forgot. We’re your Tuesday and Thursday girls, aren’t we?’

‘Indeed you are. Didn’t see you girls in Coast yesterday though, Rachel. That’s not like you Hornbeam mums.’

Rachel was grinning. It was her defence mechanism. Cleo preferred to smash things; she’d learned this in the kitchen last night. Cleo grinned back. This smacked of Lorna’s hissy fit. ‘Oh, you know how it is, Cleo. The school summer fair’s coming up next month and, well, it’s been absolutely hectic getting the stalls agreed and organised before Juliette tells us off!’

‘Well, just let me know how many cupcakes Coast’s providing for the cake stall. What was it last year? Three hundred? For free?’ Hornbeam had made a killing off Cleo’s donated cupcakes, and she’d enjoyed manning the stall, helping torrents of children to decorate their cakes while their svelte, summery mothers huddled around their Pimms.

‘Well, erm, I think they’ve had a little rejig this year, Cleo.’ They? Rachel was distancing herself from the pack.

‘A rejig?’

Rachel chewed her lip. She had pink lipstick on her front tooth. ‘The school is trying to educate the children on healthy eating, you see. We all agreed it’s a good idea to, um, reduce their sugar intake, encourage them to try out healthier alternatives.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, so, they’re, um . . . not having a cupcake stand as such this year . . .’

‘As such?’

‘No . . . well, we are having a cupcake stand, just . . . not your sort of cupcakes.’ Rachel gritted her teeth. Evie stepped back.

‘And what are my sort of cupcakes, Rachel?’

Rachel looked to Evie for help. ‘Umm . . . the sugary ones?’ Evie started drawing shapes in the sand with her new trainer. ‘Lorna suggested they try fruit and veg muffins, or something. She’s always going on about Isaac and Marnie preferring healthier, home-baked veggie muffins over the sickly sort . . .’ Rachel’s voice trailed off. ‘Sorry, Cleo. Those were her words.’

‘Oh were they now? Juliette’s given me the elbow, after all these years, so Lorna can run my cake stall?’

‘I’m really sorry, Cleo. Blummin’ heck, you know how much I love everything you bake. But please, try to understand,’ Rachel’s voice dropped to a whisper, ‘I have to stay on good terms with the other Year One mums. Chloe’s got another five years to go at Hornbeam.’

‘It’s not a young offender’s institution, Rachel,’ snapped Cleo. She ignored the stitch biting into her side and stood up. ‘Good luck with that bunch of vampires. Evie? Are we running to this goddamn pier or what?’