Читать книгу One Summer In Paris - Sarah Morgan - Страница 11
ОглавлениеThousands of miles away in London, Audrey was in the middle of studying for a chemistry exam when her bedroom door burst open.
“Which dress? Green or pink?” There was a note of wild panic in her mother’s voice. “The green shows more of my cleavage.”
Audrey didn’t turn her head from the screen. Why didn’t her mother ever knock? “I’m working.” And every word was a struggle. Whoever had put her brain together had done a crap job.
There were days when she totally hated her life and this was one of them.
“It’s Valentine’s Day. You should be out on a date. At your age I was already a party animal.”
Audrey knew just how much of a party animal her mother was. “My exams start in May.”
“You mean July.”
“I’m done by the middle of June.” Why did it bother her that her mother didn’t know that? She should be used to it by now. “These exams are a big deal.”
Audrey felt sick about them. She was terrible at exams. It didn’t help that the teachers kept saying that the results would affect their whole future. If that was really the case then her life was already over.
Everyone else in her class had parents nagging them.
Are you doing enough work?
Should you be going out on a school night?
No, you don’t need fizzy drinks and pizza.
Audrey longed for someone to show her that much care and attention. Any care and attention. She longed for her mother to stroke her hair, bring her a cup of tea and say a few encouraging words, but her mother did none of those things and she’d given up hoping for it.
She’d been six years old when she’d realized her mother was different from other mothers.
While her friends’ parents hovered outside the school gate, Audrey stood alone, waiting for a mother who frequently didn’t show up.
She hated being different, so she began making her own way home. The school had strict rules about only releasing a child into the care of a known adult, but Audrey found a way around that. If she smiled and waved a hand in the vague direction of a group of mothers, they’d assume hers was among them. She’d slip through the crowd and once she was out of sight she’d make her way home. It wasn’t far and she’d memorized the route. Turn at the red post box. Turn again at the big tree.
Day after day Audrey let herself into the empty house, unzipped her schoolbag and struggled with her homework. Every time she pulled her book out of her bag, she had a sick feeling in her stomach. Her handwriting looked as if a demented spider had hurled itself across the paper and she could never quite organize her thoughts in a way that made sense written down. Teachers despaired. She’d despaired. She tried hard, achieved nothing, stopped trying. What was the point?
When she’d tried telling her mother she found reading difficult, the suggestion had been that she watch TV instead.
Finally, after years of handing in messy work and missing deadlines, a teacher who was new to the school had insisted Audrey was tested.
Those tests showed her to be severely dyslexic. In a way the diagnosis was a relief. It meant she wasn’t stupid. On the other hand, she still felt stupid and now she also had a label.
They gave her extra time in exams, but everything was still a struggle. She needed help, but when her mother came home from work she usually fell asleep on the sofa.
For years Audrey had believed her mother was just more tired than other mothers. As she’d grown older and more observant she’d noticed that other people’s parents didn’t drink a bottle of wine or two every evening. Sometimes her mother was late arriving home, and then Audrey would know she’d started her drinking early. She had no idea how her mother managed to hold down her job as an office manager, but was thankful that she did.
Functional alcoholic. She’d done an internet search once and found the perfect description of her mother.
Audrey told no one. It was too embarrassing.
The happiest days were when a school friend invited Audrey for tea or a sleepover. Audrey would watch other mothers, and occasionally fathers, fussing over home-cooked meals and homework and wonder why her mother didn’t know that was the way it was supposed to be done. She tried not to think about their empty fridge, or the empty bottles stacked outside the back door. More embarrassing were the men her mother brought home from her after-work drinking sessions. Fortunately, since meeting Ron, that had stopped. Audrey was pinning all her hopes on Ron.
“Your exams are done by June?” Her mother leaned on the edge of the desk, creasing a stack of papers. “I had no idea. You should have told me.”
You should have known. Audrey tugged at the papers and moved them out of harm’s way. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m interested. I’m your mother.”
Audrey was careful not to react. “Right. Well—”
“You know I’ve been busy planning the wedding. If you’re done by the middle of June, then that means you’ll be around all summer.”
Not if she had anything to do with it. “I won’t be here in the summer. I’m going traveling.”
It had been a spur of the moment decision, driven by a deep-seated horror of being at home.
She’d saved some money from her Saturday job at the hair salon and hidden it inside the soft toy she’d had since childhood. She didn’t trust her mother not to use the money to buy drink, and that money was her hope for the future. Every time she felt herself sinking into darkness, she looked at the bear that she placed in the middle of her bed every day. He had a missing eye and discolored fur, but he felt like a friend to her. A coconspirator in her escape plan. She’d worked out that it should be enough to get her a ticket somewhere. Once she was there she’d find a job. Anything was better than being trapped here in the repetitive, exhausting cycle that was living with her mother.
“That’s good. It’s just that with Ron and I newly married, well—you know—” She nudged Audrey, woman to woman.
Audrey did know. The walls in their house were thin. She probably knew far too much for a person her age.
She noticed that her mother didn’t ask where she was traveling, or with whom. All she cared about was that Audrey wouldn’t be around to intrude on her romantic interlude.
It hurt even though it shouldn’t, but Audrey was used to handling conflicting emotions. And to be honest she was relieved that her mother and Ron were getting married. Ron treated her mother well, and if the wedding went ahead, then Audrey would no longer feel responsible for her.
A whole new life was within reach.
“I’m spending the summer in Paris.” The idea had come to her in a flash the week before. Paris was meant to be beautiful in the summer. The men were hot, the accent was sexy and if they talked crap, as most boys did in her experience, it wouldn’t matter because she wouldn’t understand them anyway. Best of all, she could get away from home.
The first thing she was going to do when she had her own place was put a lock on the door.
Her mother sank onto Audrey’s bed, ignoring the piles of clothes that needed sorting. “Do you speak French?”
“No, which is why I want to live in France.” In fact, it wasn’t, but it was as plausible a reason as any and her mother wasn’t a woman given to examining anything in greater depth. “I need a language.”
“It will be good for you. You need to live a little! At your age—”
“Yeah, I know, you were having the time of your life.”
“No need to use that tone. You’re only young once, Audie.”
Most days she felt about a hundred. “I need to work now. I have a test tomorrow.”
Her mother stood up and wrapped her arms around Audrey. “I love you. I’m proud of you. I probably don’t tell you that enough.”
Audrey sat so stiffly she wondered if a spine could snap. The fumes from her mother’s perfume almost choked her.
Part of her wanted to sink into her mother’s arms and let her take the worry for once, but she knew better than to lower her guard. Within minutes her mother could be screaming at her, throwing things and saying mean words.
Audrey had never understood why mean words sounded louder than kind ones.
“You’re very tense.” Her mother released her. “Would a drink help relax you?”
“No thanks.” She knew her mother wouldn’t be offering a cup of tea.
“I opened a bottle of wine. I could spare you a glass.”
Wine explained the glittering eyes and the brittle mood. It also explained the perfume. “Have you eaten?”
“What? No.” Linda smoothed the dress over her hips. “I don’t want to get fat. What are you studying?”
Audrey blinked.
Her mother had never shown the slightest interest in what Audrey did with her life. At the open evening at school when they’d been invited in to discuss subject choices and university, Audrey had been the only student attending alone. As usual, she’d lied and said her mother was working. It sounded so much better than admitting that her mother couldn’t be bothered and that the only time her father had been present in her life had been during her conception. She lied so much about her life that sometimes she forgot the truth herself.
She cleared her throat. “Organic chemistry.” And she was going to fail. She’d picked sciences so that she could avoid essays and reading, but there was still a ton of reading and writing. After this she was never studying anything ever again.
“I think this fad for everything organic is nonsense.” Her mother checked her reflection in the mirror on Audrey’s desk. “It’s just an excuse for the supermarkets to charge more.”
Audrey sat with slumped shoulders, swamped in misery as she stared at her laptop screen. Go away. Just go away! She sometimes found it hard to believe she and her mother were related. Most days she felt as if she’d been dropped by a stork into the wrong house.
“Mum—”
“You’ve always been a slow learner, Audrey. You just have to accept that. But look on the bright side—you’re pretty, and you have big—” her mother thrust her hands under her breasts to make her point “—get yourself a male boss and they’ll never notice that you can’t spell.”
Audrey imagined the interview.
What do you consider to be your best qualities?
They’re both attached to the front of my chest.
Not in her lifetime.
If a work colleague ever touched her boobs Audrey would break his arm.
“Mum—”
“I’m not saying that college isn’t fun, but everyone gets a degree these days. It’s nothing special. You pay a fortune for something that in the end means nothing. Life experience, that’s what matters.”
Audrey took a breath. “Wear the green dress.”
She was exhausted. She wasn’t sleeping. Her schoolwork was suffering.
Her friend Meena had helped her make a spreadsheet with all her exams on it. Then they’d set alerts on Audrey’s phone, because she was terrified of misreading the spreadsheet and getting her timing wrong. They’d printed out an enlarged version and stuck it on her wall because every since the day her mother had drunk a bottle of whiskey and decided it would be a good idea to throw the computer in the trash, Audrey no longer dared risk storing things on her laptop.
You teenagers spend too long on screens.
On the calendar above her desk were crosses where Audrey marked the end of each day. Each cross took her closer to the day when she could leave school and home.
Her mother was still hovering. “You don’t think Ron would prefer the pink? It shows a little hint of lingerie, and that’s always good.”
“It isn’t good! It looks like you forgot to get dressed! It’s called underwear for a reason. It’s supposed to be worn under clothes.” Bursting with exasperation, Audrey finally glanced away from the screen. Her mother’s hair was wild from pulling dresses on and off. “Wear the dress you prefer. You can’t live your life constantly trying to please another person.” She couldn’t for a moment imagine asking a man what she should wear. She wore what she liked. Her friends wore what they liked. It was a roundabout of trying to fit in and trying to be different.
Linda’s lip trembled. “I want him to think I’m pretty.”
Audrey wanted Ron to think her mother was pretty, too. Audrey wanted Ron to take care of her mother, so she didn’t have to.
“Green,” she said. “Definitely green.”
None of the men her mother had dated had stuck around as long as Ron.
Audrey liked Ron. His favorite response to everything was As long as no one is dead, it will be fine. Audrey wished she could believe it. “Stop drinking. Sober is sexy. Drunk isn’t.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve had a drink, yes, but I’m not drunk.”
Audrey paused, her heart pounding. “You drink a lot, Mum. Too much.” And her biggest dread was that Ron would grow tired of it. “Maybe you should talk to the doctor, or—”
“Why would I talk to a doctor?”
“Because you have a problem.”
“You’re the one with the problem, but I can’t reason with you when you’re in this mood.” Her mother flounced out of the room, slamming the door.
Audrey stared at the door, feeling sick. This was why she rarely brought the subject up. How could her mother think she didn’t have a problem? Someone in this house was crazy and Audrey was starting to think it must be her.
And now her mother was upset. What if she went off the deep end and she drank everything in the house? From time to time Audrey went through the place, room by room, hunting down hidden bottles. She hadn’t done it in a while.
Stressed, she grabbed a chocolate bar from the stash she kept hidden behind her textbooks.
She tried to get back to work but she couldn’t concentrate. Giving up, she left her room and stood listening.
She heard sounds of her mother crying noisily in the bathroom.
Crap. She knocked on the door. “Mum?”
The crying grew louder. Anxiety balled in Audrey’s stomach. It felt as if she’d swallowed a stone. “Mum?”
She tried the handle and the door opened. Her mother was sitting on the floor leaning against the bath, a bottle of wine in her hand.
“I’m a bad mother. A terrible mother.”
“Oh, Mum.” Audrey’s insides churned. She felt exasperated, anxious and a little desperate. Most of all she felt helpless and scared. She didn’t know how to deal with this. Once, in a state of desperation, she’d called a help line for children of alcoholic parents but she’d lost her nerve and hung up without speaking to anyone. She didn’t want to talk about it. She couldn’t talk about it. It would be disloyal. Despite everything, she loved her mum.
She wasn’t alone, but she felt alone.
Her mother looked at her, mascara smudged under her eyes. “I do love you, Audrey. Do you love me?”
“Of course.” Despite her dry mouth, she managed to say the words. It was a routine that happened often. Her mother drank, told Audrey she loved her, sobered up and forgot all about it.
Audrey had given up hoping that one day her mother might say those words when she was sober.
“Give me the bottle, Mum.” She eased it out of her mother’s hand.
“What are you doing with that?”
Audrey poured it down the sink before she could change her mind, bracing her shoulders against her mother’s distressed wail.
“I can’t believe you did that! I was having one drink, that’s all, to give me confidence for tonight. What did I do to deserve a daughter like you?” She started sobbing again, apparently forgetting that a moment before she’d loved Audrey. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to lose Ron. I’m no good on my own.”
“Of course you are.” Audrey put the empty bottle down on the floor. “You have a good job.” Which she was afraid her mother might lose if she didn’t sober up.
What would happen then? Did Ron know her mother was an alcoholic? Would he walk out once he found out?
She clung to the idea that he wouldn’t. Hope, she’d discovered, was the light that guided you through dark places. You had to believe there was something better ahead.
Audrey grabbed a packet of wipes and gently erased the streaked mascara. “You have pretty eyes.”
Her mother gave a tremulous smile, her earlier nastiness no longer in evidence. “You think so?”
The vulnerability made Audrey queasy. Most of the time she was the adult, and the responsibility terrified her. She didn’t feel qualified for the role. “Definitely. People wear contact lenses to get this shade of green.”
Linda touched Audrey’s hair. “I hated having red hair when I was your age. I was teased all the time. I wanted to be blonde. You don’t get teased?”
“Sometimes.” Audrey reapplied her mother’s makeup, her approach subtler than Linda’s.
“How do you handle it?”
“I can take care of myself.” Audrey styled her mother’s hair and stood back and admired her handiwork. “There. You look good.”
“You’re so much stronger than I was.”
“You’re strong, too. You’ve just forgotten it.” And if you stopped drinking it would help.
She didn’t say it again. Her mother was calm now, and Audrey didn’t want to do or say anything that might change that. They lived on a knife edge. One slip, and they’d all be cut.
Her mother studied herself in the mirror, touching her cheekbones with the tips of her fingers. “You’d better get back to studying. Thanks for your help.”
It was as if the emotional explosion had never happened.
Audrey returned to her bedroom and closed the door.
She wanted to cry, but she knew that if she cried she’d get a headache and then she’d fail her test. If she failed her test, she might fail her exams and she hadn’t come this far to fall at the last fence. A few more months and she’d never have to study again.
Half an hour later a deep rumble of laughter announced that Ron had returned home.
Audrey covered her ears with her headphones, turned up the volume on pounding rock music and drowned out whatever was going on in the room above her.
Only when she glanced out of the window and saw her mother and Ron heading out of the house together, hand in hand, did she finally relax.
Don’t blow it, Mum.
When she was sure the coast was clear and that her mother wasn’t about to return for a bag, a coat or any other number of things, she ventured downstairs.
She could hear a dog barking in the street outside, and one of her neighbors shouting at another. She didn’t know them. It wasn’t that kind of street. In this particular London suburb, people came and went and never spoke to their neighbors. You could die, and no one would know. It was one of the cheaper areas of the city, which basically meant you paid twice what you would anywhere else in the country and got half as much for your money.
Rain was sheeting down, obscuring the view from the window.
Hardy, their rescue dog, was curled up in the warmth of the kitchen but when he saw Audrey he greeted her like a long-lost friend.
Audrey dropped to her knees and hugged him. “You are the only thing about this place I’m going to miss. You’re my best friend, and I wish I could take you with me when I go.” She giggled as he licked her face. “I hope she gets out of bed long enough to feed you when I’m gone. If not, scratch at the door. Or bite Ron on the ankles.” She stood up. “Food?”
Hardy wagged his tail.
She put food into his bowl, freshened his water and was wondering what to eat herself when her phone buzzed. It was Meena, asking if she could come over so they could study together.
Audrey and Meena had both moved to the school two years earlier, at an age when everyone else was already in groups and cliques.
Their friendship was one of the best things about the place for Audrey.
Given that she was likely to have the house to herself for hours, Audrey messaged back a yes. She would never, ever have contemplated having a friend around when her mother was home, but she occasionally invited Meena, provided the house was empty. Her parents were both doctors and Meena had the kind of stable home life Audrey could only dream of. She had uncles, aunts and cousins and Audrey wanted to implant herself in her family.
She checked the fridge.
It was empty apart from two bottles of wine.
She’d asked her mother to buy milk and cheese, but instead she’d eaten the few things Audrey had stocked up on the day before.
Tired, Audrey grabbed the open bottle of wine and tipped it down the sink. It was like trying to bail out a sinking ship with an eggcup, but still she couldn’t help trying to fix the situation.
There was no time for her to shop, so she headed for the freezer. Fortunately the frozen pizzas she’d bought the day before were still there. She threw them in the oven and retrieved a packet of chocolate biscuits she’d hidden for emergencies.
The moment she answered the door to her friend, she knew something was wrong. “What?”
“Nothing.” Meena pushed past her into the house. “Close the door fast.”
“Why?” Audrey peered out into the street and saw two girls leaning against a wall. She recognized them immediately. They were in her year at school. “What do those hyenas want?”
“My carcass. For dinner. Close the door, Aud!”
“They followed you again?” Audrey felt something hot and uncontrollable burn inside her. “What did they say?”
“The usual.” Despite the cold, Meena’s face was sweaty. Her eyes looked huge behind her glasses. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just words. Please don’t say anything.”
“It matters.” Audrey was out of the door and across the street before Meena could stop her, carrying all the extra emotion leftover from her encounter with her mother. “What is your problem?” She directed her question at the taller of the two girls because she knew she was the ringleader. Her name was Rhonda and she and Audrey clashed regularly.
Rhonda folded her arms. “I’m not the one with the problem. But you should stop hanging out with that dumb bitch. You need to rethink your friends.”
“Yeah.” The smaller girl standing by her side sounded like an echo. “You need to rethink your friends.”
Audrey glared at her. She couldn’t even summon up the girl’s name. She was a mouse who hid in Rhonda’s shadow. “When you have an original opinion you can voice it, but until then shut up.” She shifted her gaze back to Rhonda. “I don’t need to rethink anything. And seeing as Meena gets top grades in everything, the only dumb bitch I see is standing right in front of me.”
Rhonda lifted her jaw. “She should go back to wherever it is she came from.”
“She comes from here, you brainless baboon. She was born half a mile down the road from you but you’re too stupid to even know that, and who the hell cares anyway?”
“Why are you defending her? This isn’t your business, Audrey.”
“My friends aren’t my business? Is that a joke?” Audrey felt the last threads of control unravel. She took a step forward and had the satisfaction of seeing the other girl take a step back.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s you who shouldn’t be here. This is my street. My wall. I don’t need a bunch of mean girls leaning against it.” Audrey stabbed Rhonda in the chest with her finger. “Get out of here, and if you come near Meena again I swear I’ll hurt you.”
“You and whose army?”
“I don’t need an army. I’m my own army. Now fuck off back to wherever you came from, which is probably the sewer.” With a threatening scowl that she’d spent hours perfecting in front of the mirror, she stalked away from them. They called something after her and she lifted her finger and kept walking.
She found Meena shaking like a baby fawn, her phone in her hand.
“I thought they were going to kill you.”
“You have so little faith in me.” Audrey glanced at the phone. “Why are you calling emergency services?”
“I thought you needed backup.”
“We’re not in an action film, Meena. Put the phone away. And stop shaking. You look like a kitten someone dropped in a puddle.”
Meena rubbed her arms. “I wish I could be like you. You’re funny and everyone likes you.”
“Yeah? Well, I wish I was like you. You have a brain and a place at Oxford.”
“I’d rather be popular and fit in. Pathetic, I know. Those girls say I just got the place to fill their diversity quota.”
“Yeah, well, those girls are mean as snakes and dumb as shit. They’ve got to say something to make themselves feel better because their lives are crap. But you—” Audrey grabbed Meena and swung her around. “You’re going to rule the world. And because you have me to do your hair, you’re going to look good while you do it. Be proud! You’re, like, insanely smart. I can’t even spell engineering, let alone study it. I boast about you to everyone. My friend Meena is going to Oxford.”
“You don’t hate me for it?”
“What? Don’t be crazy. I’m proud of you. Why would I hate you?”
Meena looked sweetly anxious. “Because studying is so hard for you.”
“Life is hard for you, too. I don’t have to put up with the crap that’s thrown in your direction on a daily basis.” Audrey shrugged, trying not to think of her own life. “Everyone has something to deal with, right? I’ve got your back and you’ve got my back.”
“No one will have my back at Oxford.” Meena wiped the rain from her glasses. “I wish you were going, too.”
“No, you don’t. You’ll be hanging out with smart people, saying smart things and doing smart things. Now stop letting them get to you. Be mad, not scared. And if you can’t actually be mad, then act mad. You need to be meaner than they are. You need to be meaner-Meena.” She collapsed, laughing, and Meena giggled, too.
“Meaner-Meena. I like that.”
“Good. Because right now you’re far-too-nice-Meena. Let’s eat.”
Meena followed her into the kitchen and sniffed. “Is that pizza?”
“Mushroom and olive.”
“Bliss. Well, apart from the olives, but I can pick those off.” Meena dumped her bags on the kitchen floor and stripped off her coat. Her long black hair was damp. She wore jeans and a black sweater that belonged to her sister. Audrey would have loved to have a sister to share clothes with, but mostly she would have loved to share the load of her mother.
She watched as Meena sent a text.
“Who are you texting?”
Meena flushed. “My mum. She made me promise to let her know I arrived safely.”
“You live, like, two streets away.”
“I know. It’s embarrassing, but it’s either that or she drives me here and that’s more embarrassing.”
Audrey felt a stab of envy. “It’s great that she cares so much. You have the best family.”
“Aud—”
“What?”
“I smell burning.”
“Shit.” Audrey sprinted across the kitchen and opened the oven. “It’s fine. A little burned maybe, but not totally charred. Can you grab plates?”
Meena opened a cupboard. “Are you nervous about leaving home and living alone?”
“No.” Audrey dumped the pizza on a board. She virtually lived alone now. No one cared what she did. She didn’t have a curfew or rules. She’d reached the point where she’d decided that genuinely living alone would be an improvement. “Are you?”
“A bit, but it will be nice to have some independence. Mum is determined to make sure I eat healthily while I’m revising so every hour she brings me a healthy snack.”
The mere thought of someone thinking to bring her a snack, let alone a healthy one, almost made Audrey bleed with envy.
“And she’s on my case the whole time.” Meena unloaded her books and piled them on the table next to the plates. “We should get started. My uncle is coming at nine thirty to pick me up.”
“I could walk home with you if you like.”
“Then you’d have to walk back alone.”
“So?” She walked everywhere alone. “What do you want to drink?”
“Anything.” Meena walked to the fridge and opened it before Audrey could stop her. “What happened here? Why is your fridge empty?”
“My mother was defrosting it. It was so full, it needed clearing out.” The lie came easily, as lies always did to Audrey.
Yes, Miss Foster, everything is fine at home.
My mother couldn’t make parents’ evening because she’s working.
She could control the story she told. Less easy to control was the shame. It clung to her like sweat and she turned away, terrified it might be visible. “This pizza is getting cold. We should eat.”
“You’re lucky. Your mum gives you so much freedom.”
Audrey switched on her habitual smile. “Yeah, it’s great.”
Why didn’t she just tell Meena and her other friends the truth? It was partly because having started this story it was hard to untangle it, but mostly because it was embarrassing to admit that your own mother thought a bottle of wine was more important than you were. What did that say about her? At the very least, that she was unlovable.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do this summer?”
“I’m going to Paris.” Audrey snapped the top off a can of soda. They had no food in the house, but they always had mixers. “I’m going to find a job and somewhere to live.”
“That’s going to make Hayley sick with envy. You need to post photos that are cooler than hers. Have you seen her Instagram? Spending a month by the pool in Saint-Tropez this summer. #lovemylife.” Meena crunched her way through the overcooked pizza and licked her fingers.
“Yeah. I’ve got my own hashtags. #yousmugbitch or maybe #hopethepoolturnsyourhairgreen or #hateyourguts. Trouble is, I can’t spell any of them.”
“I’ll spell them for you if you promise you’ll post at least one smug photo of you in Paris. How are you going to communicate? You don’t speak French.”
Audrey nibbled her pizza. “I can say I’m hungry, and I know the words for hot guy. The rest is going to have to be body language. That’s universal.”
“Do you think you’ll have sex?” Meena pulled at another slice of pizza, catching the cheese that trailed in strands. “You’ve done it, right?”
Audrey shrugged, not wanting to admit what a total letdown sex had been. She had no idea why so many books were written about love and passion. There was obviously something wrong with her. “It’s like going to the gym. You can get physical without having to engage the brain. Not that I exactly have a brain to engage.”
“Stop it! You know that’s not true. So you’re saying sex is like being on the treadmill? What happened to romance? What about Romeo and Juliet?”
“They died. Not romantic.” Audrey nibbled her pizza. “Also, that Juliet had no street smarts whatsoever.”
“She was only thirteen.”
“Well, I can tell you that even if she hadn’t drunk that poison, she never would have made it to old age.”
Meena giggled. “You should write that in your exam. So do you want to revise?”
“You don’t mind? It’s not like you exactly need to.”
“I do need to. And I love being here with you. You always make me laugh. What do you want to start with? Physics? I know that’s really hard for you because of all the symbols. It’s hard for me, too, and I don’t have dyslexia. Whenever I open my book I’m just one atom away from a brain explosion.”
Audrey knew that wasn’t true, but she was touched by her friend’s attempts to make her feel better. “I think I’m getting there, but ask me some questions and we’ll find out. Shall we have some music?” She finished her pizza and reached for her phone. “I revise better to music.”
“I love coming to your house. Everything is so relaxed here. Where’s your mum tonight?”
“Out.”
“With Ron?” Meena watched as Audrey chose a track and pressed Play. “Now that’s romantic. All those years widowed, missing your dad, and now she’s in love again. It’s like a movie.”
“Widowed” sounded so much better than “divorced three times.”
Losing a husband in tragic circumstances attracted sympathy and understanding. Being divorced three times attracted suspicion and incredulity.
Audrey figured that with the way her life was, she was allowed a little poetic license. And since she and her mother had moved to this part of London only two years before, no one was likely to find out the truth.
“I love this song. Revision can wait.” She slid off her chair. “Let’s dance. Come on, meaner-Meena, show me what you’re made of.”
She turned up the volume and danced around the kitchen. She swayed and bumped to the music, her hair flying around her face. Meena joined her, and soon they were whooping and laughing.
For ten glorious minutes Audrey was a teenager without a care in the world. It didn’t matter that she was going to fail her exams and that the rest of her life would be ruined. It didn’t matter that her mum preferred to drink than spend time with her daughter. All that mattered was the pump and flow of the music.
If only the rest of her life could be like this.
