Читать книгу Stand By Me: The uplifting and heartbreaking best seller you need to read this year - S.D. Robertson, S.D. Robertson - Страница 15

‘Hi, Mum, I’m home,’ Elliot called.

‘In the kitchen, love,’ Wendy replied casually, as if that was where she’d been the whole time. In truth she’d just raced down the stairs of their small dormer bungalow, so that Elliot didn’t know she’d been watching through her bedroom window for him to get back.

Her heart had swollen with pride when she’d finally spotted him down the road, making his way home from his first day at secondary school. Her little boy looked so grown up in his new King George’s uniform: a maroon blazer with the boys’ school’s own crest, plus a green-and-grey striped tie, white shirt, grey V-neck jumper and black trousers. It was uncanny how much he looked like her late husband.

As Elliot closed the front door behind him and removed his shoes, Wendy picked up where she’d left off in the kitchen, preparing their tea. Right Said Fred were banging on about how sexy they were on the radio and she found herself singing along in her deepest voice.

‘Muuum! Please don’t. That’s gross.’

‘What?’ She grinned, taking in the sight of her pride and joy, whose crisp smartness from this morning had taken on the ruffled look that a day at school inevitably delivered. ‘It’s a big hit. Might even knock Brian Adams off the top spot at last.’

‘Hmm.’

She stretched her arms out wide. ‘Come on then. Where’s my hug?’

She ruffled his curls as she took him in her arms, squeezing him tight. He smelled like school, whatever scent that was: books, pencils and ink, perhaps, with a soupçon of sweaty socks thrown in for good measure.

‘So, spill the beans,’ she said, planting a kiss on his forehead before letting him go. ‘How was it?’

‘It was fine.’

‘Fine? Is that all you’ve got? I’m going to need a lot more information than that about my boy’s first day at secondary school. Let me get you a cup of tea and a biscuit. Then I want you to tell me everything.’

Although he sighed and made out it was a pain to have to recount the day’s events, Wendy knew it was only an act. Unlike a lot of kids, from what other parents said, Elliot had never been one to shy away from sharing such things with her. Communication was one of the strongest things about their relationship. It had been just the two of them for so long that talking through their respective days and confiding in each other was second nature.

There were limits, of course. As grown up as Elliot could seem, Wendy would never bother him with work issues or financial concerns, of which there were unfortunately a few as a single parent. And although she was intrigued by the new friendship he’d formed over the summer with Lisa, who was absolutely lovely, she knew better than to pull his leg about her being his girlfriend or even to suggest there was anything romantic between them.

Lisa had a funny habit of calling him El for short, which he’d told Wendy he didn’t mind, although he feared it made him sound like a girl. She’d told him to say something if it bothered him, but she suspected he never had, for fear of offending his new pal. Wendy actually found it rather sweet, just like she did their whole friendship. And how funny that Lisa lived in Christopher’s old house. Wendy had worried how Elliot would cope when his old friend had moved away, but it had worked out perfectly. Lisa had spent almost as much time at their home in recent weeks as Christopher used to. She’d even stayed for lunch or tea several times and, honestly, Wendy found her far more polite and chatty than her predecessor.

‘So let’s start with the bus journey,’ she said. ‘How was that? Did you sit with Lisa?’

‘Yeah, it was fine. We sat next to each other on the way there and then on the way home we were on the back row downstairs with a couple of others.’

‘Boys from your class?’

He shook his head and scratched his nose. ‘No, I was the only one from my year. They were some new friends of Lisa’s from Queen Anne’s: Charlotte and Joanne.’

‘Oh, that’s nice. What were they like?’

‘Um, one had blonde hair and the other one had brown.’ He giggled. ‘I’m not sure which was which, actually. I didn’t say much to them. I felt a bit shy.’

‘Oh, go on with you. What’s there to be shy about? Look how well you get on with Lisa and you two only met a few weeks ago. Plus I’m sure there’ll be lots more boys on the bus when everyone else starts next week.’

Elliot shrugged. ‘I guess.’

He explained that the bus hadn’t been particularly full, since it was just first years and sixth formers on the first day, to help the new starters settle in.

‘What’s the Queen Anne’s uniform like?’ Wendy asked. ‘I’ve not seen Lisa in it yet. Is it green, their blazer?’

‘Yes. Well, emerald they call it, apparently, with a matching jumper and socks and a white blouse.’

‘What about the skirt?’

‘Um, that’s green tartan, a bit like a kilt. Pleated.’

His last comment made Wendy smile to herself. Not many boys Elliot’s age – or older, for that matter – would notice whether a skirt was pleated or not. That came from having a mother who loved fashion and, lacking the budget to buy the kinds of clothes she wanted to wear, had learned to make them herself.

Wendy’s late mother, a heavy smoker who had died a few years earlier from lung cancer, had been a seamstress. She’d taught her the tricks of the trade, as well as the importance of always being nicely turned out and applying make-up well, so as to make the best of oneself. ‘You don’t have to be rich to look good,’ had been her motto, which Wendy had adopted for herself.

Elliot was only too familiar with the sight and sound of Wendy working her sewing machine in the lounge late at night. On occasion, he’d even helped her decide on which pattern or material to use. Her hobby provided them with a little extra income here and there, as friends and neighbours would sometimes ask her to alter clothes for them. However, she wasn’t always good at accepting payment, especially from those she knew well; it felt mean to charge them for doing something she enjoyed.

In the kitchen Elliot had moved on to telling Wendy about the structure of his first day at school. The morning and early afternoon had been dedicated to meeting teachers and getting to know the other pupils in his form, followed by a couple of hours of sport.

Rugby try-outs, to be precise, which she knew Elliot – who’d never been much of a sportsman – had been dreading.

‘And?’ Wendy asked.

Elliot screwed up his face. ‘Let’s just say I don’t think my Saturdays will be occupied by rugby matches any time soon.’

‘What about getting changed?’

He’d confessed to Wendy beforehand that doing this in front of the other boys was something he’d been concerned about, having been teased a few times at primary school for being overweight. She knew Elliot was a little bigger than he ought to be, but she loved to feed him up and thought he was perfect as he was. ‘It’s just puppy fat,’ she often told him, although the truth was that Gary, his dad, had been on the cuddly side too; she found it hard to discourage anything in her son that reminded her of him.

‘It was okay,’ Elliot said, answering her question. ‘I didn’t much like the look of the communal showers, but there was no time for anyone to use them today. The teachers were around most of the time too, so no one was being nasty.’

The boys were probably all still scoping each other out at this early stage, Wendy thought, hoping the situation wouldn’t change. ‘And the rugby?’

‘I wasn’t very good. I kept dropping the ball and I was one of the slowest runners. I got put into a group called Gentleman’s Rugby, which is basically a nice way of saying we’re the rubbish ones.’

Wendy stifled a laugh at this. ‘Oh well. There’s much more to life than rugby. But you made some new friends?’

Elliot ran his middle finger in circles around the rim of his tea mug. ‘Kind of. The boy who sits next to me in our form room seems nice.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Neil Walsh. He lives down the road from school, close enough to walk.’

‘Super. What’s he like?’

Elliot shrugged. ‘I dunno. Friendly.’

‘And the others?’

‘They’re fine.’ Changing the subject, which Wendy took to mean she’d probed enough about his day, he added: ‘It sounds like Lisa’s going to make the hockey team.’

‘Really? How come?’

‘She said she scored a couple of goals today. She used to play at primary school.’

‘That’s nice.’

Elliot frowned. ‘Not for me. She’ll be busy most Saturdays if she’s selected, because that’s when they play their games against other schools. I don’t get why she’d want to give up so much of her free time.’

‘Oh, Elliot,’ Wendy replied. ‘You should be happy for her if she makes the team. I know you’re not particularly keen on sport, but life would be boring if we all liked and disliked the same things. What about tomorrow? I’m sure she doesn’t have a hockey practice yet.’

‘Not yet, no. We’re going to meet up in the morning.’

‘There you go. So that’s something to look forward to.’

Elliot rolled his eyes. ‘How long until tea’s ready?’

‘About forty-five minutes. Would you like grated or sliced cheese on your burger?’

‘Grated, please.’

Burger and chips was Elliot’s favourite meal, which was why Wendy had made it for him today. If he had his way, he’d visit McDonald’s every week. But they could only afford to eat out as a rare treat. Her homemade Wendy Burger, as she liked to call it, always went down well.

She did feel bad sometimes that she wasn’t able to spoil Elliot more, but her modest nurse’s salary was the only household income, so there was never going to be a lot of money to spare. At least he had clothes to wear, food to eat and a roof over his head. Wendy was particularly proud of the fact that their home was detached, even though it was actually smaller than a lot of terraced properties: the upstairs in particular. It was plenty big enough for the two of them and she did her utmost to fill it with love and laughter.

Would she have preferred it if Gary was still with them and they were a complete family? Of course. He was a wonderful man, who she loved with all her heart. And the way he was taken from them – killed in a motorbike crash, gone in an instant with no warning – had always felt particularly cruel. A day didn’t go by when she didn’t think of him and wish that he and Elliot had got to spend more time together. Gary had adored his ‘little man’. It was awful to think of everything he’d already missed out on as his son grew up. Today was yet another milestone his dad should have been there for. They kept on coming.

As for Elliot, he said he still remembered his dad, but she wondered how much of that was what she’d told him rather than actual memories. He’d only been four when he’d died, poor thing. She kept Gary as alive as she could in Elliot’s mind by regularly talking about him, showing photos and recounting stories from their time together. What more could she do? She would have liked to have kept in touch with Gary’s parents. However, they’d made that impossible by cutting off all contact when she’d needed it most, soon after his death, inexplicably blaming her for what had happened. She’d never heard from them since, so apparently they had no interest in getting to know their grandson.

Wendy had learned long ago that you just had to make the best of things and focus on the positives rather than the negatives, like the fact that she and Elliot had such a close relationship and how incredibly proud she was of him. She was constantly telling her friends and colleagues about his amazing achievements, such as getting into King George’s. He was her everything – the one aspect of her life that was perfect and she wouldn’t change one iota. She couldn’t have wished for a kinder, more loving child.

Elliot may not have been much of a sportsman, as today’s rugby trials had shown, but he came into his own in the classroom. He’d always been one of the brightest in school: an all-rounder, as the teachers liked to put it, excelling equally at Maths and English and everything in between. It seemed to come easily to him. Wendy wasn’t sure where this came from, since neither she nor Gary had been especially academic during their own school days, but of course she was delighted.

His Junior Three primary school teacher, Mr Armitage, had contacted Wendy to suggest Elliot ought to apply to somewhere more academically challenging than the local comprehensive. She’d taken some convincing, because of the distances involved and, most importantly, the fees. But after Mr Armitage had presented her with details of the various bursaries and scholarships available, even offering his services as a private tutor free of charge, she’d come round to the idea.

As kind and supportive as Mr Armitage was, Wendy had always suspected that part of the reason for his offer was down to her being a widow and him a bachelor with aspirations of marriage. He was a socially awkward chap. Although he had made a couple of attempts to ask her out, they’d been so clumsy and unclear that, simply by playing dumb, she’d managed to wiggle out of them without the discomfort of formally rejecting him. But she saw the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching: the way so many men did when they learned her husband had died. Apparently there was something appealing about a young widow. She suspected that some liked the idea of sweeping in to rescue her, while others assumed she must be desperate and therefore an easy conquest.

The truth was that in between working, sewing, running the household and looking after Elliot, she didn’t have much time for dating. Plus, she still couldn’t picture being with anyone but her beloved Gary, which was why she continued to wear her wedding ring. She’d also made a secret pact with herself not to date anyone while Elliot was still at primary school, to avoid confusing him when he was too young to understand. That obviously no longer applied. And yet, even with her thirty-second birthday just around the corner, she still didn’t feel in a rush to do anything about it.

Anyway, whatever Mr Armitage’s reasons were for helping Elliot, following several weeks of evening classes, he’d taken the King George’s entrance exam and won a scholarship. He and Wendy had both been really impressed by the school during an earlier open evening, so he’d accepted.

‘I have a little gift for you,’ Wendy said now, as Elliot tucked into his burger. She opened one of the drawers and removed a small, rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper, which she slid across the kitchen table into his hands.

‘Ooh, exciting,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

Wendy beamed a broad smile in his direction. ‘Well, you won’t find out by staring at it.’

‘No, but I mean what’s it for?’

‘Finishing your first day at secondary school, of course. I’m terribly proud of you. I know you’ll do really well at King George’s.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Elliot said, turning the package around in his hands and even giving it a little shake next to his ear before he finally unwrapped it.

‘Fantastic,’ he said, his eyes glowing when he found the new pair of specs she’d bought to replace the ones he’d lost while out playing over the summer. He put them on immediately and beamed at her with such joy that she knew they were worth every hard-earned penny they’d cost her.

‘Thanks so much, Mum.’

‘You’re welcome. I couldn’t have you in those old ones forever, could I?’

‘I promise I’ll take good care of them this time.’

‘Yes, please do. No more taking them off while you’re out and about. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘How do they fit?’ she asked. ‘If they’re not right, we can pop to the optician’s tomorrow and get them adjusted.’

Elliot stood up and walked around the table, giving her a bear hug that left her gasping for breath. ‘No, they’re perfect.’ He grinned. ‘No one will recognise me at school on Monday now. They’ll be like: “Who’s this cool dude in the funky specs?” I’ll have to introduce myself all over again.’

‘Go on with you, silly sausage. Go and get changed out of your smart new uniform before you spill your tea down it.’