“Do you see much of her?”
“Yes. Well, sometimes. I told her you’d been in touch.”
“Did you?” he said, his hand jerking and flicking a gobbet of tomato sauce off his fork. He rubbed it into the tablecloth with his finger. “What did she say?”
“Not much,” Jude said, remembering Emma’s frozen expression. “Well, it must be difficult for her. She probably still feels guilty about coming between us.”
Will carried on chewing.
Jude knew what he was thinking. Will had tried to understand Emma’s moods and descent into teenage angst, but she had been impossible to read some days.
“You used to say she’d grow out of it. But, of course, she left before she could,” she said, disarmed by the wine and his proximity.
Will looked up quickly.
“I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we’d got married back then, like we planned, Will,” Jude added. She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but she longed for a glimmer of the intimacy they’d shared. For old times’ sake.
“Hmm,” he said. “Me, too.”
She didn’t believe him. He was humoring her.
He looked up and she tried to smile but it got stuck on her teeth.
Will reached out a tomato-stained hand to pat hers.
“Look, it was a difficult time for all of us,” he said. “I loved you, Jude, but Emma had soured everything.”
“She had been gone for six or seven years when you left,” Jude said quietly.
“Well, the damage had been done, I suppose. I had to get out of there,” he said, wiping his mouth with the napkin.
“Yes,” she said. And sleep with anyone with a pulse, she thought.
She didn’t think she’d have a pudding.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Emma
TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2012
I really don’t want to go.
“Stupid idea,” I told Harry when she rang last night to say that Toni from Woolwich Secondary had been in touch, but she wouldn’t let it go. It’s sent her off on some sort of a nostalgia trip. It’s something about our age, I suppose. I wonder if she wants to show them how far she’s come. Show the big girls who teased her and made her life a misery. But I don’t say it. She’s banging on about seeing people from school on Facebook. I haven’t looked. I’m more of a lurker, hanging round the posts, just seeing who is doing what. I tend not to advertise my presence. I’ve got nothing to say.
Emma Massingham thinks it is her baby in Howard Street would put the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it?
I told Harry I’d only go to the disco if she went to the doctor’s for her checkup. I knew she wouldn’t, so there would be no more discussion. But she went this morning.
When Harry rings at lunchtime, she is happier than I’ve ever heard her.
“It’s like a huge weight has been lifted, Emma. I don’t think I knew how worried I was. But the doctor is happy it’s just a cyst. It’s not going to kill me.”
“That’s brilliant. I’m so glad,” I say.
“Anyway. You’ve got to come to the disco now. You promised,” she says and I groan.
“No, really? It’ll be awful. All those girls who teased us about our terrible haircuts until we cried,” I pleaded my case.
“Well, we’ll have the chance to confront them about their appalling behavior, won’t we? I can’t wait to see their faces when we swan in. We could stage a truth-and-reconciliation hearing. Where’s Desmond Tutu when you need him?” Harry says, trying to wheedle me into it. I can’t resist her good mood, much as I want to.
“Yes, that sounds like a fun evening. Or we could dance to terrible music round our handbags in cruel shoes?”
“Now you’re talking,” Harry says. “Start thinking about your outfit and ring me tomorrow to finalize.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks for today, Emma. You always were the clever one.”
? ? ?
I tell Paul I’m going to the reunion and he smiles. A proper smile, not the nervous twitch of the mouth he’s adopted recently.
“That’s great. It will do you good to go out. You spend too much time sitting at your computer. Always on your own.”
I want to tell him I’m never on my own, but I don’t.
“I spoke to Jude the other day,” he says and glances up to see how I’ll react.
“Did you?” I’m astonished and can’t hide it. “Why? Did she ring when I was out or something?”
“Well, no. Actually I rang her.”
“Rang her?” I repeat.
“I was worried about you,” he says. He’s sorry he told me, I can see it on his face.
“I wanted her advice.”
“Well, she’d be the last person I’d ask,” I say. What has she told him? The thought is rattling round my head like a runaway train. “What did she say?”
“Not much really. Except that she thought she’d upset you, talking about the past. When you went for lunch. Do you think she’s right?”
I sigh. “Well, you know I hate looking back, Paul. And we had a very difficult relationship.”
“She said she had to ask you to leave home,” Paul says, and I realize he has been working up to this. “You’ve never told me that.”
I go and sit next to him on the sofa so he can’t see my face properly. “I don’t like talking about it. It was such a horrible time. You can’t imagine. I don’t think I’ve ever got over it. I was sixteen.”
“Oh, Emma, how could they have done that? You were still a child,” he says, squeezing my cold hand. But I am back on full alert.
“They?” I say.
“Well, Jude told me her boyfriend, Will, was living with you both. I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned him, either. Too many secrets aren’t good for you, Emma. Keeping everything inside is toxic.”
And it’s as if he’s seen inside my head.
Can I tell him it all? Can I? Will he hate me for the terrible thing I did? Of course he will.
“You’re right, darling. But you know now.”
He turns my face towards him gently and holds it in both hands. “You can tell me anything, Emma, you know that.”
I lean forwards and kiss him. To show I love him. And to silence him.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Kate
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012
On the night of the do, Kate pulled up in Howard Street ridiculously early. It was only seven o’clock, but she’d got ready too quickly and had worried about running the gauntlet of her sons’ remarks about her maxi dress, slit to the thigh, and floppy hat à la Anita Ekberg.
She needn’t have done. Freddie was at the cinema with friends and Jake stayed upstairs. He was spending more and more time on the Internet in his room, planning his trip.
“I’ve found a project in Phuket,” he’d announced a couple of days earlier. His little brother had laughed.
“Is it to do with sunbathing?” Freddie had said. “I could do that, too.”
Kate had sucked in her comments and carried on laying the table.
“You’ve put the knives and forks the wrong way round,” Freddie told her and swapped them all.
“Sorry, lots on my mind,” she’d said, giving Jake a meaningful stare. He ignored it.
“Actually, it’s about coastline conservancy,” he’d said to Freddie.
“What do you know about that? You were doing law.”
“I passed my exams in biology and geography,” Jake had said. “Should be fun.”
“Well, as long as it’s fun,” Kate had muttered under her breath. But Jake had heard and taken his dinner upstairs.
Steve had gone up to talk to him when he’d got in from work.
“He’s a bit hurt you were so dismissive of his plans,” Steve had said.
“Oh, come on. Babying him and dressing the problem up in big words isn’t going to help. He’s twenty-two and he’s going to become a beach bum, Steve. He needs to be challenged.”
She was glad her dad wasn’t around to see his grandson opt out of life. He’d have had a few well-chosen words to say to Jake. He’ll be turning in his grave, she thought. Sorry, Dad.
“Okay, Kate. Let’s leave it for tonight, hey?” Steve said. “He’s coming down to watch the match with me on the telly.”
She’d sulked in the kitchen while the boys cheered and jeered the footballers, stirring a cheese sauce for a future meal until it glooped out of the pan and made a mess of the hob and she dumped the whole lot in the bin.