Beth gave it an ‘I’m not getting involved’ look and scooped another measure of bleach into her mixing bowl.
Kit’s frown deepened as he returned to his main project in the living room. As if the tragedy of the missing canister wasn’t bad enough, now something had gone wrong with the fan on his laptop. He shone his lamp on the exposed motherboard and picked up a tiny screwdriver. When Beth’s phone rang out again, his shoulders raised another inch.
‘Do you maybe need to get that?’ I said, after it started up for the fourth time.
Beth splayed her fingers in hesitation for a couple of rings before saying, ‘God, ok, give me a chance,’ but she was snapping at the phone, not me. She rolled the gloves off her fingers, threw them in the kitchen sink and picked up the phone. She closed the flat door behind her before accepting the call with a defensive, ‘Hello?’ Her footsteps descended the stairs and she was out of earshot.
‘What’s all that about?’ I said to Kit. ‘Do you think she’s gone off without telling them where she is or something?’ I could see why she’d moved back home, but still to be answerable to one’s parents aged twenty-one seemed to me a further indignity.
‘Could be,’ said Kit, blowing dust off a piece of circuitry. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of something bad might have happened to one of them.’
‘Oh, God, you’re right,’ I said. ‘As if she hasn’t got enough on her—’
We were interrupted by Beth’s voice, sharp and shrill through the closed door.
‘She deserves it! She’s actually lucky she wasn’t in the car when I did it!’
Kit raised his eyebrows. I crept across the carpet, put my ear to the front door and strained to listen.
‘No, I didn’t mean it, of course I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t have.’
I put my hand flat against the door and felt my pulse in my fingertips.
‘Well, I’m sorry for embarrassing you,’ said Beth eventually. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I mean, Mum. You know what she did.’ The ensuing silence was so long that I started to think that Beth must have ended the call. ‘Oh, no, really? I’m sorry.’ Her voice was heavy with regret. ‘I’ll pay you back when I’ve got a job. No, I will. Ok. Well. Thanks. Look, I’d better go. I’m at my friends’ place, I can’t really talk.’ There was a strung-out beat, then she said, in a much smaller voice, ‘I love you too.’
She must have taken the stairs two at a time, because seconds later the handle was turning. I leapt away from the door and tried to look nonchalant, but as I closed it behind Beth, we both noticed an ear-shaped imprint of hair dye at head height.
‘How much of that did you hear?’ she said.
‘Caught the shouty bit,’ I admitted.
She flumped down on to the futon, messing up Kit’s carefully laid-out display of miniature tools, but she didn’t seem to notice even as he scrambled madly to right them.
‘You remember me telling you about my friend Tess?’ she asked.
The name conjured a slowly downloading picture of Beth in her tequila-girl get-up. ‘How could I forget?’
‘Mm.’ She dropped her gaze. ‘Well, I possibly slashed the tyres on her car.’
‘Beth!’ I said, although I could imagine it all too easily. Half admiring, half shocked.
‘I don’t know what came over me,’ she said. ‘I saw her pikey little Vauxhall Nova in the Morrison’s car park and then next thing I knew I was in the shop buying a little knife. Stuck it straight through the rubber and they just went pfffffft.’ Her cheeks hollowed as she mimed the deflation.
‘Wow,’ I said. I looked to gauge Kit’s reaction but he was busy rearranging his computer repair tools into height order in their clear plastic box. ‘How’d they know it was you? CCTV?’
Beth shook her head. ‘She’d given the car to her mum. How was I supposed to know? She came out with her trolley as I was doing the last one. I ran off but she knew it was me; I mean she’s known me for ever. She’s just been round to my mum’s asking her to pay for the repairs. My parents have gone mental.’
‘Jesus, Beth.’
‘I know, I know,’ she said. The awkward laugh we shared was one of disbelief, but also seemed to acknowledge that one day there would be a funny side. The last of Kit’s humour seemed to drain from him as he sealed his toolbox with a click and pointedly went to put it out of harm’s way in the bedroom. Beth lowered her voice. ‘I don’t expect much from men, any more,’ she said so quietly I had to lean in close. ‘I pretty much expect them to fuck me over. But to have a girlfriend betray you. It’s on a completely different level.’
I imagined how hurt I would be if Ling had sold me out like that and knew it would destroy me. I would want to slash her tyres, too. I would want to do worse.
‘It’s just as well you’ve got me, then, isn’t it?’
I could see from the way Beth’s face shone that it was the right thing to say.
Chapter 34
LAURA
30 July 2000
In July I landed my dream job, a year ahead of target, as a fundraiser for a children’s charity. It was the post that set me on my current career path, although I wonder now how I had the energy to perform at work. It was a sweltering summer, and Kit and I spent most of it on the Underground; if we weren’t commuting we were going up to Turnpike Lane to look after Juno (me) or deal with Mac (Kit). We took twice-daily showers, some of our dark clothes were ruined by salty sweat rings, and when we blew our noses the tissues turned black.