Another Mother's Life (13 page)

“Liar,” Alison said lightly. “Come on, spill, you’re on the way to meet a boy, aren’t you? You might as well know, if it’s Jimmy Ashley, then it’s over between you and me for good.”

“Jimmy Ashley?” Cathy stopped, wrinkling up her nose. “It’s not him!”

“Aha! So it’s someone, then!” Alison grabbed hold of Cathy’s wrist and swung it back and forth. “Come on, tell me! I’m your best friend, aren’t I? I tell
you
everything.”

“I was going to tell you,” Cathy said anxiously. “It’s just I wanted to see what would happen. I didn’t think it would last longer than one day. But it has.” A slow, shy smile crept over Cathy’s face. “We’ve been seeing each other almost the whole summer.”

“Have you?” Alison said. “That’s amazing. Can I meet him, then? The love of your life?”

Alison remembered watching Cathy’s face as she thought for a moment, unable to believe that she didn’t agree immediately, trying not to take it personally but doing exactly that.

“Okay, okay,” Cathy said, taking a deep breath and smiling. “You can meet him today. He’s amazing, Alison. When you see him you just won’t believe that he likes me. I know I don’t … except …”

“Except?” Alison prompted.

“He keeps telling me that he does,” Cathy said with a shy smile, her eyes shining so brightly that Alison almost wanted to slap her then and there and tell her to pull herself together.

“It better be one of the New Kids on the Block,” Alison remembered saying as they walked across High Street, down through the canal park and over the railway bridge. “I’m only going to forgive you for this if it’s one of the New Kids.”

Finally they stopped at a square-shaped detached house with a yellow sign hanging outside that read “Rooms to Let.”

“He’s staying here for now,” Cathy said, leading Alison down the overgrown path and through the unkempt garden. A rusted bicycle languished in the seeded grass. “He’s on a contract for the railway, it runs out soon. I don’t know what will happen then, but he said he might try and get some more work locally, maybe in a garage or on a building site.”

“So it’s not Donnie Wahlberg, then?” Alison said, wondering just exactly what kind of person Cathy had got herself mixed up with, because if he lived here it wasn’t any boy from school.

Cathy pushed the bell and waited, her fingers knotted behind her back.

And as both girls waited, neither of them could have known that this was it: the fulcrum, the moment, the very second when suddenly their fates would tangle and turn forever, and from that point on neither one of them would have the life that was meant for her.

“Hi.” Catherine’s voice was small when he opened the door. “Um, this is Alison. Remember I told you about her? She wanted to meet you … I thought it would be okay, do you mind?”

Marc stopped smiling at Cathy and looked right at Alison and said, “I don’t mind.”

Alison remembered staring at Marc, open-mouthed.

Yes, in her memory she was definitely open-mouthed, awestruck
as she gawked at him, in his tight black T-shirt and blue jeans, with his skin turned amber by the sun and his dark eyes taking her in under the sweep of his black brows. The first thing she thought, in the first minute of her new life, was that he was the most beautiful living thing that she had ever seen. And the second thing she thought was how on earth did Catherine get him? That couldn’t be right.

And then Marc looked into her eyes and she knew that he was seeing her in exactly the same way that the boys at school saw her: her breasts first, then her short skirt and bare golden thighs, her smooth blond hair, and her soft, full mouth. Last of all he noticed her eyes, her pretty blue smiling eyes. And she could tell even as Cathy chatted away, introducing them to each other, that he wanted her. She could feel it in every stroke of his gaze.

“All right.” Marc stepped forward and shook her hand lightly, letting his gaze fall from her face to her chest and below.

“So I was thinking maybe the three of us could have a picnic instead of … you know … what we were planning, down in the park. Under our tree?” Catherine suggested happily.

Alison did her best to stop looking at Marc. “You have a tree?” she teased Cathy gently. “How romantic.”

“It’s not really our tree, it’s just a tree … oh, stop it, Ali,” Cathy said, blushing and laughing all at once.

Alison watched as Marc dropped his arm around Cathy’s pale shoulders and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “We can call it our tree if you like,” he said, challenging Alison with a lazy smile.

The tips of Catherine’s ears went pink.

“We could go to the supermarket and get a few things,” Cathy offered. “Mum won’t see us, she’s at work, so we should be safe.”

“Good idea,” Marc said, picking her hand up easily as if it was something he had often done. The easy intimacy between them shocked Alison almost as much as if she had come across them
having sex. Somehow she found it impossible to imagine Cathy and this creature together. It seemed all wrong that it was Cathy who was the confident one, the knowing one, and that it was Alison who was feeling awkward, uncomfortable, and out of things. Alison didn’t like it one little bit.

She didn’t say a single word as she listened to Cathy chatter on the way to the supermarket; she couldn’t say anything. The feeling of jealousy and rage and longing that was churning in her kept her mouth firmly shut. She was afraid, not of what she might say, but of how her voice would sound when she said something. All she knew was that this was wrong, it was all wrong. Cathy wasn’t meant to have someone like
him
. Marc wasn’t meant to be with a girl like Cathy.

They must have been seeing each other since the day that Alison had agreed to go round to Aran Archer’s, Alison thought. Cathy must have met Marc in the park that afternoon when she had been waiting for Alison. If Alison had shown up that afternoon, there would have been no way that Marc would have looked at Catherine, no
way
. She would be the one holding hands with him in the sunshine now, and Catherine would be walking on her own. And Cathy would have been happy with that, because she would have understood that that was the right thing, that that was the way things were.

It must have been about four when Cathy looked at her watch and scrambled to her feet.

“I’ve got to go. Mum’ll be back in half an hour. Are you walking back, Ali?” Cathy stood, waiting for her friend. Alison guessed she couldn’t wait to hear what she thought of him.

“Um … no, I can’t. I said I’d drop by Aran’s on the way back. I’ll see you later though, okay?” Cathy nodded and smiled. She looked so happy, as if she felt special for the first time in her life.

“See you at ten,” Cathy said. Alison watched as Marc got up
and put his heavy arms over Cathy’s fragile shoulders and whispered something in her ear that brought the blood to her cheeks. And then he kissed her, a long, slow, tender kiss.

Alison did not know who she hated the most just then, her friend for stealing away her lover, Marc for not seeing he had met the wrong girl, or herself for what she knew she was about to do.

After Cathy had gone, Marc turned back to Alison and looked at her lying in the sun. He waved a hand halfheartedly.

“See you, then,” he said, as if he was going to leave. But he didn’t leave.

“Stay and talk to me a bit longer,” Alison said, dropping her shoulder back so that her chest pushed forward. She patted a patch of grass next to her.

“Thanks, but I should get some sleep before my shift starts,” Marc said, looking at her legs. “You don’t want to be too tired working on a railway line, I saw this lad get cut in half in Manchester.”

“She was meeting me, you know,” Alison said. “The afternoon you two met here.”

“Really?” Marc looked over his shoulder at the tunnel under the railway line that led back to his lodgings. “So?”

“Well, who do you think you’d have asked out if I’d turned up that afternoon? Who do you think you would have fancied if you’d met me first?”

Marc looked back at her, his hands on his hips, and he laughed. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m interested, that’s all,” Alison told him, tipping her head to one side so her hair brushed her bare arm.

“Well, I’ve never been with anyone like Catherine before,” Marc said. “So if I’d met you both at the same time I’d have probably made a move on you. But then I would have missed knowing her. She’s a lovely person.”

“Lovely?” Alison laughed.

“Well.” Marc put his hands in his pockets and looked awkward as he shrugged. “She is.”

Alison had never been able to believe the words that had come out of her mouth next. After all, her sexual experience was only slighter greater than Catherine’s for all the flirtatious front she put on.

“You can make a move on me now if you like,” she offered, her voice sounding shrill and girlish.

Marc stood still and laughed. “I thought you were her best friend. She talks about you all the time.”

“I am,” Alison said. “But anyone can see you’re not right for her. You two don’t fit together. You’ll just end up hurting her, she deserves better.”

“And you don’t.” Marc sounded skeptical. But he still hadn’t walked away.

“I can handle you,” Alison said. “And anyway, I know that if you’d met me first you’d be with me now. I know it.”

Marc shook his head. “You’re very confident,” he said, pausing, taking her in, an untranslatable expression crossing his handsome face.

For what seemed like an age neither one of them said anything or moved a muscle, and then suddenly Marc walked decisively over to her and held out a hand.

“Come on, then,” he said. “Come back with me.”

“What? Now?” Alison said, scrambling to her feet.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Marc asked her. “To be with me?”

“Yes, yes it is,” Alison said.

“If that’s what you want, then you have to come now,” Marc challenged her, and she wasn’t sure if he wanted her to take up the challenge or if he was just trying to frighten her away. “It’s
now or never, so tell me are you as confident as you think you are?”

Alison remembered feeling as if her heart would pound its way through her rib cage, everything was happening a million miles faster than she had expected, but if this was how it had to be, then she was ready, because he belonged to her and she had to prove that to him. She lifted her chin.

“Let’s go, then,” she said, with a thousand times more bravado than she felt.

Afterward she lay in the tangle of sheets on his single bed and stared at the ceiling.

“Have you done that with her?” she asked him.

His eyes were shut, his face perfectly still. “I’ve never done anything like that with her,” he said eventually.

Alison found it hard to read the tone of his voice, it was so … closed. This moment was not at all like she had expected it to be. She’d expected his arms to be around her, for him to be holding her, kissing her, but he hadn’t touched her since he’d pulled out of her. Quite a feat in a single bed. Alison fought the urge to cry, telling herself that this was just the beginning. She still had a way to go but she’d get him in the end. She’d make him understand.

Making herself smile, she sat up and leaned over him so that her breasts brushed his chest. He opened his eyes.

“That was my first time,” she told him, careful to erase any trace of vulnerability from her voice.

“I know,” he said, watching her face. “I’m sorry if I was a bit … rough.”

“I liked it,” Alison said steadily. “It was passionate.”

“You are very sexy,” Marc told her, his voice still unyielding. “You’ve got an amazing body.”

“Do you feel bad?” Alison asked him. “About Cathy?”

“I am a bad person,” he said. “I told her that the day I met her. I thought I could be better than I am if I was with her, but I can’t. This is the way I am.”

“You’re not a bad person, you just don’t fit with her, that’s all,” Alison said, leaning over him. “If you are with the right person, then you don’t even have to change.”

Marc didn’t move a muscle.

“I don’t think anyone can change me,” he said eventually, and Alison got the feeling that he’d only spoken half a sentence out loud.

“When you finish with her be kind, okay?” Alison said, sitting up and putting on her bra. A tiny tender and bruised part of her was still wishing for the hearts and romance and flowers that she’d always dreamt would accompany this event, but she knew she had sacrificed any chance of that when she’d agreed to go back to his place with him. Alison told herself all of that would come when she really had him. “Don’t break her heart. Don’t tell her about us. We’ll stay a secret for now, until she’s over you.”

“What makes you think I’m going to break up with Catherine?” Marc asked her.

Alison looked at him, feeling suddenly out of her depth. “Well, you have to now, don’t you?” she asked him. “We’ve had sex.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Marc said, turning his face to the window.

Alison felt she should have some right over him now, some extra hold now that she had surrendered to him what Catherine had not. But she had no idea how to play this person, he was nothing like the boys she knew at school, the boys that she could manipulate so easily. Then she realized it was he who had a hold over her. He had her in the palm of his hand.