Before She Was Mine (15 page)

‘Is there much damage?’

‘Much damage? Oooh, I’ll say.’ He sucked in his breath pityingly. ‘You insured? You’d better be, girl.’

The next thing I knew, Oggy was crouched by my side. ‘Stick your hazards on or you’ll have someone up the back of you.’ When I didn’t react, he leaned in and pushed the
button himself. I wondered what he’d done with his cat basket.

‘Daft mare,’ said Crop-head. ‘Daft fucking female drivers. Too busy looking at herself in her mirror. Putting on her lipstick. Yacking on the phone.’

‘Watch your mouth,’ said Oggy.

‘Watch my mouth! I like it. Hey, lads, I’ve to watch my mouth.’

The driver of the digger was laughing.

‘Look, there’s no damage to your lorry,’ said Oggy. ‘She’s scraped her own bonnet. You’re fine.’

Crop-head raised his eyebrows. ‘Yeah? What would you know about it? Work in a garage, do you? Got X-ray vision? How do you know she hasn’t cracked the exhaust mount or buckled the
tailgate hasp?’

‘Because she was nowhere near the exhaust and I can see myself the tailgate’s untouched. She went in under it, and only just clipped you.’

I thought perhaps I should get out and see for myself, but when I reached for the door handle, Oggy signed for me to stay put.

‘You know what it’s like to be self-employed, mate?’ said Crop-head. He’d stepped forward and was now well into Oggy’s personal space. ‘Anything goes wrong
with this vehicle, it comes out of my pocket. My pocket. I want her details so I can claim.’

‘No you don’t.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I called.

‘I bet you are, love,’ said Crop-head.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Oggy exploded. ‘Do you think she did it deliberately? Do you think she decided to bash in her own bonnet, for the hell of it? Fucking
look
.
There’s not a mark on your lorry.’

‘That you can see.’

‘You really are asking for it.’ Oggy raised his fist. The workmen whooped and cheered. One of them was videoing us, I noticed. We’d be on YouTube by the end of the day: Feeble
Female v Porky Git.

Crop-head re-arranged his features so as to convey mock-revelation.

‘Oh, I get what you’re up to, I see it now. You reckon this is gonna get you into her knickers, yeah? Fucking hell. Rather you than me, mate, s’ all I can say. Vinegar-faced
tart. You deserve each other.’

Oggy took a swing, but the lorry driver saw it coming and ducked neatly out of the way. That’s it, I thought, a full-scale street brawl and somehow it’s my fault. I rummaged around
for my mobile so I could summon help.

But the conflict was over before it started. While Oggy was recovering his balance, Crop-head turned and strode towards his cab, pausing only to gob on the pavement. He hauled himself back
inside, slammed the door and fired up the ignition. ‘I’ve got your number,’ he shouted through the open window. ‘You’ll be hearing from my insurance.’

‘Aw, piss off, fatso,’ called Oggy. ‘Shift before I deck you.’

‘I don’t fight kids. You’re not worth the bother, son.’

‘Time to go home and change your pants.’

Luckily the light turned green and Crop-head was able to pull away, to the ironic applause of the men in fluorescent jackets. Soon there was nothing left of him except a pall of diesel
fumes.

‘That saw him off, didn’t it? Wanker.’ Oggy looked pleased with himself. ‘Park up properly and I’ll take you for a drink.’

‘I can’t. I’m on my way to Melody’s.’

‘You’re not fit to drive. You need to calm down.’

‘I’m absolutely fine.’

He just raised his eyebrows at me, secure in the knowledge he was right and I was wrong.

Bastard, I thought, ungratefully.

I took the car round the corner to the bowling club car park, then walked back to where Oggy was waiting with his cat carrier.

‘Trust you to be there at the exact time I’m making a fool of myself,’ I said.

‘I know. It’s like ESP. Our special connection.’

We passed under the covered walkway and onto the high street.

‘Whose cat’s that, anyway?’

‘It’s not a cat,’ he said, holding the cage up for me to see through the front grille. ‘Least, if it is, it’s got problems.’

A dark mass the rough size of a turnip was lodged in one corner among some wisps of grass. As I squinted in, the animal flexed its body, shifted round and a black snout appeared. A hedgehog. I
could hear its snuffly breathing and the scratch of its spines against the plastic walls.

‘Why are you carting a hedgehog about town, Oggy? They’re a BAP species, protected. You shouldn’t interfere with them.’

‘I’m not going to hurt it. I’m looking for somewhere to release it.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘Caz’s garden. Caz, you know. In the pub.’

‘Your girlfriend.’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘A “manner of speaking”? I’m sure she’d love that.’

‘All right then, she is.’

The hedgehog scuffled to keep its balance.

‘Why couldn’t it stay in her garden?’

‘She saw it go under the shed last night and freaked out. She said they have fleas and they’d come in the house. I had to promise to fetch it out and take it over the other side of
town, out of the way.’

‘So you’re an amateur pest controller these days as well as a cattle-feed rep? Honestly. This animal needs to go back to its home territory. It’ll only just have come out of
hibernation and it needs to feed up somewhere it knows. Tell your girlfriend to get a damn grip. She’s more likely to catch fleas off you than off a hedgehog.’

‘Cheers, Frey.’

‘No problem. Let’s go round there now and we can find a garden nearby and release it. Whereabouts does she live?’

‘Cottle Court. I thought you wanted a drink though?’

‘We can hardly take a hedgehog into a pub. Anyway, we’ve a job to do.’

We made our way down Piper Street in the general direction of the new estate and the park.

‘Are you really OK?’ Oggy asked me as we crossed the road. ‘You look dead pale.’

‘I’m shaken, that’s all. Pissed off. With myself as much as anyone. What was I doing to miss the lights like that?’

‘Oh, it’s easily done. I mashed up my front wing on a bollard month before last. A scraped panel’s not the end of the world. I once drove for a week with no side window, if you
remember. Can’t the famous Michael mend it?’

I shrugged. He would, but he’d give me an earful in return.

Oggy said, ‘Don’t waste energy worrying about that tosser in the truck either. All mouth and trousers, I know the type. You won’t hear from him again.’ He nudged me with
his elbow in a friendly way, and I heard again the scrabble of claws from the darkness of the carrier. ‘Not having a good day, are you?’

I had to look away as tears unexpectedly filled my eyes. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

We decided to release the hedgehog near the end house, six doors down from Caz, because the garden went round three sides and was pretty overgrown. Oggy put the carrier down
and opened the front so it faced into the stems of a large laurel bush. Nothing happened, so he bent down and reached inside. Next thing he’d whipped out his arm again, shaking his fingers as
though they’d been burned. ‘Fuck!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. However did you get him in there in the first place?’

‘I just sort of nudged him with my foot. He was very cooperative actually.’

‘Well, look, drag your coat sleeve over your fingers and hook him out that way.’ I squatted on the pavement to show him.

The hog, when I drew it out, was tightly curled, so I scooped it up between my wrists and placed it under the bush.

Though we waited a minute without speaking, it didn’t move.

‘I’m sorry about Liv,’ muttered Oggy eventually. ‘I dunno what to say.’

I don’t know what I want to hear
, I thought.

I said, ‘What’s bothering me most right now is the idea of telling everyone, having to announce it over and over again. And then people being shocked and sorry for us, or
embarrassed. I’m not sure I can stand it. Mad, really, because for weeks I’ve been desperate to tell someone, I’ve hated the secrecy. But now I feel the exact opposite and I want
to keep it all completely private. How stupid is that?’

‘Life’s shit.’

‘Yeah, it is.’ Oggy would know; he’d been with his gran when she actually died, walking back from the shops with her and the next minute she was collapsed on the ground and
having a heart attack. I remembered how shaken he’d been by that, and how he’d stopped playing football with the lads and had sat with me on the rec wall every lunchtime, talking.
We’d have been in Year 10. Our form tutor was Mrs Dewsbury and she was a right unsympathetic cow.

A rustle under the laurel told us the hedgehog was beginning to move. It was the black snout I saw first, coming forward jerkily, then the beady black eyes and the leathery feet.

‘One hog can have up to seven thousand spines, you know.’

The snout twitched in our direction.

‘Hey up, mate,’ said Oggy.

‘How could anyone be scared of that?’

‘She’s a bit of a div, is Caz.’

‘Don’t feel you have to do her down on my account.’

‘No, but she is.’

The hog came up to the edge of the path, sniffed about, then turned and shuffled away into the depths of the garden. It’s always a funny sensation in your heart when a wild animal leaves
you: half pride, half panic. Part of you wants to run after, re-rescue it. ‘You will keep an eye out, won’t you? Make sure she doesn’t whack it with a pan or anything?’

Oggy nodded and picked up the cat basket again. His face was hopeful.

‘Look, I know I wasn’t a great boyfriend, Frey, but I can be a good mate. It sounds as though you need one right now.’

‘I don’t know what I need, to be honest, Oggy.’

‘Fair enough.’

I looked at my watch. Melody would be waiting. ‘I need to get going,’ I said.

Her front door was open and the hall and stairs carpet sheeted over. Music floated down from the bedroom, something with a ska beat. The coat pegs were loaded with strange
garments.

I could have gone straight up, but instead I took myself to the kitchen to gather my courage.

There wasn’t much evidence of a buffet going on, though there was an impressive collection of bottles out on the worktop. No one was going home thirsty. I checked in the fridge and found
only half a tray of scotch eggs, a tub of Philadelphia and a multipack of Frubes. But the freezer, when I opened it, was crammed with Iceland boxes. I pulled one out: ready-to-bake mini quiches.
‘Cooks in 20 mins!’ read the tag line. Without even stopping to think about it I stuck the oven on and began to hunt for plates.

I do know where it comes from, this need to make myself domestically useful. Where my classmates let their parents wait on them hand and foot, would moan if asked so much as to ferry a dirty
plate to the sink, I’ve always enjoyed helping run the house. It comes from the years after Colin died, when Liv was all over the place emotionally, and I learned even as an infant I could do
us both good by hiding away my toys under the bed, making my own cups of Ribena, packing my school bag myself etc. If she came out of her study to find the waste-paper baskets emptied, it lifted
her mood slightly, which meant I was a winner too. Now setting things in order is automatic for me and a kind of therapy. I can still remember Liv’s face the first time I stripped the beds
myself, or when I laid a proper fire.

I was trying to locate Melody’s egg timer when Christian appeared clutching a bunch of mugs in each hand. Even like this, in his paint-spattered T-shirt and grimy chinos, he looked like
something off a boy-band album cover.

‘Hey, you wonderful girl!’ he said when he saw what I was doing. ‘Trust you to be busy.’

‘How’s progress on the upper storey?’

‘Good, good. Melody had already moved all the furniture out and taken up the carpet, so we were able to get straight on.’

‘I hope she didn’t lift anything too heavy.’

He frowned. ‘I never thought about that. She’s been taking regular breaks, though. She’s sitting on the stairs now, having a breather.’

‘Who else is up there?’

‘Tanya who used to work at the farm shop, Lindy from next door, Tom from across the road, some bloke called Angus, don’t know where he’s from, plus Nicky’s joining us
after work. And Michael, of course. There might be more coming later.’

‘It’s a wonder you can all fit in.’

‘There is a certain amount of jostling involved. We’ve already had a spillage.’

I said, ‘Liv’s got cancer.’ I had to get it out quickly, before the words stuck in my throat.

Christian’s smile fell away. ‘What?’

‘We were up at the hospital this morning. Liv has breast cancer.’

‘Oh good God. Oh, God, Freya, I’m so sorry.’

I felt a huge weight settle on my shoulders, chest and heart. As I’d feared, now the news was coming out, that made it truer than ever.

‘What do the doctors say?’

‘She needs a mastectomy, drugs after that.’

‘What drugs? Chemo?’

‘They say not.’

His body language relaxed slightly. ‘Well, then. That’s – chemo’s really nasty. She doesn’t have to go through that, at least. Oh, Frey. Come here.’

He held out his arms for me and I let myself lean against him. It was so sweet to be held by a pair of strong arms.

‘You OK?’

‘Not really.’

He hugged me tighter. ‘You know, if there’s anything I can do, you’ve only to ask.’

You can let me stay like this indefinitely
, I nearly said. But this wasn’t my place. I had no right to be seeking comfort from my friend’s fiancé.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, pulling away. ‘I’ll have to be.’

‘And Melody, does she know?’

‘No. No one. You’re the first person I’ve told outside the family.’ Already I was editing Oggy out of the day.

‘Do you want me to speak to her?’

‘I’ll do it.’ Both of these women were my responsibility. If anyone was the bridge between them, it was me.

Christian made a new round of teas, and took himself back upstairs. I waited till the quiches were done, persuaded them onto a sheet of foil to cool, then tipped some frozen
sausage rolls onto the baking tray. Fifteen minutes they needed. By the end of fifteen minutes I’d have told Melody.