Before She Was Mine (34 page)

The tirade had been completely focused on Liv up to this point, but now the Boot took a moment to check audience reaction. Her eyes lighted on Melody, who was standing at the corner of the stall
and who this morning was kitted out in cream jeans and a waisted black jacket that could easily have been mistaken for riding gear. I think she thought she’d found a friend.

‘You see, animal rights activists like
her
,’ said the Boot, pointing at Liv but now addressing herself directly to Melody, ‘believe the world revolves around them and
their petty issues. They march onto your property, get in everyone’s way, stick their nose in and the next thing it’s letters through the post demanding you spend your own hard-earned
cash on “habitat improvement”.’ A little bit of spit flew out of her mouth and landed on the desk. ‘Apparently your own house can fall about your ears, but as long as the
damn newts are protected, that’s all right, that’s fine.’

Melody signalled at me with her eyes to stay back. A dangerous smile was breaking across her face; I saw it but the Boot didn’t.

‘So let me get this straight. You’re being victimised by a bunch of newts?’ Melody said, shifting till she was between Liv and the other woman.

‘It’s the principle, isn’t it? You feel invaded. Tied up in red tape. This country’s run by officious left-wing idiots.’

‘Oh dear. How very upsetting for you. You know what you want to do?’

‘What?’

‘Fuck off.’

The reaction was instant. The Boot’s eyebrows shot up under her messy fringe. ‘I
beg
your pardon?’

‘You heard. Stop with your whingeing and piss off out of here. Go on, get. I don’t know why you’d come to an event like this. Oh, wait a mo, yeah I do: to drop on people you
don’t agree with and bully them. Well you’ve done that now, so you can get lost. Scat. Shoo.’

Nose to nose they made an odd pair. Melody was slightly taller, but the Boot was twice as wide with arms like a weightlifter. ‘Do you
know
who I am?’ she said, putting her
solid shoulders back and tilting her square chin.

‘They’ve been calling you Trout-features round here. That’ll do me,’ said Melody.

I definitely heard a snigger from behind the boards. The Boot took a step backwards.

‘My mistake. I can see you’re one of them. Nothing but a yob.’

‘No, you’re the yob. Cruising a bloody folk festival for fights. Jesus. I tell you what, if the biggest problem in your life right now is having to deal with a brace of newts then
you’re fucking lucky. You want something to complain about? When you’ve had the sort of year I’ve had, that this lady behind me’s had, then you can complain. Bloody
newt-proof fencing, that’s the worst you can come up with? Get a fucking grip.’

There was a ripple of laughter, then an awkward scattering of applause, started, I think, by the honey girl who’d crept round to watch. I clapped, and I nodded at Liv to clap too, but by
now she was sitting very still with her mouth a tight pale line. Melody didn’t see because her back was to the stall.

‘
You
are a very rude young lady,’ said the Boot. ‘And not worth another second of my time or attention.’

We all watched as she swung round furiously and barged off down the centre of the aisle as fast as the crowds would allow. I wondered whether later she’d try phoning the police, and if so,
what Melody might be charged with. Impersonating a horsewoman, maybe.

‘That did it,’ she said, brushing her palms together with satisfaction. ‘Excellent entertainment. What a bitch, though.’

‘We do usually get a tricky customer or two. Last year it was a bloke who wanted us to round up and shoot all the adders on the Moss.’

Someone touched my arm. It was the honey girl. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know if you’d noticed. I’m not sure your friend’s very well.’

When I turned again to the stall, I had a shock. Liv’s head was tipped back, her hand to her throat, and she was gasping like a fish.

I had five seconds of paralysing panic. ‘Oh my God.’

‘Shit. Look, stay calm. I’ll get the St John’s Ambulance,’ said Melody.

‘Let me do that.’

‘No. It’s important you stay with your mum.’

‘But I can—’

Why was I even arguing?

‘Whatever. Just go,’ I said. ‘Please.’

‘You must have been terrified,’ said Nicky, putting down her WKD and leaning across the pub table towards me. The orange lights of the fruit machine played a
sequence down one side of her worried face.

‘So the St John’s man came and he had her breathing into a paper bag, which seemed a bit low-tech to me but apparently it regulates the levels of carbon dioxide or something, and
after a few minutes she came right round again. He’s pretty positive she was only having a panic attack, but she’s got to go see the GP on Monday, just to make sure.’

‘She’s OK, then, basically?’

‘We think so. She has been under massive stress this year, so it would be amazing if she didn’t have some kind of reaction. It has to come out somewhere.’

Nicky frowned. ‘Yeah, because she normally deals with awkward customers no problem. I remember that ex-wrestler from up your road trying to cut his hedge down in the nesting season, and
she didn’t half have a go at him. And I’ve seen her tackle hoodies for dropping litter. It’s like her passion for nature overrides any sense of fear.’

‘She said afterwards she was frightened for the newts, in case this woman took it out on them. So I told her to call the Wildlife Crime officer and get him to pay the old boot a visit.
Remind her of the penalties for breaking Schedule Five.’

‘Who’d have thought amphibians could be so contentious. What did Geraint say? He didn’t go after this woman with a cattle prod, did he?’

‘That I’d have paid good money to see. Nah, by the time he got back, Liv had come round completely. Melody had scrounged a quiche off another stall and they were sitting eating it
together, sharing a flask of tea. Bezzie mates.’ I gave an ironic smile.

‘Blimey. That won’t last, will it?’

‘Although it’s funny, they really did look like a couple of ordinary friends, just sitting there.’ Melody cutting up quiche with a Top Shop loyalty card, Liv passing the
thermos lid of tea to Mel and drinking her own from a jam jar. ‘Ordinary as those two could ever manage.’

‘Perhaps they will be. Perhaps they’re already there.’

‘That would take some getting used to.’

‘You always said they were too different.’

‘I thought they were. Funny, but right at this very second I feel completely detached from both my mothers. It’s like I’ve taken a step back somehow, and they’ve closed
ranks.’

Nicky frowned. ‘I wish I could detach myself from mine.’

The pub was filling up now. Girls with round young faces and excessive make-up, boys fighting spots and stubble rash swaggered about the bar, same as we used to when we were in Year 13. The
sixth form seemed an age ago.
Can you remember
, I wanted to say to Nicky,
when everything was one big laugh?
A crowd of us weaving down the back lanes after closing time, provokingly
loud. Drawing cocks in the dirt on parked cars, jumping gates and hedges, upending garden gnomes. Nothing terrible, although if I met us now I’d think,
Bunch of dickheads
. At the table
next to us a group of girls were balling up shredded beer mats and flicking pellets at some lads by the door.

‘Hey, want to know a secret?’ said Nicky.

‘If you must.’

She picked up her bottle and eyed the contents shyly. ‘I’ve put my name down to train as a Samaritan.’

‘Bloody hell. I wasn’t expecting that. Wow. Well done.’

‘I wanted to do something positive. A new start. This particular month was always going to be hell, but I’m sick of dwelling on my own problems. Which aren’t even that bad when
you look at what some people have to cope with.’

‘You’re not going abroad, then?’

‘Nope. I decided I’d miss home too much. Well, the city centre. The shops specifically. And actually, I do love my job. Corporate law’s way more interesting than you’d
think, I get on well with the other trainees. But I did want to do something to, to
help
.’

‘Your mum’ll be relieved.’

Nicky pulled a face. ‘It makes no odds what she thinks either way. I’m fed up of trying to please her, Frey; whatever I do, it’s not enough. So from now on, the choices I make
are going to be for me, based on what I want to do, full stop. Do you know, I feel as though I’ve had some giant kick up the backside from Fate, like, “Get on with the rest of your
life, girl. It’s all out there for the taking.” So I will. Because what else is there to do? And I’ve been thinking, I might not even tell Mum about the Samaritans, otherwise
she’ll immediately broadcast it amongst her friends. It’ll be “My daughter the saint”. And from day one she’ll be trying to winkle callers’ stories out of me.
Basically, she’ll make it about herself and it won’t be mine any more.’

‘You’ll have to come up with a cover story for when you do your night shifts.’

‘I’ve thought of that. I’ll tell her I’ve gone on the game.’ She took a long gulp of her WKD, and replaced the bottle on the table top with a defiant clunk.

‘God, Nicks. You can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because then she’ll be making up phone-box cards for you, and getting your dad to circulate them round the Rotary.’

The pellet-flicking next to us was gathering momentum. One of the girls pulled up her top and flashed her bra at the lads near the door, prompting a ragged cheer. A glass smashed on the
floor.

Nicky said, ‘Can I ask you something?’

I bloody hate that line. It always heralds something at the very least uncomfortable, often disastrous. It’s the sound of a tin opener puncturing the lid of a can of worms.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Fire away.’

‘Would you mind if I took Michael out for a meal sometime? Or would that be too weird?’

She’d got the tone casual enough – I guessed she’d practised beforehand to get the intonation light and non-threatening – but it was her eyes that were the giveaway. She
couldn’t meet my gaze; her pupils were flicking around the bar, down to her drink, over my shoulder. The fire-exit sign seemed particularly fascinating.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘No. Help yourself.’
“Help yourself”?

‘I wouldn’t mean anything funny by it. God, I’m not looking for anything like that, not so soon after—’

‘No, obviously.’
You can’t have him. He’s mine.

‘But I think he gets a bit lonely, and it would be nice—’

‘Michael?’

‘Hmm, not lonely. Restless, maybe. As though he’s missing something. Is he going abroad still?’

‘Don’t know. He’s not really said.’

‘That’s good, then. For you, I mean, because he’s like your mentor or something, isn’t he? And I wanted to say thank you to him for the way he dealt with
Corinne.’

It had been a hero’s mission, apparently. After they’d collected his car parts, Michael had driven, as promised, across to Christian’s house to pick up Nicky’s
belongings. Corinne was on the lookout for them, and he’d barely stuck the handbrake on before she was out and tapping at the window, requesting that he park round the side of the house where
presumably he’d be less visible. The van stayed where it was, despite Nicky’s agitation. ‘Maybe the side door’s wider than the front for carrying things out.’

‘What are you thinking of taking?’ he’d said. ‘A grand piano?’ Besides, the front entrance was a Georgian double-door affair you could have driven a jeep
through.

Nicky had wanted to stay in the van, so it was Michael who went into the house to collect the sad pile of clothes and books, make-up and jewellery. Christian himself was nowhere to be seen.
‘He’s in Montreal,’ Corinne offered, without prompting, though she didn’t say why and Michael didn’t ask.

Then there was some trouble with a pot of face cream. ‘Oh dear, that’s mine,’ Corinne said, plucking it out of the holdall. ‘I can’t imagine how it got in
there.’

Michael, unwilling to concede even the slightest ground, went back and asked Nicky. ‘Oh, it is mine,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t matter, leave it.’

He thought the box had looked expensive, wanted to know how much it cost.

‘A hundred and twenty pounds. Really, though, I’d rather leave it.’

In the end, despite her pleading, she’d gone with him and put Corinne straight. Corinne marched off upstairs and came down two minutes later, a little breathless. ‘My pot’s
still in the en-suite cupboard, so I apologise,’ she announced.

‘Though it wasn’t like an apology at all,’ Nicky told me. ‘She was crosser than if she’d caught me thieving.’

They’d been escorted to the van door, where Corinne decided without warning to make a valedictory speech. ‘We do all feel so terrible about the whole business—’

‘
Stop right there
,’ Michael barked.

He’d helped Nicky into the cab, climbed into the driver’s side, and spun a wheelful of gravel into Corinne’s face.

‘It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so awful,’ was Nicky’s verdict on the excursion. ‘But he really made me see I’d had a lucky escape.’ I could
completely understand why she wanted to say thank you to him. That was reasonable, wasn’t it?

I was wondering whether to say anything more about taking him out, a warning about the type of food he disliked, or whether that might sound a touch possessive, when a familiar figure swung out
of the pool room, handing over his cue as he went.

‘Oh, fuck,’ I said.

‘What?’ Nicky looked concerned. ‘Oh.’

‘I really don’t want to talk to him.’

‘What was it he did to you, Frey? Can’t you tell me?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t even want to think about it. I wish to God he’d just disappear.’

Oggy hailed a few people by the bar, high-fived a scruffy kid in a PVC jacket, and finally fetched up at our table. ‘Howdy,’ he said.

Since I’d last seen him he’d had his hair styled so it was even shorter at the sides and long on the top; when he leaned forward it swung down over his eyes raffishly. He stood, then
shoved his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and wiggled his fingers.