Every Good Girl (34 page)

All the same, Emily spent a lot longer in front of her make-up mirror later than a lonely babysitting job would normally require on the basis that you never knew who or what would turn up. She was wearing a new, tight black T-shirt and her favourite cream floppy trousers. Nick might miss her at the pub, take a good long look at Chloe, realize he'd got the wrong one and slope off to find her. She'd be ready, even if it was only to tell him to get lost. Or Simon might have second thoughts. He might want someone fun to be with and look around the flat and out of the window at pairs of people wandering about and realize he was stuck for the evening (or even for
years
) with his boring sister droning on about her miseries.

‘Are you going somewhere else later?' Lucy asked looking wistful. ‘I wish I was old enough to go out. I never go anywhere. No-one's even letting me go modelling any more. How am I going to get famous if I don't even get looked at?'

Emily applied a second layer of mascara, concentrating hard and unable to reply. ‘And why does your mouth drop open when you put eye make-up on?' Lucy went on. ‘Let me see if mine does.' She made a grab for a pot of eye shadow and sent the whole make-up bag tumbling to the floor. Coloured powdery flecks settled onto Emily's trousers. ‘Sorry!' Lucy said quickly, flapping her hands at the marks.

‘Get off! You're making it worse!' Emily shoved at Lucy and pushed her out of the bathroom. ‘You're a complete pain, Lucy, these were just back from the cleaners!'

‘I said I'm sorry!' Lucy wailed from the other side of the door.

‘What difference does that make? I can't wear these now!' Emily yelled back.

‘What's going on? You sound like a pair of three-year-olds!' Nina dashed up the stairs to see what was going on.

‘Look what she's done!' Emily came out and showed her the damage.

‘Is that all? Just sponge it off, it'll be all right.'

‘I said sorry.' Lucy scowled at Emily. ‘And she's
still
cross.'

‘No she's not,' Nina reassured her. ‘Are you, Emily? And to prove it she's going to take you babysitting with her and you're going to be nice to each other and
not fight
.'

‘Why? Why've I got to take her with me?' Emily fumed.

‘Because I'm going out for a while. I'm going down to the pub with Henry for a quiet drink and to thrash him at darts. I won't be long, and I'll collect Lucy on the way back.'

‘Do I get paid? I'll be doing two lots of babysitting at once.'

‘I do two lots of parenting at once. No-one pays me double,' Nina replied.

Nina walked slowly along the Crescent towards Henry's house and gazed into other people's windows. She wondered if their lives were as orderly as the rooms she was seeing. Not a cushion looked out of place, not a painting askew, not an ornament carelessly positioned. Perhaps these were people who never made mistakes about who they lived with and who they didn't. Probably they never dithered over what to
wear for lunch with their ex's just because they still cared enough to want to look good for them. Now and then she could see the backs of heads watching flickering televisions. At one she peered in and was surprised when an elderly male head bobbed up next to her from a flowerbed, and gave her a wary ‘Good evening' as if worried that the simple words might lead to unsuitable personal revelations, a discussion about Jehovah or even a mugging. She walked quickly past the alleyway that led to the Common, wondering who was out there doing what unspeakable things.

‘You're early,' Henry greeted her as she rang his bell.

‘I'll go away again if you like then,' she said, turning round and starting back down the path. She turned back and grinned at him. He was already closing the front door and coming to join her.

‘Earlier the better as far as I'm concerned. Time for an extra drink.'

‘I think I only fancy a Coke,' Nina said. ‘Alcohol's too depressing.'

‘Oh God, I wanted a jolly night out,' Henry said, putting an arm round her shoulder. ‘Don't tell me you're going to cry all over me.'

‘I might just do that. I've just realized two things. The most important one is that I wish, I really wish Joe was living with us again.'

Henry laughed. ‘Took you long enough to work that one out, didn't it? I suppose the other thing you've realized is that you never want to learn to play darts.'

‘I don't need to. You're just assuming,' Nina said. ‘I was captain of the college darts team. We beat everyone over three counties.'

‘Sam doesn't want to go to bed yet, do you Sam? He's extra excited because his mum's coming home.' Sam
and Emily glared at each other but he gave Lucy a big smile. ‘So I said he could play with you for a while.' Paul patted Emily on the shoulder in a matey sort of way and reached across her to get his jacket from the hook.

Emily gave Sam a look of hostile suspicion. She'd heard about the snail-treading incident. She'd seen Megan applauding his every tantrum, squealing ‘oh he's a real boy!' as he smashed up Sophie's Lego castle with his wooden hammer. Here was a small child who might think it was fun to sneak up behind the sofa and pull her hair out, strand by strand. Or he might, while playing angelically quietly, pour Fairy Liquid all down the stair carpet.

‘What time does he go to bed?' Emily asked, hoping the answer would be ‘soon'.

‘When he's tired,' Paul shrugged. ‘Isn't that when you go?' His hand was now on the door latch.

‘Yes but I'm not five,' Emily snarled under her breath.

‘We won't be too late, unless the plane's delayed, so have fun all of you. There's Coke in the fridge and biscuits in the jar.'

‘Thank you very much Mr Brocklehurst. We'll take good care of Sam.' Lucy smiled up at him.

‘Creep,' Emily said when he'd gone. ‘You're only hoping you'll get paid extra.'

‘Well
you
don't deserve to get paid at all. You're horrid to Sam.'

‘I'm here aren't I? That's babysitting. You sit, they're babies, end of story.' Sam was standing by the front door, looking bereft and as if he was in two minds whether crying might bring back a parent or not.

‘I'll play with him, just for a bit, then it's your turn,' Lucy volunteered, feeling sorry for him and worried
for herself. Sophie would have to be faced in a couple of hours, Sophie and her mum who had had two weeks to work out exactly how horrible Lucy had been, giving her that disgusting suntan lotion concoction. If she played with Sam, Emily might be persuaded to be on her side later.

‘Thanks.' Emily relented and grinned at her. ‘And I'll split the money, just this once. Just give me half an hour's television peace.'

She went into the sitting room, flopped onto the sofa and picked up the remote control. Lucy took Sam up the stairs and for nearly ten minutes there was blissful quiet, broken only by the occasional burst of Lucy's donkey-laugh.

‘That's not fair!' Emily heard Sam shriek. His voice, for one so young, carried right through the whole fabric of the house. Emily was sure she could feel his fury vibrating in the sofa. She sighed, giving up any hope that this would be any kind of successful or even restful evening. Sam was simply too indulged and pampered to be anything but a hundred per cent demanding.

‘What's wrong?' she said to Sam who sat huddled and brooding halfway down the stairs. He was dressed in a green beret, a khaki sweater with elbow patches and his face was smeared with brown and grey eye make-up. Glittery flecks lay on his cheeks like Christmas dust. He carried a plastic hand grenade.

‘She won't play war. Sophie plays war with me.
She
likes it.'

‘I don't,' Lucy insisted. ‘Well not much. That's Sophie's thing, not really mine. I only played it with Sophie because I was being nice then.'

‘Can't you be nice now?' Emily asked.

‘No. I'll play cars and I'll play doing gym or
something but I'm not wearing Sophie's smelly old army clothes. And I'm definitely not putting that stuff on my face. I might get allergic. Sophie can play all that with him tomorrow.
If
she's not too jet-lagged.'

She stamped off into the sitting room and dropped onto the sofa, immediately engrossed in a TV ad for shampoo. Emily watched her running her fingers through her long hair, copying the actress. Sam looked up at Emily, large brown eyes appealing like Genghis when he could smell food. Emily softened. The poor child's mother had been away for ages. It must seem half a lifetime to him. It wasn't his fault that he was so cherished and spoilt. Perhaps, left alone like this, he deserved to be. His daddy could at least have taken him to the airport. She used to love going there with Graham when she was little.

‘OK Sam, what do we do?' Sam leapt up and ran back up the stairs. Emily followed. In Sophie's room (SAS posters, army leaf-camouflage netting draped over the top of a junior four-poster bed), Sam opened a cupboard and started pulling out clothes.

‘Are you allowed to do this?'

He looked back at her, wondering at the sense of the question, and didn't reply. ‘You wear some of this,' he instructed. Emily climbed into the only pair of trousers that looked big enough for her. Goodness only knew how Sophie managed to wear them, they seemed big enough for a full-sized man. ‘And this,' Sam said, pulling out a toy gun-belt complete with silver Lone Star gun. ‘And then we kill each other.' He grinned.

‘OK,' Emily groaned, trying to fit the gun-belt round her waist.

‘And you can wear this.' Sam handed her a black knitted object. ‘You put it on your head. It's special,' he told her.

Emily pulled the black balaclava over her head, praying that Nick (or even Simon) wouldn't choose this moment to come and visit. It was hot under the wool, and there was a smell. She started feeling sick and sat down on Sophie's bed. Slowly, deliberately, she inhaled, letting her senses do sorting and recalling.

‘Come
on
, let's
play
.' Sam was tugging at her arm. Emily felt limp. It was
the
smell. It was the smell of those cigarettes and that aftershave. She could almost feel the man pressed against her, shoving at her body, forcing her against the tree. She could feel the bark again digging into her back. She'd been right, it could be any man, from any family.

‘So where is Joe tonight and what's he doing now he's all on his own?' Henry asked.

Nina threw her second dart, which hit the edge ring of the five and bounced uselessly to the floor. This ‘all on his own' thing kept coming up now that people knew Catherine had gone. It was just like all those months ago when she and Joe had first separated and everyone assumed he, turfed out of the family nest, was suddenly a lost soul.
She'd
been all on her own too for the past year, if anyone had noticed. Apart from Henry, who had spent just as much time in her kitchen when Joe was living in the house as he did now, there hadn't exactly been a queue for the comforting.

‘Is it only selfish women who chuck out their men?' she asked Henry.

Henry shrugged. ‘And misunderstood men who chuck out their women? I don't know. The usual mixture I suppose. Badly treated women don't chuck their men out often enough, and badly treated men . . .' he laughed. ‘They pay alimony.' Nina grinned at him and threw her third dart.

‘Double ten. Not bad when I'm out of practice.' She took a sip of her bitter lemon and thought for a moment. ‘I don't know where Joe is tonight. And you didn't really think I would, you're just being conversational. Actually, he's probably out in some restaurant with a new young thing,' she giggled. ‘Either that or
he's stripping flowered wallpaper from their bedroom at the flat. Really Henry, you should see it. Swagged, dragged and smothered. The rest of the flat is just like Joe, uncluttered, casual and probably more expensive than you'd think.'

‘You've been inspecting the premises then?'

‘Mmm. Briefly. I hope she's taken her art deco lamps with her. We've got some lovely spiralled steel ones in the gallery. Perhaps I'll take one round as a Catherine-moving-out present.' She pulled the darts out of the board, handed them to Henry and smiled. ‘Your go. You need fifty-six. Ten, six and double top?'

‘If I smile inscrutably and say “possibly” you'll never know whether I missed on purpose or not, will you?'

‘I don't think you'd miss on purpose Henry, not unless you'd got the urge for our relationship to be on a totally different level.'

Henry pouted, mocking. ‘Even if I did, there'd be no way of convincing you I was more worthy of your life-long devotion than Joe is.'

‘Don't be daft, Henry,' she told him, pushing him towards the dartboard. ‘There's no point spoiling things.'

Henry picked up the darts and threw them with casual negligence. ‘My game, your round. Look how talented I can be when you make me cross. Kiss for the winner? Just a between-friends one for no hard feelings?' Henry leaned across and kissed her gently just on her jawbone. It tickled, nothing more.

‘Sorry to interrupt. Emily said to come and get you.' Cool air swept through the door and Joe was standing in front of Nina, his hair awry and the collar of his jacket twisted. He was frowning, worried enough to be rude, ignoring Henry.

‘What's happened? Where are the girls?' Nina's insides lurched. Like all mothers, within milliseconds she'd imagined them burnt to ashy flakes in Megan and Paul's house, huddled with little Sam under a locked bedroom window, firemen in tears carrying bodies.

‘They're fine. But . . .' Joe said, taking Nina's arm and pulling her firmly out of the pub door. Focusing hard on Joe's face for clues, she could only just make out Henry, trailing and wondering what could possibly have happened that needed to be explained out on the pavement.