Now and Then Friends (12 page)

“You might have just lost me my one friend in this village.”

“Lucy? That won't put her off. But you should stick up for yourself. Learn to say no.”

“I know I should,” Claire said quietly. “But thank you for saying it for me.”

“Don't expect me to again,” Dan said, and walked back towards the kitchen, no doubt to walk his dog. Claire watched him go, wondering if he did have a soft side like Lucy had said, or if he'd simply got tired of her waffling. Probably just tired.

The day had not started well. The night hadn't been that great, either. Rachel had fallen asleep with Nathan drooling on her shoulder and occasionally flinging his arm across her face until Meghan had crept in around four o'clock in the morning, smelling of beer and cigarettes and giggling tipsily.

“Oh, I'll just sleep in your bed,” she'd whispered before Rachel, blinking blearily, had fully woken up.

“No . . .” she began, but Meghan was already creeping out of the room. Rachel sank back onto the bed and spent the next three hours being alternately kicked in the face and the kidneys until Nathan woke up at six thirty and demanded his Weetabix.

The morning was beautiful, with the birds twittering in the two runty trees in the back wedge of garden, the golden light filtering through their barely unfurled leaves. Rachel stood at the sink and tried to enjoy the moment, but Nathan was banging his spoon on the table, and she realized the grass hadn't been mowed in forever.

She poured milk into her coffee and then into Nathan's cereal as he looked up balefully.

“Mummy gives me sugar too, on top.”

Rachel dumped a spoonful of sugar over his Weetabix without a word. She sat at the kitchen table and sipped her coffee, trying not to
feel irritated that she'd spent the night in bed with a toddler
and
she had to work all day. Meanwhile Meghan had wasted a hundred pounds' worth of prescription pills and partied all night. And would no doubt be unrepentant about both when she finally stumbled downstairs that morning.

Rachel finished her coffee as Nathan turned his Weetabix into a brown, sugary mush without eating much of it. She'd never been a morning person, and usually slept in as late as she could, only to rush around grabbing coffee and banging dishes while Lily, Nathan, and Meghan tiptoed around her. She would actually enjoy this moment's fragile peace, if she weren't so tired.

Reluctantly she thought of last night's drink with Andrew, his nasty assessment of her.
You seem to think only yours does.
It had been a bloody rude thing for him to say. He didn't know anything about her life; he didn't know how hard it was.

And yet she
had
been rude to Andrew, and even to Claire, since she'd clapped eyes on the pair of them. Seeing them again had made her take a hard look at her life and realize just about none of it was going to change. Would she be cleaning houses and taking care of her mother when she was fifty? Probably. It could be worse, she knew. If she hadn't had that brief taste of freedom and opportunity at Durham, she'd be fine with the way things had turned out. It was just she knew how different they could have been.

“Hey, you're not usually up this early,” Lily said as she came into the kitchen, knotting the belt of the ratty
Doctor Who
dressing gown that Meghan had given her for Christmas last year. Rachel hadn't even realized Lily liked
Doctor Who
; she'd felt a jolt of surprised uncertainty when she'd seen how pleased Lily had been with it.

“There's the culprit,” Rachel answered, and pointed a finger at Nathan as she gave him a reassuring grin. He grinned back and then shoveled a spoonful of mushy Weetabix into his mouth.

“Where's Meghan?”

“Sleeping off last night.”

“Ah.” Lily switched the kettle on and retrieved her favorite mug, a chipped bowl-sized pottery one, from the cupboard. Rachel watched her, noting how she'd dyed the tips of her hair fuchsia, and she had three piercings in one ear. When had she done those things? Why hadn't Rachel noticed? Lily certainly hadn't consulted her, and with an unpleasant jolt Rachel realized how little Lily consulted her about anything these days.

When Lily had been a baby, Rachel had done nearly everything for her. Changed her, bathed her, fed her, tickled her tummy. Her father had looked after her while Rachel had been at school, and when he'd had work, she'd gone to the nursery in Egremont. But whenever Rachel had been home, Lily had been hers. At first she'd liked having her own baby doll to play with. It had felt like a game, and there was nothing quite like the feeling of chubby baby arms wrapped around your neck, a sweet, plump cheek pressed to yours. But then her mother had fallen and her father had had to take any job he could, and suddenly taking care of Lily had stopped being such a game.

But she hadn't minded. She'd never minded sacrificing her social life so she could be there for Lily. She'd seen all her milestones: first steps, first word, first lost tooth. She'd been the one to put the pound under her pillow; she'd bought her Christmas and birthday presents and helped her write invitations in her painstaking best joined-up script for the party she'd had when she was ten. She'd baked the birthday cake, and greeted the children at the door. She'd done everything a mother would.

But sometime in the last few years she'd stopped being so involved in Lily's life. When Rachel had come back from Durham, after Dad had left, she and Meghan had made a deal. Meghan would quit school that summer, after Year Ten, and get a nighttime job so she could look after Mum and Lily during the day. Rachel would restart Mum's housecleaning business. Even though she'd been working ten-hour days,
Rachel had made time back then for Lily. She'd gone to her parent-teacher conferences and cricket matches, and she'd kept her weekends clear.

So when had it all changed? Perhaps when Lily had become a teenager and had naturally become more secretive, more hidden. Perhaps it had happened gradually, and Rachel had been too busy and tired to notice. Yet in that moment, in the dawn light of an April morning, Rachel realized she really didn't know her sister at all.

Lily had her own life now, her own friends, whose names Rachel didn't even know: a couple of pimply boys with hair that always got in their eyes, chunky glasses, and ironic T-shirts. The arty, geeky crowd, and Rachel couldn't tell one of them from another.

“So,” she said, her voice a little too loud and bright as Lily dunked her tea bag a couple of times. “I'm meeting your biology teacher this afternoon. I e-mailed your other teachers, but they haven't gotten back to me.”

Lily shrugged and tossed the soggy tea bag into the bin. “They're busy, I suppose.”

“You're doing well in all your subjects, though,” Rachel said. The trial exams in January had given Lily predictions of two As and an A star in biology. She had a conditional offer from Durham for biology as long as she got the grades, and three other backups if she didn't. “I don't think she'll have anything important to say,” Rachel continued. “But it's good to check in.”

Lily shrugged, her thin shoulders hunching under the pilled fleece of her dressing gown. Rachel stared at her, wishing Lily would say something. Wishing she knew what to say to her. When had this tense silence started? Maybe last year, when Rachel had insisted Lily drop Design and Technology. Lily had wanted to drop one of her other subjects, but no serious university was interested in what was generally considered a soft option.

“You can go almost anywhere you want,” Rachel had said. “Why hamper yourself with a subject good universities don't take seriously?”

“Maybe they should take it seriously,” Lily had said, and Rachel had shrugged her words aside. The fact was, they didn't.

Last autumn she'd taken Lily on a tour of universities, including Durham. It had felt amazing and yet agonizing to stroll down those narrow, cobbled streets, walk across the footbridge that spanned the River Wear to the student union. Her two weeks at Durham had been the best of her life, but she didn't talk about them to anyone, and certainly not to Lily. Rachel didn't think Lily even remembered that she'd gone there.

Lily had been quiet during that trip, although she'd seemed to enjoy the meals out, and she'd liked the student union with its walls full of students' artwork, all self-consciously stark lines and messy blobs of paint. But at the end of the trip Lily had told Rachel she wasn't sure university was for her, and Rachel had replied that it most certainly was. Lily hadn't answered, and in the six months since, she'd worked hard and filled out her university application online, smiled when she'd gotten her offers. Rachel had assumed all the uncertainty and teenage angst was behind her.

Now, as Lily picked at her black nail varnish and sipped her tea, Rachel wondered if it wasn't.

“What have you got on this weekend?” she asked.

“Revision, I know,” Lily answered with a sigh.

“I'm trying not to nag, you know,” Rachel answered lightly. “It's only that it's so important, Lily—”

“I know it is.”

She couldn't keep herself from giving Lily these pep talks. “You'll thank me one day,” she said, and Lily rolled her eyes. Rachel couldn't blame her. She sounded as sanctimonious as Andrew West. “Maybe we could do something this weekend. Go to the cinema.”

“There's only rubbish on.”

“I don't mind rubbish.” She couldn't remember the last time she'd
gone to the cinema, or done anything fun with Lily. “Do you want to check the times?”

“I'm going out on Saturday night,” Lily said. A few flakes of black nail varnish drifted to the floor. “With some friends from school.”

“Oh?” Rachel tried to pitch her voice light and interested. “Where to?”

“Just Will's house.” Lily shrugged, and Rachel decided not to press. She didn't know who Will was, but Lily went out a lot of weekends, usually to someone's house to hang out or watch a DVD. Rachel didn't keep tabs on her social life; during the weekend she was usually too busy catching up on errands and bills, before the week and all of its demands and pressures rolled around again. It hadn't bothered her before, but now she felt the loss.

“Well,” she said. “Maybe next weekend.” Lily didn't answer.

It was after seven and Meghan still wasn't up. Nathan had finished his cereal, and so Rachel dumped his dishes in the sink and wiped him down with a wet cloth. “I think you got more on you than in you,” she remarked. “Better go wake up Mummy, Nath. Ray-Ray has to work.”

Lily had disappeared upstairs, no doubt to grab the shower first, and Rachel took Nathan by the hand and led him to her bedroom, where Meghan was stretched out on her bed, drooling onto her pillow.

“Wake up, Snow White,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “Your prince is here.” She deposited a wriggling Nathan onto Meghan's stomach, and her sister groaned. Nathan squealed.

“You have no heart.”

“I let you sleep in my bed. I think a thank-you is in order.”

Meghan let out an enormous yawn and then reached up to snuggle Nathan, who wrapped his arms around her neck. “I'm completely shattered.”

“Where were you last night?”

“Out.”

“Obviously, but where—”

“Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.” Meghan rolled over onto her side, bringing Nathan with her as she tickled his tummy. “Thanks for giving him breakfast. I assume that's what you did, since there's Weetabix all down his front?”

And now in her bed. “I need to get ready for work,” Rachel said. “Could you please move?”

Half an hour later she was heading out to clean Henry Price's two-up-two-down terraced house at the top of the village. A single man in his forties, he had her clean only once a fortnight, and Rachel didn't think he so much as rinsed a dish in the interval. She wiped two weeks' worth of shaving bristle from the sink in the bathroom and stripped sheets that felt grimy and smelled stale.

After Henry's place she had two holiday cottages and then her meeting with Lily's teacher. A knot of tension had taken up residence in Rachel's stomach, although she couldn't precisely identify its source. Maybe it was everything: her mother's lost pills, Meghan's insouciance about being away most of the night, Lily's unnerving silences. Andrew West asking her to watch over Claire and telling her she had a bloody chip on her shoulder. He had no idea.

By the time she arrived at Lily's school, having cleaned three houses in a handful of hours, Rachel was tired and sweaty and felt nearly as grimy as Henry Price's sheets. She took a moment in the car to brush her hair, apply some lip gloss and deodorant, and then change her work T-shirt for a button-down blouse she hardly ever wore. Too late she noticed the three boys sneaking a smoke behind the rubbish bins at the back of the school. They'd goggled at her speedy striptease, and now one leered as she left the car.

“Shut it,” she barked, and headed inside the school.

Miss Taylor's classroom was quiet and empty of students, and for a second Rachel stood in the doorway, relishing a moment of relative peace. Then the woman looked up from her marking, and Rachel stepped forward.

“Hi, I'm Rachel Campbell, Lily's . . .”

“Mother, yes—”

“Actually, I'm her sister.” Rachel put her bag on the floor and sat in the chair the teacher had already pulled up to her desk. “Our mother is bedridden, so I get to do the honors.”