This Is Not Forgiveness (2 page)

BOOK: This Is Not Forgiveness
13.02Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

‘Vanessa
Carrington
?’

‘Yes, as it happens. They call her Caro.’

‘So
that’s
her. She’s
hot
!’

He checks her out, automatically messing with his hair as he does so and putting on his best pulling smile. She gives a look to freeze us both out.

‘How do you know about her?’ I ask.

‘Sophie told me.’

‘Oh, yeah. What did she say?’

‘Just she’s got quite a rep. She’d be too much for you, mate. You couldn’t even handle Suzy
. . .

He gives me a look of pure pity. He’s been giving me that particular look since Suzy dumped me. He didn’t consider her much of a girlfriend, not compared to the blonde divinity who is Sophie. She’d never go out on double dates with us because she thought I was too dull and Suzy was too ordinary. Suze is all right now. She’s bought an iPhone and hair straighteners and doesn’t shop in River Island any more. She’s in. I’m out.

Fine by me. I preferred her when she was ordinary and I don’t like Sophie. She’s Cal’s first real girlfriend, the first one who’d let him screw her, anyway. Now, he can’t get enough. I hardly see him. If I do, he’s using me as a fill in, like now.
He
reckons it’s love. Perhaps it is. What would I know? They’re applying to the same universities. They’ll be like one of those student couples going round Sainsbury’s together, the girl piling up the veggies, turfing out the pizzas and swapping six-packs for spring water while the guy troops along behind her, lugging the basket, miserable as fuck.

‘You’re pussy-whipped, mate. Everybody says it.’ I laugh, getting my own back.

‘Who says it?’

‘Everybody,’ I repeat. ‘Everybody we know.’

He looks a little bit disconcerted but it doesn’t take long for him to rally.


Au contraire
, my friend. She’s ruled by this.’ He thrusts his hips, his low slung jeans bunched and rucked as if he kept something huge down there. I grin at him. I know the reality. ‘You’re just jealous because you’re not getting any.’

There’s truth in that.

His face changes to serious. He used to be funny. Not any more. As if on cue, Sophie appears. She’s outside, saying goodbye to her mates. She waves to Cal through the window. Suzy is with her. Looks straight through me as if she’s never seen me before in her life. There’s a lot of hugging and kissing, squealy farewells and hair tossing. It’s as if Sophie is going on a gap year, not coming in here for a coffee.

Caro shifts her gaze. She looks at them and looks away. Sophie comes in, arms outstretched. She flits past me and puts her arms round Cal, kissing him and calling him baby, like she’s in some budget version of
The Hills
. She sits at the table and carries on the baby talk. I’m ignored.

‘Hi, Sophie,’ I say.

‘Oh, hi,’ she says and looks at me as though I’m some kind of uncool pet, like a staffy or a pit bull puppy, then carries on talking to Cal, telling him what an epic day she’s had.

‘I’m off, then.’ I stand up. ‘Nice seeing you, Sophie.’

‘Yeah, bye,’ she says and I’m dismissed with a slight wave of her hand. The wristbands and ratty little friendship bracelets she’s wearing reach halfway to her elbow.

‘I’ll get this.’ I nod at Cal, who nods back. He smiles but he has this look in his eyes. Lost and terrified. Sophie’s voice loses the baby tone, becomes brisker, more business like. Cal goes to say something but she’s not listening. He tries again. The same thing. He glances over her shoulder, as if to gauge the distance to the door.

Too late for that, mate
, I think as I wait for the till.
You want to screw her? It’s the price you have to pay!

I’m glad it’s not me.

I’m so busy thinking that, and laughing to myself, that I don’t really notice until I’m standing behind her that Caro is there, too, queuing while her mother buys stuff from the deli counter. She’s wearing a thin vest top and the strap has slipped. There’s a star tattooed on her left shoulder. The tattoo is very dark sepia, almost black, like a pattern burnt into wood. Each point of the star is filled with little dots and marks. Her back is tanned a golden colour and spattered with freckles. Her skin looks soft, warm and supple. Her dark hair is cut in a chin-length bob, it gives her a kind of sixties look. It moves as she turns her head and is very shiny, like it would feel slippery through your fingers . . .

She puts a hand up to her shoulder and twists round as if she feels my look like a touch. Her hair swings back and I see her in profile, close, just for a camera-shutter fraction of time, then the hair falls like a curtain and she is moving away.

‘Bye, Caro,’ the girl behind the till says, and she turns back for a moment, giving her a fleeting smile.

I stand there, wishing the smile had been for me. She follows her mother and brother to the door. I should have said something, spoken to her. Although what could I have said?
Don’t I know you from somewhere?
I shake my head. That would sound such a line. No other words readily spring to mind. Too late now, anyway. She’s gone and I might not see her again. At that moment, seeing her again seems like the most important thing in the world.

‘Reel your tongue back in,’ the girl behind the till says and gives me a look, two parts pity to one part sympathy with just a dash of mockery. ‘Do you know her? Caro?’

‘Not really, er . . .’ I shrug, start to blush.

‘You’re Martha Maguire’s brother, aren’t you?’ She smiles.

That’s me slotted. Martha’s brother. Cal’s friend.

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘I’m Jamie.’

She’s pretty with a husky voice and long, curly hair and piercings everywhere. Her name is Jesse. She used to go to primary with Martha, used to come round our house to play. This is a small town.

‘Thought I knew you. That’ll be £2.50, Jamie.’ She hands me the bill folded on a china saucer. ‘Unless you’re paying for him, too, in which case it’s £5.’ I lay a note on the plate, then add 50p as a tip, my mind still running on the girl who has just walked out of the door. I want to know more about her. I want to know
all
about her. Martha will be able to tell me. Martha keeps tabs on people.

‘Thanks,’ I say, not sure what I’m thanking her for.

‘No worries,’ Jesse smiles again. ‘All part of the service.’

Her smile fades as she watches Caro stalk past the window heading towards a Mini convertible parked at the kerb.

‘Good luck with that.’ She adds as Caro climbs into the driver’s seat and slams the door.

Chapter 4

‘And they’ll ask: which of these should we kill?

In that noonday heat there’ll be a hush round the harbour

As they ask which has got to die.

And you’ll hear me as I softly answer: the lot!’


Pirate Jenny’ – Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill,


The Threepenny Opera’

 

 

 

 

 

Pirate Jenny. It’s a game I play. A game in which I choose who gets it and who doesn’t. It passes the time.

I’m sitting in the
Rendez
with my mother and her friends. Everyone calls it that.
Rendez –
short for the
Rendezvous.
Trying hard to be French: worn wooden tables, big mirrors,
pot au feu
on the chalked-up menu. The mirrors are the real thing, not repro. I spend a lot of time looking into them, so I should know. They make the place look darker, more mysterious; they make people look glamorous. They might not reflect reality but they’re good for picking out victims.

My mother meets her friends here to drink wine and gossip. I don’t usually come with her, but tonight I couldn’t get out of it. She’s done something for me, so now I have to do something for her. Quid pro quo. She’s been with me to the new school I’ve got to attend. We’ve been to see the Principal: Armani suit, fancies himself. Fancies me, too, from the way he’s checking me out. And my mother. Bit of a sleazebag, then.
Just a preliminary chat, see if we like each other.
Cue: hearty laugh as his eyes switch from her legs to my cleavage.

‘I
have
to have a drink after that.’ She gives a mock shudder when we’re out of his office. ‘Let’s go to the
Rendez
.’ She says it like it’s an original and new idea. ‘My friends are
dying
to see you.’

That’s what she says, although it’s not true. Her friends have no interest in me. She really wants me here because I can drive, so she can drink as much as she likes.

My stepbrother is here, too. We picked him up from his after-school club. I’m sipping a Diet Coke. He’s working his way through a big bowl of chips. We don’t speak to each other and Mother and her friends ignore us. She’s got lots of friends. Networking, she calls it, and she’s good at it.

All her friends are on my list.

They hardly register my presence. They get on with the everlasting conversation about how crap their lives are, or their jobs, or their husbands, or their boyfriends, or any combination or lack of the above. That’s all they ever talk about. My mother is sitting in profile. She chats, laughing and smiling, or nods with her head on one side in listening mode. Every now and again she twists to check herself out in the mirror and sees me there.

Mirror, mirror on the wall
. . .

Not you, Mother dear. Not any more.

I catch her look: jealousy mixed with admiration. I’m also here as her appendage. She’s been toting me about since I was tiny – I was a cute-looking child. She likes to show me off to her friends. Not so much recently. She’s beginning to feel the competition. But I’m not looking at her, or even at myself. I’m looking at the two boys. The dark one is Jamie Maguire. Martha’s brother. I don’t know the other one but I’ve seen him around. Jamie isn’t bad in a dull kind of way. He’s wearing a blue pullover and jeans, like his mum still buys his clothes. I think that’s rather sweet. The waitress arrives with their coffee. I know her, too. Jesse. The blond begins flirting with her, looking up through his long lashes. Jesse smiles back, indulgent, but she isn’t having any. She’s more interested in Jamie, but the blond guy can’t see it. He’s not used to girls saying ‘no’. He looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch model. The jeans aren’t cheap, the rest of his outfit is High Street, but well put together. Tatty tennis shoes strictly model’s own. He rakes a hand through his dirty blond hair. It won’t be long before he checks himself in the mirror. There he goes, quick look to see that his hair’s OK. Boys like him are obsessed with themselves. More than girls. Narcissism repels me. He goes on my list.

Jamie doesn’t. I like a plain canvas.

He glances up, too, as if he senses my thought and he’s not looking at himself, he’s looking at me. Not for the first time, either, I’ve been noticing him, noticing me. The blond shifts his gaze ever so slightly, to check out what his friend is checking out, and then they are both staring. My mother catches them and thinks they are looking at her. She would, wouldn’t she? She kind of simpers and I think that she is going to wink, or wave, tip her drink, or do something equally embarrassing. I should be colouring, but I never blush. I just look away.

There are girls outside the window. I know a few of them. The tall blonde peels off and comes in to join Jamie and his friend. Our Jamie looks pissed off. She doesn’t look too pleased to see him, either.

I’d have liked to have watched them longer, I like watching people, but Roland has finished his chips and has started to complain. Roland, Rollo, the kid really lives up to his name. He puts up with all kinds of shit at school because of it, but he’s OK. He’s not on my list.

The friends are set to make a night of it. My mother would love to stay, but knows she can’t. Her smile slips for a moment. There is a flicker of annoyance and resentment before she says, ‘Of course, sweetie. Time to go, anyway.’

We get up to go and pay at the counter. My mother blows kisses and mouthes ‘Call me’, little finger and thumb extended towards her ear, but her friends have turned away to carry on their conversation. It’s as though we have already left.

We wait while she orders stuff from the deli counter. Jamie is behind me; standing close, too close. I can feel his breath on my neck, but I don’t move away. He’s improved since I last saw him. Even though I know him, I blank him. He doesn’t say anything, either. That’s how it is in this town.

 

A weird thing has just happened. I opened a drawer to put my notebook back, and there’s my pack of tarot cards. I didn’t notice them before. I didn’t even think they were in that drawer. I don’t believe in any of that stuff any more. All that divination crap belongs to my goth/emo phase. That was all just kids’ stuff. I’m into something much bigger now, swapped astrology for agitprop, but I used to be deeply into that kind of shit. I liked all the paraphernalia, the charts, the runes, the tarot, the crystal.

My favourite thing was the planchette. I got it on a junk stall. Victorian, carved out of ebony. It is shaped like a heart and runs on three little casters. At the pointed end, there is a place to fix a pencil. So much better than a Ouija board but not enormous fun on your own. That’s one of the reasons I started the Circle. We used to meet at my house, paint our fingernails black, apply weird make-up, dye our hair indigo and dabble in the occult while listening to Bikini Kill, Beth Ditto, Free Kitten and Lady Gaga before anyone else liked her.

BOOK: This Is Not Forgiveness
13.02Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Clash by C.A. Harms
Friend-Zoned by Belle Aurora
Funny Boys by Warren Adler
K is for Kinky by Alison Tyler
Sohlberg and the Gift by Jens Amundsen
Trinity Blacio by Embracing the Winds
Always, Abigail by Nancy J. Cavanaugh
Twelve by Jasper Kent