An Autumn Affair. Alice Ross

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СКАЧАТЬ when they spotted Tina over the other side of the road. Arm-in-arm with another girl from school.

      ‘Oh, look,’ said her mum. ‘There’s …’

      Miranda felt as though someone had plunged a knife into her innards. Tears burning her eyes, she spun around and marched along the street in the opposite direction.

      Back home, her mum did her best to cheer her up. ‘Don’t worry about Tina, sweetheart. Girls are fickle. They change best friends more often than they change their underwear. What about your new pals at Briardene? You’re always welcome to invite them here over the holidays, you know.’

      Miranda gawped at her mother. She didn’t have any ‘pals’ at Briardene. And even if she had, how could she possibly invite anyone from there to a council house in Jarrow? The bathrooms in their stately homes would be bigger than the entire semi. And have bidets. Her mum didn’t have a clue.

      ‘Look, Mum,’ she pleaded, for what must’ve been the two-hundredth time. ‘I really hate Briardene. Why can’t I go back to the Comp? Then you and Dad can use all the money you’ll save to buy a nice new house or something.’

      But for what must also have been the two-hundredth time, her mum shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, but we’ve made up our minds. I know it’s not easy settling into a new school. Especially at your age. But it’ll pay dividends in the end. Just you wait and see.’

      Miranda didn’t want to wait and see. She didn’t care about dividends. She wanted her old life back. The life she’d loved so much – when she’d been happy and popular and carefree. In a world she’d belonged to.

      Now she didn’t belong anywhere.

      She was like a flailing fish out of water, desperately grabbling for air.

      And it was all her parents’ fault.

      And so passed the next three years, Miranda’s resentfulness towards her parents burgeoning with every one of them. After the first summer she’d given up begging to return to the Comp. Despite all her tears, reasoning and misery, her parents continued to insist that it was for her own good, and attributed the ensuing surliness to teenage years.

      At sixteen Miranda announced she would be leaving Briardene.

      ‘But what about your A-levels? University?’ her parents entreated.

      ‘I’m not going to university so there’s no point doing my A-levels,’ Miranda batted back.

      Disappointment settled over their faces. But Miranda was devoid of sympathy. What did they expect? She’d suffered long enough.

      The day she walked out of Briardene for the very last time, she’d felt as though a ten-ton weight had been lifted from her young shoulders. Freedom loomed. But what to do with it? Until Briardene, she hadn’t much considered her future, subconsciously assuming it would involve a local job, a local lad, and a couple of kids. Now, though, none of that seemed right. She no longer belonged in Jarrow. She didn’t belong anywhere. Nor did she have any remarkable skills or talents. What she did have, thankfully, were her looks. When she’d started at Briardene she’d been a gawky, gangly teenager with braces and spots. But, just after her fifteenth birthday, things began to happen. She filled out – in all the right places. The braces came off to reveal perfectly straight white teeth. Her skin cleared. And, like a true student of the school, she grew her hair.

      Feeling devoid of roots, she came up with what she considered the perfect career: cabin crew. At least Briardene had ensured she achieved all the requisite qualifications – her not-too-lacking list of GCSEs thankfully including maths and English. The minimum age for applications being eighteen, she bided her time working in shops and restaurants in and around Jarrow, gaining experience serving the great British public. Her parents, naturally, had been gutted. Having invested a small fortune in her education, they’d expected more. But Miranda refused to feel guilty. She’d done her bit. She’d stayed at Briardene for as long as she could endure it.

      The most depressing result for Miranda wasn’t her status-lacking career choice, but the vast rift which now existed between her and her parents. They’d been so close once: a tight, loving family unit. Now they existed in parallel universes. And the most depressing part of all was that Miranda couldn’t imagine ever finding a way to mend the rift; couldn’t imagine ever forgiving them for subjecting her to Briardene.

      Consequently, she spent as little time as possible in their presence, treating her bedroom exactly as she had her room at school. Spending every spare moment she could in there; crossing off the days on her calendar until her eighteenth birthday.

      Tina and her other friends in Jarrow having long since deserted her, on her days off she’d catch the bus to Newcastle airport and watch the cabin crew strutting through the departure gate, soaking up every detail of their appearance, right down to the way they walked and talked. On the day of her eighteenth birthday, her application was in the post. And, after a gruelling round of tests and interviews, she was accepted. The day she received the news was the day Miranda felt her life was about to begin.

      And so it had.

      Based in Manchester, she’d left Jarrow without as much as a backward glance, taking to her new career like a duck to water. After only a few months, she was assigned the New York route, upon which travelled several regular faces. Doug’s included. Doug’s was a nice face. Not conventionally handsome, but with pleasant features, and kind brown eyes. Miranda correctly estimated him to be about ten years older than her, in his late twenties. At well over six feet, he literally stood out from the crowd, always immaculately dressed, and, unlike some of the punters who treated the crew as nothing more than skivvies, always polite.

      She bumped into him one day outside Macy’s. He’d been returning to his hotel after a business meeting. Miranda had been shopping. He invited her for a coffee. She accepted. And, surprisingly, for the first time in years – ever since she and Tina had been close in fact – Miranda found herself relaxing in someone else’s company. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was about Doug that made her feel like that. It could have been any number of things: his easy-going charm; his kind brown eyes which, on closer inspection, twinkled with humour; the fact that he shared her working-class roots, but had relentlessly followed his vision of success. He was so clever; so capable; so grounded; so in control. And he knew exactly where he belonged.

      After that first meeting, they made every effort to see one another as often as possible. Not half as often as either of them would’ve liked given their hectic work schedules, but often enough for an astounded Miranda to find herself pregnant four months later. She’d been on the pill, but with jetting all over the place, and the time differences, had obviously slipped up somewhere along the line. Surprisingly though, for one so young, and only just starting out on her career, the idea of having a baby or, more precisely, the idea of having Doug’s baby, appealed to her. She’d already decided to keep it, whatever his reaction. But, albeit slightly baffled by the news at first, his surprise had quickly turned to joy.

      ‘Why don’t we get married?’ he’d suggested, completely out of the blue, two weeks later.

      An ecstatic Miranda hadn’t needed long to consider her reply.

      Having no siblings, a limited social circle, and zero inclination to involve her parents, Miranda insisted on a small wedding. Doug agreed, whisking her off to Gretna Green where the marital party had consisted of the bride and groom, the registrar, and four American tourists.

      On their return, Miranda moved into Doug’s apartment СКАЧАТЬ