Bad Friends. Claire Seeber

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СКАЧАТЬ walked in, my father looked up at me sharply. ‘Don’t be silly, Maggie.’ He frowned. ‘Do you mean because –’

      Jenny trundled in, wearing a vivid orange kaftan creation. She looked like a small plump carrot. ‘Hello, lovie.’ She came over to kiss me. She was very tanned.

      ‘You look well,’ I said, as brightly as I could. ‘Good holiday?’

      ‘Wonderful, thanks, Maggie. Amazing place. I’m going to try to drag your father there.’

      I smiled. ‘You should.’ Somehow I couldn’t see him on the beaches of Goa. But that was why they worked well together, my solemn, slightly pained father and the gregarious Jenny. When he’d introduced me to her a few months ago – ‘their eyes had met across the crowded staffroom’ – I hadn’t taken much notice. Well, I hadn’t been taking notice of anything, to be honest, and anyway, my father’s relationships usually lasted less time than the seasons in his precious garden, as his heart never really engaged. But he and Jenny reflected something in one another, and she was still here. She’d seen him through the recent dark days, and she made him smile. That was the important thing.

      ‘I’ve made a curry in India’s honour. You’ll join us, won’t you?’

      The carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour. ‘I’m sure India will be very honoured, but I’m afraid I’m late already.’ Thank God. Jenny’s cooking was atrocious at the best of times.

      ‘I’ll save you some.’ She noticed the flowers. ‘New beau, darling? I do love lilies.’

      ‘Just what you need,’ my father mumbled. We both looked at him. ‘A new beau.’

      I blushed. ‘I don’t know who they’re from, that’s the problem.’

      ‘Perhaps you’ve got a fan since your debut on TV.’ Despite my best efforts, I’d been rumbled when my dad’s head of maths, off sick, had caught the show. ‘How exciting.’ Jenny beamed. ‘You could have a fan club and everything.’

      ‘I’m going to chuck them out,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want them anyway.’

      ‘But they’re gorgeous,’ Jenny protested.

      ‘Take them home, then,’ I said. ‘Honestly. You have them.’

      ‘Of course!’ My father hit the paper triumphantly. ‘Elephant.’

      I patted his head affectionately. ‘I’ll see you later.’

      On the way out of the room I managed not to look at the lilies again, and I had such a nice time at Bel’s – making spaghetti bolognese with Hannah while Bel rang round making last-minute arrangements for Friday night, drinking red wine and listening to Johnno playing the guitar badly, serenading us with silly Rolf Harris songs in his broadest Australian accent – that I forgot all about the bloody flowers.

      But on the way home to my father’s, the feeling of disquiet began to balloon again. It wasn’t just the fact that some freak had taken to sending me horrible bouquets; it was my sense of utter displacement – knowing it was time to leave my father’s house, time to leave Greenwich. He and Jenny were beginning to get close, and they deserved a proper chance after everything he’d been through. And I needed my own space again. I needed to finally extricate my life from Alex’s. We were going to have to sell the flat in Borough Market, and that would inevitably mean seeing him.

      My mobile rang. ‘Hello?’ I swerved dangerously near the parked car on my left. ‘Hello?’ I repeated irritably. ‘Who’s there?’

      No one spoke, but this time I swore I could hear someone breathing. With a howl of frustration, I threw the phone onto the floor, where its fluorescent face winked up at me mercilessly all the way home.

       Chapter Ten

      The morning of Bel’s great party, I found Joseph Blake sulking on the office fire-escape. It was a cold sunny day, the sky as clear and bright as a Hockney print, the air fifteen storeys above the Waterloo streets far fresher than the fumes below. I’d sneaked out to have a cigarette, savouring every guilty drag as I contemplated how desperately I didn’t want to go tonight, when I heard a stifled noise.

      ‘Hello?’ I called quietly up the stairs. No response. ‘Who’s that? Are you okay?’

      A minute later, Joseph’s blotchy red face peered down. ‘Oh,’ he said ungraciously. ‘It’s you.’

      ‘It certainly was the last time I looked,’ I agreed mildly. ‘Cigarette?’ I offered.

      He stood and slunk down the stairs towards me, shaking his head at the packet, his blond hair flopping across his eyes. ‘No. I don’t.’

      ‘No, well, I shouldn’t. But we’ve all got to have a vice or two. Otherwise life’d be awfully dull, don’t you think?’

      He shrugged uncommunicatively, bashing a suede brothel-creeper against the metal step.

      ‘So, d’you want to talk about it?’

      He shrugged and bashed again. I felt my skin prickle with irritation. I took another drag of my cigarette. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, Joseph, I can’t help.’

      He hesitated for a moment, looking out across the rooftops. Two young men smoked out of a window in the building opposite; one waving cheekily when he saw me glancing over. I waved back. Finally, Joseph muttered, ‘It’s them.’

      He flopped his hair toward the office behind us, towards the girls scattered round the open-plan room. I glanced back at them. From outside they looked like an advert for a young fashion house, miniskirted, skinny-jeaned, Ugg boots and stilettos thrust up on desks, expensive messy hair skewered with biros, scribbling furiously and tapping fruity-coloured nails impatiently as they waited for answers from the prey pinioned on the other end of the phone lines. Sometimes the noise inside was so intense, so deafening as they pleaded and persuaded and hammered their keyboards frantically, that you’d have to step out for a moment to literally hear yourself think.

      ‘They don’t like me.’

      ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ But inwardly I sighed. Actually I was sure it was.

      ‘They never ask me to have lunch.’

      ‘They just need to get used to you. You should invite yourself along.’

      ‘They don’t talk to me if I do.’

      ‘Well, talk to them.’

      His bottom lip trembled, just like Hannah’s did when she was going to cry. Poor kid.

      ‘Look, I know it’s really hard, being the new boy. And it’s a very female office, I know that. Let me have a word with them.’

      He shrugged again. How much of this was his fault? I wondered. He wasn’t the most prepossessing figure; there was something inherently arrogant about his stance, despite the tears. The trouble was, he lacked the charm you needed to make it in TV-land.

      ‘Won’t СКАЧАТЬ