Moderate Violence (7 page)

She nodded. “Making films is no more ambitious than
going to the Paris fashion shows, is it?”

He ignored this. “How do you start?”

“Um…I’m not sure. Maybe by failing to get into art
college?”

They both smiled. It was silly, really. Dreams. But did
sitting in a boiling Assembly Hall, scribbling until your hand ached, over and
over again, paper by paper, necessarily make dreams come true? She let go of
his hand and fingered the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Toby…I mean…”

They hadn’t started walking again. He was giving her
The Look.

“You haven’t got a girlfriend, have you?” she asked,
feeling foolish.

He smiled without showing his teeth. “I have now.”

Drawing her towards him, he put his hand on the side of
her face and kissed her lips lightly. His mouth tasted minty and felt squashy. Then
he started to put his hands on her body. He stroked her midriff and her bare
arms. His knee slid between her thighs.

Jo put her arms up and caressed his neck, and put her
fingers in his hair like people did on TV when they were kissing a boy. He
kissed her a bit harder, putting his palms on her bottom again, holding her
firmly against him.

Jo’s muscles were tense. She tried to slump against his
body more, to feel herself cradled, or whatever he was trying to make her feel.
She even slid her fingers under the back of his shirt, to show she knew she was
supposed to touch him too. They stood there on the pavement in the darkening
evening for a few more minutes.

As they broke apart, a jolt of dismay shook Jo. She
didn’t quite feel what she’d hoped to feel. Was there something wrong with her?
Somehow looking at Toby had affected her more than touching him, and being
touched by him.

“Are you OK?” he asked. “You’ve gone all tense.”

“Oh…sorry.” She rubbed her upper arms. “I’m a bit
cold,” she told him, though she wasn’t. At least, not in a way that had
anything to do with the air temperature. “And hungry. How much further to this
restaurant?”

Chapter Four

Tess’s name was Therèse. Her mother, Granny
Pratt, was Belgian, and the family had lived in Belgium until Tess was about
fifteen. She was perfectly bilingual except for French ‘r’s in some English
words. When Jo had begun learning French herself, she had realized where that
throaty ‘r’ sound came from. But it had taken her ages, much to Mr Peacock’s
frustration, to allow herself to imitate it. Trevor was fond of telling people
how Tess’s ‘r’s had struck him as extremely sexy when he’d first met her. Tess
would supply the punchline, “French ‘r’s or French arse?”, and their friends
would roar with laughter and sip their wine, and Jo would wonder how long it
would be before she would have to hear the story again.

Jo was good at French. But she hated the lessons,
because the teacher they’d had this year, Miss Balcombe, was what Grandad Pratt
would call a ninny. She was one of those teachers who should never have been a
teacher, at least not of comprehensive school kids. Little girls in straw hats,
maybe, like the ones whose mothers double-parked their Range Rovers in Jo’s
road every morning and made Trevor curse. Or boys at Eton, or something. Miss
Balcombe’s rosy-cheeked, large-bosomed, cardigan-clad body, which Jo always
thought should be wearing an apron and have flour on its hands, enclosed a mind
of astounding naivety. How could someone of that age – twenty five or six at
least – not know
anything
? She
didn’t even seem to know much about French, and was always saying,
apologetically, “Er…you’ll have to look that one up, I think!”

The boys were merciless. And when the girls weren’t
encouraging their cruelty, they were feeling sorry for poor Miss Balcombe. Jo
wished she could do something to help her. But how could she say, “Miss, you’re
in the wrong job. Go and work in a library, or a charity shop,” without
pulverising poor Miss Balcombe’s already crumbling self-esteem?

Now that Jo was on study leave, Tess was going on and
on at her about schoolwork. And Miss Balcombe, to Jo’s surprise, suddenly took
on an important role in the War On A Levels.

“I can’t possibly do French, Tess,” Jo explained. “The
teacher’s hopeless. And A Level’s hard, so you’ve got to have a good teacher.”

“Would this teacher be taking the A Level class,
though?”

“Oh, yes! She’s the senior person.” This was a lie. Mr
Peacock was Head of Modern Languages. But what did Tess know?

“I thought Mr What’s-his-name, begins with a P, was the
senior person.”

Jo thought fast. “Well, maybe, but his subject’s
German, not French. That’s why Miss Balcombe was taken on, to do Sixth Form
French.”

“I see.” Tess was still suspicious.

“It would be
awful
,
Tess,” said Jo earnestly. “And you wouldn’t want me to be unhappy, would you?”

It was five past eleven the next morning. Her mother
had called in on her way to her club, which was how she always referred to the
gym, with a gift of twenty-five pounds, “for doing your exams, darling,” and a
box of cakes from the French baker’s near the station. Jo knew they were peace
offerings after yesterday’s row.

The weather was even hotter today, and the kitchen got
the full sun in the morning. The chocolatey cakes were wilting on a plate in
the middle of the table. “Can’t we go outside?” pleaded Jo.

“I told you, I’m not sitting out there until the pollen
count comes down,” said Tess. “You might not mind being
seen
with a person whose nose is as red as
Rudolph the Reindeer’s, but I mind
being
that person. The grass in this garden is terrible because Trevor will
not
cut it often enough. Has he decided
what he’s doing yet?”

This question was so unexpected Jo was bewildered for a
moment. Then she remembered. “I don’t know,” seemed the safest thing to say.

“Oh, come on. Where is he this morning?”

A sudden jolt of pain seared through her body, drowning
out Tess’ words. Jo looked down into her lap and saw she had been digging her
nails in to her arm just below her elbow, where the sleeve of her blouse
finished. “In the pub, probably” Tess continued, obliviously.

Press. Release. Press. Release… There would be
crescent-shaped marks on her arm.

“Or he’s gone off to put the house on the market,
hasn’t he?”

Red at first, fading to skin-coloured again. Press.
Release. Press. Press… She moved her hand away from her arm and sighed.

 “No, of course not.” Jo said. She didn’t remind her
mother that the house was, in fact, Trevor’s as well as hers. Grandad Pratt had
given them the deposit as a wedding present, but Trevor had made the mortgage
payments. “Give it a rest, Tess. My head hurts.”

“Hangover? Have a cake.”

“No, it’s not a hangover. I didn’t drink anything last
night.”

Tess had her poor-diddums face on. “Oh, were you all on
your ownsome? Serves you right for going off in a huff like that.” She took one
of the cakes and cut it in half. “Share?”

Jo shook her head. “Actually, I went out for a curry
with a boy I know from work.” The words came out in such a rush she wondered if
they’d made sense, but a glance at Tess told her they had. Her mother was
staring at her, the cake half way to her mouth.

“
Really
?”

“Yes. His name’s Toby and he’s eighteen.”

Tess bit into the cake. “So he’s off to university next
term, then,” she said contentedly.

“No, he’s got a job on the permanent staff at the shop.
He really wants to get into fashion buying,” she went on before Tess could
finish her mouthful, “so it’s a sort of step on the ladder.”

“I see.” Tess put the cake down. “Has your father met
him?”

“No.”

“Have you met his people?”

Jo tried to remain patient, though she winced inwardly
at the way Tess always referred to anyone’s family as their ‘people’, as if no
Ferguson could ever be good enough for a Probert. “Tess, I’ve only been out
with him once. I hardly know him.”

“But you like him, don’t you?” Tess’s expression had
softened. Something near to maternal indulgence came into her eyes. “Is my
darling girl in
lurve
?”

“No, of course not,” said Jo. She couldn’t help her
face reddening, though. She caressed the moon-marks one final time, wishing she
could look at them. Then she took the other half of the cake. “But when she is,
you’ll be the first to know, since you’re so interested.”

The front door slammed. Jo and Tess listened to the
familiar sounds of Trevor dropping his keys onto the hall stand and calling,
“Hi guys, I’m home!” which he considered very modern. “Anyone in?” His head
came round the kitchen door. “Oh…hello.” His gaze took in them both, and the
cakes. He put down the supermarket bag he was carrying and slung
The Guardian
onto the table. “Want to see
something I got in the post this morning?”

“Is it a pizza flyer?” asked Tess. “Or a tax demand?”

“Very funny. Any tea going?”

Jo took a bite of cake, got up and lifted the kettle. “So
what is it, then?”

Trevor searched his pockets for a folded piece of
paper. He spread it on the table. “This is the place Mord’s got his eye on,” he
announced.

Jo put the kettle down again. She and Tess looked at
the paper. It was an estate agents’ property details. There was a picture of
the exterior of the house and several of the interior, and a lot of extravagant
description of what a great location it was in. But Jo didn’t read the words. Astonished,
she gazed at the main picture, which was of an old – perhaps hundreds of years
old – house, surrounded by grass, against a backdrop of sunlit mountains.

“It’s a farmhouse,” said Trevor proudly. “The nearest
town is Aberystwyth.”

“Aberystwyth! Fancy that!” Tess picked up the piece of
paper and thrust it at Trevor’s chest. “And you’ll sink every last penny into
it, won’t you? I can’t believe even
you
can be so selfish.”

“Tess…”

“You’re insane, do you hear me? In…
sane
!”

“No I’m not.” Jo could hear her father trying to keep
calm. “And I don’t think I’m being selfish either. I like it in Wales. I mean,
you’re always saying you’d like to have a house in Belgium, so – ”

“What are you wittering about
Belgium
for?” Tess’s voice had got a bit
squeaky. “Can’t you see how
mad
this is? What do you know about running a business? You’re like those imbeciles
on TV who buy a house in Provence and find there’s no water supply or
something. You’re going lose all the money from the house, money we could – ”

“Who’s ‘we’?” interrupted Trevor. “This is
my
money, Tess.”

“Is it?” Tess stopped squeaking. “I seem to remember
something about a wedding present from
my
father.”

“And who’s paid the mortgage every month for the last
seventeen years, and is still paying it?” Trevor’s voice was steady, but Jo
could hear the frustration in it. “Face it, Tess, the proceeds of the sale of
the house are going to be split between us, and so are the contents. It’s
called divorce.”

Tess couldn’t refute this. Half-rising, she prodded
Trevor’s shoulder. “And supposing I refuse to give you a divorce?”

Trevor gave a weary sigh. Jo filled the kettle, feeling
almost sorry for him. Why couldn’t Tess just let him buy his Welsh farmhouse
and leave him in peace? “Look, Tess,” he said steadily, “stop fantasising. What’s
going to happen is this. We’ll sell this house, I’ll go back to Wales and you
and Jo will move somewhere smaller, maybe a flat, or maybe not, if your dad can
be persuaded to stump up again. But I’ll support Jo, like I always have done.”

There was a silence while Tess, still trembling
theatrically, pondered this scenario. Jo leaned against the worktop beside the
murmuring kettle and folded her arms. “I know, Tess!” she said, pretending
enthusiasm, “you could get a job!”

More silence, though Jo was pretty certain Tess wasn’t
pondering
this
scenario.

“I mean,” Jo went on cheerfully, “if I leave school, I
can get a job too and move into my own place, and you won’t have to live with
Trevor
or
me. Wouldn’t you like
that?”

Tess stopped pondering. “You’re
not
leaving school,” she said sharply. “You’re
going back in September and you’re going to do your A Levels and go to
university. I
insist
, do you
hear? And so does Trevor.” She turned on him. “Don’t you?”

Trevor, looking exceedingly tired, nodded soulfully at
Jo. “Yes, I suppose I do,” he said bleakly. He put the farmhouse details back
in his pocket. “Hasn’t that kettle boiled yet?” Fumbling for his cigarettes, he
opened the back door and went into the garden.

“And shut that door!” bellowed Tess after him. “How
many years did we live together, and you
still
don’t know about my hay fever?” She turned to Jo and patted her hand. “Never
mind him, darling. Granny and Grandad want to take us for lunch at the golf
club on Sunday, to wish you luck in your exams. That’ll be nice, won’t it?”

Jo tensed her left forearm. The muscle responded with a
light stroke – more of a memory, really – of the press-release sensation. “That’ll
be splendid,” she said, and picked up what was left of her cake.

* * * * * *

At work on the following Saturday, every
time Toby’s legs appeared before his head as he came down the staircase from
Menswear, Jo felt a jolt of recognition. Every time, she watched him cross the
ground floor with a sense of propriety, fighting the desire to say to the
customer she was serving, “That’s my boyfriend, you know!”

But at half past five she stopped having him to
herself. The scene was so predictable, Jo could have written the screenplay and
sent it to a film production company, which would have been encouraging at
first, but would ultimately reject it. “Sorry, not
quite
clichéd enough,” the rejection letter would say.

Jo was behind the cash desk with Eloise and Sandy, a
weekday part-timer who’d been persuaded to come in that Saturday to help train
Jo and Toby. Sandy was a slight man in his forties with a quick, professional
way of handling the customers. He looked to Jo somehow two-dimensional, as if
his clothes were held on by tabs, like the dressing-dolls she’d played with
when she was little. “Don’t look now,” Sandy muttered to Eloise and Jo, “but a
dodgy gang of three’s just come in. Two girls and a boy.”