June trailed men behind her like puppy dogs. ‘He had nine or ten girlfriends, the last time I checked,’ I said, dumping sugar into June’s mug.
‘Eleanor likes to give me a hard time about dating women,’ Hugh said. ‘I’m not as bad as she says I am.’
‘Yes you are.’ I finished making the tea and joined the two of them at the table with the mugs. ‘So,’ I said, before June and Hugh could get too distracted by flirting to pay any attention to me, ‘what
does
bring you to Reading, June?’
‘Ugh.’ June made a face and took a dainty sip of tea before she finished rolling her fag. ‘Do you remember Jojo?’
I nodded.
‘What did he tell you he did for a living?’
‘He owned a nightclub, didn’t he?’
June produced a slim silver lighter from somewhere on her slender person and lit her cigarette.
Hugh glanced at me. I had never allowed cigarette smoke to sully the air of my clean house. Whenever I had a party I forced people to stand on my doorstep if they wanted to smoke.
I met his eyes and shrugged. I couldn’t explain to him, without interrupting June’s story, that the scent of tobacco was as much my sister as her high-heeled shoes and her wide red smile. Yet another way she was different and more glamorous than I was. She’d taught me how to roll a cigarette like her when I was ten, but I could only produce wobbly cones, not slender cylinders like June’s. And I couldn’t smoke them without coughing.
‘He didn’t own a nightclub. It was a lie.’ June blew a thin stream of smoke out of her mouth. ‘He didn’t seem to do anything except talk on the phone all day, and then go out at odd hours. And then there were people coming in and out of the flat all the time. Eventually I figured out he was dealing.’
‘Drugs?’ I asked, and then regretted it as I sounded so naïve.
‘Oh sweetheart, imagine my shock. Turns out there were thousands of pounds changing hands every day. And can you believe, most of the time Jojo couldn’t even be bothered to buy a pint of milk?’
‘Now that is shocking,’ Hugh said, amused.
‘It really is. Anyway, I was fed up, and Jojo has a temper on him. It was arguments, arguments, arguments, and he likes to use his hands.’
She pulled her tiny dress off one tiny shoulder and I saw a set of distinct bruises on her creamy skin, the size of a large man’s hand. Then she gestured to her left eye and I saw, now that my attention was drawn to it, that under her dark make-up there was a spreading yellow bruise.
I drew in a breath of pain and sympathy. June was so very small, and Jojo had been so big. This was the dark side of being a bad girl, of being wild and free. Suddenly I was glad of the bricks of my safe little house around me. Nothing ever happened, but at least boring wasn’t scary.
‘Oh, June. That’s awful.’ Her misfortune made her somehow more human, less like the untouchably glamorous wicked fairy figure of my childhood.
Hugh was frowning, too. ‘Bastard.’
‘I know,’ June said sadly. She drew on her roll-up with a delicate breath.
‘Well, you did the right thing leaving him,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you came here instead of staying with someone who’s beating you up.’
‘Thank you, Ellie. I knew you’d understand.’
She launched herself off her chair in a cloud of tobacco smoke and hugged me. I gave her a hug back, feeling how fragile she was, how vulnerable. She was family, and she needed me. For the first time in my life, sympathy overcame the awe I usually felt towards her.
It had to be traumatic to be assaulted by your boyfriend, and since she hadn’t gone into detail about what happened, it was probably even worse than she was telling us.
‘What did you do?’ I asked her, still holding her. ‘Did you call the police on him?’
‘Oh, no. I broke his nose.’
She sat back down at the table and drew on her fag.
‘Got an ashtray?’
I stared at her. She was still small, still thin, but nowhere near fragile. And in no way in need of my sympathy.
Hugh took a plate from underneath one of my aloe plants and gave it to her to put her ash in. Then he scraped back his chair and stood up.
‘Well, it’s been a very interesting morning, but I’ve got to get to work,’ he said. ‘Catch you later, June.’
‘Oh, definitely,’ she replied, her eyelids at half mast as she gave his body the once-over from head to foot. ‘We are all going to have so much fun.’
I followed Hugh to the door. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Your sister is pretty incredible.’
‘I don’t really know her. Maybe this visit means we’ll get closer.’
‘That would be good.’ He ruffled my hair, shorter than June’s. ‘I hope you do.’
As he twisted the doorknob, I remembered something. ‘What were you going to ask me about before June turned up?’
For the first time since June had kissed him, Hugh looked uncomfortable.
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said. ‘Not important.’
8
When I was growing up, there was one rule in our house:
Eleanor shalt not act like June.
No staying out all night partying. No getting a job and losing it two weeks later or starting a course and then dropping out. No sneaking men into my single bed. No starting screaming fights with my mother at two in the morning which left her tight-lipped for days afterwards. No disappearing for days or weeks or months at a time. No smoking, no spontaneous outbursts of affection, no equally spontaneous outbursts of breathtaking bitchiness, no careless beauty or excitement.
Except for occasional weeks between men and jobs, she didn’t live with us in Upper Pepperton, but even when she wasn’t in the house June was a shadow there, half darkness and half nearly blinding sunlight. She was absolutely, terrifyingly free, and she was my mother’s favourite topic of conversation.
My mother’s second favourite topic of conversation was the fact that, thank God, I wasn’t anything like June. I was a good girl.
A good girl who fervently, desperately wanted to be more like June.
Her freedom, her glamour, were shimmering enticements to everyday good girl Eleanor, who I knew lacked sparkle next to June. For a couple of weeks when I was fifteen I’d even tried dressing like her, hitching up the skirt of my school uniform, painting on red lipstick, frothing up my neat dark hair with hairspray and mousse. Until I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror from afar and realised I looked ridiculous, a bit like a female version of Robert Smith from The Cure.
I gave up. I was meant to be mundane.
At the moment, this particular mundane good girl was celebrating the clear results of her sexually transmitted disease tests by lurking in the corner of the biggest chemist in Reading, waiting for the family planning aisle to clear so she could buy a pregnancy test.
My period wasn’t even due for two more days. But every day was another day I couldn’t write properly, couldn’t think about anything except for the fact that I’d been so stupid as to have unprotected sex.
In theory it was great to be wild and free; in reality, if you were someone like me, born to be normal, it made you worry so much that it wasn’t worth the hassle.
I perused the corn pads on the foot-care display for the dozenth time. I’d chosen this chemist because I figured I would be less conspicuous than in the smaller one nearer my house where I was known by sight. But the downside was that there were lots of other customers. I made a note to come back sometime when I wasn’t distracted by anxiety. To an erotic novelist, there was probably inspiration to be found watching people buying birth control.
But right now those people were blocking my objective of buying a pregnancy test without being noticed. Two teenage boys in the blazers and ties of the local public school were loitering in front of the condom display. They were reading the labels aloud, half hushed and half bold, pausing between each one to laugh loudly and self-consciously.
Enough was enough. I turned, marched up to them, took a packet of Durex Fetherlite with spermicide off the shelf and held it out, saying ‘I think these will do perfectly fine for you as an entry-level condom, unless of course you need the extra large.’
The boys’ eyes went huge and they backed off, muttering something about only joking. Alone at last, I searched the shelves for an early pregnancy test, saw that if you bought two it was cheaper, decided I was never in a million years going to need two because after this experience I was swearing off sex for good, grabbed a pink packet, and legged it to the till. The cashier didn’t even give me a second glance.
One problem solved, I thought as I headed back towards home. I’d take the test and it would be negative and I could get back to work. Then that would be a second problem solved, because I could revise
Throbbing Member
and make it realistic. Somehow.
That only left my third problem.
June had been with me for a week and I was still none the wiser about what made her tick. She was an enigma living in my house. Aside from the snippet of information about Jojo, she’d sidestepped all my conversational gambits designed to get to know more about her. She’d offered me charm instead: giggles and ‘sweethearts’ and vague references to an exciting life lived elsewhere.
But maybe these things took more time, I thought, fishing in my pocket for the keys to unlock my front door. Just because I was a writer I didn’t have an automatic insight into what people were like. Quite the opposite, actually. One of the things that appealed to me about writing was that in fictional worlds, people made a lot more sense than they did in real life.
My house, when I opened the door, didn’t smell like my house. June’s cigarettes, June’s perfume. I didn’t notice it so much when I was in the house, but being outside in what passed for fresh air in Reading made the alien scents more obvious. I paused on my way to the kitchen to light a couple of the scented candles on the shelves in the living room.
‘Hey,’ June called cheerfully from the kitchen. She was at the table, eating what looked like a heap of chocolate with a spoon.
‘What have you got there?’ I asked.
‘Hugh brought it round on his way to his lecture or whatever it is,’ June said with her mouth full. ‘Coffee hazelnut cheesecake. It’s delicious. Want some?’ She held out her spoon.
I looked at the cheesecake. June had eaten it haphazardly, reducing what I knew had probably been an impeccably presented dessert into a random pile of cheesecake, nuts, and crust.
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’ve tried Hugh’s cheesecake before.’
Of course, then it had been
my
cheesecake.
‘He’s really quite dishy,’ she said, licking her spoon and putting it back into the pile of cake. ‘Tall,’ she added, as if I hadn’t noticed.
‘Hmm.’ I put my package, well wrapped in a bland carrier bag, on the table.
‘I’m gasping for a cup of tea, doll.’
I turned to put on the kettle, and for the second time that day took my courage in my hands.
‘I was thinking,’ I said, ‘that since you’ve been here we haven’t really had the chance to sit down and have a good talk about things.’
‘Oh! You are so right. Tell you what, sweetheart, I’ll make us a nice dinner tonight and we’ll have a proper natter. I need to find out what you’ve been doing with yourself, don’t I? I’m sure you don’t spend all your time working at that ghastly pub.’
‘That sounds great,’ I said, turning to the tea-making optimistically. I couldn’t picture June making dinner. I’d never in my life seen her cook anything herself. She didn’t even bother to toast bread before she ate it. But it was nice of her to offer, and we’d spend some real time together.
From behind me I heard a rustle of plastic carrier bag. ‘Ooh! Who’s been a naughty girl then, Ellie?’
I whirled around; June had the pregnancy test in her hand.