Something Only We Know (27 page)

Hail battered the diamond-leaded window pane, and at the far end of the office, Rosa’s flirty laugh sliced across the general hum. The desk next to me was empty; Gerry
was away at his aunty’s funeral. On the other side of the room Alan had downloaded a new ring tone which had been going off continually, the blary theme to some 1970s sports programme. This
morning had lasted about twelve hours already. Mondays are never great at the best of times, but this one was a topper.

Rosa-wise I was in disgrace again, this time for writing something in The Diary, but not on the planner – my planner, the one I’d instigated – which meant the photographer had
ended up double-booked and there’d been no one to cover the dragon-boat racing on the Dee. I felt thick-headed, too, and my throat was scratchy as if I was brewing a cold. And last but not
least, a flyer had arrived from Keisha inviting me to a comedy evening at Revolution, where there was an excellent chance I’d run into Owen, and was that why I’d been invited and was I
mad to even think about going along? The world was against me, and I’d have sloped off at lunchtime and rung my sister for a therapeutic moan. Except we weren’t speaking.

Last Friday I’d driven home early because, for no reason, I’d come over nauseous and thrown up by the water cooler. Rosa had cast one look at me and told me to get out. And take your
nasty, common germs with you, she might as well have said. I’d driven myself home, confident at least I’d have the house to myself, because on Fridays everyone in our family’s out
at work. So when I walked into the hall and heard a man’s voice coming from our kitchen, it was a shock, I can tell you. I’d gone cold with fear in case it was criminals come to do the
joint over. I called out, ‘Hello? Hello?’ Then the back door banged and there was another thump, like someone slamming a cupboard or a drawer. Straight after that the radio came on. I
thought, what kind of burglar likes to listen to Radio 2 while he goes about his ransacking?

I’d taken a deep breath and grasped my keys so they poked out of my fist, street-weapon style. But when I marched into the kitchen, all ready for a fight, what I found was my sister
sitting calmly at the breakfast bar, drinking a cup of tea. ‘What are you doing?’ I’d said. ‘What are
you
doing?’ she’d replied. I said, ‘I
vomited over my boss’s shoes. What’s your excuse?’ ‘Headache,’ she said, ‘there’s obviously a bug going round.’ Embarrassment was flashing over her
head like a neon sign. She didn’t know where to put herself.

I said, ‘Helen, whose voice did I hear just now?’

She shrugged. ‘Jeremy Vine.’

I said, ‘It wasn’t. It was too deep for that.’

She said, ‘He was interviewing some bloke about wheel clamping regulations.’

I said, ‘Who went out of the back door?’

And she said, ‘No one. I was . . . shooing a cat off Mum’s flower bed.’

I pointed to the cup in the sink and said, ‘And whose mug is that?’

And she said, ‘It’s one I made when I first came in – so I could take my tablets. Haven’t got round to washing it up yet.’

She tried, but she was struggling. Not only was her colour high, I noticed she was also wearing mascara and lipstick, which she never normally does for work.
Liar
was written all over
her.

‘Where’s your car?’

‘I had to park round the corner. There was a delivery van blocking our drive.’

There and then I wanted to run outside and check the street, even if it meant I might catch, oh God, Joe’s flash Audi disappearing round the corner. More than that, I wanted to shout at
her to stop being so ridiculous and at least credit me with some intelligence, after what I’d done to help her.

And yet at first I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to challenge her, couldn’t make myself ask, Who was it, Hel? Was it Joe? Did you arrange to see him when you thought the
rest of us would be out? Did you get in touch with him after I told you about his wife? How many times have you met him? What are you doing? What are you
doing?

Instead I blurted, ‘How’s Pepper?’

She blinked, cleared her throat. ‘Oh. Great. Yeah. He’s in with a litter of labs and getting along well. We might even have found a home for him, although he’s too young to go
yet. Next month, probably. Mid-Feb. Did you really puke over Rosa’s shoes?’

‘Nearly. Next time I’ll aim better.’

We were both pretty rattled. Immediately after, she’d taken her coffee away to drink upstairs, leaving me in the kitchen alone, but before she went she’d cast me a long, unhappy
look.

‘I’m sorry, Jen.’

‘Is it him?’ She knew who I meant.

‘No.’

‘Come on, I’m your sister. We can talk to each other. I could help.’

‘No.’ Then: ‘It’s not like you think. I want to tell you . . . I will do. Soon.’

I thought of the hours she and I had spent these last months building up our friendship. She’d played me for a fool. And I thought of Ned, so trusting, so honest. He had no idea what she
was up to. Something in my heart hardened over.

‘Yeah? Well, maybe I don’t want to hear any more,’ I said. She’d winced. I didn’t care if I hurt her.

When she’d gone I couldn’t resist going over to the sink to touch the mug that sat there. It was still warm, as I knew it would be.

And now the incident sat between us like a grenade and I was finding it hard to focus on anything else. Mum would speak to me and I could see her lips moving, but I had no idea what she was
saying. Dad was barely around anyway. Ned I just avoided. I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as my sister. Even outside the family – here in this overheated office, with the hail
spitting against the glass next to me and Alan’s stupid bloody ring tone going off every five minutes – nothing made sense. I’d be reading reports and instructions, and my eyes
would slide down the page without any understanding. On the desk in front of me was a list of jobs I needed to get through within the next forty-eight hours:

email new recording studio manager and set up interview

write copy for spring fashion feature

compile top 10 healthy-eating tips for part 3 of New Year New You pull-out

track down who at the council responsible for flood management

There my notes sat. I couldn’t lift a finger to deal with any of them. Alan answered his phone by going, ‘Y ’ello!’ and I wanted to march over and thump him.

Into the corner of my vision swam Rosa, a vision in lime green. She stood in front of me so there was no avoiding her bulk.

‘Are you not better yet, Jennifer?’ She made it sound as if I were being deliberately obstructive.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t sound fine. You sound like a frog.’

Whereas you look like one
, I nearly said. ‘I’ve a sore throat, that’s all.’

‘Have you been sick again?’

‘No.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

‘No!’

My cheeks grew hot with outrage as she carried on peering at me. I knew Alan’s ears would be pricked, and Tam had just walked in and was unloading her camera bag.

‘If you say so.’

‘It’s a
bug
, Rosa.’

‘Stay away from me, then, and make sure you wash your cup separately. We don’t want your infection spreading about. I have a charity gala at Cholmondeley Castle this
Saturday.’

Oh, sod off, you social climbing old trout. Go bother someone who’s actually interested.

She leant over my desk, frowning at my notes. ‘What have you got on this afternoon?’

‘Two lifestyle articles. A couple of appointments to set up.’

‘So, nothing pressing. Right, then, I think we’ll send you out to Bankburn.’

‘Why? What’s there?’ Bankburn was a scrap of a hamlet about halfway between Chester and home, bypassed by a fast stretch of dual carriageway. My understanding was that nothing
in the history of all world news had happened there ever.

‘Asda-baby.’ She was turning away from me as she spoke. ‘Saturday afternoon. Mum goes into labour in the deli section, no time for an ambulance, staff step into the
breach.’

‘God. I hadn’t heard about that. Was it OK? What did she have?’

‘Girl, I think. The story only came in this morning. We’ve got photos but we need some quotes from the mother.’

‘Can’t you just ring her?’

‘We’ve tried but the number’s unobtainable.
Someone
must have taken it down incorrectly.’

I racked my brains: no, not my fault, for once. I hadn’t been near the phones today. I didn’t know anything about this woman and her supermarket delivery. ‘You want me to go
out and do an interview, then?’

‘That’s what I said.’

So you’d rather I passed my germs onto a newborn than to you? Nice one, Rosa.
‘OK. You’d better give me the address.’

I scribbled down the instructions while Alan’s phone blared out its arrogant, jaunty tune once more. It was so asking to be dropped down a toilet.

‘Oh,’ she finished as I picked my coat off the hook, ‘you can email me the piece from home, if you like. Or file it tomorrow. There’s no need for you to come back to the
office afterwards.’

I slipped out of the door before she could change her mind. I suppose I should have been grateful.

Surprise-baby lived down a farm track rutted and waterlogged and in serious need of resurfacing. The cottage itself was like a lot of them round here: picturesque from a
distance but, when you got closer, a mess. This one had a jagged crack down the end brick wall and a wonky roof line that spoke of subsidence. The fence bordering the garden was broken, the lawn
all molehills, and a busted pallet lay by the front steps.

Inside wasn’t much better. The mother led me into a small lounge heated by a portable electric fire, and invited me to sit. My armchair looked as if it well pre-dated the use of
flame-retardant materials, and the fabric was faded down one side where it had been in the sun. Under my feet the cheap corded carpet was lumpy and worn. Air freshener couldn’t disguise the
smell of damp.

While I watched the baby sleep in its Moses basket on the sofa, mum made herself coffee in a kitchen not much larger than a walk-in cupboard. On the table at my elbow sat an open bread bag and a
bottle of Coke: her lunch, maybe. It was a poor place. I was glad Rosa hadn’t come out here. She wouldn’t have been able to disguise her scorn.

The mother, however, didn’t seem anything other than happy and tired. A year younger than me, she was fair skinned with invisible lashes, a generous mouth and wide, plump hips. She sat
across from me and spoke with matter-of-fact pride about her baby’s swift arrival and the commotion it had caused. The manager hadn’t known what to do – he was only a boy, she
said – but the elderly woman from the deli counter had blocked off the aisle, rigged up a screen using clothes rails, and then got down on the floor with her to help steer the baby out.
Afterwards no one had known whether to cut the cord or not, and there’d almost been an argument. In the end they’d left it for the paramedics, which turned out to be the right thing to
do. She’d worried in case they made her pay for loss of earnings or something, but when she got out of hospital there’d been a basket of fruit and toiletries waiting for her from the
store and a card signed by everyone. Wasn’t that nice? Her husband reckoned there was at least a hundred quid’s worth.

I was out of my depth when it came to childbirth stories, but I at least knew the questions I should ask about timings and pain relief and the weight of the newborn, and I remembered to peep
(from a germ-safe distance) into the basket and admire. She somehow made me feel immature next to her own capable life, this woman with her mouldy windowsills and tatty furniture.
No,
Rosa
, I thought.
I very much wasn’t pregnant, and nor was I likely to be at any time in the near future given that I didn’t have a boyfriend because he’d dumped me three
months ago.
And if I ever did have a baby of my own, would I manage her as calmly as this mother did, scooping her up out of the crib with firm, meaty arms, blouse unbuttoned deftly for
breastfeeding?

Just then there was a knock at the front door. I got up to answer, because mum had her hands full, and found on the doorstep an infant girl dressed in school uniform and with a book bag under
her arm. She turned to wave to a knackered old Fiesta before coming inside.

‘Oh,’ I said to the mother. ‘Yours?’

She nodded. So there was an older sister. Bloody hell. I’d just assumed Asda-baby was her first. Rookie error! Rosa would have chewed me up for such an omission, and rightly so. But I
wasn’t myself today.

‘And how old are you?’ I asked, trying to recover some ground.

‘Six,’ she said, dropping her bag on the cluttered table and coming to sit on the sofa by her mum.

‘You’ve been at school?’

‘Yeah.’

Six. That must mean her mum had her at sixteen, maybe got caught at fifteen. Wow. What petty crap had I been fretting over when I was that age?

‘And what did you do in class today?’

A shrug. ‘Can I have some milk?’

Her mother sighed.

‘I’ll get it for her,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll go. The kitchen’s a mess.’

As if the rest of the house wasn’t. She laid the baby back in its basket where, luckily, it seemed satisfied to be, and heaved herself up. This left me and the girl eyeing each other. She
swung her legs, waiting.

I said, ‘What do you think of your little sister, then?’

She pulled an exaggeratedly thoughtful face. ‘She’s going to be my friend. Because I’m older, I’ll teach her things and show her what to do. And I need to look after her
and make sure she doesn’t be silly. And I’ll put my toys on a high, high shelf so she can’t reach them. I won’t let her eat buttons. And if she’s naughty I can tell
her off. A bit. Not smack her, though. No smacking.’

‘Cool. What did you think about her being born in the supermarket?’

‘And I get to have a rabbit on my birthday.’

‘Yeah? My sister had a guinea pig. It squeaked like a demon.’