Dinner at Rose's (20 page)

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said, bewildered, and Cilla burst into tears.

‘Hey,’ I said, seeing as Matt showed no signs of imminent speech, ‘I was just checking his dislocated shoulder, Cilla.’

‘All night?’ she spat at me, tears rolling down her cheeks.

‘Huh?’ Matt asked.

‘Y-your ute was here
all last night
,’ she wept. ‘I’m not
stupid
.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘I lent it to Jo so she could go and pick up her gear from her flat in town.’

‘But you n-never answered your phone . . .’

‘You knew I was watching the rugby at Scott’s,’ he said. He was looking embarrassed and annoyed rather than conciliatory – Matt the Sensitive New Age Guy would rather have his teeth pulled than discuss relationship stuff in public.

Cilla snivelled gently. ‘You didn’t answer your mobile either.’

‘Left it on the tractor when I fed out yesterday.’

‘Oh,’ she said in a very small voice. ‘S-sorry.’ She came across the kitchen and rested a little pink cheek on the top of his head.

Matt patted her on the back in a half-ashamed fashion that reminded me of my father’s approach to female emotion, and stood up. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll just go and see if Rose is awake, and then we’ll head off.’

‘Okay,’ Cilla whispered.

Left alone with her there appeared to be no possible subject for conversation. I sat down at the table and pulled the crossword puzzle towards me, and after a minute or so of dense uncomfortable silence she murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said coolly. The ‘With
her
’ still rankled.

‘It’s just – he spends so much time here, and you know each other so well . . .’

‘We’re just friends,’ I said. ‘Probably more like brother and sister than anything else. We fought like cats and dogs when we were kids.’

Matt reappeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Rose is still asleep,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Bye,’ said Cilla sweetly to me.

He followed her across the kitchen, pausing at the door to pull on his work boots. ‘’Night, Jose,’ he said.

I could hear the crunch of their feet across the gravel and Cilla’s voice asking with professional-sounding interest, ‘How was the quality of those last couple of silage bales? I thought they looked a bit wet.’

I got the macaroni cheese out of the oven, spooned some into a bowl and sat down at the table to let it go cold again while I tortured myself with pointless recollections.

Pointless recollections

We were lying facing one another on our sides, not talking, and my eyes had drifted closed. I was nearly asleep when Matt reached out and stroked the hair back off my face to tuck it very gently behind my ear, and I opened my eyes and looked at him in the muted orange glow of the streetlight outside the window.

‘Sorry,’ he murmured.

‘For what?’

‘Waking you up.’

‘You didn’t. Anyway, sleeping’s a waste.’

He smiled crookedly. ‘Jo, my friend, I have a feeling you’re going to be hard to get over.’

‘Really?’ I asked, ridiculously pleased.

‘Oh, hell yes,’ he said, sliding a hand down my back and pulling me up against him.

‘So are you.’ I could feel him breathing in and out and his skin was very warm against mine. ‘This may not have been the smartest idea.’

He sighed. ‘No.’

There was a longish pause, and then I said slowly, ‘Maybe it’s best you’re going away. It would be so awful to have it turn to custard.’

‘You’re going to want to watch this wild optimism, Jose.’

‘I mean – you have to go, and I have to stay here, and it’s nobody’s fault so there are no hard feelings.’ I sat up and looked down at him. ‘And maybe the next time we see each other the . . .’ I paused, searching for the right words, and borrowed a phrase from Aunty Rose, ‘the circumstances will be more auspicious.’

‘Maybe.’ He ran a fingertip very lightly down the side of my left breast. ‘You’ve filled out very nicely, by the way.’

‘You too,’ I said, and he pulled me down on top of him, and we didn’t talk anymore.

Chapter 19

P
ERCY HAD SHRUNK
to the size of a chihuahua and was perched on the kitchen table watching me make a bacon and egg pie. I was trying to be surreptitious about the bacon but I could tell he’d noticed, which made conversation somewhat awkward.

‘Put in some of those olives,’ Aunty Rose called from the next room. ‘Graeme likes olives.’

‘But Chrissie doesn’t,’ I answered as the oven timer went off.

It shrilled and shrilled – and after some time I realised it sounded more like the phone. It must be Graeme to say they were running late. There was a creak as Aunty Rose’s bedroom door opened and then the sound of her footsteps hurrying past the Pink Room.

‘Hello?’ she said breathlessly.

By now I had managed to fight my way up to semi-consciousness and realised there was no oven timer, no Percy, no pie and – thank Saint Peter and all the Apostles – no Graeme and Chrissie. I rolled out of bed and stumbled out into the hall.

Aunty Rose, hairless and swathed in folds of white nightie, had reached the phone. She looked impressively ghoulish in the wavering light of the forty-watt bulb that dangled on a long flex above her head.

‘Slow down,’ she ordered. ‘Where are you?’ There was a pause as she listened. ‘Sweet pea, calm down. She’s just here, I’ll put her on – it’s
alright
, Kim.’ She held out the phone to me, her face creased with concern.

I took the phone, shivering despite flannelette pyjamas and two pairs of socks. Aunty Rose’s hall couldn’t have been draughtier if it had been designed specifically as a wind tunnel.

‘J-Josie,’ Kim wept. ‘Oh, J-Jo, I’m s-sorry, I –’

I could hardly make out the words – her breath was catching in little hysterical gasps and the music in the background was insanely loud. Some parent was going to be unhappy tomorrow when they discovered that the speakers of their stereo had blown out.

‘Kim!’ I roared over the din. ‘It’s
alright
. Where are you? I’ll come and get you, it’s okay.’

‘I – I shouldn’t b-be here, I –’

She said something else, I think, but at that point a thunderous drum solo broke out. Yep, those speakers were definitely going to be toast.

‘It doesn’t matter. Just tell me where you are, hon, and I’ll come and get you.’

‘J-Jonno brought me,’ she gasped. ‘But he . . . he –’ At that point she lost it entirely and sobbed.

I always thought I was pretty easygoing, but I was abruptly filled with murderous, blazing fury. I was going to
flay
that little prick when I caught up with him. ‘
Kim!
Where
are
you?’

There was a brief scuffle at the other end of the line and I had a horrendous vision of Kim being attacked by multiple drunken youths. But then a different voice said, ‘Hey, Jo, it’s Andy here.’

I sagged with relief. ‘Andy! What on earth is going on?’

‘She’s a bit upset,’ said Andy unnecessarily. ‘I don’t think her mum knows she’s here, and she’s had too much to drink.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Well, except that she’s going to throw up any minute – yep. There she goes. Spewing like a maggot.’

Hopefully all over Jonno’s guitar, which apparently was worth more than my car.

‘Can you keep an eye on her until I get there?’ I asked.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Andy cheerfully. ‘I’ll take her home. It’s a bloody awful party.’

‘Are you okay to drive?’

‘Been on ginger beer all night,’ he said. ‘Here, you’d better tell her I’m not a serial killer.’ Over the background din – by the sound of it someone was now doing shots, spurred on by the crowd – I heard him say kindly, ‘Finished chundering? Talk to Jo again – you’ll be right.’

‘Andy’s going to bring you home, okay?’ I shouted. ‘He’ll look after you. He’s a friend of mine.’

‘Not home!’ said Kim hysterically. ‘Josie! Not h-home . . .’

‘
Okay
, Kim. Here. Aunty Rose’s.’

‘And you c-can’t tell Matt!’

I was surprised at the panic in her voice. Her brother wasn’t going to be thrilled about this evening’s performance but he’s really not that scary. ‘Okay. Okay, just go with Andy.’

Aunty Rose, her nightie billowing in the draught, stalked into the kitchen and bent to throw another log into the stove. ‘I suppose we should be thankful that she called,’ she said.

I made a little trip back down the hall for Aunty Rose’s dressing-gown, the orange hat and a pair of woolly socks. Re-entering the kitchen I passed them over and switched on the kettle. ‘And I think Jonno’s going to be a thing of the past, which can only be good.’

‘What did he do?’

I shook my head. ‘No idea. Probably took her there and then went off with someone else. Poor Kim.’

Ten minutes later we heard the snarl of Andy’s company car climbing the hill. It woke the dogs from a sound sleep and they began to bark hysterically.

Aunty Rose pulled the door open and shouted into the frosty darkness, ‘That’s enough!’

It was a very small and bedraggled Kim who crept into her aunt’s kitchen. She was wearing another knee-length T-shirt over her jeans, her eyes were pink and swollen and the makeup had run so she looked like an unhappy raccoon.

‘I’m cold,’ she whispered, sinking onto the chaise longue and resting her head against its velvet back.

‘You’ll be better after a cup of tea,’ said Aunty Rose. ‘Would you like one, young man?’

Andy had paused uncomfortably in the doorway. ‘Um,’ he said, ‘yes, please. Hey, Jo.’

‘Hey.’ I went across the room and kissed his cheek, which made him look even more uncomfortable. ‘Thank you.’

‘Pleasure.’ He looked doubtfully at his hostess in her woolly hat and crimson satin dressing-gown. ‘Look, I should get out of your hair.’

‘What hair?’ said Aunty Rose briskly. ‘Sit down – you’re making the place look untidy. Now, Josephine, what did you do with that rather more-ish sticky chocolate thing?’

At the mention of something sticky and chocolate Kim groaned.

‘Serves you right,’ I told her.

‘Really, Kim, why anyone would
choose
to feel nauseous is beyond me,’ Aunty Rose remarked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered piteously. ‘Aunty Rose, I’m sorry.’

‘When
I
was your age,’ said Aunty Rose, ‘we nursing students used to place intravenous catheters and tape them in before we went out on the ran-tan. And then when we got home we would run in a litre of saline before bed – marvellous hangover prevention.’

‘Awesome,’ said Andy.

‘It backfired once. The cap came off my catheter and I bled all over someone’s carpet. It looked like the scene of an axe murder.’ She smiled nostalgically, and then looked at her niece, her expression stern. ‘However, even if I had a catheter, I haven’t put one in for twenty years, so you’d better drink a litre of water and take two paracetamol.’

Kim curled herself into a miserable ball and sobbed gently.
Good
, I thought, pouring cups of tea, but Andy went and sat beside her.

‘Hey,’ he said gently, ‘you’re okay. No-one’s mad at you.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ I said, and received a very reproachful look.

‘Don’t listen to Jo,’ said Andy. ‘I’ve seen her so drunk she could hardly stand up, teaching people the mamba.’

That treacherous rat-fink –
he
couldn’t talk. That was the evening of the gin and chocolate milk, and he had demonstrated his own special interpretation of River-dance, which had ended when he fell over a chair.

‘Mam
bo
,’ I corrected him. ‘The mam
ba
being a type of snake.’

‘Whatever,’ said Andy. ‘The point is that you do dumb things too.’

‘Be that as it may,’ said Aunty Rose, ‘Josephine is neither eighteen years old nor sneaking off to a party without telling her mother where she is.’

‘I keep saying I’m sorry,’ Kim muttered.

‘Where does your mother think you are?’

‘Rachel’s. Are – are you going to tell her?’

Aunty Rose sighed. ‘I expect not,’ she said. ‘Although I should.’ She accepted her tea. ‘Thank you, Josephine.’

‘And
please
don’t tell Matt.’

Outside the dogs began their welcome chorus – they were having a busy night. I passed Kim a mug and said, ‘You can tell him yourself.’

Matt’s ute gave its characteristic unhealthy splutter as it stopped. Kim jumped about a foot and burst into fresh tears, slopping tea over her jeans.

‘Asked you not to go to this party, huh?’ I said.

‘Y-yes . . .’ The tea wobbled again and Andy sensibly took it out of her hand.

‘Oh,
Kim
,’ sighed Aunty Rose.

Matt opened the kitchen door and stared at his sister. His hair was rumpled from sleep, his sweatshirt on inside out and his lips folded in a grim line. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him angrier; not even on the terrible day I dropped his new fishing reel and filled its delicate innards with sand.

‘You’re alive, then,’ he snapped.

‘Matt, I didn’t mean to,’ she whispered.

‘You didn’t mean to be at a party you promised me you wouldn’t go to, where you threw up all over Brian Mallard and then pissed off with some random bloke?’