Growing Up Twice (46 page)

‘Don’t you dare say that! You must never say that. It’s not your fault. None of us knows what’s going to happen around the corner, none of us. We just hope and pray it’s not going to be something horrific. Dreadful things happen to ordinary people all of the time. Out of the blue.’ She bites a chocolate biscuit in two and then throws half to Horatio who makes it disappear in an instant.

‘What a fucking few weeks, hey?’ She bites another biscuit in half, making Horatio’s day. ‘I mean, first of all I’m knocked up with my ex’s baby, who is no longer my ex, then you have a secret affair with a teenager. Selin plans a secret wedding, well, not that it’s a secret any more. In fact, after helping her write out the invitations the other day I can safely say that the marquee will be visible from the moon. And I tell you what, if she manages to get us into those fuchsia bridesmaids’ dresses she’s got her eye on, we will be too.’ She pauses and looks into her mug of tea. ‘And there’s Ayla. And there’s you.’

I shudder as if someone has walked over my grave.

‘Can you believe,’ she continues, ‘that it was only a couple of months ago that we were all sat in Soho Square just like always, moaning about how nothing ever happens? So much has changed. None of us saw any of it coming. But you made it out, mate, that’s the main thing. You didn’t let him win. You should be proud.’

I sigh heavily. I want to tell her the truth. ‘The thing is, Rosie, just at the point that the police came through that door, no, just before it, I had stopped fighting. I didn’t care what he did to me at that point. I would have let him do what he wanted. I just wanted to stay alive. I just fucking gave up.’ Something from somewhere – shame, horror, fear – overwhelms me. Rosie wraps her arms around me and I sob into her hair. Horatio pushes his head into my lap and leans against my legs in solidarity. I let myself cry.

Eventually I find I am quiet. Rosie looks at me. Her own mascara has run onto her cheeks.

‘You know everything makes me cry,’ she says quietly. ‘You are seeing a counsellor, aren’t you?’

‘I’m supposed to. I don’t know if I want to.’

She looks at me with annoyance and reaches for another biscuit. All of them and the dog have disappeared.

‘Jenny Greenway, if you cut off your nose to spite your face, don’t come running to me when you wake up in fifty years’ time and find out that you can’t smell the roses, or something.’ I laugh at her practice maternal tone. ‘Seriously though, give it a try, OK? If it’s awful we’ll think of something else to help you. Yoga maybe, or ballroom dancing. OK?’

‘OK,’ I say reluctantly, spurred on by the prospect of being bullied into activities even worse than therapy.

‘Promise?’

‘Promise, Mum-to-be.’

She nods with satisfaction and pats her bump.

‘When are you coming back?’ She asks the question I have so far managed to avoid.

‘Um, well, I’m not sure. I think Mum needs to look after me for a bit and––’

‘Yeah, yeah sure, for a bit but it’s your birthday in …’ she does a quick calculation, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, ‘… Sixteen days. And you’re going to be thirty.’

‘I know that, thanks, Rose.’ Thirty.

‘Well, that’s over two weeks away. Your mum can look after you, you can start the counselling, and then you can come back to London and we can all go out and have a big party for your birthday. Cool. You’re the first to go over the hill, so to speak, so we have to mark it in style. And you owe it to the rest of us to let us see what it looks like. This thirty business.’

I frown and punch her in the arm.

‘Hitting a pregnant woman,’ she says ‘Nice. Oh, before I forget, here’s your post.’ She passes me a couple of bills and two long cream envelopes, which when opened reveal that I’m welcome to work experience at both
Time Out
and the
Hackney Gazette
. I just need to call and arrange dates. It’s funny how the future turns up just when you least want to see it.

‘I’ll see,’ I say, tucking the letters behind a cushion.

Exasperated now, Rosie leaps to her feet and stands over me. ‘Were those letters what I think they were? They were, weren’t they? You are going to call them, aren’t you?’ I press my lips together and look out of the window. ‘You don’t see it, do you? Now look, you didn’t let Owen win without a fight that night, you were the one who got through to Josh, you were the one who kept Owen talking, you were the one who kept things calm right until the last minute. So what if help turned up seconds after you could see no way out. You made it happen so that it did turn up. You beat him that night, Jenny, but if you don’t get back your old life, or create yourself a new life, if you don’t take chances like those ones you’ve just stuffed down the side of the sofa, he
will
have beaten you. For good. And anyway, we all need a good night out, God-damn-it!’

I sigh, fish the letters back out from behind the cushion and read them again. I’m tired, my legs drag with tension and sleepless nights, my chest is heavy with hurt and my jaw aches. But she’s right. Before this happened I had turned a corner, I was making progress in the world, for the first time in my adult life I could see the way ahead. I don’t want to give Owen the satisfaction of pulling me back and keeping me down. I’m alive, I’m untouched. I don’t expect it to be as easy as just making up my mind to get over it but I’m going to try and make it, I am not going to give up now.

‘OK, OK. I’ll be back by then,’ I say to Rosie with determination.

‘OK, then. Good.’ She nods and sits down again and hugs me.

‘You know what I’ve been thinking, about everything that’s happened?’

I hesitate to ask, but I don’t feel I can politely change the subject.

‘It’s like everything that’s happened has been like that thing, you know.’

I shake my head, mystified. ‘What thing?’ I ask her. I see her pregnancy short-term-memory problem hasn’t improved any.

‘Like, that
thing
that we were going to have when we went away to the country that time to find ourselves. Like the dead barmaid from
EastEnders.
What was her name? Tiffany.’

It all becomes clear. ‘You mean an
epiphany
!’ I say, laughing out loud. Only Rosie.

‘That’s it, epiphany. Exactly. I’m not a religious person, but well, I do think that things happen for a reason. Lots of people let their life slip by without realising how precious and rare it is. I don’t think any of us will make that mistake again. Do you?’

That certainly is one thing I can agree with wholeheartedly.

‘No, I don’t think we will. You’re completely barking, but you’re right. We owe it to Ayla, to that baby in there and to ourselves to do our best.’

‘Yeah, right on, sister.’

I link my arm through hers and rest my head on her shoulder.

‘There’s just one thing that worries me about going out for my birthday,’ I say to her, quietly.

‘What’s that, honey-bun?’ she asks me sweetly.

‘I’ve got sod all to wear.’

Well, it could seem a little over the top for a Tuesday night in Stoke Newington but here I am in the Vortex Jazz Café dressed in an ankle-length deep red velvet strapless sheath dress topped off with a pair of long black velvet gloves trimmed with feathers. It
could
seem a little over the top but Selin and Rosie were so determined to dress us all up to the nines that it didn’t seem fair not to join in, especially as both of them are decked out in sequins and glitter in my honour, with silk flowers in their hair, and let’s face it, I’ve never needed that much persuasion to go glam. Even the boys – Josh, Dan, Adem and Chris – have made an effort. Some ancient seventies DJ over black jeans and a pink ruffled dress shirt in Josh’s case, but he still looks pretty cool. Pretty cute too.

I’ve watched Chris and Rosie together all day. He handles her like cut glass. Sometimes they just look at each other and smile, as if to say, ‘Everything is going to be fine.’ I think they are both scared, but even I have to admit there is love there. I let the ghost of my own history slip away and looking at them with fresh eyes I see hope in their future.

I’m thirty. I’ve been thirty all day. So far, it doesn’t seem to be too bad. There was no spontaneous growth of white hair out of the top of my head; no instant eruption of crow’s-feet around my eyes and my breasts didn’t take an irresistible tumble to meet my toes. The relief that flooded through me when I looked in the mirror this morning made me realise I had been waiting for the big day just as the whole world had worried about Millennium Eve. As it turns out, the world hasn’t ended and it was in danger of becoming a bit of an anticlimax as far as landmark events go, or at least it
would
have been if my friends hadn’t arranged this evening for me.

Apparently the venue was Josh’s idea. He’s got a friend in tonight’s act, a rhythm-and-blues soul band complete with a horn section and the most fantastically talented voiced female singer called Coco. His friend, Jake the Lung as he seems to be known, who plays trumpet, told him about a local gig and it turns out it was on my birthday. What a happy coincidence.

‘I thought it’d make a nice change from the usual clubbing palaver and this way Rosie can get a seat and even Adem might enjoy it. More his sort of era really,’ Josh told me when they announced what they were planning. We’d giggled until Selin’s icy stare silenced us, but really one of the things I like best about Adem is that he knows more about the music I love than I do.

The place is packed for a weeknight, and the atmosphere is great. The music is top class, the singer is wonderful and the feeling of Josh’s eyes on the back of my neck sends tingles of anticipation up and down my spine. Good times.

Selin slides into a seat next to me. ‘Having a good time, darling?’ she asks, pouring more champagne into my glass.

‘Yeah, really good thanks, this is just what I needed: a good old razzle-dazzle night out dressed up like a film star. Everyone else in here must think we’re barking. Hey, go easy there with that champagne. I don’t want to get too ratted too soon.’

Selin smiles to herself. ‘Just a bit of Dutch courage, that’s all,’ she says as she tops up her own glass. ‘If you don’t need it I sure as hell do.’ She knocks back a glass in one.

‘Dutch courage, for me? I don’t need it. I feel fine now really, right back on track.’ Sweet of her to think that I might be feeling nervous about tonight.

She wrinkles up her nose as the champagne bubbles fizz, and suppresses a giggle. ‘I know, so listen, you’ve got an interview for your course next week?’

I nod. ‘Yeah, and my work experience sorted out. And I had my second driving lesson yesterday and the instructor looked much less frightened this time.’

She circles her arms around my neck and looks into my eyes. ‘I’m so proud of you, you know that don’t you?’

Seeing a bonding moment from across the table Rosie comes to join in. ‘And me, I’m proud of you too,’ she says, keen not to be left out.

‘Well thanks, I’m proud of both of you.’ And I can’t stop it, I find myself saying, ‘I love you guys. I really do.’ We all laugh ironically, but we all secretly mean it.

‘After tonight, let’s make sure we never keep
anything
from each other ever again, OK? It’s just not worth the hassle. OK?’ Selin says.

‘Sure, starting from now, I agree. I don’t know why I ever did,’ I say.

Rosie and Selin look at each other. ‘After
tonight
then, no more secrets.’

We break our hug and I sink back into my chair, nodding my head in time to a funky rendition of ‘Nowhere to Run To’. I find my glass being filled once more by Josh as he leans his mouth close to my ear and I smile.

‘Are you having a good time?’ he asks softly.

I turn in my chair to face him and take his hand. ‘The best, this is exactly what I need. Thank you for organising this, Josh.’

His smile makes my heart jump and before I can think about what I’m doing I take his face in my hands and kiss him. The brass section soars into a frenzied middle eight and the air vibrates with feel-good music; my body feels suddenly supercharged with unparallelled joy and lust. We break apart, heady with the sensation of each other, the heat and the music. I lick my lips, enjoying the taste of him. I look around to gauge the reaction of the girls but they are both absent, group trip to the ladies’, I expect.

‘I’m so glad you did that now,’ he says, with a wry grin.

‘Well, it seemed like the right time, after all this time. It seems perfect.’ I smile into his eyes with blissful certainty.

He’s suddenly looking a bit shifty, what’s going on? Has he changed his mind? He takes my hand and kisses my fingertips. He hasn’t changed his mind?

‘It is perfect and if I survive this evening I can’t wait to get you home and make it even more perfect. But what I mean is, I’m so glad you kissed me now because in about two minutes or so you’re more likely going to want to kill me.’

I shake my head and laugh at him. ‘What
are
you talking about?’

He nods at the stage and as I turn, the familiar intro to ‘Respect’ fills the room with a burst of frenetic musical energy.

‘
Oh
, you got me a request!’ I say over my shoulder to him. ‘That’s really sweet.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Coco says into the microphone, as she steps off the stage and in amongst the tables, and the introduction loops back and forth in a rhythmic riff, ‘we often have birthday requests, but this one’s a little bit special.’ I smile at Josh as she weaves her way towards us. I have never seen him look so nervous. What
is
he so stressed about?

‘Because tonight I’m not going to be the one to sing the request to you, oh no.’ The crowd responds with a drunken cheer as Coco arrives at my side. The spotlight illuminates our table.

Chris, Dan and Adem are lost in a helpless fit of giggles.

‘Re, re, re, re, re, re respect!’ The backing singers kick in, sounding a bit ropey, to be honest. Where
are
Rosie and Selin?

‘Oh, just a little bit, Oh, just a little bit. Re, re, re, re, re, re, re, re respect!’ I look at the stage.