Hurry Up and Wait Page 7

  Dante shrugged, throwing his arm across his brow, closing her out with his eyelids. ‘In a bit.’

  ‘Forget it,’ she muttered angrily, her hand on the wooden door.

  Dante’s eyes remained fixed on the panels above, and, unable to bear his silence a moment longer, Sarah strode out into the cold November night, leaving the hut door to flap and crash in the wind. As she reached the top of the black beach, she could still see the dim light from the hut, and no sign of Dante rushing after her…

  She lies on the sagging sofa, thinking about her mother. What would she make of all this? Sarah has no living memory of her, nothing to go on but the little black and white photograph at the top of the stairs. She swings her legs off the sofa, waking Ted, who claws at her ribs in his surprise. He follows her up the staircase and sits at her feet as she takes the photograph from the wall and holds it close to her face.

  ‘What would you do?’ she asks the face in the frame.

  The grainy portrait gazes back at her, still and indistinct. She wipes the dust from the picture and returns it to the wall.

  By the time Kate’s party comes round, Dante and Sarah still haven’t made up. She knows he’s avoiding her because she hasn’t seen him on the way to and from school, and there’s no sign that he’s been back to the hut since last week. The phone rang earlier, just as she was getting home from work, but by the time she’d got the door open and sprinted up the hall it had rung off. Maybe it was him.

  Her father insists on driving her to the bonfire party. It’s a still, black night; perfect for fireworks. The car chugs along as Sarah quietly fumes, feeling irritable and embarrassed about being chaperoned. Sometimes he behaves as though she’s nine or ten.

  ‘It’s not you I don’t trust; it’s other people,’ he says as they turn into Kate’s cul-de-sac on the new Amber Chalks housing estate.

  ‘Not everyone is a rapist or murderer, Dad. I’d have been just as safe if I’d cycled.’

  ‘Well,’ he replies, squinting through the cloudy windscreen as if he’s got a nasty smell up his nose, ‘better safe than sorry.’

  She persuades him to drop her at the pavement outside the house, rather than walking her to the door as he’d like to.

  It’s a large modern building on a large modern estate, with a big grassy play area opposite the house. Kate once told her that they got the biggest garden in the street, because of her dad’s job at the estate agent’s. ‘Perks of the job,’ she said. Sarah notices all the shiny new cars parked in the neat driveways along the road.

  ‘Bloody Wimpey,’ mutters Dad.

  ‘What?’ Sarah’s wrestling with the seatbelt, which is caught up between the seats.

  ‘Wimpey homes. A blot on the landscape. Look at them. Little boxes.’ He breaks into song. ‘And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky. And they all look just the same.’

  ‘Don’t be such a snob, Dad!’ hisses Sarah. ‘God!’

  ‘I’m not being a snob,’ he replies, releasing Sarah’s seatbelt with a simple click. ‘I’m an aesthete. Which is an entirely different thing altogether.’ He pushes his tweed hat back on his head and puckers up for a kiss.

  Sarah growls, throwing open the door of the old Citroën and dragging her bag over from the back seat. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  When she slams the car door, flakes of rust scatter on to the road.

  Dad calls out through the closed window. ‘Mind the Dyane! She’s a collector’s piece!’

  Sarah turns and walks up the path, hoping that they can’t hear him from inside Kate’s house.

  ‘What time will you be back tomorrow?’ calls Dad, leaning across and jerkily rolling down the passenger window.

  ‘I don’t know! By lunchtime.’ She scowls as he winds the window back up. ‘Go!’ she mouths at him, and she stands in Kate’s front path until the rust-bucket disappears around the corner and out of view. ‘Idiot.’

  The front doorbell plays a tinny version of Big Ben, which Sarah can hear ringing out in Kate’s hallway when she pushes the little plastic button. The light above the entrance is bright white, and Sarah feels small and exposed as she waits for Kate to answer. She can faintly hear the sound of canned laughter through the door; perhaps they’re all in the living room watching TV. Voices drift from the back of the house, and she wonders if she should just go around the side gate. But she’s never visited before, so it might be rude. Just as she’s about to press the bell again, the door opens and it’s Jason, Kate’s dad, looking as if he’s on his way out.

  ‘Jesus! Sorry, Sarah. I didn’t expect to see you there. Come on in!’ He steps back to let her through, fastening the buttons of his jacket with leather-gloved hands.

  The hallway is small and light and comfortable, with soft carpet underfoot. Sarah shudders inwardly as she recalls Kate poking around in her own crummy hallway, with its ancient patterned carpet and woodchip walls. Kate’s home is clean and new. No ghosts here.

  ‘Right! I’m off to the Co-op to pick up some more Coke and crisps. Apparently we don’t have enough. According to Princess Kate, that is.’ He winks at Sarah, as if it’s their little secret.

  Sarah feels the creep of heat rising up her neck. ‘Um,’ she says, gesturing towards the stairs.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Sorry, sweetie.’ Jason leans on the banister and hooks one thumb in his jeans pocket. ‘Katie! KATE! Sarah’s here, darlin’!’

  Kate’s feet appear at the top of the stairs, trotting down in pink slippers.

  ‘See ya!’ says Jason, and he closes the door behind him.

  Kate jumps off the third step and hugs Sarah. ‘Sar! Hope the old man didn’t embarrass you?’

  Sarah’s stomach judders.

  ‘Who? My dad?’

  ‘No, you div. My dad. Bring your stuff up. You and Tina can sleep on the floor in my room. I’ve got my own futon now, for when friends stay or just for lounging about on. It’s cool. Folds down in seconds. It’s a proper one from the Futon Company in London. Not one of those cheap fakes.’

  Kate’s room is exactly how Sarah might have imagined it. Primary-coloured bedsheets, her own dressing table and posters all around the walls. The room must be the size of Sarah’s living room. Kate turns the volume up on her hi-fi, so that they have to shout over the music.

  ‘Who’s this?’ yells Sarah, nodding at the hi-fi.

  ‘Dead or Alive. Like my new poster? Morten Harket. Lush.’ Kate jumps up on to her double bed and kisses Morten on the lips.

  Sarah screams as the bedroom door opens abruptly. She stands frozen in the middle of the room, still clutching her overnight bag.

  ‘Kate!’ Her mother is leaning into the room, looking harassed. ‘Kate! I’ve been calling you for ten minutes! Turn that bloody music down!’ She doesn’t even look at Sarah.

  Kate leans over and turns down the music. ‘What? Did you say something? I didn’t catch any of that.’ She’s smirking. ‘The music was too loud.’

  Her mum looks ready to thump her. ‘Come and help me with the food. Please.’

  Kate points at Sarah. ‘Have you met my mum yet?’

  ‘Hello,’ Sarah smiles awkwardly.

  ‘Hi. Now, come and give me a hand, Kate!’ She stomps out, running a hand through her unruly peppered hair. She’s nothing like Sarah had imagined.

  Kate puts her head to one side, listening as her dad comes back in through the front door.

  ‘I’ll get on with the fire, Patty,’ he calls out.

  ‘Do what you like,’ she calls back.

  Kate whacks up the volume again and jumps to her feet, bouncing lightly on the bed. ‘Now where was I? Oh, yeah.’ She starts licking Morten Harket from head to toe.

  Sarah sings along to the music with her hands on her hips, punctuating each ‘a-ha, a-ha’ with a pelvic thrust and a toss of her hair.

  Kate’s screaming with laughter, joining in the pelvic thrusts. ‘Please sir, can I have some more? More-ten Harket that is!’

  ‘More! More! More!’ chants Sarah.

>   The girls leap around the room, screaming, ‘More! More!’ until Kate’s mum strides into the room, unplugs the stereo and drags Kate out of the room by her elbow. Sarah reins in her nervous laughter and follows them down the stairs to help with the salad.

  ‘Sorry about the music,’ she says as they enter the kitchen.

  Kate’s mum smiles briefly, and passes her a bowl to pour the crisps into. ‘Hear that, Kate? You could learn a thing or two from Sarah.’

  When Kate’s mum turns her back the two girls pull faces at each other, stifling their laughter and chomping on crisps. Sarah can see Kate’s dad through the back window. He’s standing on the edge of the patio, leaning on a garden fork, drinking a can of lager. The light from the kitchen window illuminates his back, throwing a tapering shadow out into the darkness of the long garden.

  Kate scrapes the chopped lettuce into the salad bowl and holds it out towards her mum. ‘Do you think that’s enough?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘What do you think, Sar? Is it enough, or do we need more?’

  ‘More?’ Sarah raises her eyebrows. ‘More-ten Harket?’

  ‘I don’t even like salad,’ shrieks Kate. ‘But I’d like a bit of Morten!’ Kate and Sarah descend into hysteria again, holding their stomachs and staggering into the worktops.

  ‘Go on, then,’ says Kate’s mum. ‘You might as well piss off outside.’ She turns back to the sink to wash her hands.

  Sarah looks at Kate in surprise, but Kate doesn’t even flinch.

  ‘Come on, then. Let’s see if Dad’s got the sparklers.’

  In the garden Jason’s stoking a bonfire at the far end of the lawn. It’s almost as high as their shed, and Jason leaps back as sparks burst out in his direction. He jogs towards the girls, silhouetted by the orange blaze, and stops in the middle of the lawn, leaning on his garden fork.

  ‘Come to give me a hand?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Kate. ‘Don’t think Mum wants us hanging around in there.’

  Jason gives the fork a wiggle. ‘Right, then. You two can help me with the seating plan.’

  ‘Seating plan?’ asks Sarah, looking at Kate as if her dad is a bit touched.

  ‘Why not? Follow me, girls, follow me!’ He marches between them towards the house and stops beside a pile of sliced tree rounds.

  ‘They’re tree stumps,’ says Sarah.

  ‘Exactement! Got them from this house we just sold. The new owners wanted shot of the tree in the back garden. So when they had it chopped down, I said I’d get rid of the wood. Genius, eh?’

  Jason flips three of the stumps on to their sides and starts to roll one back down towards the bonfire. The girls follow, rolling their stumps too, purposely bashing them into each other like giant bowling balls.

  ‘About five or six foot from the fire, I reckon. You got someone else coming, Katie?’

  ‘Yeah – Tina.’

  ‘Then we need two more, one for her, one for your mum.’ Jason goes back to tending the fire, poking and jumping back like a schoolboy at the hearth.

  ‘I’d forgotten about Tina,’ Sarah says to Kate as they go back for the last stumps. ‘She’s late, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s always late.’

  Always. ‘Does she come over a lot?’ asks Sarah, feeling an unexpected pang of envy.

  Kate flips the log on to its side. ‘Quite a bit. You know, she only lives round the corner. On the council estate at the back of our development. It’s pretty rough round there; I feel quite sorry for her, really. She’s always having to look after her little brothers, so I don’t like to say no when she wants to come over. But she can be a bit of a pain sometimes, you know, if I want to be left alone. Anyway, she’s always late.’

  Sarah turns her stump over, mashing her thumb into a hibernating snail. ‘Urgghhh!’ she screams. ‘Snail! Oh, God! It’s a snail!’ She holds her hand up to the light, to see the whole snail impaled on the end of her thumb.

  Kate squeals. ‘Arghh! You look like Little Tom Thumb!’

  They both scream as Sarah runs back towards the house, shaking her hand violently to send the ruined snail hurtling to the patio with a little crack.

  ‘Murderer!’ shouts Kate. ‘Snail masher! Murderer!’

  Sarah’s still got her thumb held out in front of her as if it’s infected, laughing as Kate dances round her, pointing accusingly.

  ‘Evil murderer! Snail slayer!’ She crouches to get a better look at it. ‘Best finish it off, I s’pose,’ she says. And with that she rises and stamps on the quietly writhing blob with a simple sharp step.

  ‘No!’ shouts Sarah, bringing her good hand to her mouth, to cover her laughter and disgust.

  The back door opens with a squeak and Kate’s mum leans out, seeing Tina through to the back garden. Tina waves at the two girls with both hands and smiles over her shoulder as Kate’s mum pulls the kitchen door shut. ‘Thanks, Patty,’ she says. Patty.

  ‘Teen!’ shouts Kate, rushing to hug her. ‘You made it, then?!’

  ‘Yeah, soz. My mum had one of her migraines and I had to wait for her to wake up, ’cos I was looking after the twins. D’you want your present?’

  ‘Nah. Save it till later – we’ve got to roll these stumps down to the bonfire.’

  As they place the last two logs around the fire, Jason comes round from the back, dusting off his jacket. ‘Hello, Tina, love.’

  Tina giggles.

  ‘You’re so weird, Teen,’ mutters Kate, as they sit on their little gathering of tree stools.

  ‘He just makes me laugh,’ whispers Tina. ‘I don’t fancy him or anything dodgy like that. He’s just funny.’

  ‘Who said you fancied him?’

  ‘No one. But you always make out like I do.’ Tina’s whining now.

  ‘No, I don’t! Urghh! That would be weird.’

  Tina brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, shivering. ‘Keep your voice down! He’ll hear you and then it will be weird.’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got nothing to hide…’ says Kate in a taunting voice.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sarah joins in. ‘If you’re sure you don’t fancy him…’

  Tina shoots her a sharp glance.

  Jason sits on the stump beside them, holding his can of lager. ‘Fancy who?’ he says. ‘I suppose you girls are talking about your many admirers, eh?’

  Tina sniggers. Sarah and Kate exchange a blank expression.

  ‘Bet you’re beating them off with sticks. Blimey, I remember what it was like when I was your age. All I could think about was girls. Girls, girls, girls. It’s a surprise I got anything else done at all. I was quite a hit with the ladies, you know.’

  Tina can hardly look at him for giggling.

  ‘You think he’s joking, Teen, but he really means it. Saddo.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ says Jason, standing and hitching up his jeans proudly. ‘Queuing up round the block, they were.’ He winks at Sarah and gives Kate a little punch on the arm.

  ‘Oh, no,’ moans Kate, putting her hands over her face. ‘I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Right! I’ll go and get myself another lager, then. Expect your mum’ll have the food ready in a mo.’ Jason strides up the garden and in through the kitchen door.

  From where they sit, Sarah can see Jason and Patty together in the kitchen. Patty’s still at the sink, and he kisses her on the cheek before opening the big fridge-freezer in the corner. Patty carries on at the sink without looking up. A few moments later, Jason calls the girls to fetch their food, and they load up hot dogs and crisps and cups of Coke before returning to their seats around the fire. Jason sits a little way from them, eating and stoking the fire in turn. He opens another lager and drops the ring-pull into the empty can by the side of his log.

  ‘Your mum not coming out?’ asks Sarah between mouthfuls.

  Kate shakes her head, glancing at the empty seat beside her dad. ‘She hates the cold. And she’s a grumpy cow.’

  Jason pretends not to hear as he l
ights up a cigarette with a loud click of his Zippo lighter. He inhales deeply and blows the smoke in a cool stream above his head, where it’s whipped up and away with the smoke from the bonfire.

  Kate looks back towards the house. ‘God, I wish she’d do something about her hair. It’s embarrassing.’

  The others turn to look through the window at Patty, who’s busy wiping down the worktops.

  Kate pulls a disgusted face. ‘She looks like Ken Dodd.’

  Sarah gasps. ‘No, she doesn’t!’

  Jason frowns at Kate with mild disapproval.

  ‘Your mum’s lovely,’ says Tina, trying to wipe away the blob of ketchup she’s squirted down her pale grey jacket. She glances at Jason to check he hasn’t noticed.

  ‘Lovely to you, maybe,’ replies Kate. She stares into the flames.

  Sarah watches Kate, following the reflection of the fire as it leaps and dances in the glass of her eyes.

  No one speaks for a while, until Jason jumps up and dashes back towards the house, pausing to crush his cigarette stub under his heel at the edge of the patio. He returns carrying three cans of cider, dangling from his little finger by a plastic loop as he balances the cassette player and a pile of tapes in his arms. An extension lead trails behind him all the way back to the house.

  ‘Disco mix, anyone?’ He grins, handing the cans to Kate, and sets up the cassette player on the seat meant for Kate’s mum.

  ‘Nice one, Dad!’ Kate tugs on the ring-pull of her can, passing one to Sarah and Tina. She bops up and down on her seat to Cyndi Lauper, and Tina starts giggling again as she joins in, singing along to the music with Sarah.

  Their breath puffs out white into the cold night air, and the moon is just off the full circle, draped with wispy clouds. Sarah can feel every nerve in her body. Jason is eating another hot dog, leaning on to his knees, smiling at the girls. The next song is ‘Joanna’ by Kool & The Gang, and they know all the words to this one too. Even Jason joins in, and the girls make microphones out of their forks, swaying and singing with their eyes closed.