‘Nice chat?’ Jo rips back with sarcasm.
Lucy’s voice lowers. ‘Oh Jo, it was awful. I said if he didn’t tell you, then I would.’
‘But he didn’t tell me, Luce,’ Jo checks the sob, ‘and you let me go on, talking about maybe getting married one day. Talking about babies …’ Her voice breaks. ‘Howcouldyou?’
Suddenly it is as if Jo has lit the Lucy touchpaper. She turns on Jo. ‘How could I?! Fuck it Jo, you hardly saw me. Youfitted meinlike I was a meeting you didn’t want to go to.’
Jo fleetingly thinks, now it’s coming … now, maybe the storm will break.
‘I said you weren’t a bad friend. But I lied. You were a shit friend. I so wanted to just do some normal stuff with you when I got back. I knew things might have changed, I did get that. But all you could think about were the wanky-swanky places you were going to. You might have asked me along, but you knew I couldn’t afford it. And then what did you do? You offered to pay for me. How do you think that made me feel, Jo? Bloody crap. That’s how!’ Lucy bellows this and her belly shakes with her rage.
For an instant Jo worries about the baby and she is filled with shame. James kept sayingdon’t ask Lucy,Lucy doesn’t fit in, and she wanted to prove him wrong. But why did she think Lucy needed to be friends with people she no longer hears from and never cared for?
She wants to say how sorry she is, but a single thought stoppers her mouth.You knew James was cheating and you didn’t tell me.
They stare at each other in horror.
Lucy sweeps past her to the door to Uncle Wilbur’s room. ‘I can’t do this. I need to sleep,’ she mutters. Then the muttering forms into words. These she throws at Jo. ‘You could have come home. You could have come to see me, but you didn’t. I kept telling myself I shouldn’t mind, I’d gone away for four years. But you could have come, Jo.’ There is deep regret in her words, and then the bitterness creeps in, ‘But why would you want to? Got your new friends, and it’s all about the bloody vicar and a sodding man called Malcolm. Well, have a great life, Jo!’ and with this she slams the door.
Jo instinctively steps towards the closed door, but it feels as impenetrable as Fort Knox. Her second instinct, she acts on – with shaking hands she texts the bloody vicar and a sodding man called Malcolm.
Five minutes later, Jo leaves the flat, having first stood irresolute in front of Uncle Wilbur’s bedroom door. In the end she posts a note under the door saying she is going to the deli to get food. She wants to add something conciliatory, but for once her fountain pen is lost for words.
Jo slips out of the shop door, feeling like a villain leaving a crime scene; she turns left and walks quickly down the alleyway towards the High Street.
Ten minutes later, Eric and Ferdy are ready. The boxes are now joined together and from the centre of the main box sticks a broom handle. A sheet-like sail is attached to this. Ferdy is sitting in the box. He is wearing an overlarge helmet with horns. Draped around his shoulders, completely enveloping him, is a sheepskin rug held together at the front by a yellow bulldog clip.
‘Good to go?’ Eric asks.
Ferdy nods, holding tight to the cardboard sword in his hand.
Eric starts to push the ‘ship’ down the alleyway in front of Jo’s window. Both man and boy are giggling.
As they pass the wooden counter that sits in the window, Ferdy says, ‘Where is she? She’s not there.’
Eric stops pushing and stands up.
The shop is in darkness.
‘Where is she?’ Ferdy asks again, his voice wavering with his disappointment. Just before the sob breaks, Eric scoops him up out of the ‘ship’. He holds him on his hip and points into the window.
‘What a shame, mate. She’s had to go out, I expect. But, hey, look, there’s your picture of the seal. She’s put it in the best spot on her board. She must really like it. Well, who wouldn’t?’ he says, giving Ferdy a hug. ‘And hey, we can do it another day. This ship is built to last,’ he says, encouragingly.
Ferdy mutters something.
‘What’s that?’ Eric bends his head low over the child’s.
‘It’s not a seal – it’s a salamander.’
‘Of course it is, mate!’ Eric then whispers conspiratorially, ‘Shall we sail into your dad’s place and give him a fright?’
‘Yeah,’ Ferdy says, perking up, ‘noko.’
33
Some advice from Reverend Ruth Hamilton
‘Oh, Jo.’ This from Ruth.
