‘Hi.’ Remy took a small step forward and kept her eyes on the floor.
‘Twins!’ Jacinta called out, as if she might be the only one to notice.
‘Yep.’ Remy gave her a double thumbs-up.
‘And where are you at school, dear?’ Mrs Wentworth asked.
‘I’m at Milton Road Comprehensive.’ This time Remy looked up and held the woman’s eyeline.
‘Oh!’ Again Tuppence offered one word that was so much more than the sum of its parts.
‘Remy’s the clever one,’ Ashleigh stated.
‘I see.’ Ashleigh knew Mrs Wentworth did not see, not at all. How could she?
‘We were just talking about what these youngsters might do when they leave St. Jude’s. We’ve told Jacinta it’s law and Oxbridge or don’t come home!’ There it was again, that silent laugh. ‘Whatwould you like to do, dear?’ She addressed her sister directly. Ashleigh wondered if the woman had a secret hankering to be a careers advisor, she seemed so desperately interested in everyone’s future plans.
Remy answered without missing a beat. ‘What I’dliketo do is sit on a beach and read, but what I’ll probably do is work on the bins and go on holiday to Southend, if I can find the bus stop.’
Harry laughed loudly. Mrs Wentworth opened her mouth like a fish looking for krill, and her parents coughed and tutted to hide their embarrassment.
‘I guess one good thing’ – Ashleigh pointed out the obvious – ‘is that if you’re working on the bins, you can throw that kilt away easily.’
‘Very good point!’ Remy smiled at her, and it felt like a moment of healing, of connection, unified against the rather unpleasant Mrs Wentworth.
‘I don’t know what I want to do when I leave school’ – Ashleigh spoke now with certainty – ‘but I know it won’t be law or medicine. Maybe English or history, and then, who knows!’ She shrugged, almost excited by the prospect.
‘Would anyone like a Mint Imperial?’ Ashleigh watched as her mum ferreted in her handbag for the small white paper bag that bulged with the little sweeties, anything to change the subject, as if aware that neither her husband nor she wanted to hear their daughter’s plansnotto become a doctor or a lawyer.
‘Ooh, smashing!’ Her dad placed his fingers in the bag and came out with not one but two sweets. Harry too took advantage of the offer. Jacinta and her mother both politely declined, Mrs Wentworth with a look of mild disgust on her thin lips.
‘So, what would you like to see first?’ Ashleigh smiled at her parents, wondering where to direct them.
‘Tell you the truth, I’d quite like to go back to the car park and look at some of them motors!’
Harry’s face lit up. ‘An American boy in the year above us, his father has a Jensen Interceptor, 7.2 litre engine, V8, convertible.’
‘Cor, I’d love to see that!’
‘Not sure if it’s there, but we can go and look around.’
She watched as her lovely dad wandered off with Harry, the boy whose own father was locked in a messy divorce.
‘What about you, Mum?’
‘I really don’t mind.’ Ruthie clutched her bag to her chest.
‘Tell you what.’ Remy took her mother’s arm, and Ashleigh was glad her sister was there to look after her. ‘Why don’t we have a mooch and see where we end up?’
Ashleigh smiled, watching as they ambled towards the art block, her sister pulling at the hem of that hideous kilt and her mother glowing like a neon bouquet against the brickwork.
It was typical of Remy, happy to wander without a plan, content to see where she might end up ... and in that regard, Ashleigh could only envy her.
Ashleigh and Remy Brett
1982
Aged 20
