‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Mate, it’salwaysthat simple. Anything other than honesty, empathetic honesty, is fear-based. You and I, we’ve always felt the same about shit and I don’t think this is any different. You’ve never been a coward, Jay, and you’ve never been frightened to veer from the pack. I get that you’re scared but if you feel this strongly, you need resolution. Talk to Cass first if you really need to and then take some action, mate, because you’re going to eat yourself up from the inside out else. I was terrified when I put it on the line for Sara, terrified. It’s part of the process. Love is never easy, and you’ve always had it easy in that arena, now you need to step up and take the hard knocks.’
Mo stands up and shakes himself out. I get up too.
‘You don’t think it’s selfish of me, if I know she doesn’t want to talk, to go and push myself in?’
‘I know you, you ain’t never going to push yourself in insensitively. So yeah, talk to her and then if her answer is a hard no, then back the fuck off. As long as you don’t get weird or stalky then asking once? I reckon that’s the right thing to do. For the both of you. Let’s go get that drink!’
Chapter Thirty
Jay
‘Thank you so much for this,’ Cass turns to me and says as I kneel next to her, painting backdrops in the local community centre. She has a little dollop of paint on the side of her face and I can’t help myself as I grin at her words and then lunge forward and add a quick dollop of sand-coloured paint on her other cheek. ‘Oi!’
‘Just evening you up,’ I say with as much innocence as I can muster. She scowls and I raise my hands in a ‘stop’ gesture as she looks at me, devilment in her eyes.
I brace myself for war.
She takes her brush and prepares to flick it at me, only pausing as we hear Olive, the woman who runs the community choir, enter the hall. She is wearing red leather trousers and the loudest neon yellow T-shirt I have ever seen, with a picture of the community centre on. It’s not exactly an outstanding architectural beauty, more reminiscent of several old portakabins glued together with a flour and water mix.
‘Hello, you two.’ She approaches us and Cassie lowers her paintbrush and shoots me an I’m-going-to-get-you-later look. I have had millions of these in my time. All of them terrifying. She’s probably going to try and pin me down and pour buckets of paint over my head but to be fair I knew this before I turned up.
Truth is it’s a welcome distraction. I must confess today about breaking my word and I’m dreading it. The knowledge has been hovering like a thundercloud on Carnival Day and I need to get it done. I had wanted to clarify things with Lily so they were straight in my head before I said anything to Cass, but Lily’s prolonged silence means I can guess where she stands – as far away from me as possible – and I want to own up to Cass. Get it out of the way and accept any punishment she metes out.
I can’t regret my night with Lily.
Although Mo’s words from the other day have been spiralling around my head too, and he may be right, maybe for my own sanity I need to talk to Lily properly before I give up – but either way the first thing to do is tell Cass the truth. I can still demonstrate change is good and she may have some helpful insight. At this point I’m willing to listen to any and all advice. I’m biding my time for the right moment, even though I'm convinced she is going to crow triumphantly, leave me to paint the scenery and sprint to Gretna Green with Jasmine.
‘What a picture you two make. You’ve always been so close.’ Olive drops a kiss on my head and then Cass’s and we both smile up at her as if butter wouldn’t melt. Cass even makes her eyes extra wide and bats her lashes. I don’t know how she manages to do that and how it fools people but she’s been doing it successfully for years now.
‘I wish my two were more like you,’ Olive says warmly. Her two are forty-year-old twins that both still live at home and count the cornflakes she pours for them every morning just in case one has more than the other. How she has put up with them for so long I do not know. But with those two she has the patience of a saint. A saint in dire need of two strongly worded eviction notices.
‘Oh, you don’t, Olive. Honestly my brother is a monster. Look, look!’ Cass gestures to her paint-smeared cheek and shakes her head as if there is nothing to be done about me.
‘You little ratbag,’ Olive says to me before turning back to Cass. ‘Mind you, look at him coming and helping you.’ It’s my turn to nod and smile as if I have been escorted to earth by winged angels.
Their heavenly chorus interrupted as Cass snorts.
Olive doesn’t seem to notice and continues to speak and pat both of us on the shoulder. ‘Now you must think of some way in which we can help you for doing this. You always make our scenery look so great, it has such an effect on morale. Oh, look there’s Eric.’ Olive darts off to welcome the caretaker and the cast members filing in behind him, all in the same T-shirt as hers.
I am safe from Cass’s revenge for a little while. She’s no fool, she won’t attack me in front of an audience, and I settle back to paint in a clay jar as she is detailing a pyramid in the background.
I need to broach the broken vow, but Olive has her cast doing star jumps at the end of the hall and I don’t really want to discuss the fact I have had sex recently in front of them.
I have learned that the older generations are adept at being unable to hear almost anything apart from gossip. At which point their ears suddenly develop the hearing capability of a bat. Of a cauldron of bats. And I know if I start talking about my recent sexploits that knowledge will be beamed straight to Malcolm and Sue’s phone, no doubt with added graphic hyperbole. Eric the caretaker already looks like he’s about to have a heart attack from the five star jumps Olive has just made him do. I don’t want to push him over the edge.
Ever psychic, Cass wiggles her eyebrows and very lightly gestures towards Eric. I am not the only one afraid for the man’s life. I nod and grimace.
Olive looks like a tiny mouse but one with soft, soft white hair, a crochet bag on her arm and a selection of clothes that would put Dame Edna to shame. She may have no control whatsoever over her overgrown twin babies but marshals this lot in here as if she were running the KGB at the height of the Cold War.
‘Hup two hup two.’ The star-jumps have stopped and now they are following her as she does some kind of high knees up run, straight out of the hall door and out onto the large playing field out the back. This may be my chance to tell Cass, get it over and done with and face the consequences.
‘They are funny. I do love Olive but promise me now, Jay,promiseme you will never let me sign up for that madness.’ She jerks her paintbrush in the direction of the cast whom we can now see through the window stretching up and then touching their toes at an alarming speed. It’s a justified fear. Olive has been trying to recruit us from the minute we wandered into Malcolm and Sue’s house, trepidatious about what this new foster placement would bring.
‘I promise but um... that does bring me onto something that I need to talk to you about, Cass.’ She can tell from my tone that I am serious and carefully places her paintbrush across the pot and swivels to face me, crossing her legs once she is in place. I put my paintbrush down too and adopt the same position.
‘I don’t know how to even begin to say this.’ Weak but honest. I take a deep breath. ‘I genuinely can’t believe I’m saying this, but that vow I made, that promise... Umm... l feel dreadful because I have reneged on it and I really, truly didn’t think there was any way that was going to happen.’
