Chapter Eight
Public houses and liquor bars are the residence of ne’er-do-wells. They are no place for a Good Woman. And certainly never an unmarried lady.
Matilda Beam’sGood Woman Guide, 1959
The Trap Inn is located at the end of our road. It’s a real dive of a pub. The seats are stained and threadbare, there are tooth marks on the beer mats and it smells like egg. But needs must, and it’s very close by, so, for now, the Trap Inn will be my place of solitude. I order a bottle of pear cider from the thin, gap-toothed barmaid who, from what I can gather, goes by the name of Skanky Elaine.
‘Pear cider?’ she says with a blink. ‘Pear? Cider?Pear Cider?’
‘It’s just like normal cider, but pear-flavoured. It’s delicious, trust me. Don’t worry, I can see you don’t have any. Just a beer will do, thanks.’
She nods and grabs me a bottle of Corona from one of the fridges. I take a couple of hefty swigs, hop onto the high stool at the bar, put my head in my hands and sigh long and low.
Well that was all a bit fucking intense.
I don’t know quite how to feel. Part of me feels really mad that Summer’s kicked me out of my own bloody home. But more of me feels sad that I’ve clearly upset her so much. It’s an uncomfortable rolling guilt feeling in my belly. I’ve not had that feeling since Mum. I can’t bear it. Summer’s been mad at me plenty of times, but she’s never, ever kicked me out. Not least because of the fact that, however much I get on her nerves sometimes, she still needs me to do the work. Ordinarily I’d leave it a couple of hours and then talk to her when she’s calmed down, but I get the feeling that that’s not going to work this time.
I peek up at the TV in the corner of the pub.Kirstie’s Vintage Home. More twee ‘let’s own a crumbly house and source old wooden apple crates for a coffee table’ crap. Great. Today is turning out to be a real shithead of a day.
Where the arses am I going to go now? I scroll through the contacts list on my phone. Well, Amy Keyplass and Mark Chunder are obviously out of the question.
Ooh, look. I’ll try Betty. Betty’s our journalist friend. She’s lovely and funny and her house is in Didsbury, which could be a cool place to hang for a while.
I pull out my phone and call her.
‘Yo, it’s J-dawg!’ I say faux brightly.
‘Who?’
‘Jess.’
‘ … Jess?’
‘Jess Beam! Betty, you big dope. What are you up to? It sounds loud there. Is that “Old Macdonald Had a Farm” I can hear?’
‘Yeah, I’m just arriving at Baby Sensory with Henry.’
‘Oh yeah, Henry! How old is he now?’
‘Eight months old. You’ve never met him.’
Yikes. She sounds pissed off. Is it reallythatbig a deal that I haven’t met her baby? I mean, what would we even talk about?
‘Guess what, Bets? Now Icanmeet him. Summer’s gone and kicked me out and I need a place to crash. If I stayed with you I could babysit Henry whenever you liked. I mean, if your other babysitters weren’t available or if I didn’t already have any other plans, maybe … Hmmm, does Henry know how to dance yet? I could teach him to rock out to Bon Jovi!’
‘Why did Summer kick you out?’ she says flatly. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing! Why do you naturally assume it’s me in the wrong?’
Silence from Betty.
‘OK, I might have caused a tiny little scene at a book party. It was all a complete accident, but Summer’s having none of it. I’m sure she’ll calm down soon, but I think it’ll probably be best for me to just do one for a bit.’
‘I’m not sure I really want to get in the middle of all that, Jess.’
I hear the baby wail in the background.
‘Come on, just for a night or two, Betty Boo. Come ooooon. It’ll be like old times. I’ll bring some canned margarita and the Kings of Leon live DVD. Ooh, you’ve got the big house. We could − we could have a party! An epic house party!’ My mind wanders as I think about a special Spotify playlist for the party. Betty loves reggae music. I’ll Google ‘best reggae songs’ and put all of them on the playlist for her. I grab my trusty bic biro from my coat pocket and start scribbling ‘house party playlist epic’ on my arm. I manage to write ‘house’ before Betty shuts me down.
