‘You’ll be eating a lot of lettuce if you’re going to be a vegetarian. Might as well get used to it.’
‘And broad beans,’ adds Jim. ‘Don’t forget those.’
Luke’s standing outside the rugby club when they draw up, his boots dangling by their laces over his shoulders. ‘I wish he wouldn’t do that,’ says Jim. ‘He goes through a pair of laces a week.’
He reaches over and beeps the horn. Luke jumps, turns and waves. He comes running over, grinning, and hops into the car.
‘How was it?’ asks Kirsty.
‘Awesome,’ he replies. ‘I scored a try. And Mr Jones says I might be able to try out for the first team in a year.’
‘Fantastic!’ she says. ‘Luke! Sit on the bin liner, darling. You’re going to get mud all over.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ he says, and settles into his seat. Sophie looks at him the way all little girls look at muddy little brothers.
‘What’s for tea?’ he asks.
‘Well, we were going to have fish fingers, but your sister wants a salad,’ says Jim. ‘She’s turned vegetarian.’
Luke howls with disgust. ‘You’re kidding! I can’t eat salad. I’ve been playing rugby.’
Jim shrugs. ‘Well, it’s not up to me. Perhaps you can negotiate.’
Kirsty puts the car into gear and pulls into the road. Luke frowns at Sophie.
‘All right,’ she says. ‘I’ll eat fish, OK? I’ll be a fishatarian, if it makes you happy.’
‘Pescatarian,’ says Jim.
‘Whatever,’ says Sophie, and folds her arms.
It must have been Bel, Kirsty thinks. Is it that her voice is so deep he thought she was a bloke? It didn’t sound like it. But – I don’t know. Please, please, please, God, let it have been Bel. Let it not have been someone else, someone with another agenda altogether.
‘But I’m not eating any stinking chicken,’ says Sophie.
‘Fine,’ says Jim. ‘But don’t think that means you can double up on roast potatoes.’
Chapter Eighteen
Blessed loves Whitmouth in the hours around dawn; partly because it’s cool and the air is clean, but mostly because dawn means that the long night’s work is approaching its end and the moment when she can lay her tired bones in her warm soft bed for a few hours is approaching. Tonight she’s scrubbed and polished every seat on the roller coaster trains, swept down what she still thinks of as its station-stop and given every touchable surface a going-over with a spray-bottle of antibacterial cleanser and half a dozen J Cloths. She’s cleaned the perspex windows that allow queuers to see what’s going on in the rest of the park as they inch their way up the stairs. She’s wiped off the hair gel and Sta-Sof-Fro that greases every pillar at head height.
Now she’s in the roped-off area under the tracks, sweeping up the wrappers and coins and condoms and other small treasures that have fallen from unsuspecting pockets as the train looped the loop. It’s sticky down here, as surprising numbers of people still take drinks containers on the ride despite the warnings not to. You can always tell them later, in the park, because they are the ones with a sugar-dressing on their hair and a faint look of sheepishness about them. By season’s end the area below the tracks will need to be washed down with a power hose, but there’s little point in doing so before then, as generally only the cleaners come here. Blessed always saves this chore for last of all, so that she can see what’s there by pale grey daylight. It’s a popular job, this – goes to the senior cleaner and was passed down to her when Amber moved up to management – because it’s amazing what people fail to notice they’ve lost until after they’ve left the park. There’s usually a tenner in change down here; and sunglasses and prescription glasses and small items of jewellery; tubes of sweets and bunches of keys (which always go to Lost Property); and, sometimes, a wallet. Their owners probably think they’ve been pickpocketed, which is why they never return to claim them. As a Christian, Blessed used to have qualms about removing the cash before she handed the wallets in, but she knows that if she doesn’t take the opportunity, Jason Murphy or one of the other guards will, and then it’ll go on drink or drugs or some other form of frittering if it’s them. The proceeds of her own dishonesty go straight into Benedick’s med-school fund. She thinks of her ‘victims’ as benefactors.
Tonight has produced relatively thin pickings. Yesterday was overcast, so sunglasses (which she can sell for fifty pence a pair to the second-hand shop on Fore Street) have stayed firmly in bags, and jackets have covered the loosest pockets. But she’s found £3.60 in change (almost half an hour at minimum wage, after all) and three packs of chewing-gum, which Ben will like. And a hairpiece: a foot-long clip-on ponytail in golden synthetic blond. She’s about to drop it in the bin liner, marvelling at its owner’s obliviousness, when she thinks, No, it’s in good condition. I’ll see if Jackie wants it before I throw it away. We waste far too much in this world.
She stretches her back and checks her watch. Five-twenty: nearly clocking-off time. She’ll stay till her contracted five-thirty before she punches her card. No one gets any prizes for doing their job efficiently at Funnland; they’re paid by the hour and that’s that. And besides, she likes to get a lift from Amber if she can, and Amber is always the last to leave. She decides to go and look for Jackie. Picks up her bin liner and ambles in the direction of the dumpsters.
Jackie’s on the phone. Five-thirty in the morning, and she’s still found someone to talk to. She’s finishing up in the coconut shy, not that there’s ever much to do other than check that the coconuts haven’t cracked open to reveal their concrete interiors, and to dust the prizes so it’s not too obvious how rarely they get won. She stands in her novelty rubber gloves with the frilled lace cuffs, back to the park, and doesn’t see Blessed approach.
‘That’s right, babe,’ she says. ‘Till it’s sore.’
Blessed hesitates. This sounds as though it might be a personal conversation. Not that Jackie keeps many of her thoughts personal. ‘And then when you think you’re all wrung out, I’ll suck my finger and-’
Blessed hurriedly coughs. Jackie jumps, and looks guiltily over her shoulder. Breaks into a grin when she sees Blessed and holds up the rubber-clad finger that’s just been the subject of her conversation. ‘Gotta go, babe. Yeah, later. I’ll be waiting.’
She hangs up. ‘Hey.’
‘Hello,’ says Blessed. ‘How are you today?’
‘Better now it’s home-time,’ says Jackie. ‘Is Amber ready yet?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sure she’ll come and find us. I brought you this.’ She fishes the ponytail out of her plastic bag. ‘Someone lost it. I thought it might suit you.’
Jackie lets herself out through the hatch, comes and looks, a frown on her face. ‘Second-hand hair?’
Blessed feels herself blush. Knows she’s done another of those cultural misreadings that have tripped up many budding friendships since she got here. Not that she has any burning desire for intimacy with Jackie. Rather, she feels she might start keeping Benedick away from her, now he’s reached adolescence. ‘It doesn’t look as though it’s been used,’ she stammers. ‘I think whoever owned it must have put it on new yesterday.’
Jackie seems reluctant even to touch it. Under her critical gaze, Blessed sees that it is a poor thing; that to someone used to the cheap and plentiful luxuries of a wealthy country, second-hand hair is barely less disgusting than a second-hand toothbrush. ‘Yeah, you’re all right, Blessed,’ she says. ‘Thanks anyway.’
Blessed shoves the ponytail into the bin liner, tries not to show her embarrassment. If she’d been in Jackie’s position, she would have accepted the gift with a show of pleasure, even if she had every intention of putting it in the next bin she passed. She feels a twinge of nostalgia for the manners she was raised with.