‘So you’re a journalist, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘You could barely read when I knew you.’
Kirsty blushes, feeling ashamed at the memory. Remembering posh Bel Oldacre back on a summer’s day and feeling ashamed again. ‘Well, you know – I was lucky at Exmouth… I wasn’t allowed to just hide at the back of the class and fulfil expectations…’
Amber goes pale, sits back. She seems – scandalised. Angry. Wow, thinks Kirsty. I’ve hit a nerve.
‘Exmouth? They sent you to Exmouth?’
Everyone in juvenile facilities knows about the other ones; the big ones, at least. They are discussed – constantly, fearfully, enviously – as inmates come and go, are transferred and given licence. Kirsty knows how lucky she was, being sent to Exmouth. Knows every day, is reminded every time she has to do a story on any related subject, how lucky she was. ‘Uh… yes,’ she says carefully, still feeling out the land.
‘Do you know where they sent me?’ asks Amber. The words are more accusation than question.
‘No,’ says Kirsty. ‘No, of course I don’t, Amber. You know I don’t.’
‘Blackdown Hills,’ she says.
‘Jesus.’ Once again, she’s stuck for words. Feels sick with shock.
‘Heard of it then?’ Amber glares, the accusatory tone back again. ‘It’s closed down now, of course.’
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘Of course. I covered the closure.’
‘Yeah,’ says Amber bitterly. ‘And I’ve heard of Exmouth too.’
Kirsty shakes her head, feels a strange urge to apologise, as though her own escape from the world of lock-down and pin-down and short, sharp shock is the source of Amber’s misfortune. But Blackdown Hills… they used to use Blackdown Hills as a threat, at Exmouth. It was where they sent you if they thought you were never coming out.
‘Yes. God knows. Luck of the draw, I guess,’ she says, uselessly.
‘Yes,’ says Amber, ‘I guess.’
Amber looks at Kirsty and feels a stab of heartache. Of course I thought you’d got the same punishment as me, she thinks. Of course I did. And now look at us. We’re the diametrical opposite of what anyone would have said would happen if they’d seen us that first day, sitting on the Bench. I feel like a lab rat in a bloody psych experiment.
Kirsty is looking down and away, her cheeks touched with pink. She looks ashamed, as though Amber’s fate is her fault. They’re both lost for words, both briefly adrift in memory.
‘So have you got kids?’ Amber changes the subject abruptly. She doesn’t know why this is the first question that comes into her head, but it is.
‘Yes,’ says Kirsty. ‘Two. Luke and Sophie. She’s eleven, he’s eight.’
Instinctively she starts to reach for her bag to find the photos she keeps in her wallet, changes her mind, puts her hands back on the table.
‘Good for you,’ says Amber dully.
‘You?’ asks Kirsty, timidly. Please let her have something good. I don’t know if I can bear the guilt.
Amber shakes her head. ‘No. No, nothing like that.’
Kirsty wonders, as she always does when this issue comes up, how she is supposed to respond. Is she supposed to commiserate? Gloss over it? Spout one of those lucky-old-you palliatives parents often seem to feel obliged to come up with, which everyone knows are insincere?
‘Would you have liked that?’ she asks. ‘To have had children?’
‘Of course,’ replies Amber, and meets her eyes. ‘But there you go. Luck of the draw again, eh?’
‘I’m – I’m sorry,’ says Kirsty, and looks ashamed again.
‘We’ve got two dogs,’ says Amber. ‘Well, me mostly. I don’t think he gives two hoots either way. Mary-Kate and Ashley. Papillons.’
Kirsty laughs. ‘Good names.’
‘I know. It’s a bit mean, but…’ Her expression softens suddenly, and her face takes on a glow. She looks pretty, for a moment. Younger. Kind. ‘It’s not the same, of course, but it’s – I love them. Stupid amounts.’
‘They’re great, animals,’ says Kirsty inconsequentially.
‘Have you got any?’
‘A cat. The thickest cat in the world. He just sits there, mostly.’
‘What’s he called?’
‘Barney.’
‘Right,’ says Amber, and Kirsty can’t tell what she’s drawn from the name. By God, she’s unreadable, she thinks. Apart from that flash of anger, I’m getting just about nothing from her. A normal person would be spilling tells all over the place. I know I am.
The waitress arrives, bearing Amber’s tea. It comes in an earthenware mug the size of a dog-bowl. ‘There you go,’ she says. ‘Nice and hot.’
Amber takes it, barely thanks her.
‘Can I get a latte?’ asks Kirsty.
‘Sure.’
‘Ta,’ says Kirsty. Her first latte in Whitmouth. It comes as a relief.
‘Back in a tick,’ says the waitress. Kirsty turns back to Amber, sees that the unreadable has become eye-rollingly amused.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘We do do latte in Whitmouth,’ she says pointedly. Tears the tops off four sachets of sugar and dumps them into her mug. Sees Kirsty looking and gives a small, mirthless laugh.
‘Habit,’ she says. ‘All the energy of a biscuit, and it’s free.’ She eyes Kirsty as she stirs her tea. ‘So you live in London, I suppose?’
Kirsty lets out a small laugh. ‘No. Why would you think that?’
‘Oh, you know. Lattes and that.’
Kirsty hears her own false-sounding laugh again, wishes fervently that she didn’t always do that when she’s nervous. ‘No. Farnham.’
‘Surrey? Nice.’
‘Yeah,’ says Kirsty, and experiences a jolt of annoyance. She’s putting me into a box. Now she knows I drew the long straw at the beginning, nothing I’ve done is going to be anything other than luck, to her. ‘Well, we had to work hard to get there, but yes.’
‘I’m sure,’ says Amber, the unpleasant edge back in her voice. ‘And what does he do, your husband?’
Kirsty had never thought that Jim’s disaster might ever stand as validation of herself. Grabs it anyway and waves it in front of her former friend like a badge of honour. ‘He doesn’t, at the moment. The recession’s got us. It’s been a year. I don’t know where the time went. We’re… well, I’m doing everything I can, you know?’
Amber softens slightly. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. That’s tough.’
Yes, thinks Kirsty. It is. It is tough. It’s scary and fretful, juggling the debts, robbing Peter to pay Paul, sacrificing everything to avoid the bank that sacked him getting wind that we can’t actually cover the mortgage we hold with them as a consequence. But, yeah, it’s middle-class tough. I know that. No pressure groups weeping for us.
She knows she needs to ask some questions; that this might be the only opportunity she ever gets. Doesn’t know where to start. ‘And you? You mentioned someone?’
‘Yes,’ says Amber. ‘You – your husband, I guess – spoke to him the other day. Vic. We live together. Six years now.’
‘Good… I… good,’ she says lamely, aware as she says it how condescending the comment must sound. ‘How did you meet?’
‘Work. We work together. Well, not together, but he works at Funnland too. You?’
‘Oh,’ says Kirsty, ‘the usual. Mutual friends. We just… you know. Talked to each other a few times at parties, and… you know.’
Parties, thinks Amber. Another thing I’ve missed out on. At least the sort of parties you’re talking about: ones where people mix over the taramasalata and ask each other to dance. Why do I feel like she’s rubbing my nose in it?