‘That’s a really silly thing to say.’
Beckie shrugged.
‘Darling… Is there something wrong at school? Is there anything… Maybe some other girl or boy is bullying you, or… getting you to do things you don’t want to do?’
Beckie shook her head in what seemed like genuine puzzlement.
‘Did another girl or boy make you be unkind to Edith?’
‘No. Edith made me be “unkind” to Edith.’
Flora sighed. ‘Darling… Nobody wants people to be unkind to them, do they? Just try to imagine for a second what it must be like to be Edith… Yes, I know, but just try to imagine. The bell goes and you run out to the playground and everyone’s having fun, and you see some girls from your class that you’d really like to chat to and play with, but then they start calling you cruel names and laughing at you and telling you you’re horrible. How do you think you would feel then?’
Beckie shrugged. ‘Edith’s not like that. Edith doesn’t care what we say.’
‘How do you know that? If it were you, how would you feel?’
Beckie, looking at her sideways, muttered reluctantly: ‘Lonely?’
‘Yes, you would feel really lonely, wouldn’t you. And upset? Maybe even scared, when the girls all start ganging up on you?’
Beckie had nodded, and her lip had trembled. ‘Can you not tell Dad?’
‘Dad will have to know, Beckie – it’s too serious not to tell him about it. And we have to go to a meeting with Edith and her parents after school on Monday, and you’re going to tell Edith you’re sorry and you won’t be unkind to her any more.’
And just when Flora had thought she was getting through to her, Beckie had wrinkled her nose and said, ‘Do I have to?’
‘Yes you do.’
And Beckie had sighed, in that way she had, as if to say: another adult stupidity I have to go along with to humour the poor deluded souls.
She’d got that sigh from Mia.
Mia, Mia, Mia.
Flora shut the front door behind her, eased her feet out of her shoes, and stood leaning back against the door. Sometimes she wished she could shut out the whole world. Keep Beckie from it. Like the Wanderers in their own little boat, adrift. Apart.
Safe.
But Beckie had been looking forward to this damn barbeque for weeks.
Beckie was wearing her favourite leggings with tiny daisies all over them, and a furry blue fleece on top of her T-shirt. In one hand she swung the little silver gift bag with the present for Mia in it – a fart machine, which Ailish was really going to be thrilled about – even though, as Flora had reminded her, it wasn’t a birthday party and a present wasn’t necessary. Beckie would have spent all her pocket money on presents if Flora had let her.
She’d always been a kind little girl.
She ran ahead down the path to the gate, but then stopped and waited for them.
A good little girl.
‘Okay, Beckie,’ said Flora.
Beckie opened their gate, skipped along the pavement ten metres, and opened next door’s, which was identical to their own, right down to the twists in the Victorian wrought iron.
‘Can I ring the bell?’
‘Of course you can, darling.’
Beckie skipped to the door and reached for the pebble-like pottery bell-push with ‘PRESS’ on it, set in a metal disk – identical to their own bell.
Neil said, ‘How long do we have to stay?’
‘Two hours minimum.’
The door opened on a blast of noise: ABBA, overlaid by the shrieks and howls of what sounded like women in pain. Dozens of them. Flora had a sudden image of Ailish’s head flung back, mouth open, cackling in glee as she skipped about the kitchen from one instrument of torture to the next – coordinating thumbscrews, maybe in Cath Kidston prints, for all her guests, and more elaborate offerings for her special friends: a cage fashioned from shabby chic wirework swinging above the hob for Katie, who’d be pretending to be enjoying it and doing her utmost not to drip sweat on the Rayburn; a rack rigged up on the kitchen table for Marianne, spread-eagled, her bouncy curls full of bits of scone and cake and broken pastel crockery, gasping an apology to Ailish for the mess…
Flora smiled at Jasmine, who was standing at the door looking up at them through her hair.
Jasmine, Ailish’s fifteen-year-old daughter, was an androgynously skinny little thing, looking utterly ridiculous in a black boob tube, tiny red shorts and high clumpy black shoes. Her fake-tanned, stick-thin legs with their bony little knees were those of a child, but her blonde hair fell in shiny sheets on either side of her face, which was plastered in foundation and dominated by huge black caterpillar-like eyebrows she must have spent forever pencilling on.
Without looking at him, Flora knew Neil was staring at the eyebrows.
Jasmine didn’t respond to Flora’s smile.
‘Hello, Jasmine!’ she persevered. ‘You look nice!’
‘Your hair’s amazing,’ said Beckie.
Jasmine, ignoring them both as usual, muttered to Neiclass="underline" ‘Mum’s in the kitchen?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Neil, deadpan. ‘Is she? I, like, really don’t know, Jasmine? I’ve only just, like, got here?’
‘Dad!’ said Beckie, rolling her eyes at Jasmine, whose mouth might have twitched at the edges before she turned away.
The noise was even worse inside. Leaving them to shut the door behind them, Jasmine clumped her way through the hall ahead of them. The house was a mirror image of their own, with the stairs on the right of the hallway rather than the left. It always unsettled Flora, being here in this skewed, out-of-kilter version of their own home. Ailish had painted the oak panelling a soft dove-grey, and in place of Flora’s beloved scruffy antiques were the ‘pieces’, as Ailish called them, sourced from interiors shops: a too-chunky, clumsily carved cabinet finished in pale pink chalk paint and inexpertly ‘distressed’, which had none of the charm of the genuine antique it was trying to emulate and probably cost five times as much; a tub chair in pink and yellow tweed; a huge mirror with fairy lights strung around it.
The whole house looked like a boutique interiors shop.
In the kitchen, Marianne was standing at the sink shrieking and flicking her hair, and dabbing at her cleavage with a cloth. Katie and Ailish each had one of Mia’s hands and were bopping to the beat, swinging the child’s arms encouragingly, while Mia, standing stock-still, had a ‘this too shall pass’ expression on her face. The two other women in the room Flora didn’t recognise. They were fussing with the candles on the table.
‘Beckie!’ Mia yanked her hands free and came rushing across the room to them.
Flora made herself smile down at her.
It was hard to believe that Mia was related to Ailish. She was a little tomboy with no interest in how she looked, her hair cut in a strange mullet, short at the sides and long at the back. The child cruelty aspect of this haircut featured regularly in Ailish’s Facebook posts. Mia herself was presumably not meant to be aware of this, but, ‘Auntie Ailish hates my hair,’ Mia had told Flora with satisfaction the other day. ‘She wants me to grow out the sides. But I like it. No long bits falling in my face, but long at the back to show I’m a girl.’
How frustrating for Ailish, although possibly it suited her not to press too hard to make Mia over. Mia was naturally pretty and, particularly as she grew up, would be in danger of putting Jasmine well and truly in the shade.
There were studies showing that pretty girls got away with bad behaviour more easily than their more ordinary-looking peers. Flora had read that on the internet, and had immediately thought of sparkling green eyes and an oval face and long raven hair.