‘So what is it you see in this Andrew, then?’
‘He’s really funny? And super-smart. Bit like me.’
Mum laughs. ‘And is he as modest as you are?’
‘He’s modest about some stuff and not modest about other stuff.’ I grin. ‘He’s… He’s a bit like, you know, Dad in that way? And maybe in other ways as well.’
And there’s a bit of a silence, not exactly awkward, more like we’re both thinking stuff and it’s kind of sad and kind of happy.
‘Like, I know he’s going to be telling me all about game theory and evolutionarily stable strategies. It’s his new thing. He thinks game theory can be used to solve pretty much all the problems in the world.’
‘Not short on ambition, then.’
We both laugh.
‘For example, war? Apparently there are these three different strategies, hawk and dove and crow. Doves are like really nice and kind, like peace activists and people, but the problem is that if everyone in the world is a dove the system’s inherently unstable because the minute a hawk appears – hawks are like super-nasty and just want to exterminate everyone else? – if they’re in a world full of doves they basically just go mental and pretty soon the world’s fucked.’
‘Beckie.’
‘Sorry. I mean, like if the Nazis had won the war. Because the hawks know they can do whatever they want and the doves won’t stop them. It’d be like Hitler or Putin or Trump somehow gets into Teletubby Land. Or like every country’s Switzerland except for North Korea? Then the opposite scenario, a world full of just hawks, obviously that’s f… that isn’t going to work either because they’ll all just kill each other. The only way for it to be stable is to have retaliators in the mix – crows. They’re like doves except they’re smart and they fight back if a hawk starts anything, like maybe James Bond? So everyone can coexist.’
Mum’s smiling. ‘Well, that makes sense, although I’m sure Dad would be up for a debate about it with Andrew.’
Connor’s getting out of his car. ‘Hiya!’
‘Hi Connor!’ Mum gets up. ‘Thanks so much for acting as Beckie’s chauffeur yet again.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Yeah, thanks Connor,’ I say on cue.
Mum hugs me. ‘Have fun, darling.’
I hug her back. ‘Thanks Mum. I will.’
‘Looking good, Beckster,’ says Connor.
I can see myself in the glass of the kitchen window and I’m thinking, yeah, I’m not bad. I’m not the prettiest girl in the class or anything but I’m okay. I’m tall and slim but I’ve got curves. Quite a few boys have asked me out before, so I can’t be like a total minger, but I said ‘Thanks but no thanks’ because I only wanted to go out with Andrew Main but he was with Sherilyn, that skanky cow who called Mibs a retard just because she thought a caftan was a kind of cafetière. Sherilyn made Andrew’s life hell, ordering him about and once when he got her the wrong yoghurt in the canteen she glooped it over his head and all her skanky friends were laughing and Sherilyn was yelling at him, ‘You fucking know I hate strawberry!’ and he just smiled his goofy smile and used his scarf to try and wipe it off his hair.
That girl is such a fucking bully.
Last week after hockey there was just me and her in the changing room because she always takes forever in the shower washing all her skanky flab, and I waited behind pretending to have lost my scrunchy, and I told Mibs and them just to go ahead to our next class and explain to Mrs Hutchison why I was late, and then when Sherilyn came out of the shower I slammed her up against the changing room door and told her if she didn’t (a) chuck Andrew and (b) stop picking on Mibs I was going to break her nose so fucking badly no fucking surgeon on the planet would be able to put it back together and how many boys would want to go out with her then?
She pissed herself and had to go back in the shower.
Connor’s going on about the wedding as usual – they’re getting married at our house because neither Connor nor Erin is religious – and it’s super-dull, so I ask him about Mrs Miller, the old lady who’s the latest client of Connor’s Computer Services.
‘Aw Beckie, you should’ve seen the spread she’d laid out for me, right? We’re no just talking scones and cake, there was like tuna and prawn rolls and wee pork pies and egg mayo sandwiches and that, and peanut butter ice cream and an oat and strawberry smoothie. It was pure amazing so it was.’
‘And you scoffed the lot?’
‘Only polite, eh? Mrs Miller thinks I need fed up or Erin’s gonnae leave me for some big hunky guy she’s gonnae meet at the pool.’
That’s where Erin works. She’s like a really amazing swimmer and she was nearly picked for the New Zealand Olympic team for breaststroke when she was fourteen.
‘That explains all the protein.’
‘Aye, she’s maybe been Googling it with her newfound skills, eh? How to get muscles on a skinny wee fucker, she’s maybe inputted.’
I snort. ‘I bet Mrs Miller would be on my side in the Is-Willow-Too-Fat debate.’
‘Aye, likely.’
Willow’s six now and she’s staying with us tomorrow night so Carly and Connor and Erin can all go out. Mum bans poor Willow from eating any sweets or crisps or ice cream or basically anything nice while she’s with us because she says she’s on the cusp of obesity but I love her chubby little cheeks and her chubby little arms and legs. She’s so adorable.
I’m telling her Dad’s Wanderer stories and she loves them.
‘She wouldn’t be so cute if she was thin. It’s like cats – they’re super-cute when they’re really fat, but Mum says you should think about their health, and I know she’s got a point, but when Willow gets back to yours she’ll just stuff her face to make up for it anyway.’
‘Aye, Carly needs to stop buying that wean crap. She needs to step up as a responsible parent, eh?’
I shrug. ‘I guess. And talking of which – have you spoken to Ryan about Ailish yet?’
‘No yet.’
‘You don’t think he’d do it.’
‘Ryan would do anything for you, Beckie, you know that, he feels that bad about your da, eh? That’s no the issue here. Do you no think it’s maybe best to just move on, eh, and forget it?’
‘Nope.’
Ailish needs to be punished. If she hadn’t stopped Jasmine coming forward and telling the police she’d seen Ryan, they would have focused the investigation on him from the start and Mum would never have gone to jail.
But even more important than that is what’s happening to Jack. Jasmine’s little toddler Jack. While Jasmine’s at work, Ailish is meant to look after him on Mondays and Wednesdays and she’s all ‘Just call me Super Gran’ and posting photos on Facebook of stupid cakes she’s baked for him and stuff. She hardly ever features Jack himself, though, and when she does it’s always from the back. Mia’s all over that Facebook page now – ‘Quality niece and auntie time!’ – because Mia’s really really pretty, like a model. Ailish is always taking her photo without her knowing, so Mia can’t mess it up by making one of her gargoyle faces. Mia says Ailish basically ignores Jack unless she needs the back of his head for a photo. Otherwise he’s in his playpen the whole time apart from when he’s being fed or changed, and if Thomas or Mia is there they have to do that.
Ailish basically despises Jack because he’s got this eye problem and he’s cross-eyed. Ailish keeps going on to Jasmine about how they should take him to Bulgaria or wherever to get it sorted because no UK surgeon will do the operation until he’s older.
Until she can put him on Facebook and get ‘Oh he’s so gorgeous’ comments, she doesn’t want to know.