Beneath the Skin(88)

She follows him into the house and sits down. Her arms are folded and her chin is down, her shoulder to one side, her eyes on him. She’s gone for petulant, he muses as he puts on the kettle. Posh girls think it looks sexy, but it doesn’t, it really doesn’t.

His tongue burns from gulping down the coffee so quickly, but Jemima sips hers slowly, like a kid avoiding bedtime. His hand is on his knee, moving in time with the tap of his foot.

Be patient. Take it easy, he mentally repeats. But she loops strands of her wavy hair around her fingers and pouts her lips, her eyes still on his. She seems to have rallied.

‘So, yeah,’ Sami says, rubbing his hands. ‘I’m out tonight, for the weekend in fact. Better get organised.’

‘OK. I just need the loo before I go.’

Sami sighs and waits, tentative relief overcoming the anger. He watches the clock, taps his leg and listens for the flush.

‘What are you doing here?’ Antonia asks at the door of White Gables.

‘I’ve come to say sorry. I bet you never expected to hear that. It’s freezing out here. Can I come in?’ Sophie asks with a grin.

Antonia looks at Sophie for a moment before smiling. ‘Come here,’ she says, pulling Sophie inside. ‘I’ve really missed you, you know. Are you back home with Sami?’

‘Maybe later, who knows. I wanted to see you first.’

Antonia slides over the frothy cappuccino in the ‘Sophie’ cup, liberally sprinkled with ground chocolate, towards her best friend. She hasn’t seen her for several weeks and yet it feels both like a year ago and like yesterday. Sophie seems slightly quiet and she’s lost weight, but she’s still Sophie. She just wonders if she’s still Antonia.

‘I have a job!’ Antonia announces, amused by the look of surprise on Sophie’s face.

She has enjoyed working in the salon. It’s only been a couple of mornings, but already she looks forward to the company of the other girls and the customers, especially the older ladies, one of whom still comes in to have her hair set in rollers. She’s been downgraded to Antonia, much to the other stylist’s relief.

‘You don’t get any older on the inside,’ the old lady said that morning, massaging her arthritic hands. ‘I still feel like a girl, but then I catch myself in the mirror and I realise that I’m old.’ She clutched Antonia’s arm and looked at her sharply despite her milky eyes. ‘Perhaps a little wiser, though.’

Antonia thinks that perhaps she’s a little wiser. But the learning curve is slow and at times she’s very lonely. Not so much being on her own, she’s used to that, but not having someone to talk to intimately, to share her thoughts and discoveries.

She and David didn’t talk, not deeply at least. They co-existed lovingly, their histories sealed away and preserved and it worked for them. But Antonia feels that her past is seeping out. It’s both thrilling and terrifying.

‘Talk to someone,’ Mrs Jones advised. But she had talked to someone. Not just someone. She had talked to Mike. She’d told him things she hadn’t told another soul and he didn’t recoil or turn away. She misses that. She misses him.

Antonia turns her attention back to Sophie who’s gazing at her with a puzzled frown. Of course Sophie knew Jimmy. She knew about his death and the trial but none of the detail. It’s that detail which consumes Antonia now. She told some of it to Mike, but not everything, some things were too raw, too inexplicable. She omitted to mention that after Jimmy’s violence, be it repeatedly slapping her mother, punching or kicking her, he’d lead Candy by the hand into their bedroom. Little Chinue would hide and cry and cover her ears, but still she could hear. Her mother’s moans, loud and intense. It was only when she grew older that she realised the moans were not from terror or fear but from pleasure. These memories are surfacing and they trouble her.

‘Isn’t it a bit of a come down?’ Sophie’s saying, picking up the postcard from the journalist. ‘You know. Lady of the Manor to sweeping up hair. I bet the girls are chavs too. It’s in the job description. What’s this?’ she asks. She reads from the postcard. ‘Young boxing champions of the past.’

Sophie settles herself on the sofa and tucks her legs under her bum, her face relaxed. She throws the postcard aside, forgotten already. Antonia smiles, she’s missed Sophie too. ‘Well, being an ex-chav myself, maybe I’m among friends.’

Sophie narrows her eyes. ‘I’ve only been away for a couple of weeks and you’ve changed.’

‘More like a month or more. It’s probably because I buried my husband since the last time I saw you,’ she says, looking pointedly at Sophie. ‘Anyway, so have you.’

Reaching out her arm, Sophie’s face looks genuinely contrite. ‘I’m sorry about David, Toni. Truly sorry. He really loved you and I loved him for that.’

Antonia nods, the thought of Misty and David still colouring her grief. She’s mostly shared with Sophie for as long as she can remember, but so much has happened, she doesn’t know where to start. Instead she raises her eyebrows and looks at her fingernails theatrically. ‘Well, your absence threw me into the arms of my new best friend, Helen.’

‘Really? Into autistic hairy-chinned types?’ Then rolling her eyes. ‘Come on Toni, it’s obvious to everyone but poor old Charlie that she’s on the spectrum.’