The Day She Came Back(44)

‘I like it not,’ she spat.

‘I can imagine.’ There was an awkward and uncomfortable silence on the line. She watched Flynn, who was eating quickly now, shovelling food into his mouth with his head down. Gerald took a sharp breath. ‘I know I am not family, dear’ – he swallowed – ‘but as I have said before, if you ever need anything, anything at all, day or night, just pick up the phone. I am mere minutes away by car. If I can remember where I have put the car keys.’ He chuckled at his own joke. She said nothing and heard him swallow again. ‘Well, there we have it. I’d better get on, Victoria, but I mean it. Day or night.’

‘Goodbye, Gerald.’ She ended the call and picked up her cutlery.



It was the first time that Victoria had ever called in sick to work when she had not actually been sick. She avoided looking at the portrait of Granny Cutter, directly in her eyeline, whose expression, she was sure, had changed to one of extreme disapproval. Victoria felt her face flush scarlet, and her mouth was dry as she made the call, explaining to Stanislaw, her boss, that she was not feeling too well, was sick, in fact.

‘Erm . . . I was thinking that’s it’s best . . . erm . . . if I . . . erm . . . don’t come in.’

‘I hope you feel better soon, Victoria.’

The whole exercise had been excruciating, the man’s kindly comments the very worst part, and she was absolutely certain that he knew she was lying. Nothing about it felt good. The moment, however, she ended the call, unburdened not only by the thought of having to make the call but the fact that she now didn’t have to go to work, her spirits soared.

‘I can’t believe you looked so scared over a phone call!’ Flynn lay on the rug in the hallway, laughing.

‘That’s because I was really scared!’

‘It’s only like bunking off school.’ He sat up.

‘I never bunked off school.’ She grimaced. ‘I never understood why people did. I mean, how hard is it to give a lesson an hour of your time?’

Flynn laughed again. ‘I said you were smart, didn’t I?’

‘You did. Anyway, you make out to be a rebel, Flynn McNamara, but I know you worked hard, and now you’re off to Newcastle to do Business Studies!’ The thought of him going took the edge off her happy. Ridiculous, she knew, to be feeling this way about a boy who had spent the day at her house, cooked her breakfast and kissed her twelve times yet was still a stranger. He leaned up and pulled her face to meet his.

Thirteen . . .

The plan had been to watch movies, but after the mammoth breakfast came another snooze. And after an hour or so of sitting in sleeping bags in chairs by the lake, a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches, which they dipped in ketchup, and an episode of Pointless, they were now in the garden room, where Victoria had done her best to water any plants that looked a little limp.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Flynn asked suddenly.

‘Sure.’ She smiled, burying the thought of how much she hated smoking, not wanting anything to upset Flynn or her time with him.

‘I don’t do it all the time.’ He gave her that lopsided smile.

‘I’ll open the French doors.’ She stood up and did just that, pulling up the ancient metal bar and pushing the glass to allow the early-evening air to rush in. Gerald had indulged in the odd cigar after dinner a couple times, and this was where Prim had made him come and sit. She turned back to see Flynn grab a hard-backed book on bonsai trees from a side table and place it on his crossed legs before reaching into the front pocket of his backpack and pulling out a little green packet of cigarette papers, a carton of cigarettes and a small tin, which he flipped open.

Victoria cursed her stupidity. She had thought he meant smoke a cigarette, but he had of course meant weed. She knew Prim would disapprove – heck, Daksha would disapprove – but what about her? She used to readily agree with her gran and her mate that drugs were for idiots, but right now? She felt nothing but a frisson of excitement, a little intrigued by the whole sordid business. She quite liked the fact that she, straitlaced, potato-faced Victoria, who had never bunked off school and who thought wine was a suitable alternative to vodka, was here in the garden room with a very handsome boy who was about to roll and smoke a joint. It felt illicit. She stared at the boy, who she knew her gran would deem unsuitable, and the words of Prim’s letter to Sarah came to her.

You say this man loves you – but I am unable to imagine a kind of love where you give the person you love a drug so foul it robs them of everything that made them wonderful . . . how is that love, Sarah, how?

Think about it!

Think about everything.

Oh, I’m thinking, Prim, I can’t stop thinking . . . She spoke to her gran in her mind. Sitting back in the chair, she watched, rapt, as Flynn took his time, his concentration absolute, as he went through the steps that were clearly familiar to him. His movements were precise and considered, his fingers nimble as he joined two of the cigarette papers together, having licked along the gluey edge. He then tore a corner of cardboard from the packet of cigarette papers, rolled it into a tiny curl and set it to one side. From a little plastic bag pulled from his tin, he sprinkled the green, dried-herb-like, grassy drug on the laid-out papers, picking out and discarding a couple of minute specks and smiling up at her as if he were making a cup of tea.

Flynn placed the fat paper cone in his mouth, holding it between his teeth. He struck a match and held the flame to the twisted nub on the end. Sitting on the floor next to him with her back resting on the chair, she watched, fascinated and drawn, as the sweet-scented smoke from his mouth spiralled up in delicate, ethereal wisps to curl over his head.