‘So the new job’s going well?’ Mel took over the interrogation and one of the babies. Unfortunately, it was not the smelly one. I gave Tallulah the filthiest look I could muster but she just blew a raspberry back at me. No respect, that girl.
‘Yes?’ I was the worst liar.
‘Because I emailed you and it bounced back.’
Bloody email. She couldn’t have sent flowers?
‘Uh, there was a problem with the server.’
‘But not on Charlie’s email? Because I emailed Charlie and that was fine.’
So much for her being the nice sister. Along with her hair and boobs, Mel had also inherited our mum’s ability to sniff out blood, and once she got a whiff of something not right, she did not let go.
‘I didn’t want to say anything at the christening’ – Amy always told me it was good to start a lie by making yourself look good – ‘but I’m not actually working there any more.’
‘Then where are you working?’ The two of them stared at me as though they already knew the answer but just really, really needed to hear me say it.
‘I’m not working anywhere,’ I said quietly. ‘I got made redundant.’
Mel gasped. Liz reached out and snatched Tallulah from my arms in case unemployment was catching.
‘You know that one isn’t yours, don’t you?’ I asked.
‘Mum!’ Liz grabbed our passing mother’s arm, her face completely white. ‘Tess lost her job!’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ I pressed my hand against my forehead and prayed to whoever might be listening to strike me dead on the spot. I could not handle this right now. Silently I cursed Amy for dragging me up here and wished a plague on Charlie’s house for driving the car. My mother stopped dead in her tracks, her face frozen in horror, and just in case people hadn’t heard Liz, she dropped a full glass of red wine onto the tiled floor. It shattered into not really that many pieces (definitely not crystal) and splattered everyone around us with cheap red plonk.
‘Tess, what is she talking about?’ Ignoring the fact that she’d just ruined about seven people’s tights, my mum looked as though she’d just had a stroke. I really hoped she hadn’t. ‘What does she mean you lost your job?’
‘I was going to tell you after …’ I waved my hand around the very quiet room. ‘I got made redundant.’
And with that, the whispering began. Everyone knew someone who had been made redundant, but Tess Brookes? Her who had moved away to That London? With her fancy job? Scandalous.
‘But your promotion?’ Mum’s face was still a very worrying shade of grey.
‘No promotion,’ I replied. Thank goodness I hadn’t overreacted. This was exactly as horrible as I had thought it would be.
‘I cannot believe you would embarrass me like this,’ she said through gritted teeth as she looked around at anyone but me. ‘I cannot believe you would come here and announce that like it’s nothing. I cannot believe you wanted to embarrass me in front of all my friends.’
I dipped my head, pretending my eyes weren’t stinging, and watched the puddle of her spilled wine bleed across the floor towards a white paper napkin and slowly stain it a dark ruby red. There were so many things I wanted to say. I hadn’t planned to tell her like this. I hadn’t wanted to embarrass anyone. Liz told her! It was just like being fifteen again; Liz was such a grass. But just like when I was fifteen, I knew there was no point answering back. She wasn’t finished.
‘Don’t just sit there crying. What did you do?’
Damage done, Liz got up, switched babies with Mel and flounced away, muttering something about needing to change Harry. Mel gave me a quick supportive squeeze on the shoulder and followed. Just like being fifteen. Where was Amy when I needed her?
‘I didn’t do anything – they were just laying people off,’ I explained. It didn’t help that I didn’t actually know what had happened myself. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘Well, people don’t just lose their jobs for no reason, Tess,’ she carried on while a random sixteen-year-old who probably went to my old school started mopping up the mess around us. ‘I should have known something was wrong when you came out dressed like that.’
She had a point there. She should have known.
‘I can’t believe this. After all I’ve done for you.’
‘What? After all you’ve done what?’
Ahh. There was Amy. And as my best friend stepped up to my mother, the whispering was replaced by a low clinking of glasses, occasionally punctuated by the popping open of packets of McCoy’s.
‘What exactly have you done?’ she asked, forcing her way in between me and my mother, hands on skinny hips, and stamping a very little foot. ‘Aside from bully your daughter for the last twenty years?’
Amy and my mum were exactly the same height. For years I’d wondered who would win in a fight, and at last it looked like I might find out.
‘I know this is going to be hard for you, Amy, but please don’t involve yourself where you’re not wanted,’ she replied. Ahh, interesting. She was playing the responsible mother card.
‘Can we not do this?’ I asked as calmly as possible. ‘We can talk about this at home. This is … Katniss’s day?’
Nope, that just did not sound right.
‘Oh, we will talk about this at home,’ Mum replied, giving Amy the frowning of a lifetime. ‘We’ll talk about when you decided it was all right to start lying to your mother. And Amy, I think it would be a good idea if you stayed at your house tonight.’
Before Amy could reply, my mum turned on her sensible heel and marched away. As the door to the pub slammed, the silence broke and the party went back to full volume with a new lease of life now they had something scandalous to talk about. Thank goodness me losing my job had served a purpose.
‘Sorry.’ Amy dropped into my lap and rested her head on my shoulder. Because that would quiet those lesbian rumours. ‘I couldn’t listen to her going on at you.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you only made it marginally worse,’ I said, patting her on the head. ‘She was going to find out sooner or later.’
‘I suppose. Sorry I made you come in the first place, then,’ she sniffed. ‘I thought coming back and checking out all the losers would remind you how awesome our lives are.’
I looked at her in disbelief. She shrugged. ‘How awesome my life is?’
‘OK.’ I groaned and stood up straight, ignoring the looks and smirks around the room. ‘I’m going to go out for a walk. Get some fresh air. Are you all right? I saw you dancing for Mrs Rogers earlier. Nice moves.’
‘Can you stop worrying about me for one minute and worry about yourself?’ she said, brushing down her in-appropriately tiny red dress and straightening out her glossy black bob. ‘When am I not fine?’
It was true. She was always fine. So I gave her a smile and, ignoring all my Cloverhill classmates, I pushed my way over to the fire escape and escaped.
Behind the Millhouse was the mill pond, a tiny body of water just big enough to have a good side and a bad side. Naturally, the bad side was where all the cool kids hung out and drank cheap, rank booze, while the good side was where the nanas brought their