I Think I'll Just Curl Up and Die (10 page)

At five o'clock, Laura was assailed once more by hunger pangs and decided to go home after all.

‘Come over when you've done the drafts and we'll take a look,' said Jon.

‘See you soon,' said Laura and cycled off.

As Jon was about to close the front door an unfamiliar car pulled up outside. To his surprise, his mother was sitting in the passenger seat, talking animatedly to a guy he didn't recognise. Then to his amazement, she leaned across and kissed the driver on the cheek.

‘Who was that guy?' said Jon casually as his mother switched the kettle on.

‘Oh,' said Anona. ‘Er, that's just a guy from my design course. He gave me a lift home – my wretched car's got a flat battery. Make the tea, there's a dear. I'm just going to nip upstairs for a shower.'

By the time Jon had made the tea, emptied the pot, started again because he forgot to put the tea bags in, and eaten three Penguin biscuits, his mother finished her shower, and his father was back from golf.

‘Good game, Dad?' asked Jon.

‘Huh,' said his father.

‘What's wrong, Henry?' asked Mrs Joseph, pouring tea.

‘Think I'm losing my touch – 15 over par – disgusting!' he said. ‘I may be unfit, but I used to have a damn good swing and a keen eye for a ball.'

‘Old age, that's what it is, Dad!' said Jon teasingly.

At which his father threw him a cutting glance and
stomped off upstairs. It was only then that Jon realised that his mum hadn't given Dad the usual welcome home kiss. And that his dad didn't seem even to have noticed.

Jemma spent the whole of Monday telling everyone about Rupert.

‘What's he like?' asked Chelsea during lunch break.

‘He was really friendly and nice,' said Jemma.

‘But is he buff?' demanded Sumitha. ‘Bilu is
so
buff.'

‘Mmmm,' said Jemma non-commitally. She had to admit that hunk was not really the first word to spring to mind when contemplating Rupert.

‘And he's got a lovely smile,' she added. That bit was true, at least.

‘Bilu's got the most amazing smile,' said Sumitha. Laura raised her eyes heavenwards and Chelsea pulled a face behind Sumitha's back. They were all getting a little tired of hearing about the marvel that was Bilu.

‘Has Bilu got loads of girlfriends, being so gorgeous and all?' asked Laura craftily. After all, Jon had hinted that monogamy was not high on Bilu's list of priorities.

‘No, of course not!' snapped Sumitha. ‘He told me I am the only one for him.' Oh yes, thought Laura.

‘When do we get to meet this Rupert?' asked Chelsea. ‘Soon,' promised Jemma. When I'm thin and his nose has stopped peeling.

During the next few weeks, everyone was absorbed with concerns of their own.

Laura, who was getting a bit tired of Jemma and Sumitha hogging the limelight with rundowns on their love lives, decided to break the news about the baby one lunch hour. She was amazed to find that everyone thought she was really lucky.

‘Oh, that's brilliant,' said Chelsea, trying to look suitably surprised even though she knew already. ‘Cute. Dinky. Oh, can I get to hold it when it's born?'

‘You can take it on a one – way ticket to nowhere for all I care,' said Laura.

‘I don't know why you're fed up,' said Sumitha. ‘Think of all the baby – sitting cash you can earn. I was too young
to look after Sandeep when he was born – you've got it made.'

That's a point, thought Laura.

‘You'll get all the best bits,' said Jemma. ‘The twins were really adorable when they were tiny but now I have no privacy, get my eyeliner used as crayons and have to sit through eighteen re – runs of
Tellytubbies
. By the time this baby gets to be the twins' age, you'll be away at uni. Do you want it to be a boy or a girl?'

But the moment when Laura accepted her impending sisterhood as something to be endured, if not positively welcomed, came one wet Saturday morning when Jon was at her house showing Laura how to draw silhouettes for the programme covers. They were sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by paper, pens and pastels when Laura's mum arrived back from the shops.

‘Look what I found for the baby,' she said holding up a minute lemon sleeping suit with a penguin on the front. ‘Isn't it sweet?'

Laura glared.

Oh whoops, I've put my foot in it again, thought Mrs Turnbull as she made a hasty retreat.

‘You didn't tell me your mum was having a baby,' said Jon accusingly. ‘That's great.'

‘I'm glad you think so,' said Laura. ‘It's bad enough having a mother who goes around with someone half her age, all luvvy duvvy and holding hands. But a baby? Give me strength.'

‘Think yourself lucky, Laura,' he said. ‘At least your mum and … er …'

‘Melvyn,' groaned Laura.

‘Melvyn, are happy. My parents seem to be like strangers living in the same house right now.'

Laura wasn't sure what to say.

‘My mum and dad were like that before they got divorced,' she said.

Oh no, that's not what I meant it to come out like, she thought, cringing.

‘Well, um, maybe they are both working too hard,' she suggested hurriedly, seeing the miserable look on Jon's face. ‘Your mum is doing a course, isn't she?'

Jon nodded glumly.

‘Well, I expect it's that then – doing that all day, and getting to meet new people and everything. It's bound to be tiring.' She hoped she sounded both comforting and mature.

It's the meeting new people bit that bothers me, thought Jon. But decided to change the subject.

‘Babies are notoriously difficult to draw,' he said thoughtfully – ‘I don't suppose your mum would let me try sketching it when it arrives, would she? I mean, if she didn't mind. It would be a real bonus for my portfolio.'

Mind? I won't give her the chance to mind, thought Laura, if it means Jon coming round more often. Perhaps this baby will have its uses yet.

Laura's mum had stopped throwing up and started worrying about how to fit a baby into their already overcrowded two bedroom semi.

‘We'll move,' said Melvyn, calm as ever.

‘But we can't afford it,' protested Ruth. ‘Can we?' she added hopefully.

‘Look,' he said, ‘I've got a bit put by and with what you would get for this house, we could afford a deposit on something bigger. We need at least three bedrooms, and I reckon four would be good – then I could have one for my computer stuff and there'd still be one for Laura and one for the baby.'

Ruth looked excited. ‘I could pick up some details from the estate agent on my way to the ante – natal clinic tomorrow,' she said. ‘Laura will be over the moon.'

As the weeks passed, Jemma dieted more and more intensely but her regime was not without its problems. She wore baggy sweaters to hide what she thought was an obscene amount of flesh, and even went to the expense of buying a school sweater two sizes bigger than her usual one. Breakfast was no problem because her mum was too tied up with the twins and Sammy to see what she ate. On the way to school, she would ditch the peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate biscuits and slices of quiche that her mother insisted on packing for her into the rubbish bin at the bus stop and substitute them with a couple of carrots and an apple pinched from the larder before she left. Supper was a little more tricky. Her mother kept exhorting her to eat up because she needed all her strength, but she had devised a method whereby she ate all the vegetables first, and then kicked Daniel or Luke under the table till they yelled. Then, while her mother was doing the ‘Who's a poor little lambkin, then?' routine she removed every fattening item into a plastic bag.

Occasionally, her mother on seeing an empty plate would tell her not to eat so fast, and Jemma would smile sweetly and say, ‘But it's so delicious,' and Mrs Farrant would ruffle her hair and say, ‘Thank you petal,' and the crisis would pass.

The trouble was, there was a limit to how often she could kick Daniel. Some nights she had to eat at least four mouthfuls of fattening stuff and that really bothered her. Every morning she weighed herself, even though the diet books said you should only do it once a week; and every night she measured her thighs, her upper arms, her waist – and her detestable boobs.

What was more, Rupert had telephoned the week after the golf club do and invited her out to the cinema. Then he had phoned a couple of days later to cancel because he said he was ill. She was perfectly sure he wasn't – it was just that he couldn't bring himself to take a fat slob out. The worst part was that having told her friends about this great guy who chatted her up and asked her out, she was now going to have to admit to being dumped before she'd even started. Maybe she shouldn't say anything for a while.

Laura was counting the days until half – term. She had acquired a bottle of Raven Raver hair dye from the chemist and intended transforming herself into a thing of beauty. All her visits to Jon's house – and there had been
plenty, because she made sure she never got things
quite
right – had been purely platonic. She had waited in vain for him to profess his undying love, clasp her to his manly chest and smother her with kisses. But he kept going on about Sumitha's gorgeous black eyes and her wonderful black hair. Well, Laura couldn't do much about her eyes but the hair was a different matter. All her hopes were now pinned on the Raven Raver.

For Sumitha, the past few weeks had been the best ever. On two occasions, Bilu had come to stay and taken her out to the most amazing places. Last week they drove thirty miles to Wellingford and went to a night club called The Purple Pig (although they had told her dad they were going to the cinema to see the latest Bollywood extravaganza). Sumitha had had a drink called Nights of Passion that made her head go all fluffy and her legs tingle. When they got in the car to go home, Bilu had leaned across and kissed her and said ‘You're learning – we'll make a little raver of you yet' which made her feel really sophisticated. Then she fell asleep and Bilu had to shake her awake outside her house.

Things weren't going so well for Chelsea. She had made the grave error of agreeing to go shopping with her mum on Saturday and it was an unmitigated disaster.

They were in Hot Threadz, and Chelsea was browsing through the boleros, when she saw her mother sauntering out of the changing rooms in a pair of capris and a T – shirt which said ‘Little Miss Wonderful' on it.

‘Mum!' Chelsea grabbed her arm. ‘You're not going to buy those, are you?'

‘Why not?' said her mum, twirling in front of the mirror and causing her cellulite to go into overdrive. ‘I've been really miserable lately. Thought I was losing my verve. Silly, isn't it? So I thought I'd cheer myself up – Dad says we've got to cut back on spending, but this lot is cheap.'

‘Very,' said Chelsea wryly. ‘Mum, you are too old for stuff like that.'

‘Nonsense!' said her mother brightly, ‘you're as old as you feel. And besides, it's no good going through life all bland and colourless. I feel like making a statement.'

‘Mum, the only statement you're making is that your legs are too big for capris,' said Chelsea. ‘Get some tracksuit trousers.'

‘Kids!' chirruped Ginny to the assistant who was watching the charade in some amazement. ‘No sense of flair!'

Mothers! thought Chelsea, walking out of the shop while her mother, unabashed, purchased the ghastly gear. They should carry a government health warning. Then she saw something that stopped her dead in her tracks. Across the concourse, outside See Dees music shop, was Bilu Chakrabarti. And a girl. In an embrace. A very tight embrace. Oh knickers, thought Chelsea. What do I tell Sumitha?

Chelsea's mortification didn't stop with her mother. Her dad had been to London to record the
Superchef
programme and her mother had done a piece about it in the
Echo
.

LOCAL MAN COOKS UP A STORM!
Barry Gee, husband of our very own columnist, Ginny Gee, last week took part in the first round of ITV's popular
Superchef
contest. Barry (50), a catering consultant from Leehampton, prepared a selection of what he calls ‘country cooking from the regions' and
…

‘Catering consultant?' queried Chelsea.

‘Well, I wasn't going to have them say he drove a van round town,' muttered her mother.

‘But Dad, did you win?' asked Chelsea. She certainly wasn't having her friends watch if he made a complete prat of himself.

‘Watch and see,' he said, his expression giving nothing away. ‘Anyway, we are not allowed to disclose the results until after transmission.'

As if all this were not enough, Mandy Fincham was really getting up Chelsea's nose. At last week's rehearsal, Mr Horage had said, ‘You make an excellent Nancy, Mandy,' and Chelsea had muttered under her breath, ‘That's because playing a slut comes naturally.' Only Miss McConnell had been standing right behind her and heard, and sent her to the Head who gave her a detention and a diatribe on the evils of malicious gossip and slanderous talk. What was even worse was that Rob thought the sun shone out of Mandy's – well, left ear.

The real crunch came a few days later. Chelsea, who had been collecting the papier mâché bowls which the art department had made for the workhouse dining room scene, wandered into the school hall to find Sumitha after the rehearsal had finished. There was no sign of her friend but, partly concealed by the curtains, she caught sight of Rob. And Mandy Fincham. Kissing.