Skylarks Read online

  ‘Nearly ten o’clock,’ Mrs H says and goes off to greet the parents.

  My face is calming down now. There’s a shout from the library as the first few kids arrive. I look at Annabel. If it’d been Kells standing there I would’ve been laughing and saying, ‘Brace for impact,’ but I can’t imagine saying anything like that to Annabel.

  The first of the toddlers charges down the hall and goes straight for the slide while the parents follow. They quickly separate out into little groups. There’s people like Linds who lives around the corner from me, has four kids and needs some kind of medal if you ask me. Then you get the occasional posher one, who’s trying to get the kids out of her husband’s hair after his long week in the City or wherever (I listen in a fair amount). One or two dads as well, giving their other halves a break. I guess it must feel like a pretty long week when you’ve only got a two-year-old for company.

  I like most of the kids fine and spend some time with Teddy, Linds’ toddler, putting a big floor puzzle together. It’s got the Teletubbies on, which he totally loves. His big brother, Alfie, is busy scoffing all the biscuits while Linds sorts out her twin girls, who are six months old. She parks their double buggy, kneels in front of them and plugs a bottle into each mouth. I’m about to see if she needs a hand; I’m all right with giving a baby a cuddle and a bottle as long as it doesn’t puke on me or anything. It’s not like I need to worry about it, because I’m about ninety-five per cent certain I never want kids. No way do I want the same worries Mum’s got.

  Annabel gets there first. Linds unclips Poppy – I can tell because she has more hair than her sister – and settles her in Annabel’s arms. Annabel suddenly looks nervous, fumbling with the baby like she’s worried she might drop her, but she gets the bottle plugged in and Poppy starts glugging and I see a small smile come over Annabel’s face.

  Just as suddenly, it falters. I glance in the direction Annabel’s looking and there’s a really posh woman approaching with an actual Versace buggy. I know the Medusa logo courtesy of Kelly, who likes her designer brands – or knock-offs anyway – yet another thing I simply don’t get. It’s not like a logo makes you a better person, right?

  The woman strides right up to Annabel and even though I’m still talking to Teddy, I can’t help hearing what’s she’s saying, given that her voice is the carrying sort posh people seem to have.

  ‘Annabel, darling!’ A loud air-kiss. ‘Your father told me you were helping out here and I was absolutely tickled. I had to come and see you.’

  Annabel’s reply is unfortunately lost in a wail as a little girl topples off the slide. Her mum scoops her up and I go over with a biscuit and some juice and by the time I turn around I can see Poppy has finished her bottle and Annabel has given her back to Linds, who’s looking on the stressed-out side. I’m pretty sure Annabel is too, if her smile as she answers the buggy woman’s questions is anything to go by; it’s kind of tight and doesn’t get anywhere near her eyes. I don’t have much time to consider this though as the buggy woman’s let her spawn out and he’s made a beeline for Teddy’s jigsaw. Next thing I know, he’s only gone and broken it all up. Teddy lets out a wail as I say, ‘Oi, don’t do that.’ The little boy has really long blonde curls, like a painting of an angel, but the look on his face is definitely not angelic.

  His mum’s next to me in a flash. She gives me an icy look, then scoops up her son. ‘You were just looking at the lovely picture, weren’t you, Hugo?’ she says. In response Hugo kicks her.

  Linds is red in the face as she tries to sort out Teddy with Poppy balanced in one arm. Daisy, still in the buggy, starts to scrunch up her face.

  Alfie starts tugging on Linds’ sleeve. ‘I want more biscuit,’ he says.

  ‘In a minute, Alfie!’ Linds says in a near-shout. I see the posh woman by Annabel looking over, her top lip curled.

  ‘You OK?’ I say to Linds.

  ‘I think she’s filled her nappy,’ Linds says, her voice with an edge of despair. That is definitely a duty way too far for me, so I grab Teddy and take him over to the biscuits while Linds disappears to the toilet with Poppy. Obviously, at this point Daisy starts to cry.

  Like I said, carnage.

  The group winds up eventually, only one or two stragglers left. Annabel is still busy chatting to Hugo’s mum, or being talked at by the looks of it. I hear Hugo’s mum say, ‘You must send my love to your father. It’s wonderful what he’s done here.’ There’s a shine on her face like he’s some sort of hero.

  I start picking up toys on my own. Linds is struggling to get her lot rounded up.

  ‘Need a hand?’ I say.

  ‘Would you walk Teddy out?’ Teddy never wants to leave.

  I take his sticky little hand and we go out through the library. At the top of the steps, I slip him an extra biscuit and Linds gives me a grateful look. ‘See you next time!’ she says. I smile, but I’m secretly wondering whether I can’t persuade Mrs H to reduce toddler group down to once a month.

  I go back into the library and hear rather than see Annabel and Hugo’s mum, mainly because Hugo’s mum can definitely project.

  ‘You do have to wonder why people have so many children when they clearly aren’t able to cope.’ She gives a little huh of a laugh. ‘For the welfare of course.’

  They’ve almost reached me now.

  ‘This two-child cap on welfare can only be a good thing. Stop them breeding,’ Hugo’s mum says.

  ‘I suppose …’ Annabel begins, but she breaks off because I’ve reached them now and she’s spotted the expression on my face.

  Hers changes too, but I’m already swivelling on my heel. I storm out, slamming the door behind me as I go.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I’m still stomping all the way round Lidl as I pick up some stuff for tea. We’re out of toilet roll, so I sling some of that into the trolley with a satisfying thunk.

  Who the hell does Annabel Huntington think she is? I keep replaying what Hugo’s mum said, and how Annabel stood there agreeing. Must be nice, I think as I whack in some economy beans, to be sitting up on high without any clue how real people live.

  I whip round the aisles, my thoughts piling one on top of the other. How could Annabel go along with that crap? Is it what she thinks too? And I was just starting to reckon she might be OK. I wrench the trolley around a corner, hating that I’m bothered by it. Why should I care about her opinion? I’m so busy ranting in my head as I lob everything down on the conveyor belt I don’t even realise for a few minutes that it’s Theresa Wójcik behind the till. I used to go to school with her. She was all right, really sporty – she could run the fifteen hundred metres in about half the time everyone else could, not including those of us who skulked at the back not bothering running at all.

  Theresa has on a crap ton of make-up: HD Brows, winged eyeliner, the lot, and she’s dyed her hair really red. She looks amazing.

  ‘Hiya!’ she says as she recognises me.

  I grin, feeling some of my annoyance melt away. ‘All right? How’s you?’

  ‘Yeah, you know,’ she says, whizzing all my stuff through at lightning speed. I fling it all in the trolley higgledy-piggledy just as fast.

  I’m suddenly taken back to Science class with Miss Lilless, whose name was way too close to a major tampon brand to get away with. There was one incident involving a tampon and a Bunsen burner I won’t forget in a hurry. I sort of wish we hadn’t arsed about quite so much in Science now; I only scraped a C at GCSE so any thoughts of going on to do Science A Levels, like I’d planned to when I was younger and had the idea I wanted to be a vet, went out of the window. It was a dumb dream anyway. Vet degrees cost tens of thousands of pounds.

  Theresa looks so much older now.

  ‘What you up to these days?’ I say. Theresa never stayed on at the sixth form.

  ‘Still doing my NVQ, but I might quit when I’m eighteen. I’m failing it anyway, and there’s more shifts going here,’ she says.

  I want to ask
if it won’t be boring stuck in Lidl all day, but she grins. ‘I was always thick as hell anyway, me.’

  I open my mouth to say that’s not true, because it’s totally not, but she speaks before I can. ‘At least here I’m earning my own money. I can move out, get a room somewhere,’ she says.

  I remember Theresa complaining at school about how strict her parents were, so this is not the biggest surprise. I look at her face, suddenly drawn under the strip lights, imagine her still sitting on the same stool in ten years’ time and get a flash of sadness, but she gives a grin and says, ‘Remember Miss Lil-lets?’

  I laugh. ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘Good times,’ she says, her voice suddenly soft.

  On the way home – the carrier bags dangling from the handlebars, whacking me in the shins – I wonder why I felt sad. Does it matter if Theresa wants to work in Lidl? It’s a job, isn’t it? Better than none at all, and the pay’s pretty good. Then I imagine Annabel in a blue polo shirt. I’m guessing Lidl would never feature in her future plans. Why would it?

  Why is she still taking up my brain space? For God’s sake.

  I bang into the house and dump all the shopping on the side. Jamie’s in the kitchen. He watches me. ‘Something on your mind?’ he says.

  ‘You can give me a hand with this,’ I say, my voice coming out grumpy.

  He helps me put the shopping away, except for a couple of pizzas which he leaves on the side, and puts the oven on to warm up.

  ‘Come on then, what’s up with you?’ he says and I think it’s because he looks genuinely concerned, like the version of him I’m more used to; the older brother who’d make sure we all had tea after school when Mum and Dad were still at work, that I say, ‘I don’t know.’

  Jamie flicks on the kettle, then sits down at the table. I sit next to him. ‘There’s this new girl working at the library … Annabel Huntington.’

  He gives a low whistle. Everyone round here knows who the Huntingtons are. ‘What’s she working there for?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought! Mrs Hendry said something about UCAS, but who knows? I thought she might be all right, but today, well, I guess not.’

  I tell him about toddler group and the conversation I overheard. ‘I just feel weird around her … like I’m not good enough or something and it feels … I dunno …’

  ‘Pretty crappy?’ Jamie’s looking at me like he really understands and then I get another flash of how he was last year, when he landed that job at Molray’s. He talked about Anton so much, Mum had to tell me to stop taking the piss, so I did. He never talks about it now. I hold his eyes. For a second I think he’s going to open up, it’s there in the hurt twist of his mouth, but the next minute he jumps up and grabs an orange from the fridge.

  He sits back down and starts peeling it. ‘Right. This is the world,’ he says and there’s something in his tone that makes me think he’s rehashing a speech he heard from someone else. Again. Mason Deal’s face with its stubble and flashy cheekbones pops into my mind.

  ‘O-K, what’s that got to do with Anna–’

  ‘You’ll see. So this,’ he pulls the orange apart and pushes half to one side then points to the other half, ‘is what the top one per cent of the world’s population owns. The other ninety-nine per cent scrabble for a share in the rest. Which means this,’ he pulls out a tiny sliver of orange from the remaining half, sharp-smelling juice spraying across the table, ‘is what people like us get. And I’m not even counting people in really poor countries. We all have less because they always have to keep grabbing at more. The eight richest people in the world own the same amount as the bottom half of everyone else. Like, over three billion people or something. More, I think. Eight people, Joni.’

  I make a disbelieving face, but he says, ‘It’s true. Oxfam did this study.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Really?’

  ‘Yep. And the main thing you’ve got to remember about people like her is they’ve got one priority,’ he says, ‘and that’s to keep hold of as much of this’ – he points to the orange – ‘as they can, and stuff the rest of us struggling to get by on the scraps. Once you understand that, you can protect yourself. And the best way to do that is to steer clear of people like her,’ he adds.

  ‘That’s gonna be a bit hard, seeing as I’ve got to work with her,’ I say.

  ‘Well, yeah. But just keep your distance as much as you can.’

  I fall silent while I think about this. Jamie suddenly stirs himself and pops one of the segments into his mouth, then gets up. ‘Best get these pizzas in the oven or Mum’ll be steaming when she gets in,’ he says.

  I stare at the glistening segments still on the table, the little shred of flesh sitting to one side next to its juice trail. I put one into my own mouth. It tastes sour.

  I decide to get to the library extra early the following week. I want to get on with some homework and the fan is knackered on the old laptop school gave me. Wouldn’t mind looking up that stat Jamie told me either; it’s been going round my head for days.

  I’m expecting an hour of early morning peace: me, a cup of tea and the work PC, but when I ride into the car park I spot Annabel’s Audi out front. I can’t help frowning as I lean my bike against the wall and go up the steps. I unlock the door and lock it up again behind me, then stand for a moment, listening.

  A really bizarre noise is floating out into the lobby. It sounds like two cats fighting to the death. It takes me a second to realise it’s Annabel singing.

  Oh. My. God.

  I can’t help it; my face is smiling whether I want it to or not, stuff being annoyed she’s here. I have never heard anything quite that out of tune. I think it might be a Rihanna song, but it’s kind of hard to tell. I walk in to the library and then stop again. There’s books and toys everywhere, all of it brand new by the looks of it. Annabel’s got earbuds in and she has her back to me, singing her heart out. Yep, it’s definitely Rihanna. She takes a few dance steps, hips going, then does a pose with one arm up in the air as she belts out the chorus. She’s so bad I’m half thinking it’s on purpose. There are dogs at least three streets away that are covering their ears and whimpering right now. I think about tiptoeing out and making a louder re-entry, but before I get the chance, she’s done a wobbly swivel-turn thing, her loose hair whipping round, so that she’s facing me.

  She screams, ‘Fahking hell!’ and I’m gone. My shoulders are shaking with the effort of trying to keep the laughter in.

  This is all made worse by the small detail that Annabel is also clutching a teddy bear in one hand. She yanks her earbuds out of her ears. I’m still desperately trying not to laugh, but two tears roll down my cheeks.

  ‘You scared me,’ she says, the teddy now pressed up against her chest. Her face is rapidly going past pink and into the deep mortification zone. Sort of nice in a weird way, to know it’s not just me that happens to. It makes her seem more … normal.

  I open my mouth to say sorry, and this gigantic snort comes out of nowhere and now I’m properly laughing, trying to apologise, but all that comes out is something like, ‘You … teddy … oh God … posh swearing … sor-sorry … gonna pee myself.’ Actually, I’m laughing so hard wetting myself might be a real possibility.

  Annabel stiffens and starts to glare. I swallow, trying to get myself under control, but all of a sudden, her face relaxes and she says, ‘You’d better go to the loo then,’ and there’s a tiny smile on her face too.

  I’m still sniggering as I pee, but I sort myself out and go back into the library with my face now straight. Annabel’s bending over some books, sorting through them. This time, I say in as sincere a voice as I can manage, ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.’

  She puts down the book she was holding and looks at me, and the tiny smile is back, then it gets wider as she seems to think about it. ‘I suppose I did look a little strange?’

  ‘Look? I was more worried about how you sounded, mate.’ I say it without thinking, just
like I would to Kelly, then stop abruptly, not sure how she’s going to take this, but she rolls her eyes as if to say ‘fair enough’.

  ‘Well, yes. That’s why I tend to do my singing in private. In fact, you may be the first person who’s heard me sing since I was eleven.’ She shudders and I can tell there’s definitely a story there. I’m going to leave it, but my nosey side wins out and I say, ‘Oh yeah? What happened when you were eleven then?’

  For a moment she doesn’t reply, just stands up even straighter, like she’s reminding herself to. I realise she does that quite a bit.

  Then she turns this big smile on me, and says, ‘Oh, Mummy made me do a recital in front of the whole school. She wanted me to read a poem, but I completely insisted it had to be a song, which needless to say didn’t go quite as planned.’ For a split second I think she looks pained, but then she laughs again. ‘I really did think I could sing until then, despite what Mummy said, but she was right as always. Totally ridiculous.’ She shakes her head at herself, smiling again.

  This is possibly the most she’s ever said to me all in one go, and for a moment I’m not sure how to react. Then I blurt, ‘My mate Kelly’s got an amazing voice.’

  She doesn’t answer except with a cool smile. There’s a silence while I think of something else to say and realise I’ve got nothing. Eventually, I gesture at the piles of stuff. ‘Where did this lot come from?’

  ‘Oh. Well, after the group last week I had Mary – she’s our housekeeper – look in the attic to see if there were any of my old things. Mummy does tend to hoard, but there wasn’t much so …’ She does the sort of shrug Kelly would do when she was definitely bothered but trying not to let on.

  I gape at her, trying to get my head round the words ‘housekeeper’ and ‘Mummy’ and then remembering that the last time I saw her I flounced off in a strop. Then I say, ‘What, like you went to Toys R Us or something?’

  ‘Well …’ She spreads her arms wide.