Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

So: Neil realises he’s no good at talking about ‘stuff’ with her. Solution? Neil tries harder? Neil sits down with her and just listens? Nope. The obvious solution is that Flora needs to find someone else to talk to.

She swallowed the hysteria rising in her throat.

‘Well. I could, yes. But Caroline’s not the kind of woman who has many female friends, I don’t think.’

‘Why on earth not? Because other women feel threatened by her?’

‘And why should I feel threatened by her?’

He started to splutter, ‘No no. I don’t mean –’

She took pity. ‘I don’t feel threatened by her, thanks very much.’ Not in the way he meant, anyway. ‘But I very much doubt she’s got any interest in being friends with a boring old fogey like me.’

‘But you must be about the same age?’

She smiled. ‘Nice try. But I doubt she’s even forty.’ She pushed her feet into her sheepskin slippers. ‘And, more importantly, she’s obviously horribly indiscreet. And – well, we were as bad, weren’t we?’ She stood, and made herself look him in the eye. ‘Two seconds into talking to her and you’ve regressed to Mr Tourette’s and I’m not far behind. What do you think will happen if we make friends with her? We’ll probably get drunk and blurt out all about Beckie and the Johnsons and having to change our names and everything.’

‘No we wouldn’t. And even if we did let something slip, she’s hardly going to go looking for the Johnsons to tell them where we are.’

‘She wouldn’t have to. She’d just have to spread it about a bit, and before we knew it someone would be tipping the Johnsons off. I wouldn’t put it past Ailish to do it anonymously.’

‘Okay, so now you’re being ridiculous.’

‘Do you think she heard?’

‘Do I think who heard what?’

‘Ailish! Do you think she heard me saying –’ She felt her face flushing all over again. ‘That stuff about her not being able to put make-up on Thomas? She was right behind us. And she had this look on her face… I’m sure she heard!’

‘So what if she did? Serves her right!’

‘We have to live next door to these people, Neil.’

If Ailish took against her… If Flora was ever to warrant, in Ailish’s eyes, the same treatment as Mia’s mum, what lengths might she not go to? And Ailish was sharp. Flora could just imagine her picking up on tiny little things she had said, tiny mistakes, and sitting up into the small hours on Google.

Although, if the Linkwood Adoption Agency hadn’t picked anything up, surely Ailish wouldn’t?

Neil shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean we have to be bosom buddies. God, I hope she bloody well did hear, if it means no more having to socialise with that lot.’

Flora felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. ‘There is that. Although you realise she’d probably defriend us? No more Chipmunk Show?’

Neil stared at her. ‘Christ, Flora, what were you thinking ?… Although maybe Caroline will give us continued access to The Show, if she’s not defriended by association.’

But we can’t be friends with Caroline! Flora wanted to shout. I can’t be!

Instead, she gave him a thin smile and went ahead of him into the hall.

As Neil slumbered at her side, Flora lay awake, staring at the strip of yellow streetlight in the gap between the shutters, wanting to get out of bed and draw the curtains across it but somehow not managing to summon the energy.

Every time she tried to stop thinking about Tricia her brain went crazy, whirling random thoughts around so fast that she couldn’t catch hold of any of them long enough for them to be a distraction.

Tricia.

All she could think about was Tricia.

Tricia Fisher, the new girl in the last term of Primary 6. She’d been such an exotic creature, all the way from Toronto in Canada. In the little rural school near Peebles, whose windows looked out on nothing but a field of damp, windblown sheep and the bleak hillside beyond, any new child had been an excitement, but a girl from Canada… !

And Tricia had lived up to all their expectations.

Flora remembered her that first day, standing by Mrs Stewart’s side in front of the blackboard as she was introduced to the class. She’d had long black hair, and skin that was a lovely pale brown colour, and she’d been wearing a dress with a fringe along the bottom. She’d been slim and very graceful, with a smiley face, pretty green eyes and a long nose, which somehow made her look older.

After the class had chanted, ‘Hello Tricia,’ and Tricia had done a funny little wave and said, ‘Hi!’, Kenny Scott had said, ‘Are you a Red Indian?’ and Mrs Stewart had gone mental at him and given them all a lecture about (a) shouting out and (b) shouting out personal questions.

Tricia had smiled and said no, she wasn’t an Indian, ‘I just tan real easy.’

She’d proved to be even more of a rebel than Kenny. This had become obvious that first day. They’d been doing pond life. They’d all had to look down a microscope at a smelly Petri dish with water boatmen and horrible larvae and shrimps in it doing disgusting things like eating each other alive and mating. Mrs Stewart had told them to draw one of the creatures they’d seen, but then she’d caught Tricia doodling on her jotter instead, and when she’d told her to get on with what she was supposed to be drawing, Tricia had said, ‘Bugs! Who wants to know about bugs? Count me out.’

Count me out!

Rachel had thrilled at those words – so casually dismissive – and repeated them to herself in her head over and over. Count me out .

Imagine actually saying that to a teacher!

Mrs Stewart had seemed similarly shocked. For a long moment she hadn’t said anything, just stood over Tricia’s desk, blinking her pale eyelashes and putting a hand up to smooth her already smooth, neatly cropped sandy hair. ‘Tricia, I don’t know how things worked in your school in Canada, but in this school you don’t give teachers cheek. And you do as you’re told.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Tricia had paused in her doodling to smile up at her angelically. ‘In my old school, it was okay for the kids to talk like that, you know? And if we didn’t want to do something yucky, we didn’t have to.’

‘Well, that’s not how things are here. Please take your turn at the microscope and make a drawing of one of the creatures you can see.’

Everyone had wanted Tricia as their friend, but to Rachel’s amazement it had been to her own group that the Canadian girl had gravitated.

Rachel had been standing with Gail and Susie in the porch, sheltering from the rain, although by rights they weren’t allowed in the building at break time – if it was raining, they were supposed to shelter under the trees or the canopy of the annex, or just get wet. But the porch was sort of half inside and half outside, a space about five feet wide between the outer and inner doors of the side entrance. There was no heating in it, but at least it was out of the weather.

Rachel, Gail and Susie had been doing hairstyles – braiding and unbraiding each other’s hair, and adding the multicoloured clips that Rachel had given Susie for her birthday. Gail was good at doing French braids. Rachel had been standing with her eyes closed as Gail’s gentle fingers worked methodically down the back of her head. She loved people playing with her hair. Even the constant traffic through the porch – P7s were allowed inside the lobby during break – hadn’t bothered her. They had been in their own little world.

Until the door to the lobby had crashed open and Tricia had been shoved through it by one of the prefects.

‘Chrissakes! It’s a school hall, not Buckingham Palace!’