Kate Atkinson - Case Histories

All the girls cooed over the baby – Nina – when Kim brought her downstairs. Even the boys were interested in her, as if she were a novel science project ("Can she focus yet?" "Does she recognize you?"), but Laura felt completely disinterested. She knew it would be different when she had her own, but other people's babies left her cold. Kim wasn't breast-feeding. One of the girls – Andi – had asked her and she said, "God, no," as if she couldn't imagine anything more unnatural, and Josh and Laura exchanged a look and both of them tried not to laugh.

"Of course, I'm not educated like you lot," Kim said later, when they were washing up together, by which time they'd formed a kind of alliance – Mr. Jessop had bought a crate of beer and boxes of wine and everyone was in the living room completely pissed, in that stupid loud way, and neither Kim nor Laura was drinking, Laura because she was on antibiotics for an ear infection and Kim because of the baby – "I need my wits about me," she said, and Josh whispered to Laura, "If she can find any," and Laura pretended to ignore him because Mr. Jessop was looking at them as if he knew they were saying things about his wife.

Kim was from Newcastle and her accent seemed totally foreign. The fact that she was Geordie made her a little frightening. Laura imagined the North was populated with hard, no-nonsense women that you wouldn't want to take on in a fight. "I left school at sixteen," Kim told her, "and did a year at college. Secretarial, since you ask," and Laura said, "Oh?" although she wasn't really listening because she was wiping down the kitchen surfaces, which were already spotless because Kim might be trashy and stupid but she kept a very clean house, which was something Dad would have approved of. It would be good if, when she left to go to university (and definitely not before that), Dad were to meet a really nice woman (not a Kim), someone mature, even a little dowdy and a real homemaker, someone who would appreciate all his good qualities and would want to make him very, very happy. He deserved happiness, and when she went to university he was going to be heartbroken, even though he pretended he wouldn't be. Maybe not heartbroken, not the way she felt when Poppy died, but he was going to be very sad because it had been just the two of them for so long and he lived for her. That was why she was going to Aberdeen, because it wasn't on the doorstep. She had to get away, to be herself, to become herself. As long as she stayed with Dad she'd be a child.

She wouldn't be like Jenny. Jenny was really bad, she never phoned or wrote – all the effort was always on Dad's side. It was almost like she didn't care about him at all. When Laura left she was going to phone a lot and she'd already bought a little stock of postcards, funny ones and ones with cute animals on them that she was going to send to him regularly. She loved him more than anything. That was why she'd agreed to work in his office, even though it was much more fun in the bar, but it was only for a few weeks and then she'd be off, like an arrow into the future. And she couldn't wait.

After that day, the day the barbecue didn't happen, she started babysitting for them – apparently Kim suggested her to Mr. Jessop, so she must have liked her in some way (although you would never have guessed). Mr. Jessop asked her at the end of class one day and she said, "Well, okay, but I don't know anything about babies," and he said, "God, Laura, neither do we."

She usually got Emma to come over and sit with her because Emma was good with babies. She really loved them in fact, which was ironic and pretty sad really because she'd had that abortion, and for a while she seemed to really lose it, but she was the sort who always pretended to be bright and cheerful, which was why Laura liked her. And they'd usually just sit and do their homework together, although sometimes they looked through Kim's wardrobe, which was always an education in itself, although it didn't feel right being in their bedroom because, unlike with most other adults, you could actually imagine Kim and Mr. Jessop having sex, which was kind of embarrassing.

She'd told Dad that she was a virgin, because she knew that was what he wanted to hear, and as lies went it was pretty harmless. In fact it was charitable. And it wasn't that far from the truth because she'd only had sex with four boys, and one of them was Josh so that hardly counted because they'd been to primary school together and had known each other since they were four years old and they'd decided it would be a good idea to get over the whole "losing virginity" thing to each other because that would be safe and friendly, if a bit weird. And better than Emma, for example, who lost it to a married man (in his car, for heaven's sake), or poor Christina, who was raped by a guy who put something in her drink.

They did it in Josh's bedroom, which his parents never went into. They were those arty, liberal types who'd let him do whatever he wanted since the age of twelve (so it was amazing really that the boy had turned out as well as he had). His parents were downstairs watching some nature documentary about whales.

At first it had been funny and they couldn't stop laughing and then they'd grown quite formal, examining each other's bodies like anatomy students and having foreplay by the book, but then they'd got completely into it and were down on the floor like dogs and it was just as well that the television was turned up loud because she could hear herself yelling like someone she didn't know at all and afterward, when they were lying there on the floor, stunned by the way it had taken them over, all they could hear was whale song and they'd both started laughing again because his parents must have heard them, but if they did they never said anything. Josh said, "Well, we surprised ourselves there, did we not, Miss Wyre?" and she said, "Can we do it again, please?" and he said, "God, woman, give me a minute, will you."

When Dad picked her up he said, "Are you alright, you look flushed," and she said, "I think I'm coming down with something," and he made her hot lemon and honey and she sat up in bed, in her Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas, and hugged him and said, "Thank you, Best Dad in the World," and hoped he couldn't smell Josh's spunk. That was when they were fourteen and they'd done it a few times since and she knew Josh was in love with her, but was grateful that he was careful never to say so.

She'd been round to the Jessops' quite a few times without any babysitting being involved. She'd grown to like Kim. Being Kim's friend made her feel more like a woman and less like a girl. Once, after a supper of (tough) steak and chips, Kim had plucked Laura's eyebrows and given her a manicure, although usually she visited on a Saturday afternoon when Stan wasn't there and they just sat in the garden while Nina crawled around on the grass. Stan played on an amateur football team on Saturdays. "You've got to let them off the leash sometimes," Kim said, as if she were giving tips on how to keep a difficult pet. That was when Laura'd encountered Stuart Lappin the first time. He was mowing his lawn next door. When he finished, he looked over the fence and offered to do the Jessops' lawn, and Kim kept on filing her nails and said loudly to him, "No, thank you, Stuart," without making eye contact with him. It seemed a bit rude to Laura and she gave "Stuart" an encouraging smile to compensate.

"I can't stand him," Kim hissed when he had disappeared, "he's always trying to be friendly. He gives me the creeps. He's in his thirties and he still lives with his mother, it's pathetic," and Laura said, "He looks harmless," and Kim said, "Those are the ones you've got to look out for."

The last time was just before her final exam. Mr. Jessop had suggested some extra tuition, and she didn't think anything of it because he'd offered it to some of the others. She was disappointed that Kim wasn't at home. Stan said, "Oh, she's taken Nina to her mother's," very offhand, as if he couldn't care less what his wife was doing. He had a pad of paper and a couple of textbooks out on the dining-room table, but she didn't even get to sit down before he started, coming at her from behind, arms round her waist, trying to kiss the back of her neck, and she could smell alcohol on his breath, which was absolutely disgusting. She was furious, how could he, it was so unethical. She jabbed him with her elbows and yelled at him to get off her, and he said, "Oh, come on, Laura, you've done it with half the boys in your class. It's time you had a real man, you know you want it." The bastard, the fucking bastard! She stamped hard on his foot, the way they taught you in self-defense, but it was difficult because he was still holding her really tightly round the waist and she started to get panicky when she realized she couldn't get away from him. He was twisting her round so that he could get his lips on hers and then he put his hand on her crotch, thank God she was wearing jeans, and it meant he had less of a grip on her and she managed to get far away enough from him to be able to jab a finger into one of his eyes. And then she ran.