under her coat. ‘Trying to fend him off Frankie. But nothing about it was very attractive, Poppy. Neither adult’s behaviour would stand up to too much scrutiny. You didn’t hear, did you?’ She passed a weary hand through her chaotic curls.
‘No, no,’ I lied.
‘Good. Only Avril Collins on the other side couldn’t have looked more delighted when I saw her collect her milk from her step this morning, and I thought: oh shit.’
‘It hardly matters who knows,’ I told her gently. Again untruthfully, because of course it did. ‘D’you know how far … you know … she is?’ I asked cautiously.
‘ “How far gone”, is the expression on sink estates, Poppy,’ she said with a flash of the old Jennie, brave eyes glittering briefly in their sleep-deprived sockets. ‘Amongst the chain-smoking teenage mothers on the eighteenth floor. And you don’t “get pregnant”, you “fall”, as in “When did you fall for Kylie?” ’ She shuddered. ‘The answer is I don’t know,’ she said in a much smaller voice. ‘She won’t tell me. Won’t say a word, in fact. Which is why Dan got so angry.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Absolutely zilch. Stared at her father’s distorted face as he ranted and raved like a madman, then ran up to her room and slammed the door. Locked it.’
‘Oh. So … what next?’
She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Let it all calm down, I suppose. Try to talk to her tonight, perhaps. One more day isn’t going to make much difference, is it?’
I think we both knew what she was talking about.
‘I doubt it,’ I agreed.
She dredged up a gigantic sigh from the soles of her feet. ‘Anyway. Just came to check you hadn’t heard.’
‘Not a thing.’
I walked her to the door, and since she’d caught me as I was about to go out, picked up my bag and Archie too as we left. When I’d locked the front door behind me, out of the corner of my eye I saw a little huddle of raincoats and brollies outside the shop. Avril Collins, Yvonne and Mrs Fish. They glanced our way, wide-eyed, then re-huddled. I quickly positioned myself between them and Jennie.
Jennie, though, was beyond either noticing or caring. Halfway down my path in the rain, she was gazing into some private world of her own, the drizzle settling like a sparkling cobweb on her wild springy curls, slippers on her feet, coat open to the elements, like Lear on the heath.
‘I thought I’d meet her from school this afternoon. Take her to Topshop, then for a burger. D’you think she’d like that?’ She turned to look at me anxiously.
Ordinarily, yes. But under the circumstances, Jennie waiting at the school gates …
‘Maybe text her first?’ I suggested. ‘So she can think about it?’
‘Good idea.’ She whipped her phone out of her coat pocket. I gently put my hand on it. ‘And maybe go and have a think about what you’re going to say first?’
Jennie’s eyes widened and she gave me a messianic look, full of admiration and fervour. I wanted to say: no, Jennie, I’m no guru, but I do know about this. About running around like a headless chicken, charging down the church path and forgetting to bury my husband, rushing around on adrenalin following shock. Doing the first thing that came into one’s head, acting on impulse. I knew about the next bit too, the terrible depression that followed: forgetting to feed my kids, to dress them, love them. I shuddered as I pocketed my key. Almost couldn’t admit it to myself and knew I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I knew about doing all the wrong things, and later on wishing so much I’d done otherwise; I knew how guilt – or rather a sense of it, misplaced perhaps – can make us behave illogically, like people we don’t recognize, never thought we’d be.
I didn’t say all that to my friend, though. What I actually said was: ‘Go and have a cup of coffee, get your head together, and then text her, OK?’
She nodded obediently. Ran down my path and up hers, and it occurred to me that we were like a couple of little weather people, popping in and out of each other’s houses, broadcasting rain or shine, depending on our day, depending on the current crisis, telling the village our business. Oh, sod it, I thought, shifting Archie onto my hip as I went down the path. Who cares?
‘Morning, Avril,’ I couldn’t help calling across Jennie’s garden as her other neighbour returned from the shop, eyes darting like a magpie’s. ‘Yes, that’s right, trouble at Apple Tree Cottage.’ I glared at her and marched off to my car, thrusting a surprised Archie into his seat. Regretted it, of course. And if I could come to the boil like that, what hope
