“Do you want anything to eat?” asked Libby, ducking down behind the counter that formed a divide between the kitchen and lounge area. “We have, uhh, well not much actually. Some hummus, celery, couscous… Oh, we have rye bread—”
“No, it’s fine, I’d better not,” I said distractedly, “my dad’s cooking tonight so…well, I say cooking, he’ll probably get in KFC, that’s kind of his idea of cooking.”
Don’t mention KFC, you idiot, she’s a vegan!
“Or pizza. He sometimes just orders pizza.”
“Mmm, KFC always smells really yummy when I pass the shop. I’d love to try that one day.”
While she was out of sight, I quickly lifted my arms and sniffed, hoping my deodorant was holding up under the stress. For six weeks now I’d been coming down to Libby’s boat straight from school on a Thursday afternoon, and even though I’d showered following athletics at lunchtime, and sprayed about half a can Lynx under my arms, I was starting to feel paranoid.
“Apple cake?” she asked, popping up with a plate in her hand.
I quickly pushed out my arms and flexed my fingers to make it look like I’d been stretching.
“No, I’m good,” I said, adding a yawn for good measure.
“Please excuse my munching,” she mumbled with her mouth full, waving a piece of cake in the air as she placed my water in front of me. “I’m starving. In fact, this is probably dinner for me tonight. I meant to get some shopping, but the cash jar was empty so… actually, I’m not sure I can be bothered to cook just for myself anyway.”
“Your mum won’t cook when she gets back?” I asked, immediately regretting my incredulous tone. I sounded like a child, like I couldn’t make a meal without my mother’s help. Which, to be honest, I couldn’t.
Libby broke off a piece of cake and popped it in her mouth. She shook her head, making her ponytail swing. “No, I cook normally,” she said as she chewed, “Harmonie doesn’t really cook. A bit like your dad, so…” She shrugged, leaving this last sentence hanging in the air.
So what exactly? So she was stuck cooking every night? I couldn’t even boil an egg. Honestly didn’t know how. My mum was out tonight too, at Libby’s mum’s – sorry, Harmonie’s – yoga class, the same place she’d been going every Thursday night for the last five years, but the moment she came in, she’d be checking what Laura and I had eaten, tutting about what my dad had fed us, and asking if we wanted her to whip up anything else.
I wasn’t sure if I felt sorry for Libby or in awe of her. Involuntarily, my hand crept across the seat towards her, wanting to touch her more than ever, but I suddenly didn’t feel worthy. Instead I picked at an invisible piece of lint on the seat cushion.
Libby stuffed the last of her cake into her mouth, as if she didn’t want to keep me waiting, as if there was anywhere I would rather be right now than sitting next to her. She took a swig from her mug of cold camomile tea (I wasn’t even sure what a camomile was), spilling a little onto her cardigan. She rubbed at the deep purple wool, then pulled the sleeves down over her hands, just leaving the tips of her fingers protruding. All the sleeves of her jumpers were stretched at the ends, a fact we’d laughed about a couple of weeks ago when she wore a stripy jumper with sleeves that stretched down to her knees. It was okay, she’d said, she’d knit another one, as if that’s what all fourteen-year-old girls did with their spare time.
“So, where were we?” she said in her teacherly fashion, examining the textbook in front of her. “Okay, so I’ve done a lot of rambling on about conjugating verbs and stuff, which, unless you’re a bit of a nerd like me, you’ve probably found quite boring. So, shall I ask you the questions about hobbies and pastimes and you answer them now?”
I must have looked pained because she laughed. I hated having to speak to her in French. It was humiliating and humbling that thousands of pounds a year was now being spent on my education, but my inability to grasp a foreign language meant I was being tutored by someone who was home-schooled – or, more accurately, self-taught, seeing as her flaky mother seemed to just dump a pile of second-hand books in front of her and leave her to it. To make things worse, we both knew that Harmonie was scathing of the private-school system, so much so that she had shunned my mother for two months after I transferred to Saint John’s. And what Harmonie didn’t approve of, Libby didn’t approve of either.
I wasn’t entirely sure how the tutoring arrangement had come about, but it seemed that Libby, principles aside, had suggested the idea after hearing I was struggling in my new school, and Harmonie, who by then had re-established her inner peace and allowed my mother back into her yoga class, had grudgingly agreed.
I found Libby’s kindness inspiring and also slightly shaming. On the rare occasions we’d been thrown into each other’s presence during the last five years, I’d barely given her the time of day. She didn’t have a telly, didn’t follow football, didn’t go to school, didn’t play computer
