You Don't Have to be Good Read online

  ‘Why int everyone millionaires, yeah? ’Cos. Think about it. Think about it. If there was a God and you pray to him—’

  ‘You’re a. You’re a. What they call it? You’re a. You’re gonna burn at the stake!’

  ‘Shut up! Listen. Shut up! Listen. We could all be rich, yeah? Have whatever we want. You know, a Nokia thingy. Live on nothing but Twixes.’

  ‘Twixes? Creme Eggs. Creme Eggs and KitKats. And M&Ms. And a. A Motorola—’

  ‘They’re ming. Samsung more like.’

  ‘Like that one you jacked?’

  ‘I never jacked that, man!’

  ‘You said you jacked it.’

  ‘I never. I was given it.’

  ‘Yeah. You so jacked it, man. You told me. You so jacked that phone.’

  ‘That was a Sony whatsit. They’re hot. Buff, man. I mean it, man! Them phones are buff. That’s what I’d get.’

  ‘And Twixes.’

  ‘And Creme Eggs!’

  ‘And Bounties. Innit though?’

  Chanel popped her face round the corner of the hedge.

  ‘It’s your auntie.’

  Bea stepped through the school gates and waved hello. It had always been her day since they started nursery, although lately they had been at her house most days. Katharine’s work was getting more pressured and Richard’s work had always been impossible. ‘Impossible,’ Katharine said, when Bea asked how things were. ‘Absolutely impossible. We’re going to have to move.’ Meanwhile, on Tuesdays, and sometimes Fridays, and last week Monday too, Bea left work early and made up the hours getting in early and working late on the other days. She always felt guilty, though, creeping out at two forty-five while Precious and Karen stayed at their desks.

  ‘You don’t have to be good,’ Precious told her. ‘You do more than enough hours for this place. And you’ve never had maternity leave. Go on. Take your Tuesdays and enjoy them.’

  But Tuesdays had become awkward since Barry Charles’s arrival. Nothing had been said, but Bea sensed the disapproval. So today she had left work late and then she had missed the bus.

  Laura put her face right up in front of Bea’s.

  ‘Can I go to the shop?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Please, Bea, please.’

  ‘Well, I suppose so, but Laura, where’s Adrian?’

  ‘In homework club!’ Laura ran down the pavement after Chanel. ‘I won’t be long!’

  Bea looked back up the road and her heart jumped. There was Katharine getting out of her Jeep and talking to a waiting mother. What was Katharine doing here on a Tuesday?

  Bea collected up her bags again and wandered over to her sister and waited for her to finish her conversation. Passing mothers and children nodded and smiled when they saw Bea standing there. She smiled back and leaned against Katharine’s car, feeling like a child herself. When people asked her whether she had children, as they inevitably did, there was always the pause after she said no. Sometimes during school holidays, like the one that had just finished, it felt to Bea like the answer to that question should be yes. After all, Laura and Adrian spent almost as much time with her and Frank as they did with their own parents. But really the answer was no, and the pause that followed would rise up sometimes only as far as her thighs while the questioner changed the subject; sometimes it would rise right up to her chest, and on a bad day it would lap at her throat so that Bea had to stretch out her chin and draw a long breath in. And in the pause, she would see the questioner realise what a trespass the question was, as if they had asked about her bowels or her sex life.

  Katharine’s voice was getting shrill and strained.

  ‘Well I’ll have a word with Laura, but I absolutely know that she would never do anything to jeopardise her relationship with Stella . . .’

  The woman talking to Katharine shifted her feet unhappily, turning her head away as Katharine tried to plough on.

  ‘As I say, I’ll have a word, but—’

  ‘But I’m not sure that discussing it is going to help. I just want you to tell Laura to stop the negative comments.’

  ‘Absolutely. I think we may very well find that this is something that has been blown right out of proportion. Obviously, I will sit down with Laura and ask her if she has friendship issues she’d like to look at . . .’

  ‘I don’t think Stella’s blowing anything out of proportion. She doesn’t want to go to school. There are things written on the toilet walls about her that—’

  ‘I absolutely and totally understand how upsetting it must be. Honestly. You see, the thing is, because of Laura’s dyslexia . . . she is in actual fact very very bright and she’s really interested in boundaries and where she can take them. We’re not happy with the way the school has been failing to support her, and as you may know we are moving very very soon . . . Bea! What are you doing here?’

  Bea smiled at the two women. Someone’s phone bleated.

  ‘Is that your phone?’ said Bea.

  ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Bea. ‘My phone’s been nicked.’

  ‘God! It hasn’t, has it? Then it must be me. God. I pray that doesn’t happen to me. It is. It’s me again. Hello? Damn, missed it.’ She waved off the aggrieved mother.

  ‘Katharine. I think one of us has the days wrong.’ Bea looked away, up towards the school gates. ‘I thought Tuesday was my day.’

  ‘God, that woman is a pain in the arse. She’s paranoid about her bloody daughter. Convinced that Laura is getting at her. I mean, can you imagine Laura being a bully? The real problem is with the mother, of course. The poor child is in dire need of a parentectomy—’

  ‘Today’s Tuesday. Tuesday’s my day.’

  ‘Well it is. Normally. But didn’t you get my text?’ Katharine grasped the shoulder strap of her handbag, lifted her sunglasses up on to her head and took a few steps towards the school fence. Trip-trap, trip-trap.

  Bea looked at Katharine’s shoes, patent black leather slingbacks. They pointed north, north-east, east and then north again. Leaves scuttled along the gutter. I am paying too much attention to everything, Bea told herself, and concentrated on slowing her breathing. Adrian appeared by her side. Laura slunk up behind him.

  ‘There you are,’ said Katharine. ‘Come on now, we need to get back.’ She looked at Bea and added, ‘I’ll take you home, Bea.’

  ‘We’re leaving,’ said Adrian.

  Bea felt something let go inside her. ‘What?’

  Katharine shooed everyone into the car. ‘Bea, come home with us for a short while. Then I can tell you what’s happened.’

  Go

  INSIDE KATHARINE’S car, Bea sat in the passenger seat and watched as Cambridge peeled past her, silenced and removed. This is what money buys, she thought. This is the reward that success brings: a hermetically sealed corridor through the world.

  The traffic was stop-start and the meadows by Fen Causeway shimmered in a pollution haze. Katharine fixed her mind on slipping through the spaces caused by the hesitations of less driven drivers. The man in front of her was dithering, not driving, and the lights up ahead were on green for precisely seven seconds. Seven seconds was enough to let two cars through, one if drivers were barely conscious, as the one in front appeared to be. This, if she was honest, was why it was easier for the children to be at Bea’s house after school. She did not want them negotiating the traffic and then returning to an empty house, and while she could have got an au pair for the autumn, there didn’t seem much point given that they knew they were moving to London just as soon as her job was sorted out. Now, in fact. Almost immediately.

  She glanced at Bea then revved the engine and flashed her lights at the car in front. Yes, it would have been simpler to have done what Richard suggested in the first place and sent the children to one of the private schools in the city, but at the time, it was Richard’s infuriating assumption that that was what they would do that enraged her. Richard and his family, with their benign wealth
and bemused detachment from the rest of humanity, behaved as if education was an inoculation against unpleasantness. Katharine pressed her palm to the horn and wondered whether a gentle shunt with her cow bars on the bumper of the car in front was, strictly speaking, illegal. Yes, it was Richard’s fault they were at the community college in the first place. If he had not been so smug, so blinkered— What in God’s name was the man in front doing now? Not a three-point turn surely? She blew her horn again. If Richard had not blithely assumed that Laura and Adrian would go private, she might not have kicked up such a fuss, because, after all, she hadn’t gone to a private school. No, she had gained a place at the local grammar school, unlike poor old Bea who had gone to the secondary modern. Katharine shook her head and took a quick look at Bea. She was just sitting there, saying nothing, face closed. School had not done Bea any favours, that was for sure. Perhaps, in some ridiculous way – Katharine softened at the thought – perhaps sending the children to the school near Bea had been an act of contrition, an acknowledgement, an attempt— A heavy clunk brought her up short. Her wing mirror had been knocked askew as a stream of students on bicycles weaved their way in and out of the stationary cars. ‘Hey!’ Katharine shouted through the closed window.

  The traffic began to move, was moving quite fast now, and the bloody clutch was sticking so that when she finally did get the car into gear, a long space had opened up ahead of her. She accelerated into second, punishing the engine. With any luck they would make the lights. Yes, she had hammered her point home to Richard, given him a lecture about equality of opportunity and social division (really, sometimes she suspected he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about) and all of a sudden he’d bloody well gone and given in. She’d won. ‘Damn it!’ Katharine braked hard and squealed to a halt inches from the car in front.

  She swept the hair from her face and found the whole of her upper body was as rigid as an iron pike, the sort that kept the tourists out of the college wine cellars – her back, her neck, her shoulders, her jaw were painfully fused and unmoving. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she yelled at the driver in front. Bea looked bewildered and alarmed, damn her. She would have to tell Bea that this was their last week in Cambridge. It wouldn’t go down well; now was not a good time. Bea was doing her whipped-puppy look, her poor-me look, her it’s-all-right-for-you look. There was no putting it off. Katharine put the hand brake on and took a deep breath.

  ‘Oh, by the way, we’ve got some news.’

  Bea looked straight ahead of her as she listened, heard the words flow past her in an unstoppable stream. After months of thinking about it, talking about it, delay and second thoughts, places had been found for both children at schools in London that would challenge Adrian and push Laura. Amazingly, they could start next week even though term had already begun, and so, what with places being like gold dust, and what with one thing and another, especially the nonsense going on with Laura, they’d decided that this would be best. A bit of a rush, but really, what with Richard’s job already being in London and her consultant job at the London hospital being more or less a foregone conclusion, (hopefully, fingers crossed), there was nothing keeping them in Cambridge any longer. She would manage the London–Cambridge commute somehow until the London job came through, and so the sooner they moved the better for everyone, otherwise Christmas would be upon them and they’d probably all have nervous breakdowns if they left it till then, and believe it or not, crazily enough, that meant this weekend. Well, Friday actually. Mad, isn’t it?

  Bea looked at her hands and said nothing. She thought of them, numb and raw with cold, holding Katharine’s smaller one in sodden wool mittens as she pulled her whining sister up the hill home from school; the happy-sad pain of them against the red bars of the electric fire. She thought of her hands against Katharine’s, fingers clenched tight so she could feel the bones; Katharine’s knee on her belly; the sick ache and helpless struggle for breath; Katharine’s face inches from her own and the hissed threats not to tell. She thought of the giggling, soaring release when one well-aimed kick or bite sent Katharine reeling, screaming and coiling back. Their mother at the door, face like an anvil, words an icy stream from her mouth. And she thought of the shock and shame of it, the burning, stinging pain of it when her mother’s hurtling hand landed on her face. Hate and rage. Slap-bang. Branded.

  Katharine looked at Bea. Looked and drove, looked and talked, adding details, making it ordinary, trying to soften the blow. She asked whether Bea thought Mum would like a day up in London on her birthday. Tea at the Savoy maybe. What was she talking about? thought Bea. They had agreed it was going to be a meal at Oyster Row. Wanda was going to help. Lance was coming. Mum could sleep in the spare room and Lance could sleep on the couch in Frank’s room. Frank would have to sleep upstairs again with her. Bea looked at the satnav on the dashboard and at Katharine’s wedding ring as she held the steering wheel. She tried to think of some words to say, something to calm Katharine’s deluge about mortgages and travel times and careers and schools and how they had tried their best to do the right thing but that when push came to shove they were spending a fortune on tutors and Claudia at Richard’s office had a brother who was admissions tutor at Durham and he said they never even looked at candidates who didn’t get at least ten A*s at GCSE and when all was said and done, they couldn’t rely on the school to make sure that happened, well, Adrian would probably be all right other than being bored to death, but Laura . . . they’d never forgive themselves if Laura ended up pushing paperclips in an office for the rest of her life.

  Katharine turned the car into the shade-dappled road, where children played on bicycles and glossy dogs trotted smiling on leads. The gravel crunched as she swung into the driveway of a caramel-bricked, double-fronted house and brought the car to a halt. Bea thought, Why would anyone want to leave all this? Then she thought, What’s she brought me home with her for? She looked at Katharine. Katharine looked at Bea.

  ‘Damn,’ said Katharine. ‘Damn and damn it.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Bea undid her seatbelt and tried to open the door. It didn’t matter, and anyway, she was pleased to put some space between herself and Frank. Perhaps she would go to the cinema after all.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking,’ said Katharine.

  ‘Let me out, I can walk.’

  ‘No, you can’t possibly.’

  ‘I’d like to, really,’ said Bea and started to laugh.

  She bent down to untangle the strap of her laptop case, which had twined itself round one foot. She opened it, stuffed the papers from one of the two carrier bags in and forced the zip shut. Heat consumed her head and she thought that if she had to continue laughing one moment longer her skull would split.

  Katharine saw her sister beside her, the house in front of them, thought of the champagne chilling in the fridge, the lists to be made and phone calls to be planned. It was going to be such a busy evening and the traffic had seemed heavier then ever, really, Cambridge was worse than London when it came to rush hour. Her throat felt tight and a band of tension had begun to grip her forehead. If she got a migraine now, it would be a disaster. It would take an age to drive Bea home but Richard would disapprove if she let her walk. Too bad. She undid her seatbelt. Here she was, just like work, trapped as usual in an interminable loop where doing the right thing proved nigh on impossible. And here was Bea laughing and rummaging around with her coat and things like some old bag lady. Well, they were here now. The children were tired and there were things to do. She pressed at her forehead with her hand to keep the pain at bay, then rolled her head and closed her eyes with a sigh. It was just too bad, she thought with a guilty sense of release as she swallowed and allowed selfishness to throttle decency.

  Bea had stopped laughing and was looking at her.

  ‘What, walk?’ said Katharine.

  ‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ Bea struggled with the door handle. They were locked in. Safety feature. Automatic.

  ‘What,
all the way?’ Katharine stared at the wiring on the front of the house. She must remember to notify the utilities of their move date.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Round the ring road?’ Claudia could do all the phone calls though. Thank God for Richard’s PA. It was invaluable having one of those. Like a wife.

  ‘No, along the river.’

  Katharine looked at her watch. Her mobile began to ring. The ringing increased in volume. Bea longed for her own phone, which she had lost. It had Adrian’s voice as the ringtone, Adrian’s voice saying, ‘Ans-wer the phone. Ans-wer the phone!’ in a rising tone of barely controlled hysteria. That hadn’t gone down terribly well at work during her one-to-one Targets and Objectives meeting with the head of Human Resources a few weeks ago. Katharine’s phone continued to ring.

  ‘I feel so bad about messing up your last afternoon with the children, Bea . . .’ She gestured at Laura on the back seat who had earphones in and her eyes closed. ‘But everything is such a bloody rush suddenly.’ She released the central locking and Bea opened her door.

  ‘Really, it’s all right.’ Bea climbed down on to the gravel. Christ, she hadn’t even got them a present. Tomorrow. She would nip into town at lunchtime and send it round in a cab.

  ‘Oh God, it’s the estate agent. I’d better take this!’ shouted Katharine. She waved the door keys over her shoulder. ‘Adrian! Keys! Bea, I’ll ring you later. Sure you’re okay?’

  Bea hesitated between the house and the car as the children trooped up to the front door. ‘Hey!’ she said.

  They turned and looked at her and she held out her arms. Adrian loped towards her and let himself be enveloped by her embrace.

  ‘Maybe see you at Granny’s birthday,’ she said into his hair.

  ‘Do you think she’d like fireworks?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  She let him go and looked at Laura, who was feigning indifference by the sundial. Her face was pale and blotched. Spots threatened beneath the skin of her forehead and her brow was furrowed. Bea smiled and took a step towards her. Laura frowned, pulled out one earpiece and reached for Bea in a sudden clumsy movement. She dropped her head on to Bea’s shoulder and leant against her, arms hanging passively down by her sides. Bea hugged her soft form and kissed the side of her head. She smelt of shampoo and chewing gum.