The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

‘I’m not sure that I do,’ I reply calmly – or at least as calmly as I can manage. I spoon stewed apple and oats and sugar and cream into my mouth and chew. It is sweet, smooth, calorie-laden, and delicious.

Marjorie sighs. ‘If it wasn’t for … what happened.’

My father Dennis coughs and puts down his spoon, letting it clatter noisily into the bowl. ‘Marjorie,’ he intones, his voice heavy with the bored disapproval that this particular subject always induces in him. ‘Is now the best time?’

It seems that he, too, is conscious of Jamie and Luke’s pricked ears. Perhaps he’s even sympathetic to my plight, unlike Marjorie, who will plough on like the proverbial bull in the china shop if allowed.

‘If you’ve finished, boys, then go off and play.’ My words are an instruction, not an offer, and the children understand them as such. With a scraping of chairs and kicking of table legs, the boys depart, seemingly keen to get away from the tense atmosphere of the dining room.

‘The point is,’ continues Marjorie, as they are in the process of leaving, ‘that if Susannah had finished her university course and graduated instead of … well, instead of dropping out, she wouldn’t be in such a dire situation now.’ The ‘now’ comes out as a pronounced whine that grates on my nerves. ‘If she— If you were qualified, if you’d passed the exams, you’d be able to get a good job.’

I feel myself crumple from the outside in and have to pause to quell the tears before I can speak.

‘Sorry,’ is all I manage to articulate.

I give in. I’ll never be able to exonerate what I did, the trouble I caused, the consequences I brought down upon myself.

‘The actual point is, Susannah,’ interjects Dennis in the self-satisfied tone that particularly irritates me, ‘that whatever happened in the past, if you and Justin had saved a little more during the good times, you would have had something to fall back on when disaster struck.’

I clench my spoon so tightly in my hand I think it might snap in half, and drop my eyes to my empty bowl where creamy swirls pattern the red earthenware. I refrain from mentioning that savings would have helped Dennis, too, when he lost his job and our world turned upside down. If he had had money put aside, I might not have had to change schools, for a start. I keep my reply firmly focused on Justin and on Dennis’s accusations.

‘He’d probably have had to use it all to pay his debts. Or he’d have hidden it away somewhere. In fact, I don’t have any way of knowing that he hasn’t done that. Whatever, I’m quite sure there would be none left for me and the boys.’

I get up and begin robustly clearing the table, roughly gathering crockery and cutlery towards me and piling everything in uneven heaps ready to carry into the kitchen. As I leave the room, I feel utterly, miserably alone. Despite all Justin’s failings, I miss him.

In my nasty kitchen, I make coffee, taking an age about it so that I have time to compose myself. Biting my lip, I trudge back to the dining room with the tray. I hate all the mean, undersized separate rooms in this house but I know I’m lucky to have a roof over my head at all. I force myself to hold my head up high and determine that I’ll make finding a job an imperative. At least that way, I’ll be showing the world, as well as myself, that I can look after myself, that I’m neither a quitter nor a basket case.

‘Perhaps you could do a secretarial course,’ muses my mother as she pours milk into her mug. It’s as if she can read my mind. ‘Become a PA. It’s a steady job, reasonable money.’ She stirs her coffee even though she doesn’t take sugar. ‘Or what about teaching?’ She checks herself. ‘But no, that wouldn’t be possible.’

‘Let’s leave it for now, shall we,’ I request, making it sound like a statement rather than a question.

The stony silence that follows is thankfully, if chaotically, broken by Luke coming back into the room saying that he’s kicked his football into next door’s garden and asking permission to climb over the fence and retrieve it.

Later, we go for our walk. On the way back, we pass Charlotte and Dan’s mansion, the gates wide open, the driveway full of cars, indicating that they are also enjoying company, although perhaps the notion of enjoyment applies more to them than to me. I hope Dan didn’t get into trouble for being late back with the eggs and then wistfully imagine the brunch Charlotte will have rustled up, the huge table in that gorgeous kitchen groaning under the weight of delicious breads and salads, tortillas and interesting Mediterranean dips made of avocado and aubergine that I can’t afford and anyway, that my parents wouldn’t touch.

Marjorie sighs over the beauty of the Queen Anne architecture and the sheer size of the property in her best ‘that could have been my daughter’ way.

I sigh over the whole sorry mess of it all.

Chapter 13

Charlotte

Dan comes back from the shop, his legs covered in some sort of white stuff, dried up and crusty, that looks like … well, I won’t say what it looks like but leave it to the imagination. I take the eggs as he explains that you bumped into him and caused him to drop a box onto the floor, hence the state of his jeans. You did strike me as someone who might be clumsy. Those carrying a bit of extra weight often are.

Personally, all I seem to do these days is watch the scales and fight the flab. I make all this delicious food, but I don’t eat it.

The Kitchen Aid whisks the egg whites with the sugar to perfection. When the mixture stands in stiff, tall peaks, I take out a palette knife