Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [181]
Homeless men!
Please let Boo have gone. And please let him not have robbed me blind.
She didn’t really think he would have, but after the day she’d had, she was braced for anything.
He hadn’t. The place was pretty much as she’d left it, except for a thank-you note on the table. She climbed into bed. She’d just have a little rest to get over the shock.
But she was still there when, sometime on Friday evening, Joy let herself in with Ashling’s spare key. She burst into the room, her face bruised with concern. ‘I rang you at work and spoke to Divine Jack. He told me what happened. I’m so sorry.’ Joy gathered her in her arms while Ashling lay as unresponsive as a rolled-up carpet.
Half-an-hour later Ted made a wary appearance. He and Ashling hadn’t spoken in over three weeks, since Ashling had quizzed him on his Edinburgh trip.
‘Ted, I’m sorry,’ Ashling said wearily. ‘I thought you were having an affair with Clodagh.’
‘You did?’ His dark narrow face lit up in delight. Then hastily he wiped it and assumed an expression of gravitas. ‘I’ve brought you some tissues,’ he offered. ‘They say “Groovy Chick” on them.’
‘Leave them there. Beside the tissues Joy brought me.’
At the sound of the key in the door, Lisa semi-emerged from torpor. Kathy again. But it wasn’t Kathy, it was Francine.
‘Hiya.’ Francine swung her roly-poly body into the bedroom. ‘My ma says I’ve to keep you company.’
‘I don’t want company.’ Lisa could hardly lift her head from the pillow.
‘Can I try this on?’ Francine had her eye on a pink feather boa.
‘No.’
She draped it around her anyway and admired herself in the full-length mirror, a stout little figure in flowered leggings and a yellow T-shirt.
‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ Lisa asked wearily.
‘Nah.’ Francine did a scornful swagger. ‘It’s Sunday.’
Blimey, Lisa thought in idle wonder. I’ve lost track of the days.
‘Though even if it wasn’t Sunday and I didn’t want to go to school, I wouldn’t go,’ Francine boasted.
‘But you won’t get an education and then you won’t get a good job.’ Lisa didn’t care whether or not Francine got an education, but she wanted to annoy her so that she’d leave.
‘Don’t need an education. I’m going to be in a girl-band and my da says they’re all as thick as bottled shite. Here! Will I show you my dance routine?’
‘No. Just piss off and leave me alone.’
‘D’you’ve a stereo?’ Francine stalwartly ignored Lisa’s hostility. ‘No? OK, I’ll hum. Right, you’ve to imagine that I’m in the middle and that there are two girls on this side of me and two on that side. Hold on.’ Quickly Francine rolled up her T-shirt into a makeshift crop top, displaying her childish, rotund belly.
‘What’s that gold mark on your stomach?’ Lisa asked, interested, despite everything.
‘My belly-button ring.’ Francine was defensive.
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Look, I had to draw it,’ Francine insisted. ‘My ma says I can get a real one when I’m thirteen – though I’ll be dead by then,’ she added gloomily.
Then she rallied. ‘Two, three, four.’ She tapped her foot on the floor and counted herself in, then launched into her routine. Right elbow ‘chickened’ to the side twice, then left elbow. Two jerky hops on the right foot, two jerky hops on the left, then with a sharp smack to her plump buttock, she turned her back on Lisa. Humming all the while, she swung her hips, getting lower and lower to the floor. An exotic dancer couldn’t have been more explicit. She undulated back to normal height, then did an ungainly jump to the front again, her expression a fist of grim concentration. ‘This is the best bit,’ she promised. ‘Shimmmmmeeee.’ Stretching both arms out as far as they would go, she wriggled her shoulders and did a bosom-free shimmy at Lisa. ‘Da-dah!’ She finished by attempting to do the splits. She got nowhere near the floor.
‘Amazing,’ Lisa acknowledged. It had certainly