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  “Thanks Dad” I said, and leaned over to give him a hug. The doorbell rang and seeing how tired my parents looked I got up and went to answer it.

  I could see two shadows through the frosty glass. One wearing dark clothes, the other tall with masses of hair. I opened the door to see Sunny stood there with a bunch of flowers in his hand, and Mark with a box of chocolates.

  “Is six o’clock still tea time at your house?” he asked.

  I nodded and led them into the kitchen. My mum took one look at our guests and got up to grab some more food from the fridge. My dad got up and fetched more plates and glasses. Sunny handed Mum the flowers, and she disappeared off in search of a vase, commenting on how nice it was to see what polite young men they’d grown into. Considering Sunny was a police officer, I’m not sure what else she was expecting, apart from them to be fairly responsible these days, but it was still a sweet gesture.

  Mark handed my dad the chocolates. “Shop bought this time” he assured my dad. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  Mum walked back in with a tall cut glass jug in her hand. “What was that dear?” she asked.

  “Nothing” Mark muttered, looking at the floor. We all took our seats again and started eating.

  Mum began regaling us with stories of her patients. She never mentioned their names, but I’m not entirely sure she’d fully grasped the concept of doctor patient confidentiality.

  “I’ve had the funniest day” she said. “I had this man come in to see me this morning, most uncomfortable and itchy down below.”

  Sunny choked on his potatoes. Mark grinned. Dad and I barely noticed, we must have been more used to Mum’s stories. She continued “he was most upset, poor man. Anyway, he was also concerned in case he’d caught anything. He said he’d been faithful, well, for the most part, apart from on a stag weekend he’d been on last year. Well, I finally persuaded him to let me have a look, and luckily enough it was just thrush, so I sent him off with a prescription for caneston and told him to wear cotton boxers for a few days. Sure enough, later that day his wife comes in. It turns out she has it too. After chatting for a few minutes, she finally revealed that she’s got some new smellies for Christmas, tipped half the bottle in by mistake one day and been sore ever since.”

  “So what did you do?” I asked.

  “Well, the treatment was easy enough, cream and a pessary will take of the itching. As for the wandering husband, what could I do? I couldn’t tell her I’d seen him or what he told me. That would break confidentiality.”

  “And heaven forbid you do that” Dad said. Mum shot him a look and he got up sharpish and poured her out some more juice.

  “So do you have any interesting cases at the moment?” I asked Sunny.

  “I can’t go into detail” he said, glancing at my mum to see if she’d notice, but she was completely impervious to his comment. “There’s a team of us working on reducing gang influence at the moment.”

  “That sounds interesting” said Dad. “There’s a few of my lads I’ve been worried about recently. Not that they tell me much, of course, even though I’ve been their form tutor since they were eleven. I just notice that there are a few of them whose attendance has dropped massively, and whose attitudes when they do bother to attend is very difficult to manage.”

  “I have some colleagues who work near your school” Mark said. “If you’d like, I could arrange for one of them to come in to assembly one day and talk about the youth services nearby, assuming they’ve got enough funding to continue next year.”

  “That would be great, yes please” Dad told him. “I just don’t understand why they would cut money to keep groups like yours going.”

  We all shook our heads. “The argument my boss made at work is that there are massive cuts going on across all departments” I said. “And there really are, everyone is feeling the squeeze, but it’s horrible. I met a team yesterday who had been running these amazing play groups, free of charge using grant money, and they’d managed to get people attending from all over the area. Including loads of mums who never go to anything else. The health visitors were thrilled, they were able to get to know lots of families who really needed their help, who would never turn up to appointments otherwise. The funding runs out next month, they’ve got nothing else in place and they think they’re going to have to close. I’m doing my best to help them, but I can’t make any promises.”

  “Challenging times for all of us” Mum said. And that was just the half of it. I’d always enjoyed working with people that were going through tough times because I felt so supported in my personal life. It was nice to help those who didn’t have that backing for themselves. I guess it was no coincidence that my previous job had starting to feel draining as my relationship fell to pieces.

  I looked around the table at the people I was with. Life was definitely looking up for me.

  Chapter Six

  Thursday night had always been our pool night. On Fridays and Saturdays the pub was busy, full of people out drinking. Thursdays were a little quieter, allowing us to grab a table and stay all night without having to worry about beating all comers to keep playing. Lucky because for all our hours of practice only Sunny was actually any good. I was ok, but relied more on flukes and the occasional decent shot. I hadn’t called Mark or Sunny to suggest that we meet, I wasn’t sure of their timetables or shifts these days. I’d planned to walk straight home from the station but found myself stopping outside the pub and looking through the window.

  I couldn’t see the guys when I peeked through the window, but the glass was smoky and I couldn’t see much of anything. Maybe I could stop for a quick half on the way home, just to see how it was inside these days. If I’d seen the inside first I’d have thought I was in a different place. Without the overpowering stench of smoke it actually felt fresh in here. I wondered where Mark went to get his chocolate brownie ingredients these days. I doubted that Greasy Gary still did business in the beer garden, swapping backhanded tenners for illicit substances. I grabbed a half a lager at the bar and found myself a table. I looked around for any other familiar faces, but there were none so I took out my book. I hadn’t read more than three pages before two more glasses were put down on the table next to me and I heard the chairs scrape as they were pulled out.

  “It isn’t the same since they got rid of the pool tables” Mark complained.

  Sunny picked up the menu. “But at least these days you can eat here, and I don’t just mean a bag of pork scratchings. What do you lot fancy? My shout.”

  “In that case” Mark said “I’ll have…now what looks pricey.”

  Sunny gave his shoulder a nudge.

  “I’ll take a burger please, if that’s not too extravagant” Mark said.

  “Me too” I added.

  “I’ll grab three” Sunny said and walked to the bar.

  I looked around again. “I half expected to walk into half our old class in here” I said.

  “You’d find a few familiar faces if you came in at the weekend” Mark replied, “but not as many as you might think. Lots of them ended up moving further out into Essex. It’s too expensive to live round here for most people. I got lucky and bought a small flat just before the prices went crazy, but if I’d waited six months I don’t think I’d have been able to afford it.”

  Sunny came back with some cutlery and sat down.

  “Where are you living these days?” I asked. “Are you back home too?”

  A shadow crossed his face and his brow furrowed. “No.”

  I thought that was all he was going to say on the subject but after a long swallow of beer he continued. “After Dad died, I came home and mum went back to China. She’s stayed to look after my granddad. He’s getting on a bit now and she didn’t want to leave him on his own. I was going to stay in their house but I couldn’t do it. Eventually I persuaded her to sell the place, I sent her most of the money but it left me just enough to do what Mark did and buy a little flat too. I’m two roads
up from you at the moment. It’s not massive, but it’s mine.”

  “And I bet it’s spotless too isn’t it?” I asked, although I already knew the answer. Sunny raised his glass and saluted me.

  “Why wouldn’t it be? Who would choose to live in an untidy house?” I think he really meant it, he couldn’t contemplate living in a jumble. I was glad he never saw my old flat.

  Mark sat up and looked around him again, taking in the recently renovated surroundings. “Remember the first time we came here?” he asked.

  He and I laughed, “we got served and Sunny got asked for ID.”

  Sunny said “I wasn’t a big drinker, I only fancied a coke anyway”, but then his scowl dropped away and then he was grinning too. “As if all the cool kids from school weren’t in here every Friday anyway and the old git landlord knew it.”

  “Do you ever see anyone from school still?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how I felt about bumping into any other old faces. I wasn’t nervous of them, but they didn’t bring back many happy memories either.

  “Charlie works at the co-op now” Mark said. “She has a little boy, Jason, he’s eight, seems lovely. She brings him over to watch the football sometimes at the weekend. She lost the attitude at some point in the last few years and always has a chat with me now when I go in. Funny how things change, she wouldn’t be caught dead talking to me at school.”

  “And Tonia?” I asked. Charlie and Tonia had been the top of the food chain in our GCSE year.

  “She also lost the attitude along the way” Mark said, “about the time she had her third kid and just started to look exhausted and harassed.”

  I think my jaw dropped open at that. “Actually, I feel pretty sorry for her” Mark said. “I think she has a hard time, and when I see her these days she’s not mean anymore, just sad.”

  I was thinking about that still as our food arrived, and we were all quiet for a few minutes as we sat and ate.

  “I’ll make sure I stop by sometime and say hi to Charlie. I think I carried a chip round on my shoulder for a long time after I left school.”

  “What do you mean?” Mark asked me.

  “I wasn’t very happy back then. If it weren’t for you meeting you two misfits it would have been even worse. It made me feel better to think that I could do something that they couldn’t, that I could get higher grades than them. I don’t think I ever stopped til later to realise that maybe they were having as tough a time as I was. At least my parents were pretty easy going. I didn’t even stop to think what some of them must have been going through. Tonia went strutting round school like she was all that because she had a boyfriend who was ten years older who used to buy her stuff. That’s not love. She was fourteen. That’s abuse. Why didn’t her parents do something? Did all those kids have shit going on at home and I never knew?”

  “Having a tough time doesn’t mean you have to act like an arse” Sunny said.

  “No, it doesn’t, and thank goodness you’ve now stopped” Mark told him. Sunny leaned over and swatted Mark lightly round the head. The tension broke, and we all laughed louder than the lame joke deserved.

  “And for that you can get next round in Chewbacca” he said, laughing.

  Chapter Seven

  I’ve been through phases in my life where sitting at home alone on a Friday night was depressing, where it was a sad reminder that I wasn’t popular enough at school to get invited to any of the parties. Then I’ve had phases where being at home on a Friday night was fun, time for a glass of wine, a cuddle on the sofa with some good TV. When an early night meant going to bed together, and not because you had any intention of sleeping. This Friday night was somewhere in the middle. I hadn’t had any offers to go out, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t have any company at home, my parents were at a party, but that was fine too. I poured myself a glass of wine, switched the TV on, and tried not to think too much.

  I must have fallen asleep on the sofa when a noise outside made me jump. I thought at first it was my parents getting home and hoped that they hadn’t been drinking. They didn’t drink often, but no matter how much you love someone, other people are always annoying when they are drunk and you are sober. I looked through the net curtains but couldn’t see them. Then all of a sudden two almond shaped brown eyes were looking right at me, and I jumped again.

  Sunny. I let him in and he followed me back into the living room. He could tell where I’d been sitting on the sofa from the pile of blankets. He looked at it, then at the armchair across the room. I could see him trying to decide on the correct place to sit. To be polite and sit away from me, or to sit closer and try to forget all the years that had separated us? We’d seen each other a few times since I got back and it had been lovely, but this was the first time we’d been somewhere so private with time to talk. I don’t think I had butterflies in my stomach, more like a few hippos doing the Riverdance.

  He sat on the armchair, but immediately got up, walked back over and sat next to me. He looked deep into my eyes, and the urge to kiss him was almost overwhelming. I think he felt it too, because I could see his adams apple bobbing up and down as he breathed deeply. My heart started beating double speed, partly just from being close to him again, and partly because I’d been thinking about what I’d say to him for the last ten years. I’d never come close to working it out. When I was 16 and he first left I was sure that if I ever got the chance I would simply tell him how much I loved him. When I was 17 I was angry that he was gone. When I was 18 I was hurt that he still hadn’t come back. The next few years had dulled the pain, but the wound was still there.

  We looked at each other, wondering who was going to speak first. And then, wouldn’t you know it, at the same time, he said “I’m sorry, I never wanted to go.”

  And I said “I was pregnant.”

  That stopped him. I watched his face, trying to guess what he was thinking. He sat silently, as was his way, taking his time to process the information, assess it, make sense of it, but his usual logical approach failed him, and I saw his shoulders slump. He dropped his head into his hands, and for a moment I thought he was going to cry. He took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and looked at me again. Here it comes, I thought. Here I find out.

  I could have kept it a secret. I’d told so few people that the chances of him ever finding out were remote, but every time I saw him I felt closer to him. I’d never kept secrets from him before and it had churned me up inside to keep one as monumental as that. Over the years I’d formed plans and back up plans of what I’d say if I ever got the chance, but no approach ever seemed quite right. How could it? I could scarcely get my head around what I’d been through back then. Now I was dropping it on him with no warning. I needed him to know. I needed him to understand why I couldn’t just pick up the friendship as lightly as I wanted to. Why it had been so hard to have him torn away.

  “What happened? Do I have a child? Do we have a child?”

  I shook my head.

  “When your dad caught us and sent you away it took me two weeks to stop hiding in my room and crying. I felt like I’d found my soul mate, only to have you ripped away from me. And yes, I was that melodramatic. I was sixteen and in love. Then it took me two more weeks to wonder why I was still feeling sick. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t ring you. Your dad came over the day after I found out. He wanted to tell me that you didn’t have any access to internet at your grandad’s place and that he had banned you from having a mobile phone. I told him about the pregnancy, I thought he might let you come back. I knew he was traditional, I thought he might make us get married for the sake of the baby. I didn’t know if that was what we wanted, but I was scared and I wanted to see you. He just spat at the floor by my feet, called me a whore that was out to ruin your life and left.”

  Sunny cursed. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “And I didn’t tell anyone else, not for a long time. I almost told my parents, but I just couldn’t add to their stress. They’re doing so well right now, but I
don’t know if you remember how it was that summer. They were both having a pretty rough time of it themselves. Mum’s surgery was short staffed and she was working sixty hours weeks, we hardly saw her and when we did she was exhausted and on edge. My dad was still grieving after his sister died. They knew I was hurting, and they honestly did care, but they had so little left to give I felt like I couldn’t do that to them. Mark’s home life was crap. He was smoking so much dope it was a wonder he made it to school at all. He slept through some of his exams. We were all surprised when he scraped enough grades to get into college. No one expected that kind of thing from me and I didn’t want them to feel like I let them down.”

  “And then when you did tell me dad he didn’t exactly help things” Sunny said.

  “He was so cold. He made me feel like I was nothing. Worse than that, he made me feel as though I was going to ruin your life, and I loved you so much I couldn’t bear to risk that. I was so sure that if I told him he would help me. I knew he was a hard man, but my parents had always loved me so much that I thought that if I reasoned with him he’d find a way to help us. But he looked at me as though I was less than nothing. That his grandchild was an inconvenience. I have never felt so alone in my life. I just gave up. The next day I withdrew some of my savings, told my parents I was going to visit my cousin for a few days, and I booked a clinic and had a termination, stayed in a hotel for a night til I could face going home.”

  “On your own? You had to do that all on your own?”

  “Yes. And it was terrifying. Taking that test by myself in the bathroom was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I still haven’t ever told my parents, the longer I left it the harder it got to raise it. In fact, I only ever told three people, including your dad, before tonight. I don’t regret it, I sometimes wonder what it might have been like if you hadn’t been sent away. I just couldn’t see myself coping with a baby on my own, or even going through with the pregnancy and giving the baby up for adoption. So I did what I had to do.” The tears ran freely down my face. “My parents were in no state to help. And I was broken from losing you. I couldn’t handle any more. Sometimes I still think about it, but even if I had a time machine and could go back, I can’t see what else I could have done. Not on my own.”