Dylan collects Cherry from the station. I have no idea where he magicked the car up from. One day he just . . . had one. Brand new and smelling of that flowery air-freshener made by people who have clearly only heard about roses and lilies second-hand.
Cherry turns up on my parents’ doorstep looking like the perfect public-school princess, as usual. Her hair is in a simple high ponytail and she looks like she isn’t wearing any make-up, but I know how much time and effort – and how many products – go into giving that impression. Cherry and I shared a room in second year at uni. There isn’t much we don’t know about each other. Boundaries were blurred. Lines were crossed. Knickers were borrowed.
She throws herself towards me over the threshold. As we hug, we do that squealing thing girls do in American high-school films. That was a joke, once, but we definitely ditched the sense of irony a while back.
‘Addie! God, I’ve missed you!’
‘Come in,’ I say, tugging her inside. ‘Dad’s decluttered your room again.’
Cherry’s often here. Her parents are even more eccentric than she is: if she’s home for more than a week or two they usually rope her into doing something totally bizarre, like knitting a mile-long scarf for charity or helping to rehome a load of nuns.
‘I hope Neil left me a model aeroplane to do again,’ Cherry says, heading for the study. She sits and bounces on the bed, looking around happily. ‘Home!’ she says. ‘Well. One of them. One of my favourite ones. Oh! Mr and Mrs Gilbert!’
‘Welcome back, sweet,’ Mum says as Cherry bounds towards them for hugs.
My parents love Cherry. Everyone loves Cherry. Not loving Cherry is like hating puppies.
‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ Cherry says, shoving Dylan out of her way with her hip. ‘We have so much to talk about.’
She’s already on her way through to the kitchen. We all follow in her wake.
‘I am such a good matchmaker,’ Cherry tells Mum as she fills the kettle. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d find Addie someone?’
I frown. ‘I didn’t need—’
‘And it’s a good job you spent your summer in France,’ she says, waggling a finger at me, ‘because teaching? There’s no men in teaching.’
‘There are!’ I say, laughing. ‘Our head teacher is a man.’
Cherry rolls her eyes, flicking on the kettle. ‘Oh, of course the head is a man. I bet he’s old and dull.’
‘He’s young and interesting, actually,’ I tell her, pointing her to the mug cupboard. ‘And hot.’
‘Ooh! Set me up?’ Cherry says, digging around. ‘Where’s Deb’s bulldog mug? Has she locked it away?’
‘Are you always this loud?’ Deb asks, appearing in the kitchen doorway. ‘I don’t remember you being this loud.’
‘Deb!’ Cherry runs in for a hug and then stops short, socks skidding on the lino. ‘No hug! I remember. Hi! You look so pretty!’
Deb smiles. ‘Hey, Cherry. You can have my mug. It’s in the bottom drawer, inside the spare washing-up bowl.’
Cherry spins on her heels with a quiet yes and a fist-pump and heads for the drawer.
‘What?’ Deb says, as we all stare at her. ‘You try saying no to that woman.’
Dylan
Young and interesting and hot?
I take the tea Cherry offers me and she scans my face for a moment, turning serious; she knows me too well.
‘OK?’ she mouths.
I smile, forcing the fear back to wherever it reared up from, dark and grasping. ‘Of course.’
She looks unconvinced, but then Deb starts complaining about the fact that Addie’s mother now insists on the purchase of skimmed milk, rather than their usual semi-skimmed, and a debate begins about whether full fat is green top or blue top, and Cherry is lost to me again.
I swallow, cupping the tea between my palms, watching Addie. She’s wearing her favourite dungarees, and her dark hair is still in the lopsided bun she slept in; she’s all unkempt and wild and at-home. It’s perhaps the Addie-est she has ever looked, here with her family clattering around her, and I feel terrifyingly sure that every man in the world must be in love with her.
Young and interesting and hot, she said. I’ve never even heard her mention the head teacher before. I do recall her saying that the senior staff were very supportive, but I think I had assumed they were all middle-aged women.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I wince – it will be my father. I ignored his last phone call, letting it ring and ring in my hand, watching his name bobbing on the screen like a fishing lure on the water.