car park. ‘Sorry, Dad, sorry,’ she calls as she rounds the car.
‘I’ve been waiting bloody ages. Get in.’
That’s a lie.
‘They needed me to work late,’ the girl says as she pulls at the car door. ‘I couldn’t just …’ The rest of her sentence is lost as she slides into the car and slams the door shut.
As the car inches forward, its right indicator blinking, I look back at the door to the garden centre. Do I wait for Mike to come out or go after the girl?
The green estate pulls out into the road and I start my engine.
Chloe endures her dad’s rant all the way home. She’s a stupid girl. She’s got no sense of responsibility. She’s selfish. She’s fat. Most thirteen-year-olds would be grateful to have an after-school job. He hopes she’s more punctual when her boss asks her to do something. Mike’s his friend but he didn’t have to help him find his stupid daughter an after-school job. If she gets the sack, it will reflect badly on both of them.
She tries to block him out by glancing out of the window and losing herself in the green blur of the hedgerow, but each time she turns her head her dad snaps at her to look at him when he’s talking to her.
I hate you, she thinks as she looks into his eyes. You’re a bully. You bully Mum and you bully me. The only person you don’t bully is your precious little mini-me Jamie. At seven years old he’s too young to realise that his dad’s an arsehole. He thinks his dad can do no wrong, not while he’s still impressed by tickets to see Wolves play, packs of football cards and father–son trips to McDonald’s. She’d like to think that when Jamie hits his teens, the scales will fall away from his eyes and he’ll understand that it’s not okay to talk to women like they’re shit. Then again, just yesterday, when she asked him to put his plate in the dishwasher after dinner, he said, ‘Why should I? Dad doesn’t.’
Chloe’s spent a lot of time trying to work out why her dad and Mike are friends. They couldn’t be more different. Her dad, Alan, is harsh and abrasive. Mike is gentle and kind. Her dad criticises her and makes her feel like shit. Mike tells her she’s beautiful and makes her feel like she could do anything she wanted to in life. She didn’t always feel so warmly towards Mike. She used to ignore him if he came round to their house for a BBQ or to have a few beers with her dad in the garden. Putting up with her dad was bad enough, why would she want to chat to one of his arsehole mates? And when her dad suggested she get a weekend and after-school job at the garden centre she was horrified. A garden centre? How boring was that. And anyway, she had homework to do after school. ‘It’s not like you’ll ever be an A-grade student,’ her dad had snapped, ‘even if you did homework for the rest of your life. Get retail experience now, while you can.’ It was her mum who finally talked her into taking the job. ‘It’ll get you out of the house,’ she said softly, ‘and you might make some new friends.’ Chloe wasn’t sure she wanted to be friends with people who worked in a garden centre, but the idea of avoiding her dad for sixteen hours a week did appeal. And earning some money of her own so she didn’t have to ask him.
When the car finally pulls up on their street, Chloe sits tight, waiting for her dad to tell her that she can get out, then she runs up the path and into the house.
‘Mum!’ she calls. ‘I’m back!’
She pops her head into the living room to find Jamie sitting on the rug in front of the TV, the PS4 remote welded to his hands.
‘Jamie, where’s Mum?’
‘Having a lie-down. She’s got a migraine. Again.’
She takes the stairs two at a time, then gently pushes at her parents’ bedroom door. The curtains are drawn and the room is dark but she can make out the shape of her mother lying curled up on her side on the bed. She’s fast asleep. Chloe reaches into her back pocket for her phone and checks the time. 6.17 p.m. She wonders if Mike will be home yet. Not that she knows where that is. When she asked him where he lived and if he had a family, he shook his head and said, ‘All you need to know is that my life is a lonely one. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I’ve got a feeling you can relate?’ She’d looked away then, unable to cope with the intensity of his gaze.
‘Chloe!’ her dad yells from downstairs. ‘If your mum’s not able to make the dinner you’ll have to do it.’
Chloe glances at her mum, her face slack, her shoulders relaxed and her breathing heavy and slow, then she makes her way back down the stairs.
Any tension between me and Mike lifts the moment the ferry pulls away from the terminal and we’re free to get out of the car. He grabs my hand and half-leads, half-pulls me up the stairs to the deck.
‘Let’s find the arcade.’ He beams, dimples puncturing his stubbly cheeks. ‘If they’ve got those grabby games, I’ll try and win you a toy.’
We move from game to game – shooting, driving and dancing. Mike wins the shooting. I win the dancing. I win the driving too when I cheat and yank on his steering wheel, making him do a U-turn. He doesn’t care. He pulls me onto his lap, then without bothering to check if anyone is looking, he covers my face in kisses. When we’ve exhausted all the games, we drop shiny ten-pence pieces into the penny shove. We work as a team first, then race each other to see who can get the most coins in. As our winnings tumble over the edge, Mike wraps an arm around my waist and lifts me clean off my feet.
‘Let’s celebrate in style!’ he laughs. ‘The burgers are on me!’
He leads me to the restaurant and orders burgers, fries and milkshakes. I get Mike to dip his fries in his milkshake (‘disgusting’) and he challenges me to see who can take the biggest bite out of our buns. I’ve seen lots of different sides to Mike’s personality in the eighteen months since I’ve known him. I’ve seen him thoughtful, sensitive, kind and strict (but only at the club). But I’ve never seen him like this before. The playful side of him is amazing. It’s like we’re the same age.
It doesn’t last forever. The closer the ferry gets to Calais, the quieter Mike becomes and as the car pulls off the rank he snaps at me to ‘wait’ when I ask where we’re going. When the customs officers check our passports, his whole body tenses and he holds himself very still. He’s worried, but he shouldn’t be. As far as Mum and Dad are concerned, I’ve gone on a karate camping trip. As long as I’m back by Sunday night they’ll be fine.
‘My niece,’ Mike says as the uniformed man looks from him to me.
‘Oui,’ I say and flash him a smile. Mike twitches, ever so slightly, like he’s annoyed with me, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the man’s face.
