shuddering when she remembers that had also been the weekend she’d slept with Shaun. Should have been grateful, saggy old bitch. Jesus. She shakes her head: she certainly knew how to pick them.
Upstairs, Layla is watching Cleo rummage through her duffle bag. ‘What do you want all this stuff for anyway?’ she asks her. ‘My sister will go crazy if she finds out I’ve taken it.’
Cleo pulls out a handful of cosmetics and looks at them in wonder. ‘I want you to take a picture of me, I’m sick of looking the way I always look. I’ve been watching YouTube videos on how to put this stuff on.’
Layla frowns. ‘But what’s the picture for?’
‘Just … OK, promise not to freak? I’ve been talking to this boy online, on the Fortnite forum, you know? His name’s Daniel and he sent me a picture of himself and he’s amazing. Now he wants one of me. And I don’t want to look like some stupid kid. I want to look cool.’
Layla’s unimpressed. ‘I think this is a very bad idea, Cleo. It’s highly likely that this Daniel person is what’s known as a catfish. They made us watch that documentary about it at school, remember?’
But Cleo only shrugs. Yes, he could be a fake, but she doesn’t think so, and in a way, it doesn’t really matter. It’s like a game she’s caught up in. She’s never going to meet him, so what’s the harm in it? It’s almost like getting lost in a film or a book, a fun, easy way to talk to a cute boy without the embarrassment of having to do it face-to-face. And she’s found she wants to be different, suddenly, from the same old Cleo who plays football and gets good grades and looks much younger than everyone else in her year. She’d heard a few boys at school talking about her as she walked past them a week or so ago, sniggering, saying she looked like a boy and had no breasts, that they wouldn’t touch her with a bargepole. And even though she knew deep down they were idiots, it had triggered something inside her, a restless anxiety that she was being left behind. She wished she could be more like Layla and not care, but the truth was she did. ‘I just want to try it,’ she says to her friend. ‘Will you help?’
Sighing, Layla picks up a tube of mascara and a lipstick, and shrugs her agreement, surprising both of them over the next twenty minutes by being a dab hand with it. ‘No idea why Blessing needs to go to college to learn how to do this stuff,’ she mutters, running some straightening irons through Cleo’s hair. ‘It’s not exactly rocket science.’
Cleo smiles and listens to the sounds of her mother preparing lunch downstairs. She thinks about how over the past few days her mum’s face has taken on a familiar, distracted look. Every year at this time it’s the same: the sadness of an awful, unimaginable thing that had happened a lifetime ago to someone she had never known sweeps through their house, pressing itself against the window panes, drifting up between floorboards, dimming the lights and chilling the air. And this year, like all the ones before it, she’d had no idea what to say to make her mum feel better.
‘Do this,’ Layla instructs her, pushing her lips into a pout as she brandishes a shade of lipstick called Hubba Hubba!
As Cleo obeys, her thoughts turn to her recent visit to her dad’s house, how much she’d been looking forward to meeting her new brother, how when she’d arrived it had been nothing like she’d thought it would be.
Her dad and Sonia seemed to exist in an exhausting cycle of nappies and feeding and sleepless nights, beset with anxieties about sniffles and temperatures and something called colic, something called croup. The baby had been clamped to Sonia’s breast for what seemed like hours on end and Cleo had felt in the way, an inconvenience. When she talked, her voice was too loud, her movements too clumsy. When she’d finally been allowed to hold Max, he had screamed so hard that Sonia had taken him back with a sigh of exasperation and she’d started to cry herself, only for her dad to say, ‘For goodness’ sake, Cleo, don’t you start; you’re a big girl now, grow up!’
And despite his exhaustion, she’d seen how her dad gazed down at his new son, felt the love that bound the three of them so tightly, and something inside her had hurt, as though the more warmth there was in their little house, the colder she felt inside, and she’d wanted to go home to London, feeling guiltily relieved when her dad drove her to the station and tiredly waved her off.
‘Right,’ says Layla briskly. ‘All finished.’ Eagerly Cleo goes to look at herself in the mirror and grins in amazement. Her hair is sleek and sophisticated rather than its usual mess of curls; the eyeliner, mascara and lipstick Layla’s used has definitely made her look prettier as well as older – at least fifteen, she thinks. She runs to her mother’s room and returns wearing a red, scoop-necked T-shirt, then again gazes at her reflection in the mirror, delighted with herself. ‘OK, now take a picture of me,’ she says excitedly.
Later, when Layla has left, Cleo sends the picture straight to Daniel. His response is almost instant – Wow, you’re so beautiful! – and happiness fizzes inside her. Then she hears her mum calling from downstairs. ‘Cleo? Sammy and Ted are here. Come down!’
G2g xx, she writes, then runs to the bathroom and scrubs the make-up from her face, before returning the T-shirt to her mother’s closet and heading for the stairs.
In the kitchen, Samar is telling Vivienne and Ted a story about a well-known theatre actress he’d once worked with. A long career in stage management has provided him with a seemingly endless supply of salacious gossip, but even by his standards, today’s tale is pretty hair-raising. ‘But I mean, how is that even possible?’ Viv muses when he’s finished. ‘And with a Great Dane, for Christ’s sake?’ She sighs wonderingly and pours Samar a glass of wine, then offers the bottle to Ted. ‘How about you, Ted? You joining us today?’
‘Oh, better not, I’m on a diet.’ He pats his round stomach regretfully.
When Viv turns back to Samar she’s surprised to see the wistfulness in her friend’s eyes as he gazes over at Ted. It occurs to her suddenly that they’d both been quieter than usual today and she wonders if they’ve had a row. Samar has always been uncharacteristically unforthcoming about their relationship. When he’d first introduced him to her she’d been dubious; Ted hadn’t seemed the most obvious match for her friend. While Samar was skinny as a whippet, habitually dressed in black and had a sense of humour verging on depraved, Ted had a lilting Welsh accent, was balding and overweight, and favoured comfortable clothes in various shades of beige. He’d always struck her as a bit staid for someone as extrovert as Samar.
She also couldn’t help feeling that Ted didn’t entirely approve of her and Samar’s close friendship. He often avoided joining them whenever they got together, sending Samar with an apologetic excuse that never quite felt authentic. When he did appear she sometimes had the nagging sense that he was there under sufferance and couldn’t help wonder if he might not like her very much. She takes a sip of her wine and tries to push the thought away. Samar is clearly head over heels, things have moved fast between them and on the whole they both seem happy together. The slight atmosphere today is probably down to a lover’s tiff, she decides, as she catches Samar’s eye and smiles. She gets to her feet and, sliding the chicken from the oven, bastes it with sizzling fat before slamming it back in. ‘So, tell me about this trip to Paris,’ she says to Ted. ‘Can’t believe you’re whisking him off again.’
‘What can I say? I like to spoil him.’
‘God, you lucky sod,’ she says to Samar enviously.
Ted shakes his head. ‘I’m the lucky one.’ At this she sees Samar beam with pleasure, whatever tension there’d been between them apparently forgotten.
Samar and Viv had met aged
