No Longer Safe(14)

Jodie prolonged the embarrassment by pulling out a parcel of her own from the bag at her feet. A delicate necklace with the letter ‘M’ on it for Karen. She turned to me. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got these.’

She dipped into her handbag, gave me an unwrapped box and sat back to watch me open it. ‘I made them on the train,’ she added with pride. She reached over and held an earring up against my ear, at which point her face fell. ‘Oh – you don’t have pierced ears.’

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I was thinking of getting them done.’

‘I can do it for you if you like – we just need a sharp needle...’ She looked like she was about to get to her feet to find one.

‘No – it’s fine,’ I said hastily.

Even Mark had brought a gift for Melanie – a toy piano, which played a different tune with each key pressed.

An awkward silence followed the impromptu gift-giving ceremony. Jodie was looking at me – I was off the hook as far as she and Mark were concerned – but she was waiting for me to produce something for Karen and Melanie. I hadn’t come up to scratch. I’d failed to grasp the unspoken etiquette. The odd one out. As per usual.

Karen saved me. ‘Alice brought some lovely things for Mel.’

‘Oh – what?’ Jodie asked.

‘They’re upstairs. I’ll show you later,’ she said, without a blink.

I tried to thank Karen with my eyes, but she was watching Jodie, who had started telling some story about a friend at work. Unfortunately, Jodie was giggling so much I missed the punchline. As the others laughed, Mark was stabbing at burnt logs in the fire with the poker, sending sparks everywhere. A cluster of embers shot out on to the rug.

‘Careful,’ said Karen, touching his shoulder.

Jodie stood over a hole. ‘Look - you’ve burnt it!’ she said. ‘Stop it – it smells like a dead sheep.’

‘How would you know?’ he retorted. He took hold of her ankle. ‘Give me a kiss and shut up.’ His Geordie accent made him sound friendlier than he really was. Jodie did as she was told, then the pair of them cuddled up together on the sofa.

When Karen took the plates into the kitchen, Jodie called over to me. ‘I don’t really like little kids, do you?’ I noticed her hands were trembling.

I glanced over at Melanie. ‘I haven’t got a clue what to do with babies either, but I just follow what Karen does.’

Melanie was wearing a woolly hat indoors, because it was so cold. It made her look cute. ‘She’s adorable,’ I said.

Jodie grimaced. ‘I’m not doing any of that nappy stuff.’

Mark nibbled her ear and I took the mugs into the kitchen. From what I remembered of her, Jodie needed a lot of male attention and Mark was good at that.

Karen rolled her eyes as I joined her by the sink. ‘They’re just as soppy as they were at Leeds,’ she said.

I leant against the fridge and folded my arms in silence. She spotted me staring into space and waved her hand in front of my face.

‘I was just thinking back,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘Do you remember at the end of our second year when Jodie told us that Mark wanted them to get engaged?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘She started looking for a platinum ring with an oval stone – do you remember?’

‘Mmm…wishful thinking, I reckon. It certainly never happened.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Can’t see him setting a date any time soon, can you?’

I pulled a face in response.

‘You don’t mind cooking tonight, do you?’ she said, pointing to an open cookbook on the table. She’d left the relevant page pinned down with a potato. ‘It shouldn’t take long.’ She draped the oven-gloves over my shoulder, playfully. ‘We’ll eat around eight o’clock.’ Beside the recipe were all the ingredients for shepherd’s pie.

‘Of course not. It’s my turn.’ I grabbed her hand. ‘Thanks, by the way – for earlier.’

‘You owe me one,’ she said, with a wry smile and left me to wash the dishes.





Chapter 7




We spent the next hour sharing banal anecdotes about ‘the old days’. It didn’t take long for the stories to get tedious. Then Mark insisted on a snowball fight in the front garden. I ended up on Jodie’s team, but she was hopeless, dissolving into giggles and, leaving me to fend off a barrage of solid balls of ice. Karen was a demon. I should have remembered she’d be competitive even when we were supposed to be having fun.

My headache was still hanging around – Jodie’s raucous laughter hadn’t helped, a bit OTT if you asked me – and I was desperate to be on my own. All I wanted was to lie down in the warmth, but once again, Mark had other plans.