2000 - Thirtynothing by Lisa Jewell

Author:Lisa Jewell
Format: epub
Published: 2000-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

The girl called Jo was waiting anxiously in the hallway when they finally walked back into the flat, picking at the skin around her nails and holding a smouldering cigarette.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ she demanded rudely of Phil. ‘It’s been a fucking nightmare here.’ She threw Nadine a contemptuous look and blew a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air around her head. ‘Your old man turned up and had a screaming fucking fit about some fucking TV, and then that old hag from next door started snooping around and moaning about the noise, and then…’

‘Chill, girl,’ said Phil, putting a hand firmly on her shoulder and turning to smile at Nadine. ‘Just chill. I’ve been showing Nadine Freda’s cats, that’s all. I’m here now.’

‘Yeah, but what about your old man? He said he’s going to come back every night until…’

‘Just. Chill. He’s just a senile old man. OK?’ he said firmly, putting a finger to Jo’s lips and turning her around. And then he turned and winked at Nadine before placing his hand firmly on Jo’s back and disappearing with her into one of the many rooms leading off his hallway.

Nadine stood blinking for a moment or two, feeling slightly foolish. Was he coming back? Was she supposed to be waiting for him? Was she supposed to have followed him? And what the hell was all that about his ‘old man’? He didn’t have an ‘old man’. His father was dead.

After a couple of minutes she decided that he wasn’t coming back and that she was presently making a giant fool of herself, so she located a mini-cab card on the telephone table and started to dial.

She didn’t want to be here any more.

She arranged to meet the cab on the street outside the flats and paced up and down agitatedly while she waited. A few minutes later a dark-blue Granada Ghia pulled up and she gratefully fell into the back seat and explained to the Turkish driver where she wanted to be taken.

The entire area between her legs felt raw and used and her thigh muscles had begun to ache tenderly. The skin around her mouth was taut and sore and her head felt thick and woolly and dense with confusing images and blurred thoughts. The streetlights and window displays danced in front of her eyes and made pinhead patterns of light on her retinas.

Nadine didn’t know what had happened tonight. She didn’t know who she was or where she’d been or where she was going.

She was all alone.

She wanted a bath.

She wanted to go home.

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