Making Nice by Ferdinand Mount

Author:Ferdinand Mount [Mount, Ferdinand ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

9

Ghosting

‘If there was any doubt about it before, there certainly isn’t now,’ Jane burst straight out, her voice severe but trembling. I still had my face buried in her neck, too overjoyed at seeing her to grasp immediately how near the edge she was.

‘How do you mean? Has she said?’

‘You don’t sob all day just because your dad’s boss who has given you a holiday job has gone to America if that’s all he is. She cried most of yesterday too after he called her.’

‘You’re sure it was him?’

‘Definitely. I could hear her on the upstairs landing. She started off all bright and excited, then went quiet as he babbled on, then she got excited again, only this time sounding anguished and protesting and then just sad, resigned, or at least that’s what I thought. She wouldn’t speak to me afterwards, just went back to her room and stayed there. How I loathe that man.’

‘So what do you think’s happened?’

‘He’s dumped her obviously. Waited till he was safely three thousand miles away to tell her.’

‘You think she had no idea?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jane shouted, shaking with anger as much at my questions as at the situation.

‘Oh God,’ I said.

‘Oh God – is that all you can say?’

‘And Lucy?’ I asked, trying to deflect her fury. ‘How is Lucy?’

‘Oh, you know … the usual thing, one’s down, the other’s up.’ Jane made a see-saw with her hands. ‘The new medication seems to be working, fingers crossed. She hasn’t had a fit since you went away. Says she’s thinking of taking up martial arts. Couldn’t be better.’

We stood there in the hall. How fine she looked in her misery, or perhaps it was her contempt for the whole shoddy business that gave her that look, the look of a hawk planing over a scrubby bit of country and not liking what it sees.

Then without warning the door upstairs opened and there she was at the top of stairs, Flo, in her rainbow-nation jumper, appearing utterly composed and quite pleased to see me.

‘I’ve been so silly, Dad,’ she said, after we had kissed. ‘What on earth was the point of pretending? You both knew straight away about me and Ethel, it was so totally obvious. He even wanted me to go to the States with him, but of course I couldn’t with ballet school coming up, and anyway the last thing on earth I’d want would be to have anything to do with that terrible man, I mean not Ethel, him. Well, I did think of it at first, then I thought, No, Florence, it’s just not you’ – this was a quote from a Young Adult novel which had become a catchphrase with the girls, this phoney way of talking to themselves as Florence and Lucinda. ‘And of course I wasn’t going to drop out of the Royal whatever else I did.’

‘So what was all that yesterday?’ Jane said sharply.

‘All what yesterday?’

‘That long phone call.’

‘I don’t remember giving you permission to listen in to my phone calls, Mum.

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