James and Tricia
were sleeping on the sofas, both making strange purring noises. Georgia could
see the spare mattresses on the floor, but Michael and Sue were in the kitchen
standing with Lucy and Jill hadn’t come back last night, not with them and not
by herself. None of them were talking, but there was no way the Browns could
have not heard the commotion. Georgia could see that Michael desperately wanted
to put his arm around Lucy but couldn’t, partly because his sister was there
and partly because he didn’t feel right putting his arm around her when she was
wearing Carter’s shirt. Of course, Georgia couldn’t see into his mind, but she
knew pretty much how his brain worked and she could see his arm twitching towards Lucy every so often. Sue looked
up and smiled a relieved smile when she saw Georgia.
“Hey,” Georgia said softly, “so how is
everyone?”
“Hungover,” replied Sue. A strange
grunt came from Michael, which Sue translated, “Mikey’s lost his voice and he
feels like a car has hit him in the face three times.”
“How do you know that if he can’t
talk?”
“I just do,” Sue shrugged, as did
Michael.
“It’s their weird twin telepathy
thing,” piped up Lucy, “Plus anyone would feel like that after the amount of
Tequila Michael drank last night.” The girls laughed and Michael shoved Lucy
playfully, earning himself a retaliation shove and making Lucy laugh for the
first time that morning. There was a short silence after her laugh which was
relief tinged with awkward hesitation just in case she started crying again.
Even Lucy looked concerned. Georgia took the silence as an opportunity and
grabbed Lucy’s hand, pulling her outside and facing little resistance.
“Thank goodness it’s summer,” said
Georgia as the two girls sat on the wall outside the house, “Else we’d both be
freezing.” Lucy laughed and looked at herself and then at her friend.
“Gee, we match!” she giggled, pointing
out that both of the girls were wearing pastel-coloured men’s shirts and bare
legs with their hair in messy buns. It looked like a uniform and Georgia and
Lucy laughed and began to reminisce about the hideous shirts they had been
forced to wear to school for so many years.
“Remember when we always had to be sure
our shirts were tucked in so Mrs. Willows wouldn’t take our jumpers?” Georgia
giggled.
“Remember how long your skirt used to
be?” Lucy giggled, slightly louder.
“Remember how short yours was?” Georgia
retaliated, laughing even harder.
“Remember when Jill’s became
non-existent and she got sent home?” The two girls were roaring with laughter
now, but they calmed down soon enough when their minds wandered to the
morning’s events.
“And Claire was so cute and ditsy.”
“She still is.”
“You know she doesn’t mean it,” soothed
Georgia, “She tries her best but it’s a lapse in judgement and she doesn’t mean
to upset you, neither of them do.”
“I don’t know why I care so much. It
doesn’t directly affect me so I should be fine with it as long as I don’t have
to see it.”
“It’s just because you know what
they’re both like. You know they don’t actually want to be together, it’s just
a mistake. Claire always regrets it, at least. Steve wouldn’t tell anyone
except you.”
“He doesn’t tell me. He rarely talks to
me about her because I don’t let him. She tells me not to and I don’t want to
anyway.” She sighed, “I wouldn’t mind it, I’d be fine with it if they didn’t
regret it so much and if it didn’t make everything so awkward and make them
hate each other. Every time they do this I end up clearing up after their mess
when it all… goes pear-shaped.”
“Impressive that you’re not swearing,”
said Georgia.
“New year’s resolution.”
“In June?”
“Just to be different.” The girls
laughed quietly again. Georgia put her arm around Lucy, who fidgeted slightly
to fit better into the embrace.
“You need to stop caring about other people
and be more concerned with yourself. Hang on, haven’t we had this conversation
before?”
“Only every time I’ve been upset over
the past 8 years,” said Lucy, “So it’s rare… or not so rare.”
The girls sat like that for a good 5
minutes before they both got cramp and decided to move. Georgia sighed to
herself. Nothing like a good cuddle on a
Sunday morning before I have to leave and go all the way back to Nottingham
with Tricia. As she followed Lucy back into the house she looked around at
all her friends once more. Joe had come downstairs and was sitting with James, Margaret,
Tricia, Michael and Sue, who had shoved all the mattresses together and piled
cushions and blankets up on top of them. Georgia smiled.
“Right, nobody gets dressed until we’ve
watched at least 2 shitty films in a row. Where are the others?” 10 minutes
later they were still arguing about film choices but they had been joined by
Steve and Claire (Carter had gone home) who were sitting at opposite ends of
the group. Lucy, in her typical fashion, was pretending nothing had happened
and crawling over everyone, trying to bring some order to the chaos and quite
happy to be failing miserably.