Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles by Sabine Durrant Page B

even as I write I can hear her singing the jingle in the bathroom. ‘Cari, Cari, Carrrrib-vod.’ And if a tiny jolt of loneliness crossed her face when I said I was going up to bed, it has only hardened my resolve.

Monday 3 March
    My bedroom, 6 p.m.
    Julie wasn’t inschool today, so I still don’t know what she cooked up yesterday. V frustrating. Carmen and I rang her from Carmen’s mobile at break. We could hardly hear what she said, her throat was so bad. Tonsillitis, she thinks. She managed to whisper, ‘How’s the project?’ to me before her mother made her hang up.
    Yikes. I thought I was off the hook. I suppose one cancelled date does not a relationship break. I’d better get to it. Bad-mouthing, I think. Bad-mouthing I can manage.
    Back from a trip downstairs, 7 p.m.
    Mother was making tea for Mr Spence, who was in the sitting room leaning against the shipwrecked fridge, wriggling his shoulders and rubbing his back in a ‘phew, I’ve been busy with the old manual work today’ sort of way (I’m sure it’s time he was getting home.)
    I went to the bookshelf and said in a casual way, as if it was something that had been idly bothering me for a while, ‘How old would you say Bert is?’
    Mother was holding the teabag and dipping it in and out of the hot water. ‘I couldn’t say,’ she said.
    ‘Well, what do you think? Thirty-eight? Forty? I know he acts like a teenager, but he can’t be much younger than Julie’s mum and she’s at least forty-five.’
    ‘Connie!’ She gave me a steely look and then smiled at Mr Spence as she handed him his mug. ‘I don’t know. It’s rude to comment like that.’
    Marie, bless her little cotton socks, piped up from the plate of spaghetti hoops she was eating at the table, ‘I think he’s ugly’
    ‘Marie!’ Mother threw Mr Spence another smile.
    ‘And he smells.’
    Mother said, ‘Really!’ and frowned, but I did a thumbs up to Marie. Completely unrehearsed! Marie may well be an untapped resource.
    Rang Julie to tell her. Her mother says she’s too ill to come to the phone.

Tuesday 4 March
    Bedroom, 8 p.m.
    Today I started on Granny Enid.
    She had just settled Marie and Cyril in front of the television and was standing in the kitchen doorway, giving Mr Spence a pursed look. (She clearly doesn’t think much of the way you can see his hairy legs through the holes in his tracksuit bottoms either.) Mother was late in, so I had time to say, ‘Have you heard about this man Mother’s giving French lessons to?’
    She nodded. ‘Yes, isn’t it good, dear?’
    ‘No, it’s not.’ I was whispering because of Mr S. ‘He’s not very nice.’
    ‘Constance!’
    ‘He just isn’t. He’s…’ I lowered my voice even further. ‘He’s seeing other women.’
    Enid took a sharp intake of breath. I’d got her on a raw spot. (She’s never recovered from Jack’s treatment of Mother.) ‘Poor lamb. Widowed at such an early age and then shackled to such a disaster of a man…’
    This distracted me. I always feel I need to stand up for Jack when even his mother’s horrible about him. I said brightly, ‘The fish thing doesn’t seem to be going too badly,’ but she just sniffed, as if she could smell it from there. I said, ‘Anyway, can you have a word with her about this bloke Bert?’
    She shook her head. ‘I really don’t think it’s my place. Sssssh.’ Mr Spence had materialized at my shoulder.
    He said, ‘Sorry to disturb your little confabulation, but if it is all right with you two lovely ladies, I need to move, to redeploy, my ladder.’ Now he’s more relaxed around our house – he should be, he bloody well lives in the place – he keeps putting on silly voices like this.
    I raised my eyes to the ceiling and moved out of the way, and after that I didn’t have a chance to say any more, because Granny E. realized the time and left, but at least I’ve planted a seed.

Wednesday 5 March
    Sitting room, 5.30 p.m.
    I’ve progressed to wanton