13
‘ S o, all it took,’ says Janey quietly to her friends, as they all give her meaningful looks at seeing Essie up and about, ‘was for me to keep completely silent and hide in the next room.’
They are in the End of the World bar – the name of the place makes both Essie and Al roll their eyes, which annoys Janey, because at least someone is making an effort.
It’s hard up here. Shelby had the little low white house painted up nice and fresh, and the doors and windowpanes are pale blue; it looks lovely, even though it faces the sea so will need to be painted every five minutes to have a hope of staying that way.
‘Look, sis,’ Al is teasing, pointing at a chalked-up menu. ‘They have avocados! You’re alright! You haven’t been kidnapped!’
Essie gives him a look. Considering how dire she’s been feeling, having a shower and getting dressed, even if it’s only in jeans and a top, has made her feel a little better, as has putting make-up on, as has the prospect of the local gin and tonic Al is currently buying her.
She looks around, feeling edgy as she waits to see Scary Shelby McFlynn.
When she appears, behind the bar, Essie feels a sudden chill.
Shelby does look well, as her mum said. She’s bigger than she was at school, but she’s bosomy and shapely, so it rather suits her, particularly working behind a bar.
Her brown eyes have been further enhanced by huge false eyelashes that curl up, and she has a deep tan, which isn’t really the first thing that springs to mind when you think of the winter just past in Carso.
Essie blinks and tries to slow her racing heart.
She hasn’t thought about what she might say – well, that’s nonsense: she has thought about it loads, mostly along the lines of effing off out then effing back in again so she can eff off once more, and ideally it would have taken place while she, Essie, was swanning down George Street in a ballgown and lots of handsome friends on their way somewhere exotic (she’s not quite sure where), while a now acne-ridden and miserable Shelby has come up to see Menopause the Musical at the Playhouse and can only stare after her wistfully.
And yet, here they are. Back in Carso. And Shelby is looking straight at Essie with a look on her face that is almost defiant; as if she is daring Essie to say something, to bring it up. She recognises her, alright; she’s practically reading her mind.
Essie realises she can’t do it. She isn’t going to speak to her school bully.
She can’t. Instead, she turns around and folds her arms and looks defiantly around the room, at the groups of gossiping knitters and cheery quiz teams, and makes her face into something not exactly like a sneer, more a kind of pitying glance.
Al comes up, wondering why she hasn’t ordered.
‘Hiya, Shelby,’ he says, and Shelby turns to face him with a huge, sticky lip-glossed grin. Her teeth are very white and even, again slightly belying Hector, Carso’s only dentist, a well-meaning man but not exactly au fait with dental fashions.
‘Hiya!’ she trills, as if lit up. Essie smiles gratefully at Al, while looking over at the tiny wooden table with her mum’s friends from the hospital.
Their team is called the Ancillary Justices.
Nobody understands this except for one intense young man called Owen, with long, greasy black hair, who sometimes manages to look skinny but have a potbelly at the same time. She keeps an eye on Al.
‘Can I get a bottle of white and two G the child was just lovely, and then .
. . nothing. They’d moved away or the files had been transferred or something.
How strange. He was English, she remembered that, and his wife was . . . Albanian? She can’t quite recall.
The man stands at the bar looking awkward, then relieved when Shelby bustles over to serve him. He orders a half-pint, then looks around, a little nervous, at the noisy room, full of people who knew each other.
‘Look busy,’ says Al, just as the man’s gaze sweeps over him.
‘When are we starting, please?’ comes Owen’s voice, loudly.
‘Why?’ says Lish. ‘Where are you headed after this, Stringfellow’s?’