No Place For a Man by Judy Astley Read Free Book Online

bin, make a toasted honey sandwich and leave crumbs and three knives covered in butter and gloop scattered around on the worktop. After that he’d start on the crisps, which would make him thirsty again and she’d hear the swoosh of a can of beer being opened … She took a deep breath and reminded herself that although all this might be about to happen, there was no pointgetting herself worked up into a fury when it actually hadn’t yet. And, more important, there was no point complaining when it did. Matt wasn’t a child, he was entitled to live as he chose in his own home. He’d be pretty sure to point that out too.
    ‘Mum? Are you in?’ Natasha’s head appeared round the door. Jess waited for the rest of Natasha to follow but she kept herself draped across the doorway, blocking the space, waiting.
    ‘Oh hi Tash, good day?’ The girl looked shifty and Jess took another large breath and waited to hear that she’d been expelled, got pregnant or robbed the post office. Might as well get all possible disasters out in the open in the same week, she thought, surrendering herself to the worst that fate could deal.
    ‘Not bad, just usual. Er, Mum, I’ve got someone here. Can we go and make a cup of tea?’
    ‘Well of course you can! Why do you think you need to ask all of a sudden? Oh and one for me while you’re at it, please Tash.’
    She heard the two pairs of footsteps thumping towards the kitchen. Mildly suspicious, for who was this mystery person? Jess got up to follow, to go – on the pretence of finding biscuits – and meet the friend whom she had not, and she was sure it was no oversight, been allowed to see. She retrieved her shoes from where she always kicked them off under the desk and wasted a few minutes shuffling papers around.
    ‘There’s a new pack of chocolate Hobnobs in the cupboard.’ Jess loudly announced her impending arrival from halfway down the hall, recalling quite well that it was a teen law as unchallengeable as that of gravity that friends you didn’t introduce to yourmother had to be of the opposite sex. She was sure that neither of them would want her to catch them in a passionate clinch crushed against the fridge.
    Natasha was leaning back against the sink, her arms folded across her front and her long caramel-coloured hair hiding much of her face. The boy, a lanky, dark-clad creature, was sprawled across two of the kitchen chairs. He had a sort of slender elegance about him, taking up a lot of space without looking awkward. There was a vague stale smell of cigarettes and the not-so-elegant hint of feet, a sharply remembered tang of Oliver.
    ‘Oh hello,’ Jess said brightly, grinning at the boy, ‘I’m Jess, Natasha’s mother. I’ll just find those biscuits for you.’ Natasha scowled but knew well enough the process for getting her mother out of the way.
    ‘Er, Mum this is …’
    ‘I’m Tom. Hello.’ The boy didn’t stand up (did any of them?) but held out his hand to shake hers. She felt quite touched by his formality – unheard of in youth, and he couldn’t be much older than Natasha – and by his rather pitiful air of neglect. His hair could do with a wash and his hands looked as if they’d spent several months working on car engines in garages that didn’t quite run to Swarfega. She guessed that he wasn’t a St Dominic’s pupil – the boys from there had that scrubbed, fresh-faced eager look as if they were all about to become those terribly young and vulnerable-looking policemen. This one, with a silver arrow pierced through his eyebrow (which wasn’t allowed even at Briar’s Lane), his general dustiness and shadowy eyes, looked … well dangerous, attractively dangerous. Jess busied herself putting biscuits onto a plate, adding more milk to her tea. She could feelNatasha’s tension beside her. ‘So Tom, are you from round here?’
    There was a suppressed groan from Natasha. ‘Go ahead Mum, why don’t you ask him for … what’s it called when you