A Good Catch. Fern Britton
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His best friend since nursery school, Mickey Chandler was the person Jesse shared everything with. Mickey was standing outside his own family’s smaller shed, unlocked now with its doors wide open to the sun, and was polishing the chrome of his pride and joy: a two-year-old Honda moped, a present from his family and friends for his recent sixteenth birthday.
Jesse lengthened his stride, taking the headphones from his ears and calling, ‘Hey.’ Mickey stood up and shielded his eyes with the hand holding the stockinet duster; Jesse could smell the metal cleaner on it.
‘Hey,’ he replied.
Jesse was now close enough to give his best mate a punch on the arm, which was returned with equal force and affection.
‘I thought you were revising,’ Mickey said, returning to his polishing.
‘I thought you were too.’
‘Waste of fuckin’ time, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. Want a snout?’
‘Please.’
Jesse pulled a crumpled packet of Player’s No. 6 out of his pocket and offered one to Mickey.
‘Ta.’
‘You got a light?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘No.’
‘Shit.’
Both boys pondered on the dilemma of having cigarettes but no means of smoking them. Mickey laughed first. ‘You’re bloody useless, Behenna.’
Jesse grabbed his friend in a headlock and they scuffled contentedly for several minutes.
Eventually they stopped
‘Bike’s looking good,’ Jesse told him.
‘Got my test next week.’
‘Gonna pass?’
‘Of course.’
‘Can I come out with you?’
‘Sure. I’m gonna ask Loveday out when I’ve got me licence.’
Jesse’s heart flipped at the sound of Loveday’s name. Mickey was in love with Loveday and had never made any secret of it. Jesse had never admitted to Mickey that the mention of her name, let alone the sight of her, was enough to shoot a flame of desire and longing coursing through his body.
‘Her arse is too big for the seat,’ he observed.
Mickey smiled. ‘Yeah. And what an arse. Imagine having her arms around you, holding tight, pressing those big boobs against your shoulder blades.’
Jesse could imagine all too clearly, but said only, ‘Fill your boots, boy.’
‘How do I look in these?’ Loveday had struggled into a pair of lime-green leggings, her face flushed and perspiring.
Greer, sitting neatly on the edge of Loveday’s unmade bed, wondered what to say. Should she tell her friend that she looked embarrassing? That the hideous leggings were pulling at the seams and clearly revealing the revolting cellulite clinging to her thighs. Could she tell her that she needed to lose a lot of weight and learn how to dress properly? Though on the plus side – and Greer did feel slightly guilty about this – Loveday did make Greer look great by comparison.
‘You look like Loveday Carter,’ she managed.
Loveday turned back to her reflection in the mirror that hung off the back of her bedroom door. ‘I like the colour. They didn’t ’ave ’em in the next size, but I’m gonna lose a bit of weight before the summer comes.’ She turned sideways and looked at herself from right and left. ‘If I put on my orange T-shirt, that’ll cover me bum.’
Greer looked down at her own slim legs in their perfectly fitting Pepe jeans. The orange T-shirt might cover Loveday’s bottom, but it wasn’t going to disguise the two rolls of fat wobbling between the bottom edge of her bra and the elastic waist of the leggings.
‘There. What d’ya think?’ Loveday asked a few moments later. Greer looked up.
She wanted to say, ‘Loveday. You look ghastly. You couldn’t be wearing a less flattering outfit. Your breasts are too big, your stomach is enormous and your derrière huge.’
Instead, she said, ‘It’s very you.’ She stood up and smoothed her hands over her own trim derrière, brushing off imaginary flecks. Loveday was now at her dressing-table mirror. The dressing table itself was strewn with several used cotton wool balls and a large amount of ancient make-up; a cold, half-drunk cup of tea and an empty Diet Coke tin. Hanging from a glass hand with curved upright fingers were strings of gaudy beads and a worn pair of knickers.
Greer pulled the collar of her crisp white shirt up at the nape of her neck and checked that the cuffs of her sleeves were turned back as the models in her mother’s monthly Vogue magazine did. She wanted to get out and see Jesse. ‘Come on. The boys will be waiting for us.’
Loveday took one last look in the mirror and smacked her matte red lips together. Recently she’d been copying Madonna’s make-up, even adding the beauty spot above her lip with an eye pencil. ‘I can’t find my black pencil so I’ve used the green one. I rather like it. What do you think?’ she said, turning to Greer. ‘It shows off me green eyes, don’t it?’
Greer blew her cheeks out and thought for a moment. ‘I think you look … unique.’
Loveday hugged her uptight friend. ‘You are so sweet. Unique? Really?’
‘Really.’ Greer extricated herself from the miasma of Giorgio Armani’s Beverly Hills rip-off scent, bought in Truro’s pannier market.
‘And what does that mean? Sounds posh,’ bounced back Loveday, reaching for her heavily fringed and studded, stone-washed denim jacket.
‘It means you are a one-off.’
*
Jesse was first to spot the girls walking up towards the sheds. Loveday’s marmalade hair with its wash-and-wear perm gleamed in the sunshine; her beautiful body was gently undulating towards him in skin-tight green leggings, her large breasts swinging to the rhythm of the fringes on her jacket. He thought often about those breasts. Sometimes, when she wore her white T-shirt, he could see the outline of her nipples. He turned his back on the girls, feigning disinterest, and called over to Mickey, who was checking his quiff in the wing mirror of the Honda moped. ‘The girls are coming.’
Mickey smiled in the mirror at his own cheeky face. ‘I’m going to give Loveday a night to remember.’
‘Oh, yeah? When’s that then?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Never. She won’t touch you with a barge pole.’
‘She won’t need to. I’ve got me own barge pole to touch her with.’ Mickey ducked swiftly out of reach of Jesse’s punch and together they locked the precious motorbike in its shed.
‘All right?’ Mickey raced to get ahead of Jesse and be first to walk by Loveday’s side.
‘Yeah.’ She smiled at him and, for him, the sun seemed suddenly to be shining extra bright. Then he frowned.
‘You’ve got something on your lip.’ He lifted a finger to wipe at the mark on her face. She grabbed his wrist before it got to her.
‘It’s me beauty spot. Like Madonna’s. It’s unique.’
‘Oh. Looks like you’ve drawn on yourself.’
Loveday stopped and waited for Greer, who was a couple of steps behind with Jesse.
‘How does my beauty spot look?’