P is, naturally, the first to break the silence.
“So, hon, why have you been at the clinic?”
“Ach, these two. Go on, show ’em!”
Kids rolls up the collective sleeve. Both children have faint red marks on their inner elbows. Lydia has clearly scratched hers.
“Blood tests?” says J. “But why? I mean: I thought they’d have had all the standards already.”
Lucy sighs. “You know where I live?” They both nod soberly – Luce et al cannot afford to live in the nicest part of town. “The w– idiots out back have been throwing stuff over the back gate again.” The end of the small garden plot backs onto a piece of greenery that should be a pleasant local community facility (and is probably still advertised as such in Council literature), but is in the real world a blighted piece of ground-down shit with seedy-looking bushes. It’s bleak during the day and dodgy as all fuck at night.
P’s eyes close. “Needles?”
J’s face is taut.
Lucy says: “No – condoms.” She barks a laugh. “I mean, I suppose I should be glad they’re trying not to breed and all but...”
J has got it. “Faaa,” she says very softly.
“They found one down the back path near that bit where they hide in the flippin shrubbery coz that’s what kids do, innit? And it’d been this one’s birthday not long gone so they know what burst balloons look like.”
There’s a nasty, other-people’s-chatter-filled pause; Lucy seems to be trying to swallow something before speaking.
“I’m think I’m going to be sick,” says J, hand to mouth.
Lucy is finally allowing herself to be angry, and is flushed and grim-looking. It’s unsettling. After a while, though, her face clears. But neither P nor J will forget that glimpse they had of a colder, ruthless Lucy who would do anything for her kids. The image that crosses both their minds of what Lucy will do a) to catch the bastards, b) to them... It’s not a good image.
The one sitting before them, though, they recognise more easily as their friend. Her expression lightens to a sardonic amusement.
“So next,” she says,” I’m having to cart them off to get tested for goodness-knows-what, aren’t I? And I mean, fff-for goodness’ sake, I’m going to get them tested for the full range.”
“You went to your GP?” says P.
“Not on your Nelly – I wanted a faster result than that. I went to the GUM clinic they run south of here.” South of the city centre is that typical mix of proper old-town modern British docklands, where poverty and affluence grate against each other in more than ironic juxtaposition.
J nods, unsurprised. “Trust you,” she says.
P is amused. “Toddlers getting HIV tests. Bet that went down a bomb!”
“I tell you, obstreperous doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Her eyes narrow.
“Okay, right,” she waves her hands curtly and the others settle back a little, almost grinning in anticipation of the rant to come. “I can almost understand why people end up doing telesales and bar and shop work and waitering and other customer service work when they’re strapped but you’d really think someone who chose to work as front line in a medical establishment would have some vestige of giving a good god-damn.”
“Jobs-worth?” says J.
“Not even that, it was more in-ground and pathological than that.”
“ ‘Hello,’ ” says P brightly, “ ‘my name is Miss Anthropy, how can I obstruct you today?’ ”
“Zackly,” says Lucy, which is a J-ism.
J’s face goes that curious still it always does when people pay her compliments. “So, er,” she says thickly, then clears her throat, “did, how many Ages of Mankind did it take to get past the Procedure Demon – cuz I’m reckoning about three.”
“Stone Age, Iron Age, Outrage,” chips in P.
“After the first seven minutes it went remarkably smoothly, in fact,” says Lucy calmly, with a glint in her eyes.
“You have your game face on?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Take No Bullshit,” they chorus, then look guiltily at Kids.
“Don’t worry – they came away with a pretty enriched vocabulary last week.”
“But all otherwise clear now, right?” P asks.
“Yeah,” she breathes. “Put a few extra years on me, though.”
“Take a few off those f–” coughs “wits if you ever catch them, mind.”
“Mmmhm.” They fall silent for a while and sip at drinks. Lydia tries some of P’s bruschetta and does that open-mouthed, half-closed eyes, slow chew that says more clearly than any words that adults are mental.