Page 11 of When We Were Friends
‘Vikram’s parents both have jobs they enjoy. They share the housework. Still go on dates. They’re going on holiday to Spain this summer.’
‘But I’ve got what no one else has – the best son in the world. Even when he beats me at Wordle.’ She slipped an arm around his shoulder and squeezed tight.
He shook her off. ‘It’s obvious I was a mistake. No one chooses to have a baby so young. At least your mum and dad had each other. Just think, if we found Dad, he could help pay for stuff. You could go on holiday. Maybe even change jobs.’ He slammed the glass down on the kitchen worktop. ‘I can tell you’ve been crying, I’m not stupid, Mum. There are lots of reasons we need to find my dad. It’s not only about me.’ He stormed off.
She left him for thirty minutes to cool off then went upstairs. Morgan knocked on his bedroom door. Eventually, he pulled it open.
‘I suppose you want a shirt ironing?’ she said gently.
‘I can do it myself.’
‘Indeed. You ironed that shirt so quickly last weekend, it had more creases than Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.’
His frown lines relaxed a little. As he handed her his current favourite going-out top, she passed him a twenty-pound note. ‘Here, take this for tonight, not that I imagine it will buy more than a couple of drinks.’
‘I’ve got my job, Mum, you don’t need to…’
She held up her hand. ‘I’m earning brownie points, for when you become the physicist who works out what came before the Big Bang. I’m counting on that house you’re going to buy me in Malibu.’
‘Five-five-five,’ he muttered.
His phone rang and he closed the door again. Morgan plugged in the iron, hating the fact she couldn’t give him more. But they loved each other and that was all that mattered. It was.
Her phone pinged again. Samira could be persistent. Morgan went over to the table, sat down. Two texts from… Emily?
Don’t look for Hugo, Morgan. Take it from me. Not all parents make kids happy.
Followed by:
I’m in Manchester tomorrow. If you want to chat, meet me in Marks café at eleven o’clock.
7
MORGAN
Morgan travelled up the escalator and stood outside the café entrance. Marks & Spencer had always been one of her favourite shops. The others used to call her middle-aged before her time. She’d steadfastly defend her corner, raving about their reliable underwear – actually all she could really afford to buy there, apart from occasional cheaper treats from the luxury food store. It was a forty-minute train journey into Manchester from Dailsworth. With the rail fare and cost of a lunchtime coffee and sandwich, these days, Morgan balked at going in too often. She surveyed the shop floor for Emily, whose appearance had never stood out, despite her soft blonde hair, the shower of freckles across her nose and those transparent, blue eyes. Emily had always preferred to keep herself in the background, whereas Paige had been easy to spot, gliding down school corridors, as if her feet weren’t moving and, instead, an aura of self-belief simply powered her along. You couldn’t miss Tiff, either, because of that expressive face, the gesticulating arms, the sparkly accessories that broke the rules, her bumbling loud bursts of laughter that embarrassed Tiff more than anyone else.
Five to eleven. When they were young, Morgan always was early, Paige right on time, Emily never liked to be the first and Tiff was one for dramatic entrances. Finally, Emily appeared, body hidden inside a voluminous parka. She lifted the hood that had been firmly pulled down over her forehead, even though it wasn’t raining outside. Morgan made an awkward movement as if to hug her but Emily’s arms didn’t reciprocate.
‘Let me get the drinks,’ said Morgan.
‘Oh. Cheers. Mine’s a latte,’ said Emily. ‘I’ll find a table.’
Ten minutes later, Morgan sat in an upholstered booth, opposite Emily, who still had her coat on, zipped right up the top. She didn’t touch her drink.
‘Don’t look for Hugo,’ she blurted out and her nose wrinkled. ‘My life was miserable because of my mother. Hugo was intimidating enough back in the day. He’s a dangerous, unknown entity now, as a father.’
Morgan stopped stirring her drink and the teaspoon fell onto the saucer. Emily had grimaced when she’d said the wordmother, a mother who’d suffered so much. ‘Okay… and I appreciate your concern, Emily, but…dangerous? Isn’t that a bit extreme?’
Emily raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you remember anything about what he was like, back then? We knew him for what… five long years? He had muscles when the other boys still thought triceps were dinosaurs. And yes, he had that natural charisma – everyone in the school knew his name – and he was good at sport as well. But he was also devious, he sucked up to the teachers and could easily charm his way into – or out of – anything. He clutched onto his status as if his life depended on it, mistreating everyone who didn’t look up to him. What about the time he shoved David Smith’s head down the loos because he dared share a joke with Hugo’s girlfriend. Or how Patsy – remember her from our biology class? – wouldn’t let him copy her homework so he spread rumours that he’d spotted her buying a pregnancy test.’ Beads of perspiration formed on Emily’s brow and she took off her coat. ‘Despite being an evil bastard, he cast a spell over so many people. That kind of boy doesn’t grow up into an honest, loyal, good-hearted man. And Olly is still at an impressionable age.’
‘It’s true,’ said Morgan quietly, ‘but everyone needs to connect with where they came from and that includes Olly, whatever his father was like all those years ago. Maybe Hugo hasn’t changed, maybe he has, but either way, meeting him will at least answer my son’s questions.’
Everything Emily was saying was true. But Morgan knew she had also seen a different side to Hugo in those final weeks before the prom. Glimpses of a less cocky lad who actually admitted he struggled with studies.
She’d always walked the same way home after leaving the girls in Crowley Road. One afternoon, she was about to turn into her street when she spotted him, sitting on the pavement, head in his hands… He’d been waiting for her. Said she had a perfect right to tell him to get lost, but if he didn’t pass his maths GCSE, he was going to get in so much trouble at home. He offered to pay her to help him. She’d carried on walking but… a funny noise, like a suppressed sob, stopped Morgan in her tacks.
Hugo? A sensitive side? She always had been a sucker for a puzzle and seeing him express heartfelt emotion shed a different light on the boy she’d always believed she’d hated. As she got to know him better, Morgan came to really care for him, to the point where sex, eventually, felt just… right. Kissing Hugo, touching intimate places, gave her such a rush of sensations, like being on a rollercoaster, once you passed a certain point, you were horrified, yet thrilled – a rollercoaster that you couldn’t get off. That’s what it had been like the one time they slept together. Hugo had kept asking if she was sure, if she was okay. The only time in her life that logic abandoned her, Morgan had replied by tugging down his underpants.
