10

Lara hadn’t seen her brother for a while. She must make more of an effort to meet up with him. That was the best fun she’s had in ages. Well, since she last saw Jude.

There was something fantastically charismatic about the way he told that woman that her hair was ‘f*****g wonky’. Something about how he gave that woman a piece of his mind and didn’t give a turkey’s bollock that there were some snooty kids nearby. God she loved Jude.

It was half four by he time she got home. When she opened the door she had to take a step back and almost tripped over the door frame because an overwhelming wall of odour hit her in the face. It smelt like a cross between toast and bleach. After waving her hand in front of her face in an attempt to get some sort of fresh air, Lara proceeded to go into the house.

She dropped her keys in the little bowl on the table and hung up her jacket. There was the noise of the TV coming from the living room. She poked her head round the door and could see Alex asleep on the sofa, the remote resting on his chest.

There was something colourful in his hand. She went over for a closer look and prised the object from his fingers. It was Elliot’s ball. She found that odd. Why did he have Elliot’s ball?

Lara was shaken from her train of thought by a particularly bad coughing fit in amongst the burnt-chemical smelling fumes. She covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve and staggered into the kitchen. The billows appeared to be coming from the oven. There was a bottle of Cif on the table. She lurched her way over to the back door, unlocked it and threw it open.

To get away from the clouds of probably toxic gas escaping through the door, Lara went and sat on the patio chair. There was a packet of cigarettes, a lighter and an ash tray on the table. The picked up the box, looked down at her stomach and put them down again. Should she decide to keep this baby, she did not want it to be a stunted little thing. Like Emma’s child. That was an ugly baby.

She stared at the clouds a little longer and then got up and went back into the kitchen and examined the Cif on the table. It went out of date in ’87. Christ what had Alex been doing? She opened the oven door and got a face full of fumes. After spluttering a little she dared a look inside. There were patches that were shiny silver, patches that looked like the shiny patches, but without the gloss, and a grey sort of sludge at the base of the oven.

He’d tried to clean the oven. He hadn’t got it quite right but God bless him for trying. She got out a fresh J-Cloth from the drawer and began to attempt to remove the sludge from the cooker. It was everywhere. Yes it was good of him to try and do her a favour but he could’ve at least taken out the shelves. There was grey mire in every orifice that the oven had to offer.

By the time all the sludge was out from the oven, Lara had gone through 4 J-cloths and the inside of the oven was a sort of matt silver colour with shiny patches. It looked a bit of a mess but give it a week of Alex’s cooking and it’d be covered in grime again.

She could hear footsteps in the hallway. Alex was stirring. He came through the door rubbing the back of his head, ball still in hand.

“Alright love? You have a nice sleep?”

“Yeah,” He took of his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “How was Emma?”

“She was good thanks. Did you try and clean the oven?” She got up from crouching down by the cooker and stood parallel to her husband. Her husband that she had lied to. And was still lying to.

“I did, yeah. I wanted to do something nice for you. I don’t know why.” He spat his words out at her.

“What’s that supposed to mean babe?” She put her hand on her hip and raised her eyebrow in his direction.

“Just that I didn’t need to do it.”

“I know.” He wasn’t half acting strange. She went over to hug him and was given in return a limp single arm around her waist.

“Especially after you’d lied to me.”

She broke away and looked up at him. She forced an expression of confusion but knew full well what he was talking about. He knew she was pregnant. Christ how did he know? She’d been so bloody careful.

“You weren’t meeting Emma. You met Jude.”

She breathed out heavily as relief washed over her.

“Oh. Yeah. And?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He was being really quite callous. Why was he being so uptight?

“I didn’t know that it was against the law to see my own brother. Sorry.”

“Did you even see Emma?”

“Yeah… Then we met up with Jude and-”

“Liar.”

“What?” S**t.

“Liar. I know you never even saw Emma. You didn’t get a text from her and she isn’t breaking up with Chris.”

“Have you been going through my phone?” F**k the fact she’d told a tiny white lie. He’d gone through her texts the cheeky b*****d.

“No. Jude told me. I knew before you left that you were meeting him. So why did you say you were meeting Emma? Why did you lie, Lara?”