Read Online Laying the Ghost by Judy Astley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Judy Astley
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information with a hand that seemed to be no more than bones and paper-thin skin.
For a moment Nell wondered what she meant: why would she want to get her face in the
Sun
? It wasn’t her newspaper of choice.
‘Oh – right, I see what you mean. Sunshine. Why is that?’
‘Epidermis welded to your dermis. Sure as your knee bone’s connected to your thigh bone. Your skin goes all thin and sensitive.’ The woman’s voice had a touch of Irish about it. She laughed and looked at Nell, possibly calculating how careless Nell had already been, sun-wise, daring to get a tan on her holiday. Not that it was much of a tan now. Most of it seemed to have flaked off on the plane home. Then several days of grim, late-February weather, combined with keeping extravagantly fierce but comforting heating on in the house, had left her looking blotched and patchily freckled. It wasn’t so much a laser peel she could do with, more a deep chiselling with a wallpaper scraper followed by an all-over skim of fresh new plaster.
‘Are you here for the Stay Safe class?’ Nell asked.
‘I am. A lone parent, that’s me. You can’t be too careful. It only takes one sick loon and you’re dead meat. I’d carry a knife but that way you can end up doing time in Holloway and with the kids in care. If I want to be some chick’s bitch I’ll go and hang out in the Candy Bar.’
‘And by the time you’ve found the knife …’
The woman laughed. ‘Yeah, down the bottom of your bag among all the lipsticks and your phone and the old tissues and Tesco’s receipts and stuff. I’m Abi, by the way.’
‘Hi – I’m Nell. And I do hope we’re not the only ones coming …’
They weren’t. As Advanced Yoga trooped out, looking wide-eyed and spacy like baby birds, Nell and Abi were joined by several other potential classmates. There was a tubby, grey-bearded Hell’s Angel (or so his T-shirt proclaimed), a large, fierce-looking mother with a reedy, frail-looking teenage son who kept his eyes fixed on the floor, several middle-aged women looking wary on their own, an assortment of chatty twenty-something girls all with their hair pulled back into ponytails, and a couple of reluctant-looking middle-aged men. Nell, remembering Kate’s last-minute phoned instructions, quickly scanned these latter for potential date material as they filed into the studio to wait for Steve, their instructor, and found them generally unappealing. It was a relief. She honestly didn’t want to start fancying anyone just yet. If ever, in fact. But Kate would demand a full report.
‘He’s a t’ai chi grand master,’ the Hell’s Angel was telling one of the ponytails, ‘or was it tai kwando?’
‘Or tie-dye,’ Abi hissed at Nell, giggling. And then, as they looked up, there he was. Already on the room’s platform in front of the big studio mirrors, setting up a flip chart and waiting for them to notice him. At a guess, he was a couple of years older than Nell was, about half the bulk of the Hell’s Angel, and neatly built – more sprinter than shot-putter, with a defiantly youthful athletic bounce to him.
‘Hi. I’m Steve. I’ll get to know each of you by the end of class one,’ he said by way of a curt greeting.
Hmm, confident to the point of cockiness, Nell decided, wondering what knack he had perfected that made him think he’d be able to put twenty new names to new faces in one hour.
‘First of all, before we do the boring form-filling and so on, I’m going to ask you which of the two doors I came in through. Those who think I came in through the left one, go to the left-side wall, those who think I came in the other door go to the right. Got it?’
Nell looked at Abi and shrugged. She hadn’t a clue, but there was a fifty–fifty chance of getting it right, so she chose the left wall with the gawky teenager and his mother, a yummy mummy wearing a bright slick of sparkly scarlet lipstick, and a giggling selection of the ponytails. Abi waved
For a moment Nell wondered what she meant: why would she want to get her face in the
Sun
? It wasn’t her newspaper of choice.
‘Oh – right, I see what you mean. Sunshine. Why is that?’
‘Epidermis welded to your dermis. Sure as your knee bone’s connected to your thigh bone. Your skin goes all thin and sensitive.’ The woman’s voice had a touch of Irish about it. She laughed and looked at Nell, possibly calculating how careless Nell had already been, sun-wise, daring to get a tan on her holiday. Not that it was much of a tan now. Most of it seemed to have flaked off on the plane home. Then several days of grim, late-February weather, combined with keeping extravagantly fierce but comforting heating on in the house, had left her looking blotched and patchily freckled. It wasn’t so much a laser peel she could do with, more a deep chiselling with a wallpaper scraper followed by an all-over skim of fresh new plaster.
‘Are you here for the Stay Safe class?’ Nell asked.
‘I am. A lone parent, that’s me. You can’t be too careful. It only takes one sick loon and you’re dead meat. I’d carry a knife but that way you can end up doing time in Holloway and with the kids in care. If I want to be some chick’s bitch I’ll go and hang out in the Candy Bar.’
‘And by the time you’ve found the knife …’
The woman laughed. ‘Yeah, down the bottom of your bag among all the lipsticks and your phone and the old tissues and Tesco’s receipts and stuff. I’m Abi, by the way.’
‘Hi – I’m Nell. And I do hope we’re not the only ones coming …’
They weren’t. As Advanced Yoga trooped out, looking wide-eyed and spacy like baby birds, Nell and Abi were joined by several other potential classmates. There was a tubby, grey-bearded Hell’s Angel (or so his T-shirt proclaimed), a large, fierce-looking mother with a reedy, frail-looking teenage son who kept his eyes fixed on the floor, several middle-aged women looking wary on their own, an assortment of chatty twenty-something girls all with their hair pulled back into ponytails, and a couple of reluctant-looking middle-aged men. Nell, remembering Kate’s last-minute phoned instructions, quickly scanned these latter for potential date material as they filed into the studio to wait for Steve, their instructor, and found them generally unappealing. It was a relief. She honestly didn’t want to start fancying anyone just yet. If ever, in fact. But Kate would demand a full report.
‘He’s a t’ai chi grand master,’ the Hell’s Angel was telling one of the ponytails, ‘or was it tai kwando?’
‘Or tie-dye,’ Abi hissed at Nell, giggling. And then, as they looked up, there he was. Already on the room’s platform in front of the big studio mirrors, setting up a flip chart and waiting for them to notice him. At a guess, he was a couple of years older than Nell was, about half the bulk of the Hell’s Angel, and neatly built – more sprinter than shot-putter, with a defiantly youthful athletic bounce to him.
‘Hi. I’m Steve. I’ll get to know each of you by the end of class one,’ he said by way of a curt greeting.
Hmm, confident to the point of cockiness, Nell decided, wondering what knack he had perfected that made him think he’d be able to put twenty new names to new faces in one hour.
‘First of all, before we do the boring form-filling and so on, I’m going to ask you which of the two doors I came in through. Those who think I came in through the left one, go to the left-side wall, those who think I came in the other door go to the right. Got it?’
Nell looked at Abi and shrugged. She hadn’t a clue, but there was a fifty–fifty chance of getting it right, so she chose the left wall with the gawky teenager and his mother, a yummy mummy wearing a bright slick of sparkly scarlet lipstick, and a giggling selection of the ponytails. Abi waved
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