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.Will’s face tightened.‘I know she can be high maintenance, but she hasn’t had it easy.Faith.well, she can be difficult.Her and Mel fight like cat and dog.And Ross is a right creep.Melodie can’t stand him.’ He paused.‘Look, if you’ll just do this one thing for me, I’d be so grateful.’ His soft eyes were all misty now.Tara hoped fervently that he wouldn’t start crying.She pushed back her chair and stood up.‘I said okay, didn’t I?’ she said.Will’s face relaxed into a smile and Tara could see why some girls might find him fanciable, what with the puppy-dog eyes and the white teeth, which he flashed at her now.‘That’s fantastic,’ he said.‘You’re a real star.Here.’ He pulled out a business card from the front of his satchel.‘If you could drop me a quick text when you’ve done it.’Tara took the business card and piece of paper wearily, and glanced at the address.‘Fine,’ she said.‘So where is this anyway? I’m not trekking miles to her house.’‘It’s not too far,’ he said hurriedly.‘It overlooks the river.You know where the old iron bridge is? The fancy one? It’s right by there.’Tara did know, unfortunately.It was where she had last seen Melodie.‘Well,’ said Tara, ‘thanks for the drink and the doughnut.I have to go now.’She turned away, slipping his business card into her pocket.CHAPTER 6ANGEL‘You went swimming?’ Mum appeared to find Tara’s explanation for her afternoon out baffling, despite the wet bikini and towel coiled snail-like in the plastic bag in her hand.What with the stringy damp hair and the flushed cheeks, it ought to be proof enough, Tara thought.‘Why are you so surprised?’ she said grumpily, decanting the wet things into the washing machine, her nose wrinkling at the sharp chlorine smell.‘I’m not some couch potato who never does anything.’Her mother was vigorously mixing vegetables and chicken in the wok.She brushed a strand of her hair, as inky black as Tara’s, but now kept that way by the hairdresser.‘Well,’ said her mother, ‘it’s not that I’m surprised.Okay, I am surprised.It’s just because you didn’t mention it.But I think it’s great.You used to be a right little fish when you were little.’Tara involuntarily glanced at a photo on the bookcase.It showed her at ten, all fresh-faced and beaming as she held up a medal from a swimming gala.‘Yeah, guess I was,’ she said absent-mindedly.It was all such a long time ago.‘So who did you go with?’ said Mum, her voice glass-bright.Tara sighed as she filled a glass of water from the tap.Her parents were obsessed with her making friends since they’d moved here.They couldn’t seem to understand that their constant questions about school and who she sat next to and what ‘the other girls’ were like only served to make the feeling of having failed ten times worse.‘I went on my own, Mum,’ said Tara wearily and walked towards the doorway.‘Tabs?’She turned back.Mum was holding a wooden spoon in the air like she was conducting an orchestra with it.Her hair was even wilder than usual from the steamy kitchen air.Tara felt a rush of love, despite her irritation.‘What?’ she said softly.‘You deserve better than Jay,’ she said.‘You’ll look back and wonder what you saw in the little creep one day.Don’t sell yourself short.Any boy should thank his lucky stars to have someone like you.’Tara blinked, surprised.Mum obviously knew that Jay had been on her mind a lot.But in fact, Jay Burns hadn’t entered her thoughts for hours now.‘Yeah,’ she said with a smile, ‘too right.’Later, Mum had gone off to her monthly book group meeting and Dad was working late again.Tara curled up on the big chair with her laptop.Beck was having one of his ridiculously long showers.Mum always said he was way worse than any girl with his ‘ablutions’.When he came out it took hours for the steam and aftershave smell to melt away.Tara was looking at Google images of The Tin Gods, particularly Adam Stone.Most of the images were old, showing the bass guitarist in his early twenties, when he’d been thin and moody-looking, with a mop of fair curls.A recent image from a fund-raising gig for the charity Water Aid showed a portly, balding man with a ruddy face, and a glamorous, bony woman with a frosty smile on his arm.He had exactly the same shape eyes as Melodie.Tara was almost disappointed by the realisation that Will had been right about Melodie’s dad.She’d half hoped this had been a misguided fantasy.That way, it would be easier to ignore his obvious worries [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]