The Aftermath Of You

Chapter Fourteen

Danny gazed out of the window in interest. "Two visits in one day. Poor Toe-Nail."

"Why won't she just leave me alone?"

TOOT, TOOT, TOOT.

Exhaling noisily, Toni got to her feet and went to open the door. "What is it?"

"You're not ready!" her mother screeched.

"Ready for what?"

"We're going to the cinema, remember?"

"I'm not coming." The cinema was half a block away, hidden in the middle of the village. Toni stared at their car, wondering why they were so determined to drive everywhere when they could have walked that far in less time than it would've taken to find a car park. Her mother seemed to get a thrill out of tooting obnoxiously at any time of the day, regardless of bystander's heart conditions.

Danny walked out behind Toni with his bowl of curry. "Where are you two off to?" he asked chattily as he stuffed his face full of rice.

"You didn't tell him!" Lulu screeched in outrage. "We're going to see Lad at the cinema."

"I've heard that's really good; I might come." He was wearing a fading grey pullover and jeans that clung to his buttocks in the most sidetracking fashion.

"You might want to change your top," Lulu called. "We're having wine and cheese."

Toni smiled. "I'm sure you'll all have great fun!"

"What?" Lulu shrieked. "What are you talking about? You're coming!"

"I've told you before I can't afford it. Maybe once I get a job I can go watch it by myself." Toni forced herself not to smile triumphantly until after Lulu had left, otherwise her mother would be determined to force her to go.

"No worries," Danny cut in. "It's my shout."

Toni shot him an annoyed look. "I'll stay home with Jayden. He can't babysit himself."

"No!" Lulu cried. "The movie is Boy ... it's about a child. Jayden can watch it too."

"Right, I'll just nip to the toilet before we go." She turned to walk quickly away but was stopped by Danny's hand clamping her elbow. Rather rudely, she was jerked around.

"Your mother doesn't learn, but I do. You can't just go lock yourself into the toilet whenever you don't want to face anything."

"But it's not my scene, Danny. They're all crazy and they say horrible things about their husbands. And they look at me like I'm some kind of freak."

"I'll be there with you. Come on, Jayden." He called out to his son before frog-marching Toni to the waiting car. "'Socialize'. It's right there on your list."

The theatre was packed full to the brim with busy bodies, all prying eagerly into each other's lives before the movie started. In the corner, Toni could hear a scrawny red haired woman asking, "How is your son?"

"Still in jail," the victim said miserably.

"Oooh, really, a year already? I'm sure there was another reason why he broke into that store, I said to Roger at the time, I said, 'I've known that boy for years, and I know he's no criminal. I'm sure he shot that old man by mistake'. That's what I said."

The hapless victim became more abject. Catching Toni's eyes, a look of pure relief overwhelmed her features. It had possibly just occurred to her that if she could just get the red-haired woman to Toni's side, then she wouldn't have to talk about her drug-dealing son any longer. "Hey," the woman cried, waving madly in Toni's direction.

Toni averted her head and rushed closer to Danny. She knew better than to be loitering about catching eye contact with onlookers; if she did they'd be onto her asking questions that were unseemly to polite society – permitted in their minds because of the amount of years they'd known her.

"Let's sit here." Danny placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her to a seat next to her mother, who was berating some lifeless individual for their ideas on raising children.

"Oh!" a woman yelped. "Toni and Danny, at long last, huh? You're finally together!"

"We are always together," Jayden said pragmatically.

"Always together." The woman wriggled her brows speculatively. "I'm hearing wedding bells."

"Really?" Toni smiled uncomfortably. "All I can hear is my mother badgering people."

Danny stretched an arm out around Toni's shoulder and grinned. "You know how Toni is; she likes to make me work for it." If Toni didn't know him better she wouldn't have noticed that he was finding it all very amusing.

"Ohhhh," the woman screeched in excitement. "Did you hear that, Lulu? Danny says that he and Toni-"

Lulu spun around. "What?"

"Danny and Toni, it looks like they're getting pretty serious."

"Yeah," Toni agreed, "about as serious as a happy meal."

Lulu drained her Vodka and Orange juice in one large gulp, and pointed at her lifeless friend's carton of buttery popcorn. "People eat far too much dairy and beef. My doctor says it's the reason we are all dying of heart failure." She stared in eerie silence as a piece of salami hovered near her friend's mouth.

Toni blushed awkwardly; 'doctor' was actually a loose word that Lulu used to describe the woman who aligned her chakras. Lulu could make people feel as though their whole life would be over in a matter of seconds, affixing her cunning blue eyes onto theirs and telling long stories her friend's neighbour had told her, and then BAM! Seemingly harmless things became a grave danger. If Toni felt slightly ill in the morning she'd breathe, "You're hapu, aren't you?" And when her daughter tried to explain that it was impossible to be pregnant with a lack of sex, Lulu would tell her all kinds of horror stories about women becoming hapu without a man present, eventually ending with: "I mean, look at the Virgin Mary." Lulu didn't have 'the power' like Granny Smith did but she was very good at mesmerizing gullible folk .

"I'm just going." Toni shot to her feet. "To ... um ... buy some chippies for Jayden. Do you want anything?"

Without waiting for a reply she left the room. She often went and sat aimlessly on the toilet lid. While her mother was around it was the only way to get any peace and quiet. Then she thought of poor Jayden, and guilt made her leave her sanctuary and head for the foyer.

"You know what you should do? You should ask Toni out on a date!" Lulu was shrieking in Danny's direction. Toni, who was just edging closer with her arms full of popcorn and slushies, came to a standstill, straining to hear his reply.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why on earth not, everyone can tell that you love her."

Danny threw his head back and laughed. "I pity the poor man who ends up with Toni. Having a mother in law like you - it's the stuff horror movies are made of!"