School Reunion

Chaper Three

09:47 Tuesday the 8th

Battersea, London

Jake Blunt was thirty-six years old (like them all), stubbornly macho and had no interest in being nice. As a schoolboy he'd had a flair for complexity and had caught the eyes of girls in the lower years.

He'd split up from his girlfriend Jane the night before, and had already called in sick (with the 'flu') when the post arrived at his terraced house in London.

Jake threw the letter in the wastepaper bin by his bed, thought better of it, remembered Noel and Ben beating him up in Year Nine, tossed it under the bed and decided not to go.

On his way back to the kitchen for another cup of tea, he spotted his desk skulking in the corner of the living room. Jake sat down and opened the drawer with his Year 11 class photo. He hadn't heard anything from Hamish, his old friend since they were twenty-three and his friend was finishing university: Jon Simons, one of their older friends was dead. Driving along to Birmingham, a 4x4 had failed to brake on time. Hamish and Jake had both started to cry when they noticed that the gravestone said 'John'.

He thought. The boys back together; Hamish, David and him.

08:44 Tuesday the 8th

Liverpool

Sara Buckland walked along the streets, her long blonde hair bobbing in the wind from the quayside. She was on her way to work at an 'upmarket' clothes shop and had a team of six under her management. Despite this, she was vain and tried too hard to remain young. Everyone could see that she'd end up the same years down the line.

Her head was full of thoughts; very few worth repeating.

Do my roots need redoing?

Remember to buy jam for breakfast in the morning.

I bet Kelly's late again.

And me, if I don't hurry up.

Where is Wigan, anyway?

O6:45 Tuesday the 8th

Coddington, Northumbria

Hamish Dylan climbed into his green Vauxhall, yawning and kicking out his five-year-old son's reading book and almost fell on the brake handle. It was a few hours to the hospital/ two and a half Noah & the Whale albums.

He didn't see the other car until it was too late.

Jocasta was waiting for him at the hospital when he woke up. "Well, Hamish. You're late, you're not in your scrubs and you can barely speak. Were you out drinking last night?"

Much as he loved his colleague, she annoyed him. "I wouldn't be driving if I'd been drinking," he said oddly. It's really rather hard to argue with someone when you've got Cotten wool taped over your broken nose.

She grinned. "Yeah. Once we made sure that you weren't dead we just found it funny that the song on the CD was Not Too Late."

Hamish laughed and kissed her pale cheek when she moved forwards to suture his head. "How's he?" came a familiar voice behind the curtain.

"Who's he, the cat's brother?" said Jocasta to Hamish's wife, Danielle. She looked at the two blank faces in front and behind her. "Nobody watches The Wrong Mans? You're missing out." And with that she swept down the corridor.

Back home Hamish found a book and a letter on the table. "I got them for you," Danielle said. "I doubted that you'd know where Wigan was, and you can read it on the train."

She sat down and told him that their son, John, was at his Granddad's. Hamish really couldn't stand his wife when she was being so bossy, and he thought longingly for Jocasta's witty talk. Not that she'd ever love someone seven years older than herself, or fall for someone as ordinary and as boring as him. But if something dramatic happened, then that might bring them closer together...

"Just a 'phone call, dear," he said, slipping out of the living room while his wife read a few book reviews in The I by someone called Anita Gosling.

10:27 Tuesday the 8th

Stretford, Manchester

In a cold but stuffy back bedroom Anita sat in her moth-eaten smoking jacket/dressing gown over her clother trying to find somewhere to put her laptop. She couldn't clear the desk for two reasons - among the unpaid bills and unanswered letters there might be a cheque for £50 that she was certain that she'd forgotten to pay into the bank. Anyway, the waste-paper was overflowing already.

Somewhere was the letter from her parents (those were the only letters she received) with the details of her brother's new email that she was meant to put in the address book on her email. Of course, any thoughts of looking for it inflicted her with an acute desire to jump out of the window.

"A parcel and a letter, Ann," said her sister, placing then on her desk. Laurentia leant against her older sister's desk and lit a cigarette. "It's not from Mother and Father."

"Mm, so, we're still in the doghouse?" asked Anita.

"Yeah," Laurentia said savagely. "Once they die, you and I get half of their money and the other half goes to that stinking toady we call brother. I mean, come on. Anita's a nice name. What sort of cretins call twins 'Laurentia' and 'Theodoros'. You can't even decently shorten my name."

"Go away and let me concentrate," said Anita, batting at her sister's shirt. Laurentia waltzed out, saying, "Then just because two of their kids run off to a city then BANG! they're out of any help from Mummy and Daddy..."

In the parcel were five books: Fahrenheit 451, We need to talk about Kevin, Levels of life, Perfect and, a book probably included by mistake, Scientific dairy farming. Her review of 750 words had to be in tomorrow.

The prospect of reading the obligatory 50 pages was about as appealing as eating cold frogspawn flavoured with castor oil. And she was vegetarian.

Then she opened the letter and started to compose a begging email to Theo for the train ticket money. She could see Gaia and Jennifer again!

But for now, there was still the dreaded book review to finish.

Who cares about dairy farming outside of the country, anyway?