Private Lives полностью

Everyone’s so quiet that even Abi, from the back of the packed hall, can hear Seb’s footsteps as he walks off the stage. A self-conscious hush clouds the room, then a little group of parents stand up to clap. Others join in, because that’s just what you do, while others turn to their neighbours to exchange wide-eyed, stunned expressions. The man next to Abi starts texting and then, inevitably, the students start to chatter. They all stand and walk out of the hall and that’s when Abi sees her. Lily. She’s smiling, standing right behind Blake, and as they start to walk, Abi notices that their fingers are briefly entwined before gently falling away from each other.

‘Bloody hell!’ Vita has somehow managed to twist and push her way across the hall and is now standing next to Abi, waiting in line to shuffle out of the room. ‘Since you came to town things have got a lot more interesting!’

Abi’s stomach squirms like a bucket of eels. ‘Oh. Ha!’

Vita doesn’t smile, just looks confused. ‘Did you miss all that?’ she asks, waving towards the stage. ‘This is the most exciting thing to happen in Waverly since, well, since the Battle of Waverly in sixteen something or other …’

‘Listen, Vita, nice to see you but I’m actually going to be late for work …’

‘Your boss won’t mind if you’re late, not today.’ Vita nods towards Lotte, who is standing in a circle of parents; she’s shaking her head, appalled, at something a man is saying, the picture of wide-eyed virtue.

‘What’s your theory?’

‘Theory?’

‘About what he did.’

‘Oh, I … I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it, and I agree that it’s actually no one’s business what he does privately.’

Vita, ignoring what she just said, stares at Abi carefully like she doesn’t believe a word of it. ‘It’s obvious,’ Vita adds, ‘that it was some kind of affair, don’t you think? Otherwise, why is Rosie not here? A group of Year Ten parents reckon he’s into, like, really hardcore gay BDSM stuff, but I also heard that Mrs Croughton – the head of English – is saying he had an affair with someone he met online, a girl way too young for him – borderline legal was the implication – and it’s her parents who have exposed him, apparently …’

Vita looks to Abi, expecting her to react. Abi stares at the bald patch of the man in front, willing him to move faster, and keeps her face impassive as Vita says, ‘Well! Whatever it is, you can bet Anna won’t be able to keep it to herself for long, especially now. You coming to the cafe?’ she asks with a patronizing smile that makes Abi’s spine feel like it could crumble and collapse on itself.

‘Cafe?’

‘A group of us, including your boss, are going to have a coffee and discuss all this stuff. Anna’s coming straight from the train station and hopefully she’ll at last give in and set us all straight about what really happened!’

Abi surges forward towards the door and shakes her head. Vita’s smile widens. ‘Pity,’ she says. ‘Listen, we should sort out a play date soon, shouldn’t we? Luca would love to have Margot …’

They’re finally through the door and, without another word to Vita, Abi starts walking quicker, past the reception, dodging people. She has to get away from here, from Vita, from all of them.

Chapter 16

Eddy doesn’t want to go to the cafe. What he really wants is to go home, get into bed and hide until this whole shitty episode is over. But Anna is, as his phone keeps telling him, heading straight to The Pot, a busy cafe in the middle of town, and she needs him to come. There’s a group of them walking there now and Eddy is being bundled along like some reluctant celebrity spouse. He tried to squirm away, decided perhaps he could leave Anna untethered, let her figure out what to do with the mess she’s engineered. He’d muttered something at the end of the assembly to Vita about having to get home for a work call, when he saw something that made his heart stop. Blake was stroking the hair behind Lily’s ear, and Eddy could almost feel the electric pulse between the two of them, remembered the charge himself, the almost unbearably exciting moment as skin touches skin for the first time.

This was a complication they didn’t need. He’d been hoping that Blake would change his mind about Lily, move on to another girl, like Eddy did weekly at fifteen. But judging by their shining eyes and the private, blissful smiles, they are both very much still stuck on each other. Anna doesn’t know, of course; Blake hasn’t told her. Eddy knows this because had she known, Anna no doubt would have told everyone about Abi in a bid to keep Blake as far away as possible from both Abi and Lily.