The Men in her Life

eye.
    ‘Do trees say boo?’ she asked.
    ‘No,’ said Tom, cautiously.
    ‘BOO!’ Holly shouted at him, sitting up so that he fell back into the pillows giggling, half fearful, half delighted.
    ‘Do it again!’ he said.
    ‘Boo!’ said Holly.
    ‘Do it again!’
    ‘Are you OK?’ Clare was standing in the door, ‘I thought I’d leave you, but Tom wouldn’t go to bed without seeing you.’ She scooped his little pyjama-ed form off the bed and kissed his head.
    ‘What’s the time?’
    ‘It’s nine o’clock.’
    Tom kissed Holly goodnight several times, then Clare put him into bed, and came back and sat down on the bed by her sister.
    ‘I was so tired,’ Holly said.
    ‘You’ve been under a lot of pressure,’ Clare said sympathetically, smoothing the covers around her as you would a sick child. ‘Joss has gone out for a poets’ meeting. We’ve had supper, but I’ve saved some for you.’
    Holly got up and pulled a pair of clean jeans out of her bag. She sniffed them. They didn’t smell as bad as the pair she had worn on the train, but there was still the definite odour of cigarettes. In this clean environment she suddenly understood why Matt had complained that she reeked of smoke.
    ‘Can I borrow a T-shirt, or something,’ Holly asked, ‘so that I can give this lot a wash?’
    ‘Of course. In the second drawer,’ Clare pointed to the chest of drawers, ‘I’ll get your things in the machine. If we hang them out on the line tonight then they’ll be dry by the time you want to wear them.’
    She left Holly to get dressed.
    It was lovely to be in a proper household with the smell of food cooking and a washing-line, Holly thought, selecting a T-shirt from Clare’s drawer. Perhaps Clare had got it right. Perhaps these were the important things in life — nourishing food, the fresh smell of newly-washed clothes and a child’s hug at night. She went in to look at Tom sleeping, wondering what dreams were puckering his little forehead in a frown. She smoothed his curls back from his face. He sighed and turned over, relaxed now, breathing so quietly she had to stand perfectly still to hear him.
    Clare put a plate of macaroni cheese in front of her and pushed a large bowl of salad dotted with cherry tomatoes and tiny pink radishes across the table.
    ‘I’m starving,’ Holly said, ‘I can’t remember when I last ate.’
    She looked thinner, Clare noticed, and her complexion was colourless. Her hair was growing out and it now fell over her eyes in ringlets which Clare had an almost irresistible urge to tie up with ribbon, as you would a small child.
    ‘So, Joss is out,’ Holly said with her mouth full. She was glad not to have to put on clothes to meet someone new. It was nice sitting in Clare’s kitchen in just a T-shirt and knickers talking. It reminded her of the days when she had had flatmates.
    ‘The poets meet up once a month or so. I used to go along, but I got sick of sitting in the kitchen talking about different things you could do with an avocado...’
    Holly glanced at her. Clare was so pretty and sweet-looking it was easy to forget that she had a sharp tongue.
    ‘What can you do with an avocado apart from vinaigrette?’ she asked.
    ‘Prawns with Marie Rose sauce. Very Seventies but now back in fashion,’ Clare began to recite in a singsong voice. ‘Sour cream with fake caviar. You have to put on the caviar, or lumpfish roe as it’s really called, right at the last minute otherwise the sour cream goes grey. Chilli and coriander and lime juice. A salad with grilled pancetta, cos lettuce and herb-infused olive oil... you didn’t really want to know, did you?’
    ‘So the women just sit around swapping recipes and the poets do whatever it is that poets do... what do poets do?’
    ‘They read their work.’
    ‘Lovely,’ Holly said with heavy sarcasm.
    ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,’ Clare said, reaching forward and giving her a hug across the table.

    Holly dreamed she was riding on a merry-go-round, a glittering golden merry-go-round with painted horses, like the one that came to Leicester Square at Christmas, round and round she spun with the wind on her face, laughing with the simple pleasure of the sensation and the tiddle-um-pom-pom of the music. Then she woke up, dream and reality mingling as she felt the coolness of the morning air blow through the back door into the living-room where she was sleeping, and heard an ice-cream van nearby tinkling ‘I’m