Kelly shot her a confused look. Surely she didn’t think Kelly wanted to have Eli’s children? They barely even knew each other.
‘You found him the same day I did.’
Kelly rolled her eyes. ‘Not this again. You know Finn and I can never be together.’
‘I know youthinkyou can never be together.’
‘He’s not stable, Touls. We both agreed it’s not worth the risk.’
Toula snorted, which upset Jackson, who grizzled between sucks but then forgot he was upset and continued draining Toula’s breast like he’d never been fed. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call you a bastion of stability,’ Toula said.
‘Which is exactly why we shouldn’t be together. Anyway, he’s got a girlfriend now.’
‘That won’t last.’
‘Why not?’
Toula raised an eyebrow. ‘“I could die right now, Kel. Die happy in your arms and want nothing more in this life.”’
‘I really wish I hadn’t told you that.’
‘As if. Seriously, Kel, do you think he’s saying that to the wog model?’
Kelly frowned at Toula as though she were a naughty child. ‘You can’t say that, Toula.’
‘Okay. The wog fashion designer.’
Kelly tried not to laugh. ‘You can’t say “wog”.’
‘Yes, I can. I’m a wog and proud of it. Skinny lefty white girls can’t tell me what I can and can’t say.’
‘You know you’re a total fascist, right?’
‘Damn straight.’
Toula took Jackson off her breast and reattached the hook on her sports bra. She smiled at him while bouncing him gently on her knee and patting his back. It was like she’d forgotten Kelly was even there.
Jackson looked like a drunk: barely able to hold his head up, struggling to focus. Then he let out an astonishingly long and loud burp.
‘No more satisfying sound,’ Toula said. Then she undid her sports bra on the other side and reattached her son. She turned back to Kelly. ‘Now’s not the time to go after Finn. Let him have his fling while you get your life back on track. Go before the Board on Tuesday. Defend yourself. Keep your head down and pass this bloody clinical exam. Then you go for Finn.’
Kelly opened her mouth to object, but Toula cut her off. ‘Nuh-uh. Won’t hear it, Kel. You and Finn are made for each other. I’ve been saying it since the day you met. But you’re both complete mental cases so you just need old Toula here to help you sort it out.’
Toula had met her husband when she was twenty-one, married him at twenty-four and had their first child at twenty-seven. She was a computer programmer and lived in a world of binary certainties, where black was black and white was white. Kelly envied such uncomplicated dogmatism.
How much simpler life would be.
Chapter Twenty-three
Kelly’s mother, June, sat at the foot of the table, her father at the head. Kelly and her older brother, Fergus, facing each other on either side. June bowed her head over their lunch and thanked God for the food and their family. Kelly also dipped her head, but looked at her father, whose eyes were shut so tight he might give himself a stroke. Even prayer was a competition for that man.
June was beautifully dressed as always and though her hair was more grey now than blonde, it was still arranged atop her head with class and a touch of glamour. ‘You missed a lovely service, this morning, Kelly,’ she said. ‘Such a shame you couldn’t take a few hours off on Easter Sunday to come along with us.’
‘God understands,’ her father, Roy, said. ‘He knows that Kelly needs to spend every minute she can preparing for her exam.’
Fergus waved a fork at her. ‘Better than beating people up in supermarkets.’
Kelly couldn’t breathe. ‘You know about that?’
