Free What They Do in the Dark by Amanda Coe Page B

her face in distress.
    ‘Let’s hurry up,’ she pleaded.
    At their arrival, a woman with a fag in her mouth and a single fat curler at the front of her hair peeped out from a doorway at the back, but only stayed long enough to exhale her smoke before disappearing, uninterested. Gemma held out her clean, fleshy palm.
    ‘Give us some money and I’ll get the powder for you.’
    Pauline crammed a mound of five-pences, tinny-smelling from her pocket, into Gemma’s hand, and watched her march with officious confidence to a metal box on the wall.
    ‘Put the cover in there,’ she commanded, nodding at a row of queasy-green washing machines with porthole doors, as she slotted coins into the box. By the time Pauline had crammed the bedspread into the machine nearest the door, Gemma was by her side carrying a thin plastic cup full of gritty soap powder. Nudging Pauline aside, she slammed the washing-machine door closed with her hip and tipped the powder into a little compartment that pulled out on a box at the top of the machine. The sequence of movements, and the forced seriousness with which she performed them, looked borrowed from someone else. Gemma sighed heavily and pushed her bunches back, flick flick, as though their weight was oppressing her shoulders, which they barely brushed.
    ‘You need twenty-five p more. That’s five five-pences.’
    ‘I know,’ said Pauline, but handed Gemma the coins obligingly enough. Gemma pulled out a metal arm concealed in the machine’s middle which accepted a row of neatly placed coins, them rammed it viciously into its housing and pulled it back, empty. The machine gurgled into life. Pauline regretted allowing Gemma to perform this final, satisfying operation, but it was too late now. Next time she’d know.
    ‘There,’ said Gemma. There was a row of orange plastic chairs for them to sit on. They sat and watched the soapy waves breaking against the porthole.
    ‘Go on then,’ Gemma prompted. ‘You can tell me now. About the film with the skeleton lady in.’
    Pauline slumped in her chair, chewing a bit of her fringe. She felt dreamy and warm.
    ‘Can’t be bothered.’
    ‘You said—’
    ‘I told you, I don’t feel like it, right?’
    Gemma peeled her back away from her chair, rigid with outrage.
    ‘You said you’d tell me. You promised.’
    ‘I didn’t say when, did I? And I didn’t promise, any road.’
    ‘You’re a liar.’
    ‘No I’m not, you are.’
    Gemma stood. ‘You are a liar and if you don’t tell me, I’m telling. I’m telling Mrs Bream you left the school without permission.’
    Indignation had pinked her face a shade deeper. Pausing to hoist her white socks over the plump crowns of her knees, she made for the door.
    ‘You can’t,’ Pauline called after her. ‘You’ll get done and all.’
    Panicked by this observation, Gemma stopped.
    ‘If you tell, I’ll tell,’ Pauline promised.
    ‘They’ll think you made me. I’ll tell them.’
    ‘An’ I’ll tell them you showed me what to do.’
    Pauline could see tears filling Gemma’s eyes like the water rising in the washing machine. She turned and ran off, away down the street. Pauline didn’t care particularly, she was too tired. She hoisted her legs onto the row of chairs and curled up, falling asleep to the churning rhythm of the water.

 
    I AN DOESN’T LIKE Mum smoking in the house so she has to go out into the garden with her mug of tea in the morning, before she leaves for work. He and I sit at the table in the dining room eating our breakfast, while she stands in an open slice of the sliding French door, smoking out into the garden and talking back to us. This is new to me in all sorts of ways. Mum and Dad and I have never talked in the mornings, and Dad’s a smoker as well so I’m used to waking up over my toast while they smoke over me, silently. This new, sociable way of breakfasting is quite nice, although both Mum and I have less time than we used to because of the bus journey.