The Lemon Grove Read Online Free Page B

of her head. She shirks away.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going for them?’
    He turns away, sheepish.
    ‘Last-minute decision. Anyway,’ he reasons, turning back to her, ‘the beach is awash with topless women. Your peep-show will make for a handy prelude for them both.’
    ‘ He didn’t see me, though, right?’
    ‘Don’t think so. I was too busy dragging his bloody suitcase out of the boot to take too much notice.’
    He pulls her towards him, cups her chin gently.
    ‘Don’t take it to heart. You know how it is at that age. Em’s just keen to make the right impression.’
    He drops his voice, moves his mouth in close to her ear. ‘A bit bloody intense, anyway.’
    ‘Who? Him?’
    She jerks her forehead at the ceiling above them. Greg steps back from her and nods. The few times Greg had given Nathan a lift, he’d come away relieved, if a little frustrated. Taciturn, is how he’d described him, and sheknew what Greg meant by that. The boy was your typical surly teenager. So the mixed message was that while Nathan might lack the magnetism to seduce his daughter or lead her astray, he wouldn’t enrich or inspire her teenage life either. Jenn had got the impression that Greg was happy enough with that; did she now detect some kind of a sea change?
    ‘Did you get my text?’ he says.
    ‘Oh, hang on – the one telling me you were on your way?’
    ‘No. The one about the Unmentionables.’
    Usually she’d laugh, but something about the way he says it prickles her. Jenn takes a glass from the cupboard, opens the fridge.
    ‘So, go on – what are we not to talk about?’
    There’s no wine. She sighs, hoofs the door shut with her bare foot, moves to the sink, fills the glass with water and drains it in two gulps but remains at the sink. She stares at her reflection in the window. Greg comes up behind her. It’s his coaxing voice; trying to make light of a tricky situation.
    ‘Okay, let’s see. There’s to be no talk of gymkhanas, ponies, lacrosse or any other activity you’d associate with a girls’ school.’
    A private girls’ school, Jenn wants to correct him. Fees circa eight grand per annum, fees she resents payingwhen there are so many perfectly great comprehensives on the doorstep, fees she’s long since given up bickering about. She forces a smile and turns to Greg. She has no wish to bicker today.
    Greg draws himself up. ‘And under no circumstances do we ever refer to her Chemical Romantics phase.’
    Jenn softens and tweaks his beard.
    ‘Chemical Romance ,’ she corrects. ‘Anyway, I thought that was how they met – at a gig.’
    ‘Not a Chemical Romantics one, it would seem.’
    Jenn laughs, pleased that Gregory is on her side, for once. Whatever the crime and however hard his daughter nails herself to it, Emma can always depend on Daddy to dredge up some excuse for her: she’s working too hard; it’s her monthly curse; her mother died giving birth; her step-mother spends too much time at work; she has abandonment issues . Jenn has long since learned to accept it for what it is; the legacy of grief is a chronic affliction, not curable but manageable. And Jenn has managed it well. She wipes a cluster of crumbs from the corner of his mouth.
    ‘Where is he, anyway?’
    Almost on cue, the wormed wooden beams of the kitchen ceiling give out a little creak and, moments later, there’s footfall on the stairs. There’s laughter as the lounge doors creak open, feet slapping across the terrace,followed by the riotous splash of their bodies as they hit the pool.
    ‘You sure? Doesn’t sound too intense to me.’
    She pours herself another glass of water. He takes it out of her hand, glugs deeply then passes it back.
    ‘Yeah, intense. Intense in the way that young people can be. The inherent corruption of the Establishment. Minimum wage. Workers’ rights.’
    ‘He’s fifteen! What does he know about workers’ rights?’
    ‘Seventeen, it would seem.’ Greg raises an eyebrow.