Spin Cycle Read Free Page B

at the state of her cuticles and told her there was nothing more she could do for her . . . so how did it go tonight? Channel 6 discover you yet? Wait . . . don’t tell me. I already know the answer. Rachel, I beg you. Give up this comedy nonsense. Look, I know you’re funny, Daddy knows you’re funny, so what’s wrong with just making us laugh and going back to a proper job? Show business is a tough world. So few people make it and I worry about you having no money.”
    “Mum,” Rachel said, going over to her mother and wrapping an arm round her shoulders, “you have to stop worrying. I admit things get a bit tight occasionally, but I’m doing fine. Honest.” She gave Faye a reassuring peck on the cheek.
    Her mother shrugged and turned to Jack for moral support, but he’d disappeared into the living room with the mugs of hot chocolate and half a dozen Rich Tea biscuits in his dressing gown pocket.
    “So where
is
Adam?” Faye asked, wiping her forearm across her brow. “I thought he was going to stay over.”
    “He’s driving straight back to Manchester,” Rachel replied, swallowing the last of her biscuit.
    “But he won’t get home till three in the morning.”
    “He’s got to do the VAT tomorrow.”
    “And to think I’ve spent hours slaving over a hot Flash bucket. I know how high his standards are.”
    Rachel looked round. The pile of washing up she’d left in the sink was gone, the previously overflowing swing bin was empty, her counters were clear and the J-Cloth that had been on the drainer at least two months had been replaced with a new one.
    On the one hand, Rachel couldn’t help taking offense that each time Faye came to the flat the first thing she did was sniff the fridge, wince and then reach into her handbag from which she would take a pair of rubber gloves. On the other hand, since Rachel didn’t get much time for housework these days, she was genuinely grateful. She decided there was nothing to gain from pointing out how much Faye’s cleaning irritated her. Her mother would only get upset.
    “Oh Mum, I’m sorry,” she said kindly, “I really am. You’ve worked really hard and—”
    Rachel broke off in midsentence.
    “Mum,” she said with faux casualness, eyeing Faye’s rubber-gloved hand, from which there hung a short white string. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you appear to be holding a water-logged tampon.”
    “Yes, I know,” her mother said excitedly. “It’s my own invention. I always use them to clean venetians. You take a Tampax out of its cardboard, damp it and run it along the plastic. Works a treat.”
    * * * * *
    Faye looked round the kitchen, smiled a satisfied smile and took off her rubber gloves. Almost at once she put them back on. She’d spied a significant buildup of green gloop round Rachel’s washing-up bottle nozzle. Having rinsed it to her satisfaction and taken off the rubber gloves once more, she suggested they join Jack in the living room. As they walked in he was sitting up in the sofa bed reading
You and the Continental Drift
.
    “I tell you,” Jack said, looking at them over Faye’s reading glasses, which had gold filigree arms and which he always borrowed because he could never find his own, “it says here the whole of Europe is on the move. The entire continent. Believe me, it won’t be long before Chingford ends up in the Caribbean.”
    “So what are you saying?” Faye said, picking up her hot chocolate from the coffee table and sitting down at the end of the sofa bed. “That I shouldn’t bother buying a winter coat this year?”
    The two women burst out laughing.
    By way of reply Jack gave an involuntary belch, put Faye’s glasses back on the end of his nose and returned to his book.
    Rachel perched herself on the end of the bed next to her mother. It was then that she noticed the large mock-leather wedding invitation catalog lying on the floor next to the bed.
    “Mum,” she said, doing her best to keep her tone light.