The Making of Us Read Free

desperation.
    ‘Gosh, Glenys. I don’t know …’
    ‘Think about how happy your brother will be, Rod. Think about when he holds that baby in his arms. When he can call himself a man .’
    He blinked and gulped. She had him cornered. When she put it like that, well, she had a point. Trevor would never say so but Rod knew that it galled him that he hadn’t made a baby yet. Everything came so easy to Trevor and he’d assumed that a baby would be the same. He talked about having four or five. But then he also talked about the joys of his child-free life, the clubs and the holidays and the nights out at the pub. But maybe that was just talk, thought Rodney, just macho bluster to keep away the demons of self-doubt.
    ‘So, will you?’ Glenys stared at him beseechingly. ‘Will you come?’
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘London,’ she said, ‘Harley Street.’
    ‘Well, I never …’ he mused.
    ‘Don’t want to do it near here. People talking, and that. And you never know, could turn out it’s someone I know. Imagine that! Imagine it, having a kid who turns out looking like the guy in the electrical shop!’
    They laughed then, extra loud, to blow a hole through the nervous tension. Once the laughter petered out, Rodney sighed. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’
    ‘Yes. You will. It’s a big deal, Rod. I know that. And I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t trust you.’ She laid her hand over his and brought her face close to him. ‘I wouldn’t ask you, Rod, if you weren’t the man you are.’
    Rod smiled and inside him something expanded and grew and he knew that he would do anything for this woman, even betray his big brother.

1998
LYDIA
    Lydia Pike wrapped her arms around her knees and closed her eyes against the hot sun. The dog sat alongside her, tall and panting, overdressed in his thick coat of hair. The grass was long, longer than she’d ever seen it before, and the air in this little dip on the disused railway track was thick and sweet with the scent of cow parsley. Lydia brought the dog here every day, it was part of her regular walk from the flat to the shops and back again. Usually she kept walking, at other times of year this place was dank and unwelcoming, but now, after six weeks of summer, the hottest summer in recent history, the earth had dried to a gentle crust and butterflies ornamented the wild flowers that burst from the banks. A ladybird crawled up Lydia’s wrist and she brushed it gently to the ground. The silence was absolute. She lay back with her head in the soft grass and felt it wriggling beneath her hair, alive with the creatures of summer. She closed her eyes and the big sun strobed through her eyelids, a golden-red symphony.
    A few moments passed and then Lydia sat up again, felt inside her rucksack and pulled out the quarter bottle of vodka. It was already half empty, she’d had the rest on the way here, tipped into a bottle of Diet Coke. She brought the bottle to her lips and drank from it thirstily. The alcohol brought even more piquancy to her situation, here on the banks of a long-dead railway line, escaping from home, escaping from life. The sense of loneliness and desperation whispered away, and Lydia felt colour return to her soul. She put her arm around the big German Shepherd; girl and dog, side by side, as they had been for the past ten years. Her dad had bought her the dog, to keep her safe. Not because he was the sort of dad who thought only of his child’s safety, but because he was the sort of dad who couldn’t be arsed to do the job himself. Arnie had been Lydia’s sole responsibility from the age of eight. She had fed him, walked him, groomed him and slept with him at night in her single bed. Arnie. Her best friend.
    People thought she was weird. Lydia pikey they called her: of course they did . Lydia was also the Goth with the Dog. Not that she was a Goth. She just liked black. She wasn’t pierced or tattooed, but still, she was the Goth with the Dog. And the