For the Sake of My Friend
For the Sake of My Friend is about how suspicion and insensitivity among young lovers played out at a leisure pub in Milton Keynes. It all began with a simple gesture to help a friend out of a difficult situation. The turn of events revealed everyone's natural tendency.
His Last Letter
They did not plan it to end so soon. The letter from the Army was still on the table. She did not bother to read it to the end. Her psychotherapist career had taught her the coping mechanisms to avoid stress. Stress was not good for her at this moment.Adrienne did not even need to finish reading the letter. It was the same content written to all the regiment's wives that received the letter. Her friend received a similar letter a week before the last, and the following day, there was a knock on her door. The visitors were officers from the Ministry of Defence.
She rechecked the test result. The blue line that emerged from the negative marking on the indicator had touched the positive sign at the endpoint. His baby was four weeks in her womb, and he might never see the baby. She returned to the table to complete the reading. The letter only mentioned that he was missing in action. Her mind trailed away in her thoughts. He was probably lying peacefully in a faraway land, Iraq.
The two-bedroom bungalow they mortgaged recently had his body smell in every corner of their home. A week before he left to serve the country, she suggested they designed the house to remind her of him while he was away. They never thought he would not return.
Her eyes scanned from the single closet they shared to the sofa they made love upon every night and sometimes all night. His favourite National-1453 transistor radio was on the refrigerator with cans of Heineken beer he left inside the fridge. The garden he prepared for the children when they arrived. All came back to her in a haze of grief.
She rechecked the pregnancy test stick and threw it into the garbage. The few items she would need were packed in the Gucci travelling bag he bought for her on her last birthday. She would not wait for the routine by Defence Officials to knock on her door. Her train would arrive at Bletchley train station in the next 30 minutes.
Adrienne couldn't control the tears flowing down her eyes. She was leaving Milton Keynes, the ‘city of trees’ she had loved like her hometown over the years. Adrienne had objected to relocating to Milton Keynes when James first suggested it to her. Now that she’d lost everything she hoped for in Milton Keynes. The only man she had ever loved. She was going back to her birthplace. Her parent's house in Watford town.
Best Friends
The three-door Mini car drove through Woodford Street to join the Station Road flanking Watford Junction train station. The North London county serves as the gateway to the Midlands of England.
Jessica stopped the car to give way to the Arriva bus, leaving the train station bus stop. The white traffic markings indicate that the buses have priority on the road.
Jessica was lost in thought as she missed the turning to her destination, the train station car park. That was not the first time the road-line markings misled had misled her. Apart from the road markings guiding drivers to safe zones, it had become a good source of revenue generation for the local council. A new visitor to England would wonder if line drawings were included in the political parties' manifestoes as counties and boroughs tried to outdo each other in the road painting contracts awarded.
It was more annoying that she had to drive for a mile beyond her destination to connect the other side of the road to the train station. She checked the car fuel meter subconsciously and hoped the fuel would last her till Monday.
She thought to drop off Lola by the pavement to escape the traffic build-up. No doubt that the double yellow lines, painted by the local council contractors would attract a handsome fine. She noticed the civil enforcement officers a few metres away, He looked desperate to meet his daily ticketing targets.
The council contractors in the metropolis paint double yellow-line markings for no justifiable reasons. Tickets of fines she hadn’t paid lay there in her car’s pigeonhole. The tickets combined could get her a brand new pre-owned vehicle.
Jessica drove the car further down to pass through the zebra crossing, notorious for unending troves of peak-time commuters. The young graduate workers mostly use the crossing as a shortcut racetrack to catch the train.
“Why are they running across the zebra-crossing?” Jessica's son in the back seat wondered.
“They don’t want to miss the trains." Jessica was becoming frustrated, stuck in the long traffic induced by the zebra crossing.
Lola opened a conversation to calm her friend down.
"I'm sorry for putting you through the traffic." She faked a pitiful sentiment.
"Never mind. At least you are doing this for me." Jessica’s response was brief.
"C’mon, what are friends for?" She shoved Jessica.
"Lending clothes and money to each other, I suppose." Jessica opened up a little.
"I don't know where Kwashi’s going to take me today. But I'll give you a heads-up as soon as I know." Lola pushed further.
“That’s alright! Text me the postcode when you have it. I should be able to find my way around Milton Keynes."
“Oh yes, I almost forgot your Granny lived there for many years.”
“She never stopped talking about the parks and trees in Milton Keynes.”
“You missed her, though.”
“Yeah, she was strong and determined.”
There was a moment of silence. Lola thought she shouldn’t have mentioned Jessica’s grandmother in the conversation. She tried to reverse the conversation.
“I don’t know why Kwashi doesn’t like to come to Watford.”
“He is the man. Men prefer to make the decisions in relationships, I guess." Jessica would analyse men at every opportunity.
“I think it’s about his wife. She seems a man tamer.
“A tamer?”
“Yes, a kind of woman that The husband goes roaring and she'd be like - Seat!" Lola giggled.
“I wish I could be that woman.” Jessica was serious.
“I may not even spend the night with him. I’ll probably return with you to Watford when you come over."
“No, you can stay and enjoy yourself!” Jessica tried to dissuade further kind gesture by her friend.
“You don’t even know this guy. Kwashi doesn’t sleep outside his house!” Lola made the point.
“Then what is he doing cheating on his wife?” Jessica was queried sarcastically. They burst into laughter.
“At least he is serving my purpose.” Lola had no regrets.
“Watch what you say, Lola. Connor is listening from the back seat.” Jessica cautioned her friend.
Lola was not like her bosom friend, Jessica in any way. That had nothing to do with their skin complexions. Lola was British-born by parents of African and mixed-race Caribbean origin. She was a socially outgoing girl who would spend her last penny shopping for hair beauty products on Amazon. Her wardrobe was filled with only designer clothes, and she was highly choosy with her bags and shoes. Lola would only buy fashion accessories with high-street brand names. She once confessed to Jessica that she was buying the designer logos and not the quality.
Jessica and Lola met at college in their late teens. Lola joined the college in the second semester of the year because her parents got their separation filing granted by the court. The court had asked with whom among her parents she would like to live. Lola chose her lavish Nigerian father. Though she loved her mother, she wanted the freedom and the weekly allowance her never-at-home father would give her. Whereas, her mother who worked as a Care Support staff, often struggled to pay her rent for a two-bedroom flat.
Despite, stiff criticism by her modest classmates and teachers, Lola stuck to her peekaboo fashion dresses. She called the critics ‘Jelly’ and had developed a thick skin to the gossips behind her back.
Jessica became Lola’s friend on her first day in the new school, not even minding her extravagance. Lola joined the college when Jessica was facing challenges, living with her grandmother who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The only thing her grandmother remembered was her husband who died in the Iraq war and the beautiful garden they shared in the Milton Keynes house.
The responsibility of caring for her grandmother and studying for her A-level exams had taken a severe psychological toll on her mental health condition. Even with England’s remarkable education system with just a few countries compared, the system had failed to give attention to its youths' mental health care.
Jessica was socially withdrawn and was a loner by assuming the responsibility of an adult in her teenage. However, she had a friend of her grandmother, Ms. Johnson who had shown her how to collect the social benefits and pay the bills without alerting the authorities. Her grandmother was all she had and she wouldn’t let anyone take her into solitary homes for the aged.
Jessica’s mum had turned a junkie and left her with her grandmother when she was just six years old. She never knew her father, and that was not entirely her mother's fault. Her mother did not know who was responsible for her pregnancy among her chains of sex partners. She gave birth to Jessica at 17. Jessica's grandmother, Adrienne, literally brought her up.
None of Jessica's classmates visited or invited her over to their homes. No birthday parties and no summer holidays or holiday stories till she met the mixed-race classmate Lola, a new lease on life. Lola became her trusted friend, sharing the sisterly love she had never experienced since birth.
When Lola first started to follow Jessica home after school, every neighbour, except for Ms. Johnson living next door raised concerns. They often gossiped behind the curtain blinds about Jessica and Lola belonging to the LGBT community. It was unusual in the conservative Christian neighbourhood to see a Caucasian teenager bonded to an African peer with such fondness. That was not because of the difference in skin colours, but the idea of girl-to-girl thing, they could not understand.
"If you think there’s going to be a pause for your car to move past this zebra-crossing today, you must be out of your mind." Lola woke Jessica from her astral travel.
“You want to take up the steering and drive from here?" Jessica teased.
“I didn’t mean to, but we can as well lay our back and sleep here if that’s what you prefer.”
“Well, good for you!”
"I'm saying there’ll never be a one-minute free space on the zebra lines." Lola was getting impatience.
"Hey, mummy! Move now, there is a break.” Connor was also observing from the backseat.
"Stop it Connor! Why do I have one too many backseat drivers in this car, for Christ’s sake?" Jessica kept him shut.
“Aw! You’ve just missed the space.” Connor ignored his Mum’s complaint.
Connor was 10, born two years after Jessica left college. She did not plan to have a child that early. After school, Jessica got a part-time counter assistant job with Tesco Express to add some income to the dwindling benefits she and her grandmother were living on.
While at work, she hired a support worker to take care of her grandmother. Marcus Patel, a Kenyan foreign student, was sent by the care agency to do the job. Marcus would sleep overnight in the house two nights a week on the days Jessica would work, on night shift. It was on one of those nights that Jessica got involved.
Three weeks after they started making out, Marcus stopped work to create time for his final year project. It was four weeks later, that Jessica found she was three weeks pregnant. She had Connor eight months after her grandmother died.
"Connor was right, though. We’ve been waiting here like forever.” Lola voiced her frustration.
“Hey, Mummy! Move now! Go-go-go…” Connor pushed again.
Jessica finally got through the zebra crossing after a seven-minute wait.
She pulled over in front of Watford Train Station. Lola got out of the car, not minding the yellow road lines this time.
“Please don't keep me waiting, Jessica! Start coming over as soon as you drop Connor with Ms. Johnson."
"Cross my heart, sweetheart. I'll drop Connor off and get dressed right away."
"You may take a shower as well!" Lola joked.
“No, I won’t.”
"Catch you guys later." Lola waved at Connor in the backseat.
"Okay, Aunt! See you tomorrow.” Connor waved from the backseat.
“See you later, Lola!”
Lola mingled with the commuters heading to the train platforms.
"Mummy, I need to get my gamepad from home first before you drop me off. Janet has only one gamepad for her PlayStation." Connor sneaked in his agenda.
“That’s alright! We'll get your gamepad, my dear."