‘What’s that?’ Shelley nodded at the feathery mass in her hand.
‘It’s Daphne. My chicken. She’s dead. Emery killed her.’
Shelley walked slowly from behind the bar and put her arm around her. Thomasina cried again, angered and embarrassed by the seemingly never-ending stream of tears and touched by Shelley’s display of kindness; it felt a lot like friendship. She heard the coughs of embarrassment from some of the men who looked on. Not that she gave a damn what they or anyone else thought.
‘You can’t bring a dead chicken in here, lovey. Come on, let’s take her outside.’
With Shelley as her guide, Thomasina let herself be steered back out into the car park.
‘Where’s Change Purse tonight?’ one of the lads at the pool table shouted, as she left the pub.
‘Get lost, Des! Leave her alone!’ Shelley shouted on her behalf, and Thomasina was grateful.
She sat on the wall of the car park while Shelley smoked, cuddling her much-loved hen.
‘I know Emery did this on purpose, Shell. He’s a shit.’
‘He’s a shit. No mistake there,’ the other girl concurred as she exhaled a long plume of blue smoke up into the air.
‘I’m not going back to Waycott, not tonight. I can’t.’
‘Where are you going to go?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, feeling pathetic that she had no grand plan. She thought about sneaking back to Big Barn and crashing on the dog sofa, maybe.
‘You want to sleep on the couch upstairs?’ Shelley crushed the butt of the cigarette under the heel of her boot and jerked her head towards the top rooms of the Barley Mow. ‘I mean, it’s not very grand up there, hardly five star, but you’re more than welcome. I have spare blankets.’
Thomasina stared at the girl who was showing her such kindness and she wondered for the first time what it actually meant to be a friend. Shelley had been around her whole life and wasn’t mean to her like some of the others, and now this kind offer. Could it be that she might actually have had a friend close by all along?
‘Thank you, Shell. Can I bring Daphne?’ She lifted the little corpse in her hands.
Shelley pulled a face and twisted her mouth. ‘If you have to.’
Thomasina sat on the sagging sofa, listening to the sounds of the pub, which, like the smell of beer, drifted up through the floorboards. The chuckles of laughter, shouts of delight and roars of disagreement, all punctuated by the bang of darts in the dartboard, the calls for drinks and the general hum of conversation. She felt it suited her perfectly, sitting up here listening to life, close to but not part of it, a self-imposed exile, where she, who wasn’t capable of getting a certificate of learning and was never going to win a race, kept herself to herself. It summed things up for her. The question was how to change? How to break out of the rut into which she had fallen? She pulled out her jotter and tapped the pen against the pad. Tonight, the words were slow in coming . . . So much for steering her own ship.
She considered going back down to the bar and drinking vodka until she fell asleep, but even the thought of that made her cry. What she really wanted was to feel the way she had on the riverbank, when Grayson Potts had taken her in his arms and told her she was beautiful.
Eventually, once her tears had subsided, she fired off a text to Pops so he wouldn’t worry and made herself a large mug of tea in the tiny galley kitchen. She thought about texting Grayson, but to say what? He hadn’t made contact and she now wondered if her mum was right. Was she simply a conquest? Did he go up and down the country spinning the same line?
Nursing the hot drink, she tried not to look at the forlorn lump of Daphne, who lay on a plastic bag placed on a cushion on the floor. She wondered now if it were sanitary to have her anywhere near Shelley’s soft furnishings.
The television helped her pass the time, first a cookery show where Mary Berry showed her how to fillet a salmon, whip up a hollandaise sauce and poach a pear, followed by a DIY programme where an expert went in to sort stuff out for people whose houses were nearly falling down because they were too lazy or stupid to sort things out for themselves.
Shelley came up the stairs at a little after midnight.
‘Thanks for letting me stay here, Shell.’
‘S’all right.’ Shelley lit a cigarette and sat back in the floppy armchair with her boots up on the coffee table. ‘It’s not much, but at least it’s warm.’
‘It is.’
Shelley snickered and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Jonathan used to tell me all about the farmhouse and the land and the paddock up where you live, and I thought it sounded like a little slice of heaven. I can’t imagine having places to roam, big rooms to wander in and space.’
It was the first time Thomasina had thought about how her life might seem to others; compared to Shelley’s existence here in the pub, it was a very lucky life. But still, not enough for her, not now.
‘What are you going to do?’ Shelley drew her from her thoughts.
‘I don’t know.’ Thomasina spoke the truth. ‘I need to make a plan, but starting feels like the hardest part. I keep looking far ahead, but that doesn’t help with the right now.’
‘So don’t look too far ahead. Start with right now, tomorrow, baby steps. I hate to see you like this. You seemed happy the other night when you were in here with that tall man. Happiest I’d ever seen you, kind of settled and confident. Like you knew where you were heading.’
Thomasina pictured lying with Grayson on the grassy bank later that same evening, and the way he had looked at her, the way it had felt to be grabbing life and running with it. That was what she wanted more of, that feeling . . .
‘I was happy. I really like him. But it was also about how he made me feel about myself.’ She felt the loss of his company and the yearning for him like a punch to the chest.
‘How did he make you feel?’
‘He made me feel like . . . like the kind of girl who might own a pair of sparkly red shoes and travel to New York!’
‘So why don’t you go and find Change Purse and be happy with him?’
‘Grayson, his name’s Grayson.’
‘Yeah, so why don’t you go and find him? Time is passing, Hitch, and life isn’t going to come to you, love, not around here. You have to go and chase it. Go to New York. Buy the red shoes!’
‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘I was speaking metaphorically, but at the very least go and knock on his door, say you were just passing and see what he has to say for himself.’ Shelley took a drag on her cigarette and Thomasina laughed at her choice of words.
‘What you laughing at?’ Shelley giggled.
‘Just passing!’ Thomasina threw her head back on the sofa. ‘That’s so funny!’ She waited for her laughter to ebb and tried to picture herself knocking on his door. ‘Supposing he doesn’t want me there? Supposing I go all that way and he just stares at me blankly? My mum said I might be reading too much into it – I did only know him for five minutes. Supposing he’s the type of man who has girls up and down the country? I’d feel like such an idiot. An idiot a long way from home!’
Shelley sat forward in the chair. ‘Darlin’, three things. First, he didn’t strike me as the kind of ladies’ man who has a girl in every town.’ She giggled, as if the very idea were amusing. ‘And second, I saw the way he looked at you in the bar – like you’d just fallen from Planet Fantastic! I’d bet my entire New Tits Fund that he’d welcome you with open arms.’
Thomasina smiled. ‘Did he really look at me like that?’
Her friend nodded. ‘He really did.’
Thomasina considered this, grateful for the jolt of excitement that fired through her. ‘What’s the third thing?’
Shelley sat forward, as if what she was about to impart was of importance. ‘Third, if he does turn out to be a dickhead, just say, “I only came to tell you that you’re dumped, because I’m worth more!” Then turn on your heel and strut away, head held high, and d
on’t look back!’
‘Okay.’ She tried to picture herself doing just this. ‘How much have you got in your New Tits Fund?’ She was curious.
‘About sixty-five quid, give or take.’
‘Why do you want new tits?’ Thomasina looked at her friend’s perfectly adequate bosom.
‘New tits, more tips.’ Shelley winked at her.
‘I remember at school, Shell, you were always so good at art. You used to draw such wonderful things and they were brilliant. You should paint, not work behind the bar – or maybe do both until you’ve built up your business. I’d definitely buy your paintings.’
‘Would you?’
‘Yes, I really would. I’d have a really big one over the fireplace.’
‘I did use to love it. I could just escape when I painted, but it always felt out of my reach. So here I am!’ Shelley smiled and seemed to consider her words. ‘You never . . .’ She paused.
‘I never what?’
Shelley took a drag and crossed her legs at the ankles on the table. ‘You never really joined in, Thomasina.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean, at school, you always kind of hung back and kept your barriers up, as if you expected the worst from everyone.’
‘I did expect the worst from everyone. Kids can be horrible – they were to me anyway.’ She thought of Emery.
‘Yeah, but not all of us. You had friends, you know – you just didn’t commit.’
Thomasina thought about the terrible ache of loneliness she had carried throughout her school years and the desperation she had felt at being excluded. ‘I thought I was a burden to any social group. I couldn’t run or keep up very well and I was never going to help lure the boys in.’ She passed her hand over her mouth.
‘Yes, but that’s not what we thought, certainly not what I thought, only what you did.’ Shelley spoke softly and met her gaze.
‘I think I was conditioned to think like that, not anyone’s fault, not really, but my mum and dad always made me feel a bit different. They were overprotective and told me what I couldn’t do and that I had to stay close, stay safe, and I guess I just . . .’
‘Went with it because you’re a good daughter and it was easier, safer?’ Shelley filled in the blanks.
‘I guess so. It’s only now that I’m shaking off my armour, breaking free a bit.’
‘Well, that’s good. That’s really good. Because it’s true what I said – life doesn’t come to you, you have to chase it.’
Thomasina nodded. This had never felt truer than now.
'Where's that dead bird, Hitch?'
‘She’s in the bath now. I moved her off the cushion. I didn’t know what to do with her.’ Again the reminder of poor, dead Daphne was enough to make her tears bloom.
‘So you put her in my bath?’ Shelley shook her head. ‘For the love of God, go and see Grayskull, or whatever his bloody name is, and take that sodding dead bird with you!’
‘I just might.’ She pictured herself running into his arms. ‘Can I ask you to do something?’
‘Sure, what?’ Shelley stubbed her cigarette out and stared at her, all ears.
‘Can you call me Thomasina?’
Shelley nodded. ‘Yes – yes, I can. Thomasina! Now that’s what I’m talking about!’
The two girls laughed as they sat in the top rooms of the shitty pub that was their whole social life. They laughed because they motivated each other in the way that friends did, with nothing more than their words of positivity, and in those moments everything felt possible.
Thomasina lay on the sofa and again picked up her pen.
I know Shelley is right. I need to find the courage to chase the life I want.
I know I need to find the courage to chase the life I deserve.
I know what I experienced with Grayson felt true.
I know I have never felt as happy as when I was with him.
I know he made me feel brand new.
I know, if he’s not the man I thought he was, I’ll be crushed.
I know I can rely on Shelley.
I know I can’t think about Daphne without crying.
I know I’ll miss her.
And I know that this is my turning point. I know I need to stop looking at all the reasons I can’t and start thinking of all the reasons I can. And I know that if anyone tells me I can’t, I’ll tell them I’m worth more and turn on my heel and strut away with my head held high and without looking back!
NINE
Paddington Station was busy, scarily busy, but undercutting her fear was a thrilling sensation of adventure. Here she was in London. The Big Smoke. Alone. There was no Mum reminding her to keep a hand on her bag and no Mrs Pepper hollering over her shoulder in any crowd, ‘Stay close! Stay close!’
Thomasina noticed that everyone apart from herself seemed to know where they were going. With her mum’s instruction now echoing in her mind, she held her bag close to her chest and studied the Tube map on the wall. People rushed by and there was constant movement and a ricochet of sound that assaulted her senses. She looked around left and right, as if newly stepped from a merry-go-round at the fair, a little dazed and trying to figure out how to stay upright.
The plan had seemed so straightforward in her head. She would confront Grayson and ask him outright if he had felt the same way or whether she had badly misread the situation and he was indeed capable of telling a lie. The outcome would then be one of two things. If he had been telling the truth and did feel the same way, they would make a plan, find a way to navigate life, geography and circumstance . . . because life without him was not half as wonderful as life with him in it. It really was that simple.
If, on the other hand, he was a liar, she would stop pining for him and walk away with her head held high, leaving him in his shitty flat and wishing he too might fall down a well, preferably one with Emery already in it, and she would do as Shelley had suggested: not think too far ahead, but grab life and run with it.
Despite such brave and empowering thoughts, her heart raced at the prospect of their reunion with a mixture of excitement and naked fear, and it would be happening sooner rather than later.
‘Bakerloo line to Baker Street, then the Jubilee line from Baker Street to Canary Wharf, then I can walk the rest.’ She locked this in her mind and descended the stairs that would take her down to the Underground. It felt like the most unnatural thing in the world to be leaving the sunlight and heading beneath the city like a mole or a rat.
‘It’s okay, don’t be scared. You can do this.’ She whispered the self-soothing mantra under her breath. The Tube was crowded, dirty, and she knew that, no matter how exciting, this was a life she would find hard to get used to, instantly missing the fresh air and being able to look up at the big sky. The tiled walls of the station were grimy and the carriage itself felt claustrophobic. She more than understood why her fellow commuters all looked so miserable, if this was how they were forced to spend large chunks of their day. The only positive was that, because no one looked up from their phone, newspaper, book or Kindle, they didn’t stare at her mouth and it felt nice to be just another face in the crowd.
By the time she emerged from the station, she felt dirty in a way she never did when covered in farm muck. There was something quite unpleasant about breathing second-hand air, and the thought of sharing the cramped space with so many other people all squished together like sardines in the hot, confined carriage was gross. She had hated the Underground and, looking around now, was sorry to admit that she hated what sat above the ground too. This was absolutely nothing like the dazzling Covent Garden or the Chelsea Flower Show, the sanitised face of the capital, scrubbed clean and beribboned for tourists and visitors alike. Her eyes were drawn to the graffiti-covered walls, the litter, the grey concrete and the corrugated iron, ugly buildings, the soot-filled kerbs and the trucks that hurtled by. And she saw in sharp outline all the hard corners, spikes and jagged edges.
Grayson was right
: if the countryside was soft, then this place was hard – and too fast-paced for a girl who had spent her entire life in the green and gentle world of Austley Morton. Here in the big city it felt as though life moved to a different rhythm. People hopped up and down the kerbs, skirting around each other, slowing down or speeding up to match the swell of feet in front of them, or jumping to the left or right to dodge obstacles. Everyone seemed well rehearsed in a dance that was new to her and she felt as if she missed a beat with every step she took. Her foot ached and it was rare for her to feel sorry for herself or overly consider her physical difficulties, but as she trod the hard, grey pavement the discomfort threatened to overwhelm her rather. She didn’t want to be limping slowly up to his front door, but instead wanted to appear sprightly, appealing, and to make a good impression on his mother. It felt important.
Backing up against the wall, she lifted her foot and rotated her ankle as best she could before smoothing the crumpled square of paper from her jeans pocket and reciting the flat number. Armed with the knowledge that he got home from work at six thirty, she had deliberately timed her journey, knowing she did not want to be hovering in the walkway outside the murderer’s home, all alone. It was now a little after a quarter to seven as she slowly trod the ugly concrete stairs of Grayson’s tower block. The going was cumbersome with her foot, but the stairs, she had decided, no matter how much a chore, were still preferable if it meant she could avoid the lift, where she knew a large shit had once lurked. Dog or human? The jury was still out.
The reek of urine invaded her nostrils and she spotted discarded syringes gathered in the odd dark corner, no doubt courtesy of the junkies who apparently lived on the top floor. Cautiously, she made her way along the gangway, trying not to look down to the car park below, where vans and cars were tightly parked, or pay attention to the harsh shouts, sirens and the seemingly continual banging of doors that put the fear of God into her.
Nerves began to bite, along with a reluctance to knock at the door, as her earlier courage slipped from her and trickled over the edge of the balcony. She looked back along the path she had trodden and for a second considered leaving quickly and hoping she hadn’t been seen, not sure this was worth it. As quickly as the question rose in her mind, it was suffocated with an image of him leaning in as they dawdled by the riverbank and kissing her mouth . . .
The Things I Know Page 15