Where The Story Starts

by Imogen Clark

  At the mention of Marlon’s name I could feel myself start to blush, and I thanked God that this was a phone call so Clio wouldn’t know.

  ‘Are you blushing?’ asked Clio.

  Spooky.

  ‘You are, aren’t you? Well, shall I bring him with me?’

  I considered the practicalities. Poppy could look after Noah for a couple of hours and I would only be up the road with my phone if they needed to get hold of me.

  ‘Okay,’ I heard myself say.

  I hadn’t heard from Marlon since the ‘not-date’, but then I hadn’t been in touch with him, either. Clio had told me that he’d enjoyed himself and I could have asked her for his number, but I’d come over all old-fashioned and had decided to wait for him to ring me. He hadn’t.

  When Clio texted to say that he was on for the meet-up at the pub, I let myself get a little bit excited about seeing him. I didn’t make too much of an effort getting ready, though, just in case, and as it turned out, neither did he. He must have come straight from work because he wandered into the King’s Arms in khaki shorts and polo shirt and a green fleece with the Hartsford Hall logo embroidered on to it. He even had a leaf stuck in his hair. It was quite cute, really.

  ‘Hi,’ he said when he saw me perched on a stool at the bar. I tapped the stool next to me.

  ‘So what are we tonight, then?’ he asked. ‘Some kind of Geordie Greek chorus?’

  I had no idea what he was talking about but I wasn’t going to show him that, so I just gave him a quick smile and turned my attention to Clio. She looked amazing. She’d managed to mix just enough sex appeal with a huge great dollop of class by wearing pale blue jeans, a white cotton shirt and a wide leather belt that showed off her narrow waist. There wasn’t a skin-tight T-shirt or too-short skirt in sight. It made me wonder what the other barmaids made of their new colleague. She must stick out like a sore thumb. Still, Eddie hadn’t said that there was any tension there, so maybe she’d just charmed them, too. For someone with so little sense of self, Clio was doing remarkably well. She was just blossoming, like a bud in springtime.

  ‘Shall we sit over there?’ I said to Marlon, nodding at a table away from the bar. I was worried about putting Clio off as she worked, but I realised just too late that it might look like I was aiming for a cosy corner for two. ‘We don’t want to get under Clio’s feet, do we?’ I added quickly.

  I just knew that Marlon would be smirking, but I didn’t look at him, concentrating steadfastly on my destination instead. I was desperately trying to play things cool, but it didn’t seem to be working. My heart was racing in anticipation and my unruly memory would keep flashing up that lighthouse kiss.

  I found a small round table towards the middle of the room where I could still speak to Clio without shouting, but which wasn’t in her way and settled myself in a chair that faced the bar, leaving Marlon to take his pick of the others. He lifted one by its ladder-back and put it down side by side with mine.

  ‘You can’t sit there!’ I objected. ‘We’ll look like a judging panel!’

  ‘Ah, she won’t mind,’ said Marlon, and for the first time I felt what I could only assume was a twinge of jealousy that he knew my new friend better than I did. It was like being back at school – ridiculous, really. He and Clio had known each other for years. Of course they could predict each other’s reactions better than I could, but it still threw me off-beam a bit.

  ‘But actually,’ Marlon said, standing up and moving his chair so that he was sitting opposite me with his back to the bar, ‘if I sit here, I can look at you . . .’

  Oh God, I thought. Pass the bucket, but secretly I was thrilled.

  ‘. . . which would be good, because I was going to ask if I could sketch you.’

  He produced a battered sketchbook and a stubby pencil from his pocket. I was stunned into silence.

  ‘Erm,’ I managed. ‘If you like.’ My hand flew to my wayward hair and I suddenly wished that I’d made a bit more effort with my make-up. ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Nothing!’ he said with a look that made me feel less anxious. ‘You just sit and chat like normal and I’ll just move my pencil a bit. You’ll barely notice that I’m doing anything.’

  He was right. I told him about various stupid little things that had happened since I’d seen him last, and he chatted easily about the people who had visited the Hall, walked on his lawns, frightened the peacocks. And all the time his pencil flew across the paper in light strokes as his eyes switched between my face and the page. After a couple of minutes, he turned his sketchbook round so I could see what he’d done. Even though the image was simple, just a few lines and some shading, it was unmistakably me.

  ‘Wow!’ I said, genuinely impressed. ‘You’re really good.’

  He shrugged. ‘I dabble.’

  ‘Can I keep it?’ I asked, the words out of my mouth before I’d really thought about them.

  ‘If you like,’ he said, tearing the page along the perforated edge of the book and handing it to me. ‘It’s nothing special, though. I hope I’ll get to do a proper portrait of you one day.’

  He looked up at me through his eyelashes and what should have been an extremely corny moment was actually quite touching.

  ‘I’d like that,’ I mumbled, like a teenager.

  We were there to give Clio some support, I remembered suddenly, so I pulled my attention from Marlon and on to her. The bar was busier than she’d anticipated and she didn’t really have any chance to chat, but I lifted the sketch up to show her and she nodded her approval.

  ‘Isn’t he talented?’ she called over, and I had to agree.

  The evening passed easily, any worries that I might have had about it being awkward just melting away. Marlon seemed relaxed in my company, and that made me relax, too. And despite all the things that should have made him not that attractive, I could feel myself falling for him just a little bit more.

  And then Stacey Waters walked in.

  44

  LEAH – NOW

  It was nearly twenty years since me and Stacey had been in the same class, but when I saw her walk into the bar something tightened in my stomach. It wasn’t fear, exactly; I wasn’t scared of her. She’d never hit me. Her bullying at school had been of the more pernicious kind, designed to get under your skin and hurt you from the inside out.

  What did worry me, though, was what she might say. There had been a lot of water under the bridge since we’d been teenagers together in this small town, but people like Stacey held on to what they knew, guarding it jealously just in case it might come in useful. And now Poppy had crossed her daughter Cindy. I knew Stacey wouldn’t take that lying down. There’d be trouble here now. I knew it as well as I knew my own name.

  But trouble was the last thing I needed. The way that Clio and then Marlon had wandered into my life had been totally haphazard, but now that they had, it felt vitally important to me to keep them there. Already I knew that things would be so much less fun without the pair of them around. I hadn’t thought that anything was missing from my world before, but now I realised that I’d just been going through the motions of life rather than living. Clio and Marlon were on the cusp of changing all that for me.

  But Stacey could ruin everything. All she had to do was cause a scene here, bandy around a few accusations, scandals from my past, and I’d be sunk. There was no way that Clio would want to be my friend when she found out what I was really like, what I’d been part of. I knew I was nothing special, just a girl from a broken home in a rundown town with ideas above my station. Just by lifting a few stones I could pretty much guarantee that Stacey could make Clio and Marlon see that, too. I couldn’t let that happen, but I had no idea how to prevent it. I was just going to have to play things by ear and hope for the best.

  This wasn’t Stacey’s first bar of the night, that much was obvious. Each movement had that exaggerated feel to it, as if she was having to concentrate hard on making her body do what she wanted. She was with an
other woman I didn’t recognise, but who had obviously crawled out of the same sewer as Stacey. Both were wearing skin-tight jeans slashed across the knees and ludicrously high heels that made them stoop as they walked. Their tops were barely more than handkerchiefs strapped across their chests. Stacey’s make-up had given up the ghost too, her mascara crusting in dark semi-circles under her eyes, and all that was left of her lipstick was a harsh red line drawn round the circumference of her lips. The contrast with Clio’s clean-cut style couldn’t have been more obvious if it had been created on a film set.

  I dropped my head and picked up my almost-empty glass, hoping that Stacey wouldn’t spot me.

  ‘Who’s that?’ whispered Marlon, and I was grateful that he had the social awareness to lower his voice.

  ‘Someone from school,’ I replied in similarly hushed tones.

  ‘Your year?’ asked Marlon, his eyebrows raised. ‘Looks a good ten years older than you.’

  I couldn’t help a little smile forming on my lips, despite my nerves. I nodded.

  ‘Nice girl,’ said Marlon, and I bit back a giggle.

  Stacey ordered a pint of snakebite each for her and her friend and then turned around, leaning on the bar as if she were in a seventies calendar shoot. Her eyes darted around to see who might be there to impress, and then they settled on me. My heart hit the floor.

  She tutted. ‘Oh, look who’s here,’ she said to her friend, and tipped her head towards me. The other woman shrugged, clearly unimpressed.

  ‘Looks harmless enough, doesn’t she? Like butter wouldn’t melt and all that shite.’

  I turned to Marlon like I was deep in conversation with him and wasn’t going to take the bait, but Stacey was too drunk to bother with signals like that.

  ‘She’s got a secret, though, this one,’ she continued, stabbing a finger through the air in my direction.

  I felt sick. I willed Stacey not to tell them with everything I possessed.

  ‘It’s like a super-power,’ Stacey continued, slurring her ‘s’s together, ‘that she pulls out of the bag when her back’s against the wall. Want to know what it is?’

  Stacey turned with an exaggerated movement to her friend, who shrugged, as if the very last thing she was interested in was Leah Allen’s super-power.

  Marlon, by contrast, was all ears. ‘Ooh, this should be good,’ he smirked. ‘You didn’t mention that you were superhuman. Kept that under your hat, although it doesn’t surprise me.’

  He winked at me, and I would have been delighted if I hadn’t been so worried about what Stacey was going to say next.

  ‘Ah, well,’ Stacey continued. ‘Leah Allen here thinks that she’s better than every other fucker in this town. She’s got like this voice in her head, right, that’s always telling her that she’s the bee’s fucking knees. That’s right, isn’t it, Leah?’

  I dropped my head lower still. I just wanted her to go away, to pick on someone else, although I knew there was no chance of that. It was excruciating, though, just waiting for the axe to fall. Not only was it embarrassing in front of Marlon, but I didn’t want to make life difficult for Clio. She was doing so well here, and I could really mess things up for her by accidentally causing a fight in the bar.

  ‘But,’ continued Stacey with theatrical exaggeration, ‘it seems that super-powers don’t get passed down because her daughter, right, she’s a proper little slapper.’

  Even now, after all these years, Stacey Waters knew exactly which buttons to press to get a response. My head snapped up.

  ‘Fuck off, Stacey,’ I spat.

  Beside me, Marlon whistled under his breath. ‘You tell her, girl,’ he said.

  I ignored him.

  ‘She can’t control her temper either, see? They’re as bad as each other. Like mother like daughter.’

  Stacey took a couple of steps towards me, her shoulders back and her head cocked to one side. I stayed where I was, but I moved my feet a little so that I could jump up if I needed to.

  ‘School didn’t like it much, though, did they? Little Miss Perfect’s bitch of a daughter has blotted her copybook good and proper. Now what was it she did?’ Stacey put a finger to her mouth and arranged her face into a quizzical expression. ‘Oh, I know . . .’ Her expression changed in an instant and now she was staring at me with pure venom in her eyes. ‘Your slutty little daughter gave my beautiful girl a black eye.’

  At my side, Marlon snorted. ‘Go Poppy!’ he said.

  He really wasn’t helping.

  ‘It was no more than she deserved,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.’

  Stacey came closer still. This was a nightmare. Marlon seemed to be amused, but what must Clio be thinking of me? Even as I sat there, I was already thinking that this was probably the last I’d ever see of her. She’d drop me like a hot brick when she saw where I really came from. And where was Eddie? I needed him to chuck Stacey out, but there was no sign of him. I was going to have to deal with this on my own.

  I got to my feet, crossing my arms across my chest and thrusting one hip forward just like I used to when I was a girl.

  ‘I said, “A black eye was no more than she deserved”,’ I repeated, louder this time so Stacey could hear me.

  She was at my side in a flash, high heels and a skinful of alcohol proving no handicap. Marlon stood up too and came to stand next to me, my knight in shining armour, although it was hard to believe that he’d ever been in a fight in his entire life. Stacey jabbed a grubby finger in my chest. I felt the tip of her false nail pressing into my flesh and I pulled away slightly. For all my tough talk, I really didn’t want to make this any worse than it had to be.

  ‘You keep your nasty little slut of a daughter away from my Cindy,’ she snarled.

  ‘Well, actually,’ I said, ‘I’m pretty proud of what Poppy did to Cindy. I’d have done it myself if I’d been there.’

  Stacey’s friend, sensing that she might be needed, was now wobbling her way across the floor to her side like a second in a duel. I felt Marlon stand a little straighter next to me. He was a good head taller than I was and he was strong, despite how geeky his red hair made him look.

  My heart was working overtime. Any second now this was going to get out of hand. I’d been in enough arguments over the years to know the signs. I should just back off and let the whole thing fizzle out. I was mad to provoke Stacey and risk her telling everyone what Craig and I used to get up to when Clio and Marlon were there to hear her.

  I wasn’t proud of any of my past with Craig but one time stood out as a real low point. With me drunk and him high, he’d nicked a car from a garage forecourt and driven it round town like a bat out of hell. It had been such a laugh at the time, us like Bonnie and Clyde with no worries about consequences. But then out of nowhere a blue flashing light appeared behind us, reflecting off the rear-view mirror and bouncing round the inside of the car, like in the movies.

  ‘We should stop,’ I told him, but I knew he wouldn’t. We were in a stolen car, he had no insurance and he was as high as a kite. And on top of that his stash was in the glove compartment. If they’d caught us, he’d have gone down for sure. And so we ran! Craig put his foot down and we pulled away from the police car, me giggling as I felt the power of the engine beneath us. Even though I knew it was wrong and that Dad would have killed me if he’d known what I was up to, I couldn’t help myself. It was just so exciting.

  It must have been a squad car over from Newcastle rather than the local lads because it was obvious that Craig knew his home patch a lot better than they did and it didn’t take us long to shake them off. But Craig was taking no chances. As soon as we had some clear space between us and them he screeched the car to a stop.

  ‘Get out!’ he yelled at me. ‘Now!’

  Then he dug a tin of lighter fuel out of his duffle bag, squirted it on to the back seats and chucked a match in after it. I just stood there and watched as the car went up in flames. I’ve n
ever sobered up so fast in my life. This was someone else’s car. They’d done nothing to us and yet here was Craig destroying it. I could feel Craig pulling at my sleeve and then we ran and soon we were lost in the black of the night. I felt so ashamed of what we’d done. I just wanted to crawl away and hide, but Craig was delighted and told anyone who would listen, including Stacey. And now Stacey was going to tell the whole pub and my new life would come crashing down around me.

  But actually, I thought as I held my breath, it wasn’t my reputation that I was defending here. It was Poppy’s. She had done nothing wrong and I couldn’t stand by and let Stacey drag her through the mud in public when she had just been looking out for her little brother. And if that meant that I had to sacrifice my friendships with Clio and Marlon, then that’s what I’d do.

  ‘Get lost, Stacey,’ I said, taking a step closer to her so that we were virtually nose to nose. ‘Cindy is a spiteful little racist and she got what she deserved.’

  This was too much for Stacey. I saw her hand pull back to punch me and I braced myself, ready to receive the inevitable blow, as I was now standing too close to her to avoid it.

  Then someone else put a hand out and caught Stacey’s fist before it could make contact with my face.

  ‘We’ll not be having any of that kind of thing in here, thank you. I think you should leave now, don’t you?’

  The punch didn’t land, and my body relaxed as I looked up to see who had intervened to stop it. It was Clio.

  She slid into the space between me and Stacey and stood there, arms folded, looking like she meant business. The mood Stacey was in, she might well have clouted Clio instead of me, but Clio didn’t look even vaguely concerned. She just held her ground, narrowing her eyes at Stacey like she was deciding what punishment to inflict on her. After a couple of seconds of this face-off, Stacey’s mate pulled her back.