by Thorne Moore
I dropped on my knees and searched through the night’s scribbling. Yes, I’d captured each of them in the night, burly Barbara, petite Ruth with her purse on a strap, gangly Angela and her tartan hair ribbons, rotund Denise, serious Teresa with the glasses. I couldn’t draw Serena and not draw them. They were welded into one. Except that in my last year at Marsh Green Junior, Teresa Scott had left and the ring was snapped. It needed emergency repair and I, Karen Rothwell, the unworthy and yet the most blessed, had been chosen to take her place.
I could remember the joy.
Karen, come and play with us.
Yes!
And? Nothing more. Just that moment of joy.
The bin men were finished. More lights were on, and louder radios. Doors slammed. Engines started. Daylight was beginning to seep into the fog. How could they do this? How could people just get on with life as if the second coming of Serena Whinn hadn’t happened?
I couldn’t. There was a riddle here. It had arrived on my doorstep and eaten me whole. At ten years old, I had achieved my dream. I had stepped into Serena’s circle of light, and then ‒ what? Something incredible must have followed. Did I acquire mystical enlightenment? Or superhuman powers? Did I conquer the world? Did I achieve greatness or have it thrust upon me? If I did, I couldn’t recall any of it.
All I could remember was that first glorious joy of acceptance. Nothing else, except a lurking sense that wasn’t akin to joy at all. I could feel it, fingers on my neck, thudding in my heart, thundering in my ears, threading its way into my veins to reclaim me.
Fear.
There was my riddle. How was it that this episode, which had begun with a blazing memory of bliss, left me haunted by a sensation of overwhelming dread? Serena Whinn would have the answer. No one else. Just her. I had to have the answer, had to find her.
The problem was, I didn’t have the first idea how.
— 2 —
The council car park was jammed with cars. My windscreen wiper had failed to mend itself miraculously overnight, and the fog was still thick, smothering the deluded headlights as they attempted to pierce it. At least, that would do as an excuse for my misjudgement, as I clouted the White Witch’s Corsa with my wing mirror. I reversed, found another place, at the far end, then got out, pulled my hood up and walked back to the revolving doors, studiously not looking at the scattered shards of orange plastic from the Corsa’s tail light.
The White Witch was standing at the photocopier as I entered, in prime position to note my arrival and the clock above me. Gail Creighton, red lips pursed, pencilled eyebrows raised.
‘11:04, Karen. 11:04! You do realise that, do you?’
In reply, I fixed my eyes on my desk on the far side of the office, and concentrated on unbuttoning my damp coat. It was the best way to avoid punching her.
She followed. I could hear her high heels clacking behind me. ‘Karen. Karen Rothwell! 11:04. You are supposed to be at your desk by 8:45. What, precisely, makes you think it’s all right to stroll in here more than two hours late?’
I shook my mac and she flinched as the fine spray caught her. ‘Thank you! I’d like an explanation, please. Why are you late?’
‘I had an appointment.’
‘What sort—’ she began, then changed her mind. She knew about my appointments and made it a point of not pursuing the details. ‘There was nothing in the diary. You’ve been told, Karen, repeatedly, appointments, doctors, dentists, that sort of thing, must be arranged beforehand and approved by Mr Parry.’
I sat down and switched on my screen. I was forty-five, she was not much more than thirty, at least ten years my junior, but she spoke to me as if I were a naughty child. I could remember her as a giggling young junior in a crowd of giggling juniors, squealing over clothes and movie stars and office gossip, no more offensive than any of them, but this is what promotion and office power does to some people. It can turn a friendly Mrs Beaver into the White Witch overnight. I never caught Gail Creighton handing out Turkish Delight, though.
‘Are you listening to me?’
I looked up at her. Her fingers were twitching, itching to slap me, but, of course, she didn’t quite dare.
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Nostrils pinched, she turned on her stilettos and marched off, like an irate stork, to the far end of the office, to confer with Uriah Heep.
Stewart Parry to everyone else. It was easier dealing with people I found, if I could fit them into a book. Gail Creighton was obviously the White Witch. I had been torn, with Stewart Parry, between Uriah Heep and Wormtongue, but Uriah Heep won. He was, after all, just a jumped-up clerk whose ‘umble’ abode was the cluttered end desk, behind a pile of files, half-empty coffee mugs and trainers. In the pecking order of line managers, the White Witch was mine and Uriah Heep was hers. I wasn’t sure who his was – one of the men in suits.
Gail was making her report in what was supposed to pass for a confidential tone, but just loud enough for me and everyone else to catch the necessary emphasis above the clicking of keyboards, the ebb and flow of gossip and the perpetual white noise of Caz Philpot’s Radio 1. ‘I mean, how long…pointless… bloody waste of space…’ Every few words, she would glare back in my direction and his smirking gaze would follow.
This was a regular occurrence, even if it didn’t usually go on for quite so long, so I paid no attention. Okay, I was two hours late. Shoot me.
I didn’t care. I really didn’t care. I had a job, a daily grind, not a career. This office was my place of punishment. I came in, I typed, I went home, I got paid, minimally, and at this moment I didn’t care about any of it. I didn’t care if they shouted at me, mocked me, picked on me or sacked me.
Serena Whinn had kept me standing rigid at my window for hours, long after I should have set off into the rush hour traffic. The only reason I had finally broken free and made the effort to come in at all had been the dreary realisation that the yard, the bins, the one dead buddleia and the steamed-up bathrooms beyond were not going to provide me with answers. I could stand there staring forever and Serena was not going to appear, magically, like Mary Poppins, on the chimney pots of Leopold Road. I needed to snap into action, do something positive.
The only positive move I could think of was to come into work. At work, there was the internet.
I waited until the bustle of the office was back in full swing, everyone playing their regular musical chairs, then I slipped into the corner where an unattended computer terminal was connected to the World Wide Web. There were office rules about accessing the internet, and number one was: ‘Don’t let Karen Rothwell mess around on it.’ No one was supposed to mess around on it, which is why it was restricted to one terminal, supposedly under the White Witch’s control. But the White Witch couldn’t be watching it all the time.
She wasn’t watching now.
Computers were far too expensive to be a part of my home life, but I’d learned my way around them at work. I tried Yahoo. ‘Serena Whinn.’ Nothing.
Altavista. ‘Serena + Whinn.’ Nothing.
What was I expecting? The internet was useless. It promised caviar and delivered candy floss. I was better off with books. Books were my portal to everything. I was at home with them. I could always find my way around with books.
The office was short on books, but it did have a full run of telephone directories, lined up below four shelves of box files. I worked through them. Every one of them. Nothing. Serena could be anywhere in the country – but she wasn’t.
If she’d been an actual book, there would be no problem. I could always find books. Ask me to track down any volume, in bookshops, at market stalls and rubbish dumps, even on the internet, and I would find it. Might take me time, but I’d do it. People were another matter. How exactly do you find people? I had no idea where to start, unless I tried the adverts for private detective services, thrown up by Yahoo. Services I’d have to pay for, and I didn’t have the money.
‘Karen, what are you doing with that?’ The Whi
te Witch was standing over me as I wrestled directories back into place.
‘I was checking an address.’
She took the last volume from me. ‘Fife. And who do we deal with in Fife?’
‘Wrong one. I was putting it back.’
She tutted hard enough to rip off the roof of her mouth. ‘I take it you are going to complete that report before lunch.’ She followed me back to my desk. I could see how much she longed to settle the Karen Rothwell problem ‒ to sweep my work to the floor, hurl my coat at me and stab an outstretched arm at the door, crying ‘Go, and never darken my doorstep again!’
Unfortunately for the White Witch, sacking was far above her pay grade and all she could do was ferry a constant stream of complaints up the chain. She pushed round to see my screen, which was displaying the report I’d been asked to type up two days before. I had added two words since coming in that morning, but what could anyone expect? How was I supposed to concentrate on stock lists when I had Serena Whinn living in my head? The White Witch continued to hiss and fizz over me but I could barely see her. It was so easy to block her out.
All I saw, in her place, was Serena, dark eyes smiling down on me, chestnut hair flowing like a curtain to encompass me, hand extended to—
‘You’ve done virtually nothing, Karen! Have you been on the internet? You have, haven’t you? I knew it! How many times do I have to tell you the rules? You know them perfectly well, and don’t pretend you don’t! No private work, no personal stuff, no internet except in your lunch break. In fact, even that privilege is discretionary, isn’t that right, Mr Parry? If that report isn’t finished and printed and on my desk in the next two hours, you’ll be banned altogether. I’ll change the password and lock you out!’ She was sounding more and more like a little girl stamping her foot, and she must have realised it, because she lowered her voice. ‘Do you understand? Karen! Are you listening to me?’
‘I’m working,’ I said. ‘Got a lot to do.’ I was too busy typing. No idea what I was typing, but my fingers were moving.
She stiffened, the tendons on her neck vibrating like over-tightened harp strings. If she’d spoken, she would have spluttered, so she worked her lips furiously, until she could manage, without foaming at the mouth, to say, ‘Just get it done, Karen.’
As she stalked away, I glanced back at the computer in the corner. But why bother? It wouldn’t tell me anything because I didn’t know where to look. I felt as if I were ramming myself at full speed into a brick wall. Over and over again. I had to break through. I had to, I had to.
‘Karen! Here!’ Anne Elliot beckoned me across the crowded department store café. She wasn’t really Anne Elliot, she was Charlie Freeman, but to me she was Anne in Persuasion because she was always worried about people, sorting out their problems without seeming to have a life of her own. She probably did have one, but I never shared in it.
There’d been a time when I thought she really was Anne Elliot. How daft is that? The mind plays tricks.
She was already at a table, which was lucky, because it meant I didn’t have to queue at the counter, pretending to select something. I could predict, without looking, the unappetising array of pre-wrapped sandwiches and trays of lukewarm brown sludge with a thick skin.
Thick, brown skin.
*
It’s meat pie. Minced beef under bouncy suet pastry. A round of mash. A dollop of cabbage. I don’t like cabbage much, but I’ll eat it, just as long as… No! The gravy jug hovers over my plate and I watch with horror as the slimy skin on the thick brown gunge tips over the lip and lands on my plate.
‘Go on,’ says the dinner lady, poking my shoulder and smirking at my distress. ‘There’s plenty of starving black children in Africa would love that. Won’t kill you, you know.’
It will though. It makes me choke just thinking about it. I’m not eating it. I’m not! I don’t care if I miss dinner. I’m not eating that slimy skin. Doesn’t matter. I’ll have fish fingers and beans when I get home. I pass the disgusting thing on, to someone else. Someone who’ll happily scoff it down because they’ll probably be lucky if they find so much as a bit of bread and marge when they get home.
I am snorting, folding my arms, ready to sulk for the rest of the day. Then, at the next table, Serena turns and smiles at me in sympathy.
And suddenly, I feel silly and petulant, and embarrassed that she’s been watching me having a paddy. All right! I’ll stop snorting. I’ll eat my pudding, even if it is sultana sponge and I get the thick skin off the pink custard…
*
It’s a universal thing in places like this ‒ brown sludge with thick skin, just like school meals. Maybe it’s because they know shoppers are nostalgic for school days, when their mummies did the shopping for them.
It wasn’t all shoppers crowding the tables, though. Most of those council workers who didn’t head for a two-hour break at the pub (women, I mean) came here, because it was convenient. They were the ones who went for the pre-wrapped sandwiches.
I scrambled my way through, between protruding legs, shopping bags and pushchairs, to the corner table and Charlie rose to greet me. She was my oldest friend in this city. We often spent my afternoons off in the park or the shopping centre, just nattering, or we’d come here to grab lunch. She was a great one for lunch, was Charlie.
She took my hands and looked me over. ‘Thought you were going to get your hair done.’
‘Couldn’t be bothered.’
She shook her head. ‘Karen Rothwell, what are we going to do with you?’
‘As little as possible, please.’
She laughed and sat down, pulling me onto a chair beside her. ‘I bought you lunch.’ She pushed it across the table – a child’s bubble-gum pink milkshake and a sandwich. Chicken and salad by the look of it.
‘There was no need, honestly.’ I hated being treated, even by the best of friends. It heaped the weight of obligation on my shoulders.
Charlie waved away my objection. ‘I know you, Karen. You’d rather talk than eat and I’m starving and I hate eating alone, so keep me company.’ She sliced a huge ham baguette in half. ‘Go on, get yourself comfortable, and then we’ll talk and eat.’
I sighed in defeat and wriggled my coat off. I tried a sip of the milkshake. It tasted horribly sweet, sickly and artificial. God knows what it was supposed to be. Raspberry or strawberry, probably, but it didn’t taste like either. I pulled a face and pushed it away.
Charlie nudged it back.
‘Go on. It’s not that bad. Try the sandwich.’
I picked up the carton and tried to break through the rigid plastic. Impossible. It was built like Fort Knox. I put it down.
Charlie reached for it and ripped it open. ‘I went for something simple. I know you don’t like spicy things.’
‘Thanks.’ I took a nibble.
She watched me swallow, then smiled. ‘Okay, so tell me. How are things at work? Not so good, I’ve been hearing.’
‘You’ve been receiving smoke signals from the White Witch, I suppose.’
Charlie pretended disapproval. ‘Now, now. But yes, Ms Creighton was chewing my ear, having a good old grumble about you.’
‘She loathes me.’
‘Oh come on. She must care a tiny bit or she wouldn’t have called me, she’s worried… Yes, all right, she loathes most people, does our Gail. Certainly doesn’t like me very much. But then she’s not my line manager, she’s yours. I know how difficult it can be when there’s a personality clash. She likes to complain. Makes her feel in charge. Has she got a lot to complain about at the moment? She claims you’ve been coming in late for two or three weeks now. Missing whole days sometimes, with no explanation.’
I couldn’t deny it.
‘What’s up, Karen? I can see something’s eating you.’ She looked at my lunch. ‘Which is more than can be said for that poor sandwich.’
‘It’s stale.’
‘No it’s not. It’s freshly made today.’
‘
Doesn’t mean they didn’t freshly make it with stale bread.’
‘Right. Just eat the filling then. It’s only chicken and lettuce and tomato.’
‘And mayonnaise. Way too much of it. Why do they have to put so much gunge in everything?’
Charlie looked hard at the sandwich, as if she wanted to challenge it to a fight. Then she looked back at me, smiling broadly. ‘All right, forget lunch for a moment. Just tell me what’s wrong. Something’s upset you.’
She wasn’t the first to ask. There were well-meaning sorts in the office, who’d noted my distraction over the last couple of weeks and enquired if I were all right, in a faintly patronising way. They hadn’t really been seeking a detailed reply, so I hadn’t given any. But Charlie and I went back a long way and I owed her more of an explanation.
‘Sort of.’ It was so difficult to explain. ‘I feel – frustrated. I can’t… There are things… I can’t quite… and then I get these feelings. Of panic. Fear. Like I’m… like there’s something… I’m not explaining this very well, am I?’
‘No, you’re not explaining anything at all. But don’t worry. Go on. Keep talking. Tell me what it is that’s frustrating you. What’s making you panic?’
‘It was the apple, you see, rolling into the drain.’ I started to shred the lettuce from my sandwich.
‘No, I don’t see. An apple rolled into a drain.’
‘And it made me think of this girl I’d known at school.’
‘Ah!’ Charlie put her baguette down. She wiped her lips with a serviette, her eyes urging me to continue. ‘Go on. A girl you knew.’