The Alibi Girl

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘No, you didn’t dream it. We can’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you’re obsessed with me. All those pictures…’

  He gets up off the mat.

  ‘What’s changed?’

  ‘It’s wrong, that’s all. It wouldn’t be right, you and me. It’s unprofessional.’

  ‘What do you mean, it wouldn’t be right? I’m not even a member of the gym.’

  He ushers me off the mat and picks it up, marching it back to the store room. I say it again, following him in. ‘You said you were falling in love with me.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that. It was a lie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please forget I said anything.’

  ‘How can I forget? Kaden, tell me, why is it so wrong now? What do you mean it was a lie? Is it because of Emily? She’s gone now, she’s with her dad.’

  ‘It’s not her.’

  ‘Is it cos I’m ugly? Fat? I can stop eating so many doughnuts. We don’t have to wait to have sex, I can do it now if you want to. Right here.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with that.’ He looks at me, and it’s like the way Trevor looked at me after seeing Ken Whittle’s poster on the telegraph pole. It’s pity in his eyes, not love. Pity for the crazy fat cat lady. ‘You’re… a client. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I TOLD YOU I’M NOT A MEMBER!’ I shout. But he only looks back once as he grabs his towel and water bottle from the floor by the wall. And then he walks out.

  Christmas school holidays, eighteen years ago…

  12

  Saturday, December 14th – Paddy’s birthday

  Me and Dad have been living in Carew St Nicholas since September. Auntie Chelle and Uncle Stu ‘made him an offer he couldn’t refuse’, and Stu had given him a job tending bar, tapping barrels and waiting tables. He still did his little disappearing acts now and again but he’d got better with money. I got new shoes for school and a new satchel and everything. We even got a new car.

  I started at Foy’s school, which wasn’t two miles from the pub, and every single day me and Foy would walk home via the little shop. We’d buy sweets and take the shortcut through the churchyard at the back of the pub to eat them. We’d pick the flattest graves to sit on, and spit inside our Sherbet Fountains and stir the sherbet with our liquorice sticks to make a paste. Then scrape it all out of the tube. We’d sit on our Wham bars to make them all warm and soft, then tear open the wrappers and wrap the sticky gunk around our fingers and bite it all off. We’d see how long it could take us to suck our cola cubes without crunching down on them.

  Our only witnesses were Mary, Charlotte, Genevieve, Betsy and Ruth.

  Mary Brokenshire’s grave was the oldest. She was buried with her five children who all died before her. Charlotte Purfleet’s was the newest and there were always fresh flowers there alongside the little stack of stone books – she’d liked to write stories. Genevieve Syson’s had the stone angel with the outstretched wings on the top – she loved to travel. Betsy Warre’s was the smallest. Cruelly robbed so soon in life, My loving friend and cherished wife. And Ruth Gloyne’s was the saddest. She died in childbirth and was buried with her baby. A sad place for a child to sit, but it was the happiest time for me and Foy. In all our games, those were our names: Mary, Charlotte, Genevieve, Betsy or Ruth. A new name for every new game.

  It’s December 14th – Paddy’s birthday, and we’ve just had our tea in the bar and he’s blown out his thirteen candles.

  He’s cutting the cake and Chelle’s handing around the plates. Dad clears his throat and pulls something out of his hoody pocket.

  ‘By the way, guys,’ he says, placing a large wad of money right in front of Chelle and Stu. ‘For you.’

  Isaac’s jaw drops. Paddy goes, ‘Wooooooahh!’

  ‘What the—’ says Uncle Stu.

  ‘Danny, for God’s sake,’ says Chelle.

  ‘That’s some serious greenbacks, Uncle D,’ says Isaac.

  ‘Yeah man!’ says Paddy. ‘Can we get that Countach now, Uncle Dan?’

  ‘Maybe next year, kiddo,’ he laughs, pushing the wad closer to Stuart and Chelle whose eyes are wide. ‘Take it, please.’ He’s almost fizzing. ‘So nice to be able to give something back for a change.’

  ‘What is this, Daniel?’ says Chelle.

  ‘It’s my way of saying thank you for letting us stay ’til we get back on our feet.’

  ‘Your feet,’ Chelle corrects him. ‘Your being here isn’t Ellis’s doing, is it?’

  Foy picks up the money and spreads it out in her hands. She gives half to me and I do it as well. ‘Can we play Banks with this, Mum?’

  ‘No,’ Chelle snips, scraping the money out of our hands and bundling it back into a stack on the table. ‘Kids – go and take your plates out and do the Viennetta please. There’s homemade jelly in the fridge.’

  ‘What flavour?’ asks Isaac.

  ‘Lemon.’

  ‘Wicked.’

  And we all do it without argument for once. It must occur to us that the atmosphere has changed and we need to leave it, but none of us says anything until we’re in the corridor and even then we’re just talking about what we’d spend the money on – for Paddy and Isaac it’s all about cars. Lamborghini for Isaac, Porsche for Paddy. Foy wants ponies – an entire field of them. I hang back and listen at the door.

  Stuart’s counting the money. ‘There’s nearly twenty grand here.’

  ‘Seventeen thousand, five hundred,’ says Dad. ‘Take it. I want you to have it.’

  ‘Your accumulator come in, did it?’ says Chelle.

  ‘No, no that’s all hard-earned cash, that is. No gee-gees, I promise. Look.’ He holds up both his hands to show his fingers aren’t crossed behind his back. ‘Chelley, please. I’m grateful to you both. Let me pay you back. You’ve taken us in, given me a job, you’ve got Ellis a new school, you feed us—’

  ‘—you came down here without a penny to your name. Now three months later, you’ve got seventeen-and-a-half grand to give away? Where did it come from?’

  ‘I’ve been saving up. You two won’t take any rent.’

  ‘We weren’t taking any rent to help you get you back on your feet. Stu pays you a wage so you can save up for a new place for you and Ellis. We don’t expect to be paid back, that’s not what families do. Not every act of kindness comes with an invoice. We took you in to help you. You don’t owe us.’

  ‘Well I wanted to give you something. I don’t get why you’re being so bloody-minded, sis.’

  ‘I’m being bloody-minded because I don’t understand how three months ago my brother comes here with pockets full of dud betting slips, then pulls a few pints and suddenly he’s flinging about wodges of cash like Alan Sugar.’

  ‘Where’s it from?’ asks Stuart, quieter than Chelle.

  Foy comes up behind me with a small bowl of Viennetta and lemon jelly. I put my finger on my mouth to quieten her. She listens in too.

  ‘I’ve been doing some cash in hand. One of the jobs was big.’

  ‘What job?’

  ‘Building work.’

  ‘Building what?’

  ‘Uh, houses?’ Dad laughs. ‘You can believe what you want, Stu, that’s the truth.’

  ‘You’re doing it again, aren’t you? You’re working for that monster again.’

  ‘No, I ain’t. I got out of all that.’

  ‘What hold has he got over you, Dan?’ says Chelle. She’s crying. Wiping her cheeks. She starts scraping her plate onto Stuart’s. ‘He’ll never let you go, will he?’

  Foy whispers in my ear, ‘Who’s the monster who won’t let him go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ My heart is painful.

  ‘Are you gonna take it or not?’ says Dad.

  ‘Not,’ says Chelle, yanking the pile out of Stuart’s grip and handing it back to Dad. ‘Now you take that back to whatever sewer you got it from.’

  ‘I can’t take it back. It’s not that easy.’

  ‘Why? Did you steal
it?’

  ‘No.’

  Uncle Stu looks to the door and me and Foy back away from it.

  ‘I only did that for a bit to clear my gambling debts, it was two months’ worth, tops. It’s all clear now.’

  ‘So when you burned down your own house and the insurance wouldn’t cough up, that’s when you started working for him again, was it? To pay off your debts?’

  ‘No, Chelley. It was all building work. I swear. It was a big company. Lucrative. I did a lot of work on it. And this is part of the reward.’

  ‘Who are you lying to, us or yourself?’ says Stu. He hands the money back again to Dad with a flat hand on top of the pile. ‘Do the right thing, mate. Go and put a deposit down on a house for you and your daughter. For her sake.’

  Thursday, December 19th – first day of the Christmas holidays

  The boys are supposed to be walking us back from the carol concert but instead, Paddy meets up with his girlfriend and her two friends, and him and Isaac go off into town on the bus to do some Christmas shopping. Me and Foy make our own way back to the pub through the churchyard – she sits on Mary Brokenshire, I on Charlotte Purfleet.

  Foy opens up the red tissue paper and we start tucking into the free mince pies.

  ‘Wonder how her children all died,’ she says.

  ‘Whose children?’ I say.

  ‘Mary’s,’ she says, gesturing towards the headstone behind my back.

  I glance down at it, even though I can’t see much in the fading light. ‘I don’t think it says for all of them. The last bit’s rubbed off. I can only read “Harold died at fifteen, David born asleep.”’

  ‘Poor Mary.’

  ‘Do you want to have real babies one day?’ asks Foy.

  ‘Yeah, one day,’ I say, screwing up my serviette. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yeah, deffo.’

  ‘I hope I know how to be a mum.’

  Foy chews her pie. ‘My mum can show you. You’ll always have her and me.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘These pies are lush,’ she says. ‘What do you want for your birthday? Mum’s going to get your presents tomorrow—’

  ‘I don’t mind, listen, Foy – did you hear what Isaac said to Paddy at the service?’

  ‘What about?’ she says, scuttling over to join me on Charlotte’s grave.

  ‘He said he overheard Auntie Chelle and Uncle Stu talking last night and they think my dad’s dealing drugs. That’s why he gave them all that money the other night.’

  She nods, open-mouthed. ‘Does that mean he’ll go to prison?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ll live with us for definite then,’ says Foy. ‘If he does go to prison.’

  ‘I don’t want my dad to go to prison.’

  ‘No, but you could still live with us if he does.’

  A hardness is already forming in my throat. ‘I don’t know what will happen. I know he’s in trouble. Isaac said he heard Dad wants to “do a deal with the police”.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ says Foy.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’ll give them money so he doesn’t have to go to prison?’

  She frowns. Then puts her arm around me and says defiantly, ‘I’ll ask Isaac. Isaac will know.’

  13

  Friday, 1st November

  My new rug came this morning. The colours are different than the picture on the website. It looks horrible. Browns and oranges rather than pinks and reds. And it curls up at the edges. I don’t want an argument about it. It’ll cover the hideous lino at least.

  My mood has dipped again. Kaden’s gone – Scants has gone too, I think. I feel a sudden desperate need for a hug. A yearning for someone – a real person. Any person.

  Cathy, the same lady who served me last time in Seaside Bridal, is there again today, folding white tissue paper at the counter as I walk in. She immediately looks at her colleague in the same way Vanda looks at Sabrina whenever I walk into work.

  ‘Oh, hi again!’ she says chirpily, painting on a smile I can practically hear coming. ‘How are things coming along?’

  ‘Not brilliant, actually,’ I say. ‘We lost the baby.’

  The colleague looks at her. She looks at the colleague and the painted smile disappears. ‘Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. Come and sit down. Alice – stick the kettle on, love.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Alice. She is young, younger than me, and I’m guessing probably about nineteen. She has very long brown hair with a wave in it and her shoes are ballerina slippers. She moves like she’s constantly apologising for being alive but when she looks at me her face is full of sorrow.

  I have their compassion, an atmosphere of sympathy swathed in cream silk and pink petals. Touching my forearm. Eager to please. Sad smiles. Friend-like, almost.

  Cathy comes around the counter with her arms stretched out in front of her, like the two sides of a staple. I stand there and be hugged. This is what I wanted. But it’s such a hard hug that it’s not comforting at all.

  ‘Lovey, it takes a lot of courage to come back in here after what you’ve been through. I’m so sorry for you. I don’t know what to say, my love, except, well, I know what you’re going through. Long time ago now, but the pain does ease.’

  ‘Thank you. We’re still going ahead with the wedding in February but obviously I don’t need a dress the size of the one you originally fitted me for.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ she says, with a slow blink, as though to wash her eyeballs with sincerity. ‘Well why don’t we have a nice cup of tea and you can scan the books again and see if anything takes your fancy, yeah? We have most collections in stock – Sassi Holford, Maggie Sottero, all the favourites. We’ve got some new stock in of Romantix Brides which are at the slightly less expensive end.’

  ‘Hang the expense,’ I say. ‘David says he doesn’t care about it anymore, not now there’s no… well, not now we don’t have any extra expenses to worry about after.’

  I don’t care that it was Kaden’s name I mentioned as my groom-to-be the other day. And they haven’t remembered so it doesn’t matter. David’s the one for me now. Whoever he is.

  ‘Of course,’ she says, giving my hand a quick squeeze. ‘You have a look through those then and I’ll see where your tea has got to. What was it, white with two sugars?’

  ‘Three please.’

  ‘Three, of course, of course. I’ll see if we’ve got any of Prince Charles’s biscuits leftover as well. Lemon, they are. Marvellous.’

  The gowns in the Romantix catalogue are so cheap and nasty they make me grimace. It’s all low cut or high cut, lacy and tight-fitting. And everything’s under £500. The Maggie Sottero ones are incredibly elegant and all the brides are in natural surroundings, complementing the creeping vine embroidery and intricate lace flowers tailored into all the designs. There’s a lingerie catalogue in the stack too. The Cathy woman comes back with my tea and two Duchy biscuits in time to see me open it.

  ‘Ooh there’s some lovely pieces in there, half price at the moment. We’ve got a Victoria’s Secret Lace Plunge Teddy, and a very sexy Chantilly lace satin slip which was £90 but it’s reduced at the moment—’

  ‘No, I’m not interested in lingerie,’ I say. ‘Just a dress.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ she says, removing the Sale catalogue from my sight and helping me open the cover of the Sassi Holford book. ‘Now these, if you’re looking for something ultra-classic, are to die for.’ She goes red in the face. I don’t draw any attention to it because that would be rude.

  ‘Are these all in stock?’

  ‘Most of them, yes. Except the Dominique. That’s been particularly popular. As you can see it’s strapless and comes with a stunning lace cape and a sash in champagne or ivory. There’s a fishtail design to the skirt…’

  ‘I want to take one home today.’

  ‘Oh, well how about you tell me what sort of design you’re after and I’ll see what we can do?’

  I open my bag and unfo
ld the piece of paper with the drawing on that Foy did.

  ‘Me and my cousin, we designed our own wedding dresses when we were kids. We always said if either of us got married, we had to find a dress that was as near as dammit to these designs.’

  Cathy was looking at the picture as though it were smeared with crusty bogies, holding it loosely at the two bottom corners. ‘Hmmm. Okay, so what have we got here then?’ She looks at me, then looks back at the drawing. ‘A long train. A veil. Long sleeves. A bit of lace is that?’

  ‘Well it’s a scribble that’s meant to be lace. She’s written lace next to it, see?’

  ‘Ah yes. And feathers. Lots and lots of feathers all over the skirt. Righty ho then. I think we’ve got the perfect one out the back, new stock for next year, just come in. You’re about a size fourteen, yes?’

  ‘On a good day. Sometimes a sixteen. Is that a problem?’

  ‘It’s only a problem if we make it a problem,’ she winks with a cheesy grin. ‘I’ll do my best for you, Ruth.’

  And with that she clip-clops out to the back of the shop like Mary Poppins about to Step In Time on some rooftop. I drink my tea and Alice the assistant is making me another one when Cathy returns with a weighty clear dress bag draped over one arm.

  ‘This is as close as I can get to the drawing with feathers on and in your size, my love,’ she says, unzipping it from its clear bag and hanging it up on a rail fixed to the ceiling that I haven’t observed before now. ‘What do you think about that one?’

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ I say. The bodice is silken with long, pillow-white sleeves, the feather skirt and train flutters on a light breeze coming from the crack around the doorway. On its own it looks classic, elegant, angelic, like the little girl in the picture. Except when I put it on I won’t have club feet or hands. And my hair will be black. Dyed black. Fake. As fake as my name.

  ‘That’s the one,’ I say. ‘Absolutely the one.’

  ‘Aww, fantastic,’ says Cathy. ‘This one’s from our Milo de Havilland range. He’s an Italian designer and this one is brand new in. It’s a little pricier than the others.’