Finding Jennifer Jones

by Anne Cassidy

  “In any case, Mum,” her mother interrupted her gran, “I was going to tell Jen about my new job. It’s in a clothes shop. A friend of Mum’s told me about it.”

  “Oh.”

  “The shop’s called Sharp Style. Georgie Miller is the boss. It’s just serving in the shop but he said he might get me to model the clothes so that they could put pictures of them on the walls. It’s quite good money and could keep me going until things sort themselves out…”

  “That’s always assuming you don’t muck it up, Carol.”

  “She won’t muck it up, will you, Mum?” Jennifer said, pressing her fingers onto the corner of the jewellery box set.

  “Course not.”

  “And make sure that Georgie keeps his hands to himself. I know what you’re like…”

  “Mum!”

  “I tell like I see it, don’t I Jen?”

  Jennifer stared at her gran, who was chewing at her nails. How long was it since she’d had a cigarette? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?

  “How’s the dog?” Jennifer said, suddenly.

  Her gran frowned at her, a look of something dark flickering across her features. Jennifer pictured Nelson, one of her gran’s dogs from years before. It was a small Jack Russell breed. It had its own special armchair and it didn’t like Jennifer, showing its teeth to her and growling at her from time to time. In the end it had stopped growling forever.

  Her grandmother seemed to stumble over her answer. “You mean my…my Minty? She’s good as gold. I had to take her to the vet the other day for her injections. Did I tell you, Carol, that I’m going to Portugal with my friend, Maureen, from bingo? Early September?”

  “What about Jen’s trial?”

  “When is it?”

  “We don’t know exactly. In the autumn some time.”

  “Probably be later than September. They’ve got evidence to collect and witnesses to sort out. Honestly, the trouble you’ve caused, Jen! And that poor little girl dead.”

  Jennifer felt her face heat up. She studied the jewellery set. She used her fingers to flick at the glassy beads.

  “And it doesn’t seem to have taken a feather out of her!”

  “Don’t have a go at her, Mum. She’s being punished.”

  “Not enough. I always said you were too soft on her. I always told you that, Carol. Give her a good telling off or a few thumps from time to time.”

  Her gran directed these words straight at Jennifer.

  “Now’s not the time, Mum.”

  “I wasn’t soft on you, Carol, and you turned out all right. Mostly. Look at all those lovely photos you’ve had taken. Not many mums can show off pictures of their daughter in the Littlewoods catalogue. I can though.”

  “We best be getting off, Jen,” her mum said, standing up and leaning across the table to give Jennifer a kiss on the cheek.

  Her gran walked ahead, towards the door, waving as she went. Jennifer could see her patting her bag, looking for her cigarettes and her lighter.

  “See you when I can, Jen,” her mum said. “Remember I’m starting work next week.”

  Jennifer sat with the jewellery set on her lap until Laura came into the room to take her back to her block.

  “That’s nice,” Laura said. “You can make some pretty necklaces with that.”

  When they got back to her room Laura followed her in and sat on her chair.

  “I got you this,” she said, holding her hand out.

  It was a wrapped present, like a slim book, and Jennifer took it, feeling embarrassed. She opened it and saw a hardback book, A Child’s First Book of Prayers.

  “I know that on your notes there is no mention of religion in your family but I thought you might like to look at these. There are some lovely illustrations and you might enjoy reading some of them. It’s up to you.”

  “Thank you,” Jennifer said.

  When Laura left her she looked at the book, at the pictures and the words. In school they had said prayers but it had always been just a case of remembering the lines and looking serious as she spoke. She placed the book in one of her drawers and carried the jewellery set over to her table. In the distance she could hear a train. She wondered if her mum and her gran were on it going back home to her gran’s. Or was her mum going somewhere else, to someone else’s room or flat? Someone like Perry who was so good at making birthday cakes.

  Sixteen

  Jennifer thought about her mother, the model.

  She’d been looking through some of her old books that had been sent from her school. She was to do exercises on how to use capital letters. Laura had told her to spend thirty minutes at it and then call her to go over it. Jennifer found a new exercise book underneath a reading diary. She looked through it and was surprised to see a photograph of her mother inside the pages.

  It was a very old photograph. Her mother was wearing a swimsuit. She had wedge sandals on and a sarong around her waist. She was smiling and holding a beach ball as if she was about to throw it. Behind her was the beach and the sea. It wasn’t a photograph, it was a picture that had been cut out of a catalogue or magazine. She couldn’t remember which. Maybe it was Michelle who cut it out.

  Michelle had loved the fact that Jennifer’s mum was a model. Jennifer had been proud of it herself. She had a portfolio of her pictures and she often pulled it out of the cupboard and spent time going through it, turning each page and seeing her mum look so glamorous and well dressed. Sometimes the clothes made her look like a different person; a business woman or a movie star or a top fashion model. Most of her mother’s work was for clothes catalogues but her real ambition was to model the latest fashions in glossy magazines. Jennifer had pored over pictures of her mother in dresses and formal wear and casual clothes. She’d shown these to Michelle. Her friend had been impressed. Wow! she’d said.

  But the modelling world was a hard one, her mother said. Sometimes there was lots of work but often the photographers stopped calling her and the sessions dried up and her mother stayed at home and Jennifer watched the place gently deteriorate around her. Instead of being up bright and early, instead of spending hours in the bathroom and emerging washed and made up and smelling of perfume, her mother slept late and lay around on the sofa watching television all day.

  When they moved to Water Lane things seemed to improve.

  Mr Cottis came. Her mother started to get more photographic work. Mr Cottis was a freelance photographer and didn’t have his own studio so he brought his equipment to her house and took photographs of her mother there. Jennifer pictured him standing in their kitchen. He was tall and thin and had no hair at all. He wore glasses that went dark in the sunlight and sometimes stayed dark for a few moments when he was inside the house. It made him look strange.

  He would spend ages fiddling with a camera. He seemed to have a number of them and they sat on her kitchen table while he used bits of cloth to polish sections. His tripod leaned against the wall in the corner, making it difficult to walk easily round the small room. Sometimes, if she was getting a glass of water, she found him looking at her steadily, without blinking, as if his eye was a lens that he was setting up, waiting to take a picture of her.

  Mostly the photo sessions took place in her mum’s bedroom. It was easier to get the camera set up in there and simpler to move her furniture round. Sometimes the sessions took a long time.

  Jennifer frowned at the memory. An uncomfortable feeling dragged at her throat. She put her mother’s picture aside and looked at the exercise in the book in front of her. Capital letters for place names, days of the week, months of the year. All she had to do was copy out the sentences and put the capital letters in where they should be. They went at the beginning of a sentence, everyone knew that. She copied the words out in her neatest handwriting.

  On Thursday John and Sarah went to Buckingham Palace.

  Her mother had to role play in these photographs. She had to dress up. Jennifer hadn’t liked the way she looked. She’d seen her in a scho
olgirl outfit and there were things in her bedroom that Mr Cottis must have brought; a globe, a ruler, some books. Her mother had always had to dress up in order to be a model but before it had been smart clothes in a catalogue that lots of people could look at. The photos with Mr Cottis didn’t seem like that. They seemed like the kind of photos only a few people would see. Jennifer thought of Lucy Bussell’s brothers, Stevie and Joe, and the picture she had found in their den up at Berwick Waters. Jennifer had gasped to see her mother like that. Michelle had seen it too. She had called it gross.

  Soon after that Jennifer had hit her. Not once but twice.

  Jennifer shrank back away from the exercise book. She put the pen down and folded her arms across her chest. She found herself rocking, remembering the day at Berwick Waters. How long ago was it? Eight weeks? Ten weeks? She had lost track of time. Here in this room she had watched day after day slip by. Sometimes her mother came to see her, more often she did not. Alma came regularly on Fridays. The women were always around, Jan or Laura; sometimes others. She could read, go out into the play area. She had a television and there were board games to play. There were others in the Facility, she could hear them but not see them, not close up. She wondered if they were alone, like her.

  She wondered if they had ever seen such photos of their own mothers.

  Her mother liked Mr Cottis. He was her agent and would eventually get her better work and she might end up in magazines modelling the latest fashions. And there had been lots of money after Mr Cottis’s visits. Her mother pointed out a box in the bottom of her wardrobe and Jennifer first saw the pink fifty-pound notes, quite a few. Her mother bought things and gave Jennifer money and it seemed OK for a while. But then Mr Cottis’s van would pull up outside their door. He would bring his camera into their house once more and Jennifer would feel anxious, her feet refusing to stay still, as if she was in someone else’s house and should get out as quickly as possible.

  Jennifer unfolded her arms. It made her feel cold. She stepped across to the bed and pulled her duvet off. She put it round her shoulders and stared hard at the English textbook. Capital letters are used for proper names; street names, names of towns and cities and countries. She tried to focus on the exercise in front of her. In the distance she could hear a train passing and she let her mind go along with it. She imagined the engine slipping through the countryside on its way somewhere, maybe taking people on holiday or on a trip to see their family or friends.

  She picked up the pen and wrote, taking her time with each word.

  John Morris was going on holiday to Switzerland. He was catching a plane in London. On his suitcase were labels of places he had been; Paris, Milan, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

  Then one day Mr Cottis had wanted Jennifer to pose in a photo.

  Her mother had seemed strange about it. It’s a family shot, she’d said. I’ll be there all the time. It’ll be over quickly. He’s really keen. It’s for a magazine article he’s working on. He might want you to dress up.

  There was a bag of dressing-up clothes for her. A school uniform just like the one she had seen her mother wearing after one of the sessions. It wasn’t like her school uniform. She had a sweatshirt with the name of her school on it and she wore trousers or sometimes a skirt. This school uniform was old-fashioned. She didn’t like it. Not one bit. She didn’t want to do it. She told her mum that.

  But her mother was curt in her reply. She had to do it, otherwise Mr Cottis would find someone else to be an agent for. Jennifer was lucky, her mother seemed to imply – maybe it was the first step for Jennifer on a career just like her mother’s. A modelling career. But Jennifer hadn’t wanted that so she went out with Michelle and Lucy up to Berwick Waters and she stayed away from the house when Mr Cottis was supposed to come.

  She avoided dressing up and staring at his camera. She saved herself.

  But she killed Michelle.

  Slaughter. Slaughter.

  The duvet was slipping off her shoulder and she pulled at the corners to hold it in place. The door opened then and Laura came in. She had a smile on her face like she usually did and she looked down at the exercise book.

  “Oh!” she said. “You haven’t got very far. Do you not know about capital letters? Would you like me to explain to you?”

  She shook her head. She did know about capital letters, of course she did. Laura put a hand on her shoulder and she shook it off.

  “Are you all right?” Laura said, looking dismayed.

  She shook her head. She threw off the duvet. She grabbed up the exercise book and began to tear at the pages, pulling the one she had written on out, letting it float to the floor then using two hands she tried to pull the book apart and tear it in half but it was too strong so she shredded the pages, tearing strip after strip off. Laura backed away as she did this. She left the room and Jennifer flung the book and the textbook into the far corner of her room and sat on the floor with her duvet round her shoulders, covering her chin.

  She sat like that until she heard footsteps coming along the corridor, more than one person. They came into her room and she covered her head with the duvet.

  The weeks slipped by and it was darker for longer in the morning. The afternoons got shorter as the light faded behind the bubble glass. Jennifer was allowed to watch television earlier and she was given a cassette player and tapes of music to listen to. She didn’t see Alma so often. Her mother was busy at work and came every other week although she rang her more often.

  The trial was due to take place in October but that changed. Then it was November but it was postponed. Jennifer saw doctors and counsellors. She spent time doing personality tests. Laura went to work with some other children so she had a new tutor, Joanne. Joanne taught her some French and Latin. She helped her make a magazine full of stories and quizzes and pictures that she drew or cut out of old glossy magazines. She showed her how to string the beads of her jewellery set so that she could make a necklace. She made a felt brooch for Alma in the shape of a sunflower. Sometimes Joanne sang songs as they worked. Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines! Ding, dang, dong…

  The final date for the trial was early December, Alma told her. It’ll be out of the way for Christmas. Best for everyone. Jennifer wondered who the everyone was; Mr and Mrs Livingstone? Alma? Her mother? Her?

  Her mother came regularly then. In the weeks before she had to go and see the judge again she saw her twice a week. Each time she looked a little different. The make-up increased, her hair was shaped and glossy-looking, her clothes were tighter and more modern. On the last day before seeing the judge she came in skinny jeans and high boots and a short leather jacket. Alma was there talking things through with her. Alma frowned when her mother walked in.

  “I hope you’re not intending to wear that sort of thing in the courtroom, Miss Jones?”

  “Don’t worry. I know how to dress for the courtroom.”

  When Alma left her mother rolled her eyes. “Stuck-up cow!”

  Her mother talked about her job and her flat and Georgie Miller who, it turned out, was in the middle of a divorce and was spending a lot of time with her.

  “Georgie’s not a bad bloke. A bit old but kind. I think you’d like him.”

  She began to move around in her chair, crossing her legs then uncrossing them as if she couldn’t get comfortable. There was an uneasy silence. As if they’d run out of things to say.

  “I haven’t seen Gran for a while.”

  “No, she’s been busy.”

  “Is she in Portugal?” Jennifer said, remembering the holiday she was going to go on with her friend from the bingo.

  “No, no. Fact is she and I are not on speaking terms. She is such a cow! You know what she said? She said it was me who broke up Georgie’s marriage. That’s just not true. Georgie and his wife hadn’t slept together for eight years. But that’s your gran. She knows best. She always thinks that she’s right.”

  Her mot
her’s mouth had twisted up..

  “She’s just so critical, Jen. You’re so pathetic, Carol. You got no brains, Carol. You’re such a dope!”

  Jennifer frowned. She didn’t like to think of her gran being horrible to her mum.

  “And she goes on about how I haven’t been strict enough with you and I don’t know, maybe she’s right. Maybe if I had this other stuff wouldn’t have happened. This hitting Michelle. I just don’t know why you did it. I don’t have a clue. What made you? I just don’t understand, you’re such a quiet thing. Too quiet, your gran said. You’re such a little girl and yet you’ve done this…”

  “I don’t know, Mum, I just don’t know…”

  Her mother looked down at the table for a few moments. She used a finger to wipe the corner of each eye. Then her hand dropped onto the leather jacket and she stroked it.

  “Georgie bought this for me. He says it makes me look like Kate Moss.”

  “It’s nice. It suits you,” Jennifer said.

  “I might have some pictures taken in it.”

  Jennifer nodded. It would make a good shot. Her mum would look glamorous in it.

  “Well, this is it, Jen,” her mother said, as if pulling herself together, as if she’d just remembered she had somewhere important to be. “I don’t want you to be nervous tomorrow. There’s a lot of people looking out for you, including me.”

  Jennifer nodded, a lump in her throat.

  “You’re going to be all right.”

  Her mother leaned across and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then she stood up and turned to go. She took a step or two but came back, looking uncertain. She sat in the seat again and peered around as if making sure no one was watching.

  “Jen, whatever you do, in this trial, whatever you do don’t…”

  “It’s all right, Mum. I won’t mention the photographs.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”