She helped Jennifer put on her pyjamas. ‘Do you want Daddy to tuck you in?’
‘No. I want you.’
Susan felt proud. Apart from Uncle George she was the only person allowed to do so. As she listened to Jennifer’s prayers she had an image of herself at the same age, praying for a brother or sister of her own. Though her parents had never provided her with one her prayer had still been answered in the form of this motherless child, who was as precious to her as any sibling would have been.
Jennifer climbed into bed. Susan smoothed the blankets down. ‘Shall I sing to you?’
‘Yes.’
So she did. ‘Speed Bonnie Boat’, keeping her voice soft and soothing. One of Jennifer’s arms was wrapped around Smudge. The other lay across the bedspread. Gently Susan covered the tiny hand with her own, feeling a wave of protective love sweep over her. In all the chaos and confusion of her life, Jennifer was the one perfect thing. Someone who made her feel that, in spite of all the badness inside her, there was perhaps just a little good too.
She sang until Jennifer was asleep. After kissing her on the cheek she crept from the room, leaving the door ajar so that the light from the landing and the sounds of music and typing would be a comfort should she wake.
December. Two days after the funeral of his sister, Henry Norris sat with a friend in a Kendleton pub sharing a companionable silence over a pint of beer.
‘Thank you,’ he said eventually.
‘What for?’
‘For not feeling the need to say how sorry you are. It’s all I’ve heard recently, as if what happened to Agnes was somehow unjust.’
‘People are sad, Henry. She was much loved.’
‘I know and it was sad. But it wasn’t unjust. She was sixty. She’d had a longer life than many and a happier one too. Far happier.’ He sighed. ‘A few months ago a man brought his daughter to my surgery. Only a child but she had the clap. He told me some story about a boy at a party but I knew he was the one who’d given it to her. She told me the same story herself while watching me with these suspicious eyes as if I was the one hurting her. Poor kid. Frightened and mistrustful of everyone. What sort of life is she going to have?’
‘Perhaps a happy one. You never know. Things can change. They can get better.’
‘I hope so. Such a beautiful kid too. Looks like a film star.’ Henry laughed softly. ‘Not something people would have said about Agnes. But she wouldn’t have minded. Like I said, she had a happy life …’
March 1960.
Alice Wetherby hated Susan Ramsey.
There was no one else she hated. Not really. When her parents denied her something she would say she hated them. But she didn’t mean it. And anyway, it happened so rarely. She was lucky in that.
But she was lucky in most things. Her mother was always telling her so, and when she could control her irritation she would see that it was true. Her family was one of the wealthiest in the town and she lived in one of the loveliest houses. She was clever and could shine in class. She was confident and outgoing and had always attracted a circle of adoring friends. ‘But that’s Alice,’ her father would boast. ‘A light around which moths flutter. Edward is the same.’ Though Alice took major issue with her brother’s claims to luminosity, of hers she had no doubt whatsoever.
And she was pretty. Exceptionally so. From an early age she had understood the power her appearance gave her. And now, as she grew older, its power grew too.
She was standing outside the school gates with Kate Christie. Boys and girls, on foot or on bicycles but all in the same blue-and-black uniform, approached from either direction on the tree-lined lane. A group of boys gathered outside the gates opposite, standing with hands in pockets, affecting indifference or doing stunts on their bicycles, all for the benefit of girls like Alice, who masked their own interest with outward disdain.
She watched Martin Phillips perform wheelies. Sixteen, handsome and a friend of her brother’s, he winked at her then rode in circles with his hands in the air. She smiled triumphantly at Sophie Jones, who pretended not to notice. Sophie was smitten with Martin.
Fiona Giles, a horse-faced prefect, strode past. Kate made a neighing sound and Alice choked back laughter. Martin grinned, his lips red and full. She wondered what it would be like to kiss them. She had never properly kissed a boy, let alone done anything more intimate. When her crimson-cheeked mother had explained the mechanics of sex she had been revolted. An older female cousin had told her that the idea would grow more appealing but two years down the line it still left her feeling sick.
But it didn’t matter. In fact it was a blessing. ‘Your reputation is precious,’ warned her mother. ‘Never do anything to damage it because you can never win it back once it’s lost.’
‘Boys are all the same,’ her cousin explained. ‘They want what they can’t have. Keep them believing that one day they’ll get it and they’re yours to command. Flatter and flirt. Hold hands. The occasional peck on the cheek. But that’s all. It works for me. It’ll work for you.’
And it did. Increasingly boys vied for her attention and competed for her smiles. She would giggle about them with her friends, revelling in her sense of power while a tiny part of her longed for one boy who would be her slave without longing for physical intimacy too.
Girls walked through the gates talking about the previous night’s television, their latest pop star crushes or unfinished homework. Mousy Charlotte Harris scurried past. ‘Boo!’ yelled Alice, making Charlotte jump and Kate laugh while Martin rose up on his bicycle seat like a peacock performing just for her.
Then he stopped. His attention suddenly stolen by another.
Susan Ramsey approached. She walked quickly, her motions jerky yet strangely graceful. The drab uniform that turned other girls into black beetles had been casually thrown on yet looked as if it had been designed especially for her. Her hair was untidy, her face strained and tired, but in the cold morning light she still shone.
Martin began to circle her, trying to attract her gaze while other boys straightened their backs as if standing to attention. Susan ignored them all, staring straight ahead with a preoccupied expression on her face.
‘Ever tried using a comb?’ asked Kate sarcastically.
‘Ever tried thinking before you speak?’ retorted Susan without bothering to stop.
The bell for morning assembly began to ring. As Alice started up the school path she looked back. Martin was still on his bicycle. She waved but he stared straight through her as if she were invisible. Her own light extinguished by one that glowed infinitely brighter.
Susan walked ahead, her stride still quick. Alice followed more slowly, hatred swelling inside her like a tumour. There was nothing she could do about it. Not yet. But she would bide her time. Wait for an opportunity.
And when it came she would strike.
May.
It was nearly midnight. Susan lay in bed, watching the glow of the landing light creep under the door-frame.
Her stepfather was in his study. She could hear the creaking of his chair. Having spent so many nights listening for it, she could tell what each sound meant. The groan of the springs as he leant back and stretched. The rustling of fabric as he made himself more comfortable. Finally the sigh of the cushion as he rose to his feet.
Once it would have made her heart beat faster. But not now.
It was three months since his last visit. A stormy night in February just after her fourteenth birthday. He had sat on the bed while she had lain naked, feeling his clammy hand caressing her throat then moving over her breasts. A fat, five-legged spider crawling across her belly and on towards the soft down that grew between her legs while she had listened to the wind and rain and imagined that she was walking by the river, playing with Jennifer, anywhere but in that room.
Eventually he had sighed, his eyes dull and cold. In the preceding months she had felt a diminishment in the heat he brought. Now the last drop of warmth was gone.
H
e rose to his feet. ‘Cover yourself. Don’t lie there like that. It’s wrong.’
‘You told me to.’
‘Only because you make me. It’s your fault. Not mine.’
She had done as instructed while he had stood watching, his expression suddenly reproachful. ‘You’re so clever. A masterpiece of deceit. You fool everyone but me. They think you’re good but you’re not. They think you’re beautiful but you’re not that either. You were once. Now you’re as plain and ordinary as everyone else.’
‘You’re still my friend, aren’t you? You won’t tell anyone?’
A sigh. The look of reproach remained. ‘No, I won’t tell.’
He had left the room, leaving her knowing instinctively that their strange and frightening ritual had been played out for the last time.
It should have been better after that. Her sleep, disrupted for so many years, should have been easier.
But it wasn’t. She was so conditioned to listening for him that it was impossible to stop. She would lie awake for hours, feeling as if the room were spinning, clinging on to her bed for fear she would drift off into the sky. And when sleep finally came it brought dreams of a world where everyone ran while she stood still, screamed when she longed for peace, laughed when she wanted to cry. A world that made no sense and in which her place was at best uncertain.
Why had he stopped coming? She had tried to ask him but he had become angry and told her that she was never to mention it again, leaving her to struggle with questions that buzzed in her brain like angry wasps.
Did he no longer see the wickedness in her? Was she no longer wicked? Was she beyond redemption?
Perhaps you were never wicked at all.
The voice came from somewhere outside herself. Like the whisperings of a ghost, hanging in the air as fragile as a snowflake that would dissolve at the slightest touch.
The landing light went out. She heard his footsteps on the stairs, making for his own bedroom, leaving her alone to the spinning and the dreams.
Her father’s picture stood on her bedside table. She imagined him standing beside her. But when she reached out to touch him he dissolved like a snowflake too.
A wet Saturday in July, one week after the start of the summer holidays. She sat by the window in the old reading room of Kendleton Library.
The library was in Market Court. The reading room, situated on a floor above the main library, was rarely used. It contained a few shelves full of redundant periodicals, a table and three chairs. Nothing else. The window that looked down on to the steps of the Town Hall was largely concealed by the eaves of the roof, enabling Susan to watch without being seen. A local businessman was presenting the mayor with a cheque to help repair the church roof. A crowd had gathered, sheltering beneath umbrellas as local journalists took photographs and the mayor, a pompous friend of Susan’s stepfather, beamed like a Cheshire cat.
‘Hello.’
A boy stood in the doorway, a pile of books under his arm. About seventeen with light brown hair. She recognized him from school.
‘I was going to work here,’ he said nervously. ‘It’s quieter than downstairs.’
She turned back towards the window, looking for a letup in the rain. When it stopped she would take Jennifer to play on the swings. The mayor was making a speech; as long-winded and boring as his dinner conversation.
The boy spread books across the desk, reading from each in turn while making notes on a pad.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked eventually.
‘Research for an essay competition. Five thousand words on the causes of the English Civil War.’
‘What were they?’
‘I don’t know. Hence the research.’ He smiled; a gesture that transformed a pleasant face into an attractive one. ‘You’re Susan Ramsey, aren’t you?’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘Everyone knows about you.’
She felt alarmed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The most beautiful girl in school.’
‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re in Alice Wetherby’s class, aren’t you? Her brother’s in mine.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘He’s all right. What about Alice?’
She grimaced.
‘Really?’
‘I can’t stand her.’
‘Actually I can’t stand him either.’
They exchanged smiles. Conspiratorial. Confiding. Comfortable.
‘Do you know who you look like?’ he asked.
‘Elizabeth Taylor. That’s what people say.’
‘They’re right. Do you know who people say I look like?’
‘Who?’
‘My gran.’
She laughed. It was the sort of joke her father would have made. He looked a bit like her father.
‘Why are you here on a Saturday?’ he asked.
‘Because it’s raining.’ And because it was better than being at home. But she didn’t want to say that. ‘What about you?’
‘Because it’s quiet. My father’s at home and he can be noisy.’
‘What about your mother?’
‘She died last year.’
She felt embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry … um …’
‘Paul. Paul Benson.’
‘I’m sorry, Paul. My dad died when I was seven. It’s the worst thing that can happen, losing someone you love.’
‘I think about her all the time. Silly, isn’t it?’
‘Why?’
‘Because it won’t bring her back.’
Silence. He resumed his work. Outside, the rain was slowing while the mayor still spoke to an audience of glazed faces. Mrs Pembroke’s son, the disfigured man whom her stepfather had nicknamed Scarface, stood in the crowd whispering to the companion who was supposed to be a gold-digger. She had a nice smile, just like Paul.
Suddenly Susan thought of a way to make him smile again.
‘Come here,’ she said.
He did. She opened the window, shouted ‘Boring!’ then shut it again. The mayor, startled, lost his place while his audience, sensing escape, began to clap.
‘I’d better go,’ she said when they had finished laughing. ‘Stop distracting you.’
‘’Bye, then.’
‘’Bye.’
As she reached the door he called her name. She turned back.
‘I’ll be here on Monday in case you want to distract me some more.’
‘Maybe. If the weather’s bad.’
Monday was a lovely day. The first since the holidays began.
But she did go back.
*
A beautiful August evening. Susan entered her house.
Her mother and stepfather sat together in the living room; her mother mending a torn blouse while Uncle Andrew nursed a glass of whisky. Classical music played on the wireless.
‘Where have you been?’ he demanded.
‘Just for a walk.’
‘You said you’d only be half an hour. You’ve been nearly two.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t realize.’ She smiled to mask the lie.
‘What were you doing all that time?’
‘Just looking about. The countryside is lovely at the moment.’
And it was. Paul had said the same as they had walked together.
Uncle Andrew’s face darkened. ‘You should be in your room studying. I’m not paying a fortune in school fees for you to come bottom in everything.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘As good as.’
For years her school performance had been poor. Too little sleep playing havoc with her ability to concentrate. In the past he had taken a relaxed approach to her academic failings but in recent months his attitude had hardened.
‘Susan does her best,’ her mother interjected.
‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’
‘I just meant …’
‘It’s your job to keep her in line. That’s not asking too much, is it, even of
you? After all, it’s not as if you have anything else to do except sit around all day.’
Susan felt uncomfortable. Uncle Andrew’s manner towards her mother had always been patronizing but recently the apparent benevolence had been replaced by contempt. She didn’t like it. But there was nothing she could do.
‘It’s not Mum’s fault,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m the one you should be angry with.’
‘I am angry with you.’ He downed his drink then poured another. His alcohol consumption was increasing. Yet another change. Paul’s father had also been drinking more recently, though he had always had a taste for the bottle. Paul had told her that.
He had told her a lot of things. That sometimes he still cried for his mother and that his father despised him for it. That his father was always taunting him for liking music and literature while not being much of an athlete. For not being enough of a man. His classmates taunted him too. Idiots like Edward Wetherby and Martin Phillips, who laughed and blew kisses at him while he would pretend not to notice, and she would long to hit them and knock the smirks off their faces.
She had told him things too. Her memories of her father. The nightmare of her mother’s breakdown. There were other nightmares but she kept those secret.
‘Go to bed,’ Uncle Andrew told her.
She kissed him goodnight. His cheek was hot and damp. She hated the feel of his skin.
As she climbed the stairs he continued to lecture her mother, his tone as contemptuous as before.
Early September. Three days before the start of the new term. She walked along the riverbank with Paul.
It was a beautiful late summer afternoon. Ducks glided alongside them, calling for food. They walked past Kendleton Lock towards the bridge that led to the village of Bexley. Mrs Pembroke’s son approached, listening to the gold-digger companion describe the shape of clouds. He gave them a smile then turned his damaged face away.
Past the bridge the path became overgrown. Few people came to this stretch of river, but she had always loved it. Her father had brought her here, carrying her on his shoulders, pointing out birds and plants, teaching her to enjoy the nature around them as much as he did.
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