With trepidation and shaking fingers she opened the envelope as though it were a long-lost fragile treasure from Tutankhamun’s tomb.
The envelope held one piece of paper containing nothing more than an address.
13
Kit
The small table that rested halfway between the kitchen and living room looked good. She looked good. Now all she needed was Mark to appreciate the candles, napkins, tablecloth and flowers that sat waiting for him.
Huge steaks sizzled with mushrooms on her two-hob cooker. Black scorched grid marks were visible on the meat, just as he liked it. A crisp green salad waited in the fridge and a sexy black camisole beneath her jeans and sweater signalled she was ready. The luxurious material felt good against skin already sensitive from a red-hot shower. Its teasing delicacy promised idly what the night would bring.
She enjoyed making an effort for him. Because of his job she didn’t get to see him as much as she’d like: there was always someone, somewhere in need of his services. She didn’t mind, she’d been there – she just wished that sometimes he would be a little more selfish with his time. So nights like tonight were rare. Nights where they planned to stay in together with food, music, conversation and hopefully more.
Kit craned her neck to look at the kitchen clock: Mark was ten minutes late. She was already anxious to see him. He’d said he had something important to tell her tonight. She had banished the feelings of foreboding that had immediately sprung to her heart; she had to learn to trust him.
She loved him; she knew that. He didn’t, of course – she hadn’t yet had the courage to tell him. At first she’d fought against it, terrified her defences had lost some of their power before she realised that it was too late.
The peace that now lived in her was welcome. She felt like a woman with a secret. Romantic songs on the radio were now meant just for her. The poignant words had taken on new meaning and finally made sense to her. At one time they were ridiculous lyrics lamenting emotions that didn’t exist in the real world, now they were her own feelings set to haunting melodies.
She’d noticed a new tolerance within herself, a little more patience. The concept of love was no longer a joke, a notion invented by writers and directors living in another world. It was real and it felt good. And for the first time in months she had woken without the longing for a drink.
She realised that the idiotic, cheek-numbing smile was fixed to her face again. She physically forced her features to rearrange in an expression more fitting to a person with all their faculties just as his soft tapping sounded at the door.
‘Umm nice,’ she said of his new shorter haircut. He looked more rugged, the dark blond curls gone to reveal more of his face. A light stubble that looked fashionable but was due to a busy schedule emphasised dark circles under his eyes.
She guided him to the table. ‘Here is the main course,’ she said with a wild, playful glint in her eye as she placed his hand underneath her sweater. ‘And this is dessert.’
He groaned. ‘When I was a kid it was really weird because we always had dessert first.’
‘Liar,’ she teased, snaking her arms around his neck, enjoying the sensation of being totally vulnerable to his wandering hands. ‘Enough,’ she cried teasingly. ‘It’s hot enough in here already!’
They talked about work while they ate. Kit knew there was no point trying to press him – Mark did things in his own time.
Once they’d finished he guided her to the sofa where he sat contemplating as if choosing his words with care. The heat from the hot coffee did nothing to stem the cool trepidation that began to penetrate her skin. She tried desperately to think positive thoughts, and failed. A familiar panic churned with the steak she’d just eaten.
‘They’re closing the hostel, Kit,’ he said quietly.
She sat back in shock. ‘Can they just do that?’
He nodded. ‘To use my boss Roy’s words, “There is surplus care in the Birmingham area.” Can you fucking believe that?’ He rose to his feet and paced the small room agitatedly. His shoulders appeared tense, ready to explode from beneath the blue open-necked shirt. ‘Surplus care, where for God’s sake? If there was surplus care there’d be no fucking waiting lists!’
Kit had never seen him like this. He was always so calm and together.
‘What about Mandy and the others?’ Kit asked of the current occupants.
‘Here’s another good word: “re-distribution”. That’s what Roy called it. I call it uprooting people from a place where they’ve just begun to feel safe. They don’t need this at the moment, Kit.’
‘I know, Mark,’ she said in a voice that assured him that she did understand. ‘How long?’
‘Two months before they put the property on the market.’
‘What about you?’ she asked softly.
He took a deep breath as he sat beside her. ‘I’ve been approached by Leeds County Council. They’re starting a two-year project aimed at reducing the increasing numbers of teenage prostitutes on the street.’
Kit heard the words but they didn’t sink in. She knew only that Leeds wasn’t a bus ride away. She tried to remain calm. ‘Is it what you want?’ Silently she prayed he would say no.
He raised his head and stared into her eyes. ‘Yes, it’s what I want.’
‘So, you’re going.’ It was a statement not a question. She removed her hand from his. Her mind became busy collecting the bricks and mortar for a new wall.
He nodded.
‘When did you know?’
‘A few weeks…’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’ she cried, angered by his deceit. The first course of bricks was laid. ‘You’ve known that long and you let me think we had a future?’
‘We do have a future. I want you to come with me.’
She stared at him aghast. ‘And do what, Mark? I’m lucky to have the job I’ve got. Look at me! For the first time in my life I have things that are mine. And now all of a sudden you want me to throw it all away to sit in a strange place, with people I don’t know, reliant on you. No, forget it, Mark! I was right, we have no future.’
Kit’s rage increased. He was threatening her safe little existence. She had just started to feel normal – her own flat, a job, self-respect. Now he wanted to take it all away.
‘Kit, listen to me…’ His voice commanded her attention. ‘We’d be going as a team, that’s the whole point. They want you to go with me to help run the project. They were going to advertise but I suggested you and they agreed on a trial basis. They want someone who knows about life on the street, someone who can reach out to these girls honestly, not some fresh-faced social worker who wouldn’t know a pimp if he walked up and introduced himself.’
Kit stood up and towered above him. Each word was a separate knife. ‘I can’t believe you’re actually serious about this.’
‘No one understands what those girls are going through more than you, Kit. Don’t you want to do something useful with your life? Can you think of anything better than using your past to help young girls who should be at home worrying about spot creams and conditioners?’
‘No… No… NO!’ she repeated, with growing emphasis.
Mark stood and pulled her to him. Numbed by his words she had no control. It had to be a joke.
‘Kit, we could do this, imagine—’
‘Stop,’ she commanded, turning hurt eyes upwards towards his, animated with hope. Her voice was little more than a tortured whisper. ‘I spent years being used by pimps, beaten by punters and robbed by just about everyone. I lost everything in that time, even things that cannot physically be lost. I feel for those girls, Mark, more than you can ever imagine, but what about me? I can’t believe that you of all people would be prepared to thrust me back into a world that I am still trying desperately to forget.’
‘It’s your past, Kit. It will always be part of you. It’s made you the person you are now,’ he whispered truthfully.
‘I can still feel the f
ilth in my pores. I smell those men all around me. I’ve left it now, I can’t go back, and I hate you for thinking I could!’ she cried. ‘For the first time ever this morning I woke up not needing…’ Her words trailed off. She wouldn’t tell him, couldn’t tell him. It revealed too much.
‘But what we have, Kit, it’s special. Don’t dismiss it that easily.’
She had an overpowering urge to hurt him, like he was hurting her. ‘Do you think so, Mark?’ She saw anger flash through his eyes. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. I thought we were just having fun.’
‘I know you feel more—’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Mark, we had good sex, and that’s all. I needed practice and thought you would be fun. But guess what, this just isn’t fun any more.’ The words were slapping him across the face one by one. They were leaving exit wounds as they shot from her mouth.
‘Kit, don’t say things you don’t—’
‘Why do you think I don’t mean what I say? We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks. It’s nothing, Mark, not even a relationship. We hardly know each other.’ Kit knew they had always known each other but the toothache in her heart needed anaesthetic. She wanted to punish him for his promises, for the security that she’d believed could be hers.
The tears wanted to come, but her strong will forbade them. ‘I don’t think you’ve done too badly, Mark. All the sex you could handle for three cheap meals. You had a bargain.’
Her taunts were leaving their trail across his face. He stood and faced her. ‘I don’t believe the words, Kit, no matter what you say. We both know we had more than that, but the fact that you can say those things confirms to me that it’s over.’
The hurt in his eyes choked her. She wanted him to hold her, she wanted to say sorry, but the brick wall was about chest high and she couldn’t find a way over it.
Mark looked at her once, with sadness, before he left.
Hot bitter tears of betrayal scalded Kit’s cheeks as they fell. She made no effort to stop them, finding a masochistic comfort in the slow agony she knew would eventually kill her. She would continue to re-build the wall, only this time it would be thicker and stronger. It would keep her emotions in and the interlopers out. In a few months the barrier it had taken years to perfect had been broken down by Mark. She’d been weak and pathetic to allow him to crawl through the brickwork. It would not happen again.
The dinner plates on the table reminded her of the night she’d planned, the effort she’d offered so easily, the hopes she’d had before he arrived. Everything was still new to her: Mark was her first boyfriend, her first lover. She’d let herself act like a girl of sixteen and now it hurt.
She swept her arm across the dinner table, which seemed to be mocking her, and watched as everything fell to the ground. Plates smashed, cups cracked and cutlery bounced. Her legs buckled beneath her and she fell amongst the rubble. Where was the happy ending? Where was the pleasant semi and kids? That picture had once formed in her mind and remained there.
His scarf, forgotten in anger, lay folded next to the cooker. She rubbed the warm, soft length of fabric against her cheek, breathing in the aroma of him, which lingered in the fibres.
The tears stopped, suddenly. This would not happen again. During her years on the streets she had thought that nothing good in her would ever survive. The bitterness had burnt deep, scorching every inch of loving tissue. But from somewhere she’d found a morsel of living flesh on which she had built. Just one tiny part of the heart undamaged by her past and she’d used it. She’d cherished, nurtured and offered it to the first willing male who had come along.
She began to collect the scattered remains of their romantic dinner. The cuts caused by the jagged edges were unimportant. It would not happen again.
The phone on Kit’s desk rang, startling her. She’d thought it was an ornament.
‘Hello,’ she said tentatively. She hadn’t even known it was connected.
‘You’re in, I’ll come down,’ said Tyler.
The phone clicked in her ear. No greeting, no formalities.
He entered the office with a cheerful grin. ‘Well, did you pass?’ he asked of her IT exam the previous evening. It was a short course for which the company had paid.
‘I’ll know next week but I think so.’
‘Great. Any more courses you’re interested in? If they’re beneficial the company will definitely pay,’ he offered magnanimously as though he’d be paying for them personally.
‘Rocket science would be good, then I could apply for a ten per cent wage increase.’
‘I don’t really think—’
‘Joke, Tyler,’ she stated. Christ, did no one appreciate the gift of sarcasm any more?
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, if you think of any, let me know.’
‘I think I’ll leave it for a while. Maybe next year. But before you go, I have had another idea,’ she offered. In an effort not to think about Mark, Kit had been working longer hours for no extra pay. The engineers had labelled her the company cat and jokingly left saucers of milk on her desk. She let her mind busy itself with ideas for improvements. Ways in which she could actually make a difference. The inputting of the sheets did not challenge her mentally and often her mind wandered further than the stock numbers she typed. Her office was the only place that didn’t remind her of Mark. No matter how many times she changed the sheets, washed the cushions or rearranged the small rooms, she could still smell him; still hear him.
Tyler coughed as he leaned against the door frame with his arms folded in a ‘okay, let’s hear it’ stance.
Kit described an incident two days earlier when she’d been listening to the engineers moan about the call-outs they had to attend. She understood that they took it in turns to be on call. Jack had stated that most of the time the call-outs were electrical problems and that as a plumber he couldn’t fix them so he had to call someone else in anyway.
‘Why are you moaning, you get overtime, don’t you?’ she’d asked.
‘Overtime is one thing, an ear-bashing from my missus when we’re out is another. We can’t drink the week we’re on call and have to arrange a lift if we’re called out other weeks.’
Kit had given it some thought and had a suggestion for Tyler.
‘If you got the engineers to share some of their skills with each other there would only be a need for the on-call engineer to attend. After listening to the engineers, I’ve drawn up a list of some of the skills that could be shared.’
Tyler rubbed his chin and tried to pick holes in her argument. ‘What about more serious problems like distribution board failure?’
Kit had no idea what that was. ‘It won’t work for every situation, just the little things…’ She grabbed a yellow Post-it note with scribbles on. ‘…Out of the ten most common faults, seven could be remedied by any of the engineers if they were just shown how.’
He glanced at the list and nodded. ‘Leave it with me. Anyway, more importantly, how about a meal tonight to celebrate your victory?’
‘My what?’
‘Passing your exam.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘And I do owe you a meal.’
Kit leaned back in her chair. The thought appealed to her. It had been a month since her split with Mark and she’d spent every night alone with her books. She loved reading but it was beginning to pall in the absence of conversation. And no matter how many times she pleaded for the phone to ring, it wasn’t going to.
Tyler was pleasant company and no threat to her safe little existence. He was good-looking, she had to admit, in a polished, groomed way. His dark brown hair was just a little too long, giving the impression that the impeccable suit he wore was almost a chore.
‘I’ll pick you up at eight,’ he said.
It would have been nice if he’d waited for an answer first but she nodded her agreement anyway.
Maybe it was time to put the ice cream back in the fridge and the tracksuit back in the wardrobe and stop grieving. After staring
at the wrappers of the junk food she’d recently been consuming she could recite the nutritional information of most of Cadbury’s products word for word: fat, sugar and kilojoules. She knew how many scratches lived on her coffee table and when she stared at them for long enough they began to join together and form pictures. She also knew how many times she could randomly switch the channels with her remote control in one minute.
She needed to get out.
How could it hurt to have dinner with Tyler? He couldn’t climb the barbed-wire fence. Nice enough, pleasant enough in a non-commanding way. He’d take her somewhere nice. She’d pretend he was someone else and her past wouldn’t exist. If asked about it, she would lie. With Tyler she would have a little fun. She felt no attraction to him sexually – those feelings were dead – so why not go along for the ride? There was nothing he could do to hurt her.
14
Fran
She no longer had it. She’d won the case, barely, not convincingly.
A question ran around her head like an ant on speed. Who had triumphed today? The police officer who, although the case was won, would never have the career for which he’d hoped. George Harris naively expected to return to work as if nothing had ever happened. She knew that in winning he felt vindicated for his actions. He’d even walked away convinced he’d never laid a finger on the lad. His sneering mouth had been contorted with righteous victory as he’d left the courtroom without so much as a glance at the boy who sat staring straight ahead as the court emptied, or at the mother whose tears had found their way under the rims of her thick glasses. Yes, Harris might be the victor today, she thought dismally, but surely, at some stage, he would have to face what he’d done.
The Forgotten Woman: A gripping, emotional rollercoaster read you’ll devour in one sitting Page 20