by Anne Cassidy
She nodded, her fingers combing the lion’s mane. It could have been six months, it could have been less.
“You were in care for a short time and spent weekends with your mother. Eventually you went back and lived with your mother. This was when you were eight?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Your mother and you then seemed to live at different addresses, a few months here and there. This was when your mother was with a couple of boyfriends.”
She changed her mind about the lion and replaced him. The monkey was much nicer. He had arms that she could move about.
“Then your mother found a more stable relationship in Norwich and you lived with her, until you were offered the house in Berwick?”
She looked up. Patricia Coffey had her glasses on, with the bits of string hanging down the sides. Her hair was heavy, hanging down each side of her face. She looked a bit like a horse.
“So, it’s reasonable to say you had a fairly unstable childhood?”
Jennifer nodded.
“But you were never abused? Hurt?”
She shook her head, her front teeth cutting into her lip. No, she was never actually abused. She cradled the monkey while Patricia Coffey carried on talking. Its fur was soft and its eyes glittered. It had tiny hands and feet like those of a baby.
“You could have that monkey if you like,” Patricia Coffey eventually said. “Take it back to your room.”
She half walked, half ran along the bright corridors, feeling the bounce from the carpet underneath her feet. The monkey was casually sandwiched under her arm as she went past a couple of other kids, sitting talking with each other. They looked up as she passed but their faces were closed off from her. She was notorious. She had killed her friend. Everybody knew.
In her room she put the monkey on her pillow and stood back to look.
She still wasn’t used to her surroundings. The walls were pink and grey, and so was the duvet. She had a chest of drawers and a desk as well as an armchair. It was plush, not what she had thought it was going to be like. The door was wide open; it had to be like that. At night it was closed but not locked. In the corner, like a bird on a perch, was a tiny CCTV camera.
It was all very comfortable, and yet she felt awkward, as if it were some sort of waiting room that she was in. Not a bedroom. The monkey had fallen forward so she moved him on to the chest of drawers. She sat him against the wall and watched as he tipped over to the side. He was too soft by far; that was why she couldn’t find the right place to put him.
She sat down heavily on the bed with the monkey on her lap, her fingers rubbing at its fur. The words unstable childhood went through her head and she pictured Patricia Coffey’s funny horse face.
Why was everyone so interested in her now? When it was too late to change anything? What was the point? The monkey’s eyes stared up at her and she had a sudden feeling of impatience with it. Stupid child’s toy! What did she want it for? She took its arm and flung it aside. Then she pulled the duvet around her and sat in the corner of the bed.
Alice ended up in the stockroom. It was quiet in the café and she was using the time to tidy up the wholesaler’s packs of coffee, tea, chocolate and biscotti. The room was tiny, barely enough space for two people to pass each other. She didn’t mind. She liked sorting out the stock, putting it in use by date order, checking through the boxes of paper cups and lids, plastic spoons, knives and forks. Counting up, matching stuff against the master list, seeing if anything was running low. It was all about organization. Without well stocked back-up the café might run out, and then where would they be. She stood back feeling satisfied. It was good to know that everything was in order.
Brushing the dust from her overall she felt the crinkle of the paper again. Finding some space she sat down cross-legged on the floor, took the newspaper picture out of her pocket and spread it out in front of her. Her mum’s face smiled again. A permanent home. Her mum believed it, she was sure.
How could she explain it to anyone? She hadn’t been hit, punched, locked away. She hadn’t had anyone screaming at her, ordering her about, insulting her. She’d just been sidelined, forgotten about. She’d been left with friends and family, the social services, complete strangers; finally when there was no one else she’d just been left on her own. That brilliant smile, that lipsticked mouth, the sparkling eyes, those were for her once, but as she grew up they had turned away and were gazing in a different direction. Jennifer had been an inconvenience, and whenever her mother had a new set of friends, a new boyfriend, a new modelling job, she simply cast her off.
She did it so beautifully, with promises and toys and kisses. And every time Jennifer believed her. This was the last time she would have to stay with gran or be in care or stay in with Perry. After this time it would all settle and there would just be her and her mum. Just the two of us.
But each time there was the choking hurt of it. The days when they’d been together were full of brightness and colour. But slowly, with a look, a phone call, an extra hour in the bathroom, Jennifer knew that things were changing. The days turned from colour to black and white, and she was alone again; the plastic smiles of another foster placement, or her gran’s weariness. Inside she felt each separation like a blast of cold. She couldn’t be angry. She just had to wait until one day the door would open and there her mother would be, resplendent in a matching outfit, her hair hanging wispily, her skin glowing, her mouth pouting with the need for forgiveness.
Except in Berwick it had been different. Then her mother hadn’t abandoned her. She had done something much worse. She had used her, and Jennifer had hated her for it.
Alice folded the picture up again and was about to replace it in her pocket when she suddenly thought, Why? Instead she screwed it up and tossed it into the bin, with all the empty packaging and foodstuffs that were past their sell-by date.
Later, just before she was due to go home, she was surprised to see the man in the leather jacket, the detective, Derek Corker, struggling in the door. He was carrying a laptop case as well as a rucksack, and he had a couple of newspapers under his arm. Pippa was about to serve him but Alice edged in.
“I’ll get this one,” she said. “You have a break.”
Derek Corker gave her a smile of recognition.
“We must stop meeting like this,” he said. “A large latte and a Danish to go.”
“To go?” she said.
“Yep, I’m moving on today. My investigation? That girl I told you about? It’s come to nothing.”
“Oh,” Alice said, a smile settling on her face. The newspapers looked ruffled as if he’d been reading them somewhere.
“I’ll still get paid, though. So it’s no skin off my nose.”
“Have a good trip,” she said, handing him his change.
“Sometimes people don’t want to be found,” he called.
She nodded, watching him as he struggled out of the café door and walked towards the station.
The flat smelled of rich spices. Alice inhaled the aroma all the way up the stairs, speeding towards the top, keen to see Rosie and tell her about the detective’s departure. When she threw open the kitchen door she saw Rosie seated at the table. Opposite her was Kathy, her mother. Both women were cradling cups of coffee.
“Hi, Kathy,” Alice said, grinning at the older woman, her heart racing.
“Hello, Alice love,” Kathy said.
“How are you?” Alice said, lightly, pulling a chair out, easing herself down on it.
“Never been better, sweetheart.”
It was her usual kind of answer. Kathy was a relentlessly cheerful woman who didn’t seem to have a bad word to say about anybody. Rosie adored her, phoning her almost every day, talking for ages and then going through the conversation again with Alice, keeping her up to date on her mum’s new clothes or hairstyles.
Kathy was very different to Rosie. She was smaller and thinner and dressed up every day as though she was always getting ready to have her p
hoto taken. She wore trouser suits from Marks and Spencer’s and her hair, a shocking red colour, was always neatly styled. Her skin was perpetually tanned from frequent holidays to an apartment in Majorca which she owned.
“My neighbour is going to the Maldives for her holiday!” Kathy said, looking faintly shocked. “It’s a long way to go to lie on a beach.”
“But it’s beautiful, Mum, I’d love to go there.”
“Honestly,” Kathy said, turning to Alice, pulling her into the conversation, “I’ve tried to get her to come to Majorca for the last five years. Will she come?”
“I’ll come,” Alice said.
She was only joining in the playful banter, but a strange light-headed feeling came over her because she suddenly thought, I could go! Why not?
“You come any time you like sweetheart,” Kathy said, picking up her coffee mug and peering into it. “Maybe you can persuade my Rose to come as well. Yuck, I’ve had enough of this coffee. I’ll be running to the loo all the way home.”
“I’ll drive you,” Rosie said, picking up the cups and taking them to the sink. “You’ll be OK on your own, won’t you Alice?”
Alice nodded, pushing down a tiny blip of disappointment. She had looked forward to having Rosie to herself. She had envisaged the two of them chatting about the newspaper story, about Derek Corker and his hope - less detective work. She was feeling pumped up with confidence. He’d stood next to her, talked to her on three occasions and yet he’d never once realized who she was.
And then, floating around the edges of her mind, was this idea that she might go with Kathy to Majorca. It had only been said as a joke, but why not? She so much wanted to talk to Rosie about it, to hear Rosie’s soothing words and feel that finally, after many months, things were going to be all right.
But Rosie’s car keys were rattling.
“I’m not an invalid,” Kathy was saying. “Tell her, Alice, that I’m capable of getting the bus!”
Alice shrugged her shoulders. “She likes taking you home,” she said, rolling her eyes as if she also was vexed with Rosie’s over-protective attitude towards her mother.
“I suppose so,” Kathy said, sighing, as though it was something she had to bear.
Alice leaned across and gave Kathy a kiss on her powdery cheek. She listened for a few moments as the two women disappeared down the stairs. She would have to be patient. She and Rosie had the whole evening to talk.
She walked into her bedroom, pulling her T-shirt off, intending to have a shower. Beside her bed, on the floor, was her carry-all bag, partly packed for the trip to Brighton to stay with Frankie. She’d pulled it out the previous weekend and chucked a couple of things into it but hadn’t got any further. Now it would be a rush, making sure that the clothes she wanted to take were washed and ironed. It didn’t matter. The main thing was that she was going. She sat on the bed and peeled her jeans off. Lying back, stretching her arms and legs, she thought of Frankie. He had rung her every day since he left. He missed her and loved her, he’d say and she’d felt mildly embarrassed at his words.
How lucky she was. She had Rosie, Frankie, a place at uni. She had a bag to pack and a trip to Brighton to look forward to. She was even thinking of going to Majorca to stay in Kathy’s apartment. How normal was that? Her new life fitted her comfortably, like a favourite chair that she could curl up in.
And yet the past was there. It always would be. You can’t change what happened, Patricia Coffey had said over and over. No matter how much you think of it or cry about it you can’t change a single second of it. The only thing you can change is the future.
I don’t deserve a future, she had said. I can’t go on and live my life normally when I took someone else’s life away. How can I do that?
You’ve got to. Otherwise two lives have been wasted. You have to go on now and make a good life for yourself, to make up for what you’ve done.
Is this what she meant by a good life? Alice wondered. Is this enough? To go to work every day? To have friends? To become educated? For what, in the end? To become a wife, a mother? Would it be better if she went abroad and worked among the hungry and the desperate? If she could prevent others from suffering and dying, would that make up for what she did six years before on Berwick Waters? Would it then be a life for a life?
Alice turned on her side pulling her knees up to her chest. Feeling her insides harden up, she closed her eyes and let the day come back into her head. In May it was, cold but sunny, and she had to keep shielding her eyes with her hand. The other two up ahead, chatting away to each other, their jumpers tied round their waists. Three of them out for a day’s adventure. On their way into the reservoir Michelle told Lucy to be careful of the cats. They hate people, she said, in her know-all voice. They blame people for flooding the land and drowning them. Don’t look straight at them because they might scratch your eyes out.
Alice reached out and pulled the corner of the duvet towards her. She was too warm by far but it didn’t matter. She let the feral cat creep into her thoughts. The memory of it uncurled in her head. Its face was bony, its skin stretched across its skull. On that day it had appeared from nowhere and sat on the ground staring heavily at her. She’d backed away, startled by its glare. It had seen everything and hadn’t flinched. Just raised its paw and started to clean itself, ignoring everything else, not even glancing over at the girl’s body on the ground.
She choked back a sob and pulled the duvet over her face. Three children who went out for an adventure. Only two came back. The knowledge of it would always drag her backwards in time. No matter how many years passed it would always be there, attached to her by some invisible thread. She tried to curl herself up into a ball, to cover herself completely with the stifling duvet. At times like this she wanted to disappear and no amount of hugs from Rosie or text messages from Frankie could change that.
She should have died on that day. Perhaps, in a way, she had.
Later, after a long cool shower, she put the ironing board up in the kitchen and started to sort out her clothes. She heard the front door open and waited for Rosie’s footsteps and for her to appear at the kitchen door, her face beaming with some story about her mum and then a hug for Alice. She would be deliberately upbeat, trying to take Alice’s mind off the newspapers and then she’d show Alice the meal she’d cooked, probably something special to make up for the rotten week they’d both had.
As Alice pressed the iron’s face on to the board she felt an aching inside her for Rosie’s presence. Where was she? Why was she taking so long to come up the stairs? Footsteps sounded then, but not just Rosie’s. Someone else was coming as well. Was it Kathy come back for some reason? Seconds later she heard voices. It was Sara from down stairs. She was immediately irritated. Why was Sara always hanging round? Waiting to talk to her or Rosie, coming up and sitting in the kitchen as though she owned the place.
“Look who I’ve brought back with me!” Rosie said, coming in through the kitchen door, her mouth in a sort of rictus smile that Sara couldn’t see from behind. Alice immediately softened. It wasn’t Rosie’s fault and Sara would probably be gone in a half an hour.
“Hi, Alice. I’m glad I’ve caught you. I wanted to chat to both of you.”
“Cup of tea?” Rosie said.
“No.”
Alice noticed something odd about Sara. She looked different. She was wearing a dark suit and not carrying a bag. In her hand was a set of keys, a big bunch as though she had lots of doors to open.
“I think you both should sit down,” Sara said, in an odd bossy way.
“What’s the matter?” Rosie said, looking from Sara back to Alice and then back again.
Sara looked taller, that was it. Alice looked down at her feet and noticed her high-heeled shoes and light-coloured tights. The suit was fitted at the waist and made her look slimmer altogether. It looked expensive, she hadn’t seen her wear anything like that before.
“You look smart,” Rosie said, pulling a chair out and
sitting down. “Are you going somewhere nice?”
“It might be a good idea to sit down, Alice,” Sara said, ignoring Rosie’s question. Sara said it in a tone of voice that suggested she was used to being obeyed. Maybe she wasn’t such a bad teacher as she made out to be. Alice bent down and switched the iron off at the plug and then pulled out a chair to sit beside Rosie. She glanced over at the kitchen clock. It had just gone six. She hoped Sara wouldn’t be long.
“What’s this all about?” Rosie said, raising her eyebrows, giving Sara a pleasant smile.
Sara didn’t sit down. She had her hands clasped behind her and looked as though she was going to make a speech. Alice had a sudden bad feeling about it.
“I may as well be completely straight with you. My name is Sara Wright and I work for a Sunday newspaper. A couple of months ago we had a tip-off that Jennifer Jones had been released early and was living in South London. Through some other contacts we were able to pinpoint a number of teenage girl placements in this area and it didn’t take long to find out which of them was Jennifer—”
“What?” Rosie spluttered. “You’re from the news - papers?”
Alice looked from Rosie to Sara and then back again. Rosie’s expression was of total disbelief. Her hand shot sideways and grabbed Alice’s arm. Sara looked a little uncomfortable but rushed ahead as though she had a lot of words to get out in a short time.
“When we were sure that Jennifer Jones had been placed here we made plans to investigate the situation. I rented the flat downstairs and have spent the last six weeks or so collecting information.”
“You’ve been spying on us?” Rosie said.
Alice couldn’t speak. She looked at Sara without blinking. Her eyes felt like stones, ready to drop out if she wasn’t careful.
“The newspaper I work for is a quality journal. When we knew that Jennifer was living here we decided not to make a splash of it. We decided to wait and go for a more analytical approach. We wanted to see what sort of person Jennifer . . . Alice was. How she fitted into the community, and so on.”