by Anne Cassidy
She left the portfolio open on the floor and went out to the suitcase. It had a zip all the way round. She squatted down and flicked the zipper back and forth for a second before pulling it along so that in moments the suitcase was open, its front hanging down, a flap of plastic drooling on to the hall floor.
Inside were brown paper envelopes. Lots of them. They had handwriting on them, single words: Fifties, Sailor, School, Naughty. She picked up the one with School on it and opened the envelope. Some photographs spilled out on to the hall floor but it was too dark to see them so she scooped them up and took them into the living room, placing them down, beside the portfolio.
She winced when she looked at them. Picture after picture. Her mum, lying on the bed, a school tie around her neck, books and paper strewn around her. The rest of her clothes gone, not there. She looked away with embarrassment. Then back again. She’d seen her mum with no clothes on. Skinny, with tiny breasts, the rose tattoo on her shoulder. She’d watched her getting out of the bath, running across the landing, looking at herself in the mirror. She’d seen her mum naked. But never like this. Never like this.
A knocking sound made her jump. Someone was at the front door.
She stood up quickly, stuffing the photographs back into the brown envelope, her throat gripped by a feeling of guilt, as if she was a burglar, in her own house. In the hall she saw a silhouette of a head and shoulders at the door. She knelt down and with shaking hands she pushed the envelope back into the suitcase and pulled the zip round. From upstairs she heard a door opening and her mum’s voice. She stood upright, like a sentry, beside the suitcase, as though she was guarding it, keeping it safe.
She knew the silhouette. It was Mrs Livingstone. Her hair flicking out at the back of her neck, her head held high as though she was constantly looking for something that was on a top shelf.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Just a minute!”
She heard her mum’s voice. A moment later, she was there, on the stair looking sideways at her, doing her dressing gown up, her hair sticking up at the back as though she’d been lying down. How different she looked from the photographs.
“What’s the matter?” she said, stifling a yawn. “I thought you were at the picnic.”
The knocking on the door got louder, sounding impatient, angry even.
“Carol? Are you in there? Carol?”
Her mum shuffled towards the door. From upstairs she could hear someone moving about, the bathroom door opening and shutting. She stepped back into the living room, out of the hall, out of sight, away from the suitcase with the wheels that held the terrible pictures.
She heard the front door open.
“Is Jennifer here? She just ran off. . .”
Mrs Livingstone’s voice was cracking. She sounded tearful.
“One minute she was there on the grass with the others and we went for a short walk. When we got back she was gone!”
“Don’t upset yourself. . . She’s here. . .”
Jennifer heard her mum’s voice and footsteps as the two women walked down the hallway to the kitchen. She stood on the other side of the living room door listening, only hearing snatches.
“I thought she’d got lost. . . Michelle said there was an argument. . . Those Bussell brothers. . . We looked for her. . . I didn’t know what had happened.”
Her mum’s voice was louder.
“Don’t be silly. She probably got fed up. . . She’s a bit like that. Look at the day I had to go up to the school because she’d run off. . . She’s scatty. She doesn’t think. . . I’ll have a good talk with her.”
The kitchen door closed and the voices were too muffled to hear. The sound of water running and cups chinking meant that her mum was making a cup of tea for Mrs Livingstone. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs, quick and precise, so light it might have been a child running down. She opened the door and saw Mr Cottis bending over to put something in his suitcase. Over his shoulder was his holdall. It suddenly swung forward and fell down his arm so that he seemed to lurch forward and stumble, trying to pick it up and turn the suitcase round at the same time.
“Silly me,” he whispered.
She just stared at him. His bald head looked funny, like a baby’s. He didn’t have his glasses for once so she looked at his eyes, watery, like coloured glass.
Then he was gone, the front door closing without a sound, as if he knew how to get in and out of somewhere without being heard. Like a burglar. As if he had come into the house and stolen something from them.
Later, when Mrs Livingstone had gone, her mum came into the living room.
“Doesn’t the woman go on?” her mum said, flopping down on the settee beside her.
She didn’t know what to say. Was she in trouble for running off from the reservoir?
“I’m supposed to tell you off, love. You mustn’t run off by yourself and all that stuff. Trouble with these people round here is that they mollycoddle their kids. You can take care of yourself, can’t you?”
“I thought you were coming to Lucy’s picnic.”
“I was. I got held up. When I got back I had a headache. You know what I’m like!”
Jennifer didn’t answer. It was just another lie. She picked up the TV remote and clicked it on.
She got a phone call from Michelle. She was surprised. Michelle usually called round if she had something to say.
“I’m not allowed out,” she said. “My mum’s in a strop about the picnic.”
“Sorry,” she said, woodenly.
“It’s not your fault. It’s those brothers. Stevie’s really dirty and Joe’s a dimwit! Even Lucy agrees with me.”
Jennifer’s eyebrows rose. She imagined Lucy sitting next to Michelle. She would agree with anything to get on Michelle’s good side.
“I’ve thought of a way we can get our own back on them.”
“Yeah?” she said, not really interested.
“Lucy knows where their den is. You know the one they’ve made up at the reservoir?”
“Yeah, so?” she said.
“Because it’s half-term my mum’s taking the both of them to see their mum in hospital tomorrow morning. So when they’re gone we can go up there.”
Jennifer waited to see what else Michelle had to say.
“What do you think?”
“We’re not allowed to go up there on our own.”
The words came out before she realized what she was saying. Michelle wasn’t allowed up at the reservoir but she could go whenever she wanted. Her mum wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
“No one will know. My mum’ll be out for hours. We can go up there and wreck their den. They’ll never know it was us.”
“Lucy said this?”
“Well, not exactly. She’s going to show us the den. She doesn’t know we’re going to wreck it!”
“Mmn. . .”
Jennifer sighed. It didn’t sound like much of a plan. She didn’t like the Bussell brothers, but, honestly, she wasn’t about to play war games with them. It was too silly for words.
“I’ve got to go. Mum’s coming upstairs. Me and Lucy’ll come and call for you as soon as she goes in the morning.”
Her mum came into her bedroom as she was getting into bed. She was hugging a plastic carrier bag to her chest. Jennifer stopped what she was doing and waited. Her mum hardly ever came into her room.
“Jenny, love, I’ve got a surprise for you.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed and Jennifer sat up, her back against the headboard. Her mum looked hesitant and gave a couple of quick smiles as though she was trying to work out what to say.
“Mr Cottis thinks it would be a good idea to take some mother and daughter photographs. For our family album. He thinks you look like me.”
Jennifer frowned. She didn’t like the mention of Mr Cottis. She didn’t like to think about him talking about her. In any case, no one had ever said she looked like her mum.
“He wants to take s
ome photographs of us . . . you . . . the two of us together. . .”
“Why?” she asked.
Her mum answered, her words rapid, some running into each other. A family portrait. . . Some pics of you . . . in school uniform . . . for a magazine feature he’s working on. . . Won’t have to do anything. . . Stand there . . . smile when he says . . . play around a bit. . . It won’t take long. . .
She wasn’t really listening, though. She had a sick feeling in her stomach, remembering the photos in the suitcase. Her mum, the model, smiling and laughing, wearing nothing but a school tie round her neck. He’d taken the pictures in her room and brought pretend things with him; books, rulers, a globe. He had been playing make-believe with her mum. The idea of grown-ups playing a child’s game made her feel clammy and uncomfortable, and she pushed her duvet back so that her thin legs were there in front of her like straight lines down the bed.
Her mum was still talking. He’ll pay you some money. . . And he might ask you to dress up for a bit. . . Just play-acting. . . You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. . . Thing is it’ll have to be a secret. . . Too young for modelling. . . Our business, no one else’s. . .
She didn’t like Mr Cottis, his head was too shiny and his eyes were like steamed glass. He took pictures of other people and kept them himself in brown envelopes. It was a sort of theft. She didn’t want him to steal her picture.
“I haven’t got a school uniform,” she said, interrupting her mum.
“Yes. Mr Cottis has brought one, here. You can wear it for the photos.”
A white blouse and tie fell out of the carrier bag. A vest and dark blue knickers. A pleated skirt and long white socks. She held them all up, one by one. The tie had stripes across it. It was the same type that her mum had worn in the photos.
“I don’t want to,” she said, abruptly.
Her mum looked surprised, as though it was the last thing she expected to hear.
“But I thought you’d like this. It could be your first modelling job. You could grow up like me. A model. You could get your face on the front of a magazine!”
“I don’t want to be a model,” she said, pushing the clothes away with one hand so that they lay on the bed without touching her.
Her mum took a deep breath.
“Look Jen, I need you to do this. Mr Cottis is a very important man and if I don’t . . . if you don’t do this photo session, he might drop me. There’s loads more models who would like to work with him. It’ll just take an hour. No more. I’ll be there all the time.”
She stared at her mum, catching her eye, trying to hold the look, to keep her there on the bed, to tell her the truth of what she’d seen. But her mum glanced down and began to fuss with the school clothes.
“He’s coming at twelve tomorrow. I want you to do this and I’ll be there with you. Twelve o’clock. Otherwise I might not have a job and you know what that means.”
Her mum always spoke so softly, her words like velvet. Underneath though the meaning was there, like small hard pebbles. She might lose her job; they would have no money, Jennifer might end up back at Gran’s or, even worse, in care.
“Twelve o’clock. It’ll be all right. You’ll see. It’ll be a laugh. Night, love.”
When the door shut and her mum’s footsteps faded she got up and went across to her wardrobe. At the bottom was a shoebox and inside was Macy. She pulled the old doll out and took it back to her bed. Macy was grubby, her clothes tatty, some of her hair missing where Jennifer had combed it once too often. It didn’t matter though. She got into bed and laid Macy down beside her.
Michelle started to niggle her as soon as they’d been walking for about five minutes. It was an uncomfortable day, chilly and hot at the same time. There was a sharp wind that seemed to be running all over the place, hitting them in the face, pushing them to one side, forcing them onwards, along the lane towards the reservoir. There were clouds dashing across the sky, but every now and then the sun came out and for a moment it was blindingly hot.
“I’m boiling,” Michelle complained. “Lucy, you can be my slave today, so you must carry my jumper.”
She untied it from her waist and draped it around Lucy’s shoulders. Lucy, looking sleepy even though it was past ten, pulled the sleeves into a loose knot at her throat. She smiled up at Jennifer, shielding off the glare of the sun by holding her hand up to her forehead. Then Michelle changed her mind.
“I’m cold, slave,” she said, smirking at Jennifer. “Give me my jumper back.”
Lucy took the jumper off.
“Here you are,” she said.
“Here you are, what?” Michelle said.
“Mistress,” Lucy said.
“Don’t be stupid!” Jennifer said, a flash of annoyance coming out of nowhere. She should be used to Michelle’s silly little ways.
“It’s all right. We play this game all the time,” Michelle said. “Don’t we, Luce?”
Lucy nodded. Jennifer noticed that she was wearing her party dress again on top of grubby trainers, her legs bare. Even though she had a jumper tied round her waist she looked cold, with goosebumps on her arms. It didn’t seem to worry her though. Michelle had dressed up. Freshly washed jeans and a T-shirt with the word Babe across it. Her jumper was newish as well, deep pink with a zip up the front.
Jennifer hardly noticed what clothes she’d put on while dressing. The carrier bag with the other clothes, the school uniform, sat in the corner of her room as far away from her bed as was possible. She’d shoved it there, out of her line of sight, even though her eyes had been drawn back to it from time to time. Even when the room was dark, when her mum had called out Night love, she looked across and saw its shape, crumpled and ugly.
When she woke up her room was grey, the daylight forcing its way through her curtains. She got up and walked out into the hallway to look into her mum’s room. Pushing the door open she saw her lying half in and half out of the covers, one foot sticking up. Jennifer tiptoed across to the bed and pulled the duvet straight, causing her mum to move, her head shifting on the pillow. Then she was still. Turning to go out Jennifer noticed the globe, sitting on top of her mum’s chest of drawers. She stood close and studied it for a moment. How had Mr Cottis brought it to the house? It looked too big to fit in his suitcase or his holdall. She put her hand up and touched the ball with her fingers, watching as it spun gently, the countries of the world floating by her. Why had he wanted it?
“Jen?”
Her mum’s voice was husky from sleep.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Jennifer said, walking back to the side of the bed.
Her mum shook her head, her hair rubbing against the pillow. Jennifer turned to go but her mum spoke again, her voice crackly with tiredness.
“Don’t forget the photos this morning. Have a bath. So that you look your best!”
Jennifer didn’t answer. She walked out of the room with feet of lead.
In the lane she let the others lead the way. She’d come along even though she hadn’t really wanted to go to the reservoir, and wasn’t bothered about seeing the Bussell brothers’ den. It was something to do, a journey to make, a place to go until she had to go back and face Mr Cottis at twelve o’clock. Up ahead she could see the gate of the reservoir. Lucy talking about her favourite subject. The wild cats. Michelle was full of it.
“Be careful you don’t get too close to them,” she said, in a loud voice.
Lucy mumbled something Jennifer couldn’t quite hear.
“Because they hate people. They blame people for pumping in the water and drowning them. Don’t look straight at them because they might scratch your eyes out.”
“Don’t say that!” Jennifer said.
Michelle was irritating her. Pretending to know everything. Lording it over Lucy. Dressing up in new clothes when she couldn’t be bothered to dress up for Lucy’s party.
“Why not? It’s true.”
“It is true. That’s why Stevie hunts them.”
She looked across the lake to the spot where they’d had the picnic the day before. She remembered Stevie Bussell, lying back on the blanket, his boots looking as though they were too big for him, touching his trousers with his hand in a disgusting way, his mean eyes looking at her, calling her mum names. Who would take his word for anything? Him and his dressing-up clothes, his den in the woods, his guns for shooting the wild cats. How could he call her mum a prozzie? Where had he got the idea from?
“JJ, don’t go so fast,” Michelle said, running up behind her.
Lucy came last, her face flushed, her eyes looking distant, as though she was thinking of something else, the cats, perhaps. For an instant Jennifer saw her brother’s face there, just an expression, nothing more.
“Come on, slave, keep up!” Michelle said.
They walked along for a while, zigzagging the path, keeping to the edge of the lake, dipping in and out of thickets. They went in and out of small woods, their trees young, the bark silky and the branches thin, like ladies’ arms. Lucy turned round from time to time and Michelle gave her another order, her voice friendly. It was only a game. Just pretend. Michelle wasn’t really ordering Lucy around. It was just some fun. They passed a couple of people with dogs on their way round. It was a Monday morning but nobody looked at them strangely. Three girls walking round the reservoir. It was the school holidays after all. In town the classrooms were still and the only thing moving in the playground was the breeze, picking up sweet wrappers and throwing them down again.
There were some boats on the lake, cutting through the water, their sails billowing one minute and taut the next. When the sun came out the water sparkled and the boats seemed to skate across the surface. When it clouded over they slowed down, bobbing up and down on the muddy ripples.
The path split. One section led around the lake and the other forked off up an incline away from the water. There was a sign a couple of metres along: Woodland Park Reconstruction. Public Access Prohibited.