by Alex Marwood
‘No it’s not,’ she says. ‘My name’s not Scaramanga. It’s Oldacre. I’m Annabel Oldacre.’
The woooo rises again, blots out the sun. The little girl is hanging back, looking at Bel with astonishment, as though she’s just opened her mouth and spoken German.
‘Well, hoity-toity!’ yells Debbie. ‘Say “air”!’
‘Air,’ says Bel, suspiciously.
‘Say “hair”!’ shouts Tony.
The swing slows beneath her. She’s finding it hard to keep up the impetus while she waits to work out what’s going on. ‘Hair,’ she says.
‘Say “lair”!’ calls someone else.
The word comes out quietly. Her mouth seems to be furring up.
‘Now say ’em all together,’ says Darren, approaching.
‘No,’ says Bel.
‘All right then. Get off that swing.’
‘No,’ says Jade. ‘Fuck off, Darren.’
He jumps forward, grabs Jade’s seat on the upswing, brings it to a violent, sudden halt. Jade loses her grip on the chain, tips backwards and crashes, legs in the air, on to the dusty earth beneath. She lies stunned, gasping for breath.
‘I told you,’ says Darren.
‘Fuck you, Darren,’ she chokes. Her heart wants to burst through her ribcage.
‘I’d get up if I was you. You don’t want to get a bash on the head to go with the one on your arse. C’mon, Chloe!’ He turns to the little girl. She’s about five. Her baby face peers out from the hood of her pink nylon anorak, which she’s tied firmly beneath her chin despite the warmth of the day. She’s flushed with heat, and hangs back behind Debbie, staring at Jade with anxious eyes.
‘Go on,’ says Debbie.
‘Don’t want to,’ says Chloe.
‘Don’t worry about her,’ says Darren. ‘She does what I tell her.’
He prods at Jade with a toe. ‘Go on. Can’t you see you’re scaring her?’
Jade sits up and glares murderously at the child, rubbing her upper arm where she’s caught it on a stone. Chloe understands the meaning of the look, and ducks further behind her sister.
‘Stop showing off, Darren,’ says Jade. ‘Nobody’s impressed.’
‘Come on, Jade,’ says Bel. ‘Let’s just go.’
Her voice sparks another chorus of ‘woo-oo’s from the older kids. She ignores them with a look of imperious contempt.
Jade is boiling with rage and humiliation, but she’s not stupid.
‘C’mon, Chloe!’ says Darren again. The kid comes unwillingly towards him, propelled by her sister. Debbie’s wearing a tight striped sleeveless T-shirt, a bibbed gymslip and the legs of a pair of cut-up footless tights on her arms. A studded leather jacket hangs self-consciously over her shoulders. She’s scraped her hair back into a ponytail and glued false eyelashes over her own stubby blond ones. She bats them at Darren. Crucifix earrings jiggle against her cheeks.
‘You shouldn’t be selfish,’ she says piously to Jade. ‘She’s littler than you.’
She picks Chloe up and deposits her on Jade’s still-warm seat. Starts to push.
‘I’m hungry,’ says Chloe.
‘Oh, for God’s sake. I’ve taken you to the swings, haven’t I?’ snaps Debbie.
Chapter Seventeen
‘No, sorry, mate. I think you’ve got the wrong number. No Jade here,’ says Jim.
Kirsty feels her hands slip on the wheel, hurriedly compensates as the car jerks to the left.
‘Mum!’ Sophie protests from the back. Her orange juice has gone all over her tennis gear.
‘’S’OK,’ says Jim, and hangs up.
‘Sorry,’ says Kirsty. ‘Sorry. Don’t know what happened there. I just slipped.’
‘I’m all wet now,’ whines Sophie.
‘Never mind,’ says Jim. ‘It’ll be dry by Monday.’
Casual. I must act casually. ‘Who was that?’ Kirsty enquires. Changes down to third as they approach the roundabout.
‘Wrong number,’ says Jim. ‘Wanted someone called Jade.’
‘Oh,’ she says.
‘What’s for tea?’ asks Sophie.
‘I don’t know,’ she says vaguely. ‘Fish fingers?’
Jade. A man who wanted Jade. Not her. Not Bel: a man. Jesus. Is someone on to me? Or was it just coincidence? Oh God, has the Mail on Sunday finally tracked me down?
‘Fish fingers!’ protests Sophie. ‘But it’s Saturday!’
‘So what?’
‘Other people get a takeaway on Saturdays! Chinese or something.’
‘Yeah,’ says Jim, ‘other people don’t get tennis lessons and piano lessons. It’s an either-or choice here, Sophie. We’re not rich. People like us don’t get both.’
‘Hunh,’ grunts Sophie.
‘I’m doing a roast tomorrow,’ says Kirsty encouragingly. ‘Chicken and all the trimmings. Stop kicking the back of my seat, Sophie.’
‘But I’m a vegetarian!’ she cries.
‘Really?’ Jim turns around. ‘When did this happen?’
‘You don’t listen to a word I say.’
‘Of course we do, Sophie,’ he teases. ‘Every single word. No wonder you don’t want fish fingers. What do you think, darling?’ He turns to Kirsty. ‘Can we whip her up a nice salad?’
‘Of course we can,’ says Kirsty. ‘We’ve got lots of salad in the garden just waiting to be eaten. I’m so sorry, Sophie. If you’d told us, we’d’ve been picking it for you every day.’
Sophie groans. ‘Not that sort of vegetarian. Not a salad vegetarian.’
Jim catches Kirsty’s eye. ‘Ah. A chocolatarian.’
Sophie glares out of the window. ‘I don’t like fish fingers.’
What if we get home, and there’s photographers on the doorstep? What will I do? It will kill them. Not just the revelation: the lie. He’ll find out he’s been living with a stranger all these years. He’ll think that if I could lie to him about something so huge, I could lie to him about anything. He’ll end up wondering if I ever loved him at all.
‘No skin off my nose, sweetie,’ she says. ‘How about a lettuce sandwich?’
‘A lettuce sandwich isn’t dinner!’ she protests.
‘You’ll be eating a lot of lettuce if you’re going to be a vegetarian. Might as well get used to it.’
‘And broad beans,’ adds Jim. ‘Don’t forget those.’
Luke’s standing outside the rugby club when they draw up, his boots dangling by their laces over his shoulders. ‘I wish he wouldn’t do that,’ says Jim. ‘He goes through a pair of laces a week.’
He reaches over and beeps the horn. Luke jumps, turns and waves. He comes running over, grinning, and hops into the car.
‘How was it?’ asks Kirsty.
‘Awesome,’ he replies. ‘I scored a try. And Mr Jones says I might be able to try out for the first team in a year.’
‘Fantastic!’ she says. ‘Luke! Sit on the bin liner, darling. You’re going to get mud all over.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ he says, and settles into his seat. Sophie looks at him the way all little girls look at muddy little brothers.
‘What’s for tea?’ he asks.
‘Well, we were going to have fish fingers, but your sister wants a salad,’ says Jim. ‘She’s turned vegetarian.’
Luke howls with disgust. ‘You’re kidding! I can’t eat salad. I’ve been playing rugby.’
Jim shrugs. ‘Well, it’s not up to me. Perhaps you can negotiate.’
Kirsty puts the car into gear and pulls into the road. Luke frowns at Sophie.
‘All right,’ she says. ‘I’ll eat fish, OK? I’ll be a fishatarian, if it makes you happy.’
‘Pescatarian,’ says Jim.
‘Whatever,’ says Sophie, and folds her arms.
It must have been Bel, Kirsty thinks. Is it that her voice is so deep he thought she was a bloke? It didn’t sound like it. But – I don’t know. Please, please, please, God, let it have been Bel. Let it not have been someone else, someone with another agenda a
ltogether.
‘But I’m not eating any stinking chicken,’ says Sophie.
‘Fine,’ says Jim. ‘But don’t think that means you can double up on roast potatoes.’
Chapter Eighteen
Blessed loves Whitmouth in the hours around dawn; partly because it’s cool and the air is clean, but mostly because dawn means that the long night’s work is approaching its end and the moment when she can lay her tired bones in her warm soft bed for a few hours is approaching. Tonight she’s scrubbed and polished every seat on the roller coaster trains, swept down what she still thinks of as its station-stop and given every touchable surface a going-over with a spray-bottle of antibacterial cleanser and half a dozen J Cloths. She’s cleaned the perspex windows that allow queuers to see what’s going on in the rest of the park as they inch their way up the stairs. She’s wiped off the hair gel and Sta-Sof-Fro that greases every pillar at head height.
Now she’s in the roped-off area under the tracks, sweeping up the wrappers and coins and condoms and other small treasures that have fallen from unsuspecting pockets as the train looped the loop. It’s sticky down here, as surprising numbers of people still take drinks containers on the ride despite the warnings not to. You can always tell them later, in the park, because they are the ones with a sugar-dressing on their hair and a faint look of sheepishness about them. By season’s end the area below the tracks will need to be washed down with a power hose, but there’s little point in doing so before then, as generally only the cleaners come here. Blessed always saves this chore for last of all, so that she can see what’s there by pale grey daylight. It’s a popular job, this – goes to the senior cleaner and was passed down to her when Amber moved up to management – because it’s amazing what people fail to notice they’ve lost until after they’ve left the park. There’s usually a tenner in change down here; and sunglasses and prescription glasses and small items of jewellery; tubes of sweets and bunches of keys (which always go to Lost Property); and, sometimes, a wallet. Their owners probably think they’ve been pickpocketed, which is why they never return to claim them. As a Christian, Blessed used to have qualms about removing the cash before she handed the wallets in, but she knows that if she doesn’t take the opportunity, Jason Murphy or one of the other guards will, and then it’ll go on drink or drugs or some other form of frittering if it’s them. The proceeds of her own dishonesty go straight into Benedick’s med-school fund. She thinks of her ‘victims’ as benefactors.
Tonight has produced relatively thin pickings. Yesterday was overcast, so sunglasses (which she can sell for fifty pence a pair to the second-hand shop on Fore Street) have stayed firmly in bags, and jackets have covered the loosest pockets. But she’s found £3.60 in change (almost half an hour at minimum wage, after all) and three packs of chewing-gum, which Ben will like. And a hairpiece: a foot-long clip-on ponytail in golden synthetic blond. She’s about to drop it in the bin liner, marvelling at its owner’s obliviousness, when she thinks, No, it’s in good condition. I’ll see if Jackie wants it before I throw it away. We waste far too much in this world.
She stretches her back and checks her watch. Five-twenty: nearly clocking-off time. She’ll stay till her contracted five-thirty before she punches her card. No one gets any prizes for doing their job efficiently at Funnland; they’re paid by the hour and that’s that. And besides, she likes to get a lift from Amber if she can, and Amber is always the last to leave. She decides to go and look for Jackie. Picks up her bin liner and ambles in the direction of the dumpsters.
*
Jackie’s on the phone. Five-thirty in the morning, and she’s still found someone to talk to. She’s finishing up in the coconut shy, not that there’s ever much to do other than check that the coconuts haven’t cracked open to reveal their concrete interiors, and to dust the prizes so it’s not too obvious how rarely they get won. She stands in her novelty rubber gloves with the frilled lace cuffs, back to the park, and doesn’t see Blessed approach.
‘That’s right, babe,’ she says. ‘Till it’s sore.’
Blessed hesitates. This sounds as though it might be a personal conversation. Not that Jackie keeps many of her thoughts personal. ‘And then when you think you’re all wrung out, I’ll suck my finger and—’
Blessed hurriedly coughs. Jackie jumps, and looks guiltily over her shoulder. Breaks into a grin when she sees Blessed and holds up the rubber-clad finger that’s just been the subject of her conversation. ‘Gotta go, babe. Yeah, later. I’ll be waiting.’
She hangs up. ‘Hey.’
‘Hello,’ says Blessed. ‘How are you today?’
‘Better now it’s home-time,’ says Jackie. ‘Is Amber ready yet?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sure she’ll come and find us. I brought you this.’ She fishes the ponytail out of her plastic bag. ‘Someone lost it. I thought it might suit you.’
Jackie lets herself out through the hatch, comes and looks, a frown on her face. ‘Second-hand hair?’
Blessed feels herself blush. Knows she’s done another of those cultural misreadings that have tripped up many budding friendships since she got here. Not that she has any burning desire for intimacy with Jackie. Rather, she feels she might start keeping Benedick away from her, now he’s reached adolescence. ‘It doesn’t look as though it’s been used,’ she stammers. ‘I think whoever owned it must have put it on new yesterday.’
Jackie seems reluctant even to touch it. Under her critical gaze, Blessed sees that it is a poor thing; that to someone used to the cheap and plentiful luxuries of a wealthy country, second-hand hair is barely less disgusting than a second-hand toothbrush. ‘Yeah, you’re all right, Blessed,’ she says. ‘Thanks anyway.’
Blessed shoves the ponytail into the bin liner, tries not to show her embarrassment. If she’d been in Jackie’s position, she would have accepted the gift with a show of pleasure, even if she had every intention of putting it in the next bin she passed. She feels a twinge of nostalgia for the manners she was raised with.
‘So are you ready to go?’ she asks.
Jackie nods. ‘I should coco. I’m knackered.’
‘Me too. It’s a long night.’ They start to walk towards the dumpsters, bin liners bouncing off their calves. ‘So what plans do you have for the rest of the day?’
‘Sleep as long as I can,’ says Jackie, ‘then Morrisons, I guess. I’ve got nothing in the house.’
‘You’re back home, then?’
Jackie nods. ‘Yes. Went back today.’
‘Oh good,’ says Blessed. ‘I am glad to hear that.’
‘It was getting awkward.’
‘I can imagine. No one likes to outstay their welcome.’
‘I don’t like living by other people’s rules,’ says Jackie. ‘People all over my business, you know?’
Blessed raises an eyebrow. A part of her is glad to remember that Jackie has a hard time being grateful for anything. That it’s not just her own gifts that come up lacking. ‘So you think your … problem has passed?’ she asks, with gentle irony. Amber told her last night about her conversation with Martin Bagshawe and she’s interested to know who will get the credit.
‘Yeah,’ says Jackie. ‘I think he’s got the message. In the end you’ve got to be firm, ain’t you? Stand up for yourself.’
Blessed allows herself a small grin; turns her head away to hide it.
Amber is already waiting in the changing rooms, whirling her keys round her index finger like a child’s toy. She looks tired and grey, her eyes red at the edges, but no one looks their best at this time of day. ‘Ready?’ she asks. Her voice sounds like it’s coming from a distance. Blessed is always intrigued by the way voices sound so different in the early morning, as though their owner’s attachment to life has faded with the smallness of the hour. It’s not long past peak death time in hospitals, she reflects. We’re probably all half out of our bodies, around dawn. The room is full of silent wraiths who were the life and soul of the cafeteria four hours ago. The
three women gather their belongings from their lockers and swipe themselves out on to the seafront.
It’s going to be a beautiful day. Jackie looks up at the clear blue sky as they walk past the front of the park, and grins. ‘That’s me down at the beach, then,’ she says. ‘Might as well not go home, really. All I’m going to do is sleep in the sun, anyway.’
‘Seriously?’ asks Amber.
‘Naah,’ says Jackie. ‘Just joking.’
Amber shakes her head. ‘You should know better than to make jokes at this time of day, Jackie.’
Jackie shakes a cigarette out of her jacket pocket and lights it. ‘Yeah,’ she says.
‘How can you smoke?’ asks Blessed. ‘Doesn’t it make you sick?’
‘Well, it might do if I’d just got up,’ replies Jackie, and releases a stream of smoke into the sparkling air. ‘But I suppose, given I’m coming out of work, that this is the equivalent of five in the afternoon for me. What glamours have you got lined up for the day, Blessed?’
‘The usual,’ she replies. She will get Benedick up, check that he’s done his homework, feed him and send him to school. It’s only a year or so since she stopped walking him there, a ritual that caused increasing discord between them as he plunged into adolescence. Then she’ll sleep for a few hours, get up, shower and go to work her afternoon shift at Londis. It’s only a four-hour shift, which allows her to spend the evening with her son before Amber picks her up at quarter-to ten.
Jackie takes another suck on her smoke. ‘I don’t know how you can work all them hours. Don’t you ever have any fun?’
‘The trouble with this country,’ says Blessed, ‘is that no one has any idea of work.’
‘Trouble with the Third World,’ replies Jackie, ‘is that you’re all suckers.’
‘Thank you, Jackie,’ says Blessed. ‘I will try to remember. But there are two of us, and only one is allowed to work. It won’t be so many years until Benedick is a doctor, and then he can support me.’