Jenny raised a glass of lemonade in one hand, the pizza box in the other. ‘Ahem?’ she said, glancing from one to the other. ‘We’d better get busy then. I’m not sure how much longer we have.’
Chapter 9
Alison
It was Saturday evening, and when Alison got back from her mother’s house Pete and Holly were curled up together on the Chesterfield sofa watching Doctor Who. Alison’s heart lifted at the scene: Pete had one arm around his youngest daughter, the other lazily draped over the dog. Pete was wearing an old checked shirt, one that Alison really liked for its softness. His hazel eyes lit up when he saw Alison come through the door, and Holly acknowledged her with a smile, before her eyes flicked quickly back to the screen.
‘Hello family,’ Alison said, standing in the living room doorway. ‘I’ll be with you in a second, I’m just going to grab a drink.’
Alison poured herself a glass of red wine and rested against the kitchen counter for a moment. It had been a long day. She’d been riding high since her conversation with Jamie the other day, and Pete had been equally excited about the café idea, but seeing her mum again had brought her back down to earth. Her mother was still the fun and feisty character she’d always been, but physically she was getting extremely frail and Alison could see that living on her own was now a challenge for her. A carer came in a few mornings a week, and Alison and her brother Clive dropped in when they could, but they both knew she needed more help.
Alison’s eyes drifted to the kitchen table and she noticed that the forget-me-not teaset was out of its box; Holly must have wanted to take a look. She put her wine down and wrapped the cups and saucers back up in their newspaper. The text at the top of one of the yellowed sheets caught her eye: The Charlesworth Chronicle, 14 June 1964. She remembered that her dad used to read that paper. It had closed a few years ago, was replaced by glossy magazines like the one Jenny worked for, with features rather than local news. As Alison put the cups back into the box and closed the flaps, she saw the biro scribble on the top ‘Mrs Derek Spencer’. Probably a house clearance, she thought to herself with a pang of sadness.
Alison walked back into the living room and over to the sofa, settling herself beside Pete and Holly and taking off her boots.
‘So,’ she said, giving Pete a kiss and squeezing Holly’s arm. ‘How has today been?’
‘It’s been fun, hasn’t it Holly?’ Pete replied, looking for a response from his daughter, who was still caught up in the programme. Maggie noted that Pete’s stubble was even longer than usual, and it sort of suited him. But then she couldn’t help thinking – he’s unshaven because he’s got nowhere to be, tomorrow or the next day. Or the day after.
‘We took George on a really long walk and I bumped into Sally, you know, old-neighbour Sally? She’s back in town looking for a new property. It turns out London didn’t suit her at all.’
‘Oh, right, that’s nice,’ Alison said. ‘I’d been wondering about her. It was a whole lot more fun when she lived next door, wasn’t it?’
Pete nodded, then changed the subject. ‘How was your mum’s?’
‘Not great, to be honest,’ Alison said. ‘She’s having real trouble moving about on her own. Clive and I were talking today …’
Alison shook her head, as if she could get rid of the problem that way. ‘Clive can’t help any more than he is already, not with the kids and Susan pregnant again. We’re thinking about moving mum into a home.’
‘Granny?’ Holly said, looking up from the TV.
‘Yes,’ Alison said to them both. ‘She’s beginning to need more support than Clive and I can give, and if her health gets worse I think it’s our only option. There’s a good one in Easton, so she would still be very close. It’s not cheap, but we’ll find the money somehow. I know Clive could cover it, but I don’t want him to … Anyway, nothing’s been decided yet.’
Pete looked at his wife, a softness to his gaze. ‘It sounds wise,’ he said, ‘to at least consider it, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ Alison said, not wanting to dwell on the topic any longer. ‘Where’s Sophie anyway? Upstairs?’
‘Nope,’ Pete began, brushing his hair out of his eyes. ‘She’s gone to a slumber party at Janie’s. I dropped her round there earlier.’
Holly started to fidget, rearranging her position on the sofa. ‘That’s not what I heard,’ she said, glancing up at her mum with a cheeky smile, then looking back at the screen.
‘What do you mean, Hol?’ Alison asked, her brow furrowed.
‘Nothing,’ Holly said, more serious now, as if she’d had a change of heart.
‘Holly,’ Alison’s patience was getting thinner. ‘It is clearly not nothing, or you wouldn’t have said anything. What did you hear?’
‘Matt,’ Holly chirped up at last. ‘I heard her on the phone to him earlier. He’s a new boy at school, plays guitar in a band.’
‘Sounds cool,’ Pete said, with a smile and a tilt of his head. Alison gave him a glare.
Holly continued, ‘He’s fitter than her last boyfriend.’
‘Matt,’ Alison murmured, letting the sound linger, searching her memory for some link, a mention Sophie could have made. ‘So what was she saying to him? I’m guessing he’s not at Janie’s sleepover too?’ She gave a small snort of disbelief.
‘That part isn’t true,’ Holly said quietly, wriggling to get comfortable as George made a claim for more space on the sofa. ‘It was a lie, so Dad would let her go.’
Alison drew in her breath and looked over at Pete, who looked startled. ‘Holly,’ Alison said, putting a hand on her younger daughter’s arm. ‘It’s really important that you tell us what you heard.’ Holly’s face went pale, and she stared down at George’s fur for what seemed like minutes. ‘OK,’ Alison said, breaking the silence. ‘I’ll just call her then, and—’
‘No,’ Holly said, panicked. ‘You can’t.’ She paused, taking a breath. ‘I shouldn’t have been listening. She was in her room, but the door was a bit open. She said to Matt that she and Janie would meet him by the old house by the tracks, for the party. When she left she had some other clothes to change into, I could see them in her bag.’
For a moment Alison was relieved to know the truth, feeling just slight annoyance at Pete’s oversight of something even Holly had spotted, and then the facts sank in.
‘She doesn’t mean the old derelict house on the outskirts?’ Alison said, registering, looking from Pete to her daughter. ‘By the railway tracks? Where the junkies go?’ Holly’s expression was blank, and it was clear she’d now told them everything she knew.
‘Pete, why didn’t you call me before you agreed to let her go out?’ Alison asked, searching for a way to understand the situation, as she fumbled in her bag for her phone and called through to Sophie’s number. As the line redirected, Sophie’s answerphone message was loud enough for all three of them to hear. Alison cut off the call.
Pete shrugged, but his eyes gave away his anxiety. ‘I didn’t want to bother you, Ali – I know how tough it can be on you sometimes when you go to visit your mum. Anyway, Sophie’s slept over at Janie’s before, I had no reason to think she would do anything else.’
‘Oh God,’ Alison said, hiding behind her hands. ‘Pete, have you ever seen that house? Have you even been around that area? It’s not safe at all.’
Alison put her boots back on again, trying to stay calm as she felt panic begin to rush through her. She got up from her place on the sofa and turned back to face Pete. ‘You stay here with Holly. I’m going to find Sophie and bring her back.’
Alison slowed in her car and turned the headlights to full beam as she neared the railway tracks. A fox sped out in front of her, but aside from that the dark road was empty. She heard the party before she saw it, a heavy bassline thudding and the laughs and shouts of teenagers. Alison parked up outside the house and looked over at it – the front door was wide open with a cluster of older teenagers beside it, the windows were boarded up with chipboard
and sections of roof slate were missing. Alison turned off the car engine. She saw Janie, Sophie’s best friend, right away. Dressed in a black and white spotted dress with her hair tied up in a thick black band, she was smoking a cigarette outside with two other girls who looked as if they could be in their twenties.
‘Janie,’ Alison called out, as she walked over. Empty cans and cigarette butts littered the yard, and Alison saw a hypodermic needle by the wall. The young girl looked panicked. ‘Janie,’ Alison lowered her voice as she took the girl to one side, away from the rest of the group. ‘Listen, I’m going to presume you have your parents’ permission to be here, but Sophie doesn’t. Where is she?’ Janie bit her lip then said, in a quiet voice, pointing, ‘She’s out the back. Please don’t tell her I told you.’
Alison walked away from Janie and pushed her way down the hallway crowded with teenagers; it smelled of urine, weed and sweat. Some of the floorboards were missing or broken. Curious eyes tracked her, and the music and shouting got louder the further into the house she went. Her heart beat hard in her chest as she tried to push away images of what she might find. You can roll up your school skirt and put on as much make up as you want, Sophie, she thought, tears stinging her eyes, just please be OK.
In the back room she found a couple of old sofas and beanbags strewn about, with dark forms lying on them. Alison could make out about a dozen people. She saw a dark ponytail swing, heard a laugh, and breathed out for what felt like the first time since she’d entered the house. Sophie. She made her way over to the far corner and the girl looked around – she was about the same age, but her eyes were sunken, her expression hard. It wasn’t her daughter.
‘Have you seen Sophie?’ Alison asked, but the girl just shook her head dumbly in response.
‘Mum?’ came a hesitant voice. Alison turned towards it. There was a girl over there, a dark shape, lying on a beanbag with a trilby-hatted boy. ‘Soph? Is that you?’
Sophie hastily rearranged her clothes and pulled herself upright on the beanbag. ‘Mum, what are you doing here?’ The boy in the trilby got to his feet quickly, gave Alison a nod and then scurried away across the room.
Alison crouched down so that she was level with her daughter. ‘You know what, Sophie,’ Alison said in a loud whisper, her relief now swamped by the feelings of anger and frustration it had masked. ‘I was going to ask you just the same thing.’ A small crowd of teenagers had gathered at the doorway.
‘Oh God,’ Sophie said almost silently, lowering her head. ‘I want to die. This is so mortifying.’
‘You know you shouldn’t be here,’ Alison stood up to her full height and waited for Sophie to get up. ‘I can’t believe you lied, Sophie,’ she hissed. ‘Come on, we’re going home.’
‘I’m not coming, Mum.’ Sophie focused on sliding her bangles further up her arm. ‘And you can’t make me—’
Alison cut her off mid-sentence. ‘We’re going. Now get up.’
Sophie slowly got to her feet and as Alison walked out of the room her daughter followed close behind, cowed.
As they went to leave the room a boy with a dark ponytail and a shark’s tooth on a leather thong around his neck blocked their way.
‘Mummy come to pick you up, has she, Sophie?’ he taunted, his stance wide.
Alison noticed the boy with the trilby from earlier step forward, then, after a sharp look from the boy in the doorway, back away.
Alison’s temper flared, but as she struggled to control it she spotted a scar on the boy’s eyebrow that triggered a memory.
‘Mummy has come to pick her up, yes, Gavin,’ she said, fixing him with a glare. ‘Just like I remember your mummy picking you up from Sophie’s sixth birthday party.’
He shuffled a little, and took a swig from his beer bottle. ‘You may not recall it,’ Alison continued, ‘but it was a hot July day and when your mum arrived, you were stark naked and jumping around, waving your willy in the sprinkler. Saying you never wanted to leave.’
Gavin blanched, and a small crowd of onlookers formed around them.
‘But Sophie and I are less keen to stick around at this party,’ Alison said, ‘so could you please move out of our way?’
As Gavin moved reluctantly to one side, a snarl on his lips, Sophie rushed past him towards the front door. Alison strode behind her and they both walked out of the house and over to the Clio.
‘Unlock it, Mum,’ Sophie insisted. ‘I just want to get in and go home, right now. This is the worst night of my life.’ Alison beeped the car open and they both got inside. The thumping bass from the house showed no sign of quietening. Mother and daughter sat for a moment in the car, Alison looking at her daughter in profile, the party in full swing behind her. Alison saw that Janie and the boy with the trilby were looking over at them from the doorway. Sophie had her eyes fixed on her feet.
‘Sophie,’ Alison said, casting an eye back at the house before her gaze rested on her daughter. ‘Do you know what a dangerous situation you just put yourself in?’ Sophie’s face was turned away as Alison continued. ‘Aside even from the fact everyone was drinking, and that it looked like there were drugs around too, the house itself … the structure’s totally unsound! If even one of those candles had got knocked over that place could have gone up in flames like a tinderbox.’ Sophie didn’t say anything. The boy in the trilby took a step towards the car and Sophie looked over. He gave a little wave and Sophie raised her hand and waved back. Alison started up the engine and they drove home without saying another word.
‘I’m going to make us both some hot chocolate,’ said Alison, going over to the kettle, ‘and then let’s go and sit in the den.’ She’d called Pete to let him know that everything was OK, and had insisted he go to bed. She told him there was no point both of them losing sleep, but the truth was that she couldn’t help blaming him for what had happened. Whether or not that was fair, she just wanted to handle things on her own.
The den was a hideaway next to Alison’s studio that they’d turned into a makeshift office for Pete. There were postcards pinned up on one wall and piles of books leaning against another; it was scruffy, but it was cosy with an old red sofa in the corner. Alison came into the room with two steaming mugs, to find Sophie perched on the sofa’s edge, looking like she’d rather be just about anywhere else.
Alison sat down next to her daughter, this girl who it seemed like only yesterday had been trampolining in the back garden, helping her sister make a flower press. Her eyes were dark pools now, devoid of any expression Alison could read.
‘You know what hurts most, don’t you?’ Alison said.
Sophie fiddled with a hole in her jeans.
‘That you lied to us,’ Alison heard her own voice, accusing; but inside she felt something different, a sadness that left her raw; a sense that she had lost control.
Sophie nodded, and tears began to well up in her eyes. ‘But everyone else was there, Mum. They were all allowed to go. I knew you and Dad would never let me.’ As she rubbed her eyes roughly, her voice hardened. ‘Anyway, now they’ve all seen me leave with my mum, I’ll probably never get invited to any parties ever again. It’s going to be awful at school on Monday.’
‘You certainly aren’t going to get what you want by lying to us, Sophie,’ Alison said. ‘We need to be able to trust you if we’re going to give you freedom.’
Alison reached out for her daughter’s hand. For a moment she felt it, Sophie’s skin as soft as when she was just a little girl. Then she pulled her hand away and turned her face towards the wall. Alison felt a tightness in her chest, the daughter she knew had gone.
Chapter 10
Jenny
Evening sun cast the streets in a bronze glow as I walked from work over to Dad’s house. The girls playing out by our row of cottages brought back memories – that was me and my friend Annie once. Her with her pink Raleigh with decorated spokes, me in my rainbow rollerblades. We used to get up early to play before school and drive the milkman mad by criss-crossi
ng in front of his float. Chris hadn’t been able to join in, but he’d wait on the doorstep, chatting with the boys next door and calling out to us. We’d always try and bring him back some sort of treasure left in the road or a skip – a discarded cassette, a Tic Tac box, a comic someone had chucked out. It was amazing what you could find on our street, and because Chris was only little then it was all precious to him.
I got to Dad’s green front door and unlocked it, calling out hello. I heard Chris before I saw him, ‘Hey sis!’ he shouted, coming through from the living room in his wheelchair. He looked like he’d caught the sun, his light brown hair was flecked with blonde and his skin had the beginnings of a tan. I reached down to hug him hello.
‘Hi,’ I said, ‘you’re a nice surprise. How are things?’
‘Good thanks, Jen. I just got back from Brighton and thought I’d pop by and say hello.’
‘Is that why you’re brown?’ I asked, pointing at his tanned forearms. ‘I thought you were supposed to be glued to a computer screen all day?’
Chris laughed. He worked freelance as a website designer, and had a little office set up at his flat around the corner. He was usually so busy that he often joked about rarely seeing daylight. Chris was born with spina bifida, so he had to use leg braces, or sometimes the wheelchair; but as long as the place he was in was accessible there wasn’t much he couldn’t do – and he’d proved through his success at work that there was a lot he could.
‘Yeah, I had a couple of meetings with a clothes label this week and we decided to have them at a bar on the beach.’ I looked at him with envy. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Sweet set-up, eh? Anyway,’ Chris continued, ‘I thought I’d see how you and Dad were doing.’
The Vintage Teacup Club Page 7