The Surprise Party

by Sue Welfare

  ‘Nip?’ Liz said pointedly.

  His good humour held. ‘Figure of speech, darlin’ – Fleur and me live in the same street. I’ve been keeping an eye on her place while she’s been away. Stroke of luck finding you though. We’ve been circling round for the last twenty minutes; you know, I wouldn’t have thought you could get lost in a little place like this. I couldn’t really ring and ask Fleur for directions without giving the game away now, could I?’

  The taxi was moving off.

  ‘It’s just up here,’ said Liz. ‘First on the right, then just go straight up to the end of the road and turn left.’

  The driver laughed. ‘I don’t think it is. We’ve already been up there a couple of times. It’s a dead end.’

  ‘Mill Lane’s not signposted.’

  The driver snorted. ‘Well, that’s handy, how’s a person supposed to find anywhere round here?’

  ‘It’s a country thing,’ said Liz.

  ‘It’s a crazy thing,’ Frank said. ‘How do you find your way around?’

  The cabbie laughed. ‘Ask a good-looking local?’

  Frank nodded. ‘I suppose you’ve got a point. Is that how you trap all your men?’ And before Liz could say anything he winked at her and said, ‘Works like a charm, I reckon you’re in there, darling.’

  Liz, glowing white-hot with indignation, pretended that she hadn’t heard him and kept her eyes firmly on the road. ‘So,’ she said, attempting to deflect attention away from herself. ‘What happened with you and Fleur?’

  ‘She walked out on me,’ Frank said. ‘Middle of dinner.’

  Liz glanced across at him. ‘Maybe you should take the hint.’

  ‘Maybe, but I never was that kind of guy. And your aunt, she’s a fine woman. I thought she was worth another go . . .’ He paused. ‘Maybe you’re right, but you know, I had to give it one more chance, I’ll know by the look on her face when she sees me if I’ve made a mistake.’

  Liz stared at him, contemplating coming all that way, with the risk that he might simply be rejected. He grinned as if he could read her mind. ‘Love’s a funny thing.’

  ‘You love Fleur?’

  Frank nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ he said.

  The cab crept slowly back up the road and into Mill Lane. They could hear the music as they drew up in front of Isaac’s Cottage, even with the car windows closed.

  ‘Looks like this is it,’ said the cabbie cheerfully. ‘At long last.’

  Good old Frank was fleet of foot: he was out and had the cab door open before Liz had the chance to pick up her shoes. ‘You get your dancing pumps on, sweetheart, and I’ll sort out the fare,’ Frank said, pulling his wallet out of his jacket pocket. ‘And not a word to Fleur, y’hear? I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Liz. ‘And good luck.’

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart – and you too.’

  Liz glanced up at the driver who had got out to assist Frank. He was nice looking in a well-worn sort of way.

  ‘Do you need a hand to get out?’ the driver asked, eyes bright with amusement. ‘You’re not going to try and walk in those, are you? That heel’s broken.’

  Liz looked down at her new shoes. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, forcing her toes into them and stepping out of the car. It took her a split second to realise putting them back on had been a big mistake. It felt like she had stepped into boiling treacle, every step agony, not to mention the fact that her broken heel made her roll like a drunk.

  ‘How much would you charge to run me to the front door?’ she asked, looking up at him.

  ‘That bad, huh?’ he said, struggling to suppress a grin.

  She nodded. ‘Worse. I don’t think I can get the damned things off.’

  He laughed. ‘Here, let me help you. You can have that one on the house. Have you got any more here?’

  ‘Shoes? Yes, I’ve got some upstairs.’

  ‘Okay, jump up,’ he said, turning and patting his thigh.

  She stared at him. ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘Jump up. I’ll give you a piggyback over the front door if you want.’

  Liz stared at him in amazement. ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘Why not? I mean, you’re not that heavy, are you? It’s either that or a fireman’s carry. You know, over one shoulder. Take your pick.’

  Frank laughed and looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll leave you two to it, shall I?’

  Liz ignored him. ‘Couldn’t you just carry me to the kerb?’

  ‘What and then you’ll hobble over all that gravel? Looks pretty sharp to me. Come on, hop up.’

  Liz looked down at her shoes one more time. ‘Hang on,’ she said, and prised them off. Then she sighed and, perching on the sill of the car, she looped her arms around his neck and clambered up onto his back. He was strong, with a broad muscular back. He smelt warm and of something soft and sandlewoody. It was oddly comforting to be lifted up as if she weighed next to nothing at all.

  ‘Here,’ he said, holding up an electronic key fob. ‘Can you just lock the car for me?’

  Liz did as she was asked. As soon as she was settled, the cabbie carried her across the road and up the gravel driveway. It wasn’t the most elegant mode of transport but it seemed like a very sweet thing for him to do. She found herself tempted to rest her cheek against his shoulder.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said.

  ‘I’m fine, you hardly weigh a thing. Would you like me to take you over to the house?’

  Liz didn’t really have chance to answer as he was already striding out cross the front lawn, before turning around so she could step down onto the front doorstep.

  ‘There you go,’ he said with a smile, offering her his hand. ‘All safe and sound.’

  ‘Thank you. Have you driven all the way up from London?’ she asked.

  ‘Uh-huh, certainly did. I’d forgotten how much I love this drive. I used to come up here a lot when I was a kid with my dad – and then later I’d bring him.’

  Under the porch light she noticed just what gorgeous eyes he had.

  There was a funny little electric pause, and Liz heard herself saying, ‘Why don’t you come in and have a drink, grab something to eat? I’m sure we can find you something before you head home. A cup of tea maybe?’ She took a long look at his hands as he shook hers in a firm presidential style handshake. No rings, nice long fingers, strong and masculine.

  ‘That would be great,’ the driver was saying. ‘My name’s Max. And you are?’

  ‘Liz,’ said Liz.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ he said. ‘Whoever you are.’

  She laughed. ‘Come on in,’ she said, stepping aside to wave him by. She had felt tiny when he had been carrying her, tiny and safe, and she couldn’t help wondering if there was a Mrs Max waiting patiently at home.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Megan and Simon had searched all the easy places. Hannah, Sadie and Tucker weren’t at Megan’s house and they weren’t at the Rec or in any of the bus shelters or hanging about outside the pub, so that just left Sadie’s house.

  ‘The trouble is,’ said Simon, stuffing his hands into jacket pockets as they walked back from the pub, ‘they might not be at Sadie’s house either. I mean, they could be anywhere by now, you know, like moving around?’

  Megan sighed. Boys. ‘I’m not stupid, Simon, I do know that. But we said we’d go up there and have a look, and I’m all out of other ideas.’

  Simon said nothing, which made Megan think he hadn’t got any other ideas either, and then he said, ‘We’ve got this den down by the river but we don’t usually go there after dark because the gamekeeper goes down there looking for poachers, and we don’t want to get shot.’

  ‘Sounds sensible,’ said Megan.

  ‘Maybe we could go round again. To double check.’

  Megan sniffed.

  ‘Sadie’s house then?’ said Simon grimly.

  Megan nodded; it seemed as if Simon was as reluctant as she w
as. She didn’t think he was afraid of the dark, but then again, maybe if you were friends with Sadie, there were other things to be frightened of.

  They fell into step and a companionable silence. Megan didn’t really know what to say to Simon. It wasn’t that she felt uncomfortable with him – it was just that she had no idea what it was that boys talked about.

  They walked through the village, past the shop and the green, by the church and up and out towards the old aerodrome, the houses getting further apart and the night getting altogether darker. The turning into Moongate Lane was lit by a single streetlight. The lane wasn’t tarmacked and was pitted with great ruts and puddles, and the high overgrown hedges curling from either side seemed to emphasise the dense darkness beyond. It looked and felt as if they were walking into a cave. Megan’s skin felt prickly and chilled even though she was wearing her fleece.

  Breaking her stride, she peered into the gloom. Simon, as if he had sensed she was no longer alongside him, turned back towards her and laughed.

  ‘Come on, it’s not far now,’ he said. ‘We’re nearly there. Don’t look so worried. We’ll be fine.’

  The very fact he felt the need to say it suggested to Megan that he wasn’t quite as confident as he appeared.

  *

  ‘There you go,’ said Sadie, handing Hannah another drink. Despite her best efforts to avoid it, Hannah had drunk quite a lot of the concoction that Sadie had mixed for them.

  Once they had settled in her bedroom, Sadie had slipped back downstairs to the party and returned a few minutes later with a jug half full of what she said was a proper cocktail. Hannah had no idea what cocktails should taste like but this one was sweet and heavy, and tasted and looked a lot like cough mixture, even after Sadie had poured a great deal of value lemonade into it and swished it around. The mixture split and clung to the sides like oil as she stirred it.

  Hannah knew there was some of the blue alcopop in there too because she had just seen Sadie pour half a bottle into the jug and stir it around with a ruler, but she had no idea what else there might be in it. There was no way she could avoid drinking it altogether because Sadie was watching her like a hawk.

  ‘You just need to neck it down you,’ said Sadie, waving another full glass at her. Hannah hesitated long enough for Sadie to shake her head, and down hers in one with a shudder. ‘Oh come on. It’s supposed to be a bloody party – and if you’re worried about what Mummy and Daddy might say if you roll home pissed, then you can sleep here. Text them and let them know you’ll be back tomorrow. Come on, get it down.’

  Hannah glanced at the brimming glass and then at Sadie. There was something nasty and threatening in the set of her face.

  ‘We’re mates, aren’t we?’ Sadie cajoled, nodding towards the glass in her hand. ‘Come on, it won’t do you any harm and then I was thinking that we could maybe go downstairs, put some decent music on and have a bit of a dance.’ She waved her hands above her head, aping dance moves.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she snorted, as Hannah took a tiny sip from the glass. ‘Too grown-up for you? You maybe want a little bit more lemonade with that?’ she continued in a mocking baby voice.

  Hannah shuddered as she swallowed a mouthful of the glass’s contents. The taste and the smell of it made her stomach heave.

  ‘Lightweight,’ Tucker commented as he knocked his back, chasing it down with one of the cans of beer that Sadie had brought with her from her foray downstairs.

  Sadie’s bedroom was tiny, barely more than a box room, tucked up under the eaves of the cottage. It was hot and smelt biscuity and stale like a hamster cage. Here and there the wallpaper had lifted and peeled away from the damp, uneven walls. There were piles of clothes heaped on the dressing table and on top of the chest of drawers, and other piles that had tipped over and tumbled onto the floor. You couldn’t see the carpet for clothes, shoes, books, magazines, DVD cases, papers, and empty plates and cans.

  Behind the door was a bare single mattress, with a pile of coats, an army blanket and a brown sleeping bag piled up on top of it. The sleeping bag was curled around the coats and there was a rip in the fabric where the stuffing was spilling out. It looked for all the world as if whoever had slept there had just left, leaving behind an empty chrysalis.

  Hannah sighed. She didn’t want to be there, she wanted to be home. Her head ached from the booze and the music from downstairs with its heavy heartbeat of bass, forcing its way in through the walls, up through the floor and into her bones.

  Trying to drown out the noise of the party, Sadie had her music on full blast, creating a counter beat that was almost as loud. The cacophony was making Hannah’s head pound and her teeth ache. A flatscreen television stood balanced on a piano stool by the dressing table. Tucker was busy killing things on the Playstation 3, sitting on the only chair, his fingers working into a blur over the buttons on the controller. Every few seconds the room lit up with great flashes and flares from the TV screen and the sounds of mortar and machine-gun fire from the game cut through the music.

  Across the sea of debris on the bedroom floor Hannah and Sadie were sitting at either end of a single bed, which had been tucked up under the slanting roof and was covered in a faded Indian throw. Hannah could see how this room might once have been lovely, with its floral wallpaper and pretty leaded dormer window – a tiny textbook country cottage bedroom. But it was far from lovely at the moment.

  Among a mish-mash of posters, stolen road signs and pictures torn from magazines, Sadie had taken a spray can of paint to the walls and the door and added her tag and various obscenities along with symbols of peace and war and all things in between. A collection of severed dolls’ heads hung by their hair from the central light shade, and for a moment Hannah caught a glimpse of what it was that her mum saw when she walked into Hannah’s room, and felt the same sense of despair. How could Sadie sleep in this horrible damp dank pit? Everything smelt as if it needed washing or throwing away. Hannah swallowed hard, choking down a taste of bile and booze. She didn’t want to think about being sick again.

  Sadie meanwhile was propped against the wall by the window, with half an eye on the comings and goings outside in the garden, and amusing herself in between by watching Hannah.

  ‘Another drink?’ she said, leaning forward to retrieve the jug, which was standing on her bedside cabinet.

  Tucker nodded and held out his glass. Hannah really had had enough in all senses.

  ‘I’ve got to go the loo,’ she said, getting up unsteadily and heading for the door.

  ‘Not going to be sick again, are you?’ Sadie said, her attention wandering off to something out in the garden.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good,’ said Sadie. ‘Just don’t be too long. I’ll pour you another one for when you get back – and hurry, you wouldn’t want to miss anything now, would you?’

  Hannah, with her hand on the doorknob, hesitated. ‘Why, what’s going to happen?’

  Sadie laughed. ‘Well, first of all me and Tucker will obviously miss your scintillating company, won’t we, Tucker? And also because I’ve got a little surprise for everyone,’ she said with a grin. Even Tucker turned around to look at her, his thumbs poised above the game controller.

  ‘I found these when I was downstairs,’ Sadie said. Between her finger and thumb she was holding a little plastic bag in which there were maybe half a dozen tiny tablets. She wafted the packet to and fro and grinned. ‘So what do you say? You game? You want one?’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Hannah.

  Sadie rolled her eyes. ‘You know, you are such a bloody wimp, Hannah. I dunno, do I? I mean, I could probably take a guess but they’ll be fine – the guy I lifted them off is a dealer. He’s round here all the time. Really sound guy. So how about we think of them as a little present? Except of course he doesn’t know that he’s given them to us yet.’ She giggled.

  Hannah, avoiding Sadie’s eye, nodded. ‘Okay sure, I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  ‘Don
’t be long,’ said Sadie, peeling open the packet.

  Out on the landing Hannah took a deep breath, trying to quell a sense of panic, while at the same time realising exactly how drunk she was. When she had been sitting down in Sadie’s bedroom she had felt fine, but now up on her feet and outside in the real world she was finding it hard to stand. She also knew that whatever happened, however bad she felt, she had to get away and get away now. The wall lurched as she put out her hand to steady herself.

  There was a queue all the way along the landing for the bathroom upstairs. Four or five women waited in a straggling line, chatting, smoking, laughing, oblivious to Hannah joining them.

  ‘Is there another loo?’ she asked the woman immediately in front of her.

  The woman nodded. ‘Yeah, outside apparently, but I can’t find my sandals and I’m not walking around out there without them.’ Giggling, she lifted up her long purple velvet skirt to reveal big bare brown feet with rings on the toes. She looked at Hannah’s ballet shoes. ‘You’ll be okay – it’s only over by the log store. It’s not like it’s muddy or anything.’

  Hannah thanked her and made her way unsteadily past the people sitting on the stairs and crammed into the hallway. She eased her way between the partygoers packed into the kitchen, and finally out of the back door and into the cool night air.

  Even though she was glad to be outside, away from the press of bodies, the music and the noise, the fresh air made her feel drunker still. It took her a few seconds to get her bearings. The outside loo had a sign above it and was across a little enclosed yard beyond the back door. There was another woman queuing outside, sucking on a roll-up as if her life depended on it.

  ‘Hannah,’ called a voice from somewhere above her. She glanced up; she had forgotten that Sadie had a view out over the garden. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘I won’t be a minute,’ Hannah said, pointing towards the toilet in a pantomime gesture. ‘There’s a long queue upstairs.’

  ‘Okay, well don’t be long, we’re waiting for you,’ Sadie said in a spooky jokey voice, before pulling the bedroom window closed.