by Neale, Kitty
‘Damn,’ said Penny. ‘What do we do now?’ They stood around trying to make up their minds and before they’d reached a decision, the door opened and a man rushed out, carrying a motorcycle helmet. He held the door for them without waiting for an explanation. They hurried in and began climbing the stairs.
‘No wonder she doesn’t complain about the way up to ours,’ groaned Penny. ‘This is far worse. Is she really this far up?’
‘It’s this one,’ called Mark, who had reached the top. ‘Come on, you’re meant to be fit.’ He started hammering on the door. ‘Juliet, come on out if you’re in there. We’re dying of thirst, come on, you owe us a cuppa at least.’
There was no reply.
Penny pushed past him and looked through the letterbox. It was hard to see much as the corridor was dark but she could make out a small pile of post on the doormat. ‘Juliet!’ she called, but she was sure now that their friend wasn’t there. The flat was empty. ‘Shit,’ she said, squatting to sit on the doorstep. ‘It’s no good, Mark. Wherever she is, it isn’t here.’
‘What the hell is going on?’ he groaned. ‘She really doesn’t want us to know, does she?’ He bent down to join her.
‘This is getting us nowhere,’ she said after a while. ‘We’d better get back. Someone’s going to have to tell Prescott if Maureen doesn’t make it in before long.’
There was no sign of Maureen for the rest of the day and by late afternoon Penny could put it off no longer. ‘Juliet’s gone off sick,’ she told Prescott, not sure if this was a lie or not. ‘She won’t be able to dance tonight.’
‘Just what I need,’ fumed Dave, crashing his hand against the desk. ‘What is it with you girls? First she’s ill, then she’s back, then she’s off again. She shows her face round here again and she’s on a warning. You can tell her that from me. So can you get someone else in for this evening?’
‘Me?’ said Penny. ‘I don’t keep the other dancers’ details. Maureen does and she’s still at the dentist.’
‘Bleedin’ marvellous,’ Dave exclaimed. ‘Well, you’ll have to go on. You’re here, so you might as well. Don’t worry, I’ve got it on good authority your dodgy Mexicans won’t be anywhere in town for a very, very long time to come, so there’s no excuse there,’ as he saw her face fall. ‘Get that poofter to sort your costume and on you go.’
Penny knew this was a way of taking the pressure off both Juliet and Maureen but found that she really didn’t want to dance. At first she’d missed it, even while she’d dreaded being spotted by Eduardo or any of his friends, but now she was reluctant to tread the boards again. She felt uneasy about being watched by all those men, when the bright lights prevented her from seeing them. She couldn’t explain what it was, but the excitement wasn’t there. Still, now was not the time to cause a fuss. ‘Mark,’ she called from the office door, ‘have you got my outfit there? I’m just going to run home for my shoes after all.’
The evening passed without incident, other than some of the dancers making sharp remarks about her sudden return, but they shut up when she said Juliet had a bug and there hadn’t been time to find another replacement. Tomorrow Maureen could get somebody else in. There was no denying it. Penny could go through the motions but the magic had gone.
The days passed and there was no word from Juliet. Maureen, still puffy-faced from having a tooth removed and short-tempered because of the pain, promoted one of the new dancers from her class, much to Fifi’s annoyance but to everyone else’s delight. Penny sighed with relief. She couldn’t explain her change of heart but the thought of dragging herself up onto the stage every night was unbearable. Maybe, she reasoned, it was because she was already working a full day in the office and had no time to recover. That was partly it. But, if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t the only thing. The incident with Eduardo had changed something deep down and she didn’t want to put herself in that position again if she could help it.
She wished John was around to talk to. Even though she’d never told him about being a dancer, she felt as though he would listen to anything and not judge her for it. He’d be in Scotland by now though. She kicked herself when she realised she didn’t know for how long he’d be away for. She couldn’t bring herself to ask Jimmy. She couldn’t talk to Maureen – she could barely say hello without having her head bitten off. Mark was worried enough about Juliet without burdening him with her sudden change of heart. And as for Michelle, she was hardly around these days, turning up at the last possible moment to dance and then dashing off to meet her new man, seemingly with no time to spare for anyone else.
She tried to raise it in one of her regular phone calls to Lorna but found she couldn’t find the words to describe how she felt. It all came out wrong, as she began by saying a friend of hers was losing weight. Lorna immediately demanded to know if she was eating properly, which brought them on to the comforting subject of cookery, and for a while Penny forgot her troubles as she described the early summer fruit and veg she’d been experimenting with. But when she put the phone down she realised nothing had been solved.
Penny took to wandering the streets of Soho on her own once more, as she had done when she’d first moved into Maureen’s flat, not sure how to snap out of her low mood. The shops were the same, the shopkeepers friendly, the market as busy and colourful. But something was missing. She couldn’t put her finger on what, but she was restless, edgy, and longing to talk to the one person she felt would understand.
Maureen’s temper finally erupted one evening when Stuart suggested he take her to a steakhouse after the show. Mark overheard the row and tried to block his ears as it got so personal but the shouting was just too loud.
‘How do you bleedin’ think I can eat a steak when half of my own mouth is like a load of raw meat?’ she’d thundered. ‘How can you even suggest such a thing? Oh I’d love to, I would bloody love a decent meal, I’ve had nothing but piddly soup for a week and I’m sick of it but I can’t. And why’s that? Because I’ve had a tooth out as an emergency. Did I mention that? Did I mention I’ve been driven half mad by the pain all week? Did I? THEN WHY DID YOU JUST ASK ME TO GO OUT TO A STEAKHOUSE, YOU BLEEDIN’ IDIOT?’
After that there was nowhere for the man to go but home to his gullible wife. Maureen sighed with relief as she shut herself away in the office, only for Mark to tap on the door a couple of minutes later.
‘So that’s that, then?’ he asked, eyebrows raised.
‘That’s that.’ She raised a glass she’d found behind the desk, and which she’d filled with Dave’s not-very-secret stash of single malt. ‘And good riddance. Why do I bother, why do I bother?’
‘At least he was worth the bother for a while,’ Mark pointed out. ‘You had some good times. You went places. You had fun.’
‘But he was an idiot,’ Maureen sighed. ‘I always knew it deep down. This was just the final straw. I kept thinking he’d improve, he’d see I wasn’t going to change, that he’d misunderstood me. But the opposite happened. He started buying me things and taking me places his wife would have liked.’ She shuddered in revulsion. ‘Can you imagine? Why would I waste my time on a fool like that? I’m better off without him.’
‘You’re better off without him,’ Mark echoed, taking a sip from her glass and shutting his eyes. ‘Hell, that’s strong. Works like medicine, does it?’
‘Better than medicine,’ Maureen assured him. ‘Only thing that does bloody work and all. Seriously I thought I was going to go mad this week. The last thing I need is that idiot and his idiot questions. At least I won’t have to put up with that again.’ She sighed. ‘Just you and me again, Mark, you and me against the world. And what do we say?’
‘We say, sod the lot of them,’ Mark told her solemnly.
‘Damn right,’ said Maureen, letting her head fall back. ‘Boyfriends, bosses, lovers, idiots. Sod the bleedin’ lot of them.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They knew something was up when Michelle started turning up we
ll before the show started and wanting to go for coffee with them again.
‘Let me guess, Michelle,’ said Mark, as they sat in their usual spot in Bar Italia, him with a large espresso and Penny and Michelle with cappuccinos. ‘Someone who usually requires all of your time and attention is out of town again and so you’ve fallen back on us as stopgaps.’
‘Never!’ cried Michelle, brown curls bouncing. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been neglecting you. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten you or got the hump. It’s just that I knew he wouldn’t be around for long so I wanted to make the most of it. He’ll probably be back next week but after that he just doesn’t know. So of course I spent a lot of time with him. Didn’t let the club down though, did I? Give me credit where it’s due, I never got pissed before a show again.’
‘True,’ said Mark, ‘though only you would think that’s something worthy of praise. Most of us don’t even think of turning up for work after knocking back a bottle of wine. That’s your speciality, that is.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Michelle, not offended in the slightest. ‘I take my dancing very seriously. Where would I be without you all? It’s just that there are so many temptations to give in to.’ Her eyes lit up. ‘And don’t tell me you always resist temptation, Mark, ’cos I know very well you don’t.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ he moaned. ‘I haven’t had much opportunity to practise my resistance recently. I’d welcome the practice, really I would. But I’ve hit a bit of a dry spell. Oh well, no sense complaining. Back to the grindstone.’
A week or so later it was a different story.
Michelle was throwing things into the dressing room waste bin with force, scowling, as Maureen walked in, Penny on her heels with a notebook, trying to work out something Dave had written down. ‘But you know his handwriting better than me,’ she was saying, ‘just take a minute to see if you can tell what this is meant to say … Michelle, what’s the matter?’
Michelle looked up at them and they could tell she’d been crying. Her eyes were red and her face was swollen, and as she began to speak her lip trembled. ‘Bloody left town for good, hasn’t he,’ she said. ‘I know, I know, I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not surprised at all really. But I kidded myself he’d be around a bit longer. Now he won’t be back and I’m back at square one.’
‘You and me both, love,’ said Maureen, without much sadness. ‘At least we know where we are with that, eh? You better put that bin down before you break it.’
‘Suppose so,’ said Michelle, but she sounded so down that they had to stop what they were doing.
‘Come on,’ said Penny, giving her a hug. ‘You’ll be okay. You always are.’
‘Yeah, I’m the expert,’ sighed the girl, wiping her eyes, staring at the floor. ‘Bounce right back, that’s what I’ll do. Just give me time, that’s all.’
‘It does help, love. I know you think it’s a cliché but it really does,’ Maureen assured her. ‘This time next month you’ll be laughing at this. Think of that.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Michelle wouldn’t meet her eyes any more.
Penny tried a different tack. ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps you could write to him. Perhaps it’s not the end.’
Michelle shook her head. ‘Nah, thanks for the idea but it won’t work. I can’t contact him, that was always the understanding. Remember, he’s a little bit married.’ She almost smiled. ‘Gets in the way, that does. He won’t want letters from another woman falling on his doorstep.’
‘Oh get away, Michelle,’ laughed Maureen, ‘you can’t be a little bit married. That’s like being a little bit pregnant.’
Silence fell. Michelle didn’t react, refusing to look up. Maureen and Penny exchanged a glance.
Maureen spoke first. ‘You’re not, are you?’ There was no answer. She waited. Still no answer. ‘Oh. You are.’
Finally Michelle replied. ‘Okay. So there it is. It wasn’t planned and we’d been so careful but one night the condom split. I thought we’d get away with it, but no. And before you ask, no, I’m not going to tell him. This is my mess and I’ll sort it out.’
‘How?’ asked Penny, reaching to rub the girl’s shoulders.
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ confessed Michelle. ‘But I know one thing. I’m not getting rid of it.’ She shuddered. ‘Never again. Once was bad enough.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Penny, unsure if she’d heard right. ‘You went through this before?’
‘Sure did,’ said Michelle, tossing her hair back and squaring her shoulders, forcing Penny to back off. ‘A couple of years ago, before I worked here. I wasn’t much older than you. Bastard didn’t want to know, said he’d tell my parents, and I thought my dad would kill me. Left me with nowhere to turn and frightened as hell. I went and got rid of it, and it was disgusting. Hurt a lot and I had to pretend I had flu when I got home, trying to sleep it off while I was sharing the room with my sisters. Like I still do. Then I’ve blamed myself ever since.’ She paused. ‘So I won’t be doing that again. Trouble is, I don’t know what I will do.’
‘You poor mare,’ said Maureen. ‘I don’t know what to suggest. If you was to change your mind I could help you, put you in touch with someone. It’s all legit, no backstreet business, I wouldn’t do that. It’s all hygienic and everything.’
‘Thanks but no thanks,’ said Michelle with determination. ‘I might not know much but I know I won’t change my mind on this one. It’s not that I want to be a mother or anything, I just don’t want the guilt of knowing there was a life in me and then the next minute there isn’t.’
Penny gasped. ‘But if you don’t want to be a mother then how can you go ahead and have the baby?’ she cried. ‘You can’t keep it and not want it. That’s not fair on the child, it really isn’t. Believe me.’ She was nearly in tears herself. ‘It’s no fun being an unwanted child. It’s the worst feeling in the world. I should know.’
‘Oh come off it,’ Michelle began. ‘There’s a lot worse. From where I’m standing now it seems as if there are plenty of worse things. Kids manage. Was your mum so bad?’
‘Yes, she absolutely was,’ spat Penny, unable to restrain herself though she knew her friend wanted comfort and advice, not to be burdened by her own sorrows. ‘She was awful. She didn’t give a shit about me. She should never have had me: I spent half my childhood wishing I’d never been born. She didn’t know how to love anyone except herself and the terrible thing was that when she died part of me was glad, because we wouldn’t have to pretend any more. I’m not making it up. Am I, Maureen?’
Maureen sighed bitterly. ‘No, I can’t say you are,’ she said. ‘That woman was something else. I’m sorry you ended up with her, but we can’t choose our family. At least you always had Lorna.’
Penny was crying now, which strangely made Michelle buck up and take notice. ‘So how come you’ve turned out as normal as you have?’ she asked. ‘If you didn’t get loved when you were little?’
‘That would be down to Lorna,’ Maureen explained. ‘For some reason she put up with Penny’s mum as a friend and then a boss, before she finally had the sense to tell her to stick it. But she knew Penny from when she was a toddler and always looked after her. She does still. She’s my cousin and she’s pretty well looked after me too, plenty of times when I was in hot water, even though she’s not much older than me. Sometimes I think it’s Fate’s way of balancing things out.’ She stopped to think it through. ‘You get given a shit deal, like having Ruth for a mother. But then along comes someone who just loves you anyway. That Lorna knows how to love. She got a raw deal too, she couldn’t have children, but then she got Penny. That’s just how it was.’
Michelle gave a wan smile. ‘Then maybe you were lucky after all, Penny. Pity my kid won’t have a Lorna to look after it. Suppose I’ll have to think of something else.’ She almost laughed. ‘Maybe one of my fairy godmother friends will step in. Talking of them, where’s Juliet? She always sorts things out.’
&
nbsp; Maureen managed to stop herself from commenting that Michelle had finally noticed. She took a deep breath, wondering how much she should reveal. ‘She’s not here at the moment, love,’ she said. ‘She had stuff to do and has gone away for a bit.’
‘What?’ Michelle’s face fell. ‘What, she’s done that now? Shit. I … I … kind of counted on having her around. I know that’s selfish but she always knows what to do, and I thought …’
‘You’ll have to make do with us,’ said Maureen. ‘Will that be so bad?’
‘No, no, I didn’t mean that,’ Michelle said hurriedly. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you? Well, Mark will have to know, I realise that. But otherwise? I’ll need to keep working until the last possible moment.’
‘He’d better start thinking of something else for you to wear then,’ said Maureen matter-of-factly. ‘As there’s not much to hide behind in your costume at the moment.’
Michelle groaned. ‘Oh no, everyone’ll see my stretch marks. They’ll never pay to see me again.’
‘You can put concealer on them,’ Maureen told her. ‘You won’t be the first. What, you think no girl in our line of business ever had a baby? I know all the tricks, I’ve seen it all. So if I can’t help you get rid of it I’ll help you hide it as long as you can. But then, after that, it’ll be up to you.’
It wasn’t until some weeks later that the phone finally rang in the small flat. Penny went to answer it as Maureen was not yet back. She’d all but given up hope of John ever calling and expected it to be Lorna, with more news of what was going on in Margate – which never seemed to be very much. She didn’t know whether to tell her about Michelle’s pregnancy, realising that it might make her worry, fearing the same could happen to Penny. Yet it seemed strange not to talk about something that was affecting all of their lives.
When a male voice spoke she almost dropped the receiver.