All Things Nice

by Sheila Bugler

  Ellen’s mind travelled back to the last time she’d visited Freya at her flat. The pretty, petite woman she’d bumped into on the street. The woman had seemed angry, as if something – or someone – had upset her. What was she doing at Freya’s flat if the two women hated each other?

  Charlotte was looking at her, waiting for an answer. Ellen reached out and patted her hand.

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Try not to worry.’

  Four

  It started in the pit of her stomach. A tight, twisting sensation that pulled at her insides until it felt like that was all she was – this twisted-up knot of terror that consumed her and made it impossible to focus on anything else.

  She swallowed, but there was no saliva in her mouth and the action hurt her throat. She tried to breathe but the clitter-clatter of her heart set the pace for the rest of her body, an over-fast metronome that speeded everything up so that she felt as if she was hurtling towards the thing she was most scared of and there was nothing in the whole world she could do about it.

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’

  Charlotte jumped. She hadn’t expected the young police woman to say anything. Had forgotten she was even there.

  She shook her head.

  ‘How long will it take?’ she asked.

  ‘As long as it takes, Ma’am.’

  Whatever the hell that meant. She had her phone. The last time she’d been here they’d taken her phone. This time, Ellen said she could keep it. She tried Ginny’s number again, knowing it was pointless. The call went straight to voicemail. Again. Charlotte hung up without leaving a message.

  She tried to imagine what she’d do if Ellen came back and said Charlotte was right. That the dead woman was Ginny. She couldn’t do it. Each time she got as far as Ellen coming into the room, Charlotte’s mind shut down. Unable to face the single worst thing she could imagine happening.

  Maybe this was her punishment. She’d always known it would come. Foolishly, she’d believed her failure to keep her husband or love her child had been punishment enough.

  Sugar and spice and all things nice.

  Her mother’s face pushed up close to Charlotte’s. The dirty stink of cigarettes and red wine on her breath. That stupid doll singing in the background.

  No!

  Charlotte banished the face and the voice, focussed on Ginny instead. Remembered how Ginny had saved her that night. Turning up in her new Citroën, taking charge of everything and not even minding when blood stained the leather seats.

  Ginny couldn’t be dead. Charlotte wouldn’t let it be true. What had she been thinking? Of all the people living in this huge city, why had she believed for one moment that the dead woman might be Ginny?

  She stood up.

  ‘I need to go.’

  The police woman frowned and shook her head. ‘DI Kelly said you were to wait here, Ma’am.’

  She was a dumpy little thing. Short and chubby with dirty blonde hair tied back in a messy ponytail. Charlotte felt sorry for her.

  ‘I don’t have to,’ Charlotte said. ‘Do I?’

  ‘She won’t be long,’ the police woman said. ‘If it was me, I’d stay. I’d want to know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘If it was my friend,’ the woman said. ‘You’ve waited here this long already. You might as well stick it out now.’

  She was right. Charlotte checked the time. Ellen had been gone for over fifteen minutes. She’d got a message on her Blackberry and left the room, telling Charlotte she wouldn’t be long. Made Charlotte wonder what Ellen’s definition of ‘long’ was.

  She needed a cigarette. She was meant to be giving up but who cared about that? The urge for nicotine triggered a memory. So sharp and perfect, every detail so clear, it was like she was right back there. The first time she’d ever smoked.

  A hazy autumn evening. In the woods behind the school. A bottle of cider to keep them warm. A packet of cigarettes. The pale sun had set and the night was creeping in, catching them quicker here under the tangled branches of old trees, making Charlotte shiver.

  ‘Nervous?’ Ginny asked.

  Charlotte shook her head, teeth chattering so loud she was certain Ginny could hear.

  ‘Just cold,’ she said. ‘I never thought I’d say this, but I can’t wait to get back inside.’

  Inside was the school building where she’d been boarding for the past four years. Ever since her tenth birthday. She hated the place but Mother had made it perfectly clear that Charlotte had no choice in the matter.

  Ginny grinned, her teeth white and perfect in her small mouth. Charlotte wished she had teeth like that. Hers were big and uneven, like donkey teeth. She’d been wearing a brace for nearly three months, but so far she couldn’t see any difference. And even if it did straighten her teeth, they’d still be big and ugly. No brace could fix that.

  She unscrewed the lid on the bottle and drank some cider. It hit her stomach too fast. Too much gas. She burped twice. Took another swig and passed the bottle to Ginny.

  Charlotte was frightened about smoking but pretended to be excited, telling Ginny to hurry up with the box of matches. She wasn’t sure what you were meant to do. Said Ginny should go first because they were Ginny’s cigarettes.

  Ginny put a cigarette into her mouth, struck a match and used it to light the tip. Charlotte watched, mesmerised, as the orange tip burned brighter the harder Ginny sucked. Eventually, Ginny stopped sucking, held her breath and then – casually – turned her face to the inky-blue sky and blew out a single streak of pale grey smoke.

  Both girls watched the smoke as it drifted up in lazy, rotating swirls. When they could no longer see it, Ginny passed the box of matches to Charlotte.

  ‘Your turn.’

  Charlotte grabbed the bottle, took another swallow of the sweet cider and looked at the cigarette. Ready.

  ‘What’s it like?’

  Excited now, not scared now. Ginny looked so cool. All she needed was a long cigarette-holder and her hair tied up in a bun and she’d be a dead-ringer for Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, their favourite film. Along with Pretty in Pink with Molly Ringwald.

  ‘It’s great,’ Ginny said. ‘Light up and see for yourself.’

  She did it exactly the same way Ginny did. Cigarette, match, suck, suck, suck. The smoke rushed into her mouth and down her throat, burning. The cigarette fell from her mouth as great, hacking coughs exploded from her lungs. Head spinning, stomach churning like a washing machine, eyes watering so bad she couldn’t see. And coughing like she was going to die.

  She wiped her eyes and saw Ginny grinning at her.

  ‘It’s easier the second time,’ Ginny said.

  ‘You sure about that?

  ‘Trust me,’ Ginny said. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  It took a few more attempts but Ginny was right. She got there in the end. They smoked one more each. When they’d finished, Charlotte felt like she’d been smoking her entire life.

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ she said.

  Ginny laughed, even though Charlotte wasn’t trying to be funny. For a moment she felt unsure, wondering if she’d sounded stupid.

  ‘I told you,’ Ginny said, managing to get the words out in between the laughing. And Charlotte realised Ginny wasn’t laughing because Charlotte had done something stupid. Ginny was laughing because she was happy.

  Still laughing, Ginny threw her arms around Charlotte’s neck and kissed her cheek.

  ‘It’s all brilliant,’ Ginny whispered. ‘Everything in the whole world. It’s ours, Charlotte. Do you understand that?’

  Maybe it was the combination of cider and nicotine, but Charlotte felt dizzy, like she’d been lifted up on a giant cloud and was spinning around, up and up through the sky like the perfect streams of smoke she’d watched earlier.

  A wind whipped through the woods, lifting dead leaves and making the branches over her head sway and dance, like the wind carried a song that only they could hear.
r />   Charlotte lifted her head, watched the branches doing their crazy dance under the spotlight of a fat, white moon and wondered if she’d ever again be as happy as she was right here, right now.

  Charlotte realised – wondered why she never had before – that Ginny must already have been smoking by then. She’d already gone through the coughing and nausea that comes with those first, nasty drags that are the start of nicotine addiction.

  Charlotte would have liked to ask Ginny about it. She wanted to know when Ginny started to smoke and why Charlotte hadn’t known about it. Suddenly, this seemed like the most important thing in the world.

  She wanted to tell Ellen, who had come back into the room and was sitting down beside Charlotte, taking her hand and speaking to her. Charlotte pulled her hand away, refusing to listen. If she didn’t listen, if she couldn’t hear what Ellen was trying to tell her, then it wouldn’t be real.

  Ellen was looking at her but it wasn’t Ellen’s face Charlotte could see. It was Ginny’s. Memory after memory tumbling through Charlotte’s head. And through all the memories, her own voice, screaming at Ellen Kelly, telling her to shut up.

  But Ellen wouldn’t shut up. She kept on talking. And when Charlotte put her hands over her ears, it made no difference, she could still hear Ellen, telling her what she didn’t want to hear.

  Charlotte couldn’t bear it. She lashed out, desperate to stop it. Ellen’s arms wrapped around her, Ellen’s voice speaking to her. Soft and gentle, whispering that she was sorry, so sorry. Over and over and over.

  Kelly held her like that, until she had no fight left and all she could do was lean against this tall, strong woman and cry.

  * * *

  Pete Cooper sat in the car, staring out the window, waiting for his daughter to walk out of Lewisham police station. The glass doors swung open and Pete’s insides flipped over. He straightened his back and cleared his throat. But it wasn’t her. Instead of his daughter, he saw a skinny woman, greasy hair pulled back from a pointed face in a tight ponytail. She moved quickly, eyes darting this way and that, like she was looking for someone. Some pathetic bloody crackhead.

  Thinking of his girl in there with scum like that was unbearable. The pain of it sat in his stomach, heavy like a rock. She would need a shower when she came home to wash off the stink and dirt of it all.

  He was scared. Scared of losing his little girl. Scared that his carefully built world was about to come crashing down around him. Again.

  This wasn’t right.

  He closed his eyes, pictured Cosima in a police cell, a shining bright light, white and pure, surrounded by the darkness and the filth.

  He didn’t mind Ellen Kelly so much. Women like that he could cope with. There was no pretence to Ellen Kelly. What you saw was what you got. Pete respected that. Abby Roberts was a different proposition altogether.

  Abby. Annalise.

  Pretty women with pretty smiles so sweet it would break your heart. A man could be easily fooled by a woman like that. A woman whose whole appearance told the world she was one thing when all the time she was something else entirely.

  Abby. Annalise.

  Bitches.

  In the corner of his eye, something shifted and when he looked again, suddenly there she was. Standing at the top of the steps, staring at the car. Spirits soaring, Pete pressed the button and the window rolled smoothly down.

  ‘Cosima!’

  She didn’t move at first and for one horrible moment he thought she wasn’t pleased to see him. But then she was walking down the steps and coming towards him and he was jumping out of the car to hug her and lead her inside and take her home, where she belonged. With him.

  And just like that, his world was whole again.

  Five

  A heavy rain was falling as Ellen pulled up outside Freya’s house. She got out of the car and ran to the house, pressing repeatedly on the doorbell until Freya appeared.

  ‘What is it?’ Freya pulled open the door and peered out at Ellen, cowering under the inadequate porch.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Ellen didn’t wait for an answer as she pushed past Freya into the dark hallway.

  ‘You can’t just barge in here uninvited,’ Freya said. ‘I’ve got rights, you know.’

  ‘Where were you at approximately nine o’clock last night?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Why?’ Freya asked. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Answer the question,’ Ellen said.

  ‘I was here,’ Freya said. ‘No, hang on. I went down to the Meridian. I can’t … I find it difficult being here on my own. Every corner of the flat reminds me of Kieran. I can’t stand it.’

  Ellen’s anger abated. She understood exactly how Freya felt. She wanted to say it got easier but she wasn’t sure that was true. She took a deep breath and when she spoke again, her voice was calmer.

  ‘I assume someone can confirm you were there?’ she said.

  Freya nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Any chance we could go upstairs?’ Ellen asked. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

  Upstairs, the flat had a stale, unpleasant smell and the sitting room was stiflingly hot. She pictured Freya, sitting here day after day, trying to adjust to life alone.

  ‘Nice service earlier,’ Ellen said. ‘You spoke very well.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Freya said. ‘It was important to do something, you know?’

  ‘Kieran obviously had a lot of friends,’ Ellen said.

  ‘He was a good man.’ Freya frowned. ‘But that’s not why you’re here, is it?’

  ‘Your mother came to see me earlier,’ Ellen said. ‘She was worried about her friend, Ginny.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Freya asked.

  ‘I wondered if you’d seen her recently,’ Ellen asked.

  ‘We don’t get on,’ Freya said.

  ‘That wasn’t what I asked,’ Ellen replied.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Freya asked. ‘I know something’s happened or you wouldn’t be here asking about Ginny. You said my mother’s worried about her. Why? Oh God. You think she had something to do with what happened to Kieran?’

  ‘You think she’s capable of something like that?’ Ellen asked.

  Freya snorted. ‘That woman’s capable of anything.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘She’s a nutter,’ Freya said. ‘Her and my mother, they’re like a psychotic version of those women in Ab Fab. And don’t think I’m making it up. Ginny drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney and shags anyone who’ll look at her. She’s loaded, of course. Married some poor sap with tonnes of cash. He left her when he found out she was shagging the chauffeur. Since then, she’s lived on her own as far as I know and all she seems to do is go out to wine bars with my mother and get shitfaced.

  ‘They live this shallow, nothing life. I mean, they’ve got all this money and what do they do with it? Buy designer clothes and go to expensive restaurants where they hardly touch the food because they’re so worried about putting on a single pound in case – God forbid – they can’t fit into those size six skinny jeans they bought the day before which were designed for someone twenty years younger. It’s pathetic.’

  She stopped talking, panting slightly, as if the effort of speaking so much at one time had tired her out.

  ‘And you’ve rebelled against that by trying to make the world a better place?’ Ellen said.

  ‘It’s not a rebellion,’ Freya said. ‘That would imply I care enough about my mother to want to rebel. I don’t give one shit about her. I choose to live my life this way because I want to. If you don’t do anything, if you don’t try, at least, to make this world a better place, what’s the point of it all? But you didn’t come here for that. And you didn’t come here just because my mother told you she’s worried about Ginny. What the hell is going on? Please. Just tell me.’

  ‘Ginny was killed last night.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Virginia Rau is dead.’

&nb
sp; ‘What happened?’ Freya’s voice wobbled. Ellen thought she might cry but she didn’t.

  ‘Hit and run,’ Ellen said. ‘We think she’d been on her way to visit your mother when it happened. There’s not much else I can tell you, I’m afraid. Hopefully the post-mortem results might give us something.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Freya said. ‘I mean, I know she was a pain in the backside but why would someone want to kill her? Surely it was an accident?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ellen stood up. ‘I must get going. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news a second time. Will you be okay or do you want me to call someone?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Freya said. ‘I already told you how I felt about Ginny. I’m shocked, but not upset. Sorry if that sounds cold but it’s just how it is. God, what about my mother? Does she know?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ellen said. ‘She’s very upset. Obviously. You should give her a call.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Freya said. ‘Maybe I will.’

  The rain had stopped, replaced by a cold, bright sun that flooded the room with pale light, illuminating Freya’s already white face. She looked exhausted and made no effort to stand as Ellen prepared to leave.

  Ellen said goodbye and promised to be in touch.

  ‘One more thing,’ she said. ‘You still haven’t told me when you last saw Ginny.’

  ‘Ah,’ Freya said. ‘That’s easy. She was here yesterday.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing,’ Freya said. ‘She came to ask me to visit my mother. Said she was worried about her.’

  ‘What did you say to that?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘I told her to go to hell,’ Freya said. ‘And she left.’ The corners of her mouth twitched, like she was about to smile. ‘I didn’t realise it would be the last time I’d ever see her.’

  Outside, before she got into her car, Ellen turned and looked back up at the flat. The sun’s reflection glared off the glass in the sitting-room window, making it difficult to see inside the room. She thought she saw someone standing at the window but she couldn’t be sure. She stayed where she was for a moment, staring up at where she thought Freya was standing. The shadow moved. Ellen couldn’t tell if it was Freya or the reflection of a cloud passing overhead.