by Jane Renshaw
But surely Pam, as a mother, would see the dangers that Neil couldn’t?
Flora was going to have to speak to Neil again. Insist that she really wasn’t happy about Beckie playing with Mia unless they were closely supervised.
‘I – actually, I did a bit of rock climbing myself as a kid,’ admitted Katie, flushing. ‘It’s meant to be good for… for coordination and suppleness…’
‘Well, maybe if it’s properly organised and safe,’ Ailish conceded. ‘On one of those indoor walls or whatever. But the place She takes her is just some Clampit’s farm. Probably not even certified or licensed or anything – it’s just this farmer who’s got a quarry on his land and has decided to make a fast buck by getting a load of kids dangling off it on ropes.’
‘You know,’ said Katie, flushing all the more, ‘I sometimes think we wrap them in cotton wool to an extent that’s – in its way – more of a problem than letting them take some risks.’
Ailish looked at Katie as if she’d just suggested they take their offspring to the nearest motorway and turn them loose on the hard shoulder.
But Katie, for once, wasn’t backing down. ‘Like we did when we were their age – going out playing on our own and getting into scrapes… climbing a drainpipe, or being chased by the parkie, or swimming in a river… Never did us any harm. Quite the opposite.’
‘Maybe you were lucky,’ said Flora, and she couldn’t quite keep the edge from her voice.
Ailish looked at her.
She hastily invented: ‘A boy… in my class at school… this boy, he was drowned in a river. A group of boys were messing around one lunchtime, and he drowned.’
Ailish raised her eyebrows. ‘Were you there?’
Flora could feel her face flushing. Her heart pumping. ‘Not when it happened, but… I was in the playground when the other boys came running back, soaking wet and crying, and… I’ve never liked being in the water since. I think that’s why Beckie doesn’t like swimming – she’s probably picked up my feelings about it.’
Had that been convincing?
Ailish was looking at her oddly.
As the conversation turned to Jasmine and her general wonderfulness, Flora muttered something about checking on how the incineration was going and slipped through the open doors to the garden.
Ailish and Iain’s garden was even bigger than theirs, as they didn’t have an extension on the back of their house. But it wasn’t as nice. Fewer trees and no wild areas – an expanse of perfectly mown grass and a huge area of patio, on which the men had set up the barbeque. There were three large outdoor tables with chairs round them, and one of these had been appropriated by Jasmine and her friends, all with their phones out.
The younger kids were at the end of the garden playing a game involving a lot of rushing around, hysterical laughter and shouting. This was fine, though, as the manicured nature of the garden meant there were no overgrown areas in which they could conceal themselves from adult view. They seemed to be playing harmoniously, but at the first hint of discord Flora would have no qualms about stepping in. She didn’t care how many other parents she offended.
Mia, of course, was doing most of the shouting. Her cousin Thomas seemed to have been cast in the role of an animal of some sort, crawling around on all fours, mouth hanging open.
Thomas was a mouth breather.
He was pretty much airbrushed out of The Chipmunk Show. But Flora liked Thomas a lot. He was a good influence – as easy-going as Beckie but much more cautious, much less adventurous. ‘Mia, don’t!’ he was often heard to exclaim when the three of them were playing together. He could be surprisingly stubborn and forceful if he felt his cousin was going too far. And Mia, equally surprisingly, would always back down when that strict note came into Thomas’s voice.
If Thomas was there, Flora could maybe relax.
The men were clustered around a woman she recognised as a neighbour from a couple of doors down. She was in mid-anecdote, waving a glass of red wine and laughing, and the men were guffawing and striking poses and sucking in their bellies.
She was very attractive, but cleverly attractive, attractive in a way that looked casual and effortless, but which Flora knew was not. Her glossy hair was caught up loosely in a clip at the nape of her neck, and strands of it were coming out, caressing her bare neck and shoulders. She wore a simple khaki sweater with a low, wide neckline, dark skinny jeans and pink trainers.
She reminded Flora a bit of the girls in The Apprentice – the hard, efficient ones, all sleek suits and heels and hair, rather than the poor quirky souls Flora identified with who were obviously just there for the entertainment value. She seemed to remember Ailish saying that this neighbour was an HR consultant, whatever that entailed, always jetting off to London and Birmingham and Belfast. A single career woman with no kids, and therefore suspect in Ailish’s eyes.
She was striking rather than conventionally pretty, with a strong jaw and wide mouth, and had the kind of figure Flora had always envied: slim and leggy but curvaceous. Flora had seen her out jogging in the mornings. She was the kind of woman who regarded her body in the same way as she regarded any other aspect of her life, as something in which she would achieve the highest standard possible within the bounds of a robust cost–benefit analysis.
And what was wrong with that, for God’s sake? It was commendable.
Jasmine take note.
Jasmine was sitting staring expressionlessly at her phone. There was a blank quality to her that Flora always found disturbing – it was more than the usual sullen teenage thing. It was as if the real Jasmine, whoever she was, had shrivelled up and died inside the carapace Ailish had constructed for her.
Princess Jasmine, Ailish called her with the faux-critical humour she specialised in when talking about her daughter. Jasmine, ran the subtext, had the life of a princess thanks to Ailish being a super-mum, and had an aura of royalty about her, a sheen, a polish, a butterfly-beauty, for the same reason. Well, that and Ailish’s genes.
Poor Jasmine. A very ordinary girl under relentless pressure to be extraordinary.
Ailish’s main brand.
Stop it. She had to stop this habit of judging she seemed to have fallen into, whether it was Beckie’s friends or the mums at school or her neighbours. It was as if she didn’t want to make friends, as if she didn’t even want Beckie to have any. As if she was determined to see the worst in people so she’d have an excuse to keep them at arm’s length.
Mrs Jenner had asked if there were problems at home.
What she’d meant was: What are you doing that’s messing with Beckie’s head?
She crossed the patio to where Neil was standing with a glass of beer. He was the only man not in Apprentice Woman’s group of swains, preferring instead to examine the contents of the small raised pond.
She sighed. ‘What time is it?’
Neil looked at his watch. ‘Almost twelve-thirty. Hour and a half to go.’
‘Hour and a half to go until what?’ said an amused voice. It was Apprentice Woman, standing raising her eyebrows at them.
‘Oh…’ Flora couldn’t think.
‘Till we can escape,’ said Neil.
‘Neil!’
Apprentice Woman looked behind her, to where the other men were gathered now around the barbeque, and whispered, ‘Is there a tunnel or what?’
Neil didn’t lower his voice. ‘Not for want of the kids trying. They’ve excavated about eight inches so far on our side of the wall.’
‘Well, they need to get a bloody move on! So you live next door?’
‘Someone has to.’
‘Neil!’
A grin. ‘Lucky for you I’m not Ailish’s sister or something.’
‘Lucky for you,’ said Neil, on a roll, beaming in smug wonder at his own wit as Apprentice Woman threw back her head and laughed, clutching Flora’s arm for support.
Flora couldn’t help smiling too.
‘Oh God,’ said Apprentice Woman, ‘can you imag
ine being actually related?’
And they all looked over at the teenagers’ table.
‘I try not to,’ Flora found herself saying. ‘I don’t think Jasmine…’ But no, she couldn’t say that. She didn’t even know this woman. And who was she, anyway, to criticise the way someone else was bringing up their daughter?
‘Oh God, I know! Surely there must be laws she’s breaking? Seriously? I mean, what is she thinking? Putting the poor girl all over Facebook and Instagram practically in a thong, like she’s pimping her own daughter?’
Neil guffawed, spraying beer onto the flagstones.
Apprentice Woman looked behind them again to check there was no one in earshot. ‘Apparently Mia’s mum has started calling Jasmine “Princess Prozzie”.’
Jasmine, it had to be said, did look like a prostitute.
And she must be freezing.
‘Oh, so that’s what those posts were about?’ Neil grinned. ‘The inspirational quotes…’
‘“You can mess with me but mess with my kid and I’m coming after you with fifty shades of crazy”?’
‘Where does one actually get those things?’ Neil was loving this. ‘Is there a website specifically catering to offended parents of fifteen-year-old girls dressed up for a walk round Leith docks?’
‘Some of those posts aren’t even private.’
Flora grimaced. ‘I don’t think she feels there’s anything wrong with the way Jasmine dresses. I think she just considers it teenage culture… All the celebrities are doing it. She’s desperate for Jasmine to fit in and be popular; to be an object of desire, I suppose. It’s kind of sad really.’
Good. That had sounded like Flora was trying to understand rather than judge.
A big part of the problem, she suspected, was that Jasmine wasn’t pretty enough for Ailish’s purposes. And so, to achieve the ‘stunning’ accolades Ailish was always fishing for on Facebook, a lot of work was required. The girl was always heavily made up, with those thick eyebrows, huge false eyelashes, heavy smoky eye make-up, lip-liner and glossy lipstick. Her clothes were designed to showcase her figure, which, thanks to being on a diet since she was eleven, was straight up and down with little in the way of breasts or hips. Flora suspected that the calorie restrictions may have prevented her going through puberty properly.
Neil and Apprentice Woman had assumed suitably serious faces, like kids who’d just been told off by the teacher.
‘Oh oh, here she comes,’ said Flora, feeling herself flushing as Ailish tottered out onto the patio with her retinue, Marianne screaming with laughter, her arm hooked through Ailish’s. But then she found herself muttering at Apprentice Woman: ‘Phone at the ready to get a Facebookable shot of Princess Prozzie.’
‘Shot into the sun. With maximum soft-focus. God, we’re such bitches.’
Flora couldn’t help grinning. ‘This is going to sound really bad, but I can’t remember your name.’ Somehow it was okay to admit this to her.
‘Caroline, right?’ said Neil.
‘Give the man a cigar! Caroline Turnbull. And you’re Flora?’
‘You could at least have pretended to get it wrong.’
‘Yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention I’m also irritatingly anal, so I know your daughter is Beckie and she’s eight going on nine and in Thomas’s class at school, and she’s quite the chess champ and is teaching Thomas the finer points. Now, that’s impressive, you have to admit, given that Ailish hardly ever refers to Thomas – or, for that matter, to the accomplishments of other people’s children.’
‘That is impressive,’ said Neil, sitting down on the low wall of the raised pond, crossing his feet at the ankles and smiling up at Caroline. ‘Being anal is a very underrated quality.’
‘It is! Thank you!’
‘Okay, so you can tell us all about our fellow guests, then?’ said Flora, keen to divert the conversation from Ailish and her parenting shortcomings.
‘Probably the only one of any interest is that guy.’ Caroline tipped her head in the direction of a man standing on the edge of the barbeque group, who was looking beyond them to the table of teenagers. ‘Mr Rapist.’
‘Mister what?’
‘Or Mr Serial Killer. Or Mr Rapist-hyphen-Serial Killer. Not sure. Need a few more months probably to decide. He lives upstairs from me, so I’m likely to be a target at some point.’
‘And here was I,’ said Flora, ‘berating myself for being judgemental.’
‘Hey, you’re playing with the big girls now. But actually I think I could be right about him. Maybe being judgemental’s not such a bad thing? Could actually save your life?’
‘Yes!’ Neil was really enjoying this. ‘It could be that humans have adapted through natural selection to living among rapists and serial killers and what have you – only the judgemental have stayed out of their clutches and passed on their genes.’
‘Looks like we’re all safe then,’ said Flora drily. ‘So what’s his real name?’
‘Tony Hewson.’
‘Just a rapist then,’ said Neil. ‘Hasn’t got the serial killer ring.’
‘Anthony Hewson?’
‘Better. But he calls himself Tony to throw people off the scent. But okay, I’ll bite – what makes you think he’s either a rapist or a serial killer?’
‘Oh… The usual. Stands too close when he’s talking to you… Weird whispery voice… Stary eyes… Obsessed with the outflow pipe.’
‘The what?’
‘Or whatever it’s called, the waste pipe thing that goes down the outside of the building? Which the baths and sinks and loos feed into? He’s obsessed with it. Keeps asking me if I’ve had any problems with it getting blocked.’
‘Body parts?’ Flora mused.
‘Yep, I reckon he’s flushing body parts and he’s worried they might back up into my bath –’ Caroline broke off as a football came sailing across the pond right at her. She did a sort of hop and a jump and stopped the ball dead with her foot, then turned and flicked it up over her back to send it arcing back onto the grass.
Beckie and Thomas came running up.
‘Sorry!’ panted Thomas, mouth hanging open as he stared at Caroline.
‘How do you do that?’ said Beckie in awe, going to the ball and trying to flick it up with her foot like Caroline had done.
‘Easy-peasy,’ grinned Caroline, setting down her glass and jogging round the pond and onto the lawn. ‘I’ll show you…’
The other kids were soon gathering round. Flora heard, somewhere behind them, Marianne saying, ‘She’s probably in a women’s football team or something,’ and Ailish: ‘Or just hangs around men’s ones a lot,’ and shrieking.
‘Mr Rapist-hyphen-Serial Killer at nine o’clock,’ Neil muttered.
‘Shh!’
The poor man seemed more like victim material: thinning, greasy hair that looked like he cut it himself, stary eyes as advertised, and a shuffling walk. He was carrying a tray of burgers in buns.
‘Hi. Tony... Can I interest you in one of these?’ His voice wasn’t so much whispery as very soft, so you had to lean towards him to hear.
‘Oh, no thanks, I’ve been stuffing my face with macarons,’ said Flora. ‘I’m Flora and this is my husband Neil.’
Neil wiggled his fingers over the tray. ‘Come to Papa!’
‘You’re from Number 17, yes?’ mouthed Tony.
It wasn’t good that they’d been in the street over a year and didn’t know anyone properly apart from Ailish and Iain – although maybe that was just urban life rather than a consequence of Flora’s reluctance to get involved. When they’d lived at Backhill Croft they’d known everyone within a mile radius, whether they’d wanted to or not.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Flora as Neil chomped down on the burger. ‘Have you been in the street a while?’
‘Yeah, a while. Over ten years.’
‘Great street,’ Neil mumbled with a full mouth.
‘Suits me fine. I don’t have a proper garden – mine’s an
upper flat so I just have the little bit of ground at the front of the building…’ Flora lost the rest of the sentence as it was drowned out by Mia shrieking. ‘... But with the Botanics right across the street I don’t feel the lack of it.’ He dropped his voice still further. ‘I’m in there most nights.’
‘Nights?’ said Flora.
‘Yes, just before it shuts, you have the place pretty much to yourself.’
She had an image of him stalking his victims in the shrubberies, through the glass houses…
‘And it’s a great place for kids.’
Beckie suddenly intruded into Flora’s imagined scene, happily skipping along a path, Tony lurking wolflike in the trees behind her.
‘Do you have kids?’ she asked.
‘No!’ He chortled, as if the idea was utterly ridiculous. ‘I like kids…’
Oh here we go.
‘… but I couldn’t eat a whole one.’ The punchline proudly delivered at normal decibels.
At this point Caroline appeared at his elbow and grabbed a burger from the tray. ‘Maybe a premmie?’
While Neil choked on his burger, Tony smiled uncertainly. Flora imagined her own smile was just as unconvincing.
‘A premmie?’ queried Tony, turning to stare at Caroline. He did have rather an alarming stare, it had to be said. A hungry stare.
‘A premature baby,’ Neil explained.
‘Ah. Right. Ha, yes, maybe a premmie! Ha ha!’
Eventually he moved away, and Caroline said, ‘You see?’ and then she was back on Ailish again, going on about how Ailish had posted a scan of a certificate Jasmine had received at school for ‘Performance Above Expectation’ in her mock exams.
Neil assumed a bright, Ailish-esque smile. ‘“Beauty and brains! Super-proud mum!”’
Caroline raised her eyebrows.
‘Yep,’ said Flora. ‘He can practically recite the posts word for word. He’s obsessed.’
‘Oh God, me too!’ Caroline grinned at Neil. ‘But doesn’t she get that a certificate like that’s the equivalent of a prize for taking part? Doesn’t she get that posting it on Facebook is a major embarrassment for Jasmine?’