Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  ‘You could basically say the same thing about the whole Show,’ said Neil. And as Caroline raised her eyebrows: ‘Her page. We call it The Chipmunk Show.’

  Caroline smiled. ‘But seriously, what about all that nasty stuff on there about Mia’s mum? What if Mia read that? And wee Thomas hardly even mentioned, like she doesn’t even have a son?’

  ‘I know,’ said Flora. ‘I suppose the problem is that she can’t put make-up on him.’

  ‘Although if she shot him in really soft focus... God, we really are bitches. And whatever the male equivalent is…’

  ‘Hey, I’m happy with bitch,’ said Neil, and he and Caroline giggled away as Flora felt the smile stiffen on her face. Yes, she realised: Caroline was a bitch. And the worst of it was, Flora was enjoying her company. Vying with her, even, as to who could be meaner about people.

  You’re playing with the big girls now.

  She had to get away from this woman.

  She had to get out of here.

  She turned to put her glass down on the wall, and caught Ailish’s eye.

  Oh God.

  Had she heard that?

  She was near enough to have heard, sitting down at a table just a few metres away, although the group of people she was with were making enough noise, hopefully, to have drowned out their conversation.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Well that was a lot better than expected,’ Neil said as they headed up the path to their own front door. ‘Caroline’s quite a character, isn’t she?’

  ‘Mm.’ Flora unlocked the door and they filed into the vestibule.

  Beckie slipped off her trainers, lined them up neatly with the others under the pew, pulled on her pink slipper socks, danced through to the hall and grabbed her tablet from where she’d left it on the stairs.

  ‘Half an hour screen time max, Beckie!’ Flora called after her as she disappeared upstairs.

  Neil kicked off his shoes – literally, sending them thumping into Beckie’s. ‘Didn’t you like her?’

  ‘Yes, she was fun.’

  ‘There’s a but coming.’

  ‘No there isn’t.’

  Why was it always so cold in here? His feet must be cold on the tiles, with only those thin socks on. One blue and one green, she noted, with a surge of such tenderness that she had to blink back sudden tears.

  She sat down on the pew, felt under it for Neil’s scabby moccasins, and chucked them over to him. Then she bent over her own shoes, taking her time with the laces, breathing long breaths.

  ‘Flora? What is it?’

  She looked up at him and he looked down at her, his eyebrows slightly raised in enquiry, his eyes so kind, so full of puzzled concern.

  ‘Is it this stuff with Beckie at school? Listen, don’t worry about it. All kids go through these phases. Pushing boundaries, they call it, don’t they? I was a right little bastard to Pippa when I was Beckie’s age.’

  And she wanted to get up and throw her arms round his neck, to rest her head on his shoulder and cry.

  She wanted to tell him.

  She wanted him to hold her and say that it was all right. That she wasn’t Rachel, and nor was Beckie. That Caroline wasn’t Tricia. That Mia wasn’t Tricia.

  She looked back down at her shoes. ‘But I am worried about it.’

  ‘Look, I’ll come with you to the meeting on Monday. I’ll see if I can get Stephen to cover my Honours class…’

  ‘No, I don’t mind going on my own. It’s not about the meeting, Neil. It’s not that.’

  ‘Okay.’ He puffed out a breath. ‘I’m not much good at this, I know. You… It’d be good, wouldn’t it, to have a female friend to talk this stuff over with? Don’t you think that maybe Caroline…? You could ask her over for coffee sometime?’

  Whenever she was upset or worried, Neil’s response was always to try and come up with a solution, which usually involved her doing something, as if the problem was quite easily resolvable if only she would think it through; as if there was always something she could and should be doing about it.

  So: Neil realises he’s no good at talking about ‘stuff’ with her. Solution? Neil tries harder? Neil sits down with her and just listens? Nope. The obvious solution is that Flora needs to find someone else to talk to.

  She swallowed the hysteria rising in her throat.

  ‘Well. I could, yes. But Caroline’s not the kind of woman who has many female friends, I don’t think.’

  ‘Why on earth not? Because other women feel threatened by her?’

  ‘And why should I feel threatened by her?’

  He started to splutter, ‘No no. I don’t mean –’

  She took pity. ‘I don’t feel threatened by her, thanks very much.’ Not in the way he meant, anyway. ‘But I very much doubt she’s got any interest in being friends with a boring old fogey like me.’

  ‘But you must be about the same age?’

  She smiled. ‘Nice try. But I doubt she’s even forty.’ She pushed her feet into her sheepskin slippers. ‘And, more importantly, she’s obviously horribly indiscreet. And – well, we were as bad, weren’t we?’ She stood, and made herself look him in the eye. ‘Two seconds into talking to her and you’ve regressed to Mr Tourette’s and I’m not far behind. What do you think will happen if we make friends with her? We’ll probably get drunk and blurt out all about Beckie and the Johnsons and having to change our names and everything.’

  ‘No we wouldn’t. And even if we did let something slip, she’s hardly going to go looking for the Johnsons to tell them where we are.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have to. She’d just have to spread it about a bit, and before we knew it someone would be tipping the Johnsons off. I wouldn’t put it past Ailish to do it anonymously.’

  ‘Okay, so now you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Do you think she heard?’

  ‘Do I think who heard what?’

  ‘Ailish! Do you think she heard me saying –’ She felt her face flushing all over again. ‘That stuff about her not being able to put make-up on Thomas? She was right behind us. And she had this look on her face… I’m sure she heard!’

  ‘So what if she did? Serves her right!’

  ‘We have to live next door to these people, Neil.’

  If Ailish took against her… If Flora was ever to warrant, in Ailish’s eyes, the same treatment as Mia’s mum, what lengths might she not go to? And Ailish was sharp. Flora could just imagine her picking up on tiny little things she had said, tiny mistakes, and sitting up into the small hours on Google.

  Although, if the Linkwood Adoption Agency hadn’t managed to find anything, surely Ailish wouldn’t?

  Neil shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean we have to be bosom buddies. God, I hope she bloody well did hear, if it means no more having to socialise with that lot.’

  Flora felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. ‘There is that. Although you realise she’d probably defriend us? No more Chipmunk Show?’

  Neil stared at her. ‘Christ Flora, what were you thinking?... Although maybe Caroline will give us continued access to The Show, if she’s not defriended by association.’

  But we can’t be friends with Caroline! Flora wanted to shout. I can’t be!

  Instead, she gave him a thin smile and went ahead of him into the hall.

  As Neil slumbered at her side, Flora lay awake, staring at the strip of yellow streetlight in the gap between the shutters, wanting to get out of bed and draw the curtains across it but somehow not managing to summon the energy.

  Every time she tried to stop thinking about Tricia her brain went crazy, whirling random thoughts around so fast that she couldn’t catch hold of any of them long enough for them to be a distraction.

  Tricia.

  All she could think about was Tricia.

  Tricia Fisher, the new girl in the last term of Primary 6. She’d been such an exotic creature, all the way from Toronto in Canada. In the little rural school near Peebles, whose windows looked out on nothing but a field
of damp, windblown sheep and the bleak hillside beyond, any new child had been an excitement, but a girl from Canada…!

  And Tricia had lived up to all their expectations.

  Flora remembered her that first day, standing by Mrs Stewart’s side in front of the blackboard as she was introduced to the class. She’d had long black hair, and skin that was a lovely pale brown colour, and she’d been wearing a dress with a fringe along the bottom. She’d been slim and very graceful, with a smiley face, pretty green eyes and a long nose, which somehow made her look older.

  After the class had chanted ‘Hello Tricia’ and Tricia had done a funny little wave and said, ‘Hi!’, Kenny Scott had said, ‘Are you a Red Indian?’ and Mrs Stewart had gone mental at him and given them all a lecture about (a) shouting out and (b) shouting out personal questions.

  Tricia had smiled and said no, she wasn’t an Indian, ‘I just tan real easy.’

  She’d proved to be even more of a rebel than Kenny. This had become obvious that first day. They’d been doing pond life. They’d all had to look down a microscope at a smelly Petri dish with water boatmen and horrible larvae and shrimps in it doing disgusting things like eating each other alive and mating. Mrs Stewart had told them to draw one of the creatures they’d seen, but then she’d caught Tricia doodling on her jotter instead, and when she’d told her to get on with what she was supposed to be drawing Tricia had said, ‘Bugs! Who wants to know about bugs? Count me out.’

  Count me out!

  Rachel had thrilled at those words – so casually dismissive – and repeated them to herself in her head over and over. Count me out.

  Imagine actually saying that to a teacher!

  Mrs Stewart had seemed similarly shocked. For a long moment she hadn’t said anything, just stood over Tricia’s desk blinking her pale eyelashes, and putting a hand up to smooth her already smooth, neatly cropped sandy hair. ‘Tricia, I don’t know how things worked in your school in Canada, but in this school you don’t give teachers cheek. And you do as you’re told.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Tricia had paused in her doodling to smile up at her angelically. ‘In my old school, it was okay for the kids to talk like that, you know? And if we didn’t want to do something yucky, we didn’t have to.’

  ‘Well, that’s not how things are here. Please take your turn at the microscope and make a drawing of one of the creatures you can see.’

  Everyone had wanted Tricia as their friend, but to Rachel’s amazement it had been to her own group that the Canadian girl had gravitated.

  Rachel had been standing with Gail and Susie in the porch, sheltering from the rain, although by rights they weren’t allowed in the building at break time – if it was raining they were supposed to shelter under the trees or the canopy of the annex, or just get wet. But the porch was sort of half inside and half outside, a space about five feet wide between the outer and inner doors of the side entrance. There was no heating in it, but at least it was out of the weather.

  Rachel, Gail and Susie had been doing hairstyles – braiding and unbraiding each other’s hair, and adding the multicoloured clips that Rachel had given Susie for her birthday. Gail was good at doing French braids. Rachel had been standing with her eyes closed as Gail’s gentle fingers worked methodically down the back of her head. She loved people playing with her hair. Even the constant traffic through the porch – P7s were allowed inside the lobby during break – hadn’t bothered her. They had been in their own little world.

  Until the door to the lobby had crashed open and Tricia had been shoved through it by one of the prefects.

  ‘Chrissakes! It’s a school hall, not Buckingham Palace!’

  Rachel had opened her eyes.

  Tricia had made a face at her, and grinned, and Rachel had grinned back and said, ‘Yeah, but the P7s think they’re royalty or something.’

  It hadn’t really been all that funny. But Tricia had yelled with laughter, and come and stood with them, leaning against the wall and chucking her rucksack down on the floor.

  Fifteen minutes later they’d all four of them been standing in the headmistress’s office, trying to explain what they thought was funny about putting their bags in a row in front of the porch door – which for some reason opened outwards – so that people coming in, unless they happened to glance down at their feet, tripped over them.

  ‘Didn’t you realise how dangerous that was?’ Mrs Campbell had snapped at them.

  Gail and Susie had been crying.

  It was the first time any of the three of them had ever been in real trouble.

  But Rachel had caught Tricia’s eye and copied her insouciant expression. And on the walk of shame back to their classroom, Tricia had jumped up and flicked a hand at the catch on a window, punching it open to the rain, and said: ‘Hey Rache, wanna come back to my place after school tomorrow? My parents don’t get back for maybe two hours. And my brother can’t stop us doing whatever we want.’

  ‘Oh!’ she had squeaked. ‘That would be... yeah, that would be great!’

  Susie had looked at her expectantly but she had turned away, watching Tricia’s fingertips trailing along the wall. Tricia had had elegant fingers with long nails which made a shishing sound against the wall. Rachel later found out that her mum let her have long nails for playing the guitar.

  Tricia had walked very slightly in front of the others, the hand trailing in front of them like she was marking an invisible line for them to follow.

  Not them.

  Her.

  Rachel.

  Rache.

  ‘Can we come?’ Gail had asked.

  Tricia had pretended not to hear, talking over her.

  Rache had pretended not to hear, laughing at what Tricia was saying.

  Why couldn’t she have smiled, and said that sounded like fun, but could they all come? Why couldn’t she have told Tricia that she couldn’t make it?

  She hadn’t even looked at Susie and Gail, she’d looked only at Tricia, at her long dark hair slapping her back as she walked, at those long nails trailing on the wall.

  She still remembered the smell of those corridors: smelly gym shoes and polish and boiled beetroot.

  Chapter 13

  I’ve got one of they microcloths and I’m going round Bekki’s room wiping the plastic Elsa and Anna and Sven the reindeer figures, and the castle, and the sparkly brush and hairclips and jewellery box on her wee dressing table, and the lamp that’s a toadstool with animals keeking out the windaes, a badger and mouse and that. Me and Mandy did the whole room over before Christmas in a Frozen theme, like all the wee lassies are still wanting even though the film’s been out a while, but we left the toadstool lamp because what wean’s gonnae care it doesnae go, eh?

  Before Frozen we’d went for a jungle theme because Pammie had said Bekki loved animals and was into that film Madagascar and lemurs. I found this wallpaper with trees on it, and got Connor to fix up some real branches and dangle wee stuffed animals off of them. Looked magic. The duvet cover was called Cheeky Monkeys and had cartoon monkeys and chimps and gorillas on it, although Connor was like that: ‘Chimps and gorillas arenae monkeys.’ Like Bekki was gonnae care.

  But all the lassies are into Frozen now, eh?

  I go to the wardrobe and open the door and take out the Elsa and Anna costumes. They’re no Tesco shite, they’re from the Disney store. One’s all shiny, ice-blue, with glittery sequins on the bodice and a see-through snowflake cape. There’s two skirts, a see-through one on top of a shiny one. Like it’s made of ice.

  The other one’s even bonnier. It’s got a wee red satin cape and a black velvet bodice with bonnie flowers all embroidered on it, and gold trim, and a satin blue skirt with more bonnie flowers at the hem. And at the neck there’s a wee gold brooch.

  When Carly saw them she went, ‘She’s eight, but? Too old for dress-up.’

  But I’m minding me and Mandy and they princess dresses. I was eight year old and Mandy was ten, and we wasnae too old for dress-up
. We loved they dresses. Maybe our lives were shite and that, but when we put on they dresses we were wee princesses. Mandy was Princess Vicky and I was Princess Sarah.

  We called ourselves for Vicky and Sarah Ramsay, the doctor’s daughters. After school this time, Mandy was crying in the lavvies because she’d lost one of her gloves and she was feart to go home, and Sarah Ramsay finds her and goes, ‘Don’t cry. Here, have my gloves,’ and she asks Mandy if she’d like to come to her birthday party. Sarah Ramsay was in another class and Mandy didnae even know her.

  Mandy goes, ‘Can my wee sister come an’ all?’ and Sarah goes, ‘Yes.’

  That birthday party was pure amazing. There were sausages and miniature pies and sandwiches and salty biscuits with cream cheese and cucumber, I ate my weight of them so I did, and a shitload of crisps and nuts, and strawberry and vanilla and mint choc chip ice cream, and a big chocolate cake with ‘Sarah is 11!’ on it in white icing, and bowls of all different kinds of sweeties you could rake in whenever you wanted and Mrs Ramsay just smiled when you put a handful in your pooch. The Ramsays’ house was a fucking mansion and all us wee lassies were allowed to go mental, running through the rooms and up and down the stair, and when Mandy was sick on the carpet Mrs Ramsay just went, ‘Aw Mandy, it’s okay, don’t worry about it. Are you all right? Come and get a glass of water.’

  The best game was sardines – one of us hid, maybe under a bed, and the other lassies had to find that first one, and then hide with her, until the last one found all the others and we’d all jump out and shout ‘Sardines!’ so loud it hurt your throat.

  Magic.

  When it was my turn to hide, Vicky went with me because I was scared in that big house on my own. Vicky was older, maybe fourteen. She could have been a model she was that bonnie, long blonde hair on her and a right bonnie face. She opened a door in Sarah’s bedroom and it was like one of they stories Miss MacGregor read us at school, it was a whole other wee room that Vicky called a cupboard, and there were all these bonnie clothes on hangers all round the walls and my gob was dropping open, and I touched one of the dresses and I went, ‘Are yous princesses?’