by Judy Waite
Faint washes of lightning shudder in through the cracks in the curtain, and his shadow on the wall is very tall. 'My name's Honey,' she says softly. 'It's lovely to see you. I just need to ask you to get washed – you know – properly washed – and then I'm all yours.'
All yours. Alix has taught her to say that.
She says lots of clients like the idea of owning you, even when they've only bought you for half an hour.
Fern has to lead him to the sink because it's too dark to just point the way, and she stands quietly, waiting for him to finish.
Lightning shudders in through the cracks in the curtains. She flinches, but doesn't mention it. He hasn't exactly come to talk about the weather.
'I'm ready,' he says, his very tall shadow turning towards her.
She moves closer, laying her head against his chest.
He has kept his clothes on – done himself up again, which is a good sign. It probably means he's shy. The 'newies' often are.
He strokes her hair in the dark and she thinks how gentle he is. She's dead lucky to get a gentle one on her last night. Maybe he won't even want to do it properly. Not all of them do. Not all of then can manage it.
'Let's lie down for a while.' She takes both his hands and leads him to the bed. 'We can have a bit of a cuddle.'
He lies next to her, keeps stroking her back and her hair and all the time he is whispering to her, talking softly but urgently, although she's not listening to what he's saying.
She's thinking about her river figures. She's started on the fish now, only giving them wings instead of fins. The first ones have gone in the kiln and she hopes the fine feathers on the tips don't snap, because it took her ages to get in all that detail.
She feels his grip on her get stronger.
The whispering goes on.
She strains to hear what he's telling her, thinking perhaps she needs to say something too.
'Aren't you? Aren't you?' he is saying, and his grip becomes pinching. Painful. She is used to this. She'll ask him to stop in a minute.
'Aren't I what?' she murmurs back in her best Alix voice. Beautiful? Sexy? Maybe both those things. She could be anything to him, in his paid-for-half-hour – especially in the dark.
And then she hears him properly – and it's not a whisper now. And she's not beautiful or sexy either.
'You're a bitch, aren't you? A slag. A dirty whore. Aren't you? Aren't you?'
He is tearing at her, wrestling with her clothes.
She hears her shirt rip. His hands, now under her skirt, scratch and twist her thighs. 'Aren't you? Aren't you?'
And he enters her and he has his hands over her face now, crushing it, screwing up her skin and her nose is bent sideways and her eyes are being stretched out as if her face is a mask that can be wrenched off. Torn away like her clothes.
'A bitch. A slag. A dirty whore.'
She tries to move with him. She mustn't make him worse. Mustn't make him worse. 'Yes,' she answers. 'Yes.' Outside the thunder smacks and smashes and the wind screams and she stretches out her hand to find the buzzer.
And then she remembers the electricity is off.
* * *
'Fern?'
Alix can see Fern's bulk on the bed, lying diagonally. 'Oh God – she's asleep. I told you she would be.' She steps into the Love Nest, holding the candle that she's carried upstairs. 'Fern – come on. Wake up. Me and Courtney have been waiting for you. We were busy talking and we didn't hear your guy go, so we've come up to . . . oh – my God.'
'What's happened?' Courtney is pressing in behind her. 'What's happened?'
Outside the storm has blown over but it's raining now, pouring. Everything rattling.
She holds the candle closer, flickered light wavering over the face she doesn't want to look at too closely.
She reaches down to touch the ripped sleeve of Fern's blouse, and Fern winces, and groans.
So she isn't dead.
'She looks rough,' whispers Courtney behind her. 'I'd better get an ambulance.'
'No – no!' Alix's response is jagged and high. She forces herself to sound calmer. 'We can't let an ambulance in here. It'll mean the police. Loads of questions and everything.'
And everything.
Alix know she doesn't have to explain to Courtney what 'and everything' might mean.
Shit shit shit. Why did this have to happen tonight – the last night. Her life has turned round and she's got her new plan and a glittering future that Fern might just be about to give the kiss of death to.
What would Hugh say if he knew?
What would happen to her glittering future then?
'But she needs help.' Courtney's voice is panicked. 'I'll get a cloth. Clean her up a bit.'
'No! Not that either. Look . . . ' Alix's mind is racing, not sure what it is she is going to say. '. . .we'll put her in my car and drive her home. Tell her mum that she turned up on my doorstep in this state, and we didn't know what else to do. Help me carry her, will you?'
Between them, they get Fern downstairs.
She moans softly, 'No – no.'
'It's all right.' Alix takes her car keys from beside the front door. 'We're going to get you home.'
* * *
Courtney keeps twisting round in her seat, trying to check if Fern is all right. She doesn't put her seat belt on. So what if the police stop them? Maybe it would be better if they did. She's not sure why she wants this, because she knows it will mean the end of everything for all of them, but Fern beaten senseless is a weight too heavy for her to deal with.
'She's still breathing,' she says to Alix. 'I can definitely see she's still breathing.'
'Shut up.' Alix is speaking in a voice Courtney has never heard. 'I need to concentrate. I've got to find a way to get us through this. I've got to try and stop Fern from blabbing.'
The rain whips the windscreen, the night thick with grey clouds that roll on through the black.
They reach the main road and pull onto it. There is no other traffic about. No one else desperate enough to be driving in this. Turning right, the Mini bumps along the unmade track that leads to River's View.
'No,' pleads Fern. 'No no no. Please, no.'
As they reach the guesthouse, Alix turns the corner, driving round the side.
She stops, killing the engine, and the rain beats round them like a drummed warning.
The headlights pour cold light on the black water that slops up against the slipway, creeping inland.
'The tide's really high.' Courtney's gut is churning and her hands are shaking. She hopes she's not going to be sick. 'I think it'll probably flood. It did that this time last year. You'd better not stay parked for too long.'
'I won't. Just go and tell them what's happened. And remember the story – the way we've agreed it.'
Courtney isn't sure she's agreed anything, but this isn't the time for an argument. She squints out through the window. There are no lights on in Fern's house, but they've probably had the power cut here too. She half opens the door, and then turns back to Alix. 'I can't see her mum's car,' she says.
'I expect they've moved it. They'll have seen there's a flood coming.' Alix cuts dead the headlights. 'Try the front door. They'll hear you better from there anyway.'
Courtney still hesitates. 'But the house looks so dead – I don't think there's anyone in – we'd see a candlelight or something.'
'Just go.' Alix's voice is grit hard. 'I'll look after her here.'
From the back seat, Fern calls faintly, 'No. Please no.'
'OK – but you've got to promise me – if nobody comes – we take her straight to hospital.' Courtney leans on the handle.
'I promise.'
Courtney's eyes sting. The wind whirls against her as if it's trying to force her to turn back. She battles through the slugged mud, and heads round the corner to the front of the house. There is no sound from inside. No sense of life. She raises her hand and knocks. Waits. Knocks again. This is insane, wasting time like
this. And then she remembers – Fern told Alix they were going away. She'd said it earlier in the evening, when she first arrived. Courtney hadn't really been listening – she'd been trying to 'think' herself into being able to go through with it all for one final time – but now the memory washes in.
She turns, struggling back down the path. Alix must have forgotten – but she'll have to take Fern to hospital now. They can still tell the same story about her turning up on the doorstep, if that's what Alix wants to do. Courtney isn't sure if anyone will believe this, and even if they do, they still don't know what Fern herself will say. How can Alix stop her 'blabbing' when she's barely conscious? But that doesn't matter. None of it matters. The only thing is to get her somewhere where they can make her all right.
She is hating herself for all the ugly Fern thoughts she's ever had. She'll make it up to her – if Fern will let her.
She turns the corner, the wind screaming round her, and then stops. Everything seems set in slow motion, and for a moment she can't work out what she's seeing.
The back door of the Mini gapes open, and Alix is walking with her arm around Fern's shoulder, half dragging her towards the black water.
They reach the edge and stop. Alix shifts position, and seems to struggle to alter her hold. For a moment it is hard to make out exactly who is who. Their bodies blend, merging together. One dark, strange, two-headed beast. And then one part of the beast falls forward. There is a quiet splash that could almost be nothing. That could almost be forgotten.
And Alix stands very still. Watching the silence. Her hair dancing like maddened snakes in the wind.
* * *
THE STREETLAMPS blink back on as Alix drives down Norwood Avenue in the streaming rain. She is grateful for this weather. It's on her side. And the flood is a gift. It will wash away the tyre tracks. Her footprints. And Fern's.
Tomorrow she'll just have to hose the Mini down, and vacuum out the inside. Destroy all traces.
Courtney ran off. Alix thinks that she'll ring her mobile later, but she's sure Courtney won't do – or say – anything stupid. If they stick together, it'll be all right.
The engine ticks a restless rhythm that seems in tune with Alix's heart.
She runs through what she'll say to Courtney. They can hatch up an alibi. They can say Courtney came to see her. They listened to music. Chatted a bit. Then Alix drove her home. Neither of them saw Fern – and they didn't expect to. They ought to drop in some comment about how she'd been behaving strangely lately. They can add that she'd become very secretive. They could press it home even further by saying they were worried she'd got herself in with 'the wrong crowd'.
But there's other things to deal with first. There's evidence to erase.
Back home, the lights glare like accusations.
The candles downstairs have all burnt low, some of them caving in on themselves. She hurries round, blowing out the flames and carrying the last one to the sink along with the pile of tonight's earnings. The notes burn easily; soft ashes on cold silver. Alix runs the tap, stirring the grey sludge with the handle of a spoon, pushing the last stubborn lumps down through the plughole.
She leaves the tap running – just to be sure of washing everything as far away as possible, and heads upstairs.
At the door to the Love Nest she hesitates. She'd like to burn the whole room. The whole house. But that would be stupid. As long as she gets this right, no one will be able to pin anything on her. But it feels strange inside. Eerie. The walls seem hung with a sense of menace, as if they have gathered a dark energy of their own.
Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. But she jumps – almost screams – when she falls over one of Fern's cream silk shoes. And she draws shut the curtains because she can sense ghosted faces leering in.
All Fern's outfits from the wardrobe have to go, and also the day clothes she wore round this evening. Oxfam is the best bet. They'll be really pleased. In fact, she'll be doing them a favour.
Shutting down the jittery paranoia, she works quickly, whipping off the bedding and bundling it into the washing machine downstairs. Then she makes herself go back up. Polishing. Vacuuming. Polishing again.
The room feels full of eyes. As she pulls out the bed, the wardrobe door falls open and this time she does scream. Knife sharp. Shrill. A sound she has never heard herself make before. Her hands tremble but she makes herself keep working, telling herself: 'It's all right', 'It's all right', 'It's all right'.
It's a relief when she's finished. A relief when she can get out and shut the door.
She does the same in her own room. Strips the bed. Polishes. Vacuums. Her house has never been this clean. She can't think why the police would ever come here – why they'd ever suspect – but she's seen enough crime drama to know how thorough they can be. There's no point taking chances.
From downstairs she hears the business mobile bleat out its ringtone. Shit – she'd forgotten about that. Racing to get it she cuts it dead, then stands wondering what do with it. Do mobiles hold traces of all their calls? Should she smash it? Bludgeon it into pieces? But the police might find the remains, and they'd sniff their way round those too. In the end she opens the back and prises out the Sim Card. She drops it in the sink, then boils the kettle. Next, her hand shaking, she pours the water down onto the card, drowning its damning secrets in a steaming stream. She'll dump it in a bin somewhere tomorrow. And she'll dump the handset somewhere different.
Is there anything else?
Is there anything else?
She searches. She checks. She runs through scenes in her head, trying to picture what the crime-drama police might want to poke around in.
It's all right for Fern to have been here in the past – it doesn't matter if they find something of hers that Alix has forgotten about. It only matters if they find definite evidence that she was round tonight.
Hopefully no one saw her drive up with Fern – she'd picked her up from college because she was late getting back from Hugh's, and had forgotten to organise the usual taxi. And hopefully no one saw her being manoeuvred into the back of the Mini two hours later. The storm should have meant there was no one out and about, although Alix still thinks she messed up with that last bit. If she'd written this as a play, she'd have thought it through a bit more carefully. But it is the only weak link in the chain. That – and Courtney keeping her mouth shut. She'll ring Courtney in a minute. Or better still, she'll go round there in the morning. She'll be more convincing face to face.
Once she's persuaded her that there's no way they'll be traced – and that if they are, they'll both end up in handcuffs – she'll have covered every angle.
With the house immaculate, the silence now screams. She turns the radio on in the kitchen. Goes through to do the TV. The CD player. The rooms all throb with sound and she thinks, if she keeps it all in the background, it could feel like a party.
Her eighteenth all over again.
She gets herself a Breezer from the fridge. If she's at a party, she needs a drink.
And another. And another.
And as the drinks begin to blunt down the knife edges of the night, she thinks that this was how it all started. Her eighteenth. Mum. Tom and Dale. And Courtney finding that card in the phone box. The beginning was as simple as that.
She drops her head forward onto her hands. It's fascinating, how everything in life somehow pieces together. One thing driving into another.
Who the hell could have known it would all end like this?
* * *
Courtney sinks down onto the bed, pulling on a too-huge T-shirt that she always uses as a nightgown. She's just managed a shower, although for a long time she just stared at it, trying to remember how showers worked. And once she'd got it going, she couldn't stand under it for long. The water scared her. The sound too much like rain falling. She panicked when the fierce spray touched her face.
The journey back along the landing felt endless, her legs slow and weighted. It is as if they are forgetti
ng how to walk. Sometimes, when she leaves her room, she is scared it won't be there when she gets back. She doesn't leave her room very often.
Alix came round – just once – the day after it happened. Before the story broke. Before anybody knew. 'Just keep your head down,' she'd warned. 'Think what might happen if you told anyone. Everything would come out. The police would leave no stone unturned. Imagine your mum. Your dad. Or worse still – think of your poor brothers having to deal with something like that, at school. They'd be really, really damaged by it.'
The brothers bit had been the worst. The thought of hurting them. The thought of them hating her.
Mum appears in the doorway, bustling in to pick up the wet towel that Courtney has left draped along the floor. 'Does that feel better?'
'Suppose so.' Courtney has been in bed for days. Weeks. She's kept the curtains closed and shut herself away.
Mum delivers trays of food that Courtney can barely eat. Tries to make conversation. Tries to keep the others out. Especially Dad. Mum doesn't understand why, but Courtney won't have Dad in the room. For now, at least, she seems to be going along with it. She's not asking questions.
Courtney thinks it is as if Mum has finally noticed her. Finally dragged herself away from making everything perfect for 'him'. Maybe Mum has seen a different newspaper headline in her disinfected imagination. Maybe she has replaced the name 'Fern Douglas' for 'Courtney Benton-Gray'.
'Shall I sit with you for a while?' Mum is standing by the bed now, the towel over her arm. She does this a lot. Hovers. Hesitates.
'I'm OK. There's no need.'
'You're not OK, Courtney. Of course you're not. You've been away from college for three weeks. You've turned off your mobile. You don't even take calls from Alix.'
Courtney pulls the quilt up to her chin. She wants Mum to go so she can hide again. The day outside can fade and there will be night and then day and night and then day on and on until she is wrinkled and old and she will never be part of the cruel real world again.