Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon

by Linda Newbery

  ‘Great. I’ll do that,’ Anna said, knowing she wouldn’t.

  As she walked towards the Underground, her feeling was of relief: she’d done it, got through, apart from that ridiculous moment of self-indulgence. If she met him again, it would be less difficult, now that their younger selves had been pushed out of sight. If this had been their first meeting, she’d have liked him instinctively for his honesty and directness. Before, it had been impossible to see him as he was, with Rose in the way. How did anyone survive being a teenager? Exposed, relentlessly, at school, to everyone’s scrutiny and speculation; opinions and tastes shaped round those of others, endlessly adapting to what was considered cool, or not; the air prickled with the electric tensions of admiring, envying, despising, rebuffing, jostling for supremacy. But Rose had survived, Anna was sure. Rose was a survivor. Didn’t everything about her say that?

  She delved into her bag for her Oyster card, wishing she’d asked Jamie why he loved Rose. Was that a question to be asked, or answered? Too late, anyway – it wasn’t something she could raise in a Facebook message.

  What puzzled her was why Rose had kept her new love a secret, even from Chrissie, her best friend. Chrissie had seemed to Anna too big and sporty to attract boys, or to want to bother with them; Rose was the daring one, eager to rush into experience. Rose was too open – too boastful – to keep a conquest to herself. She would have paraded her new relationship in front of Christina, made a drama of it. Surely Christina must have known? But if she had a snippet of knowledge, even a guess, she had chosen not to pass it on to the police, or to Rose’s parents.

  It must have been someone Rose shouldn’t have been seeing. Someone older, even someone married? Was that possible?

  Or – had Rose simply invented a new lover, as a way of fobbing Jamie off, or of taunting him?

  Turning her mind to practicalities, Anna bought a sandwich and a smoothie on her way back to the office, where she made three phone calls before resuming work; she’d stay on late to make up for her extended lunch break. Christina Marchant should be easy enough to track down; she sent a dutiful card to Anna’s parents every Christmas. A Directory Enquiries search brought up the Weald Close address and number: so Christina’s parents were still living there. Anna made a second call, identifying herself as a school acquaintance of Christina’s, and Mrs Marchant obligingly passed on details. ‘Christina Talbot she is now, dear. Lives in Bromley, near the civic centre. Got a pen handy?’

  The third call produced Christina herself, a little out of breath, as if she’d had to run for the phone.

  ‘Anna Taverner? What, you don’t mean there’s news – has something—?’

  ‘No, no.’ Anna had underestimated the shock her name might provoke. ‘I just wanted to talk to you. I wondered if we might meet.’

  ‘Oh! Well … I suppose so. Talk about Rose, you mean?’

  Anna wouldn’t have recognized her voice. She might have been anyone.

  ‘Yes – not because I’ve found out anything new. I haven’t.’

  ‘Are you still in Sevenoaks?’

  ‘No, in London, but I can come down to Bromley if that’s easier – one evening, or at the weekend. Are you free on Sunday morning?’

  ‘We go to church, so the afternoon’s better. Easiest if you come round here, as long as you don’t mind the children and the baby. About three-thirty – is that any good? But I don’t think I can—’

  ‘Great,’ said Anna. She wrote down the address Christina gave her, folded the paper and tucked it into her wallet. Yes, she remembered now that the latest Christmas card had mentioned a new baby: Mum had said something about it. At least Christina would be easier to face than Jamie, but whether this was progress, or only a pointless plod over old ground, Anna couldn’t tell.

  June 1993

  It was the summer of her fifth-year exams. Wimbledon fortnight. Anna had taken her first French paper and was walking home from school alone, past the park and the row of houses that bordered it. ‘Agassi leads, five games to three, third set,’ drifted through an open window. Her feet were slippery with sweat inside her sandals. She thought of getting home, making herself a cold drink with ice, and sitting in the garden with a token effort at revising for tomorrow’s history. Or she might watch the tennis, if the Agassi match hadn’t finished.

  Someone was coming along the path towards her. She saw dark hair, long legs in denim jeans, white shirt flapping undone over a tanned stomach: it was Jamie Spellman, Rose’s old boyfriend. Less friendly with Melanie now, Anna hadn’t met Jamie for two or three years. He must be twenty-one now, the same as Rose. She looked at him appraisingly as he came nearer, and saw him return the scrutiny, keen-eyed. He hadn’t realized who she was. She tossed her head and flicked back her hair, enjoying this new power of attracting male glances, encouraging or dismissing them as she chose.

  Jamie stopped in front of her.

  ‘Anne! Thought I recognized you.’

  The ghost of Rose stood between them.

  ‘You look so different,’ he said, his eyes sweeping down her body, then up again.

  ‘Surprise, surprise. I’m sixteen now. I was a little kid when you went out with Rose. And it’s Anna, not Anne.’

  ‘It seems such a long time ago. And you still don’t know anything?’

  Anna shook her head, finding it hard to breathe or swallow. She turned away from him and walked slowly down the dip of grass into the park. He followed, and they sat on the bench. She looked at the length of his thigh, and a torn slit in his jeans through which she saw lightly tanned flesh.

  ‘You used to come here with Rose, didn’t you?’ she remarked.

  ‘Yeah. There was that time with the rabbit. It really freaked her out. You were here, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was weird like that, Rose. Gorgeous but weird.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re not bad yourself, these days. You know that?’

  Not bad was the best Anna could ever hope to achieve, in Rose’s shadow. An idea presented itself. She stood up, shouldering her school bag.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Come on. Let’s go for a walk.’

  Would he follow? Was she good enough bait? He got to his feet, but said doubtfully, ‘Where to?’

  ‘Where you used to go with Rose. Take me there.’

  Anna’s heart was pounding as they crossed the field and went through the kissing gate to the footpath. She knew where it led, behind a row of back gardens and into an open field. The field was full of ripening barley, rippling to the breeze’s touch like a head of blow-dried hair. Between the stands of barley, where the tractor had left tyre-tracks, the ground was hard and deeply cracked. At the edge of the field ran a stream, fringed by trees. Jamie walked ahead, then waited for her; he took her hand and led her through a faintly trodden gap between shrubs and brambles into a hidden grassy place.

  ‘Here. Here’s where we used to come.’

  Thorny twigs snagged Anna’s hair; she reached up to free herself. The stream, a torrent in winter, was a sluggish trickle between mud banks. There was a Coke can lodged against a root, and sweet papers scattered in the grass. Other people came here, not just Jamie and Rose.

  ‘What did you do, you and Rose?’ Anna asked. She dropped her bag and went close to him, lifting her face to his. ‘Show me.’

  She saw his eyes widen in surprise; he smiled. ‘This,’ he said, and put his arms round her, moving his mouth to press on hers. She leaned into him, closing her eyes, tasting the saltiness of his lips. He was tentative at first, but then his arms tightened and his tongue was inside her mouth, a huge thing, probing, searching. No one had kissed her that way before – in fact it was hardly kissing, more of an invasion – and she wasn’t sure that she liked it, but Rose must have done it so she’d have to learn. She moved her hands down from his shoulders to his hips. He was pushing himself against her, and she felt the surprising, immediate hardness of his penis against her stomach. She shifted her hand t
o explore; he gave a little gasp, and drew back.

  ‘Are you really, you know, up for it?’ he said, incredulous.

  So she didn’t have to, and that made her reckless. ‘Course.’ She gave what she imagined was a knowing, worldly smile.

  He seemed doubtful. She felt a thudding of relief, and disappointment too, because he might laugh and reject her; already her skin was prickling with the shame of that. But he gave a sigh and held her close and started to kiss her again, a hand finding its way inside her shirt. After a few moments he hooked a leg round one of hers and tipped her off-balance, and they sank to the ground together. His hand was warm on her thigh, edging up under her skirt, pulling at her knickers. She helped him, getting them over her feet and throwing them aside, and he unzipped his jeans. He moved himself to lie on top of her; a knee came up to push her legs apart. His breath was harsh in her ear as his hand moved in to touch where no one had touched before. Catching her wrist, he guided it down and closed her fingers over his penis, a hot rubbery thing that throbbed with a life of its own. After a few moments he groaned into her ear, pushed her hand away and rolled onto his side to fumble in the pocket of his jeans.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What do you think?’ His voice was husky. ‘You don’t want to end up in the club, do you?’

  Waiting, lying still, she remembered how he’d demonstrated killing the rabbit, his hand chopping the air. She heard a crackling sound and smelled rubber before he rolled over her again, breathing against her neck.

  ‘Do you always have one of those in your pocket?’ she asked him, amazed. ‘Just in case?’

  He didn’t answer. He pushed her legs wider apart, fumbling with his fingers. It wasn’t going to work, she was convinced. But she felt a sharp pain as he pushed into her, a pain that was repeated as he went on shoving. At first his weight was over her; then he raised himself on his hands, with his eyes closed and his mouth open. She thought: I’m doing it, actually doing it! But she hadn’t expected it to be so brutal. He was hurting her with each thrust, so much that she felt he must be damaging her inside, but he didn’t seem to notice. The ground was hard and bony under her shoulders and hips. She thought: I’m Rose, doing what Rose did, same person, same place. She supposed, while she waited for it to be over, that Rose must have liked it.

  Abruptly it was finished. Jamie groaned and collapsed against her, all impetus gone out of him. Maybe, she thought, this would be the romantic part, where they’d lie together and talk. He’d kiss her and stroke her hair and look into her eyes. He would say sorry for hurting her and promise it would be better next time. She remembered how tenderly he’d kissed Rose; she knew he could be gentle.

  But all he did was slither away from her to strip off the condom and throw it into the stream, which struck her as a disgusting thing to do. Then he pulled up his pants and jeans. He seemed to have returned from somewhere else.

  Anna almost said, ‘Is that it? Is that what all the fuss is about?’ But she felt too battered to say anything at all, and suddenly ashamed. She found her knickers and put them back on. In films, people took off all their clothes; she hadn’t so much as removed her school tie. But none of this had been much like films. She wondered if she were bleeding; it felt like being wounded. Still, she’d done what she wanted, and there was a sort of triumph in that.

  Jamie stood up, brushed bits of twig and dried leaves off his clothes, and reached out a hand to pull her to her feet – the first time he’d taken any real notice of her since they lay down together. ‘Are you OK? It was your first time, wasn’t it?’

  So he had noticed. She waited for him to add something more, but when she nodded he only smiled and said, ‘It gets better with practice,’ and she saw that she’d given him the triumph of shagging a virgin. He’d be telling his mates about it tonight, while she revised her history. It was the price of her triumph.

  Fair enough – she’d used him, too.

  Now she asked him what she really wanted to know. ‘Was it like that with Rose?’

  He didn’t look at her. He swiped at a trailing bramble with his foot and trampled it flat.

  ‘I never did it with Rose,’ he said.

  Anna stared at him. ‘But you came here with her. You told me!’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. We used to – you know – snog, grope a bit. Have a fag. Or just talk.’ Now he looked at her directly. ‘It was nothing to do with me, her doing a moonlit flit. I mean, if she was pregnant, it wasn’t me. We never did it. She wouldn’t.’

  Realization thudded hollow in Anna’s chest. She’d been cheated of her victory. She snatched up her bag and shouldered it, stumbling out into the sunlit barley field. The glare was too bright, hurting her eyes. All of her hurt.

  He’d been pretending she was Rose. He must have. And she’d been pretending too, but she’d never be Rose: only stupid, deluded, gullible Anna.

  ‘Anne!’ He was following. ‘It was your idea – don’t pretend it wasn’t! Wait up!’

  ‘I’m Anna. Anna!’ she yelled back, furious. ‘Fuck off, will you?’

  Hot tears welled in her eyes as she ran back along the footpath, slowing to a jog-trot as she reached the park. There were children on the swings and two young mothers sitting on the bench, chatting; they looked at her curiously as she crossed the field. She thought of the phrases Mum used for what she’d done. Thrown herself away. Cheapened herself. Behaved like a woman of loose morals.

  I hate you, Rose. Look what you’ve made me do. I hate you.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cassandra is in reception, making an appointment for a patient. She scans her computer screen while the woman waits, holding her child, a whiny girl of ten or so, by the hand. The girl is kicking her foot against the skirting board below the reception hatch in a bored, irregular rhythm.

  ‘Don’t do that, Kira,’ says the mother at last, but it’s too late – the thudding has got inside Cassandra’s head. She feels a tightening, a mounting tension that makes her eyes waver and the screen blur.

  ‘Thursday the eleventh, ten-twenty?’ she says. The words come out in the proper order, measured and polite, but it might be someone else saying them. The woman nods, and Cassandra writes the date on an appointment card. The pen seems to be a living thing, trying to slither out of her grip. As she hands over the card, the woman’s gaze rests briefly on her face, disapproving, unsmiling. Perhaps it mirrors her own expression.

  She can hardly breathe. She swivels her chair and looks down at her hands, sees the tremor in them, the uncontrollable shake as she tries to hold them steady. She seems to be looking down on her hands from somewhere high above. If she doesn’t get out of here, fast, she’ll throw up, or faint. There’s a prickling in her armpits; she can smell sweat, smell her own fear. It clams her hands, clams her thoughts.

  There are people waiting at the hatch; a peevish-faced elderly woman is looking at her. She can’t face them, can’t get out a coherent word.

  ‘Jilly, could you?’ she manages. ‘Sorry, I’m—’

  She pushes her chair back so abruptly that she stumbles and almost falls. Jilly’s face and Louise’s are pale blobs, floating in mist.

  ‘Are you all right?’ someone says.

  ‘Yes. No.’

  Regaining her balance, she walks giddily towards the door at the back of the office that leads to the staff loo and outside.

  In the toilet cubicle she leans against the wall and fights for breath.

  I can’t go back in there. I can’t. I’ve got to get away.

  Christina Talbot’s house was a big thirties semi in a tree-lined street a few minutes’ walk from Bromley South station. The large, muscular girl – strapping, Mum used to call her – was now a plump woman with brown hair streaked blonde, and loose clothes that didn’t conceal a bulky waistline. Surely, Anna thought, she’s older than Rose; older than Rose could ever be. Christina had a balding husband, who was outside doing something under the bonnet of an estate car, and three children, aged from
about ten down to the baby. Anna struggled with the concept that Rose, by now, could have made a life like this for herself.

  The two older children were watching TV in a sitting room, the floor strewn with toys, bits of Lego and building bricks. ‘Sorry about all this.’ Christina was holding the baby in her arms. ‘We’ll go through to the back, it’s quieter.’ She led Anna through to another room, a kitchen/dining room, almost as cluttered.

  ‘How old is he? She?’ Anna asked, looking at the baby; she hadn’t been interested enough to pick up this most basic information from the latest Christmas card.

  ‘Six weeks. This is Oliver.’ Christina was smiling, looking at Anna for some further response.

  ‘He’s lovely,’ Anna said awkwardly. She never knew what to say about babies, seeing them as messy, demanding, cumbersome things. She hoped to feel differently about Bethan’s.

  ‘If you hold him, I’ll put the kettle on,’ Christina said, handing him over.

  Wondering at her readiness to give the baby to a stranger, Anna adjusted to his weight, and smelled milk, lotion and warmth. He was bulky in his nappy and his layers of soft clothes; his breath made small bubbles at one corner of his mouth and his eyelids were the delicate mauve-pink of the inside of a shell. Anna stared, fascinated, disturbed. Illogical resentment flashed through her at the thought that Martin had done this, had held his own baby sons, Patrick and then Liam; he’d done it without her, in his other life, long before he knew she existed.

  Christina laughed at the way she held the baby so gingerly. ‘You haven’t got kids of your own, then?’

  ‘No.’ It still struck Anna as a surprising possibility. ‘Actually, I’ve never held a baby before.’

  ‘You’ve never –?’ Christina’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re – how old? Early thirties, you must be? And you’ve never held a baby?’

  ‘Thirty-three. No, I’ve always been afraid to. And there aren’t any children in our family.’

  ‘No?’ Christina said it sympathetically, though Anna had simply been stating a fact. ‘No, I suppose not, what with—’