Moth Girls

by Anne Cassidy

  Eighteen

  Zofia was wearing a red dress. On top of that was a floral apron. There was no bruise around her eye and she had mascara on again. She looked like the old Zofia.

  ‘Come in! Lunch almost ready.’

  The house was warm and there was a strong smell of cooking. Petra slipped her coat off immediately and hung it on the hall stand. In the hallway were two suitcases. Maybe there were some new people in the house. She went into the kitchen. Zofia was on her own. There was steam, rising from a pot on the stove. Zofia’s back was to her and she was humming. Petra went to say something but didn’t. The kitchen table was set with two places. At each place was a stemmed glass. Zofia collected them in charity shops. She liked the ones with floral patterns best. She had a shelf full of them. The room looked welcoming but there was something not quite right – Petra could feel it, like a vague smell that she couldn’t identify. There was the sound of footsteps from above. Somebody was in; Petra didn’t know who it was because the people staying in the house were always changing.

  Zofia turned to her. She beamed a smile.

  ‘Sunday roast. Chicken and Yorkshire puddings and gravy. Is good,’ she said, ‘but not ready for half hour. You go and watch television in my room – Friends DVD there. I will come up in a minute.’

  ‘OK.’

  Petra headed upstairs for Zofia’s bedroom. When she got there she saw that things had been moved round. There were some clothes folded in a pile and the ironing board was leaning against the wall. There was a clothes horse by the radiator where Zofia had hung some of her blouses to dry and she could see the legs of tights hanging down. The Friends DVD was placed on the bed.

  The room felt different. She looked around. There was something missing or it just seemed bigger today, even though it was full of drying laundry. She sat on the bed and picked up the DVD. She lay back. She didn’t feel like watching it. She was tired. She’d hardly slept the previous night. It shouldn’t be called a sleepover at all, she thought. She, Tina and Mandy had been in Mandy’s living room. They’d had sleeping bags laid on top of old duvets. They’d made posters, watched films and talked and made plans for The Red Roses. Mandy’s mum had allowed them in the kitchen to make snacks and take drinks whenever they wanted. Actually, the whole night hadn’t been bad. They’d laughed a lot and taken hours to get to sleep. Petra smiled when she thought of it. At just gone two Mandy’s mother had come down the stairs and opened the door a few centimetres. ‘Lights off; time to go to sleep,’ she’d whispered. They’d turned the light off and lay in the dark with only a strip of light showing below the curtains from out in the street. There had been silence for a long time and then Mandy whispered, ‘Lights off; time to go to sleep,’ and that set them off giggling. Then every time they were silent one of them would spurt out, ‘Lights off,’ until the three of them were ragged with laughter and fatigue. Somehow they had each drifted into some sort of sleep. When Petra woke up it was almost eleven. The room was grey and the others were still burrowed into the sleeping bags.

  Petra sat up. There was something different about Zofia’s room. The pictures were gone. She looked to the side of the bed and saw that most of the photographs of Klara were missing. There were just two small ones left.

  The door opened and Zofia came in. She’d taken her apron off and was smiling.

  ‘Lunch in ten minutes,’ she said.

  She sat on the bed beside Petra. She picked up the DVD and held it in her hand. Petra wondered whether they were just going to watch ten minutes’ worth of an episode and then eat. Zofia was just fiddling with the box though, turning it right way up then sideways then flipping it over as if she were reading the information on the other side. Then she spoke.

  ‘You know that me and your dad have broke up?’

  Petra didn’t answer. She didn’t want to say anything. She’d been persuading herself otherwise, ever since she’d seen the black eye. She’d known it really though, in her heart, but not admitted it to herself.

  ‘This happens,’ Zofia said. ‘People get along very good for a while and then they don’t. Is just life.’

  Petra sat very still, her elbows pushing against her ribs. She pictured Zofia’s eye, the bruise dark as though it had been drawn on with charcoal.

  ‘Did my dad hit you?’ she said, her voice tiny.

  ‘No, no. No, he didn’t. The bruise you saw on this eye? No, no, I knocked into the door. I was a bit drunk. That’s the truth.’

  But Zofia was turning the DVD case in her fingers, quickly and deftly. Petra felt that she was lying. She wondered if there had been other times when he’d hit out at her. They’d been together for many months. Had there been bruises that Petra hadn’t noticed, like the ones she tried to hide from Tina?

  ‘So, we have lunch? And you and me are still friends. You can come and see me and we can go to Angel.’

  Petra stood up.

  ‘For a while,’ Zofia said.

  Zofia didn’t move. There was more to come in this conversation. Petra lowered herself down onto the bed again. She took the DVD from Zofia’s hands. It was series three. The one where Ross and Rachel break up. He slept with someone else because he was ‘on a break’, but Rachel didn’t agree. It was one of Zofia’s favourite episodes.

  ‘Why for a while?’

  ‘Marya is going to Poland? I told you this?’

  Petra nodded.

  ‘She has friend who is opening a hair and nail shop in Lodz. This friend has inherited money from her father and she is selling her home and …’

  Zofia seemed to dry up and looked as though she was thinking hard.

  ‘And to tell the story more quickly, this friend has asked Marya to work with her and build up business?’

  Petra was listening hard, trying to work out where the story was going, and then she remembered the pictures that were missing from Zofia’s wall.

  ‘So, Marya said to me …’

  ‘You’re going back to Poland with Marya.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is my home. I thought here, you know, with your father …’

  ‘But it might be all right. You might get back together.’

  Zofia shook her head. She did it with such firmness that her ponytail moved dramatically. Her eyelids were lowered and her jaw sharp.

  ‘No. Finished.’

  ‘But you can’t go back. You live here.’

  ‘You can send me email. I can phone you and when I come to London again, maybe in a couple of years, we can meet up and have Pizza Express.’

  Petra’s mouth was dry. She didn’t know what to say. She felt a dragging sense of loss even though Zofia was sitting there beside her. In her head she saw her standing holding a suitcase and a holdall. She’d be wearing her old jeans to travel in and maybe not have her nails done. She’d get on a train or plane or maybe go through the Channel Tunnel and Petra would never see her again.

  ‘Are you going with Marya?’

  ‘Not so soon. Marya goes in four days. We have a friend with a van and he is going to drive her things there. No, I don’t go for two weeks. Our friend and the van come back for me. I go thirty-first of October. Halloween. So there is plenty of time. Oh, look. I got this for you.’

  Zofia opened her bedside drawer and pulled out a cosmetics bag exactly like the one that she’d left round the flat the previous week, pink with black squiggles across it.

  ‘Now we have the same bag.’

  Petra took it. Another day it would have given her a lot of pleasure; today it just seemed like a postcard from a far-off place. Zofia would be living a thousand kilometres away and Petra would only have the comfort of this gaudy little bag.

  ‘Let us have lunch. Then we can watch some Friends? Yes?’ Zofia said.

  They sat at the kitchen table opposite each other. Petra had Coke in her stemmed glass and Zofia had some red wine. There was music coming from a radio, low and relaxing, and Zofia was talking about the Big Boss who ca
me into the nail shop with four different girlfriends and how the staff had to pretend that each one was his only girlfriend. Petra wasn’t really listening. She moved her food around the plate and tried to convince herself that it might still be OK, her dad might change his mind. But then something occurred to her. What if it wasn’t her dad who was breaking up with Zofia? What if it was the other way round? Zofia had decided that her dad was not a good bet.

  That phrase ‘a good bet’ came straight from her gran’s mouth. ‘The trouble with your dad is that he’s not a good bet.’ As if he were a horse in a race that he would never win. There were other things she used to say as well. ‘Your dad loves you but he has trouble controlling himself. There’s this line that he tries to stay above …’ Petra had pictured a line drawn with a ruler and a black felt-tip pen. ‘But sometimes he slips below it, then he becomes someone else.’ She’d had an image of her dad, a small figure below the line, one hand holding onto it, the rest of him dangling.

  She felt herself trembling and thought that she might cry.

  Zofia was still talking about the Big Boss who sent her out to buy a mobile phone for each girlfriend. ‘He wanted different covers for each one. He knew his girlfriends’ favourite colours!’ Then she stopped speaking and there was just the sound of the radio playing. Zofia looked up from her food and stared at Petra. Her face sagged. She put down her knife and fork.

  ‘Don’t cry, moja mała róża …’

  But Petra couldn’t help it. Her knife and fork lay half on, half off the plate as she covered up her eyes. Tears ran down her face. She couldn’t stop them. Soon Zofia would be gone and her life would seem bland, bleached of colour. She sobbed, using her fingers to flick the tears away. Zofia grabbed her hand. She held it tightly, her fingers locked around Petra’s as if Petra were on the edge of a building, about to fall off.

  The sound of the front door bell ringing pierced the room.

  They both looked round. Petra swallowed back her tears. Zofia got up.

  ‘Someone has forgot key. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Petra pushed her plate away, most of her food uneaten. She heard Zofia open the front door. There was a brief conversation then footsteps up the hall. Zofia called out. It sounded as though she was saying, ‘No, no.’ The kitchen door opened part way. She heard a male voice.

  ‘Soph, I told you. It was a one-off.’

  ‘You need to go.’

  ‘I never meant to lash out. How many times have I got to apologise?’

  It was her dad. He came into the room and stopped speaking as soon as he saw Petra. He was astonished.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I …’

  Zofia stood in the doorway, holding the door open.

  ‘I asked Petra for lunch. You did tell your dad?’

  ‘I …’

  Her dad had been working all weekend. She’d told him she had a sleepover at Mandy’s house but hadn’t said she was going anywhere else. Petra often didn’t tell him exactly where she was going. Was she in trouble? Her dad was looking at her in a flustered way. His clothes were the same ones he’d put on the previous day. He had his car keys in his hand. His eyes looked a little puffy, as if he’d not been awake long. Had he slept in the back of his cab again?

  ‘You have to go, Jason. I told you not to come. I don’t want for Petra to see us arguing.’ Zofia’s voice was calm.

  ‘Soph …’ he said, his hands out, as if in appeal.

  ‘Jason, Petra is here,’ Zofia said softly.

  ‘Petra, you go out to the car.’

  ‘Her food is not finished, Jason.’

  ‘Go out, Petra. We can get a McDonald’s. I’ve got to talk to Soph.’

  ‘There is nothing to talk about.’

  ‘Dad, I want to stay and finish my lunch.’

  ‘You go, Jason. I’ll see Petra gets home OK.’

  ‘Soph …’

  Her dad’s tone had softened. He went up close to Zofia and stroked her arm.

  ‘Come on, Soph … You know me … You get me … I don’t mean no harm …’

  He lowered his face as if to kiss her but she pushed him back.

  ‘Don’t touch me.’

  He swore and grabbed her by the tops of her arms. Petra stood up straight, her elbows clamped to her ribs. She watched as her dad walked Zofia backwards towards the sink, pushing one of the chairs out of the way with his leg. The radio was playing soft tinkly music but Zofia’s face was rigid, angry, and she was speaking Polish, her words spitting out at him. Petra wasn’t sure what she should do. Her dad’s hands were clamped on Zofia’s arms and he was shushing her as if she were a naughty child.

  Zofia moved her knee upwards as if aiming at her dad’s groin but she was too small and he laughed at her. Petra felt her chest puff up with indignation. She stepped forward and went towards him. With her fists she pummelled his back. She used every bit of strength she had but she could feel her blows bouncing off his jacket. He glanced round at her.

  ‘Petra!’

  ‘Please, stop, Dad.’

  ‘Go out to the car!’

  ‘Leave her alone!’

  ‘PETRA, GO OUT TO THE CAR!’

  He let go of Zofia’s arms and she slumped to the side. He turned round.

  ‘Get your coat and go out,’ he said, his voice steady, low, as if with some effort he was holding his temper down.

  ‘You go, Petra,’ Zofia said, stepping round him. ‘I will send you text and we can go shopping. You go now.’

  Petra walked across the room and out into the hall. She picked her coat off the hall stand and went out of the front door. There was a hollow feeling in her chest, big enough for her to fall into. Her dad followed her. Behind him was Zofia. Petra stopped and looked round at her, searching for any sign of damage. There was none that she could see. Zofia had her hands on her hips and her face was blank. When she caught her eye Zofia nodded her head as if to say, It’s OK. I’m OK. Her dad walked ahead to the car and opened it.

  ‘Get in, Petra,’ he said wearily.

  ‘Can’t I just stay here for a while?’

  Her dad sighed, walked round the car and grabbed her arm.

  ‘I’m not going to say another word, just get in the cab.’

  He opened the door and pushed her into the back seat. She rubbed at the place where he’d held her. It was sore. The car screeched away from the pavement and she slid to one side of the seat, directly behind him. She didn’t think he could see her. She wished she didn’t have to see him.

  Then she remembered the cosmetic bag. She’d left it behind.

  Nineteen

  Petra was tired when the bell went for the last day before half-term. There had been assessments to complete, test results to get, targets profiles to fill in. She was glad the first weeks at Cromarty High were over. By now the newness had gone and she felt that she’d been there for years. She and Tina and even Mandy had their own places. First thing in the morning they stood by the library and sheltered under the awning there if it was wet. At break they usually went to the picnic tables by the sports fields. After lunch they used the small courtyard by the sixth-form block and sat on the steps by the raggedy rock garden. She was content there; she felt as though she belonged.