Child's Play

by Alison Taylor

  Taking her arm, he pulled her out of earshot. ‘Those two are going to the station to be interviewed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Eh?’ He frowned, then his face cleared. ‘You’re a bit behind, aren’t you? Nancy’s the school bully, Charlotte’s her second-in-command and Sukie was one of their victims. Mr McKenna thinks it’s just possible they bullied her to death.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘So do I,’ Jack conceded. He watched the girls still crowded about the entrance, feeling their ugly mood. There was not a teacher in sight and he wondered if they were already gone, like rats deserting a stricken ship. ‘Have another chat with the younger ones,’ he told her. ‘Nancy’s conspicuous absence might loosen a few tongues.’

  ‘I doubt that, too,’ she commented.

  ‘Watch your step,’ he warned, opening the door of his own car.

  Janet stiffened. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t being impudent.’

  Voice low, he said, ‘I meant, watch your step with that lot. They could get mean.’

  She waited until he had driven off, then purposefully strode towards the phalanx of bodies, nodding here, half-smiling there as she forged a way through. They moved aside to let her pass and immediately closed up behind her, pressing so close she could hear their breath and smell their bodies. To a girl, their faces were hostile, their demeanour intimidating, their deliberate silence terrifying, and the nearer she came to the door, the more slowly and unwillingly they moved out of her way. Any second she expected a stunning blow across her head or neck and, close to panic, imagined herself in a nightmare where the door was forever just beyond reach. Then, miraculously, she stumbled into the chilly gloom of the lobby and slumped against the wall gathering her breath, while her heart thudded in her ears. The girls at the back of the crowd stared in at her.

  Suddenly one half of the double-front door crashed open and Alice, clothes filthy, face mutinous, lurched into the hallway, prodded from behind, like a recalcitrant heifer, by her mother. Martha was clearly furious. She glared at Janet. ‘There are two more of them outside,’ she announced. ‘Grace and Daisy, and Daisy’s in an even bigger mess than this stupid little madam,’ she added, gesturing to her daughter. ‘They’ve been fighting like bloody hooligans!’

  ‘What about?’ Janet asked.

  ‘God knows!’

  Janet turned to Alice. ‘You’d better get changed,’ she told her.

  Alice met her gaze and, with something like despair in her eyes, made for the stairs as a movement outside distracted Janet’s attention. Daisy, face and arms covered in scratches, hair streaked with mud and sand, was by the door, looking in. Grace tramped up and down behind her, kicking gravel.

  Temper rising, Janet marched to the door. ‘Come in, now,’ she insisted.

  ‘Why?’ Daisy demanded.

  Janet dived for her. ‘Because I say so!’ she snapped, grabbing her arm before she could run off. She pulled her in, waited for Grace to follow and shut the door.

  ‘They were down by the Strait,’ Martha was saying, ‘even though they know damned well it’s out of bounds.’ Her breath was harsh and fast. ‘You’d think that would be the last place they’d want to go after that poor girl died there, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Janet agreed, watching Daisy’s smirking countenance. ‘Particularly as Daisy reckons Sukie’s ghost is about.’

  Grace blenched and swayed once, eyelids fluttering wildly.

  ‘Oh, pack it in!’ Daisy snapped at her. Tittering, she said to Janet, ‘It was a joke! Everyone knows it was. She’s just pretending.’

  ‘And you’re just plain nasty,’ Janet said coldly.

  Daisy went rigid. She stared at Janet unblinkingly and challengingly, instantly defensive, instantly aggressive.

  Martha was also staring at her. ‘What shall I do with Alice?’ she asked. ‘Can I take her out of school?’

  ‘Not until Mr McKenna gives permission,’ Janet replied, her eyes still on Daisy. ‘He’s in the mobile incident room if you want to see him.’

  Alice had left a trail of wet footprints on the stairs and as Daisy ran up she added to the mess. Janet followed her, wary of more mischief, Grace in her wake. When they reached the landing Alice was walking towards them from the dormitory, dirty clothes in a bundle under her arm, her face so pinched it was almost wizened.

  Daisy, her expression unreadable, stopped and seemed to shrink against the wall.

  Alice, drawing level, also halted. ‘I’ll never speak to you again!’ she hissed. ‘Never.’

  Throwing back her head, Daisy tried to sneer. ‘Suits me!’ she lisped. ‘Just fine!’ With that, she took off along the corridor.

  ‘Your mother’s waiting for you,’ Janet said to Alice. Without looking at her, Alice mumbled something unintelligible and slunk down the stairs.

  Grace, creeping up beside Janet, said, ‘Alice is quite uncouth.’

  ‘From where I’m standing,’ Janet replied impatiently, ‘you could all do with learning some manners!’

  Her face crumpling, Grace scuttled into the dormitory. She snatched an armful of clothes from her cupboard and rushed back to the door.

  ‘Where are you going now?’ Janet demanded.

  ‘To the sick bay. Matron said I can go whenever I want.’

  ‘Matron’s not around any more,’ Daisy commented, rummaging through the clothes in her own cupboard.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ Janet snapped. ‘She can still go if she wants to.’

  ‘Did I say she couldn’t?’ Daisy turned, a pair of expensive-looking black trousers in her hands. She glanced at Grace’s locker and called out, ‘You’ve forgotten your precious jewels.’

  As Grace dashed back in and grabbed something off the locker, Daisy said, ‘You daren’t lose those, dare you? They must have cost your holy father all of ten quid.’

  Grace fled.

  ‘Why are you so positively hateful to her?’ Janet asked.

  ‘Because, for one thing, she’s a snide cow, and for another, she’s a wimp.’ Daisy kicked off her trainers, pulled the T-shirt over her head and stepped out of the dirty jeans, letting the garments lie in a heap on the floor. ‘She was just the same at prep school.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you’d known her so long.’

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t realise,’ Daisy retorted. ‘Like my mother is Grace’s godmother, for instance. And like I’m trying to toughen her up for her own sake. She’s got to survive at least another two years here.’

  ‘Is that how you see it? As survival?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Daisy padded back and forth from the cupboard to the bed, selecting and discarding various items of clothing.

  Janet wondered if she were deliberately displaying her sumptuous body and the fine, hand-stitched lingerie. ‘You’re not getting ready for a night on the town,’ she said. ‘Hurry up.’

  Pausing for a moment, Daisy stared. ‘Did you go to boarding school? You behave as if you did. You’re a real bitch.’

  ‘As they say, it takes one to know one. Now, hurry up.’

  14

  Martha leaned against the ornamental wall in the forecourt, watching Alice kick a tiny pebble across the paving. ‘I don’t think I should bother Superintendent McKenna,’ she told her. ‘He’s got more than enough on his hands already.’

  ‘So?’ Alice muttered, her eyes fixed on her feet.

  Inwardly Martha seethed. ‘So as it looks as if we’re stuck with each other for the time being, we’ll go for a walk.’ She pushed herself away from the wall and moved off, stomping down the tarmac path towards the stables, clamping her lips on the angry words trying to force their way out, telling herself Alice was a complex person who needed to find her own answers, whose inner restlessness betrayed itself in the constantly shifting, volatile moods. But whether or not, she argued, she was fated to be both the rock against which Alice threw herself time and again and the haven she sought when the storms exhausted her, the battering Alice was now giving
her was beyond all reason. She glanced round, to see Alice trudging behind with her head sunk into her chest, as if a horrible drama were being fought out inside her head, and the anger suddenly evaporated. The girl looked utterly pathetic.

  Martha rounded on her. ‘What’s wrong? Why were you and Daisy trying to beat the living daylights out of each other? What’s really going on?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Alice went on walking, with a foot-dragging slouch that might be the first sign of impending disability or simply the joyless gait of adolescence.

  Scrutinising her, Martha let the distance grow. She had been Alice’s age when arthritis first showed itself in a swollen, tender knee; diagnosed as such and not the cancer her parents feared, the relief had been enormous, but she had often thought since that if she must be assigned a disease, cancer might have been preferable. By now, she would be either dead or cured.

  Alice stopped eventually and simply waited, staring ahead. When Martha caught up with her, she said, ‘I’m hungry.’

  Martha took two large bars of chocolate from her bag, handed over one and unwrapped the other for herself. She could eat relentlessly now without gaining an ounce, yet at thirteen, as her child’s body began its metamorphosis into womanhood, she had ballooned almost overnight. When her brother died the weight fell away as if it had never been, burned to a vapour by searing grief. More and more, she saw Danny in Alice, in little comforting ways that offered fascinating glimpses of the gene’s power to survive the death of one carrier and the interference of others.

  As they neared the stables Alice’s mood seemed to lift. Her head came up and her step quickened.

  ‘Where are your new glasses?’ asked Martha.

  ‘Eh?’ Alice turned. There was a smear of chocolate at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Your glasses,’ Martha repeated. ‘The ones I paid a fortune for so that you could have the frames you wanted.’

  ‘In my pocket.’

  ‘Then he careful you don’t break them.’

  ‘They won’t break! They’ve got those special frames you can even tread on. That’s why they cost so much.’

  ‘Yes, well, you don’t need to prove it,’ Martha commented. She followed Alice into the stable yard.

  Planting her elbows on the paddock gate, Alice nibbled the chocolate, holding it in both hands like a squirrel with a nut. When she had stuffed the last of it into her mouth she wiped her hands on the seat of her jeans and, her gaze fixed on the animals, said, ‘Aren’t they gorgeous?’ She turned to her mother with a brilliant smile. ‘Especially Tonto. He looks like he’s jumped through the screen out of a Western movie.’

  Martha regarded the huge, bold-eyed palomino. ‘He’s certainly striking. What’s Torrance got in mind for him?’

  ‘Dunno. It’ll depend on whether she stays another year to try for Oxford.’ She picked at a splinter on the top of the gate. ‘I hope she does. She’s offered to teach me to ride.’

  ‘Not on Tonto!’

  ‘Why not?’ Alice turned sharply.

  ‘You couldn’t possibly handle him.’

  ‘Stop treating me like a baby!’ Alice flared.

  Martha bit back a sharp retort. ‘It’s hard not to. I’m your mother and you’ll be my baby even when you’re my age — if I’m still around, that is.’ A different emotion crossed Alice’s face then. ‘I expect Daisy’s parents treat her like a baby at times, too.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Alice said dismissively. ‘I’ve never been to their house.’

  ‘But you’ve met them when they visit the school.’

  ‘They hardly ever come.’

  ‘Don’t they? That must be pretty miserable for her.’ Martha frowned. ‘Then how do you know so much about them? You gave me chapter and verse on what she’ll eventually inherit from her mother.’

  ‘Stop interrogating me!’

  ‘I was simply making conversation.’ With another enormous effort Martha kept her voice quite neutral.

  ‘You shouldn’t need to make conversation with your own child!’ Alice glared feiociously. ‘I’ll bet Gran and Grandpa never had to make conversation with you or Uncle Danny. They already knew everything that mattered because they were always there!’

  Martha glared back at her. ‘They only knew because we used to tell them. So you’d better tell me what that disgusting brawl between you and Daisy was all about.’

  15

  After footling about with her clothes for another five minutes, Daisy had announced she was going for a shower. While she waited for her Janet leaned on the window ledge, blowing the smoke from her cigarette through the open window and praying she would not be caught. The gloss paint felt a little tacky under her bare arms. In the corners of the actual frames she could see pinkish stains beneath the white, where rust from the metal was already eating its way through and she thought it rather a neat metaphor for what had happened within the school, for all the gloss in the world could not conceal decay for long.

  Daisy returned, clad in black from head to foot, looking much older and rather malign. Her sudden scowl exaggerated the impression. ‘Why are you still here?’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘You already have.’

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to put up with me talking to you again.’

  Daisy walked over to her cupboard. The black clothes fitted her like a second skin and with every step her buttocks, sharply divided by the trouser seam, jiggled. Busying herself examining the scratches on her face in the mirror fixed inside the cupboard door, she said, ‘And if I don’t want to? Why don’t you,’ she went on, fingering a mark on the side of her neck, ‘sod off? Then I won’t have to grass you up for smoking in the dorm.’

  ‘You’d have to prove it first.’

  ‘I can smell it!’

  ‘Can you?’ Janet sniffed, ostentatiously. ‘Aren’t you a clever girl, then?’

  Daisy turned round, regarding her rather admiringly. ‘You could give Dr Scott a run for her money.’ Slamming the door, she threw herself on the bed. ‘That’s if she wasn’t already history. Did you know Mr Nicholls sacked her and Matron because of me? The place was like a madhouse when he got here, so I told him why. I said Matron had gone off her rocker and done something to Therese, and Imogen had tried to top herself.’ She licked her lips. ‘Is she history, as well? She was obviously all prepared to die ‘cos she was wearing her false leg for the occasion. When they put her in the ambulance, I could see what looked like two legs under the blankets.’

  Janet shivered and, wishing she had not left her sweater in the car, shuffled away from the window and the chill creeping up and down her spine. Sitting down on the bed that faced Daisy’s, she asked, ‘How do you know Imogen tried to kill herself?’

  Crossing her legs, leaning back on her arms, Daisy raised her eyebrows. ‘Bush telegraph. Everybody knows.’ Gazing at Janet with eyes that were almost opaque, she went on, ‘Like everybody knows you’ve arrested Nancy and Charlotte.’

  ‘They’ve been taken for questioning,’ Janet told her. ‘Not arrested.’ She paused. Her head was beginning to ache, for the effort of making sense of the sounds coming from Daisy’s lips was taking its toll. ‘In case you want to update the bush telegraph, I can tell you they’re being questioned about their penchant for violence. And Imogen isn’t dead,’ she told her. ‘Torrance, as you probably know,’ she finished with undisguised sarcasm, ‘is very much alive and almost ready to start kicking.’

  Her face expressionless, Daisy turned to look out of the window.

  ‘Why were you fighting with Alice?’ Janet asked, watching her.

  Daisy shrugged wordlessly.

  ‘Was it something to do with Grace?’

  Another shrug. ‘Why should it be?’

  ‘Well, what was all that about her “precious jewels”?’

  ‘Christ! You’re nosy! Her father bought her a pendant for her birthday last month. Grace swears it’s a real diamond, but it can’t be. He couldn’t afford anything so bi
g.’ She swivelled her head to glare at Janet. ‘Satisfied?’

  Ignoring the display of temper, Janet took out her notebook and made a show of riffling through the closely written pages. She had no clear idea of what she wanted to know from Daisy, only that instinct was telling her there was something to find. ‘I’d like you to tell me,’ she began, ‘how much contact there is between the juniors and the sixth form. Do you get on with them? Justine, for instance? She’s your acting house captain, isn’t she?’

  With an ostentatious sigh, Daisy said, ‘She’s OK. She’s quite sweet, really, and a super rider.’

  ‘That’s almost word for word what you said about Sukie.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So is that a generalised or a personal opinion?’

  ‘Jesus!’ Daisy rolled her eyes. ‘You’re like a bloody dog with a bone!’ Then, her voice a monotone, she commenced on a series of terse little descriptions that told nothing of consequence, concluding by stating that Ainsley was ‘bizarre’, Charlotte an ‘airhead’, Nancy ‘OK if you don’t let her piss you about’, Francoise ‘stinks like an old ashtray’, Therese was a ‘fat slob’, Vivienne was ‘out of her tree on drugs’, the two Russian girls were ‘bloody Commies’ and Imogen was ‘pathetic’.

  As she droned away, Janet mentally ticked off names and when Daisy stopped speaking, she said, ‘You didn’t mention Torrance.’

  Daisy looked at the floor.

  ‘You must have some opinion. She’s your house captain.’ Slowly, Daisy raised her eyes, but they were empty, as if the girl behind them had suddenly decamped. ‘Oh, give me a break!’ Janet snapped. ‘I’m asking you to answer a few simple questions, not explain the Theory of Relativity!’