Child's Play

by Alison Taylor

  19 October — The thousands of grey squirrels that live in the woods have finished stripping the nuts from the trees. The first frosts came last night, after nine days of relentless rain, and the leaves are already falling. Sexy Sean will start raking up the huge, sodden piles for his bonfires soon. He toils like a zombie in a horror film, endlessly filling harrows to overflowing with a long-handled shovel, wheeling the harrows away and coming back for more, while the smoke rises above the trees and darkens the sky, and the smell hangs in the air for days on end. Everybody watches Sean, noses pressed to the windows, drooling because he’s so beautiful. Except Alice, of course, but I never did think she was quite like the rest of us. She’s above that sort of thing.

  29 October — I hate it when the clocks go back. Every year I, tell myself not to be such a wimp, but I want to crawl into a hole and stay there until the spring. I wish I could hibernate, like the squirrels. It’s already dusk when we come out of lessons and full night even before tea’s over. The world shrinks. We have to stay indoors, but there’s still only a few thin walls and artificial lights between us and the fearsome black wilderness outside. Sean’s taken down the nets on the old tennis courts and put them in the pavilion. I always think the bare posts are like mournful reminders of summer. Last Friday, his boss drained the swimming pool. As soon as the water went, the dolphin at the bottom stopped laughing and leaping and shimmering, and turned into a motionless mosaic of tiles. Until the water comes gushing back next year, that’s all it is.

  30 November — Miss Knight made me go to the sports hall with a message for her bloody dyke of a sister. Matron told her I’m afraid of the dark, but Knight pushed me out of the door, calling me a silly baby. The indoor lights made bright rectangles on the forecourt and I could see the sports hall lights through the trees, but the path was just a pitch-black hole. I could hear the bare branches clacking together like dead bones. I ran as fast as I could. When I got there I was boiling hot, my heart was nearly exploding and the lights blinded me. The place always smells of stale sweat, even when it’s empty. I went looking for Bebb. She wasn’t in the changing rooms. I had to put on the lights and wait for the tubes to stop flickering and popping before I could go any further. She wasn’t in the showers, either. They smell wet and steamy, and it’s never quiet in there. Water drips from the faucets, plops on the tiles, and hisses and gurgles in the miles of pipes that run under the ceiling and come down into the shower stalls. It’s very spooky and when Bebb suddenly appeared from the sluices I thought she was a ghost. What are you doing here, she wanted to know, very sharp. I gave her Knight’s message and she didn’t even say thank you properly. She left me to go back to school all alone through the dark.

  26 March — Somebody — Sean? the caretakers? the fairies? — put all the clocks forward for summertime while we were asleep. I’d say Hurrah! except it just means seeing the rain for longer. It’s been teeming down since the beginning of the month, so hard the tarpaulin over the swimming pool collapsed and Sean had to drain out all the water. I’ve never known a place where it rains so often. This must be why the Welsh people can sell water to England. Miss Attwill taught us about that.

  3 April — Yesterday was Mother’s Day and I didn’t post her a card. I didn’t forget, I just thought it’s about time I stopped being a shitty little hypocrite. If she doesn’t love me, why should I pretend to love her? I hope she’s forgotten when I get home for Easter, but knowing her she won’t have done. It’ll be another sin of omission to harp on about endlessly and add to the zillions of others I’ve committed.

  6 May — Since Thursday (nearly three days now) the weather’s been utterly glorious. Matron, the old misery, says it’s a freak, due to the new moon, and Sean’s boss will soon regret refilling the swimming pool when the next lot of gales (in twelve days or so when the full moon makes the weather change again) tears the new leaves off the trees and fills the pool with sludge. I think she must be a lunatic, ha, ha! Imogen was first in the water. She must have been wearing her swimsuit under her clothes because she stripped off at the poolside, unstrapped her false leg and, after sort of hopping around one-legged for a moment, dived straight in. She is so brave. She can still swim like a fish and she actually looks like one now. Her stump isn’t half as horrible as I’d expected, considering the fuss Charlotte made about it. But she’s a dreadful ninny. I remember when she fell and cut her knee playing tennis, and she fainted when she saw the blood.

  27 May — We’ve done it again! Tudor House juniors have completely trounced the others, and provided the seniors don’t let us down, we’ll win the inter-house sports trophy for the second year running. The final matches get played out on Sports Day next month. Bebb, who despises me as a person as much as I despise her, still has to admit to my sporting talents. That’s why I’ve captained Tudor’s junior lacrosse, cricket and tennis teams for the past two years, which has a lot to do with our success. Pat on back and three cheers for Daisy Podmore, even if she is stupid. Bebb sees through me, like I see through her and I’m not surprised her husband died on her. Matron doesn’t, or can’t, or won’t. She treats me the same as always. I suppose the old me is in there somewhere, showing itself now and then, conning people into ignoring the other one, so Matron responds to the me she just remembers. Alice doesn’t like the new me, but she sticks by me, no matter how often I tell her to bog off. Grace sticks in a different way, like a tick or something else you’re desperate to get rid of. She leeched on to me in prep school. We’ve got to be best friends, she said, because our parents are. Bollocks to that. Who in their right mind would want to be friends with my parents, never mind hers? But I’d never tell her to her face. She might act like a drip, but it’s just a front. She can get very nasty indeed.

  28 May — I went in the pool myself today and God! the water was cold. It took my breath away, even though the sun was furnace-hot beating down on my head and dried me off in minutes afterwards. Some of the second formers were waiting to go in, including the one who missed a dead-easy return at deuce and nearly lost us a crucial tennis match on Wednesday, so I pushed her in while she’d still got her flip-flops and robe on. She shrieked like anything. On the way back to school, when I was passing the stables, I heard Torrance shouting and somebody crying. I sneaked up and hid behind the door. Sukie was being bollocked because she wouldn’t tell Torrance how she’d come by the bruises on her arm, which Torrance had only now noticed because Sukie was wearing long sleeves until today. Torrance knew Sukie hadn’t fallen off Purdey recently, or off anything else for that matter, so where had the bruises come from? I knew. I could have walked in, very nonchalant, and told Torrance. I could have also told her Sukie probably had lots more bruises under her clothes. She got them off Nancy, a week after the pool was filled up again. Sukie was by the pool-house door, watching Imogen swimming — or more likely, watching out for her, even though they hadn’t spoken to each other for ages, when Nancy snaked her arm round Sukie’s throat and dragged her inside. Sukie got the treatment, over and over, but she didn’t say a single word until Nancy threatened to smash up Imogen’s good leg.’

  1 June — Sukie looks awful, like she can see the gates of hell waiting open for her wherever she goes. Your heart really does go out to her. She might have had another beating, but more likely she’s scared to death Nancy will go after Purdey. Nancy’s been talking about biblical revenge, but a leg for a leg instead of an eye for an eye. I don’t believe it’s Sukie’s fault Imogen had her leg cut off. In the pool house, when Sukie told Nancy she was driving the car that crashed, her voice didn’t sound right. It sounded like she was just repeating something, the way voices do if a teacher makes us say ten times I must not fart in the classroom. I don’t know what to do. Nancy and Charlotte have kept completely schtum about what Sukie said — knowledge is power. I should’ve told Torrance last week, when she was ranting at Sukie, but I’m not speaking to her unless I’m absolutely forced because she’s offered to teach Alice to ride, and on Tonto, but s
he won’t teach me. The bitch! The only good to come out of all this is that Nancy’s stopped molesting Imogen. She’d been under positive siege for months, but now Sukie’s given the game away, whether it’s true or not, Imogen’s getting a bit of peace at last. Does she know why, I wonder?

  There were only seven blank pages left in the diary. Forcing her pen to fashion the smallest possible configurations, Daisy wrote:

  10 to 11 June, night — I’ve been put in an empty staff flat, all alone except for a policewoman called Nona. I don’t like her very much and I don’t think she’s very taken with me. She might even be a bit scared of me. She tried to pump me about Torrance, trying to worm her way round to asking if I’d really seen what I said I had. Janet, the detective, is coming back in the morning, so I’ll tell her. She definitely doesn’t like me. She’s a total bitch, but she seems to understand me and it’s not because she’s sort of one of us when Nona isn’t. Janet knows I’m sad, and she didn’t actually believe me about Torrance and Sukie. Alice didn’t believe me, either. That’s really why she said she’ll never speak to me again, not because we had a fight. Alice meant what she said and that hurts so much. It’s all my own fault. I’ve gone too far, told one lie too many. I don’t know why I do these things. Being hurt and wanting to get back at Torrance and Alice about riding lessons isn’t a good reason to cause so much dreadful trouble. The police will probably put me in prison, but I don’t care. I never realised before today how awesomely powerful words can be, even if they’re not the truth — much more powerful than Nancy’s fists. I wonder if Sukie ever understood that. Did she know she was going to die? Did she feel it coming? Is that why she looked so awful? I must remember to ask Janet if Grace has told her about Tuesday night. She said she had, but I want to be sure.

  Daisy was yawning as she put away pen and diary in the backpack. She padded to the bathroom for a drink of water, then slid into bed, still wearing her bra. Despite the pain in her breasts, she was soon fast asleep.

  On the sitting-room couch Nona dozed fitfully, aware of Daisy’s restlessness. The subtle light of a false dawn was touching the lowest reaches of the eastern sky before the girl at last fell quiet.

  Sunday 11 June

  1

  Janet awoke with a dull ache behind her eyes and the dead weight of foreboding in her heart. Sunday was the day she wished away before it had dawned, for it towered over each week like a threat and no sooner was one laid to uneasy rest than the next appeared, marking her passage like a row of stones that stretched ahead to the end of her life and infinity. The day rightly belonged to God, but her father, as God’s representative on earth, had taken it to himself. He determined Sunday, she thought, climbing reluctantly out of bed, and when at last he went to meet his maker, what he had made of Sunday would forever circumscribe her own thoughts and deeds.

  Her reflection in the bathroom mirror showed a face creased with sleep, but still firm and youthful. She put two painkillers on her tongue, took a sip of water and, as the pills slid down her gullet, wondered how long it had taken Imogen to swallow what she hoped was a lethal dose.

  She brushed her teeth until the gums tingled, turned on the shower and stepped inside the cubicle, turning this way and that to let the water massage her head and neck. Shampooing her hair, soaping her flesh, covering herself from head to foot in delicately scented froth, she thought it sad that the younger girls at the Hermitage were not encouraged to take care of themselves. She had been tempted to comment several times, and to Matron especially, about the sour, unwashed smell that hung about them, the sweat stains on their clothes, the ugly little glimpses of underarm fuzz. Nor were all Freya’s elite sixth form as groomed and glamorous as Charlotte.

  The headache began to disappear, gurgling down the plughole with the suds and night grime — if only the brooding threat of Sunday could go the same way, she wished. When she opened the shower door, steamy vapour coiled like ectoplasm towards the ceiling. She wrapped herself in a fluffy towel, then went to the bedroom to dress. Not knowing what the day would hold beyond guard duty with Daisy, she picked out canvas slacks, a silk shirt and a silk sweater. Once her hair was dry, she gave it a vigorous brushing, throwing up her head afterwards so abruptly that stars spun before her eyes. While the stars burned themselves out, she remembered the carousel of faces that had haunted her dreams, as one after another of the Hermitage girls flashed past to the eerie sound of a hurdy-gurdy played by some unseen hand. Each girl was herself yet subtly different, as if her true nature were only revealed by the night and, plagued by thoughts of mirror images and doppelgangers, Janet shivered as she made her way to the kitchen.

  The front of her flat overlooked the lower end of Bangor High Street, the kitchen the back terrace of the Ship Inn, where flowering shrubs in giant pots tossed in the breeze. Waiting for the kettle to boil, she watched fallen petals swirling about with Saturday night’s litter, vainly trying to organise her equally confused impressions of Daisy and her lurid tale.

  2

  Nona opened the door of the staff flat very gingerly. Seeing Janet on the threshold, she breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘Who else were you expecting?’ Janet asked, puzzled by her pale face and fearful eyes.

  ‘Oh, I’m being silly!’ Nona led her to the kitchen, where the kettle was grumbling as it began to boil. ‘It’s this place. It really gets to you. I barely slept a wink.’

  ‘Where’s Daisy?’

  ‘In bed still. I’m not sure what to do about breakfast. There’s a couple of sandwiches left over from last night, but that’s all.’

  Janet glanced at her watch. ‘It’s after ten. Has no one been over from the school?’

  ‘No,’ Nona replied shortly. ‘It’s almost like Daisy was right. She said they’d forget about us and we’d starve.’

  ‘Hardly.’ As Nona dropped teabags in two mugs, Janet noticed her hands were trembling. ‘What else did she say? You seem really rattled.’

  ‘Believe me, “rattled” is an understatement! I feel positively neurotic.’ Nona busied herself taking milk from the refrigerator, looking rather sheepish. ‘But like I said,’ she went on, ‘it’s this place. The trees sigh and moan all night long. It’s unbelievably eerie. To tell the truth,’ she added, picking up the kettle, ‘I left the telly on so I wouldn’t hear them.’

  ‘Did Daisy sleep well?’

  ‘It took her ages to get off. I made her some hot chocolate about eleven, but even that didn’t settle her. Still, I’m not surprised. These girls must be scared out of their wits.’

  ‘So, apart from winding you up,’ Janet began, ‘has she said anything of consequence?’

  Nona slowly stirred the teabags round and round. ‘I don’t think so. Superintendent McKenna told me to note every word, but she didn’t actually say anything worth writing down, except that she overheard Miss Knight saying Scott would be back when the fuss died down. Oh, and I tried to pump her a bit about Torrance, but she wouldn’t take the bait.’ She yawned, then rubbed her neck with her free hand. ‘What she did say was awfully hard to understand because of that horrible lisp. She complained over and again about being bored, said everything on telly was “thit”, then set my hair on end talking about the killer lurking on the other side of this very door, ready to pounce if either of us set foot outside. That’s why she reckoned we’d starve, you see.’

  ‘She’s not a very nice young woman,’ Janet remarked.

  ‘She isn’t a young woman,’ Nona replied flatly. ‘She just looks like one. Oh, and that reminds me,’ she added, still stirring the tea, ‘her period’s due. She says her breasts are very sore.’

  Janet waited until Nona left, then telephoned the school to ask for breakfast to be sent over. Daisy, looking rather drawn, was long about by the time the food arrived. She perched on a stool at the kitchen counter shovelling first cereal, then scrambled egg and toast into her mouth, chattering incessantly and inconsequentially between every mouthful.

  Now and then Janet made
the odd response, but most of her attention was fixed on the enigma of what dwelt behind that ever smiling face. Daisy had a strange aura, she decided, that was both cold and overheated. In one way she could almost see her, smiling broadly while she plunged a knife into someone’s heart or battered their head to a pulp, yet she also recognised the dreadful, dispiriting fear that haunted every glance from the girl’s strange eyes.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Daisy demanded, breaking her train of thought.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you did yesterday.’

  ‘As I don’t have a mirror stuck in front of my nose day and night, I can’t answer for the way I might look at any given time. Sorry, but there it is.’

  Daisy spluttered with laughter. ‘Charlotte does — well, almost. She’s always gawping at herself. She never makes any proper expressions either, so she won’t get wrinkles and lines.’

  ‘She must have heard about Diane de Poitiers.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘The mistress of a French king, a long time ago.’

  ‘Dunno about that,’ Daisy replied, picking up her orange juice. ‘Her mother told her, never frown, never laugh, never cry.’ She wiped a bead of moisture from the rim of the glass.

  ‘Well, from what I’ve heard, she was crying her eyes out yesterday at the police station.’

  Daisy’s eyes flicked over Janet and away. ‘I’ll bet Nancy didn’t. She’s hard as nails. You should have put one teeny-weeny spider in a cell, then locked her in with it and she’d have freaked out completely. She’d have gone absolutely ape!’

  ‘I thought you didn’t know them particularly well?’

  ‘Everybody knows Nancy’s scared of spiders,’ Daisy said dismissively. Then her eyes took on that opaque appearance that made Janet shiver inwardly. ‘Where are they, anyway?’