by Jane Bidder
Meanwhile, the auburn-haired girl was moving very slowly; very deliberately. Almost as though in a film. Extremely straight. Quite erect with a certain out-of-world air that one could not help but admire. If this had been evening, one might have been forgiven for imagining she was a ghost.
Curiosity made Alice wonder if the girl had got up from the bench in a huff. A lover’s tiff perhaps. Or maybe the couple were merely friends and she was walking back home from college. Then again, she didn’t appear to be carrying a bag of any description. Nor had she left one on the bench.
Alice noticed details like that. You should be a writer, a teacher had once said at school. But when she had ventured to mention this to the sixth-form careers ‘department’ (a plain, uninspiring room, manned by a part-time woman with tight grey curls), she was told that it was ‘very difficult to get in’ and that she’d be far better off as an English or art teacher – leaving the path clear for other more deserving would-be novelists. In the event, neither had happened.
The girl was kneeling down now. She appeared to be looking for something while the boy was standing up, quite straight. His eyes were fixed in the same direction as earlier, not moving, as though he was a figurehead on a ship. Alice was close enough to see these things although not quite close enough to be certain. It looked like the girl was putting a plaster on the boy’s knee. Indeed, his trousers were, she was pretty certain, on the ground and the girl’s mouth was …
A hot red flush crawled over her cheeks. Surely not. It couldn’t be. Not here in the park where there might be anyone around. Besides, it didn’t fit with the girl’s appearance. She’d seemed so young. So graceful. Too insubstantial for something as basic as lust.
Confused, unsure what to do, Alice glanced around, aware she was shaking. Surely someone else could step in. Stop them. But the park was still deserted save for her and Mungo who was worrying at her for the second ball.
“Ouch! That hurt. Bad boy,” she said out loud as his teeth grazed her hand. Throwing it in the opposite direction from the couple, she tried to walk on but her gaze was curiously drawn back, Lot-wife style.
Oh my God. Alice, who didn’t like to use His name (it seemed wrong when you were a regular at Evensong, a service which she found far more soothing than the more informal, modern-worded morning service), found herself moving closer to the couple; drawn by an invisible force.
The girl was lying on the ground now, her legs clearly up in the air in a v-shape. The boy was on top. His head down. There could be no doubt now. She could even see a small bluebird tattoo on the girl’s slim neck.
Something had to be done. Didn’t the couple realise they were in a public place? Any minute now, some mother with a gaggle of children on their way to Cubs or back from the beach after a late day out, might come across this … this spectacle. It could traumatise them for ever!
Alice’s right hand closed over the mobile phone in her pocket. She could call the police but, then again, might that not be as traumatic for the girl as it had been for her, all those years ago? Could she really inflict on her the same horrors that had stamped the old Alice, on the cusp of womanhood?
Besides, supposing this couple were in love? What if they had just got carried away? What if Garth was doing something similar with a girl on a foreign beach? Would she really thank a stranger for reporting them?
Better, surely, that she made her way back. “Home,” she called out to Mungo. It was one of the few words he obeyed, providing she had sufficient treats in her pocket. Swiftly slipping the lead over his head, she took a left over the bridge, heading for the short-cut. Just as she reached the furthest point of visibility, she glanced back.
The couple were still on the grass in the same position. At the main gates, she could see someone else entering. On a bike. Good. Let that person deal with it then. Breaking out into a jog, Alice felt the heat still searing through her body along with an icy feeling, as though she had flu.
“You were quick.” Daniel was already dressed in his smart brown hound’s-tooth patterned sports jacket; catching up on the paper in the spacious kitchen which had doubled up as a den when Garth was little, with its squashy sofa in the corner. Now it was her ‘office’ where she took calls from clients, carefully noting down their needs in the little black book on the small lavender and pink mosaic-top table, which she’d made herself at a crafts workshop.
“Was I?” Alice glanced at the clock. It felt as though she had been out for an age yet it had only been twenty minutes.
“Did you run?” Daniel took in her hot, dishevelled appearance with a look that might either be amusement or disapproval. It was hard to read his mind nowadays; a criticism which he, ironically, had thrown at her the other month.
“Yes. No. Sort of.”
She ought to tell him, Alice thought, as she busied herself, putting out fresh water for Mungo and scooping out his evening ration of dry food. But that would mean mentioning the ‘sex’ word. Why spoil the evening before she’d given it a chance? “I’m just going to have a shower. Won’t be long.”
Then she heard it. They all did, including the dog who tore past to the window, barking furiously. The sound of a siren. In London, it had been so familiar as to be unremarkable. The whirring of rescue helicopters was another matter. They were used to that here – amazing how people ignored the Danger sign on the cliff edge. But sirens were unusual unless someone had slipped in the high street and broken a leg, as had happened last month to an old lady from church. The snap, apparently, had been audible.
“Sounds like something’s happened in the park,” said Daniel looking out of the window. He squinted as he tried to focus; time and time again, she had to remind him to wear his new tortoiseshell glasses. Vanity or forgetfulness, she wondered. Both played their part in her husband’s life. ‘Did you see anything when you were there?” he added curiously.
“No.” Alice heard her voice coming out like someone else’s. Just as it had done all those years ago. “No. I didn’t.”
It was wrong to lie. How many times had she told Garth that? But far worse than the mistruth, was that strange feeling down below her waist, that had started when she had first seen the couple and which was still there now.
An excitement mixed with a disgust that made her want to gag.
Would the past
never go away?
Chapter Two
The day had started as it always did. The noise through the paper-thin wall that divided Kayleigh’s room from Mum and Ron’s. When he’d moved in last Christmas, there had been different noises. Like next door’s cat which screamed every night.
“That’s no bleeding cat,” scoffed her friend Marlene who’d become really superior since her implant at the Family Planning Clinic; always showing off the tell-tale line at the top of her arm. “That’s them having it off.”
That was sick. Really sick. Every time Kayleigh looked at Ron with his stomach heaving over the top of his dirty black joggers, she felt ill. How could Mum allow that near her?
But the sounds had changed recently. Instead of cat wails, it was Mum crying. “Stop it, Ron,” Kayleigh could hear her mum pleading. “Stop.”
Marlene (who always got stroppy if you called her Marleen instead of Marlane-er) explained that’s what you said when you wanted more. It was called ‘playing hard to get’. But in the morning, Mum would appear in the kitchen, trying to look away as she spoke, to hide the fact that she had one – if not two – black eyes.
“That’s not good,” Marlene conceded, applying another layer of lip gloss in the school toilet. “Unless she likes it that way.”
How could anyone like it that way? But it was true that when Kayleigh came back from school that afternoon, Mum was humming along to her iPod. “Get yourself something from the chippie,” she’d said, pressing a two-pound coin into her hand. “Ron and I are going out tonight.”
Kayleigh didn’t dare point out that two quid would barely buy a bag of chips let alone a bit of batte
r. It was enough that Mum was OK again. But, the following morning, the bad sounds were there once more. And so it went on in a pattern as regular as the bruise/smile duet on Mum’s face. In the last few weeks though, Kayleigh had noticed something different. Ron had started getting up earlier than Mum, even though he could have stayed in bed ’cos he was on ‘bleeding benefits’. (His words, not hers.) It was him instead of Mum who was putting on the kettle when Kayleigh came in to make herself some toast before school. And he wasn’t always wearing his jogger bottoms.
“Your stepdad prances about in the nood?” asked Marlene, almost dropping her lip gloss in the toilet at school. She pronounced the word ‘nude’ like they did on that American high school programme on Sky. Kayleigh missed it now there wasn’t any money to pay the subscription.
“Not exactly,” Kayleigh had said nervously, flicking back her hair while debating whether to have it shaved down one side with pink streaks like Marlene. “He was wearing boxers, and ’sides, he’s not my stepdad.”
It was true. Ron was only the latest of several ‘friends’ that Mum had brought home for as long as she could remember. One day, Kayleigh told herself, she’d try to find her real dad. She’d even asked one of the teachers at school about it. The problem was you needed stuff like his exact date of birth. When Kayleigh had summoned up the courage to tackle Mum on the subject, she’d received a clip on her ear. “Why the fuck do you need to know that kind of shit?”
So that had been that.
It didn’t stop her dreaming though. “Dreaming’s important,” said the same teacher who took her for English. Not ‘took’ as in nicked. Or ‘took’ like ‘taken’ which was a word that kept coming up in that book they were doing by a bloke called D.H. Lawrence that made the boys snigger ’cos women were always being ‘taken’ by blokes. Just ‘took’.
If pressed, Kayleigh would have to admit she had a bit of a crush on Mr Brown, whose first name, Marlene had discovered through looking in his bag when he’d gone out for a minute, was Joey. He had soft brown hair that he tied back in a ponytail and his kid’s name was tattooed on his arm. Jade.
If there was one thing that Kayleigh had learned from Mum, it was that you didn’t break up other people’s families. ’Sides, she didn’t even know if he was interested.
Back to the morning. Sometimes when Kayleigh recalled the evening of June 9th, she told herself it was the day that her life began. Or ended. Often it was hard to tell the difference. She’d written those lines down in her latest English essay and received a ‘Very astute’ comment written in the margin. She’d needed to look up the ‘astute’ bit and had memorised it on the Notes bit of her pay as you go.
Shit. That reminded her. She’d run out of credit.
When the usual cries of ‘Don’t, Ron’ filtered through the wall, Kayleigh slipped out of bed (which took up most of her bedroom) and headed for the shower. There used to be a proper bathroom in this place, Mum was fond of moaning. But the council had turned it into her bedroom and put up the shower cubicle in a corner of the kitchen instead, behind a plastic curtain. At least there was a separate toilet but Kayleigh didn’t like using it after Ron. Usually she’d hang on until school where your shoes didn’t stick to the ground with piss. Or worse.
It was when she emerged from the shower (‘emerge’ was a new posh word that she’d picked up from this D.H. Lawrence bloke), that Kayleigh realised Ron was already there again, putting on the kettle and wearing those garish boxers with rolls of flab surfing over in waves. Flushing, Kayleigh wrapped the towel around her but not before Ron’s eyes had taken her in. Looked right at her, he did. From the bluebird tattoo on her neck (a present from Mum on her last birthday) right down her body.
Where were her jeans and her underwear? She’d left them right here – could swear it on her nan’s grave if she knew where that was. Kayleigh’s eyes darted around the kitchen, moving from the pile of greasy plates still in the sink from last night’s takeaway to the torn lino by the microwave that didn’t work after Callum (who hadn’t been around since last summer) had put his trainers in to ‘dry off’.
“Looking for these, are yer?” leered Ron.
To her horror, Kayleigh saw that he was holding her stuff up in the air with a broad grin on his face. Was this some kind of game? Marlene would kill her. She’d lent her that bra ’cos Kayleigh’s didn’t fit any more and Mum didn’t have any money to get her another. When she got to sixteen, it would be all right. She’d try to find a job to earn her own pocket money. But round here, no one would employ you if you were under-age. (“Too many kids nick stuff when they’re working,” Marlene had said knowledgeably. “Then the bosses like can’t do nothing ’cos they’re not meant to hire kids that young.”)
“Please can I have them back?” Kayleigh pleaded. “They don’t belong to me.”
Ron’s eyes glinted. “Your boyfriend give them to you, did he?”
“No.” Kayleigh felt the humiliation searing through her. “I don’t have one.”
He was moving towards her now. “You telling me that a pretty girl like you doesn’t have a bloke?”
Deftly Kayleigh stepped aside. She didn’t want to be rude – Mum had given her a beating the other week for giving Ron lip – but he was getting close. Too close.
“Not so fast. If you want your clothes back, you’re going to have to be nice to me. Not act all innocent, like.” He leered. ‘I’ve always had a thing for gingers.’
What was he doing? Disbelievingly, she felt his huge fat hot hand tugging at the towel. “FUCK OFF!” she heard herself yell in a voice that wasn’t hers at all.
He lunged towards her but this time, she was faster. Picking up a knife, she brandished it at him. “If you touch me – or hit my mum again – I’ll kill you,” she hissed. “Got it!”
He began to laugh. A horrid scary throaty laugh. “Think you can threaten me, my girl? Just watch this.”
Quick as a flash, he tore the knife from her hands but in the scuffle, the blade nicked his arm, causing a thin trickle of blood to ooze out.
“LITTLE COW. LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE NOW,” he yelled, grinning. That wasn’t fair. Mum would think it was her. Then his eyes grew cold. He was going for her! Instinctively, she ducked and dived for the door. Hugging the towel round her, Kayleigh tore down the two flights of steps – ignoring whistles from some lads across the block – and legged it up the next floor to Marlene’s.
“What the fuck …” said her friend, her voice trailing away as Kayleigh flung herself inside.
“It’s Ron,” gasped Kayleigh.
Marlene’s voice hardened. “Warned you, didn’t I?”
“You try living there.” She flopped down on the green velour sofa, still hardly believing she’d made it. “It’s bloody impossible.”
There was a rolling of eyes. Kayleigh got the feeling that Marlene was enjoying the drama. “No good moaning. Let’s get practical. We’d better find you something to wear for starters.” Dragging her off the sofa, her friend led her into her room, reeking as usual of jasmine incense, and handed her a pink g-string. “You can have my school uniform today if you want. I’m bunking off.” She grinned, and Kayleigh suddenly noticed a silver tongue stud which hadn’t been there yesterday. “Seeing Pete, I am.”
Then her tone softened as she took in the shivers which wouldn’t stop even though Kayleigh knew she was safe now. “Calm down. Tell you what. Why don’t you bunk off school too and come with us? Pete’s got this really cool friend. Quite fancy him myself, I do.”
Kayleigh thought of her school bag which she’d left behind in her rapid exit from home, and the essay inside on this Roger McGough, which she’d stayed up late to finish. Would Mr Brown believe her if she told him she’d done it but “left it behind”.
Everyone else came out with that excuse. She couldn’t bear to disappoint him. Kayleigh had never bunked off school before but surely it was better than letting Mr Brown down.
“OK.”
Marlene gri
nned again. “Cool.” She opened her wardrobe which had a double mirror on the doors and loads of clothes inside (so lucky!) and threw over a short black skirt and orange T-shirt. Both were much more revealing than her usual jeans and top but she didn’t like to say anything. “Let’s go then. Pete’s getting a car from somewhere.”
“From a garage?”
Marlene laughed loudly. “You’re so naive, aren’t yer?”
Mum said the same. Not in an amused way like her friend but with raised pencilled-in eyebrows and that exasperated edge to her voice. That reminded her. “What if Ron tries to hurt Mum when I’m gone?”
Marlene rolled her eyes again. “Your mum can look after herself from what I hear. ’Sides, where is she when you need her? Now are you coming or not?”
The car – a really cool red sports design – could only be started with a metal coat hanger. Kayleigh had a strong feeling that this wasn’t legal.
Meanwhile, she was terrified that Ron was going to come after her still and kept looking over her shoulder to check. “We’ll go to the seaside,” Marlene’s boyfriend had announced. With any luck, thought Kayleigh, it might give Ron time to calm down before she got back that night.
Marlene’s chap – Pete – was very tall and thin with a tattoo of a cockerel down his neck and a silver stud in his right nipple, poking through a hole in his brown T-shirt. The more Kayleigh tried not to look, the more her attention was drawn to it. Had it hurt when it was done, she wondered? The bluebird had been as painful as shit and she didn’t even like it. Its face was all squashed. But Mum would have been right narked if she’d said so.
Suddenly she became aware of Marlene’s bloke slowing down on the edge of another estate on the other side of the city. “You’ll have some company now, love.” Then he dug Marlene in the ribs and laughed.
“I’m not sure,” began Kayleigh …
Wow!
Kayleigh could feel her jaw dropping as a man came out of one of the downstairs flats and walked towards them. It wasn’t that he was tall (in fact, he was medium height). Or that he had a soft ponytail like Mr Brown. Or even that he walked in a confident way like he was a celebrity. It was the way he was looking straight at her like they’d met before.