by Jane Bidder
“Don’t you dare!” Her mother had clutched his arm. “I’ll never be able to look Marjorie in the face again. We’ll lose them as friends, all because of our daughter’s silly head.”
Later, after the party was cancelled (Alice refused to go and her mother was left with the ‘humiliating’ task of ringing everyone, not to mention the ‘terrible unnecessary expense’), Dad had taken her to one side. “Are you sure this all happened?”
She’d nodded.
He’d gone out the next day ‘for a drive’ or so he said. But when he returned, his face was set. “Did he admit it?” asked Alice.
Dad had shaken his head. “He said you tried to … to get familiar but that he’d had to push you away.”
“That’s not true.”
Looking at her sadly, Dad had patted her on the shoulder and then walked away. The following month, Gordon – fed up no doubt by her failure to return his calls – started dating Angela.
Somehow, she got through her A-levels; spurred only by the thought of getting away. During her first year at uni, her mother’s letters occasionally referred to joint jaunts with Uncle Phil and Auntie Marjorie. The very look of his name in her mother’s writing made her feel sick and Alice made sure that she was never around if they came to the house during the holidays. Eventually, the strain grew too much. At her tutor’s suggestion, she left after her first year to have a break and never came back. Far easier to rent a room in London, join an employment agency, and carry on running.
If only she’d run away from Phil before anything had happened.
My fault. My fault.
“This way, please.” The cool but pleasant enough nurse who met them at the door was now leading them down a corridor. Alice glanced at her mother. She was looking as elegant as always; after Dad had died, she had blossomed rather than wilted. Now, as she clicked along in her kitten heels and tailored dress, she might pass for sixty rather than seventy-odd.
“Don’t upset him,” she hissed. “He’s an old man. And he still hasn’t forgotten those silly accusations that you made.”
Gritting her teeth – what was the point of arguing back now when her mother had never believed her before? – Alice followed the nurse into a small side room. Stunned, she stopped.
There, in the bed, lay an old man. His skin was grey and there was a network of tubes leading from his arm to the drip at the side. His eyelids were closed and there was a heavy rasping. Was this really the spectre who had spoiled her life? She could surely knock him down like a feather if she so chose.
“Phil,” said the nurse softly. “You’ve got the visitor you’ve been asking for.”
Almost immediately, the eyes snapped open. It was all Alice could do not to gasp. The outside body might have changed but those brown eyes with flecks of green were still the same ones from her nightmares, bearing down on her. Those thin hands on the bed had once been strong enough to pin her down. Was it possible that this was a joke? That any minute now, those hands might try to do the same again?
For a minute, she thought she was going to be sick. “Take a seat, dear,” said the nurse, seeing her falter. Then she whispered. “I know it’s distressing seeing loved ones like this.”
Phil was waving a hand. “Go away,” he seemed to say.
Did he want her to leave immediately? Alice felt cheated. There was so much she needed to say to him. But then she realised he was waving his hand at her mother. He wanted her to go.
“We’ll give you and your uncle some time together, shall we?” whispered the nurse.
Alice swallowed. Yes. No. Maybe. He was here. Face to face. Finally she could tell him all the things she’d been storing up in her head. Things that the counsellor had said she ought to list in a letter to “let it all out”.
But how could she? He was an old man. Frail. On his deathbed with yellow skin. Ugh! A wrinkled hand was creeping out towards hers. He was trying to say something. “I’m sorry.” At first she didn’t think she’d heard him properly. In disgust, she leaned towards him, noting his thin maroon lips. “I’m sorry.”
There was no doubt now.
“You ruined my life,” she whispered back.
“Forgive me.” The eyes held hers. “Please.”
What else could she do? He was dying. Terror was in his eyes. This old man was facing the ultimate. The thing that they were all secretly scared of. It would be wicked not to give him her forgiveness.
Silently she nodded, hating herself for doing so. “I … forgive … you.”
Each word had to squeezed out of her mouth through sheer internal effort.
Then she got up and ran out of the room, past her mother, waiting by the door with mistrustful eyes. “You didn’t upset him, did you?”
“Fuck off,” she threw back, appalled with herself and by the look on the nurse’s face. “Just fuck off.”
The two of them drove back in silence, her mother refusing to speak to her after what she described as the most embarrassing scene of her life. In front of the nurse too. Whatever would she think? What was wrong with Alice? Why couldn’t she be normal like other daughters?
As her mother drove through the mid-morning traffic, they went through a small village on the outskirts of Plymouth. For a moment, Alice fancied she saw the girl from the park running, her unruly pale auburn locks cascading over her shoulders; rucksack on her back.
She shook her head. Her imagination again. Both a curse and a blessing. With longing, Alice thought of the china piece at home, waiting to be restored. It was a small vase, broken by the owner’s sister which needed mending before the damage was discovered. The project might distract her. Soothe her. Take away the injustice of having been denied her final say. Give her time to reflect, on her own, exactly what had happened.
But to her irritation, Daniel met her at the door.
“What happened?” he asked, taking in her face, frowning as he tried to read it. Then he observed her mother driving off. “Doesn’t she want to come in?”
Alice shook her head. “It’s a long story.”
He tried to hold her but she broke away. His touch revolted her. Reminded her of the old man with the blue-veined hands and maroon lips who had forced her, once more, to do something she hadn’t wanted.
It felt like verbal rape.
“Please Daniel, not now.”
Hurt, he turned away. Alice tried to find a voice to explain; giving up, she put on the kettle and turned on the radio. Normal Radio 4. Merrily chattering away as though nothing had happened. Sweet tea. The vase waiting to be mended. A game of tennis maybe, at the club tomorrow.
Routine.
It was the only way forward.
“This is the news at one. There have been a series of earthquakes in south America …”
Appalled, she dropped the spoonful of tea she’d been about to put in the teapot. Daniel, halfway out of the kitchen, shot round.
“Several casualties have been reported …”
Oh my God. “It’s all right,” she expected her husband to say. “Stop worrying all the time. South America is a big place.”
“Peru is said to be badly affected …”
Peru? “But that’s where Garth is,” she whispered, half-waiting for her husband to correct her.
But instead, he was scribbling down the emergency number on the kitchen notepad before grabbing the phone.
Chapter Twelve
Why, Kayleigh asked herself as she ran, did she always pick weirdos? First Ron – although to be fair, it was Mum who had brought him home. Then Posy from the centre who had nicked her money. And now some old bloke who wanted to pretend she was his murdered daughter.
If Callum had been around, she thought wistfully, he’d have sorted the geezer out. But he’d been gone for so long now that she’d stopped relying on him. Instead, she had her Frankie! Yet sometimes, it was hard to picture his face. Were his eyes green or bluey-green? Maybe a mixture of both.
She’d remember as soon as she saw him again. Marlene’s boyfriend
was wrong. Frankie wouldn’t be mad at her. He’d understand that the police had made her give that statement. You forgave people when you loved them, didn’t you? She and Frankie might not have known each other very long but she could tell from the way he had touched her that he had really, truly wanted her just like Mr Rochester wanted Jane.
“Men aren’t always good at showing their feelings,” Mr Brown had said when they’d read Jane Eyre in class. He’d said it in such a way that Kayleigh knew he was talking about him and her. But she respected him for not doing anything because he had a family. Maybe in another life, it would be different. Mr Brown used to speak about that too in RE.
Kayleigh slowed down a bit now because her chest was hurting with the running. Anyway, no one was following her, though she wouldn’t have put it past the old man to have given chase, despite his age. If Frankie was here, he’d have protected her.
Frankie, Frankie. Her heart ached with longing. “He’s a well-known user,” the policeman with the clear blue eyes and jet-black hair had said.
That wasn’t fair. Frankie had only given her that tablet to calm her down. “Are you sure?” the policeman had demanded, when she’d sworn she’d never taken anything before herself.
But it was true. She knew what some drugs looked like because you couldn’t live on the estate without seeing stuff like that. Besides, she’d seen what had been under her half-brother’s bed along with the crisp fifty-pound notes.
“He didn’t mean to hurt me,” she’d told the policeman with the clear blue eyes. “He was just trying to help me ’cos I was upset. It was my fault for taking it. Not his.”
Something flickered in the policeman’s face as though he understood that bit. Good. When she saw Frankie, she’d tell him that she’d taken the blame. Maybe then he’d be nice to her.
Suddenly Kayleigh realised exactly what she had to do. She needed to go back to Marlene and get her to ask her boyfriend where Frankie was now. Then she’d visit him. Talk to him face to face.
Kayleigh ran a hand through her hair. It felt quite smooth thanks to the shower she’d had at the old man’s this morning. She smelt nice too after helping herself to lavender bath salts that had been on the bathroom shelf. Only now the thought occurred to her that they might have belonged to the dead wife or daughter. Ugh.
Did she look OK enough to see Frankie? Maybe Marlene would be able to lend her something nice to wear. Her friend had had enough time to stop being mad at Kayleigh now about talking to the police. It was good to give people time to cool off. She did that with Mum. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
Nearly there now. The city was opening up before her with its sprawl of cheap shops before you got into the posh bit. Her spirits lifted at the sight of a corner supermarket with boxes of fruit outside. Kayleigh’s stomach rumbled with hunger. She was tempted to help herself to a banana but too scared in case someone ran out of the shop and nabbed her.
There was a television in the next shop. One of those massive ones that looked like a cinema screen. Callum had promised Mum he’d get her one. “We’ll never have it now.” It was the first thing Mum had said after the police had come to take him away.
Kayleigh paused for a moment to look at the screen. There was a picture of a town all crushed into tiny little bits and a baby with wide eyes being picked up out of the rubble.
She loved babies! Marlene was always saying it was the only way to get a flat of your own. But she said it in a way that suggested the flat was the important bit. Not the baby. Not someone to hold against you and smell and know that this little person loved you more than anyone else ever could.
There were words under the picture now.
Massive earthquake hits South America. Hundreds feared dead. British tourists feared amongst the casualties.
Kayleigh shivered. That’s what came of going abroad. She’d never fancied it herself although Mum had gone ‘dirt-cheap’ to a place called the Canaries a few years ago with a friend.
She walked on, still feeling sorry for those poor people on the cinema screen. Say what you did about this country, but at least you didn’t get earthquakes or twisters like they’d learned about in geography.
Ouch. Her trainers were beginning to pinch more than usual. She needed a rest, Kayleigh told herself. But if she stopped, Marlene might be out when she arrived. There was no guarantee that she was in anyway. If not, maybe she’d just sit on the doorstep and wait.
At last! Here she was. Why did she feel nervous, Kayleigh asked herself, climbing the steps to the flat as the lift was out of order again? Marlene was her friend, wasn’t she? Maybe she’d be worried about her. Pleased that she’d turned up safe.
The doorbell wasn’t working again so she banged the knocker. There was a twitch at the closed curtains. Then footsteps. Slow footsteps that weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.
“What do you want?” Marlene’s face stared at her like stone. She had her fake eyelashes on and a T-shirt that only just reached below her bottom with Help Yourself written on the front in black. Nothing else.
“I … I wanted to make up,” stammered Kayleigh.
Her friend’s eyes hardened. “You mean you still don’t have nowhere to stay.”
“They wanted to put me in care ʼcos I’m underage.” Kayleigh caught at Marlene’s T-shirt. “Please help me.”
“Is that the bitch what split on me mate?”
A tall, skinny boy with tattoos down his chest loomed up behind Marlene. His eyes narrowed, making her feel suddenly scared. “You’re in real trouble, know that? Frankie’s out on bail now till his court hearing. And he’s looking for you.”
Frankie was out on bail? He was looking for her! She knew it! He loved her, just like she loved him. Wasn’t that what they’d told each other in the park?
But something didn’t feel quite right.
“What do you mean, I’m in real trouble?” she asked.
Marlene’s face now stopped looking hard. Instead, it was pinched and scared. “Just go, Kayleigh,” she said. “Please go. Before he finds you here.”
Maybe she’d try home again. God knows she needed some clean clothes. The jeans that the old man had washed for her had shrunk. And the ones that had belonged to his dead daughter freaked her out.
It would be nice, after all that running, to have a shower before she went to find Frankie. No matter what Marlene said, she knew Frankie would understand. The police made you do things you didn’t want. Everyone knew that.
Kayleigh walked through the concrete open area dividing her block of flats from Marlene’s and looked up. Mum had the washing hanging over the railings outside, which meant she was in. No one ever just left it there or it would get nicked.
Peering through the window – there was a useful gap in the net curtains – Kayleigh could see Mum sitting on the sofa, watching the telly. No sign of Ron. That was good.
Reaching for the key on her belt, she made to slide it into the lock.
It wouldn’t fit.
Kayleigh tried again.
It was like she’d got the wrong key.
Or else the locks had been changed.
Her mind went back to the day the police had come and found the notes under Callum’s bed along with the other stuff. Mum had changed the locks then. “We can’t have no more trouble,” she’d said by way of explanation. “Else the council will throw us out.”
Was that what Mum had done now? Changed the locks again because the policeman had wanted to Caution her?
“Mum,” she said, hammering on the sitting room window. “Mum. It’s me. Kayleigh. Please. Open up.”
But the figure on the sofa remained where it was.
Kayleigh tried again. “I haven’t done nothing wrong, Mum. I need some clean clothes. Let me in.”
The door on the left opened. It was the young girl who’d moved in last Christmas with a double buggy and a kid whose father came to pick him up every other Saturday. “Shut up, can you? I’ve only just got my little
’un to sleep.”
Before Kayleigh could apologise, she could hear a noise on the other side of her own front door. “Mum?”
Then the letter flap opened. Kayleigh knelt down. Mum spoke in urgent whispers, her eyes scared through the gap. Her breath smelt of booze. “I can’t talk to you. Ron’s asleep but he’ll go mad if he knows you’re here. He says I can’t see you again.”
“But I’m your daughter!”
“And he’s my bloke. I need him. Anyroad, he’s fucking furious with you for lying. He says you made a pass at him.”
What! “He was the one who tried to have it on with me.”
“You’re lying.”
“No I’m not. You just don’t want to accept it ʼcos you hate being alone.”
“Fuck off.”
Next door’s window opened and the woman with twins had her head out. “If you two don’t bloody well put a sock in it, I’ll call the police.”
There was the sound of kids screaming in the background, reminding Kayleigh of the few times she had cried as a child till her mother had told her to ‘bleeding well grow up’.
“Here.” The front door opened briefly and a plastic carrier bag was pushed out before the door was pulled back. There was the sound of a key turning.
Kayleigh opened the bag. There was the sweatshirt that she’d borrowed from Marlene and her only spare pair of jeans. A pair of pants too. The black lacy ones that Mum had split trying to fit into them the other day.
“Could I have my books?” she called out through the flap. “I’ve got to return one to school before the end of term.”
There was a snort of amusement. “Ron chucked the lot. Said that all that learning wasn’t good for you. I agree. Not if you’re going to make up evil stories about people.”
This was so unfair. “I didn’t. You’re scared of him, Mum, aren’t you? I’ve heard you. In the mornings through the walls. Promise me, you will leave him if he hurts you again. Won’t you?”
The voice was so quiet through the flap that Kayleigh could hardly hear. It sounded like “I need him, love.”
A door slammed inside the house and the flap closed. “Pauline? Are you there?”