by Lesley Allen
The show was nearly over. Honey blew kisses to her guests the way she always did and thanked them for their ‘wonderful, valuable contributions’. She blew kisses to the studio audience, most of whom blew kisses back to her. Biddy shuddered. Then she turned to face the camera and smiled that trademark sticky-sweet, Honey smile.
‘In tomorrow’s programme, we’ll be examining a particularly sensitive but hugely important issue: bullying.’
Biddy froze.
‘As patron of BUDDI, Bullying’s Un-cool, Don’t Do It, this is an issue which is particularly close to my own heart, and it’s bound to be an emotional, but, I truly hope, inspirational and illuminating show. Special guests will be the gorgeous singer Karinda, who has openly spoken of her own horrific experiences of being bullied at school, and celebrity psychologist and friend of the show, Amanda Llewellan. Until then, goodbye, my friends, and stay sweet.’
Honey blew a single, slow kiss to the camera, the audience clapped and cheered and the credits began to roll.
Biddy shivered. Despite the warm July evening, she suddenly felt very cold, like her blood had been replaced with icy cold water. The lump which hadn’t been bothering her much for a while, rose now in her throat, and the old familiar knot began to tie in her stomach.
‘No,’ she croaked.
Her body began to shake. She closed her eyes and cupped her hands over her mouth breathing slowly and deeply for a few seconds until her racing heart slowed down. The voiceover person on the TV was giving out the number for people to call the next day if they’d had any experience of bullying and wanted to tell Honey their story or put a question to one of her guests. Biddy couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t bear to hear the ‘B’ word anywhere. She flinched whenever Terri mentioned it and if she ever heard it on TV, she would close her eyes and hum loudly. Now and again the subject came up on Lorraine or This Morning, or one of the other programmes she sometimes watched, and she would keep humming until the section was over or, if it was a long slot, she would turn the television off. But she never, ever expected it to come up on Honey’s Pot – so why did it have to happen now, here, when she felt stronger, better, happier than she had ever felt in her life? She felt as though all of the good, positive steps she had taken over the past few months were about to unravel right in front of her, in an untidy mess all over Terri’s living room floor.
Still shaking, she flicked off the TV using the remote and went out to the patio through the conservatory doors. The beach was bathed in a soft amber glow by the early evening sunshine. The sea was calm and still. The only sounds were the hum of a fishing trawler chugging its way towards the harbour and the squawk of the gulls, calling to each other. She stood, leaning on the patio table, and inhaled slowly until the shaking began to subside. Bertie observed her from his spot in the sun, yawned, stretched and sauntered over to where she stood. Purring loudly, he wound his plump soft body around her ankles. The physical contact from the cat, and the melodic sound of his purr seemed to calm her and, still breathing slowly, she sat down on one of the wooden chairs. Bertie jumped up onto her lap. He looked up at her and blinked slowly.
‘You know what? I won’t let it happen, Bertie,’ she said, stroking the cat’s head. ‘I just won’t watch the programme tomorrow. I won’t. I’ll paint instead. All day. And then it’ll be OK. I’ll be OK. If I don’t watch it, I’ll be OK.’
47.
Biddy’s first night at Cove Cottage wasn’t as restful as she had hoped. She couldn’t eat the leftover lasagne as she’d planned, as her tummy felt queasy. There was nothing on television she really wanted to watch, and though using the remote to flick through all the various channels was a distraction, the novelty soon wore off. She was agitated, uneasy, and cross with herself for feeling that way. Her leg and hip ached, probably from sitting on the stool for such a long time, and rather than take a bath as she’d wanted to do earlier, she decided just to go to bed. It must be tiredness, she thought, the excitement of the day. She’d feel better in the morning after a good, long sleep.
But even when she lay down on the soft, springy mattress and pulled the duvet, which smelt of fresh flowers, up to her chin, she couldn’t get comfortable. No matter how hard she tried to push the thought of tomorrow’s Honey’s Pot out of her head, it followed her around like a menacing shadow. She tried to hum it away, she tried biting her knuckles, she tried to think about what she would paint the next morning. Nothing worked. Sleep, she begged the ceiling, I want to go to sleep. She tried counting sheep. She tried recollecting every single colour palate in her new paint set. She tried counting backwards the number of weeks she had known Terri Drummond. Still nothing worked. Honey’s Pot was all she could think of.
Then, suddenly, she found herself high up on Mount Innis, higher even than she’d been the night she had tried to fly. She was standing on top of a sharp rigid turret, balancing on one leg, her good leg. The other leg wasn’t there at first, and then it was, only it wasn’t a human leg, it was a falcon’s, adorned with soft brown and white feathers, bright yellow feet and black claws. A sense of elation engulfed her: she was turning into a bird, a falcon. Then two peregrines arrived and perched on either side of her. She recognised them instantly as the falcons who had been with her that night on the mountain many years before. They were strong and sleek and held themselves with pride, but when she looked down her own bad leg was back, and it started to wither, right in front of her. Then she heard shouting.
‘Over here, Biddy, come to us. Over here!’ She turned to her right and saw a group of people standing on top of another turret, calling at her, waving, beckoning her over. She could make out Terri, right at the front. Then Penny Jordan appeared. She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, ‘You can do it, Biddy. I know you can do it.’ Her father was there too, standing behind Miss Jordan. He didn’t speak, or motion, but he smiled at her; he smiled right into the back of her eyes and all the way down her skull and her neck until he reached her heart. He looked so young and healthy. He was holding something. A sheet of paper? No, a painting. Her painting, the one of Cove Cottage.
Then she heard another voice, a shrill familiar voice which almost made her lose her balance. It was laughing and then it began to sing. Other voices joined it. She didn’t want to look. She tried to stay focused on Terri and Miss Jordan and her father, who by now were joined by Dr Graham and someone else, a man she didn’t recognise. He wore a uniform. He nodded his head at her and then she realised: it was the bus driver, the one who was nice to her and spoke to her now every time she took his bus. Then Terri was there again in the forefront, shouting at her.
‘Face your . . .’ something. She couldn’t hear properly, as the singing was getting louder and louder. She had to look round. She couldn’t stop herself. On another turret to her right, but slightly lower, was Alison Flemming, dressed in the Ballybrock Grammar School uniform. Georgina, Jackie and Julia crowded in behind her. There were others, she couldn’t remember all their names, but she knew their faces. Vanessa Parker was one of them. Jill Cleaver too. Not all of them were singing, though, just Alison, Georgina, Jackie and Julia. She recognised the tune, but she couldn’t quite hear the words at first. Then the rest of them joined in the chorus:
Oh yes she’s a weirdo
And she freaks us all out,
She’s ugly and creepy,
There ain’t no bloody doubt.
Biddy remembered now.
‘Don’t listen to them, Biddy,’ someone shouted from the other side. She thought it might have been Miss Jordan. But the singing grew louder. It was echoing around the mountain:
There she goes again talkin’ to the birds,
She’s a definite nutter, she’s a total nerd.
Someone else appeared. A woman. Tall and slim with long golden hair. She was laughing and hugging all the singers, telling them how funny and wonderful they were and how much she loved them. We love you too, they chorused. The woman turned around and smiled at Biddy,
the glare from her pure white teeth was almost blinding. It was Honey Sinclair.
Biddy woke up with a jolt, her breathing rapid and heavy, her body drenched in sweat. It took her a few seconds to work out where she was, especially as the room was so dark and heavily quiet. The streetlight outside her bedroom window at home in Stanley Street threw a haze of grubby light into her bedroom and there was generally some kind of noise drifting around throughout the night, especially on weekends. Cars speeding around the nearby Clanmorris estate, dogs barking, cats crying, drunks stumbling home from the clubs and pubs in town, effing and blinding as they bounced off walls and collided with lampposts. Here there was nothing. Total, absolute silence. The stillness would have been pleasant, welcome even, had it not been for the fact that there was nothing to distract her from the dream. It kept replaying in her mind, over and over again. She knew she wouldn’t sleep again for a while – she didn’t want to anyway, in case it started again – so she pulled on the fluffy dressing gown and went into the kitchen to make a hot drink.
Biddy stood for a while, staring out through the glass doors, watching the lights of a lonesome vessel twinkling on the water in the distance. As she sipped her creamy hot chocolate, the distress of the dream, and the agitation which had been bothering her since the previous evening, finally began to dissolve. She felt strange, but not in a bad way. It was hard to describe. Lighter. Yes, that was it. She felt lighter.
She thought about the dream again, but now she wasn’t frightened. She rarely dreamt so lucidly and usually couldn’t remember the details of her dreams in the morning. But every detail of this one was vividly, powerfully clear. Bertie roused himself from his basket and meowed loudly. He wasn’t used to being disturbed in the middle of the night. Biddy poured some milk into a saucer and placed it on his mat.
‘What do you think it means, Bert?’ she asked the cat, as he lapped at the milk. ‘It definitely means something. I’m sure of it. What were they all trying to tell me? What was Terri shouting?’
The cat looked up at Biddy, licked his lips and sauntered back to his basket. He curled up and closed his eyes. Within seconds, he was fast asleep, but Biddy lifted the mohair throw from the small sofa in the kitchen, and went out onto the patio. Wrapping the blanket around her, she snuggled down into the wicker armchair. The trawler disappeared into the night, the dancing stars guiding its way. Biddy wondered if she had ever seen such a beautiful sight as this black night sprinkled with starlight. And then she remembered that of course she had; but on that occasion she had been cold and frightened and obviously delirious as she’d believed that the falcons could show her how to fly, and that Paddy Joyce was with her on the mountain, there to keep her safe. Now she felt soothed by the warm night air, calmed by the silence, and inspired by the star-spangled sky.
‘Face your demons,’ she whispered, as she gazed up at them. ‘Face. Your. Demons.’ That was what Terri had been trying to tell her in the dream. Of course it was! Terri had said that very same thing to her on the beach a couple of weeks back; the day she had told her all about the school trip, and the dull, fuzzy weeks spent in hospital afterwards: the pain, the fear, the confusion – but the relief she’d felt every night that another day had passed without Alison. Terri had listened without interrupting, as she always did. When she was done, when the whole story was out and her words had run dry, they sat in silence for a while, watching a cormorant dive from the rocks. Eventually Terri had taken her hand and squeezed it hard.
‘One day soon, Biddy, you’ll be strong enough to face your demons,’ she had said, ‘and then, puff, you’ll be able to blow them all away.’
‘Well, I’m ready now,’ she said aloud, breathing in deeply as she headed back indoors. ‘I’m ready.’
For hours she wandered around the cottage, formulating her plan. She sat down; she stood up; she drank three mugs of tea. She made toast. She made more toast. She ate three Kimberley biscuits. She talked to Terri’s plants; she spoke into mirrors. She even had a chat to Harry. She watched the sun come up, and almost cried with joy at the beauty of the dawn breaking over Cove Bay.
Finally, exhaustion hit. Her head throbbed; her legs wobbled; her eyes drooped. She slid under the soft, fluffy cloud of a duvet, hugging it into her chest like a cherished treasure, and sleep took her in a second.
Part 3: an ending and a new beginning
Ballybrock, July 2000
48.
‘Welcome back everyone, welcome back. Thank you all so much for joining us today.’
The sickly-sweet melodic tone of Honey Sinclair’s voice greeted her adoring audience. ‘Now, dear friends, if you were with us before the break, you’ll know that today’s show is all about the B word: bullying. My lovely guest, the talented, gorgeous, superstar-singing-sensation that is Karinda, has been sharing her dreadful story with us. Thank you, my darling, for your openness and your integrity and . . .’ Honey blew a kiss in Karinda’s direction, ‘. . . for being sooo, sooo brave. You made me cry. As an avid anti-bullying campaigner and patron of BUDDI, I truly, truly respect your courage and your candour. Don’t you agree, Amanda?’
Amanda Llewellan, celebrity psychologist and regular guest on the show, dutifully nodded.
‘Don’t you agree, my lovely friends?’
A roar of applause and wolf-whistling rose from the studio audience.
‘We need more people like you to speak out, Karinda, and, do you know, dear friends, I think we may have some more brave souls willing to share their stories with us right now!’
Another roar from the audience gave Honey the few seconds she needed to get the details of the first caller fed into her earpiece. Female. Bridget. Thirty. Nearly died due to bullying. Spoke to Miranda. Calling from Northern Ireland. Fuck, she thought. She bloody hated talking to people from fucking Northern Ireland. Those stupid accents. And that little cow, Miranda, knew it.
‘So, first off, we’ve got Bridget on the line. Hello, Bridget. Thank you soooo much for calling Honey’s Pot. It’s people like you, Bridget, who make our little show what it is. We couldn’t do it without you.’ She paused, waiting for the usual submissively complimentary response from the caller. None came. Just quick, heavy, breathing. Christ, she thought, that’s all I need. A fucking Northern Irish oddball.
‘Are you there, Bridget?’
‘Yes,’ came the wispy reply.
‘Good, now don’t be shy, Bridget. I’m sure this is difficult for you, and painful too, but you’re going to do a lot of people a lot of good by talking to us today.’ She paused to give a look of sincere concern into camera three. Honey knew how to work the studio cameras like a seasoned old pro. She was a thoroughbred; born to be on TV. Nothing fazed her. On air, at least, she could handle anything.
‘Can you tell us a little bit about the awful thing that happened to you, poor, sweet Bridget?’
On the other end of the line, Biddy was shaking, violently. It was all she could do to stop herself from dropping the telephone. Her legs felt like wobbly jelly, sweat was running down her face and soaking her armpits, her throat was as dry as sandpaper. Nothing could have prepared her for this. Faced with the reality of the situation, her script was useless, and now she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even think she’d be able to speak to Honey at all. How on earth had she ever believed she could do this? She squeezed her eyes shut and through a kaleidoscope of flashing lights saw Alison Flemming spitting in her face in the school toilets, telling her she was a useless scumbag, bloody weirdo fuck. She opened her eyes and saw a seagull perched on the wide windowsill outside the living room, staring in at her. She closed her eyes again and saw the people in her dream last night, calling to her: Terri, Miss Jordan, her father, Dr Graham. Then somehow, from somewhere, words began to stream from her mouth.
‘Yes, I was bullied. For a long time. By a girl. There were others, but she was the leader. She did a lot of bad things to me. She humiliated me all the time. I don’t know why. She made me feel sick and frightened eve
ry day. Every day,’ she repeated, the memory flushing through her, creating a warm, sick feeling, which almost made her gag. ‘She made me not want to go to school. She called me a name. A special name. I started to stick pins into my body to stop the pain in my head.’
Honey winced. Biddy could see her reaction on the screen, even though she still had the sound off.
‘Heavens, Bridget,’ she said. Biddy thought her voice sounded shaky, but maybe it was her imagination. ‘That sounds dreadful, awful. Poor you.’
Biddy took a deep breath, then carried on, ignoring the host’s synthetic sympathy.
‘One day, I saw her doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.’ She had to get it all out now. Quickly. Otherwise there’d be no point. ‘And before I got away she spotted me, and she knew I’d seen what she’d been doing,’ she blurted, ‘and I knew from the way that she looked at me that I was in trouble, that she’d do something really bad to me to stop me from saying anything. But I couldn’t take any more. I’d had enough. So I ran away, and I kept going and going until,’ she paused, swallowing hard, ‘until I, until I had an accident and I fell and I nearly died.’
Honey was growing impatient. There was something really creepy about this one that made her feel uneasy. Mind you, most of the people who phoned into her show were weirdo creeps, but she tolerated them because they were good for her career. Bloody good, as it happened. After a whirlwind rise from weather girl on AMTV, to guest hostess on Live with Clive, to co-host of That Was This Week, she was now the darling of daytime TV, with her very own live chat and magazine show. She was fully aware that it was the oddball ‘Great British Public’ who had helped to fast-track her career so far, and whilst she detested almost every one of them, she knew their value and handled each with care. After all, if she was to conquer the States, as was her plan, and become the next Oprah, then she needed to be vigilant, on-form, and sweet as sticky honey all of the time. But this one she really didn’t like. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she felt unusually uncomfortable, and she wanted rid of her. She fiddled with her right ear, the signal to Phil, the producer, that she’d had enough. But the bloody woman kept talking, going on about something else the bully had done to hurt her, something about it being the reason she never completed her education. Oh, for fuck’s sake, she thought, enraged now. Why the hell did Phil not instruct her to move to the next caller? Was there a problem? Of all times for a fucking tech hitch! She’d have to take control of the situation herself. She’d move to Amanda for a psychologist’s take on the whole bloody thing.