Bad Little Girl

by Frances Vick

  ‘Well, lots of things are against the law but you do them anyway—’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I mean, taking me here, that was against the law, wasn’t it? I bet?’

  ‘Lorna—’

  ‘So what’s another thing matter?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, my love. I suppose, there might be a way—’

  ‘There must be!’ She raised herself up on one elbow. Her shorn hair stood up in little spikes. ‘I saw something on a film once? And they found a dead baby that died at the same time as the person was born? And they took the certificate, and they became that person. The dead baby.’

  ‘Well, that sounds horrible.’

  ‘It worked though. In the film.’ She sighed, and thrust one foot out into the cold air, wiggling her toes.

  Claire took a breath. ‘Lorna, there’s also Pete.’ Lorna’s foot stiffened, the toes curled and the leg was retracted. Claire patted her shoulder; not so thin now. All those Pop-Tarts and cans of Coke. ‘If he wakes up, gets better, then there’s a chance he’ll talk to the police. About me? About me coming over to the house when I was worried about you? About you staying over at my house even. What I mean to say is—’

  ‘I’m bored,’ Lorna said flatly.

  ‘I know you are, but please listen to me, if he talks about me, and the police find me here, well, you can hide. In the cellar—’

  ‘I’m not going down there!’ Lorna whispered.

  ‘I only mean if anyone comes here to talk to me about you. You could hide for a little bit and then you’d be safe, no-one would find you. But if we went somewhere else, and tried to have different names and all the things you were talking about, we’d be more visible. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘You said you’d make it into a playroom. The cellar. You said that, and it never happened.’

  ‘Lorna, please try and concentrate. Please.’

  ‘Maybe we can go to the beach today. I’m bored of the beach though.’ Lorna sighed.

  ‘Well, we’ll find something else nice to do, I’m sure.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything to do. Nice. Can’t think of anything.’ She rolled out of the bed and stumped towards the door.

  ‘I really think we should stay here. It will be better in the summer time,’ pleaded Claire to the child’s back. ‘Honestly. There’ll be people to play with, and sunshine, and boat trips. I promise.’

  ‘Hope so,’ muttered the girl, and got back into bed.

  Perhaps Marianne would be the novelty she needed? Perhaps, with two people . . .? But how can this go on, Claire? How can it? The girl’s breathing became more measured, deeper. One arm lolled out to the side, and her open mouth drooled slightly onto the pillow. And Claire thought, how can this go on? How can I make it go on? She took more codeine, but when the sudden, heavy blanket of fatigue settled around her shoulders, and her eyes drooped, still her mind rattled around its tired old orbit – what are you going to do, Claire? What can you do, Claire?

  They both slept, heavily, unattractively, for the next few hours and were woken only by Benji’s wet snuffling and Marianne’s guffaws.

  ‘Dead to the world!’ she said. ‘Dead to the world!’

  27

  Over the next few weeks, Lorna’s boredom intensified. The weather didn’t help; it rained almost solidly, so they couldn’t visit the beach.

  Claire tried to interest her in card games – solitaire, beggar-my-neighbour – and Lorna would enthusiastically comply, only to suddenly lose interest by the second game. Marianne had more success when she taught her the foxtrot. They swayed together like giggling drunks on the increasingly filthy kitchen floor: ‘Slow, slow, QUICK QUICK s-l-o-w.’ They practised clumsy turns and twirls. The linoleum became spotted with the impressions from Marianne’s worn-down kitten heels.

  ‘She really does have something.’ Marianne breathed out smoke as she brought Claire some codeine in bed. ‘She has that poise. It’s innate.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Honestly, Claire. Talent is talent. Trust me on this.’

  Now Lorna spent most of her time with Marianne, even when they weren’t dancing. Claire would hear them chatting and laughing in the kitchen. They seemed to enjoy the same loud, confusing music, and spent hours watching MTV and analysing the female singers clothes, hair and make-up.

  ‘She’s had some work done!’ Lorna shrieked one morning, and she must have got that from Marianne. It was Marianne’s kind of phrase.

  Claire knew that she wasn’t very exciting at the moment, laid up in bed, medicated and sleepy. But her ankle was so slow to heal, and without Marianne, well, she really didn’t know how she would have coped. It did grate a little though – hearing them giggling away together, on the same wavelength, and Claire wished she could join in, but knew that they wouldn’t really want her to, even if she was well.

  Sometimes, when she was sure that Lorna wouldn’t hear her, she turned on the news to check on the murder inquiry. Pete was still hanging grimly on in hospital – not improving, not worsening, unconscious but, naggingly, still alive – and the story had dropped out of the headlines. It was maddening that she was forced to rely on TV news alone for information. If she could just get to the library and look on the internet, she could give her overwrought imagination something to work on, maybe give her some peace.

  It bothered her that Lorna wasn’t worried, or didn’t seem to be. They were alone so rarely nowadays that Claire couldn’t tell for sure, but she seemed absolutely uninterested in the whole thing. Even after their conversation, even after Claire had baldly shared her fear that the police might track them down, Lorna seemed unperturbed; bored, skittish, petulant, but not scared. It was, well, it was unnatural, almost. But did Claire want her to be beside herself with fear? After all the terrible things that had already happened to the poor little mite, why should she want Lorna to be worried? She’d been through so much, perhaps she was impervious to fear, perhaps her experiences had rendered her completely stoical. Or maybe she was finally feeling secure, here with Claire, that the bad things were forever held at bay? Except, she had been frightened, hadn’t she? She’d been terrified. Of Pete, of Mervyn Pryce. Claire had seen it. No. Enough of this. Lorna had had a horrible life, and now she was luxuriating in her safety, her comfort. And if she didn’t want to think about the terrible past, well, who could blame her? She was ten years old for God’s sake, let her have this! Let her feel safe, happy, protected. Claire could – and should – worry for the both of them. That was her job now, after all, and in the meantime, keep her distracted, keep her entertained. Spoil her. Stave off the darkness.

  Eventually though, all their gambits began to fail, and even MTV failed to enthuse the girl. So one day, during a break in the weather, they decided to take a day trip to an open farm.

  ‘Will you be OK, Claire? With your ankle? I mean, me and Lo can go on our own?’

  ‘No, I’d like to come with you, I really would.’

  There was a pause. Marianne glanced at Lorna, who didn’t return it. ‘OK then. I passed it, oh, ages back, and thought it looked rather sweet,’ said Marianne. ‘Horses I think, and cows, pigs. Maybe some chickens and rabbits. Shall we go and see? Get some fresh air?’

  And so they piled into Marianne’s little car, Claire alone on the back seat because Lorna wanted to sit in the front, Marianne blowing smoke out of the window into the frigid air.

  ‘Claire, you take the map – it’s somewhere near, there.’ She passed a hand vaguely to the north. ‘See if there’s a sign, but I think if we just head in that direction I’ll be able to remember where it is. Now, ready?’

  ‘Ready Teddy!’ Lorna drummed her feet on the floor, her face flushed and happy.

  ‘Weddy Wabbit!’ Marianne swung the car around in a lurching loop, the gears protesting. ‘Shit. Fourth. OK, now, here we are. Let’s go!’

  The dank countryside slid past, a palette of brown, grey and khaki. Every now and again the sun would filter
through the clouds, and Marianne would shriek, point and swerve. There were absolutely no other cars on the road, and Claire realised that she hadn’t seen another face except Lorna’s and Marianne’s for . . . how long? She hadn’t left the house in weeks. Her ankle was so slow to heal. She must rest. Rest, Mum, or you won’t get better. She’s right, Claire, these things can take months. Take some pills. She found herself straining her eyes to see cars on the horizon, or coming up from behind, just to see someone else, but there was nothing. The road stretched behind and beyond them, narrow, mean and empty under the huge grey sky. The car, smoke-filled and cold, swung in rowdy curves, Lorna and Marianne sang show tunes and they never seemed to get close to anything resembling a farm.

  ‘Claire, the map? What’s it say on the map? Where are we?’ and Claire would nervously point at a random location.

  ‘Here I think. The A40 still? Or one of the little roads off it.’

  And that would satisfy Marianne for the next twenty minutes or so, until Lorna would begin to sigh and Marianne would turn irritably to Claire again.

  ‘We can’t still be on the same road. We must have gone wrong somewhere. Claire?’

  ‘A bit further?’

  And the car descended into mutinous silence.

  ‘If you had a smart phone we’d have a map that worked,’ Lorna complained.

  ‘But it couldn’t work in a car. I mean, there’s no signal or whatever it is in the car, is there?’

  Lorna rolled her eyes at Marianne and smirked at Claire in the mirror. ‘Oh Mum.’

  ‘We’ll have to educate you Claire. Twenty-first century, you know. Oh God, we must be close now. Claire? Map?’ Marianne turned around. The car slowed and swerved.

  ‘Well, you don’t have a phone with a map either,’ Claire muttered.

  ‘Oh Lord, Claire, really? OK, I’ll get a smart phone. I will. At least one of us will be . . . Hang on, we’re near now, we’re close. I’m sure I recognise it. I can smell the pigs – can you smell the pigs, Lauren?’

  Lorna wrinkled her nose and flapped her hand under it. ‘Phew, I can!’

  Marianne read the rusty sign out loud. ‘Huppledown Farm – animals, play park, funfair rides, children’s shows, falconry displays and tractor rides.’

  Lorna peered, mistrustfully, out of the window. ‘There’s no-one here.’

  ‘Well, there will be inside.’ Marianne was brisk, positive. ‘And if not, we’ll have the whole place to ourselves, and that would be an adventure, wouldn’t it?’

  The girl, half out of the door, shuffled her feet in the mud. ‘Don’t want to.’

  ‘We’ve come all this way!’ cried Claire, but Marianne glanced at her, and shook her head. She hunched down and smiled at the girl.

  ‘Look, Lauren, how about a tractor ride! We can go bumping all over the country on a tractor, that’d be fun, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I’m scared of tractors.’ She looked at Claire. ‘Aren’t I?’

  ‘Oh you’re not! Scared of tractors?’ Marianne laughed.

  ‘You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, Lauren,’ said Claire.

  ‘Come on, where’s your sense of adventure!’ Marianne lit a cigarette. ‘Come on!’

  ‘Let’s just get in, then we’ll see what we want to do, OK?’ Claire limped forward and felt Lorna’s hand creep into her pocket. She gave it a squeeze.

  ‘She comes all this way and doesn’t want to go on a tractor! I don’t know!’ But Lorna wasn’t about to be melted by Marianne’s scoffing. She stood hunched, small and determined, looking at the floor.

  ‘Tell her,’ she hissed to Claire.

  ‘Let’s just get in and see what she wants to do then, shall we? No point in forcing her to do anything she doesn’t want to.’ The girl’s fingers stroked her palm, and Claire smiled in response. Marianne was thwarted; her face sagged into a scowl and she walked quickly away from them, towards the entrance.

  ‘I just don’t want to,’ whispered Lorna. ‘Thought I did but I don’t. I don’t have to if I don’t want to, do I?’

  ‘No, darling. Marianne just doesn’t know you as well as I do, that’s all.’

  ‘You stay with me, OK? You do things with me. Mum?’

  And Claire, feeling needed for the first time in weeks, smiled and said she would. Always.

  Surprisingly, there were some families at the farm; parents with toddlers mostly, of course, because it was term time. Marianne and Claire stood by while Lorna gingerly climbed a slide and slid down, frowning, behind a wailing two-year-old. Then she decided to tackle the adventure playground. Huge beside the toddlers, and absurdly touching, she even helped one tow-headed boy up a rope ladder into the pirate ship.

  ‘Bless her,’ murmured Marianne. ‘Look at her, helping.’

  ‘I know.’ Claire felt warm in the cold air, looking at the child holding onto Lorna’s limp hand. ‘She’s good with little things.’

  The little boy fell on the wood-chipping floor, Lorna squatted down to help him up, and when she looked up and saw Marianne and Claire watching her, she beamed with shy pride.

  ‘Maybe I’ll try a tractor ride,’ she shouted.

  But there were no tractor rides that day. The surly youth in the café explained that tractor rides were only in the summer months. There was a petting session though, guinea pigs and a couple of rabbits.

  ‘What do you say, Lola? Do you want to make friends with a guinea pig?’ Marianne pushed her face down and raised her voice. And Claire thought, why does she do that? Lorna’s not deaf. Or an idiot. She fancied she saw weak irritation pass over Lorna’s face too.

  Lorna had to wait in line for her few minutes with a sleepy rabbit; the guinea pigs were already being monopolised by younger children. It sat, emotionless, on her knee while she stroked and petted it, felt its ears, and, inevitably, said that she wanted her own rabbit to take home. Claire and Marianne exchanged nervous glances.

  ‘We can think about it,’ said Claire eventually.

  ‘But Benji might not like it,’ added Marianne. ‘Dogs and rabbits don’t really get on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, dogs hunt rabbits. Benji might eat him!’ She was trying to be humorous, but Lorna panicked.

  ‘He wouldn’t eat him! Would he?’ She turned terrified eyes on Claire.

  ‘Well, we don’t have a rabbit anyway, so you really don’t need to worry about it yet.’

  ‘But we might get a rabbit, and if we do, Benji will eat it!’

  ‘Lola, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it!’ Marianne was distraught. ‘Benji wouldn’t really eat it, I’m sure!’

  ‘Eat it, eat it, eat it.’ The tow-headed toddler was beside them again. ‘Eat eat eat . . .’

  Lorna turned to him – ‘Shut UP!’ – and the boy’s face folded in on itself as he began to cry. Lorna pinched him viciously just above the elbow. ‘Baby! Crybaby!’ The child’s howls grew louder, his mother folded him up in her arms and gave Lorna a look of hate.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? A big girl like you pinching a baby!’

  ‘I didn’t pinch him!’ hissed Lorna.

  ‘I saw you!’ The woman glared at Claire and Marianne. ‘I saw her!’

  Lorna looked directly at Claire, and shrieked, ‘He pinched me first! He kicked me too!’

  Claire was frozen. She’d seen what Lorna had done, and Lorna knew she’d seen it. Why? Why do such a thing? And then, inevitably, Lorna began to cry, and Marianne was there, hugging Lorna and throwing nasty looks of her own. The toddler kept on howling, and Lorna cried again, ‘He kicked me! You saw it!’ She looked up at Marianne beseechingly. ‘You saw him do it, didn’t you?’ The other mother faltered, looked at Marianne questioningly.

  ‘It was a nasty kick,’ said Marianne grimly.

  ‘Ben, did you kick the big girl?’ The toddler, snot-covered and bawling, couldn’t answer. The mother, suddenly tired, asked again, ‘Did you?’

  ‘He did indeed,’ answered Marianne firmly, pulling
away a now sobbing Lorna with one hand and putting back the rabbit with the other. ‘Aggression in young boys is very common, but if I were you I’d keep a close eye on him. Seriously. Before it gets any worse. Starting a fight with an older child – and a girl – he’s got it from somewhere.’ And she hustled Lorna away, leaving Claire alone with the woman and her son, exposed and shocked.

  ‘Is he all right?’ Claire managed.

  ‘What do you think?’ Now that Marianne had left, the woman was bolder.

  ‘I can only apologise—’

  ‘Didn’t do anything,’ the little boy snuffled. ‘Didn’t do anything.’

  ‘You didn’t kick the big girl?’

  ‘Where’s the rabbit?’ The boy, all cried out, was on to new things.

  ‘Ben, listen to me. Did you kick that big girl?’

  ‘Bunny!’ He lunged at the rabbit; his mother’s face creased with irritation and fatigue. ‘Did you, Ben? Ben, look at me please—’

  ‘BUNNY!’

  Claire took the opportunity to leave, shamefaced.

  She went into the ladies and splashed her face with cold water. She shivered at her reflection in the warped childproof mirror. So thin and old, withered and frightened. Her cheeks were sunken, her flat breasts almost concave. She looked an absolute wreck.

  That little boy had not kicked Lorna, she was absolutely sure of it. No, Lorna had turned on him, without warning; the same boy – Claire had been so proud of her! – she had been playing with so nicely in the adventure playground.

  Why?

  She shivered again, but not with cold. Fear. She’d have to confront her, that’s all. Nip it in the bud. She looked at herself getting stern in the warped mirror. I know you pinched the boy, but what I want to know is why? And then she would march Lorna back to the bunnies, find the little boy, and make her apologise. Yes, there’d be tears, and of course she’d be angry, but she couldn’t be allowed to get away with something like that, she just couldn’t! She jumped as a woman came into the room, clanging the door behind them and trailing a chattering toddler. She washed her hands and waited until they’d gone before looking in the mirror again and rehearsing her speech, ‘I saw you . . .’ but it didn’t work a second time.