“It’s very important that we get hold of that ring,” shouted Clara suddenly, holding the mask away from her face. “It belonged to our mam, didn’t it Starla? We must, must, must get it back. It’s a matter of life and death!”
Starla nodded. Clara might be overdoing it slightly but, well, it was a matter of life and death as far as she was concerned!
At that moment, a rather rain-soaked Billie darted into the room. She stopped when she saw how many people were present.
“Chuff,” she said, taken aback. “Is it someone’s birthday?”
“How come you’re not in school?” asked Guy.
“How come you’re not then?” responded Billie, sharply. Then… “Chuffin’ ’eck Guy! What’s happened to your face?”
“Long story but I’ll shorten it for you Bills. Me, door, smack, swell!”
Billie looked impressed and horrified in equal measure, her own face still tender from bashing it on the bedside cabinet yesterday.
“Is everything OK Bills?” asked Starla.
“They all started saying stuff on the bus,” she quivered, “so when I got to school, I just hung out for a while, waiting for the rain to clear, but it didn’t so I walked home and got wet. I’d rather be cold and soaked, than stick around listening to people who don’t give a flying fudge about my feelings.”
Marnie, who was still hovering near the oxygen tank, moved to Billie’s side and held her little sister close.
“What were they saying, sweetie?”
“They all know that I’m…”
“It’s OK. Guy knows who sent those disgusting messages.”
“That I’m…”
“It was those horrid Unwin boys.”
“That I’m…”
“Your dad will be having a word with Mr and Mrs Unwin, don’t you worry.”
“That I’m…”
“You’re what, Bills?”
“That I’m pregnant.”
The room went quiet, apart from the sound of Clara sucking chocolate ganache peaks off the top of her cake.
Then: “Pregnant?” A twin exclamation from Gav and Guy.
“Erm, now then…” said Jakey, picking the knife up from the table. “Who else would like a slice of cake to go with their Revelation Day coffee?”
37
Friday
MARNIE
Damn! She was way too early! Marnie decided to get herself a coffee, rather than stand under her umbrella in the pouring rain for half an hour in the city centre. It was that drizzly sort of rain which didn’t feel torrential but could somehow manage to dampen you down to your bones, not to mention frizzing up your hair extensions.
She had dropped Skye off at Bubbles and was due to meet Tina and Morgs for their fortnightly Friday morning shopping jaunt. Tina only taught three days a week at St Jude’s and Morgs always tried to free up every other Friday. He was a law unto himself as far as working was concerned. He’d work himself into the ground some days, clocking up ten, twelve, fourteen hours even, travelling between his salons to hire, fire, pour over paperwork, offer tips to his stylists and style the hair of those clients who could afford him. Other days, he and Gav would randomly drop everything and fly abroad for a long weekend to Berlin, Barcelona, Dublin, Vienna, Rome – wherever was next on their bucket list!
Marnie walked into her favourite coffee shop. She was wearing a new pair of tan knee-high boots, which under normal circumstances would have made her feel fabulous, especially since they were deliciously high-heeled and had cute buckles on the side. However, hearing Billie’s news yesterday had made her feel as dull as the grey skies above. What was wrong with young people these days? Wasn’t it enough that they had all the latest gadgets and gear? More than enough to keep them entertained surely? Marnie bristled remembering the few toys she and her brothers had to play with when they were young. Billie definitely had much, much more than the four older Waterfall children had owned between them.
Perhaps it’s just history repeating itself, mused Marnie, as she joined the queue for coffee. Mam was only sixteen when she’d had her first set of twins after all. Mikey and Marnie hadn’t realised how young their mam was in relation to other people’s mothers. Mrs Mortimer was nearly thirty years older than Clara! Marnie knew that now, but none of them had noticed it at the time – she had just been ‘Tina’s Mam’.
Anyway, thought Marnie positively, Billie would probably cope quite well. She was bright, loving, caring and healthy. No doubt, she’d be allowed to continue at school after the baby made its arrival. She might even get to university. It was about time one of the Waterfalls did – even if Jakey had insisted on her calling her a ‘Jackson’.
“Cappuccino, please,” said Marnie to the assistant, fishing around in her bag for some cash.
“Petit, moyen or massif, love?” asked the assistant in a strong Yorkshire accent, looking bored.
“Oh, the middle one, please,” smiled Marnie, extra-sweetly. “Moyen.”
Marnie paid and collected her coffee from the end of the counter-top. She carried it through the coffee shop and located a seat outside under a sheltered canopy. She made herself comfortable, found her cigarettes and lighter, lit one and inhaled deeply. She alternated between smoking her ciggy and sipping her coffee, lost in thought.
Just because Billie was refusing to name the father, didn’t mean that she couldn’t make a success of motherhood. Not every family consisted of a mother and father. Her own mother had been alone for some time before getting together with Jakey – and she’d had four children to look after! Gav and Morgs were desperate to have a baby at some point in the future and they weren’t exactly your typical family!
Marnie thought about Skye’s father. She usually tried not to because she judged herself more harshly than him, and beating herself up wasn’t healthy or helpful. She’d idolised Spud from the first time he’d bent down to offer her some chewy sweets in the chip shop. She must have been little more than a toddler. He was twenty-one. Spud was the first man to make an impact in her life. She had a vague recollection of her dad and grandad, but she always only had eyes for Spud. The boys were scared of him, with his constant shrugs and throat-clearing, but Marnie thought he was energetic and funny. At times, he’d belt out rude words, making Marnie giggle, Mikey squirm, and Gav and Guy cry. Spud was never as aggressive as his language would sometimes seem to suggest. On the contrary, he was gentle and kind. When Jakey started seeing Clara, Spud had behaved like a true gentleman and backed off.
Marnie still saw him though. He coached rounders and netball up at Jubilee Park and, later, when she was only Billie’s age, possibly quite a bit younger (which horrified her now, of course) Marnie discovered that he loved her as much as she loved him. She always happily helped him pack up the bibs and balls on her own after training and they had such a laugh together. She couldn’t help it if she’d always been in love with him. She thought he was strong and handsome. Marnie was flattered to have a grown-up man paying her such special attention; it was a wonderful secret she hugged to herself every night.
Sometimes they’d run into the woods next to the Harriers’ Clubhouse, after they’d packed the kit away in the storeroom, and play their own special version of hide and seek. Marnie wasn’t afraid of Hawpeak Crag when she had Spud by her side. He showed her the dry spots and even took her up to the fence to see the hawthorn bushes. He’d lifted her onto his shoulders so that she could see over the top of the ridge but the bushes had been too high and too deep. Hidden near the top was an outcrop of rock that gave her the sense of being a cavewoman if she crept beneath it. Spud was always keen to crawl on top of her and play the caveman game. Marnie loved nothing better than watching the sky above and feeling him close to her. She knew that she would always associate him with the elements, but most of all, with the sky because they were so near to it on the Crag. Marnie had been very keen to please him; it never occurred to her that they shouldn’t touch each other or that he, the adult, should know better than t
o allow it.
As well as seeing him at rounders and netball, she would meet him once or twice a week behind the Harriers’ with the flimsy excuse that she’d gone to support Mikey in the under-seventeens rugby. It was actually really easy to slip out of the house on any pretext because it was around the time that Billie was born, throwing everyone into turmoil. Mam was struggling with the new baby, her weight and a reluctance to leave the house. Jakey still worked split shifts down at the Muncaster as well as trying to organise some safe accommodation for his own mam, who was suffering from dementia. Everyone was preoccupied.
Marnie was careful to make sure that she was around when she needed to be but welcomed any opportunity to leave the house for a few hours. It was even better when Spud finally passed his test and bought a car. They didn’t have to hang around on the Crag anymore and could visit new places where they were able to hold hands without any awkward questions from family or friends.
When she was sixteen, Marnie worked as a Saturday girl in the salon next door to the fish and chip shop on Church Street. Spud would often pop in to chat to the girls and spend time with Marnie. Nobody realised that Spud and Marnie were an ‘item’; they kept it to themselves. Their feelings for each other were theirs alone and it had been that way for several years so Spud suggested leaving things as they were.
It wasn’t until she was sharing a bedsit in the city with Morgs that she finally confessed to seeing him. She told Morgs and her new city friends that they’d only just begun because, by then, Marnie knew that Spud had broken a few rules. Their official relationship didn’t last long, however. A few weeks after her twenty-first birthday, Spud left Marnie for a sixteen year old waitress.
The family never even knew about their relationship, so when Spud looked her up several years later and they spent a night drunkenly turning the clock back, nobody even thought to suspect him of being Skye’s father.
She told Spud that he was going to be a father and, to be fair, he did try to be attentive. He came with her for her scans and appointments, he helped her decorate the other bedroom in her apartment, he went shopping with her and even bought things for the baby. They nearly bumped into Jakey on one of their Meadowhall shopping trips one time, but thankfully they managed to swerve away before he saw them.
Just as Marnie thought things were going to be back on permanently, Spud disappeared again.
At first Marnie had been worried sick and scared for his safety. However, word soon filtered through that he had fallen in love with a Polish girl. Marnie instinctively knew that she would be very young and, from what she managed to glean from some of her old pals at the Church Street salon, she was right. They thought the girl was fifteen, despite the fact that Spud was now well into his forties. Irrespective of the age difference, the two had disappeared together. Some speculated that they might have gone to live with her family in Poland, where the age of consent wouldn’t get either of them into any trouble.
Marnie was left with fond memories and the best thing in her life: Skye. She wished Spud well but she never wanted to see him again. Besides, he’d be heading towards fifty by now and, to her, that seemed pretty old.
“I knew I’d find you tucked away here!”
Morgs sat down next to her with an Americano and a slice of shortbread.
“Morgs! You should have texted me that you’d arrived!”
“No need. I saw you from over by the fountains. I looked for the clouds of smoke and the tan boots.”
“No way could you see my boots!”
“I can see that they’re new now I’m close. Let’s have a proper look then?”
Marnie stuck one of her long legs out and twisted it to show Morgs the heel and decorative buckle.
“Sexy!” he whistled, then laughed at the look she gave him.
“Any word from Tina yet? Mind you, we’re still a bit early,” said Marnie, checking her phone for the time.
“Ah, yes, well…”
“What’s going on, Morgs? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’d better get you another cappuccino, Marns. This time…” he said, staring at her empty medium-sized cup, “… a massif, I think!”
38
Friday
MARNIE
It didn’t take long for Morgs to fill Marnie in with the events of Tuesday evening. She was understandably horrified and, at one point, there were tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Did you know that Tina had lost the baby when I came round on Wednesday then?” asked Marnie, sniffing and rummaging around in her bag for a tissue.
“Sorry, Marns,” Morgs looked shame-faced. “I was sworn to secrecy. It had only just happened.”
“But what I can’t understand,” frowned Marnie, “Is why Mikey would tell you and Gav, but not me! We’re twins! You don’t get much closer than that to someone… unless you’re married to them.”
Morgs stuck out his engagement ring.
“Or engaged… sorry. I meant that too,” she smiled weakly.
“What we need to focus on,” said Morgs levelly, “Is not, who told who and when, but supporting poor Tina in every way that we can.”
“Poor Tina, yes. You’re right. It’s her birthday on Tuesday, too. Bless her. Do you know when she’ll come out of hospital?”
“Guy seemed to think it would be Saturday.”
“Guy? What does he know about it all?” puzzled Marnie.
“Erm… I think, that he… that he, spoke to Mikey. I’m not too sure. You know all this is such a shock for all of us.”
“All of us! So, everyone knows except me!” Marnie looked cross. “It’s Friday today. I thought I was meeting both you and Tina this morning. Why didn’t Mikey ring me?”
“Marnie, I don’t know why he’s not told you. He’s pretty distraught right now.”
“You know,” thought Marnie, “Jakey said something to Guy when we went round there yesterday. Guy didn’t like it. I’m trying to remember…”
“Come on, Marnie, you think too much. Why not finish that coffee and we’ll go and see if we can get Tina something wonderful to take her mind off things?”
“Hmmm… OK. Remind me to buy Skye’s friend Katie a present too? The party’s this afternoon and I promised Skye I wouldn’t forget to get something. We’ve just not had time to go shopping together, unfortunately.”
“Well, we’ll go and do that first. That’s the one we’re most likely to forget. Anything else you need?”
“A few toiletries for my trip to Cape Verde tomorrow, some lingerie, a magazine…”
“I hear Femme Fanfare is a good read this month!”
“Hahaha,” Marnie stood up behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“It’s a good job that you’re one of my best friends,” she laughed, kissing his cheek.
The pair left the coffee shop and started to walk towards the main shopping area.
“Stop a minute!” cried Marnie, bending down to adjust one of her new boots. She unzipped it, holding onto Morgs and trying not to tumble over on one leg. She wriggled her foot in a bit more comfortably and zipped the boot back up. Suddenly, she was zapped with a feeling of déjà vu.
“Don’t judge everyone by your own standards, Guy!”
“I beg your pardon?” asked Morgs, confused.
“That’s what Jakey said to Guy. Guy accused him of having the hots for Starla – Mam’s sister. So Jakey said: ‘Don’t judge everyone by your own standards.’”
“It’s not beyond the realms; they do look very similar,” observed Morgs.
“No, no. It was Guy. He was the one misbehaving. Jakey said to him: ‘I shouldn’t have to spell it out in front of your sister.’”
“Spell what out?”
“Don’t you see, Morgs? Guy must have been having an affair with Tina! And Jakey knew. Jakey knew!”
Morgs tried to look surprised.
“Oh my god!” cried Marnie, “You know too. You all bloody know! It wasn’t Mikey who told you about
Tina losing the baby. It would be Guy telling Gav and Gav telling you. It’s so bloody obvious now and it explains loads to do with the way Tina acts around the twins! And I bet…”
Marnie paused, swallowing.
“I bet the baby was Guy’s!”
39
Friday
STARLA
At ten to twelve on Friday, Starla and Jakey knocked on Mr and Mrs Unwin’s door. It had rained most of Thursday and almost all of Friday morning, but the April showers had now abated and the sun had dried out most of the pavements, leaving dark stains around the edges like sketchy picture frames.
Mrs Unwin answered within a nanosecond, which made Starla sure that she was lurking by the window, missing nothing.
“Yes?” Mrs Unwin had a way of turning one word into a spike.
“I wonder if we could come in Mrs Unwin – Edna.” Jakey smiled as warmly as he could. “There’s been a bit of bother with your grandsons and our Billie.”
“Gregory and Charles? I very much doubt that. They are such delightful young men – more interested in their studies than ‘a bit of bother’, as you put it.”
“Nevertheless, could we talk to you about it?” asked Jakey firmly.
“Can’t your wife come over, if it’s about Billie?” Mrs Unwin knew full well that Clara was unable to leave the house. She also knew that Jakey and Clara were unmarried.
“She’s sent us instead,” smiled Starla. “Hello again, Mrs Unwin. We met briefly the other afternoon. I’m Clara’s sister.”
“Yes, we did. Out walking with him.” She pointed at Jakey. “Your sister’s husband. Then canoodling around the back of the house with him. We saw you both.”
“Mrs Unwin… your grandsons?” Jakey was firm and not in the mood for accusations.
“Ah well, I suppose you’d better come in then.”
Starla followed Jakey into the house next door. It was exactly as she had expected it to be. Clean and tidy but full of chintz, decorative teaspoons, saucers and other bric-a-brac placed in the centre of circular crocheted doilies. Each chair had a lace headrest cover and lace sleeves covering the arms. A gardening magazine was left open on the cushion of one chair and Starla felt sure that Mr Unwin would be in trouble for not tidying up when his wife discovered it. The house reminded her of the pictures Jakey had shown her of his mam’s care home.
Dying to Be Slim Page 22