Hens Reunited Page 11

  Her voice was thick with melancholy, and Katie held her until she had stopped sniffling. ‘What I was trying to get at – in a totally crap, insensitive way—’ Katie went on, ‘was that when Steve proposed to me, I didn’t feel happy at all. I panicked. All I could think about was Neil cheating on me, and being trapped in that house with him. And I just wanted to run away, to push Steve away—’

  Before Katie could finish, there was a knock at the front door, and they both turned to watch as the latch was lifted and it was pushed open. Alice’s eyes narrowed and she folded her arms across her chest. ‘Bloody hell, I’m sick of this!’ she hissed to Katie. ‘Come in, why don’t you,’ she said in a louder, rather sarcastic voice.

  A man had appeared – somewhat comically to Katie’s eyes, as he had to duck his head and stoop to enter the small cottage doorway. He stood there like a rather ungainly giant, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light, then gave them both a friendly smile and walked across the room, holding his hand out. ‘Hi, I’m Dom,’ he said to Katie. ‘Alice’s sort-of neighbour.’

  Katie rose from the sofa to shake his hand. He had a nice, honest way about him, she thought as his tanned fingers gripped hers. No guile. ‘Katie,’ she said, liking him. Alice’s sort-of neighbour, eh? Interesting.

  ‘Alice, I—’ he began, then he peered closer at her face. ‘Oh. Are you all right?’

  He had noticed the tear tracks down her cheeks. Observant for a bloke, Katie thought.

  Alice fixed him with a very bright, very fake smile. ‘Of course,’ she lied. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

  Katie was surprised at the stiffness of her tone. Alice was usually so warm, so accommodating – but not to this sort-of-neighbour bloke. What had he done to rattle her cage, then?

  Dom seemed taken aback too. ‘Not really, I was just passing, thought I’d pop in and see how you were doing,’ he replied. His eyes were concerned as he gazed at her. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ Alice replied, her smile starting to resemble a rictus type of grimace.

  Bang. Nail in the conversation coffin. It would be clear to even the most thick-skinned of souls that everything about Alice – her body language, her fixed false smile, her curtness – was shrieking Go away!

  Katie turned to Dom. Had the message got through?

  He was shrugging, with rather a hurt expression. Yes. ‘Okay,’ he said. He was trying to catch Alice’s eye, but she was looking away. ‘Okay,’ he repeated. ‘Well, I’m only down the road if you need me, yeah? Nice to meet you, Katie. Er … I’ll see myself out.’

  ‘You just do that,’ Alice muttered through gritted teeth as he left.

  Katie could barely wait until he was out of earshot to ask the obvious question. ‘What was all that about?’ she hissed. ‘I thought he seemed really nice.’

  Alice raised her eyebrows and looked scornfully at the spot where Dom had been standing just moments earlier. ‘Well, I did too, at first,’ she said, ‘but now I know differently.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Katie said, wondering what on earth the guy had done wrong. Was he some kind of child molester? A peeping Tom? ‘So what—’

  A plaintive cry came from upstairs just then, and Katie broke off. ‘That’s Iris,’ Alice said, and the life seemed to go out of her for a moment, as if someone had pulled out her stopper and she’d deflated. Then she scowled. ‘Bloody idiot must have woken her banging the door,’ she said with unusual vehemence. ‘Let’s listen. She might go back to sleep if we’re lucky.’

  They sat as if frozen, in silence. Tick, tick, tick went an ugly-looking clock on the mantelpiece.

  Alice let out a sigh of relief after thirty seconds or so had passed. ‘Phew,’ she said. ‘She often stirs like that. If we’re lucky we’ll get another half-hour before she’s properly awake.’

  ‘How’s it going, then?’ Katie asked. ‘Motherhood, I mean. Are you managing all right on your own?’

  Alice pulled a face. ‘It’s a bit scary,’ she admitted. ‘I’m dreading her being ill in the night – having to deal with that sort of thing alone. I’ve never had to do that before – Mum was always there to dish out advice, tell me what to do.’ She sighed. ‘It’s lonely, too, just being the two of us here. Honestly, Kate, it seemed like a good idea at the time, moving to this place, but now …’ She squared her shoulders and gave another of her fake smiles. ‘Anyway, we’ll manage. And you didn’t come here to talk about me. Go on, carry on about Steve. Tell me everything.’

  Katie didn’t need asking twice, and the details poured out. ‘I can’t help thinking that Neil was right, you know – that I’m just cold inside,’ she finished miserably. ‘That there’s something wrong with me. How come everyone else seems to want to play Happy Families, but not me? What’s wrong with me?’

  Alice put a hand on hers. ‘Nothing’s wrong with you,’ she replied. ‘You’re brilliant. Steve thinks so too, right? Otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to get you up the aisle.’ There was a pause. ‘So anyway … what next? Have you phoned him?’

  Katie shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she confessed. ‘I thought he’d call me. And now it’s been two days and … I almost feel as if we’ve split up, you know. Which is ridiculous, isn’t it? And just goes to show it must be a pretty flimsy relationship if we can’t survive a conversation about the future without falling to pieces.’

  They were both silent for a few moments. ‘He’s probably feeling a bit crushed,’ Alice said. ‘There he was, building up to this nerve-racking proposal, thinking of every detail, by the sound of it. Apart from the possibility that you might say no. I bet he feels pretty crap now. Maybe even embarrassed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Katie said. ‘I guess he wasn’t expecting a “no”.’ She sighed, feeling muddled and tired. ‘What a mess. Bloody marriage proposals wreck everything, if you ask me!’

  Hindsight was a wonderful thing. Katie looked back at her teenage self now and knew that meeting Neil had been nothing more than a convenient means of breaking free from her home life, cutting the ties from her flaky mother, her absent dad. It was a something-for-me moment, a relief to step into his arms away from her chaotic family.

  It wasn’t the worst childhood in the world, to be fair, yet you wouldn’t call it an ideal one. As a fourteen-year-old, while all her mates were hanging out, experimenting with make-up and practising the Lambada together, Katie would be stuck indoors babysitting her younger sisters because her mum was off down the White Horse and may well not come home for twenty-four hours. Or she’d be making tea for them all because Mum had passed out cold on the sofa again. Or she’d be suffering the charity of ‘Aunty’ Sylv next door who took it upon herself every now and then to do their washing – until Katie had heard Sylv gossiping in the mini-mart about it (‘Poor little mites! I’ve a good mind to call social services, get them taken away from that woman!’) and stoutly refused all offers of help from then on.

  No wonder Dad had walked out, Katie would think, as her mum shambled from day to day, seemingly uncaring of how her daughters fared. Sometimes she wished her mum had been the one to go.

  Katie leaned against the steering wheel as she sat in the rush-hour traffic, steeped in memories. It was hardly surprising that when Neil had sauntered into her world and picked her out, Katie had fallen head over heels. She was so desperate for some love and closeness, so grateful and delighted that anybody wanted her, that anybody found her attractive! It would have been pathetic if it wasn’t so bloody sad, her trotting after Neil like an adoring puppy.

  She stared out of the window, unseeing, as she waited for the traffic lights to change. Ironic really, wasn’t it? While most of her friends were rebelling against their parents by drinking and smoking and throwing wild house parties behind their backs, Katie’s act of rebellion had been to get married – a teenage bride. How tragic was that? And how spectacularly it had backfired on her!

  Katie drove the rest of the way home on automatic pilot, trying
not to think about her failed marriage any more. At last she was able to turn into her road, and she slowed as she approached her house. Then she almost stalled the engine in surprise as she saw the metallic blue Ford Focus parked neatly outside. Steve’s car. He was back. He’d come back!

  So what the hell should she do now?

  Chapter Eight

  Pray

  1987

  ‘Oh look, girls. Here she comes, the walking Knightmare herself!’ Michelle Jones’ voice had a ring of delight, and Georgia flinched as she heard it. Oh, no. Not again. She clutched her school bag defensively against herself as if it were a shield that would repel Michelle and her cronies. No such luck.

  ‘Done your homework, then, Knightmare?’ That was Gayle Fisher, dumb sidekick, with a bleached-blonde mullet and studs all the way up her ears. She was rock hard, Gayle, everyone knew that. And now she was advancing on her so that Georgia had to back away against the grey metal lockers.

  ‘Yeah,’ Georgia replied, eyes cast down to the ground. ’Course she’d done her homework. It wasn’t worth her while not to do it when this lot wanted copies every day.

  ‘Hand it over then.’ That was Lindsey Newton, chewing on a wad of pink Bubblicious, holding out a stubby-nailed hand expectantly. Not as hard as Gayle, but with such an expert line in catty remarks she could make you cry within seconds if she put her mind to it.

  Georgia scrabbled inside her bag for the English essay she’d spent hours labouring over last night. ‘Macbeth’s Downfall’, it was called. She knew how he must have felt, poor old Macbeth, with these three witches breathing down her neck.

  Michelle grabbed the book out of her hands and flicked through it. ‘Oooh, what long words,’ she mocked. ‘Think you’re better than us, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Georgia mumbled. It was true. She felt worthless pretty much all of the time. The only thing that kept her going was walking home with Carl Finchley. He was so nice, Carl. Different from the other boys. He made her laugh, too, and forget about Michelle Jones for the short distance from the school gates to her house.

  ‘Good, ’cos you’re not,’ Lindsey said, leaning closer to Georgia so that she could smell the sickly waft of strawberry gum. The lockers were cold against her back, she could feel the metal chill on her shoulder blades. ‘You’re shit. You’re nothing. Everyone hates you, you know. ’Specially us.’

  ‘Watch out,’ Michelle murmured just then, and they turned to see what she’d noticed. Georgia raised her gaze slightly too and saw, to her great relief, that Carol, her sister, was striding down the corridor towards them with her best mate, Susie Leigh. Carol took in the scene – the three girls crowding around Georgia, pinning her against the lockers – but didn’t comment. Her gaze flickered over Georgia’s face disinterestedly, and she walked on. Georgia could hear her telling Susie about the new shoes she’d seen in Chelsea Girl as they disappeared down the corridor.

  Michelle gave a hard, spiteful laugh. ‘Well, whaddya know? Big sis Knightmare thinks you’re a freak, too. She doesn’t care what happens to little Georgie!’ She grabbed Georgia’s wrist and wrenched it in a Chinese burn. ‘Looks like you’re on your own, eh?’

  Saturday, 14 June 2008

  The scene flashed back into Georgia’s mind as she walked along the hospital corridor with Owen. The shame – the years-old shame – spread through her like a rising tide. It had gone on for months and months, the bullying – years, actually. How ironic that Michelle Jones was now in the health profession. Healing, rather than crushing. Was that some kind of karmic penance? Or the universe’s little joke?

  She clutched her bag to her now, just as she’d done back then in the school corridor all those years ago. Only now her bag was Balenciaga, glossy black and expensive, not a canvas rucksack with The Cure and Style Council drawn over it in marker pen. And now her hair was thick and sleek, not the ponytail it had been back in those days – the ponytail that Michelle had pulled on so hard at times, Georgia thought her roots would be ripped out.

  It was disconcerting how she could be here with her glamorous bag, her salon-styled hair and her expensive designer shoes, and yet after just one glimpse of Michelle Jones, she’d felt as if her trappings had melted away to nothing, leaving her as gawky Georgie Knightmare all over again, vulnerable and bare.

  She trembled at the thought, and Owen put his arm around her to steer her as they walked. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  Her teeth chattered and she was unable to speak. Then she took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just … thinking about something. It was a long time ago.’

  They were back at the ward now, and he stopped outside the swing doors. ‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Will you be all right from here?’

  She nodded, trying to smile at him. She’d got it wrong about Owen McIntosh, he wasn’t so bad. She was glad her nan had him looking after her. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. Then he hesitated. ‘I guess I might see you again here?’ he ventured. ‘I mean, if you’re visiting Mrs Hatherley. She’ll be with us for a while, I think.’

  Georgia didn’t answer immediately. She’d planned to go straight home tonight, after all – I’m A Londoner, Get Me Out Of Here! – and the hospital had already proved itself to be a dangerous place, with the sighting of Michelle. Why would Georgia want to come back for more?

  But then she remembered Nan lying so feeble and pale in the bed. And she felt Owen’s dark eyes upon hers as he waited for her reply.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, surprising herself as the word fell out of her mouth. ‘Yes, I’ll be back tomorrow. Will you … will you be around, then?’

  He smiled at her. She liked the way his eyes were so sparkly when he smiled. He was actually rather handsome, now she came to look at him properly. ‘I can be,’ he said. He glanced at his watch. ‘See you tomorrow then, Georgia.’

  ‘See you,’ she said. And away he went down the corridor, his white coat flapping behind him. Mmmmmm. Interesting.

  Carol barged through the swing door then, almost knocking her over. ‘There you are!’ she said impatiently. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

  Georgia started at the sound. ‘Oh, hi,’ she replied after a moment. ‘Nice to see you too.’ Her voice dripped with sarcasm, and her eyes narrowed. Carol, who’d never come to her rescue. Carol, who’d turned a blind eye, pretended not to notice the bullying. It rankled even now. So much for sisterhood. So much for We-Are-Family!

  ‘Where have you been? Nan’s awake, you know. We told her you were here and now she’s all upset because she thinks she’s missed you.’ Her voice rose an octave. ‘And where’s the frigging coffee?’

  Georgia pushed past her sister, letting the door fall on Carol. Where’s the frigging coffee, indeed. Who did Carol think she was, anyway? Some kind of charlady?

  She walked down the ward still bristling, but the sight of her nan’s face, eyes open, confused expression, sobered her immediately.

  She dropped into the empty chair by the bed and took her grandmother’s gnarled fingers in her own. The tired old skin moved over the tired old bones. ‘Hi Nan,’ she said. ‘It’s me, Georgie.’

  It was hard to doze off that night. On the rare occasions that Georgia visited her parents she had to sleep in the bedroom she’d shared with Carol throughout their childhood, and it always seemed to be the case that as soon as she lay down on the thin single mattress again, a whole host of shadowy memories would drift out from the faded striped wallpaper and hang above her like a mushroom cloud, choking her until she had to pull the duvet over her head.

  So many times she’d lain here on this bed, weeping into the pillow, while Carol snored across the other side of the room. So many times she’d poured her heart out into her diary, all her fears about Michelle and her gang. All her wishes too that she would one day be in with the in-crowd; that one day she’d be liked by other girls, part of a group.

  Over the years since then Georgia had wondered many times if
Michelle, Gayle or Lindsey ever bought her newspaper, saw her byline. Did they feel guilt when they recognized her face staring out at them? Envy?

  Both, she hoped. She hoped it turned their stomachs to read about her and her glamorous showbiz life. She hoped they felt ashamed. In reality, though, they probably felt nothing other than glee as they recalled all the times they’d made her cry.

  Georgia had tried so hard to put those horrible teenage years behind her when she escaped down to London, and for a time, it had worked. She’d shaken the memories off and plunged into student life with abandon. It was only as the Christmas holidays were looming that she realized just how much she dreaded going back up north. The thought of seeing Michelle Jones’ sneering face again made her feel ill.

  And then, as term drew to a close, she’d lost it one night at the union bar. She’d had way too many cheap shots, and – so embarrassing – she’d burst into tears when that Slade song, ‘Merry X’mas Everybody’, started booming from the loudspeakers. Everyone was bellowing along with the words, except Georgia, who sat there with her head in her hands, weeping fit to bust. Alice – kind Alice – had taken her back to the hall of residence, made her hot chocolate and hugged her. ‘I just don’t want to go back,’ Georgia had sobbed. ‘I can’t face it again.’

  Alice – saviour Alice – had stroked her hair. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  And then it all came out – the story she’d never told anyone properly before, not even her own mum. How she’d been madly in love with Carl Finchley, her first-ever boyfriend, but how Michelle kept picking on her, because she fancied him too. And how the bullying had gone on for weeks and weeks, months and months, until one day, just before Christmas, Michelle had beaten the shit out of her. Georgia had been hospitalized for two weeks with broken ribs and internal bleeding. ‘And I’m afraid you’ve lost the baby,’ the consultant had said, pity in his eyes.