Wonder Women

by Fiore, Rosie

  He didn’t stay for long after that – his brother lived in South London and he made noises about not wanting to miss the last Tube, but Mel suspected he’d let on more than he had meant to and was embarrassed. She hugged him goodbye, and after he left, stood in the hallway thinking about him – his large, reassuring presence, his gentleness, his way with Serena. If he did have feelings for her, might she reciprocate them? They’d been friends for years, and she had never thought of him like that before. But why not? Could she and Hamish …? She had been single for so long, maintaining her independence, keeping her household going, looking after Serena, she had somehow never allowed herself to think she might have a romantic relationship of her own. But Hamish was a lovely guy, kind, reliable, financially solvent, and very attractive in a slightly shambling, bear-like way. Best of all, Serena already knew and liked him. So maybe … one day in the future … She shook her head. She would have to feel that things with Serena were more under control before she could ever consider it.

  The next morning, she was busy with laundry when, to her surprise, Serena came out of her room, dressed, at about ten. ‘Fancy some breakfast?’ Mel said. ‘I’ve got stuff for bacon sarnies …’

  ‘I have to go to school,’ said Serena.

  ‘But it’s Saturday.’

  ‘Yeah, there’s a thing,’ said Serena unconvincingly.

  ‘A thing?’

  ‘It’s a class project.’ Serena was looking more and more uncomfortable. Mel knew she could push it, but Serena was looking so defensive already.

  ‘Okay, will you be long?’

  ‘A couple of hours.’

  Serena pulled the hood on her jumper up over her head, stuffed her hands in her pockets and headed out of the door. True to her word, she was home two hours later, and took herself off to her room.

  Three hours later, Serena’s door was firmly shut and she didn’t seem likely to come out of there before dinnertime, so Mel logged into Facebook as Lauren. There was a new post on Serena’s wall. It was from Marina. ‘How was this morning?’ she posted. Serena answered almost immediately. ‘Great. Hopey is amazing.’

  Hopey? Who or what was Hopey? Mel looked it up on the Urban Dictionary. There were two potential translations: ‘hopey’ was a slang synonym for ‘optimistic’, or was used as a nickname for Barack Obama. She was fairly sure that neither of these applied in this case, so she had to assume Hopey was a person. But who? Surely not a new boyfriend, just two weeks after she had split up from Triggah? Hopey? What kind of name was that? It sounded like some kind of gangster nickname, or one of the grime or hip-hop artists Serena liked. But she couldn’t have gone off to a gig at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning, could she? What if she’d hooked up with some bad-boy graffiti tagger? Or a drug dealer? And how was this person ‘amazing’? What the hell did he do?

  When she got to work on Monday morning, it was still bugging her. It was a bright sunny day, and the shop was very quiet. They had learned that bad weather was good for business, as mums could come in out of the rain and let their little monsters blow off some steam in the play area. The mums were usually so grateful that they’d buy something. But on days like this, with not a cloud in the bright blue sky, everyone with kids under school age would be at the park. Mel sat at the counter, doodling on a piece of paper and wondering about Serena and Hopey.

  Holly was in on one of her rare days in the shop. She was doing a stocktake and starting to think about where they would put the girls’ range when it was finally settled. She had the teenage boys who made the T-shirts coming in later too. Mel felt guilty; she knew she should be helping – counting things and so on – but so far Holly had refused all offers of assistance and seemed happiest to work alone.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t …?’ she said for the third or fourth time.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Holly. ‘Unless you’re offering to do a coffee run. I didn’t get much sleep last night.’

  ‘Coffee it is,’ said Mel, hopping off her stool. ‘Latte?’

  ‘Espresso. And a sticky bun.’

  ‘Wow, that is bad,’ said Mel. ‘Your mum not doing so well?’

  ‘She slept fine last night; it’s just me. Insomnia, you know … boy trouble.’

  ‘Oh no, not the handsome doctor?’

  ‘Handsome shitbag, more like. Seems he’s not separated from his wife at all. He just likes a little extra-curricular action.’

  ‘And you found this out …?’

  ‘I went around to his and the wife was there. She told me.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Yes. And now he keeps ringing, and I keep rejecting his calls. I don’t know how stupid he thinks I am. I want to kick myself for falling for his story. I’m just so angry. And therefore …’

  ‘… You can’t sleep. I’d be the same,’ said Mel. It was rather odd to be sharing such intimate chat with Holly. She had always thought of Holly as much younger, although there was less than ten years in age between them. Holly had the bohemian, itinerant lifestyle Mel had lived a lifetime ago, before Serena. Holly was single, with no hint of kids on her horizon. Even though she was now caught up in all the responsibility around her mum’s illness, she seemed to be in a very different place in her life. Mel hadn’t thought they had much in common.

  She popped to the coffee shop and came back with coffees for both of them and a range of sweet carb-laden snacks. When she walked back in, Holly was on the phone, obviously answering a customer query. She finished the call as Mel unpacked the goodies on to the countertop.

  ‘You’re a hero,’ said Holly, biting into an apricot Danish. ‘What do I owe you?’

  ‘My treat.’ They ate and drank in silence. Mel also hadn’t slept very well, and the caffeine and sugar were a welcome boost.

  ‘So who’s Hopey?’ said Holly out of the blue, and Mel spluttered cappuccino foam all over the counter.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hopey. You’ve doodled it over and over on this bit of paper. Is he your bloke?’

  ‘What? No. It’s a name Serena posted on Facebook. It’s bugging me that I don’t know who it is. It’s not a musician, is it? A band or a rapper or something? Someone I just haven’t heard of?’

  ‘Not that I know of, but if it’s like a youth counter-culture thing, we’re both too ancient to know for sure. When Chris and Daniel get here, we can ask them.’

  Mel nodded. That seemed like a good solution.

  They ate in silence for a while, and then Holly said gently, ‘Is everything okay with Serena?’ And Mel found herself talking. She had always been a very private person – she had friends, but not confidantes, and she tended not to burden people with her problems. Maybe it was because she wasn’t all that close to Holly, or maybe because Holly was younger and might have some insight, she started to tell a – much edited – version of the things she had found out about Serena’s secret life. She told her about the Rizla packet in the bin and the photos on the computer, and about finding her stumbling blind drunk out of the party and what Triggah had said to her. She didn’t mention her Facebook stalking. Holly listened without comment. When Mel had finished, Holly said, ‘I know this is going to sound weird, and probably not what you want to hear, but I think you might be over-reacting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know that seeing your kid grow up, and having her keep things from you, is difficult, but let’s look at the evidence objectively, okay?’

  Mel wanted to protest, but she thought better of it, nodded and said, ‘Okay, objectively, how am I overreacting?’

  ‘Well, for a start, do you smoke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, if Serena did, you would smell it on her, guaranteed. You’d smell it on her hair, her clothes and her breath. So my guess is that the Rizla packet belonged to the boyfriend.’

  ‘But the pictures …’

  ‘She was in her underwear, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And when the boy – what kind of name is Triggah, anyway? –
when Triggah was yelling at her, he said she was a frigid bitch?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what she said.’

  ‘I think she’s still a virgin. I think he probably pressurised her into the pictures, but she refused to do anything more. So he went looking for it somewhere else. And he got it from her friend the bike … Izzie, was it?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. But she’s been bunking school …’

  ‘I bunked school. I smoked, I got drunk and threw up, and I went out with all sorts of awful guys. And I think I turned out okay. Mel, I’ve only met Serena once or twice, but my instinct is that she’s a good kid. She’s sulky and secretive because that’s what teenagers are supposed to be. But I think she’s probably fine. Really.’ And Holly squeezed Mel’s arm.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mel, and managed a smile. But she was far from convinced. She knew the world was full of perils. She knew how danger could be close to home – even inside your home – and without someone looking out for you, you were powerless. She wasn’t ready to let her guard down. Not yet. And certainly not before she found out who the mysterious Hopey was.

  Daniel and Chris came into the shop about half an hour later. They were lovely boys, the sort she had hoped Serena might meet and have as a first boyfriend. They were polite and neatly dressed, and the fact that they’d started their own business when they were still at school suggested a great work ethic. Mel caught herself thinking all this and smiled. She’d always thought of herself as such a hippie, but parenthood, it seemed, had turned her into a social conservative. Street-performer Mel would have scorned neatly dressed boys with posh accents, like Daniel and Chris, but it was all she wanted for Serena. After Triggah, she didn’t want her daughter to go through any more heartache and disappointment. Maybe she could find a way to introduce them. The boys seemed to get on well with Holly – they all sat together in the back office, sorting through T-shirts and chatting. Daniel, the taller, good-looking one, seemed to be trying especially hard to impress Holly. He obviously had a crush, and small wonder – Holly was a gorgeous woman. He kept paying her compliments and trying to make her laugh. It was good to see Holly smile and giggle. She was taking so much strain with her mum being so ill, and the thing with the faithless married doctor didn’t help at all. Some flirtation from a young handsome man, even if he was technically still a child, was good for her.

  Mel served some customers and played a raucous game of piggy-in-the-middle with two small boys while their mum stocked up on summer clothes for them. The mum, who looked harassed and stressed beyond belief, was clearly very grateful to be able to look at clothes in peace while someone else dealt with her two boisterous little terrors. She ended up spending a small fortune, kitting both boys out and buying a few extras as gifts for friends.

  ‘Thanks!’ Mel grinned as she put the transaction through. She could almost hear the woman’s credit card weeping.

  ‘No, thank you!’ said the woman, glancing nervously behind her as her boys swung from a jungle rope. ‘This is the best shopping experience I’ve had in five years. If you stocked adult clothing, I might well move in!’

  It was an interesting idea: if you were keeping the kids busy, why not let the mums shop for themselves as well as their kids? Maybe they could start with a maternity range. Mel made a mental note to mention it to Jo.

  ‘Well, tell all your mates!’ said Mel, handing the woman her bulging shopping bags. ‘We’ll be stocking girls’ clothes as well soon.’

  ‘Already tweeted about it.’ The woman grinned. ‘See you soon!’

  Once the woman and her small savages had gone, Mel did a quick tidy. As she was finishing up, Holly and the Outtake boys came out of the office. Holly set about hanging some of the new T-shirts and the boys set off home. As the office was deserted, Mel took the opportunity to log on to Facebook for a moment to see what Serena had been up to. Marina had posted ‘Hey babez, see you after school? Come to mine for coffee.’

  And Serena had replied, ‘Can’t, seeing Hopey at 4.’

  Mel checked her watch. It was lunchtime. Jo was coming in at three to do the last few hours in the shop. Mel could be outside Serena’s school by three thirty, when classes ended, and she could see where she went after that. Whom she met. She had a bad feeling about this Hopey. She couldn’t put her finger on why … somehow she didn’t think it was just a friend. Serena was uncommunicative, yes, but she did mention her friends by name, and this was not a name Mel had ever heard from her.

  As it happened, there was a builders’ cafe across the road from Serena’s school. They did a roaring trade at lunchtime, supplying sausages and chips to hungry teenagers. Mel got there at three twenty and found a table by the window. The cafe was quiet, and she grabbed a copy of the Sun from the rack of newspapers and ordered a tea. Although she had a good view of the road outside and the school opposite, she was partially concealed from view by a dusty plastic palm tree. If, by some fluke, Serena saw her or came into the cafe, she decided to say she had left work early and wasn’t feeling well, so had come to meet Serena to walk home with her. It was most likely that Serena wouldn’t see her, however. In Mel’s experience, Serena, and teenagers in general, didn’t notice things or people around them unless it was something that affected them directly.

  At three thirty, kids starting trailing out of the school opposite. There were just a few at first, then a flood – groups of boys laughing and shoving each other, girls calling out to one another in piercing voices. Why were they all so loud? Mel watched from behind her pot plant. She knew from years of collecting Serena from school that she would be one of the last out. She always was. Sure enough, most of the kids had wandered off down the road towards the station or their houses, or got on the school bus, when Serena came out, her arm linked through Marina’s. They had their heads close together and were chatting. They stopped outside the school and leaned against a low stone wall. Marina seemed to be waiting with Serena. Whoever Hopey was, perhaps he was meeting Serena at the school. She didn’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry. The two girls looked at something on Marina’s phone, and then Serena got hers out along with a set of headphones and they took one earpiece each. Mel checked her watch. It was five to four. The cafe owner was pointedly sweeping the floor and moving tables and chairs. Clearly he wanted to close up. She had to hope that Serena’s rendezvous would be prompt. She glanced up and down the road, expecting to see someone approaching on foot. There was no one who looked obviously like someone a teenage girl might meet – just a young mum with two toddlers and a couple of old ladies with tartan shopping bags on wheels.

  Then, at one minute to four, a car came crawling along the road and pulled up outside the school. Serena looked up and smiled. She retrieved the other earphone from Marina, hugged her goodbye and ran around to the passenger door of the car. Somehow, Mel hadn’t expected a car, and she stood up quickly to get a better look. It was a very ordinary car – a little silver hatchback, a Peugeot or a Vaux-hall Corsa or something. She couldn’t see the driver’s face because of the sun’s late-afternoon glare on the windscreen. Without thinking, she ran to the door of the cafe, oblivious to the man shouting behind her that she hadn’t paid for her tea. She could see Serena clearly now. She was turned towards the driver of the car, smiling and chatting as she did up her seat belt. The car pulled out and headed down the road, past Mel, and turned left at the bottom. As it passed, she got a clear look at the person driving. He looked about fifty, wearing a suit and glasses. She had never seen him before. What kind of fifty-year-old man picks up a teenage girl from school without her mother knowing? Mel started to tremble with fear and anger. She had been in such a hurry to see the driver, she hadn’t thought to take down the registration number of the car. With shaking fingers, she took out her phone and dialled Serena’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.

  She didn’t think. She was panicking, crazy with fear and desperation, so she just started to talk. ‘Rena, I’m outside your school and I just saw you get i
n a car with a man. Is that Hopey? Who is he? What are you doing? What is he making you do? Oh God, Rena, ring me. Please just ring me. I don’t know where you’ve gone and I couldn’t get the registration number or I’d have rung the police. Rena … just … ring me, okay? I’ll come and get you wherever you are.’ She hung up, and started to cry. Mel couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. She turned back into the cafe and retrieved her bag. The cafe owner, seeing how upset she was, waved her money away when she went to pay for her tea.

  Marina. Marina would know. She knew who Hopey was, and maybe she could tell Mel where they had gone. Mel stood on the pavement, looking wildly up and down the road, but Marina had gone. She took off at a run, heading for her house, which was on a main road close to the school. She arrived out of breath and rang the doorbell, but somehow, from the way it echoed, she sensed no one was home. She scrolled through the numbers on her phone and, to her relief, found one for Marina. She dialled it, but got a recorded message saying, ‘The number you have dialled has not been recognised.’ Marina must have changed her number.

  This was a nightmare. She stood on the pavement, trembling and staring up and down the road, as if a solution might magically present itself. After a minute or two, she calmed down and sat on the low wall. She started to go through her phone methodically, looking for numbers of any of Serena’s friends. She rang each one, trying to sound as calm as she could, saying that she had seen Serena get into a car with a strange man outside the school, and did any of them know who it might be, or where they might have gone? They all answered in monosyllables, and clearly none of them had any idea what might have happened. Tiresomely, they sounded mortified to be taking a call from Serena’s mum, and it seemed to Mel that this constrained them from speaking openly. It was as if their embarrassment at speaking to her was more important to them than Serena’s safety. In desperation, Mel even rang Izzie, who had the decency to sound properly shamefaced, but who also knew nothing. Hating herself for doing it, Mel asked Izzie if she knew how to get hold of Triggah.