Wonder Women

by Fiore, Rosie

  ‘He’s here with me now,’ said Izzie in a small voice. ‘And he also doesn’t know where she is.’

  There was nothing for Mel to do but go home. She didn’t take her coat off, just sat in a chair, her bag balanced on her knees, and waited as the shadows lengthened.

  It felt like hours, but was in fact just gone five thirty when she heard Serena’s key in the door. She was too numb to feel relieved. She just stayed sitting where she was, bag on lap, waiting. Serena didn’t come into the living room, but went straight to her bedroom. Mel could hear her banging around. After a minute, she carefully put her handbag on the floor and went to stand in Serena’s doorway. Serena had a sports bag on the bed and was throwing clothes and school books into it willy-nilly.

  ‘What are you …?’

  ‘I’m going to stay at Marina’s,’ said Serena flatly. Then she stopped what she was doing for a second, and looked at Mel. ‘You’re a freak, do you know that? What did you do? Read my emails? Hack into my Facebook? Why couldn’t you just ask me?’

  ‘Because you never talk!’ Mel didn’t even bother to deny the allegations.

  ‘I would talk. I would tell you things if you ever got off my back. If you ever let me have even the tiniest bit of fucking privacy!’ Serena was screaming now, and it didn’t seem the right moment to tell her off for swearing.

  ‘I …’

  ‘I don’t know what you think I am. I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but let me tell you, it’s what’s in your head that’s wrong. I’m not an idiot. I can look after myself. And just because you’re a weirdo who never ever has a boyfriend and thinks every man is a rapist or a paedo, doesn’t mean I think that way. I’m going. And before you start ringing all my friends again, or calling the police, I’m staying with Marina’s mum and dad. I’m not having sex with some old man, okay?’

  She grabbed her bag, not even bothering to zip it up, tucked her laptop under her arm and pushed past Mel. Mel heard the door slam, and then everything was quiet.

  25

  HOLLY NOW

  Judith, whose arms and legs were so thin you could see every ridge of bone under the skin, looked pregnant. Her skin was an alarming shade of yellow, and her belly was grossly swollen. Lynne, the Macmillan nurse, was scheduled to come on the Friday, but on the Wednesday Holly rang her in desperation and she came round within the hour. Holly sat downstairs in the kitchen and waited while Lynne spent some time with Judith. She felt sure that when Lynne came downstairs that the news wouldn’t be good. There was no doubt about it: in the last few months Judith had got very sick very quickly.

  Lynne, who was plump and pleasant, came down the stairs stripping off her latex gloves. ‘Got the kettle on there, Holly?’ she said. She bustled around making tea, and then sat at the table with Holly.

  ‘Now I know that you must be worried about the way your mum looks today,’ she said calmly.

  ‘She looks awful, Lynne. Just awful.’

  ‘It’s because the cancer has reached her liver. That’s why she’s so yellow. The swelling is mainly fluid in her abdomen, and we can do something about that. I’ve rung the hospital, and they’re sending over an ambulance. We’re going to keep her in and we’ll drain off some of the fluid. It’s a minor procedure, she’ll be awake throughout and it’ll make her much more comfortable. More than likely, she can come home tomorrow.’

  ‘So she …’

  ‘She hasn’t got long, but she’s not quite on her way out yet.’ Holly appreciated Lynne’s blunt honesty. She was matter-of-fact, but always kind, and she always gave them all the information they needed. ‘Now why don’t you pop upstairs and pack a bag for your mum? She seemed worried about her jewellery. She wanted to take it all with her. See if you can talk her out of that – it won’t be safe in the hospital.’

  Her jewellery? How odd, Holly thought as she walked up the stairs. Judith hadn’t worn any jewellery other than her wedding ring since she’d been ill. Why the sudden obsession? When she went into the bedroom, Judith was sitting up in bed, her jewellery box on her lap. She hadn’t opened it, but she had her claw-like hands clasped over it as if she would never let it go. As soon as Holly saw the box, she knew why Judith didn’t want to leave it behind. The letters.

  ‘Mum,’ she said gently, ‘you don’t need to take that with you. It’ll be perfectly safe here.’

  ‘What if I don’t come back?’ said Judith.

  ‘Lynne says it’s just a small procedure, and you’ll feel much better and be home tomorrow.’

  ‘What if I’m not home tomorrow? What if I die in the hospital? I need this.’ Judith clutched the box tighter.

  ‘Mum …’ said Holly, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting her hand over Judith’s. ‘I know you have letters in there, and I’ll keep them safe. I promise.’

  ‘How do you know? Did you read them? That’s terrible! You should never read other people’s letters, Holly! That’s disgraceful!’ Judith was so distressed that Holly wished she had never said anything.

  ‘I didn’t read them. I promise. I borrowed your gold chain weeks ago – I told you, remember? And the box wouldn’t close. I saw there were letters, but I didn’t even take them out. I would never read your private letters; of course I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I need them, Holly. They’re all I’ve got.’ There were tears in Judith’s eyes. ‘All I’ve got of him. Please.’

  ‘Mum, they’re much safer here than in the hospital. And you’ll be back tomorrow.’

  Judith shook her head. The tears were still trickling down her cheeks.

  ‘Why not take one or two? Maybe not all of them. And not your jewellery box,’ Holly suggested. Judith calmed down and nodded. ‘That’s a good idea,’ she said, and with trembling hands opened the catch on the box. She lifted the trays out and handed them to Holly, then began to leaf through the stack of letters. She chose two from the very bottom of the pile. Holly fetched Judith’s handbag, and Judith carefully slid the two letters into an inside pocket of the bag and zipped it up.

  ‘We need to get the rest of your things organised,’ said Holly, and she helped Judith to replace everything in the box and put it back on the dressing table. In a few minutes, she had packed a small overnight bag for Judith. Lynne popped her head around the door and said the ambulance was ten minutes away, and that the ambulance crew would come up to the bedroom to fetch Judith. Holly sat down beside the bed. Now Judith was not so agitated, she looked terribly tired.

  ‘You all right, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, dear.’

  ‘Your letters are safe in your bag. I’ll make sure it’s right beside your bed when you’re in the hospital, okay?’

  ‘Thank you, dear.’

  There was a long silence, and then Holly said, ‘Mum? Who are the letters from? Mr Benton?’

  Judith lifted her head from the pillow and looked sharply at Holly. ‘Oh no, dear. Good heavens no. I got the oldest letter in the pile more than forty years ago. I only met Christopher a few years back.’

  ‘Were they from Dad?’

  ‘Oh no. They’re not from your father. I never knew Charles to write so much as a postcard.’

  Holly was desperate to know now. ‘So who …?’

  Judith smiled. ‘I know it’s hard to imagine your dull old mother had a life before you came along. But I did. They’re from the love of my life, dear. The one man I truly loved.’

  Holly opened her mouth to ask more questions, but the doorbell rang and Lynne called up the stairs that the ambulance had arrived.

  In the bustle of getting her into the ambulance and then getting her settled in the hospital, Holly had no further opportunity to question Judith. Once she was in her bed in the ward, she fell asleep immediately. The procedure wasn’t due to be done for a few hours, so Holly was sent home. It wasn’t until she was in the car and driving that she remembered something. The letter she had seen on the top of the pile had had a recent postmark … just a few months old. If that was the case, Judith’s
One True Love was still very much alive, and very much in evidence. So who was he? Where was he? And while she was thinking about identity, who the hell was Judith? Because she certainly wasn’t the quiet, dutiful Christian widow Holly had always imagined her to be.

  Holly got back to the house in Ealing and wandered through the quiet rooms. Although she was desperately tired, she felt completely wired, unable to settle. The last time Judith had been in hospital was the night she had gone out with Fraser. More fool her. Look at how that had turned out. She needed to do something: she couldn’t just sit around in the house. The letters were calling her from her mum’s room. It felt like they were yelling, ‘Come and read us!’ down the stairs. She had promised Judith she wouldn’t, and so she had to take herself out of the way of temptation. If Judith didn’t want to tell her about her mystery man, then that was her right.

  Holly decided to go to the shop, spend some time checking over the stock, and then stay the night in her flat in East Finchley. She packed a change of clothes and her toiletries into a small bag and headed for the door. While she was looking for her keys, her mobile began to ring. She could see it was Fraser calling. She hadn’t heard from him for a week or so, so she had assumed he had given up, but it seemed he was more persistent than that. She clicked ‘Cancel’ and cut off the call. Somehow, the phone ringing reminded her of Mr Benton. He would be coming around in the morning to work in the garden, and she didn’t want him to find the house deserted and think the worst. She had his home number, so she rang him and left a message on his answerphone to explain where Judith was, and that she had gone to spend the night in her own flat.

  As she stepped out of the front door of the house, she felt her mood lighten. An afternoon and a night. Infinite possibilities.

  But when she got to the shop, it was mayhem. There seemed to be hundreds of small children running around and screaming and bashing things. Both Mel and Jo seemed to be able to function in this atmosphere without a problem – Holly assumed that having children of your own somehow made you at least partially immune to the noise of other people’s brats – but she found it a struggle. There was no way she could assess the state of the stock in the monkey-house atmosphere on the shop floor, so she hid in the stockroom and shut the door. There really wasn’t anything for her to do, so she spent a bit of time with paper and pen sketching out some ideas for dungarees and padded trousers for the winter range. But to be honest, she was bored. She wanted company, excitement … something that felt like life and liveliness, as an antidote to illness, death and sadness. When someone knocked on the stockroom door and she saw Daniel and Chris outside, they looked like the answer to a prayer.

  ‘Delivery, miss!’ said Chris cheekily, coming in with a box of T-shirts.

  ‘Boys!’ she said happily. ‘You’re a lovely sight. Please tell me you don’t need to rush off.’

  The boys looked surprised, and glanced at each other. ‘No,’ said Daniel. ‘Is there something you need us to do?’

  ‘Yes! I need you to come to the pub with me and sit in the garden and drink beer and shots until the sun goes down and possibly beyond.’

  ‘Yes!’ they chorused, full of enthusiasm. Holly wasn’t sure if their excitement was at the prospect of her company, or at the possibility of her funding this drinking expedition. Either way, she’d take it.

  *

  The weather was glorious and the pub garden was inviting. Holly suggested getting a jug of Pimm’s. Neither of the boys had tried it before, assuming it to be a parents’ fuddy-duddy drink, but they loved it and within half an hour they were well into the second jug. Holly knew that Pimm’s was insidious – it tasted like a soft drink, but the alcoholic effects could sneak up on you, especially sitting in the sun. But she had parked her car safely and only had half a block to walk to get home. The boys were another matter.

  ‘Where are you parked?’ she asked Daniel.

  ‘In a side road. No parking restrictions.’

  ‘How will you …?’

  ‘Get home? Bus, night bus …’ He gave her a cheeky grin. ‘Relax! Stop being a grown-up. Let’s just have some fun.’

  The boys argued about music and films, and they all had a good bitch about a reality TV show they’d been watching. Holly couldn’t believe how good it was to kick back and talk nonsense. She stretched her arms along the back of the wooden bench she was sitting on and turned her face up to the sun. Real life was out there, and the awfulness of Judith’s situation was always present, but for this afternoon, she could put it to one side.

  She must have been quite drunk, because she scarcely registered when Chris kissed her on the cheek and left. He was taking his girlfriend to a film that evening. They’d started early, so it was only around eight o’clock when she and Daniel stumbled out of the pub. They were both ravenous, and she found herself in a neon-lit takeaway devouring doughy slices of pizza. Then they went to the off-licence and bought a couple of four-packs of lager and took them back to Holly’s flat. They lay on big cushions on the floor and Daniel got some music going on his phone. Holly made sure it was very quiet, so as not to alert Bob to their presence. Daniel lay on his stomach, his hands folded under his chin, eyes closed, listening to the music. He was so beautiful, Holly thought, looking at his long lashes resting on his cheeks. He was, she thought drunkenly, the epitome of youth and life and health. The polar opposite to everything else in her life.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her sleepily. ‘So what’s your story, Holly?’ he said, rolling over and sitting up. ‘Where’s the handsome Mr Holly who should be looking after you? I can’t believe you’re single. You’re so …’ He didn’t seem to have an adjective.

  ‘Peng?’ she said cheekily. ‘Am I “peng”?’

  ‘Peng?’ he laughed. ‘Where did you learn that?’

  ‘Mel has a teenage daughter.’

  ‘Well, yes, you are, as we young people say, bare peng. You’re even piff.’

  ‘Why, thank you, sir,’ she smiled.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question. Where’s your boyfriend?’

  ‘Don’t have one. Had a bad, bad, lying, cheating, stealing one in South Africa, met one here I thought was nice, turned out he was also a snake.’

  ‘Snake how?’

  Holly found herself recounting the story of Fraser and Lindsay. She left out the fact that she had been removing her knickers when she first saw Lindsay though. She thought the image might somewhat cloud Daniel’s judgement.

  ‘Wow,’ said Daniel. ‘Awkward.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Is there any chance …? No. Forget I said anything.’

  ‘Any chance of what?’

  ‘Any chance the wife might be lying? I mean, it’s her word against his, and just because your South African boyfriend was a bastard, doesn’t mean all men are.’

  ‘Maybe …’ Holly said dubiously.

  ‘Look, whatever’s going on between them, it sounds a bit messy, and you might not want to be involved. But the guy seems really keen on you and it sounds like you liked him too. He deserves a chance to put his case. I think you should hear what he has to say.’

  ‘That’s very mature thinking.’

  ‘That’s me. Mature.’ He grinned. ‘Text him tomorrow. Not now. You’re drunk.’

  ‘Okay.’ She smiled.

  He laughed suddenly. ‘What an idiot I am,’ he said. ‘Here I am advising you to ring some guy you like, when I want you to fancy me.’ He stretched, and his T-shirt rode up, exposing a line of brown skin. Holly caught herself licking her lips. She couldn’t be thinking … could she? Dear God, no. He was a child. Well, not a child. Nineteen. Technically an adult. And he’d made his intentions towards her perfectly clear. But then he was right about Fraser too – she should ring him, hear him out at least. And she had to fetch her mother from the hospital tomorrow, and then the whole horrible cycle of illness and impending death would begin again. She shook her head. She was tired of thinking, tired of arguing with herself. Why shoul
dn’t she have just one, simple, meaningless night? Why not indeed? She sat up, took a deep drink from her beer, and then leaned over and kissed Daniel’s wide, soft mouth.

  He was just deliriously, splendidly lovely. He was life – vibrant, healthy, youthful life and she could have eaten him with a spoon. He was all smooth skin and slender limbs and powerful muscles. He was not a virgin, that was clear, and what he lacked in technique, he made up for in enthusiasm and stamina, and he was very willing to be taught. The box of twelve condoms Holly had bought weeks before was severely depleted by the time the sun came up.

  Holly dozed for a few hours and woke up at ten. Leaving Daniel sprawled across the mattress in the bedroom, she tiptoed to the bathroom to shower. Remarkably, she didn’t feel too hungover, and although she’d barely slept, she was very wide awake. She didn’t regret her actions, but she was absolutely clear in her mind what the night had meant. She only hoped Daniel would feel the same. There was no possibility of a romantic relationship between them, and she felt awkward that they had overstepped the boundaries of their professional relationship too. She’d have to be firm but kind and explain it all to him when he woke up. If he ever woke up. He was a teenager, after all; he would probably sleep till the afternoon if she let him. Well, too bad. She’d have to boot him out sooner rather than later. She didn’t feel like explaining to Bob the landlord who Daniel was or why he was in the flat.

  She turned on the shower, which was very powerful (thank you, Bob), and began to shampoo her hair. The shower was as noisy as it was vigorous, and she was unfamiliar with the sound of her own doorbell. So when she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a (not very big towel), she was surprised to find the bed empty. She went through into the living room, which was empty too. Then she saw Daniel, a sheet loosely wrapped around his lower half, at the bottom of the stairs, opening the front door to admit Fraser. Fraser stood in the doorway. He looked up the stairs at Holly, then looked at Daniel. Then he looked again at Daniel, and Holly could see him estimating Daniel’s age.