by Gwyn GB
She can’t resist trying some of her new clothes on again. Her favourite is a pleated white skirt with a band of black around the waist and hem. She loves the contrast, the pure whiteness of the crisp fabric. She doesn’t think she has ever seen anything so white. She’s not sure when she’ll wear it, if she dares wear it, for fear of sullying its pristine state. She goes to her parents’ bedroom and looks in the old full-length mirror in the corner near her mum’s dressing table. For a little while, she feels good.
When she heads back downstairs she can hear the sound of raised voices. Her aunt sounds like she’s telling her dad off.
‘You’ve got to pull yourself together and stop this moping, it’s getting you nowhere.’
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
She can hear the misery in his voice.
‘She’s gone. Get over it and get on with looking after that child. She’s like a feral cat. You’ve got to sort yourselves out, this house is a pigsty. I can’t keep picking up the pieces - and the bills!’
‘Then don’t. Go back to London if you want. We’re fine without your help.’
‘You’re going to lose the farm and you’re not doing anything about it. Get a grip and stop the drinking.’
Rachel is sitting on the stairs. She wonders what her aunt means by ‘feral cat’, what even is ‘feral’? Does that mean she doesn’t like her? And are they really going to lose the farm? What will they do? Where will they go?
She hears her dad stomp out through the kitchen, no doubt off on one of his wanders around the farm. She stands up and returns to her bedroom. If her aunt thinks she’s ‘feral’ perhaps she’d better keep out of her way. Her heart feels heavy again, she was silly to think her aunt might actually like her.
She doesn’t get to hide in her bedroom for long, Aunt Alice calls her down.
‘Right young lady,’ she says to her, ‘I’m going to show you how you need to help your dad keep this house clean. There’s a washing machine arriving this afternoon and we are going to be using it.’
For the rest of Saturday and for most of Sunday, the three of them work together to get the house in order. Hoovering, dusting, scrubbing and cleaning. Her dad still drinks, but it’s less than usual. Having his sister there is clearly good for him. Rachel starts to see some of her old dad back again. He jokes with her, pretending to scare her with cobwebs and spiders or sucking at her clothes with the hoover whenever she walks past. They smile and they laugh. It feels so good.
On Sunday her aunt cooks one last meal, lasagne with peas. She gets Rachel to watch her make it and gives her a cookery book as a leaving gift. She also gives her £50, which is more money than she has ever had, to spend on herself.
There are hushed words between her aunt and father, scowls from both of them and a shake of the head from her aunt. Then she is gone. They watch as the silver Jaguar slips out of sight and the blanket of silence falls on their house again.
Out of respect, Rachel goes to bed the same time as her aunt had told her the two nights previous, and in the morning she is grateful to wake to a proper breakfast and a fridge and cupboards stocked with food. She heads into school wearing the new uniform she’d been bought and with a decent packed lunch for the day ahead. She feels different, lighter, perhaps her new clothes will help her be accepted.
She wants to tell someone about her aunt, her car, the fish and chips; share details of her new wardrobe. At lunchtime, she sits with her soft sandwich and waits for someone to sit next to her.
When Elaine Bunting and Sharon White sit down beside her, her heart thumps. She can feel their eyes on her. Could this be her moment when she becomes accepted again?
‘What you got?’ Elaine asks first.
Rachel’s heart thumps harder and she becomes conscious of every muscle in her body, the slow churning of her jaw, the way she sits.
‘Ham,’ she replies.
‘I’ve got ham too,’ Elaine pronounces in camaraderie, ‘Sharon’s got fish paste, eugh!’
‘It’s nice, I like it,’ Sharon wails at her.
‘You like fish paste?’ Elaine asks Rachel.
She shakes her head. She wants the words to tumble out of her, she’s busting to tell them about her weekend. She’s never had fish paste sandwiches but she likes fish and chips. But she says nothing, frightened to say something that will ruin this moment, afraid that they’ll think she’s even more of a freak if she talks.
‘I don’t like fish paste,’ Elaine pronounces, just to make sure they both realise. ‘My favourite sandwiches are BLT.’
‘My favourite is smoked salmon,’ Sharon chips in.
Rachel says nothing. She doesn’t know what BLT means and she’s never tasted smoked salmon. If she tells them her favourite sandwich is the egg mayonnaise ones her mother used to make then they’ll think she’s a saddo. So, she just smiles weakly at them.
‘How can you like smoked salmon?’ Elaine asks Sharon.
‘I’ve always liked it,’ Sharon beams back at her. ‘Have you tried it?’
‘Yeah at Christmas, it’s horrible.’
‘You done the history homework? I haven’t,’ Sharon suddenly changes tack and throws a curve ball to the pair of them.
Elaine shakes her head and they both look to Rachel.
She’d done the homework the same day they were given it, the same way she does all her homework, at lunchtime in the library. If she says yes then they might think she’s some goody swot that doesn’t have a life. She wants to say no and be like them.
‘No,’ she answers, but she’s ashamed of lying and so she looks down quickly and concentrates on finishing her sandwich, taking tiny bites to make it last.
‘Did you hear Mrs McCloud is leaving?’ Elaine says to them.
‘Good, she’s a bitch. She’s given me two detentions already this term,’ says Sharon, picking out the last crumbs of crisps from her packet and licking her fingers.
‘Yeah she’s always shouting at everyone. Can’t wait to see who they get instead, anyone will be better than her,’ Elaine adds.
Rachel feels their eyes on her again, but she doesn’t look up. Mrs McCloud is alright, she leaves her alone.
‘Come on then, let’s go and see if the hut is free,’ Elaine says rising from her chair.
Rachel doesn’t move and the two girls hover for a moment, waiting.
Rachel is itching to stand up and go with them.
‘See you,’ she says, the torment of wanting to go and the fear of being found out for the feral weirdo she is, battling inside her chest which feels tight.
The two girls shrug and walk off chatting.
The dining room is loud, filled with children and chatter. Rachel sits in a bubble of isolation, unable to connect. She is a freak, the weird girl, different to everyone else with their happy homes and normal lives. She tries to finish her sandwich but she is filled with emptiness. Her aunt has reminded her what life was once like, what life should be.
Depression hangs weights on either side of Rachel’s mouth, so even if people laugh and joke around her, she can’t curl her lips and join in. It fills her whole body with heaviness, dragging it into tiredness. Everything is too much effort. Depression is her companion but it makes her lonely and allows no room for enthusiasm.
Depression makes her hang her head and wish she were someplace else. Someplace, anywhere, but in her own body.
Depression wraps its heavy blanket of lead around her and whispers that it’s best to lie in bed and sleep. Sleep brings release - sometimes.
Depression makes her forget about tomorrow, next week, next year. It smothers her with its thick couldn’t care less attitude until she has no fight left in her to defy it.
Tuesday, Rachel can’t face school. She leaves home with her school bag and packed lunch and walks to the bus stop as she does every day. This time, when she sees the school bus coming she feels overcome by a suffocating sensation. An invisible hand is over her mouth and nose and she can’t breathe or screa
m. The bile rises in her stomach and she feels sick. Her heart bangs inside of her.
She can’t face another day of alienation, another day of looking in from the outside. Life seems to be going on around her without her taking part. She is an invisible bystander, a movie goer watching the action, standing still while all around her life goes on. When she sees the school bus round the corner, she hides. Darting into the bushes at the side of the road, she crouches down. The bus pulls into her stop, the driver peering through the windows to see if he can see her. When she doesn’t appear he indicates and pulls out again.
She is free.
Rachel takes off her school blazer and stuffs it into her bag. Without it she’s just a girl in black trousers and a white shirt. A girl who can catch the next bus and see where life takes her.
The first bus heads towards the coast and she rumbles along through Salthouse and Cley, past Wiveton and through Blakeney, Morston and Stiffkey and onto Wells. Looking out the windows at big skies and flat fields, sand dunes and stone houses, wild birds and wetland. A big pub garden with wooden benches and seating, empty and closed. A group of hikers in boots and with backpacks, walking along the road chatting and laughing.
When they pull into Wells she gets off and heads to the harbour and to the sea. The urge for fresh salty air and open space drives her away from the tourist shops and seaside gaming arcades. Little boats are moored up in rows along the harbour side, or lying beached on the brown mud and sand banks: white whales on cocktail sticks, their bare masts rising barren into the wind. Rachel walks past them and takes the walk down along the harbour to where the sea opens up.
The big golden sandy beach is trimmed with a row of brightly coloured beach huts and marred only by the dark strips of wood which rise up out of the sand and towards the sea. Rachel remembers their names, groynes. They learnt that in geography last year during their coastal erosion lessons. They’d also seen photographs of houses falling into the sea from cliff tops and heard about the big flood of 1953. Jack Lewis said his grandfather had died in the flood and everyone in the class had listened intently to his family story. Rachel hadn’t lost her mother then. She couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to lose someone close.
It’s low tide and there are just a few people on the beach today: dog walkers and tourists. It’s still just that bit too cold for sitting and swimming. She finds a spot by the side of one of the beach huts and sits herself down. It’s out of the wind and in the glow of the weak spring sun. Rachel takes her shoes and socks off to feel the sand between her toes.
The beach huts are on stilts, wooden stairs leading to their doors. She imagines living in one, having a tiny bed in the gloom of the single room. A little sunlight seeping in through gaps between the wooden planks and under the wooden shutter. The pounding of the sea in winter while you sleep, the baking heat of the sun and muffled sounds of families talking and playing, in the summer. She likes the thought of being cocooned inside, hiding away from the world, hiding from people, from the possibility of pain and loss.
The first thing her dad says to her when she gets back home is, ‘Where have you been? School called, said you hadn’t turned up.’
He’s angry. Rachel hasn’t seen him angry for a long time, but she can see it’s being driven by fear.
‘Sorry dad. I couldn’t face going in today. I didn’t feel so good and I thought that if I came home you’d get into trouble.’
‘I was worried Rachel. I had no idea where you’d gone. If you were OK. If someone had taken you. Don’t ever do that again, do you hear?’
She nods vigorously and then watches as his anger crumbles into his whisky glass.
Rachel changes and makes dinner. Sausages, lumpy mash and baked beans.
Her dad seems to have become needier since her aunt left. As though her presence had awakened in him a lost urge for company and order in his life. Did she make him feel shame, open his eyes to the life he is living and making his daughter live? If she did, it has only served to make him withdraw further from the world.
After dinner the house is filled with Elvis again and her father tries to drown his ineffective life with whisky. Rachel finds him mumbling to himself in his chair, an imaginary conversation with someone.
‘Good night dad,’ she says to him, making him jump from his self-induced coma.
‘Rachel!’ he exclaims, ‘Rachel you’re back. Come here.’
She walks over to him, his eyes are filling with tears.
‘Please promise me you’re never going to leave me. You won’t leave me will you?’
At that moment Rachel realises the selfish driver of his earlier anger. She looks at him: drunk, saliva on his stubbly chin, greasy hair and dirty clothes. What she sees is a stranger, a broken human being.
‘No dad,’ she simply replies, the image of her beach hut refuge in her head.
He nods, settles back into his chair and pours himself another whisky. Rachel stays a few moments longer, long enough to know he’s content with his bottle companion, and then she goes to bed.
A few days later Rachel is woken by the sound of hooves. It’s not the clip clop of hooves on cobbles, instead she hears the clomping clop of the herd going up wooden ramps into large transporter lorries. For a few seconds she panics that they’re being stolen and then she sees her father. He’s standing, arms folded watching the scene in front of him, Reg and George and two other men herding the cattle up the ramps. Once the last one is in and the doors closed, the lorries drive away. Her father stands watching them disappear up the drive until she can no longer hear their moo-ing or see the trucks. Then he turns and walks back inside.
The still of the house now falls on the yard.
48
Claire, 18th October 2016
Claire shouldn’t really be spending time with Rachel like this but Jackie Stiller is on her mind. The same place she’s been ever since she found her battered body.
Besides, she justifies to herself, Bob has told her to find out about as many men and potential suspects as she can. This will give her the chance to get to know Rachel better, work with her to come up with a list - it’s amazing how you can be so familiar with something or somebody, that they don’t register as a threat.
She texts Rachel to let her know she’s on the way and stops off at the Delhi Star to pick up the curry. The rich spices fill her car as she drives over and she finds herself wishing she could have a couple of glasses of wine with it too. The aroma reminds her of the flat, of lying in bed with Jack in the summer and giggling about the spice-laden scent wafting into their room from the Indian restaurant outside. They had fun in the early days, talking about a trip to India, imagining holding hands and kissing at the Taj Mahal.
After a while the smells in the flat became an irritant and the fun evaporated. She’s not sure how or why that happened, but it did.
When she gets to Rachel’s house, the kitchen table is all ready to receive the takeaway. Rachel is more relaxed than she’s ever seen her - which Claire guesses to be down to the prospect of company.
‘Have you ever been to India?’ Rachel asks her as she sets out the tubs of curry and rice.
‘No. Most exotic place I’ve been to is France,’ she replies. ‘My parents weren’t ever much into travelling. You?’
‘Yeah I lived there for a few years, loved the country and the people.’
‘What took you there?’ Claire asks.
‘I went travelling, you know how it is, wanted to see the world. I’d spent most of my childhood hidden away on a farm in Norfolk and then it was boarding school. When I’d done my A levels I decided it was time to explore the world a bit.’ She smiles now, remembering. ‘Were you brought up in London?’ She asks Claire.
‘No, Jersey. My dad’s family have lived there for generations, mum was an import from the UK.’
‘Ah Jersey’s exotic isn’t it? No wonder you didn’t need to travel so much.’
‘I’ve never thought of it as exotic, it’s very
small, but yeah, it’s a nice place to grow up.’
‘Was it just you? Are you an only child?’ Rachel questions.
‘I am, but I wasn’t always. I did have a brother. He was killed when I was about ten.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Rachel replies, genuine sympathy on her face. ’My mother died when I was 11 so I had to deal with grief when I was young too. Then my dad died not long after. He never came to terms with mum’s death. Became an alcoholic and then… It’s why I do my job you know. I had to watch loneliness and heartbreak destroying the person I loved, both physically and emotionally.’
‘Yeah, I saw the effects on my parents. It must have been hard for them to lose one of their children. I don’t think either of them were ever the same again.’
There’s silence for a few moments as each of them consider their memories. Claire looks out into the garden.
‘This Passanda is good,’ Rachel says, taking another spoonful of the rich golden brown sauce. ‘Have you found yourself a new boyfriend yet?’
Claire is a little surprised by the question, but considering Rachel’s job, she realises she probably shouldn’t be.
‘No. Too busy at work to be honest, and it’s too soon.’
‘You missing him?’
‘In some ways, yes of course. I keep seeing him at the station. We were living together for over three years.’ Claire surprises herself by realising she does actually feel quite sad about it, and then becomes aware of Rachel watching her. ‘But I’ve been quite enjoying the peace and quiet,’ she jauntily replies back, breaking the downcast expression on her face.
Rachel smiles.
’Yes there’s a lot to be said for it.’
‘Are you a romantic?’ Claire asks her, ‘working at a dating agency I’m surprised you’re not hooked up.’
Rachel considers this a moment.
‘I’m quite happy with my own company. Being in love can make you vulnerable. Opens you up to the possibility of being hurt.’
