Serena and I locked eyes during my sly glance and I knew exactly what to wish for. Serena was wishing on my birthday candles, wishing the exact same thing too, as I took a deep breath in and blew . . .
Wow. I really am out of the habit.
I’ve done something wrong. I’ve done something terribly wrong and I’m going to pass out. My fingers can’t hold on to the sink any longer and I’m going to . . .
May, 1987
They both clapped as the orangey-blue flames on the candles went out in one go.
‘OK, Poppy, since it’s your birthday, we’ll go first,’ Marcus said jovially as he held his hand out to me. Still numb, still working like a machine, I slipped my hand into his. ‘Serena, be a love and clean up down here. Poppy was too excited to tidy up after herself. But be careful of your dress, you don’t want to ruin it.’
She nodded and, with a strength I don’t know where she got from, she smiled. Is that what you do when your heart is breaking? You smile and do as you’re told? And when does it start? At what point are you willing to put up with anything for him? All these thoughts surged into my head and pooled in my brain like the water from a waterfall. The main one, the one that kept swirling around my head like a whirlpool as he pushed me down onto the bed and lifted my skirt, was: Is it too late for me? Am I going to be like Serena and just put up with anything because I love him?
I couldn’t relax. The thought of her downstairs, listening, waiting, cleaning kept jabbing at me. It scared me that anyone could allow themselves to be led into a life like that. It scared me that I was going to go the same way if I wasn’t careful. And I felt sorry for her. For the first time since I realised I had to share him with her, I felt sorry for her. Racing up behind the pity was guilt. Guilt that I loved him too. Guilt about what I was doing. Guilt about what I wished for on my birthday candles.
I turned my head and stared at the window as Marcus raced to the end of what he was doing. A thought buzzed into my head as I tried to mentally escape from there: maybe I had wished for the wrong person to disappear.
If I lie here, very still, I can feel the earth moving. I can tune in and feel it spin its way through space and time. I can understand the workings of physics and try to manipulate them so I can turn back time. I can undo it all. Then I won’t have met Marcus. And I won’t have met Alain. I won’t be lying here, in a pool of my own blood, wishing I was back in prison.
Inside, I knew everything about everything. My life was ordered, it was structured, I had nothing to worry about, except getting out and clearing my name.
Outside, I know nothing. I trust the wrong people, I am living in emotional chaos. I have parents who don’t want me around. I have a boyfriend who was never a boyfriend.
When is a boyfriend not a boyfriend?
When he’s Poppy’s boyfriend, of course.
Dry and hacking and painful is the laugh I make to go with my unfunny joke – it reminds me of the way I used to cough some mornings after I first took up smoking for something to do. And also how I’d cough after being up all night in my cell smoking and thinking and trying to order my life.
If I do something bad, will they let me back inside?
Probably not, because this time I’d be guilty and, with my luck, they’d make me stay out here – in the chaos and uncertainty and betrayal.
I’m definitely high – only high people think such crazy thoughts. I need to focus. I need to get back on track. I need to make proper contact with Serena and I need to get her to confess. It was her who did it and I want her to tell the truth. Because once the truth is known, maybe this nightmare will finally – finally – end.
In the meantime, I’d better just lie here. I’d better just lie here and listen to the earth turn, and slowly but surely pass out ag—
poppy
This is what happens when you allow yourself to become distracted.
When you don’t follow the path you are on.
If you are on a path, heading in a direction that you know will change your life, do not take a moment or two to smell the roses, no matter what those fancy self-help books say. Roses have thorns, and smelling them could end in serious injury. Could end with you cutting up after years of stopping all that and spending the night on the bathroom floor too weak to move. Smelling the roses on the path of your life could bury you under tonnes of accumulated memories of times and things you’ve done that you’d rather forget. Yes, it could end with you remembering that you have a purpose in life and forcing yourself to get back on track, but you’ll also know that if you hadn’t allowed yourself to be distracted you could have finished it by now.
It’s odd, walking across this road when I have stood by this tree so many times, watching. I feel as if I know every brick of their house, every tile on their front path, every blade of grass in their front garden. I feel like I know everything there is to know about Serena Gorringe’s family, I feel like I am part of the family.
I have picked Thursday for a reason.
Thursday is a good day to cross the road, to open the metal gate, to walk up the tile path, to reach out and to press the bell. Thursday is a good day.
Her white shirtsleeves are rolled up to her elbows, and she has a pinny over her grey suit trousers and white shirt. Her hair is wild and spiky in the haphazard scrunchy she has shoved into her hair, her face is without make-up. She is harried, probably trying to get dinner on before the family arrive home. She’s a good mum like that. Always thinking of them first, always putting them first. She’d do anything not to rock the boat, to keep the equilibrium of their lives.
I smile at her.
Smile and wait.
Her expression melts away and her body draws in, forcing her back and upright, moving away from the horror that is I.
I keep on smiling. Keep on smiling as I watch her fall apart.
‘Hello, Serena,’ I say, ‘fancy seeing you here.’
serena
I am scared.
I do not know what she is doing here and I am scared. She is a killer, she is standing in my kitchen and I am scared.
I have only let her in because I do not want the neighbours to see her, for them to mention to Evan that a strange, gaunt-looking woman had started a row with his wife on the doorstep. People still gossip around here, especially about the doctor and his family.
There is a killer in my kitchen. She murdered him. She did not kill him by accident, as I originally thought, but deliberately, with thought – she went back and removed him from this earth. She is standing in my house and she might have the same thing on her mind. But that is not what is making me afraid. My fear comes from not knowing what she is going to do. If I knew she was going to hurt me and me alone and then go away, I could stand it. I would welcome it, but I do not know if she plans to hurt the kids, too. Because I could probably stand being hurt, but I could not tolerate someone hurting them.
She is an unknown quantity, a wild card I do not know how to play.
I did not expect her to show up here. What reason would she have for coming to find me? And how did she find me? I have remained carefully anonymous, but it seems the only people who have wanted to find me – her and the stalker – have done so with relative ease . . . Her! It was her. She was my stalker. I dismissed it before, but obviously it was her.
‘Aren’t you going to offer me a cup of tea or coffee?’ she asks.
I shake my head. ‘No.’
‘Suppose I won’t leave until you’ve at least offered me a cup of something?’
‘Suppose I call the police?’
‘Suppose you do. And suppose I wait patiently here to be arrested and your lovely husband comes home and I explain everything to him.’
‘He already knows everything.’
‘I’m sure he does. That’s why you looked like you were going to have a breakdown when you opened the door just now.’
‘Believe it or not, Poppy, it’s not entirely pleasant seeing you. You’re part of the past and I want
you to stay there.’
She throws the back of her hand up to her forehead, and swoons mockingly. ‘Why, Serena, you wound me so,’ she says scornfully in a Southern-American accent.
My eyes go to the kitchen clock. Thursday is Evan’s half-day. He will be here soon, with the kids. She cannot be here when they return.
‘Oh dear, dear,’ she says, standing up straight. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? Thursday is Evan’s half-day. He should be back with the kids any moment now.’
‘You’ve been watching my family,’ I state, feeling the fear drain away. I am not scared any longer. She can watch me all she likes, but to watch my husband, my kids . . .
‘Had to see how awful life treated you, didn’t I?’ I remember a time when her words were always formed with a soft, slightly posh accent. Now she sounds as if gangsters would be afraid of her if she spoke. ‘And boy, life really beat you up, didn’t it?’ She is running her eyes over the kitchen surfaces, the appliances, the pictures on the walls, the notes to each other on the fridge, the chopping board with the vegetables I was slicing up when she rang my doorbell.
‘What do you want?’ I ask.
‘All in good time, Sweet Serena, all in good time. Let me just immerse myself in what family life is like. I don’t know, you see, since I was locked up for so long. You do know that, don’t you? I was in prison for a while.’
Whatever game it is she is playing, I am not going to take part.
‘I only ask because you never wrote, you never rang, you never visited . . . I got damn lonely locked up in there by myself.’
‘What do you want?’ I ask again, more firmly.
‘I want us to meet up, chat about old times, old lovers.’
‘Not going to happen,’ I say.
‘OK, well, maybe Doctor Evan will know what to suggest to get you to change your mind about that.’
‘I don’t have any money, if that’s what you want. There’s no point in us meeting up and then you trying to get money out of me, I don’t have any.’
‘I told you, I just want to meet. One chat, have a catch-up.’
‘OK, when?’
‘I don’t know yet. Give me your mobile number and I’ll call and tell you where and when.’
What choice do I have when my family is about to walk in the door any second now? I scrawl down my number and hand it to her. She takes the piece of paper and looks at it for a very long time, almost as if it means something to her.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ she says as she leaves through the front door. ‘I’ll be in touch really soon.’
After closing the door on her I lean against it, shaking. A few minutes pass without me moving, then I reach into my apron pocket and pull out my mobile. I push a button to call Mez, to have someone tell me that is going to be OK, and that she will leave me alone. Poppy might do this right now but, if I play along, she will eventually leave me alone.
Before my finger can hit the green ‘call’ button, I remember Medina and I are not talking. I am not talking to anyone who believes me a murderer.
I’m alone in this. I am alone in this and need to remember that. I have to gather my strength and remember that she can’t do anything to me, not really.
part five
poppy
She’ll turn up, of course she will.
She is a good mother, after all. And a good wife. The last thing she wants is for them to find out that she is a murderer. That she killed her former lover in cold blood. I couldn’t be sure they didn’t already know until the moment she opened the door and saw me again. She did not have time to fake a reaction; she did not have time to secret away from me the fact that her family think she is one thing, when I know she is another. I know she is Marcus’s killer. Murderer.
I arrived early, because I have nothing much to do on Saturdays, especially not since . . . As if on cue, my mobile buzzes on the table in front of me. It’s him. Calling to leave another voicemail. He’s given up trying to actually get me to talk to him, now it’s long voicemails apologising and trying to explain, trying to tell me he loves me.
Love is not meant to be this painful.
I feel the throb of my wound, hidden under a bandage, hidden under a top, hidden under my suede jacket. (I cut off the fringes and it looks noughties-passable now.) The dull ache is like a pulse, a reminder that I must never let myself get distracted again.
Dear Tina, (I start to write in my head)
You were right. The snake does have the prettiest smile. And I fell for it. I wonder if all the people you meet first of all are not meant to be your friends? Do you really have to be cautious of everyone you meet until you have completely sussed them out? I thought I had it so right. I thought I had proved you wrong, but you’re always right. You’re also the friend who disproved the rule. But I’ll forgive you, all right?
The jangle of the café door’s bell drags me out of my daydream into the present. For a second I thought it was the start of the riot bell, the jangle that mutates into a constant, loud clang. My heart slows because it is just the door to a sweet little ‘organic’ café in Kemptown. I’d tried to insist on Preston Park where she lives, or even the centre of Brighton, but she was adamant, she didn’t want me – us – anywhere near her family. Anyone would think she had something to hide.
She walks across the café and I notice she isn’t walking confidently. She is nervous, clutching on to the bag on her shoulder as if she expects a mugging at any minute. She has dressed simply in jeans and a lightweight beige v-neck jumper, which is a good sign. If she had tried to power-dress that would show she is not scared of me and what I could do to her life.
I do not stand up when she arrives at the table I have picked: I stare up at her, reminded again how tall she is, how strong she always looked.
‘Serena,’ I say, as she pulls out the padded chair opposite and sits down.
‘Poppy,’ she replies. She pulls her bag on to her lap, a shield to protect herself and her life from me.
‘Would you like a coffee or something?’ I ask. I don’t know if she drinks it, or drinks tea, or orange juice. I don’t now anything about her. I don’t know if I ever did.
‘No. I just want this over with. Tell me what you want and then I will leave and we will both go back to our lives – and never see each other again.’
‘Wow, Serena, you seem to have it all worked out. I will happily never see you again, if you do the decent thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘Confess, of course.’
She sits back in her seat, frowns and then screws up her entire face in incomprehension. ‘Confess to what?’
‘What do you think?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.’
I had forgotten how good a liar she was. She must have been to get away with it. But I didn’t expect her to be able to do it to my face. Lying to the person who knows what you have done takes some guts, some kind of innate steely, anti-social reserve. I lean forwards in my seat, and make sure she is paying full attention to me. She doesn’t flinch away from our eye contact; her face returns my gaze without a hint of the fear she had two days ago. ‘Confess to killing Marcus.’
She frowns again, opens her hands questioningly. ‘Why would I do that?’ she asks.
‘Because it’s the right thing to do,’ I tell her. I am appealing to the good nature of the woman who has let me do her bird for twenty years. I might as well ask ice cream not to melt in the midday sun.
‘It would only be the right thing to do if I’d actually done it,’ she says slowly, carefully, as if she is talking to a small child who has trouble grasping even the simplest things. ‘But I didn’t Poppy, so I can’t confess.’
I put my head on one side, observe her. She’s a grown-up now, a proper grown-up with those near-invisible wrinkles only a mother has around her eyes and mouth. You get them, I’ve decided, from smiling at your child in a particular way, crying about your child in a particular way; you wear the love of
your child on your face when you’re a mother, even mothers like mine do. Her body is no longer firm and hard and slender, she’s sort of doughy. Not fat, not even ‘round’, more doughy, spongy, a soft landing place for her children should they need it; the whole point of not losing fat so quickly after giving birth, someone in the nick once said. Serena is used to dealing with children, so she thinks nothing of talking down to people. But she should not be talking down to me. She should be fearing me; she should be fearing what I am willing to do to get her to confess.
‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ I ask calmly, but venomously. Another thing I picked up in nick. You can menace a person without raising your voice, you can get your point across in a low-toned manner. ‘Who do you think is sitting opposite you right now?’ I lean ever more forwards in my seat. ‘Some two-year-old who still believes in Father Christmas? Some teenager who really believes you waited until you were married before you had sex?’ I am almost out of my seat with leaning forwards. ‘I know you. I know what you did. And I am asking you nicely to confess.’
Surprisingly, for someone who has not done time, she is not scared or even moved by me. She sits still in her seat, stares at me with a closed expression on her face. Her eyes study me, but give nothing away. People who react like that, I’ve found, are the most dangerous. An unknown quantity. I’d prefer it if she’d looked scared, if she’d affected an unbothered expression that showed her real emotion, or even if she’d got angry and gone for me. Any of those reactions you can work with, you can play on. This, blankness, it gives you no kind of leverage.
‘What if I don’t confess because I have nothing to confess?’ she asks calmly. Even her hands, the part of the body that often gives people away, rest calmly on top of her bag.
I sit back in my seat, trying not to show that I feel a bit defeated and deflated by her lack of response. ‘I’m sure your family would love to know what you got up to at the end of the eighties,’ I say with a smile. ‘Verity might pick up a few tips, and darling Dr Evan might find it super sexy to be married to a woman who had an affair with her teacher. And, of course, sweetie Conrad might think it’s cool his mother is a murderer.’
The Ice Cream Girls Page 25
