Ninepins

by Rosy Thorton

  ‘There’s an old Marguerite Patten somewhere, too. And Nigel Slater’s nice and simple.’

  She had found the file, now, in the drawer.

  ‘Here’s a copy of the tenancy,’ she said, taking it out and handing it to Willow. ‘It’s very much a standard agreement, but you’ll want to take it away and have a read.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The girl gave it barely a glance before passing it to Vince.

  ‘And then I’m sure you’d like some time to think about it. I dare say you have other places to view.’

  She made to show them to the door, but Vince smiled and stood his ground. ‘Perhaps we can have a bit more of a chat first?’

  ‘Er, yes, of course. Why don’t you both sit down?’ They might have more questions; Willow had scarcely asked anything yet. ‘Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea?’

  They both accepted this offer, with graceful thanks from Vince and a nod from Willow. As she put on the kettle and reached down the mugs she thought of what else she ought to say.

  ‘The rent’s inclusive of electricity, like I said, and water and council tax, too. There’s a separate phone line to the pumphouse, so you can plug in your own phone if you want, so then obviously you’d have the bills to pay for that. And there’s broadband, for the internet.’

  ‘ ’S’OK,’ said Willow. ‘I’ve got a mobile. And I don’t have a computer.’

  It was difficult to imagine a teenager not on the Web; Beth would chat all night on Facebook if she were allowed. But – of course – how would a client of Housing Aid afford a fancy laptop? Laura felt herself colouring and was glad to be facing the worktop, squeezing teabags with a spoon.

  ‘I’ve always let to students, before. Postgraduates, usually. So of course they need their laptops and internet access for work. I had someone lined up this year, in fact, coming from India to do an MPhil, but her funding fell through at the last moment and she had to drop out.’ She knew she was babbling now but, having begun, she couldn’t seem to stop. ‘And by then the university term had started and I knew there weren’t likely to be any students still looking for accommodation, not that late. They’d all be fixed up. So that’s why I decided to advertise more widely.’

  Turning, she placed their mugs on the table in front of them, followed by the milk and sugar. ‘Help yourselves. Biscuits? I think there are some Hobnobs in the tin, if my daughter hasn’t pigged them all.’

  Both of them looked up at that.

  ‘You have a daughter?’ said Vince. ‘How old?’

  ‘Beth. She’s eleven – twelve next month. She’s just started at Elswell Village College.’

  Willow smiled. She had an artless, lopsided smile: it made her suddenly less daunting.

  ‘Now then,’ said Vince, as she took a chair opposite them. ‘You’re aware, aren’t you, that Willow is only seventeen?’

  Laura glanced at the girl’s thin, goosebumped arms, the pale concavities in her elbows. Even seventeen was hard to credit.

  ‘I hope it won’t be an obstacle. The rent will be paid directly by the department. We can set up a direct debit.’

  ‘Oh?’ Laura had no direct experience with benefit claimants, but it sounded a surprising arrangement.

  ‘And there will be a small enhancement, too, an additional payment on account of Willow’s age and circumstances.’

  ‘Really? Is that usual?’

  ‘Pretty much so, yes – with young people like Willow who are still looked after.’

  ‘Looked after?’ Her thoughts flew back first to the kindly uncle, before light began to dawn.

  ‘In care,’ he explained. ‘It’s the term we use for children and young people who are in local authority care.’

  Local authority. Of course: he’d said Cambridgeshire on the phone. She had assumed he meant Housing Aid.

  ‘You’re from Social Services.’

  ‘That’s right. From Children’s Services. I’m Willow’s social worker.’

  ‘I see.’ Seventeen. In care. With a social worker.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m rather springing this on you. Usual practice is to consult about prospective placements in advance, but I’ve encountered some reluctance when I raise it on the phone. A lot of landlords look askance at kids from the care system. Won’t even consider them, sometimes.’ Vince caught and held Laura’s gaze. ‘There’s a lot of prejudice about.’

  Prejudice? Perhaps. But a lot of landlords didn’t have Beth.

  ‘I prefer to come and speak to people face to face. Introduce the young person.’

  ‘May I ask – ?’ But it was impossible, with the poor child sitting there. ‘I mean, where has she – ?’

  ‘I’ve been in the bin.’ It was the first time Willow had spoken since they’d all sat down. Her eyes were a penetrating green. ‘That’s what we call it. Children’s home, to you.’

  Vince laid a hand on her arm. ‘Willow came into care when she was thirteen. She was in various foster placements at first, and then, most recently, in a residential facility. But at seventeen we like to get young people out of institutional care and into independent accommodation, if they’re ready for it. And Willow is absolutely ready.’

  Independent accommodation. She still looked such a child: fragile, despite the startling eyes, which were now once more cast down and away.

  ‘Will there be any support?’ Laura asked. Would Vince be in and out, keeping an eye on his charge? Or would Laura herself be expected … to do what? Whatever it might be, she was certainly ill-equipped for it. And there was Beth.

  ‘Oh, yes. Don’t worry – we shan’t be cutting Willow completely loose. There’ll be regular contact for as long as it’s required. But it needn’t be intrusive, as far as you’re concerned. I’m based in Cambridge three days a week; Willow can drop by and see me there.’

  ‘Wouldn’t a bedsit in town be more appropriate, then? In Cambridge, I mean – closer to your offices?’

  It was Willow who answered. ‘I saw the picture. I wanted to live by the river.’ She pushed back her chair and walked over to the kitchen window. From this angle, the water would be invisible, but she stared out anyway; what Laura could see of her profile appeared entirely impassive.

  ‘Well, I think we’ve seen enough.’ Vince put down his mug and picked up the tenancy agreement. ‘Unless you have any more questions for us?’

  Laura shook her head. There were dozens of questions – but none she could ask.

  ‘In that case, we’ll be on our way. And I’ll give you a ring in a day or two, if that’s all right – or do ring me if there’s more you’d like to know. Thank you very much for your time, Laura. And for the tea.’

  On the way out through the hall, Willow dawdled behind, looking at some old, framed photographs that hung along the wall. Laura came back to see what had caught her attention: a black and white snapshot of Ninepins with the lode in spate, water swirling close to the top of the dyke.

  ‘Is it often like this?’

  Laura laughed. ‘No, thank goodness. This was well before my time. It must be taken in the ’fifties, I think.’ Though there was little enough to date it. The low horizon and the towering fen sky; the square-built, grey brick house; the top of the pumphouse chimney, jutting up above the dyke: the passing decades scarcely left a mark. ‘They seem to control the levels much better nowadays …’

  But Willow wasn’t listening; she drifted on towards the door.

  ‘Goodbye, then,’ said Vince, extending his hand. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  Five minutes later, when the mugs were washed and dried and hung back on their hooks, Laura had not heard an engine start. Glancing sideways through the window she saw the red saloon still parked outside her door. In the front seats, Vince and Willow were deep in conference, their heads bent close together.

  Chapter 2

  Changing her work clothes for jeans and jumper always made Laura feel more at home. Not to mention warmer; the heating wasn’t set to come on until five o’clock, which was the earliest t
ime at which either of them was normally home. Half past three now: it was far too soon to think about starting the supper, and she couldn’t face her study and the files in her bag.

  Beth. She’d drive to school and pick her up early from homework club for once. She hooked down from the peg the black and red striped scarf and wound it round her neck. The product of a primary school knitting craze, it was Beth’s first full-sized effort, bevel-edged and lumpy. Knitting was in Year 6, right after Scoobies and before the squashy juggling balls; they didn’t seem to have crazes in the same way at the college.

  On her way out to the car she paused, as she often did, on the top of the dyke and breathed in the open space. To her right, the lode cut straight as a furrow through the featureless fields, flanked by its twin dykes, as far as Elswell village three miles away; to her left it ran just as straight for the quarter-mile to the main road, and beyond that, through country equally unvarying, north and east to drain into the river Cam. That way, too, ran the plumb line of Ninepins Drove, hugging the foot of the dyke but itself slightly raised above the adjacent land. It was what she loved about the fens, as well as what she sometimes hated: the emptiness. But then a movement caught her eye. The drove wasn’t empty, after all: it was home to a figure, familiar as her own skin, trudging towards the house. Laura raised both hands and flapped them above her head; the figure began to flap back, before stiffly lowering her arm. Laura grinned as she set off down the track to meet her daughter. Beth was funny: embarrassed to be waving to her mother though there was nobody for half a mile.

  ‘Hello, love,’ she called as they drew within hailing distance. ‘What are you doing home?’

  ‘I knew you were seeing someone for the pumphouse, so I thought I’d come early. I got the bus.’

  ‘Well, it’s a lovely surprise. But I was just going to come and fetch you. You beat me to it.’

  Beth acquiesced in a brief hug, and let Laura’s arm stay loosely round her shoulders as they moved homewards together.

  ‘Thought it’d save you the journey.’

  ‘Yes.’ Don’t start an argument, not straight away. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I borrowed the bus fare off Rianna. She always has way too much lunch money, anyway. Her mum thinks she eats, and she doesn’t, or hardly. Just Diet Pepsi and stuff.’

  ‘I didn’t know they sold Pepsi in the canteen.’ Hadn’t she had a letter about it: how they’d taken out the drinks machines in pursuit of healthy eating?

  ‘She gets it at the newsagent on her way to school.’

  ‘Oh, well. Remind me in the morning to give you the seventy pence to pay this Rianna back. And, you know, you really oughtn’t to borrow money that’s meant for someone’s lunch.’

  The bus conversation and the stupid crash dieting conversation could wait until later. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had them both before.

  ‘So, how was school?’

  ‘Fine.’ OK. Fine. It was always just fine. ‘So, what was she like, the new person? Is she taking it?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. They’re – she’s going to ring back in a few days.’

  ‘I hope she does come. Or someone else does, pretty soon. It’s boring with no one to watch TV with. Sharmila was cool.’

  I watch television with you, Laura wanted to say. But when was the last time she had? ‘Perhaps,’ she tried, ‘after homework and supper we could play a game?’

  Beth shook her head. ‘I need to watch Hollyoaks.’

  ‘Need to?’ Laura almost laughed, but prevented herself in time.

  ‘Everybody watches it. Rianna and Caitlin and everyone. I need to know what happens. What’s her name?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The person for the pumphouse.’

  ‘Oh, yes. She’s called Willow.’

  ‘Weird name. Is she weird?’

  ‘No, of course not. Don’t be silly.’ She caught her daughter’s sideways glance. Had she said it a little too quickly? ‘She’s very nice.’

  They had reached the lane end and were climbing the track towards the house.

  ‘What’s for supper?’ said Beth. ‘Not boring pasta again. We always have pasta.’

  After Laura had tested Beth on the French words for parts of the body, and they’d decided they were both hungry early and had raced and tumbled through eight verses of Gentille Alouette while they chopped vegetables for a stir fry, the atmosphere was perceptibly lighter. Why, wondered Laura as she tipped in the peppers and mushrooms, did it take an hour these days for her to get her daughter back when she’d been at school? It was never like this last year.

  ‘Et la tête,’ she squeaked.

  ‘Et la tête,’ Beth growled back, turning the sizzling mound in the wok.

  Fragile though she knew the détente might be, she decided to risk it.

  ‘You know, I’m really not keen on your coming home on the bus.’ Beside her, the wooden spoon froze. ‘Not on your own. Not yet. I come past that way, in any case, on my way home, and I can easily pick you up. I like to pick you up.’

  ‘Not today, you weren’t coming past. You were home already, seeing this Willow person.’ It was all right; Beth was stirring again. ‘The tree girl. Weeping Willow. Does she cry a lot, d’you reckon? Or maybe she’s the Womping Willow. Does she whack you if you go near her?’

  Sticking to her purpose, Laura insisted, ‘I don’t want you walking home from the bus stop by yourself.’

  ‘Everyone else gets the bus. They’re all allowed to. It’s only me that’s not.’

  ‘Alice’s mum takes her home.’

  This contribution provoked exaggerated eye-rolling. ‘Her mum works at the school, that’s why. But everyone else goes on the bus. So I wouldn’t be by myself, would I? I’d be with the others. I’d be with Rianna.’

  ‘You’d still be walking back on your own from the bus stop.’

  ‘Everyone walks back from the bus stop. How else would they get home?’ Beth was bearing with infinite patience her mother’s simple-mindedness.

  Laura kept her voice level. ‘I expect there are street lights, where the others live. Nobody lives out here where we do. The drove’s unlit, and it’s too far to walk from the main road in the dark.’

  ‘It wasn’t dark today.’ In spite of herself, Laura found she was smiling. Arguing with Beth was like trying to negotiate a revolving door on roller skates – and besides, this time she had a point.

  ‘Fair enough. But I was talking about in general – especially when it comes to winter. I really don’t want you here on your own all that time. From three o’clock to five or five thirty – it’s much too long. And it’s silly, when there’s homework club at school, with people to talk to.’ Somewhere with warmth and light, and proper adult supervision. Ninepins was so isolated, and eleven was so young.

  ‘Ten past three,’ corrected Beth, as she flipped a stubborn piece of carrot. ‘Half past, before I’d actually be home. But anyway, if it’s so early, it means it won’t be dark, will it, even in the winter? And none of my friends go to stupid homework club. It’s for boffs.’

  ‘It’s not just homework, is it? I thought there was a pool table, and ping pong?’

  ‘Only geeks play ping pong. And the Chinese kids.’

  Laura, who wasn’t entirely certain how a geek differed from a boff, reverted to her main theme.

  ‘I don’t want you being by yourself that long.’

  ‘I can always use the phone. If anything happens, I mean. I’m not a little kid.’

  The stir fry looked done. Laura reached to the back of the Rayburn for the soy sauce.

  ‘Well, I’d much rather nothing did happen. Or that if it happens, I’m here with you when it does. Could you find the plates, please?’

  Beth moved over to the dresser. ‘Anyway, I won’t be on my own. Willow will be here. If she’s like Sharmila, stuck to her laptop all day. So she can call 999 for me, can’t she, in case I can’t remember the number.’

  If Willow were here. But the prospect was far fro
m reassuring. ‘We can’t expect – ’

  ‘9, 9 … um, what was that last number, again?’

  ‘If someone’s paying rent, you can’t just – ’

  ‘9, 9, 7? Was that it? No, wait a minute, 9, 9, 4 …’

  Beth was impossible. Back at the stove, holding out the plates and grinning like a six-year-old, she was not to be resisted. Laura grinned, too.

  ‘OK, OK. Point taken. You’re not completely incapable. Just moderately.’

  ‘Can we use chopsticks?’

  ‘I can. You’re not much good at it, I seem to recall.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. Can we, Mum, please?’

  ‘All right. Get them out – they should be in the end drawer, underneath the tea towels. But you’re still not coming home on the bus.’

  Eating slippery vegetable slivers with lacquered sticks required all their concentration, calling a temporary halt to conversation. After five minutes of struggle, Beth capitulated and fetched a fork, which meant she finished first.

  ‘Mmm. That was totally gorgeous. Is Willow going to eat with us, d’you think?’

  ‘I told you, love, I’m not even sure yet if she’ll take the room.’

  This was summarily shrugged off. ‘Wonder what she’ll cook for me, when you’re out and she’s babysitting? Sharmila did great curries and stuff. And Anna, in Year 5 – she used to make me pancakes, d’you remember, with bacon and maple syrup? She always had a big bottle of it and she used to bring it over.’

  ‘I’ve no idea if Willow can cook. Or even if – ’

  ‘What’s she like? You haven’t told me anything.’

  ‘Well …’ Laura began in the same place as Vince had. ‘She’s quite young. Younger than Sharmila – younger than any of the lodgers we’ve had.’

  ‘How old, then?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  Beth cocked one eyebrow – a recently acquired habit – and nodded approvingly. Seventeen, the eyebrow said, was infinitely more desirable than twenty-four. It evidently qualified Willow as being on the inside of some invisible fence – rather than on the outside with her mother. ‘What does she look like?’

  ‘Small: about your height. Dark hair, green eyes. Slim.’