by Rosy Thorton
When had they been to Cambridge? The swathe of daffodils that flanked the river showed the picture to be recent; they’d come late this year, after all the frost. But it was weeks since Beth had been shopping in town without Laura. The last time must be when she went in on the bus with Alice – four, five Saturdays ago. She wouldn’t, surely, go off with her friends while she was at Simon’s for the weekend, would she? Or if she had, he would have mentioned it. But, anyway, at a weekend she would have been wearing jeans and not her black school trousers, the legs of which were clearly visible beneath her coat. In fact, when she looked closely, the three girls were all in their uniform trousers, though Rianna’s were tucked into fake fur boots, and the dark girl wore a purple hoodie and matching purple beanie hat. This was clearly no class outing.
Round and round Laura turned the conundrum, while she stared at the photograph on the screen. There had to be an explanation. There had to be a reason why Beth should be in Cambridge, and recently, in her school uniform and without Laura’s knowledge. There must be; there simply must. Otherwise …
Otherwise, Laura would have to face the truth, would have to accept the only obvious and rational explanation for the evidence that lay before her in the picture. Her daughter was playing truant.
At twenty to five, Laura shut down the computer and went downstairs. Her afternoon had yielded almost no productive work; for more than an hour she had stared at her file of text but seen only the photograph. It was almost a relief when the waiting was over and it was time to go and fetch Beth. The traffic in Cambridge was Saturday heavy and it was quarter past by the time she reached Simon’s house. The party guests had all gone home, and Tessa invited her in for a coffee and to pick at the ruins of the birthday cake.
‘I won’t, thanks. I know you’ll have all the clearing up to do and I don’t want to be in the way. We’ll get straight off, if that’s all right.’
In the car, she drove to a soundtrack of Beth’s oblivious chatter. ‘The new paddling pool is massive. I swear you could actually swim in it. But it took forever to fill up even a tiny bit, and then Roly got excited and wee’d in it and no one wanted to go in after that so we mainly just played football. But the pool takes up nearly all the lawn so there wasn’t much space and loads of the flowers got flattened …’
It would be so easy to forget about it, to forget the photograph and what it meant; to have her daughter here with her – her open, funny, affectionate daughter – and not embark on the inquest that would drive her away.
‘… and the cake was totally gorgeous, except Dad had put the buttercream in the middle before it was cool and it had all melted into the cake, but it just made it gooey and delicious. And I’ve brought a piece home for Willow in a paper napkin, because lots of them were taking a bit home for their brothers or sisters, and Tessa said it was OK …’
They could go home and have a comfortable, uncomplicated evening. Laura could make them beans on toast, because Beth was always still hungry after party food, and they could watch a DVD or play Scrabble and pretend that everything was just as normal, as it had been at lunchtime before Beth went out.
In fact, she waited until they were home and the car parked and Beth upstairs putting on clean jeans in place of her muddy ones. She gave her time to get changed and then knocked on the bedroom door.
‘Hi, Mum. Where’s Willow – in her room? What have you been up to this afternoon? Done loads of work, I bet. Honestly, you should have seen Jack with his pile of presents, he got them all in a heap on the floor and ripped off the paper in this total frenzy. And three people had given him the exact same Zoob robot kit.’
‘Beth.’ The best thing, she decided, was to sit down on the bed. But the signal for a conversation went unheeded; Beth was still on her party high.
‘I wish I could have stayed and helped clear up. There was such a mess everywhere – seriously, it was a disaster area. At one point they were all chucking chocolate mini rolls at one another from behind the sofas in the sitting room. It was Alfie’s idea. Some sort of battle thing, with spacemen on one side and aliens on the other – ’
‘Beth.’
This time, at last, she stopped and looked at Laura. ‘What?’
‘Sweetheart, I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth. All right?’
‘ ’Course.’ Beth bristled. Stupid: the wrong start.
‘I need you to tell me whether you have been into Cambridge without my knowing.’
‘When?’ The reply, and the slide of the eyes, were evasive. The effective admission of guilt, oddly, came almost as a relief. Laura’s resolve hardened.
‘Tell me,’ she repeated, ‘whether you have been to Cambridge when you were meant to be at school.’ Was it for Beth’s sake or her own that she avoided the unyielding phrase: playing truant?
Beth’s eyes narrowed; clearly, she was not going to make this easy. ‘How d’you know?’
‘I saw a picture.’ She swallowed. Complete honesty: it had to be the best course. ‘A photograph of you with the other girls. On Rianna’s Facebook page.’
There was a silence, while a variety of emotions battled for ascendancy in her daughter’s face. The expression that won out looked very much like fury.
‘Why were you looking? Why would you be looking at my friends’ private space, poking through their photos? Spying on me, of course, that’s why, like you always do.’
‘Sweetheart, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean to pry.’ How did she come so quickly to be on the back foot? She wished now that she hadn’t sat down – or else she wished that Beth would sit down, too. She pulled herself up straight and took a breath. ‘But I saw the photograph; I can’t help that now. And we need to talk about it – about what you were doing there.’
There was a softening, then, or so she thought, if not a chastening; some of the tautness faded from Beth’s face, and her shoulders dropped a quarter-inch, but she didn’t speak.
‘I think you need to tell me about it.’ She indicated a space on the bed next to her, but Beth didn’t move.
‘Nothing to tell,’ she muttered. ‘We went into town, that’s all.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last week. Friday.’
‘What time on Friday?’
A shrug. ‘Afternoon some time.’
Gently, Laura insisted. ‘When in the afternoon?’
Beth’s face was a scrunch of misery. ‘During school. There – happy now?’
‘I see,’ said Laura, slowly; but Beth was in her stride now, out on the offensive and facing down the inevitable denunciation.
‘It was after lunch. ’Bout half one, two o’clock. We only had PE and then Art. Total waste of time, anyway. Rianna needed to get some leggings and a pair of boots, and she wanted some help choosing.’
‘Who was there?’ Questions were, at least, neutral, and delayed the head-on confrontation.
‘Rianna, Lacey and Amber. Amber’s a Year 8. She took the photo on her iPhone.’
‘No Caitlin?’
‘I told you, she’s fallen out with Rianna. She’s gone off with this lot from Miss Chapman’s class. They don’t speak to us.’
‘And is it the first time?’
‘First time, what?’ The innocent act was tissue thin, but Laura didn’t challenge it. Better to play things straight.
‘The first time you’ve skipped afternoon school.’
There was a pause, and then a grudging, ‘Second.’
Whatever else, Laura was grateful that she could trust her daughter’s truthfulness. ‘Well, look,’ she began. ‘You must know what I’m going to say.’ Although she was far from sure of the detail, herself. ‘I’m disappointed. I think that’s the main thing: that I’m disappointed in you, Beth. You don’t need telling how important school is, even if it’s ‘‘only’’ PE and Art.’
There was more, much more, she might have said. About letting her teachers down, teachers who had faith in her and who’d shown that faith
over that business with the chocolate bars and the matches; about being swayed by people undeserving of their influence into acting out of character, into being less than herself. She hoped very much not to have to say it. In spite of early bravado, past experience suggested that Beth, once faced with her mother’s genuine displeasure, would soon capitulate into tearful apology, and loving conciliation.
This time, however, it was not to be.
‘Willow skips class.’
The sidestep was so abrupt and unexpected as to rob Laura momentarily of words.
‘She hasn’t been into college for months. She’s stopped bothering. She says it’s boring.’
Still fumbling for purchase, Laura said, ‘Willow’s seventeen.’
‘So?’
‘So, she’s left school. She’s effectively an adult and can make her own decisions.’
‘Whereas you still decide everything for me, like a little kid.’
Don’t get drawn in, Laura warned herself. It was ridiculous, anyway. Beth couldn’t seriously be arguing for being allowed to choose not to go to school. Instead, she moved back a step.
‘Besides, things are different for Willow. Very different. She’s not had things easy, you know she hasn’t. Maybe she’s not ready for more education just at present. Maybe she needs a little freedom.’
‘Well, maybe I do, too. D’you ever think of that? That I might want some freedom, sometimes, instead of being treated like a baby all the time, and never allowed to do anything or go anywhere?’
‘But Willow isn’t – ’
‘Oh, can’t you shut up about Willow for a minute! If you’re so bloody keen on her, why don’t you adopt her or something?’ There was a turbulence in her voice and in her eyes, a wildness that Laura hadn’t seen since Beth was three, and given to toddler tantrums. ‘I’ll go and live with Dad. I’d much rather. Dad lets me do things, he doesn’t nag me all the time. Dad’s fun. And you’re just a miserable, controlling old cow.’
With that, she bolted from the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Along the landing in the spare room, Willow lay on her bed with the box of matches.
Did they imagine she couldn’t hear them when they had their rows? Like that other time, with the hair straighteners: Laura dragging Beth off to her room to tell her off, with that stupid excuse about helping her with the bed, as if that would mean she couldn’t hear them arguing in there just the same. It was only a few yards away, after all, and she wasn’t deaf.
She pushed open the cardboard drawer and picked out a matchstick. They were the kind they sell for kitchens, longer than normal, and chunkier between her finger and thumb. The head was plump and pink and smelt faintly sulphurous.
It was Beth’s voice she heard most when they argued. Not so much Laura: she always kept her voice quiet and controlled. Maybe it occurred to her that Willow might be listening, or maybe it was for Beth’s benefit, because she imagined that mothers didn’t shout. She was always the one to appease and ingratiate; Willow has seen it over and over. It was pathetic, really, creeping round her kid, trying to please her all the time, as if Beth were the mother and Laura the child.
Gripping the match in one hand and the box in the other, she struck firmly away from her. It was a fresh box, the abrasive strip unworn, and the friction was highly satisfactory; the match lit first time. She held it steady for a moment in an upright position to allow the flame to stabilise, before tilting it to the horizontal. If she didn’t breathe, the flame remained perfectly smooth in front of her face, even while it crept slowly downwards. Immediately above the head of the match was a thin halo which appeared black; or perhaps it was merely transparent, colourless. Beyond and above the halo were gradations of orange, containing at their centre an incandescence that was almost white; she had the impression that if she stared at it too long her eyes would begin to smart, as if they, too, were burning.
A lighter would be better – a lighter like her mother’s. With a lighter, you could strike a flame and hold it there for as long as you chose. She had seen people on the television, in crowds at concerts or on prison gate vigils, holding aloft for minutes on end the same, single, undiverting flame.
Laura might be careful, but Beth always lost it a bit – like tonight, with her voice rising in pitch to an injured whine, and then running out of her bedroom and along the landing, sniffling and sobbing, heading for the stairs. Whining, crying – as if she had anything to complain about. Princess Beth with her perfect life, who had everything and took it all for granted; stupid, thoughtless Beth who had it all but was determined to wreck it, to chuck it all away. She would ruin everything, and not only for herself.
The flame had reached her fingers; she felt first warmth, then heat, and finally, fleetingly, a liquid burn which seemed more cold than hot, more ice than fire. She snuffed the match, which died at once, leaving only a question mark of smoke and the sour tang of phosphorus.
Chapter 21
‘Laura, I need you on Saturday night.’
She smiled: Vince. It was a pleasing distraction to answer the phone and hear his voice. The atmosphere in the house had been fraught since the weekend. Beth had appeared contrite at breakfast on Sunday morning, offering an unspecific apology, and Laura had left it at that, too afraid of further confrontation to risk a stirring of the waters; an uneasy truce had settled, but the air remained perceptibly uncleared. Willow must have sensed the tension, for she had been quiet too, avoiding family meals and keeping largely to her room.
‘I need your company,’ he said. ‘For the simple delight of it, obviously – but also as cover.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Cover, or camouflage, or safety in numbers – call it what you like. I have to go and hear an anarchist garage band play in a pub, and I don’t want to be the only person present who’s over the age of twenty-five.’
Now she was laughing. ‘You mean you just want me along to make you look younger.’
‘Not in the least – I thought we could be overage together. Willow’s young, she can come along as our entrée. We’ll hide behind her on the way in. And Beth’s young, too, of course, though maybe a little bit too young to pass as an anarcho-garage fan.’
‘Ah. Well, I expect Willow might come, but it’s Beth’s weekend to be at her father’s.’
It would be a relief to both of them, she suspected, to be spending the weekend apart, gaining a little breathing space.
‘Pity. Just you and Willow, then.’
‘So, what is an anarchist garage band, anyway – or would I be better not to ask?’
‘Can’t say I’m terribly sure. It’s an ex-client of mine, Raf, he’s been badgering me for ages to go and see him play, and I’m running out of excuses. He copied me their demo tape – or demo CD, I should say – and I’ve listened to bits of it, as much as my eardrums would take. It’s pretty shouty. What you and I, in our day, might have called punk.’
‘It sounds delightful. I can hardly wait.’
As events turned out, Willow arose on Saturday morning with glands in her throat the size of golf balls, and returned to bed soon afterwards, complaining of a thumping headache. Laura was glad to be bundling Beth away from contagion and out to Simon’s house. She felt guilty, when the evening came, to be leaving Willow alone. But she’d filled a flask with hot, sweet tea and left it by the bed, along with aspirin and her old portable radio; even then, she might have rung Vince and cancelled, had Willow not been fast asleep.
The band was loud and, as Vince had accurately billed them, shouty, but it was over with merciful speed. There were three band members: the consumptive-looking Raf, on bass, and two equally sallow colleagues, wearing black vests and jeans and metal-studded wrist bands. The electric guitar looked too heavy for the one in the middle. Vince made sure to catch Raf’s eye and raise his glass, which, soon afterwards, he rapidly emptied. Laura followed his example, and within twenty minutes of their arrival they were back out on the pavement, gulping the quiet air.
‘Noise Coercion?’ said Laura – her first opportunity, since conversation had been impossible inside the pub unless by expert lip-readers. ‘What kind of a name is that? It sounds like something you’d have done to you following extraordinary rendition.’
‘It’s an homage, I understand,’ said Vince. ‘There’s a Swedish anarcho-garage band called the International Noise Conspiracy.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. So – what now? It’s not even nine o’clock. Shall we find a pub more suited to the elderly, or go back to mine for a nice mug of Ovaltine?’
It was a fine evening, and not far to his flat. ‘How long has Raf had the band, then?’ enquired Laura as they walked along.
‘About a year, I think, but they’ve only really started picking up bookings since Christmas. He always played, though, when he could lay his hands on a guitar. Then next thing he’d sell it again, when he needed money for drugs.’
‘Oh, dear.’ It didn’t seem quite the right response, but it was all she could come up with. ‘And is he really an anarchist? Or is that just an image, for the stage?’
‘I think he used to be one, yes. But if he still is now, it’s only weekends and evenings. He’s got a job in Specsavers.’
She giggled. ‘Working for the overthrow of the system from within.’
He opened the front door to the block of flats and led the way upstairs. At the landing with the sad plant, Laura paused. ‘Doesn’t anybody ever water this poor thing?’ she wanted to know.
