‘Is it Smith and Jeannie?’
She looked at me for a moment and then said ‘Yes.’
‘I have information,’ I said. I told her about the conversation we’d had with them, Lauren and I, and how one of the notes had a code written on it. ‘If it’s still there then you could give it back. That’s all they want.’
‘Oh yeah, like they’ll just say thank you and let me walk away?’
‘I think so. Smith is more mad at Jeannie for taking your ring. They just want the code.’
She went back into the cottage and moved things about in the dark and came back with a wedge of money. She split it in two and gave half to me.
‘Let’s hope I haven’t already spent it.’
We looked through the notes carefully, scanning each side for any signs of writing, but when she found the note there was no missing it.
St. Ann’s 143. Ca66age in thick black felt pen.
‘St Ann’s?’ I was puzzled.
‘Cabbage? That might be a code.’
‘Or a password.’
She ran her finger along the words. ‘It might be to open a locker door.’
‘If you know where the locker is.’
She looked at me then. ‘But we don’t need to know where it is. It doesn’t matter if we’re just going to hand this over to Smith and Jeannie.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
We looked at the note. The writing was round and childish and went right across. Ali gathered the rest of the money and slipped it into her pocket. She held the message with the fingers of both hands and peered at it as though it might give her more clues.
‘St. Ann’s,’ she said again. Do you know anywhere in Leeds called St. Ann’s?’
‘It could be a school.’
‘Or a hospital.’
‘We could google it.’
‘I don’t have a computer,’ she said.
‘You look lovely when you do that.’
‘What?’
‘Smile. I haven’t seen you smile before.’
She grinned and turned her face away, self conscious.
‘I have a computer,’ I said
‘Could we…?’ Her face was animated again.
‘Yes. Come on, let’s go.’
On the way she said ‘Where’s Lauren anyway? I thought she was your girlfriend.’
‘No, she’s just a friend.’
‘But you’re trying to turn her into something else.’
She looked at me sharply and I remembered her grandmother.
‘Well…’
‘Does she know?’
I sighed. ‘No she doesn’t. And it’s not really working. She reminded me of someone else, someone I knew a long time ago. But she’s not really like her at all.’
‘You could stop.’
‘I suppose I could.’
‘You don’t sound convinced.’
‘I don’t know. She likes me, and she’s beautiful. It might work out in the end.’
‘Hmm.’
There were a couple of hits for St Anne’s, Leeds. One of them was the cathedral.
Ali looked at the note again. ‘There’s definitely no e.’
We tried other combinations, without Leeds, spelling saint out in full, but there wasn’t really anything – or rather, there was masses of stuff but none of it was relevant.
‘We could try the phone book,’ I suggested.
Ali looked doubtful. She lived in the internet age and distrusted paper. But I found the yellow pages and the regular directory and handed one to her. She turned the pages slowly, looking at them suspiciously.
‘I don’t know what I’m looking for,’ she said.
‘Anything really, that could give us a clue.’
It took quite a while, aimlessly looking through the pages for anything that caught the eye. We chatted while we looked. Or she did. She talked about living in the cottage, about finding food at night, about some notebooks she’d found that belonged to a dead woman. She talked and talked. I suppose having been alone for so long she had a lot of unspoken words. I glanced up at her every now and then. Her face was relaxed as she turned the yellow pages. Her eyes were an amazing shade of green.
My finger trailing down the columns came to a stop.
‘What about this?’
‘What? Have you found it?’
‘It’s a list of post offices. This one is on St Ann’s Road.’
‘A post office?’
‘A box. A post office box. That must be what it is.’
‘Do you think so? Is that how they work?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well we haven’t found anything else. Shall we google it, find out where it is in Leeds?’
I thought about mentioning the A-Z on the shelf but decided against it. Soon we were looking at Google Maps. St Ann’s Road was fairly central, a fifteen minute walk from the station. It wasn’t an area I knew.
‘Ali.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are we doing this?’
‘Hm?’
‘We don’t need to know this. I know how to find Smith and Jeannie. I’m sure you do too. We could just go and find them and hand them the note and they could work this stuff out.’
‘We could.’
‘Or…?’
‘Well the way I see it,’ she said, ‘the power is all in our hands at the moment. We could bargain with them. If we know what it is we’re bargaining with.’
I nodded slowly and she smiled her smile again.
‘That could be quite dangerous,’ I said.
‘It’s better than sitting in the dark day after day in that cottage waiting for them to find me.’
‘It was me that found you.’
‘Hm, you’re quite dangerous too.’
Our eyes met.
‘So,’ I said. ‘It’s a trip to Leeds is it?’
Her smile broadened and I could feel my own responding.
We decided to go the day after next. I was meant to be helping out in the college library, but I could easily skip. Meg would phone in and say I wasn’t well, that my eyes were bothering me.
‘You can move out of that cottage now,’ I said.
‘Where to?’
I shrugged. ‘Here?’
She looked thoughtful.
‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t think that would work.’
‘Why? There’s plenty of room.’
‘Maybe. But you and your mum take up quite a lot of it.’
I didn’t really know what she meant, but she looked determined so I didn’t push it.
‘I might go and visit Sally again at Old Barn. See how she’s getting on with her husband now he’s back.’
‘Terry?’
‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Did you know he’s an incubus?’
‘God, that must be a nightmare.’
I laughed. ‘Do you want to stay for a bit? I could cook some pasta.’
But she was putting her jacket on.
‘Tuesday,’ she said. ‘I’ll come round at nine.’
And she left.
My phone went off and I looked at the screen. A text from Lauren.
Richard I’m sorry I ran away. So sorry. I need to see you. Please can I see you now. I need you. Where are you?
I sighed. Life was getting a bit too complicated.
37. Lauren
Suky had drunk a lot more of the vodka than I had. At three o’clock she stood up shakily and announced she was going for a lie down. I was still sitting at her kitchen table when Richard found me. He knocked at the door and walked in. I threw myself into his arms.
‘Richard, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
He stroked my hair and it
felt nice.
‘It’s ok, Laura’
I looked up. ‘Lauren. Not Laura.’
‘That’s what I said.’ He smiled at me.
I hugged him tight again. ‘I’m sorry I ran away and we didn’t get to see the big rock thing. I missed you. I really want you to kiss me. Please.’
I lifted my face but he didn’t kiss me, he stroked my cheek. Then he removed my arms from around him and went over to the table.
‘Any of this left?’ he asked, picking up the vodka bottle. There was a bit and he poured a slug into Suky’s empty glass.
‘Richard!’ I went up to him again and pressed against him.
He put his arm round my shoulders.
‘Lauren, what’s the matter?’
‘Everything. Everything is wrong. Peter’s gone and my mother’s turned up and she wants me to like her. And I want you, but only sometimes, and when I do I want you so badly that it’s like hunger, an empty craving feeling. But it feels wrong. And I wish Peter were here and my mother would go away and you would stop confusing me and I don’t know what to do.’
The last part of this speech rose to a wail. I could hear it even while it was coming from my mouth.
Richard kissed me then, on the forehead. ‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘You’re letting everything get on top of you.’
I wailed again, this time without words.
‘How about you deal with one thing at a time?’
‘Richard, kiss me.’
He pushed me away gently. ‘How about your mother?’
I turned away in disgust. ‘She wants to tell me stuff. She wants to tell me what happened, why she left us, me and Dad, when I was a baby. She thinks if she tells me then that will make it ok.’
‘Maybe you should listen to her?’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe there are some things that can’t be put right, like abandoning your child and never contacting them for all of their life. Then suddenly turning up and expecting everyone to forgive you. Why should I listen to her?’
‘She’s your mother.’
‘And?’
‘She’s alive and she wants to know you. You’re lucky. My mother died when I was twelve years old.’
I frowned. ‘Meg is your mother.’
‘No, she adopted me. My mother died when I was twelve and my sisters too the year after. I was alone then.’
‘What did they die of?’
‘TB. Their lungs were weakened from working in the mills. All the fibre in the air.’
I tried to fit it into what I knew of him, but my mind was muddled.
‘But she didn’t leave you on purpose, your mother.’
‘Maybe yours didn’t either. You’d find out if you listened to her.’
I sat down at the table and rested my head on my arms.
‘It would make things easier,’ he carried on. ‘If you sort things with your mother, then you can think about Peter next.’
‘What about you?’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m big and ugly enough to look after myself.’
I went home and Dad was in on his own. I asked him where Cassie was and he said she’d gone to see her sister.
‘I thought they didn’t speak to each other.’
‘They made up.’
It was dark, but that didn’t bother me. I was restless and wanted to act straight away. The lane up to Old Barn was easy enough and I still had my head torch in my bag. I told Dad I was going for a walk.
‘Will you be back for tea?’
‘I don’t know.’
He frowned at that, but I left before he could say anything else.
By the time I came out of the top of the woods at Old Barn I had sobered up a bit and I could feel the cold night air racing through my lungs. I didn’t want to lose courage. I went straight up to the front door and knocked.
Sally answered, and before she could say anything I said ‘Is my mum here?’
She opened the door wider and I walked through to the kitchen.
The huge wooden table had a teapot and cups and a plate with scones on it. Cassie was there and so was Ali.
‘Oh!’ I said.
‘Hello Lauren.’ My mum smiled.
‘Hi,’ I said to her. Then I looked at Ali. ‘What are you doing here?’
She raised her eyebrows. I suppose I was a bit rude.
‘I’m staying here for a while,’ she said.
‘But I thought you’d left. You were hiding and Richard didn’t know where you were. He wanted to find you because of the money. One of the—’
‘I know. One of the notes has a code on it. He told me.’
‘Richard found you?’ Why hadn’t he told me? Looking for the girl, Ali, was something we’d been doing together. ‘Did you find the note?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘Would you like some tea Lauren?’ my mum asked, and I turned to look at her. She was still smiling.
‘Yeah, ok,’ I said. She poured a cup and pushed it over to me. I sat down at the table.
‘What are you going to do with the note?’ I asked Ali.
She gave a kind of shrug.
Then Sally called from the doorway, ‘Ali, can you come and give me a hand?’
Ali got up quickly and left the room, and I was left alone with my mother.
Neither of us said anything for a few moments. I sipped at the tea which was strong and lukewarm.
‘People keep telling me to give you a chance,’ I said after a while.
She said nothing.
‘They say I should listen to you.’
‘What do you think?’
I looked at her. She was holding her cup near her face.
‘I dunno. I think we’ve been fine for all these years, me and Dad and Mr Lion, so why do we need you to come along and upset everything? I don’t know why I suddenly need a mother when I’ve been ok without one for nearly eighteen years.’
‘Maybe you don’t.’
‘Everyone is telling me I do.’
‘They can only speak from what they know about themselves. They’re imagining being without their mothers.’
‘Well what do you want then? I thought you wanted to be my mother.’
‘I’d like us to get to know each other.’
‘What about you and Dad?’
She looked away. ‘I don’t know. It’s been a long time and he…’
‘It’s a bit weird if you want to know. He’s started singing.’
She looked like she wanted to laugh. Her mouth made a wonky line as she tried to control it.
‘I’m not sure that’s because of…’
‘It would be all right if he could sing in tune.’
She lifted her eyes and they were full of laughter. Her mouth wasn’t behaving either: it turned upwards at the corners. I found my own responding and suddenly we were grinning at each other.
‘I hope at least we can all be friends,’ she said.
We lapsed into silence again. She lifted the lid of the teapot and looked in, but it was empty. She got up, refilled the kettle and put it on the stove.
‘When you were born he was always singing. Lullabies he said. I said he was more likely to keep you awake and crying.’
‘I don’t remember. He must have stopped when you left.’
She collected the cups from the table and took them to the sink to rinse.
‘Did he seem unhappy?’
‘Not to me. But then he wouldn’t, would he?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘I sometimes caught him looking at your photo. I think he missed you.’
She smiled and emptied the teapot into the compost bin.
‘I missed him as well, you know,’ she said. ‘I always have – lo
ved – both of you.’
I knew this was a cue. This was where I should say, well why did you go away then?
I jumped up. ‘I told Dad I’d be back for tea. I’d better run.’
‘I’m making a fresh pot, won’t you stay?’
‘Better not. They hate it when I’m late for a meal.’
I grabbed my coat and left the room before she could say anything else.
Ali and Sally were in the front of the barn moving something.
‘See ya,’ I called.
As I ran down the lane I remembered I wanted to know about Ali’s money and the code on the note. I would probably see Richard soon, though, and he could tell me.
I was just in time for tea. Dad looked at me while we were eating.
‘Where have you been?’
‘You know where I’ve been.’
‘How…?’
‘Come on, don’t be an idiot. Cassie texted you and told you I went up there.’
He looked at me for a moment then carried on eating.
‘She says you ran off.’
‘I had to get back.’
‘We wouldn’t have minded.’
‘That would have been a first.’
Mr Lion had just finished his food. He put his knife and fork next to each other in the middle of his plate.
‘Why don’t you tell her, Andy?’ he said.
We both looked at him.
‘What do you mean?’ Dad said.
‘If the lass finds it difficult to hear the story from her mother, maybe you should tell her yourself. She might hear it from you.’
Me and Dad looked at each other. He’d spent years not telling me that story.
‘Would you like me to?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘If you like.’
We finished eating and washed up, and then we took coffee into the front room. Mr Lion and Beauty went off to the pub leaving the two of us together. Mum’s picture was still on the mantelpiece.
We sat down in opposite chairs and my Dad didn’t say anything. When my coffee was half gone I said ‘Well? Are you going to tell me?’
He grunted and sat forward in his chair. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said.
‘Tell me about it!’
He looked at me properly then and smiled.
‘What happened?’ I said. ‘You were the perfect happy family and then what?’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It was the woman up at Hough Dean.’
TAINTED LOVE Page 22
