by Gwyn GB
Margaret feels herself bite too hard on her bottom lip, the earthy taste of blood serving to re-focus her mind on the road ahead.
12
June 1976, Jersey
The morning after the night at Sands, Katherine is dreading the questions from her mother as to why she’d come home early. She stays in bed, even though she isn’t really sleeping, alternating between day dreams of Darren and remembering the nightmare with Anne. She keeps one ear out for the phone, he is bound to ring sometime today and she’s going to be ready.
When she hears her mother and Margaret leave in the car to go shopping, Katherine gets out of bed and heads straight for the phone in their hallway. She calls Anne.
‘You OK?’ she asks as soon as she hears her voice on the other end.
‘Yeah. Sorry about last night. I know you really like Darren but...’ Anne trails off.
‘So what exactly did Mark do?’ Katherine presses, a little annoyed Anne has taken until now to finally realise she’d ruined her evening.
‘Just started touching me up...you know,’ she replies.
Katherine doesn’t, this is all new to her. ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t tell the police or your parents, somebody...’
‘No.’ Anne comes back vehemently. ‘I’ve told you no. They’ll just say it’s my fault. Please you must promise me, swear to me you won’t tell a single person about this. Please Katherine. Nobody, not Margaret, not your mum, not anyone.’
Katherine can tell she means it. ‘OK,’ she reluctantly replies. There is nothing but the sound of the phone whirring for a few moments. ‘So, did he rape you?’ Katherine isn’t exactly sure what rape constitutes, but she’s got a fairly good idea and it’s serious. She knows Darren and she started to make love last night, his tender kisses and gentle touches showing just how much he cares about her, but Mark - well he’d obviously done something completely different altogether.
‘I don’t... well, I guess.’ The fight has gone out of Anne’s voice again. ‘He put his hand under my skirt and blouse. I kept pushing him away, but he kept on coming back again.’
There is further silence between them as Katherine tries to take in what she’s just said. The thing is, she can’t help it, but the thought of Darren’s hand on her skin is an altogether pleasant one; there must have been more to it than that.
‘So,’ Anne breaks the silence, ‘how did it go with Darren then?’
Katherine ignores the fake cheerfulness of her friend’s voice, desperate to share her experience. ‘Oh Anne, he’s just so gorgeous. His legs, they’re solid muscle, and he’s such a good kisser.’
‘When are you going to see him again?’ Anne is trying to sound interested.
‘I don’t know.’
‘He’s got your number though?’
‘No, things were a bit fraught after you left,’ Katherine feels a tad guilty at the silence that comment elicits but what did Anne expect? Why is she asking her about Darren, questioning his feeling towards her? He obviously likes her after his display of affection. Maybe Anne’s jealous.
Katherine’s fear is Darren’s been put off by what happened between Anne and Mark - whatever it was. It’s certainly going to be awkward if they start going out together, but they’ll figure it out. Love conquers all, right?
13
March 3rd 2008, Jersey
Standing in their farmhouse Katherine has the feeling she’s arrived on an old film set; a stranger in familiarity. A viewer who has somehow found themselves inside a movie they’ve watched a thousand times.
Coming home is always a massive trip down memory lane for Katherine. Although Margaret and her family are all around, the essential core of the house has stayed the same since they were children. There are some new wall coverings and carpets, some more modern pieces of furniture and technology has invaded, but it’s still easy for Katherine to close her eyes and remember back to when they were children.
The kitchen is probably the least changed room of the house, the main difference the new appliances: a dishwasher and a shiny white fridge/freezer instead of the old one. The chopping board is still in residence, oiled and cared for, the scars and dents from years of use badges of honour on its surface for the thousands of dinners in which it has played a role. Their father’s photograph remains centre stage on the sideboard, surrounded by smiley images of the children growing up and watched over by their grandparents on the wall. It has always been, and remains, the heart of this house.
Once Margaret leaves to pick up Sophie, Katherine takes the chance to look into her old bedroom, now Sara’s. It’s a lot neater than when it belonged to her. There’s a new bed made up ready for Sara’s return from Uni but the old mahogany wardrobe still dominates, still unpainted; its doors neatly shut hiding its soft insides. The windows have been double glazed to keep out the draughts and there are more houses visible from the bedroom window. A small neat estate of multi-coloured dwellings rises on the far right of the horizon. The fields are still there in the foreground - only they’re like shimmering pools of water reflecting the grey sky. All uniformly covered in plastic sheeting to protect the valuable Jersey Royal potato plants growing in the soil beneath.
Katherine turns back to look at the bedroom. This could have been her daughter’s room. In the car Margaret’s busy schedule with her family re-awakened the old scar, reminding her of a life that isn’t hers. She’s come to terms with the cards she’s been dealt, but their edges are sharp, still able to cut if she handles them without concentration.
Standing in her old room it’s strange to know their mother won’t call her or appear at the door. She knew Marie was disappointed when she stayed away in London and, as she put it, ‘Chose a career over family and love’. She’d warned her she’d be a lonely old woman in a big City, more than once trying emotional blackmail for having to suffer her daughter living so far away. ‘I hardly know you these days,’ or ‘We never see you.’ Perhaps Katherine should have told her, but the moment just never seemed right. She’d become defensive and they wouldn’t talk for a while. Then life, or rather death, took away the choice.
Her mother’s presence is missing from the house. Katherine can feel its loss, but she also knows Marie would be horrified at the thought of her going to see Anne’s mum - and she’d make sure Katherine knew it. There are several loose ends to their relationship and one of them is the question which will never be answered: why did Marie dislike Anne so much?
14
August 1976, Jersey
Before hot July finishes with the world it makes one last big effort to leave its mark. A massive earthquake hits China on the 28th of the month. Hundreds of thousands are killed, and television screens are dominated by images of the misery of the bereaved and homeless. In the UK it’s the water shortage and the summer heat that continues to dominate minds, and on August 13th a state of emergency is declared in Jersey; followed by water rationing. The drought has gone on for so long the Fire Chief warns of near desert conditions massively increasing the risk of fire. Farmers are desperate, their cattle thirsty, crops failing all over the island and the Government is talking about compensation packages to help them through the worst.
For Katherine the water shortage is a peripheral annoyance. Whilst she waits for her exam results she’s got a Saturday job at Dorothy Perkins in town. The ad for a ‘Part Time Fashion opportunity’ had been in the Jersey Evening Post, and she’d gone straight in to see the manageress.
‘A two-week trial at seven pounds a day for a shift, that’s eight forty-five until five forty-five,’ she reported back to her mother. She’s been there three weeks already, and loves getting the little paper packet full of cash at the end of each day.
Since that night at Sands the only time she’s seen Darren or Mark is when they’ve walked past the front of the shop. She’s glad they can’t see her because she’s too embarrassed to speak to Darren. She’d spent days waiting for the phone to ring, hoping he’d get in contact, making excuses when he didn�
��t - but there was nothing. She feels humiliated. It’s obvious he’d only been after one thing, just like his friend. How can she have got it so badly wrong?
Mark is a different matter. She has so often in her head walked right up to him and told him what she thinks of him. She’s rehearsed her lines over and over. Now she knows what they’re both like she can’t believe she’d ever doubted Anne. She should have been there for her, done something more to help instead of being wrapped up in her own silly crush.
Anne seems haunted by the experience, almost a different person since that day. Whenever they see each other her friend seems fine for a bit, they’ll be chatting away, trying on a new eye shadow, or lying in the field planning what they’re going to do once they’ve got their results - then suddenly a look will come over Anne’s face. It’s like the shadow of clouds before a storm and each time Katherine sees it, she knows it’s the precursor to her growing quiet and distant. She loses her every time. Anne won’t tell Katherine what’s wrong. She asks if it’s Mark and Anne denies it, but she knows it must be. She’s never kept anything from her before and it’s straining their relationship. It makes Katherine feel angry and guilty. When Anne calls her up to arrange to go out she keeps finding excuses. Anne’s just not fun to be around anymore.
The weather is the one thing that hasn’t altered for weeks; no months. Every morning Katherine wakes up to the same view of sunshine burning in through the curtains at her bedroom windows. The sashes are open as much as possible but no air disturbs the dust on the windowsills. Today is no exception. The air is thick, dense, as though the oxygen has been mixed with cornflour to make it sticky and heavy. Blue skies might be a sight to look forward to in more usual times but, after six months of virtually no rainfall and incessant heat, she longs for the sight of a black cloud and a cool hard breeze to blow it in. The heatwave has the effect of making the summer seem endless. She can’t imagine being cold, or remember wanting to lean against the Rayburn for warmth. The feeling of sluggish, overbearing heat seems to have taken over all her senses.
Today is different though. Today they get their exam results. It seems strange going back to school, empty of the babble of girls, disjointed without the constant timely reminders of the school bell. This strange lonely echo of a place seems somehow in keeping with how she’s felt lately in her friendship with Anne. Things just aren’t the same between them, the bond has been damaged and she’s not sure why or how to repair it; but Katherine dutifully waits for her at the entrance. Little gaggles of girls bustle past her. She exchanges hellos and the odd chat until Anne flies up to her on her bike, her face red from the heat.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she gasps, ‘Dad’s away on business, there wasn’t a bus for an hour so I cycled. God I am so scared, aren’t you?’ She smiles at her, the old Anne smile, and Katherine feels herself instantly relax. The barrier which seems to have been between them since Sands is gone. It’s almost as though time has been reversed – the pair of them back at school, before Sands, when their friendship was the one thing they believed they could rely on.
‘No problem,’ Katherine says, grabbing her hand, ‘Come on, let’s do this.’ Just like the old days they walk together through the door into reception where the results have been posted up.
Katherine feels her heart beating. This is it, the moment she’s been thinking about throughout the weeks and weeks of revision. English Lit, Maths, Geography, History, RE.
‘Oh my God, five A’s and four B’s!’ Katherine exclaims, clasping her hand to her mouth, eyes wide with excitement and disbelief. ‘That’s great, even better than I hoped. How have you done Anne?’
‘Five C’s, two B’s and two fails, that’s good. Better than I thought too.’ They give each other a hug and rush round comparing results with the other girls in the hall which buzzes and bubbles with teenage excitement. Now they have qualifications, pieces of paper that can be the tickets away from their boring teenage lives and onto something new, something better. Katherine is riding high. A Goddess on the crest of her knowledge. She has nine O levels, she has a future, she is somebody.
‘So, when are we going to get that flat?’ Anne turns to her. ‘There’s one come up in town near de Gruchys.’
‘Not just yet, next year maybe?’ Katherine tentatively replies. ‘I should be able to get my apprenticeship with an accountancy firm with these grades, but it’ll mean low wages whilst I’m training.’ Even as she speaks she can see Anne’s face change, betrayal emblazoned across it.
‘But you’re already working at Dorothy Perkins. We said we’d do it as soon as we got our results. I’ve been applying for loads of jobs.’
‘It’s only part time Anne, and I don’t want to do it forever. I want a career. With my grades I should be able to get something good, but it means making some sacrifices at the beginning...’ She trails off at the sight of Anne’s face. ‘Look I’m not saying we won’t do it, I want to, but you’ve got to understand, it’s just not practical right now. We couldn’t afford it.’
‘I see. Fine,’ is the only reply. The barrier has returned, ‘I’d better get going.’ Anne turns, ‘See you around then,’ and she is gone without another word.
As Katherine walks home the sun burns the top of her head, and a headache bulldozes into position behind her eyeballs. Her brain feels fit to bust. She is elated, the stress of waiting for her results is over. She feels as if she’s grown five inches taller, proved herself to the world, proved she can do what she sets out to do and this is only the start. Tomorrow she will begin applying for the apprenticeships, she’s already made all the necessary enquiries. There is a pile of forms at home waiting to be filled in, and her O’levels will be just the start of her success. Katherine Gaudin has arrived in the world! But she is also fuming. Fuming about the fact this moment she wants to remember for the rest of her life has been ruined by Anne: again. By the guilt she now feels: again. By bloody Mark Vibert who has attacked her best friend and left her broken and depressed.
When Katherine sees Darren walking towards her there is no possibility she is going to hold back. She knows she promised Anne not to say anything to anyone, but Darren was there, he knows what happened already.
If only Katherine had held back. If only the next two minutes could be erased from all their memories. If only the next two minutes hadn’t ended up being the two minutes she regretted for the rest of her life.
15
March 3rd 2008, Jersey
Katherine helps Margaret get dinner ready for Sophie. The little girl is shy around her aunt at first. By tea time she’s into the ‘showing off’ stage and it has to be Aunty Katherine who sits with her while she eats. It’s been a long time since Kathy was in the company of a child. She sits next to Sophie looking at her soft white skin, the gossamer blonde waves falling around her face creating a celestial effect, filled with energy and luminescent youth. Afterward Sophie is allowed half an hour of television before bath time and a bedtime story from her aunt. Katherine finds herself standing at the kitchen sink with her sister, a tea towel in one hand, looking out over the yard.
She isn’t sure what she feels right now, back here in Jersey. Perhaps it’s a lifetime of trying to ignore her emotions, or the shock of returning home and finding very little has changed. Maybe even that she hasn’t changed as much as she thought. On the outside yes, but the inside? The fields may have different crops in, the hedges and trees taller than they were, but as she looks at the scene in front of her all she can see is herself, Anne and Margaret as young girls lying on their backs in the sunshine trying to put their small world to rights. How different would things have been if Anne was still with them? Still her best friend? If she’d been there to help Katherine through her troubles? How different would things have been if the truth had come out about her death? Nobody ever said why or how, everything was just hushed up. The truth just didn’t seem to matter.
A Blue Tit springing out of the nesting box on the wall opposite catches Katherine’
s eye. The box has been there for as long as Katherine can remember and is black and green with age, but still clearly provides a comfy dry home for the tits. The pair can’t be the same birds she watched coming and going as a child but maybe it’s their grandson or great-granddaughter with their new mate. An endless cycle of birth, life and death. It’s too early for it to nest yet but the little bird is obviously surveying the local accommodation, perhaps trying to grab the family home before its siblings arrive.
The granite walls of the barn are splashed with the green leaves of the Campanula flowers which live in clumps in the cracks between the stones and are just waking up after their winter sleep. By May and June, they’ll be a mass of bright violet blooms. Some people don’t like them because they damage the walls, but Katherine has always enjoyed their vivid show of defiant life amid the unyielding rock.
The kitchen window curtains have changed. Gone are the slightly frilly faded brown and pink that had been their mother’s choice of adornment. In their place is a brighter fresh pale yellow blind which is currently rolled up to the top allowing a full clear view of the outside. The Crittall metal window frames are warped and draughty and in need of a change, but Katherine remembers when they replaced the rotting wood and had been innovative and modern. In the top left hand corner of the window is the honeysuckle waving its tendrils outside in the breeze and to the right a giant Yukka plant which once grew indoors in Margaret’s sitting room, before growing so large it was relegated to the garden. That was five years ago and it’s now a giant of a tree adding a Mediterranean feel to the yard.
