The Lonely Life of Biddy Weir

by Lesley Allen

  As they headed towards the town centre, Biddy began another fantasy: she would ask the taxi driver to let her out at the station. Then she would get a bus to somewhere. Anywhere. Wherever the £10 she had in her purse would take her.

  ‘Please, Mister, could you stop at the station? Could you stop at the station please, Mister? I’d like to get out at the station. Just leave me at the station, please.’ She practised the possibilities inside her head, then she opened her mouth to see if anything would come out. But nothing would. And then it was too late. They had passed the station and were heading up the hill, past the town hall, towards the school.

  ‘This do here, love?’ The taxi driver pulled up outside the school gates. ‘Your dad has paid me, so we’re all sorted.’

  Biddy nodded but she didn’t move. She didn’t want to be in the taxi for a moment longer, but she didn’t want to get out either. But there was no escape now.

  ‘Umm,’ she cleared her throat nervously, ‘OK. Thank you,’ she said to the back seat as she pulled her case out of the taxi and closed the door.

  Biddy stood apart from the others, glancing at the groups of chattering teenagers gathered around the Ulsterbus coach, sickness rising in her throat. It was already going wrong and she instantly felt humiliated. She was the only pupil there without a parent to kiss and hug and fuss over her. And worse, she was the only one with a stupid, battered, old brown suitcase. Everyone else had smart bright rucksacks. Everyone else was wearing trainers and sweatshirts and baseball caps and looked as if they were going on a school field trip. She looked like one of the war refugee exhibits from the Heritage Museum. Everyone else was excited. She was terrified.

  Brook House, the residential centre at Innisbrook Forest, was a rambling old building smothered in ivy with lots of different shaped windows, most of which were covered in bird poo. Depending on your point of view, the old house was either horribly spoilt or brilliantly improved by a huge white-washed flat-roofed extension, which the local education authority had stuck on the side of it. Biddy didn’t notice the extension: she didn’t even take in the old house. All she saw, as the school bus crunched down the gravel drive, were the windows splattered with bird poo, and she felt a huge surge of relief.

  The two-hour journey had been hell. She’d had to listen to the others singing stupid songs about meatballs and quartermaster’s stores or something like that, and bantering with Mr Patterson, Mr Boyd and Mrs Abbott, calling them ‘Clive’ and ‘Roy’ and ‘Ruth’. Their shrieks of laughter clattered like thunder inside Biddy’s head. At least no one had had to sit beside her. And no one had spoken to her either, apart from Mrs Abbott when she was passing round some sweets.

  ‘Lemon sherbet, Biddy?’ the teacher had asked, holding out a white paper bag. Biddy shook her head and looked down, noticing Mrs Abbott’s jeans as she did so. Miss Jordan was the only other female teacher she’d seen wearing jeans. The memory of the teacher shook through her, shoving the lump out of her stomach and up to her throat. Maybe if she hadn’t caused Miss Jordan’s dismissal, she’d be on this horrible trip instead of Mrs Abbott. After all, Mrs Abbott wasn’t a Geography teacher like Mr Patterson and Mr Boyd. She taught Domestic Science. And if Miss Jordan was still a teacher, and she had been chosen to go instead of Mrs Abbott, then the trip wouldn’t have been horrible after all. As Biddy was so busy with all these thoughts, she hadn’t even heard Mrs Abbott offer her some rhubarb rock instead of the lemon sherbet, or seen her roll her eyes in exasperation when Biddy didn’t respond. Not that she’d have taken one anyway. She was so nervous she couldn’t risk gagging on it.

  But when Biddy saw the poo-covered windows, her heart had skipped a beat. Birds, she thought, there are birds here. I will be OK. And as she watched a gang of big black crows to-ing and fro-ing from tall chimney to tall chimney, her eyes brightened and her mouth flicked up slightly at the edges.

  20.

  Biddy had never been to the mountains before, and the green stillness captivated her. It wasn’t quite the same as being at the beach, and there weren’t any seagulls, but there were other birds, bigger and darker than she’d seen before, circling high in the sky, calling to her with rough, deep squawks. The smells were different too. The breeze carried scents of turf and wild herbs that made her feel dizzy, and she had to concentrate really hard to focus her attention on the first assignment. She wished that she could just sit down on a mound of rough grass and draw, but Rory McBride, her unwilling partner, was grumpily striding several feet in front of her, telling her to ‘get a fucking move on’ every five minutes.

  ‘At least she knows most of the fucking answers,’ she heard him mutter as she completed question seven on the sheet. ‘That’ll get me off the hook with Patterson, the bastard.’

  Rory McBride hadn’t been one bit happy when Mr Patterson had partnered him with Biddy Weir before they set off on their afternoon hike up the mountain.

  ‘Aw, come on, Sir,’ he had pleaded, ‘you can’t be serious. I mean, look at her. She’s wearing wellies, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Shut your face, McBride. You’ll do what I decide,’ snarled Clive Patterson in Rory’s face. ‘And you’d better get all the questions right, or you’ll spend the evening in the classroom writing an essay on rock formation in the mountain. And if you swear at me again, you’ll spend the whole bloody trip with her. Got it?’

  Rory nodded, tossed his head in an ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit’ kind of way, and sauntered over to the other, sniggering boys.

  ‘What have you done to annoy Patterson, then?’ laughed Paul Clarke.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ replied Rory, shrugging his shoulders and kicking at the gravel, glancing over at big-nose Patrick Burns who’d been picked to partner Alison Flemming. ‘Bastard,’ he muttered.

  But Clive had seen the way Rory McBride was flirting with Alison on the bus down to Innisbrook Forest and he wasn’t happy. Rory was tall and lean with dark, wavy hair and fancied himself as a bit of a stud. Clive had to admit he was a good-looking lad, and cocky with it in an irritatingly charming way. He was pretty sure Alison didn’t fancy him, but decided it was best to keep them apart, just in case.

  Biddy had had no idea what to expect on the field trip, and when she realised she’d have to share a bedroom with fourteen other girls, including Alison, she had to work harder than ever to keep the lump down in her throat. For a moment, she thought she might actually vomit or even soil her pants right there in front of all the others and Mrs Abbott, who was showing the girls to their dorm. At least she got a whole bunk bed to herself as, obviously, none of the girls wanted to share one with her. As soon as she could, she escaped to the toilet where she gagged and retched until the lump subsided. Then she sat on the toilet seat, took the tin of pins out of her pocket, and fiercely stabbed the tops of her legs until her racing heart settled. But her respite was short-lived. Before they set off on their afternoon hike, Mr Patterson started pairing them off and the fear that she’d have to partner Alison or one of the other girls almost overwhelmed her. She had to focus on the bird shit patterns on the windows to stop herself from passing out. When Mr Patterson partnered Rory McBride with her, she knew he was horrified. He looked revolted. He looked as if he might be sick himself. But Biddy was relieved. At least Rory McBride would leave her alone. The boys usually did, unless they were with Alison, of course.

  Biddy and Rory managed to answer all the questions on the worksheet correctly, much to Rory’s relief and Clive Patterson’s annoyance. Now he’d have to watch McBride sniffing around Alison all evening. Still, he’d found a room at the top of the old house which would be perfect for a little midnight liaison. He watched Alison stride into the dining room, tossing her long honey mane, her tight jeans and low-cut top accentuating her delicious figure. She was one of the best fucks he’d ever had. He’d held off going the whole hog until she was sixteen, though he knew she’d have let him before then. She’d basically begged him the night of the disco, but the tease of keeping her waiting was part o
f the game. And he was good at the game. So good. He’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks, mostly because the risk of getting caught out added to the thrill. Not that he wanted to get caught, of course. He knew exactly what the ramifications would be, especially after the whole Penny Jordan debacle, for which he never felt an ounce of guilt. But the possibility, the danger, made the whole thing even sexier.

  By the time the evening meal was served, Biddy was exhausted. They’d spent the afternoon walking up Innis Mountain behind the big house, studying maps and wild mountain flora, looking at stones and filling in activity sheets. She’d enjoyed being out on the mountain, the fresh air had taken her mind off the worry of bedtime, but her feet felt sore and swollen after three hot hours in tight Wellington boots, and her head was pounding. She had been right about Rory. He didn’t even make eye contact with her and he kept as much physical distance from her as was humanly possible. Biddy was happy enough to complete all the questions on the sheet herself, as they were reasonably straightforward and Geography was one subject she managed with relative ease. Especially if it was anything to do with nature. Throughout the three-hour hike, the pair didn’t exchange one single word, apart from Rory’s grumbles at Biddy to hurry up and a couple of incoherent grunts.

  As the group headed back to the house, chatting and whooping and laughing with each other, Biddy walked several feet behind the others. Despite her exhaustion and her sore feet, she had a sudden overwhelming desire to stay on the mountain. She’d love to sleep in the open air, under one of the huge fir trees. She wouldn’t be scared, and she knew she’d be safe: the birds would look after her. The thought of sleeping in the same room as Alison and the others terrified her. But before that there was teatime to deal with.

  By the time they got back to the house, Biddy was unusually hungry. It must have been all the walking and the fresh air. She was used to the sea air, but the mountain air must be different. Maybe all the new smells and sounds had affected her appetite. Her tummy rumbled loudly. Lunch had been a picnic on the lawn outside the big house with cheese rolls, bruised apples and Penguin biscuits, washed down with cartons of Kia-Ora orange juice. She had sat well away from everyone else, so she’d managed a few mouthfuls, despite her nerves, and she liked the Penguin biscuit – it had been a nice change from Kimberleys.

  Despite her hunger now, however, the thought of dinner terrified her. They would all have to eat together in the dining room at big rectangular tables. During the hike, Biddy had managed to forget about the dining room dilemma, but now, as her tummy rumbled, her hunger turned to fear. She hadn’t eaten in the school canteen since the day in the second year when Alison had spilled her tapioca pudding all over her and told everyone that she had made herself sick. She felt sick now. This would be so much worse than the canteen. When they were shown around the house after they’d arrived that morning, Biddy had counted five big tables in the dining room, four for the pupils and one for the teachers and the resident instructors. There were thirty pupils altogether: fifteen girls and fifteen boys. With a lurch in her stomach, she realised that she would have to share a table with at least six others. Her head began to spin and she leant against the slender trunk of a tall birch tree at the top of the driveway to steady herself. What if she was made to sit at Alison’s table? Alison would be furious. She’d do something horrible. She knew that no one would want her at their table, but at least if she wasn’t at Alison’s, it might not be quite so bad. Maybe then she would be able to eat something.

  She was wondering whether she should go into the dining room before all the others, or wait until everyone else had gone in and then take the last remaining seat, when Mr Boyd yelled ‘grub’s up,’ from the top step of the entrance porch, his hands cupped around his mouth. ‘And remember to wash your hands in the downstairs cloakrooms.’

  Biddy watched from behind her tree as people streamed into the big house from every direction. Most of the boys had been playing football; some of the girls were gossiping and giggling together on the lawn; Paul Ballentine had been pushing Nicola Smart on the tyre swing under a huge oak tree at the side of the house. There was no sign of Alison Flemming.

  ‘If anyone else is outside, you’d better get in here right now. Or else.’ It was Mr Boyd, calling from the top step again. He didn’t say what the ‘or else’ would be. As Biddy slid out from behind the birch, Mr Boyd spotted her.

  ‘Come on, Biddy. Get a move on,’ he yelled. She slowly made her way down the path, her heart hammering inside her chest.

  Biddy was the last one into the dining room. There were three empty seats, one at a table with seven of the boys and two at a table with six boys. Rory and Paul were sitting with Alison, Georgina, Jackie, Julia, Nicola and Jill. All of the other girls were at the fourth table. Biddy hesitated then moved towards the table with two free seats and pulled out the chair at the far end. At least there would be nobody sitting on her left. At least there would only be six annoyed boys, and not six or seven very angry girls. At least she was nowhere near Alison.

  ‘McBride. Ballentine.’ Everyone looked up at Mr Patterson, who was standing shouting over at the mixed table. ‘Shift. Go on, move. Get over there,’ he nodded towards Biddy’s chosen table. ‘Biddy, go sit with the girls.’

  ‘Bastard,’ whispered Rory under his breath, noisily moving out of his chair and stomping over to the other table. Paul rolled his eyes, then winked at Nicola, who gave a disappointed smile in return. The six boys who had just had a lucky escape grinned at each other. Alison shared a confused look with Georgina.

  ‘Are you moving, or what?’ sniped Rory to Biddy, who was still sitting, afraid to move, in case her legs wouldn’t work because they were shaking so badly. She stood up slowly and, trembling, made her way across the room to her new table, aware that Alison was glaring at her. Now there would be no chance of her eating anything at all.

  Mrs Abbott stood up. ‘OK, OK. Settle down everyone. Before we eat I have a couple of announcements. After dinner you all have an hour or so to relax.’ A cheer went up from around the room. ‘You can watch TV in the common room, play pool or table tennis in the games room, or just hang out in your dorms. At 7.30 p.m. sharp, everyone must meet in the seminar room where Mr Boyd and Mr Patterson will go through the results of today’s study paper and talk us through the agenda for tomorrow.’ The cheers turned to groans. ‘All right, all right. That’s what we’re here for,’ Mrs Abbott continued. ‘Supper will be served in the common room at 8.30 p.m. Everyone must be in their dorm by 9.30 p.m. then it’s lights out at 10 p.m., sharp. Now, tea tonight is vegetable broth followed by sausages, peas and mash. Then apple tart and custard for pudding. Eat up, everyone, you’ll need your strength for tomorrow’s five-hour hike.’ More groans followed as Mrs Abbott winked and took her seat again.

  Alison’s blood was boiling. She glared at Biddy with contempt. She knew that Rory fancied her and while she wasn’t about to get off with him, she did relish the attention. He wasn’t bad looking, he was a good laugh and flirting with him kept Clive on his toes. Perhaps that was it, she thought. Perhaps Clive was jealous. The thought made her tingle. Well, fair enough, but why did he have to go and put that smelly oddball at her table. How in God’s name was she going to eat her dinner now?

  ‘I think I’ve just lost my appetite,’ she whispered to Georgina as her soup was set down in front of her. ‘How about we get rid of the bloody cow?’

  Georgina raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yeah, but how are we gonna manage it, with that lot watching over us?’ she whispered back, nodding towards the teachers.

  Alison bit her lip, furiously trying to come up with something.

  ‘Alison,’ Georgina whispered, tentatively, ‘I’m not sure this is the place to . . .’

  ‘Shh, will you,’ Alison interrupted, ‘I’m thinking.’

  Suddenly Mrs Abbott was on her feet again. ‘Sorry, guys. I forgot to ask if one person from each table would go to the kitchen and collect a jug of water.’<
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  Alison smiled. Here was her opportunity.

  ‘I’ll go,’ chirped Julia, moving to stand up. But Alison signalled for her to sit.

  ‘Why don’t you go, Biddy,’ she said slowly, smiling sweetly at Biddy. ‘You’re closest to the kitchen.’

  All the girls at the table looked at each other, wondering what Alison was up to. Biddy gulped. She had just about managed to walk across the room and sit down without her legs caving in. Now Alison was telling her to go to the kitchen and bring back a jug of water. Why? Was Alison hoping that she would spill it all over the place or trip? What was it? She was obviously planning something.

  ‘Get a move on, will you,’ demanded Alison. ‘I’m thirsty.’

  Realising she had no option, Biddy stood and carefully made her way across the room, through the door and into the kitchen, concentrating on every step.

  ‘Pass me the pepper, Jackie,’ asked Alison, once Biddy was out of sight.

  ‘Salt too?’ asked Jackie.

  ‘No thanks, Jack,’ smiled Alison. ‘The pepper will do just fine.’ She screwed the lid off the little glass pepper mill, leant across the table and tipped most of the fine, pale brown powder into Biddy’s soup. Then she stirred it around with her own spoon, replaced the lid, wiped her spoon with her napkin and took a spoonful of her own soup, just as Biddy came back into the room carrying the water jug with both hands.

  ‘Mmm. Delicious soup,’ Alison flashed her smile around the table at the other girls, some of whom were sniggering into their napkins, some sitting open-mouthed. Georgina, Julia and Jackie dutifully smiled back.

  Biddy managed to carry the water jug over to the table without spilling any.

  ‘Just set it down in the middle,’ said Alison, still smiling. ‘We’ll serve ourselves, won’t we, girls? Now, tuck into your soup, Biddy, before it gets cold. It’s yum. Isn’t it, girls?’