by Lesley Allen
‘And you know that local councillor, the one who’s always on TV talking about environmental stuff? Rory McBride?’
Terri nodded. ‘Oh yes, the handsome one with the dark wavy hair?’
‘He was in my class. He was . . .’ she hesitated, ‘. . . he hated the mountain.’
There was a pause again as Biddy seemed to be remembering something then she shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘I don’t know about Jackie. I haven’t seen her. And . . .’ she hesitated once more and then cleared her throat.
‘Anyway,’ she shook her head, ‘it doesn’t happen often – seeing someone from, you know, school. And if it does I just turn in the opposite direction, or look into a shop window or something. But I try to look down at the pavement or the floor as much as possible anyway, to avoid making eye contact with people. It’s safer that way.’ She looked at Terri, with a reassuring smile. ‘So it’s fine.’
Terri’s heart cracked a little when Biddy said that, and she had to turn her back and pretend to root around for something in her bag so that Biddy wouldn’t see her eyes water.
‘But,’ Terri could hear Biddy inhaling a long, deep breath, ‘a couple of weeks ago, I, well, I didn’t look away.’
‘Oh?’ Terri paused her fictitious bag-fumbling and blinked ferociously a few times before turning back to Biddy, eyes wide in anticipation. ‘Really?’
Biddy nodded, and smiled a half smile.
‘It was on the bus home. I saw Georgina, and she happened to look up, and well, I didn’t look away. She did. And afterwards I felt a bit sorry for her because she looked tired, and frazzled, and a little bit sad.’
Terri found she couldn’t speak, so she simply smiled at Biddy, and patted her hand, and with the rush of pride she felt in that second, the crack that had opened was instantly healed.
On the whole, that had been a good day, Terri reflected later, but she was still none the wiser whatsoever about the whereabouts of Alison Flemming.
40.
One glorious golden Wednesday, Terri and Biddy walked to the end of the headland, the furthest they had ever ventured. The late spring sunshine and the sound of the waves gently stroking the rocks had lulled them along. Biddy was in good spirits and very excited by the large number of seagulls swooping above them, and the groups of guillemots dotted around the rocks. But as they reached the old wooden stile which led through to an uneven section of the coastal path, Terri noticed that Biddy’s pace was slowing. Her limp was suddenly very visible, much more pronounced than usual.
‘Are you OK, Biddy?’ asked Terri, concerned.
‘Oh, yes, I’m fine,’ Biddy smiled, subconsciously rubbing her hip. ‘Why?’
‘Your leg,’ Terri gestured towards Biddy’s stick. ‘Are you in pain?’ She had only heard Biddy complain about her leg once or twice before – and then only fleetingly – but it was obviously giving her gyp today.
‘Oh, it’s a wee bit sore. But not too bad. Really.’
‘I’m so sorry, Biddy, my fault. I didn’t realise how far we had gone. I was enjoying the walk too much, and didn’t think.’
‘Oh, no. No, really, it’s OK. It’s not that bad. And I was enjoying the walk too. I probably haven’t walked this far in years. We used to walk everywhere, Papa and me, when I was little. But then, after, well,’ she hesitated, ‘after I hurt my leg, I didn’t walk anywhere for a long time. Later, when I was able, we used to walk through the park once a week until Papa couldn’t manage it. So honestly, I’ve enjoyed it. Please don’t apologise.’
‘Well, let’s take a break for a while anyway, sit on the rocks,’ Terri smiled. She felt a bit breathless herself. ‘I could do with a little rest. Not as fit as I used to be. Actually,’ she chortled, ‘I haven’t been as fit as I used to be for about thirty years.’
Terri looked on as Biddy propped her stick against a large smooth rock and sat on it, pushing her body up with her hands until she found a comfortable position. She watched her staring at two gulls swooping and diving into the sea a few yards away. The breeze had ruffled her unruly curls so much that her hair looked a bit like something they might nest in. Terri wondered, not for the first time, what a good hairdresser would do to Biddy’s locks. With a little bit of TLC, her hair could be beautiful. And a touch of make-up too; just a little. Some day she would venture the suggestion. But not now. Not yet.
‘They are fabulous, aren’t they?’ Terri said, nodding towards the gulls. ‘Have you always been fascinated by them?’
Biddy nodded. ‘Always. Well, for as long as I can remember. I love all birds, actually, but seagulls are definitely my favourites.’
‘Tell me, Biddy, why birds?’ Terri asked, as she sat down beside her on the rock. ‘I am a cat person, myself. Utterly love them. Adore them. Always have. The way they move, the way they sleep so blooming much, and most of all,’ she chuckled, ‘the way they have total control over us humans. So, what is it you love so much about birds?’
Biddy gazed at two seagulls who were proudly strutting along a rock close by. One looked up and appeared to hold her gaze. ‘I love them because they are my friends,’ she said, quietly, shrugging her shoulders. ‘And they always have been. My only friends.’
‘Didn’t you have any friends at school at all?’ asked Terri, carefully. ‘There must have been someone you were a little bit chummy with?’ Biddy shook her head. ‘What about family friends?’
Another shake of the head. ‘We didn’t have any.’
‘Well, neighbours then? Weren’t there any girls in your street around the same age as you?’
This time, Biddy nodded. ‘There were. Once, when I was really young – about five or six – I remember I was standing by the gate, watching a group of them playing in the road. They were skipping and singing rhymes. One girl, I can’t remember her name – she was a bit older, I think – came over and asked me if I wanted to join in. So I went and stood beside them, but as I didn’t know how to skip, or didn’t know the rhymes, I just stood and watched.’ She picked at the grass growing around the rock. ‘I remember the girl who invited me to play smiling over at me a couple of times. Nobody else did. Then the funniest thing happened. Well,’ she looked at Terri and half laughed, ‘I thought it was funny, but they didn’t. A seagull pooed on one of the girl’s heads. A really big, runny one. She put her hand up to her scalp to see what it was, and then it was all dripping off her fingers. She started to scream, then all the others started to scream and one of them, I think it was the bird-poo girl’s sister, ran into a house to get her mother.’ She breathed in deeply, ‘But I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I actually wished that it had been me the bird had pooed on. But then the other girls stopped screaming and looked at me, and one of them asked me why I was laughing. Then the mother came out and put her arm around the poo girl and told her to come inside and she would clean her up. “She thinks it’s funny,” the girl sobbed, pointing at me. The mother glared at me. She looked me up and down, an expression of utter disgust on her face. Then she said to the others while still glaring at me, “I told you not to play with her, girls. She’s strange and she smells. I told you.” So that was it. My brief friendship was over before it even started.’
‘What a bitch,’ spat Terri, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘The mother, I mean.’
‘Well,’ Biddy smiled, ‘one good thing did come out of that day.’
Terri looked at her, quizzically.
‘That’s when my fascination with bird poo started, which was a great distraction for me when I was at school. Maybe my love of seagulls goes back to that day too.’
She laughed, lightly, but Terri’s heart lurched. The very notion of growing up totally alone, without a single friend to share the simple pleasures of childhood with, was devastating to her. Once again Biddy reminded her of a caged bird, the very antithesis of the creatures she so dearly loved. Looking at her now, as she watched her beloved seagulls circle above the water and dive deep i
nto the waves, Terri shivered slightly, despite the warmth of the breeze.
‘How is your leg doing, Biddy?’ she asked, shaking herself.
‘OK,’ said Biddy.
‘Feel up to the walk back now?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘OK, let’s make a move then. I’m in need of a nice strong cuppa, and a snack too. Fancy some of my own wheaten bread with cheese and pickle?’
‘Oh,’ Biddy gasped as she looked at her watch.
‘What time is it?’ asked Terri, sensing the flicker of panic.
‘Ten past three.’
‘That’s fine. You’ve got loads of time. We’ll be back in twenty minutes. You can have a quick cuppa and a bite to eat, then get the twenty past four bus, can’t you?’
Biddy nodded, obviously calculating in her head.
‘Come on then,’ Terri smiled, helping her up.
41.
That evening, Terri was particularly agitated. The lasagne she had removed from the freezer that morning didn’t interest her. Her wine tasted bitter. She couldn’t even settle to watch her favourite soap. It had been a reasonably productive day, the most fruitful for weeks, in actual fact. Biddy had revealed some new information and her form, yet again, was good.
‘What the hell is wrong with me, Bertie?’ Terri asked her companion, as he helped himself to the untouched lasagne which sat on a tray at her feet. Bertie glanced up momentarily, but his mistress’s leftovers were of more interest to him than her problems. Terri shook her head and smiled. ‘You eat, my boy. One of us might as well.’ She paced around the cottage, wandering from room to room, stopping every so often to drum her fingers on a window ledge or an item of furniture. Finally she returned to the living room, where Bertie lay sprawled on the rug in front of the hearth. He tilted his head and looked at her through one opened eye. ‘A bath,’ she announced. ‘That’s what I need. A big, bubbly bath, candles and some music. And another bottle of wine. This one is off.’
As Terri relaxed in her bath and hummed along to the Greek music playing in the background, the source of her pent-up agitation gradually dawned on her. She’d known for weeks that she had let herself become more personally involved with Biddy than with anyone else she had ever dealt with, apart from Derek Davidson, of course, who was still an important person in her life – so that wasn’t the issue. In London there had always been several clients on her books at the same time, and a host of other exciting projects which kept her busy in between her clinics. But here, there was only Biddy. It wasn’t that she was bored with her. Far from it. She was properly fond of the girl; fascinated by her, in fact. It seemed that Biddy had become her personal crusade.
She wanted to emancipate her, free her from the shackles of a stunted childhood which still imprisoned her. It wasn’t too late for Biddy to live her life, and she wanted to make damn well sure that she bloody well did. Perhaps, she thought as she sipped her more agreeable wine, it was easier to connect with Biddy because she wasn’t an official client. She wasn’t being paid by anyone to assess the girl’s state of mind, or to help sort her life out. She didn’t have to submit an official report to anyone, or recommend a treatment programme, or attend meetings with several other health care professionals to discuss her case. But it wasn’t just that. It was so much more. She realised, with a shock, that the discomfort which had been growing inside her wasn’t purely because she was anxious for Biddy’s life to begin, but because she didn’t want to spend the rest of hers sorting out the lives of other people. Moving back home was supposed to put a stop to all that. It was supposed to signal the start of her own new life, to heal her own pain. Clearly, it hadn’t. Oh, she loved Cove Cottage, and she didn’t resent Biddy for a second. On the contrary, she was so very glad that Charlie had asked her to help. Truly. Helping Biddy, however, had made Terri realise that it really was time now to help herself. Just as Derek, dear, sweet Derek, had set her off on this journey, Biddy must be the one to end it. And as the CD played the last melodic chords of the final track, evoking a sudden, glorious memory of a certain Cretan sunset, she knew precisely what she must do.
42.
Biddy adapted to having someone else in her life remarkably quickly. Her Wednesday afternoon visits to Cove Cottage had become a source of pleasure she never imagined she would be capable of experiencing. By the middle of May, she had been to Cove Cottage fourteen times, each visit circled in red pen on the calendar she had bought in the Oxfam shop on the High Street for fifty pence at the end of February. For the first time in years, she had something to mark on a calendar other than doctor’s or dental appointments. Every Wednesday afternoon when she returned from her time with Terri, the first thing she did, before she even removed her coat, was circle the following week’s visit. She never circled more than one week in advance, just in case one day Terri might tell her that she couldn’t see her again. It was best to take one week at a time, but each time she made a circle on the calendar, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Sometimes, as she removed her coat, Biddy caught sight of herself in the mirror which hung to the left of the coat stand in the hall. If it had been a particularly good visit, she would hold her own gaze for a second or two, and smile. She was becoming more accustomed to the stranger who smiled back, a woman who looked like her, but couldn’t be. Her eyes were different. They seemed to glow; they seemed bigger. Greener, even. The smile was also more familiar now. Since meeting Terri, Biddy had caught herself smiling every now and then, for no apparent reason. Sometimes it would be in the kitchen while making a cup of tea. Sometimes when she was hanging the washing on the line. Once or twice, it had even happened while she was on the toilet.
Today, although she was tired from their long walk on the beach, and her leg was dragging more than usual, Biddy felt good as she waited at the bus stop. The bus driver smiled at her when he punched her ticket, and said, ‘Hello’. She was so startled that it took her a second or two to realise that she had smiled at him first. She had actually looked into his face, and smiled. She was proud of herself, and as she peered out of the bus window and watched the goings-on of life outside: young mothers pushing prams, children playing in their gardens, people crossing roads or driving cars, someone clipping his hedge, a woman throwing a bucket of soapy water onto the pavement in front of her house, a young man jogging – Biddy realised that, for the first time in almost twenty years, she felt at ease on a bus. She was actually enjoying the journey. She didn’t spot Georgina Harte, but if she had, she was sure she wouldn’t have felt sick. Not today. And she’d have held her gaze again, if Georgina had looked at her. She would.
That evening, after Honey’s Pot was over, Biddy pulled an old sketchpad out from the bottom of her wardrobe, found a pencil and a tray of paints tucked away at the back of the cupboard under the kitchen sink, and sat down at the table with her encyclopaedia of birds. She opened the book at the scarlet ibis page and began to draw for the first time in more than three years. The instantaneous rush of relief she felt was intense and consuming, electrifying even – certainly much more satisfying than the pins had ever been, and so much more comforting than sinking her teeth into her knuckles.
Biddy was writing a shopping list the next morning when the phone rang. It had been so long since she’d painted that most of the colours were dry and hard and her pencils were blunt. She could make do, she knew, but as she had lain in bed the previous night thinking about her day and planning what she would paint next, she had decided to venture into Easons on the High Street to buy some new supplies. And she would smile at the shop assistant, she vowed, as she drifted into the best sleep she’d had in months, even if it was someone she recognised from school.
The shrill ring of the phone made her jump and break the nib of the pencil she was using to write her list. She stood up from the kitchen table and walked nervously into the hall, staring at the ringing phone, not knowing whether to answer it or not. She had had a few calls recently from people trying to sell her a mortgage or a mob
ile phone, but they were mostly in the evenings. Sometimes the line went dead as soon as she answered. She didn’t like those calls. They made her nervous. She’d heard, on one of her programmes, about companies who hound people for business. Apparently they used all kinds of tricks to get personal information. So she had simply stopped answering the phone if it rang after six o’clock. Ten o’clock in the morning, however, was a different matter. She stood by the hall table and looked at the ringing phone. Should she answer or not? Answer or not answer? She hummed the question in her head in time to the rings. Her hand hovered over the receiver, then she drew away again. She glanced up from the phone and caught her image in the mirror. ‘Answer it,’ her new reflection seemed to say.
‘Hello?’ she spoke quickly before she had time to change her mind and replace the receiver. ‘Who is it?’
‘Morning, Biddy. Gosh, I was just about to hang up. Hope I didn’t waken you?’
It was Terri. Biddy’s shoulders slumped slightly with relief then immediately tensed up again. Why was Terri phoning her? She never phoned her. Not since the day after they had first met when she said she would. What was wrong?
‘N-no,’ she stammered. ‘No. I wake up at six o’clock.’
‘Good. I’m an early riser myself. Best part of the day. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that unfortunately I have a problem with next Wednesday. An appointment I’m afraid I can’t get out of.’
