by Frances Vick
Claire backed away, as if from something monstrous, unclean, but couldn’t leave, couldn’t look away, until she felt Benji’s wet nose in her palm, heard him whine.
A car was coming, far away, but horribly loud in the quiet night. Benji leapt away towards the house. Claire followed as fast as she could.
40
Back in the kitchen, Benji was cowering under the table, his eyes shifting from her to the door, from her to the door. The sound of the car grew closer, and she could hear the familiar grind and whine of gears: Marianne’s car. Claire scurried back out of the kitchen, down the stairs and back into the cellar, easing the door closed. She shoved her hand and her ankle through the tattered loops of plastic again, and curled up in an approximation of where she’d fallen, thankful that she hadn’t washed the blood from her face.
Benji barked as they came in. Claire heard the tap tap of Marianne’s broken-down heels, Lorna’s signature slam of the door. Then only dulled murmurs. After being in the warmth outside, her aching body groaned against the cruel cold of the cellar floor.
The door to the stairs opened.
‘Go and see then,’ said Lorna. ‘Go and see if you’re worried.’
‘I didn’t say I was worried, Lauren.’ Marianne’s voice was wheedling, shaky. ‘I just asked if you were sure.’
‘Can we get the TV?’
‘I really don’t think we have room for it.’
‘We’ll need it for London though. Won’t we?’
‘Well, we won’t have a flat first thing, I mean, we’ll have to stay in a hotel or something first.’
‘What about that friend of yours?’
‘What friend?’ Marianne’s voice was closer now, as if she was already halfway down the steps.
‘Your friend. The one who’s the dancer. In Islington.’
‘I think it’s Edmonton,’ Marianne said absently. ‘Not Islington. Edmonton.’
‘Her, then.’
‘I’ll make some phone calls, Lauren.’
‘If we can’t take this TV, can we get one in London?’
‘Yes.’ Marianne was at the door now. Claire heard her nervous, quick breathing. She cleared her throat, as if to announce her presence. Funny thing to do, Claire thought, considering she thinks I’m dead.
The door opened, but Marianne didn’t approach her. Her breathing was ragged.
‘What are you doing?’ Lorna asked. She was close now, too. They were both at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I’m . . . looking,’ murmured Marianne. She stepped forward. One heel crunched on the gritty dirt of the floor. Claire held her breath. Marianne came closer. The familiar smell of cigarettes and Angel perfume drifted down. She heard Marianne’s breath catch. She sensed a ringed hand reaching out to touch hers.
‘Auntie May.’ Lorna’s voice was childlike, now. ‘I’m a bit scared. Is she . . .?’
Marianne’s hand froze. Claire heard her straighten up, cough, try to get her voice level. ‘Yes. She’s dead. She’s gone. Don’t be scared, poppet. I’ll . . . I’m coming back up now. You just go back to the kitchen. I’ll be right behind you.’ Lorna scampered up the stairs, and Marianne backed away, heels tapping quicker now, and walked back to the kitchen, leaving the door open.
Claire stayed rigid on the ground, straining to hear.
‘. . . blame you . . .’ she heard Marianne cooing. ‘Not at all . . . been through . . . defending . . .’
Lorna was sobbing. ‘Horrible . . . safe . . .’
‘You are.’ Marianne’s voice was steadier now. ‘Are. I promise.’
The conversation went on for some time, but Claire couldn’t pick up any more distinct words.
They were upstairs for a long time it seemed. Claire heard kitchen cupboards being emptied, trips upstairs, the slamming and re-slamming of car doors.
‘. . . Benji . . .?’ Marianne said.
‘. . . leave . . . be OK . . . beach . . .’ replied Lorna.
‘. . . nice home?’
‘NO! You know why!’ Lorna’s voice was loud. Marianne’s reply was a low rumble of reassurance. ‘She made me . . .’ Lorna’s voice trailed off into sobs.
‘I know, I know poppet. We’ll leave him.’
‘Maybe we can get a kitten? A little ginger kitten?’ Claire could picture Lorna’s dewy eyes, her trembling mouth.
‘A kitten! And we’ll call him Carbonel!’ Marianne trilled.
‘What?’
‘The King of Cats! Haven’t you read Carbonel? Oh, we’ll get it as soon as. It’s all about a clever, talking cat who was taken by an evil witch. It was one of my very favourites!’
‘I want to call it Marmalade,’ Lorna said sullenly.
‘How about Carbonel Marmalade?’
‘That’s just silly.’
‘Well, anything you’d like, poppet, anything you’d like.’
* * *
An hour or so later, they seemed to be ready to leave. By now, Claire’s left side was completely numb, but she daren’t move in case one of them came back downstairs. The car door slammed again, the engine revved, the front door shut. Claire tried to stretch out one foot. It felt like dead meat. And then the front door opened again.
‘Benji!’ Lorna’s voice was syrup itself. ‘Benji, inside, inside now.’
The dog let out a gentle whine. Claire heard the jangle of the lead.
Lorna came down slowly, pulling Benji behind her, to the cellar door. Claire could smell bubblegum, the cloying remains of Marianne’s perfume, and fresh sweat, as Lorna came closer. She poked Claire in the ribs with one foot. Benji whined, and Lorna yanked viciously on his chain until he choked. Then she bent down and stroked one of Claire’s ears with infinite gentleness, scraped one bitten nail down her neck and then wiped her fingers on her jeans. Then she was quiet, so quiet she might not have been there at all. There was just the smell of her.
‘Lauren!’ Marianne must be back in the kitchen. ‘Lauren, sweet? It’s late now. We need to go.’
‘All right. OK.’
‘Are you down there?’ Marianne kept her voice lower.
‘Yes.’
‘Darling. Don’t upset yourself!’
‘OK.’
‘Darling?’
‘OK. I’m coming up.’
She stroked Claire’s face again, and kicked indifferently at her shoulder.
‘Did you let Benji out?’ called Marianne.
‘Yes. He went towards the beach.’
‘You’re right, he’ll find a nice home. Listen, poppet, we really have to go.’
‘I’m coming.’
Claire felt Benji nuzzle into her knees. Lorna giggled. ‘You like her so much, you stay here.’ Claire heard her dusting her hands, heard her pull the door to with a little grunt, heard her run up the stairs, slam the front door. Marianne backed up the car at great speed. And they were gone.
* * *
It took Claire a few failed attempts to get up. The sensation of her blood, crawling its way back to her limbs, made her moan. Benji stayed close, shifting back on his haunches whenever Claire was able to move forward a few inches. When she was upright again, dizziness hit her hard. She managed to get up onto her knees, then support herself on the wall, up the stairs, back into the house, Benji patiently climbing behind her, nosing her calves for encouragement.
In the kitchen, she scrubbed the blood off her face, rinsed out her mouth, gingerly felt for loose teeth. She almost laughed at how outlandish she looked in the mirror: one eyelid cut, the cheek drooping, blood caked in her hair, lips split, ear swollen. Pulling down the neck of her blouse, she saw the fresh flowers of bruises around her shoulders and chest.
She managed to sleep on the sofa, Benji curled up next to her. In the morning her bruises were raised red welts, her eye a garish whirl of colour, her lips too swollen to speak through.
41
She stayed in the house for a week, constantly on guard for Lorna’s return. She showered carefully, bloody hair and scabs clogging the drain
. After a few days she could walk without too much pain, and while her eye remained bloodshot, and her cheek frozen, the cuts began to heal.
When she turned on the TV, she kept the volume low, so as to hear any approaching car. The news was a constant reassurance that the world continued. But there was nothing about the fire, nothing about Lorna’s kidnapping.
Hunger, eventually, drove her out.
She drove to the village with Benji. There were more tourists around now, and, while she’d done her best, with scarves and an old pair of Marianne’s sunglasses, to disguise the damage to her face, people still stared at her. At the shop, she took out her purse; it was splashed with her blood. The woman on the till noticed it.
‘I got tangled up in the dog lead.’ Claire smiled, nodded at Benji tied up outside. ‘He’s a little bit boisterous for me. Fell flat on my face. Do you sell any paracetamol?’
‘We’ve got aspirin?’
‘That’ll do.’
* * *
That afternoon she went through the house carefully, and anything that used to belong to Marianne and Lorna went in a bin bag and was put onto the pile of partially burnt toys and books at the end of the garden. She placed logs and crumpled newspaper around the improvised pit, sat down and watched it burn. A walker on the coastal path waved and shouted up:
‘Having a barbeque?’
‘Having a bit of a clear-out!’ yelled Claire, and waved back.
‘Be careful! The wind can get ahold of a fire like that quickly!’
‘Don’t worry, I’m staying with it till it dies.’
And she did, sitting with Benji until the last spark flew, the last ember died. Then she dragged over the garden hose and doused the ashes. Tomorrow she’d rake through the mess to make sure that everything had gone. Every hateful thing.
* * *
After two weeks, her face had healed well, although her cheek still sagged a little, and while she walked a little stiffly, nobody stared at her in the street any more. She even went to a hairdresser’s. Daphne Charles was now a unisex salon named ‘A Cut Above’ and all the staff were new.
‘Lots of grey. Too much grey for a young lady like you.’ The hairdresser stared at her meaningfully in the mirror. ‘Only thirty pounds for a colour?’
Claire was about to say no. Then she looked at her tired face, still so thin, with the lazy cheek and the brown remnants of bruises, and she said yes instead. ‘I used to be kind of a blonde, if you can believe it? A sort of ash blonde I suppose you’d call it.’
‘And you will be again, my love. I’ll cut first, and then Denise will be over for the colour.’
She was sipping tea and watching Denise’s practised fingers wrapping silver foil around sections of her hair, when she heard the news on the radio.
A woman had been found dead in a London hotel room. Her daughter was missing.
Denise clucked and shook her head.
‘London. It always happens in London, doesn’t it? We’re safer, tucked away here, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ Claire answered, from far away.
‘Are you all right, my darling?’ Denise stared at her in the mirror. ‘You look, I hope you don’t mind me saying, you look peaky all of a sudden.’
Claire shook her head. The foil wrappers rattled. ‘I was just thinking, about that poor woman. On the radio. Silly. It just got to me . . .’
Denise smiled, turned the radio off. ‘London,’ she said.
‘London,’ Claire agreed.
When she got back home, she turned on the news, but all the reports were tantalisingly vague and brief. No pictures of the victim, no information on the daughter, just a static shot of one of those slightly seedy hotels in the ungentrified area of King’s Cross. Clarence House, it was called. Teenagers from the nearby FE college gurned behind the reporter. There would be more news ‘as we have it’.
It was just a news story. There was no reason to assume it had anything to do with Lorna . . . but still, Claire kept the TV on all day and she didn’t go outside, or even leave the living room. She skipped, instead, between news channels, searching for more on the story. There was nothing until later that afternoon. The same shot of the same hotel, the same reporter, but different faces in the background; commuters now.
‘. . . body found of a woman. She has been identified as Marianne Cairns, forty-eight, who had previously worked as a teaching assistant in secondary schools in the Bristol area. She checked in a week ago with her daughter, Lauren, who is now missing. The hotel manager says that he heard raised voices on the morning of the twenty-third, but that the woman and her daughter were seen later that day, apparently fine. It wasn’t until two days later, when they were due to check out of the room, that the body of the woman was discovered. The police are treating it as suspicious. You can see behind me the white forensic tent covering the window of what we presume is the room in question. Police now are appealing to the public for any information about Ms Cairns, and of course, her daughter.’
Claire pulled Benji close, flipped to another channel.
‘. . . unconfirmed reports that the woman, Marianne Cairns, was beaten with some kind of blunt object. These reports, if confirmed, would certainly point to a murder inquiry. The Metropolitan Police have put out an appeal for anyone who has any information regarding the whereabouts of Ms Cairns’ daughter.’
A policeman stood behind a row of tables, facing a bank of reporters.
‘. . . imperative that we find the child, named Lauren, who has been described as white, between nine and eleven years old, with brown bobbed hair. When last seen she was wearing a pink T-shirt and blue jeans, as well as distinctive trainers with lights on the side and back. We encourage anyone who has any information on the whereabouts of Lauren to call the information line number . . .’
Claire was still watching the TV hours later, when she realised that the sky was now dark, and that she hadn’t moved for hours. There was no more news on the whereabouts of Lorna. Claire double-locked the door, stayed awake all night, waiting in the dark.
It was strange, so strange, but she found herself worrying about Lorna. Was she safe? She was alone. In London. And she was so small.
42
The next morning, Lorna was found, begging on Holloway Road. She’d been sleeping behind an Ethiopian café, going through the bins for food. She told police that she’d run away from home, but was unable to give them a full address. She said that she was begging to save up money to go to Paris to become a dancer. It wasn’t long before they asked her about the hotel in King’s Cross. She was distraught, she was frightened. It took the social worker a long time to win her trust, still longer to get her to talk about it . . .
The woman, Marianne, well, at first she was nice. Really nice. Like an auntie. And she seemed so sympathetic when she told her about Pete, about the horrible things that were happening to her at home. They’d just met on the street – no, a park. That was it. Lorna was crying because of Pete, and Marianne had been so nice. She’d bought her a hot chocolate and given her her phone number. Then they’d met again when Lorna had been crying at the bus station, and Marianne had taken her to a café, got her some food. She was nice to talk to. And then she’d met her again, and again. It just seemed that whenever Lorna was in trouble, Marianne would be there. They drove around. Marianne told her she was pretty, that she could be a dancer, be on TV.
Lorna trusted her. She loved her. They talked about going away together. Marianne said that some people just didn’t deserve to have kids, and that she’d keep her safe.
And then she was in Marianne’s car, and they were going somewhere safe. She was going to be safe from now on. But she wasn’t. Instead they went to and from different flats and hotel rooms, and there’d be people in the rooms waiting. Men. And at first Marianne didn’t make her do things, but then she did. She said she had to do them, or they wouldn’t have enough money to start their new life together. They were going to have a cottage, in the woods, or maybe by the sea
side. But all that took money, and Lorna had to do things to make money. Marianne said she was so sorry, but it wouldn’t be for a long time, just until they had enough money . . . And she was still telling her, ‘You’ll be a dancer, you’ll be famous. Just do what I say and things will get better.’ And Lorna believed her, trusted her, and passed up the opportunity to confide in hotel staff about what was going on.
But it didn’t get better, it got even worse. Marianne wanted her to do things, even worse things, for the internet. There were cameras and it was scary. She was so scared! And then Marianne stopped being nice. She said they’d never get their cottage if Lorna was so selfish, that she knew another girl who’d jump at the chance to live by the sea. And so Lorna had said, all right, I want to leave, then. That was the argument that the hotel staff must have heard. But Marianne persuaded her to stay. She said she only had to do one more thing, and they might, just might, have enough money to stop for ever. But that one last thing was too awful, too much, and Lorna said no. And when she put two of the stones in the ornamental plant pots in the lobby in her knee sock, and told Marianne she was going to leave, she wasn’t really going to hit her! She just wanted to scare her, but Marianne went crazy, and Lorna – well, she just shut her eyes tight and swung. Not even knowing what she was doing really, just wanting to protect herself, just wanting to get out. And then she ran as fast as she could, before Marianne could grab her. She had run downstairs without anyone seeing her, and kept running.
