STARLA
Starla shook her limbs and stretched her neck by moving her head in a circular motion. She let herself out of the house and onto the road. Marnie was on her haunches at the rear of her car, picking scattered items up from her kit, having dropped it down angrily to open the car boot: hairbrushes, rollers and suchlike. Starla soundlessly climbed into the back seat. She settled down next to Skye’s empty car seat and wondered how she could even begin to make everything right.
So far, no good had come from this ‘gift’ that Star had bestowed upon her. Instead of enjoying a new body, she was losing her mind! Before this bizarre fantasy, she was upbeat, positive, and cheery. Now she had accused her eldest daughter of lying, she had seen evidence that meant her youngest daughter was being bullied, and she had even heard ridiculous allegations about her partner being unfaithful!
Although she was devastated about Marnie’s angry walk out, Starla had to hope that things would blow over. What was that phrase she’d heard on the telly? Today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chip paper? Something like that. Surely, the magazine article would be forgotten in a week or two?
Also, since Starla was not prepared to take gossip as gospel, especially gossip in a female-dominated place like Bubbles Nursery, she was loathe to point the finger of mistrust at Jakey. She always knew where Jakey was. If he was seeing someone else, he’d have a hard job actually seeing them. Every waking moment was either spent at home, usually in the kitchen, or working at the Muncaster Hotel. He saw his mother once a week and if he went grocery shopping, he usually took Billie. No, Starla reasoned, there was no way Jakey would have the time or energy to see another woman.
That left just one problem to focus upon. Billie – and the repugnant bullying directed at her online. Starla needed to get to St Jude’s and alert staff to Billie’s plight, assuming that the bullies were children from the same school. And just how was she going to achieve this when she was both invisible and inaudible? Jakey had said that he would ‘try’ to discuss it tonight. Marnie had offered to ‘perhaps’ phone Guy – before she flounced out in a temper. Everything was too vague. Starla needed to do something concrete, something proactive, something now!
All the thinking began to make Starla’s head throb and she rested it upon the car window. Marnie drove down to the end of Jubilee Terrace, turned left onto Church Street and travelled down towards St Mary’s – the same route that Starla had walked that morning. Marnie indicated right just before the church and negotiated her Peugeot down the track to Bubbles Nursery. She inserted a card into the barrier reader and it lifted slowly so that she could enter the premises.
Starla decided to stay in the car to wait for Marnie to return with Skye. Marnie walked towards the main door to the nursery but, instead of going in, she stood outside and rummaged through her handbag. Starla’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. Marnie was lighting – and smoking – a cigarette! Such a nasty, filthy pastime and one that none of her children indulged in – or so she had thought! Starla felt disappointed that Marnie was a smoker but, moreover, she was angry at the deception.
Before long, Marnie had finished her cigarette, collected Skye and was strapping her into the car seat. The little girl barely pausing her chatter to draw breath.
“Mrs Harman got a broken nose today, Mammy. Mammy? Mrs Harman got a broken nose.”
“Did she, darling? However did she do that?”
“She jump-tid into the sandpit with me and Katie and Dane and Lewis. And she banged-did her nose on a tractor. And she was cross. And Mrs Jones did say she fell over. But Mammy…? Mammy?”
“Yes, darling. I’m driving.”
“It was a bit funny but then Mrs Harman was very cross and she had blood. And Katie cried afterwards cos she says that when you get blood it’s very sad, like when she fell over and her mammy had to put a plaster on her knee. But then Katie was better when she saw it was a plaster with a picture of Peppa Pig on it and it mended her knee. But Mrs Harman didn’t get a plaster on her nose and she had to go home.”
“Oh dear. That sounds sad.” Marnie was checking for traffic and answering on automatic.
Skye clutched a small pink rabbit and, while her mother drove, she used it to re-enact Nyree’s fall into the sandpit. Eventually, she yawned and closed her eyes. Starla resisted the urge to stroke the little girl’s beautifully smooth cheek and kiss her tiny rosebud lips.
A sudden burst of popular music came from Marnie’s handbag which was chucked on the passenger seat, causing Skye to open her eyes momentarily before nestling back into sleep. Marnie reached across and extracted her phone:
Hello.
Oh hi, Max.
Yes, yes I got them.
No, I know but I’m driving right now.
Although Starla had never driven a car, she had quite a good understanding about safe driving and Marnie using her mobile was not something she felt very pleased about, especially when Skye was in the back of the car. She sat fuming. There was nothing else she could do, save knock the phone from Marnie’s hand, and that would probably affect Marnie’s ability to drive more than the conversation she was having.
Cape Verde. Yes, yes, it’s fine.
And a date for the shooting?
OK, cool. Yep. Yep.
Not a problem. All the equipment can be easily sorted.
Look, send me an email with a list of requirements.
OK, cool.
OK, see you then.
Cheers Max. Bye.
Bye.
Starla frowned. So Marnie wasn’t going to Cape Verde with Rob. She was going with someone called Max. And, even worse, someone was going to be shot! Killed! Dead! And she’d thought things were bad enough when she’d seen Marnie smoking a cigarette! What sort of world had she stepped outside into? She’d seen all manner and types of dramas on telly but imagined them to be complete fiction. Most of what she saw in her living room now appeared to be based on fact! Bullying, affairs, shootings… Starla felt chilled and fought the desire to jump from the vehicle with her granddaughter.
Instead of replacing the phone into her handbag, Marnie punched in some numbers. While she waited for a response the other end, she pulled into the parking area of a petrol station in Hawpeak town centre, opposite St Jude’s.
“Why have we stopped, Mammy?” asked Skye sleepily from her car seat.
“Sssh… have a little nap sweetie.”
Starla couldn’t believe the saccharin words coming from Marnie. Sweet talk, from the lips of a murderer. Starla felt herself starting to panic.
As an overweight agoraphobic, Clara often experienced panic attacks but hadn’t expected to do so in Starla’s body. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand and tried desperately to slow her breathing.
Hey Guy.
Marnie was phoning Guy! Was Guy in on the shooting too?
Yeah, fine. Look, sorry to bother you at work…
Slow, slow breathing. Starla closed her eyes.
Yes, I know. Sorry, I’ll make it a quick one.
It’s Billie.
Slow, slow breathing.
She’s got herself into a bit of bother on social networking. It seems they don’t pull each other’s hair now, they use the internet.
Starla’s breathing rose a little as she thought of the cruel words she had read on Billie’s laptop.
Oh my god! I mean I knew something about it, of course, but I didn’t realise it was that widespread!
Oh right. Well, is there any way you could have a look?
OK. Do you know about this interview Mam’s given for a magazine?
Starla’s eyes flew open and she willed Marnie not to say anything else. She didn’t want any more of her children upset over Mr Kelly’s article and she certainly, certainly didn’t want Jakey to read it.
Oh, some dumb woman’s magazine. Femme Fanfare, I think it’s called. Trouble is, she’s used photos of Billie, and Skye for that matter, and some of the kids at school must have seen it or something.
<
br /> Well, furious obviously! I don’t think I’ve ever felt so angry with her!
Yes, a big picture of Mam.
Yes, I know.
Exactly. Just the material your local bully needs.
I don’t know. I’ve not seen her. Mam said she’d stomped out this morning.
OK, let me know when you can.
I’m on my way home now.
Yeah, thanks Guy.
OK. Yep, bye.
Marnie twisted round, peering between the front seats to see if Skye was still asleep. Starla looked carefully at her daughter’s face. Marnie held such a loving expression as she watched Skye, yet she was planning to leave her for a week so that she could be with another man – a partner in crime, no less. Starla was confused. Marnie was a cold, cruel criminal who was obviously still fuming about the magazine article, yet she still cared enough for her young half-sister to ring Guy. She was a walking contradiction!
While Marnie scrabbled around for her sunglasses in the glove box, Starla quickly and quietly let herself out of the car. She saw Marnie swivel round upon hearing the door slam shut, confusion flicking over her face. She saw her pat Skye, ensuring all was well, and then she heard the clunk of the central locking system. Marnie had obviously been startled into greater safety precautions.
Starla crossed the forecourt and sat on a wall. The sun had come out and, although the air had a slight chill to it, she closed her eyes and turned her face upwards, concentrating her breathing until it slowly returned to normal.
When Starla eventually opened her eyes, she saw that this was the petrol station she’d sneaked out of school to visit when she was just a girl at St Jude’s. They’d had a wide selection of chocolate bars and crisps in those days – they probably still had. Starla wondered if she would have bothered with the high calorie snacks, had they served up better food in the school canteen. As a ‘free school meal’ kid, she’d hated the fact that she had to sit and eat hot slop while her friends went off to buy brightly coloured sweets and well-advertised chocolate. Even now, she could almost imagine them skipping over poppy fields with their crumbly Flakes and big, bouncy perms. Not that there were any fields around this part of Hawpeak.
Starla remembered reaching a point when she could no longer bear a day without salty, sweet or sugary food. A boy in the year above her, Barry Gardner, bought dinner tickets off free school meal kids for fifty pence, which he then sold on to unsuspecting first years for a pound (as opposed to the one pound twenty five they had to pay via official channels). It wasn’t much; it only bought a chocolate bar and a couple of bags of cheap crisps, but it meant Starla could escape from school and indulge in her favourite snacks. Everyone was a winner, particularly Barry Gardner, although Starla wondered if she was perhaps put on the road to being a loser when she first thought that chocolate could substitute a good cooked meal. Perhaps Barry Gardner had been the only winner in the long run. She’d read in the local paper that he’d gone on to create a discount food chain which turned him into a billionaire.
11
Tuesday
STARLA
St Jude’s had changed a great deal. They’d added the word ‘Academy’ in prominent, elevated letters to the brick wall which faced the public entrance. In Starla’s day that wall had been the end of a long block of classrooms; multiple small square windows above rotting wood panels painted in the school colours – murky green and mustard yellow. Now the squares of windows and wood were gone, replaced by an immense wall of mirrored glass. The front of the school looked more like a hotel or alien spacecraft than a secondary school. It curved round the roundabout and coach bays like a giant scimitar, highly polished with the sunlight bouncing off it into the eyes of anyone advancing up the long, sweeping drive.
At the end of the mirrored glass wall, a reception area nestled back politely inviting visitors to ‘Sign In Here’. Starla waited for someone to either enter or leave the building so that she could slip in, since she could see that the reception doors were locked and buzzer-controlled.
She sat on the edge of a raised flower bed outside the reception doors and thought about what she could do now that she was here. It gave her some comfort to know that she was near to Billie, although she was unsure how she could even begin to help, given her current silent and unseen circumstances.
Star’s words suddenly popped into her head:
“I cannot be seen or heard… as long as I wear this ring.”
Did that mean then that, without the Celtic ring, Starla could be seen and heard? Well, she mused, there’s only one way to find out. Starla took the ring off with ease and gently placed it inside her back pocket.
She walked up to the main door and pressed the buzzer. The door opened and Starla faced a desk behind which sat a thin, long-faced woman who had lost her neck and chest to a vast, draped scarf pinned with a brooch to one shoulder. Starla wondered if the toga-theme continued below the desk; whether, in fact, it was ‘dress up as a Roman’ day.
The long-faced woman tilted her head to one side and waited for Starla to state her business. Starla still wasn’t sure she could be seen or heard so she began tentatively.
“Hi… I… I don’t have an appointment but… could I… could I see the Head of Year please?”
“Mr Pantling? Mr Patel? Miss Warden? Mrs Lambert? Mr Jenkins? Miss Keane?” enquired the long-faced receptionist.
Starla turned round, thinking that the receptionist must be addressing a group of people behind her. Funny, nobody else was even in reception.
“Mr Pantling? Mr Patel? Miss Warden? Mrs Lambert? Mr Jenkins? Miss Keane?” repeated the long-faced receptionist, looking bored. “Which Head of Year did you wish to contact?”
“Oh right,” Starla was relieved she could be seen and heard. “The thing is, I don’t know. My daughter is Billie Jackson. She was fifteen in January.”
The receptionist typed something into a computer on the reception desk.
“Mrs Lambert,” she said, without taking her eyes from the screen.
“No, no, I’m Miss Waterf… Mrs Jackson. I’m here about Billie Jackson.”
“The Head of Year 10 is Mrs Lambert,” stated the long-faced receptionist, looking at Starla as if she were stupid.
“Oh, well, yes. Yes please. That’ll do then. Mrs Lambert. That would be good. To see her, I mean. If she’s available, that is.”
Starla wasn’t used to interacting with anyone other than family or health professionals. No wonder she’d babbled so much to Steven Kelly. She was babbling in a similar way now.
Without so much as a glance, the long-faced woman punched some numbers into a switchboard telephone and waited for a response the other end.
Starla wandered away from the desk to look at some wall displays in the foyer. The art work interested her particularly. It all seemed so… professional. Beneath some two dimensional stylised paintings of city skylines, stood a trestle table covered in grotesque busts. Clearly, the busts were supposed to be monsters or gargoyles or some such. Many of them looked a lot like the sort of thing you’d see in a modern horror or science fiction film.
The next board along celebrated the success of St Jude’s recent production: Sweeney Todd. In the centre of the display was the programme, complete with cast list, and pinned around the outside were various photos of the on-stage action. Blood droplets cut from red paper formed an interesting, if rather macabre, border. Some of the photos showed Billie, playing one of Mrs Lovett’s pie customers. She looked amazing, all made up and acting her little heart out.
Starla felt a swell of sorrow wash over her; she had missed so many of Billie’s school successes. She was barely fit to be a parent of one child, let alone the mother of five.
“Mrs Jackson?”
Starla almost didn’t turn round, the name being unfamiliar to her.
“Mrs Jackson? Hi, I’m Tanya Lambert – Head of Year 10. I’m so glad you’ve come in today because I’ve been trying to get in touch. Would you like to sign into our
visitors’ log and follow me? Verity, could you give Mrs Jackson a lanyard and visitor badge please.”
A young woman with dark hair, heavily pregnant yet wearing a tight navy tracksuit, stepped towards Starla and shook her hand. Verity, the long-faced receptionist, gave Starla the log to sign and issued her with a badge. Mrs Lambert pointed Starla towards a short, curved staircase leading from the reception area to a frosted glass-windowed meeting room, which appeared to half-hang from the high ceiling like a wasp’s nest. Opening the door, she flicked the lights on and ushered Starla inside. The room smelt of new books and teenage boys. It reminded Starla of her own days at St Jude’s.
Mrs Lambert gestured Starla to be seated at the only table in the room, an immense oval conference table. She then pulled out a chair to one side, trying to accommodate her enormous bump under the table sideways so that she could write if necessary. She noticed Starla’s eyes fall to her midriff so she patted it and laughed awkwardly.
“Third time pregnant for me and I’m told I’ve got twins on board! Should have stopped at two really but you know how it goes! Sorry about the tracksuit by the way. I teach PE. I do usually wear a posh suit to parents’ evenings and meetings. Obviously I didn’t know you were coming in today. Thankfully, you just caught me in the middle of a Free.”
“I know what it’s like to have more children than you expected and I’ve definitely been there with the twin thing!” Starla immediately felt comfortable with Mrs Lambert. “You said you wanted to see me? Is this about the cyberbullying issue?”
Dying to Be Slim Page 8
