The Wicked Girls

Chapter Sixteen

She’s never unlearned the habit of hope. Ever since she can remember, Amber has woken with the same thought: today will be a good day. She learned the practice in her stepfather’s house, clung fast to it at Blackdown. Has marked her life out in small milestones of happiness – the dogs, Vic, her home and its improvements, birthday parties, small gestures of friendship – and refuses to dwell on negatives.

She lies on her back, arms spread across the empty bed, and stares at the daylight leaking past the curtains on to the bedroom ceiling. Day workers are beginning to come home; she can hear engines and car doors and bellowed greetings out on Tennyson Way. The bed is hot, the room frowsty. She throws off the covers and lies there, cooling off. The sun has obviously come out while she’s been asleep. She’s missed another summer day. But thank you, thank you, for giving me summer. It’s going to be OK, I can feel it in my bones. I worry too much, that’s the problem. Nothing bad can happen, I’ve come too far.

Amber gets up, takes a shower and washes last night’s work out of her hair. The water, lukewarm, wakes her up a little. She can hear faint sounds of movement downstairs. Vic is still home – it must be his day off – but she doesn’t hear the sound of voices and guesses Jackie has gone out.

Rubbing her hair with a towel, she checks the clock by the bed. Five p.m. Several hours to work-time. For once, it’s worth putting on home clothes. She digs through the wardrobe and chooses a sundress, gaily printed with a pattern of birds and tropical foliage. Slips it over her head, feels the pleasure of dressing pretty for once, and goes down to find her common-law husband.

He’s sitting at the kitchen table, all the windows and the back door thrown wide. Her bag sits before him, open. He holds something loosely in his hand. She greets him brightly. He merely looks at her, silently, in return. Amber feels the smile slip from her face. The day goes dark.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.

He opens his hand and shows her. ‘So what else have you been lying to me about?’ he asks. His voice is cold, reptilian. She blanches. The Other Vic is back.

He’s holding the cigarette packet Jade pushed into her hand yesterday. She’d shoved it into her handbag and forgotten about it. She stares at it like a rabbit caught in headlights. ‘No, Vic, I… They’re not mine,’ she stumbles.

He raises his eyebrows, then drops them so his eyes are hooded. ‘Liar!’ he says accusingly. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Don’t lie to me. I told you, Amber. I will always find you out.’

‘Vic…’ Lying is his big bugbear, his pet hate. He’s always said it: lying is the biggest betrayal of all. ‘Vic, I’m not lying to you.’

‘Or what?’ he asks. ‘You think I’m stupid then? Don’t take me for a mug, Amber.’

‘I’m not. I-’

‘The whole place stinks of fag smoke. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?’

‘That’s Jackie. C’mon. You know she smokes like a chimney. I’m sorry. It was raining and I let her smoke in the kitchen.’

‘Yeah,’ says Vic. ‘Good try.’

‘No,’ she says, knowing she’s fighting a losing battle. Once he’s got the bit between his teeth, there’s no stopping him. He’ll twist and twist her words until whatever she says sounds like lying. He’ll do it once a month or so, and leave her wrong-footed, shaking. And yet, every time he does it, she tries to protest, tries to assure him he’s wrong, keeps hoping that one day the outcome will be different, the way she did as a child. It’s like some ritual dance they have to perform with the dark of the moon. He’ll apologise afterwards, beg forgiveness, but the intervening days will be a cold, baleful hell of accusing looks and silent judgement. ‘No, you’ve got it all wrong. I swear, Vic.’

‘If you’d just tell me the truth, it’d be a different matter,’ he says, ignoring her. ‘That’s the thing I don’t understand. Why you have to lie about things when you know what it does to me.’

She’s aware that a big fat lie is coming from his own mouth. Come on, she thinks. You don’t really think that. If I came to you and said, ‘Hey, Vic, I’ve decided to go against your wishes and take up smoking again,’ you’d never just say, ‘Oh, OK, babe, that’s fine as long as you’ve told me.’ You know I only gave up because you made me; because the sulks and the barbed remarks about my body smell and the refusal to kiss me wore me down. And the stupid thing is that I know, deep down, that you don’t really care either way. That the reason smoking was an issue was nothing to do with any of those things, or with fear about my health or yours, it was all of it about control. All about imposing your will on mine and watching yourself win.

‘I’m not lying,’ she repeats. She snatches the pack from his hand, turns it over to find Jade’s phone number. ‘Look. That’s why I’ve got it. See?’

She realises her error the instant the words leave her mouth. Wonders if she will ever learn. He’s got her now, can segue straight into new accusations.

He takes the pack from her. ‘What’s this?’

‘A phone number,’ she says hesitantly, wishing she could backtrack. ‘You know how people write phone numbers on fag packets.’

‘People?’ A small smirk plays at the edge of his mouth. ‘And what people would that be, then, Amber? You didn’t tell me about any people.’

Christ, she thinks. Now I do have to lie.

She knows she sounds as guilty as he’s making her feel as she fishes around for the right words. Vic is turning the pack over and over in his hands as she speaks.

‘Just… this chick I used to know,’ she says, and sees his eyes flick up to read her guarded expression. ‘Like… You know… Ages ago.’

‘Chick,’ he says.

Don’t. Don’t rise to it. You know how, when he’s in this mood, he will interpret any sort of excuse, any sort of explanation, as protesting-too-much. ‘Yes, chick,’ she says, trying to make it sound firm and hearing the defensiveness in her tone. ‘Chick from Liverpool. She used to live two doors down from me.’

He says nothing.

‘She was at Funnland,’ she says. ‘I bumped into her. Vic…’

He shakes his head, slowly, emphasising his disbelief. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘What?’

‘OK. So you bump into some chick and you don’t tell me about it?’

‘Jeez. You don’t tell me every detail of your day, do you?’

‘I would if it was something like this.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she lies. ‘I forgot about it. It’s not as big a deal as you’re making it out to be.’

Of course she’d not forgotten. Not the shock of meeting Jade, not the unpleasantness of trying to shake her off. But a scrap of cardboard in the bottom of a loaded handbag? Yes. Maybe the forgetting has some Freudian element to it, is an unconscious way of avoiding dealing with the evidence of the encounter, but she certainly had forgotten, until she saw the pack in Vic’s hand.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘What’s her name then? This chick?’

Amber panics. She can’t use the real name; has probably used it, out loud at least, less in the past twenty-five years than any member of her generation except Jade herself. She flails internally, tries to think of an alternative, finds that every female name she has ever known has fled her head. ‘Jade,’ she says.

She sees a flicker behind the unwavering smile. Some strong reaction, suppressed so she can’t read it. The name has some resonance for him. What it is, she doesn’t know.

‘Yeah, not fast enough, Amber. You took much too long making that up.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Jade. I just couldn’t remember her surname. She just… lived down the road, you know-I don’t know if I ever even knew it. I swear to you, Vic, I’m telling the truth.’

‘Well,’ says Vic, and picks up the phone. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

He dials. There’s silence in the kitchen. Vic smiles at her coldly as the ringtone kicks in. He puts the handset on Speakerphone and waits, staring her out like a crouching panther. Christ, she thinks. What am I doing here? Do I even like this man? Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know him.

A man’s voice, on the other end of the line. ‘Hello?’

Vic’s head jerks; a tiny movement of huge significance. ‘Who’s that?’ he asks.

‘Jim,’ says the man.

‘Jim,’ repeats Vic, and raises a cynical eyebrow at her.

‘Who’s that?’ asks Jim.

‘Vic,’ says Vic. ‘Sorry, Jim, I was looking for Jade.’

The man at the other end of the line sounds calm, casual, unfazed. Her bloke doesn’t know either, thinks Amber. Her whole life’s as big a lie as mine is. ‘No, sorry, mate. I think you’ve got the wrong number. No Jade here.’

‘Oh,’ says Vic, ‘OK. Thanks, Jim.’ He emphasises the syllable for Amber’s benefit.

‘’S’OK,’ says Jim, and hangs up.

Vic puts the phone down on the table. ‘Jim,’ he says.

She leaves it for ten minutes, then follows him upstairs. He’s locked himself into the bathroom; she can hear the sound of running water. She taps at the door and listens. No answer. ‘Vic?’ she calls timidly. Hears the water being turned up harder.

In the bedroom, a shirt lies on the bed; one of his going-out shirts. Her heart sinks. He always does this when he’s angry. Goes out after work without a word and, often, doesn’t come back all night. She’s felt this mood building for days now. Jackie’s presence – her discarded towels, her unwashed tea mugs, the brimming ashtray in the garden – has been increasingly irksome to him. She regrets having asked her to stay. It doesn’t help that Jackie, at close quarters, has proved to be one of those self-absorbed individuals who never notice much beyond their own boundaries. She talks incessantly, every thought that enters her head falling instantly from her lips: lists the source and cost of every purchase she makes, counts calories – her own and other people’s – out loud, rehearses the detail of every slight, every snub, every overlooking that fills her life.

He’s using this as an excuse, she thinks. Really, this is about resenting the fact that I imposed a guest on him without consulting him, and about the fact that I’m too weak to ask her to leave. But raising a subject like that would require that we actually talk, and Vic will do anything to avoid having to do that. He would always rather make his point by withdrawing his presence.

She hears the bathroom door open, turns to see him emerge, topless, his muscles rippling above his jeans. He’s shaved, and gelled his hair. Rubs at the back of his neck with a towel. A clean one, she notices. He’s got it out of the airing cupboard specially. He brushes past her and enters the bedroom; throws the towel pointedly into a corner.

‘Vic,’ she says.

He ignores her. Goes to the bed and picks up the shirt.

‘Are you going out?’

He pops open the mother-of-pearl buttons one by one, still refusing to look at her. I ironed that damn shirt, she thinks. ‘Yes.’

‘Vic.’ She doesn’t know what to say. Wants to persuade him to change his mind, knows the desire is pointless.

His back still turned, he slides his arms into the sleeves and begins to button the shirt up. She can see from the set of his shoulders that he is angry and cherishing his anger. Which is worse? she wonders. A man like Vic, who expresses anger with silence and isolation, or one who, like most of the men around here, expresses it loudly, often physically. Sometimes, as she tiptoes around him, sick with misery and wondering where he goes when he takes off, she wonders if a brief, flailing burst of rage wouldn’t be better.

‘Please,’ she says. ‘Can’t we talk?’

He turns his profile to her, his mouth downturned. ‘Nothing to talk about,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to hear any more lies. I’m done listening to you.’

‘I’m not lying!’ she protests for the thousandth time. ‘Vic! Why won’t you believe me?’

He whirls and strikes, like a cobra. She recoils, tries to get away, but he grabs her arm, grips like a vice and pushes his face close to hers. His eyes have narrowed to slits, and glitter like diamonds. She can smell the mint on his breath where he’s brushed his teeth. He’s planning to score tonight, she thinks. To get back at me. Does he think I don’t know? Or is it the other way round? Does he do it to see how far he can push me before I crack?

‘Don’t you dare speak to me!’ he hisses. ‘I know all about you, Amber. You liar. You bloody, filthy little liar! You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you? I know what you’re like. I know what you’re all like. I thought you were different, but you’re not, are you? You’re just another fucking – slag -’ he lets go of her arm, walks abruptly away, ‘like all the rest of them. A lying’ – he carries on buttoning his shirt, the words coming out calm and matter-of-fact, now that this brief burst of temper is over – ‘fucking – slag.’

He pushes her on to the landing. She props herself against the banister, shocked. He marches past, stone-faced. Moments later, she hears the front door slam.

11.30 a.m.

‘You got any scars?’ asks Jade. The roundabout is slowing down, and she’s not sure she can be bothered to hop off and push any more. It’s funny how boring roundabouts get; she never gets bored on the swings.

‘Scars? Yes.’

‘Me too,’ says Jade. She rolls up her top and shows a line of livid ragged dots running across her ribcage. ‘Barbed wire,’ she informs Bel. ‘When I was three.’

‘Cool!’ says Bel. ‘How?’

‘Fell over,’ says Jade.

‘Did you have to have stitches?’

Jade shakes her head. ‘My dad said it was my own stupid fault.’

‘Mmm,’ says Bel, following the logic.

‘I’ll never learn if I don’t see the consequences,’ says Jade. ‘Go on then. Show us.’

Bel considers, then rolls up her sleeve. Shows the scar down the inside of her upper arm. ‘Operation,’ she says, ‘where I broke it. I’ve got a metal pin in there. I set off bomb detectors in airports. It was all sticking out through my skin and everything.’

‘Nice!’ says Jade. ‘How’d you do that, then?’

The roundabout reaches a standstill. Bel considers her story. ‘Fell downstairs,’ she says casually, ‘when I was four.’ Doesn’t add any detail. Some things you don’t tell to just anybody; she’s long since learned that.

Jade pulls off her sandal to display a slit between her big toe and the next one along. It intrudes a good half-inch into her foot, a ropy red scar delineating the edges.

‘Crikey!’ Bel is impressed. ‘How did you get that?’

Jade tuts. ‘Me and Shane was playing chicken with Darren’s hunting knife and I didn’t get out of the way. My dad says I don’t have the sense I was born with.’

‘Did you go to hospital with that one, then?’

‘Are you kidding? They’d have the SS on us in no time, a Walker coming in with a knife wound.’

‘What’s the SS?’ asks Bel.

‘Social Services. People that come and take the kiddies away,’ explains Jade. ‘They don’t approve of people like us. I’m on the At Risk register,’ she adds proudly. ‘’Cause of Shane. ’Cause he fell off the garage roof when Mum wasn’t looking and that’s why he’s like he is.’

‘Really?’ Bel’s thrilled.

‘Stupid,’ says Jade. ‘Could’ve happened to anybody. Got any more?’

‘I’ve got no toenail,’ says Bel, kicking off her shoe.

Jade studies her big toe admiringly. ‘Woah,’ she says.

Bel feels rather proud. She was too small when it happened for her to have any memory of it, and the lack of it makes her nervous in crowds, when she thinks people might be careless where they step – but to impress a Walker is an achievement. She wonders whether to show the scar on her scalp and decides not to. She’s already learned that there’s such a thing as too much information; and besides, it, too, didn’t merit a hospital visit.

‘D’you want to go on the swings?’

‘Sure.’ They jump off the roundabout and walk across the grass. ‘They’re crap now, these swings,’ says Jade. ‘They’ve gone and put stops on them so you can’t go too high. Steph says you used to be able to go all the way over the top.’

‘Who’s Steph?’

Jade rolls her eyes as though it’s the stupidest question in the world. ‘My sister. She lives over at Carterton now.’

‘Where’s Carterton?’

Jade shakes her head again. This girl really does ask some stupid stuff. ‘Miles away,’ she says, ‘but she’s got a Ford Cortina. Only, her boyfriend won’t let her drive it without him there, so she has to wait to come over. She says the swings used to be on rings, so if you swung and swung, you could loop the loop.’

‘Wow. I bet that was fun,’ lies Bel.

‘Yeah, and they used to have competitions. See which of them could jump the furthest by letting go at the top of the swing. She says she used to be able to get all the way to the sandpit. Only then Debbie Francis went and landed on the see-saw and knocked her front teeth out, and then the council came along and fixed it so’s you can’t go higher than halfway now.’

She pauses as she selects her swing, climbs on board the yellow one. ‘Debbie Francis spoiled it for everybody,’ she announces.

Bel chooses the red swing, settles on to the seat. Kicks her feet up in front of her and starts to fly. ‘So how many brothers and sisters have you got?’ she asks.

‘Six,’ announces Jade self-importantly. ‘Shane, Eddie, Tamara, Steph, Darren, Gary.’

‘Are you Catholics?’

‘No,’ says Jade suspiciously, as though the question has been designed to catch her out. ‘We’re Christians. You can’t say we ain’t. We go church every Christmas.’

‘No, no,’ says Bel. ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant… Never mind.’

‘I’m the youngest,’ says Jade, proudly. ‘My mum says I’m her afterthought.’

Bel kicks higher. She can see over the hedge at the top of her arc, and notices a group of teenagers walking up the lane towards them. They’ve got a littlie in tow; keep stopping to yell at her to keep up. ‘Well, I’m a bastard,’ she announces.

Jade frowns at her reprovingly. ‘Who says that?’

Bel shrugs. ‘Everyone. It’s a fact.’

‘You shu’n’t let people call you things like that,’ Jade says. ‘My dad says, if someone wants to disrespect you, you bloody well show them what disrespect means.’

‘No,’ says Bel. ‘Really. I’m a bastard. A proper one. My mum had me without being married.’

Jade is scandalised. ‘You’re joking me! You know what you’re saying, don’t you? You just said your mum was a slag!’

‘No I didn’t,’ says Bel.

‘Yes you did! Oh my God! You did!’

‘She was nineteen years old and she made a mistake.’ Bel parrots the summary of her own existence.

‘So that kid, your sister. Is she a bastard too?’

‘Half-sister,’ corrects Bel. ‘No. She’s a real daughter.’

‘And your dad’s not your dad?’

‘Course not. My so-called “real” father runs a bar in Thailand. I’ve got two bastard half-sisters, but no one seems to mind that.’

‘Have you met ’em?’

‘Don’t be stupid. I’ve not even met him. Lucinda calls them Nong and Pong.’

‘Who’s Lucinda?’

‘My mother.’

‘Wooah,’ says Jade. ‘My mum’d slap me all ways to Sunday if I tried calling her Lorraine.’

‘Lucinda would kill me if I called her Mummy,’ says Bel. ‘She says I make her feel old enough as it is.’

The teenagers have reached the gate. There are seven of them, all dressed in uniform. Both boys and girls sport huge hair and eyeliner. Great streaks of blusher slash across cheekbones, headbands encircle foreheads and gobs of panstick cover the volcanic surfaces of their faces. The boys wear grandad shirts tucked into jeans so tight they probably threaten their future fertility, and the girls have layered the entire contents of their wardrobes, one on top of the other, in imitation of Madonna. It’s actually inside-out dressing, thinks Bel. Bra on top of vest on top of T-shirt.

‘Oh shit,’ says Jade. ‘It’s Darren.’

Bel looks up, interested. Even she has heard of Darren Walker. He’s sixteen and something of a local celebrity. And not in a good way. Since Darren was expelled from Chipping Norton Comprehensive at fifteen, six months before he was legally able to leave without help, he’s been circulating between the Bench, the war memorial and the playground, with, as rumour has it, only the occasional hiatus for a bit of house-breaking in the villages down the road to finance his fags and cider. In village terms, he’s the equivalent of a gangland warlord and, as a mystery winner in the genetic lottery, is blessed with the sort of strong-but-silent good looks that result in regular catfights in the village-hall toilets. Despite his family’s reputation for smells and parasites, Darren’s been through half the girls in his school year and half of the year above.

Bel drinks in the Adam Ant bone structure, the mop of fine chestnut hair, the long, lean, hard body, and wonders how this god-like being can be related to the pug-faced girl beside her. As someone who’s never had much luck on the popularity front, Bel’s already lining Jade up in her head as a potential Best Friend. But even so, she has to admit that the girl looks like she’s been carved out of lard. Darren’s got his arm slung loosely round the shoulders of Debbie Francis, the girl who once head-butted a see-saw, and Bel feels a surge of envy at the sight of it. Then he sneers, and her temporary illusion falls away.

‘Off!’ he says.

Jade grips the chain of the swing and glares at him. ‘Fuck off, Darren.’

‘Wooo-OOOO-oooo!’ go the acolytes.

‘We’ve brought Chloe up to go on the swings,’ says Debbie. Jade shrugs. ‘Plenty of swings to go round.’

‘Yes, but,’ says Darren proprietorially, ‘we want that one.’

As if for the first time, he notices Bel. Turns his honeyed gaze upon her and looks her up and down. She blushes furiously, stares rigidly at the church spire in the distance. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘Nuffin to do wi’ you, Darren Walker!’ shouts Jade.

‘I know who that is.’ A boy with a pair of George Michael dangly pirate earrings steps forward and stares at her, arms folded. He’s been cultivating a sparse, soft beard, and Bel recognises him as Tony Dolland, the son of the man who owns the garage. Her stepfather has been locked in a legal battle with his father over a planning application for the last two years. They have to drive to Chippy to get petrol now. ‘That’s Annabel Scaramanga.’

‘No it’s not,’ she says. ‘My name’s not Scaramanga. It’s Oldacre. I’m Annabel Oldacre.’

The woooo rises again, blots out the sun. The little girl is hanging back, looking at Bel with astonishment, as though she’s just opened her mouth and spoken German.

‘Well, hoity-toity!’ yells Debbie. ‘Say “air”!’

‘Air,’ says Bel, suspiciously.

‘Say “hair”!’ shouts Tony.

The swing slows beneath her. She’s finding it hard to keep up the impetus while she waits to work out what’s going on. ‘Hair,’ she says.

‘Say “lair”!’ calls someone else.

The word comes out quietly. Her mouth seems to be furring up.

‘Now say ’em all together,’ says Darren, approaching.

‘No,’ says Bel.

‘All right then. Get off that swing.’

‘No,’ says Jade. ‘Fuck off, Darren.’

He jumps forward, grabs Jade’s seat on the upswing, brings it to a violent, sudden halt. Jade loses her grip on the chain, tips backwards and crashes, legs in the air, on to the dusty earth beneath. She lies stunned, gasping for breath.

‘I told you,’ says Darren.

‘Fuck you, Darren,’ she chokes. Her heart wants to burst through her ribcage.

‘I’d get up if I was you. You don’t want to get a bash on the head to go with the one on your arse. C’mon, Chloe!’ He turns to the little girl. She’s about five. Her baby face peers out from the hood of her pink nylon anorak, which she’s tied firmly beneath her chin despite the warmth of the day. She’s flushed with heat, and hangs back behind Debbie, staring at Jade with anxious eyes.

‘Go on,’ says Debbie.

‘Don’t want to,’ says Chloe.

‘Don’t worry about her,’ says Darren. ‘She does what I tell her.’

He prods at Jade with a toe. ‘Go on. Can’t you see you’re scaring her?’

Jade sits up and glares murderously at the child, rubbing her upper arm where she’s caught it on a stone. Chloe understands the meaning of the look, and ducks further behind her sister.

‘Stop showing off, Darren,’ says Jade. ‘Nobody’s impressed.’

‘Come on, Jade,’ says Bel. ‘Let’s just go.’

Her voice sparks another chorus of ‘woo-oo’s from the older kids. She ignores them with a look of imperious contempt.

Jade is boiling with rage and humiliation, but she’s not stupid.

‘C’mon, Chloe!’ says Darren again. The kid comes unwillingly towards him, propelled by her sister. Debbie’s wearing a tight striped sleeveless T-shirt, a bibbed gymslip and the legs of a pair of cut-up footless tights on her arms. A studded leather jacket hangs self-consciously over her shoulders. She’s scraped her hair back into a ponytail and glued false eyelashes over her own stubby blond ones. She bats them at Darren. Crucifix earrings jiggle against her cheeks.

‘You shouldn’t be selfish,’ she says piously to Jade. ‘She’s littler than you.’

She picks Chloe up and deposits her on Jade’s still-warm seat. Starts to push.

‘I’m hungry,’ says Chloe.

‘Oh, for God’s sake. I’ve taken you to the swings, haven’t I?’ snaps Debbie.