The Dare, page 11
‘Lizzie, you have to believe me, I didn’t give her your number. I didn’t even know what it was until this morning, when you texted me.’
‘She rang the landline.’
‘Was it someone called Ruby Orchard?’
‘Yes.’
‘She found me, too. It’s because of this latest tragedy. Elodie Stevens.’
‘I know.’
Catherine sighs. ‘I wasn’t going to speak to her, not after all the press intrusion we had before. That kind of thing puts you off reporters for life – they’re like vultures, some of them – but, well, Ruby sounded different. It’s a serious piece she’s putting together. I … I agreed to meet her.’
She takes a sip of her coffee.
‘I only intended to stay for one drink, but we really hit it off. It was only the next morning that I realized they’re all like that, aren’t they? Friendly. Chatty. It’s an art, getting a complete stranger to open up to you and drop their defences.’ She gives a rueful laugh. ‘I should have known better than to meet her in a wine bar. It had been a long day at work and, well, you know how it is.’
‘So you told her you’d met up with me again.’
Now there’s no mistaking the colour in her face and neck.
‘It came out in conversation, yes, that you were the girlfriend of one of my colleagues.’ Fiancée, I silently correct her. ‘I’m sorry, Lizzie. It was a stupid mistake to make. I guess a snippet like that’s all they need to ferret someone out. But honestly, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. As I said, it’s an interesting piece she’s planning. Not at all sensationalist. The way I see it, if her article helps to get the remaining open crossings closed or at the very least improve their safety, it’ll be a good thing, won’t it? So no other child will suffer the same fate as Alice and Elodie and all the others who’ve needlessly lost their lives in the past.’
‘When you put it like that …’ I say. But I know I’ll never speak to Ruby Orchard. I won’t speak to any reporter.
29
Then: Before
Saturday, 16 June 2007
We wait till Catherine has left the house. Then we kneel on Alice’s bed, which is positioned under the window in her room, and with our elbows on the sill, we watch as she walks up the street in her denim shorts and high heels, her tiny shoulder bag bouncing against her hip bone.
I’m glad Alice and I have made up after our horrible row the night of the disco. We’ve both said sorry and we’re almost back to normal, although I don’t think either of us is ever going to forget about it.
‘Where’s she going?’ I ask.
‘She’s meeting her boyfriend for lunch in Nando’s.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Dunno. Never met him.’
‘What’s he called?’
Alice shrugs. ‘Every time Dad or I ask her, she gets all cross and tells us to mind our own business.’
‘Is that fake tan on her legs?’
‘She’s had one of those professional sprays at the beauty salon.’
‘Hope he’s worth it.’
Alice giggles. ‘Not if he’s taking her to Nando’s, he isn’t.’
‘Do you think they have sex?’
Alice peers down the street. Catherine has now disappeared from sight. ‘Let’s go and look in her room and see if we can find any evidence.’
‘What, you mean like check her sheets?’
Alice rolls her eyes. ‘No, of course not. She never brings him here. I mean contraceptives.’
We’ve just learned about contraceptives in Sex and Relationships at school.
It gives me an uncomfortable feeling, being in Catherine Dawson’s bedroom. If she changes her mind for some reason and comes back to the house and catches us in here, she’ll go ballistic. I’ll never forget that time she slapped Alice round the face. Such a vicious slap, too. Alice’s cheek was red for ages afterwards. She tried to be brave and pretend it didn’t hurt, but it must have really stung. I’m sure if Alice had been on her own, Catherine wouldn’t have reacted half so badly. It was the fact that she’d sprayed the perfume on to my wrist that made her so angry. Why does she hate me so much?
Alice is already kneeling in front of her sister’s bedside cabinet and looking in the top drawer. I peer, nervously, over her shoulder. It’s really messy in there. Sweet wrappers and lip-balm sticks; empty boxes of paracetamol; hair grips and scrunchies; emery boards and throat sweets. At least she won’t notice that the contents of the drawer have been disturbed.
At last, Alice pulls out a rectangular blister pack of white pills with days of the week printed under each one and little arrows indicating which order to take them in.
‘Are these what I think they are?’ she says, a note of glee in her voice.
I count the pills. ‘Twenty-one. Yes. She’s on the pill.’
‘I wonder where they do it.’
‘Perhaps he’s got a car.’
Alice giggles again. ‘We ought to follow her. See where they go.’ She puts the pills back in the drawer and shuts it. ‘Shall we? We could spy on them in Nando’s.’
‘But what if she sees us?’
‘She won’t. Come on, it’ll be fun.’
We pull our trainers on and leave the house. If we were at mine, I’d have had to tell Mum and Dad where we were going – they’d want to know. But things are different at Alice’s house. Alice’s dad is dismantling a car engine in the back garden and doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered what we do, and her mum is in bed again. Last week she was up and about and chatting to the neighbour. Last week was a good week. That’s what Alice told me earlier, in that matter-of-fact way she has when she talks about her mum’s illness. Last week was a good week and this week isn’t. I hope I never suffer from depression.
We walk to the high street. It doesn’t take long from Riley Road. Catherine must be there by now.
‘I don’t see how this is going to work,’ I say. ‘If we look through the window, she’ll see us, won’t she?’
‘God, Lizzie, you’re such a worrier. We’re not going to look through the window. We’re going to watch from somewhere we can see the entrance and wait till they come out. Then we’ll follow them.’
‘But they might be in there ages.’
Alice gives one of her long sighs. ‘You’d make a terrible detective. You have to be patient on a stake-out.’
She pulls out a big packet of American Hard Gums that she’s somehow managed to stuff into the pocket of her jeans. She must have swiped it from the goody cupboard on her way out – the one that’s always stuffed full of sweets and chocolate biscuits and packets of crisps. The sorts of things my mum and dad never buy.
We sit on the wide stone steps outside the town hall, the packet of Hard Gums between us. We watch. We wait. We chew.
Every time someone goes in or comes out of Nando’s, we sit up a little straighter. The sun is warm on our bare legs – Alice’s are browner than mine, which is annoying, but then she has a different skin tone to me, more olive-coloured, so she tans easily. With my pale, freckled skin, I have to be careful I don’t burn. I tried one of those self-tanning lotions once. Big mistake. I looked orange and streaky for weeks.
The gums taste good and for a while it’s fun. But it soon gets boring, having to look in one direction the whole time, and I’ve eaten too many gums and my teeth feel all sticky. I’m thirsty, too.
All of a sudden, Alice grabs me by the arm. ‘There they are! Look! They’re heading for the bridge. Let’s go!’
We follow them from a distance. Now this is exciting. I feel like I’m a character in a film. A private eye. The man is tall and slim. He’s wearing board shorts and a T-shirt and he’s got a navy baseball cap on the wrong way round. His arm is loose around Catherine’s waist and she’s leaning up against him as they walk. Her shorts are cut so high you can actually see her bum cheeks. Every so often the man’s hand slips away from her waist and down towards the back of her shorts. One time he does this, he grabs a handful of her right bum cheek and gives it a squeeze. Catherine doesn’t even flinch. She just lets him.
We’ve crossed over the bridge now and are heading for the subway that goes under the dual carriageway.
‘They’re definitely going to do it,’ Alice says, her eyes glued to her sister’s bottom.
We follow them down into the underpass, waiting till they’re almost at the end of the tunnel before we set off after them. When we see which exit they’ve taken we speed up.
Out in the sunlight again, it isn’t immediately clear where they’ve gone, and for a few seconds we think we’ve lost them. But then I spot them in the car park, climbing into a blue car.
‘Shit,’ Alice says. ‘That’s the end of that, then. They’re just going to drive off, aren’t they?’
Except the car doesn’t go anywhere. We climb over the low wall that separates the car park from the pavement and creep as close as we dare, keeping low so that we’re hidden by the other parked cars.
‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘Where’s she gone? I can only see him in there now. She must have got out.’
Alice peeps round the white van we’re now hiding behind. ‘No, she’s still in there.’
‘But why can’t we—’
Alice looks at me and inserts her index finger into her mouth, starts sucking it and pushing it in and out.
I clap my hands to my mouth and collapse in a fit of giggles.
‘Look at his face, Lizzie. Look at his face!’
I squint to get a better view. It’s hard to see much from this distance but I can just make out that he’s extended his head back on to the headrest so that his chin is sticking up in the air.
Alice retrieves the packet of Hard Gums from her pocket. There are only two left now so we have one each.
We watch. We wait. We chew.
‘How long do you think it takes to give someone a blow-job?’ I ask, my mouth still full of Hard Gum.
Alice smirks. ‘Depends how good you are. They like it more if you swallow.’
The last of the Hard Gum slips down my throat. I slide my eyes to the side to look at Alice’s face. How come she knows all this stuff and I don’t? I think of the way Dave Farley’s hands rested in the small of her back when he danced with her. How close together they were. No, she can’t have done. She would have told me, wouldn’t she? That nasty feeling I get when I think of Alice having a boyfriend makes me clench my jaw.
Suddenly, her expression changes and I look back at the car. The man in the back-to-front baseball cap has started convulsing in the driver’s seat. I stare at him, transfixed. What on earth …?
Alice nudges me in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Think you’ve got your answer, Lizzie. I make that just under five minutes.’
30
Now
‘This is meant to be the finest example of Jacobean domestic architecture in the country,’ Catherine says. She’s reading from her phone. ‘And now they’ve got a pizza restaurant in the minstrels’ gallery.’
She laughs, and for one startling moment it’s as though Alice has come back as a fully grown woman. I never realized before how alike the two of them were. Their voices, their laughs, their mannerisms. She has the same high cheekbones as well. The same olive-coloured skin and dark, glossy hair.
I’m not quite sure how it happened, because agreeing to meet for a coffee was only ever intended as a means to quiz her about that reporter, but instead of going straight home as soon as we’d finished, I’ve somehow allowed myself to be led round the park and entertained by her, as if we’re old friends. Now, we’re standing in front of Charlton House. I stare at the imposing red-brick building, trying to work out what’s going on here.
A gust of wind blows my hair over my eyes and I reach into my pocket for a scrunchie, gather my wayward curls into a ponytail.
‘You look so different now,’ Catherine says. ‘Long hair suits you.’
I spy on her from the corner of my eye. The old Catherine would probably have followed this up with something horrible like ‘Especially when it covers your face.’ But this new, nicer Catherine lets the compliment hang in the air and I find myself thanking her.
‘Do you ever think of the old days, in Riley Road?’ she asks.
The mention of Riley Road does something weird to my insides.
‘I think of them all the time,’ she says. ‘I almost went back to see our old house a few years ago.’
‘Oh, so your parents moved, then?’
‘Yes, they live in a little village in North Devon now. Moving to the countryside was good for them. Especially Mum.’
I take a deep breath. Even though I know that Sheena Dawson suffered from depression well before Alice died, her younger daughter’s tragic death must have catapulted her into the darkest place for the longest of times and I can’t help feeling guilty about that. Because I could never give her what she needed. I could never tell her what happened.
‘They must be very proud of you, being a nurse.’
She nods. ‘They are.’
‘You used to work as a secretary, didn’t you? What made you go into nursing?’ I keep my voice as casual as I can, aware that my heart is beating faster. Surely she must realize that it’s the last career I would ever have imagined her pursuing.
She sighs. ‘I suppose it was because of Mum. Her depression forced me to take responsibility for things from a very young age. I had to help Dad look after her. And when Alice came along, I looked after her, too. Dad worked long hours at the shop and Mum wasn’t up to much at all after the birth.’
A crow swoops across the sky and lands on one of the chimney pots of Charlton House. A few seconds later, it’s joined by two more. The three of them screech at each other and Catherine and I both look up at the same time.
I steal a glance at her from the corner of my eye. It wasn’t exactly the happiest household even before Alice died. If Sheena Dawson wasn’t lying in her bed in a welter of depression for weeks on end, she was distant and uptight, more concerned with cleaning the house from top to bottom and despairing over the state of their garden than with the emotional wellbeing of her two daughters.
‘It must be nice to have a vocation,’ I say, trying to steer the conversation back on to safer ground. ‘I’ve never really worked out what it is I want to do with my life.’
‘Why do you think that is?’ she says.
‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps I’ve let my seizures hold me back. Or rather, the fear of them.’
Catherine doesn’t respond. It was the wrong thing to say. The only seizure I can think of right now is the one I had at the railway crossing. She must be thinking the exact same thing. How could I have been so thoughtless?
But suddenly, she’s leaning in towards me, eyes wide. ‘You shouldn’t let anything hold you back,’ she says. ‘When you work out what it is you need to do, you have to go for it, one hundred per cent.’
‘I was going to apply to do an English degree at Greenwich University.’
‘So what’s stopping you?’
I open my mouth, then close it again. The urge to tell her about the pregnancy clamours at the back of my throat. Something stops me, though. Some instinct it might hit a nerve.
‘Not sure, really. Maybe I just need to settle here first.’
‘Lizzie,’ she says, standing still all of a sudden. ‘Would it be all right if we did this again sometime? I mean, you probably don’t want to and I wouldn’t blame you at all if you’d rather not, it’s just that, I don’t have many friends here yet and …’ She shakes her head and starts walking again. ‘Sorry, it’s a stupid idea. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. Forget I ever said anything.’
‘No, it’s okay, really. I … I think I’d like that, too.’
‘I must say, I’m surprised,’ Ross says, when I tell him that evening of my walk with Catherine.
He’s just shed his clothes into the laundry box and is standing on the landing, completely starkers. I’m still getting used to this part of living together. I wish I was as unselfconscious about my body as he is of his.
He walks into the bathroom and starts running the shower. ‘Surprised in a good way,’ he adds. ‘It’s not healthy to hold on to grudges.’
He’s not the only one who’s surprised.
‘It’s hard to explain,’ I tell him, so I don’t even try. After everything Catherine put me through as a child, becoming friends with her seems crazy. But there’s a connection between us I can’t deny and, somehow, despite everything, it feels like it’s meant to happen.
He steps into the cubicle and reaches for the shower gel. My eyes travel down his body as he starts to lather it. He catches me watching him and grins, crooks his forefinger to beckon me in. A minute later, I’m standing in there, too, pressed up against him, water streaming off our soapy bodies as he kisses my neck. It’s the first time we’ve made love in weeks. Now that my nausea is finally on its way out, things are getting back to normal at last.
All thoughts of Catherine disappear into the steam.
31
I stand on my parents’ doorstep and press the bell. It seems strange not being able to let myself in with a key. I’ve still got one in my handbag, but I’d never use it. In fact, I must remember to give it back to them. This isn’t my home any more; I’m a visitor now. But as soon as Dad opens the door and I step inside, the years fall away. Whatever changes they make to the decor, whatever new pieces of furniture they buy, the familiar smell of my childhood always greets me.
‘Hello, Pumpkin,’ Dad says, taking a step back to look at me. ‘You’re putting on a bit of weight, love.’
‘Very funny.’
He gives me a big hug. Then Ross appears behind us with the bags and I move aside to let him clasp Dad’s hand and do their jolly, shoulder-slapping thing.
Mum’s now at the foot of the stairs. ‘You look wonderful, darling.’
‘She always was a good liar,’ I say to Ross, and Mum pretends to look cross.
