Hold My Hand (26 page)

“Don't mind if I
do
,” she says. Pulls the front of the neckline down to reveal her non-existent cleavage, the way she's seen her mother do as she prepared to go out of the door at night.

Padding along the corridor, Tessa bumps into Hugh. Feels suddenly awkward, dressed in her cast-off finery. She's not felt comfortable around Hugh since he went to Eton, she realises. It is as though her brother went away and some intrusive, condescending stranger came back in his place. She hadn't even realised he was back yet.

“Hullo!” he says. “What are you wearing?”

She looks down at herself. “Oh, just some stuff from the dressing-up box,” she says.

“Dressing-up box?”

“You know. In the attic.”

“Dressing-up? The mater'll have your guts for garters if she finds you in that lot in the house.”

“I'm going to get changed in my room.”

“All right, then. So. How's school?”

“Fine,” she says. “You know. Ghastly.”

“Same here,” he says. “So which of the lumpen proles is there left, then? Or have we got the place to ourselves at last?”

“Typical,” says Tessa. “The only one left is the horrid one.”

“What? Lousy Lily?”

She nods.

“Hah!” he says. “Street-urchin still here, eh? Never mind, Tess. Where is she?”

Tessa jerk her head toward the attic stairs. “Up there,” she says.

“Really?”

“Yes,” says Tessa. “That's why I'm down here. She started shoving me.”

“Well, we'll see about that,” he says.

Tessa freezes, looks at him.

“What?”

“Don't,” says Tessa.

“Shut up, Tessa,” says Hugh. “It's none of your business.”

Chapter Forty-one

“Come on,” he says. “Let's go to the pub. Tina's down there and I bet you could do with a change of scene.”

He's washing his hands at the kitchen sink. His hands and his lean, well-muscled forearms. They seem to be covered in black grease, which surprises her as she didn't think things like black grease were part of the electrical canon.

“Um…”

“She can go and stay at ours. Our Mum's sitting tonight and I don't suppose she'll mind another.”

She can't think of another excuse, though she finds the invitation strangely unnerving. She's not been
out
out – the sort of out that has no justification attached other than having fun – since… since she can't remember. Since Yasmin, she supposes. Kieran started going out by himself soon after she was born, and never offered to include her. And, like many people who play away themselves, he was full of suspicion and jealousy when it came to the idea of her going out without him. After she got a couple of fingers broken in a slamming door for wanting to go on a hen night, she got more wary of asking permission, and it didn't take long for the old friends, discouraged by her noncommittal responses, to drop away and find other, more sociable, companions.

What will I wear? Do I even know how to make conversation any more? When it's not about Yasmin, or work, or why I need an overdraft extension?

“All right.”

“Enthusiasm. That's what I like.”

She laughs. “Sorry. Yes. Can you give me ten minutes? I can't go out like this.”

“You look great. All you need is a pair of wellies and no-one would know you weren't a local. Tell you what. Why don't I take Yasmin down with me? I wouldn't mind getting cleaned up a bit myself. We can all meet in the pub in forty-five minutes.”

“If you're sure…”

“I haven't been sure about anything since Jeffrey Archer went to jail. But it might be fun. You never know 'til you give it a try.”

“Oh. Ok then.”

In her room, she is gripped by social terror. Finds herself doing something she hasn't done since her early twenties: throwing all the contents of her drawers onto the floor and riffling through them with despairing hands. I haven't a thing to wear. Really, I don't. The only clothes which are remotely festive predate Yasmin's birth, when she was still a small twelve, still had a flat stomach and breasts that sat high on her chest, and will never stretch their tinselly selves to fit the generous fourteen that motherhood and misery have combined to inflict on her. A couple of tops would go on, but they'd be so tight they'd look impossibly slaggy in a rural pub.

She picks things up, desolately, looks, rejects. Everything that dates from Kieran is loose, dull-coloured, the sort of clothes that make you take up as little space as possible, the sort of clothes that hide in corners, try not to attract attention. God, the clothes I used to have: the crop-tops and the miniskirts, the things with spangles and the plunging necklines. The shoes that were useless for anyone who wasn't going everywhere by taxi. I used to really think I looked like something. No, I
did
look like something. I looked like a confident, successful Londoner; like the young person going somewhere I was. I looked like what I was.

I guess I look like what I am, still. The clothes that post-date Kieran are nothing but practical: jeans and tops that won't show stains, that will wash easily. Clothes bought from charity shops so there was money left over for Yasmin; clothes that say that she doesn't expect to be looked at and doesn't want it.

How did I not notice? How did I not see what I was doing, going through those racks in the Cancer Research, picking out the things in Fat-Chick Mauve and Ignore-Me Blue? When did I give up? When did I decide it was best if no-one ever saw me? I was living next to Carol all that time, with her Brixton market finery and her brave hair, and yet I never saw the contrast, when we walked past a plate glass window. I saw the contrast with her, of course, but I never noticed the contrast with my former self. How blind did he make me? How blind did I make myself?

Well, I can wear jeans. I don't have much choice. It's jeans or one of the three pairs of black stretch trousers with the elasticated waists, as close to trackies as you can get without a white stripe down the side. She selects the newest pair, the least stained with the lowest waistband. Hopefully the wear at the knees and the rip halfway up the thigh will look meant, will be interpreted as a fashion statement rather than a product of poverty. In a corner of a drawer, she finds a dark crimson thigh-length tunic in embroidered viscose which Carol gave her one year for her birthday and which still bears its tags. Its v-neck goes low into the yoke, shows some cleavage, the reason she didn't dare wear it at the time. Now she looks at it and sees that Carol chose well. It's a good garment for coaxing one out of low self-esteem; covers myriad body faults and has that essential look of not trying too hard.

She blesses Carol, wherever she is, and pulls it over her head. No time to iron. She'll wear it crumpled and nobody will think she's bought something specially.

It's turned seriously cold outside. Frost already coats the hedges and the trees look like marble statuary as she drives down to the village. The pub looks warm and welcoming, orange light filtering through its tiny windows. She shrugs herself further into her old leather coat, scuttles across the car park in her flat suede boots. The left one has a hole in the sole; she can feel the frozen tarmac as she walks.

They're in the corner, crammed on stools round a tiny copper-covered table. She's expected one of those Hanged Lamb moments when she stepped into the heady fug of beer and shepherd's pie, but, to her surprise, conversation hardly dipped when she showed herself. To the contrary, a couple of people even greeted her as she crossed the naked oak floorboards, as though she'd been a regular for years.

Mark's changed into a dark green jumper with a white t-shirt underneath. Tina's got on an ankle-length gypsy skirt: very two-seasons-ago, but good for keeping the cold out. They've got a couple with them whom she vaguely recognises from the school gates. They all smile when they see her and open up their huddle, and the man whose name she doesn't know pulls out a stool from where they've been keeping it reserved and gestures toward it. Mark jumps to his feet. “What can I get you?”

“Oh – don't worry. I'll…”

“I'm going anyway,” he says, “to get a round in. What would you like?”

She's not thought. She's so out of practice she's forgotten what women drink in pubs. It was always wine bars in London, anyway: bucket after bucket of overoaked Chardonnay that left you dyspeptic in the morning. But in London there were taxis, and she guesses from the smells coming from the kitchen beyond the bar that the Gastropub revolution hasn't reached this corner of Cornwall.

“Just a ginger ale, please,” she shows them her car keys. “I'm driving.”

“Oh come on,” says Tina. “You're doing half a mile on a deserted road. You can have a drink.”

“I – ” where did all this hesitancy come from? I sound like one of those spinsters you see in 1940s films, all apologetic for their existence. “All right. I'll have a half.”

“Half of what?”

“Dunno…”

“The bitter's good.”

She nods. “Okay, bitter.” Remembers her manners, adds a thankyou.

“Cold, isn't it?” says the woman.

She sits down, begins unwinding her scarf. “Yes.”

“What's it like at Rospetroc in this sort of weather?”

“Oh, it's fine in the flat. Lovely and cosy. And he's got a good furnace for the rest of the house, though I don't really run it above stopping-the-pipes-freezing level when we've not got visitors.”

“Got a lot of those at the moment?”

“Not since the Christmas rush. Got a honeymoon couple coming in a couple of weeks, as long as Mark's done by then.”

“Oh, he will be,” says Tina. “He's just patching things up. Though I gather it'll need the full works some time in the future.”

“I don't doubt it,” she says. “As long as he can keep us going 'til Spring, I'll be eternally grateful.”

“Carla's fascinated by the place,” says the woman.

“Oh, right,” says Bridget. “Are you Carla's mum? I'm sorry. I've been terrible at working out who's who.”

“Yup,” she says, offers a hand. “Penelope Tremayne. Penny. And this is Tony.”

“Hi, hi.” She shakes his hand.

“Hi.”

“Tony's mum used to work up there,” says Tina. “Cleaning.”

“Oh, really?”

Tony nods. “Mad old cow, Mrs Blakemore. Bag of spanners, she was. Mum didn't last long, but then again, nobody did. Couldn't deal with the old girl. Paranoid isn't the word for it.”

“Mmm. I gather she wasn't the best employer.”

“No. Tight as a gnat's chuff and mean-tempered with it. Pissed most of the time as well. Always accusing people of moving things. And constantly looking over your shoulder as though there was someone standing behind you. Mum's not the superstitious type, but even she said it gave her the willies.”

“Would me too,” says Tina. “Wasn't there some rumour about her? Or was that just kids larking about?”

Tony shrugs. “Bit of both, I guess. Don't you remember? We always said there was a kid buried in the garden somewhere? Though I thought that was Hugh, not her. Still.”

“Oh yeah,” says Tina. “I remember. I'd forgotten about that bit. Spooooooky goings-on in the War or something, wasn't it?”

“Something to do with refugees,” he says. “I think there was one that disappeared, wasn't there?”

“Lily,” says Mark, reappearing with five glasses balanced somehow between his hands. “Lily Rickett.”

Bridget feels a chill. She knows that name. It must be a coincidence.

“How do you remember that?” asks Tina.

“Simple genius. And the fact that I remember thinking it was a good name for her, considering. One of those kids from Portsmouth.”

“Ah,” says Penny, and they all share that look of common understanding. Even Bridget has heard already about the acronym that crops up on West Country medical notes. NFP: Normal For Portsmouth.

"You don't think she's really buried in the garden, do you?" she asks.

"Naah," says Tina. "Of course not. Good god, I know there was a war on and everything, but don't you think the powers that be would have noticed, eventually, if they simply lost one of their evacuees? No. She'll have been picked up and moved on somewhere, or gone home, and the waters will have closed over her head, the way they do. It's not like anyone in the village will have actually cared enough to have kept tabs after they kicked her out of the school. No, it's just one of those village rumours you get. Partly spite and partly something to make life more entertaining. D'you remember those hippy artists at the old vicarage when we were growing up, Marco? The Whassnames?"

"The Linleys?"

"Mmm." She turns back to address Bridget. "Everyone got a bee in their bonnet that they were satanists. D'you remember? We used to tell each other stories that they were having black masses where they ate babies in the graveyard on full moon, that sort of thing. Poor sods moved on down to St Ives in the end because of all the whispering when they came down the shop. I'm sure they were harmless. Just didn't really fit in, you know? It was like that, really. Old Blakemore had gone gaga and turned into a hermit, and everybody hated Hugh, so they had to find something to hang it on. It wasn't like anyone actually, you know, investigated or reported it to the police or anything. It was just something everyone said about them behind their backs. It's not like they weren't all glad to see the back of her, anyway."