Weirdo (11 page)

“What about the rest?” asked Wayne. There were six more boxes in the hall.

“Sam can fetch them,” said Amanda, “when she’s ready. I’m sure she’ll manage.” She started off back down the stairs and Wayne made to join her.

“Oh, Way-e-ane,” Samantha said softly, mocking her mother’s voice the moment she was out of earshot. He jerked his head round. The girl was coiling a strand of hair around her finger, sticking her rapidly developing chest out as far as it would go. Not for the first time, he felt profoundly uncomfortable in her presence.

“Thanks, Way-e-ane,” she continued, top lip rising up into a sneer. “Now go on, boy, follow your mistress. Heel!”

A vision of the scalped pooch danced before Wayne’s eyes as he hurried after Amanda.

In the kitchen, Amanda was opening the fridge. She put a
bottle of Riesling and a can of Foster’s down on the counter, reached into the cupboard above for some glasses.

“I think we’ve earned this,” she said, handing Wayne his beer and sloshing out a good slug of wine for herself. “Cheers.”

Wayne didn’t bother to pour his out. He clinked her green glass goblet with his tin and took a long, grateful guzzle. “Thanks, darling,” Amanda put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a squeeze, remembering her mother’s face after Wayne had redecorated her bathroom for her, the twitching cheek and the blinking eyes when she had been forced to thank him. “You’ve done a lot for me and I’m really grateful.”

Wayne put his arm around her waist. “I told you, babe. Anything for you.”

“Ahhh,” she reached up to kiss him. At the same moment, a muffled, thudding bass sound announced that Samantha had worked out how to use her new record player. Amanda rolled her eyes. “Well,” she said, “I did warn you it wouldn’t be easy.”

Wayne stared into his lover’s eyes. “She did it, didn’t she? The dog …”

Amanda swallowed a mouthful of wine. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I reckon she did.”

A succession of images flashed through her mind. The shiny, rigid bodies of four little goldfish, lying on the carpet. A canary, feet in the air at the bottom of his cage, neck broken. A pair of terrapins with their heads wedged upside down between two rocks in their tank. Despite Samantha’s wideeyed denials that she had anything to do with it, her attempts to shift the blame onto the cleaning lady each time, Amanda had never dared buy her daughter any animals again.

The High Mistress of St Paul’s calling her and Malcolm into her study, telling them about the girl found tied up with
a skipping rope and locked in a broom cupboard. Explaining how, though she had no concrete proof, she knew who the ringleader was and if such incidents continued, she would be forced to take drastic measures. Well, that had been one embarrassment spared by their move back here. Amanda had been certain that the shock of going to Ernemouth High – where, if her own experiences were anything to go by, the kids were much more able to take care of themselves than those doe-eyed princesses in public school – might have knocked some sense into her daughter. That she would blanch at the prospect of picking on anyone her own size. But, it seemed Sam had found someone smaller almost immediately.

“Not that Mum will ever believe it,” she said. “She couldn’t let herself. It would send her mad if she did.” Malcolm had never wanted to hear it either, had gone on firing cleaners until Amanda had put her foot down, pointed out the unlikely odds that they had hired three pet murderers in a row. And the hell he had given her for daring to think such things …

“What about your dad?” Wayne said.

“He recognises his own kind,” a sliver of ice came into her voice. “He’d let her get away with murder, he would. No,” she squeezed Wayne’s shoulder again, forced a smile back onto her face. “The best thing you can do with her moods and her constant provocation is to ignore it. Don’t give her the attention. She’s not so bloody special as she thinks she is.”

“She’s not anything like you,” said Wayne, and the look in his eyes brought a lump to Amanda’s throat.

“Well,” she said, “in one respect, I hope she is.”

Wayne frowned. “And what’s that?”

“That in two years’ time – or maybe even less, if we’re lucky – she’ll be out that door and never come back.”

Before Wayne could reply, the telephone in the hall started ringing. Almost simultaneously, footsteps clattered down the stairs.

“I’ll get it!” yelled Samantha.

“She’s expecting someone,” Amanda’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Let her.”

She waited until she heard her daughter answer. Then she went to the kitchen door and pretended to close it, just leaving it a fraction ajar so she could listen in.

Wayne crumpled the empty can in his hand and tossed it into the bin. Shaking his head, he went to the fridge and found another.

* * *

“I’ve come to say,” Corrine stood on Debbie’s doorstep, barely able to look her friend in the eye, lips twisting the way they always did before she started crying, “I’m sorry.”

Debbie hadn’t seen Corrine for a week, not since she had bolted out of Swing’s moments after she and Darren arrived. She hadn’t been to school and it didn’t look like she had been home either. She still appeared to be wearing the same outfit, although someone had obviously tried to help her with the mess she’d made of her hair.

Unlike her clothes, it was freshly washed, hanging around her ears in a dull shade of burgundy, ragged around the edges. She was twisting the handles of a plastic shopping bag in one hand, the end of a cigarette almost burning the fingers of the other.

“Please say you forgive me,” she whimpered, as the first tears started to make black kohl tracks down her cheeks.

“Forgive you for what?” said Debbie. So shocked was she
by the pitiful state of her friend that the injustices of the last few weeks were almost blotted from her mind. Almost, but not quite. She wanted to hear Corrine say it.

“For going off with Sam,” Corrine choked out, “and for taking her in Swing’s.”

“I see,” said Debbie, leaning against the doorframe but still not opening up completely.

“I din’t want to,” Corrine’s eyes were pleading and her nose had started to run, “but she made me. You gotta believe me, Debs, I din’t realise what she was like, until …”

But she couldn’t get the words out. Instead, she convulsed with tears, throwing her cigarette to the ground and stamping on it, wishing she could crush out the memory of that poor little dog.

“All right,” said Debbie, “you better come in.”

“Who is it, love?” called her mum from the kitchen.

“All right, Mum, s’only Reenie,” Debbie replied. “Go on up,” she told Corrine, “and I’ll make us a cup of tea. Won’t be a sec.”

Corrine did as she was told. Debbie needed to head her mother off before she could say anything. Thankfully, her dad had already started his evening shift cabbing.

In the kitchen, Maureen Carver wiped her hands on a towel. She’d been baking and her pinny was covered in flour, her face flushed and hair frizzy from the heat. The concern on her face was down to the fact that her daughter had already told her that Corrine had skipped school all week. That’s all Debbie had said, but it was obvious there must have been a bust up between them. She had never seen her daughter so moody.

Not that Maureen had ever been comfortable with this friendship. Of course she felt sorry for Corrine – what decent
person wouldn’t, the kid hardly had a chance in life with a mother like that. She had let her daughter bring her new friend over and never begrudged feeding her – so long as, in return, Debbie swore she would never even think of setting foot through Corrine’s front door.

Maureen was afraid that Corrine would end up following her mother’s way of life – and what if Debbie somehow got herself embroiled in any of that? She had been so relieved that the girls seemed to have been drifting apart of late and that Debbie had found herself such a nice young man as Darren Moorcock.

“Mum,” said Debbie softly, closing the door behind her. “I don’t know what’s happened but she’s in a right state. Please don’t say anything about school until I know what it is.”

“All right,” Maureen conceded. “Do you think she’ll be staying for tea, then?”

“Probably,” nodded Debbie, and her heart felt heavy as she said it. Maureen wasn’t the only one who’d felt Corrine’s absence as a burden being lifted. Only Debbie felt guilty for thinking that way. “Is it OK if I take some tea and biscuits, try and calm her down?”

“Course it is, love,” Maureen nodded to her freshly baked ginger snaps cooling on the rack. “Help yourself.”

Corrine was sitting on Debbie’s bed, staring out the window. A teardrop had run to the bottom of her nose and was hanging there, over her lips. She had a book on her lap but as soon as Debbie came in, she snapped out of her reverie and thrust it back into the shopping bag that sat beside her.

“Here,” said Debbie, putting the tray down and passing Corrine a cup of tea and a plate piled high with biscuits. She took her own drink and sat on the other end of the bed, waiting for
Corrine to work her way through the food, which she did with the speed of a velociraptor. Only when she realised she had an empty plate in front of her did she stop to say: “Ooh, my God, I’m sorry – did you want one? I was so starvin’ I din’t think.”

Debbie shook her head. “What’s happened, Reenie?” she asked instead. “Why in’t you been in school all week?”

“I was scared,” said Corrine, and that same look came back in her eye that Debbie had seen in Swing’s. “It’s Sam, she in’t normal. That weren’t me she wanted, I see that now. She just used me so she could be more like you.”

Debbie’s heart beat faster. “What do you mean? The hair and that?”

Corrine nodded miserably. “She made me do it for her. And then she …” Her face scrunched up again, her shoulders started to shake.

“What happened, Reenie?” said Debbie. “What did she do?”

But Corrine waved her hand. “I can’t …”

“It’s OK,” Debbie dared to lean across and put her hand on Corrine’s arm. For once, her friend didn’t flinch from human contact. Debbie tried another tack.

“Where you been, anyway?” she said. “You in’t been home, have you?”

“No,” said Corrine, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Debbie reached for the box of tissues on her dressing table and handed them over. Corrine blew her nose loudly. “I’ve been at Noj’s.”

Debbie frowned. “Who?”

“Noj,” her friend replied. “You don’t know him. I met him up the Front.”

Debbie had never even heard this strange name before and it worried her almost as much as whatever it was Samantha Lamb had done to Corrine.

“It’s all right,” Corrine looked at her earnestly. “It’s safe. His old man’s gone on the rigs and when he do, his mum go off round her fancy man’s, leave him on his own. He look after me all right. Better’n round my house, any road.” Corrine shivered.

“Did she do this?” Debbie lifted a strand of Corrine’s hair. It looked as though all the bits that had bleach on them had snapped in half. Corrine nodded.

“She said she knew what she was doin’. Maybe she did,” her eyes flashed with sudden anger, “if she wanted to make me look like a twat.”

“What are you going to do?” said Debbie, almost as much to herself as to Corrine.

“Go to the hairdresser’s, I s’pose.” Corrine shrugged. “Get it all cut off and start again.”

“No, I mean …” Debbie began, but then thought better. “Have you got any money?” she said instead, feeling that weight coming down again as she did so, that pair of Robot boots staying in the shop in Norwich for another month.

“No,” said Corrine, and her face hardened, her eyes lost their focus on Debbie’s, stared past her instead out the window, at the streetlights blinking on.

“I could help you,” she heard Debbie say. “I’ve got a few quid saved up …”

Corrine shook her head. “No, Debs,” she said. “You done enough for me letting me in just now. I don’t want no more from you. Anyway, I reckon I should be goin’ …”

“No, don’t,” said Debbie, “Mum said you could stay for tea …”

But Corrine had got to her feet, her bag in her hand. “I can’t. There’s something I now gotta do. I just wanted to make sure we’re still friends. We are, in’t we?”

Debbie nodded. For a brief second, Corrine took her hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry about me, though, honest,” she said. “Noj’s old man’s away for another week, at least.”

“In’t you coming back to school?” was all Debbie could find to say.

“Not,” Corrine pushed her hair back off her face, “’til I’ve sorted this shit out.” She forced a laugh. “Tell you what, though, one thing you could do,” she said, her face becoming serious again. “Don’t tell no one. Especially,” she scowled, “not
her
.”

* * *

Debbie sat on her bed in a daze after Corrine had left. She didn’t want to think what else that girl could have done to Corrine that was worse than the mess she’d made of her hair. What was so bad that Corrine couldn’t even speak of it?

As she stared through the window to the house next door, she saw the light go off in Alex’s room. A few seconds later he came out of the door, smiling to himself, fussing with the front of his hair. He strode swiftly up the road, heading north, up town.

* * *

Corrine’s spirits lifted as she left Debbie’s house. She was so pleased that things were all right between them again that it had suddenly given her a whole new sense of purpose. She had worked it all out as she was saying it – but it was so obvious. The only bad part would be getting the money. But she had learned the ways to deal with that now.

She kept to the back streets until she got to St Peter’s Road, where she turned right towards the seafront and Trafalgar Pier.

The beer garden had reverted to its winter life as the roller
skating rink, but Corrine didn’t join the line of teenagers queuing up to get in. Instead she ducked into the shadows along the side of the pavilion, the distorted sound of “Thriller” pumping through the walls, and along to the end of the pier, where all the sounds dissolved into a background thrum and the sea made its own music as the waves hissed over the stones.

Corrine stared out at the lights of the distant oil rigs. There were so many of them now, all across the horizon. She had counted twelve before she sensed the man standing beside her, the familiar musk of cheap aftershave announcing his presence. It was exactly as she had anticipated and it meant she would soon have the money to sort out her hair.