Читать книгу Crow Stone - Jenni Mills - Страница 17

Chapter Ten

It was the sound of a hammer that woke me, penetrating my sleep like someone knocking on the inside of my head. Tap tap tap. Very quiet taps. As if someone was trying not to be heard. I looked at the bedside clock, expecting to find it was the small hours of the morning, but it wasn’t yet midnight. Tap tap tap.

I knew immediately it was a hammer and not anything else because all my life I’d known the different sounds hammers could make. I could tell this was a small hammer, hitting the head of a small nail, hardly more than a pin, driving it gently into wood. The sound pattered through my bedroom window, opened wide to let in a breath of humid summer air. It came from my father’s workshop in the garage.

I pushed back the sheet and swung my feet on to the floor. An orange glow filtered through the curtains from the streetlamps on the hill above our house. Beau Bunny, the toy rabbit I’d had since I was tiny, and a committee of my old teddy bears sat on a wicker chair next to the window. Their beady eyes watched me disapprovingly. I saw myself as a ghostly white shape in the dressing-table mirror. It struck me that I often felt like a ghost in the house.

I crept out of the room and down the stairs–tap tap tap–through the narrow hallway that tonight smelled of fried fish–tap, tap tap–into the kitchen where the washing-up from supper was still piled in the sink. The back door stood open and I slipped through it. The concrete yard was gritty but blessedly cool on the soles of my bare feet. The orange streetlamp made everything unnatural, harder, lurid, shadowed, like frames in a comic strip.

The garage was set well back from the road, separate from the house, at a lower level because the street dropped away downhill. My father had made an entrance in the side, with three steps leading down into the garage. Light sliced out through the half-open door.

As far back as I remembered, it had been my father’s workshop. I loved creeping in to watch him. He had set up a heavy workbench with a vice, and built metal shelves against the back wall with hooks to hang his tools and dozens of compartments for nails and screws and nuts and bolts. He would let me sit on the top step–‘No nearer, mind, while I’m working’–and I used to stay there for hours on end, as he measured and sawed, planed and trimmed, nailed and glued. Most of the time I had no idea what he was doing. Because I was so quiet he used to forget I was there and never bother to explain. Now I edged round the door so I could peer down at him as he worked, too absorbed as usual to notice me.

On the bench lay the photograph of my mother in its damaged gilt frame, the sidepiece twisted and splintered like a broken limb. It was a studio portrait, carefully posed. The photographer had sat her sideways, and she was turning her head to look over her shoulder at the camera with the half-smile of a cut-price Mona Lisa. She wore her dark hair in a short, urchin style like Audrey Hepburn, feathered on to her cheeks. From where I stood it looked as if her eyes were on my father as he worked to repair what he had broken.

I guessed he had tried to fix the old frame and given up. He was making a new one out of pale, sanded pine, measuring the final piece against the half-assembled frame to be sure it fitted. His back was half turned to me, his concentration intense, his fingers careful and precise. Satisfied, he picked up a spatula, dipped it into the pot of glue, coated the mitred corners and slotted the piece into place. He searched along the shelves and selected a couple of tiny nails, holding them against the wood to check the length. Then he used a lightweight hammer to drive them in and secure the joints. Tap tap tap. A nail hit by my father always drove straight into the wood. He fitted picture clamps to the corners, checking the angles with a carpenter’s try square, screwing each clamp nut the exact same number of turns to hold the joint under pressure while the glue set.

My father had not taught me woodwork, but I had learned the principles by watching him. There was no way those joints would come apart.

He picked up the photo in its old frame. The hardboard backing was still in place, and he began to pull out the tacks that held it to the frame. He caught his finger on one, and put the picture down quickly, sucking the torn skin. A droplet of blood had fallen on to my mother’s face, and he took out his hanky to wipe it carefully away. I felt my eyes sting, and slipped away across the yard before he saw me. It was starting to rain, big fat drops that pressed like thumbs through my nightdress to my skin.

I lay awake in bed for a long time, listening to the downpour and the dark mutters of thunder. I wondered where my mother was now, and whether she knew how much my father still loved her.

I saw Trish as I came up the hill on Monday morning. She was just ahead of me, lolloping along with her satchel slung over her shoulder like an afterthought, books tripping over each other to escape.

‘You’re going to lose your Aere Perennius,’ I said, puffing a bit with the effort of catching up. Trish whirled round, startled, and the Latin book fell out on to the road. A passing cyclist swerved and shouted.

I stepped into the road and picked it up. ‘You’ll have to dry it out.’

‘Who cares?’

I wiped it on my sleeve. The pages were already crinkling. ‘How was Poppy’s party?’

‘Gross. Helen Mansell was sick in the pool. We had to get out.’ Trish shoved the book into her satchel and started walking again. ‘Where were you, anyway?’

At least they’d noticed I wasn’t there.

‘My gran was ill,’ I lied. My gran was more than ill; she’d been dead twenty years.

‘I thought she lived in Blackpool?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said. My fingers nibbled at a seam of fluff in the bottom of my pocket. ‘We had to drive up there. Didn’t get back until four in the morning.’

‘Is she very ill?’

‘Pneumonia.’

‘Oh, Katie, that’s awful. Is she–you know?’

‘Dying? No, I don’t think so. Dad said the crisis was over, and she’ll probably pull through.’

I’d never known her, or any of my grandparents. My father’s mother was not even sixty when a heart-attack had taken her, still mourning a husband who died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Like him, my mother’s parents had been killed in the war, in one of the bombing raids on Bristol, and my mother had been brought up by my great-grandmother.

I hated people being sorry for me. When I first got to know Trish, I couldn’t bear the look of pity on her face when she realized my mother had left. So I gave myself a living granny, conveniently located at the other end of the country so there would never be any danger of having to produce her.

‘She must have weak lungs, your gran–didn’t she have pneumonia last year as well?’

My fingernail popped right through the lining of my pocket. ‘Dad always says she should stop smoking.’

‘Anyway,’ said Trish, ‘you didn’t miss much. I don’t blame Helen for honking. Rather too much showing off–“How do you like our pool? Don’t drop ice-cream on our lovely, lovely patio furniture.” Poppy’s parents are a bit–you know. Nouveau.’

‘New?’

‘Nouveau. As in gold-plated bath-taps.’

‘Oh.’ As so often with Trish, I wasn’t quite sure I followed, but it seemed easiest to pretend I did. Anyway, I didn’t much like Poppy’s mother myself. She always looked sideways at me when I went round there for tea as if she expected me to eat with my fingers.

We were coming up to the Ministry of Defence offices now, where Poppy’s father worked, with the rolls of barbed wire topping the fences and the sentries in their dark uniforms and white spats at the gate. A car was just drawing up to the barrier, a big grey one. A sentry strolled over to check the driver’s pass. Trish started waving. The passenger door opened and Poppy got out as we drew level.

‘Great party,’ said Trish. ‘I was just telling Katie. Really great.’

‘Shame you weren’t there,’ said Poppy, blowing a kiss to her dad and slamming the car door. ‘We missed you.’ I looked at her closely. She really did seem to mean it.

During Latin, Poppy passed me a note.

We’re going shopping in town after school. Want to come?

Yes, I wrote underneath, and passed the note back, wondering when they’d planned this.

‘Nonne,’ said Mr Clayton, the Latin master, pointing with the chalk to the two words he’d written on the board. ‘And num. Two different ways of introducing a question. Can anyone remember what they mean?’ There was a silence. No one raised a hand.

‘Surely,’ said Mr Clayton, ‘surely someone wants to take a guess?’ Surely, no one did.

‘Nonne means “surely”,’ he said, strolling between the rows of desks, holding his hands in a steeple as he always did to indicate deep thought. ‘In other words, it’s a question expecting the answer yes. So num …’ He stopped and looked expectantly round the class, his hands still a steeple, waggling his little fingers at us. But none of us was very interested in Latin. ‘Num introduces a question expecting the answer no. Trish, what on earth happened to your textbook? It looks as if you took it swimming with you.’

While everyone laughed, I found myself wondering whether Poppy would have prefaced the question in her note with nonne or num. She couldn’t have known that my dad had promised me a clothes allowance. She must have been expecting me to say I wouldn’t go.

Well, too bad. I didn’t have the money yet, but I could choose what I’d buy. I looked at Poppy, with her fuse-wire plaits, her neat, freckled face. She gave me a quick grin and a thumbs-up. I wasn’t fooled.

I had been in Top Shop before, by myself, but it was different today, knowing I would soon have money to spend. I took my time. Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes thudded in the background. There was so much: rail after rail. I let my hand stroke the slipperiness of a satin halter-neck top. I had to have a pair of those wide trousers with turn-ups. And I’d surely look good in one of those peasant blouses? Nonne?

Somehow I had accumulated a pile so huge I kept tripping over the trailing skirts as I made for the changing rooms.

‘No more than five,’ said the assistant. She had big panda eyes circled with glittery black shadow, and was chewing gum. I began to untangle my armful of clothes, trying to decide which ones to take in, which ones to leave outside.

The curtain of the communal changing area whipped back. Poppy and Trish came out. Trish thrust her bundle of clothes, all inside out and crumpled, at the assistant. ‘Naff,’ she said. ‘Cheap and nasty, the lot. C’mon, let’s try and find somewhere they sell better stuff.’

I gave my armful to the assistant, trying to convey that I, too, had suddenly noticed the shoddiness of the material and the crooked stitching. It must be very sad, I thought, having to work in a shop where the clothes were so poorly made, and as I handed them over I mouthed, ‘Sorry.’

She ignored me, chewing her gum and staring straight over the top of my head. I hurried after Trish and Poppy.

‘Tell you what,’ said Trish, when we were out in the street again, ‘let’s go and try on bras. I need a new one.’

‘Marks & Spencer’s is at the other end of town,’ Poppy objected.

Trish gave her a withering look. ‘You don’t buy your bras at Marks, do you? Mum takes me to Jolly’s.’

‘Well, so-rree,’ said Poppy. ‘Pardon me for naffness.’

‘There’s a much bigger range,’ said Trish, reddening.

‘And much bigger prices.’

‘Your mum can afford it, can’t she?’

Poppy shot a glance at me. ‘M & S is better value,’ she insisted. ‘They’ve got some really pretty ones too.’

‘Jolly’s is nearer.’

Poppy gave in, flicking another glance at me.

I was about to set foot on the white and gilt staircase in Jolly’s that led to the upper floor when Trish caught my arm. ‘Not that way. Lingerie’s on the ground floor.’

Lingerie. I had never felt the word in my mouth, languid and foreign and erotic. I said it quietly to myself, under my breath, elongating the jjjhhh sound as I followed Trish and Poppy through the department store. I wore pants–that was what my dad called them, his voice pushing out the word so briskly and dismissively I knew he was embarrassed by it. The airing cupboard’s full of your pants, Katie, can’t you put them away? Or drawers, that was what Mrs Owen said. Get them drawers hung out on the line, Katie, to let a bit of fresh air into them. But here they were ‘briefs’. It said so on the price tags. A simple, discreet, elegant word. Something slipped on by lady lawyers with long shapely legs in sheer black stockings. Or loose and silky, like 1930s film stars wore, when they were called ‘French knickers’.

What would it feel like to wear those? I imagined they would be cool and slithery. You would feel deliciously naked as their wide legs wafted fresh air towards your secret bits. I wouldn’t dare go out in them, I thought. It would be like going out with no pants at all.

Trish and Poppy were by the bras. Poppy was looning about putting one of the bigger sizes on her head like a cap. The sales assistant, formidably bosomed herself, shot us a disapproving look, and Poppy hastily put the bra back.

‘What’ve you got?’ asked Trish, not looking up. The bras rattled on their plastic hangers as she riffled through them.

‘Nothing yet,’ I said. ‘I can’t see anything in my size.’

‘What size are you looking for?’ asked Poppy, waving a froth of coffee-coloured lace at me. ‘This one’s really pretty.’

‘I usually get thirty-two A.’ Usually? I had one bra, and I only wore it on special occasions. It was plain white cotton and it had come from the starter-bra section at Marks & Spencer.

‘Poppy,’ said Trish, from behind another rack, ‘can you see anything decent in a thirty-four C?’

C? Trish was a C-cup? I tried to get a glimpse of her chest through the rows of bras. She couldn’t have grown that much, could she, in the week since we’d last crowded into the changing rooms at school to strip off for a swimming lesson? Surely–num–she wasn’t that much bigger than me?

Trish emerged from behind the rail, holding three or four black ones, and a really racy plunge bra in scarlet. ‘Come on. They’re going to close in ten minutes.’ She disappeared into the fitting room, closely followed by Poppy carrying the coffee-coloured lace and another in pink.

I snatched off the rail the first two bras that came to hand, and dashed after them to the fitting room. But this wasn’t like the communal changing rooms in Miss Selfridge and Top Shop. There was a row of slatted wooden doors, like in a Western. I could see Poppy and Trish’s legs beneath one, and started to push my way in.

‘Hey,’ said Trish. I caught a glimpse of her breast, a luminous white arc tipped with pink. ‘No room. We can’t all three get in. Find your own.’

‘Trish’s tits are taking up all the space,’ said Poppy.

I shoved my way into the next cubicle. The doors clattered behind me like those of a Western saloon after the town drunk gets kicked out.

‘I think that one’s a bit tarty,’ came Poppy’s voice from next door. ‘But a good fit. Gives you an enormous cleavage.’

I hauled off my school dress. Reflected in the mirrors on two sides I watched my own bare chest revealed. My breasts looked to me like a story I’d made up. They were hardly more than pimples.

‘I’m going on a diet,’ I heard Trish say. ‘There’s a grapefruit-and-egg diet Mum used to do when she had to slim down to model underwear.’

‘Your mum modelled underwear?’ said Poppy.

I resolved to go on a diet too. Maybe if my waist got smaller, my breasts would look bigger.

‘No, not the pink,’ said Trish, behind the wall. ‘Clashes with your hair. But the coffee one’s good.’

‘Shame it has to go under clothes,’ said Poppy.

They sniggered.

I put my arms through the shoulder straps of the first bra. It was a horrible fleshy shade, the colour of old ladies’ surgical stockings. Even on the tightest hook, it was miles too big. The cups sagged like wrinkled balloons.

‘How’re you getting on?’ called Poppy.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Good fit. Fine.’

One of them must have lost their balance because there was a great thump on the fitting-room wall, then a gust of shrieks and giggles.

‘Get off,’ said Poppy.

‘Get off? It’s you fondling my tits.’ More laughter.

I undid the bra, picking it off my chest like a scab.

‘Hey, Katie,’ said Trish, between snorts of laughter, ‘Poppy had a really brilliant idea on Saturday.’

‘What?’ I had a headache coming. My stomach hurt too.

‘She said …’

‘It was your idea, Trish, I just thought of what we could say.’

‘She said we should write a letter to Gary Bennett.’

‘A letter?’ I hooked the bra back on to its hanger. Was there really any point in trying on the other?

‘A letter saying one of us is his mystery admirer, and offering to meet him. An assignation.’

‘That’s a stupid idea,’ I said. ‘What’s he going to do, invite us all out on a date?’

‘We pick straws, silly. The one with the long straw gets to go on the assignation. Go with him to Crow Stone for a snog in the bushes.’

I levered my breasts into the cups of the second bra. It was the same hot-pink style Poppy had picked up, low-cut and padded, with a contrasting trim of black ribbon round the top of each cup.

‘It’s a one-in-three chance,’ said Trish.

I stared at myself in the mirror. The bra was a perfect fit. It plumped up my little breasts into firm globes, filled them out so that for the first time I saw myself with the body of a woman. I turned to look in the second mirror for the side view. I had an outline, a proper shape. I felt a silly grin start at the corners of my mouth.

‘So what d’you think?’ said Poppy.

‘It’s great,’ I said. ‘Terrific. Count me in.’

I pulled my dress on over my head, and looked at the new shape the bra underneath it gave me. I put my hands on my hips, I sucked in a big breath, and watched my bosom rise with my ribcage. I could knock somebody’s eye out with boobs like these.

‘You found anything you like?’ asked Poppy, from next door. ‘I’m going to get the lacy one, and Trish can’t make up her mind.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I can’t be bothered. It wasn’t that nice.’ I looked at myself in the mirror again. I stood on tiptoe, stuck out my chest and pretended to be the girl on the cover of the Roxy Music album.

I heard the door of the next-door cubicle swing open.

‘Ready?’ called Trish.

‘Ready,’ I said, reaching up and taking down the other bra from the peg. I picked up my school satchel and pushed out through the doors.

Trish glanced with a sneer at the surgical-stocking bra in my hand. ‘You’re not thinking of buying that?’

‘Course not,’ I said, as scornfully as I could manage. ‘I was just trying it on for the size.’ I walked out of the changing rooms, and hung the bra back on the rail. ‘I’ve got loads of bras at home. You made up your mind?’

‘I’m going to wait till Saturday and I’ll get Mum to come in and help me choose,’ said Trish. I glanced down at the bras she was putting back. They weren’t C-cups at all, they were Bs. And no wonder she wasn’t going to buy them right now. They cost more than a couple of dresses would at Top Shop.

Poppy had finished paying for her bra and was putting her purse away. The middle-aged saleslady with the enormous bosom like a bolster started to rearrange the bras on the rail, clattering the hangers to show her disapproval of the way we had left it. Instinctively I rounded my shoulders and tried to look as concave as possible. But I could feel the new bra hugging me, two secret strong hands cupping my breasts.

It was only when we got outside that I started to feel anxious.

‘Right,’ said Trish, standing on the pavement. ‘What are we going to do now?’

I could feel the elegant dummies in the shop window staring accusingly at me. I expected the heavy doors of the store to swing open, and a posse of sales assistants, led by Bolster Bosom, to pour out waving and shouting, That’s her! That’s the thieving little bitch who stole a pair of new breasts.

‘Let’s go,’ I said, my shoulders prickling, expecting a heavy hand to close on my arm at any moment. ‘I really should get home.’

That didn’t suit Poppy and Trish at all. They wanted to see Rocky.

‘There’s a showing in a quarter of an hour,’ said Trish, looking at her watch. ‘Just right.’

‘Better get a move on, then,’ I said, ‘or you’ll miss it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Poppy. ‘The cinema’s about three minutes away. Anyway, aren’t you coming?’

I’d seen it on Saturday, of course, with Dad, but I couldn’t tell them that. ‘I’ve got to get home,’ I insisted. ‘Look, I’m going to head for the bus stop. Don’t want to miss one and have to hang around.’

‘You’re antsy,’ said Trish.

‘My dad,’ I said, inspired. ‘You know. I don’t want to upset him.’

‘Oh. Sorry. I forgot.’ Trish pursed her lips, looking concerned. ‘Are you all right, Katie? We were worried on Saturday when you didn’t show. I mean, we didn’t know about your gran, we thought—’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, casting another despairing look at Jolly’s doors. ‘No problem. Just … got to get home. In case.’ I backed away. I didn’t want to turn sideways on to them in case they noticed my new silhouette.

‘Katie?’ said Poppy. ‘You can always tell us, you know.’

I put the biggest smile I could manage on to my face and shook my head to indicate there was nothing to tell. As I turned the corner, I saw that Poppy was still gazing after me, but Trish had turned away to look at the clothes on the snooty dummies.

I had just missed a bus. I could still see it in the distance, chugging along the road, and I thought of running to catch up but I wasn’t sure what that would do to my new breasts. I was sure the bra was making them grow. I worried they might spill over the top, like dough left in a warm place to rise.

There was a bench near the bus stop, and I sat on one end of it, leaning my head on the sooty wall behind. The pavement smelled of traffic and stale pee. My feet kicked at discarded beer cans, a leaf fall of cigarette butts. From here I had a good view back along the road towards the city-centre shops, and I’d have plenty of warning if Bolster Bosom and her posse of enraged store detectives came steaming towards me. I’d run then, all right.

Thinking of what I had done, I felt my breasts shrivel back to normal size. Smaller, even. The secret strong hands of the bra were cupping empty air. I’d never stolen anything in my life before. I stared at the cars crawling past, feeling sick. I had taken something I hadn’t paid for. Weren’t you supposed to get some sort of thrill out of stealing? I wasn’t excited any more; I just had a big solid lump of undigested fear sitting at the top of my stomach.

‘Katie,’ said a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. I nearly shot off up the road. ‘Katie Carter. Isn’t it?’

An unfamiliar woman was standing at the other end of the bench, looking at me. But I knew I’d seen her before. She had short dark hair flicking on to her cheeks like feathers and she wasn’t very tall.

I felt the bra-hands on my chest clench into my body and squeeze my stomach shut. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I stared at her, aching with hope. I wasn’t sure if I was going to cry.

‘I’m Janey Legge. From the library, remember?’

The hands let my stomach go and all the hope dropped out of me on to the dirty pavement under the bench. There was nothing left inside but disappointment.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. You’ve gone a funny colour–are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. I hoped she couldn’t hear the wobble in my voice.

She sat down on the bench next to me, looking worried. Now she was close to me, I could see how stupid I’d been. She was years younger than my mother would be. Her hair wasn’t short at all, it was long, caught up into a bun at the back of her head, with short feathery bits pulled out to curl on to her creamy cheeks. It had a reddish tint that didn’t look natural. Her face was thinner than my mother’s too, with a pointy ski-jump nose, and high cheekbones.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she said.

She wasn’t my mother. How dare she worry about me? How dare she make me think—

‘I’ve seen you lots of times at the library,’ she went on, ‘and your father was telling me all about you on Saturday. He’s ever so proud of you, you know.’ She smiled at me. There was a fleck of dark plummy lipstick on one of her front teeth.

‘I don’t remember you,’ I said. I did, though. I’d just never taken much notice of her before.

A pulse jumped under one of her eyes. ‘Well, I know you,’ she said. ‘Always getting out books on archaeology. We notice things like that, the other librarians and I. We call you the Little Digger.’

She was wearing a fluffy lilac wraparound cardigan instead of a coat, over a dress that tried to be the same shade but just missed. There was a thin gold cross on a chain round her neck. I couldn’t think what to say to her.

‘So, Digger,’ she said, ‘what a surprise bumping into you at my bus stop, eh? But your dad said you lived up on Green Down. Maybe we’ll keep bumping into each other, now we’ve done it once.’ She unzipped a big tapestry shoulder-bag. ‘Banana? I always get peckish on my way home.’

‘No, thanks,’ I said coldly. ‘I’m dieting.’

She raised her eyebrows. Her cheekbones were sharp, with little dabs of red blusher under them. ‘Exercise,’ she said. ‘Exercise is better than dieting. Do you dance, Katie?’

A bus was coming along the road. I squinted at it over Janey Legge’s fluffy shoulder. Not my bus. I wondered whether to get on it anyway, to escape from her. The bus drew to a stop beside us, and the noise of its engine drowned out whatever Janey was saying. She looked round at its number. ‘Well, this is mine. Been lovely talking. And you will, won’t you?’

‘Will what?’

‘Remember me to your father. What a lovely man. You can tell him I said that.’ She stood up, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. ‘See you soon.’

Over my dead body. I stared after the bus as it pulled away towards the bridge, trying telepathy to make it explode. But there was no fireball, no mushroom cloud. It carried Janey Legge and the rest of its passengers safely across the river.