Just Like the Other Girls

‘Still. This is worth a couple of mil.’

Vince is obsessed with money. I turn to look at him as he stares at the house, no doubt imagining that’s the sort of place he’ll buy when he’s ‘made it’. And then I feel a stab of guilt mixed with pity. Why not have those dreams? Who am I to judge? After all, I have dreams too. Vince has had a shit time: a dad who beat him up, a mother who turned a blind eye. Music was an escape for him. He must see me assessing him as he bends over and touches my cheek. I wince, and hurt flashes in his eyes. ‘I wish I could take it all back. Be the man you needed me to be. I would never hurt you. I’m not my dad.’

‘It’s in the past …’

His eyes glisten and he looks as though he’s about to cry. ‘It’s not, though, is it?’

I hang my head in answer.

He lights another cigarette. Then he leans towards me and his lips brush mine. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers.

I watch as he walks down the street, his collar up against the cold, his familiar lumbering gait, the tip of his cigarette glowing amber in the dark.

As I push open the gate, I glance up at the house and freeze. Someone is standing at the window of my bedroom, watching me.





9





Kathryn

Has she seen me? Kathryn darts away from the window. What was she thinking? Stupid, stupid. She needs to be more careful. The visit from the police today has unnerved her, sent her into a bit of a spin. When Una went out she couldn’t resist coming up here, to what was once her bedroom, long before it was Matilde’s or Jemima’s or Una’s. Long before those other girls came and took away her mother’s attention. This room was different then, of course, not as plush as it is now, no en-suite bathroom or varnished floorboards or tastefully painted walls. Just two interconnecting rooms that had once held the things nobody wanted, which had been hurriedly thrown away when she’d moved up here. Funny how she’d ended up in this room, another thing nobody wanted. She remembers how excited she’d been when Elspeth said she could decorate it however she liked. Elspeth had taken her shopping, revelling in showing her all the lovely expensive wallpapers, vetoing anything she considered cheap and tacky, so in the end the turquoise paper dotted with pink hummingbirds that had adorned the walls – now stripped and painted a tasteful dove grey – hadn’t been Kathryn’s choice. But it had been a big improvement on what she’d had before so she’d been grateful.

The sound of the front door banging reverberates through the house. Una can’t seem to do anything quietly. She’d better get out of here before Una catches her. How would she explain this?

Kathryn lets herself out of the bedroom, then takes the key out of the pocket of her cardigan and re-locks the room, just how Una left it. Then she slips down the stairs onto the landing that leads to the spare room where she sleeps for two nights a week. The room she wasn’t allowed to have as a kid. It’s a double, like the other three bedrooms on this floor, with sash windows that look out onto the garden and pretty rambling-rose wallpaper, a four-poster bed and mahogany bedside cabinets. Every room here is done in a chintzy style. Kathryn’s house is the opposite, all clean lines and minimalist furniture.

She hears Una’s tread on the stairs. She hopes she’s taken her shoes off. Kathryn will have to go down in a minute and check whether Una locked the front door properly – she won’t be able to sleep until she does. She glances at the clock on her bedside table. It’s nearly midnight. Who was the man Una was with tonight? She said at her interview she didn’t have a boyfriend. She can’t see her mother liking that very much. Elspeth wants her girls to be at her beck and call, with no family ties or commitments. When Matilde had acquired a boyfriend, all hell had broken loose. Luckily he hadn’t lasted long. Her mother had put paid to that.

She wonders how Ed and the boys are doing. Despite spending two nights every week with Elspeth (much to Ed’s chagrin, mainly because he has to get off his backside and take some parental responsibility), she still misses her family when she’s away. Her real, imperfect, annoying family. Being in this house stirs up memories she’d rather forget, even after all this time, although Elspeth has more or less wiped away any sign of the past. But Kathryn is still haunted by it. And by Matilde and Jemima. She can still see their mark on the walls, the carpets, still feel their energy in every room. They are like spirits that refuse to be exorcized.

Kathryn sits on the edge of the bed and gathers her thoughts. They are all over the place, like wayward toddlers running off in different directions. She tries to bring them together in her mind: her mother, Jemima, Una and the boy she was with, and Lewis. Lewis. Her mind pauses on the gardener. What was her mother arguing with him about in the garden? She’d gone down to the kitchen to talk to Aggie and seen her mother and Lewis having a heated discussion out on the patio despite the rain settling on their shoulders and hair. What has Lewis done wrong now? Another gardener about to bite the dust, no doubt.

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