Birmingham Friends (12 page)

There were no smiles from Alec this time, no knowing looks. This was his daughter, matured and ripe as a siren, legs spread on the striped couch, pulling the blue cloth up fast now to cover her nakedness.

‘I knew I’d find this.’ His voice came low, more broken than angry. He stood over her, trembling. ‘Oh God – Olivia. You were supposed to keep yourself clean. Clean.’ In an anguished whisper he hissed at her, ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done?’

She stared ahead of her sullenly, wouldn’t face him. He leaned down, provoked into anger now, and took her chin roughly in his hand. ‘Look at me – ’ He jerked her face up violently, but her eyes still didn’t meet his. ‘You filthy, disgusting . . .’

‘No, Mr Kemp, no!’ William cried, jumping up, his face gleaming with perspiration. ‘It wasn’t – that’s not fair!’

‘Fair?’ Alec shouted at him. ‘What the devil has fair got to do with it? Are you telling me it wasn’t her leading you on, getting you so wound up you couldn’t resist her?’ William couldn’t seem to deny this. ‘I know what they’re like.’ Suddenly he slapped Olivia hard across the face. I saw the pain flare in her eyes but she made no sound. She carried on staring sullenly across the room.

I slid past him. ‘Livy – are you all right?’ My friend’s face was hard and full of hatred.

‘Course I’m all right,’ she spat out. Then more softly to me, ‘Thanks.’

Alec marched her to the house and the rest of us followed. He had Olivia by her upper arm and she acted as if she was oblivious to the stream of abuse that he directed at her as they crossed the lawn. She was a bitch, filthy, too clever for her own good. She looked round, up at the trees, anywhere. By the time we reached the house I was choked with helpless rage.

‘Get in the house,’ Alec ordered. ‘You won’t be going anywhere for a while, my girl.’

He tried to bundle Olivia into the house while the three of us watched aghast from the bottom of the steps. I caught a glimpse of Elizabeth Kemp, her face a terrible white in the shadowy hall.

Olivia grabbed hold of the heavy iron door-handle and held on tight, her hair tumbling all over her face. ‘You know why he’s like this, don’t you?’ she shouted shrilly. ‘Because my mother won’t do it with him – never – ’

Elizabeth Kemp stood absolutely still behind her, her mouth open, one hand at her throat. In panic, Alec clamped a hand over Olivia’s mouth and pulled her with all his strength to loose her hands from the handle.

‘Just get out of here,’ he shrieked at the boys. ‘And take your hideous sister with you. Out – now!’

Alec finally succeeded in wrenching Olivia’s hands away from the door. For a second she shook her mouth free. ‘. . . so he does it with tarts and whores.’ She spat out the words, ‘
Councillor
Kemp!’ and then the door slammed shut. Through the coloured glass we saw their movements receding from the door, heard Olivia’s cries.

My legs nearly buckled under me. William was silent, standing quite still.

‘My God,’ Angus said. ‘D’you think there’s any truth in that?’

I burst into tears then, and felt Angus’s arm round my shoulders. He put out a hand to touch William’s shoulder, but William shook him off.

The three of us walked home in silence. As we passed under the sweet-smelling trees in the dusk I felt hatred sinking deep in me and settling there.

‘How could you be so
stupid
?’

I felt like killing William. We’d sat through tea, through the passing of plates of bread and butter and jam and stewed fruit and junket, saying nothing to our parents, while misery and rage nearly choked me. What was happening to Livy? I wanted to rush back to the Kemps’ house and break glass to get in.

Afterwards I cornered William in his bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on his solid thighs and a book between his hands. He didn’t look up at me.

‘Didn’t you think?’ I hissed at him furiously. We didn’t want anyone else hearing this conversation. ‘And put your flaming book down, can’t you? Don’t you care what you’ve done? What that bastard might be doing to Livy?’

William looked up, shocked. ‘Katie – language.’

‘You weren’t such a prig with her.’

He laid his book face down on the eiderdown and looked up miserably at me. His face with its freckles and boyish looks appeared very young suddenly, but it did nothing to melt my heart. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

‘Oh no – of course not. Nothing to do with you at all.’ I stood haranguing him, hands on hips. ‘Anyway – I never knew you liked Olivia – like that, I mean.’

‘I don’t.’

‘So what the hell did you think you were doing?’

‘Look,’ he said, standing up suddenly. His face had turned red to the roots of his hair. ‘You’ve got a nerve coming in here lecturing me when you know perfectly well that you and Angus – ’

‘Angus and I what?’

‘Were up to exactly the same thing, weren’t you?’

I stared at him, my fresh-faced, good all-rounder, oh-so-wonderful brother, and I could see him, ten, twenty years on, pompous and self-justifying. I’d never disliked William before as I did at that moment.

‘The difference with Angus and me, if you must know, is that we love each other and we know when to stop. Whereas you apparently have no idea what might be appropriate and you don’t care a fig about Livy.’

‘It wasn’t like that.’ William’s voice turned small and pitiful. He sank down on the bed again. ‘It’s true I’ve never felt that way for her. I can see she’s pretty as well as anyone else. But recently she’s been behaving so oddly. She’s too moody for my liking.’

‘Well, something obviously changed your mind.’

William shot me a look of appeal, then stared down at the worn green carpet. ‘One minute she was asleep, or I thought she was. Then when you’d gone in, she suddenly got up and came and sat down, right next to me.’ He shuddered slightly at the memory. ‘She was like a snake. She started touching me, just my hands, very softly, but you know – seductively, and staring me in the eyes. Then she just said, “Come on – come with me.” So I went with her to the summer-house.’

‘But why did you go?’

‘That’s the thing.’ He seemed relieved now to be talking. ‘She has this way with her. You can’t refuse her. If her father hadn’t come in like that I don’t know where it would have ended. She just took me over.’ William looked away towards the window. ‘She kept touching me, and I couldn’t . . . You always feel with Olivia as if, if you disagree with her or refuse her, she’ll crack. She always seems fragile.’

I found my mind following this remark like a dog after a stick. It was true. Olivia had this quality that made you want to care for her, to succumb to her. I remembered Angus’s comment ‘You look after Livy.’ I felt sick inside now with my longing to care for her, to rescue her from her father. My brother meant nothing to me. I could think only of her.

William suddenly burst out, ‘No one ever talks about it, do they?’ I dragged my thoughts back to him. ‘Dad, Mum. I’m eighteen and I’ve never kissed a girl before and I couldn’t even think straight. And girls aren’t supposed to do that, are they? My mind was telling me one thing and my body wanted to do another. And Olivia wanted me to, that was the thing. It was she who took her dress off, not me. You must believe me, Katie. But now she’s in such trouble and I feel it’s all my fault. I should have stopped her, been stronger.’

‘Yes, you damn well should,’ I said heartlessly.

‘What if they tell Dad?’

‘Oh, they won’t do that. Think about it.’ I tried to be more sympathetic. ‘Look, don’t worry. I’m sure nothing will happen to you. In fact I don’t suppose they’re thinking about you at all.’

He kept Olivia locked in her room for nearly four days. Nothing was supposed to pass her lips except water. Elizabeth Kemp was under strict instructions not to let her out, and she was too afraid to defy her husband.

I was frantic. Granny was the only one who knew. I paced restlessly up and down by her chair in the garden. Nowadays she did very little but sit. Her speech was reasonably distinct, but slow. We were patient waiting for her words, like listening for the voice of an oracle.

‘There’s not much you can do, I’m afraid.’

‘But they’re starving her.’

‘Oh, I expect you’ll find someone’s feeding her something on the quiet. After all, Mr Kemp can hardly do nothing but sit at home like a guard dog. He has a business to run. All you can do is to be as staunch a friend as you can when she comes out. Whatever’s wrong in that family, you can be sure it didn’t begin yesterday.’

I tried to see Olivia. Elizabeth Kemp’s spidery fingers twitched along the collar of her blouse as she stood at the door. ‘Alec says I musn’t let anyone in.’

I felt complete contempt for Elizabeth Kemp at that time. Even in my fury with Alec I wondered whether he was owed sympathy. Was he married to a woman so cold, so selfish that she wouldn’t even let him touch her? Had her illness, secret and undefined, been simply a ploy to gain his attention and keep him physically at a distance? Warmed by my own new relationship with Angus I found it hard to imagine feeling so negative. It was clear to me, though, that this woman in front of me was frightened.

‘Will you tell Livy I’m here?’ I asked. ‘Please? Perhaps she could just come to the window?’

Elizabeth glanced wide-eyed down towards the road as if fearful that Alec might appear at any moment. Then she nodded. ‘Be quick though, please.’

As I started walking round the back of the house towards Olivia’s window, Elizabeth called out in a high, childlike voice, ‘It’s not his fault, you know.’

I didn’t bother to reply. I didn’t care about them any more. I cared only about Olivia.

She appeared at the window still wearing her nightie, sleeveless, in white organdie. We stared at each other in silence for a moment.

‘Are you all right?’

Her face looked different: naked, like a statue from which rain has washed the dust. I could tell she had spent hours crying, though her eyes were not red. They were wide and sad, yet I could see in them something else, hints of other submerged emotions. I thought I detected a kind of exultation about her which disturbed me because it was so incongruous.

She nodded at me.

‘Are you on your own all the time?’

‘No.’ She spoke so quietly I could barely hear her, as if she was afraid of being overheard. ‘Mummy slips up and keeps me company. And she sends Dawson up with food although she’s not supposed to. I’m supposed to fast like Joan of Arc. The servants think it’s mad of course, and who can blame them?’

‘But for goodness’ sake,’ I exploded, ‘when’s he going to stop all this nonsense? He’s got you imprisoned up there – and William’s feeling awful.’

She pressed a finger urgently to her lips. ‘Shh – please. Sometimes he comes home to check . . .’ She smiled suddenly, an odd, amused smile. I felt she was removed from me, untouchable. ‘Please tell William I’m sorry. He won’t get into any trouble, I promise.’

‘Why on earth did you do it, Livy?’

‘Oh,’ she said dismissively. ‘I had to know I could, that’s all.’ She wavered for a moment. ‘I don’t know really . . .’

‘Was it because of me and Angus?’

‘Oh no. No – I’m very happy for you,’ she said smoothly.

I heard light sounds to my left, and saw Elizabeth Kemp tiptoeing round the house towards me.

‘What are you supposed to do to get out?’ I asked quickly. ‘What are the terms?’

‘Oh, I have to apologize, and give up any notion of a life of my own, and promise I’ll never go near another boy again and be Daddy’s little girl for ever and ever until they find the right man for me to marry. Not much really.’

‘You must go,’ Elizabeth said to me. ‘Please. Don’t keep coming. It’ll make things worse.’

I looked into her pale face, lined now round the mouth and eyes and taut with fright. I wanted to take hold of her and shake her and tell her she was weak and pathetic. Instead, all I could say, contemptuously, was, ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Katie!’ Olivia appealed to me as I was about to move away. ‘We didn’t want you to know any of this. You know Daddy’s a good man really. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

I stared up at her. ‘No,’ I said in the end. ‘I won’t tell anyone. But for your sake, not his.’

When Olivia finally came out of her room she looked even thinner. Her manner was taut and she was sardonic and hard to reach.

‘Did you apologize?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly,’ she quipped. ‘I just told him I’d spend my days up there writing up his story for the
News of the World
. He soon let me out then.’

*  *  *

OLIVIA

Katie was so lonely when we first became friends. She needed me. And oh, yes, I needed her. She was the only one I ever came near telling about home. But I didn’t want to spoil it. I wanted her to love me. I wanted her admiration, her worship of us, of Daddy. It meant that I could pretend, and believe in it all sometimes too, like I did when I was a little girl, and for Mummy’s sake no one should know. Katie was so innocent. Sometimes she saw things but I glossed over them. I became closed by habit and could not open myself again.

Katie gave me herself. No one took much notice of her at home, and I made her flower, I know I did. But then people kept taking her away. That grandmother of hers. She was barmy but Katie had to love her of course. That was the difference between us: she could love people properly. Before, she talked only to me. And then Angus. I could see it coming long before either of them. The way he looked at her secretly. I couldn’t endure it.

What she never understood (how could she?) was that I, Olivia Kemp, had to be the one, not her. The one that men wanted. I was the pretty one. I knew what my body had to do. If my existence taught me anything it was that the way to get anywhere is to give them what they want and plenty of it and they can’t resist you. You’ve got them caught like flies in honey. Mummy couldn’t do it. It wasn’t her fault, I know that. I know she spent every waking moment trying to compensate Daddy for her inability to service him. But I was going to please them, to have them. I had to be the one.

Poor stupid William. Quite handsome in an obvious sort of way, but so middling and happy with himself. As soon as I touched him I knew my power.