Ninepins (3 page)

On her way out to the car she paused, as she often did, on the top of the dyke and breathed in the open space. To her right, the lode cut straight as a furrow through the featureless fields, flanked by its twin dykes, as far as Elswell village three miles away; to her left it ran just as straight for the quarter-mile to the main road, and beyond that, through country equally unvarying, north and east to drain into the river Cam. That way, too, ran the plumb line of Ninepins Drove, hugging the foot of the dyke but itself slightly raised above the adjacent land. It was what she loved about the fens, as well as what she sometimes hated: the emptiness. But then a movement caught her eye. The drove wasn't empty, after all: it was home to a figure, familiar as her own skin, trudging towards the house. Laura raised both hands and flapped them above her head; the figure began to flap back, before stiffly lowering her arm. Laura grinned as she set off down the track to meet her daughter. Beth was funny: embarrassed to be waving to her mother though there was nobody for half a mile.

‘Hello, love,' she called as they drew within hailing distance. ‘What are you doing home?'

‘I knew you were seeing someone for the pumphouse, so I thought I'd come early. I got the bus.'

‘Well, it's a lovely surprise. But I was just going to come and fetch you. You beat me to it.'

Beth acquiesced in a brief hug, and let Laura's arm stay loosely round her shoulders as they moved homewards together.

‘Thought it'd save you the journey.'

‘Yes.' Don't start an argument, not straight away. ‘Thanks.'

‘I borrowed the bus fare off Rianna. She always has way too much lunch money, anyway. Her mum thinks she eats, and she doesn't, or hardly. Just Diet Pepsi and stuff.'

‘I didn't know they sold Pepsi in the canteen.' Hadn't she had a letter about it: how they'd taken out the drinks machines in pursuit of healthy eating?

‘She gets it at the newsagent on her way to school.'

‘Oh, well. Remind me in the morning to give you the seventy pence to pay this Rianna back. And, you know, you really oughtn't to borrow money that's meant for someone's lunch.'

The bus conversation and the stupid crash dieting conversation could wait until later. It wasn't as if they hadn't had them both before.

‘So, how was school?'

‘Fine.'
OK. Fine
. It was always just fine. ‘So, what was she like, the new person? Is she taking it?'

‘I don't know yet. They're – she's going to ring back in a few days.'

‘I hope she does come. Or someone else does, pretty soon. It's boring with no one to watch TV with. Sharmila was cool.'

I watch television with you, Laura wanted to say. But when was the last time she had? ‘Perhaps,' she tried, ‘after homework and supper we could play a game?'

Beth shook her head. ‘I need to watch
Hollyoaks
.'

‘Need to?' Laura almost laughed, but prevented herself in time.

‘Everybody watches it. Rianna and Caitlin and everyone. I need to know what happens. What's her name?'

‘Who?'

‘The person for the pumphouse.'

‘Oh, yes. She's called Willow.'

‘Weird name. Is she weird?'

‘No, of course not. Don't be silly.' She caught her daughter's sideways glance. Had she said it a little too quickly? ‘She's very nice.'

They had reached the lane end and were climbing the track towards the house.

‘What's for supper?' said Beth. ‘Not boring pasta again. We always have pasta.'

After Laura had tested Beth on the French words for parts of the body, and they'd decided they were both hungry early and had raced and tumbled through eight verses of
Gentille Alouette
while they chopped vegetables for a stir fry, the atmosphere was perceptibly lighter. Why, wondered Laura as she tipped in the peppers and mushrooms, did it take an hour these days for her to get her daughter back when she'd been at school? It was never like this last year.

‘
Et la tête
,' she squeaked.

‘
Et la tête
,' Beth growled back, turning the sizzling mound in the wok.

Fragile though she knew the détente might be, she decided to risk it.

‘You know, I'm really not keen on your coming home on the bus.' Beside her, the wooden spoon froze. ‘Not on your own. Not yet. I come past that way, in any case, on my way home, and I can easily pick you up. I like to pick you up.'

‘Not today, you weren't coming past. You were home already, seeing this Willow person.' It was all right; Beth was stirring again. ‘The tree girl. Weeping Willow. Does she cry a lot, d'you reckon? Or maybe she's the Womping Willow. Does she whack you if you go near her?'

Sticking to her purpose, Laura insisted, ‘I don't want you walking home from the bus stop by yourself.'

‘Everyone else gets the bus. They're all allowed to. It's only me that's not.'

‘Alice's mum takes her home.'

This contribution provoked exaggerated eye-rolling. ‘Her mum works at the school, that's why. But everyone else goes on the bus. So I wouldn't be by myself, would I? I'd be with the others. I'd be with Rianna.'

‘You'd still be walking back on your own from the bus stop.'

‘
Everyone
walks back from the bus stop. How else would they get home?' Beth was bearing with infinite patience her mother's simple-mindedness.

Laura kept her voice level. ‘I expect there are street lights, where the others live. Nobody lives out here where we do. The drove's unlit, and it's too far to walk from the main road in the dark.'

‘It wasn't dark today.' In spite of herself, Laura found she was smiling. Arguing with Beth was like trying to negotiate a revolving door on roller skates – and besides, this time she had a point.

‘Fair enough. But I was talking about in general – especially when it comes to winter. I really don't want you here on your own all that time. From three o'clock to five or five thirty – it's much too long. And it's silly, when there's homework club at school, with people to talk to.' Somewhere with warmth and light, and proper adult supervision. Ninepins was so isolated, and eleven was so young.

‘Ten past three,' corrected Beth, as she flipped a stubborn piece of carrot. ‘Half past, before I'd actually be home. But anyway, if it's so early, it means it won't be dark, will it, even in the winter? And none of my friends go to stupid homework club. It's for boffs.'

‘It's not just homework, is it? I thought there was a pool table, and ping pong?'

‘Only geeks play ping pong. And the Chinese kids.'

Laura, who wasn't entirely certain how a geek differed from a boff, reverted to her main theme.

‘I don't want you being by yourself that long.'

‘I can always use the phone. If anything happens, I mean. I'm not a little kid.'

The stir fry looked done. Laura reached to the back of the Rayburn for the soy sauce.

‘Well, I'd much rather nothing did happen. Or that if it happens, I'm here with you when it does. Could you find the plates, please?'

Beth moved over to the dresser. ‘Anyway, I won't be on my own. Willow will be here. If she's like Sharmila, stuck to her laptop all day. So she can call 999 for me, can't she, in case I can't remember the number.'

If
Willow were here. But the prospect was far from reassuring. ‘We can't expect – '

‘9, 9 … um, what was that last number, again?'

‘If someone's paying rent, you can't just – '

‘9, 9, 7? Was that it? No, wait a minute, 9, 9, 4 …'

Beth was impossible. Back at the stove, holding out the plates and grinning like a six-year-old, she was not to be resisted. Laura grinned, too.

‘OK, OK. Point taken. You're not completely incapable. Just moderately.'

‘Can we use chopsticks?'

‘I can. You're not much good at it, I seem to recall.'

‘Oh, shut up. Can we, Mum, please?'

‘All right. Get them out – they should be in the end drawer, underneath the tea towels. But you're still not coming home on the bus.'

Eating slippery vegetable slivers with lacquered sticks required all their concentration, calling a temporary halt to conversation. After five minutes of struggle, Beth capitulated and fetched a fork, which meant she finished first.

‘Mmm. That was totally gorgeous. Is Willow going to eat with us, d'you think?'

‘I told you, love, I'm not even sure yet if she'll take the room.'

This was summarily shrugged off. ‘Wonder what she'll cook for me, when you're out and she's babysitting? Sharmila did great curries and stuff. And Anna, in Year 5 – she used to make me pancakes, d'you remember, with bacon and maple syrup? She always had a big bottle of it and she used to bring it over.'

‘I've no idea if Willow can cook. Or even if – '

‘What's she like? You haven't told me anything.'

‘Well …' Laura began in the same place as Vince had. ‘She's quite young. Younger than Sharmila – younger than any of the lodgers we've had.'

‘How old, then?'

‘Seventeen.'

Beth cocked one eyebrow – a recently acquired habit – and nodded approvingly. Seventeen, the eyebrow said, was infinitely more desirable than twenty-four. It evidently qualified Willow as being on the inside of some invisible fence – rather than on the outside with her mother. ‘What does she look like?'

‘Small: about your height. Dark hair, green eyes. Slim.'

‘What was she wearing?'

‘Oh, I don't know.' A cardinal sin. ‘All I noticed was, she had on a vest top and no jumper. Apart from that – jeans, I think. Maybe trainers.'

More slow, approving nodding.

‘She isn't a student, like the others have been.'

‘Oh? Is she still at school? Doing A levels or something?'

‘No. At least, I don't think so.' One shouldn't assume; but Vince had said nothing about school or college.

She laid down her chopsticks and looked carefully at Beth. ‘Actually, Willow's had rather a tough time, I think. She's been in care.'

‘Like Tracy Beaker, you mean? Wow – cool.'

Laura, who had been fearing her daughter's reaction, couldn't help but laugh. Then she stopped herself and said, ‘I don't suppose it's as much fun as it might appear on TV.'

‘So, what happened to her parents? Are they dead, or drug addicts or something? Or in prison? They might be bank robbers.'

‘I don't know.' Though much the same list of terrifying possibilities had run through her own mind. ‘And you do know, I'm sure, that you absolutely wouldn't ask anyone that kind of question. It would be very rude, and it could be really upsetting.'

‘OK.' Beth looked contrite – and more than a little disappointed.

‘But, listen, I don't even know yet if she'll take the place.' If Willow would want to come – or if she was ready to have her. ‘So don't get too excited about it, yet, all right? It might take a bit longer – we might end up with someone else.'

‘Well, I hope she does come. I think she sounds cool.'

Laura reached for Beth's plate and placed it on top of her own. ‘Why don't you go and watch your thing on TV? I'll wash up and then come and join you.' Twenty minutes of teenage soap was a small price to keep alive the mood of communication.

As it happened, though, she never made it to
Hollyoaks
. Half way through wiping the dishes, the telephone rang.

‘Hello?'

‘Hi, Laura. It's me.'

Simon.

‘Look, I'm sorry about this, but could we possibly switch Beth's weekends? You know I wouldn't ask unless it was an emergency.'

‘Another one?' Simon's life of recent years seemed to be one long domestic crisis. And she'd planned to repaint Beth's bedroom this weekend.

‘Yeah, I know.' She could almost hear the grin, frank and disarming but not quite apologetic enough.

‘It's Alfie, this time. He's been off school with a cold but then it's turned into an ear infection and now Jack seems to have caught it, and whatever Jack gets, Roly always has next.'

A pale apple green: Beth had chosen the colour and would have loved to help, but paint brought on her asthma. It had to be done when she was sleeping elsewhere, so there was time to air the room and clear the fumes.

‘You don't want Beth coming home with a cold, not with her chest. And it does seem to be an evil one. Half the nursery is off with it. Poor Jack is all crusted up and can hardly breathe, and Alfie's been mutinous with his ears. It's one hell of a job to get the drops in. There's screaming.'

When wasn't there, at Simon's house? Those three boys were the loudest children she had ever encountered, and never kept still. No wonder it was hard to get a syringe in their ears.

‘Not that Beth wouldn't be a help – I'm sure she would. But it isn't really fair on her. I promised I'd take her roller skating the next time she came, and we can't do that with Alfie and Jack laid up, and maybe Roly, too. Not that they ever really do – lie up, that is.'

‘I can imagine.' Beth had always been a quiet invalid, content to stay in bed and be pampered with hot water bottles and chicken soup. But her colds had always left her blue beneath the eyes, lungs tight and fighting for air. ‘Look, it's OK. Don't worry – she can come the following week, we've nothing planned.'

‘Thank you, Laura. Knew you'd understand – you're a star. How is she, anyway? How's school going?'

‘Oh, fine, I think.' It was a struggle to know what else to say. ‘She's making some new friends, I gather. And on Monday she had a merit in science – like house points, you know. She seems to like science.'

It seemed to satisfy him. ‘I liked science. All kids do, when they arrive at secondary school. It's the Bunsen burners. They're irresistible. Gas and lighters and tubes of things that might explode.'