The Vintage Teacup Club (10 page)

Alison slowed in her car and turned the headlights to full beam as she neared the railway tracks. A fox sped out in front of her, but aside from that the dark road was empty. She heard the party before she saw it, a heavy bassline thudding and the laughs and shouts of teenagers. Alison parked up outside the house and looked over at it – the front door was wide open with a cluster of older teenagers beside it, the windows were boarded up with chipboard and sections of roof slate were missing. Alison turned off the car engine. She saw Janie, Sophie’s best friend, right away. Dressed in a black and white spotted dress with her hair tied up in a thick black band, she was smoking a cigarette outside with two other girls who looked as if they could be in their twenties.

‘Janie,’ Alison called out, as she walked over. Empty cans and cigarette butts littered the yard, and Alison saw a hypodermic needle by the wall. The young girl looked panicked. ‘Janie,’ Alison lowered her voice as she took the girl to one side, away from the rest of the group. ‘Listen, I’m going to presume you have your parents’ permission to be here, but Sophie doesn’t. Where is she?’ Janie bit her lip then said, in a quiet voice, pointing, ‘She’s out the back. Please don’t tell her I told you.’

Alison walked away from Janie and
pushed her way down the hallway crowded with teenagers; it smelled of urine, weed and sweat. Some of the floorboards were missing or broken. Curious eyes tracked her, and the music and shouting got louder the further into the house she went. Her heart beat hard in her chest as she tried to push away images of what she might find. You can roll up your school skirt and put on as much make up as you want, Sophie, she thought, tears stinging her eyes, just please be OK.

In the back room she found a couple of old sofas and beanbags strewn about, with dark forms lying on them. Alison could make out about a dozen people. She saw a dark ponytail swing, heard a laugh, and breathed out for what felt like the first time since she’d entered the house. Sophie. She made her way over to the far corner and the girl looked around – she was about the same age, but her eyes were sunken, her expression hard. It wasn’t her daughter.

‘Have you seen Sophie?’ Alison asked, but the girl just shook her head dumbly in response.

‘Mum?’ came a hesitant voice. Alison turned towards it. There was a girl over there, a dark shape, lying on a beanbag with a trilby-hatted boy. ‘Soph? Is that you?’

Sophie hastily rearranged her clothes and pulled herself upright on the beanbag. ‘Mum, what are you
doing
here?’ The boy in the trilby got to his feet quickly, gave Alison a nod and then scurried away across
the room.

Alison crouched down so that she was level with her daughter. ‘You know what, Sophie,’ Alison said in a loud whisper, her relief now swamped by the feelings of anger and frustration it had masked. ‘I was going to ask you just the same thing.’ A small crowd of teenagers had gathered at the doorway.

‘Oh God,’ Sophie said almost silently, lowering her head. ‘I want to die. This is so mortifying.’

‘You know you shouldn’t be here,’ Alison stood up to her full height and waited for Sophie to get up. ‘I can’t believe you lied, Sophie,’ she hissed. ‘Come on, we’re going home.’

‘I’m not coming, Mum.’ Sophie focused on sliding her bangles further up her arm. ‘And you can’t make me—’

Alison cut her off mid-sentence. ‘We’re going. Now get up.’

Sophie slowly got to her feet and as Alison walked out of the room her daughter followed close behind, cowed.

As they went to leave the room a boy with a dark ponytail and a shark’s tooth on a leather thong around his neck blocked their way.

‘Mummy come to pick you up, has she, Sophie?’ he taunted, his stance wide.

Alison noticed the boy with the trilby from earlier step forward, then, after a sharp look from the boy in the doorway, back away.

Alison’s temper flared, but as she struggled
to control it she spotted a scar on the boy’s eyebrow that triggered a memory.

‘Mummy has come to pick her up, yes, Gavin,’ she said, fixing him with a glare. ‘Just like I remember
your
mummy picking you up from Sophie’s sixth birthday party.’

He shuffled a little, and took a swig from his beer bottle. ‘You may not recall it,’ Alison continued, ‘but it was a hot July day and when your mum arrived, you were stark naked and jumping around, waving your willy in the sprinkler. Saying you never wanted to leave.’

Gavin blanched, and a small crowd of onlookers formed around them.

‘But Sophie and I are less keen to stick around at this party,’ Alison said, ‘so could you please move out of our way?’

As Gavin moved reluctantly to one side, a snarl on his lips, Sophie rushed past him towards the front door. Alison strode behind her and they both walked out of the house and over to the Clio.

‘Unlock it, Mum,’ Sophie insisted. ‘I just want to get in and go home, right now. This is the worst night of my life.’ Alison beeped the car open and they both got inside. The thumping bass from the house showed no sign of quietening. Mother and daughter sat for a moment in the car, Alison looking at her daughter in profile, the party in full swing behind
her. Alison saw that Janie and the boy with the trilby were looking over at them from the doorway. Sophie had her eyes fixed on her feet.

‘Sophie,’ Alison said, casting an eye back at the house before her gaze rested on her daughter. ‘Do you know what a dangerous situation you just put yourself in?’ Sophie’s face was turned away as Alison continued. ‘Aside even from the fact everyone was drinking, and that it looked like there were drugs around too, the house itself … the structure’s totally unsound! If even one of those candles had got knocked over that place could have gone up in flames like a tinderbox.’ Sophie didn’t say anything. The boy in the trilby took a step towards the car and Sophie looked over. He gave a little wave and Sophie raised her hand and waved back. Alison started up the engine and they drove home without saying another word.

‘I’m going to make us both some hot chocolate,’ said Alison, going over to the kettle, ‘and then let’s go and sit in the den.’ She’d called Pete to let him know that everything was OK, and had insisted he go to bed. She told him there was no point both of them losing sleep, but the truth was that she couldn’t help blaming him for what had happened. Whether or not that was fair, she just wanted to handle things on her own.

The den was a hideaway next to Alison’s studio that they’d turned into a makeshift
office for Pete. There were postcards pinned up on one wall and piles of books leaning against another; it was scruffy, but it was cosy with an old red sofa in the corner. Alison came into the room with two steaming mugs, to find Sophie perched on the sofa’s edge, looking like she’d rather be just about anywhere else.

Alison sat down next to her daughter, this girl who it seemed like only yesterday had been trampolining in the back garden, helping her sister make a flower press. Her eyes were dark pools now, devoid of any expression Alison could read.

‘You know what hurts most, don’t you?’ Alison said.

Sophie fiddled with a hole in her jeans.

‘That you lied to us,’ Alison heard her own voice, accusing; but inside she felt something different, a sadness that left her raw; a sense that she had lost control.

Sophie nodded, and tears began to well up in her eyes. ‘But everyone else was there, Mum. They were all allowed to go. I knew you and Dad would never let me.’ As she rubbed her eyes roughly, her voice hardened. ‘Anyway, now they’ve all seen me leave with my mum, I’ll probably never get invited to any parties ever again. It’s going to be awful at school on Monday.’

‘You certainly aren’t going to get what you want by lying to us, Sophie,’ Alison said. ‘We need to be able to trust you if we’re going to give
you freedom.’

Alison reached out for her daughter’s hand. For a moment she felt it, Sophie’s skin as soft as when she was just a little girl. Then she pulled her hand away and turned her face towards the wall. Alison felt a tightness in her chest, the daughter she knew
had gone.

Evening sun cast the streets in a bronze glow as I walked from work over to Dad’s house. The girls playing out by our row of cottages brought back memories – that was me and my friend Annie once. Her with her pink Raleigh with decorated spokes, me in my rainbow rollerblades. We used to get up early to play before school and drive the milkman mad by criss-crossing in front of his float. Chris hadn’t been able to join in, but he’d wait on the doorstep, chatting with the boys next door and calling out to us. We’d always try and bring him back some sort of treasure left in the road or a skip – a discarded cassette, a Tic Tac box, a comic someone had chucked out. It was amazing what you could find on our street, and because Chris was only little then it was all precious
to him.

I got to Dad’s green front door and unlocked it, calling out hello. I heard Chris before I saw him, ‘Hey sis!’ he shouted, coming through from the living room in his wheelchair. He looked like he’d caught the sun, his light brown hair was flecked with blonde and his skin had the beginnings of a tan. I reached down to hug him hello.

‘Hi,’ I said, ‘you’re a nice surprise. How are things?’

‘Good thanks, Jen. I just got back from Brighton and thought I’d pop by and say hello.’

‘Is that why you’re brown?’ I asked, pointing at his tanned forearms. ‘I thought you were supposed to be glued to a computer screen all day?’

Chris laughed. He worked freelance as a website designer, and had a little office set up at his flat around the corner. He was usually so busy that he often joked about rarely seeing daylight. Chris was born with spina bifida, so he had to use leg braces, or sometimes the wheelchair; but as long as the place he was in was accessible there wasn’t much he couldn’t do – and he’d proved through his success at work that there was a lot he could.

‘Yeah, I had a couple of meetings with a clothes label this week and we decided to have them at a bar on the beach.’ I looked at him with envy. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Sweet set-up, eh? Anyway,’ Chris continued, ‘I thought I’d see how you and Dad were doing.’

At that moment Dad appeared in the
doorway to the kitchen in a dusty apron. He must have been out the back in his carpentry workshop when I arrived.

‘Hello sweetheart,’ he said, his eyes crinkling, wiping a stray bit of sawdust from his brow. ‘Come and give me a hug.’

I went over and hugged him, stray woodchips and all. Dad smelt of soap, and new tables and chairs, just like always. He wasn’t much taller than me, but he was stocky and strong, and I think secretly proud to have quite a bit of brown, albeit greying, hair left on his head.

‘Good to see you, love,’ he said, pulling away to look at me. It must have been all of a week since I’d seen him last. ‘Have you got time for a cuppa?’

‘Of course,’ I said, putting down my handbag. I followed Dad through into the kitchen, where Chris flicked the kettle on while I got three mugs out and put some Jammy Dodgers on a plate for us. ‘What are you working on out there, Dad? More shop fittings?’

‘No, not this time, Jen, it’s a bed for your cousin Angie’s attic room. It’s a small space so she needs something customised.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down, then returned my questioning look with a firm stare. ‘And yes, she is paying me for it, Jen.’

My dad thinks I’m too money-minded, I know – but he’d do all his work for free if it were down to him.

‘Dad was over at the old school house all weekend, you know,’ Chris said. ‘Measuring up for his mysterious
creation for your wedding. The caretaker just gave him the keys – they’re all big fans, isn’t that true, Dad? They remember him from when he’d go and do DIY there.’

The place where Dan and I were going to have our wedding reception had once been our primary school, and Chris and I both had some happy memories of it. ‘Oh, Dad. I hope you’re not going to any trouble—’ I started.

Chris interrupted, ‘Jen. You know he likes using the old carpentry skills when he gets the chance.’

Dad nodded. ‘I’m enjoying it, love,’ he said.

‘And while I haven’t inherited Dad’s way with wood,’ Chris went on, ‘I have just finished the final design changes on your invites, so I’ll send them over to you tomorrow. If you’re happy with them now, then we can get them over to the printer.’

‘Thanks, both of you. I’m really grateful.’ I took a bite out of one of the Jammy Dodgers. ‘Everything is looking good, I think. Although as things stand it does look like Dan and I might be going back to Bognor Regis for our honeymoon.’ I wrinkled my nose.

Chris laughed, ‘I’m sure it’ll be glorious that time of year.’

When Dad, Chris and I had been able to go away as a family, we’d always gone to Bognor with some of Chris’s friends from his Saturday club who had discounts on some specially adapted cottages
down there. We would have a great time; I think Dad secretly used to like showing off his barbecue skills to the single mums. But I had no wish to hurry back there, and Chris knew it.

I pushed the plate of biscuits over towards Dad in case he wanted one. ‘Actually, come to think of it, we’re so strapped for cash we might need a tent,’ I added, smiling.