Wake Up Happy Every Day (38 page)

‘Shall I be mother?’ she says and pours three cups, adding milk and sugar to hers even though she doesn’t usually take sugar, but it allows her to use the nifty little tongs she’s got from that vintage shop for three dollars. She knows Megan will notice this affectation and smile inside but that is all good, she wants Megan to smile because things are a bit too bloody serious at the minute.

She’s just about to say she’ll leave them to talk business strategies and audience segmentation or whatever when Amelia speaks.

‘He won’t leave me.’ Her voice is dangerously even.

‘I know that,’ says Megan. ‘I don’t want him to. In fact I don’t want to see him again.’

‘Well that’s good, honey. Because you won’t.’

Lorna stirs her tea, takes a sip and leaves the room. This is clearly not the right place for her to be, but fucking hell – Megan and John? Jesus. This is huge.

Music would be good, but there’s nothing that fits. It needs to be loud so she won’t be tempted to try and overhear whatever is happening in the living room. Something loud. Something angry. Something from her loud and angry teens. Opeth.

She lies on her bed and looks at the ceiling. Megan and John? She doesn’t really know her room-mate at all obviously. How have they even managed it? And the whole dinner-party thing takes on a whole new colour. She decides that she is pretty pissed off about that.

Would they be able to say friends after this? Of course they would. Better friends. Or would they? Oh, it’s all a bit of a head-fuck.

Opeth do their madly angry shouty thing and she lets herself think of Megs and her down the line. Five years’ time? Ten? Maybe not room-mates any more, but living near each other in their own places.

And she thinks about the magnificence of Megan. Not just her body, but the all-round brilliance of her. And she wonders what it would be like if she found she actually did have a Sapphic bone or two somewhere in her body.

Maybe one night after too much drink and too many good songs and with the realisation that all men are wankers and that they are both gorgeous – both absolutely smoking fucking hot in fact – they’ll just start snogging and one thing might lead to another, and it’s common knowledge that sex with another girl is actually amazing. And she wonders which of them would be the mum if they decide to have kids. Maybe they both would. Maybe they would have a kid each. At the same time. That would shake up the NCT group. She wonders whether they’d be in the USA or the UK. Certainly be a whole lot cheaper to have their babies in England.

Then again, common knowledge is often wrong. For example, it is common knowledge that dope is a good thing but in Lorna’s experience stoners are very boring people. Give her a conversation with an insurance agent over one with a stoner any day. Which brings her back to John and Amelia.

She presses the remote, stops the album. It’s actually too, too loud, too, too angry. God, her teenage self was a state. Needed help. How come no one saw that back then?

In the sudden silence she wonders if maybe she’s overthinking things. It’s Megs she should be thinking about, because clearly things are fucked up for her right now, this minute. And of course, it’s now that Megs opens the door.

Lorna doesn’t look round. Keeps her eyes on the ceiling.

‘She gone?’ she says.

‘Yeah.’ A pause. ‘Pretty messy, huh?’ Megan says.

‘Just a bit.’

‘You got some questions?’

‘A few.’

‘Fire away.’

Lorna makes a big show of thinking. Puts her hand on her forehead. Then flips around on her bed so she can see Megan hovering sheepishly in the doorway. Sheepish doesn’t really suit Megan, Lorna thinks. Megan should be a beautiful she-wolf in beautiful she-wolves clothing at all times.

‘Question one: did you leave any biscuits? Question two: shall I make a fresh pot of tea? Question three . . . Question three is . . . Dear heart, what the fuck were you thinking?’

There’s a pause, then Megan tries to laugh but it comes out all wrong and suddenly she’s in tears. Lorna can’t feel pissed off any more. It’s not like when Jez was crying. Jez crying just got on her tits. Megan crying tugs at her heart.

She gets up off the bed. Crosses to her roomie and hugs her. ‘It’s OK, hon. If you’ve eaten all the biscuits we can get some more.’

Megan hiccups into Lorna’s hair. ‘It’s fine. There are still biscuits.’

‘That’s all right then,’ says Lorna.

And later, after more tea, after all the biscuits, after some chat about nothing that really matters because they agreed they’d talk about all of that other stuff some other time – maybe over a pool game (‘Like lads would,’ says Lorna, ‘they’re better than us like that.’) . . .

After all that, they finally go outside to drive to the city, like they’d planned, but they can’t get very far because the tyres on Megan’s Focus are flat. Slashed in fact. They won’t be going to Russian Hill today.

‘Bit petty?’ says Lorna. ‘Or fair enough?’

‘Fair enough, I guess,’ says Megan.

‘Can we start drinking now, do you think?’

‘I think that yes, yes we can.’

‘And I think that tonight we should aim for more than a pitiful thirty-two units, don’t you?’

‘Hell, yeah.’

Forty-one

NICKY

The first thing is to calm Mary, who is weeping noisily on the sofa. I can’t think with that racket. I put my arms around her and say the right things – not to worry, not her fault, they won’t harm Scarlett because then how would they get their money? I say all that but it’s hard because I absolutely hate her right now. I can’t help it. Logically, it’s probably really not her fault but it doesn’t matter – she was in charge and now our baby’s gone. She’s our irresponsible first babysitter, Noel, times a million.

When the tears have subsided a bit, I get her to show me the note. It’s a classic pantomime ransom note. You know, letters cut from newspapers and stuck onto card, the thing we’re all familiar with from childhood comics. I’m thinking the police would probably unravel this in minutes. They’d find out which editions of which papers the letters came from. Which shops they were bought from too probably. There’ll be DNA all over the letters, the card, the glue. There’s bound to be fingerprints. Maybe even the grammar of the note has a distinctive hallmark which would point to known suspects. But the police are never going to be in a position to see this note. We absolutely can’t take that risk.

My biggest fear is that whoever did this simply kills Scarlett once we’ve paid the money. She’s the only thing that can give them away. Why take the risk of looking after a kid who might attract attention? We’re clearly going to pay anyway, aren’t we? It’s not like dealing with Amazon or eBay is it? We can’t just ring a helpdesk and complain that we’ve paid but that our goods haven’t arrived.

I say this to Mary. I shouldn’t. I mean, Christ, she obviously feels guilty enough already. I shouldn’t even really acknowledge it to myself. Sometimes articulating things kind of makes them happen. Like you hear about people worrying out loud about their aches and pains being cancer and then that worry actually gives them the disease. I think what I’m probably hoping is that Mary will reassure me by explaining exactly why my fears are groundless, that of course they won’t do that and explaining scientifically why it would be crazy for these bastards to even think of that, how it would fuck up their whole game plan. How history and psychology and plain good sense mean that won’t happen, but of course she can’t do much in the way of reassurance right now. She’s in no fit state to.

But I tell her anyway – the thoughts have to go somewhere – and she looks shocked. ‘Fuck,’ she whispers, wide-eyed. ‘Fuck.’ And she looks so sick that I end up reassuring her. ‘It won’t happen. They won’t do that. These are businessmen. It’s just a transaction to them,’ I say. But of course businessmen will want to maximise profit and minimise risk. Getting rid of Scarlett removes risk entirely, without affecting their potential profit at all.

We could demand proof she’s alive before we pay I suppose, but what proof could we ask for? A photo of Scarlett next to the front page of the paper? A video with date and time along the bottom? That would only prove she was alive up to the moment the picture or the video was taken.

Mary’s phone goes and she leaves the room to take the call. I remind her not to tell anyone about our situation and she snaps at me.

‘I’m not a retard,’ she says and tosses her pigtails from side to side. She is not one of those women who looks at their most beautiful when angry. She looks quite ugly in fact. But she’s under intolerable pressure here, I know. What if something does happen to Scarlett? How will she live with that? How can she go on?

Though people do. They have to.

Christ, I wish Sarah was here.

And I reach in my pocket to get my phone to call her, even though Mary says she’s called her plenty of times already. And that’s when I realise that I’ve left my phone in that psycho Catherine’s car, or the cafe or somewhere. It’s not here anyway. I haven’t got it. This makes me panic more than anything. Not having a phone makes me feel blind and helpless.

Less than two minutes later Mary’s back and scooping up her tote bag. The one that says ‘My bag. My rules’ in zany pink on the rustic hemp cloth. And she’s gone.

‘Got to go,’ is all she says.

I’m shocked. ‘Now?’ I say. ‘In the middle of all this?’

‘It’s all such fucking bullshit,’ she says and there are angry tears in her eyes. ‘Everyone lets you down. Everyone. In the end.’

And I say, ‘Look, Mary, there’s bigger things to worry about right now than your boyfriend troubles.’

She gives me a long, hard look. It’s chilling actually.

‘Fuck you, Russell,’ she says at last. ‘Fuck you. Fuck Sarah. Fuck the brat. Fuck your money. And fuck England too.’

On another day I’d probably laugh, but now, with my kid missing, possibly dead, with all the rage and fear I have dammed up inside me, I raise my hand. She stops me with a look. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she says. It’s enough. What am I doing? She’s just a kid herself. An angry kid full of guilt and fear. Just like me. Just like all of us. At moments of great stress we all become furious toddlers.

She heads for the door. Then spins back. ‘Land of Hope and Fucking Glory,’ she says. ‘Big joke.’ And then she really is gone, banging out of the doors, crunching down the gravel and power-walking away. I’ve never seen Mary at anything above languid before. She’s pretty speedy when she wants to be.

There’s something I have to say, despite everything.

I run to the street. She’s already a hundred yards away and she’s actually broken into an awkward half-jog. I call after her: ‘Thank you, Mary. For what you’ve done with Scarlett. Thank you.’ I’m not even sure she hears. And if she does, I hope she doesn’t think it’s sarcasm, because I really am grateful. Whatever happens, Scarlett has been happy with Mary. She’s made real progress. Mary brought us all hope, and that’s a great gift. I’m still grateful for that, even now. The second-best kind of love is still a good kind of love.

On my own now I feel sick, literally sick, with dread. There’s a sour taste in my mouth and my stomach spasms painfully. I want to scream and shout and break things. I want to rage and howl and strangle someone. But I also feel so tired, I could sleep for ever. And I want to somehow relieve the volcanic pressure in my head. But there’s nothing to be done except wait for a new note and that might not be for hours or days.

And where the fuck is Sarah?

In the end it’s the money that’s done all this and I get the notion that if I do some immediate good with the money, then maybe some good will flow back my way. So I go into the downstairs toilet, the place where just a few weeks ago I had discovered Russell stiff and cold and gone. I go in there and pick up one of the
Private Eye
s stacked in a pile next to the pan and go through to Russell’s office with it.

I flip the lid on Russell’s iThing and there, under the tubercular gaze of those pre-Raphaelite girls, I start shoving wads of electronic tenners into electronic begging bowls.

You know
Private Eye
, right? It’s this magazine that attempts to keep the ruling class in line with satirical jokes and, also, by revealing the stuff they’d rather keep hidden. It has some very good political cartoons. At the back it has a classified section, one column of which is called EYE NEED. It’s where people beg basically. They stick in one line about their particular misfortune and also put their bank details in the hope that people will be moved to donate. Does it work? I guess that sometimes it must because people wouldn’t do it, but it seems unlikely.

Anyway, this copy of
Private Eye
is three months old so the philosophy student who wants to do a PhD, the newly divorced mum who wants to keep her kids at private school, the wine merchant about to go bankrupt because of late payments from his suppliers, the guy who wants to buy some land and build a straw-bale house, the Surrey roofer who needs to buy a kidney, all of these are going to find ridiculously pleasant surprises in their bank accounts. Surely they’ve given up all hope by now?

Of course it might be too late for the roofer.