Bad Little Girl(105)

But it didn’t get better, it got even worse. Marianne wanted her to do things, even worse things, for the internet. There were cameras and it was scary. She was so scared! And then Marianne stopped being nice. She said they’d never get their cottage if Lorna was so selfish, that she knew another girl who’d jump at the chance to live by the sea. And so Lorna had said, all right, I want to leave, then. That was the argument that the hotel staff must have heard. But Marianne persuaded her to stay. She said she only had to do one more thing, and they might, just might, have enough money to stop for ever. But that one last thing was too awful, too much, and Lorna said no. And when she put two of the stones in the ornamental plant pots in the lobby in her knee sock, and told Marianne she was going to leave, she wasn’t really going to hit her! She just wanted to scare her, but Marianne went crazy, and Lorna – well, she just shut her eyes tight and swung. Not even knowing what she was doing really, just wanting to protect herself, just wanting to get out. And then she ran as fast as she could, before Marianne could grab her. She had run downstairs without anyone seeing her, and kept running.

Why hadn’t she been to the police?

The social worker squeezed her hand. Lorna took some deep breaths.

‘She told me that the police would say I was bad and I’d get put in prison for ever.’

‘Do you remember any of the names of the hotels you were taken to? Where any of the flats were? Any of the men’s names?’

‘No. No.’ Her voice was a whisper. She kept her eyes on the floor. Her legs, short, bruised and scabbed, swung.



* * *



For a few days the story stuck. Lorna was given a teddy bear and allowed to use a PlayStation in the common room. Every afternoon she had a little walk in the garden. She assumed that she was in some kind of children’s home, but she didn’t see any other children there. On the third day they put a TV in her room. It only had a few channels, and none of the good ones either. She wanted Cartoon Network and MTV but the nice lady, the social worker, wasn’t there any more. There was a different one now, a police lady. Even though she didn’t dress like one, Lorna knew what she was. When they asked her questions, this lady sat next to her, but didn’t take her hand. When she smiled she didn’t smile with her eyes either. And it was always the same boring questions, too. Not even about anything really. Nothing interesting anyway. They asked about the fire.

‘I don’t know anything about the fire.’

‘Did Marianne tell you about it?’

‘No.’

‘When did you find out about it?’

‘When you told me.’

‘You didn’t seem surprised when we told you. Why do you think that was?’

‘Don’t know. Shock?’

‘Were you shocked?’

‘Yeah. Course.’

They asked about Pete, about her mum, about Carl, if Carl had been mean to her. They kept asking, even when she let her words trail off. Even when she began to cry. They’d just pause, briefly, and then start all over again, same questions, same expressions on their faces, cold. They were cold, mean people.

‘When I first told you about your mum, about the fire, you didn’t cry,’ the policeman said.

‘I did.’

‘No, I remember asking you if you needed to take a break, if you were upset.’

Lorna said nothing.

‘And your dogs? Your pet dogs? Are you upset that they’re dead?’ he asked, and Lorna felt so bored that she swore at him. She saw the police lady smile.

Then they took the TV away altogether. They said the PlayStation was broken. In the meantime, she had some books, and pads of paper. ‘You can write your own stories. If you get bored,’ the police lady had said.

It was so boring! Only those stupid books, the same ones Claire had given her. And the same crappy drawing paper they’d had in school. But she did start drawing. And writing. She drew castles and ballerinas and models with heads wider than their waists. She drew diamond rings and high-heeled shoes. She drew dogs. One of them bit a ballerina in half. Her tutu stuck out from his mouth like bloody pink lettuce. She wrote little poems. Outside, summer had started; how long had she been here anyway?

When they started to ask her real questions, the questions she’d expected at the start, it was almost a relief. Not that she was going to answer them, that’d be stupid. They acted like they knew things that she was sure they couldn’t. They showed her a picture of her mum, and Lorna knew that she should cry, but it was a picture she’d never seen before, and it just looked funny, something about the expression on her face, and her hair was different. Anyway, it was funny. But they didn’t think it was funny. They said all sorts of irritating, ominous things. Things about fire, about pain. About missing your mummy. They said she’d never spoken about her. And that was strange? Don’t you think so, Lorna? Never to mention your mum? And to laugh when you see her picture?

She began to think that maybe things weren’t going that well after all.

So she stopped answering questions altogether. One time she gave the police lady a kick. She drew filthy words on the ballerina pictures, drew cocks in Anne and George’s mouths. That was fun. During her outside time she turned cartwheels and lay on the floor refusing to get up when it was time to go back inside. Another lady, a doctor, came to see her, and, pointing at the corner of the room, told her that their conversation was being filmed. Lorna laughed and spat at her. It was over. She knew it.