Bad Little Girl(37)

‘Well, babies are a bit scrunchy. Here, sit down and have a biscuit. Or a sausage roll.’

‘I love sausage rolls! And what are these?’

‘Scotch eggs. Try them.’

The girl took a cautious bite, chewed painfully. ‘It’s nice,’ she said.

‘It’s fine if they’re not your cup of tea, really. Have a sausage roll instead. Or a biscuit.’

Lorna swallowed with a humorous gulp, stuck her tongue out, making an ugh sound, and reached for a biscuit. ‘Is that you?’ she asked, through a mouthful of crumbs, pointing at another photo.

‘Yes. That’s the day I graduated from teacher training college.’

‘You look happy.’

‘I was. I was very happy.’

Lorna chewed meditatively, reached for a sausage roll. ‘I want to go to university.’

‘What would you like to study?’

‘What did you study?’

‘Me? Well, it wasn’t really university in those days. I trained to be a home economics teacher.’

‘I’d like to do that, then. What’s that?’

‘Oh, cooking, and making sure food is safe, and things like that.’

‘One time, in Oak class, you took over when Miss Pickin was ill and we made flapjacks with you.’

‘Did we?’

‘Mmmm. Is that your mum too?’ Norma, surrounded by beaming colleagues.

‘Yes. She was a teacher, too.’

Lorna turned her dark eyes to the fire, and then to Claire. ‘Do you miss your mum?’

Claire blinked. ‘I do.’

Lorna awkwardly ringed Claire’s fingers with thumb and forefinger and stretched her feet towards the flames. A sweet, slightly fetid smell came off them. They looked at the fire, while outside the wind blew.

‘Lorna,’ Claire said finally. ‘About Mr Pryce—’

‘Oh. Look how pretty the fire is.’

‘You can tell me, you know. And about Pete too? Lorna? You can trust me.’

And the girl turned to her, a gentle smile on her face, and held out one warm little hand, but said nothing.

When Claire drove Lorna home, she saw her let herself in with her own key.



* * *



The next day Lorna was waiting, smiling, on the corner again after school. She skipped up, and said, ‘Can I have some cocoa?’

‘Shall we call your mum to make sure that’s OK?’

‘Oh she’s not there. No-one’s in till The Simpsons.’

‘Well, let’s call and find out.’

But the girl was right, nobody was in.

And so they settled into the less formal living room, the one nearest the kitchen. Claire sat on the chesterfield, while Lorna curled on the rug at her feet like a kitten. They munched sausage rolls and chatted.

‘It’s so nice – that, what do you call it? For Cynthia?’ Lorna said, her mouth full of pastry.

‘Forsythia. Yes. It needs trimming back really. And I need to tackle the back garden – it’s much bigger, so it’ll take some time. Perhaps you’d like to help me?’

The girl narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t know how to,’ she muttered.

‘Oh, it’s quite easy. And good exercise too. There are lots of apples that need picking, too.’

‘Oooh! I like apples.’

‘Well, maybe we can pick them and make a pie?’

And Lorna’s joy was so touching. That’s all it took; a little bit of care, a little bit of attention, and the girl could bloom.

And so they went out to take stock. Tangles of creepers and weeds had spread across the paths and around the base of the cherry tree at the end of the lawn, and Claire hadn’t had the energy to do anything about it. But, with Lorna here, somehow it seemed possible, and something in her settled and calmed. They hauled rakes and dusty trowels out of the shed, Claire shooed Johnny away from an old tin of rat pellets and some cans of weedkiller. She really must put them on the top shelf; they were dangerous for a kiddy. And for Johnny, come to that. Lorna located gardening gloves, and Claire peered mistrustfully at the Flymo.

‘It might not work. It’s been ages since it was used.’

‘Oh it will, though. I bet. Plug it in.’

And it did work, well. The machine hummed along while Lorna untangled knotweed from trunks, dragging the pile onto the patio. Chatting in the garden, with the warm autumn sun on their backs, brushing away the lazy flies, the sleepy bees – it was lovely, just lovely. Lorna hummed tunelessly, happily.

When their work was done for that afternoon, they retired to the bright kitchen, where Claire enjoyed watching the girl eat in that delicate and sparing way she had; nibbling the chocolate off the sides of biscuits before snapping them into four identically sized pieces, peeling away crusts and dunking them in the remains of her juice. And all the time she chattered away – today she’d seen fifteen woodlice in the garden and a crow on the shed roof. Maybe they could dig a moat around the base of the cherry tree? And make a drawbridge?

‘I thought it would make you feel better, tidying up a bit. And it has, hasn’t it?’ Lorna was pink-cheeked and proud.

‘It really has, thank you,’ Claire said. ‘And now we’ve tidied, we can do some baking. But listen, I really have to take poor old Johnny out now, it’s very late for his walk.’