Bad Little Girl(76)

And so they piled into Marianne’s little car, Claire alone on the back seat because Lorna wanted to sit in the front, Marianne blowing smoke out of the window into the frigid air.

‘Claire, you take the map – it’s somewhere near, there.’ She passed a hand vaguely to the north. ‘See if there’s a sign, but I think if we just head in that direction I’ll be able to remember where it is. Now, ready?’

‘Ready Teddy!’ Lorna drummed her feet on the floor, her face flushed and happy.

‘Weddy Wabbit!’ Marianne swung the car around in a lurching loop, the gears protesting. ‘Shit. Fourth. OK, now, here we are. Let’s go!’

The dank countryside slid past, a palette of brown, grey and khaki. Every now and again the sun would filter through the clouds, and Marianne would shriek, point and swerve. There were absolutely no other cars on the road, and Claire realised that she hadn’t seen another face except Lorna’s and Marianne’s for . . . how long? She hadn’t left the house in weeks. Her ankle was so slow to heal. She must rest. Rest, Mum, or you won’t get better. She’s right, Claire, these things can take months. Take some pills. She found herself straining her eyes to see cars on the horizon, or coming up from behind, just to see someone else, but there was nothing. The road stretched behind and beyond them, narrow, mean and empty under the huge grey sky. The car, smoke-filled and cold, swung in rowdy curves, Lorna and Marianne sang show tunes and they never seemed to get close to anything resembling a farm.

‘Claire, the map? What’s it say on the map? Where are we?’ and Claire would nervously point at a random location.

‘Here I think. The A40 still? Or one of the little roads off it.’

And that would satisfy Marianne for the next twenty minutes or so, until Lorna would begin to sigh and Marianne would turn irritably to Claire again.

‘We can’t still be on the same road. We must have gone wrong somewhere. Claire?’

‘A bit further?’

And the car descended into mutinous silence.

‘If you had a smart phone we’d have a map that worked,’ Lorna complained.

‘But it couldn’t work in a car. I mean, there’s no signal or whatever it is in the car, is there?’

Lorna rolled her eyes at Marianne and smirked at Claire in the mirror. ‘Oh Mum.’

‘We’ll have to educate you Claire. Twenty-first century, you know. Oh God, we must be close now. Claire? Map?’ Marianne turned around. The car slowed and swerved.

‘Well, you don’t have a phone with a map either,’ Claire muttered.

‘Oh Lord, Claire, really? OK, I’ll get a smart phone. I will. At least one of us will be . . . Hang on, we’re near now, we’re close. I’m sure I recognise it. I can smell the pigs – can you smell the pigs, Lauren?’

Lorna wrinkled her nose and flapped her hand under it. ‘Phew, I can!’

Marianne read the rusty sign out loud. ‘Huppledown Farm – animals, play park, funfair rides, children’s shows, falconry displays and tractor rides.’

Lorna peered, mistrustfully, out of the window. ‘There’s no-one here.’

‘Well, there will be inside.’ Marianne was brisk, positive. ‘And if not, we’ll have the whole place to ourselves, and that would be an adventure, wouldn’t it?’

The girl, half out of the door, shuffled her feet in the mud. ‘Don’t want to.’

‘We’ve come all this way!’ cried Claire, but Marianne glanced at her, and shook her head. She hunched down and smiled at the girl.

‘Look, Lauren, how about a tractor ride! We can go bumping all over the country on a tractor, that’d be fun, wouldn’t it?’

‘I’m scared of tractors.’ She looked at Claire. ‘Aren’t I?’

‘Oh you’re not! Scared of tractors?’ Marianne laughed.

‘You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, Lauren,’ said Claire.

‘Come on, where’s your sense of adventure!’ Marianne lit a cigarette. ‘Come on!’

‘Let’s just get in, then we’ll see what we want to do, OK?’ Claire limped forward and felt Lorna’s hand creep into her pocket. She gave it a squeeze.

‘She comes all this way and doesn’t want to go on a tractor! I don’t know!’ But Lorna wasn’t about to be melted by Marianne’s scoffing. She stood hunched, small and determined, looking at the floor.

‘Tell her,’ she hissed to Claire.

‘Let’s just get in and see what she wants to do then, shall we? No point in forcing her to do anything she doesn’t want to.’ The girl’s fingers stroked her palm, and Claire smiled in response. Marianne was thwarted; her face sagged into a scowl and she walked quickly away from them, towards the entrance.

‘I just don’t want to,’ whispered Lorna. ‘Thought I did but I don’t. I don’t have to if I don’t want to, do I?’

‘No, darling. Marianne just doesn’t know you as well as I do, that’s all.’

‘You stay with me, OK? You do things with me. Mum?’

And Claire, feeling needed for the first time in weeks, smiled and said she would. Always.

Surprisingly, there were some families at the farm; parents with toddlers mostly, of course, because it was term time. Marianne and Claire stood by while Lorna gingerly climbed a slide and slid down, frowning, behind a wailing two-year-old. Then she decided to tackle the adventure playground. Huge beside the toddlers, and absurdly touching, she even helped one tow-headed boy up a rope ladder into the pirate ship.