Bad Little Girl(82)

‘Marianne, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. It’s difficult enough to get her to do what I want her to do, without you putting it in her head that she doesn’t have to, like she’s above it all.’

Marianne cocked her head to the side and smiled a sad smile. Her eyes glistened. ‘I certainly don’t want to step on your toes.’

‘I shouldn’t have said that—’

‘I wouldn’t want to come between you two.’ And she looked at the fire again, her eyes now more than glistening.

‘Marianne—’

‘The way I see it, Claire,’ Marianne’s voice wavered, but held, ‘is that we’re both teachers. And we both love her, we both want the best for her. And we can make that happen if we work together.’

Something cracked in Claire’s mind, then; like boiling water poured into a cut glass bowl. I’ll just tell her. I’ll tell her the truth. Share the burden, accept my lot. She tried to take a deep breath, but her chest felt suddenly tight. ‘Marianne, I need to tell you something.’

‘What?’

‘About Lauren. She’s not who you think she is . . .’

Marianne was amused. Her eyes crinkled and she lit a cigarette. ‘So far, so mysterious, Claire . . .’

‘I need to be honest with you. It’s been so hard, it is hard, but I hate to lie. I can’t bear it!’

Marianne was concerned now. She leaned forward and blew smoke over her shoulder. ‘What is it? Claire? She’s not sick, is she?’

‘No! No, it’s, well it’s worse in a way – it’s difficult. But. OK.’ She took another deep breath. ‘Just after Christmas—’

There was a thundering crash on the staircase. Both women jumped up. Marianne got to the door first, opened it, and a crushed, crying Lorna spilled out at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Hurt my back,’ she whimpered through a split lip.

‘Oh my God, Lauren! Did you fall? Down the stairs?’ Marianne was white, shaking.

‘Can you move? Oh my darling!’ Claire put out her hands. Lorna ignored them. She heaved herself up on one arm and held onto Marianne in a bear hug. Marianne crooned and carried her awkwardly to the sofa. Claire hung behind them.

‘What hurts, lovely?’

‘My back and my mouth,’ the girl groaned.

‘And what happened, lovely?’

‘I had a horrible dream, and I called for Mum, but she didn’t hear me. You were both talking. And I couldn’t find the light and I was scared, and I’ – she began to choke – ‘fell, all the way down!’

Marianne cooed and stroked while Claire went into the kitchen to get the medical box, a horrible image creeping into her mind: Lorna standing on the stairs, listening to their conversation, so scared, feeling betrayed, feeling angry. What on earth was I thinking? About to speak to Marianne about all that, about the fire? What were you thinking, Claire? Her hands shook so that she nearly dropped the box, and the first thing she said to Lorna when she went into the living room was: ‘I’m so sorry!’

‘What for?’ The girl’s dull eyes were fixed at a point just above Claire’s shoulder.

‘That – that we didn’t hear you. I’m so sorry, darling. Here, let me see your back.’ Lorna turned over painfully. A small red graze at the bottom of her spine. Claire dabbed it ineffectually with arnica. ‘And how’s your lip?’

‘Hurts. And my arm, and my fingers too.’

‘Ah, you poor little poppet!’ Marianne pushed her stricken face at Lorna. ‘You poor love!’

Lorna closed her eyes. ‘I was calling and calling but you just kept on talking.’ Both women stood guiltily before her. She opened her eyes, narrowed them. ‘What were you talking about, anyway?’

‘Nothing,’ Claire blurted. ‘Nothing really. Just chatting.’ Lorna stared deliberately at the fire and pursed her lips.

‘Just chattering away.’ Marianne sounded nervous now too. ‘We mustn’t have heard you through the door. Thick doors in these old cottages.’

The girl stayed silent and the two women edged about her, offering water, paracetamol, a story, but she shook her head.

‘I’ll go back to bed now,’ she said flatly, accepting Marianne’s help up the stairs. She didn’t look at Claire.

Claire wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a drink. Not much brandy left, and hardly any whisky either. She drank every night now. Even though she’d always enjoyed a small brandy at the end of the day, she never used to have more than one. Nowadays she never had less than three. Sitting at the kitchen table, under the unforgiving fluorescent strip light, she could see the veins and age spots on her hands, their slight quiver. I’m getting old, old, she thought. I’m getting weaker, and a sudden bolt of fear drove through her. A voice deep down, not Mother’s, something else, something more primal, whispered – Take care of yourself, Claire, stay safe Claire. She thought about that little boy, the one at the farm. She remembered his little face cracked in pain. The bruise. Would Lorna be badly bruised in the morning from her fall, she wondered. How far did she fall? Did she fall at all?

She’d almost finished her drink and was thinking, guiltily, of pouring another, when Marianne crept back into the kitchen, grim-faced, and pulled the door shut ever so gently. The strip light didn’t do her any favours either; deep grooves showed on her forehead and down the sides of her mouth. Twinkling white roots showed at her parting.