Bad Little Girl(92)

Lorna’s body was rigid. She cut her eyes at Marianne, who leapt off the sofa as if she’d been scalded, heading back to the kitchen.

‘I’m making tea. Anyone want tea?’

‘That’d be lovely. Lorna? Tea?’

‘I want everyone to shut up. Can’t hear the programme,’ the girl hissed.

‘You can pause it, can’t you? Till everyone’s settled?’ Answering back filled Claire with anxiety and exhilaration. She nudged the girl’s feet again. ‘Seriously, move up a bit, Lauren. The sofa isn’t just for you, you know.’

Lorna gaped melodramatically, turned to the kitchen door, but Marianne wasn’t there. ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed.

‘Watching TV with my daughter,’ Claire answered complacently. Lorna dug her sharp toenails into Claire’s arm. Claire smiled, shifted her arm slightly. ‘We really ought to trim those nails, Lauren. Why don’t you start biting them instead of your fingers? Try something new too?’

The girl swung her body around to face Claire, and her eyes were shiny with tears. She hugged the blanket to herself, cold and pitiful. ‘Why’re you being so horrible? Mum? This isn’t like you.’

Claire struggled to keep her posture, her remote smile; struggled not to clutch the girl’s hand, be friends once more. ‘I don’t think I’m being horrible. I’m not being horrible at all.’

‘You’re not being like you.’ Lorna narrowed her suddenly dry eyes. ‘At all.’ She let the blanket drop and stared at Claire, her mouth a tight line.

‘Well, that’s not the same thing, is it? Besides, I think I am being like me. I feel more like myself, more than I have in, oh, ages, months.’ She watched Lorna’s eyes narrow again. Her thoughts were scudding across her face like rain-filled clouds. ‘And, you really shouldn’t frown like that, you know. What is it Auntie May says? Frowns are the mother of wrinkles? Or something like that. You don’t want to be the oldest-looking girl in drama school, do you?’

Now Lorna was crying for real, in confusion, in rage. Her face contorted. ‘You shut up about that, you don’t know anything, you don’t know anything about it.’

‘I know that you’re not going to drama school.’ Claire dropped her head conspiratorially. ‘I know that much.’

‘I am!’

‘How?’

‘Marianne’s taking me to London.’

‘Really. How?’

‘Here we go, here we go. Oh, poppet, you paused it, thank you!’ Marianne bustled back in. Claire wondered how much she’d heard from the kitchen, how much she knew already. ‘I brought the rest of the Jammie Dodgers and a little whisky for Claire; just a little one.’

‘Oh, I really don’t want it.’

‘Well, you look like you need it. God knows you do, doesn’t she Lauren?’

‘She looks awful,’ Lorna said flatly.

‘No, really, I’m fine. Let’s watch this thing.’

‘I’m leaving it here, just here by your foot, so don’t knock it over. OK, OK, Lauren, press play.’

The soap opera clips provided a meta narrative to the drama in the living room. At the start, both Claire and Marianne would exclaim when they saw something that they recognised from their youth: who shot JR, or the catfight between Crystal and Alexis in Dynasty. Claire took a drink after all; all her nerves were quivering and the alcohol dampened things down just enough that she could act naturally. And the more natural she was, the more annoyed Lorna became. She sat wrapped in the blanket, eating crisps, ignoring the women, but, by groaning loudly when they spoke and skipping past bits they were commenting on, she succeeded in freezing the atmosphere in the room.

Number five on the countdown was a recent plotline from EastEnders. A terrible fire in the house next door had almost taken out the Queen Vic. Petrol had been poured down the drains, through the letterbox, down the stairs. There were clips of a crying teenager, bruised, in the shadow of a threatening man.

‘. . . and when Tracey took matters into her own hands, all hell broke loose . . . ,’ intoned the narrator, over a clip of the threatening man swamped in smoke, trapped under burning wreckage, ‘. . . and while Tracey said she wasn’t to blame, PC Palmer thought otherwise . . .’

The teenager screamed her confession at her co-star. Abuse. Going on for years. Couldn’t put up with it any more. And then it started happening to her little sister!

‘Oooh, that’s juicy!’ said Marianne, taking another biscuit.

‘. . . nationwide protest when Tracey was sentenced for murder . . . even the Prime Minister had an opinion.’

‘Oh my God. Doesn’t he have enough to do, without commenting on silly soap operas?’

‘Shhhhhhhhh!’ hissed Lorna.

‘. . . and the sentence was lifted, the Walford One was released, and Tracey will return to the show, after the actress who plays her – Lauren Sharpe – finishes her stint as Roxy Hart in the West End production of Chicago.’

‘Oh my God, how far-fetched can you get?’ Marianne spoke through crumbs.

‘What’s far-fetched mean?’ asked Lorna slowly.

‘It means really, really unlikely. Never going to happen in real life.’

‘Why not?’ Claire tried to sound idle.