Just The Way You Are(49)

‘I was thinking of camping in Bigley Forest Park next weekend,’ I said to Trev.

At least I had been, until someone mentioned things prowling about.

‘Oh, smashing!’ Trev grinned. ‘Used to go there all the time, before… well, you know. Me and my brothers would take our bikes. Sometimes a girl or two, if we were lucky. My brother and his wife still take the kids there if the weather’s good. Find a quiet spot, pitch up and watch the stars come out. Beautiful!’

‘Please tell me you are joking because I thought you said that your brother makes his wife and children leave their lovely, comfortable, safe house with a television and a kettle and a toilet so they can lie in the dirt amongst the bugs for fun!’

Trev shrugged. ‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’

Yasmin rubbed her wrists even harder, her eyes swimming with shadows. ‘I have tried it.’ She shook her head for a few seconds as if utterly bewildered, before abruptly lifting her chin, eyes snapping back to the present. ‘Right, time for me to go.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Trev blurted, before his mouth dropped open in horror.

Yasmin looked at him, puzzled. ‘I couldn’t possibly interrupt your session.’

‘Oh, well, I didn’t mean…’ Trev took off his bandana and used it to wipe his forehead.

‘Thanks, Ollie, I’ll see you next week. If you haven’t been mauled by a wild animal or caught some hideous disease from putrid water.’ Yasmin paused, her eyes glinting at Trev. ‘Nice bandana.’





Thursday evening, all thoughts of camping were hurled to one side when Leanne charged into the garden, slamming her back door so hard it rattled my teeth from the other side of the lawn.

‘You absolute bitch,’ she snarled, the trail from her cigarette like smoke from a dragon’s nostril.

‘Excuse me?’ It was the first time I’d seen Leanne since she’d cried with me last Saturday. It was as though that vulnerable, open version of my neighbour had been a temporary illusion.

‘I can’t believe I fell for your nicey-nice, “Ooh, I understand, Leanne, I only want to help, we all go through hard times, Leanne.” What a complete load of crap.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh, of course you don’t.’ She took a long drag on her cigarette, before breaking off into a cackle. ‘You’re just a friendly, helpful neighbour! Not at all interested in poking around in my business so you can run straight to the phone with all the juicy gossip you found. As if our life wasn’t shitty enough, Miss Neighbourhood Watch has to chuck in a hand grenade. I mean,’ she scoffed, ‘I tolerated this weird little obsession with my daughter, put it down to you having no life of your own. I can even believe you’d get a nasty little kick from interfering, because you’re bored, and I don’t know, in some twisted way jealous of me having Joan. I’ve met people like that before. But to do this to Joan? To that beautiful child? The only thing stopping me from beating the crap out of you right now is because I won’t give anyone another excuse to take my daughter.’

‘Leanne, I genuinely don’t know what you mean. I haven’t gossiped to anyone about you.’

‘No? No secret little calls to social services from a concerned Bigley citizen?’

My stomach shrivelled into a cold, hard lump.

Certain that the guilt of all the times I’d thought about doing exactly that must be showing on my face, I jumped to my feet, flailing about for a response that conveyed the truth, but perhaps not the whole truth.

‘Someone called social services?’ I held out my hands. ‘I promise you that wasn’t me.’

Leanne studied me for a charged few moments, thoughts racing behind her eyes. ‘Well, why else did a social worker turn up on my doorstep, looking to investigate an allegation of neglect?’

‘Leanne.’ I had to sit back down again. ‘If I had concerns that serious, I would have spoken to you about them first. Offered more help.’

I might not have spoken to her – I couldn’t imagine confronting this fire-breathing monster about her parenting standards – but I would definitely have offered more help.

‘I had to wait while some old bag took my daughter into the kitchen and interviewed her about her mum!’ Leanne started pacing up and down the lawn, an anxious Nesbit trotting up and down alongside her. ‘Pretending it was just a normal thing, like all kids have someone randomly show up and start interrogating them on what meals they eat and whether Mummy ever drinks too much and starts acting funny. This is Joan, not some four-year-old. She knows that someone reported me for not taking care of her. How do you think that’s made her feel?’

‘It’s horrendous.’ I breathed an internal sigh of relief that I’d helped Joan clean up a few days earlier. The cottage was still a chaotic mess, but at least it wasn’t a health hazard.

‘I am hanging on by a thread here, Ollie. By a thread. One bad break away from snapping. And for someone to be that malicious, that spiteful…’ She stopped pacing and collapsed into a chair. ‘To go behind my back like that. I felt ashamed, at first. Guilty. And don’t get me wrong, I’m so angry I could spit. But most of all, I feel hurt.’ She blinked both eyes, hard. ‘I feel like someone I know – and if it’s not you then I’m sorry for calling you a bitch, I hope you understand I was raging – someone smiled to my face and then stabbed me in the back. Stabbed Joan in the back. I hate them for that.’