Blood Sisters(46)

I didn’t need any further bidding. Weeping, I pulled up my jeans, adjusted my T-shirt and ran. Robin would wonder where I was. But I could hardly tell him what had happened. Maybe it had all been my fault. I’d started off by wanting Crispin to kiss me. Somehow I’d given him the wrong idea. Nor could I go home. How could I let Mum and David see me like this? There was only one place to hide.

My legs ran and ran. Down the street. Towards the bay. Never before had I swum at night. The sea had a habit of being rough at that time – at least recently. But the wind had calmed down. It was wavy but not choppy. I ran in, fully clothed; grateful for the cold and the cleansing salt water which mixed with the tears running down my face.

‘You went swimming in your clothes?’ said Mum when I got home an hour or so later. She and my stepfather were sitting in the kitchen, sharing a bottle of wine. There was a tense silence between them which suggested they’d had an argument. Recently, this seemed to have been happening more and more. ‘At this time of night?’

‘Hope you didn’t go in for any of that skinny dipping I did when I was your age,’ said David, offering me a glass even though he knew I didn’t drink. ‘Still, it’s nice to see you enjoying yourself for a change, Ali. You deserve it after all that studying.’

I wanted to vomit. Enjoying myself? ‘Mind if I use the bath?’ I said.

‘Take my lavender oil,’ called out Mum as I left the room. ‘David just bought it for me. It smells gorgeous.’

Was it my imagination or was she trying to overcompensate for that post-argument silence I’d picked up on?

I sat in the bath for longer than I’d ever done before. But it still didn’t take away the shame. Or the guilt. As soon as my results were in, I resolved, I’d get out of here. Take a leaf out of my stepsister’s future plans. Find a job in London. As far away from this place as possible. And then go to uni.

I’d make sure I never saw Crispin again.

But then a terrible thought occurred to me. What if I was pregnant?





11 June 2001


There was a note in my locker this morning. In her handwriting.

I can’t bring myself to write down what it said.

She later swore it wasn’t her.

But it had to be.

That’s it.

All-out war.





34


April 2017


Alison


I check my voice messages in the prison car park. There’s one from Mum: ‘Give me a call, Ali. Something has happened.’ But when I ring her back, she doesn’t pick up.

All kinds of possibilities are whirring round my head. Kitty is ill. Kitty and her new husband have run away from the home. (I get this vision of Johnny lumbering behind a wheelchair.) Kitty has suddenly got her memory back …

Out of all these, I’m ashamed to say, it’s the last that really scares me.

What should I do now? Drive to Mum’s? Go straight to the home to check on my sister? Either way, I’m in no fit state to make a long car journey to the West Country. I decide to head back to my place instead; go for a jog and try Mum again before making a decision. After being stuck inside an airless building all day, I am always itching to run. It’s my release. I love the feel of the air in my face, even though it’s London-polluted. For a minute, I think back to my childhood swims with Robin. How long ago they seem now.

My mobile rings just as I’ve got my running shoes on.

Mum.

‘What’s happened?’ I ask.

‘The supervisor called again,’ says Mum. ‘Kitty’s upsetting the other residents.’ She gives a short dry laugh. ‘You remember how she could be quite bossy before.’

Oh yes. I remember. I just hadn’t realized Mum had been aware too. She’d never said anything. But I knew why. Mum had been scared of annoying David and upsetting the family life she’d created: anything rather than go back to being a single mother again.

‘She’s started to scream and shout when she doesn’t want to do something,’ continues Mum.

‘Like what?’

‘Eating things she doesn’t like, going to bed, getting dressed.’ Mum sounds weary. ‘The supervisor says she’s got much worse since the pregnancy. The home won’t have her any more.’

Until seeing Kitty again, I’d somehow imagined that she’d have become more mellow since the accident. But Kitty was a strong character before. Why should she be different just because she can’t speak or remember things? Then a scary thought strikes me. What if Kitty can remember, even though she’s unable to speak? How angry that would make her!

‘What about Johnny?’

‘His mother says he is finding it difficult to cope with her mood swings too.’

Their marriage can’t be in trouble already? Then again, it happens to others. Why not to special-needs couples too?

‘But,’ adds Mum, ‘she says she’s prepared to have them to live with them. What do you think?’

‘It could be an answer,’ I say slowly. Once more, I have to suppress the thought that Kitty has got it made. Johnny’s parents are well off. They adore their son. She’ll be loved too – providing she behaves herself. But, of course, she deserves to be happy.

‘I feel guilty about not having them with me – but the house isn’t big enough and I’m on my own. I need to work. How would I manage?’