TAINTED LOVE Page 3

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  She was wearing muddy walking boots and she’d taken off her anorak.

  ‘I’m making some lunch. Do you want to come in?’

  I stared at her.

  ‘I know you’ve followed me up here. I don’t know if you want to steal from me, or what you’re after. But it’s a steep walk and you must be hungry. Come in and have some food and we can talk about it.’

  She was smiling. She didn’t look scared. And for some reason I didn’t think she was about to phone the police. What harm could it do?

  I smiled back at her and it felt weird.

  ‘Ok,’ I said.

  She’d made soup and it had some sort of meat in it, and other bits too. I poked at them with my spoon.

  ‘It’s mutton broth, with barley and lentils.’

  I took a spoonful and it tasted fantastic. My gran used to cook – I mean really cook, from things she chopped up and did stuff to. Not like my mum. My mum’s idea of cooking was to open the packet and put the contents in the oven. The only soup we ever had came out of tins.

  They gave me a sandwich at the police station, but that’s all I’d eaten since leaving the squat. I hadn’t had time to think about food. Though with the money I had, I could have had a slap-up meal. Could have had breakfast at that café. I didn’t think of that. I finished the bowl of soup and she ladled some more in, giving me bread and butter to go with it.

  ‘My name’s Sally,’ she said.

  ‘Ali,’ I said through a mouthful of bread.

  She laughed. ‘We rhyme.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to steal from you.’

  She didn’t answer. Just looked at me as she ate her soup.

  ‘I need somewhere to stay. I was going to sleep in your barn.’

  Still nothing. But she didn’t take her eyes off me. I wondered how she did that, eat soup without looking at it. I’m sure I’d spill it or miss the bowl or something.

  ‘I suppose I might have stolen some food. But only what I need. Not money or anything.’

  ‘Have you run away from home?’

  This time I laughed. ‘Home! No, I haven’t got a home. I left that years ago.’

  ‘But you want somewhere to hide.’

  ‘Yes. I guess I do.’ She probably thought I was on the run from the police. I almost wished I was.

  We both finished our soup and I waited. I didn’t want to tell her any more. She stacked the bowls and took them over to the sink, put the bread back in the bread bin, the butter in the fridge. Then she lit the stove and put the kettle on, took cups out of the cupboard.

  When the tea was made she put a mug in front of me and sat back down at the table.

  ‘Ok,’ she said. ‘You can stay here. But there’s no need to sleep in the barn, there are lots of spare bedrooms.’

  The house was enormous – there were five bedrooms including hers. They all had beds in, carpets and curtains, furniture. More people must have lived here once. She let me choose my own room and I chose one at the front of the house with a window facing out onto the valley. You could see the track, and you’d see anyone coming as soon as they left the cover of the trees.

  I’d landed on my feet. How good was this? Maybe she’d want me to earn my keep – do some work about the place or something. But I didn’t mind that. It was so out of the way, no one was going to find me here.

  It was when I went to the bathroom that that things started to seem a bit weird. I asked her where the loo was and she sent me upstairs.

  There was a piece of string tied up above the bath, like a little washing line. And tied to it a whole row of tampons, tied on by their string. About twenty or so, and they’d all been used. The first ones hadn’t got much blood on, only patches. But they got darker and bloodier along the line, until those in the middle were fat and bloated and had blood right up the string. Then they got lighter again, and more brown. The bathroom smelled of old seaweed.

  When I went downstairs she didn’t say anything about them and neither did I.

  I remembered taking the ring off. I sleep on my front and the stone was digging into me. If I’ve had a lot to drink or I’m stoned I don’t always bother, but that night I was sober and straight and I put the ring on the floor at the side of my mattress before I went to sleep. You might think when the police came knocking on the door downstairs I was in such a hurry I just forgot. But that’s not the case. Gran’s ring is the first thing I put on when I wake up. The reason I didn’t this time is because someone had taken it. And the only people to come through my room and out the window before I got out myself were Smith and Jeannie.

  Down at the arches I sat with a group of winos and had a swig from the bottle they were handing round. When there was a police raid there were unspoken rules. We kept apart and said nothing, even if the police caught us. We left it a few days before we returned to the squat. Most of all, we denied all knowledge of Smith – not just his business, but his very existence. And if shit kicked off for us, we could expect Smith to do the same.

  But this was different. This was something outside of squatters’ rules. I used to go and see Gran every day after school until she died when I was twelve. She gave me this ring herself. She probably knew that if she put it in her will then mum would never let me keep it. It was her engagement ring and it had real diamonds and sapphires in it. It was worth money. It was also beautiful. I couldn’t see Smith taking it. I think Jeannie saw it as they dashed past and found it irresistible.

  There was this straight guy Smith knew from when he was at school. Worked in an office, had a car and a girlfriend. Every now and then he and Smith met up and got drunk together. I saw them once, when Smith was hiding out. He was scrubbed up, wearing the other guy’s jeans and a jumper he’d never normally be seen dead in. He could have walked right past the police and they’d’ve not looked twice. He was hiding out in full daylight.

  The guy had a place out near the university.

  It got light pretty early although summer was nearly over. It was the best time in the city, when everyone was still asleep: no one about, just the street cleaners with their trucks. You could walk in the middle of the road, even the main roads. The few cars were going north, south, hoping to reach their destinations by breakfast time. This city was just part of their early morning dream. Later on, they’d look back at it, barely remember passing through, wonder if the ring road bypassed the city completely.

  I walked up through the streets to the area around the university. Watched the day as it began to wake up. First a few joggers and dog walkers. Then people started to leave for work, just a few to begin with. No students yet. They would appear later, in a mad scramble to get to lectures on time with clothes askew, bags dangling, books, pens and coffee.

  Smith’s friend wasn’t a student.

  I knew where he lived. When I saw him with Smith that time, I followed them. You never know when that sort of information might be useful. There was a boy delivering papers and he shoved a copy of The Guardian through the guy’s letterbox. A few minutes later someone pulled it through.

  I hung about for a bit, wondering what to do, but decided that upfront was the best way. When the paper boy had left the street I went up and knocked on the front door.

  A woman answered, dressed ready for work in smart grey trousers, shiny black shoes, navy jumper. She was Asian, with long straight black hair and a stud in her nose. Really beautiful.

  ‘Hiya, are Smith and Jeannie here? I need to talk to them.’

  There were tell-tale smudges under her eyes, suggesting a night of lost sleep, but she was good at hiding it. Didn’t flicker.

  ‘I’m sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong address.’

  The straight guy appeared behind her in the hallway, a piece of half-eaten toast in his hand.

  ‘Is there a proble
m?’

  ‘This girl, she’s looking for someone…’

  ‘Smith and Jeannie. I know they’re here. I just need to talk to them for a minute. Only a minute, then I’ll go away. Promise.’

  The man shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Come on, man. I know they’re here. I’m not the police. I only need a moment.’

  The woman spoke again. ‘Look, we’re very sorry. Your friends aren’t here. There must be a mistake. We don’t know anyone like…’ She looked me up and down, making her meaning obvious. ‘We’re running late and need to get on. I’m sorry.’

  She started to close the door, but I stuck my foot out.

  ‘They have something of mine. It’s a misunderstanding, they wouldn’t have taken it if they knew. But I need it back.’

  ‘Please will you remove your foot?’

  ‘Just let me speak to them.’

  The man said ‘If you don’t leave immediately we will be forced to call the police.’

  I laughed. ‘You won’t be calling no police. Not when you’ve got that pair stashed inside.’

  He pulled a phone out of his jacket pocket and held it poised like a weapon.

  ‘Get away from our door now or I will call the police. What will it be?’

  For the first time, I doubted. Maybe they had them hidden away somewhere else. I could be banged up for harassment or something, and there’d be no chance of getting the ring back.

  ‘Ok,’ I said. ‘I’ll go now, but I’ll be back. Like I said, I just want my property back.’

  I moved my foot and the woman slammed the door in my face.

  I opened my eyes and saw flowers. Closed them again. I was in bed but I had all my clothes on and it was really warm. The sun was shining right on my head, I could feel it. I opened my eyes again. The flowers were on wallpaper. It came back to me. Sally’s house, Old Barn. This was my new bedroom.

  But when I went to sleep the sun wasn’t shining through the window. I threw off the covers. The curtains were thin cotton and didn’t fit the window very well, so the sun could get through them and round the edges too. I pulled them back and look out. It looked different. I couldn’t quite work out what it was, but supposed it must be the sun making everything look fresher and brighter.

  When I went downstairs I realised it was because it was morning. I went up for a nap yesterday after lunch and the sun was behind the house, casting shadows across the fields. I had slept right through, afternoon, evening, night and now it was the next day and the sun was shining from the other side of the valley.

  ‘Good morning.’ Sally was in the kitchen with her sleeves rolled up. Her arms were in a big bowl next to the sink.

  ‘Sorry. I must have been beat.’

  ‘You look refreshed. You have colour in your cheeks.’

  I put my hands to my face, not sure what to say.

  ‘Would you like some coffee and toast?’

  I nodded.

  The coffee was made from fresh beans that Sally had ground herself, and the toast was rye bread. I ate it with butter and ginger marmalade. I’d not eaten food like this since Gran died.

  Sally went back to the bowl by the sink. I couldn’t see over the rim, but it sounded like there was water in it. From the way her arms moved, squeezing and kneading, I thought she was washing something.

  ‘Yesterday I wondered if you were running away from love,’ she said after a minute.

  ‘Maybe I am.’

  ‘No. Whatever’s the matter with you, food and sleep are working wonders. You look like a different person.’

  I didn’t know what she was on about, so I stuffed more toast and marmalade into my mouth and kept chewing.

  ‘You’re a very pretty girl. Lost love takes all your colour away, and no amount of sleep can bring it back.’

  She was quite pale. I supposed someone must have dumped her and she hadn’t got over it. Confused it with anaemia.

  ‘What are you doing in that bowl?’

  ‘It’s time to feed the roses,’ she said.

  I went over and looked in the bowl and nearly spat my toast back out again.

  They were in there, all those tampons from the upstairs bathroom, and she was squeezing them in the water, which was getting redder and redder.

  I could smell it now as well.

  ‘Love takes away all your colour, but I like to give some back to my roses. I don’t want them to start fading like me.’

  I watched fascinated as she took the tampons out of the water one at a time, squeezing them hard over the bowl before dropping them in the bin.

  ‘Come and see,’ she said when she’d finished.

  I followed her out of the back door. The garden went back a long way, and I could see trellises and rows of vegetables further away from the house. But this bottom bit, the nearest bit, was a rose garden. There were beds around the edges, and a round one in the middle, all crammed with rose bushes. I don’t know anything about that sort of thing, but they looked pretty well looked after, neat, bushy, healthy. They were all covered in red blooms – no other colours, just red. And the smell of the bloody water disappeared into the sweet smell of thousands of flowers in the sunshine.

  Sally carefully poured the contents of the bowl into a watering can, then she started watering all the rose bushes with her menstrual blood.

  ‘If you’re going to stay for a bit, maybe you’d like to help with the garden,’ she said.

  And I thought, no bloody way am I helping with that.

  4. Lauren

  I was still thinking about Richard when I got home and found Peter and Suky in the kitchen. They had their backs to me and didn’t notice me straight away. Peter had taken off his college clothes, and his hair was silver in the afternoon sunshine. I loved the silkiness of his summer coat nearly as much as the dark, thick underfur which came though in the winter months. He was wearing a white t-shirt and laughing with Suky. The sound made me think of high pastures and long evenings when the light dwindles, slowly painting everything with shadows, and of coming home with the warmth of the sun carried in your skin. Then I remembered Richard’s heavy black coat and dark sunglasses, blocking out the light and creating a different kind of warmth. My home seemed suddenly less familiar.

  Suky saw me first.

  ‘Hi Lauren, just the person we need. Taste this and tell me if it needs more sugar.’

  She held out a cup of purple liquid she’d taken from the pan on the stove. Bilberry cordial, steaming hot.

  ‘Peter thinks it needs to be sweeter, but that’s just his childish sweet tooth. Tell me it’s fine.’

  I took a sip. It was hot and sharp – almost enough to make you wince, but not quite.

  ‘It’s fine. No more sugar.’

  ‘See,’ she said to Peter, ‘you have to grow up, you have childish tastes.’

  Peter smiled too, but he wasn’t looking at Suky, he was trying to catch my eye.

  ‘Lauren, I’m really sorry about earlier. The experiment took longer than we thought. I caught the bus so I’d get here at the same time as you.’

  ‘The school bus?’

  He nodded and held my gaze.

  The last time Peter caught the school bus was more than two years ago. I was with him. It’s always crowded on that bus and everyone has to squash up together in the aisles.

  Some kid next to us trod on his boot and said ‘Sorry, did that hurt? – Oh no, of course, you haven’t got any toes have you?’, and the other kids around all started sniggering. Peter didn’t say anything, but he hasn’t caught the bus since.

  I relented and smiled at him. ‘Sorry, I walked over the tops, so you beat me to it.’

  There were four glass bottles standing in a bowl of hot water in the sink. Suky started emptying them out and drying them.

  �
��Why are you doing that here, Suky?’ I said. ‘Is it for us?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Lion called and said he had a whole freezer load from earlier in the summer, and would I make it into cordial. I thought rather than lugging the berries across town, then the bottles back after, I may as well do it here. That way I get to use Mr Lion’s fantastic pans as well.’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘He’s out walking Beauty at the moment.’

  I sat down at the table and took an apple from the fruit bowl. While I ate it, Peter helped Suky pour the hot cordial into the bottles. The sun fell across the room, cut into squares by the lines of the window frame. When I closed my eyes the inside of my lids were bright orange.

  ‘I met that boy from Hough Dean on the way home.’

  Peter and Suky both looked up at me.

  ‘What’s he like?’ asked Peter

  I shrugged. ‘Ok, a bit moody maybe. He wears a big black coat and shades all the time, like he thinks he’s really cool. Says it’s an eye condition.’

  ‘Have they moved in already?’ asked Peter

  ‘Dunno. I didn’t ask him. He walked back that way though.’

  ‘Jimmy’s working up there at the moment,’ said Suky. ‘They’re having a new bathroom and a new kitchen, and putting in an en suite. He’s been there all week – probably next week too.’

  ‘What’s it like?’ I asked, and Peter said ‘What’re they like?’ at exactly the same time.

  Suky laughed.

  ‘God, you two! What’re you like? I don’t know, but I might go up there tomorrow evening to pick Jimmy up. You can come with me if you want.’

  Jimmy is Suky’s boyfriend and my oldest friend.

  Back when I was a baby, when my mother left and me and Dad moved in with Mr Lion, Jimmy used to come round all the time. He was twelve years old then and he was learning fire-eating and he came round to practice. Not that Mr Lion knew anything much about fire-eating, but he’d hung around that sort of stuff a lot in the past, and it didn’t make him nervous like it did Jimmy’s mum. He used to let Jimmy practice in the back yard.