The Wedding Dress
When Megan was nine her mother told her to get in to the Mercedes because they were driving into London.
Twenty minutes later and traffic lights caused them to pause outside Madame Tussauds and for two glorious minutes Megan had the wildly improbable thought that they were going to go there as some kind of unexplained treat. She longed to see the wax work image of Robert Pattison.
But the lights changed and they moved on and, after a brief encounter with a man in a large Range Rover who seemed to think that he had seen the parking space first, they stopped in front of a large and elegant house with a brass plate screwed into the brickwork. Her mother led the way up the broad stone stairs, pressed the bell, and the door was buzzed open. Megan still remembered sitting on the plush sofa wondering what glamourous friend of her mothers lived here. She was surprised when a white clad nurse came in and called her name. She was embarrassed when she was weighed, measured and contemplated by a tall man with a beard. She was humiliated when her mother turned to her and said. ‘So, Dr Adams agrees with me. You are overweight. Oh darling! Don’t look at me like that! You’re the size of a baby elephant! It’s medically proven!’
That evening when they sat down to supper only her fathers’ plate had potatoes and meat on it; Megan’s bore just a selection of vegetables, the same as her mothers.
After that, for a long time Megan was obsessed with the idea that her mother was really an evil stepmother. For a while, she feverishly searched through old photo albums for pictures of her real mother, or, of an evening, tried to trick her father through subtle questioning into revealing that he had been married more than once. She spied on her mother for evidence of wrong doing, such as the preparation of potions or poisons to murder either her father or herself, and watched her for signs of cruelty to animals.
And then, one day, her mother announced that she had bought Megan a dress for her cousin Christie’s eighteenth birthday. Megan, in her underwear, perched on the edge of her parent’s double bed and watched her mother fling open the wardrobe and draw out a silk dress as shimmeringly blue and green as a peacock’s feather. She stood up; her mother slipped it over her head, and Megan shivered with pleasure as the soft material slid down her body and moulded itself to her form. She glanced at the mirror and did not recognize the girl she saw standing there.
When she followed her mother downstairs to the party she saw the guests look up, each one with an identical 'o' of surprise on their mouths, their eyebrows raised. There was a murmur of appreciation. 'By God, Annabel! She looks just like you at that age - the spitting image!' her Uncle Rodney said, and everyone nodded excitedly in agreement. So there it was. Her mother was her mother.
Up until she was nineteen Megan remained a credit to her mother’s food plans, and a willing model for the beautiful clothes that her mother draped over her. But the moment she went away to university a terrible see-saw began. It was a classic casebook study where Megan had a wardrobe full of clothes ranging from size 10, from when she had a spell at home, to size 16, when she was left to her own devices. When her mother chastised her for piling on the pounds Megan never offered any explanation - after all it was obvious, wasn't it? She had a fat person inside that was her mothers sworn enemy....
After university Megan had a whole year off travelling, during which she maintained a comfortable size 14 and met her future husband. Her mother was amazed when Megan told her that Jerry wished to get married. She was even more amazed when she met him and saw that he was more than good looking, he was handsome, with a toned and bronzed body worthy of an Abercrombie advert. And he had a good job. She immediately began to plan the wedding. Of course Megan was to wear the ivory sheath dress that she had worn on her wedding day. The only slight problem was that at this stage Megan was too fat. However, her mother did not despair, Megan could come and live back at home with her for six weeks in the Spring and she would, as usual, work her magic on Megan’s rebellious body.
In vain did Megan say that Jerry liked her the way she was, her mother simply sighed and carried on leafing through wedding magazines. Megan had to fall back on a refusal to leave her flat because of the cat but her mother got round that by turning up every morning at eight o'clock with the days food allowance. Every Saturday she tried to squeeze Megan into the wedding dress.
When Megan asked Jerry whether he cared what dress she wore he said that he didn’t. On the other hand it was always good to get on with the inlaws and, as her mother seemed to care so much about it, she might as well lose the weight – after all, he pointed out, she had been on loads of diets before so this wasn’t so very different, was it?
Then one Wednesday Megan felt so faint with hunger that she left work early, arriving about half an hour before her accustomed time. As she wearily opened the front door and stooped to remove her shoes she heard the unexpected sound of voices. She paused, balancing on one foot, and glanced up at the mirror. The angle at which it hung reflected the corner of the sitting room where Jerry was sitting, sprawled on the sofa, his face animated. Her mother was standing in front of him, wearing the wedding dress, her face slightly obscured by the sumptuous veil. As Megan watched, transfixed, her mother lifted the veil in imitation of a bride about to be kissed, and then twirled slowly round, Jerry’s admiring eyes following her, as she demonstrated the beauty of the dress. Megan heard her fiance say, 'My goodness Annabel, don't you come down the aisle in that - I might marry you instead!’
Megan didn’t rush in and throw the shoe she still held in her hand at her mother or her fiance’s head. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before entering the room, her head held high.
‘Mother, I’ve always understood it’s unlucky to show the bridegroom the dress before the wedding.’ She accused. Her mother blushed and Jerry peeled himself up off the sofa in a single, swift movement.
‘Darling…’ he began.
Megan gave him a quick, burning look. He too blushed and sagged back down again.
‘Oh, stop making such a fuss.’ Her mother said. ‘I only showed him because I decided this was all too hard for you. I’ve bought you a new dress, size 14, that I am sure will look beautiful. I was only showing Jerry this because he wondered whether it was possible for the dress to look good on anyone.’ She smiled, her teeth white, pearly and even.
‘I don’t need a new dress mother. I’m going to wear that one.’ Megan replied.
‘Even though Jerry’s seen it?’ Her mother returned, eyes wide and innocent.
‘It will look different on me.’
Furiously, for the next couple of weeks, Megan dieted, making Jerry join her for ‘moral support’. Rigourously they forswore alcohol, carbs and sweet things. One evening Megan almost fainted at the theatre. Only once did they have a conversation when Jerry suggested that it didn’t really matter, saying he loved her just the way she was, and please god could he have a McDonalds. Megan gave him a kiss and told him to eat his raw carrot.
The Saturday before the wedding, just as Megan was sipping a cup of tea and contemplating the fact that she still couldn’t do the dress up, her mother arrived with her cool bag of salad and a large box. She glanced at the gaping back of the dress before brushing past Megan to the bedroom.
‘I know darling, that you think you won’t need this, but I think we should be prepared, given that you’ve only got a week to go.’
She placed her package on the bed, slid scissors through the sellotape which secured the lid and opened the box to reveal a fluffy white confection of chiffon wrapped in orange tissue. She carefully removed the paper and laid it to one side. Then she plunged her hands in amongst the froth and pulled out a floor length dress complete with ruffles and flounces which would have done Little Bo Peep proud.
‘This one is very pretty, darling. Very you.’ Megan’s mother gave her a dazzling smile. ‘It suits the woman you are, and takes the pressure off.’
Megan said nothing, but she could feel her eyes dampen at the corners. Her mother gave her a quick pat on the shoulder.
‘Darling, I know that together we have fought to shed the pounds, but I think sometimes its important to remember you are not a little girl anymore. I cannot make you into something you are not, although god knows I’ve tried. I mean no one can say that I haven’t been a good mother who has always had your best interests at heart, who’s always tried to make you as beautiful as I was at your age.’ She smiled and gave a quick little sigh, but then continued brightly.
‘So, lets just get you out of my dress and I’ll pack it up and take it away and we’ll forget I ever suggested it.’
Biting her lip, Megan slipped the dress down her arms and eased it over her stomach. Just as she was stepping out of it, however, somehow or other, she didn’t know how she could be that clumsy, she brushed against the abandoned cup of tea. It rolled to one side throwing a trail of brown liquid partly on the dress and partly on the carpet.
‘Oh my god!’ Shreiked her mother, leaping forward and snatching up the dress. ‘Oh Megan! How could you be so clumsy?’ Her voice was tearful, ‘look at this stain! Oh, Megan, why was that cup here? How could you? My beautiful dress!’
‘Mother, mother, don’t worry. Don’t worry. I ‘ll take it immediately to the dry cleaners on the corner. They’re brilliant, they can get anything out of anything. Don’t worry, I’ll sort it. I’m so sorry, I don’t know how that happened.’ Megan was already struggling into jeans and t shirt. ‘Go home and I’ll fix it, don’t worry. Go on now. I’ll dash off before the tea dries.’ And she pounded out of the door.
Megan told her mother on the phone that night that the dress would take four days to sort out but the cleaners absolutely assured her it would be fine. In the meantime she was determined to continue dieting because she just had a really good feeling about the progress she was making.
Five days later Megan Greenslade became Megan Carthew. Everyone agreed she made a beautiful bride, so slim and pretty, so extremely elegant in the beautiful wedding dress her mother had worn twenty four years before. ‘Amazing, really,’ they whispered, ‘because you know Annabel used to be a top model and she is so tiny. Megan has inherited all her beauty, and she is clever too! Annabel has worked wonders on that girl. She is a true credit to her.’
Megan’s mother basked in the praise. The wedding was a triumph and the guests a credit to the flowers and decorations, all except one. There was a rather dowdy middle aged woman that Megan seemed to be paying particular attention to. She was going to ask to be introduced but then Jerry came up to thank her for all her hard work and she forgot.
Meanwhile, over by the metre high flower centerpiece, Megan was smiling at the woman. ‘I don't think anyone noticed, did you? You made the most perfect job of it and I cannot thank you enough.’
The woman smiled back, ‘I'm delighted it came off so well. It was the trickiest job I've done for a long time - the tea was hard enough to get out, and then the rest of it – those seams, as I said, were so skimpy it was touch and go whether they had any more to give. But you look a treat. I’ll be off now.’ And she trotted away to her van, parked discreetly round a corner. As she drove hastily away the words on its side were clearly visible: ‘Belinda's. Professional dry cleaners and alterations.’
For Old Times Sake
Jane Palmer was in a quandary.
Once again she peered discreetly over the top of her magazine at the man sitting opposite on the train. She really was almost certain that it was Tom Meredith. The Tom Meredith. The one she had gone out with twenty five years ago and then lost touch with when he went off to the US, putting his career firmly in front of their relationship. Well, she thought of it as ‘lost touch’ but that was only because whilst Tom was away she had met the man who later become her husband and, having explained this to Tom in a letter, never heard from him again. Not even a reply.
She had felt quite guilty for a while – like one of those women in the war who, when their man had gone off to the Front, forgot all about them and married the local policeman instead. Periodically something had triggered off a memory of Tom and she had wondered how he was – whether his career had prospered, whether he hadn’t replied through anger or indifference, but then the memory of him had simply faded away.
She’d told Simon, her husband, all about Tom the first time they had met. She had explained that she had a boyfriend but he had gone away to work in America for an indeterminate time. Simon had pointed out that this was a very clear signal about how Tom valued his relationship with Jane and, after finishing the bottle of wine they were drinking, Jane had gone to bed with Simon. Waking with a start in the middle of the night she realised that she had been unfaithful to Tom but, almost in the same second, she realised that sex with Simon had easily been as good as with Tom. And, moreover, it was the first sex she had had in six months, ever since she had waved Tom away at the barrier in Heathrow. ‘ A bird in the hand’, she had thought, turned over and snuggled into Simon’s back, never to sleep alone again for the next twenty four and a half years.
So she had, until now, practically forgotten that Tom had ever existed.
But now there he was. Or was it him? She studied the man across the table, covertly. Tom had had lovely curly brown hair, this man’s hair was grey, but it was curly. Tom had been thin, spindly almost, this man was definitely on the larger side. Tom had……the man opposite looked up, straight into her eyes, and Jane felt a sudden rush of emotion well up inside her causing her heart to thunder like Niagara falls.
“It’s Janie, isn’t it?” his voice was the same rich deep bass.
“Umm, yes. Yes…it is…..Tom?” she stuttered.
“I haven’t seen you in…..twenty five years!” He smiled, revealing brilliantly white, even teeth, “you look exactly the same.”
“Oh, oh, thankyou.” Jane knew her cheeks were flaming. She put the magazine down and tried to compose herself.
“You look….look…” She felt at a loss for words, after all she couldn’t return the compliment because she had just been thinking, categorising indeed, how different he now appeared.
“My hair is grey.” He stated, and now he looked rueful, appealing, just the way he used to when he was a little bit sad and needed a cuddle.
“Yes, yes that is true. But you still are you.” Jane coughed and spluttered, cringing inside at the tweeness of her remark.
“Are you married?” He asked, glancing at her left hand as it lay on the table. She snatched it away impulsively and then, inwardly ashamed, immediately put it back. How could she have done that?
“Yes, yes I am. Twenty three years now! Happily. Very happily. I’ve got two kids. Poppy is at Leeds Uni, and we’re hoping that Penny will go there too. They’re very close. Simon and I have always wanted a close, close family, although I would have loved to have a boy as well….” She couldn’t stop babbling. It was as though her mouth was on automatic overflow even when she was losing herself in the familiarity of the navy blue depths of his eyes.
He placed his hand over her right hand and she stopped mid-flow and looked down at it. She had loved his hands. They were so well shaped, with long, slender fingers and short well-cut nails. She remembered how they had passed over her naked body, the first man she had ever gone to bed with. She looked up at him and knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.
She pulled her hand away in a sudden panic of guilt. She was a happily (very) married woman!
“What about you Tom?’ She forced out.
“Me?” He leaned back and folded his arms. “I’m married. Happily as well.” He paused. “My wife is only twenty eight!” Jane swallowed.
“Twenty eight? Doesn’t that make you something like, what? Twenty one years older than her?”
“Yeah,” He smiled enormously now. “It’s great isn’t it?” He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out his i phone. “Look, at her Janie…..isn’t she beautiful? My wife……”
Jane pulled her reading glasses down from where she had perched them on the top of her head. She peered at the photo he was showing her. The woman bore an almost uncanny resemblance to herself at that age…..
” I…er…….” She took off the glasses and looked up at him, but he was enthusiastically clicking the phone buttons again.
“Look, look…isn’t she just gorgeous…” She balanced her glasses back on her nose and studied the photos he was scrolling through. His wife was reading a book, riding a horse, cooking a meal, sitting at a bar, she was in a bikini, she was naked from behind, naked from in front, naked in a pornographic pose…..Jane snatched off her glasses and glared at him. He looked down at the screen,
“Oops, sorry! Didn’t realise I’d gone that far back….”
“Yes, well. You’re very fortunate.”
He sat back in the seat, the phone still in his hand, and contemplated the photo for a while. Jane sat back too, suddenly aware of the age spots on the back of her hands, the wrinkles of her cleavage. She wriggled her shirt up a bit so it was less obvious. Tom lifted his eyes from the phone to Jane and smiled.
“You know she came to me really bashed up after a car accident. I had carte blanche to make her back again to something perfect. So I thought of you, my lost love. The woman who betrayed me……….” His voice took on a harder tone and his eyes looked even bluer. Jane found herself almost hypnotised by them even though now she could see the tell-tale ring around the iris which showed he was wearing coloured contact lenses.
“I didn’t….” she started saying.
“Yes you did. There’s no more to be said about it.” He snapped his phone off and put it back in his pocket. “I expected to come back from the States and marry you, and you, you cow, went and married someone else…….” He turned his head to stare out of the train window at the stretched grey fields rolling by. Jane, her gaze released, studied a stray drop of tea on the table which held its tear drop shape despite the rocking of the train. She continued scrutinising it even when he started speaking again.
“But now, my darling, my lost love, my beautiful Janie…….” The miraculous skin that had held the tea drop together broke, and a trail of tea rolled over the table surface and lost itself in the absorbent pages of her magazine. Jane reluctantly looking up at him again, but there was nothing to be afraid of for he was smiling at her pleasantly, apparently just waiting to have her full attention. “Now,” he continued, the venom quite gone from his voice, ” I have my own, new Janie. She’s young and vibrant, with translucent smooth skin, thick luscious hair, and even better, she loves me and I love her. So I’m happy again. ……..No thanks to you.”
“I’m glad.” Jane said in a small voice.
“Thank you.” Tom said. The train started slowing down and they both looked out of the window as a small station came into view.
“Ah. My stop I think.” He stood up and pulled his bag down from the luggage rack overhead, and stood, towering over Jane (he’d always been much taller than any of her other friends), whilst he fished around in his trouser pocket.
“If you ever want to get in touch, you know if you get tired looking like a sad middle-aged woman or you get worried about your husband straying after younger, beautiful women, then do please give me a ring. I might even give you a discount – just for old times sake!”
He placed his card with a snap down on the table in front of her. Automatically she picked it up and read it. Tom Meredith. Plastic Surgeon. Harley Street.
“Lovely to see you.” He smiled again and strode off down the corridor. Jane didn’t have the strength to say goodbye.
Jane Palmer was in a quandary.
Once again she peered discreetly over the top of her magazine at the man sitting opposite on the train. She really was almost certain that it was Tom Meredith. The Tom Meredith. The one she had gone out with twenty five years ago and then lost touch with when he went off to the US, putting his career firmly in front of their relationship. Well, she thought of it as ‘lost touch’ but that was only because whilst Tom was away she had met the man who later become her husband and, having explained this to Tom in a letter, never heard from him again. Not even a reply.
She had felt quite guilty for a while – like one of those women in the war who, when their man had gone off to the Front, forgot all about them and married the local policeman instead. Periodically something had triggered off a memory of Tom and she had wondered how he was – whether his career had prospered, whether he hadn’t replied through anger or indifference, but then the memory of him had simply faded away.
She’d told Simon, her husband, all about Tom the first time they had met. She had explained that she had a boyfriend but he had gone away to work in America for an indeterminate time. Simon had pointed out that this was a very clear signal about how Tom valued his relationship with Jane and, after finishing the bottle of wine they were drinking, Jane had gone to bed with Simon. Waking with a start in the middle of the night she realised that she had been unfaithful to Tom but, almost in the same second, she realised that sex with Simon had easily been as good as with Tom. And, moreover, it was the first sex she had had in six months, ever since she had waved Tom away at the barrier in Heathrow. ‘ A bird in the hand’, she had thought, turned over and snuggled into Simon’s back, never to sleep alone again for the next twenty four and a half years.
So she had, until now, practically forgotten that Tom had ever existed.
But now there he was. Or was it him? She studied the man across the table, covertly. Tom had had lovely curly brown hair, this man’s hair was grey, but it was curly. Tom had been thin, spindly almost, this man was definitely on the larger side. Tom had……the man opposite looked up, straight into her eyes, and Jane felt a sudden rush of emotion well up inside her causing her heart to thunder like Niagara falls.
“It’s Janie, isn’t it?” his voice was the same rich deep bass.
“Umm, yes. Yes…it is…..Tom?” she stuttered.
“I haven’t seen you in…..twenty five years!” He smiled, revealing brilliantly white, even teeth, “you look exactly the same.”
“Oh, oh, thankyou.” Jane knew her cheeks were flaming. She put the magazine down and tried to compose herself.
“You look….look…” She felt at a loss for words, after all she couldn’t return the compliment because she had just been thinking, categorising indeed, how different he now appeared.
“My hair is grey.” He stated, and now he looked rueful, appealing, just the way he used to when he was a little bit sad and needed a cuddle.
“Yes, yes that is true. But you still are you.” Jane coughed and spluttered, cringing inside at the tweeness of her remark.
“Are you married?” He asked, glancing at her left hand as it lay on the table. She snatched it away impulsively and then, inwardly ashamed, immediately put it back. How could she have done that?
“Yes, yes I am. Twenty three years now! Happily. Very happily. I’ve got two kids. Poppy is at Leeds Uni, and we’re hoping that Penny will go there too. They’re very close. Simon and I have always wanted a close, close family, although I would have loved to have a boy as well….” She couldn’t stop babbling. It was as though her mouth was on automatic overflow even when she was losing herself in the familiarity of the navy blue depths of his eyes.
He placed his hand over her right hand and she stopped mid-flow and looked down at it. She had loved his hands. They were so well shaped, with long, slender fingers and short well-cut nails. She remembered how they had passed over her naked body, the first man she had ever gone to bed with. She looked up at him and knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.
She pulled her hand away in a sudden panic of guilt. She was a happily (very) married woman!
“What about you Tom?’ She forced out.
“Me?” He leaned back and folded his arms. “I’m married. Happily as well.” He paused. “My wife is only twenty eight!” Jane swallowed.
“Twenty eight? Doesn’t that make you something like, what? Twenty one years older than her?”
“Yeah,” He smiled enormously now. “It’s great isn’t it?” He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out his i phone. “Look, at her Janie…..isn’t she beautiful? My wife……”
Jane pulled her reading glasses down from where she had perched them on the top of her head. She peered at the photo he was showing her. The woman bore an almost uncanny resemblance to herself at that age…..
” I…er…….” She took off the glasses and looked up at him, but he was enthusiastically clicking the phone buttons again.
“Look, look…isn’t she just gorgeous…” She balanced her glasses back on her nose and studied the photos he was scrolling through. His wife was reading a book, riding a horse, cooking a meal, sitting at a bar, she was in a bikini, she was naked from behind, naked from in front, naked in a pornographic pose…..Jane snatched off her glasses and glared at him. He looked down at the screen,
“Oops, sorry! Didn’t realise I’d gone that far back….”
“Yes, well. You’re very fortunate.”
He sat back in the seat, the phone still in his hand, and contemplated the photo for a while. Jane sat back too, suddenly aware of the age spots on the back of her hands, the wrinkles of her cleavage. She wriggled her shirt up a bit so it was less obvious. Tom lifted his eyes from the phone to Jane and smiled.
“You know she came to me really bashed up after a car accident. I had carte blanche to make her back again to something perfect. So I thought of you, my lost love. The woman who betrayed me……….” His voice took on a harder tone and his eyes looked even bluer. Jane found herself almost hypnotised by them even though now she could see the tell-tale ring around the iris which showed he was wearing coloured contact lenses.
“I didn’t….” she started saying.
“Yes you did. There’s no more to be said about it.” He snapped his phone off and put it back in his pocket. “I expected to come back from the States and marry you, and you, you cow, went and married someone else…….” He turned his head to stare out of the train window at the stretched grey fields rolling by. Jane, her gaze released, studied a stray drop of tea on the table which held its tear drop shape despite the rocking of the train. She continued scrutinising it even when he started speaking again.
“But now, my darling, my lost love, my beautiful Janie…….” The miraculous skin that had held the tea drop together broke, and a trail of tea rolled over the table surface and lost itself in the absorbent pages of her magazine. Jane reluctantly looking up at him again, but there was nothing to be afraid of for he was smiling at her pleasantly, apparently just waiting to have her full attention. “Now,” he continued, the venom quite gone from his voice, ” I have my own, new Janie. She’s young and vibrant, with translucent smooth skin, thick luscious hair, and even better, she loves me and I love her. So I’m happy again. ……..No thanks to you.”
“I’m glad.” Jane said in a small voice.
“Thank you.” Tom said. The train started slowing down and they both looked out of the window as a small station came into view.
“Ah. My stop I think.” He stood up and pulled his bag down from the luggage rack overhead, and stood, towering over Jane (he’d always been much taller than any of her other friends), whilst he fished around in his trouser pocket.
“If you ever want to get in touch, you know if you get tired looking like a sad middle-aged woman or you get worried about your husband straying after younger, beautiful women, then do please give me a ring. I might even give you a discount – just for old times sake!”
He placed his card with a snap down on the table in front of her. Automatically she picked it up and read it. Tom Meredith. Plastic Surgeon. Harley Street.
“Lovely to see you.” He smiled again and strode off down the corridor. Jane didn’t have the strength to say goodbye.
OMG
It was a typical Saturday morning for Joanne. She sat hunched over a skinny latte in the café overlooking the swimming pool, wistfully reconstructing the life she had had six years ago. A Saturday then had begun by waking up at about ten o’clock, maybe later, depending on what time they’d gone to bed the night before. Marcus would be lying beside her. He might be asleep, the feathery softness of his eyelashes against his cheek, his chest gently rising and falling with his breath. She would lean over and lightly kiss his lips or with her finger tips trace the contours of his muscular body, just enough to wake him up. Joanne smiled to herself, briefly reliving the passionate embrace that followed. Things had been so much more relaxed then she thought. They had had time to themselves; time spent together. Coffee and newspapers at the ‘Parisienne’; speeding out in Marcus’ open top sportscar to have a leisurely lunch in the countryside; art exhibitions; theatre…..
‘Is this seat taken?’ Joanne blinked as she felt herself suddenly wrenched back to the reality of the swimming pool and her life today, so different from that faraway Saturday.
‘Yes, I mean no, please do have it. I’m just waiting for my daughter to finish her lesson’. She looked at her watch, ‘it’s only fifteen more minutes or so.’
‘Thanks’, the man dragged out the chair and its feet gave a high pitched squeal on the tiled floor which made them both wince.
‘Can I get you another coffee?’
‘Oh no thanks, I think two cups would exceed my caffeine level for a month.’
‘I know, it’s pretty poisonous’ he grinned, ‘when I think how much I’ve had here I’m surprised I’m still around to tell the tale…’
‘Is your child normally here at this time then…?’ Joanne tried to remember if she had seen this dark haired man before. He was certainly good looking enough to be memorable.
‘No, we were usually in a later class, but now, well I’m joining the early-birds. Does it get any easier? Getting here this early I mean?’
Joanne, grateful for conversation to pass the time, started saying how much easier it was in summer than winter. The man, Paul, asked whether her husband ever came instead of her and sympathized when she said how much he was away.
‘Mind you, you must be proud of him, being that important in the organization.’ Joanne found herself smiling rather sadly as she explained how different it was now even though it was a good job. Paul nodded sympathetically. Kids, responsibility, it all changed the way you lived your life and sometimes it took time to adjust. Talking about it helped though he said, smiling, knowing that everyone goes through it. Joanne looked at him with appreciation. A man who seemed to understand what her life was like! Suddenly she realized that she was going to be late for Susie. As she got up to leave he said,
‘You know, what about a coffee next week some time? I’ve really enjoyed talking to you?’
‘Why not?’ the words were out of Joanne’s mouth before she even thought about what Marcus might think.
Susie was now the last child of her group to be collected and Joanne could see her standing disconsolately by the teacher’s side, shivering in her towel.
She gave her a quick hug and led her to the cubicles.
‘Mummy, who was that man you were talking to? I could see you laughing with him.’ Susie stated accusingly as Joanne combed out her wet hair. Susie had always had a rather unnerving habit of noticing things Joanne would rather she didn’t, and telling on her – like the time Joanne made a little dent in the car which she had hoped to hide from Marcus.
‘Oh you mean Paul’ Joanne replied nonchalantly, ‘he had a little boy in another swimming group.’
‘Which little boy, mummy?’ Susie stared up at her and Joanne felt a guilty twinge.
‘I’m not sure darling, but one of them anyway…now why don’t we go home and make a lovely picture for daddy for when he gets home.’ Distraction, that was the key to managing children. Joanne had found that out early on.
The rest of Saturday passed, and on Sunday evening Marcus rang to say he’d fly back on Thursday afternoon but that he had to go to Dubai on Sunday for a meeting. He told her the job wasn’t going as well as expected so he might have to go to the office on Saturday, as well. Joanne felt an angry hopelessness, he might as well have been updating his secretary on his movements. She wanted to shout, but what about us, your family, when do you spend time with us? She knew she couldn’t because first he would accuse her of being unsupportive; then he would say didn’t she like the money and then, didn’t she think his life was hard enough without picking a fight with him? So she just said ok. She didn’t mention meeting Paul. Almost immediately after he had rung off the phone rang again. It was Paul suggesting that they meet for coffee on Thursday morning after dropping off for school. His voice sounded warm and friendly and he started the conversation by asking how she was and saying what a pretty little girl Susie was, he hoped she hadn’t got cold having to wait because he had kept Joanne talking on Saturday.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday passed as usual. Joanne dropped off Susie, had coffee with the other mums, tidied the house, did the washing, went to the gym, picked up Susie, helped her with her homework, did her tea, bathed her, read her a story and kissed her goodnight. When Susie was in bed Joanne watched tv and wondered if she should feel guilty about meeting Paul and not mentioning it to Marcus. If Paul had been a woman would she have told her husband? Probably. Did that mean she fancied Paul? He was attractive, he was charming. He listened to her. But no, she loved her husband, even though he hadn’t rung again that week, she thought bitterly.
On Thursday morning Susie had a temperature and a cough. There was no way that Joanne could leave her. She texted Paul with her excuses and he replied, ‘Never mind, another time’, so she was surprised when at twelve thirty the doorbell rang and it was him.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ he demanded and pushed past her, striding confidently into the sitting room. Joanne followed him.
‘Hey, you can’t be surprised to see me here when you wanted to have coffee with me.’ He smiled, but in a way that made Joanne feel instinctively uneasy.
It seemed almost wolfish. He shut the sitting room door. She made a move towards it but he grabbed her wrist.
‘Paul, what are you doing?’
‘Come on, you know, why I’m here.’ His eyes were pits of darkness.
‘My daughter is sick upstairs.’ She tried to twist away from him.
‘You’d better keep your voice down then, you wouldn’t want to upset her’, he said breathing hotly into her face.
‘What do you want?’ Joanne had a tremor in her voice.
He laughed harshly and dragged her close to his body.
‘Don’t pretend that you don’t want this,’ he spat into her ear, and as she tried to pull her head away he wrenched her chin round with a rough hand and forced her lips onto his. She could feel his tongue probing deep into her mouth, his teeth ground against hers and the stubble on his jaw hurt the soft skin of her face as he kissed her with ugly force. She felt him tugging at her trousers and with horror she realized that he intended to rape her in her own front room.
‘Remember your daughter upstairs’ he growled and bit her neck, painfully. Desperately she tried to wriggle from his grasp but this only increased his brutality and he viciously squeezed her breasts and shoved her onto the sofa. She tried to use her knees to push him away but he used his weight to crush her down, and the back of his hand to give her a stinging slap.
At precisely that moment there was a bang as the sitting room door burst open.
‘What the hell…..’ Marcus stood there, holding his briefcase, with a look of outrage on his face. ‘What are you doing to my wife?’
Paul leapt up and smashed him in the face with his fist. Marcus crumpled immediately, blood streaming down his face from a broken nose. Paul leapt over his prostrate body and yanked open the front door. Joanne heard his footsteps pound away down the street as, sobbing, she bent over Marcus and helped him up.
‘Who was he?’ he gasped. It was a question Joanne was unable to answer.
What's in a name?
Rihanna, Joanna and Savannah.
When they had met in the playground two years ago they had laughed at the way their names had resonated. Joanna had laughed the loudest but that was because her real name was Sally and she had changed it the day she had walked out on the man she had married at 18. Now she was a bigamously happily married woman named Joanna with a child, Maddie, aged five.
Savannah had laughed second loudest because she had always hated her stupid name and at long last felt that it’s peculiarity was somehow reduced by the names of the two other women. Somehow, as part of a trio, it was less obviously idiotic. She had three gorgeous children aged seven, nine and eleven named Lily, Rose and Helen.
Rihanna laughed because she always laughed easily to hide the fact that her life was falling apart. She knew that her husband was having an affair, her sister was in remission from ovarian cancer, and years and years and years ago she had found her mother hanging from a fitting in the bathroom. Her father had burned the note her mother had left but for a long time Rihanna had thought that it must have said she had killed herself because Rihanna that evening had refused to eat the shepherds pie she had spent all afternoon making. More than refused, Rihanna had thrown it on the floor, but then she was only six, and her mother had gone upstairs never to come down again. Rihanna had a boy of eight, Ryan.
Although all three women were now good friends and regularly had coffee together, went out in the evenings and popped in and out of each others houses with forgotten blazers, extra cookies and all those kind of things that mums of young children do, none of them knew the back stories to those laughs. So, when their past caught up with them, they were just as alone as if they had not been friends.
It was a Friday when Fabrizio turned up at the school gates. Fabrizio was Joanna’s husband. Her real husband. The one she had run away from because he had beaten her and stolen her money and wanted to pimp her to his friends. That day Joanna wasn’t picking up though, she never did on a Friday, and Savannah was going to have Maddie until Joanna fetched her at six o'clock, as usual.
As Savannah waited just inside the playground for 3.15 and the opening of the school doors, she noticed the swarthy dark man with a thick neck and luxuriant black curls for two reasons. Firstly, because he exuded an animalistic sex appeal (this was what had lured Joanna originally into his embraces) and secondly, because she had never seen him before and wondered why a strange man should be hanging around a primary school gate.
She nudged Rihanna who had just turned up and was hovering beside her looking at her watch and tapping her foot impatiently. “Who do you think he belongs to?’ she mouthed.
Rihanna looked him over. Her husband hadn’t come home last night, again, and she was in a critical frame of mind.
‘He looks like a guy who’d be a great fuck, and then go home to his wife with a bunch of shitty flowers.”
"Ok………” Savannah said, "kids about you know……”
“Oh, sorry……” Rihanna flicked another icy glance across at the man. “He looks like a guy who’d be a great fuck, and then go home to his wife with a bunch of pretty flowers.’
Savannah giggled nervously and looked at her friend. Rihanna's face was set in a fierce expression, with deep lines on either side of her mouth as though strings were pulling her lips down against her will. Savannah didn’t say anything else, anyway, the kids were coming out and her attention was taken up by her three bouncing out with shining faces and messy hair. Rihanna strode over to the teacher and Savannah watched her as she put one hand on her hip and pointed a finger at the teachers face - which remained impassive, although at one point she held up her hand in what looked like a restraining gesture. It must have been that interaction that distracted her so much she didn’t notice Maddie skip down the school steps and seconds later be swept out of the path of rushing children by the arms of Fabrizio, who with a movement as practised as a baseball player, plucked her up, pressing her face tightly into his shoulder, and was off down the street.
Savannah, unaware, returned her gaze to the exiting children and continued waiting, until the last child came out and still there was no Maddie. Rihanna passed her on the way back to her car venting a furious muttered tirade against the teacher in a low monotonous voice which rendered Savannah’s three children frozen and shocked. Rihanna’s child paced slowly beside her, his head drooping. Savannah went to Maddie’s teacher to find what had delayed Maddie and it was then that she realised that she was missing. The teacher had let her out to be collected by Savannah but Savannah had never received her. It was, what? Twenty feet between where the teacher had stood and where Savannah had waited. Was that tiny distance enough to lose a child?
All mothers and children had left the playground by now so there was no one to ask. Savannah rang Joanna and asked her whether she had given permission for her daughter to be taken home by anyone else, but Joanna hadn’t. Eventually the police were called and mothers and children painstakingly questioned and it was discovered that a strange dark man had taken Maddie. When the police told Joanna she knew instantly who it was but her own past tied her tongue. She said she had never seen such a man before in her life, and once those words had passed her lips, she was trapped.
Her unknowingly bigamous husband was distraught and blamed Savannah. Savannah was distraught and blamed herself and felt guilty. Joanna was distraught and blamed Savannah but knew she herself was guilty. They waited for news, uneasily, in Joanna’s front room where a policewoman sat and observed them, apparently impassive.
Later in the evening Rihanna and her husband came over to Joanna’s house in a gesture of solidarity, and Rihanna’s husband put his arms around Joanna to comfort her in a movement which Savannah and Joanna’s husband thought was perfectly natural, but which caused Rihanna to pick up the nearby bottle of whisky that Joanna had been dispensing as they waited for news, and bash him over the head. Hard. They all heard the crack! Like the snapping of a twig. Right on the back of the head, just behind the ear, so that his head fell forward, his hair swinging in an arc that caught the flickering light of Joanna’s burning fake coal fire. He fell down to his knees and then onto his face like a sack of potatoes, his arms floppily useless. His face sunk deep into the pile of the sheepskin rug. He didn’t move. Neither did anyone else until Savannah lurched forward onto the carpet beside him and put her hand on his shoulder saying,
"Mark, Mark!” in an urgent, high pitched voice. His face was fringed by sheep wool like a mane of white fur. Could anyone breathe like that?
"Jesus Christ, Rihanna!” Joanna turned on her friend, who stood immobile and ashen-faced the bottle still in her hand, but the contents mostly on her shoes and trousers, "what have you done?”
Rihanna put the bottle down on the table and brushed whisky off her trousers onto the carpet; the smell was like wet dog in a pub. Her eyes focused on Joanna and she said in a slow, deliberate voice,
“I’ve given the fucking bastard what he deserved,” and then she slowly sunk to the ground, her hands on her face and in her hair, and started rocking on her heels with dry, hollow, sobs.
"Call an ambulance for gods sake,” Savannah said, without looking up. The policewoman who had been sitting with them up until the inappropriate hug (she had popped out just for a moment to go to the loo – well, even the police are human) came back and in a single glance took in the scene and radioed for police back-up. When it came, just after the ambulanceman had pronounced Mark dead, they put handcuffs on Rihanna and led her off into their van. She had stopped crying by then and was rigid faced, unrecognisable to the two women who had thought they were friends because their names resonated.
“They’ll lock her up for sure.” The policewoman said, after she’d taken their statements about what had happened. “Has she got any kids?”
Savannah flew to the phone and called Rihanna’s house. Rihanna’s mother-in-law answered and Savannah turned a stricken face to the others, what should she say? That her son was dead, murdered by her daughter-in-law? In front of their eyes only a short while before?
"Savannah? That’s such an unusual name, isn’t it? Isn’t it the name of a desert?” She could hear the old woman saying down the phone. She disconnected, and sat down heavily on the sofa beside Joanna.
The home phone rang and Joanna’s husband snatched it up, listened for a moment, frowned and then silently, inquiringly, passed it to Joanna. She pressed the receiver to her ear without speaking, but they could all hear the tinny sound of a voice talking, although they couldn’t make out the words. As Joanna sat there, absorbed, she slowly, slowly turned blue. It was as though all the oxygen was being sucked out of her toes and, like a vessel being emptied, she became first translucent and then actually, identifiably blue, first at her forehead, then her nose, then her chin, then her neck.
"What is it?" Her husband kept on repeating, but she just remained listening, a seemingly lifeless form with telephone glued to her ear. She could have been a modern sculpture in the Tate Gallery. Eventually she put the receiver down. Two red spots started to burn in her cheeks.
“I have to tell you all something.” She paused but no one spoke, the only sound was the low hiss of the gas that fed the fire. “There is a man on the end of that phone who has taken our daughter, he will only return her in exchange for me.” The tension broke, Savannah gasped as though she had been holding her breath.
“What!” exploded her husband. “How ridiculous is that?” His strained face looked as though he was about to laugh.
"Mrs Jenkins…” the policewoman started. Joanna held up her hand for silence.
“I am going to go now in the car, on my own." She looked meaningfully around at her audience, "and Savannah must follow in her car, on her own. Maddie will come back with her.”
“What!” her husband flopped back in his chair, smacking his forehead with his hand. He did start laughing then. A horrible crackling sound like an empty crisp packet being scrunched up.
“Mrs Jenkins,” began the policewoman, again.
“NO! my daughters life is at stake and I have to go. Now.” Joanna stood and picked up her handbag. The policewoman put a restraining hand on her arm.
“No, Mrs Jenkins, I cannot allow that. This is a matter for the police and I cannot allow you to go out on your own.” She spoke firmly, calmly, authoritively. Joanna shook off her grip and turned to her friend.
“Savannah!” Savannah got up reluctantly. Joanna frowned at her husband and the policewoman. “If either of you do anything, my daughter may never return. I cannot take that risk, and you have no right to do so with my child,” she spat out at the policewoman in a sudden burst of passion. The policewoman flinched, but pulled out her radio and once again called for back up. Joanna turned to her husband.
“Don’t stop me, I know what I’m doing. You have to get Maddie back.” She bent down and kissed him on the mouth. He gazed up at her but didn’t move, and Joanna picked up her bag and, summoning Savannah, strode out of the room and the house.
Afterwards, when Savannah was giving her statement to the police, all she could say was that they drove for half an hour, stopped in a housing estate with which she was unfamiliar, and Joanna told her to wait. She did. Joanna’s conviction that Maddie would die was overwhelming, and given what she had been through that evening (had she really witnessed an actual murder?), she simply did as she was told. Joanna drove away in her car and in a few moments Savannah saw Maddie. The little girl came round the corner of some dustbins and stood still for a moment looking around, puzzled and apprehensive, but seemingly unhurt. Savannah got out of the car, rushed over, picked her up and cuddled her, brought her back to her father, and that was that.
Neither Rihanna nor Joanna ever waited at the school gates with Savannah again. Rihanna was convicted of murder and put in a secure psychiatric unit and Savannah couldn’t face visiting her, despite all those coffee mornings and shared school time panics. Joanna simply never returned. It was as though she had never existed, but then of course she hadn’t……only Sally had, and Sally was now in Rumania whoring for a brutal man who kept her under lock and key in a dingy house down a sidestreet which smelt of dead rodents and piss.
A year later and Savannah and her husband were relocated to Manchester to a different branch of his advertising agency, and Savannah was glad. She had hated seeing little Maddie so sad and confused without her mother, and Joanna’s husband was just a shadow of his former self, so thin and shrivelled looking.
Savannah knew nobody in Manchester so when she took her children to the new school she introduced herself as Sarah. In fact from that moment on she insisted her husband, and everyone else except her mum (well, she was an only child and her dad was dead) called her Sarah. That didn’t resonate with anyone else’s name.
Rihanna, Joanna and Savannah.
When they had met in the playground two years ago they had laughed at the way their names had resonated. Joanna had laughed the loudest but that was because her real name was Sally and she had changed it the day she had walked out on the man she had married at 18. Now she was a bigamously happily married woman named Joanna with a child, Maddie, aged five.
Savannah had laughed second loudest because she had always hated her stupid name and at long last felt that it’s peculiarity was somehow reduced by the names of the two other women. Somehow, as part of a trio, it was less obviously idiotic. She had three gorgeous children aged seven, nine and eleven named Lily, Rose and Helen.
Rihanna laughed because she always laughed easily to hide the fact that her life was falling apart. She knew that her husband was having an affair, her sister was in remission from ovarian cancer, and years and years and years ago she had found her mother hanging from a fitting in the bathroom. Her father had burned the note her mother had left but for a long time Rihanna had thought that it must have said she had killed herself because Rihanna that evening had refused to eat the shepherds pie she had spent all afternoon making. More than refused, Rihanna had thrown it on the floor, but then she was only six, and her mother had gone upstairs never to come down again. Rihanna had a boy of eight, Ryan.
Although all three women were now good friends and regularly had coffee together, went out in the evenings and popped in and out of each others houses with forgotten blazers, extra cookies and all those kind of things that mums of young children do, none of them knew the back stories to those laughs. So, when their past caught up with them, they were just as alone as if they had not been friends.
It was a Friday when Fabrizio turned up at the school gates. Fabrizio was Joanna’s husband. Her real husband. The one she had run away from because he had beaten her and stolen her money and wanted to pimp her to his friends. That day Joanna wasn’t picking up though, she never did on a Friday, and Savannah was going to have Maddie until Joanna fetched her at six o'clock, as usual.
As Savannah waited just inside the playground for 3.15 and the opening of the school doors, she noticed the swarthy dark man with a thick neck and luxuriant black curls for two reasons. Firstly, because he exuded an animalistic sex appeal (this was what had lured Joanna originally into his embraces) and secondly, because she had never seen him before and wondered why a strange man should be hanging around a primary school gate.
She nudged Rihanna who had just turned up and was hovering beside her looking at her watch and tapping her foot impatiently. “Who do you think he belongs to?’ she mouthed.
Rihanna looked him over. Her husband hadn’t come home last night, again, and she was in a critical frame of mind.
‘He looks like a guy who’d be a great fuck, and then go home to his wife with a bunch of shitty flowers.”
"Ok………” Savannah said, "kids about you know……”
“Oh, sorry……” Rihanna flicked another icy glance across at the man. “He looks like a guy who’d be a great fuck, and then go home to his wife with a bunch of pretty flowers.’
Savannah giggled nervously and looked at her friend. Rihanna's face was set in a fierce expression, with deep lines on either side of her mouth as though strings were pulling her lips down against her will. Savannah didn’t say anything else, anyway, the kids were coming out and her attention was taken up by her three bouncing out with shining faces and messy hair. Rihanna strode over to the teacher and Savannah watched her as she put one hand on her hip and pointed a finger at the teachers face - which remained impassive, although at one point she held up her hand in what looked like a restraining gesture. It must have been that interaction that distracted her so much she didn’t notice Maddie skip down the school steps and seconds later be swept out of the path of rushing children by the arms of Fabrizio, who with a movement as practised as a baseball player, plucked her up, pressing her face tightly into his shoulder, and was off down the street.
Savannah, unaware, returned her gaze to the exiting children and continued waiting, until the last child came out and still there was no Maddie. Rihanna passed her on the way back to her car venting a furious muttered tirade against the teacher in a low monotonous voice which rendered Savannah’s three children frozen and shocked. Rihanna’s child paced slowly beside her, his head drooping. Savannah went to Maddie’s teacher to find what had delayed Maddie and it was then that she realised that she was missing. The teacher had let her out to be collected by Savannah but Savannah had never received her. It was, what? Twenty feet between where the teacher had stood and where Savannah had waited. Was that tiny distance enough to lose a child?
All mothers and children had left the playground by now so there was no one to ask. Savannah rang Joanna and asked her whether she had given permission for her daughter to be taken home by anyone else, but Joanna hadn’t. Eventually the police were called and mothers and children painstakingly questioned and it was discovered that a strange dark man had taken Maddie. When the police told Joanna she knew instantly who it was but her own past tied her tongue. She said she had never seen such a man before in her life, and once those words had passed her lips, she was trapped.
Her unknowingly bigamous husband was distraught and blamed Savannah. Savannah was distraught and blamed herself and felt guilty. Joanna was distraught and blamed Savannah but knew she herself was guilty. They waited for news, uneasily, in Joanna’s front room where a policewoman sat and observed them, apparently impassive.
Later in the evening Rihanna and her husband came over to Joanna’s house in a gesture of solidarity, and Rihanna’s husband put his arms around Joanna to comfort her in a movement which Savannah and Joanna’s husband thought was perfectly natural, but which caused Rihanna to pick up the nearby bottle of whisky that Joanna had been dispensing as they waited for news, and bash him over the head. Hard. They all heard the crack! Like the snapping of a twig. Right on the back of the head, just behind the ear, so that his head fell forward, his hair swinging in an arc that caught the flickering light of Joanna’s burning fake coal fire. He fell down to his knees and then onto his face like a sack of potatoes, his arms floppily useless. His face sunk deep into the pile of the sheepskin rug. He didn’t move. Neither did anyone else until Savannah lurched forward onto the carpet beside him and put her hand on his shoulder saying,
"Mark, Mark!” in an urgent, high pitched voice. His face was fringed by sheep wool like a mane of white fur. Could anyone breathe like that?
"Jesus Christ, Rihanna!” Joanna turned on her friend, who stood immobile and ashen-faced the bottle still in her hand, but the contents mostly on her shoes and trousers, "what have you done?”
Rihanna put the bottle down on the table and brushed whisky off her trousers onto the carpet; the smell was like wet dog in a pub. Her eyes focused on Joanna and she said in a slow, deliberate voice,
“I’ve given the fucking bastard what he deserved,” and then she slowly sunk to the ground, her hands on her face and in her hair, and started rocking on her heels with dry, hollow, sobs.
"Call an ambulance for gods sake,” Savannah said, without looking up. The policewoman who had been sitting with them up until the inappropriate hug (she had popped out just for a moment to go to the loo – well, even the police are human) came back and in a single glance took in the scene and radioed for police back-up. When it came, just after the ambulanceman had pronounced Mark dead, they put handcuffs on Rihanna and led her off into their van. She had stopped crying by then and was rigid faced, unrecognisable to the two women who had thought they were friends because their names resonated.
“They’ll lock her up for sure.” The policewoman said, after she’d taken their statements about what had happened. “Has she got any kids?”
Savannah flew to the phone and called Rihanna’s house. Rihanna’s mother-in-law answered and Savannah turned a stricken face to the others, what should she say? That her son was dead, murdered by her daughter-in-law? In front of their eyes only a short while before?
"Savannah? That’s such an unusual name, isn’t it? Isn’t it the name of a desert?” She could hear the old woman saying down the phone. She disconnected, and sat down heavily on the sofa beside Joanna.
The home phone rang and Joanna’s husband snatched it up, listened for a moment, frowned and then silently, inquiringly, passed it to Joanna. She pressed the receiver to her ear without speaking, but they could all hear the tinny sound of a voice talking, although they couldn’t make out the words. As Joanna sat there, absorbed, she slowly, slowly turned blue. It was as though all the oxygen was being sucked out of her toes and, like a vessel being emptied, she became first translucent and then actually, identifiably blue, first at her forehead, then her nose, then her chin, then her neck.
"What is it?" Her husband kept on repeating, but she just remained listening, a seemingly lifeless form with telephone glued to her ear. She could have been a modern sculpture in the Tate Gallery. Eventually she put the receiver down. Two red spots started to burn in her cheeks.
“I have to tell you all something.” She paused but no one spoke, the only sound was the low hiss of the gas that fed the fire. “There is a man on the end of that phone who has taken our daughter, he will only return her in exchange for me.” The tension broke, Savannah gasped as though she had been holding her breath.
“What!” exploded her husband. “How ridiculous is that?” His strained face looked as though he was about to laugh.
"Mrs Jenkins…” the policewoman started. Joanna held up her hand for silence.
“I am going to go now in the car, on my own." She looked meaningfully around at her audience, "and Savannah must follow in her car, on her own. Maddie will come back with her.”
“What!” her husband flopped back in his chair, smacking his forehead with his hand. He did start laughing then. A horrible crackling sound like an empty crisp packet being scrunched up.
“Mrs Jenkins,” began the policewoman, again.
“NO! my daughters life is at stake and I have to go. Now.” Joanna stood and picked up her handbag. The policewoman put a restraining hand on her arm.
“No, Mrs Jenkins, I cannot allow that. This is a matter for the police and I cannot allow you to go out on your own.” She spoke firmly, calmly, authoritively. Joanna shook off her grip and turned to her friend.
“Savannah!” Savannah got up reluctantly. Joanna frowned at her husband and the policewoman. “If either of you do anything, my daughter may never return. I cannot take that risk, and you have no right to do so with my child,” she spat out at the policewoman in a sudden burst of passion. The policewoman flinched, but pulled out her radio and once again called for back up. Joanna turned to her husband.
“Don’t stop me, I know what I’m doing. You have to get Maddie back.” She bent down and kissed him on the mouth. He gazed up at her but didn’t move, and Joanna picked up her bag and, summoning Savannah, strode out of the room and the house.
Afterwards, when Savannah was giving her statement to the police, all she could say was that they drove for half an hour, stopped in a housing estate with which she was unfamiliar, and Joanna told her to wait. She did. Joanna’s conviction that Maddie would die was overwhelming, and given what she had been through that evening (had she really witnessed an actual murder?), she simply did as she was told. Joanna drove away in her car and in a few moments Savannah saw Maddie. The little girl came round the corner of some dustbins and stood still for a moment looking around, puzzled and apprehensive, but seemingly unhurt. Savannah got out of the car, rushed over, picked her up and cuddled her, brought her back to her father, and that was that.
Neither Rihanna nor Joanna ever waited at the school gates with Savannah again. Rihanna was convicted of murder and put in a secure psychiatric unit and Savannah couldn’t face visiting her, despite all those coffee mornings and shared school time panics. Joanna simply never returned. It was as though she had never existed, but then of course she hadn’t……only Sally had, and Sally was now in Rumania whoring for a brutal man who kept her under lock and key in a dingy house down a sidestreet which smelt of dead rodents and piss.
A year later and Savannah and her husband were relocated to Manchester to a different branch of his advertising agency, and Savannah was glad. She had hated seeing little Maddie so sad and confused without her mother, and Joanna’s husband was just a shadow of his former self, so thin and shrivelled looking.
Savannah knew nobody in Manchester so when she took her children to the new school she introduced herself as Sarah. In fact from that moment on she insisted her husband, and everyone else except her mum (well, she was an only child and her dad was dead) called her Sarah. That didn’t resonate with anyone else’s name.