The Ice Cream Girls (8 page)

I didn’t like him much. He was always picking on me. Always asking me questions, like there was no one else in the class whose name he could remember so if there was a question to be answered, he called mine.

‘Because they were created by Sir Robert Peel. And Bobby is a shortened version of Robert.’

‘What year did he form the police force?’ Sir asked.

‘1829, Sir,’ I replied.

‘What else was Sir Robert Peel famous for?’

‘Abolishing the Corn Laws.’

‘Year?’

‘1846.’

‘Show off,’
Veronica hissed loudly and a few people in hearing distance laughed.

She didn’t understand: I had to do extra reading because Sir was always picking on me and this was the only way to not give him a reason to give me detention.

‘Miss Gorringe, I’d like to see you after class,’ Sir said. My heart sank. If I got in trouble, they’d tell my parents and that was when the real trouble would begin.

‘But, S—’ I began.

‘After class, Miss Gorringe,’ he insisted.

‘Lucky cow,’ Veronica hissed, causing more laughter around me.

‘What was that, Miss Bell? You want more detention? What?’ Sir cupped his hand around his ear. ‘You’re desperate for it? OK, if you insist, Miss Bell. If I hear another word from you, I’ll make sure you have detention with the head for a month.’

Everyone in class laughed, and Veronica kicked my chair when Sir had turned back to the blackboard. ‘I’ll get you,’ she hissed.

‘I’m really scared,’ I replied. You didn’t grow up with two older sisters and not know how to stick up for yourself. I was quiet, I was shy, I did not have that many friends, but I wasn’t an easy target. Medina and Faye had made sure of that.

‘You should be,’ she said.

I turned to her, not caring if Sir saw, since I was staying behind after class anyway. ‘No, Veronica,
you
should be,’ I replied. From the way she immediately put her head down and stared at her textbook, I knew she’d got the message.

Everyone had filed out and I had stayed in my seat with my stomach tumbling and tumbling over itself like the washing machine did during a long wash. This wasn’t fair. I hadn’t done anything. ‘I’ll get right to the point,’ Sir said, sitting on the edge of the desk in front of me. ‘You’re a bright girl, Serena. But you’re easily distracted and I don’t like the people you hang around with. That Veronica Bell is nothing but trouble.’ I decided not to mention that I wasn’t friends with Veronica Bell. There was no point, teachers saw what they wanted to see. That’s why Veronica had never been caught for passing notes. No teacher ever saw that although the person caught passing the note might be different, they were always sitting behind or beside or in front of Veronica. ‘You’re getting Cs and Bs in my class when clearly you have the knowledge to do so much better. You could be an A student, Serena. I’ve been testing you, these past few weeks. That’s why I’m constantly asking you questions. I wanted to see if you would do what I hoped you would and start doing extra reading, and you did. Not many students would do that. You’re a gifted pupil. I want you to do better.’

‘How, Sir?’ I asked.

‘I want you to start taking History a bit more seriously. It’s a great subject if you try.’

‘OK, Sir,’ I said.

‘Look, how about I give you a couple of extra lessons after school, give you a chance to see what History is really all about? And then we’ll take it from there. I’ll talk to the head, let him know that I want to tutor you, and if you decide you can like History a little better, I can tutor you up to your O’Levels next year. Help you get an A. What do you think?’

‘OK, Sir,’ I said. Did I really have any choice? When he talked to the headmaster, he’d most likely ring my parents. And once they heard that I could possibly get an A in an O’Level, I’d have to do it whether I could like History or not.

‘Oh, come on, Serena, sound a little more enthusiastic than that. It’s going to be fun. Trust me.’

‘I want to take care of you for ever,’
he
said, stroking his thumb against my cheek.

I was a little unsure what to say. I’d never had a boy tell me something like that before, and certainly not a man, a teacher. The closest I’d ever come was when Tommy Marison had grabbed me and pushed his lips on mine and said I had to be his girlfriend. (Medina and Faye had what they called ‘a nice little chat’ with him and he never bothered me again.) Sir was nothing like Tommy Marison, and I liked being around Sir. In the last three months, I’d started to like History a little more thanks to our after-school tutorials. I liked sitting in his classroom and listening to him explain history in a way that I could understand. When he talked about history, away from the other pupils, it wasn’t the most boring subject in the world about a group of dead people that had no relevance to my life. It was jam-packed with exciting stories full of danger and hope, intrigue and betrayal. And love. Always there was an element of love. I’d grown to like class, but I
loved
our tutorials. I could even call him by his first name in tutorials – ‘It’s more grown-up, don’t you think?’ he’d said.

This was the first time he said something like that or touched me, though.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ he said and leapt up. ‘I should
not
have said that or done that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’ Red in the face, and shaking with nerves, I guessed, he moved to the other side of the classroom.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so, so sorry, I don’t know what came over me.’ He stumbled over a few chairs as he went to the blackboard, picked up the chalk-powdered eraser and started to rub out the things he’d written on the board earlier that day. ‘I’ll, I’ll, erm, talk to the Head. I’ll find you another tutor. I’ll say it’s not working out.’ He cleared his throat, moving the eraser back and forth over the same spot, even though it was clear of his spidery writing. ‘I’m, erm, thinking of leaving at the end of the term anyway, but once you tell your parents and the school find out, I’ll probably be asked to leave before then.’ He stopped what he was doing, then turned to me. ‘I want you to know that it wasn’t your fault. I’m the adult, I shouldn’t have crossed the line like that. Blame me for doing something so wrong, OK? Not yourself. You have done nothing wrong here, OK?’

I nodded.

‘Good girl,’ he said with a smile. ‘Now, you’d better go. Tell your parents that I’ll more than understand if they want me fired.’ He smiled at me again, then turned to the blackboard. ‘Goodbye, Serena.’

‘Bye, Sir,’ I replied, deciding I needed to be formal again. I slowly got up, started to pack my books away. I took my time shutting each book and then putting them carefully in my brown satchel. When I was finished, I swung my bag on to my shoulder. He hadn’t turned around at all: he stood at the board, rubbing it clean over and over.

When I was at the door, he said, ‘Have a good evening, Serena.’

‘Thanks, Sir,’ I replied.

I walked home instead of getting the bus and along the way, I kept reaching up to touch my face. His touch had been so gentle and soft. And the way he said he wanted to take care of me made my stomach tingle upside-down every time I ran it through in my head. He wanted to take care of me. That must mean I was special. Someone thought I was special. Someone as clever and grown-up as him thought I was special.

‘Hello, Serena,’ Mum called from the kitchen as I opened the front door and dropped my bag and took off my school blazer, hooking it over the globe of the banister.

‘Hello, Mummy,’ I said, as I ambled into the kitchen.

Mum was stirring something on the stove and the whole house smelt of tomatoes and oxtail and onion and garden eggs. I wasn’t hungry, I realised. My stomach had been rumbling after school but the hunger left me after he touched me – that one, quick touch had taken away my hunger and left in its place . . . I couldn’t properly describe what I felt.

‘Are you all right?’ Mum asked as I pulled out a chair at the dinner table and sat down.

I nodded. I was more than all right.

‘How was your History lesson?’

‘It was OK.’

‘Are you going to get an A for your O’Level, then?’ she asked. She asked me this after every lesson.

‘I hope so,’ I said, stroking the place setting at the table. ‘I just have to keep working really hard.’

‘Good,’ Mum said. ‘Now, go and get changed and start your homework before dinner.’

‘OK,’ I said.

I climbed the stairs feeling as if I could float up them, and as I changed I wondered if Sir would like my stonewash jeans and big white T-shirt? If he liked my hair in a ponytail or if he’d prefer it loose? If he would like me to wear mascara and lipstick like the other girls at school? I couldn’t concentrate on my homework. Instead, I flicked on the radio part of the tape player that I’d ‘borrowed’ from Faye and Medina’s room when they went off to university two years ago. Sade’s voice sang out, explaining about the sweetest taboo.

I lay back on my bed, listening to her sing, listening to her words, and when she had finished, I spent the whole evening writing his surname after my name. I wanted, desperately wanted, to be a part of his life for ever and ever.

poppy

‘These are for you,’ Mum says as she slides what she has been holding in her hand for the last few minutes across the wooden kitchen table towards me.

She has managed to sit down at the same table as me for more than three seconds. She didn’t make herself a cup of tea, so I knew she wasn’t staying, but it was a start. She actually came into the kitchen and didn’t immediately walk out again. We can build on that. Dad being shut away in his study is something I do not know how to work on so I will not think about it for now. Now, I stare at what my mother has given me.

Keys.

She has given me five keys on a metal loop. Keys. For nearly twenty years I’ve only ever heard the sound of keys in locks, and seen them hanging on the belt loops or sitting in the hands of screws.

Heard them, seen them, not held them. Certainly never
owned
them.

Carefully, as though they are a potentially rabid animal that could snap venomously at me at any second, I extend my hand and stroke my fingers over the top of them. When they do not bite me, I pick them up, hold them in the palm of my hand, reacquainting myself with the coolness of metal and the delicious jagged edges.

‘Two are for the front door,’ Mum says. ‘The smaller three are for the padlocks to Granny Morag’s beach hut,’ she says.

‘She left it to you.’

‘And you’re actually giving it to me?’ I ask.

‘Of course, Poppy. It’s what she wanted. It would be
illegal
not to give it to you.’

Why don’t you just add, ‘Some of us aren’t criminals like you’ and be done with it?
I think at her. I stare at the keys. Gosh, not only do I have keys, I have property.

Granny Morag always believed that ‘the system’ would come to its senses and would see the truth, would see I’m innocent and let me out. So, in her will, she had left me beach hut number 492.

Mum’s eyes are intently watching me, although I do not know what sort of reaction she expects. ‘Your father has been painting it twice a year, he changes the locks and keeps an eye on the place,’ Mum says as I continue to caress my keys. ‘He’s kept it nice for you.’

‘Bless Granny Morag,’ I say. ‘Just bless her.’

Mum smiles. A sad, wistful thought is clearly clouding her mind, and I suddenly feel how difficult and harrowing it must have been for her to live without her mother all these years.

‘Do you miss her?’ I ask.

‘Every day. You get so used to someone being there, and I suppose you take for granted the time you have because you forget to say the things you want to say until it’s too late. I miss her wit and her sharp eye. I miss her grumpiness in cold, damp weather and her false teeth in a glass beside her bed. I miss—’ Mum comes out of her reverie and, blinking quickly, realises she is talking to me. ‘But you get used to living without people, don’t you? If you don’t it will eat you up whole. You find a way to put them to one side and carry on.’

‘If you say so,’ I reply and run my fingers along the jagged edges of the keys. I feel like putting them in my mouth to find out what freedom tastes like.

‘Well, the beach hut is your responsibility now,’ she says rather ominously.

‘Could you make that sound any more threatening?’ I say to her. ‘You sound like the Big Luv during a bollocking.’

Her mouth tightens and colour creeps up her neck into her cheeks at my language. ‘What is the Big Luv?’ she asks tersely.

‘The Governor, the main governor. It’s rhyming slang – Guv to Luv.’

The tension in her mouth increases, her colour, usually a pinky-red, is now red and high. She obviously doesn’t like being compared to someone from prison.

‘I just don’t want you letting down your gran’s memory by allowing her beach hut to fall into disrepair. Or wasting your father’s hard work. Your gran believed in you right until the end. Don’t dishonour her.’

‘You think she was silly to believe in me, don’t you?’ I say, despite my decision three seconds ago to stay silent.

‘Misguided,’ my mother says. My mother thinks me capable of murder. It’s incredible that she can. I’m innocent. I wish they would believe that. I didn’t do it. How could I?

I loved him. Right till the end. Even when I was scared of him, and he acted like he hated me, I could not stop loving him.

‘Thanks for the keys,’ I tell my mother. ‘I’ll go and have a look at it in the next few days. I’ll make Granny Morag proud.’

Her silence as she leaves the room says it all: ‘You couldn’t do that even if you tried.’

‘I’m going to prove to you that I am innocent,’ I tell her even though she has gone to hide upstairs. ‘Do you know how? I’m going to find Serena Gorringe, and I’m going to make her confess that it was her, not me. I’m going to make her confess that, after the accident, she went back and she murdered him.’