Wonder Women (47 page)

It was an interesting idea: if you were keeping the kids busy, why not let the mums shop for themselves as well as
their kids? Maybe they could start with a maternity range. Mel made a mental note to mention it to Jo.

‘Well, tell all your mates!' said Mel, handing the woman her bulging shopping bags. ‘We'll be stocking girls' clothes as well soon.'

‘Already tweeted about it.' The woman grinned. ‘See you soon!'

Once the woman and her small savages had gone, Mel did a quick tidy. As she was finishing up, Holly and the Outtake boys came out of the office. Holly set about hanging some of the new T-shirts and the boys set off home. As the office was deserted, Mel took the opportunity to log on to Facebook for a moment to see what Serena had been up to. Marina had posted ‘Hey babez, see you after school? Come to mine for coffee.'

And Serena had replied, ‘Can't, seeing Hopey at 4.'

Mel checked her watch. It was lunchtime. Jo was coming in at three to do the last few hours in the shop. Mel could be outside Serena's school by three thirty, when classes ended, and she could see where she went after that. Whom she met. She had a bad feeling about this Hopey. She couldn't put her finger on why … somehow she didn't think it was just a friend. Serena was uncommunicative, yes, but she did mention her friends by name, and this was not a name Mel had ever heard from her.

As it happened, there was a builders' cafe across the road from Serena's school. They did a roaring trade at lunchtime, supplying sausages and chips to hungry teenagers. Mel got there at three twenty and found a table by the window. The cafe was quiet, and she grabbed a copy of the
Sun
from the
rack of newspapers and ordered a tea. Although she had a good view of the road outside and the school opposite, she was partially concealed from view by a dusty plastic palm tree. If, by some fluke, Serena saw her or came into the cafe, she decided to say she had left work early and wasn't feeling well, so had come to meet Serena to walk home with her. It was most likely that Serena wouldn't see her, however. In Mel's experience, Serena, and teenagers in general, didn't notice things or people around them unless it was something that affected them directly.

At three thirty, kids starting trailing out of the school opposite. There were just a few at first, then a flood – groups of boys laughing and shoving each other, girls calling out to one another in piercing voices. Why were they all so loud? Mel watched from behind her pot plant. She knew from years of collecting Serena from school that she would be one of the last out. She always was. Sure enough, most of the kids had wandered off down the road towards the station or their houses, or got on the school bus, when Serena came out, her arm linked through Marina's. They had their heads close together and were chatting. They stopped outside the school and leaned against a low stone wall. Marina seemed to be waiting with Serena. Whoever Hopey was, perhaps he was meeting Serena at the school. She didn't seem to be going anywhere in a hurry. The two girls looked at something on Marina's phone, and then Serena got hers out along with a set of headphones and they took one earpiece each. Mel checked her watch. It was five to four. The cafe owner was pointedly sweeping the floor and moving tables and chairs. Clearly he wanted to close up. She had to hope that Serena's
rendezvous would be prompt. She glanced up and down the road, expecting to see someone approaching on foot. There was no one who looked obviously like someone a teenage girl might meet – just a young mum with two toddlers and a couple of old ladies with tartan shopping bags on wheels.

Then, at one minute to four, a car came crawling along the road and pulled up outside the school. Serena looked up and smiled. She retrieved the other earphone from Marina, hugged her goodbye and ran around to the passenger door of the car. Somehow, Mel hadn't expected a car, and she stood up quickly to get a better look. It was a very ordinary car – a little silver hatchback, a Peugeot or a Vaux-hall Corsa or something. She couldn't see the driver's face because of the sun's late-afternoon glare on the windscreen. Without thinking, she ran to the door of the cafe, oblivious to the man shouting behind her that she hadn't paid for her tea. She could see Serena clearly now. She was turned towards the driver of the car, smiling and chatting as she did up her seat belt. The car pulled out and headed down the road, past Mel, and turned left at the bottom. As it passed, she got a clear look at the person driving. He looked about fifty, wearing a suit and glasses. She had never seen him before. What kind of fifty-year-old man picks up a teenage girl from school without her mother knowing? Mel started to tremble with fear and anger. She had been in such a hurry to see the driver, she hadn't thought to take down the registration number of the car. With shaking fingers, she took out her phone and dialled Serena's number, but it went straight to voicemail.

She didn't think. She was panicking, crazy with fear and
desperation, so she just started to talk. ‘Rena, I'm outside your school and I just saw you get in a car with a man. Is that Hopey? Who is he? What are you doing? What is he making you do? Oh God, Rena, ring me. Please just ring me. I don't know where you've gone and I couldn't get the registration number or I'd have rung the police. Rena … just … ring me, okay? I'll come and get you wherever you are.' She hung up, and started to cry. Mel couldn't remember the last time she'd cried. She turned back into the cafe and retrieved her bag. The cafe owner, seeing how upset she was, waved her money away when she went to pay for her tea.

Marina. Marina would know. She knew who Hopey was, and maybe she could tell Mel where they had gone. Mel stood on the pavement, looking wildly up and down the road, but Marina had gone. She took off at a run, heading for her house, which was on a main road close to the school. She arrived out of breath and rang the doorbell, but somehow, from the way it echoed, she sensed no one was home. She scrolled through the numbers on her phone and, to her relief, found one for Marina. She dialled it, but got a recorded message saying, ‘The number you have dialled has not been recognised.' Marina must have changed her number.

This was a nightmare. She stood on the pavement, trembling and staring up and down the road, as if a solution might magically present itself. After a minute or two, she calmed down and sat on the low wall. She started to go through her phone methodically, looking for numbers of any of Serena's friends. She rang each one, trying to sound as calm as she could, saying that she had seen Serena get into a car with a strange man outside the school, and did
any of them know who it might be, or where they might have gone? They all answered in monosyllables, and clearly none of them had any idea what might have happened. Tiresomely, they sounded mortified to be taking a call from Serena's mum, and it seemed to Mel that this constrained them from speaking openly. It was as if their embarrassment at speaking to her was more important to them than Serena's safety. In desperation, Mel even rang Izzie, who had the decency to sound properly shamefaced, but who also knew nothing. Hating herself for doing it, Mel asked Izzie if she knew how to get hold of Triggah.

‘He's here with me now,' said Izzie in a small voice. ‘And he also doesn't know where she is.'

There was nothing for Mel to do but go home. She didn't take her coat off, just sat in a chair, her bag balanced on her knees, and waited as the shadows lengthened.

It felt like hours, but was in fact just gone five thirty when she heard Serena's key in the door. She was too numb to feel relieved. She just stayed sitting where she was, bag on lap, waiting. Serena didn't come into the living room, but went straight to her bedroom. Mel could hear her banging around. After a minute, she carefully put her handbag on the floor and went to stand in Serena's doorway. Serena had a sports bag on the bed and was throwing clothes and school books into it willy-nilly.

‘What are you …?'

‘I'm going to stay at Marina's,' said Serena flatly. Then she stopped what she was doing for a second, and looked at Mel. ‘You're a freak, do you know that? What did you do?
Read my emails? Hack into my Facebook? Why couldn't you just ask me?'

‘Because you never talk!' Mel didn't even bother to deny the allegations.

‘I would talk. I would tell you things if you ever got off my back. If you ever let me have even the tiniest bit of fucking privacy!' Serena was screaming now, and it didn't seem the right moment to tell her off for swearing.

‘I …'

‘I don't know what you think I am. I don't know what you think I'm doing, but let me tell you, it's what's in your head that's wrong. I'm not an idiot. I can look after myself. And just because you're a weirdo who never ever has a boyfriend and thinks every man is a rapist or a paedo, doesn't mean I think that way. I'm going. And before you start ringing all my friends again, or calling the police, I'm staying with Marina's mum and dad. I'm not having sex with some old man, okay?'

She grabbed her bag, not even bothering to zip it up, tucked her laptop under her arm and pushed past Mel. Mel heard the door slam, and then everything was quiet.

Judith, whose arms and legs were so thin you could see every ridge of bone under the skin, looked pregnant. Her skin was an alarming shade of yellow, and her belly was grossly swollen. Lynne, the Macmillan nurse, was scheduled to come on the Friday, but on the Wednesday Holly rang her in desperation and she came round within the hour. Holly sat downstairs in the kitchen and waited while Lynne spent some time with Judith. She felt sure that when Lynne came downstairs that the news wouldn't be good. There was no doubt about it: in the last few months Judith had got very sick very quickly.

Lynne, who was plump and pleasant, came down the stairs stripping off her latex gloves. ‘Got the kettle on there, Holly?' she said. She bustled around making tea, and then sat at the table with Holly.

‘Now I know that you must be worried about the way your mum looks today,' she said calmly.

‘She looks awful, Lynne. Just awful.'

‘It's because the cancer has reached her liver. That's why she's so yellow. The swelling is mainly fluid in her abdomen,
and we can do something about that. I've rung the hospital, and they're sending over an ambulance. We're going to keep her in and we'll drain off some of the fluid. It's a minor procedure, she'll be awake throughout and it'll make her much more comfortable. More than likely, she can come home tomorrow.'

‘So she …'

‘She hasn't got long, but she's not quite on her way out yet.' Holly appreciated Lynne's blunt honesty. She was matter-of-fact, but always kind, and she always gave them all the information they needed. ‘Now why don't you pop upstairs and pack a bag for your mum? She seemed worried about her jewellery. She wanted to take it all with her. See if you can talk her out of that – it won't be safe in the hospital.'

Her jewellery? How odd, Holly thought as she walked up the stairs. Judith hadn't worn any jewellery other than her wedding ring since she'd been ill. Why the sudden obsession? When she went into the bedroom, Judith was sitting up in bed, her jewellery box on her lap. She hadn't opened it, but she had her claw-like hands clasped over it as if she would never let it go. As soon as Holly saw the box, she knew why Judith didn't want to leave it behind. The letters.

‘Mum,' she said gently, ‘you don't need to take that with you. It'll be perfectly safe here.'

‘What if I don't come back?' said Judith.

‘Lynne says it's just a small procedure, and you'll feel much better and be home tomorrow.'

‘What if I'm not home tomorrow? What if I die in the hospital? I need this.' Judith clutched the box tighter.

‘Mum …' said Holly, sitting on the edge of the bed and
putting her hand over Judith's. ‘I know you have letters in there, and I'll keep them safe. I promise.'

‘How do you know? Did you read them? That's terrible! You should never read other people's letters, Holly! That's disgraceful!' Judith was so distressed that Holly wished she had never said anything.

‘I didn't read them. I promise. I borrowed your gold chain weeks ago – I told you, remember? And the box wouldn't close. I saw there were letters, but I didn't even take them out. I would never read your private letters; of course I wouldn't.'

‘I need them, Holly. They're all I've got.' There were tears in Judith's eyes. ‘All I've got of him. Please.'

‘Mum, they're much safer here than in the hospital. And you'll be back tomorrow.'

Judith shook her head. The tears were still trickling down her cheeks.

‘Why not take one or two? Maybe not all of them. And not your jewellery box,' Holly suggested. Judith calmed down and nodded. ‘That's a good idea,' she said, and with trembling hands opened the catch on the box. She lifted the trays out and handed them to Holly, then began to leaf through the stack of letters. She chose two from the very bottom of the pile. Holly fetched Judith's handbag, and Judith carefully slid the two letters into an inside pocket of the bag and zipped it up.

‘We need to get the rest of your things organised,' said Holly, and she helped Judith to replace everything in the box and put it back on the dressing table. In a few minutes, she had packed a small overnight bag for Judith. Lynne
popped her head around the door and said the ambulance was ten minutes away, and that the ambulance crew would come up to the bedroom to fetch Judith. Holly sat down beside the bed. Now Judith was not so agitated, she looked terribly tired.

‘You all right, Mum?'

‘Yes, thank you, dear.'

‘Your letters are safe in your bag. I'll make sure it's right beside your bed when you're in the hospital, okay?'

‘Thank you, dear.'