A Class Apart (61 page)

After lunch Vicky’s parents took their customary afternoon nap, and Paul and his wife went for a walk. Heather, their four-year-old daughter, had pleaded with them to let her stay behind with Jenneen and play. Vicky had some accounts she wanted to go over, and the afternoon passed peacefully.

When her work was finished Vicky thought she might go and join Jenneen and Heather, but they were having such fun together, she felt she might be intruding, so she remained at the door, watching them playing in the sunshine.

“Penny for them.”

“Paul,” she said, turning round. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were miles away. Where’s Aunt Grace?”

“Still up in bed. I’m afraid the Sunday afternoon naps are getting longer and longer these days. Where’s Susan?”

“Gone to have a bath.”

“Where on earth does that daughter of yours get all her energy?”

“Her father, of course.”

Vicky lifted an eyebrow. “Silly question, like some tea?”

“I’ll put the kettle on.”

Vicky sat down at the table, looking out through the open door at Jenneen and Heather. After a while she looked up and smiled to see Paul standing behind her, looking out into the garden too. He put his hand on her shoulder, and squeezed it.

“Have you told her yet?”

She turned to look at him. “Who?”

“Jenneen.”

“What about?”

He looked at her, but said nothing.

She turned away. “No, I haven’t.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I should.”

He strolled over to the door, and put his hands in his pockets. “I think you should.”

“You do?”

“Mmm,” he nodded.

“How do you think she will take it?”

“You know her better.”

Vicky shrugged. “Sometimes I do. But then there are other times . . .”

“But isn’t that the same with everyone?”

“It’s just, well, I don’t know how to tell her.”

“It can’t be easy.”

“Kettle’s boiling,” said Vicky. “You going to make it, or shall I?”

“You can. I think I’ll go and rescue Jenneen. Heather can go and romp in the bath with Susan.”

“Ah! You’ve got the kettle boiling,” said Mrs Deane, as she came into the kitchen. “Heard us moving around, did you?”

“Heard you moving around?” said Paul. “We were beginning to wonder what you and the old man were up to, up there.”

Mrs Deane giggled. “You’d be surprised,” she said, to Vicky’s surprise.

“Dad coming down too?”

“Yes. He’s getting dressed. Goodness, those two still out in the garden?” Mrs Deane remarked, as she strolled outside.

“They’ve been out there all afternoon.”

“And I’m about to go and relieve Jenneen of her charge,” said Paul, walking down the few steps to the garden.

“Thanks, dear,” said her mother, as Vicky handed her a cup of tea. She took a sip. “Do you think your friend has enjoyed herself?”

“I’m sure she has,” said Vicky. “You’ve all been so kind to her.”

“Well, I won’t ask what was wrong, but she definitely looks better now than she did when she arrived.”

“I think she feels it.”

“You leaving tonight?”

“Well, we were going to leave tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”

“Course it’s all right with me. You can stay as long as you like, you know that.”

“Yes,” Vicky smiled, going to sit beside her mother.

Mrs Deane stared down at her cup. “Is Jenneen . . .? Do you . . .?”

Vicky laughed uneasily. “No,” she said.

“I just wondered.”

Paul came back, carrying Heather under his arm, Jenneen following behind.

“There’s tea in the pot,” said Vicky, “help yourselves.”

“Can I have some lemonade, Grandma?”

“Yes, darling, I’ll get it for you.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jenneen. “I’ll get it,” and she went to the fridge to pour some for herself as well. “I’m shattered,” she said, collapsing into a chair. “Children always amaze me, where they get their energy from. Or am I getting old?”

“You’re getting old,” said Vicky, and Jenneen picked up Heather’s sponge ball and threw it at her.

“Bath time,” said Paul, taking the glass from Heather.

“I don’t want a bath, I had one yesterday.”

“And you can have one today. Come on, Mummy’s up there. Perhaps we can all three get in,” and he turned to the table and winked at the others.

“Just mind you clear up all that water when you’ve finished,” Mrs Deane called after them.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Vicky said, getting to her feet, “but I’m going for a walk.”

“I don’t think I’ve got the strength,” Jenneen yawned, then laughed as she saw Vicky’s look. “All right, all right, I’m coming.”

“How about you, mum?” said Vicky.

“No. No thanks, dear.”

“You’re so lucky, you know,” said Jenneen, as they strolled into the tiny copse that marked the border between the Deanes’ land and that of the farm beyond.

“Lucky? Why?”

“I don’t know. Having all this, I suppose,” said Jenneen, waving her arms towards the trees. “And your family. They’re such wonderful people. I wish my family were like them. And now, of course, I feel guilty for even thinking it.”

Vicky smiled.

“It’s not that I don’t love my family, I do. But my life is so different from theirs now. And that makes me sad. It’s like living in two separate worlds. I know theirs, of course, but they don’t know mine, and it’s almost as if they’re afraid of it.”

“I’d like to meet your family one day.”

Jenneen turned to look at her, and smiled. “It would be nice, but I’m afraid it would never work. They’d be so uncomfortable, and it would embarrass you, and me. But thank you for saying it.”

“I meant it.”

“I know you did.”

They walked on in silence for a while, pulling the early autumn leaves from the trees, and picking up fallen branches, using them as sticks. There was no one else around, and Jenneen felt as though they were in a small part of heaven, where everything was perfect. She smiled at her thought.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Just thinking. It’s so beautiful here. It makes you feel you never want to leave.”

“I know,” said Vicky. “But you can always come again.”

They came to the edge of the wood. Jenneen climbed the stile, and sat on top of it. Vicky leaned against it, beside her.

“Vicky,” said Jenneen, after a while.

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What kind of question?”

“A personal one, I suppose.”

Vicky shrugged. “Try me.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

Vicky looked at her, surprised at the question. “Yes, I have. What makes you ask?”

“I don’t know,” said Jenneen. “Probably because you’ve never talked about it.”

“There’s not much to tell, really. What about you? Have you ever been in love?”

Jenneen pondered the question a while, and then shook her head. “No, I don’t think I have.”

Vicky smiled.

“Of course, there have been times when I’ve thought I was in love,” Jenneen went on, “but when I talk to Ashley or Ellamarie, well, then I know, I’ve never felt the way they do, about anyone.”

“You will.”

“That’s what everyone says. Mr Right is just round the corner. He’ll be here any day, sweep you off your feet.”

“Tedious, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

Jenneen got down from the stile, and began walking back towards the woods. “Do you think he is, though? Just round the corner, I mean.”

“Maybe it depends on whether you want him to be. Do you?”

“Yes and no. I don’t know if I’d know it, even if he was there, not any more.”

They reached a small clearing in the woods and Vicky stopped and leaned against the old gnarled oak tree where she and Paul had so often played as children. Jenneen stooped to pick the daisies; sitting on the ground, she started to make a chain.

Vicky watched her and smiled at how childlike she seemed. “Jenn,” she said after a while, her voice quiet, “you’re going to have to face it sometime, you know.”

Jenneen stopped what she was doing, but she didn’t look up. “I know.”

“Have you ever thought about why you do it? What it is that makes you do it?”

Jenneen shook her head.

“There must be a reason,” Vicky continued. “Somewhere there must be a reason. I can’t understand why you want to hurt yourself like you do.”

“I don’t understand it either.”

“Does Matthew know?”

“About Mrs Green?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, he knows everything.”

“What are you going to do?”

Jenneen turned to face her. “Maybe you should ask Matthew that question. What is he going to do?”

“But I’m asking you.”

Jenneen got up and walked over to a tree close to the one Vicky was leaning against. She began to pick at the bark. “I think I’m going to kill him.”

Vicky watched her but said nothing.

“I’ve got a gun.” Jenneen turned round and leaned her back against the tree.

“And you really intend to use it?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you kill him, he will win.”

“I know.”

They stood in silence.

“That’s not the answer, Jenn, is it?”

“No, maybe not. Why do you think he hates me so much?”

“Who knows the workings of a mind like his?”

Jenneen gave a dry laugh. “Or a mind like mine?”

Vicky smiled. “Yes, or yours.”

There was a scuffle nearby in the undergrowth, and they watched a squirrel run up the trunk of a tree and disappear.

“I don’t like doing it, you know. I hate myself afterwards. But I just don’t seem to be able to stop myself. Perhaps it’s the same with Matthew, who knows?”

“No,” said Vicky. “Matthew is sick. Really sick. He’s an alcoholic, remember. His brain is tortured by whisky.”

“Not always.”

“And that is why he is truly sick. He’s a sadist. There’s little point in trying to analyse why he does what he does, we neither of us could come up with an answer.”

“My mother always used to tell me that there is some good in everyone, even the very worst people.”

Vicky laughed. “Mine too. But people like Matthew, well, I suppose there are exceptions to every rule.”

“Do you think he gets pleasure out of what he does to me?”

“Who knows?” Vicky shrugged. “In a perverse way, yes, he probably does. And you, do you get any pleasure from Mrs Green?”

Jenneen stared at her, horrified. “I hate Mrs Green. I loathe her, I thought you knew that.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I told you,” Jenneen snapped, “I don’t know. I can’t help myself. I just do it. It just happens.”

“And the men you choose?”

“What about them? Do they get any pleasure out of it?” Jenneen’s smile was bitter. “How do I know? Why don’t you ask them?”

Vicky ignored the subtle reference to Paul. “Do you mind that they might get pleasure from you, or Mrs Green?”

Jenneen looked away and watched a rabbit scurry into a hole at the base of a tree. A bird screeched above her head and she looked up. Vicky was still waiting.

“Well?”

Jeneen’s eyes blazed. Her sudden anger surprised Vicky. “Yes,” she said. “If you must know. Yes, I fucking well mind. But Mrs Green doesn’t. Mrs Green wants them to do it. But I hate them. Every last one of them. I hate them for being them, for their weakness, and most of all I hate them for touching me. Yes, I mind. I mind so much I feel like killing them after. Hah! That’s a joke, isn’t it? After! Notice I say after. Not before. No, before I beg them. Do you know that? Sometimes I actually beg them to fuck me. Can you believe it? And then, when they do I just want to kill them, or castrate them, because I hate them. But most of all I hate myself.” She pushed herself away from the tree and went to walk on. When she reached the edge of the clearing she stopped.

Neither of them spoke. Vicky watched her, and thought that perhaps she was crying. But when she turned round her eyes were dry, and now her expression was softer. “You see, I’m every bit as sick as Matthew. And who knows, maybe even worse.”

“No, you’re not sick. Only confused.”

“Confused!” Jenneen cried, throwing her hands in the air. “Confused, she says! I’m more than confused, I’m twisted. I’m a schizophrenic. I’m two people, Vicky, can’t you see that? It’s like being possessed, having an evil spirit inside, that you can’t control. And you never know what it will make you do next. What depths of depravity it will take you to next. It hides, it goes away, but then it comes back, more evil, more determined than ever. It takes my whole body, it takes my brain, my limbs, my senses, it takes my whole fucking soul, and dear God I don’t know what I’m going to do any more.”

Vicky walked over to her and took her in her arms. Jenneen turned and buried her face against Vicky’s shoulder. “What am I going to do?” she sobbed. “Please, tell me what I can do.”

“It might not be as difficult as you think, you know.”

“It won’t change. Believe me, it won’t change.”

“It will, if you want it to.”

Jenneen pulled herself away. “Of course I want it to. Didn’t you hear me? I hate myself. I hate Matthew. I hate it all.”

“Tell me, Jenn, deep down, right deep down inside, do you love Matthew?”

Jenneen looked into Vicky’s face. Her eyes were bright. “Deep down I despise him. I loathe him.” Her voice was calm, and Vicky knew that she spoke the truth. “I despise them all,” Jenneen added. “Every single last one of them. I want to be rid of them, all of them. But I don’t know how.”

Taking Jenneen by the arm, Vicky started to walk her back towards the house. “I know,” was all she said.