The Unknown Bridesmaid (16 page)

‘I wasn’t sure you
would
say you’d like to live with your mum.’

‘Anyone would.’

‘No, they wouldn’t, not if things had been tough when they lived with their mum before.’

‘They weren’t tough. What’s tough anyway? They were all right.’

Again, Julia kept quiet and met Gill’s look. The bandage was off her head now, with only a neat line of stitches showing where the wound had been. Some of her hair had had to be shaved off but this small patch hardly showed. Someone had washed Gill’s hair and now it settled gracefully around her sullen face.

‘You’ve got beautiful hair,’ Julia suddenly decided to say.

‘You softening me up, or what?’ said Gill.

‘I was just admiring it and thought I’d pay you the compliment.’

‘Then don’t,’ Gill said. ‘I don’t like it. I don’t like it. It isn’t
your business, it isn’t your job, going on about my hair,’ and she imitated Julia saying she had beautiful hair, sneering.

‘I think,’ Julia said, ignoring Gill’s tone, ‘you’re going to be reckoned too young for any sort of hostel, though that might suit you best, give you some independence.’

‘Are you talking to yourself?’

‘I’m just thinking out loud about possibilities.’

‘Then don’t bother. I won’t have any say in it anyway. They’ll just put me where they want.’

‘You’re still at school,’ Julia said. ‘What would you like to do when you leave next year?’

‘
Like
?’ Gill said. ‘What’s like got to do with anything?’

‘No harm in thinking about it,’ Julia said, knowing she was irritating the girl with her deliberately charming smile. ‘What kind of work do you see yourself doing?’

‘I don’t. I don’t care. There aren’t any jobs anyway. Everyone knows that.’

‘You’re a bright girl,’ Julia said, ‘or so some teachers have said. You’ve got some brains, apparently.’

‘Apparently,’ Gill repeated, sneering again.

‘But you don’t use them.’

‘That’s my business.’

‘And mine.’

‘How the fuck is it yours?’

It was the first time Gill had sworn in her presence though there was plenty in the notes about her filthy language and constant use of the F-word. Karen, the foster-mother, said Gill hardly opened her mouth without attaching this word to everything she said. But Julia let it pass. It had been said without heat, in an incredulous voice, not an angry one. ‘Your brains,’ she told Gill, ‘and your refusal to use them are my business. It’s my job to work out why.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Gill said, almost laughing now, ‘this ain’t real.’

‘It is,’ said Julia, ‘very real. When you hit Karen, you
knew the consequences. It was deliberate. You’d thought it all out.’

‘I was mad at her, that’s all. I couldn’t stand her a minute longer. I hate her. You don’t know what it’s like hating someone you’re made to live with.’

‘Karen knew you’d stolen that bag.’

‘So?’

‘She had to make you take it back.’

‘I wasn’t going to do that, no way. The shop hadn’t even fucking well missed it.’

‘Karen was in charge of you. It was her job to—’

‘Oh, shut the fuck up!’

Julia turned, without speaking, to leave the room. ‘Where are you going?’ Gill said.

‘I’m shutting up,’ Julia said, ‘and going home.’

‘Just because I swore? Oh, for . . . oh, I don’t believe it, taking offence, just because, it’s your job, you said it was, you can’t just eff off, is “eff” all right, is it?’

‘Yes, it’s all right,’ Julia said, ‘but I’m finished anyway. I know enough to give my opinion.’

‘But I haven’t said nothing yet, you don’t know nothing.’

‘You’re shouting.’

‘Yeah, I’m effing shouting, you’d shout if you was me, someone walking out on you just like that. Job done, I don’t fucking think . . .’

The shouting went on as Julia walked down the corridor. She’d go back in half an hour.

Julia, as she grew older, still saw a lot of Iris’s girls, especially Elsa, the older one. Elsa loved Julia, She’d shriek with delight when Julia arrived, and leap into her arms and hug her fiercely. ‘You’re the favourite,’ Iris said, ‘you’re her idol, Julia.’ At first, Julia liked being an idol. She found being adored
pleasing. But as Elsa grew, and became an incredibly energetic child, demanding so much more of her idol, wanting to play games that were becoming tiresome, Julia found the experience not quite so agreeable. Elsa was never still. At four years old, she literally was only still when she was asleep. ‘Come on, Julia!’ she would yell, and try to drag Julia into the garden just as Julia felt like slumping on the sofa. ‘Let me read you a story,’ she’d suggest, but Elsa was not interested in being read to. The demands on Julia’s time became heavier and coincided with a total lack of energy on her part. She was a teenager now, and didn’t care for bouncing about all the time, or chasing Elsa round the garden. She started saying to her mother that she didn’t feel like going to Iris’s house, it was too tiring, being at Elsa’s beck and call.

Her mother was quite shocked. ‘Tired? At your age? Really, Julia, that’s ridiculous. You can say you can’t be bothered with Elsa any more but don’t claim to be
tired
. That’s just an excuse.’ Julia shrugged. Of course it was an excuse, but her mother needn’t have pointed this out. ‘Anyway,’ her mother said briskly, ‘you’ll have to get over this so-called exhaustion because I’ve said we’ll have Elsa to stay next week.’

‘To
stay
?’ Julia said. ‘You mean, sleep and everything?’

‘Yes. It’s the least we can do. Maureen can’t manage the two of them and Fran is the easier, so I said we’d have Elsa, and Iris was not to worry. Elsa’s not been told yet, it would make her too excited. She’ll be thrilled to bits.’

Iris was going into hospital, for an operation. Julia had only the vaguest idea of what an operation might mean, but once she had wondered aloud – her newly contrived subtle way of asking questions – whether Iris was having a leg cut off, or something cut off, and her mother had said no, she relaxed. The mysterious operation went on being mysterious, and Julia asked no more. She was told that when Elsa came, she was not to mention anything about hospitals or
operations, but just to say, if Elsa wanted her mummy, that she would be home soon.

Elsa didn’t once ask. She was entirely happy to be with Julia, whom she followed everywhere, even to the toilet, which embarrassed Julia greatly, much to the scorn of her mother, who informed her that urinating and defecating were natural functions and not something to hide from children. This enraged Julia, who knew perfectly well about natural functions but saw no reason to perform them in front of others, even Elsa. It was one of the contradictory things about her mother: you’d expect her to be prim and proper in this respect, as in all others, but she wasn’t. She never closed the bathroom door, which horrified Julia now. She liked the door not just to be closed but locked when she was using the bathroom. But Elsa howled and roared and hurled herself at the closed door whenever Julia tried to get some privacy, and then Julia’s mother came alongside Elsa and demanded that Julia stop being so silly. Later, her mother took the bolt off the door. It was only a slim metal bolt, which would never have held the door if a determined onslaught upon it had been made, but it had been a great comfort to Julia.

Elsa slept with her. Not in the same bed, officially, but on a camp bed next to Julia’s bed. She stayed in it perhaps five minutes after Julia’s mother had wished her goodnight, sleep tight, and then she was straight into Julia’s bed. She snuggled up to her, and played with Julia’s hair, and her little body was warm and soft. It was not at all like cuddling a toy, nor even the big bear she’d been so fond of. When Elsa finally fell asleep, after Julia had sung all the nursery rhymes she requested, Julia tried to detach her from her own arm, which she had insisted should be around her, and to move her body away from her side, to which it clung. But this was impossible to do without waking her, as Julia soon discovered, so she had to let the little girl stay as she was until, in her sleep, she naturally moved and Julia was free.

Julia didn’t complain about this to her mother because if she did she would have to explain her feelings about Elsa sleeping with her, and she couldn’t have done this because she didn’t understand them herself. It made her uncomfortable to think about the possible reasons why she didn’t want Elsa there. It was about bodies. She said that to herself: it is about bodies. She didn’t like having Elsa’s body curled up against her own. But why not? What was wrong with it? That was the bit she couldn’t explain. It was dangerous, somehow. But who, or what, was in danger? Julia had bad nights trying to work this out and was cross with Elsa in the mornings.

It was the first week of the Easter holidays, and they were ‘blessed’ with fine weather, as Julia’s mother put it. ‘Good,’ she said, seeing blue sky and sun when she opened the curtains, ‘you can be out in the garden with Elsa.’ Julia wanted to say that she was too old just to be sent into the garden to play with a four-year-old, but she didn’t. It would be no use. And she preferred being outside with Elsa rather than inside, it was true. Outside, Elsa running manically about, wasn’t as exhausting. Julia became quite skilled at thinking up games which involved Elsa running up and down while Julia stood still. ‘I’m timing you, Elsa,’ she shouted. ‘See how many times you can run from the kitchen door to the fence at the bottom of the garden. Ready, steady, go!’ Elsa loved ready, steady, go. She never managed to wait for the ‘go’ but charged off at ‘steady’, and then was made to do it again.

Julia, timing her, but cheating, couldn’t help but reflect on the power she had over Elsa. Elsa, she realised, would do anything she suggested. It crossed her mind that if she said go and jump in the fish pond Elsa would unhesitatingly do it. Julia knew her mother would be furious if she did any such thing, but then she could pretend it had been Elsa’s own idea. Quite easy, really, to plant the idea that, contrary to appearances, she had no control over Elsa, then she’d have some fun. The minute she’d thought like this, Julia had
another thought, a mischievous thought, definitely only a bit of fun. There was some gravel on the garden path. Julia picked up a handful and offered some to Elsa. ‘Let’s see who can throw the furthest,’ she said, and threw some of the tiny stones ahead, up the path towards the house. Elsa was delighted with the new game and, just as Julia had known she would, was not content with picking up just a few stones to throw but began scooping up whole handfuls and hurling them wildly, with no sense of where they were going. She was running along the path as she did this and, inevitably, was near the glass doors of the French windows when she chucked her last handful. The clatter against the glass brought Julia’s mother rushing out. Elsa was screaming and laughing, then rushing back to gather more stones. ‘Stop it, Elsa!’ Julia said, and then, to her mother, who was examining the panes for damage, ‘Sorry, I couldn’t stop her.’

For the rest of that day, Julia was particularly kind to Elsa, but the following day the same impulse to make the little girl do something she should not do overcame her. At the end of the garden there was a gate, usually locked (but Julia had recently discovered where the key was kept), which led onto a lane leading to a pathway along the canal. ‘Shall we have an adventure, Elsa?’ Julia whispered, and of course Elsa jumped with excitement, then mimicked Julia’s ‘shh’, and put her finger to her lips, just as Julia was doing. Julia got the key and, with difficulty, opened the gate, with Elsa squealing and shhing beside her. Once out in the lane, Julia did exaggerated tiptoeing along, holding Elsa’s hand, and then once on the towpath they both ran until, out of breath, Julia stopped.

‘Where’s the adventure?’ Elsa asked, stumbling over the word.

‘This is it,’ Julia said, ‘unless you want to go on a boat. Do you want to go on a boat, Elsa? Do you?’ Elsa nodded vigorously. ‘Come on, then.’

There was only one canal boat tied up on this stretch, quite a smart boat, newly painted by the look of it, and with red-and-white gingham curtains at the windows. Julia, holding Elsa’s hand and telling her to be very quiet, studied the boat. It was hard to tell if the owner was in residence or not, and, if he was not, whether he would come back soon, but she thought, from the lack of any sound, and the very tidy appearance, that it was empty. Experimentally, she picked up a tennis ball she’d noticed lying in the undergrowth and tossed it onto the boat. It made a satisfying bang on the deck before bouncing off into the water. Nobody appeared to investigate the noise. ‘Right, Elsa,’ Julia said, ‘let’s go on the boat.’ This wasn’t easily managed. The boat was lower than the path and though Julia, by sitting down, could get her feet on the deck and then stand up on it, Elsa couldn’t. So Julia first had to manage this before holding her arms out and telling Elsa to jump. The jump was a bit too enthusiastic and Julia was almost knocked over, so she was cross with Elsa. Suddenly, this ‘adventure’ seemed stupid. Julia couldn’t remember what the point of it had been meant to be.

Because there had been a point to it. She knew that. In the back of her mind there had been a plan, or if not a plan then an urge to make Elsa suffer for being such a pain. It wasn’t pleasant to think about it, so Julia tried to shake it off, but this thin smear of nastiness lingered. Elsa meanwhile was wandering around the boat looking in at the windows and shouting she could see a cake, a chocolate cake and two plates. Smartly, Julia dragged her away. ‘Time to get off,’ she said, ‘they’ll be coming back soon,’ and she led the way back to the point where they’d climbed onto the boat. She went first, finding it much harder to clamber onto the bank than it had been to get onto the boat, and then she turned to help Elsa. But jumping was no good here. She needed to lift Elsa, but she couldn’t do it. Elsa pulled and Julia was going to fall back on the deck, so she let Elsa go. Then she stood up. Elsa’s
now tearful face stared up at her imploringly. ‘Sorry, Elsa,’ Julia said, ‘you’ll just have to stay there till the owner comes back,’ and she began to walk away, the rising note of Elsa’s screams quite alarming to hear.