Unhallowed Ground (29 page)

The silence widens until it engulfs them. Donna’s greasy hair droops down and the girl peers miserably through it. ‘You’re not really my friend, are you?
Not like those others from up the line.
You’re only pretending ’cos there’s no-one else. You just put up with me, don’t you? And I bet you’re always glad when I go.’ And with this she bursts into paroxysms of violent weeping, howling, drumming her fists on the table so the pastry cases leap in their tins, and Georgie is shocked by the passion in this.

‘Donna!
How can you say that?
’ Georgie gets up to comfort her. She can feel the girl’s misery under her hand in the little hard knobs of backbone and the damp smell of neglect, hot, sticky, shaking and unendurable. ‘That’s not true at all,’ she half lies. Dear God, has it been so cruelly obvious?

Donna chokes, ‘Anyway, I’m gonna get rid of it on my own.’

‘Now you’re just being silly…’

‘Fuck off, I’m not! I know the ways…’

‘What ways?’

Phlegm rattles in her wheezy chest. ‘Well I’m not going to sodding tell you, am I?’

Georgie lets her cry, it’s best. Agonizing jerks of tears, streams of water pour down her face, and now and then there’s a howl of pain. ‘Donna! Donna! Come on, my love, it’s not as bad as you think. We have got to calm down and start thinking about what is best for you. We have got to start thinking about you and your baby’s future.’

The word ‘we’ is jerked out of Georgie with a terrible reluctance. ‘You might even qualify for a flat, Donna, you’ll certainly be entitled to some financial support. They can’t just turn you away now you’re going to have a baby.’

Donna wipes her nose with the sleeve of her jumper. ‘Don’t say it like that—“going to have a baby”—because I’m not going to have one. I don’t want it and I’m not bleeding well having it.’

‘Donna,’ Georgie says gently, ‘I don’t think you’ve got any choice. And that’s the first thing we must sort out. Calm down, calm down and tell me why you are so against having this baby. It’s not that bad, it’s not the end of the world.’

But Donna peers at her fiercely. ‘How the hell would you know?’

‘Well, look, nobody would ever give birth if it was that bad, now, would they?’

‘It is that bad, I know it’s that bad and I’m not going to have it. And I can’t bear you to go away.’

Not back to that old chestnut. ‘But if the child is Chad’s, which it is, you are going to have to tell him,’ Georgie starts off hopefully. ‘Who knows? He might even be thrilled…’ and she knows immediately she has gone too far, she sounds downright silly, so silly that Donna doesn’t deign to answer. ‘Is there absolutely nobody else? No family, no relation who might want to help you and take you in, just until after…?’

‘You know there isn’t! You know that! I’ve told you all about my life. How can I go back to them, and anyway, they wouldn’t have me.’

They sit in silence while Donna shudders. She tears tissue after tissue to shreds, reminding Georgie of her mother. Every so often she gets up to clear the soggy mess off the table.

‘Perhaps you secretly wanted a baby, maybe you saw it as a way of challenging Chad, forcing a decision on him, a way of bringing this relationship of yours to a head?’

Donna sobs, but more quietly now, just a gentle shaking of the shoulders. ‘Some of your visitors, I noticed, this summer, I watched them with their kids. You were having such a great time and some of them were so sweet, I loved playing with them so much…’

‘You think it was seeing this that made you decide you might like one of your own?’

Donna shakes her head. ‘It’s not that simple. It wasn’t one thing like that. And anyway, I don’t want a kid, it was only a dream and it made me careless.’ She makes it sound as if Georgie should know. ‘I wish you’d never bleeding well come here.’ And Georgie jumps at the suddenness of that.

‘What’s all this got to do with me?’

‘You know what it’s got to do with you, but you don’t take my feelings seriously. You think I’m playing some sort of game, but I’m not, I can’t help it. You came here and everything got right out of hand and I don’t know what’s going on any more.’

‘But you seemed to enjoy yourself last summer, joining in, coming on picnics, sometimes you seemed quite happy.’

‘Well, I wasn’t happy,’ snaps Donna. ‘I was jealous, right? And every night I went back to Chad while you sat with your friends and drank and laughed.’

‘But you loved Chad. You didn’t want to leave him.’

‘Well, that’s all changed now. Now I want to stay with you.’

Here they are again, going round fruitlessly in the same old circles. There is no way of making progress with Donna. There never has been. It’s futile. Georgie makes tea, she makes coffee, she shares some mince pies before she freezes the rest. ‘Poor Lola,’ sobs Donna every so often. ‘Shit. How can things get worse than they are?’

And Georgie doesn’t know either.

By the time Donna departs she has been convinced that she ought to tell Chad.

‘I don’t want to tell him. I don’t see the point,’ she bursts out.

‘The point is, Donna, that if Chad throws you out and you go to the social services, they are bound to give you a home in your vulnerable condition.’

‘They’d have to give me one anyway.’

‘Not necessarily…’

‘If I just left him they’d find me somewhere.’ And she blows her sore nose vigorously.

‘They would say you’d made yourself homeless.’

‘I could tell them how he treats me.’

‘You don’t want a home for battered women,’ Georgie pats her hand and mutters. ‘And quite apart from all this the child is Chad’s, presumably. He has a right to know, he will have to pay maintenance, and the whole thing would be much simpler if you behaved responsibly, acted like an adult for once and faced him with the truth.’

Donna sulks. ‘When should I tell him?’

‘Now, at once,’ Georgie insists.

‘Tonight. After tea,’ promises Donna. Her eyes are tearless now, though the lids still show red and her face is even paler than usual. ‘I might as well. There’s no good time. But what will I do if he throws me out?’

‘He’s not going to throw you out on your ear just like that.’

‘You don’t know the bastard like I do.’

‘No, I don’t, but that reaction is very unlikely. Won’t he give you a few days’ grace, after all, Donna, it’s his baby as well as yours, he’ll understand that, he’s not totally stupid, and then we can go to the social services.’

‘He’ll go barmy.’

‘But he won’t kick you out. That would be criminal. In this weather you’d die.’

‘So what shall I do if he does?’

‘Well, in that unlikely event, you know you can come here. I don’t need to tell you that, do I?’

‘And you’d take me in?’ Donna asks, her dull eyes brightening.

‘For the time being,’ Georgie tells her, ‘until something could be sorted out, yes, of course I would.’ And she means it, of course Georgie means it.

‘Think of me then,’ she whispers as she departs just before dusk. ‘Think of me about six o’clock, telling Chad.’

‘I will think of you. It’s going to be OK, Donna, really it is. Things usually work out in the end, even the worst things we dread the most.’

Huh! Who is Georgie trying to kid?

Georgie sits for a while considering poor Donna’s plight and how curious it is how some people seem to attract bad luck. Do they ask for it? On some subconscious level, do they go willingly to their fate, creating their own distress, belittling themselves? It seems to work like that almost every time, and might Donna damage herself in a misguided attempt to get rid of her baby? As a protest? In revenge? Or merely more attention seeking.

Hell. It’s late. It is almost dark already and Georgie must close the hen house and stock up with wood. On her hasty way out she trips over Lola.

‘
Oh, Lola!
’

Stunned, Georgie can hardly believe it!

Nestling comfortably in a strange blanket, the dog gnaws on a giant ham bone. On seeing Georgie she leaps up, wild-eyed, and tries to lick her to death. Georgie crouches down beside her, staring round in the murky darkness. ‘
Where have you been all this time?
I’ve been out of my mind with worry. Where did you get this cosy blanket? And who gave you this smelly old bone?’

Despite shivering in the cold wind, Lola refuses to come into the house if the bone is forbidden. The blanket, a smart tartan rug, has kept her contented and warm. How long has she been out there? Georgie hurries her inside and the dog takes up her favourite position in front of the fire, chewing blissfully on strips of fat, her eyes half closed with pleasure, as if she has never been gone. Georgie examines her carefully. Lifts her ears. Feels her limbs. She even inspects her feet. Lola is absolutely fine, not a scratch on her. Her eyes are bright and her nose is cold. Wherever she has been she was happy and well looked after.

But someone had definitely taken her. And someone decided to bring her back.
They might not have done.
Georgie can hardly bear to confront the dark and close up the hens, it takes all the courage she can muster. She sings out loud for bravery as she visits the woodshed, almost shouting and clattering about with the logs, skinning her knuckles badly, but not even noticing until she gets back inside. She slams the door. Locks it. Chains it.

Oh God, oh God. Along with the surge of relief comes the awful sensation of fear, black and winged, it bats around her head, chilling her spine. She senses the violence somewhere out there. She cannot throw off this sense of foreboding. She must leave Wooton-Coney at once,
this instant
, this very night before it’s too late. She could pick up her toothbrush and Lola’s bowl and be out of here in ten minutes. Horace Horsefield would feed the hens until she managed to sell them. One simple phone call would organize that. She could send for her things afterwards, pay Pickfords to pack and deliver. She could check into a hotel for the night and organize everything from there.

No time like the present and she’d promised God. So she gets up, eager to start. Let Stephen’s hellish cottage burn down. His paintings stare down from the walls, the eyes of his subjects encourage her to go, to leave here at once, while she can…

Wait!
What about Donna?
What will she do if, later tonight, she makes her dreadful confession to Chad and the oaf loses his temper and attacks her, throws her out in the darkness with nowhere to go?

Georgie will go and explain to her… but what if Chad is still in the dark? What if Georgie goes over and puts her foot straight in it, making matters far worse because Chad would resent her knowing…

Well then, she will persuade Donna to come to London with her now. They can sort something temporary out for tomorrow. But Donna is so infatuated, so dependency prone, there’d be nothing worse for her mental state than a deeper involvement with Georgie right now. No, no, Donna is at an important crossroads. She is on the verge of leaving Chad and, in her condition, the social services would be bound to give her a flat. This is Donna’s only way out. She must sort matters out with Chad, and then, depending on his reaction, she must face up to her new independence in a responsible and adult way.

Georgie’s involvement could wreck all that.

Georgie wrestles with her predicament while Lola lies at her feet, gnawing on her bone and basking in contentment with the logs crackling merrily. Perhaps she can afford to wait and leave first thing in the morning? Mercifully Lola has not been hurt. The door is locked. She has a phone. Surely she can endure one more night for the wretched Donna’s sake? The girl has no-one else to take her into town, to help her sort matters out, to take any interest in her welfare. Disapprove of her as Georgie might, the girl needs her, and she’s already made enough mistakes without risking one more tragedy…

Georgie crouches over the fire and places small pieces of wood on the flames, unable to control her thoughts. She re-enacts all the incidents in her mind, trying to make some sense of them until, at last, she’s exhausted and can think no more.

She and Donna have one thing in common, their total isolation.

All that evening she waits for Donna, half hoping she will turn up so they can leave together. The clock ticks on. Perhaps Chad has accepted the news? Doubtful. Far more likely the cowardly Donna has failed to tell him.

So, later on, Georgie and Lola cuddle up by the fire to spend their last night at Furze Pen Cottage. Georgie, of course, cannot sleep, but comforts herself with the sound of Lola’s reassuring breathing. There is no doubt in her mind that she is leaving Wooton-Coney tomorrow. She will tell Donna so in the morning, and drop her in town on the way if she’s ready.

And this time, after losing Lola, it will take a direct bomb hit to stop her.

T
HE CLOCK SAYS NINE
, but outside it looks like night. Georgie, thick and bleary-eyed, wakes with a sense of urgency and, sloughing off the terror of her dreams, crosses the room to turn on the light. Nothing. She clicks the switch again, no result. Donna? Has Chad been told? Where is Donna,
has she survived?

Today is the day she is leaving Furze Pen. This bright thought brings a new and wonderful sense of relief. But the silent darkness is eerie and all pervasive, especially after the clamour of last week’s winds. It has been impossible to get reception on the TV or the radio, and lately she has been far too concerned about Lola to drive the necessary five miles for a paper, so she hasn’t a clue what the forecasts are.

She draws back the curtains and peers out. The snow that drifts down forms a moving veil, obscuring even the stream from view. The flakes are thick, fat cotton-wool balls, but, with narrowed eyes, Georgie sees there is some activity through the gloom, the Buckpits’ tractor revs its way from the farmyard and, more distantly, there’s the dark-grey shape of a snowplough passing silently down the road.

Life, of a sort, goes on.

Shaken and disheartened, Georgie wipes the steam from the windows. Already her car is a humped
bump beside the road and the hedge is leaning, groaning, heavy and matted with white. Curse it. A good six inches must have fallen overnight and Georgie, who has always loved snow, feels such an overwhelming bitterness towards this perversity of fate that tears sprout with all the passionate anger of a child’s.