Looking for JJ (15 page)

She stood up. She wasn’t going to stay. In the distance she could see Mr and Mrs Livingstone with Lucy in between them, a pretty picture, walking among the trees, the lake glittering beside them. She should have joined them. It might have been fun. But she was stuck on the blanket, like being marooned on a boat in the middle of the lake and Michelle’s voice was still droning in her ear. Why couldn’t she just shut up?

“She’s beautiful and she’ll end up on the cover of a magazine. And she’ll make a lot of money. Isn’t that right, Jen?”

Jennifer couldn’t speak. There was a sick feeling inside her. The cake and the sandwiches and the fizzy drink were gurgling in her stomach.

“Yeah. Some prozzies do make good money.”

Joe laughed again, a great bellow. Stevie just lay there, looking at her, his hand rubbing at his trousers. She turned and walked away. After a few steps she began to run. In the back of her head she heard Michelle’s voice.

“Jen, don’t go. I’ll tell my mum and dad, I’ll tell on them. Don’t go. I’ll get in trouble. Don’t go off, my mum’ll be worried!”

She didn’t stop. She didn’t turn back. She ran till her breath was ragged, leaving the lake and the woods behind her, out of the gates and into the lane and on towards the houses.

 

 

 

She ran into the house through the back door and the first thing she saw was Mr Cottis’s suitcase on wheels parked in her hallway. It startled her for a second, sitting upright, its handle stiffly against the wall. She hadn’t expected it to be there. She went to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. The stairwell was dark, as though it was night. All the doors on the upstairs landing were shut. There was only the faintest of sounds; mumbling voices, the scrape of a chair leg, the creak of the bed. Her mum was in and she’d brought him with her.

She felt exhausted. She had no strength to walk up the stairs, to push her mum’s room door open and check that the camera was there as well as the big lights and Mr Cottis with his roll of film.

Because her mum was not a prostitute. She was not. She was a model.

She turned away from the stairs and went into the living room. In the cupboard she pulled out her mum’s portfolio; a big leather folder full of pictures. She lay it in the middle of the floor and opened it. The first few pictures dated from before she was born. Her mum (just
Carol
then,
16 year old from Ipswich
), in shorts and T-shirt on a beach, the sea, crashing into the shore behind her, her hair blowing wildly, the white teeth against her perfectly lipsticked mouth. How beautiful she was.

After she was born it was all professional shots. Carol Jones in an evening dress, a feathery boa around her neck; in a city suit, a pair of black-rimmed glasses making her look serious, every bit the businesswoman; in jeans and a checked blouse, like a cowgirl, her hair in bunches at the side of her face. Dozens of catalogue photos: her mum modelling dresses, casual clothes, nightwear, sportswear. She stopped abruptly at a picture of her mum in a pink ski suit. The background was a view of a snow-covered mountain and a ski lift. It wasn’t real, she knew that; her mum had never been skiing. She closed her eyes for a moment and sat there, still as a statue, a memory coming back to her, like a bird in the distance, coming closer and closer. And then she saw what it was. Macy in her ski outfit. Her lovely Macy,
International Catwalk Model
. Now she was in a cardboard box upstairs. Michelle said it looked like a coffin. The thought of it gave her a feeling of great heaviness, as if it was her fault that Macy was dead, when it wasn’t her fault at all.

She looked back to the portfolio. Even though there were no recent pictures of
Carol Jones
she knew with absolute certainty that her mum was a model. Not a prostitute. A model.

Out in the hallway was the suitcase, neat, its edges square. Would Mr Cottis have photos of her mum? Recent ones? He was her agent. He must have photos of her to show to people, so that she could get work. That was how it happened, she knew.

She left the portfolio open on the floor and went out to the suitcase. It had a zip all the way round. She squatted down and flicked the zipper back and forth for a second before pulling it along so that in moments the suitcase was open, its front hanging down, a flap of plastic drooling on to the hall floor.

Inside were brown paper envelopes. Lots of them. They had handwriting on them, single words:
Fifties
,
Sailor
,
School
,
Naughty
. She picked up the one with
School
on it and opened the envelope. Some photographs spilled out on to the hall floor but it was too dark to see them so she scooped them up and took them into the living room, placing them down, beside the portfolio.

She winced when she looked at them. Picture after picture. Her mum, lying on the bed, a school tie around her neck, books and paper strewn around her. The rest of her clothes gone, not there. She looked away with embarrassment. Then back again. She’d seen her mum with no clothes on. Skinny, with tiny breasts, the rose tattoo on her shoulder. She’d watched her getting out of the bath, running across the landing, looking at herself in the mirror. She’d seen her mum naked. But never like this. Never like this.

A knocking sound made her jump. Someone was at the front door.

She stood up quickly, stuffing the photographs back into the brown envelope, her throat gripped by a feeling of guilt, as if she was a burglar, in her own house. In the hall she saw a silhouette of a head and shoulders at the door. She knelt down and with shaking hands she pushed the envelope back into the suitcase and pulled the zip round. From upstairs she heard a door opening and her mum’s voice. She stood upright, like a sentry, beside the suitcase, as though she was guarding it, keeping it safe.

She knew the silhouette. It was Mrs Livingstone. Her hair flicking out at the back of her neck, her head held high as though she was constantly looking for something that was on a top shelf.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Just a minute!”

She heard her mum’s voice. A moment later, she was there, on the stair looking sideways at her, doing her dressing gown up, her hair sticking up at the back as though she’d been lying down. How different she looked from the photographs.

“What’s the matter?” she said, stifling a yawn. “I thought you were at the picnic.”

The knocking on the door got louder, sounding impatient, angry even.

“Carol? Are you in there? Carol?”

Her mum shuffled towards the door. From upstairs she could hear someone moving about, the bathroom door opening and shutting. She stepped back into the living room, out of the hall, out of sight, away from the suitcase with the wheels that held the terrible pictures.

She heard the front door open.

“Is Jennifer here? She just ran off. . .”

Mrs Livingstone’s voice was cracking. She sounded tearful.

“One minute she was there on the grass with the others and we went for a short walk. When we got back she was gone!”

“Don’t upset yourself. . . She’s here. . .”

Jennifer heard her mum’s voice and footsteps as the two women walked down the hallway to the kitchen. She stood on the other side of the living room door listening, only hearing snatches.

“I thought she’d got lost. . . Michelle said there was an argument. . . Those Bussell brothers. . . We looked for her. . . I didn’t know what had happened.”

Her mum’s voice was louder.

“Don’t be silly. She probably got fed up. . . She’s a bit like that. Look at the day I had to go up to the school because she’d run off. . . She’s scatty. She doesn’t think. . . I’ll have a good talk with her.”

The kitchen door closed and the voices were too muffled to hear. The sound of water running and cups chinking meant that her mum was making a cup of tea for Mrs Livingstone. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs, quick and precise, so light it might have been a child running down. She opened the door and saw Mr Cottis bending over to put something in his suitcase. Over his shoulder was his holdall. It suddenly swung forward and fell down his arm so that he seemed to lurch forward and stumble, trying to pick it up and turn the suitcase round at the same time.

“Silly me,” he whispered.

She just stared at him. His bald head looked funny, like a baby’s. He didn’t have his glasses for once so she looked at his eyes, watery, like coloured glass.

Then he was gone, the front door closing without a sound, as if he knew how to get in and out of somewhere without being heard. Like a burglar. As if he had come into the house and stolen something from them.

 

Later, when Mrs Livingstone had gone, her mum came into the living room.

“Doesn’t the woman go on?” her mum said, flopping down on the settee beside her.

She didn’t know what to say. Was she in trouble for running off from the reservoir?

“I’m supposed to tell you off, love. You mustn’t run off by yourself and all that stuff. Trouble with these people round here is that they mollycoddle their kids. You can take care of yourself, can’t you?”

“I thought you were coming to Lucy’s picnic.”

“I was. I got held up. When I got back I had a headache. You know what I’m like!”

Jennifer didn’t answer. It was just another lie. She picked up the TV remote and clicked it on.

 

She got a phone call from Michelle. She was surprised. Michelle usually called round if she had something to say.

“I’m not allowed out,” she said. “My mum’s in a strop about the picnic.”

“Sorry,” she said, woodenly.

“It’s not your fault. It’s those brothers. Stevie’s really dirty and Joe’s a dimwit! Even Lucy agrees with me.”

Jennifer’s eyebrows rose. She imagined Lucy sitting next to Michelle. She would agree with anything to get on Michelle’s good side.

“I’ve thought of a way we can get our own back on them.”

“Yeah?” she said, not really interested.

“Lucy knows where their den is. You know the one they’ve made up at the reservoir?”

“Yeah, so?” she said.

“Because it’s half-term my mum’s taking the both of them to see their mum in hospital tomorrow morning. So when they’re gone we can go up there.”

Jennifer waited to see what else Michelle had to say.

“What do you think?”

“We’re not allowed to go up there on our own.”

The words came out before she realized what she was saying. Michelle wasn’t allowed up at the reservoir but
she
could go whenever she wanted. Her mum wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

“No one will know. My mum’ll be out for hours. We can go up there and wreck their den. They’ll never know it was us.”

“Lucy said this?”

“Well, not exactly. She’s going to show us the den. She doesn’t know we’re going to wreck it!”

“Mmn. . .”

Jennifer sighed. It didn’t sound like much of a plan. She didn’t like the Bussell brothers, but, honestly, she wasn’t about to play war games with them. It was too silly for words.

“I’ve got to go. Mum’s coming upstairs. Me and Lucy’ll come and call for you as soon as she goes in the morning.”

 

Her mum came into her bedroom as she was getting into bed. She was hugging a plastic carrier bag to her chest. Jennifer stopped what she was doing and waited. Her mum hardly ever came into her room.

“Jenny, love, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and Jennifer sat up, her back against the headboard. Her mum looked hesitant and gave a couple of quick smiles as though she was trying to work out what to say.

“Mr Cottis thinks it would be a good idea to take some mother and daughter photographs. For our family album. He thinks you look like me.”

Jennifer frowned. She didn’t like the mention of Mr Cottis. She didn’t like to think about him talking about her. In any case, no one had ever said she looked like her mum.

“He wants to take some photographs of us . . . you . . . the two of us together. . .”

“Why?” she asked.

Her mum answered, her words rapid, some running into each other.
A family portrait. . . Some pics of you . . . in school uniform . . . for a magazine feature he’s working on. . . Won’t have to do anything. . . Stand there . . . smile when he says . . . play around a bit. . . It won’t take long. . .

She wasn’t really listening, though. She had a sick feeling in her stomach, remembering the photos in the suitcase. Her mum, the model, smiling and laughing, wearing nothing but a school tie round her neck. He’d taken the pictures in her room and brought pretend things with him; books, rulers, a globe. He had been playing make-believe with her mum. The idea of grown-ups playing a child’s game made her feel clammy and uncomfortable, and she pushed her duvet back so that her thin legs were there in front of her like straight lines down the bed.

Her mum was still talking.
He’ll pay you some money. . . And he might ask you to dress up for a bit. . . Just play-acting. . . You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. . . Thing is it’ll have to be a secret. . . Too young for modelling. . . Our business, no one else’s. . .