The Monkey Puzzle Tree (13 page)

“Vanna,” Gillian faced her, “couldn’t we be friends now? I know what happened was terrible for you, but none of it was actually my fault.”

Vanna ducked down to see to something under the counter, muttering something that sounded like “You could’ve tried to help.”

Gillian was taken aback. She couldn’t have known Vanna needed help, could she? If she had been another sort of girl perhaps, a generous, sensitive, thoughtful girl, she might have thought to ask, but she was not, and had not. She ran her fingers through the pink and blue pearls hanging from a hook and pooling on the counter beside her, trying to think what to say.

Vanna resurfaced, darkened lashes blinking away tears. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. But I’ve always been so jealous of you. And that damned exam ruined my life. Totally destroyed it! I’m doomed to stay in jobs like this
,
if I’m lucky, and live in poverty forever!”

If she still had plaits, Gillian thought, she would be wringing them. “You don’t
know
that, Vanna. You never know what’s round the corner. Things might turn out all right in the end. After all,” she ventured a smile, “we found the baby Jesus. Remember?” They had fished the tiny doll out of the rubbish bin by the back door of the school, together with the rest of their treasured, hole-in-the-wall home furnishings.

“I’m glad you’re amused.” Vanna had gone back to her checking.

“No, I wasn’t laughing at you. I just remembered Tommy and Francis running ahead to your house shouting out the good news to your mother that we’d found Jesus, and the old woman next door to you screeching, ‘Glory be! Praise the Lord!’ Do you remember?”

The corner of Vanna’s mouth tweaked. “Yes, poor old Mrs. Lloyd. I’d forgotten that.”

“How is Francis, anyway? Tom was wondering about him. And your mother? And all your family?”

A large shiny dress of navy and red vertical stripes loomed up beside her as its occupant rapped on the jewelry counter and glared at the two girls.

Gillian persisted. “Look, why don’t we meet for a chat. How about at the Kardomah after you get off work today?”

“Wednesday, maybe,” Vanna said after a pause before turning her attention to the customer.

At the Kardomah Café,
Gillian took a table for four near the window and facing the door. Waiting for her pot of tea, she thought about Vanna’s likeness to her mother. She knew that girls sometimes did look very like their mothers—there were a couple of girls at school like that—but this was almost uncanny: the height, the poise, and every detail of build, feature, and colouring.

Unlike Tom, she herself did not take after their well-built, dark-haired, blue-eyed mother in the least, and despite the head-shaking on the subject on the part of her mother’s friends, she was glad of it. Nobody quite knew whom she did look like, apparently, with her tall thin build, strange hair, and green eyes. “She’s one of a kind,” her father would say. “One in a million is our Gillian.”

Her mother said she was a throwback to an ancestor on their grandmother’s side, one Great-Uncle Theophilos, who had gone out to Patagonia and become a famous preacher.

The Kardomah was noisy and bright with the clatter and sparkle of crockery and cutlery, the aroma and roar of the huge, stainless-steel coffee machine, and the babble of gossip. Gillian worried about what to order. Would Vanna be hungry and want her tea? Would she have to catch the bus to Tregwyr, or did she live in town now? Should she treat her to tea, or would that enrage her? Twiddling her hair, she realized she was getting in a state, almost as bad as Tom who had said he intended to bump into them accidentally.

He had spent an hour in the bathroom before she left, probably squeezing his spots and shaving off his moustache, and sloshing on their father’s Imperial Leather aftershave. She had advised him not to wear his suit; “Just wear those tan linen trousers and a clean white shirt. Try to look normal.”

At ten past five she was surprised to see Gladys, heavily made up, her hair in a pixie cut, teetering into the café on the arm of a short, thin man. She was wearing a red dress with the plunging neckline, tight bodice, and voluminous skirt that was the latest fashion. Large gold hoops dangled from her small ears. Seeing Gillian, she gave a shriek of delighted recognition. “Cooee!” she called, waving across the crowded restaurant, “Cooee, Gillian!” and made her way over, dragging the man with her.

The man wore a pinstriped brown suit. He had a narrow moustache and was holding a fedora.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, as Gladys introduced “my friend, Gillian Davies, the
doctor’s
daughter, you know.” His name was Stan.

Gillian realized with alarm that he was staring at her intently, a slight smile on his thin lips.
I know you
, his little dark eyes seemed to be saying,
I know everything about you.
His eyes roved down to linger on her blouse, then slid back up to meet hers.
I know your secret.

Her mouth dry, Gillian turned to Gladys. “Tom will be here in a minute. He’ll be pleased to meet your friend.”

“Got to go now!” Gladys led Stan off, past the plump matrons with their perms and their diamonds, who looked them up and down over forkfuls of chocolate cake. “Lovely to see you!” she fluted over her shoulder.

He couldn’t know. How could he?
But she felt that he did, and that he could have power over her somehow, like Angus. She gave herself a shake. She would not think about Stan. She would relegate him to the place where she kept Angus: throw him down into everlasting darkness and bolt the trapdoor over him. She sat up straight and shakily poured herself another cup of tea.

A few minutes later she looked at her watch. Half past five. Vanna would not come now. But as she looked, first through the window, and then down to the front of the café to see if Tom was in sight, the revolving glass door swung around, and Vanna made her entrance. The sun blazing on her hair, she surveyed the populace. Heads turned to follow her progress towards Gillian’s table. A young man sat up straight and smoothed back his Brilliantined hair, openly staring. A solitary, middle-aged man watched furtively from behind his newspaper as she swept past. Across the café, Gillian saw Gladys and her loathsome companion crane their necks and gape as Vanna arrived at her table.

“Sorry I’m late.” Vanna took the chair opposite Gillian, ordered a pot of tea from the waitress, and accepted a Cherry Danish from the plate of pastries Gillian had ordered. “Had to help with inventory. Can’t stay long. Got to catch the Tregwyr bus at six.”

“I’m glad you came, anyway.” The two girls looked warily at each other as the waitress appeared with the tea.

Vanna picked up her teapot and put it down again. “I’m sorry about the other day, Gill. Of course you’re absolutely right. None of that was your fault. I’m ashamed that I was so horrible to you, and that I sulked like that for
five years
. Can I ever hope to be forgiven?” She raised her eyebrows, her mouth turned down in a tragic mask.

“Of course!” A hard little pain dissolved. “Forget about it.”

Vanna smiled and sat up, filling her cup. “How’s boarding school? I suppose you’re carrying all before you?”

Tea sloshed into their saucers. “Sorry! Sorry!” Apologizing for his clumsiness, and declaring his amazement at seeing them, Tom, pale for once, except for his spots and a gash on his chin, stood gawking at Vanna.

“Sit down, Tom.” Gillian patted a chair. “D’you remember Vanna?”

“This is Tommy?” Vanna opened her eyes wide as Tom folded himself into the chair. “My, what a big boy!”

Tom blushed up from his throat, and seized a Chelsea bun.
“Hello, Vanna,” he said in a sepulchral voice. “Long time no see!”

Vanna grinned, “You speak the truth, my noble Indian friend,” and Gillian saw them all as children, crowded around the radio in the back room of her grandparents’ house, listening to
The Lone Ranger
.

Tom looked over his bun at Vanna with drowning eyes, his mouth open. Gillian kicked his ankle. “Tom was asking after Francis, Vanna.”

Vanna drained her cup. “He’s fine thanks, Tom. Doing well in the grammar school. As is Bridie. Listen, I’m sorry to rush off. I’d love to stay and talk to you both and get all the news, but I’ve really got to go now.” She stood up, people turning again to look. “Tell you what. Why don’t you both come out on Sunday afternoon? Mama’d love to see you, and so would the others. Francis was so excited when he heard that I’d seen Gillian!”

Tom swung his eyes round to Gillian.

“That would be lovely,” she said.

The next day Gladys came to the back door asking if she could see Gillian. Gillian’s mother, who, to Gillian’s disgust, always had a soft spot for Gladys, had called Gillian down to the kitchen. “She’s a sweet little girl,” she would say about Gladys, “Always so bright and chatty.”

Not like some,
Gillian would think, hating the two of them.

“Hello Gillian.” Gladys put her head on one side and smiled up at Gillian as her mother went back to the living room. “There’s a nice surprise, isn’t it, seeing you in the Kardomah yesterday!” She fiddled with the clasp of her patent-leather handbag and fluttered her eyelashes. “Um, I was just wonderin’, Gillian, who was that girl you was talking to? The thing is, see, Stan thought she looked like a model, and he wondered what her name is, and if she do live round here. Is she a friend of yours? I never seen her before.” She looked up, wide-eyed.

Remembering with a shudder the way that man had looked at her, Gillian thought of saying that Vanna was a friend from school, but knew that would not work in the long run.

“Why does he want to know?”

“Oh, well, he just might be able to put a bit of modeling work her way, he says. He’ve got connections in the business, you know. He says she’s just the type they’re looking for.”

“Has he found anything for you then, Gladys?”

Gladys pursed her lips and batted her eyelashes again. “I’m pretty enough, he says, but I’m not tall enough for most of the work in that line. But he says he got another idea for me.”

A horrible thought struck Gillian; so horrible that she could not look at Gladys. “Gladys, what does Stan do? Where does he work?”

“I dunno really. A bit of this and a bit of that, you know. He makes a lotta money, whatever it is, and he’s ever so good to me. He takes me to posh restaurants, and he buys me things. He bought me that dress I was wearing yesterday, and this handbag.” She heaved up the gleaming object.

“Does your mother know he does that?”

Gladys flushed, clutching the handbag to her chest. “’Oo d’you think you are, asking me questions like that? Mind you own bloody business!” About to flounce out, she turned around, suddenly crestfallen. “Oh, I nearly forgot. You never told us who that girl is. Stan’s ever so keen on signin’ her up. What’s her name then, Gillian? Go on, be a sport. You can tell me.”

“Why don’t
you
mind your own bloody business, Gladys?”

Gladys hung onto the door knob like a frightened elf. “Oh come on, Gillian. Give us a clue. Stan asked me particular to ask you. Tell us her name, or at least where she do live. Go on! Please!”

“Go away!” Gillian said. “And stay away!”

“Stuck-up bloody cow!” Gladys slammed the door behind her.

“What was that all about?” Gillian’s mother came into the kitchen, “Did I hear you quarrelling with Gladys?”

Gillian had never exactly wished Gladys well, but the suspicion she had formed was too serious to be ignored. Against her usual instincts, she told her mother about the man.

Her mother’s eyes grew round as she listened. She put on her Chairman of the Board face. “I’m going to drive over to Mrs. Jones’s right now,” she said. “I think Gladys is in danger. She’s barely seventeen, and her mother should know about this man. You did right to tell me, Gillian.”

It felt good to have actually managed to do something right for once. She almost relayed this achievement to Tom, who came in soon after, looking excited as usual and going on about how the butcher’s boy had tried to run him over with his bicycle, but decided he was too young to understand the implications of the situation.

She would hardly have
recognized the Farrells’ house. The front door and window frames had been painted grey-blue. The hall had been repapered and painted, as had the rest of the house. Rugs lay on the polished floorboards, an embroidered cushion adorned a green brocade armchair, and every available bit of wall space in the living room was taken up with well-filled bookshelves. There was a fresh smell of baking in the air. In the middle of the table sat a sponge layer-cake, oozing jam and cream and surrounded by sandwiches, scones, and homemade biscuits.

Mrs. Farrell welcomed them in off the three-o’clock bus, kissing them both and exclaiming how wonderful they both looked. She looked very good herself, Gillian thought, elegant actually, in a cream silk blouse and charcoal skirt. Francis and Tom grinned awkwardly at each other while Bridie, Patrick, Kathleen and red-headed Devlin, the youngest, shyly examined the visitors. Tom, who had been brimming over with excitement on the bus, and pestering Gillian for suitable conversational openings, kept looking around while he talked to Francis, until she realized that Vanna was not there.

“Vanna says she’s sorry not to be here to meet you.” Mrs. Farrell looked at the brass carriage clock on the mantelpiece. “She should be here any minute now though, off the next bus. It’s quite exciting, Gillian! She had an interview yesterday with a representative from a modeling agency and had to go back for trial photographs today. Strange on a Sunday, wouldn’t you think? But those people are different I suppose.”

It had to be him!
Remembering Stan’s eyes, Gillian felt her stomach clench. Should she tell Mrs. Farrell what she knew, and what her mother had said? Or should she wait to find out more? If Vanna was not on the bus, she decided, she would have to say something.