The Truth About Celia Frost (6 page)

“Think of it as a built-in sauna,” he’d replied facetiously. “You’d pay a lot of money for one of those in some penthouse apartment.”

Celia’s heart sank as she surveyed the four monstrous high-rises. They rose out of the landscape like a fortress, casting permanent shadows over the warren of houses spread out at their
feet. This was the Bluebell Estate, but if there had ever been any bluebells growing, then they had long ago been buried under thousands of tonnes of dirty grey concrete.

Her eyes followed the long, winding road which cut through flat, parched fields and bypassed a sprawling wood before continuing its journey into the distant city. How she wished they’d
stayed there, instead of coming here, to this godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere.

Far from being a commuter-belt haven, the Estate had been built in the late 1960s to accommodate all the inner-city residents whose slum houses were being demolished. At first people had been
happy to relocate, seduced by the thought of modern homes and amenities. Unfortunately, once they arrived, the new residents discovered that their promised land offered them nothing but cells in
the sky, and the only way for them to go was down.

Celia turned to Janice. Her smug face wound Celia up.

“I don’t know what you’re so cheerful about,” she griped.

“This place, of course. It’s perfect for us.”

“Are you even on the same planet as me?” Celia threw her arms out at the view in disgust.

“I like it up in the clouds. No one’s going to bother us here,” Janice answered.

“Yeah, it’s the kind of place you could be lying dead in your flat for weeks and people would only notice because of the stench of your decaying body.”

“Exactly, just the kind of place I like,” Janice cackled. “People leave you alone.”

“It’s okay for you. You’re out at work all day. What about me? You’ve been saying that you’re going to sort out a new school since we got here. I’m going out
of my head with boredom stuck in here.”

Janice took a deep drag on her cigarette, avoiding Celia’s gaze. “Well, there’s only a couple more weeks until the summer holidays. It’s not worth starting a new school
now, is it?”

“It’d be better than doing nothing in this place all day. Anyway, you need to contact them now to get me a place for September.”

“Actually, love,” Janice mumbled. “I know I said I’d look into it, but I’ve come to a decision about your education.”

“Oh yeah.” Celia was instantly worried.

“Yes.” Janice summoned up her voice of authority. “I’ve decided that I can’t trust
any
school to take care of you properly. I think we’ve seen that,
haven’t we? I’m not happy putting my little girl in danger every day. I don’t want to send you to a place where some thug might attack you.”

Celia’s head jolted back in shock. Janice took another puff on her cigarette.

“You’re having me on, aren’t you?”

Janice exhaled, forming a smokescreen between them. “I wouldn’t joke about something like this. I can’t send you to school. I’m not prepared to take the risk any
more.”

“But...but...you can’t do this! I’ve got to go to school.”

“No you don’t,” Janice said triumphantly. “They can’t make you. Not if I’m going to teach you at home.”

“Teach me at home? You can’t teach me at home!” Celia screeched.

“Yes I can. I should have done it years ago. Other people do it. At home, I can guarantee you’ll be safe.”

“No way! You’re not doing this to me.”

“I’ll do whatever I like; I’m your mother. What’s wrong with you anyway? Any kid would be jumping for joy at not having to go to school.”

“Yeah, but I’m not any kid, am I?” Celia said bitterly. “Other kids have a life, friends, things to do... You don’t let me go anywhere, do anything. I may get
treated like a leper at school, but at least I’m with other human beings apart from you!”

“We have a nice time together, don’t we?” Janice said desperately. “What about our takeaway and DVD nights? You enjoy them. And it’s not like we don’t have a
giggle together, reading those trashy mags and watching those makeover shows.”

Celia sighed. “I know you try to do your best for me, but it’s not exactly normal for a teenager to hang around with their mum all the time, is it?”

“I understand,” Janice said sympathetically. “I know it’s hard for you, Celia, but this way I can keep you safe.”

“No!” Celia snapped. “This way you’re wrecking my chance of passing any exams, and I want to do something with my life, not like—” Celia stopped herself, but
it was too late.

“Don’t worry. I know what you mean.” Janice smarted. “Not like me; you don’t want to end up like me, cleaning up other people’s dirt for a living.”

“But think about it, Mum,” Celia said, straining to be gentle. “How are you going to teach me? You left school with no qualifications, nothing.”

“I’ll get books out. I’ll find out what you’re meant to be learning.”

“You can’t spend your time doing that. Who’s going to earn the money? Who’s going to pay the rent on this dump? You need to work, Mum, and I need to go to
school.”

Janice took Celia’s hands. “You’re a bright kid, Celia; you don’t take after me. We can make this work.”

Celia pulled away, knowing that Janice wasn’t going to back down.

“You’re more like my jailer than my mother. You can’t keep me a prisoner in this flat!”

“Don’t be such a drama queen. You’re not a prisoner. There are plenty of things we can do together. It’ll be fun,” Janice said unconvincingly.

Celia stormed inside, looking around in disgust at the place that was to be her cage. Just like everywhere else they’d lived, the flat came furnished with sagging sofas, paper-thin
curtains and threadbare carpets. They didn’t seem to own anything – always on the move, always having to fit their possessions in a few bags.

Janice had tried to personalize the living room by sticking photos on the walls. But today, the sight of them only made Celia feel more upset. Her whole life seemed to be charted by the gallery
of curling pictures. One showed a wide-eyed toddler being cuddled by a youthful-looking Janice, the ravages of worry yet to carve themselves into the woman’s features. Others captured happy
days of picnics in the park, story time in the library and endless games involving teddies and tea parties that Janice would patiently play along with. These were the days when she’d be taken
to work; sitting with colouring books and a bag of sweets as Janice cleaned office after office, singing and dancing around with her duster to make Celia laugh. These were the days before she grew
up and Janice let her fear overshadow their lives as she could no longer control every minute of Celia’s time.

Celia looked at the row of portraits from the many different schools. They were a painful reminder of the toll she was paying, as her maturing face stared out from them; with each passing year
her smile seemed weaker, her eyes duller and her head held lower. She no longer felt like the special little girl that Janice always told her she was – she just felt like a freak.

She walked into her bedroom and slammed the flimsy door. She smoothed the creases out of her precious posters, which came with her wherever they moved. The Clash, Blondie and The Sex Pistols
looked down at her from the wall, with their “two fingers up to the world” snarls. She’d tried to like the music that other kids were into. She wanted to be able to join in their
conversations about handsome boy bands and warbling divas. She’d listened to rappers, but their macho rants had left her cold. Pop was too forgettable and none of the guitar bands seemed to
be the real deal. Music had never meant anything to Celia, until a couple of years ago when she’d tuned in to a late-night radio show and had been blown away by the noise that flooded her
senses and shook her insides.

Punk may have had no meaning to her classmates, and did nothing for Janice – who preferred Frank Sinatra to The Sex Pistols – but to Celia those three-minute songs were short, sharp
shocks of pure joy: the thrashing guitars, the thumping drums, the singing that was more like shouting but always sounded like they meant every word. Celia loved everything about punk: the anarchy
of it, not caring what anyone else thought of you, the feeling that anything was possible. She loved the outrageous way the girl punks had dressed; safety pins through noses, pink hair stuck up
with soap, Dr. Martens boots and ripped fishnets, pulling themselves into skintight PVC dresses no matter what shape or size they were. As far as she could see, punk had welcomed anyone who ever
felt like they didn’t fit in. She imagined that in another life, one where she didn’t have this stupid disorder, there’d have been no stopping her – she’d have been
Queen of the Punks, without boundaries, without rules, without fear. Everything she wasn’t.

There was a knock on the door.

“Celia, love, don’t go shutting yourself in your room. We need to talk about this.”

Celia responded by putting her Clash CD on ear-bleedingly loud. The noise tore through the walls. “Leave me alone!” she shouted.

“I’ll go out then. Give you a bit of space.”

“Good – and don’t bother coming back!”

As soon as she heard the front door shut she threw her bedroom door open and began to jump around the living room like someone possessed, all her anger and frustration channelled into the raw
energy roaring out of the speakers. She bounced on the sofa, singing along at the top of her voice, as The Clash yelled about breaking rocks and fighting the law.

She was pogoing so high that she could touch the ceiling. She stomped up and down their narrow kitchen in time to the thrashing guitar, punching the air. There was nothing else in the universe
except this wild music surging through her like an electric shock...

Then the banging on the wall started.

“What are you doing in there? Turn that bloody music down or I’ll come round and turn it down for you,” raged an angry voice.

Celia ran out onto the balcony, pumped up and ready to take on the world.

“Up yours!” she bellowed to the whole estate, before remembering herself and rushing inside to turn off the music. Flopping down on the bed, her heart pounding, her face glowing, she
laughed giddily, and for a few short minutes her gloomy bubble was flooded with glorious sunshine.

Celia woke after another fitful night, but it wasn’t just the heat that kept her awake; she couldn’t shake off the questions that tormented her.

Janice had already left for work. No matter where they moved, she’d pick up employment within days. But Celia reckoned that years of constant cleaning jobs had only added to her
mother’s neuroses, leading her to fill their homes with bottles of disinfectants and boxes of disposable gloves.

Janice’s latest employer was the chicken processing factory on the outskirts of the estate. Here she spent the day clearing the floors, which became awash with the gruesome remains of the
birds. She’d return from work at six p.m., stinking of ammonia and chilled flesh. Despite already having phoned several times during the day, Janice wouldn’t relax until she’d
seen for herself that Celia had come to no harm. Only then would she settle down for another suffocating evening together. But all her attempts to engage Celia in conversation were futile as, since
coming to the Bluebell Estate, Celia had nothing to report but mind-numbing boredom.

Celia was washed, dressed and eating her cereal when she found Janice’s note on the kitchen worktop.

Stay in and I promise we’ll do something nice when I get home. Remember to use my new number when you phone. Have a good day. Love you, Mum xxx.

She crumpled up the note in disgust.
Trying to pretend everything’s all right. Well, if she thinks she can keep me a prisoner in here, she’s got another think coming!

She looked out at the sky; the sun was rapidly burning up the clouds. It was going to be another scorching day. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she approached the front door. With its thin
wood and cheap lock, it was hardly a great obstacle, but for Celia, at that moment, it was as if a thousand volts ran through it. She wasn’t used to defying Janice. And what if something
happened to her and there was no one around to help? She braced herself, taking a deep breath, and quickly opened the door with her gloved hand. She stepped into the corridor, only exhaling once
she’d shut the door behind her. Bypassing the two lifts, she headed for the stairs. For most people, using a lift was just a convenient method of getting up and down a tall building, but to
Celia it was like entering a metal coffin. Just looking at one gave her palpitations – the thought of the doors sliding shut, being sealed inside the windowless box, encased on all sides by
solid brick as it travelled between floors; the thought of it breaking down, being trapped as the air ran out and the walls closed in. No – choosing to walk down from the top floor of a
high-rise seemed the saner option for someone like Celia, who’d feared enclosed spaces for as long as she could remember.

On leaving the foyer of Tower Two, she crossed the square that sat in the middle of the four towers. No one ever lingered here; instead people scurried across, as if it were a
no-man’s-land in a battlefield. She reached the shopping precinct which lay behind Tower One. It consisted of two rows of shabby-looking shops, which sat facing each other. The ugly,
flat-roofed Bluebell Pub was sandwiched between a cut-price minimart and a betting shop. Two young men, built like bulldozers, were opening it up. Old ladies with shopping trolleys sat chatting on
the central benches. A kid on a moped came screeching past, nearly frightening them to death, and everywhere the whirring of CCTV cameras could be heard as they swivelled to monitor people’s
every move.