Where Memories Are Made (17 page)

Arriving at the shower block in question, Jackie made her way through a dozen or more disgruntled holidaymakers, apologising to them all for the difficulty they were experiencing and reassuring them that normal service would be resumed imminently. Finally she reached the door to the shower block where Terry Jones was waiting for her.

Terry was the head Stripey. Although he was extremely good at his job and well liked by the holidaymakers, Jackie found his overwhelming self-confidence and belief that he was God's gift to women insufferable. Always careful how she approached him, so as not to give him the slightest reason to think she was coming on to him, Jackie asked stiltedly, ‘What's going on, Terry?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm not sure exactly. All I know is that a woman attacked Helen Green, gave her a left hook a boxer would have been proud of, then shot into the shower block and barricaded herself in. Now she's sobbing her socks off.'

Worriedly, Jackie asked, ‘Is Helen badly hurt?'

‘She's going to have a right shiner, that's for certain, but as for anything else we'll have to wait until Sister Stephens has taken a look at her. Helen did manage to tell me that she has no idea why the attack took place. The woman won't talk to me so I was hoping you might fare better.'

Jackie felt doubtful. ‘Well, I'll have a go. Do you know her name?'

He shook his head. ‘I tried to find out so I could fetch her husband or whoever she's staying here with, but as soon as I told her who I was she screamed at me to bugger off, saying she refused to talk to a Stripey.'

Jackie frowned. ‘She seems to have a beef against Stripeys for some reason, doesn't she?'

Terry shrugged again. ‘I can't imagine why. None of us Stripeys would have treated her any differently from the way we treat the other campers. All the Stripeys are well aware that the camper is always right, no matter what.'

Jackie rapped loudly on the door and called out, ‘Hello, my name is Jackie, I'm from the office. You're obviously upset about something Stripey Helen has done. She's no idea what it is. Will you tell me so I can try and sort it out?'

The harsh response came back, ‘That bitch is lying! She knows exactly what she's done. Just keep her away from me or it'll be more than a punch in the eye she gets. Now I don't want to talk about it so go away and leave me alone.'

Jackie coaxed her, ‘But other holidaymakers need to use the facilities …'

The woman screamed. ‘I said, go away and leave me alone!'

Jackie sighed and spoke to Terry again, over her shoulder. ‘Helen is positive she has no idea why the woman attacked her?' When she received no response she turned round to look at him and saw his attention was completely centred on a pretty young woman who had come to join the growing crowd of spectators, intrigued to know what was going on along with the rest of the queue of people wanting to use the shower block. Tutting disdainfully, Jackie snapped, ‘Terry?'

He spun back to face her, grinning, explaining away his distraction with: ‘Just doing my job, keeping the campers happy, Jackie.'

She hissed back, ‘Pity you don't pay as much attention to all the other campers as you do to the young pretty ones. There's a camper behind this door who is definitely
not
happy and we need to find out why. That's what you should be giving all your attention.' Jackie was about to repeat her question to him when she realised she was only wasting her time as Helen would have said when first asked if she knew why the woman had attacked her. What Jackie really needed to do was get in and talk to the woman herself. The door was barricaded from the inside, she suspected by the wooden wedge that was used to keep it propped open in hot weather to help keep the building cool, so the only way in was via one of the frosted windows at the back of the building. She had to hope that one of them was on the latch. ‘Come with me,' she ordered Terry.

Around the back of the building Jackie was relieved to see that one of the windows was open. The narrow space, several feet above them, was just about wide enough for her to squeeze through. Standing underneath it, she said to Terry, ‘Give me a leg up, please.'

He looked at the window then at her. ‘You're going to climb through?'

Jackie shot him a withering look. ‘You have any other suggestion as to how I can get inside? The door is jammed and I'm not a bird so I can't fly in.'

Terry had always had a strong fancy for Jackie and never missed an opportunity to let her know how willing he was to act on it. The fact she had been courting for the past eighteen months hadn't deterred him one bit. Now that relationship had broken up, he felt it was only a matter of time before she succumbed to his charms. The only reason she hadn't yet was because she was playing hard to get. He eyed her seductively. ‘Just bothered you could end up hurting yourself, doll, that's all. That's the kind of man I am, see, naturally considerate.'

She eyed him darkly. ‘If you were that considerate you'd have offered to climb through the window yourself. And how many times have I told you not to call me “doll”? Now give me a leg up, and just hope I don't happen to kick you in the face by accident.'

He moved closer to the wall then cupped his hands together and bent over, hiding a smirk, as usual misinterpreting her behaviour towards him as tacit encouragement.

As she put her hands on his shoulders and her right foot into his cupped hands, something struck Jackie. She looked Terry in the eye and spoke warningly. ‘If I catch you looking up my skirt, Helen won't be the only Stripey needing Sister Stephens' medical assistance.'

With a strenuous heave from Terry, Jackie was able to grab the metal frame of the window. He kept pushing her up and she managed to slide the top half of her body through the open window. She was glad to see a sink below her, one of a row of twelve fixed to the wall. Hopefully it would stand her weight when she manoeuvred her legs down and stood on it before lowering herself to the ground.

Jackie then scanned her eyes around the interior of the shower block. She could hear the woman crying but couldn't at first see her. Finally she spotted her by the door, sitting hunched on the floor with her back to it, forehead resting on her knees, so consumed by her own misery she didn't know she was being watched.

Easing one leg through the window, Jackie twisted herself around to bring the other through with it, then slowly began to lower herself down. The first she knew that her skirt had caught on the window catch was when she heard a loud tearing noise as her feet reached the sink. She fumed inwardly, annoyed with herself for not having the foresight to check that her clothing wasn't caught on the protruding metal catch. The blue, green and yellow plaid mini-skirt she was wearing was one of her favourites and hadn't been cheap. Hopefully the rip was on a seam and could be repaired. She was relieved, though, that the sink showed no sign of giving way beneath her. Climbing down on to the white-tiled floor, she made her way over to the crying woman and squatted down before her. In a soft voice Jackie said, ‘Hello …'

She got no further as the woman gave out a terrified yelp, screaming, ‘Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?'

In her own shock at this unexpected outburst Jackie toppled backwards, landing on her back, legs flying into the air. She lay dazed for a moment before gathering her wits and scrambling back up on her knees, thankful no men were present and getting an eyeful of her knickers.

‘I'm sorry I surprised you like this, but as you won't let anyone through the door, I had to climb through the window. My name is Jackie, I work for management in the office. You're obviously upset, think one of our Stripeys has done something …'

The other woman hysterically interjected, ‘I don't think – I know. She stole my husband. I know I shouldn't put all the blame on her. It takes two to tango, doesn't it? They're planning to run off together, I know they are.'

‘But why would you think that?'

‘I saw them together, and the way they were acting it was obvious they were plotting something. We women know when our husbands are up to something, and soon after we got here last Saturday mine kept disappearing: telling me he was popping to the shop for cigarettes when he'd a full packet in his pocket; going to the toilet again when he'd not long been; off to check the entertainment board to see what's on when we've a pamphlet in the chalet. Each time I offered to go with him he'd make an excuse for me not to. What woman wouldn't get suspicious when her husband was acting like that?

‘When he made an excuse to go out without me this morning, I decided to follow him. He met up with that woman behind the shops. She was waiting for him when he arrived. I watched them talk for a bit and she was showing Clive something, I couldn't see what it was but he studied it for a moment then pointed at something and she nodded. It must have been a bus timetable – they were probably agreeing what time to meet at the stop to go off together. As he left her Clive looked really happy with himself. She looked pleased too. I shot back to the chalet. When he came in he was empty-handed so I asked him where he'd been as he hadn't got his cigarettes, and he made some lame excuse about there being a queue at the shop. Said he didn't want to wait so would go again later.'

She heaved a miserable sigh and wiped the back of her hand under her running nose. ‘I'm not usually the violent sort, but you see Clive and me haven't been getting on that well for some time now. We're both desperate for a family. Been trying for a baby for the past five years. Nothing has happened and it's caused a strain between us. It doesn't help that both our families are constantly nagging at us to give them grandchildren. I've been really down just lately because the doctor told me that the reason I wasn't conceiving could be due to the fact I'm overweight and I should try losing some. I have tried really hard but the weight won't come off.

‘It was Clive's idea for us to come here on holiday. He said away from it all, having ourselves some fun, it just might happen. It's happened for him all right, hasn't it? He's met someone else who's more than likely able to give him the family he wants when I obviously can't. So that's why this morning, when he came back from having supposedly gone to the shop and lied about it when questioned, I just saw red. What made it worse is that it's my birthday today and Clive hasn't even mentioned it. No card, nothing.

‘I've never punched anyone before but I gave him a smacker in the face then went off in search of his floozy and did the same to her. Trouble is, I feel so ashamed of myself now for lashing out like a fishwife … I know people saw me, and they must be thinking all sorts about me and now I daren't show myself. That's why I locked myself in here, because I'm too embarrassed to go out and face them all. I just want to get away from here … as far away from Clive as I can. I wish I could hate him for what he's done to me. He's not just broken my heart, he's smashed my life to smithereens. He's the only man I've ever loved, or could ever see myself loving.'

She wrung her hands in distress. ‘I can't blame him for falling for that other woman. She's pretty and slim whereas I'm plain and plump.' Through red-rimmed, swollen eyes, she looked pleadingly at Jackie. ‘I can't bear to hear Clive tell me he doesn't love me any more so I can't go back to the chalet in case he's there. Could you arrange for someone to pack my stuff up for me, and for me to get to the station so I can catch a train home? Tell Clive that I'll have all his stuff packed up and he can collect it from his mother's so he can start his new life with …'

A fresh flood of tears stopped her from saying any more.

Jackie's heart went out to her. She knew at first hand just how wretched and betrayed this woman was feeling, having suffered the very same fate herself. The difference was, though, that her mother and Keith had fallen for each other over time but fought their feelings, conscious of the pain it was going to cause Jackie when it came out. Whereas this woman's husband appeared willing to devastate his wife and throw away his marriage for a woman he'd known barely more than five minutes. He should be ashamed of himself.

Jackie was surprised though that the other woman was Helen. She didn't know the young woman well, but Helen had always come across as a straightforward sort of person. She didn't seem the type to run after a married man, and fraternising with holidaymakers was a sackable offence. This incident would mean she would not receive a favourable reference so it was going to prove very hard for her to secure another job in the holiday industry. And more puzzling still was the fact that Jackie was sure a miffed Ginger had told her only the other week that the barman she had fancied for a while was off her list of possible boyfriends now as she'd found out he was courting strong with a Stripey called Helen, and there was a rumour of a possible engagement. It seemed that this woman's heart was not the only one that would be broken today, but Helen's boyfriend's too when he found out about her and Clive.

‘Come with me to the office and I'll make the arrangements for you,' Jackie suggested.

The woman looked horrified. ‘Oh, but that would mean going outside and facing all those people, and I just can't. Please don't make me! You came through the window. Can't we leave that way?'

Jackie's mind raced. She'd only just managed to squeeze through the narrow gap. This woman had already been made very upset by a thoughtless doctor telling her she was too fat to conceive. Mentioning her size was not an option. Jackie just couldn't bring herself to do it, so made an excuse by telling her, ‘I don't advise we leave that way. There's a long drop from the window to the ground, and we'd more than likely both end up in hospital with broken bones. I could ask Terry Jones for his jacket to put over your head and that way you won't have to face anyone?'