Girl, (Nearly) 16: Absolute Torture Read online

  Right in front of her was an enormous bull. He turned his massive head and looked at her with horrid, mad little pink eyes. Jess turned back, jumped down and ran like the wind back to the house. The farmer’s wife was feeding some hens in the yard.

  ‘Your granny is sitting out in the garden, dear, and your mum’s asleep,’ said the farmer’s wife.

  Jess went round the house and found Granny sitting on a little stone terrace, under a sun umbrella, sipping tea.

  ‘Hello, love!’ said Granny, beaming. ‘Mrs Hawkins brought me these cakes. Have one, dear.’

  Jess sat down by Granny and accepted a cake. How easy it would be to slide into binge-eating as a cure for a broken heart. She stared at the flowerbeds without even seeing them. Her mind was a hundred miles away, in Riverdene.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ asked Granny. She was leaning towards Jess, peering into her face like Miss Marple, the elderly detective.

  ‘Fine thanks, Granny!’ replied Jess, trying to back it up with a bright smile. But she could feel the smile losing its power and fading like a torch with a flat battery.

  Granny frowned. ‘Something’s the matter, dear. Come on! Spit it out! I may not be able to put things right but it always helps to talk.’

  Jess hesitated. She wouldn’t dare to mention Fred to her mum, but what about Granny? She was a lot less fierce on the subject of men and boys. In fact, in her way, she found them kind of cute.

  ‘Granny …’ said Jess hesitantly, ‘did you ever … when you and Grandpa were young … were you ever jealous of other girls?’

  ‘Was I jealous?’ exclaimed Granny. And she threw back her head and laughed. ‘I’ll never forget Christine Elliott. She was a dark girl with a sort of snaky smile. She tried to steal him off me. It was on the annual office trip to the seaside. It was in the days of miniskirts, dear. It must have been about 1964. Goodness! It seems like yesterday.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Well, Grandpa and I were sitting on the beach. I call him Grandpa, but of course then he was only about twenty-five or so. That Christine creature, she’d had too many shandies with her fish and chips at lunch. Then we all went down to the beach, and she did a sort of striptease right in front of us. She had her bikini on underneath, luckily, but she threw her tights right into John’s face, shouted, “Come and get it!” and ran down and jumped in the sea.’

  ‘I hope she drowned,’ said Jess.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Granny. ‘She just floundered about for a bit, jumping up and down, pretending her top was coming off, silly girl. Then when she came out again she fell on the sand right next to John and said, “Dry me, John, dry me.”’

  ‘What a tart,’ said Jess. ‘I hope Grandpa ignored her.’

  ‘He threw her towel over her and told her to do herself a favour and shut up,’ said Granny. ‘And I’m afraid I did something awful.’

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘I picked up her clothes and ran down and threw them into the sea. She didn’t bother us any more after that,’ said Granny with grim satisfaction. ‘Always remember, dear, the beach can be a dangerous place. What with everyone taking their clothes off and throwing caution to the winds.’

  Jess sighed. It was a great story but it wasn’t much help.

  ‘So who is it who’s bothering you, dear?’ asked Granny.

  ‘Well, promise not to tell Mum?’

  ‘I never tell her anything,’ said Granny with a knowing smile.

  ‘There’s a boy I like, and he likes me.’

  ‘Frank?’ asked Granny. She always got his name wrong.

  ‘Fred, yes.’

  ‘I like him. He’s got very expressive eyes, dear. A bit like a sea lion.’

  Jess let this pass. Fred’s eyes were certainly large and grey.

  ‘And I’ve found out that he and Flora are both at Riverdene.’

  ‘Together?’ asked Granny sharply.

  ‘Well, no, I don’t think they actually went together – unless they were lying,’ said Jess. ‘Flora’s gone with her sister and Fred’s mum said Fred had gone with Luke.’

  ‘I was reading about that music festival thing in the paper,’ said Granny. ‘How many do they reckon are there? A hundred thousand?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they’re bound to meet. There’s loads of people from school going and they’ll all be texting one another.’

  ‘Well, even if they do meet,’ said Granny, ‘if this boy really likes you, he won’t go astray.’

  ‘Yes, but Flora is so tactlessly beautiful!’ growled Jess.

  ‘Everyone likes a pretty face,’ said Granny. ‘But boys can be scared of beautiful girls.’

  ‘Granny!’ said Jess. ‘You were supposed to say, You’re heaps more beautiful than Flora anyway, dear.’

  ‘Well, of course you are,’ said Granny. ‘But looks aren’t everything. You’ve got more charisma in your little finger than that Flora creature has in her whole body. And it’s charisma that counts, dear,’ she added, giving her most charismatic wink.

  Jess felt immensely cheered by the news that she had charisma and Flora did not.

  ‘But, Granny,’ she went on miserably, ‘what if they do get together, in spite of everything?’

  ‘Then,’ said Granny, leaning in close and dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘we’ll hatch a fiendish plot to murder her, dear!’

  After this Jess felt a bit better. She and Granny invented a game in which one player nominated a harmless household object, and the other had to invent a plan to murder Flora with it. It very pleasantly whiled away the rest of the afternoon. Jess’s favourite murder weapon was the cheese grater, but Granny preferred a large wooden spoon. It took much longer to achieve the desired result, but Granny found it richly satisfying.

  Chapter 21

  Next day they drove down to Penzance, at the very tip of England. At last they arrived at the ocean, vast and shimmering. The town, silhouetted on a hill, looked exotic. There were lots of boats moored in the marina, their masts dipping and bobbing.

  Dear Fred. Jess began another letter in her head. Later she would transfer it to paper. We have arrived at the seaside at last. I am making urgent plans to jump ship and work my passage to Panama as a cabin boy with slightly gay eyelashes and a repulsive pout. Or maybe I shall reinvent myself as a mermaid.

  Although, knowing me, I shall get it the wrong way round and emerge with a fish’s head and bare human bum – the worst of both worlds.

  As soon as I can establish contact with you via my mobile I shall walk on the beach, broadcasting the crash of the waves and the scream of the gulls – if you can hear them above the deafening noise of your precious music festival. How I wish I was there to ruin your fun.

  Still, there were palm trees in the front garden of the B&B. Mum turned into the gateway and parked, luckily just avoiding contact with a low wall smothered in flowers.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said.

  They piled out – quite stiffly, in Granny’s case, and went inside.

  ‘Hi there!’ They were greeted by a big man with a lot of red curly hair. ‘I’m Bernie Ackroyd! How’s the headache? Better, I hope?’ He shook hands all round, causing multiple fractures, and then insisted on carrying everybody’s bags up to their rooms, all in one trip.

  ‘I think he’s an Aussie!’ whispered Granny. ‘He’s got the twang!’

  Jess hated the way her mum and her granny both commented on people they had just met, in a deafening stage whisper.

  ‘Granny! Button that lip!’ she hissed. She didn’t want to offend Bernie. They had to stay on the right side of a man whose grip would immobilise a crocodile.

  Mum and Granny had a twin-bedded room at the front, painted a startling purple, and Jess had a double room at the back. The walls were the colour of blood to which a dash of mud had been added. It seemed Bernie’s colour sense was fairly primitive.

  Jess didn’t mind. It was nice to have a whole double room to herself. She would be able
to chuck her clothes everywhere. She could write her letters to Fred without attracting any impertinent enquiries. And once she’d bought some more credit, she could lie in bed and text him all night until he screamed for mercy.

  She went back to Mum and Granny’s room to ask for some money to buy the phone credit. Bernie was still hanging about and chatting to Mum. In fact, he was sitting on the bed, which in Jess’s view was a diabolical liberty.

  ‘I used to be a sports teacher,’ he was saying, ‘but then I came down here and one thing led to another.’

  ‘How long have you been running the B&B?’ asked Mum with a nasty girlish smile. She looked like a twelve-year-old with a crush on the football coach.

  ‘Aw, a coupla years,’ said Bernie.

  ‘Do you run it on your own?’ asked Mum – almost as if she was trying to find out if he was married. Maybe she fancied him! Gross!

  ‘Ah, I get a couple of girls in to do the beds and serve the breakfasts,’ said Bernie. ‘But I do all the cooking! Will you be having dinner in tonight? I was planning a moussaka.’

  ‘Perfect!’ said Mum – strangely, as she had never been all that keen on moussaka before.

  ‘Well …’ said Bernie. ‘I’ll leave you to get settled in. Dinner’s at 7.30 if that’s OK? Here are the keys. There’s a front door key in case you want to paint the town red.’ And he actually winked at Mum, as he went out! Good Lord! As if he fancied her! How perfectly loathsome! Especially as Jess was planning to get her parents together again. She didn’t want Bernie to start intervening. He looked as if he could kill Dad with one light blow of his little finger.

  ‘What a nice man,’ said Mum, dancing with ridiculous happiness to the window. ‘And what a lovely view!’

  My mother is revving up for a major indiscretion, Jess continued her letter to Fred. She is throwing herself at the enormous Australian guy who runs this joint. My poor dad doesn’t stand a chance. I’ve hatched a plot to bring them together again. But the Aussie is going to get in first with his steaming Greek delicacies and rugby songs. I have a terrible fear that I will wake up to find he has painted my mother red to match the back bedroom.

  ‘Mum!’ said Jess. ‘Please can I go and get some phone credit? I need to know if Flora’s OK.’

  Mum gave Jess ten pounds and in minutes she had found her way to the main street. Penzance is kind of quaint, she told Fred in her secret letter, with high old pavements. If I had any cred at all as a Jane Austen heroine I would hurl myself down a flight of crumbling old steps and then hover picturesquely between life and death for several weeks.

  However, I have other plans. I can’t tell you how fabulous it is to be surrounded by merchandise after all those poignant graveyards, haunted ruins and remote farmhouses.

  She dived into a shop and bought some credit, then walked back out on to the pavement and switched on her phone. Immediately she found a message waiting from Fred. Her heart jumped for joy. She hadn’t been able to communicate with him since he’d sent that awful text saying, IT’S ROSIE YOU REALLY OUGHT TO WORRY ABOUT …

  That was days ago. To a certain extent Jess just hadn’t replied because she was cross. And her phone had run out of credit – twice. So what had Fred got to say? His message had been sent more than twenty-four hours ago.

  I WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT TO HEAR FROM YOU. BUT NOTHING. MADAM, I AM SLAIN.

  Jess rang him immediately, but his mobile was switched off. So she sent him a text instead.

  SORRY, RAN OUT OF CREDIT. AM IN PENZANCE NOW. QUITE NEAR ST IVES. HOW’S EVERYTHING?

  She managed not to add any jealous asides about Rosie or Flora. She kept hold of her phone, waiting for Fred’s reply, willing it to ring. While waiting for the longed-for vibration, she strolled down the street looking in all the shops.

  There were some fabulous clothes, and then there was a bookshop where she spent half an hour, and then, right at the bottom of the street, she found a small shopping centre with a branch of the Body Shop in it. Re-sult! Jess hadn’t had a cosmetics fix since Dorchester, and that was days ago. She spent ages in there, trying on all sorts of different perfume.

  You could get melon, coconut or grapefruit, but you couldn’t get essence of Fred. His skin smelt unique, like hot grass. At the thought of it her legs went weak. Oh, why didn’t he reply?

  Fred’s mobile must be switched off. He would answer soon. She mustn’t get things out of proportion. Maybe she should text Flora. She sent Flora a brief message. After all, Flora might be able to throw some light on the situation.

  But the whole afternoon just went on unrolling in silence. There wasn’t any message either from Flora or Fred. Again she tried to ring Fred on his mobile. It was switched off. Flora’s was switched off, too. This seemed, to Jess’s increasingly deranged mind, highly suspicious.

  Eventually, she left a message on his voicemail.

  ‘Listen, Parsons,’ she said, her mind whirling, trying not to sound too cross or too needy, ‘your mum tells me you’re at Riverdene after all. I just want you to know that if you are, I’m going to kill you when we next meet, with the cutlery of your choice. Nah, have a great time. And, for goodness’ sake, text me.’

  Chapter 22

  ‘Now, today the plan was to go to Mousehole,’ said Mum at breakfast. ‘To …’ and her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘scatter the ashes. Do you think you’re up to it, Granny?’

  Never mind Granny, thought Jess woefully. Am I up to it? She had spent a vile night of uneasy jealous dreams about Flora and Fred.

  ‘Of course I’m up to it!’ said Granny, and stuck her courageous little chin in the air. Her lip trembled slightly. ‘Are you up to it, Madeleine?’

  ‘Stiff upper lips all round!’ said Jess’s mum. It was going to take more than a stiff upper lip to restore Jess’s moral fibre. She desperately needed to have her spine encased in concrete.

  Bernie approached the table, frisking and flirting in a way which would have been quite hard to take in a man half his size.

  ‘You’ve given up on my sausages, girls!’ he complained. ‘And, Madeleine, you haven’t touched your bacon.’

  ‘We’re all a little bit tense this morning,’ confessed Jess’s mum.

  Don’t tell him, don’t tell him, thought Jess intently. Don’t mention anything to do with ashes or urns or dead grandpas, Mother, per-leease!

  ‘The thing is,’ her mum went on, ‘we’ve got rather a sad little duty to carry out today – to throw my father’s ashes into the sea at Mousehole.’

  Bernie’s face dropped sympathetically at this news, and the family sitting at the next table hurriedly got to their feet and left the room.

  ‘Aw, bad luck. I didn’t know, I’m sorry,’ said Bernie, scratching his head in rather an embarrassed way and backing off slightly. ‘Well, I hope it goes OK.’ What more could you say?

  Some people had joyful holidays involving sun, sea, sand and windsurfing, but Jess was beginning to feel that she belonged to a kind of British version of the Addams family: mooching around gloomily with their wretched urn. As they left the dining room and trooped back up to their rooms, it seemed as if a dark miasma of doom followed them upstairs.

  Although Grandpa would have hated anything like that. He had been a jolly cuddly fellow with a deep north country voice and lovely big ears like an elephant. Jess felt a pang of sorrow that she would never again be able to sit on his knee and ransack his jacket pockets for chocolate drops. Although, come to think of it, she felt she had grown into such a porky teenager that for her to sit on any old man nowadays would be an act of the direst cruelty, and would probably result in a broken femur.

  ‘Don’t wear your black punky stuff today!’ hissed Mum, sticking her head round Jess’s door. ‘Wear something cheerful. It’s a celebration of Grandpa’s life, not a sad occasion. I’m going to read a poem about him.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Mum! We’ve already had the funeral and you read a poem out then.’

  ‘I�
��ve written a much better poem since then,’ said her mum, looking a bit furtive.

  ‘I don’t think it’s very easy for Granny when you drag everything out with these poems and things,’ said Jess. ‘And whenever you start reading out poetry I always start to feel sick. It’s nothing personal. Your poems are brilliant. But I just prefer to read them silently in my head. Otherwise it starts to feel like school assembly.’

  ‘It won’t take long,’ said Mum. ‘It’s a very short poem. Now hurry up! We leave in five minutes.’ And she disappeared.

  Jess sighed. Could today get any worse? First there was the endless agony of Flora and Fred holding hands at Riverdene. Then on top of that was a layer of grief: having to say goodbye to Grandpa. Then there was the top layer: her mum, determined to turn it all into some kind of literary festival. The day was shaping up to be a lasagne of horror.

  It wasn’t more than a few minutes’ drive from Penzance to Mousehole. They followed the coast road round a headland.

  ‘This is Newlyn,’ observed Mum, as they drove past a quayside where several fishing boats were moored. ‘Famous for its pilchard fleet and a very distinguished school of painting in the late nineteenth century.’

  Jess made plans to get her mother an alternative career as a tour guide, and send her off with a busload of Japanese tourists to inflict all this education on them.

  ‘I remember John and I came to Newlyn for tea one day,’ said Granny. ‘The cafe was filthy, it was a disgrace, and the scones were at least three days old.’

  Jess remembered the sort of things Grandpa used to say. Something made her reach deep inside herself and produce a comment in his gruff old voice.

  ‘I don’t rate these scones, Valerie,’ she boomed from the back seat. ‘Mine’s like a lump o’ blasted rock!’