“Is she at school in Bradford, then?” Mrs. Harper enquired.
“Private tutoring,” Kendra said. “She’ll be back tomorrow, as it happens.”
“I see. Mrs. Osborne, you really ought to have phoned…”
“Of course. Somehow, I just…Her mum’s been unwell. It’s a strange situation. She’s had to live apart from the kids…the children…”
“I see.”
But of course, she didn’t see and couldn’t see and Kendra had no intention of lifting the veil of obscurity for her. She just needed Mrs. Harper to believe her lies because she needed Ness to have a place at Holland Park School.
“So you say she’ll be back tomorrow?” Mrs. Harper asked.
“I’m picking her up at the station tonight.”
“I thought you said tomorrow?”
“I meant in school tomorrow. Unless she falls ill. ’F that happens, I’ll phone you at once…” Kendra let her voice drift off and waited for the other woman’s reply. In a moment, she thanked her stars that Glory Campbell had forced an acceptable form of the English language upon all her children. In this circumstance, being able to produce grammatically correct speech in an acceptable accent served Kendra well. She knew that it made her more believable than she would have been had she fallen into the dialect that Mrs. Harper had no doubt expected to hear on the other end of the phone when she’d placed her call.
“I’ll let her teachers know, then,” Mrs. Harper said. “And please do next time keep us informed, Mrs. Osborne.”
Kendra refused to be offended by the admission officer’s imperative. So thankful was she that the woman had accepted her unlikely tale of Ness caring for Carole Campbell that, short of a direct insult, she would have found any comment from Mrs. Harper tolerable. She felt relieved that she’d been able to concoct a story on the spur of the moment but shortly after she’d ended the call, the very fact that she’d been forced to concoct such a story sent her pacing. She was still doing that when Joel and Toby stopped by on their way home from the learning centre.
Toby was carrying a workbook on whose individual pages colourful stickers had been fixed, celebrating his successful completion of the phonetic drills meant to help him with his reading. He had more stickers on his life ring, declaring “Well done!,” “Excellent!,” and “Top form!” in bright blue, red, and yellow. Kendra saw these but did not remark upon them. She instead said to Joel, “Where’s she been going every day?”
Joel wasn’t stupid, but he was bound by that rule about telling tales. He frowned and played dumb. “Who?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. The admissions officer rang me. Where’s Ness been going? Is she with this girl…What’s her name? Six? And why haven’t I met her?”
Joel dropped his head to avoid replying. Toby said, “Lookit my stickers, Aunt Ken. I got to make a purchase from the comic books cos I got enough stickers now. I chose Spiderman. Joel got it in his rucksack.”
The mention of rucksack put Kendra in the picture about what Ness had been doing, and she cursed herself for being a fool. So when she got back to the estate that evening—keeping Joel and Toby with her until it was time to close the shop so that Joel would not have the chance to warn his sister about the game being up—the first thing she did was scoop Ness’s rucksack off the back of the chair on which she’d hung it. Kendra opened it unceremoniously and dumped its contents on the kitchen table where Ness had been chatting to someone on the phone while she idly leafed through the most recent prospectus from Kensington and Chelsea College every bit as if she actually intended to make something of her life.
Ness’s glance went from the prospectus to the pile of her belongings, from there to her aunt’s face. She said into the phone, “I got to go,” and rang off, watching Kendra with an expression that might have been called wary had it not also been so calculating.
Kendra sorted through the contents of the rucksack. Ness looked beyond her to where Joel hung in the doorway. Her eyes narrowed as she evaluated her brother and his potential as a grass. She rejected this. Joel was all right. The information, she decided, must have come from another source. Toby? That, she told herself, was not bloody likely. Toby was generally with the cuckoos.
Kendra tried to read the contents of Ness’s rucksack like a priest practising divination. She unrolled the blue jeans and unfolded the black T-shirt whose golden inscription “Tight Pussy” resulted in its being deposited directly into the bin. She fingered through makeup, nail varnish, hair spray, hair picks, matches, and cigarettes, and she stuffed her hands into the high-heeled boots to see if there was anything hidden inside them. Finally, she went through the pockets of the jeans, where she found one packet of Wrigley’s spearmint and one of rolling papers. These she clutched in the hapless triumph of someone who sees the incarnation of the worst of her fears.
She said, “So.”
Ness said nothing.
“What have you got to say?”
Above them in the sitting room, the television went on, its sound turned to an irritating volume that told everyone within two hundred yards that someone in 84 Edenham Way was watching Toy Story II for the twelfth time. Kendra shot a look to Joel. He interpreted it and ducked up the stairs to deal with Toby and the television volume. He remained there, knowing the wisdom of keeping clear of explosive situations.
Kendra repeated her question to Ness. Ness reached for her packet of cigarettes and picked the book of matches from among the other contents of the rucksack now spread across the table.
Kendra snatched them from her and threw them into the kitchen sink. She followed them with the cigarettes. Gesturing with the rolling papers, she said, “My God, what about your dad? He started with weed. You know that. He told you, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have pretended. Not with you. You even went with him to St. Aidan’s and waited for him in the crèche. During his meetings. He told me that, Ness. So what d’you think it was all about? Answer me. Tell me the truth. Do you think you’re immune?”
Ness had only one way to survive a reference to her father, and that way was retreat: a distancing that she effected by allowing that hot stone always within her to grow in size until she could feel it climbing a burning path to reach the back of her tongue. Contempt was what she experienced when anger did its work upon her. Contempt for her father—which was the only safe emotion she could harbour towards him—and even more contempt for her aunt. She said, “What’re you twisted ’bout? I make rollies, innit. Shit, you the sort always t’ink the worse.”
“Speak English like you were taught, Vanessa. And don’t tell me you’ve been making rollies when you’ve got a packet of cigarettes big as life inside that rucksack. Whatever else you think, I am not stupid. You’re smoking weed. You’re running round truant. What else are you doing?”
Ness said, “I tol’ you I wa’n’t wearin that bloody kit.”
“You mean me to think this is all a reaction to having to wear a school uniform you don’t like? What sort of fool do you think I am? Who’ve you been with all these weeks? What’ve you been doing?”
Ness reached for the packet of Wrigley’s. She used it to gesture at her aunt, a movement that asked—with no little sarcastic intent—if she could chew a piece of gum since she wasn’t, apparently, going to be allowed to smoke. She said, “Nuffink.”
“Nothing,” Kendra corrected her. “No-thing. Nothing. Say it.”
“Nothing,” Ness said. She folded a piece of gum into her mouth. She played with its wrapper, rolling the foil around her index finger and keeping her gaze fixed on it.
“Nothing with who, then?”
Ness made no reply.
“I asked you—”
“Six an’ Tash,” she cut in. “All right? Six an’ Tash. We hang at her house. We listen to music. Tha’s it, innit.”
“She’s your source? This Six?”
“Come on. She’s my mate.”
“So why haven’t I met her? Because she’s supplyi
ng you and you know I’ll twig it. Isn’t that right?”
“Fuck it. I tol’ you wha’ the papers ’s for. You goin t’ believe wha’ you want to believe. ’Sides, not like you wanted to meet anyone, innit.”
Kendra saw that Ness was trying to turn the tables, but she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Instead she resorted to an anguished, “I can’t have this. What’s happened to you, Vanessa?” in that age-old parental cry of despair, which is generally followed by the internal query of, What did I do wrong?
But Kendra didn’t follow up her first question with that silent and self-directed second one, for at the last moment, she told herself that these were not her children and technically none of them should even be her problem. Since they had an impact on her life, however, she tried another tack, without knowing her words formed the single query least likely to produce a positive result. She said, “What would your mum say, Vanessa, if she saw how you’re acting now?”
Ness crossed her arms beneath her breasts. She would not be touched in this way, not by reference to the past or prognostication of the future.
Although Kendra didn’t know exactly what Ness was up to, she concluded that whatever it was, it had to do with drugs and most likely, because of her age, with boys as well. This added up to news that wasn’t good. But beyond that, Kendra knew nothing aside from what went on on the estates round North Kensington, and she knew plenty about that. Drug purchases. Contraband exchanging hands. Muggings. Break-ins. The occasional assault. Gangs of boys looking for trouble. Gangs of girls doing much the same. The best way to avoid putting yourself into harm’s way was to walk a narrow path defined by school, home, and nothing else. This, apparently, was not what Ness had been doing.
She said to her, “You can’t do this, Ness. You’re going to get hurt.”
“I c’n take care of myself,” Ness said.
That, of course, was the real issue. For Kendra and Ness each had an entirely different definition of what taking care of oneself actually meant. Rough times, disease, disappointment, and death had taught Kendra she had to stand alone. The same and more had taught Ness to run, as fast and as far as her mind and her will would take her.
So Kendra asked the only question left to ask, the one she hoped would get through to her niece and mould her behaviour henceforth. She said, “Vanessa, d’you want your mum to know how you’re behaving?”
Ness raised her gaze from the study she was making of her chewing gum wrapper. She cocked her head. “Oh yeah, Aunt Ken,” she finally replied, “like you’re really going to tell her that.”
It was a direct challenge, nothing less. Kendra decided the time had come to accept it.
Chapter
4
While Kendra could have taken them by car, she opted instead for the bus and the train. Unlike Glory, who in the past had always accompanied the Campbell children to visit their mother because she wasn’t otherwise employed, Kendra had a job to go to and a career to develop, so the children were going to have to make the journey to Carole Campbell by themselves after this. To do that, they’d need to know how to get there and back on their own.
Crucial to Kendra’s plan for the day was that Ness should not know where they were going initially. If she knew, she would bolt and Kendra needed her cooperation even if Ness didn’t realise she was giving it. She wanted Ness to see her mother—for reasons that Kendra could not express either to herself or to the girl—and she also wanted Carole Campbell to see Ness. For mother and daughter had had a bond at one time, even through Carole’s terrible periods.
They began their journey on the number 23 bus to Paddington station. As it was a Saturday, the bus was overly crowded since the route would take them to the top of Queensway where, at the weekends, hordes of kids hung about the shops, cafés, restaurants, and cinemas. This, indeed, was where Ness thought they were going, and when they approached the appropriate stop in Westbourne Grove, the fact that Ness automatically stood and began to head for the stairs—for they’d crammed themselves into the upper deck of the bus—told Kendra a great deal about where her niece had been spending her time during the days when she was meant to be at school.
`Kendra caught the back of Ness’s jacket as the girl started to negotiate her way down the aisle. She said, “Not here, Vanessa,” and she held on until the bus was moving again.
Ness looked from her aunt to the fast disappearing vista that was the corner of Queensway. Then she looked at her aunt again. She realised she’d been had in some way, but she didn’t yet know in what way it was since, always with Six and Natasha as her companions, she’d never ridden the number 23 bus any farther than Queensway.
“Wha’s this, then?” she said to Kendra.
Kendra made no reply. Instead, she adjusted the collar of Toby’s jacket and said to Joel, “You all right there, luv?”
Joel nodded. He’d been assigned the job of seeing to Toby, and he was making the best of it that he could. But he felt agonised down to the roots of his hair about the responsibility. For on this day, Toby had been in a state from the minute he’d awakened, as if he’d had preternatural knowledge of where they’d be going and what would happen when they got there. Because of this he had insisted on bringing his life ring with him fully inflated, and he’d made a spectacle of himself, tiptoeing along, muttering, and fluttering his hands around his head as if he were being attacked by flies. It was even worse inside the bus, where again he wouldn’t take off the ring for love or money. Neither would he deflate it in order to make more room for his family or the other passengers. At Kendra’s suggestion that he do so, he’d said no and no! louder and louder and he’d started crying that he had to keep it on cos Gran was coming for them and anyway Maydarc told him it was helping him breathe and he would suff’cate if anyone took it from him. Ness had said Shit, give it here, then, and had taken matters into her own hands, which only exacerbated a bad situation that was already causing everyone’s attention to fall upon them. Toby began to shriek, Ness began to snarl, “I am narked now, mon. You got that, Toby?” and Joel cringed and wanted more than anything just to disappear.
“Vanessa,” Kendra said firmly to her, in part to defuse the situation but also in part because Ness would be required to remember the route in the future, “this is the number twenty-three bus. You’ve got that, right?”
“You are startin to vex me as well, Aunt Ken,” was Ness’s reply. “Why I need gettin it, anyways?” She didn’t add bitch, but it was in her tone.
“You need gettin it because I’m telling you to get it,” Kendra told her. “Number twenty-three bus. Westbourne Park to…Ah yes. Here we are. To Paddington station.”
Ness’s eyes narrowed. She knew very well what debarkation at Paddington station likely presaged. Along with her siblings, she’d been to this place many times over the years. She said, “Hey. I ain’t—”
Kendra grabbed her arm. “You are,” she said. “And if I know you, the last thing you really want is to make a scene like a five-year-old right here in front of strangers. Joel, Toby? Come along with us.”
Ness could have run off when they alighted, but in the past few years she’d become a girl who liked to plan her defiance for a moment when the other party least suspected that defiance was on her mind. Running off as they made their way into the cavernous railway station was the expected response, so Ness adopted a different strategy.
She tried to shake off her aunt’s grip. She said, “All right. All right,” and she even attempted to speak what was, to her, her aunt’s excessively irritating Lady Muck English. “You can let go now,” she went on. “I’m not doing a bloody runner, okay? I’ll go, I’ll go. But it won’t make a diff’rence to anything, cos it never does. Gran ain’t told you that? Well, you’ll see fast enough.”
Kendra didn’t bother to correct either her lapses in grammar or her pronunciation. Instead, she rooted twelve pounds from her bag. She gave the money to Joel and not to Ness, whom she didn’t trust, no matter the girl’s os
tensible cooperation. She said, “While I do the tickets, you lot go over to WH Smith. Buy her the magazine she likes and her sweets, and get something for yourselves. Joel?”
He looked up. His face was solemn. He had just turned twelve—one week into it—with the weight of the world settling on his shoulders. Kendra could see this, and while she regretted it, she knew there was also no help for the matter. “I’m depending on you. You keep that money from your sister, all right?”
“I don’t want your bleeding money, Kendra,” Ness snapped. “Come on.” This last she said to her brothers, leading them towards the station’s WH Smith. She grabbed Toby by the hand and tried, by pressing down on his shoulders, to force him into walking on the flat of his feet instead of on his toes. He protested and squirmed to get away from her. She gave up the effort.
In the meantime, Kendra watched to make sure they were heading towards WH Smith. She went to fetch their tickets. The machines were out of order as usual, so she was forced to join the queue in the ticket hall.
The three Campbells negotiated the surging crowd, most of whom were jockeying for position to stand with their gazes fixed on the departures board as if they’d just received word of the imminent Second Coming. Joel guided Toby through the travelers, in Ness’s wake, pointing out sights like a demented tour guide to keep his brother moving forward: “Lookit dat surfboard, Tobe. Where you ’spect dat bloke is going?” and “You see dat, Tobe? They were triplets in dat pushchair.” In this way, he got his brother into WH Smith, where he looked around for Ness and finally caught sight of her at the magazines. She’d selected Elle and Hello! and she was heading for the display of sweets and other snacks when Joel caught up with her.