Chapter Twenty-Seven
Vonny
Wednesdays we play badminton.
I moved to Clifton when I got my place at college. Now I pay rent and everything. Boring really, but you need a good base when you’re doing something like that, and you could never tell how long a squat was going to last. I took my course at college seriously and I didn’t want the hassle of having to move every few months.
John’s an art student. After badminton we usually go for a few drinks. He gets through his grant in about the first month, so if I want to go out with him I have to buy the drinks, which irritates me no end. He gets the same as me, why should I pay for him? He says his appetites are bigger, which is true – he drinks more than me. Maybe he should apply for an extra-large drinks allowance.
Normally we stay at my place because it’s so much nicer, but on Wednesday we usually go to his because mine’s a bus ride away and his is just round the corner from the Sports Centre. I usually stay there and go straight into college the next day. So I don’t get home till Thursday afternoon.
I’ve got a garden flat that I share with a girl called Sandy, but she was away that week. Willy lives a few doors up from me. We call her Willy because she has two kids and she used to yell, ‘Are the children all in bed?’ out of the front door when she wants them to come in and go to bed, like Wee Willy Winkie.
She came round to see me an hour or so after I got back.
‘There was a girl sitting on your doorstep yesterday morning. A punky type – one of the scabby ones. She was there for hours.’
I’m a bit of a punky type, as Willy calls it, although never one of the scabby ones. I couldn’t work it out because I don’t know anyone like that any more, not since I left St Paul’s.
‘She was there for ages. I think she only had pyjamas on under her coat, she must have been freezing. She was there first thing in the morning, God knows how long she’d been there. I went out about ten o’clock to see what was going on and I told her you wouldn’t be back till this evening. She looked awful.’
‘Didn’t she tell you her name?’
‘No. She knew you, though.’ Willy looked suspiciously at me. ‘Who was it then?’ she asked.
I scratched my ear. ‘I can’t think… What did she look like?’
Willy started to describe her, but that didn’t help either. I just suddenly realised…
‘Gemma!’
I hadn’t seen her for ages. It got worse and worse round there, full of brain-dead zombies. I used to go round and nag her quite regularly. She was boasting about it all the time – being on the game, using needles. She thought it was all a big gas. I kept on going for a bit after Richard moved out of Bristol, but then I stopped.
I thought she must be in trouble. I mean, she’d been in trouble for years, but now she’d realised it at last.
I drove straight round to her place but I couldn’t get an answer. I looked through the windows and there was no one there. I got back home, fiddled about. I was worried about her – scared, really. She was in such bad trouble for so long and she never even knew it. I like Gemma. She had a lot going for her, but she was just such a lousy judge of character.
It was six o’clock in the evening before I discovered the note. She must have pushed it through my letterbox, but there’s a little piece of carpet I use as a mat and sometimes it rucks up and letters get stuck underneath it.
‘I can’t wait any longer, I’m going to the hospital to try and get them to admit me. Gemma.’
I’d told her so many times I’d always be there if she needed me, and she’d just laughed at me. But she remembered in the end. I ran out and jumped in the car and drove straight there.
She looked like death. I sat on the bed and listened to her story, and I kept thinking, she’s eighteen and I’m twenty-four, but she’s so much older than me. She’s an addict, she’s fallen in love, she’s slept with dozens of men, she’s pregnant. She was only eighteen but I felt like I was sitting there listening to an old, old woman telling me what had happened to her when she was still young.
The police had been round to interview her but Tar, bless him, had taken the rap again even though he must have known she’d called the cops… and even though it would mean youth custody for him this time.
The hospital was keen to get rid of her. She was just taking up a bed as far as they were concerned. She’d only got in because she was getting these violent stomach cramps. She said she always got them when she was coming down but to be honest, I think she’d exaggerated it so they’d give her a bed. So she was just lying there waiting to be chucked out with nowhere to go.
Poor Gemma! Of course I could take her into my house. I would have done but…
‘Give me your parents’ number, Gemma. Let’s try that first.’
‘I can’t.’
The number of times I’d asked her. The number of times she’d said that. I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing.
‘It’s out of your hands, Gemma. Just say the number.’
She covered her face with her hands. ‘0232…’ she began. She remembered after all those years.
The phone rang three times. A woman picked it up and said, ‘Hello.’
I said, ‘Mrs Brogan?’
‘Yes.’
I took a deep breath and said it. ‘It’s about your daughter, Gemma.’