Dirty Work Read online

  ‘Hope,’ I say again.

  ‘Oh!’ Natasha laughs at her mistake, a sharp sound, like a dog’s yap. She covers her mouth self-consciously. Her eyes dart from side to side all the time, keeping track of people coming out of the swing doors on to the deck. She bounces up and down on her feet like she’s cold, the wind catching strands of her hair and blowing them into crazy shapes. ‘I am holiday in England,’ she says, grabbing the collar of her jacket and pulling it round her neck.

  ‘Going,’ I say, ‘I think you mean you are going on holiday in England.’

  Natasha sucks her teeth. ‘Yes. I am going to holiday in England, where it is bloody buggery cold!’

  I laugh and ask her where she comes from. But she shakes her head and covers her mouth with her hand again. ‘I come from the world!’ she says, curling the ‘r’ in world. ‘Like you!’

  ‘Well, no, actually, I come from somewhere quite particular . . .’ and I begin to explain about our house, and Mum and Dad, and about living in the Norfolk countryside, and our holidays in France, but as I do her eyes glaze over like she doesn’t understand, and I trail off.

  ‘You have big house?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Compared to some people, I suppose we do, but not that big I mean—’

  ‘How many rooms?’ she interrupts.

  ‘Um, I’ve never really counted them before.’ I make a mental journey round our house. From the kitchen with the stable door and the TV room and the lounge and the dining room and the odd-shaped toilet under the stairs and the conservatory to upstairs and the three bedrooms and the bathroom and the library and then the study in the turret and the attic with another study and three more spooky rooms that are half furnished and full of books and Mum’s old paintings and Dad’s dusty boxes of papers from the Business. ‘Um, sixteen.’ That sounds like quite a lot now I’ve said it and it doesn’t even count the summer house and Mum’s pottery studio.

  ‘Are you famous?’

  ‘No! My dad is a businessman. He sells—’

  ‘I know what is a businessman.’ She shrugs and looks at the floor. ‘You have to go now. No more talking.’

  ‘Oh.’ I feel weirdly disappointed and a little paranoid. I still get the feeling she’s kind of laughing at me. Then she points over my shoulder. ‘My boyfriend.’

  The man is standing close behind me. Too close. I wonder how long he’s been there. He winks at me as I look and I don’t know why. He’s smoking, cupping the cigarette in his hand and, although he’s smiling, his eyes are blank, expressionless. He’s handsome and tanned, with black hair flecked with streaks of silver, and he’s wearing designer clothes, Hilfiger jeans, an Armani top and K-Swiss sneakers.

  Natasha runs over to him and grabs his hand. ‘We’re get married,’ she says.

  Getting, I think. You’re getting married. But I don’t say it aloud. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘You have to come to wedding! We’re married in London!’ Her voice is high and squeaky now, more childish than before and he’s holding on to her hand so tight it’s making her fingers white.

  ‘Come now,’ the man says, his accent stronger, thicker than Natasha’s. He lets go of her hand and grabs her arm. As they turn away from me, she mouths something at me that I can’t make out. It isn’t until they’ve disappeared into the crowds of children and families that I realize she’s still got my lighter.

  Inside, the boat is claustrophobic and stale. It smells of burgers and chips and chemicals from the toilets. I scan the rows of seats for Natasha and her boyfriend, but I can’t see them anywhere.

  The pitch of the boat is making me feel a little dizzy. I lie on one of the banquettes near the casino and look up at the grey ceiling tiles, although Mum told me if I felt seasick to look at the horizon. I switch on my mobile and check for a signal. But there are no new messages. I know that Kaz and Amanda must be out somewhere having fun without me and it makes me feel depressed and left out.

  On the vehicle deck it stinks of petrol and exhaust fumes. The sound of car doors slamming echoes off the metal walls, and as they open the back of the boat a cold sea breeze penetrates our thin summer clothes.

  ‘Front or back?’ Dad asks.

  ‘Back,’ I say. I’m not in the mood for any more father-daughter chats.

  Dad fiddles around trying to open the side door. ‘The lock’s broken.’

  The people in the cars around us are watching, and the cars in front are already starting to move off. ‘Dad! We’re causing a jam.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ Dad growls. Something gives and the door pops out and starts to slide on its runners. Dad stumbles and takes a breath. ‘There!’ he says.

  I climb in the back and Dad gets in the front. The cars behind are honking their horns at us. I sit on the sofa with the foam cushions that Dad had specially made with original 1960s material.

  When I sit down something crunches. Dad must have filled the space under the seat with bags of duty-free.

  One year, customs officers took the van apart. They went through all our stuff looking for drink and cigarettes. Dad stood with his hands in his pockets the whole time, jangling his loose change manically, his face going redder and redder.

  ‘I’m not a drug smuggler! For God’s sake! You officious little—’ and then Mum had to shut him up because he started really swearing.

  They fined him for having two more bottles of whisky than he was allowed, which Dad reckoned was a ‘fix to stop me suing them for criminal damage’.

  As Dad starts the engine, the rustling noise gets louder, like there’s something alive and wriggling underneath me. And then, as he carefully negotiates the ramp, a distinct cough which makes me jump up. Dad doesn’t notice, all noise drowned out up front by the loud buzzing of the engine. When I look, there’s a hand lifting up the cushion and . . . Natasha’s face, holding a finger to her lips, signalling at me to shut up.

  As the van emerges into daylight I have seconds to make a choice. If I say anything, Dad will hear me. I stare at Natasha. What’s she doing here? How did she get in? And then I get this weird feeling that this is one of those moments where whatever decision I make, it’s going to be the wrong one.

  ‘Please,’ she whispers, ‘help me.’

  My heart starts to beat really fast. She looks very skinny and desperate, scrunched up with all our stuff. ‘OK,’ I say.

  She slides back into the pile of coats and duty free like a puppet going back into its box. I sit on top, as if she was never there. But I can still hear small, animal noises, the rustling of plastic bags, another little cough.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I hiss, putting my head between my knees so Dad can’t see I’m talking. ‘Can you breathe?’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dad says sharply, glancing at me over his shoulder. I straighten up. ‘Sit still. I don’t want customs putting their grubby hands all over everything again.’

  I wonder what they’d do if they found Natasha. If they’d arrest us and everything. Maybe I ought to tell Dad. But it’s too late, he’s already winding down the window.

  ‘Mind if we take a look in the back, sir?’

  I freeze. I can feel all the blood draining out of my face. It seems to take ages for him to open the door. I lie down and cover myself with a blanket.

  When he slides open the door I blink at him, like I’ve just been sleeping.

  ‘Uh?’ I say, rubbing my eyes.

  ‘Just routine.’ He puts his head through the gap. ‘Now you wouldn’t have any hidden substances or illegal persons on a vehicle like this, would you?’ He asks this like I’m six or something.

  I can hear Natasha holding her breath. The silence crackles like it’s full of electricity. Think of something to say, think of something to say.

  ‘I’ve just been sick.’

  The man’s smile drops a little. ‘Oh.’

  I nod. ‘Really bad. Entrogastricitits or something.’

  ‘Gastro-enteritis?’

  ‘Yeah, that one. Mum reckons I
got it off the water.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ He hesitates for a second and then shuts the door and shouts, ‘All clear!’ to one of his friends.

  Dad starts laughing when we get out of range. ‘You’re nothing if not my daughter.’ He shifts in his seat, sits up a little straighter. ‘That was quite a performance you put in there.’

  It’s starting to get dark as we turn out of Dover and begin the trundle home. My heart rate has just about returned to normal, although I still have a pain in my stomach. I move along the sofa so I can see out of the windows at the back, check there are no police behind us.

  After we bypass Thetford I hear rustling again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I whisper into the cushions.

  There’s more rustling and then a muffled voice. ‘Shh.’

  I don’t know what else to say. It’s not like we can have a proper conversation. I wonder what to do when we get home. Dad will probably want to unpack the van right away, give it a rub down before he goes to bed.

  Mum accused him once of ‘loving that van more than you love me’. He laughed at her when she said that. ‘Don’t be silly, dear. This van is just a symbol of the things I love. How could I possibly replace you with an inanimate object?’

  I suppose I ought to tell him, but I don’t really want him to know. I don’t trust him not to shout, or be embarrassing, or take her to the police right away. And I promised Natasha that I’d help her. If I can sneak her out of the van then maybe she won’t want to hang around, although this idea makes me feel uncomfortable too. In fact, the more I think about it, the dodgier she seems. People who have passports don’t hide away in other people’s vans. And what happened to her boyfriend?

  I think maybe she’s an asylum seeker or an illegal immigrant. Like Mr Crawley was ranting about in France. They’re always showing pictures of them on the news, with people protesting against it. Men and women from all over the world in shabby eighties clothes, packed in the back of trucks, trying to jump freight trains, swim ashore in dangerous weather conditions, just so they can live in Britain. I don’t get it, it’s not like living here is so great.

  ‘Are you in trouble?’ I ask, putting my head between my legs.

  There’s a crackle. ‘Nngh.’

  I lift up a corner of the cushion, there’s a gap in the support slats and I can see a dark tangle of hair.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  She twists herself round until I can see her face. ‘You ask too many questions,’ she hisses.

  ‘Well you are in my van,’ I say a bit louder, indignant.

  She presses her face closer to the gap. ‘Don’t tell him. Please.’ In the sudden orange glow of the street lights her eyes are big and wild like a sick rabbit.

  ‘Where are you from? Are you like an asylum seeker?’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘People who want to live here.’ But that’s not quite right. ‘With no papers,’ I add.

  She looks scared again. ‘Please, no papers.’ She shakes her head. ‘No papers.’

  ‘It’s OK, we’re going home now. To my home.’

  Dad grumbles something about roadworks and I drop the cushion and snuggle down in the back, watching as the street lights disappear, turn into an inky sky, the moon rising through the familiar shapes of the hedgerows.

  I know we’re home when Dad takes the bumpy lane that runs down the side of the fields to our house. The nearest shop is nearly two miles away. Mum always tells people this like she’s proud of it. When I complained to Miss Booth at school once, about how deprived this made me feel, she snorted.

  ‘Really, Hope, a deprived childhood isn’t about not having enough to buy, it’s about not having enough to eat.’

  The van crunches over the gravel and settles to a wobbly stop. Dad takes off his driving gloves and slides the door open.

  ‘C’mon then, Hope.’

  ‘In a minute.’ I pretend like I’ve been asleep, moan and slowly sit up. I can hear Mum’s voice calling him from inside and he crunches off towards the front door.

  I lift up the cushions and then pull off the slats. Natasha’s curled up between bottles of duty-free and thick wedges of bedding. She’s not moving. For a second I worry that she might have suffocated. I prod her.

  ‘Hey.’

  She jumps awake banging her head on the table as she sits up. ‘Ouch!’ and then shouts in a language I don’t understand.

  ‘Quick.’ I hold out my hand to help her, but she ignores it.

  ‘It’s OK, thank you,’ she says, climbing out. Her face is creased, sleepy. ‘I have to go. Tell me where is London?’

  ‘London? It’s miles away. You can’t go there now.’

  But she opens the door of the van and jumps down on to the gravel. She looks at me, arms folded, defensive. ‘I have to go to London.’

  ‘Wait!’ But before I can grab her she’s gone, running down the drive and out of range of the security lights. She doesn’t even have a proper coat.

  I jump out of the van and start to run after her. There’s a noise in the bushes just ahead of me. ‘Go away! Leave me alone! I don’t want you! Piss off!’ It hisses.

  ‘Well screw you too!’ I shout at the bush, suddenly angry. And I stomp back up the drive to Mum.

  When I was eleven I found a wildcat, trapped in a rabbit snare in the corner of the field next door. It was spring and I’d been dredging the shallow ditches at the edge of the fields for tadpoles with my net when I heard this noise that sounded like a crying baby. I searched through the grass until I found him, a cat with a dark grey coat, and tufts of hair on its ears which meant that it was wild. He was trying to get free but his back leg was broken and hanging at a sick angle. When I got closer he started to struggle, hissing and spitting, ears flat against his head. I stood quiet for ages, staring into space like I didn’t care about him, all the while taking tiny, tiny steps towards him and making gentle cat sounds, and telling him stories about the rabbits he’d been chasing, and how bad it was to eat things that were as cute as rabbits, and how, if only he sat still for a second and let me help, then he could come home with me and have a nice tin of Whiskas.

  But he was waiting for me. When I got close enough to touch his fur, he turned, yowling and spitting, baring a mouth full of sharp teeth, and he swiped me with his paw, making a big gash in the back of my hand. I’ve still got the scar, a white thread across the skin. I’ve never been so shocked in all my life and I ran home crying and smearing blood all over myself, so that Mum said she nearly fainted at the sight of me and had to take me to hospital for stitches.

  Dad phoned the farmer when he got home from work, and they went out together to look for it. When he came back, Dad was pale and he muttered something about the ‘barbarism of nature’. I had to ask Mum later what had happened because he wouldn’t tell me. Apparently, the cat was so desperate to escape that it had bitten off its own leg and all that was left in the trap was a bloody stump of fur and bone.

  ‘Don’t think about it, dear, it will give you nightmares,’ Mum said, making me a hot cup of tea. But the thing is I wasn’t disgusted. Round here you see dead animals all the time, road kill at the junction to the main road – crushed rabbits, blackbirds, once a badger. And then there’s the hunting season, men with guns and horses. Shooting pheasants and rabbits.

  I wasn’t horrified, I was disappointed. I wanted the cat to lie still so I could bring it home, pet it and make it better and then it would be my friend.

  4

  Hope

  From my bedroom window, all I can see for miles are the fields of barley and wheat, tall and golden, almost ready for cutting. Every year the farmer hires a combine harvester, which rips the grain from the top of the plant and bales all the stalks into straw for the animals. On windy days the air is full of dust and sharp stalks that get in your eyes and make you sneeze.

  The farm is half a mile away through the fields. A low, medieval building; probably one of the oldest in the area. And round it are
huge corrugated sheds crowded too close, like ugly brothers.

  It’s been a few hours since we got back and unpacked. She should be halfway to Norwich by now, if she’s taken the right road. If she went across the fields, then she might just be walking herself round in circles, or have fallen in a ditch.

  Mum and Dad are still up, talking. I can see the light under the door. It’s hard to sneak out of this house without disturbing them, because their bedroom is right at the top of the stairs and because they don’t sleep much anyway. It’s one of the symptoms of being a relic, apparently: you need less sleep.

  I check my mobile just in case Amanda’s left a message. Nothing. I send her another text: r u there? u still up 4 thurs? hx

  I put my fleece on over my pyjamas, pull on a thick pair of walking socks and tiptoe out on to the landing. It seems strange to be at home again after so long in France, like the house has grown and shrunk into a different shape while we’ve been away. I look at the stairs and try to remember which of the floorboards creak the loudest. There’s a sigh and a click as their light goes out, plunging me into darkness. I hold my breath and try to let the banister take my weight so my feet are light on the stairs.

  The back garden is outlined by moon. I can’t hear anything except the rustle of leaves in the poplar trees at the end of the garden, the plop and suck of frogs in the pond, an owl hooting gently in the oak trees across the field. And then I get this weird feeling that someone’s watching as I walk up the path to the summer house, but there’s no one there, just damp cushions and some of Mum’s books, pages curling from the damp.

  In the morning Amanda sends me a text message:

  no can thurs pm. soz. have d8!!!! c u @ skool!! axx

  Which puts me in a bad mood before I even see Dad, pulling on his coat. I come down the stairs yawning, hugging my cardigan round myself.

  ‘Bye, sleepyhead,’ he says, reaching out to ruffle my hair. I grunt and dodge out of the way. I wish he wouldn’t talk to me like I was five.

  He won’t be back until the weekend now. The company has a flat in London, where he can stay when he’s working in town. Very occasionally Mum and I go up there for weekends to see Dad and catch a show or go shopping. I love it in London, the lights and the noise and all the stylish people, the sense that round every corner is a new possibility. It’s not fair. I don’t know why we can’t live there.