White Phantom Chapter fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

They left the van at Marc’s house with the bed and commode still inside. The next morning, Jennifer said that they’d have to go and move it. She wanted it ‘set up and ready’ but she still flatly refused to say what she wanted it for. Beth’s mind kept taking her back to a conversation they’d had. She had asked if the bed was suitable for restraining somebody. Beth could only assume that the ‘somebody’ in question was going to be herself. Something was coming to a head. Beth would have her wits about her at all times. But what about when she slept?

‘Everything's coming together, Beth. We’re almost ready, I’m excited about it and you’re terrified, which is to be expected, because you’re so dull.’

‘What are you going to do to me? What’s all this about?’

‘Beth, I’ve told you not to ask questions. It’s a surprise. Just wait and see what happens. Now, there’s just one last thing that I need.’

‘You said the bed was the last thing.’

‘I lied. I don’t suppose for one second that you’ve got Colin’s mobile number, have you?’

‘No, of course not, why would I?’

‘As expected, Beth, as expected. Never mind. You’ll just have to pay a visit to Maggie and get it for me. But, and this is very important, if you want to stay out of prison, you must not ask her for it. You’ve got to steal it.’

‘Why can't you just ring the garage to speak to him, why does everything have to be such a fucking drama?’

‘Because, my dim friend, we can't have anything linking back to us afterwards. Contact has to be made though his mobile.’

‘What's all this mess got to do with Colin? You’re going to make a fool of yourself. Jennifer didn’t like being criticised. Her temper snapped and Beth backed off.

The girl ranted. ‘No I’m not. Credit me with some maturity. I’ve spent a long time setting this up for us. Just shut up and make the tea, will you?’

The phrase ‘fuck off and make your own tea you psychotic little munchkin’ sprang to mind but Beth just sighed and boiled the kettle.

She knew that Maggie was hurt and confused by the cooling of their friendship. Maggie hadn’t let go easily and for weeks after Jennifer came on the scene she would ring up to suggest going to see a band or sometimes just going out for coffee. Beth always made up an excuse not to. Long after she’d stopped calling at the house, Maggie continued phone contact and always ended the brief conversation by asking Beth to go round to see her. Beth would be evasive on the phone, always in the middle of doing something. She never took up the invitations to visit.

She paused on the doorstep. She’d always just tapped and walked in. After six months of absence she didn’t feel that she could do that now. She rang the bell and waited. Maggie came to the door, drying her hands on a tea towel. Her face played out a conflagration of emotions one after the other. Her immediate reaction was to break into a huge grin. Then, remembering the way that Beth had hurt her by cutting her out, the smile left as suddenly as it had come. ‘Oh, you’re here then,’ were her first words. ‘Do you want to come in or are you selling Avon or something?’

Beth tried for a smile but failed as Maggie stepped back and motioned her through to the living room as though she’d never been in there before. Maggie prepared coffee and they both made small talk through the door. ‘How are the kids? Did Graham get his promotion? The garden looks good, is that lobelia in the corner?’

When the coffee was on the table beside them, Maggie sat down and reached for her packet of cigarettes. She took one and threw one across to Beth. It was so like old times that it wasn’t like them at all.

‘Has the goth freak gone?’ asked Maggie through a plume of smoke.

‘No, Phan…Jennifer’s still staying with me. It shouldn’t be for much longer now, though. She’s getting her life sorted out and will be moving into her own place soon.’ It was a pack of lies and Beth felt that they both knew it.

‘What’s the hold that she’s got on you, Beth? Look at you, you’re skin and bone, your clothes are falling off you. Where’s your smile and the sunshine that you always brought out with you? What’s she done to you? I just want to understand why you’ve taken this freeloader on, but I don’t get it.’

‘Oh, Maggie, don’t talk about it again. I don’t want to fight.’

‘Okay, okay. End of conversation. But I just want you to know that any time you want to talk, any time you need me, I’m here, okay? We go back too far for me not to be, even though you've dropped me like yesterday’s shit and really pissed me off.’

Beth turned to look out of the window at the garden. Her eyes were too full of tears and her throat too thick to attempt to speak. She just nodded miserably.

Knowing that she wasn’t going to get anywhere, Maggie brought the conversation back onto safe ground, ‘So, have you been watching Corrie lately? That new bloke’s bloody fit, isn’t he?’

They chatted and smoked and drank coffee with a concrete wall of barriers between them.

‘What’s happened to us, Beth?’ asked Maggie when the situation had become intolerable.

Beth was saved from having to answer by the grizzly crying coming from upstairs. ‘Oh shit, that’s Barry awake. He’s not very well. Running a bit of a temperature. He was sent home from nursery this morning. I’ll just go and get him. Won’t be a sec.’

Beth waited for the door to click shut behind her and the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. She leapt from her seat and grabbed Maggie’s handbag. She'd never rifled through another woman’s bag before. It felt like messing in her mother’s knicker drawer. Groping through tampons, a purse, receipts and a baby’s dummy, she saw Maggie’s phone at the bottom of the bag.

She pulled it out and rapidly opened her own phone, working her way through the system to add a new contact. She was all fingers and thumbs and dropped her phone. Twice she clicked the wrong button and had to begin again. It took three attempts to get the numbers in the right order. By the time she clicked the phones shut she could hear Maggie coming back down the stairs, talking to her toddler.

She opened the handbag and thrust her hand to the bottom to put the phone back exactly where she’d found it. The door opened.

Maggie stood in the doorway with Barry resting on her right hip. The little boy’s face was flushed and his enormous brown eyes were heavy with fat tears. Normally he’d have wriggled to get down and run to Beth shouting, ‘Beffie, Beffie,’ but he just clung to his mother and stared with the sullen curiosity of a child weighing up a stranger. Maggie took in the situation and her face set hard.

‘Oh Maggie, I was just... just... um, I was just looking to see if you had a nail file. I hope you don’t mind, got a ragger here.’ she held up her hand as though to validate her excuse. When the door opened, she’d jumped back guiltily from the handbag but not before Maggie had seen her with her hand inside it.

‘What’s going on, Beth? Are you stealing from me?’

‘No. Of course not, mate. As If. Look you’ve got your hands full with little fella. Ha, literally.’ She attempted a laugh. ‘I think I’ll let you get on and see you again soon, eh? Ring me, yeah? We’ll sort something out.’

She couldn’t get out of the house quick enough and Maggie did nothing to stop her going. Beth was sobbing before she’d turned the corner of the street, knowing that Maggie watched her from her front door with the baby still on her hip.