The headmaster had changed his tune after Bridget hadn’t come back, even with a week allowed for some fictional project that her and Peggy and who knows who else had dreamt up. They’d threatened to call the authorities until Ray had gone in and persuaded them out of it. He must have said not to bother. He must have said terrible things about her because now they just sent a letter once in a while as if they had to for the board of governors but really, they couldn’t care less. Ray said they could do without girls like Bridget.
“What was that you were smoking?”
“It wasn’t drugs, mum. No one can afford them anyway. Cerise has roll ups. They taste like liquorice.”
“You never smoked.”
“Everyone smokes. You smoke.”
Janet put out her cigarette.
“I don’t know what to do about your dad.” She felt like she was falling. She missed her friend, not just her daughter, her little girl, but the only other voice in the house that heard her.
Bridget shrugged. “He doesn’t care about me.”
“Of course he does.”
“Dad doesn’t care about anything.”
“He’s beside himself.”
“No he isn’t.”
“Come home, Bridge, please. For me, then. We miss you. You’re not safe here. All these women, what are they doing to you? And the soldiers. What if one of them came out in the night? What if one of them went for you?”
“We have Night Watch.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we volunteer to stay up at night and watch over the camp while the others sleep. We take it in turns.”
“Why do you need to do that?”
“You just said. To watch over each other.”
“But has something happened?”
Bridget ate more of her sandwich.
“Bridget?”
Bridget shrugged. She put the rest of her sandwich on her lap and rolled herself one of those revolting looking cigarettes Janet had seen her smoking before, black paper, but she wasn’t very good at it. Half the tobacco landed on what remained of her tuna mayo. Beyond the car windscreen the camp looked like a bomb had already hit it. Tat and mess, a smouldering fire and piles of rubbish every which way you looked.
Janet wound up the window, shutting out the freezing air. “I just can’t understand why you’d want to be here. If you want a big adventure, I don’t mind going somewhere. You could get your exams and we could go off in the summer. Abroad. Just you and me. You’re only young, Bridge, why throw it all away on -” Janet couldn’t find the words for what she saw. On all these women and that fence and this mess, she wanted to say but words never sounded right in her head.
“I’ll see you later.” Bridget put her hand on the door catch.
“Don’t go.”
“I didn’t say you had to go. Do what you like, mum. You can stay.”
“I can’t do that.”
“There’s nothing stopping you.”
Janet shook her head. What did her teenage daughter know about life? There was everything stopping her. “Got it all sewn up, have you? With your friends and your peace camp and your liquorice cigarettes? Know all about the world, do you?”
“I know better than you.”
“You don’t know anything. You’ve got yourself all worked up to make a scene, to make me and your dad think I don’t know what. You’ve missed school, you haven’t thought a minute how it affects us, what’ll I tell your gran? What’ll I tell work? Everyone knows. That Kate Hilperton’s been banging on our door night and day trying to make herself feel better. I’ll give her leaflets. Bomb. They haven’t even arrived yet, have they, these missiles you’ve got yourself all tied up in knots over. Oh yes, don’t give me that look. I read the papers too you know. They’re not even here. And who are you to think you know better than the politicians, the government for heaven’s sake. They’re paid to know these things. Those army boys with their dogs up and down that fence. I’ve seen how they look at you, at the women, it’s not safe and you’re to come back home and that’s that. I’m putting my foot down.”
Bridget was already halfway out of the car. Rain cascaded off the roof and dripped in the open door.
“You’re the one who doesn’t know anything mum. Serving up his tea everyday like he was God All-fucking-Mighty. Doing what he tells you. It’s pathetic. It’s men like dad that have caused all this shit and you’re just going along with it. He doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t care about any of us. All he cares about his fucking fallout shelter and pretending to be a soldier and you’re too thick to see it. You’re too pathetic to stand up to him. I’m not going back to serve the patriarchy and I’m not going back to turn into you. You let him run all over you. You’re duped into thinking Blankety Blank is the best fun you can have of a Saturday night.”
“You love that show.”
“You don’t get it, mum. You want me to be the good little girl with the clean hair who does her homework and doesn’t make a fuss and will get married one day and have babies and that will be that - my life thrown away like yours on a man who doesn’t love you and doesn’t love any of us. What about your life, mum? What about your dreams? What happened to the things you wanted? Did you even want to get married? Did you even want us? You go on about getting my exams because it was you who ended up in a shitty job married to a man who’s just fucking weird, but I’m not like you, mum. I’m not going to fall for a man like dad. He goes about making rules for everyone like he owns the fucking world but he’s lying all the time and you’re too thick to see it. You let him walk all over you. You pretend none of it is happening, but it is. It is happening, mum. You want me to come home so you feel better, but I won’t. I’m not turning into you. Not ever.”
Her last words were caught in the wind and slammed in the car door which opened again, the catch not catching, which swung pathetically, as pathetic as Janet felt, like she’d been sucker-punched and had no fight, like her knees had turned to jelly.
When she could stand she went to the bedraggled tarpaulin tent and dropped off the bag, the rest of the things she’d brought that she’d packed with such love. She pulled open the tarpaulin flap and looked inside and there was no one there and she dropped the bag on the bed where Bridget had been sleeping. She could still see the nest of her. She could still feel the warmth even though she was gone.
She meant to say nothing when she got home, she almost said nothing till Ray asked what was wrong with her face and then she cried, hoping he’d hold her but he wouldn’t touch her till she told him that she’d been to see her, didn’t tell him what Bridget had said but told him she’d tried to get her back and then he said she was a fool. He said Bridget was lost to them. He went off to his shed to line up more of his tins of spaghetti hoops and bloody toilet rolls and she went into what used to be their downstairs toilet and sat amongst buckets and blankets and pulled the flush and screamed.
I just meant to read the first couple sentences and I got pulled in all the way to the end. This just keeps getting better.
"Janet shook her head. What did her teenage daughter know about life? There was everything stopping her." This chapter's exchange between Bridget and Janet seems to be close to the heart of the matter. Bridget's incandescent response is a true tour de force.