Chapter 23

In Thursday’s post we got two letters from the school, one for Naomi, the usual return to school notes with her timetable, the Michaelmas Term calendar and the forms to sign for the planned trips.

The second letter was addressed to Pixie Turner, she opened it eagerly, “I never get mail, this makes me feel special.”

The letter was her confirmation of acceptance, along with her own timetable, which the school had tried to match as closely as possible to Naomi’s, they’d even arranged for her to continue her food tech studies, not a course they usually run at the senior school. She would be studying partly with a teacher from the nearby state school, and her house chef, this delighted Pixie.

“Look, it says I will be helping prepare the evening meal for the whole house one day a week, this is beyond exciting. What will I be cooking Naomi? What do you normally eat at school?”

“The usual stuff, pizza, meat pie, pasta, we have a really nice curry once a fortnight, it’s always fish & chips on a Friday. To be honest, the last couple of years I had the veggie food, which was usually good, the same curry but tofu instead of chicken, ratatouille, quiche, stuffed mushrooms, they’re always nice. There’s rarely anything really fancy unless we have a famous ex-student or guest speaker visiting, then they get out the tablecloths and silver cutlery and we have a nice roast or something.”

“I’ve never cooked a roast, I’ll need to practice. Can we have a dinner party before school starts, invite some nice people and I’ll cook a roast ... yes, I’m going to check some recipes...”

With that Pixie went into the kitchen and pulled out Kelly’s box of recipe books.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Kelly said, “yes, we’ll have a dinner party, I’ve not arranged one for years, not since your dad died...”

Kelly was quiet for a moment, then she brightened, “do you have any china crockery?”

“Err, no, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“In that case, we’ll raid my pantry, this is going to be the best dinner party the street has ever seen.”

We walked into the kitchen to find Pixie buried in a pile of cookbooks, “who would do the best roast dinner, Nigella Lawson do you think, or Delia Smith, she’d be more traditional, but I want to do something fancy, arghh too many decisions.”

“Relax sweetie, let’s start from the beginning, could you put a coffee on Tom?”

I made myself useful as Kelly took an increasingly frantic Pixie outside.

A few minutes later the four of us were sitting around the table, Kelly jotting down notes as we talked.

“So, first thing, how many people do you want to cook for, from there we can decide what to cook, and possibly which house to use, as the oven in my house is bigger, and I have a dining table that can seat 16 if we move all the other furniture and use the extensions at either end.”

“I’d like everyone who was at the barbecue, plus Becky, and Elsie, I like Elsie.”

Kelly counted the people off on her fingers, “that would be 14, are you comfortable with that?”

“I think so, have you ever catered for 14?”

“Once or twice, but we paid to have caterers come in.”

“Ahh, ok, so do you think I could do it?”

“With proper planning, and a little help from Naomi and myself, of course you could. So, everyone from the barbecue, that will mean Josie.”

“Of course she should come, to rub her nose in our happiness.”

“Hahaha, you’re as evil as Naomi. So, I think we use my house, or at least cook the meat in my oven. Actually, this may work. The dining room here has less furniture, so more room for a big table. We could swap the tables over. Cook the meat in my oven then bring it here to serve.”

“That sounds like a great plan,” I said.

“Yeah, I like our table,” Naomi said, “and the chairs are cool, like little thrones. That can be today’s exercise, moving furniture.”

“So, now we know how many people, and where we’re hosting the party, what do you want to cook?”

“I would like to do a proper Sunday Roast, so that means beef really, doesn’t it...”

“Beef or pork, I think beef would be best. If we go back to that nice butcher he’ll tell us how much we’ll need and the best way to cook it. What will you eat?”

“I quite fancy the idea of a sunday roast myself. I made myself a really tasty nut roast last christmas, even Mel liked it, although I’m now regretting not putting something really nasty in his serving. Bastard. Arghh shit I’m thinking of him again, somebody please distract me whenever I say his name.”

“Ok, so here’s the task list,” Kelly said by way of distraction. “We need to swap the tables over, that’s a big job and we’ll need to rope in a couple of big lads from somewhere, I wonder if George will lend us his chef and kitchen porter?”

“Oh, I need to see George don’t I, perfect opportunity,” Pixie said brightly, “he’ll definitely help us out after I’ve spoken to him.”

“He will, I always find teenage girls are the perfect weapon to get stuff done,” Kelly replied, “also from my house, we need to bring the China and silverware, I think we’ll use your car to transport that lot, it’s heavy.”

Kelly checked her notes, “Naomi, it’s your job to invite the guests again, do it this evening I think, take Pixie to introduce her to everyone.”

“Ok, that’s a good plan. Clive already knows Pixie, but I don’t think anyone else does.”

“Decorations, we need a theme for the meal, or at least a colour scheme for the table. What colours do you like?”

“Pink obviously, purple, black, nothing really suitable for a dinner party.”

“Well, we could do a little bit of pink, or it’ll be overpowering. Mmm, yes, I think if we have some pale pinks, yes, pink flowers, some gold decorations, and then a cream table cloth, yes, perfect, that means we can use my china with the gold rims.

“Do you know something Pixie, I’m going to really enjoy this, I’ve not put on a dinner party for so long I’d forgotten how much fun they can be.”

“I’m feeling really stressed right now,” Pixie said.

“You’ll be fine. Let’s go see George, we’ll get a bit of lunch and borrow a couple of his lads.”

In the pub, George was busy in the kitchen when we arrived, I ordered drinks and sandwiches and took the drinks outside, asking the waitress if she’d let George know we were here.

George brought the food out himself, “you wanted to speak with me Tom?” he asked as he put the tray of sandwiches and chips on the table.

“Not me, Pixie.”

She stood up, George isn’t a tall chap, so in her new Dr Martens she was almost his height, she stepped close and using a husky voice we’d not heard before, she said “I have a message from Jenna.”

“Oh, you’ve seen her?”

“Yesterday, and she gave me this to give you,” then she quickly leant forwards and kissed him on the lips.

He stepped back and blinked several times, touching his fingers lightly to his lips, as if trying to feel the kiss.

“Why?” is all he managed to say.

“We had a really good chat yesterday, she told me a lot of secrets, things she’s never told anyone before. One of the things she said was how much she respected you, she said you never took advantage of her when she was incapacitated, she thanks you for that, she gave me that kiss to pass on to you, as a thank you.”

“She was so young, how could I possibly take advantage, it wouldn’t have been right.”

“And for that I thank you myself. We spoke about my father, you weren’t quite right, my father isn’t her dad, it’s her brother, Paul.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I won’t go into the details, but mum said he ran out of the house afterwards and never came back.”

“Mmm, let me see,” George said, running his fingers through his short hair as he sat down on the bench opposite, “When’s your birthday?”

“1st August, but I think from what mum was saying I was born a month early.”

“Aww, we just missed your birthday,” Naomi said, “that’s a shame, we could have had a party.”

“Give me a minute,” George said, “I need to check something in the house, I’ll be right back.”

As George hurried back to the house, Naomi said, “did you see that, he went white when you told him your birthday, I wonder what’s the matter?”

“Whatever it is, we’ll find out soon,” Kelly said, “in the meantime, we’d better eat those chips before they go cold.”

We tucked into the food, hearty and delicious as always, and were just polishing off the last of the chips when George came dashing back with a box under his arm.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, panting slightly from the exertion of running back from the pub, “it took me longer than expected to find this box.”

He placed the box on the table next to Pixie’s plate, it was tied with string, ‘Jean Turner’ written on a card label attached to the string.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s a few bits and pieces I collected from Jenna’s flat before the police cleared everything out, I guess I thought you’d want them one day.”

Pixie started to untie the bow, George laid an old piece of newspaper on top of the box, “before you open it, I also found this cutting in an old diary.”

She picked it up and started to read it, “oh gosh,” she cried, her hand over her mouth in shock, “so he didn’t just disappear.”

“What happened?” Naomi asked.

Pixie couldn’t speak, she just passed her the press cutting, Naomi started to read it aloud.

Manchester Evening News 6th December 2004

The body of a male in his late teens or early 20’s was pulled out of Gorton Lower Reservoir this morning, police said he had been severely beaten and his throat cut. He had not been identified by the time of publication.

A second cutting was attached to the first, Naomi read it aloud.

Manchester Evening News 7th December 2004

Police have confirmed the identity of the body pulled from Gorton Lower Reservoir on Monday, Paul Thomas Turner, 18, of Harold Ave, Gorton. The cause of death was a severe stab wound to the neck, they suspect he was tortured before being stabbed. They have no suspects at this time.

“Oh my,” Kelly said, “he raped your mum, but he didn’t deserve to die like that. Nobody deserves that.”

Pixie was silent, fruitlessly fiddling with the knot on her box.

Naomi placed her hand tenderly on her girlfriend’s, “here, let me unfasten the string for you.”

Pixie lifted her hand, Naomi took the box and calmly unfastened the knot as Pixie came to terms with what she’d just learned.

“But mum never said anything, why did she just say he disappeared?”

“Perhaps she didn’t want to upset you,” Kelly said.

“Or maybe she’d blacked it out,” I added, “because she did have trouble recalling stuff yesterday.”

“Yes,” Naomi jumped in, “I bet she’d forgotten it, you know it must have been traumatic what happened that day, and she did go a bit mad afterwards.”

“That’s probably right, thank you for putting my mind at rest again.”

Naomi slowly pushed the box back, tapping it on the top to show Pixie it was unfastened.

Kelly looked at George, “this isn’t going to upset Pixie is it?”

He shrugged, “not really, it’s nice stuff, but there may be memories attached. I collected this stuff and put it to one side for Pixie, to give her when the time was right.”

Pixie tentatively lifted the lid, placing it carefully to the side, she lifted out a fat envelope and opened the flap, it was full of photographs,

“Me, as a baby,” Pixie said quietly, “me and mum, I’ve never seen these before.”

She spent a few moments looking at each photo before putting them on a neat pile and looking at the next.

After a few minutes, when she’d gone through all the photos, she looked up at George, tears in her eyes, “thank you George, if you hadn’t saved these I’d probably have never seen them.”

“I’ll go now, there’s more stuff in the box, bits and pieces I felt might be important.”

With that he stood and walked back to the bar.

Pixie put all the photos back in the envelope, “we’ll look at them all together at home, there’s no photos of Mel, maybe he took the photos, still, I’d have thought there’d be at least a few where mum took the photos. I wonder ... maybe George knew something and pulled those photos...”

She shook her head to clear it of the bad memories, then tried a smile, it looked almost real.

“Let’s see what else is in here,” she said as she tipped the contents out onto the table, Naomi quickly caught a couple of things that slipped between the gaps in the planks that made up the table, “whoops, maybe not my best idea,” Pixie said with a wry smile as Naomi handed them to her.

She carefully picked through the items so as not to lose anything else.

“I remember this, Binky, my first teddy,” she cuddled the small teddy to her chest before she slipped it inside her t-shirt, the teddy’s head and arms sticking out, “what?” she cried as we looked at what she’d just done. “This is how I used to carry Binky. I admit it may look odd now, and his paws are tickling my boobs.”

She lifted Binky out and put him back in the box, “maybe don’t do that in public,” she said to herself, but she was smiling properly now and we relaxed a little.

She picked up a locket and opened it with her thumb nail, one side was a photo of a tiny baby on a blanket, on the other was a lock of red hair. She closed the locket and fumbled with the clasp on the chain, Naomi closed her hands around Pixie’s, “here, let me, you’re all fingers and thumbs today.”

Naomi carefully unfastened the clasp and fastened it around Pixie’s neck, the locket hung just above her cleavage, it looked very nice.

“I’ve got some silver cleaner at home,” Kelly said tenderly, “we’ll give that a good polish.”

The rest of the items were bits of mostly cheap jewellery, a few coins and two more envelopes.

After putting all the jewellery into the box with the photos and the teddy Pixie picked up the first envelope, this was fat, more photos?

She opened it and it was stuffed with cash, mostly £20s and £50’s by the looks of the colours.

“Oh fuck,” Pixie said, “I’ve never seen this much money, where did it come from?”

“I’m guessing that’s your mum’s money,” Kelly said, “sex work is mostly a cash business, or it was back then, she earned that money the hard way.”

“What do I do with it?”

“It’s your money honey, what we need to do is open another bank account for you, a regular one, then we can deposit that cash, you can use it to buy treats, or move some of it to the savings account Tom opened, save it for something special, we’ll pay your pocket money into the account while you’re at school.”

“I get pocket money?”

“Yes, starting now you get the same as Naomi.”

“Yayyy, every day I feel more like a family member, even though right from the start I’ve felt at home with you, it’s just little things like that, and when Naomi put the locket on me, that felt like something an older sister would do.”

“Well, I am older than you.”

“And you’re both my sister, and my girlfriend, is that even legal?”

“It’s a grey area,” Kelly said, “you’re not a blood sister, so the law isn’t clear. What’s in the last envelope?”

“Oh, I’d forgotten that one. How much money is here do you think? Can I use it to buy presents for you all?”

“We’ll count it when we get home, then we’ll put it in the bank, you’ll get a debit card and you can use that to do whatever you like.”

“Cool,” Pixie said as she absentmindedly opened the last envelope, she pulled out two sheets of paper, I recognised the crest on the top and the familiar print and colours, birth certificates.

“My birth certificate, look, ‘Jean Margaret Elizabeth Turner’ mmm, who knew I had middle names, oh well, born 3rd August 2005, mother Jennifer Penelope Turner, father Paul Thomas Turner.”

She sat up straight, “well fuck, now I’m confused.”

“What’s up honey?” Kelly asked.

“My birthday is 1st August, and according to Ruth my father isn’t listed on my birth certificate.”

“Shit! Yes, you said earlier that you were born 1st August,” Naomi said, “because we missed your birthday.”

“Whose is the other one?” Kelly asked gently.

Pixie brought the second certificate to the front.

“Jennifer Penelope Turner, born 28th February 1992, mother Margaret Penelope Turner, father Derek Turner.”

Naomi was counting back on her fingers, “oh god! she was 12 when it happened!”

“The poor love,” Kelly added, “no wonder she went off the rails if her mother didn’t support her after such an horrific experience at that age.”

“So, considering I have both mine, and my mum’s birth certificates, and the details match, I’m going to go out on a limb and say this one is real.”

Kelly picked up her phone, accessed the contacts list and dialed.

“Hello Mrs Byrne, Kelly Sharpe here ... yes, she’s doing very well thank you ... I have a quick question, do you have her birth certificate ... good, we need a copy you see, to open a bank account. Great, do you mind if we pop round and pick it up ... excellent, Tom and I will be there in two minutes.”

She put the phone down, “ok, you two stay here, we’ll be back in 5 minutes.”

“Can’t we come?”

“No, I’m afraid this may get ugly and I don’t want to upset either of you.”

Kelly picked up the envelope and slotted the two birth certificates inside.

“I’ll tell you what, while we’re gone, why don’t you pop home and count that money, then we’ll go to the bank, open an account, after that we’ll go to that butchers and order the meat for Sunday.”

“Ok mum, we’ll do that,” Pixie said brightly as she stood up, she gave Kelly a powerful hug, “those pictures of me and Jenna, I don’t remember any of that time, will it come back.”

“It might do, but if you’ve blanked it out there’s probably a reason.”

“I look happy in the photos though...”

“Well, you might have been happy right at that moment, but maybe something bad happened soon after, your mum and Mel were taking a lot of drugs, they could have been fighting, or one of your mum’s men could have come round.”

“Maybe, what should I do?”

Kelly crouched down a little, in her heels she was taller than Pixie, with their eyes level she spoke tenderly, “I know what you can do, Tom told me you’re good at making up stories, so why don’t you make up some nice memories, fill in the gaps with trips to the zoo, birthday parties, games in the park. Your mother clearly loved you deep down, maybe some days she did take you to the park.”

Pixie thought for a minute, then she kissed Kelly’s cheek and skipped back to the table, collected Naomi and the box. Hand in hand they set off back home.

“I’m not sure that’s my best ever idea,” she said sadly, “but what else could I say to the poor thing, she just looked so lost.”

“When we go to the school next week I think we need to speak to the welfare officer, she’ll be able to help.”

“Good idea Tom.”

“I also think your idea might help, trying to make up memories, because while she’s thinking about the past, she may well uncover true events anyway. She’s a very bright girl with a vivid imagination and a strong will. It wouldn’t surprise me if she manages to merge her new memories in with the old ones. Then who’s to know what’s real and what’s made up, and frankly, will it even matter.”

Kelly slipped the envelope in her handbag then took my hand in hers, “come on,” she said, a steely note in her voice, “let’s go kick ass.”

We rang the buzzer for 4C, announced ourselves and the door buzzed. We took the stairs, the stairwell smelt bad, a mixture of cigarette smoke, marijuna smoke, urine and vomit, but they were still better than the lift, which was liberally decorated with shit on my last visit.

We knocked on Ruth’s door, we were engulfed in a smog of cigarette smoke and cooking fumes as she opened the door, we politely declined her offer of a cup of tea.

“I’m really sorry to be bothering you,” Kelly started, “but we decided to open a bank account for Jean, so she can have spending money for school...”

“So they’re taking her, even with that hair...”

“Yes, although they have politely asked her to make it a more natural colour before the start of school. She had a video interview, she looked very smart.”

Ruth gave a derisive snort at that, so Kelly pulled out her phone and showed her the photo, we were both pleased with how shocked Ruth looked.

“Well I never, she can look nice when she makes the effort, where did she get the clothes?”

“She borrowed them, from mine, Tom’s, and Naomi’s wardrobes, she made a real effort and the headmaster was very pleased. He even said he liked Jean’s hair colour, but she’d have to change it to maintain school standards. I have to say though,” she added, her tone firm with an edge of steal, “even without the suit we like the way Jean looks, she has her own style, and we all think she is an incredibly nice, and polite girl who isn’t prone to dismiss people just for the way they chose to dress.”