Fallen Women. Sue Welfare

and unknown.

      The sun shone, the people smiled and gossiped and asked solicitously after Maggie’s health. It felt as if they were making some kind of royal progress. Kate had completely forgotten what it was like to live amongst people who knew you and your family and each other in a loose, overlapping web of emotional connections.

      The people who had watched her grow up still ran and worked in a lot of the shops. Kate resisted the temptation to run through them on her internal check list, wondering whether too much sentiment was bad for the health.

      The other thing that struck her was that people seemed to have the time to linger, that frantic metropolitan pulse that had her rushing across roads and hauling Maggie up kerbs was totally lost on the people they met on the pavement. Denham just didn’t move that fast.

      ‘Kate? Kate, is that you? Kate? Cooooeeeeee. Over here! Kate!’

      They were on their way towards the restaurant Maggie had suggested for lunch. Kate looked around and scanned the people close enough to have called out and didn’t recognise a single one of them, and then an extremely rotund woman in a lime-green floral sundress waved enthusiastically and scurried across the road towards them

      ‘Well, hello. Fancy seeing you here, how are things going?’ she asked warmly, looking Kate up and down. ‘You so look well. God, it’s so good to see you again.’

      Kate smiled without committing herself, determined not to show herself up by admitting that she hadn’t got a clue who the woman was. Meanwhile she could feel her face screwing itself up while her brain scurried off to find a mug shot and details that fitted the evidence. It had to have something stored somewhere surely, after all Andrew Taylor had been in there. The woman certainly didn’t look like a loony and she most definitely knew Kate’s name.

      Kate knew she was staring and gurning and grimacing and then some far distant penny dropped and she felt her mouth fall open. ‘Julie? Julie Hicks? Oh my God. It can’t be.’ She smiled with relief as much as recognition.

      The last time she remembered seeing Julie had been on Leavers’ Day in, in – God knows how long ago it was. Back in those days Julie had been a 4′ 10″ pocket sized Goth weighing in at about five stone with lots of eyeliner and buck teeth.

      Kate was tempted to say that she’d grown but before she could speak Julie grinned; at least she still had the buckteeth.

      ‘Took you long enough. I didn’t realise I’d changed that much, you look just the same as ever.’ Which was even more worrying as the last time they’d seen each other Kate was certain she’d had a brace, a very dodgy haircut, and a good crop of blackheads. Julie turned her attention to Maggie.

      ‘Hello, Mrs Sutherland. What on earth have you been up to? Maybe you ought to take more water with it.’

      They all laughed politely at what passed for a joke in Julie’s neck of the woods and swapped where-are-they-now and why-we-were-there stories and then Julie said, ‘Actually, I’ve just moved back to Denham. We’ve bought one of the houses up in Berbeck Road, you know, on the little estate up behind the churchyard, Church Pines? Near the doctor’s? We’ve been in nearly a fortnight now, just long enough to let the dust settle.’

      Maggie and Kate made approving noises as Kate was certain they were meant to. Berbeck Road was full of doctors and solicitors and men who did sensible things while wearing good suits.

      ‘And how about you?’ asked Julie pleasantly.

      ‘Home for a few days to give Mum a hand.’ Said that way it sounded almost saintly.

      Julie nodded. ‘Oh right. Actually I’m really glad that I’ve seen you both. We’re having a house-warming party tomorrow evening. Why don’t you come along? It’s very informal, it won’t be very late as it’s a weeknight. It’s really for the girls; you know what kids are like. There’ll be loads of people there that you know.’

      Kate was about to protest that there would be absolutely no one there that she knew when it occurred to her that Julie was talking to Maggie. She didn’t even have the wit to ask who ‘we’ was – husband, lover, kids, a cat?

      ‘Number 62, seven o’clock. It’ll be lovely to catch up.’ She looked back at Kate. ‘Is your husband staying here with you?’

      Kate’s face must have answered for her because Julie said, ‘Job for them to get away, isn’t it? I just thought that if he was around you might like to bring him along with you. Extra pair of hands on the barbecue always welcome. Although these days you never know whether to say husband or not do you?’ she laughed conspiratorially. ‘Remember Pippa Rose?’

      Kate didn’t have time to reply or even draw breath.

      ‘Pretty? Went to work in the Nat West? Travelled a lot. Long ginger hair. You must remember her. Good at games. Got her colours in the cross-country.’ Julie paused, waiting for Kate to catch up and then leaned forward and said conspiratorially, ‘Lesbian.’ And when they didn’t immediately say anything, continued, ‘I’d never have guessed. Nose ring, Doc Martens and everything.’

      Kate would have laughed if Julie hadn’t looked so serious. ‘I was talking to her mother last week in the library.’

      Which presumably assured the validity of the statement, thought Kate.

      ‘Still not come to terms with it.’

      Kate wondered whether Julie meant Pippa or her mother.

      Walking through town with Maggie, who appeared to be on first name terms with practically everyone they met, had made Kate sentimental for small town life, but at that moment she remembered just how claustrophobic and judgmental it could be. Nodding in a way that she hoped conveyed something appropriate Kate silently thanked the stars that had guided her away.

      ‘See you tomorrow night,’ Julie said, as she marched off towards Boots. Kate nodded and waved and made agreeable noises; not that there was a cat’s chance in hell that they were going to go.

       Chapter 6