A Gingerbread House by Catriona McPherson

Author:Catriona McPherson [McPherson, Catriona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-04-05T16:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

It was neat and it was simple. They both came to the outside door. One of them opened it. Kate came into the anteroom, said ‘Won’t be long, Gail’, and got locked in. She opened the inner door, entered, delivered the food and left again. She locked the inner door and shouted ‘Let me out, Gail!’ Which Gail did. Every day. Five minutes every day to clamour and beg. Five minutes to bargain and wheedle and argue. And all of the other minutes of all the other hours to ache.

And to question.

‘What do they want?’ That was what Martine kept coming back to, like Laura came back to ‘When will someone come?’ and Ivy herself came back to ‘Why didn’t she kill us, with her little knife?’

Only none of them said it out loud now. The pain of arguing, of being at one another’s throats, had been unbearable when it happened out of the blue one day.

‘Shut up!’ Laura had screamed suddenly, when Martine was talking about her hotel room, comforting herself, not doing any harm to anyone. ‘Shut up shut up shut up!’

‘Don’t pick on her!’ Ivy had said.

‘Your little clique,’ Laura screamed. ‘Your cosy little twosome. You make me sick, both of you.’

‘No wonder you needed a dating site,’ Martine said calmly. ‘You’re a stone-cold bitch.’

‘No wonder your father ran for the hills,’ Laura said. ‘Who’d want an anvil like you round his neck.’

‘Don’t be such brats,’ Ivy said. ‘Don’t be such poisonous little brats.’ She thought it would make her feel better to give in and say it, but it only put a lump of cold misery in her chest, as if she’d swallowed a stone, and she started sobbing. She and Laura cried for what felt like hours, while Martine banged her head over and over, against the wall behind her, then she cried too. They cried until they were sick and shaking, until their sweat had turned bitter, until their voices cracked and their eyes dried.

Then came hours of silence.

At the end of it, Ivy leaned sideways and picked up a water bottle. She took a swig and passed it to Laura. ‘Taste that,’ she said. She waited. ‘I think they’ve run out.’

‘Let me taste,’ Martine said. She swilled a mouthful of water round her mouth. ‘You could be right.’

‘But why would Igor stop slipping us the Valium, or whatever it is?’ Laura said.

‘Igor?’ said Martine.

Ivy saw the flash of irritation cross Laura’s face. Any time she was reminded how young Martine was, that look swept over her. As if age mattered now. ‘Frankenstein’s lab assistant,’ she said. ‘Good one, Laura. It suits her better than “Kate”.’

The next day, Ivy took the first sip from the water bottle after it was brought in and when she tasted the bitterness there she felt a warm surge of relief and then of rage at herself.

She passed the bottle to Laura who took a deep swig. ‘Thank God for that,’ she said. ‘And how pathetic is it that

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