Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

There was no such person as Jane Thompson. There never had been. All the events of the past year were a delusional fantasy, a symptom of her illness.

So Valerie had been told, and told, and told again, ever since Val had disappeared. It was as if the people who had seen them both together had just got together and agreed that because it couldn’t have happened, it didn’t happen. She couldn’t blame them: who else but a Tucker would be dumb-stubborn enough to insist on a story in defiance of obvious reality, and keep insisting until they got time on a psych ward?

Mike. That’s who else. Mike knew he’d lost his Tucker. Mike felt the same gap in his soul that she did. That’s why they didn’t let her near him any more. They said he had been “supporting her delusional construct.”

At least they’d let her ‘home’ again, eventually. Or rather Val’s home. Val’s things. Val’s family. They said it would be better if she were surrounded by familiar things and familiar people in a home environment.

Familiar, yes. Achingly familiar. Home? Almost. Not quite. No-one else seemed to notice, but it smelled wrong. It might have been the cat. It wasn’t that Cheddar was smelly; rather that she could smell the effort to make sure the house didn’t smell of cat. At least she thought that was what it was.

Most of the differences were subtle like that. Sometimes so subtle she couldn’t describe them. The way someone could be almost exactly like your own father, or mother, or brother, but you just knew they weren’t.

“Mom says dinner’s ready,” Brian said at her – Val’s – bedroom doorway.

“Thank you Brian, I’ll be down in one minute.” She was just finishing her make-up at the dressing table; it being Jane’s preference for her girls always to show themselves at table with a little colour on their faces, a pretty dress, and the finest, the finest, of refined manners.

No-one could explain where she’d learned such refinement of behaviour, or how she’d apparently done so overnight. That was the only thing they could never explain away, and she knew it drove them nuts so she kept it up. Her last defiance, in memory of people who had suddenly never lived; even though it wasn’t really her style.

She supposed it was becoming her style: winsome, feminine, elegant from an extreme economy of movement; efficiently but self-deprecatingly well-spoken and too well-mannered to offer an opinion unasked. Perfect, like porcelain. Curtsey, smile, say thank you Miz Tucker, always offer to help and always try to be the perfect houseguest.

How strange to become this person after all. How ironic.

But they couldn’t take it away from her. Not even with the medication she was still on. It stopped her being able to think straight. She’d had to quit programming; she couldn’t get into the Zone any more. But Jane’s teachings ran deep (which of course had been the first surprise upon coming home the previous summer). These manners were always there for her. They were the mantra that held her to herself, her history and her own lost world.

“Debbie’s here,” Brian added. Valerie almost hiccuped. She’d lost track of his still being there. Another thing to lay on those damn meds. Her awareness rolls had gone to shit.

“She’s early!”

“I think Mom invited her for dinner.” Brian hovered diffidently for a few more seconds, watching her like a zoo exhibit, and went.

She could have warned me, Valerie thought. Must’ve been a last minute thing. She looked herself over one more time. One minor benefit of living life by Jane’s rules: one was always ready to receive special visitors. She grinned at her reflection and headed downstairs.

Debbie flowed warmly into her arms. It was a while before either of them had any time for speaking.

They broke. Debbie’s hands on her waist. “Happy birthyday, Valerie,” she said. Valerie chuckled, looking down, then back into Debbie’s eyes. Searching. She was so nearly the right one. Valerie wished she could forget. “You all set for tonight?” Debbie asked.

“Yes. Are you still not going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Nope.” Debbie grinned and pulled away, keeping hold of a hand. “It’s a surprise.”

“Valerie,” Sarah called from the kitchen, “would you set the table please?”

Why can’t Brian do that? I’m busy! “Yes, Miz Tucker.” Brian was out in the garden turning in tight circles with something on the end of a string, a darting, tabby shape at his feet. That was clearly more important.

“I’ll help,” Debbie offered.

“I take it the surprise doesn’t involve dinner then,” Valerie remarked. Debbie just grinned mysteriously.

There was some confusion on the way out to the car as Valerie made for the driver’s side.

“Ahem?” Debbie said, popping the lock and proceeding to get in behind the wheel herself.

“Sorry,” Valerie blushed. “Thinko.” She went round to the other side and got in, troubled. It had made no sense. For a moment she’d got it backwards.

It was another warm evening in spring and Debbie had put the top down. Cerys was singing on the stereo.

It was strange glue that held us together
While we both came apart at the seams.
She said, ‘Your place or mine
While we’ve still got the time.’
So I played along with her schemes.

Valerie didn’t know Debbie had a soft-top. Must’ve upgraded and not told me. A lot of things went on without her being told these days. Presumably D&E was going well without her. Debbie was beautiful; and for the moment unconscious of it, concentrating as she was on navigating a left turn. Her skin, in the low sunlight, seemed to glow. Valerie started to cry at the beauty of her. She couldn’t understand why Debbie still wanted to be with her. The famous neighbourhood fruit-loop. She could not stop crying. Debbie looked over at her, and smiled encouragingly, as if she wasn’t crying at all, and took her hand, but it was remote, far away.

But I don’t have the right to be with you tonight
So please leave me alone with no saviour in sight
I will sleep safe and sound with nobody around me

Debbie was kissing her. It was late and they’d just got back to Debbie’s place. Debbie’s body pressing against her own. “Oh,” Valerie heard her own voice say. “Oh no.” She didn’t feel ready for this, for the way her own body responded.

Jane had taught her how to say no to Debbie. Indirectly anyway. But there being no such person the lesson must have been a false one, because she was paralysed in the face of Debbie’s desire. She wanted to say ‘stop,’ but instead she played the part. She never could say no. It was an insane dream, a delusion, for her to think otherwise. It was all a delusion. She understood now. Faced with a real Debbie, here, now, on her, over her, taking her the way she always did. Valerie had no power to stop her. “I’m not…” she managed to say. “Not…” She couldn’t get her head straight. It was the drugs. Always off-balance. Always on a tightrope in a dream, her head ten miles from her feet.

“I know,” Debbie whispered in her ear. “I know you’re not her.”

The words were like thunder. Valerie’s heart thumped. She believes me? Hope. Long-abandoned hope. She believes me!

The photos! “The photographs,” she managed to say aloud. “You’ve got the photographs.” The ones of her and Val together. The negatives. Proof. Sure you could Photoshop it, but not well enough for a real expert to tell the difference. She’d just have to get them to find such an expert. She gasped, distracted, as Debbie took her in her hands and played her. She tried to get her head clear. “Debbie! Where are they? I need those!”

Debbie mumbled unintelligibly. She was too busy kissing Valerie’s neck at the time.

“Debbie…”

“She would never come back to me,” Debbie said, eventually. “Never never never.” Valerie felt the tears sting her eyes. Of course, she thought. Of course there were no photographs of herself and Val together. There never had been. “Never forgiven,” Debbie was continuing, in between kissing her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.” She sat up, pushing Valerie down against the pillows. “I only ever wanted a chance to make it up to you. One chance to make everything good again, like it used to be. Like it used to be between us. Do you remember?” She stopped still, totally still, except for one finger caressing Valerie’s cheek, and her heavy, aroused breathing. “So beautiful.”

“Debbie, I—” The same finger was placed over Valerie’s lips, silencing her.

“Shhh. Shhhh. It doesn’t matter any more, my love, my lover. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter any more.” Her finger moved down to Valerie’s breasts and stroked a nipple. Valerie gasped at the touch, unable to stop her, unable to stop her own body’s response. “You’re beautiful, and you’re here, and you love me, and nothing else matters.”

A little while later she put her mouth to Valerie’s ear again. “Don’t let her back,” she whispered. She was holding Valerie on the brink. “Don’t ever let her back.” Valerie felt her own body remotely, arching, trembling, blindly seeking the fulfilment of her touch, promising anything, anything.

She couldn’t stop her. She let Debbie take what she needed.

Valerie lay curled up near the side of the bed. The duvet felt clammy and tangled around her feet. She tried not to make any noise, for fear of waking Debbie, but she was crying and every now and then an audible sob escaped.

Wait.

In the distance a church bell rang four times. She could hear a few forlorn birds and no sound of traffic at all. If you listened very hard, you could just find it; it was like a pressure on the edge of hearing.

“Eyes open, Tucker.” She obeyed. The grey lightening of the sky slipped into the room through a gap in the curtains. Tall many-paned sash windows and a cushioned window-seat. “Bad one, huh?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Could’ve woken me out of it sooner, you chink bastard.” She hadn’t actually finished crying. Deep, broken sobs that clenched her whole body.

She wasn’t sure if she preferred it when her dreams would wake her screaming and drenched in her own sweat and puking into a toilet bowl until it hurt. Those dreams had been horrible, but they didn’t leave her feeling like this.

Desolated. Alone.

Amputated.

She worked her legs out and over the edge of the bed and sat up stiffly. Arching her back straight made something pop. “What a shitty birthday,” she told the empty room.

She stood and pulled the curtains open one by one, tying them back, so she could sit in the window seat and watch the sun come up. She snagged up her Libretto from where she’d left it there the night before, still trailing its power lead and an ethernet cable, and woke it up. The first thing to show itself as the screen brightened was the email she’d received from Debbie and her own abortive reply. She cancelled it in disgust. What could she possibly say?

She addressed her email client.

R
I dream about being with you and wanting her. You deserve better
than that. I had to leave, if would have driven us both insane if
I'd stayed. We'd both just be standing in for our doubles, becaues
I'm not the one you really want either.

It came out in a rush. She stared at it for a minute, then went back to correct the typo.

<ctrl>X <ctrl>C Y
Q

She sent it quickly before she could change her mind. Actually, she reminded herself, it wasn’t flagged as urgent so it wouldn’t trigger a dial-up to be sent immediately. She’d have –

~ $ date
Fri Apr  3 04:06:46 BST 1998

About ten minutes before the next scheduled mail-exchange to go into the outgoing mail spool on the house server and pull it out.

She let the minutes pass.

There would be no beautiful sunrise today. It was a cool, dreary morning, as if the whole countryside wanted to cry but couldn’t. Wind rippled the treetops, its pink noise eventually soothing her. There wasn’t much of a dawn chorus in that gloom, but a solitary crow, somewhere in the trees out by the lake, called to her hoarsely. It mocked her, but it was lonely as well. A light mist had settled over the sheltered lake and then trickled around the garden, teased out into long tentacles by the gathering wind.

The end of the night never comes too quickly for me.

---

A friend in need’s a friend indeed, A friend who bleeds is better.

Placebo. Very loud. Just what she needed to wipe out the last of the song that had been stuck in her head from the dream. Valerie was singing along, full throated, and could barely hear her own voice.

A friend with breasts and all the rest. A friend who’s dressed in leather.

People called Brian shouldn’t be that cute. It was just wrong and it was doing her head in.

My friend confessed, she passed the test.
And we will never sever.
Day’s dawning, skin’s crawling…

Funny that Jane hadn’t understood at first why Valerie wanted a room on the opposite side of the house.

---

“Happy birthday Valerie,” Marie greeted her when she breezed into the kitchen. It was warmer in there.

“Thank you Marie.” She bent, almost without stopping, to kiss the older woman’s cheek and continued on her way to the fridge.

“My, aren’t you chipper today,” Marie observed dryly. Valerie grinned.

“I get to ride my bike again,” Valerie sang, lightly filking Freddie Mercury, “I get to ride my bike.” Remembrance of that fact alone had cheered her up enormously. “I get to ride my bike again,” operatic high note, “I get to ride it where I like… Well, other than just around the grounds anyway.” The last part was spoken.

One of the less-stupid laws they had in this country involved not being able to drive or ride a proper motorcycle until she was seventeen, even though she had her full Rhode Island driver’s license. And her Ohio state one too, of course; the real one, as far as she was concerned, with her real name, which now was of no more use than a keepsake. Worse than that, she’d have to take the British bike test anyway within a year and that was well-rumoured to be a nightmare due to quaint old-world ideas about requiring licensed riders to be competent. And don’t even mention the power restriction thing, she wished herself. It would just break the mood, and she didn’t have to do that yet anyway. According to the interpretation of the law she was using…

“Don’t you have school today?”

“‘s not a school,” she said automatically. “It’s a college.”

“What_evrrr,_” Marie’s Valley-girl emulation was perfect.

“It’s important.” Schools were places to be afraid. Valerie found a Dr. Pepper in the fridge and ripped its top open. “Ah, stims.” She drank. Marie shook her head, smiling, and continued with the proper breakfast preparations. “And yes, I do, but I don’t need a riiide!” Valerie barely avoided breaking into song again. “Shame it’s such a grey day.” With any luck it would be sunny over the weekend and she could get some serious hoonage in. She needed the practice. “Need me to set the table?”

“Please.” Without a student in the house Jane didn’t stand on formalities, but she did insist on sitting down together for meals as a household; even for breakfast. Something about tangible health benefits. Valerie didn’t have a problem with that, but it had taken her longer this time to adjust to the early mornings it required.

Valerie got on with setting the table.

More than any other part of the house the kitchen had become Marie’s particular domain. She had overseen its transformation, from the rather drab and dingy room they had found upon moving in, into a haven. Whitewashed walls and age-worn rustic wooden furniture, like the dresser with the good china on display, and the large kitchen table with upright wooden chairs and a long, cushioned bench with a high back along the side closest to the wall. This eating area was separated from the cooking area of the kitchen by a spur of worktop supported on the one side by cupboards and the other by shelves containing a collection of cookery texts and all manner of small knick-knacks. The floor was red tiles, partially strewn with woven, patterned mats in kindness to bare feet on cold mornings.

It was the original kitchen, situated in the basement underneath the dining room – the proverbial ‘downstairs’ of Upstairs Downstairs, Valerie supposed. Only, the house was built at the summit of a low hill, so while it would have been underground at the front of the house, at the rear where the earth had been landscaped to provide a wide flat lawn overlooked by a terrace, it had windows and a double glass-panelled door opening onto the old walled garden, which Marie was in the early stages of restoring.

Despite her own expectation to the contrary, it was probably Valerie’s favourite part of the house. Jane’s predilection for classical formality stopped at the threshold, and it had simply become a pleasant, homely place to relax and be social at the same time. Cooking tended naturally to become a social activity as well, which was nice, and Valerie was glad to take the opportunity to learn from Marie whenever she could. It was also where Valerie did most of her class assignments – coursework, she corrected her idiom – sitting at the kitchen table, her Libretto trailing leads to the nearest ethernet port and power socket. And sometimes she just liked to curl up cosily in the rocking chair and read a book. It was always warm.

The irony was that, by her own admission, it was also Jane’s favourite part of the house. There were often evenings when all three of them were collected in the kitchen, talking or quietly engaged each in their own activities, while the rest of the large house stood empty. “I shall miss dining in here,” Jane had said suddenly, just the previous night, after dinner. Valerie understood immediately what she meant, but she still gave Jane her best ‘you only have yourself to blame’ look.

With Jane planning to start taking students again, meals would have to be taken in the proper dining room, with stifling formality, and poor Marie left out of it of course, relegated to serve, that being the role she chose to assume. Valerie had yet to figure out what she wanted to do about that, whether to eat with Jane and her students or out in the kitchen with just Marie. It was the least of the disruptions she foresaw with the resumption of Jane’s ‘school.’

Here and there Marie had put up pictures in frames. Typically they were small watercolour landscapes of the local Cotswolds countryside that she’d found in some local village gallery. However, in the corner behind the rocking chair, and to the side of the comfy bench, two pencil portraits had been framed and hung. Eugenia and Julia, who, in Valerie’s absence, had died the previous summer. Eugenia had drawn both portraits. The one of Julia was somewhat idealised; her flashing, Hispanic features softened fondly. Eugenia’s self-portrait was more honestly drawn, possessing the intensity commonly found when artists draw themselves in the act of observing themselves so minutely. Even so, Jane and Marie had both spoken of her beauty, and assuming the portrait was trustworthy, Valerie had to agree it was true.

Valerie had thought it was morbid of Jane to hang the pictures there, when they first went up, and for a counterpoint had printed off a copy of one of Eugenia’s cartoons of Jane – the one where she lay dead at the feet of a spiky-haired petticoated figure toting an improbably large anime gun – and stuck it to the fridge. “It’ll have to go when my first student arrives,” Jane had said, almost regretfully. “We can’t be giving them wrong ideas.”

“What wrong ideas?” Valerie had quipped back, grinning.

In time, however, Valerie thought she understood why Jane wanted those portraits in daily view. Yes, they’d remind her, and Marie, of the tragedy, but it also reminded them of the people, not merely the manner of their deaths, and in being so everyday, would condition them to no longer mind remembering.

Despite the French country style, and the old working black range occupying the wide alcove in the forward wall – under the centre of the house – the cooking-area of the kitchen was fully equipped to Valerie’s satisfaction, to the extent of an old Mac Classic in a corner that she’d rescued and got working again and turned into a terminal onto the recipe database which, she was unsurprised to observe, only she used. Val had smuggled the home database to her for the purpose. Since the initial setup it had become trivial to set up some replication to keep the two databases in sync; which was good, because Val had entered in a lot of new recipes in the last year, and they were still coming in at about one a week.

“Is Jane sleeping in?” Valerie asked, not-seriously.

“Not at all. I think she’s in her study.”

“Still cramming the National Curriculum?”

“Probably.” Smile.

“She did get to bed last night, didn’t she?”

Marie nodded. “I bet she took a book with her though.”

The house had been abuzz ever since Jane announced she was going to start taking students again. Valerie had been peevish about it for a while, but couldn’t escape the inevitability of it.

Fine. As long as she, Valerie, didn’t have to get involved. She suspected Jane had wanted to ask her to play the big-sister for the first student. As if. She made her feelings plain about that early on, before she’d have to be rude and refuse a direct request.

There was so much else to get ready though. Jane had built up the network in Westbury over two decades, and would be starting now from scratch and in a hurry. “I believe after breakfast she’s heading into town to Anastasia’s.” Valerie paused, a blank look at the name. “Dressmakers,” Marie prompted.

“Oh yes.” You couldn’t exactly get the kind of clothes Jane wanted for her young protégées in Miss Selfridge. For that matter even Marks & Spencer weren’t that old-fashioned.

“That’ll probably take most of the day. Plus we’ve got the bathroom fitters starting this afternoon.”

“On a Friday?” she queried. Marie just rolled her eyes. “Anyway, no fair. Why can’t I have an en-suite bathroom?”

It was a familiar complaint, already advanced to the status of an old joke. “I believe it was something to do with not needing one, because you won’t be locked in at night.”

“Bah.”

“I’m sure if you gave Jane the key to your room-” Marie produced an uncharacteristically evil grin.

“I don’t think so,” Valerie demurred, keeping in the spirit of the joke. “It’s really not that far to the main bathroom, and it’s good exercise.” Besides, the new electronic locks were going to be tougher to pick than the ancient mechanical ones in the old house. She’d built the new security system herself, and she wasn’t sure she could break it. Part of the point of doing it that way was to make sure there weren’t any hidden back doors.

And you don’t put back doors into your own code. That’s basic. Because nine times out of ten someone else will find them long after you’ve forgotten about them.

“That’s the spirit,” Marie agreed.

“And I’m down to forty seconds in the dark,” Valerie added. Dark was dark out here in the middle of the countryside. There was a genuine antique chamber pot in the bottom of one of her wardrobes. She’d found it in the attic after the move, and she’d made a pointed show of bringing it to her room. Thankfully she hadn’t – yet – had to make use of it in earnest. Yes, living in an old English country house possessed certain underreported charms.

“Mrs. Lawrence is going to be here for dinner again,” Marie continued. Valerie made a face. “You really don’t like her, do you,” Marie observed.

“Oh, she’s okay I guess.” She’d finished setting the table for breakfast and sat in her usual spot at one end of the bench. “I just really didn’t want to go to an all-girls’ school. Especially where the headmistress is a friend of Jane’s. Does that sound all that unreasonable? Really?”

Marie smiled.

“I’m sure I’ll get on with her fine now I don’t have to worry about that,” Valerie finished. “It’s just…” she sighed. “I thought tonight…”

Marie nodded, then came over to the table and sat at the adjacent corner to Valerie. Jane’s usual seat. “What are you doing, Valerie?” Valerie looked at her sharply. This was a different mood. “Is everything okay at school? College, I mean?” before Valerie could correct her.

“Yes, everything’s fine.”

Marie looked at her.

“Really. I like it. I mean, it’s hard. A-levels are a bit of a shock after high school at home, but… It’s good. Really. I’m doing okay.”

“I don’t mean the work. How are you getting on with the other students?”

Valerie sighed. “Fine. No problems.”

“Have you talked to any of them yet?”

“Yes, of course I have.” Marie was still looking at her. “We have to work in groups a lot in Music. It’s not a problem. Why should it be?”

“You tell me,” Marie pressed.

“Well, it isn’t. I’m doing fine, okay? What do you want me to-” She stopped herself. She hadn’t meant to snap, and Marie didn’t deserve it. “Sorry.” She gave Marie a look to back that up. “Old habits. No-one’s giving me a hard time, if that’s what you mean.”

“Not entirely.”

Well, that’s what you’re getting, Valerie transmitted at her. Marie nodded, as if hearing the thought anyway.

“Valerie…” She waited until she had Valerie’s full attention again. “It wouldn’t be disloyal of you to make new friends.”

It stung, and Valerie just stared hurt back at her for a few seconds, then she collected herself and stood. “I’ll… I’ll go tell Jane breakfast’s nearly ready.”

She barely heard Marie’s quiet sigh behind her as she left.

---

She had to get out of the kitchen. What Marie had said made her angry. She knew Marie had only the best intentions and she didn’t want to lash out at her, but her mood had been broken.

The old school bench had reappeared outside the parlour. That must have been brought down the previous day, she guessed; she hadn’t registered it before now. She knocked on the parlour door before going in. Unshakeable habit.

“Marie says if you even think about bringing Key Stage Three notes to the breakfast table she’ll leave us forever,” she lied outrageously.

“Four,” Jane said. She was sitting at the writing desk, her new Powerbook open in front of her. The narrow old Colonial chair had reappeared out of storage to its place in front of the desk as well.

“Excuse me?”

“Jonathan’s in Key Stage Four. There’s a lot of project coursework involved, which is almost ideal.”

“Whatever. Leave it. Pain au chocolat doesn’t keep.”

“Correction: it doesn’t last with you and Marie around.” Jane looked up at Valerie and smiled. “Actually I’m just finishing an email to Reggie,” she explained. It looked to Valerie like she was copy-typing from handwritten notes.

“You wrote it on paper first, didn’t you,” Valerie accused.

“Don’t nag me, Valerie—”

“Jaaaane!” Valerie keened. It was agony to watch.

“I simply prefer not to be worrying about how to use this infernal machine when I’m deciding what I want to write.”

Valerie turned and hit her head on the open door. This was a mistake, as it was made of solid oak and had more inertia than her head had momentum. She reeled back into the room. “And there’s no call to be patronising either,” Jane remonstrated behind her. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I know.” Valerie sat down onto the nearest available chair to let the room stop spinning. “If you were I could understand it.” It had always mystified her how otherwise perfectly intelligent people could devolve into helpless protoplasmic lumps as soon as a computer was placed in front of them.

The seat was hard and cold. Familiar. She noticed belatedly that she’d shifted and straightened into a prim, attentive posture, hands in lap, feet together, only nagging at her attention at all because it felt incongruous in the black jeans she was wearing. She swore silently at her own programming. She already knew there was no more comfortable way to use that chair.

Jane swivelled around in her chair to face Valerie. “You’re right, this can wait. Reggie won’t even be awake for another eight hours.” Pause. “Actually I need your help anyway. Reggie says he needs me to send him something called a public key?”

“Oh, yes, I’ll set that up for you.”

“What, no lecture?”

“Oh, you’ll learn about public key crypto before I let you use it. It’s something you’ve got to understand conceptually or it’s worse than useless. But I’ll do the initial setup for you. It’s nontrivial.”

“All right.”

“Is it urgent?”

“No, it can wait.” Pause. “Happy birthday, Valerie.”

Valerie managed a smile. “Thanks. I’m working on it.”

“You’re still resolved to take that machinery of death out onto the roads, I presume?”

Valerie grinned.

“Remember to drive on the wrong side.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, I know.”

“And should you survive to the evening your main present should be ready by then—”

“I didn’t want you to get anything big—” Valerie protested.

“Did I say it was big?” Jane smiled. “Anyway, I’d like you to have a little something to keep you going until then.” She picked up a small giftwrapped box from the desk and proffered it to Valerie.

“Jane—”

“Oh, shush and open it. For one day of the year I’m allowed to spoil you. Maybe two days,” she amended.

“Ooh, broadband!” she squealed, and let it dissolve into a snicker.

Jane chuckled. “You never give up, do you?”

“Nope!” It was a long-running argument. A leased line to such a rural location would be expensive enough that Jane insisted Valerie make a compelling business case for it. Valerie had been unable to do so. Amusing as Valerie found the idea, Jane’s academy had little need for its own website (and co-location would be cheaper anyway), and she’d done too good a job of minimising the pain of a metered dialup connection. Valerie grinned and took the box, started ripping into the gift wrapping.

It was jewellery. That much she got from the embossed gift box. She got the lid off and dug through the crèpe paper packaging inside until she got to the article itself. Or themselves, as it turned out. “Jane, it’s…” Her breath caught in the mix of emotions. “It’s beautiful.” Opaque, rich, deep blue striated stones set in silver. A matching set of necklace, bracelet and earrings. It was beautiful; she hadn’t lied about that, but she would never have chosen it herself. “Lapis lazuli?” she asked.

“Yes. I thought it would complement your eyes.”

“Don’t you think it’s… too much?”

“Of course not. You dress too plainly as it is. Anyone would think you were trying to make people not notice you.”

The black jeans and plain grey top she was currently wearing made that a hard charge to answer. So did the simple ponytail tying her black hair away from her face. It’s a ninja thing, she edited out, saying only, with an air of wounded pride, “I like to call it ‘classic understatement.’” She gingerly lifted the necklace out of the display box. It was surprisingly heavy, and widened at the front to frame a central teardrop-shaped stone that would lie at her throat. The teardrop motif was echoed, smaller, on the bracelet and earrings. “Jane, this must have cost a fortune.” She couldn’t even guess.

“That would be none of your concern.”

Back home it wasn’t the family tradition to buy extravagant or expensive presents for birthdays or Christmas. The synthesizer keyboard she’d received the Christmas before last – Val still had one just like it, of course – was atypical, and the family had pooled their spending budgets to get it. She’d received nothing else that year.

She had a queasy feeling that this jewellery was more expensive than that keyboard had been. And Jane had said it was just a little present, a tide-you-over present before the ‘main’ one in the evening.

“I,” she habitually omitted the ‘er,’ “it’s lovely, Jane.” It would be useless to protest further; she knew Jane well enough for that, and didn’t really want to get another lecture on receiving gifts gracefully. “It is lovely. Thank you.” She put the necklace down. “I really don’t know when I’d wear it,” she heard herself say quietly.

Jane smiled. “Maybe tonight. Who knows?”

Valerie felt her eyes narrow. “You’re up to something.”

“Whatever makes you say such a thing?”

“I’ve no idea,” Valerie said, deadpan. “Probably the stomach cramps and sweaty palms I’m suddenly getting.” Maybe Marie had a point about getting friends, and a plausible reason to be elsewhere.

Jane laughed. “Is it really such a bad thing to want to see you as pretty as I know you can be?”

“Now I know you’re up to something.”

“I must have seen you wearing a dress all of three times since I met you, and I don’t think Marie’s seen you at all.”

“Hasn’t she?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Weird, sometimes, to be reminded that these weren’t the people she lived with the previous summer. This Jane had no recollection of what had gone on between Valerie and that other Jane, and that was just the way Valerie wanted it. Jane – both of them – had been changed by the events of the previous summer, but in different ways. This Jane might openly envy the other for not having endured the deaths of two of her students, but Valerie wasn’t convinced she’d got the worst of it. Somehow she couldn’t – quite – imagine that other Jane offering a home to a homeless kid with an impossible story. It was too courageous a thing to do. Too heartfelt and impulsive.

This Jane, Valerie had sometimes to remind herself, had never attempted to drug her, or imprison her, or humiliate her, or take her clothes and force her to wear stuff she didn’t want to wear, do things she didn’t want to do. Oh, she would have, had Val fallen into her keeping the way Valerie had, but it hadn’t happened that way.

Because Val’s Mom and Dad hadn’t given up on Val. They hadn’t sent her across the country to get ‘fixed’ by strangers. They hadn’t been disappointed with her.

She didn’t want to go there today.

Jane was continuing, “You wouldn’t be trying to prove something, would you?”

“Excuse me?”

“By all this unremitting drabness, I mean.”

“No,” Valerie protested. “I have to wear something that can go under bike gear,” she improvised, hoping Jane wouldn’t remember that that only applied from today. “Anyway, no. I just… I haven’t really gone out anywhere, so there hasn’t been a reason to dress up nice.”

“Nicely,” Jane corrected, reflexively. “And yes, that’s what I thought. We should go in to breakfast.” Valerie tried to stare her down. It was hopeless, of course. “Why don’t you take those upstairs? You can surprise Marie with them tonight.”

Valerie held the look for a few more seconds, then she smiled and threw her hands up in the universal ‘I give up.’ Something to do with grace again, she thought, and having the wisdom to know what you can’t change. What was the harm in dressing up nice[ly] for an evening out? After all, there was no reason any more for her to be nervous of anything Jane might do.

No reason at all. Haha.

---

“Why are you always trying to impress her anyway?” Valerie asked at breakfast.

“Who?”

“Mrs. Lawrence.”

Jane’s hand paused halfway to her mouth. “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was just that you were trying to get me into Malmsbury, but if it was that it isn’t any more.”

“Well.” Jane put her pain au chocolat down. “It was never a question of ‘trying to get you in,’ Valerie. If you’d wanted to go there, you would have gone, as simple as that.”

“If anything, I think Jane was trying to impress you with Mrs. Lawrence.” Marie interjected.

Jane smiled. “That’s as may be. Harriet was a dear friend when I did a year of teacher training here as a student, and I’ve been very pleased to make her reacquaintance.” Only Jane seemed to call her ‘Harriet,’ Valerie noted. For everyone else the woman seemed to be one of that curious breed to whom a first name never seemed quite appropriate. Oh yes, you could tell she and Jane would be friends. “Of course our careers followed a very similar track for several years, but she chose to remain in formal education.” Valerie knew that. “Anyway, for one reason or another, she never came to the States to visit me, so she never saw firsthand what it is I do. She won’t come out and say it, but I believe she’s desperately curious.” Valerie chuckled. So did Marie. Valerie took another bite of her own pastry. “In any case she seems to be appointing herself to the role of watchdog. She wants to monitor Jonathan’s progress; ensure that proper educational standards are being met and make sure he isn’t suffering cruelty at my hands.”

Laughing unexpectedly, explosively, is never very ladylike behaviour. Especially when one’s mouth is full of food. Trying to keep said mouth shut during the process barely improves matters. “Sorry Jane,” she said automatically and reached for her napkin. Jane looked on patiently, her face reposed in either disingenuity or genuine naïvety.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you find so amusing,” Jane said archly, confirming, as if it were really needed, that she was in on the joke. She smiled. “In all seriousness, this is a subtly different culture to the one we’ve left behind; and in some ways not so subtle. There’s a significantly greater chance of misunderstandings, and Harriet’s insights have already proven invaluable. She’s also agreed to tutor Jonathan twice a week on his GCSE work; not least as a pretext to observe his progress and well-being of course.”

Valerie had more or less recovered. “Why not just send him to Malmsbury,” she suggested mischievously.

“We shall see,” Jane replied. It was the voice she used when she had something planned. Valerie shook her head and drank some more coffee. “Anyway, this is why I’ve been spending so much time with Harriet lately,” she explained.

“I see.”

Valerie continued eating, hiding her dissatisfaction. She thought she saw a glance pass from Marie to Jane, but Jane made no sign of having noticed it.

---

Valerie thumbed the ignition. The anticipatory pulse of the engine rewarded her, already making her heart rate rise a little. She could feel it. Helmet on, chinstrap, then gloves. The new gloves, like the rest of her new summer leather gear, still felt stiff; not yet worn in or shaped to her body. Good, though. She could feel they were good. Better than the old summer gear she’d left behind. Apart from having more money to spend, as Jane would not countenance compromising on safety equipment, she’d had the benefit of more riding experience than she’d had the first time around. She knew better what to look for. Simple, unmarked black leather; two-piece, but when worn she could zip together the pants to the jacket so the latter wouldn’t ride up and expose her abdomen while she was sliding along the tarmac. Pockets. Enough pockets, where she wanted them, and kevlar in the knees, elbows and shoulders. Kevlar down her spine too, and protecting her kidneys, but that was probably superfluous given she wore a dedicated carbon-fibre back protector underneath it anyway.

Emma Peel it wasn’t; there were far too many concessions to practicality and safety. It was commensurately bulky. While it was not shiny, like patent leather, it was embarrassingly new and pristine-looking. Something, she decided, would have to be done about that. In the meantime at least it wasn’t in the mode of oily, sweaty, Hell’s Angels types that she knew Jane had been fearing. Jane still disapproved, of course. Motorcycles and the associated safety gear were incompatible in Jane’s mind with a delicate, ladylike presentation.

Good.

Valerie swung her leg over the seat, pushed the bike upright and nudged the sidestand back, revved once and released the clutch. The bike surged forwards impatiently, eager to be out onto the road. Second. Third. Fourth. Touching ninety and she won the sound of the howl from the vortices in the exhaust by the time she had to brake for the gates. She’d done that short run almost to death waiting for her birthday, but this time she wouldn’t have to turn around at the gates and come back. Look both ways, then out, out, onto the empty country road. Suddenly a little nervous, feeling exposed riding on the left side of the road, expecting to turn a corner and find something heading right for her on the same side. She picked up speed again, more carefully now, and in a couple of minutes slowed back down to thirty for the village. (Black “30” in a circular sign with a wide red outside and white inside, and “Please drive carefully through the village” underneath the sign with the village’s name.) Nervous again, she obeyed that sign. A car pulled out of a side-street ahead of her, turning left to head towards her. She’d been a car passenger here for months now, but this time she was the one that had to not screw up by doing something unthinking out of habit. It was simple enough in theory. She kept to the left, the car passed her on her right. Hey, it works. High Cotswold-stone walls, like Jane’s house; sandstone that turned to almost luminous honey-gold in the sunlight, but on a grey morning like this just became a dull grey-brown. Turn the sharp, blind corner, down the steep, twisting hill further into the valley, through the main broad street of the village which, historically, would have been host to a weekly market. Now the central area was car park, empty in the off-season, awaiting the tourists later in the summer.

Another sharp turn at the end, left, over a picturesque stone bridge and out through the straggling end of the village and open road. White circle with a black diagonal stripe meant National Speed Limit, which on a road like this meant sixty miles per hour, which on a bike should be good for at least ninety, once she was back up to full confidence. Today, the posted limits would do. Only, slight pressure on the throttle-grip and she was already there. Sod it. The road ahead was straight, with trees on one side and a view falling on the other across fields and hills. Twist further. Surge. She laughed.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a shitty birthyday after all.

---

Valerie had not been entirely honest with Marie. She paused on the threshold of the cafeteria, reflexively evaluating the threat-landscape. No-one paid any attention to her. “Clear,” Mike concurred. “Table at two, by fire exit.”

“Copy.”

It was a small table apart from any of the larger groups of students, next to the alarmed fire exit and not too far from the main door either, in case of a more orderly withdrawal. She headed directly over and sat, then busied herself with extracting her packed lunch.

She had planned to take the bike and go somewhere else for lunch, possibly up to one of the city’s grassy parks, where she could see people coming a long way off and she could relax.

That had been the plan, cherished in the month, give or take, since she’d started college here, but the rain had started just after she’d got in, which was luck of a sort because her summer gear would not be waterproof. It sat in her locker, dry, and she preferred to keep it that way for the ride home, by which time she hoped it might have stopped raining. She didn’t have any coat with her other than the bike jacket, and in this weather going down into the Centre and sitting by the waterside, which she’d done a number of times, was also uninviting.

The cafeteria windows had steamed up on the inside and the place was getting crowded with the regulars plus everyone else who usually took lunch elsewhere. It was noisy with footsteps and conversation, and the harsh clatter of cutlery and crockery and the scraping of chair-legs on the cheap linoleum floor. There were no raised voices, except, occasionally, someone would laugh loudly for a moment. It was crowded, but people just muddled in and found the pace of it and got through to where they were going and the friends they were meeting, and no-one seemed to get impatient. People complained about the crowding and the waiting in line, without real rancour. There were a lot of small jokes and laughter that was at once polite and unforced.

The college cafeteria served food, but it was an insult to the palate with Marie’s cooking to come home to, so Valerie had taken to bringing a packed lunch. However, this had the unexpected bonus, at a time like this, of giving her an advantage in finding a table; a small one she could spread some things out on and take to herself.

“Twelve o’clock, empty. One-over, male and female, no threat,” the commentary continued while she set up the shield wall. “Eleven: four females, one texting, three checking out guys on next over. No threat. Ten: two male, two female, one unsure, drama-types—” the dogeared, annotated scripts they had out helped with that identification “— one of the females in your Music class.” Karen, she pulled up. She’d not had anything to do with her. “No threat. Nine…” No threat, no threat, it kept coming in. No threat. I’m safe here. No-one knew anything, no-one had any reason to give a second glance to the quiet dark-haired girl in the black jeans and grey sweater sitting alone by the fire exit.

Part of her would have preferred to have found some empty classroom, but she didn’t need Mike to tell her that would be Stupid. The library or IT lab would have been better still, but didn’t allow food, and she was hungry; or she had been, before she’d got here and the tension hit her. She tried nibbling at her salad, but it tasted grey in her mouth. She was pumping out adrenaline, and for no logical reason, it seemed, but a terrible force of habit.

“Check your six, Tucker.” She glanced behind, the movement gaining a flicker of interest from the blonde girl in glasses sitting on the next table behind her, reading. “No threat,” she subvocalised.

“‘Scuse me, is anyone sitting here?” The voice came from almost right in front of her, giving her a startle. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump. You okay?” She nodded. It was the ‘unsure’ from the table at ten; the drama-students.

“Um, no,” Valerie answered. “Go ahead.” The voice had been light and musical. The person was tallish and slender – if not actually underweight – with short, dark hair in elfin curls close to the scalp, and wore a black polo-neck sweater under a brown suede jacket, and baggy cargo pants, so she couldn’t check out an adam’s apple or crotch bulge, or the absence of either.

“Thanks,” The figure smiled brightly and withdrew, whirling the chair expertly in the small space into an empty slot on the side of their table in time for another girl to join. Valerie knew her from Music: Mary. Fair-skinned, freckled, long curly red hair, slightly hippy-ish clothing. They’d been in the same group for a performance project up until a week earlier. Mary waved across to her briefly before accepting the gallantly-offered seat. Valerie had been a little slow on the response. Safely ignored again, she surreptitiously observed that table, and the person who’d interrupted her.

“Girl.”

“Boy,” countermanded Mike, simultaneously.

“Girl,” Valerie insisted. “And I should know.”

“Oh sure, like you figured out Charlene right away.”

“But—”

“And then of course you saw right through Darla, first time you—”

“Don’t remind me—”

“Oh, and what about Dia—”

“Shut up!” God, why couldn’t I forget how annoying he could be? She could imagine him snickering somewhere and thought fondly of temporal lobe lobotomies performed with kitchen implements.

“It’s none of my business,” she decided firmly. That was all she had ever wanted, back home; for everything to have been no concern of anyone else. She knew there was a reason why she liked it here: ‘Mind your own business,’ could have been written on the flag.

“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” Mike reminded her. Oh yeah.

Whoever it was was in an ‘animated discussion,’ with one of the definite-boys. And a rather handsome one at that, Valerie thought distractedly. Tall, floppy dark hair, blue eyes, cheekbones, the lot. Definite matinée-idol looks, had he been born into a different decade. “No fucking way, Jo,” his voice raised about something-or-other. His choice of words incongruous with his elegant looks and aristocratic voice. It sounded like they were discussing a stage-effect idea, from what Valerie had caught. “Think about it, people are going to be slipping all over the place in the third act.”

“No they won’t, ‘cause I’ll be on a raised platform, remember?” Jo again. Or Joe, Valerie conceded. It nagged at her that she couldn’t work it out, and she felt hypocritical for even trying. Besides, it was rather delicious not knowing. She was able to admit that to herself. It made her feel less lonely. “Fuck’s sake, Aid, we’ll put a sheet down or something…”

“I’d never have dared to be so…” Valerie sought the word.

“Ambiguous?”

“Yeah. Not on purpose anyway. Not here, in school.”

“‘S not a school.”

She shivered and tried to hold down her panic. “I know.”

Kingsdown College didn’t have any students who didn’t want to be there. That, Valerie thought, was probably the biggest single differentiator, given the architecture of the place was standard municipal school fare.

In Britain compulsory schooling stopped at sixteen, with GCSEs. The so-called ‘sixth form,’ the two years for A-levels, which were the standard University-entrance qualifications, was entirely elective. Moreover, not all high schools had a sixth form, so pupils who wanted to go on to A-levels had to go elsewhere. The need was filled partially by high schools in the area that did, and partially by what were colloquially known as ‘sixth form colleges’ and more formally as colleges of further education, such as this one. Its main purpose was the full-time A-level courses it ran, but it also ran a number of part time adult-learning courses.

It didn’t have a sports faculty at all. It shared some sports facilities with the nearby university and a couple of local schools, and there were a few sports clubs, but that was all. No-one came here because they were good at sport. That had been a major factor in Valerie’s determination to go against Jane’s wishes and come here, to a state school, rather than to Malmsbury Girls.

“Valerie?”

It should have been paradise.

“That’s you, blockhead,” Mike said.

“Hmm?” She tracked onto the speaker. Mary, leaning back in her chair away from the group to speak to her, the chair tipped onto its hind legs. “Hi, Mary.”

“Mind if I come over? I just wanted to ask you something.” Mary had worked with Valerie before, so she’d already found out that surprising her wasn’t a good idea.

Errr, “Of course.” There wasn’t a socially acceptable reason to refuse, and thanks to Jane she would now need a socially acceptable reason. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Mary tipped the chair back upright and scraped it back across nearer to Valerie’s table. “I just wondered if you were in a group yet for the next ensemble project?”

“No, I’m not.” Is this an invitation? For the next one, groups had to come up with and perform a piece in the Baroque style. Valerie was petrified. She hadn’t been able to figure out the mechanism by which the groups got formed. They just seemed to coalesce somewhere out of her vision, and then she’d, perforce, get attached to one. Maybe this is it.

“Great. Look, I heard your singing the other week and I wondered if you’d mind pairing with me?”

“Er…”

“I’ve got an idea for an aria-sort-of-thing, like from an oratorio, but it needs someone who can sing, and, well, I can’t. You’re an alto, aren’t you?”

“Contralto.”

“I’m sure there’s a huge difference.” She grinned. “Anyway, would you be interested?”

Valerie felt a little flustered, put on the spot. “Who else is in?”

“No-one. I just thought us two. It would work great with just a harpsichord and your voice, I thought.” The music department had its own harpsichord, and Valerie was sure her new synth could emulate one, Jane having been persuaded it was necessary for her studies.

“Can you do that? Just two people?”

“Two or more. We were in a big group last time, and I thought…”

Valerie grimaced.

“Yeah,” Mary agreed with the expression. Peter had dominated that group. It had been quite discouraging. So the so-called ‘ensemble’ was really nothing of the kind; everyone was in service to Peter’s grand concept.

It was some compensation that the guy did actually have talent. The actual performance had been pretty cool, it was just everything else, all the power dynamics that went on, had been pretty unpleasant. Valerie had been too new to it all to really protest, so she’d gone along with it.

Mary had protested, Valerie remembered suddenly, and Peter had talked her down, and talked over her and around her, and… It was a kind of bullying, Valerie realised belatedly. Not the kind she was used to, and she hadn’t been proud of the way she’d kept her distance and let it happen.

Valerie’s brain was racing, trying to get back onto its music profile. She had some idea what that might sound like; she’d been listening to a piece that might be similar for an essay. “We might use a third on cello or something to give us a bass line,” she suggested. Safe to talk inside the subject.

“Great, you’ll do it then?”

“Um, I’m thinking about it,” she prevaricated. Yeah, like you’re rolling in offers.

“Maybe we can talk about it some time?”

“Now’s good,” Valerie suggested.

“No it isn’t, I’ve got to go in a minute, but we’ve got a class this afternoon anyway, we could talk about it then?”

“Okay.”

“Great. See you then, then.” She got up to address her friends at the other table. “Got to go, guys. See you tonight.”

There was a chorus of ‘bye’s. The one called Jo, or Joe, slid off the chair onto one knee, the better to importune her, “Wherefore does thou depart, sweet lady? Tarry a while, let my words beguile you!”

Someone threw a scrunched-up paper napkin.

“I can’t. She’s going to be missing me as it is.”

“A kiss, a kind glance, your favour…”

They had an audience by now. Conscious of it, Mary made a show of considering it. “All right. Close your eyes.” She waited for obedience. “Now open your mouth.” Her hand snaked into a pocket of her own backpack and came out holding a tube of lipstick, This she showed around to the audience, a finger across her own lips to warn them to silence. Then she knelt and, with practiced speed, applied the lipstick to Jo/Joe’s lips. Her victim started protesting before she had finished, but Mary grabbed the hair on the back of Jo’s head with her free hand and got it all on. “I’ve wanted to do that all year,” she announced, standing to a scattered applause.

“It burns us! It burns us!”

“Now, I’m going,” Mary pronounced, and without further delay hooked up her backpack and left. Jo, who now looked unmistakeably feminine, blushed down to her throat and got back on her seat.

“What’s she done? What colour is it?” she demanded. She was fighting a smile.

“But wait, who is this strangely attractive girl at our table?” the one she’d been arguing with earlier, said.

“Shut-“

“Who is this super-hero?” the other one added.

“Fuck off, Danny. Has anyone got a mirror?”

Valerie was looking around the rest of the cafeteria, to see if anyone was paying any special attention to what just happened. She could hardly believe it herself. Everyone who had been distracted by the little show seemed to be getting back to their own business though.

“Fucking give me a mirror!” Jo insisted at someone.

“Leave it. It could grow on you,” from the other girl at the table. Valerie didn’t know her name.

“Yeah, like herpes.” But Jo didn’t make any immediate moves to clean it off. She seemed to be enjoying the attention.

Valerie discovered she was shaking slightly. I’m not hungry, she decided, needing to get out of there. She started packing her things away, most of her lunch remaining untouched. She wanted to get to the IT lab anyway, to do some downloading on the college’s connection. There was a new development kernel available.

“Girl,” Mike conceded. “Just butch, or like Jill.”

“I don’t care.” She got up, stuffing the last of her things into her backpack, and fled, trying not to let it look too much like that was what she was doing.