Moth Girls Read online

  She remembered the first day in secondary school and how she had ended up sitting alongside them. The class was full of small knots of children who were sticking by the kids they’d known in primary school. She was the odd one out. Miss Pearce made Petra and Tina move their bags off the adjacent seat so that Mandy could sit down. Tina was nice. Mandy’s family had moved into a house further down Tina’s street in the summer and her mum had become quite friendly with Tina’s mum. Petra was reserved though. She did a lot of shoulder shrugging and looking away across the room as if Mandy weren’t there.

  At home time Mandy walked along with them. They stayed together for a while until Petra had to go off down her street. Then Tina was more lively and chatty and told Mandy stuff about her dad who lived in South London with a beautician. When they got to Tina’s house she said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ in a friendly way.

  The next day though Mandy got the cold shoulder from Petra and awkward half smiles from Tina. Even though she sat at their table and walked around with them to other classes she felt like she was hanging on. It wasn’t until lunchtime that they began to warm up. They were going to have a rehearsal for their girl group, The Red Roses, and asked Mandy if she would look after their stuff. Then she was allowed to sit in the gym and listen as they sang their songs, three of them. Petra was showing Tina some new dance moves and Mandy gave a clap after they finished their songs.

  That night, on the way home, Petra said, loudly and clearly, ‘You can’t be in our band. It’s a duo. Just the two of us!’ But Mandy knew already that she couldn’t be in their band. Petra and Tina were skinny and could wear tight-fitting clothes, but Mandy was chunky and liked to wear heavy jumpers over loose jeans.

  It was an unequal friendship, as if Petra and Tina were in a boat and Mandy was holding onto the side of it, just keeping her head above the waves. She didn’t mind the battering, she was just grateful that they let her stay there.

  As the weeks went by, Mandy felt more at ease with both girls although she always liked Tina the best. Because she lived closer to Tina she was able to spend that bit more time with her. Petra wasn’t always around. She took days off school and she occasionally went to meet her dad’s girlfriend to go shopping. Some nights, after her tea, Mandy would wander along to Tina’s and ask her if she’d like to come over to her house. Sometimes she did, but she made Mandy promise never to tell Petra and Mandy kept her mouth shut. But as time went on Petra allowed her to do more with The Red Roses and she came to Mandy’s house for a sleepover. Mandy even tried to seem interested in Petra’s fascination for the rundown house that she was sure was haunted. Mandy had reluctantly followed Petra and Tina into the back garden of the house one day only to be chased out by an irate next-door neighbour. Sometimes she asked Tina why Petra was so awkward but Tina would never talk about her so Mandy left it.

  In the half-term holidays Petra seemed to change. She lost her phone. She was jumpy and didn’t seem to care about The Red Roses as much. Her clothes were grotty and she was constantly patting her pocket for the phone that wasn’t there. During that half-term week she wore the same top three days running. She looked grubby. When Mandy went to call for Tina she heard her mother asking her, ‘What’s up with Petra? Is her dad playing up?’ And Mandy asked Tina what her mum had meant.

  ‘Petra’s dad is sick with alcohol,’ she’d said. Mandy had thought she’d meant that Petra’s dad had a hangover, but later she learnt that Petra’s dad had serious problems with alcohol, that he drank it all day long and sometimes couldn’t get out of bed. Petra’s mood worsened and she would stand gazing at the old house whenever they went into the newsagent’s.

  Tina had her own problems during those weeks. Her mum wouldn’t allow her to go and stay with her dad and his beautician girlfriend at his South London flat. She had to depend on him visiting and sometimes he said he’d come but didn’t and blamed the traffic in the Blackwall Tunnel. Tina’s eyes would glisten with tears and Mandy tried to comfort her. She loved those times when it was just the two of them, her and Tina. At night, in bed, Mandy would fantasise that Petra had been run over by a car and killed and that she and Tina were best friends. When they first disappeared it’d made her feel uneasy. It was as if some evil fairy godmother had tuned into her wishes and punished her by getting rid of Petra and Tina.

  On that Thursday they’d been in Tina’s house all afternoon. It was the last but one day of the half-term holidays. They were talking about what they were going to do for Halloween. Mandy’s mum and dad were having a party for their friends and had invited Tina and Petra to come and stay over. They were talking about it and deciding whether it would be a good idea if The Red Roses sang a couple of their songs.

  Petra stood up suddenly. ‘I’m sick of all this, let’s go to the shop,’ she said, pulling some money out of her pocket.

  They’d got to the shop in Princess Street and were about to go in when Petra’s attention was taken by the house opposite. Mandy had looked at it then. It was five thirty and it was dark. The house itself was gloomy except for a light in the front ground-floor room. Petra seemed to stare for a long time. Mandy expected her to repeat her usual comment about them going in one day but she put her money away in her pocket and said, ‘I think we should go into the old house. We’ve been talking about it for weeks. There’s a key round the back on a hook by the door.’

  This was news to Mandy. She’d never heard Petra talk about a key before.

  In the end, Tina had gone with Petra. Of course she had, she was her best friend. Petra reached across and took Tina’s hand. ‘Me and Tina always do stuff together. We’ve been friends for six years. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, Mandy. I understand.’ And Tina allowed herself to be pulled away into the garden.

  Mandy had watched them go with mounting frustration. What was it about that house? It was almost dark, cold; Tina was wearing her mum’s hoodie and she pulled the hood up. When the garden gate shut Mandy turned away and felt her temper rise. She was not going to stand around and wait for them! She walked towards home, a feeling of misery hardening inside her. Maybe she should find other friends. Make a new start on Monday, sit with some other kids. She didn’t need to be treated like an idiot. The Red Roses was a stupid name for a girl group.

  When the news came that neither Petra nor Tina had returned home that evening, Mandy went into a silent panic. ‘Do you know where they went?’ her mother had asked.

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘We had a row outside the shop and I came home.’ How could she tell her mother that they had gone into the old house and that she may well have gone with them? How could she admit that they had talked about something like that? Then it would come out that they’d gone into the garden once, a couple of weeks before. They’d trespassed and been chased out by a neighbour. That would mean the end of the freedom she had won since going to secondary school. Being allowed to go to Tina’s on her own. Having the right to say, ‘I’m just going out with Tina and Petra for a while.’ Once she’d explained about the house in Princess Street that would all be finished. Then it wouldn’t matter that she had no friends because she wouldn’t be allowed to go out anyway.

  The evening they had disappeared, she had sat on the armchair in the living room watching programmes, flicking the telly from channel to channel while listening to her mum on the phone to other people. One of them was Tina’s mum she was sure. There was a charge in the air, adult anxieties that could turn into anger at any moment. Why tell them what had happened when it was most likely that Tina and Petra had gone on somewhere. Maybe Petra had taken Tina off with her to do some shopping with her dad’s girlfriend? Maybe they had gone for a McDonald’s and just forgot to let anyone know. Maybe Tina or Petra had fallen over, twisted an ankle and they were sitting somewhere in A & E. Why mention the house and the reclusive old man who lived there?

  But the hours went by and Mandy felt as if her story had pinned her to the spot. When eight o’clock came she couldn’t suddenly
say, ‘Oh, actually, I do know where they went.’ Then she heard her mum tell her dad that Alison Pointer was going over to South London to check that Tina hadn’t gone on a forbidden visit to see her father and his beautician girlfriend.

  Mandy relaxed for a while then because that seemed like a good explanation. Tina had certainly been miffed that she hadn’t seen her father over half-term. Maybe when they’d got fed up with the house in Princess Street Petra had said, ‘Let’s go and visit your dad!’ Possibly Tina had written a text to her mother to tell her where she was going without knowing that her phone had run out of power at that very moment and the message had never sent.

  Later though Mandy found out that Tina’s phone was at home on charge. Neither Tina nor Petra had had a mobile phone with them.

  The police came to her house and the television had to be turned off.

  There was one question after another.

  At eleven o’clock that night she told them the truth.

  It suddenly came out. ‘I do know where they went,’ she said, amid sobs and told them. She watched her mum’s face screw up with amazement. The policeman’s expression changed instantly. He stood up and sat down again. He got out his phone and spoke into it rapidly, his words sliding together so that she could hardly make out what he was saying. Then he left and her mum and dad stayed on the sofa holding each other’s hands, looking at her as if she were a stranger.

  Many people had asked Mandy afterwards why she’d not told them at first where the girls had gone. Officer Farraday had sat on the sofa in her front room, his eyes darkened with sadness, and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us straight away, Mandy? If we’d known they were in the house we could have gone there immediately. We might have saved them.’

  Why hadn’t she told them?

  Now Mandy picked up her laptop. She clicked on Google and looked up the Safe and Sound website. She opened it up and went on the page that said ‘Petra Armstrong’. On one side of the page was a photo of Petra when she was twelve. On the other was the computer-generated image of what Petra would look like if she was seventeen years old. The picture of the older girl was striking. The same long hair was there, the same secretive expression. The face was thinner though and the eyes seemed bigger, although looking closer Mandy thought she could see eye make-up there. The mouth was not quite so sulky, but it wasn’t smiling.

  Petra Armstrong, almost certainly dead.

  Mandy saw her clothes hanging on the wardrobe door. The black jeans hung slim and long from beneath the red top. The high heels sat on the carpet underneath. It wasn’t so different from the outfits that Petra and Tina had worn for their girl band. Mandy felt a moment’s hurt as she looked at the clothes waiting to be worn. She had never been allowed to join The Red Roses.

  Mandy stood up and plucked the hanger from the outside of her wardrobe. She opened the door and slid it in between other garments. She picked the shoes up and placed them on the shelf below. Red was a good colour for her and there was no reason why she should feel bad about it.

  Alison had said she didn’t blame her any more. Mandy didn’t quite believe it. Alison had said it when she was dressed up and holding her sharp and important leather handbag. Then she seemed hard and fortified, that she could forgive anything. Mandy was sure though that when the smart clothes came off and Alison was sitting in her dressing gown and slippers she probably asked herself over and over why Mandy hadn’t told anyone where the girls had gone for five hours.

  Five hours that could have changed everything.

  Eight

  The party was due to start at nine. She’d been going to meet Tommy early at a coffee bar on the high street but he’d texted her to say that he had something to do first and would see her at Zoe’s house. That meant that she would have to go alone. She hesitated, wondering what to do. There were some other girls that she could meet up with but she didn’t want to.

  She didn’t really have any girl friends in the sixth form. Her closest friend had been Sophie Brewer but her parents had moved house just after Christmas and Sophie was now at a school in Barnet. At first Mandy had kept in touch with her, talking for ages on the phone or sending a stream of emails letting her know what was going on in school. She’d stayed at her new house for a couple of weekends and Sophie had shown her around her new neighbourhood. The contact had lessened though as the months went by. They’d met in Oxford Street a few times for shopping trips but Sophie’s stories about her new school and her new friends made Mandy feel left out. She began to make excuses. The contact waned and by the summer holidays she realised that she hadn’t sent a text or email or rung Sophie for weeks. She’d not even bothered to look at her Facebook page.

  There were friendly girls in school and she often sat with groups that she’d known over the years. It was easy to slip in and out of these relationships as it suited her. When she thought about it, her friendship with Sophie had been a bit like that anyway. Sophie had two younger sisters and a lot of her time was taken up with family stuff. Mandy’s friendship with her had always come second place to the things she did in her family. Mandy didn’t mind. She often looked round at girls in class who were panicking at the thought of spending a lesson apart from their friend and she sneered. It was better to be self-contained. She could find friendship when she needed it. That way there were no emotional demands made on her.

  She decided to go to Zoe’s party on her own. She spent a while looking critically at the top and jeans that she’d bought. She tried them on and walked up and down her room in the high heels and realised, with a sinking heart, that these were probably the kind of clothes that Tommy would hate. High street garments that were no doubt made in third-world countries. On top of that they were someone else’s style. Tommy would see all that in a moment, even though he’d be too good mannered to say it to her.

  She sat down on the corner of her bed. In the shop she’d been carried away with thinking how good the red looked against her skin and that the black jeans made her legs look long. Then there were the shoes. She didn’t usually wear heels but these caught her eye. There’d been loud music playing in the shop and the assistant had said that all the girls who worked there had bought a pair of these. So in a moment’s extravagance she’d decided to have them.

  She should have gone to a charity shop.

  Then she wondered if she could say that she’d got these from a charity shop. She held one up in the air. The red leather was pristine. She would need to scuff them up a bit to make it look as though they’d been worn by someone else, if only for a short time. ‘Look at this, I picked them up for half nothing,’ she would say and Tommy would think that was good because she was recycling something.

  The jeans were plain enough. She could wear a black top over them. She could add her home-made jewellery. This was one thing that Tommy approved of about her. He loved that she made these bracelets and necklaces. He always commented on them and said that it was important to make our own things and not always rely on other people to manufacture them for us.

  He thought a lot about the planet and resources.

  She’d never known a boy like him before. That was why she had such strong feelings for him. Maybe, tonight, at the party, she could let him know in some way. There would be alcohol and it was always forgivable to do outrageous things when drunk. If she misjudged it then she could always say, ‘Oh, don’t mind me! I always get emotional when I’m drunk. You didn’t think I meant it, did you?’

  She got dressed and put her beads on. Her mother was downstairs fidgeting with a duster in the hallway. She put on her coat.

  ‘What time shall Dad pick you up?’ her mother said.

  ‘I hate saying a time,’ Mandy said. ‘Can’t I just get a cab?’

  ‘He doesn’t mind staying up late. What time? Twelve? One?’

  ‘Can I just ring? I won’t be later than one. I promise.’

  ‘OK, I’ll tell Dad.’

  Mandy walked round her.

  ‘Are those sho
es new?’ her mother said.

  ‘Charity shop,’ Mandy said, trying on the lie to see how it sounded.

  The party was crowded when she got there. She said hello to the kids she knew and Zoe took her to the kitchen area. She kept her coat on, not sure where to put it. Zoe pointed out her brothers and their mates. Then the bell rang and she left Mandy alone. Zoe’s brothers were taller and broader than most of the kids there and they had more hair on their faces. Mandy walked round them and headed for the table of drinks. She put down a bottle of wine and then looked for a can of beer. The room was semi-dark but someone had strung fairy lights across the cupboard doors. It looked welcoming, like Christmas. She began to relax.