Page 13 of Good Bad Girl

“I’m not a—”

“Get your things and get out. Leave your keys and your badge in my office, and you can return the uniform once you’ve washed it. I don’t have time to listen to your lies. Thanks to you I have even more work to do.”

She points at the door.

My bag is still in Edith’s room.

So is Dickens.

I can’t leave without him but Joy has followed me to the landing. She is leaning against the rickety top floor banister, watching me as I walk toward the stairs. It doesn’t seem as though I have many options, and there is no time to decide what to do. Right and wrong are so hard to tell apart sometimes.

“And don’t bother trying to get another job in a care home in this city. I’m going to make sureeveryoneknows not to employ a girl called Patience.”

“Go ahead,” I say, and mean it.

Patienceis the answer to so many of life’s questions.

Patienceis what I’ve needed to learn in order to survive.

Patienceis what it says on my name badge, but it is not my real name.

Edith

Edith isn’t sure how long it has been since her daughter left the Windsor Care Home. Long enough for her to think that she isn’t coming back. Not that she cares. Except that she thought her daughter said she would pop in again before leaving. Maybe Edith misheard. Or maybe she misunderstood. It doesn’t matter. She’s used to sitting here for hours on her own with nobody to talk to and nothing to do, and has learned to be patient because it is her only option. She sits on the bed, stroking Dickens for comfort, reliving the latest argument with her daughter and wondering how and when and why it all went so wrong.

It’s a question she knows the answer to but wishes that she didn’t.

Her life wasn’t always like this. When Edith was a store detective people showed her the respect she deserved. Her job gave her a purpose and put a roof over their heads. She was a good mum—even if her daughter doesn’t think so. Edith would never have won a mother of the year award, and she might have madea few mistakes—who hasn’t—but she did her best. At her age, she knows that doing your best really is all anyone can do. Being a parent is rarely about making popular decisions. She did what she needed to do to take care of them both.

Someone knocks on the door and Edith panics—she didn’t lock it. Her worries soon translate into hope. She thinks maybe her daughter has returned after all, come back to apologize and take her away from this awful place. Take herhome. Edith picks up Dickens and hides him in the bathroom again, he looks suitably unimpressed with the arrangement. Someone knocks a second time, and it’s lucky the old dog is a bit deaf these days or he’d bark. Edith hurries to get back in her bed. She brushes away the dog hairs once more and smooths down the sheets. She’s ready but still feels an overwhelming sense of unease when she sees the door handle start to turn.

Edith didn’t say to come in.

She pulls the duvet right up under her chin, considers pretending to be asleep, then decides to keep one eye open as the door squeaks, the floorboards creak, and someone walks into her room.

“Oh,” she says. “It’s you.”

Frankie

When Frankie arrives at her final destination, she feels a bit broken. She keeps replaying recent events and her reactions to them, feeling as though every decision she makes is wrong. It is as though she has driven to a different world when she stares out of the window. One where she already knows she doesn’t fit. The Notting Hill mews Frankie parks in front of looks more like a film set than somewhere real people might live. This corner of the city has been landscaped with wealth and success, not like the stretch of the River Thames where she lives. Each of the pretty town houses is immaculately painted in a different pastel shade. There are well-tended hanging baskets filled with colorful flowers, and potted plants on the cobbled pedestrian street. Every house has an expensive looking security system.

Frankie turns off the engine and sits in the van for a while, waiting for time to catch up with her. The alarm on her phone hasn’t gone off yet, so she knows she is early. She notices the paper cut on her index finger. One of the library books did it to herearlier. It’s amazing how a wound so small can refuse to heal and inflict so much discomfort. The cut hadn’t hurt until she saw it again, and it makes her wonder whether all pain is real or merely imagined.

She climbs into the back of the van to get changed, pulling off her prison uniform and replacing it with a black dress she has been saving for this occasion. Then she gets back into the driver’s seat and checks her reflection in the rearview mirror. Sad green eyes stare back. The dark circles that appeared beneath them when she lost her daughter have never left. Frankie has changed her hair color and style often over the years, but her curly bob looks as tired as she feels today. Her hair is determined to turn gray at the roots—despite her relatively young age—and her skin is so pale she looks like a ghost. She feels like a ghost, sleepwalking through life, waiting for the final chapter.

Frankie’s hands are clammy and she can’t stop them from shaking as she pulls on a pair of red leather gloves. It’s ironic really, most people who have met her—a quiet, shy, prison librarian—probably couldn’t imagine her committing a crime. It’s amazing what a person can be driven to do when they are out of options. On paper, Frankie is a good person. Sometimes good people do bad things, sometimes they have to. But Frankie wishes that it hadn’t come to this. Sadly it is human nature to squander love and stockpile hate. She counts from lonely one up to perfect ten then opens the van door.

Frankie counts her steps from the van to the front of the pretty pink town house too, knowing that there should be exactly thirty-four. This isn’t the first time she has visited this place, but it will be the first—and last—time she goes inside. Every single step seems to sharpen the pain of her memories as she crosses the cobbled street. Her mind is a whirlwind of all the things that have been taken from her. Things that Frankie fears she will never get back. Someone has to pay for what Frankie has lost, and that someone isinside the pink house. She notices the lock on the front door—one which would be ridiculously easy to pick—and realizes she could have let herself in anytime if she had chosen to. But she wants to be invited.

The alarm on her phone still hasn’t sounded. She is early, and thinks perhaps she should wait. Having put this off for as long as she has, surely a couple of minutes won’t make much difference. Maybe it’s best to get it over with. She raises her fist to knock but then stares at the shiny, polished house number: thirteen. She hesitates again, while words about numbers hiss inside her head:Thirteen: prime number, compound number, unlucky number, persons present at the Last Supper, teenager, the number of men she has...

She interrupts her thoughts before they derail her completely. Thirteen is a numerical paradox: lucky and unlucky at the same time. Perhaps it is another sign that she is doing the right thing.Oris the universe trying to warn her that what she is about to do is wrong? Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they can make the world seem more even. Less off balance.

Frankie’s alarm on her mobile phone pings and, at the exact same time, the door to the pink house opens.

“I’m Clio. You must be Frankie,” says a well-groomed middle-aged woman wearing a red dress and matching trainers. She offers her hand and a warm smile, neither of which Frankie feels sure how to take. “There’s a secret little camera above the door, see?” the woman adds, pointing at a small round black object that most people would never notice. “I saw you waiting. You looked a bit scared to knock so I thought I’d just come and say hello. Everyone gets a little nervous the first time, so please try not to worry. Come on inside.” The woman is so friendly it makes Frankie feel sick. She is aggressively kind. The variety of person people only like because they feel they really ought to. The woman frowns and it spoils her face. “You are Frankie, aren’t you?”

Frankie stares at her as though she is speaking a foreignlanguage. She hadn’t known about the camera above the door. She can’t help wondering whether it was able to see her parked outside so many other times before today. She hesitates, scared now that this woman might already know who Frankie is and why she is here. She tries to reply, but the words get caught in her throat. It feels as though she is choking on all the things she cannot say. The woman seems to understand, as though this was the response she was expecting. She turns to enter, gesturing with a manicured hand for Frankie to follow.

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