Forever Is Over (52 page)

“
Why love?
”
I asked. Admittedly I am not always the quickest
to appreciate the significance of certain things. Petrocelli, Columbo,
Murder, She Wrote
…
I would never get the murderer, never.

“
Because Mum, by the sounds of it, you and Dad may very well have
witnessed a murder!
”
             

Wally did not see Paula
’
s logic either.

“
Those girls won
’
t have killed their mother,
”
he said,
“
they haven
’
t
got it in them.
”

“
Dad, that
’
s not for us to decide. Let
’
s ring the police, tell them what
you heard and let them decide what to make of it. You might be right,
it might be nothing, but why would the girls say they were fast asleep,
if they were awake the whole time? I think they will have some serious
explaining to do, at the very least.
”

Kelly

As long as it
’
s not raining, market days in Ormskirk are always busy.
If the sun comes out, it can be like a mas
s gathering for a Val Doonican
concert. On this particular sunny day in early June, it was total bedlam.

Having passed my GCSEs, I had taken a year out of Further Education,
to help contribute to the household bills, but also to save some money,
so I could go back to school and fund myself the following year. Jemma
was helping too. She worked at the bank and I was getting as many
hours in as I could at the Woolworths in Aughton Street. I started there
as a Saturday girl at fourteen, then after my GCSEs, I did Thursdays,
Saturdays and Sundays before stepping it up to full-time after Mum
’
s
death. For this, I was paid
£
105 per week, by no means a fortune, but
enough to put a bit away, as well as helping Jemma with the rent.

My supervisor, Kathryn, had pinched first lunch that day, as she
wanted to nip down to
‘
The Buck I
’
Th Vine
’
for a celebratory drink
with her boyfriend, Gaz, as it was her 21
st
birthday the following day,
so I was left in the CD department on
my own for a crazy hour and a
quarter. Barry Manilow and Dolly Parton had new albums out, so the
older generations were buying them, whilst all the rockers were buying
the Sepultura album
“
Beneath The Remains
”
, so it was a bizarre looking
queue!

By the time Kathryn returned, a little giddy for booze at quarter
past one, I was tired and hungry. Every day at lunchtime, I would walk
the hundred metres up the Aughton Street slope to the Middlelands
Bank, to see if Jemma was around, to share my lunch hour with, but
when I ventured into the branch that day, Jemma was not there but Ray
was, looking like someone had forced a stick of dynamite up his bum
and lit the fuse. He was ready to explode. He was striding around the
front office, apologising to a snake like queue, twenty deep, for their
delay. The cashiers looked harassed. I gently tapped his shoulder as he
was about to brush past me, oblivious to my presence.

“
Is Jemma not about, Ray?
”
I asked in cheery tones.

“
No, she bloody isn
’
t! She
’
s the cause of this chaos! Twelve o
’
clock
she went on her lunch and she
’
s twenty minutes late already. I
’
ve had
to get Margaret to go on the tills and Margaret isn
’
t a cashier, she
’
s a
current account adviser. It
’
s slowed the whole thing down. Look at the
size of the bloody queue! If my Regional Manager stepped in here now,
I could forget any plans of promotion. If you see her, Kelly, wandering
around the shops merrily, can you send her back, straight away. She
’
s
dumped us right in the shit!
”

Ray whispered the last sentence so the irritated pensioners in the
queue did not overhear.

“
OK. I
’
ll tell her.
”

Jemma had a tendency to be late for things. I was always the punctual
one. I knew five or ten minutes was the norm with Jemma, but twenty
minutes was taking the mickey! I was dazzled by sunshine as soon as
I left the bank. The weather, on the whole, was promising a decent
summer and I wanted to enjoy my hour before the chaos continued
at Woolworths in the afternoon. I headed up Burscough Street and
decided to treat myself to a portion of fish and chips, then headed over
to Coronation Park to sit on a bench and eat my dinner under blue
skies.

When I arrived at Coronation Park, I found an empty bench almost
straight away which was a right result, as pensioners out on sunny days
normally seek out the benches to rest their weary legs. There were
hundreds of people in the park and they were not all pensioners, there were mothers and fathers pushing children on swings in the play area,
teenage boys with their tops off displaying their skinny, milk-bottled,
hairless torsos and shop workers and office workers mingling with
shoppers, sitting on picnic rugs having lunch.

As I ate my lunch, I scoured the masses, looking for a familiar face. I
was popping my last chip into my hungry mouth, when I spotted Jemma
in the distance, sat on the grass. Spontaneously, I stood up and headed
towards her to warn her that she needed to head back to the bank, as
Ray was fuming.

Within a few strides of setting off, I relaxed a little. I could see that
she was sat with Ray, they were cross-legged, holding hands and she
was lovingly touching his face. They were deep in conversation. Ray
had obviously calmed down a lot since I had seen him in the bank. As I
took a few further steps, it dawned on me that although it was definitely
Jemma, it was definitely not Ray! Jemma
’
s lawn companion hung his
head so it was difficult to make out features, but he was too thick set
to be Ray. No doubt he was too good looking to be Ray too, but I was
unable to confirm this from
such a distance. This was beginning to amuse me! No wonder Jemma
was not rushing back to work!

I instinctively took a few steps back, re-tracing my footsteps, not
wanting to intrude. If Jemma had another man in her life, was this
my business? After everything that we had been through together, it
did seem bizarre that she had not let me know about this development
in her personal life, as we had always confided in each other about
everything.

As the man re-adjusted his posture and straightened, I caught sight
of him more clearly. My body sagged in desperation. I forced my eyes to
blink over and over again, anticipating proper clarity, willing my brain
to remove this mirage. Surely, I was mistaken. I forced myself to look
again. Jemma was stroking the cheeks of a handsome man, then kissing
him softly. I started to pace forward now, angrily. As I advanced, what I
hoped was an apparition continued to remain real and constant. It was
Richie. My Richie. The man I had spent eighteen months with. MY
BOYFRIEND! How could this be happening? He was with MY sister.
Despite everything.

Richie had never had a decent word to say about Jemma. Not one.
The whole incident at the Birch
’
s party, t
hat had driven a wedge between
us for so long, that I had dismissed as a simple case of mistaken identity,
no longer appeared to be just that. I had been hoodwinked, but for what
purpose? Why had I become embroiled in this? I wanted answers.

I suddenly found myself within touching distance of Richie and
Jemma, having come at them from an angle to avoid detection, from
over their shoulders. They looked like they were re-enacting the Peter
Gabriel and Kate Bush video for
“
Don
’
t Give Up
”
. A seated version
anyway.

Jemma caught sight of me first.
“
Kelly!
”

Cowardice was not a word I would use lightly when applying it
to Jemma. For every single day of my life up until that point, it was a
word that was the polar opposite to how I perceived Jemma. She had
not shirked her responsibility in any matter, ever, and truthfully, a lot of
the problems that Jemma had encountered in her life, were more down
to an abundance of bravery rather than a lack of it. This was different
though. My eyes bored into her, filled with hatred. Jemma averted my
stare, turning to Richie to resolve an uncomfortable position. They let
go of each other and stood up.

“
Richie!
”
she begged.
“
Tell Kelly what
’
s going on. She needs to
know.
”

Richie was immediately tearful which struck me as a little pathetic.

“
I can
’
t, Jemma! Not after everything that
’
s happened. I can
’
t!
”

“
Just tell her, Richie, or I will.
”

To give Jemma some credit, her cowardice was temporary. Not that
she deserved much credit, I had just caught her kissing my boyfriend!

“
No!
”
he refused.

Six weeks earlier, a short burst of bravery on my part had been
responsible for our mother
’
s death. I think that moment had sapped
away any steely determination that I had within me. The last thing I
wanted to do now was stand in front of the only two people in the world that I loved, sobbing my heart out, as
they attempted to make their peace with me about their betrayal. Before
the tears began to flow, I managed to cry out,

“
How could you do this to me!
”

Then I turned and ran.

I heard Jemma shouting after me,
“
Kelly! Wait! Please wait! Let me explain.
”

I did not receive that explanation. I ran determinedly towards home.

I could not bear to hear their excuses. That
“
the only thing we did wrong
was fall in love
”
excuse. I needed to clear my head first. I needed to try
in some way to rationalise this and decide how I would go forward in
life without Jemma and Richie
’
s love.

I ran from the park into Ormskirk
town centre, past the crowds in Aughton Street, checking out the
market stalls, past Woolworth
’
s (there was no way I was heading back
to work in this state) to the clock tower then headed right into Moor Street, constantly running, all the way out of town and up to Wigan
Road. I only broke into a walk when I spotted the police van outside
our house. As I crossed over, to the opposite side, I noticed the van was
actually not outside our house, but outside next doors. The adjoining
house. Mr. and Mrs. McGordon lived there. They were a sweet couple
in their seventies, they had had a few run ins with Mum, but then
who hadn
’
t and if I had retired, the last place I would want to live, as
I saw out my days, was next to us. Both of them were standing at their
door, speaking to two male police officers. One was the guy who had
dropped me off at Richie
’
s on that miserable night. Their garden, like
ours, sloped up to their front door. The volume of traffic meant that I
was too far away to hear their conversation. When I reached a point that
I was parallel to the police van, I knew I was out of sight. The police
officers had their backs to me anyway, but I had visions of Mr. and Mrs.
McGordon pointing at me and shouting,