Cuckoo (aka Claire, Darling)

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Two

Laura Thorpe

Dodgson has called his second witness to the stand. My heart begins to race as soon as I see the face of the woman who is trotting up the aisle. It’s Laura Thorpe. She flicks her hair over her shoulder and bats her lashes at the jury. I have not seen this woman in thirteen years. Thirteen years since she last tormented me and she’s somehow been found from the rubble of my childhood and presented in court today. I feel white-hot rage take over my entire body as she sits down primly, still with that same annoying smirk on her face she wore constantly at school.

‘Mrs Thorpe, is it accurate to say that you were a school friend of Claire Arundale from the ages of eleven through to fifteen?’ Dodgson asks.

How did he find Laura?

I slide a note discreetly to Grosvenor across the table. It reads: WTF ?

She slides one back. He’s trying to paint a picture of who you are. Stay unfazed.

That’s easy for Grosvenor to say. Her decades-old arch nemesis isn’t a witness for the prosecution, trying to get her convicted on a murder charge.

‘Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say we were friends,’ Laura replies in that same snide sing-song tone I recall from years ago. I bristle immediately, feeling like a teenager again, wanting to hide away in the art room from her and her bullying friends.

‘But you were in the same tutor group? Spent a lot of time together?’ Dodgson rephrases.

‘Yes, I’d say that’s accurate,’ she agrees, and shoots me a look that is so smug I want to slap it off her face.

I glare at her, full of resentment and fury that she is here, in this courtroom, trying to ruin me, again.

‘And tell us, what was Miss Arundale like at school?’ Dodgson asks.

Laura makes a show of batting her eyelashes, chewing on her over-plumped lips before answering. ‘Well… Claire was quite… quite unpopular, really,’ she says, pulling a sorrowful expression. But she has the same spiteful eyes that she did as a teenager, and I can sense her relishing this unexpected opportunity to make me feel awful about myself.

‘Unpopular in what way?’

‘She didn’t really have many friends, she kept herself to herself. She was a bit strange. I think people didn’t know how to behave around her,’ Laura says.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel fifteen again, but she’s managing to make it happen. For some bizarre reason, I feel my self-loathing begin to re-emerge, see myself through her eyes: a sad, pathetic virgin loser. It makes me hate her the same way that I hated Mother.

‘What do you mean by strange ?’

‘I don’t know, really. Just different from the rest of us. She spoke to herself sometimes, and she lied a lot, too.’

‘Lied?’

‘Yes, like fibbing, you know? So, there was this one time when I’m pretty sure she was following me home one day after school. I could just, like, feel her watching me, and every time I turned around, she’d pretend to be looking at something else?’

I wring my fingers together behind my back. How can she still be so conceited?

‘So then, anyway, eventually I turned around and asked her why she was following me and she said something about going to someone’s house, but I lived on Westmont Street, which is a private road, and I knew all the kids on that street, so I knew she was lying about visiting a friend. Just silly, weird things like that.’

I cannot even bring myself to look up, I am so embarrassed. This was years ago. Kid stuff. Nothing big, nothing important! I had just wanted to see where the girl who was making my life a living hell lived, so I could try and be the sort of person she’d leave alone. This has nothing to do with Lilah.

‘And why do you think she followed you?’ Dodgson asks.

‘I don’t know– to make herself fit in better, lie her way into making some friends maybe,’ Laura suggests dismissively. ‘I tried to be her friend once,’ she goes on. ‘I reached out to her, asked her if she wanted to go shopping with me after school, but she never turned up,’ she says with a shrug. But this time, she looks me dead in the eyes, because she knows, and I know, that I turned up that day after school. And I waited for her and her friends for forty minutes in the food court before realising I had been stood up. The next day they were all laughing about it, about how sad Hairy Clairy had actually believed Laura and had gone all the way to the city mall, waiting for them to turn up.

‘She’s lying,’ I whisper to Grosvenor, unsure if I’m about to launch myself over the counter to strangle Laura or burst into tears.

Grosvenor simply holds up a hand to silence me.

‘And how did this solitary lifestyle affect her? Was she quiet… shy? What was her personality like?’ Dodgson probes.

‘Objection, Your Honour! Speculation,’ Grosvenor says, standing up, and I let out a sigh, releasing the tension I did not know had been building up. Grosvenor has bought me a moment to breathe.

‘Okay, let’s rephrase that: what was Miss Arundale’s general behaviour like at school?’

‘Well, it was bad. She would be very angry sometimes, with me and the other girls especially. It must have been from jealousy. She always sat in the back of the classroom on her own, hunched over, and wouldn’t talk to anyone. And whenever the girls or I would try to speak to her, she’d snap and lash out. She could be quite nasty.’

‘What do you mean by snap and lash out ?’ Dodgson asks her.

‘Well, one time, she tried to hit me. We were in the girls’ toilets and I was just putting my lip gloss on and she came out of nowhere and swooped down on me. I tried to move out of the way but she nicked me on the neck with her fingernails. She was almost suspended but her mum talked the head out of it. Claire got away with a detention,’ Laura says primly, rubbing her neck as though it’s still sore over a decade later.

I glare at her. I did try to hit her that day in the toilets, but it wasn’t like she’s saying. There were three of them in there and they jumped me when I came out of a stall. They tipped my bag over and Laura picked up one of my lip glosses and was trying it on. Mother had bought it for me. I told her to give it back and she refused. After a year of being picked on by her, I snapped and tried to hit her. And I’d do it again. Though I think maybe I’d better not say this to Grosvenor or the court.

‘Is it fair to say that your experience with the adolescent Miss Arundale was one of discomfort, aggression and strange behaviour?’ Dodgson asks.

‘Yes,’ Laura replies primly, sticking her nose in the air.

‘Objection! You’re putting words into your witness’s mouth,’ Grosvenor says, on her feet again.

‘No further questions,’ he replies smugly.

Grosvenor stands to take Dodgson’s place and cross-examine Laura.

‘Mrs Thorpe, is it fair to say you have not seen Miss Arundale in over a decade? That you have maintained no contact at all with my client?’ she asks.

‘Yes, that’s fair. I don’t keep in touch with people who are vicious,’ she says pointedly.

‘So is it fair to say that you actually do not know the Miss Arundale of today at all?’

Laura pauses, looking unsure of herself. She glances at Dodgson for direction, but he’s unable to help. ‘I suppose not. I was answering questions about our days at school.’

‘And have you changed since you were a teenager?’ Grosvenor asks.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Laura replies.

‘Well, I can see from police records that you were arrested for shoplifting at the age of fourteen. From school records, I discover you were suspended for bullying aged sixteen. That you dropped out of university in the first year, but lied in social media posts to say you were still attending. You then had another brush with the law for drink-driving, aged eighteen. Is all this correct?’ Grosvenor asks, her voice breezy, almost playful

Laura looks outraged, her face bright red. She is rubbing her manicured hands together. I am biting the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

‘Yes, that’s correct,’ she eventually grinds out through her teeth.

‘And then you had two children with your husband and the record goes quiet. You have become a family woman, focussed on raising your children well?’

‘Yes,’ Laura replies, nose in the air, shifting in her seat.

‘So it’s fair to say that you have changed a lot since your teenage years, and my client, in the same manner, is very likely not the same person she was at the age of fifteen?’

‘I have changed,’ is all Laura says.

‘What would you do if someone tried to take your child from you, Mrs Thorpe? If they denied you the right to be with your children? Would you push them, or worse?’ Grosvenor chances her arm.

Laura looks affronted and Dodgson shoots to his feet. ‘Objection, Your Honour! Relevance.’ he calls out. ‘And pretty much every other ground,’ he mutters under his breath.

‘Sustained,’ the judge replies, allowing Laura to avoid answering the question.

‘That’s all.’ Grosvenor smiles.

The judge gives a nod and Laura is escorted from the room. As she walks past, we both refuse to make eye contact, but her strong perfume wafts over me and I feel like vomiting. It stings my throat.

I wonder how much more of this I can take; how many more horrible memories are going to be unearthed; how many more twisted truths and bare-faced lies are going to slap me in the face throughout the trial. It feels like they’re trying to break me in court, but they don’t realise Noah already has.