Chapter 15 #3
Fliss entered the stage, dressed as a flamboyant version of Buttons, and then Charles appeared from the other side of the stage as an even more unlikely Cinderella, complete with a blonde wig, painted-on freckles and a hooped skirt that was almost as wide as the stage itself.
Zoe had been so busy watching Billie, she hadn’t really taken in their appearances before now.
‘Oh, Buttons!’ he rasped in as girly voice as a baritone man could manage. ‘The ball is tomorrow. Everyone is going, including my awful stepsisters. I’m so sad!’
‘I know that,’ Fliss replied with a cheeky wink. ‘But what do you feel about the ball?’
Everyone started to laugh again, and with every titter and guffaw it was plain to see how much confidence grew in Fliss. She slapped her knee. ‘Come on, Cinders… let me make you feel better.’
‘Even you couldn’t make me feel better,’ Charles said. ‘Not even that special thing you do with that buzzy vibrating—’
‘Not here!’ Buttons exclaimed. ‘That’s our secret buzzy vibrating thing!
What if I make you a nice dinner? Wait until you see what I got from the village stores…
’ Fliss gave an exaggerated wink to the audience.
‘Nice bit of advertising there… Now then, Cinders, come and see what I’ve got for you…
I forgot my shopping bag, so I had to put it in here…
’ She opened her trousers and bade Charles to go over.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘A nice sausage for you,’ Fliss said in a saucy tone.
‘I’ve never seen one like that.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Fliss winked again.
Whatever the punchline to the joke was going to be, Zoe wouldn’t get to hear it.
She was distracted once again by Billie getting out of her seat and heading for the exit.
She and Alex swapped a look of confusion before they both made their awkward apologies to the people around them and followed her out.
Billie was already on her way down the lane, heading towards Ottilie’s cottage – at least it looked that way to Zoe. Alex jogged after her, Zoe running to catch up.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t want to stay,’ Billie said.
‘You’re worried about Louisa? She’s fine with Ottilie. They would have phoned if there was a problem.’
‘I didn’t say there was. I’m not worrying; I just want to go home. I’m not stopping you two from going back to the show.’
‘We can’t go back in, not if you want to go home. How are you going to get there?’
‘I’ll walk. Or maybe Heath will take me.’
‘Heath’s had a drink; he can’t drive you.’
‘It was one snowball.’
‘He probably had another couple if he didn’t have anywhere to be,’ Zoe said.
‘Come back in – the play isn’t even that long; we’ll be done in an hour, and then we can all go home together.
It’s dark as anything on that road, and the wind’s getting up – there’s no way you can go up on your own with Louisa. ’
‘I’d be fine.’
‘You might be, but nobody is going to let you. We’d be worried to death for a start.’
‘I don’t want to go back in.’
‘Why not?’ Alex asked helplessly.
‘I just don’t want to.’
‘But why? It’s a bit silly, but it’s not that bad.’
‘It’s offensive.’ She looked at Zoe. ‘I would have expected you to see that, even if Dad didn’t.’
‘Offensive?’ Alex blew out a breath. ‘Come on now – it’s daft, but it’s just harmless fun.’
‘It’s a bit old-fashioned, I’ll admit,’ Zoe said, ‘but you have to remember that most of the people involved are older. They’ve grown up in a different age where that stuff doesn’t mean any harm to anyone.’
‘It doesn’t make it OK. People use that excuse all the time, but it’s bullshit. That’s like saying we can still hang people because we used to.’
‘That’s a bit much, Bill…’ Alex let out a light laugh and immediately earned a glare from his daughter. ‘I only mean to say that’s quite a stretch of a comparison,’ he concluded, clearly recognising that he shouldn’t have finished his argument at all.
‘I thought you’d enjoy a night off,’ Alex continued after a moment. ‘I thought… we thought you’d enjoy a night out doing something different.’
Billie looked up and flung a hand back at the hall. ‘You thought I’d enjoy that?’
‘Well, yes… It’s nice; it brings the community together.’
‘If you think Royston Vasey is a good example of a community, then yeah.’
‘That’s not fair!’ Heat flared in Zoe’s cheeks.
Whatever anyone thought of what was, admittedly, outdated humour, Billie’s comparison was unreasonable and downright mean.
‘It’s not your taste, and that’s fine, but don’t make out like the people here are horrible, just because they don’t laugh at what you laugh at.
Whatever you might like to think, humour is subjective, and it does depend on the generation you belong to.
Nobody means any harm; they just find things funny that you apparently don’t.
They’re good people, and they’ve been kind to all of us since we arrived here. ’
‘I can think of a lot of worse places to live,’ Alex added.
‘I can think of better places too,’ Billie shot back. ‘Better places for Louisa to grow up.’
‘Better places than this?’ Alex swept a hand over dark hills dressed in tiny lights, at a moon bathing their crests in silver and swirling masses of stars overhead.
‘Yes,’ Billie said. ‘It’s freezing here all the time. There’s nothing to do. Everyone is about a hundred. All the people my age have moved away, and I don’t blame them. I hate it here! I’ve always hated it, and I only tried to like it because you wanted to stay!’
Alex’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
‘Is that really how you feel?’ Zoe asked.
Billie started to walk again. ‘I’m going to get Louisa from Ottilie’s, and then I’m going back to Hilltop. You don’t need to come; I said you could stay and watch the rest of the play. I’m not bothered.’
‘How are you going to get up there, though? It’s far too dark to walk.’
‘Yes it is,’ Billie said. ‘Just another reason to love living here – you can’t go anywhere because it’s too dark, or too cold, or too far. I’ll get an Uber.’
‘You’d never get an Uber to come out this far tonight,’ Zoe said.
Billie threw her hands into the air with an exasperated sigh.
‘I was being sarcastic! As if something that exists everywhere else in the world is going to exist here! I’ll have to walk!
What do you want from me? I can’t walk, and I can’t get an Uber or ask Heath, but I’ve got to do one of them, haven’t I? ’
‘I’ll drive you home,’ Alex said.
‘I’ll do it,’ Zoe replied. ‘You go back inside.’
‘But…’
She tried to telegraph, without words, how it would be better for her to drive Billie home, to see if she could subtly, and with more patience than she sensed Alex had, get to the bottom of what was really going on with his daughter.
He was too emotional, too hurt by all she’d just said, and if they were to go back to Hilltop together now, their conflict would only worsen, both of them digging their heels in, both more determined than ever to make their point the one that stuck.
But Zoe could listen – she had enough distance to let Billie say her piece and talk herself into a more reasonable frame of mind. At least, she hoped so.