Maybe Tomorrow

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Whitby, North Yorkshire

‘It sounds like I’m going to need a brolly,’ Judith Patterson said as she quickly snatched two hot slices of toast from under the grill.

‘It’s not going to be a barrel of laughs on the building site,’ her husband Geoff said. He took the toast from his wife and began slathering it with butter.

‘Will you give Alice a lift in?’

‘If she’s down within the next ten minutes, yes.’

Judith looked at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s never gone eight already.’ She wiped her hands on a tea towel and charged out of the room to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Are you still alive up there, Lady Muck? Would you like me to send someone up to wash and dress you?’

‘You’re hilarious, Mum. Have you considered auditioning for Opportunity Knocks?’

Laughter came from the kitchen.

‘You heard that, I suppose,’ Judith said to her husband. ‘I can’t think where she gets it from.’

Alice started coming down the stairs. She was dressed in blue jeans and a red and black checked jumper. She carried her battered satchel over her shoulder and had a beaming smile on her face.

‘One of these days, you’ll cut yourself with that tongue of yours,’ Judith said. ‘There’s going to be a storm later so wear your waterproof and take a brolly. Though I don’t know why I bother with you two…’

‘You don’t appreciate me,’ Alice and Geoff both finished Judith’s sentence for her.

Judith tried not to laugh, but it was difficult to hide her smile.

She followed her daughter into the kitchen and clipped her husband round the back of the head.

‘What was that for?’

‘Teaching your daughter to back-chat.’

Geoff and Alice exchanged a high-five.

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re both ganging up on me?’

Geoff grabbed Judith around the waist and pulled her onto his lap. ‘We poke fun because we love you,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek.

‘Great. Now I’ve got toast crumbs all over my face. And you haven’t shaved this morning.’

‘I thought you liked me all hairy and manly?’

‘Not at this time of morning, I don’t.’ She climbed off Geoff’s knee and smoothed her dress down. ‘That cereal won’t eat itself, Alice.’

‘I think I’m going to skip breakfast this morning,’ she said, pushing her glasses up her nose.

‘You certainly are not. You know what you’re like on transport on an empty stomach. Eat.’

‘I’m fat.’

‘Who says your fat?’

‘I do.’

‘Don’t be daft. You weigh the same as I did when I was your age. I wasn’t fat, was I, Geoff?’

‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t meet you until you were twenty.’

‘Stop splitting hairs.’ Judith pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. ‘Has someone at that college been calling you names again?’

‘No,’ Alice said. She didn’t look up from the bowl of cornflakes. Reluctantly, she picked up the bottle of milk and poured on a generous amount.

‘I can give that tutor of yours a ring if you want?’

‘No,’ Alice replied, almost a moan.

‘Judi, leave her to it,’ Geoff said, placing a comforting arm on hers.

‘You know what girls are like. They see a few models in a newspaper and wonder why they’re not as stick thin as they are.

I’ll bet a week’s wages you thought the same when you were her age.

What you don’t seem to realise, Alice,’ he said, turning his attention to his daughter, ‘is that those supermodels are starved. They may look happy in their designer make-up and clothes, but the people who manage them put them on strict diets.’

‘Your dad’s right. For once. You shouldn’t read those magazines.’

‘It’s not the magazines,’ Alice said, eating small spoonfuls of cereal, struggling to swallow against the emotion rising up inside her.

‘What is it then?’

Alice didn’t answer.

‘Come on, we’re going to be late,’ Geoff said, standing up.

‘She’s still eating.’

‘I’ll get stuck in traffic if I don’t leave now.’

There was a flurry of madness as Geoff grabbed his coat from the hallway and slid his feet into size eleven boots. Alice kicked out her chair and followed her dad.

‘Here, take this toast. It’s still warm,’ Judith said, wrapping a couple of slices in a tea towel.

‘I don’t want it, Mum,’ Alice moaned.

‘You’ll be hungry by ten o’clock if you don’t eat anything.’

‘I’ll get something at the college.’

‘Geoff, will you tell her?’

‘She’ll get something at the college, Jude,’ he said, leaning forward and kissing his wife on the lips. ‘I’ll give her a pound.’

‘I don’t know why I bother getting up early to make sure you both have a decent breakfast.’

‘Because you love us,’ Geoff smiled.

‘Alice, waterproof coat and a brolly. Come straight home after your last lesson. If the storm is as bad as they’re making out on the radio, the bus’ll never get up the hill.’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Alice rolled her eyes.

‘You’ll be here when I get in?’ Geoff asked.

‘Aren’t I always?’

‘Love you,’ he said, opening the front door and letting in a blast of autumnal breeze.

‘I’ll take your word for it. Have a good day. Both of you.’

She watched as father and daughter made their way down the path. Geoff unlocked the van and Alice struggled to climb in. She slammed the door closed behind her. As it pulled away from the kerb, Alice waved frantically at her mum, a huge smile on her face.

Judith waved back and mimed at Alice to eat her toast. She looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen. She shivered in the cool breeze. No sign of a storm yet.

Whitby Community College, 12:30pm

Alice came out of her English class and was hit by a wall of sunshine streaming through the windows.

She looked through the window at the still air outside, the tall trees, their leaves turning brown, and a brilliant blue sky.

Where was this storm her mother had been talking about?

She was the only one who’d turned up at college wearing a waterproof coat and carrying an umbrella.

It’s not as if the other students needed an excuse to make fun of her.

Now, she was providing them with material.

She had forty-five minutes until her next lesson and headed for the canteen.

The usual array of food was waiting for her.

There was a thick meaty soup, chips, lasagne, and a large vat of baked beans, fish fingers and beef burgers to choose from, and those pork sausages sizzling away under the heat lamp looked delicious.

Behind her, she heard sniggering. She turned slightly and saw Rosie Clegg and her crew of beautiful people looking her way, chattering in hushed tones.

They were probably laying bets about what she was going to order.

Alice’s stomach rumbled. She was hungry.

She wanted chips. She wanted sausages and a mound of baked beans.

She wanted white bread, thickly buttered to make a chip butty with and dip into the bean juice.

She wanted apple crumble and custard for afters.

But she moved along the row, passed the fatty foods and picked up a tuna sandwich on brown bread, an apple and a banana.

It wouldn’t fill her, but it would silence her tormenters.

She paid for her lunch and took her usual seat in the corner where she took a dog-eared copy of The Secret Garden out of her satchel and opened it up.

Her satchel was heavy today. It always was on a Monday.

Monday was library day. She finished college at two o’clock, her earliest finish, and on her way home, she called into the local library to exchange the books she’d borrowed last Monday and check out another five or six to see her over the week and weekend.

She loved books. She lived for books and her ideal job would be to work in a library one day.

Half an hour later, she closed the book.

She’d read The Secret Garden before, many times, but it was a story she loved and she continued to borrow it on a regular basis.

Her tray was empty but for the banana peel and the crusts of her sandwich.

She never ate crusts. She was still hungry and would love to have gone back for a chip butty or a couple of bars of chocolate, but Rosie Clegg and her bitches were still in the canteen, laughing loudly and flicking their hair back, eyeing up the boys as they came in from the rugby field in their muddy kits, and shooting daggers at Alice if she caught their eye.

Alice placed the book in her bag, put her coat on and left the table. She had to walk past Rosie Clegg to leave and braced herself for the usual jibes about her weight. Her mother told her to ignore them. They were just words and words couldn’t hurt her. She was wrong. They did hurt.

‘Alice.’ Rosie grabbed Alice by the arm as she walked past. ‘Is everything all right?’ She seemed genuinely concerned.

Alice looked at Rosie, took in the smooth skin, the neat hair, the touch of make-up on her lips and eyes. She glanced to her friends surrounding the table. They were smiling at her, struggling to stifle their giggles.

‘Fine. Thanks.’

‘I just wondered if you were poorly or something.’

Alice frowned. ‘No. I’m fine.’

‘Oh good. I’ve got a leftover sausage here. Would you like it?’

A couple of the girls around the table started laughing.

‘No. Thank you,’ Alice said. She pulled herself free from Rosie’s grip and headed for the door.

She tried to ignore the grunting sounds from behind, but she couldn’t, and she was sure she heard one of them comment on her jumper.

She closed her coat tightly around her knitted red and black jumper.

She’d made it herself. She’d been building up to making her own clothes, having knitted a few doilies, scarves, and gloves, which were trickier than she first thought.

The jumper was her first item of clothing for herself, and she was proud of it. Was.

She hated Rosie Clegg and her ilk.

Whitby Library, 2:30pm

Alice’s mum had been right. A storm was coming.