Faith - Lesley Pearse [90]
Ivy made friends easily too, yet whoever she was friends with, or whatever boyfriend she currently had, she always kept Sundays free to spend with Meggie. The only sadness in her was because of Laura. She worried that as Barney grew older Laura might be forced to keep him away from her and Meggie in case he inadvertently spoke of them to his father.
It was on one of those stay-at-home Sundays that Laura turned up unexpectedly at the door with Barney. Coincidentally, Ivy and Meggie had just been discussing the possibility of getting Laura to invent some new story to Greg. The one they favoured was that she and Ivy were the fictitious Aunt Mabel’s nieces. Meggie thought that maybe she could write a letter to Laura saying that they hadn’t known of her existence until Mabel died, and they’d traced her through the records at Somerset House.
When the doorbell rang and there was Laura, they couldn’t wait to launch into their plan. But Laura was in no state to have a serious discussion about anything. The moment Meggie looked at her she knew she was high as a kite on speed. She knew the signs well as many of the girls she worked with took it to keep going, and Meggie had taken it herself occasionally.
Laura’s pupils were dilated until there was virtually no iris left. She began gabbling away about nothing the moment she came in, pacing up and down the room and firing questions at her sisters, yet not listening to the reply. Even more distressing was the way she treated Barney like a performing monkey. She kept ordering him to sing nursery rhymes, then she’d peal with laughter, pick him up and throw him up in the air. Barney looked anxious and confused, and several times hid from her behind the sofa, but that made Laura mad, and she’d haul him out and command him to do something else.
Barney was eighteen months old then, a stocky little dark-haired toddler who happily went to anyone, and it horrified Meggie that Laura had been driving her car with him in it while she was in such a state.
She had lost far too much weight, her face looked gaunt, and she was so thin that Meggie could see her hipbones jutting out beneath her skin-tight jeans. As soon as she could get Laura into the kitchen away from Ivy, she asked her what she thought she was doing.
‘Having fun,’ Laura said. ‘You should try it, you always were a worry guts even when you were little, but now you’re turning into a grumpy old maid who disapproves of everything.’
‘But you’ll get ill,’ Meggie argued. ‘And you could easily have an accident in your car if you’re so spaced out.’
When Laura realized she was going to get lectures rather than admiration, she soon left, but Ivy kept asking what had been wrong with her, and the day was ruined by fear of her guessing it was drugs, and wondering if Laura got home in one piece.
The following morning just after Ivy left for work, Laura telephoned, begging Meggie to come over to Chelsea because she had the most terrible pain in her stomach and couldn’t lift Barney to dress or change him.
Meggie arrived there fired up to give her sister a piece of her mind, and found Laura in bed, doubled up with pain, with a grey-green tinge on her face. Barney was still in his pyjamas, his nappy stinking.
‘I had this last week, only not so bad,’ Laura said weakly. ‘I feel like I’m going to die.’
‘It’s the speed,’ Meggie told her none too gently. ‘It serves you right. You can only abuse your body so long before it protests.’
She tried to make her drink water, but Laura was immediately sick, and because she was in such obvious pain Meggie called the doctor.
The doctor examined Laura very carefully and asked a great many questions about what she had eaten in the last twenty-four hours. He seemed very worried, and said he thought it was some kind of poisoning and