Third chapter, so I'm hoping there are still a couple of readers?
Still angsty I'm afraid. Naomi's on her way home…
"Fucking Bristol" Naomi muttered darkly under her breath as the train sat stubbornly 500 metres outside Temple Meads. Bad enough the train was packed...full of chattering children and crumpled, grumpy adults since she boarded at Paddington. She'd had to take pot luck after packing a rucksack, eyes full of unshed tears and a sob always threatening in her throat. After picking up the phone again, to hear Kieran still bumbling through an explanation of his terrible news, she'd allowed her sensible head to ghost walk her through the platitudes and sorrow coming from the other end. The words 'Mums dead' kept echoing in her head like a soundtrack stuck in a loop. It didn't seem real for over an hour...long enough for her to cram a change of clothes into her battered student pack and leave a message on the Campus Support Office phone for the Deputy Deans attention.
It wasn't a long message.
"Naomi Campbell here. My mums just died...it's err..Sunday. Going home to Bristol to sort things out. Dunno when I'll be back. Sorry"
There didn't seem to be anything else worth saying. The facts were as bleak and cold as her message.
It wasn't until the train got past Reading that her brain allowed her to properly think about what she'd been told only a couple of hours ago. Practical issues now sorted, seat reserved and an exorbitant amount of money creamed from her student loan for the ludicrously priced last minute train journey, it was only at that moment that she finally broke.
Her luggage and tissues were on the overhead rack, but she ignored it and stumbled blindly past an argumentative family of four who were in the aisle, blocking her exit, barely making it to the noisy and smelly GWR toilet before slamming the door closed and, crouching over a stained sink, bawled like a small child for ten minutes straight. Twice there was a knock at the door. Naomi didn't care if it was an incontinent pensioner or the guard looking for her ticket. Both knocks received a hoarse and definite "Fuck off!".
Luckily for the leg crossing passengers, there were two other toilets on the service. They'd just have to walk a bit further. It took half the available hand tissue and several lengths of loo paper, but she eventually got her crying under control and her cheeks dry. She looked at her red rimmed eyes and waxy face in the pitted mirror bleakly. Shrugging her shoulders, she gradually assumed her patented defence mechanism against any outside threat, whether it was this vicious cruel shock, or the subtler, but almost as viscerally painful loss of a certain small redhead with brown eyes. The Campbell walls were methodically put back up.
Leaving the unpleasant restroom facility and, walking with her head held up along the swaying carriage, she ignored curious looks and the occasional hushed whisper. Fuck them all, she thought fiercely, fuck them all.
Some sort of composure restored, she spent the rest of the interminable journey looking blankly out at the blurred countryside the train passed. After a couple of desultory attempts, the passenger next to her...a plump middle aged woman wearing some hideous tweed two piece...gave up trying to engage a conversation with the silent and rigid backed teenage girl next to her. The sole interruption into Naomi's tightly wound world of pain was the train guard. Wordlessly, she held out the stub, then accepted it back into her hand without a thank you. The guard and middle aged woman exchanged a look which said 'kids today' without words but Naomi was already gazing sightlessly again out of the window.
But now as the train stood just outside Temple Meads, the electric engines below the carriage ticking loudly, she had to use all of her self control not to scream aloud in frustration.
It was probably only five minutes, but it seemed several hours at least before the driver announced cheerfully over the speaker that the train would be arriving at the station in seconds.
Naomi waited until the carriage had emptied completely before sighing and stretching her stiff body She stood and retrieved the battered rucksack with its Goldsmiths and Momentum badges from the overhead rack before wearily making her way onto the platform.
Exiting the station, she didn't expect to see Kieran waiting. His unreliability was legendary after all. Mum always said he…
She snapped off that thought almost desperately. The world seemed to be divided into two distinct elements since this morning. Before and after Gina Campbell. It didn't seem credible…
But waiting he was. Looking as shit as she felt, she thought tiredly. Normally, when she made a rare excursion back to her home town, she was almost furtive when faced with all the familiar sights and sounds of Bristol. Emily Fitch loomed over everywhere like a mute reproach, making her scuttle for a taxi, then hole up for the duration inside her house, as if a random Fitch was likely to appear in the street at any moment. Unlikely, obviously...specially as she knew Emily was studying at Bath Uni...probably scoring lustily with every pretty lesbian with eyes to see her unmatched beauty, Naomi used to torment herself with visions of other hands and lips on her love bitterly. But today, she really couldn't care less. Something huge and dreadful had happened and everything else seemed unimportant in comparison, even the loss of the love of her life.
Mums dead...she heard in her head again as Kieran raised his eyes, sending her an uncertain smile. She found her feet moving of their own accord...quickly. By the time she reached him, she was almost running. He opened his arms and enfolded her tightly in brown and musty tweed. Then the tears came again.
"Oh lassie...my poor wee lassie" he repeated as she sobbed in his arms.
XXX
They made the journey back without mechanical breakdown (barely) and without the notorious passenger seat spring taking liberties with her underwear For a brief second Naomi allowed herself to remember the first time she had been in this old rust bucket. If she'd only known how tiny her problems were back then. Emily was in full on devotion mode, turning up anywhere and everywhere, and trying ever so hard to brighten Naomi's day. Kieran had just been a slightly disconcerting, foul mouthed lecturer then, at least until he misread the signals so disastrously he tried to kiss her. But all those things..and those that followed...the cat flap, the lake and even the bleak and terrifying few minutes on that car park roof, when she had thought, just for a second, that her beautiful and adoring Emily was about to throw herself off in despair at Naomi's betrayal… even that, paled into insignificance at the reality of where she was now and what had happened.
Mums dead.
When Kieran turned into her street and the familiar yellow fronted chalet came into view, Naomi bit her lip so hard she could taste the salt of her own blood. The house stood there mutely, as if nothing significant had happened. Naomi's bedroom was at the front and looking up, she could imagine her mother looking out of the window, making googly eyes at Kieran as he helped her with her bike. Happy memories. All gone now.
Mums dead.
She made it inside without collapsing again. The hallway was the same. The kitchen still dominated by the oversized black board. Domestic duties had given way to dates for holidays and curt instructions for Kieran to 'remember the bins' and 'Do NOT pay the window cleaner, because he's missed the bathroom window AGAIN'.
It was like Gina was still here. Naomi could hear her voice as clearly as if she was next to them. Kieran coughed gently behind her and she moved aside to let him in.
Mums dead.
XXX
A week later, she was no closer to dealing with reality. The official stuff passed her by on the whole. The light purple certificate of death, signed by the family doctor was in the kitchen drawer. No need for a post mortem, death was easily attributed to a massive heart attack. Nothing suspicious to bring Bristol's finest into the picture. Which was some relief at least. Her mum had nothing but contempt for the law and Naomi's only brush with the local force was that single uncomfortable interview with detectives after Sophia Moore's death. The one where she had lied about even knowing the girl...the one that led to her cute but relentless girlfriend going all amateur sleuth and finding out just how well Naomi had known the tragic teenager. All in all, she was glad the formalities were over. People came and went, neighbours, friends of her mums, activists from all over the South West. Every visit, every meaningless drone of commiseration and pity, washed over a silent Naomi like an invisible tide.
Kieran tried his best to keep her mind occupied. But once the crowd of sympathisers had receded and the house was empty, there really was nothing to do except wait for the funeral in ten days time.
Gina, of course, had thought about this day. A humanist ceremony. No vicars or hymns. Just a simple cremation in a willow coffin. Then a short drive to the Woodlands Burial Trust for an equally simple interment of the ashes in a beautiful glade.
Just what she wanted.
But dear God, Naomi thought, in the silence and relative safety of her old room...not this soon?
Her room was spookily similar to the way it had been before she left for uni. The childish candle lights around the headrail were gone, but apart from that it looked the same. Same bedding, same sink and mirror that she had stared into with Emily Fitches little yellow post it note stuck to her face. And the same comfortable bed that they had used over and over again, never quite sating their love and lust for each other.
She couldn't bear it. When Kieran was out one morning, arranging some ecologically sound flowers for the grave, Naomi set to changing the room as fundamentally possible as she could without knocking down walls.
Gina's absence was a heavy weight over the whole house...but the memories and reminders of that sweet redhead (was she still that now?) were an unbearable extra she could do something about at least.
The wardrobe was moved to the other side of the room, as was the bed. She packed away books and posters...anything that reminded her of that happy time. When an hour later, sweaty and wild haired, she paused and looked around, the room was almost unrecognisable. She blew a stray lock of hair away from her eyes, brushed a hand across her sticky forehead and surveyed her work.
Not perfect...but it would do. Her legs ached to match the headache she seemed to get every day. But at least she had done something positive. A cup of tea, she decided...yes. A cup of proper tea.
Walking downstairs, she steeled herself for the trip to the kitchen. That room was always the hardest to face. Gina was everywhere in the house...bit the kitchen was the room she still occupied. Nothing in that small, old fashioned space wasn't her. Naomi bit back a small sob that threatened to escape. Tea then, she scolded her weak and frightened self.
The kettle whistled on the hob after a few minutes and Naomi fussed around the pine dresser, selecting an anonymous mug. Her own, and her mothers favourite, were buried at the back...alongside another...the one with the word 'Emily' in flowery writing on its pink surface.
Just as she was pouring the tea, the front door reverberated to a firm knock.
Naomi sighed and for a moment, was tempted to pretend to be out. She stood undecided, with her hands resting on the scrubbed wooden table.
Fuck it, she thought. If its more commiserations, I'm gonna do the decent thing for about 5 fucking seconds. Any more than that and her patience would run out.
Walking quickly to the door, she didn't pause to look through the fluted glass panel. If she had, she would probably never have opened it. She swung the door open in one move and adopted her newly acquired mourning daughter face. For a nano second.
"Hello Naomi" the figure in front of her said brightly.
Naomi's hand went over her mouth and she actually swayed back. The brown eyes and lustrous hair were the same...but the expression wasn't the usual one.
"K...Katie?" she said hoarsely
OK, more soon, and of course...where Katie goes...another beautiful Fitch is never far away...or is she?
Answers on a postcard, or just comments would be well appreciated?
Thanks for reading!