32.

Biddy sat down on one of the leather armchairs, her mind spinning as she looked around the room. It was as colourful as Terri herself. The walls were adorned with framed certificates and child-like paintings in bold colours and patterns. On one wall hung lots of photographs, maybe twenty or thirty of them, all in different, colourful frames. There were several of young children – laughing, pulling funny faces, eating ice cream. There were lots of group shots with too many people in them for Biddy to make out, a few weddings, and three bunched together of the same dark-haired man. He was holding a tabby cat in one, bent over a desk writing something in another, and sitting on a whitewashed wall with a deep blue sea behind him in the third. Biddy wondered who all these people were: if the happy children belonged to Terri herself, if the man was her husband, or her brother. There was only one photograph in her own house: the hazy, faded, brownish one that sat on the mantelpiece, of her grandfather and grandmother on their wedding day. There were no photographs of her. And none of her mother.

She had never been in a room like this one before. There were books bulging off shelves and stacked up in uneven piles all over the floor. On a desk in the corner, which was littered with papers and files, sat a computer and an old typewriter. Candles of all shapes and sizes perched on the desk, the windowsill, the mantelpiece and the shelves. The wall, which was visible beneath the paintings and photographs, was painted in a vibrant shade of turquoise blue. Every room in Biddy’s home had been decorated in the same flock wallpaper, which had once been cream but was now more like pale yellow. Her father had always been meticulous about tidiness, so there were never any books – or anything else for that matter – lying on the floor. Biddy didn’t have a computer, and the only pictures on the walls in the house were two faded reproduction prints by some unknown artist which had belonged to her father’s grandmother. Apart, of course, from the watercolour which her father had kept propped up on the chest of drawers in his bedroom, the painting which had brought her here. Biddy hadn’t thought it possible to have a room as colourful and manically chaotic as this one. She liked it. And, as she watched her swish back into the room carrying a tray with a teapot, two bright orange mugs and a plate of biscuits, Kimberley biscuits, Biddy decided that she liked Terri Drummond too.

 

‘Milk?’ asked Terri.

‘Yes, please,’ replied Biddy, although she couldn’t see a milk jug.

‘Crumbs! I’ve forgotten it. Just be a jiffy.’ Terri pulled herself out of the chair opposite Biddy with obvious effort and disappeared again into the kitchen. Biddy could hear her humming as she returned.

‘Oh, dear,’ Terri exclaimed, as she re-entered the room. ‘I didn’t ask if you take sugar.’

Biddy shook her head.

‘Good. I take three spoonfuls myself in coffee, but loathe the stuff in tea. Biscuit? One of my favourites, these. Love them.’

‘Me too’ nodded Biddy, smiling, as she took a Kimberley from the plate.

‘One of the best things about coming home. Kimberley biscuits. Could hardly get them in London. Oh, damn. I’ve forgotten the napkins. Won’t be a tick.’ Up she struggled again and bustled off into the kitchen, returning with a roll of kitchen roll.

‘Can’t find the napkins. Heaven knows where they are. Will this do?’ Biddy nodded as Terri tore off a couple of sheets and handed them to her.

‘Right, then,’ said Terri, sitting down in the armchair again and reaching over to take a biscuit herself. ‘Shall we get . . . oh bugger!’ She set the biscuit back on the tray. ‘I meant to switch my answer machine to automatic pick-up, so we don’t get interrupted by the telephone. Now, where is the blessed thing? Bear with me Biddy, and have another Kimberley.’

Biddy was becoming more fascinated by Terri by the second. She munched on another biscuit and watched, intrigued, as Terri shuffled around the room, lifting books and boxes and cushions and magazines, looking for the answer machine. Finally she found it, flicked the appropriate switch and once more sat down in the armchair. ‘My tea will be cold at this rate,’ she laughed, manoeuvring her ample behind back into the chair. ‘Gracious,’ she exclaimed, shoving her right hand underneath her bottom and pulling out a pair of glasses, ‘my specs. I wondered where these had got to.’ She smiled at Biddy and shook her head as she finally picked up the Kimberley. ‘I do apologise, Biddy. I’m such a scatterbrain!’

‘That’s OK,’ said Biddy quietly. ‘I’m a weirdo.’

‘Really?’ asked Terri, through a mouthful of biscuit. ‘Well now,’ she beamed, and took a sip of her tea, ‘I am intrigued. So, Biddy Weir, how exactly did you come to be a weirdo?’ Biddy thought about Terri’s question for a few seconds. She had been a weirdo for so long now that it was hard to remember life before Alison’s life-changing revelation. She didn’t think of herself as a bloody weirdo so much these days, as she hadn’t actually heard anyone call her by that name for many years. She knew of course, by the way that most people still looked at her, that she really was one, but somehow, just being a weirdo was easier to live with. And, as she had discovered, people in general paid less attention to a weirdo adult than they did to a weirdo child. Certainly if she ever encountered someone she recognised from school, on the bus, say, or at Tesco, they would generally just ignore her – which was fine. Perfect, actually. Better to be ignored than, well, than what used to happen.

‘I think I’ve always been one,’ she finally said, whispered really, eyes down, staring into the teacup she was holding onto as firmly as possible to stop herself from shaking. ‘Probably since I was born, really, but I only found out in Primary 6. In Miss Justin’s class. Alison Flemming told me.’

‘Alison Flemming told you that you were a weirdo?’ asked Terri.

Biddy nodded, still focusing on the teacup. ‘She said I was a bloody weirdo, actually. Well, first of all, she called me Biddy Weirdo and everyone thought it was funny because she’d changed my name from Weir to Weirdo. But then . . .’ Biddy paused and glanced up at Terri, who was still sipping her tea. She gulped and wondered why on earth she was talking like this to a stranger. To anyone. The very act of talking was surprising her as much as what she was talking about. The only other person she had talked to in this way before was Miss Jordan, and that was almost half her lifetime ago.

‘Biddy,’ said Terri gently, placing her cup on the floor, ‘if this is too painful for you, you really don’t have to continue. This is just supposed to be a wee getting-to-know-each-other chat. I’d really like to hear more about this Alison girl and the things she said to you. But if you don’t feel strong enough today, we can do it next time? There’s no rush.’

She smiled that smile again – a proper warm, cosy, soft smile. The type of smile Biddy imagined a mother would have, or a sister. She thought again about Miss Jordan and her smile. Terri didn’t look remotely like Miss Jordan, yet there was something about her manner that reminded her of the teacher’s kindness. On her way here today, Biddy assumed that this would be a one-off visit. The idea of a ‘next time’ hadn’t even occurred to her. But now it did, and to her astonishment she hoped it would.

‘OK,’ she nodded, and took another sip of tea.