Georgia by Lesley Pearse Page A

wearily, resting her head on her hands. She looked old. Her brown hair uncombed, wearing the same old tweed skirt and jumper she’d put on the morning after the event. ‘Unless she starts talking they’ll almost certainly take her. I keep trying to distance myself from it, work out what I’d do if Georgia and her foster mother were clients. And I don’t like the answer I keep coming up with.’
    ‘What about him?’ Peter winced as if even using Anderson’s name hurt him.
    ‘He’s out of danger now,’ Celia snorted with anger. ‘I never thought I’d admit to such a thing, but there’ve been times in the past few days I hoped he’d die. She only cut his abdomen, he’s got a lot of stitches, but he’ll survive.’
    ‘What’s he been saying?’ Peter asked.
    Celia’s mouth trembled.
    ‘He claims he fell asleep in a chair, woke to see Georgia smuggling you out of her bedroom after the others had gone and that he had a row with her about it. He insists the last thing he remembers is Georgia coming at him with the knife and when he came round he was in hospital.’
    ‘But even my parents can vouch that I got home just after half past twelve.’ Peter flushed an angry shade of red. ‘I left only ten minutes after the others.’
    ‘A good lawyer would wipe him out,’ Celia reassured him. ‘But without Georgia’s statement he can’t even be charged.’
    ‘You mean he could come home here?’ Peter’s face blanched in horror.
    ‘It’s his house.’ Celia’s greeny-grey eyes were blank with misery, her face contorted by dark thoughts.
    She couldn’t bring herself to tell Peter the full strength of it. Brian claimed to have caught them naked in bed together, that Peter had grabbed his clothes and made a run for it and Georgia screamed abuse at him and even threatened she would say Brian raped her if he told her mother.
    At the hospital they all believed his story, but then they’d never met Georgia or Peter and Brian Anderson was charming and persuasive when he wanted to be.
    ‘Let me try speaking to her?’ Peter leaned forward earnestly. ‘I might be able to get through to her.’
    ‘I don’t think she’ll respond to you or any man,’ Celia shook her head. ‘But you can try. Just don’t try to touch her that’s all.’
    ‘Georgia!’ Peter whispered in the darkened room. ‘Are you awake?’
    There was no reply. In the gloom all Peter could make out was a small lump in the bed, her dark hair sticking out of the covers like a chimney-sweep’s brush.
    Peter walked across the room and drew back the curtains.
    It was bitterly cold outside, a dark, grey day as if all the world was suddenly monochromatic. The heath across the road was deserted, bare branches of trees looked menacingly like skeletons.
    ‘I think it’s going to snow,’ he said, taking a chair just close enough to see her face.
    It was crumpled, as if she’d aged ten years. Her eyes were open but they showed no signs of recognition.
    ‘You’ve got to talk,’ he said, keeping his voice as normal as possible. ‘Maybe not to me, but to your mother. She’s tearing herself apart, and she’s the one who is trained for things like this.’
    No movement, not so much as a flicker of an eyebrow.
    ‘Would you like some music on?’ he asked. ‘I could get your record player and plug it in?’
    Still nothing.
    For five days he’d waited patiently for this opportunity, convinced Georgia would open up to him. But she lay there like a doll, dark eyes staring into space and now he understood why Celia was so frightened.
    ‘School started again,’ he went on. ‘I haven’t been though,’ one hand reached out, but paused in mid air. He could feel tears pricking the back of his eyelids. ‘I went to bed dreaming of you that night. I intended to come round to help you clear up in the morning. Then the police came.’
    He had trusted the police until that morning. One moment he was lying in bed thinking of Georgia, the next he was bundled