by Lucy Diamond
‘It’s fine, honestly. I know what it’s like. I can’t do anything right with Amelia at the moment. She doesn’t even want to spend our holiday with me any more,’ Maggie found herself blurting out. What was it about being in a car next to someone that made the space feel like a confession booth? ‘If it’s any consolation, I’m not sure I’m handling the teenage years at all well. Quite badly, in fact.’
The two of them exchanged a small smile of understanding before Maggie, now shy at having revealed her vulnerable side, turned back to the map on her knee. She didn’t really need it – she’d been this way already when she and Amelia went to Pendennis and was a good, instinctive navigator, but felt as if she was more useful with a physical prop to consult. Also, any excuse to have a map on the knee. It was like a comfort blanket. ‘We’re coming up to a bridge over the river,’ she said, tracing a finger along the lines. ‘And then you need to take a sharp left out of the village.’
Em slowed as they crossed the charming stone humpback bridge, then took a left. ‘They probably went along here on their bikes the other day, come to think of it,’ she said. ‘The teens, on their naughty trip into town,’ she added, when Maggie looked blank.
For some reason Em flashed Maggie an expression that she couldn’t quite interpret. A grimace of disapproval? What did she mean by ‘their naughty trip’ anyway? What had been naughty about it? Em was already speaking again, though, before Maggie could ask.
‘That’s why I assumed she would head into Falmouth,’ she said, suddenly fretful. ‘But what if she went completely the other way, just pedalled off, without a clue where she was going?’ She bit her lip, staring anxiously ahead. ‘She’s a really sensible girl, but maybe it’s been too much, George coming with us on holiday – that’s my boyfriend, by the way. Man-friend? I don’t actually know what to call him. We haven’t been together for long and it’s the first time I’ve dated anyone since my divorce, so . . .’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry, too much information. Shut up, Em.’ The road widened and she picked up speed. ‘Oh, where is she? I’d have thought we’d have caught up with her by now.’
They turned a corner to see a small beach on their right and Em slowed once more, both of them scanning the car park and beyond for signs of a teenage girl on her bike. Nothing. ‘This is probably pointless,’ Em said. ‘Maybe I should have waited for her to come home again, rather than dashing out in pursuit. But I just felt I had to do something. If I can find her, at least she’ll know I care.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Maggie said. ‘I would be the same. You just want to make things okay for them, don’t you? To have their worlds turn a little more smoothly.’ She gulped, unable to prevent her next words pouring out. ‘It’s when they won’t let you do that – when they push you away – that it’s really hurtful. In my experience.’ She stopped and awkwardness took hold of her. Why did she keep saying such personal things? Maybe it was Em’s own openness, or the fact that this was the first conversation she’d had all day. Either way, she should really get a grip on herself.
Sure enough, Em shot her a quizzical look. ‘Tell me about your daughter, distract me,’ she said as they continued on towards the town centre. ‘Jack mentioned she’d gone away – I forgot in all the panic. She’s in Devon, did you say?’
‘Yes.’ Maggie swallowed. ‘She’s gone to stay with her dad, who’s practically never met her. It’s all been a bit of a drama in our house as well, to be honest—’ She broke off, spotting a cyclist ahead. ‘That’s not her, is it?’
‘Nope,’ said Em with a sigh.
These girls of theirs, thought Maggie as they overtook the cyclist and carried on. These girls who kept squirming away from their mothers. Had they any idea how much heartache they caused? She glanced down at her handbag, at the silent phone that she could see poking out of the top. Still no reply to her messages then. Oh, Amelia, she thought with a pang. What’s happening? Are you all right? Tell me he’s being nice to you!
Her feelings got the better of her again, and she found herself blurting out a potted version of events to Em – so much for getting a grip on herself. Her fears, her hurt, out they tumbled into the confined space of the car. For God’s sake, Mum, have some self-respect, she imagined Amelia saying, with one of her withering glares.
Em let out a whistle as Maggie drew to a close. They had reached Falmouth by now, still without any glimpse of Izzie, and she was circling around, trying to find somewhere to park. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘I thought my ex-husband was a cock, but I’ve got to say, yours sounds—’ Then she broke off and put a hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry. No offence.’
‘No, you can say it. Whatever it is, I’ll agree. I hate him, you know. I really do. He’s a . . . a tosser. A grade-A tosser. He started trying to apologize on the doorstep to me, can you believe. Too late, mate. Too bloody late!’ Her voice was shaking. Calm down, Maggie. Stop!
Em had spotted an empty space and began making an absolute pig’s ear of reversing into it. ‘Yeah, well, I hear you, loud and clear,’ she said, going forward and back a few times, trying to straighten up. She heaved the handbrake on with a sigh. ‘My ex has gone for your archetypal bimbo – we’re talking fake everything, and a brain the size of a pea, as far as I can tell. I mean, what does that say about me? That’s his type, is it? I don’t want to fall into the trap of competing with other women, but it’s so bloody insulting.’ She turned off the engine with a dramatic flourish. ‘Especially when I’m clearly a thousand times better!’
Maggie spluttered with laughter at Em’s indignation. ‘I don’t doubt it for a second,’ she said.
They headed into the town and Maggie couldn’t help thinking that they might as well have been looking for the proverbial needle amidst a haystack. For one thing, she’d only glimpsed Izzie a couple of times from her kitchen window and would struggle to recognize her in a police line-up. For another, Falmouth was absolutely heaving with shoppers and day-trippers, the streets thronged with slow-moving people, the shops and cafés all busy with customers. Nevertheless, she realized that she was glad to be here, doing something useful, rather than being stuck in the quiet, empty house wondering what to do with herself. She felt better, too, for getting the whole Will episode off her chest, and for having Em’s support and solidarity in response. Em thought Celeste sounded priggish and up herself, that Will was a cock, and that Thistle and Rain would be changing their names to Dave and Tracey just as soon as they were old enough. Somehow this all helped enormously in taking the sting out of yesterday’s pain.
‘Well, I don’t think she’ll have gone into this shop at least,’ Em was saying now, grimacing theatrically as they passed a chichi little gallery on their left. ‘Not after what happened the other—Oh.’ Now she seemed wary all of a sudden, her eyes narrowing. ‘She didn’t tell you, did she? Amelia.’
‘Tell me what?’ Maggie asked in surprise, glancing back from the gallery’s shop front to Em.
‘Um . . .’ Em looked as if she wished she’d never opened her mouth. ‘Their naughty little Truth or Dare game?’
Naughty – that word again. What was Em on about?
‘Amelia didn’t say anything,’ Maggie replied. ‘She seemed a bit subdued once she came home, but didn’t really go into any details. In fact, between you and me, I wondered if she’d been . . . Well, you know. Being with older children, I think she was maybe rather . . . overawed?’
Em made a strange sort of choking noise. ‘Seriously? I’m not sure about that. Er . . .’
‘Oh!’ said Maggie as her phone beeped. She glanced down at it to see that Amelia had at last replied.
All okay, was the message. That was it.
Maggie stared at the two words, which told her so little, and sighed. Did that mean she was having such a great time that she didn’t have a minute to spare for a longer text? Or such a terrible time that she was in denial and didn’t want to talk about it? She passed a hand over her eyes, feeling despairing, then remembered Em still standing beside
her. ‘Sorry. You were saying something about the gallery?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Em said quickly, resuming walking again. ‘Oh God, this is hopeless,’ she added after a moment, as they wove their way around a large family and then what might have been a canoeing club: a crocodile of children in fluorescent life-jackets, walking in a chain of twos. ‘We’ve got no chance. Maybe we should—’
From her expression she looked to be on the verge of saying ‘give up’, but just then her phone started ringing. She pounced on it at once, scrabbling to press the right button. ‘Hello?’ she asked, standing still as the crowds swirled around her. ‘What’s happening? Any news?’ Then her whole face changed. ‘She what?’
What an absolute shit-show of a day Izzie was having. Could this holiday get any worse? She hadn’t even wanted to go and look for shells with stupid Seren in the first place; she had been having a laugh playing Frisbee with Jack and George, having actually forgotten about trying to score any points for the Summer of Yes leaderboard for once. And yet, surprise surprise, as soon as they walked away together, there was Princess Whinge kicking off again. George was her daddy. Em was mean and Seren didn’t like her. Mummy was better. Blah-blah frigging blah. Was it any wonder that Izzie lost her temper and gave the uber-brat a bit of a nudge? It hadn’t been a push exactly, but yeah, there was kind of an elbow going in there. And yeah, Seren had fallen pretty hard into that rock pool. Served her right, though, frankly.
After that . . . Jesus. You’d think she’d broken her leg, or had several toes hacked off, the fuss and the faff. And it had been horrible for Izzie, coming back to the cottage and feeling as if nobody was on her side. George had looked at her so angrily, spoken to her so coldly, as if he was a cross Victorian father whom she’d thoroughly let down. Almost as bad had been the visible doubt on her mum’s face too, as if she was torn between siding with Izzie or with her new boyfriend – only for him to win! She’d actually chosen George over her. And then of course Seren’s stupid misheard comments about her kissing ‘a man’s boyfriend’ had only humiliated her further. Jack would never let her hear the end of it. God! Talk about the worst holiday ever – and it was still only Tuesday.
Even her own dad hadn’t been interested, when she rang up to pour her heart out to him, up in the privacy of her bedroom with the door firmly shut. ‘Come on, love, it’ll blow over,’ he’d said, sounding like he couldn’t care less.
She found herself remembering how, when she was little, he’d always call her ‘my girl’. Where’s my girl? he’d yell when he got back from work, like she was important, she mattered. That’s my girl, he’d grin, ruffling her hair when she scored a goal for the school team or got picked for the netball trials. It seemed so long ago now.
Worst of all, Izzie had been able to hear Michelle in the background of the phone call, saying things like ‘Who is it? Are you going to have lunch with me or what?’ and could imagine her tapping a polished fingernail on the table of whichever bar or restaurant they were in this time. Just picturing that cat’s-bum mouth of hers, frosted lipstick crinkling as Michelle’s pouty mood soaked up all her dad’s attention, was enough to make Izzie boil with rage and self-pity. Nobody gave a shit! Nobody was on her side. Nobody saw her as their girl any more.
And so minutes later she was erupting from the house, throwing a leg over her bike and heading off. Who cared where, just as long as it was away from everyone. Sometimes Izzie liked to imagine herself in a reality-TV show where she was the star and found herself glowering at the invisible camera. ‘I’m out of here,’ she muttered.
The rage stayed with her, volcanic enough to see her flip the finger at one driver who cut her up at a crossroads, then shout, ‘In your dreams’ at a group of lads who wolf-whistled her as she flew through the village. Everyone could do one. Everyone could just sod right off! She’d had enough of the whole world – every single person, George and Seren especially. Why had Mum thought it was okay to invite them along on their holiday like that? Why did Seren have to be such a pain in the arse?
Well, they’d all be sorry, she thought, cycling grimly on. Because she was totally going to—
But then she realized three alarming things, one after another.
Suddenly there was a car coming round the corner.
She hadn’t been concentrating and had somehow drifted into the middle of the road.
The car was coming right at her, horn blaring, and the woman driving it had opened her mouth in a big shocked NO!
There was a screech of brakes – car and bike – and a million fragmented thoughts hurtled through Izzie’s head like instant camera flashes. How angry Mum would be if she died like this, stupidly, for not looking where she was going. How she’d never find out her GCSE results now (maybe that was a good thing). Should she fling herself off the bike? What would it feel like to have your bones broken? She was going to die and she’d never even kissed anyone!
But then the fourth thing happened, which was that the car stopped literally an inch from the front wheel of her bike. And she and the woman just sat there, staring at each other and panting. She could smell diesel and burnt rubber; she could feel the heat radiating from the car against her bare legs. It was as if the whole world had frozen still around them, or shrunk right down so that only they existed in that moment.
In the next second the woman leapt from her car, like someone in an action film, and ran over. ‘Are you all right? You were on the wrong side of the road!’
Izzie blinked a couple of times. She could taste blood in her mouth where she’d bitten down on her lip, and her body was awash with adrenalin, her heart galloping like a racehorse. Okay. She was alive. She was unhurt. Stand down, everyone. No dramas. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I wasn’t looking.’
The woman let out a long breath. Her face had turned very pink beneath her blonde ponytail. She was small and rather plump, with a turquoise T-shirt that strained across her chest and a denim skirt. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘No harm done.’
But something weird was happening to Izzie in the next second, as if contradicting those words. No harm done? Actually she was trembling all over, because her mind kept producing these awful images of her smacking to the tarmac with a horrible crunch, of her flattened beneath the car wheels, and then her mum, dressed in black, doing proper ugly-crying at her funeral. Shit. That had been close. All the hairs on her skin were standing on end. That had been so close!
She tried to pull herself together, but it wasn’t happening. Her arms and legs had gone to jelly, her head was swoony as if she was about to fall over. ‘I . . .’ she stuttered and then it was suddenly really hard to breathe, however valiantly she gasped for air. ‘I . . .’
The woman gave her a sharp look. ‘Okay, don’t worry,’ she said, and put an arm around her. ‘You’re just a bit shocked. You’ll be all right in a minute. Take shallow breaths, get some air to your brain, that’s it. We’re fine, thank you,’ she yelled to somebody else in a voice that Izzie’s mum used sometimes, the sort of voice that said, Sod off, none of your business.
Izzie’s lungs were burning. Her throat seemed to be closing up. Her vision was pixelating, the woman’s lilac baseball boots turning grainy and weird as she looked down at them. Was this a heart attack? Was Fate having the last ironic laugh at her? You thought you had avoided being hit by a car – and then you died anyway. Ha!
But then, at last, with a gulp – a huge shuddering gulp – her body seemed to remember what to do again. Breath entered her lungs. She swallowed and unclenched her fists. ‘Sorry,’ she said again dazedly. ‘I feel really . . .’
‘You’re a bit wobbly, aren’t you? Listen, there’s a café right there – how about sitting down for a few minutes and having a drink, just until you feel better again?’
Izzie gazed in the direction of the blonde woman’s pointing finger to see a small cheerful-looking café, with benches and picnic umbrellas outside. People were eating pasties and drinking coffee from cardboard cups. Small c
hildren licked ice-cream cones while beady-eyed seagulls watched, heads cocked, hoping for a dropped cornet. Okay, yes, she could manage that. Except . . .
‘Um. I . . . I don’t actually have any money,’ she said in a low voice, feeling embarrassed. She didn’t have anything, she realized in the next moment: no phone, no money, no key to the holiday cottage; she had leapt on her bike and out of there as if she were some kind of crusading Tour de France contestant. Imagine if she had been knocked unconscious by the car and there was nothing to identify her. Mum would just have kittens, wondering what had happened.
The thought was enough to make Izzie’s lungs tighten again, and then that horrible clammy feeling began to return, descending on her like a fog – until the woman said firmly, ‘I’ve got some money. You wheel your bike over there and sit down; keep taking those shallow breaths. I’ll park the car and meet you in a minute, okay?’
The woman – Olivia, she was called – was really kind. She bought Izzie a cold Diet Coke and then they walked right down to the end of the row of beach huts and just sat there together until Izzie began to feel more normal again. How many points for a near-death experience? she imagined herself putting on the group chat later, only – cringe-klaxon – she must actually have said the words out loud, because then Olivia was frowning and saying, ‘How many points for what?’
‘Nothing,’ Izzie mumbled, cheeks burning.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Olivia asked. ‘What happened, I mean. You seemed miles away when you were cycling along. Is everything okay?’
Izzie sipped the drink. Its cold sweetness seemed to spread some calm through her and she let out a long exhalation. ‘Just . . . family holiday stuff,’ she said. Then her earlier feelings of rage caught up with her and bubbled out. ‘I thought holidays were meant to be fun! Mine’s rubbish so far. I just felt like getting away from everyone.’
Olivia didn’t reply for a moment. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said eventually.