Heatstroke: an intoxicating story of obsession over one hot summer

by Hazel Barkworth

  Lily’s voice rose above the others, her brief stage training coming into its own. She spoke the words like they were lines. ‘Of course I love him, of course I’m going to wait for him. I don’t care how long it takes. They can’t lock him up for ever.’ The crowd looked at her with bright eyes.

  As the teenagers flowed back into the hall, Rachel stepped behind the door. The girls stopped just in front of her. They were fussing with Lily’s hair, straightening her tiara before she faced her public. Rachel could see them clearly from the shadows. Lily was the centre of the group, the others flocking around her, but she was still somehow on the edges. She was strange to them now, something they couldn’t quite understand. They treated her with reverence. Rachel watched as Abby used the curve of her thumb to neaten Lily’s lipstick, as Ella adjusted her straps.

  Mia was there; from nowhere she was there in her immaculate black dress, just steps away. Rachel hadn’t seen her arrive, but could see her lean in towards Lily’s cheek, to blend the highlighter a touch more. She could see her daughter’s fingers on the other girl’s skin, and then could see as Lily pulled away. Lily turned her head so she was no longer facing Mia, rearranging her body, her dress, so Mia was firmly behind her. It was no accident. Rachel’s chest ached as she saw Mia’s reaction. The others were all focused elsewhere, but Rachel had sight of her daughter’s eyes as they crushed closed, of the philtrum of her lip as it curled upwards, a sure sign she was trying to stop herself from crying. From behind the door, Rachel could do nothing but watch as Mia stiffened, then turned and walked back into the hall alone.

  The rest of the girls bustled past, no sense of Mia’s departure, not an eye on Rachel. Except Lily. As they bundled back to the party, Lily seemed to spot Rachel in the shadows. Her lashes widened. She was pushed along with the group, but turned her head, as if to stay looking at Rachel for longer. Their eyes locked.

  A flash of fear coursed through Rachel, chilling her veins in the warm night. What did Lily know? What had Mark told her? Rachel felt naked. Lily’s face was just feet away. That face Rachel had seen in newsprint, on screens, on posters, but not glimpsed in moving flesh for weeks. That girl Rachel had imagined so much it was like she’d lived inside her. Rachel could see the pores beneath Lily’s thick make-up, beneath the moonglow shimmer she’d smeared on her cheekbones, beneath the pale pink lipstick and the eyelashes that stuck out like stars. The muscles of Lily’s face were taut. Rachel recognised it from the mirror, the tension around the jaw and eyes. She knew how that brittleness felt from within. The bravado was every bit as painted on as her foundation. Lily wasn’t triumphant; she was terrified. Close up and round and real, she was a frightened child.

  Rachel wanted to reach for her, to circle her fingers around the girl’s wrist and pull her close, to recognise their horrible kinship. She ached for Lily’s distress, the experiences she’d never quite work through. But she also envied her. Those days she’d spent with him. Rachel wanted a moment together with Lily, with no one else, where they could see his fingerprints on each other’s skin. She wanted to examine Lily’s body, to see what damage had been done. The police medics wouldn’t know where to look. She wanted to gently press the bruises that must crush her ribcage, the faint ones on her upper arms. She wanted to probe the hidden places that might not hurt for years. His unavoidable brutality would have left its scars.

  Rachel wanted to look into Lily’s blue eyes and see if he would haunt her too, if he would also hang inside her like a never-fallen drop. Lily might be luckier. She might forget him within months. Rachel wanted to hold Lily and ask for forgiveness. She wanted to atone for not doing more, for not protecting her. She was the only one who could have. But she couldn’t apologise with sincerity. She knew she’d do the same thing again. She would always put Mia first.

  Lily was beset. She was swarmed from all angles. Drinks were brought to her; her dress was admired, photographed; she was in so many selfies she had only seconds between smiles. Her gang basked in the light of it. They had never been more in demand. They moved in formation around Lily, flitting and preening, like bees to their queen. Mia was not with them. She hadn’t returned. Rachel scanned the dark hall, the small round tables scattered cabaret-style by the stage. No sign. She walked around the edges, expecting to find Mia in a clinch with Aaron, to back away before they saw her, but they were not in any shadows, nor behind any fold of the marquee. She must be outside. Little groups had wandered out to get fresh air.

  It wasn’t until the door closed behind her that Rachel realised how densely the music throbbed in the hall. The heat outside was as oppressive as in the daytime, with the kind of heaviness that aches for thunder. A few clutches of friends hung around the car-park gate, surely sharing a contraband cigarette and feeling outrageous. Rachel turned away. There was no need to stop them.

  Mia was nowhere in sight. Rachel hurried in her wobbling heels around the edge of the hall to where the building met a low wall. As she turned the corner, the figure sitting there startled her. Not Mia, who she was desperate to find, but Dominic, who she’d dreaded having to face. Rachel could conjure no more memory of that terrible rehearsal. She’d tried, but it was still only a tangle of tears and skin. They might have simply hugged. It might be nothing. As he looked up and registered her face, Rachel tensed. The pulse from the hall set her blood’s rhythm, the electric beat too fast for a human body. So much of her life hinged on the responses of teenagers. She was so often held hostage by their whims.

  Rachel switched her tone to bright. ‘You look very dashing, Mr Taylor.’

  Dominic smiled, and Rachel felt herself ease a little, but then his grin faltered and faded.

  Rachel kept her bravado and sat on the wall, dismissing any concern for her dress. ‘Is everything alright?’

  She didn’t move any closer to him, although he was visibly upset. His face didn’t stay in one expression, but seemed to move between several. It couldn’t be what had happened – what might have happened – in that stuffy drama studio a few days ago that was upsetting him, that had made him sit alone on a dark wall outside rather than join his friends. It couldn’t be.

  Rachel tried again. ‘Why on earth are you out here? Why aren’t you ripping up the dance floor?’

  ‘Don’t really feel like it.’ His usual puckish charm had vanished. Had he told Mia everything that had happened that afternoon? It couldn’t be that. It would be some overblown drama, some minor teenage heartbreak. She couldn’t have let his cheeks touch hers, his lips touch her skin.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Rachel perched on the far side of the wall, keeping several feet between them.

  ‘Well. It’s just. It’s Mia.’

  Rachel was glad for the bricks beneath her. She gripped them so hard it bent her nails backwards. If he’d told Mia about that rehersal. If Mia had told him about her mother and their physics teacher. How would they have reacted? Rachel might never get close to her daughter again.

  Rachel knew not to panic in front of him. It took all the strength in her diaphragm to keep her voice even. ‘Mia?’

  ‘Yeah. She . . . I just don’t know if I should . . .’ Dominic looked in genuine distress.

  ‘Dominic?’

  ‘It’s not mine to tell.’

  Rachel let one moment go, two, three. She lowered her voice, softened it. ‘Dominic, if you know something about Mia, you really do have to tell me.’

  He paused, evidently teetering on the brink of something.

  Rachel pushed one more time, but gently. She had to hold herself back. ‘It’s not your choice, I’m afraid.’

  This seemed to unlock something within him. He closed his eyes as he spoke. ‘Mia knew.’

  Rachel’s hands still gripped the wall; they still throbbed with every pulse. Did Dominic know her secret? She couldn’t ask the question.

  ‘She knew about Lily and Mr Webb.’

  Rachel
swallowed, but moved no other part of herself. She didn’t want to disturb him, to ebb his flow. She let the silence hang and waited until he was ready to speak. He raked his hands through his hair. It was longer than the other boys’ and stood out from his head in tight black curls. ‘She knew where they were.’

  Rachel didn’t move. She didn’t even blink in the dark.

  Dominic took in one shaking breath, then spoke rapidly. ‘Not when they first went, she just knew that they were together then. Well, she didn’t know for sure, but she suspected. Then she worked out where they were. Lily used to write her little notes, on special paper, you know, and she’d fill it with that silly French they all do.’

  Rachel recalled the notepaper from Lily’s room, the turquoise filigree borders.

  Dominic didn’t stop. ‘She wrote the name of the town. It looks like her name. Mia looked at all the bits of paper again, and saw it. Lily must’ve thought Mia wouldn’t pick up on it, wouldn’t understand, but of course she did. It’s Mia. Mia’s sharp. Mia gets everything. She knew Lily was writing the name because she was excited.’

  It was as if he wanted the words out of his mouth, as if they’d been in there too long, as if they tasted bad. But he wasn’t finished.

  ‘And it was Mia who told the police.’

  Dominic kicked the heels of his shoes against the brick wall, scuffing the black leather, letting them rebound before slamming them back again. It was the action of a boy years younger. He was struggling. Mia would have sworn him to silence. His confession had been a betrayal.

  Rachel couldn’t focus on him. Mia had called the police. She’d known the name of the town they were in. Lille. The town so much like Lily’s name. It must have been by telephone. Rachel had been there in the face-to-face interviews, when Mia had claimed to know nothing of her friend’s whereabouts. She might only have put the pieces together later. She must have walked somewhere alone, or closed her bedroom door and dialled the number that was on so many posters around the school. The same number that Rachel had tried to dial so many times. Mia would have typed in all eleven numbers with her thumb, and listened whilst the tone bleated. Then, unlike her mother, she’d spoken. When the call was answered, Mia had spoken the most enormous secret she’d ever known, the heaviest words of her life. She’d been able to do it. She’d cared enough about her friend to do it. Where Rachel had hung up every time, Mia had spoken. Mia had been brave enough to put Lily first. She’d said the name of that town. She’d risked ripping her friendship group apart. She’d held her mobile in one hand and in one sentence had endangered everything she held dear.

  ‘Should I have told you?’

  Rachel nodded slowly. ‘Absolutely. Yes, Dominic. Yes, you should. It was absolutely the right thing to do.’

  ‘She hasn’t told the others, not even Keira. She doesn’t want them to know. It was just because she was worried about Lily, and wanted her home, you know. She started to worry that Lily would get hurt.’ Rachel remembered the conversation in their back garden. The garish orange fizz, the fear she’d instilled in her daughter. ‘She didn’t mean to tell on her.’

  Everything Mia had said, every reaction that had passed over her face, had been a disguise. The weight of it must have been unbearable. She hadn’t been simply reckless or self-centred; she’d been dealing with incredible responsibility. She’d been valiant, and her mother had done nothing but punish her. Dominic’s voice cut through Rachel’s thoughts.

  ‘She’s so scared the girls will find out what she did. No one else can have known where they were. She’s really worried. She’s only really seen me and Keira. She didn’t even get ready with the others today. My mum lent her an old dress and did her make-up.’

  Marianne. It was Marianne’s dress. Marianne had been there for her child when she needed help. She’d brushed Mia’s hair and stroked foundation onto her face. She’d been there when Mia found herself motherless. She’d delved in the back of her wardrobe for a long-forgotten gem. The dress wasn’t a signal to Rachel at all.

  ‘When that message from Lily came through, I thought she was going to be sick. She looked awful.’

  A sudden thought flashed through Rachel. ‘Did she only tell you?’

  Dominic kicked his feet against the wall again before saying more quietly, ‘No. She told Aaron tonight.’

  Rachel stood up. ‘And what did he do?’

  Dominic seemed to have shed several years. His voice was only just audible. ‘He was angry. They broke up.’

  ‘He broke up with her?’ Rachel’s voice was loud, ringing out above the thump of the music inside. She was practically shouting. ‘He dumped her because of that? Where is she now?’

  Dominic looked like he was fighting the urge to cry. ‘I don’t know. She was upset. She ran off before I could stop her.’

  Rachel walked as fast as she could. Mia was there somewhere. Rachel needed to find her. Dominic was certain she hadn’t gone. Mia was in the school, full of her secrets, full of her misery. Rachel had left Dominic on the wall as a lookout, guarding the main doors in case she came out, trying her mobile every few minutes in case she answered.

  Away from the main hall, the school was nearly dark. Only the security lights buzzed their dim orange glow, barely enough to navigate by. The school was treacherous at night. Every thud echoed, and every corner seemed to conceal something terrible. Rachel scoured every shadowy corridor, her eyes flashing into their depths. No Mia. Their dimensions seemed to have shifted. The walls seemed taller, looming more heavily above her. The glass of every safety door was black.

  Rachel searched the toilets first, but the ground-floor bathrooms were empty. No Mia. Next were the corridors. She tried every door handle, jerking them with force. Some opened; some stayed firm. There was no clear logic. The building wasn’t on her side as she hunted. She didn’t know its quirks and laws, couldn’t decipher its codes. Rachel flung wide every door that let her, braced for something terrible. But each time the room was empty.

  Mia was out there somewhere. The bassline thud from the assembly hall pounded at one end of each corridor, fading to nothing at the other. Those thumps gave the building a frenzied pulse. Rachel stamped her feet with every step, faster than the music, as fast as she could go. She coursed through floor after floor, department after department, finding nothing. Mia wasn’t behind any door. She wasn’t around any corner.

  Rachel’s ragged breaths echoed down the corridor. Mia was nowhere. She was nowhere in that empty building. Dominic. She had to go back to Dominic. The back stairwell was direct, so Rachel ran. Flight after flight of thirteen stairs. The light was too dim; the spinning made Rachel dizzy. She counted her steps – eleven, twelve, thirteen – looking at her feet – eight, nine, ten. As she reached the ground floor, there was someone in front of her. Rachel stopped dead. Aaron. He was hidden by the gloom, then suddenly visible. He seemed to leap out despite not moving. Rachel screamed. He seemed just as shocked to see her. In the half-light, he looked like a hologram. They were alone.

  ‘What are you doing here? Where’s Mia?’ Rachel was alarmed by the venom in her own voice, but couldn’t hold back. ‘Why are you creeping around? Where is my daughter?’

  ‘What do you mean? I was just, you know, sitting here for a bit.’ Something about him was askew. His eyes were wider than usual, his movements jumpy.

  ‘Where is Mia?’ Rachel couldn’t waste time on him when Mia was out there. ‘Get out of my way.’

  He stepped towards her. ‘No. You don’t understand. It was Mia that told. It wasn’t me.’

  Rachel could only stare. He had utterly misunderstood her anger, jumping to his hair-trigger response of denial. He was instinctively blaming Mia, accusing her to her own mother.

  ‘She told on Lily. She got all up in their grill, and told the police. I had nothing to do with it. It was all her, she didn’t even tell me until tonight.’ His words were garbled.
‘If she’d told me before, I’d have said to leave well alone. It’s nothing to do with her. She’s always such a good girl, always got to be right about everything, couldn’t just be cool . . .’ Spit was forming around his mouth. ‘I think, at the end of the day, she was probably just jealous. She kept bitching about how it wasn’t fair Lily was getting all the attention. I think she just wanted it to stop, so . . .’ He took a long-overdue breath. Sweat was beading on his temples and over his scalp, where the hair should be. His feet were jittering, his hands dancing. Everything about him was sped up. ‘She was totally out of order. It wasn’t her business, she should’ve let it go, not got all pathetic and grassed them up. It’s childish. If she’d told me back then when she did it, I’d have made sure she kept her mouth shut, made sure—’

  Rachel slapped his face. The action seemed to come from outside her body. She felt the impact of the flat of her palm against the skin of his cheek. Hard. Far harder than she realised she was capable of. It shut him up. It silenced those manic words. She’d slapped him like she might slap someone hysterical, but also like she might slap someone she loathed. Her muscles had reacted before her brain, but they’d nailed it.

  The silence stretched into seconds. Aaron held his hand over the place where her hand had hit. His mouth was hanging open in a dumb circle. Rachel let herself taste the satisfaction for a moment. It couldn’t possibly last. He’d be able to form words again, and it would all turn to horror. She tensed herself for the outrage that would come bellowing out, the threats that would flow. He’d have every right. She’d done a terrible thing. She’d hit a pupil on school grounds. But he said nothing, just gaped at her, silent, hand over the skin she’d hurt, his pupils black and massive. She’d done something so terrible that if he told she could lose her job. She should lose her job.

  But he was frozen. Something was stopping him. Rachel tried to look in his eyes, to read what was there, to unravel him, but they were still skittish. Something was making them roll in their sockets. It became searingly obvious. He couldn’t destroy her. Her harshest judgements had been accurate. Whatever was making his blood hectic was every bit as inappropriate as her action. Whatever chemical was racing through his veins would indict him before he even began. But there was something more in the black of his eyes. Mia. It was Mia. Whatever poison was hurtling through him was in her as well.