by Deborah Bee
All this was just another fucking normal day for South Haringey Secondary School. It happened to most people. And most of the time people just caved. The kids who didn’t cave, and there weren’t very many of them, most often got cut. A slash on the arm or leg with plenty of blood put any wannabe heroes right off. That was the boys. The girls didn’t ever stick up for themselves. Well, I guess the girls just did what they were told. Same for me.
Anyway, on this one pacific day (I still talked like that then) that Wino snagged me in the locker room, I had a new phone that my Auntie Liz had bought me. It was a new Nokia with a camera. And the last thing she’d said when I’d opened it was ‘Don’t lose it.’ So handing it over to Kathryn Cowell was gonna be like total brain damage. (Can I say that now or is it like totally bad taste?) And Wino must’ve seen me cos those guys always hang out in the bike sheds way before school starts to have a fag and size up the kids with the bikes. They lean against the humanities block wall, sitting on the pavement that’s pock-marked with cig butts. And while I was walking past, along the corridor by the art block, I suddenly thought, hide the fucking phone. So like a total retard I hid the fucking phone in my sock. When Kathryn Cowell’s hand went out in the locker room, Wino was just like, ‘Get the fucking phone out of your fucking sock, you fucking slag, or your fucking little brother fucking gets it, right?’ I didn’t even know he knew I had a brother. And I said, ‘I don’t even like my fucking brother, you fucking twat.’ And he was like, ‘I know where you live, bitch. I’ll come round and chop your fucking ponytail off.’ That’s what he always said he’d do. And he took my phone out of my sock and knocked his elbow into my eye socket. What would you do if that happened to you? Tell your mum? Tell your teacher? Tell your headmistress?
Telling Sarah was the first time I’d ever talked about any of that. Even with your mates you didn’t really say anything. Even when you’ve got a fat black eye. You just didn’t say anything. At first I could see that Sarah didn’t really believe me, even though I still had the remains of the black eye. I think she probably still thought I was being like dramatic about the whole thing. You probably think so too. Sarah said why didn’t I go and speak to Mrs Backhouse? Or a teacher that I got on well with, like such a thing existed. I said that all the teachers knew already. Mrs Backhouse totally knew. No one said nothing. Sarah said that by the way that was a double negative and, in this situation, their silence made them complicit. I liked how she said that. I don’t know if I know what it actually means but I think it means they’re as fucking bad as Kathryn is. And she said I needed to be ostensibly invisible. And I didn’t know what that meant either. I said, ‘Does it mean not handing over my new Nokia with a camera?’ And she said it meant not even being asked to hand over your new Nokia with a camera.
She said being plain means you’re less likely to get hit.
My mum wants to know if we wanna go to McDonald’s. There’s one by the tube station that has an indoor climbing frame and ballpond and Billy likes it there. Billy’s had his bath already and frankly I can’t be bothered. There’s a pot noodle in the cupboard. My mum usually wants to go there when she wants to talk about something. She thinks french fries make life more bearable. I told her I was tired. But really, my reception is shite in there. And if there’s a message about Sarah, I want to get it straight away. I didn’t tell her that, though.
25
Sarah
Day Four – 10 p.m.
I’ve remembered more about my mother now. I think it’s the repeated requests for tea. My mother has always drunk industrial quantities of tea. And here she is the same. Every five minutes she is off out of the door, hunting down a tea trolley. It reminded me of this time that my mother was sitting in the window seat of Burger King in Southwark, the one near the Register Office. It’s not an obvious place to find my mother; in fact the reverse is true. I don’t expect wild horses would drag her into a Burger King, not even on a good day. She was waiting for me in Burger King and I was waiting for Adam in a car outside Burger King, and my dad was pacing the road that runs down the side of the Register Office. She had a pink suit and a yellow hat with a ribbon around the edge and a matching silk flower corsage and a cup of thick American tan-coloured tea in a polystyrene cup. Her skin looked powdery white and her bright-coral lipstick was made somehow all the more vulgar for the false smile it painted.
He was always late. I knew that then.
He had a hat, like a little Chinese hat.
It was too small for his head.
I was so in love with him.
‘So the doctor said what? Precisely what?’
My sister is here again.
‘He said that once the medication had been reduced we may – may, Carol – be able to see signs of brain function. They reduced the medication once she had stabilised, on the first day. Then he said that after ten days we’d know something. Ten days. He said she may have long-term problems.’
‘Precisely what long-term problems?’
She’s brilliant. Always cuts to the chase.
‘It’s not that simple, Carol. The doctor said that it’s best if we speak quietly to her, tell her how much we love her and then maybe that will wake her up.’
That’s my dad.
‘What is not simple about asking what the long-term problems might be?’
Silence.
‘Well?’
Nothing.
‘Dad.’
‘I think we need to be careful what we discuss in front of Sarah, Carol. She may be able to hear us. We don’t want to frighten her. We just want her to come back, don’t we, June?’
‘So she can hear then, can she? They think she can hear what we are saying? Did they actually say locked-in syndrome?’
‘Well, she might be able to hear us, they said. Didn’t they?’
‘Alright then, Sarah, WAKE UP.’
If only it were that easy!
‘Not like that, Carol. We’ve been speaking to her quietly. They said to remind her of happy memories.’
‘Happy memories? What’ll they be, then? When we spent a day walking around Stonehenge? When we went on a scenic drive for a week along Hadrian’s sodding Wall? When, on every long car journey, we stopped in a lay-by to eat hard-boiled eggs – which nobody actually likes – ten minutes after we had left the house. Oh yeah. Happy days.’
If I could stand up and applaud I would. Although I actually do quite like hard-boiled eggs.
‘Carol, you’re upsetting your mother.’
‘Oh right, sorry, Mother. Sarah’s lying here at death’s door – with no one really knowing what the fuck is going on, but perish the thought that your fucking stupid holidays were anything other than fucking dull.’
There’s a silence now. Obviously my mum is crying, judging by the loud sniffs.
‘I’m going to find a coffee.’
She’s not. She’s going to have a fag. That’s what she says when she’s going to have a fag. When she comes back she is still looking for a fight.
‘Look. Don’t you think we should be discussing what’s really going on here?’
‘We know what’s going on here, Carol. We don’t need your searing insights.’
Go, Dad.
‘We don’t want to have another argument about it now, do we, Brian?’
‘What are you having a go at me for, June?’
‘This isn’t “having a go”, Brian. I am merely saying that . . .’
‘Mum. Don’t you think it’s odd that Sarah is, you know, like she is? You know. Like she never says anything.’
‘She says things all the time.’
‘She speaks to your mother every day, Carol. Which is more than you do.’
‘Yeah, she rings and never says anything. When have you ever seen her really laughing? Even at her own wedding. Did she really love Adam? When did you see her really having a good time? Letting her hair down. Or really crying? Really upset? She doesn’t do extremes, does she? She’s just in the middle.
Not feeling anything.’
‘Oh, Carol. What are you making up now?’
‘I don’t really know what all this has to do with Sarah, Carol. She needs our help, not your personality assassination.’
‘Where were all the drunken parties and forgetting to do homework? Where were all the boyfriends?’
Boyfriends?
‘Not everyone had to learn the way you did.’
‘Acknowledged, Mother. Thank you so much.’
‘She was just different to you. No better, no worse.’
‘What about boyfriends, though? It’s not like she wasn’t pretty. Isn’t pretty. Sorry. She went out with like four people and they were all complete bastards.’
‘Who was a complete bastard?’
‘Martin for a start.’
Martin?
‘Which one was he?’
‘You know, the hockey player. Didn’t he break her wrist?’
‘I don’t remember anyone breaking her wrist. Brian?’
‘I don’t remember anyone called Martin.’
He did break my wrist. When we were walking down the street and he said a man looked at me in a funny way. In a way that meant why is a pretty girl like her going out with a knob like him. That’s what he said. I never even saw the guy.
‘What about that one with the red van? He was a total complete bastard.’
James.
‘The one who nearly ran me over? He was an odd one.’
When I broke up with him he used to follow me everywhere. From home to school. From school to home. He would sit in his car down the road from our house all night and wait for me to leave. He did nearly run my mother over.
‘Ian was a nice lad. What about that Ian?’
‘You’re right, Mum, he wasn’t a complete bastard. He dumped her after two months. Said she was an emotional cripple.’
‘He did not say that, Carol. Where do you get these stories?’
He was jealous. All the time. Who was I phoning, where was I going. He wanted to own me.
‘Adam was a good man. A decent man. We always rubbed along well.’
‘Dad, you never liked him. You said so from the start. Actually he was pretty much alright until he started drinking lager all day and smoking weed all night. Then he was a horror. But, you know, Sarah never said anything bad about him, did she? Not one word. He would come rolling in, in the middle of the night, and she would be cleaning up his sick and all sorts. She’s just one of life’s victims.’
‘Maybe you’ve got it all wrong, Carol. Maybe you’re the one who’s not so perfect.’
‘When did she become a victim, Mother? When did she start thinking it was OK for people to walk all over her? She doesn’t feel, Mother. Or if she does, she doesn’t say she does. She just lets people hurt her. That’s different to most humans. Doesn’t that bother you? She’s unnatural. You can tell when most people are upset or hurt or happy. She never gives anything away. Never has. Well, she did when she was little. What happened to the bubbly little girl?’
‘Don’t start on with lies, Carol. We all had enough of her lies at the time.’
‘Wait, what? What lies, Mum? What are you talking about? Dad, what is she talking about?’
‘Why would you want to rewrite history, Carol? It’s not like she’s even –’
‘Am I? Am I really? Rewriting history? I thought we were just trying to work out how on earth she got here.’
I don’t feel anything?
I don’t now.
And every time the buzzer goes I wonder if that man is coming back.
26
Kelly
Day Five – 1 a.m.
The streetlights have turned the puddles in the road dirty orange. It’s raining. My phone is burning green neon. I have full signal and full battery and no fucking messages. My mum and me took Billy to Burger King and he got a kid’s meal with a plastic toy in it. Billy was in his pyjamas already but nobody cared. I didn’t even want to go but Mum said it would be good to get out. Trouble is you never know who is gonna turn up at that Burger King. Everyone goes there. I spent an hour trying to snap together a plastic plane with a moving propeller. It had to be moving, Billy said. It was better than staring at my phone. My mum says I ought to go to school tomorrow and fucking unbelievably I think I might. I can’t stand waiting around. I’d rather be in French. LOL. The day has finally come that I’d rather be at school. What a fucking transformation that is.
The day that the languages block burnt down I got sent home from school. We all did. That was a first. Rather than bunking off they’d actually told us to go home, which is lucky cos it’s what I was gonna do anyway cos it was double pottery and I haven’t got any big urge to make a fucking Roman coil pot. Instead I spent the entire afternoon painting my nails with this new crackle top coat. Have you seen it? You paint your nails one colour – like, say, pink – then you put the crackle top coat on in a different colour – I did black but you can do any colour what you want – and it goes on normal then after like a minute it cracks and you can see the layer underneath. You have to let it dry, though. It doesn’t explain that on the bottle. It just says put the top coat on without saying that if the bottom coat is not dry it all turns to mush and you have to start again. They ought to say that. I got it all over the fucking carpet too. So, anyway, I had these new nails at fucking last, and I was waiting for Sarah to get back so I could show her my new nails and tell her about the languages block burning down.
The languages block burning down was a typical Kathryn Cowell moment – she liked to have a few of those each year just to keep her rep up. It happened like maybe two weeks after I started meeting Sarah. I’d got quite used to seeing her most weekday evenings. It was still light enough to sit in the garden although I would always imagine my mum standing right behind the fence listening, so sometimes we’d sit in the kitchen on the kitchen units (with the back doors open), which my mum says is unhygienic. I think by this point we’d already decided to change my hair colour. It didn’t take a fucking genius to work out that the reason that I was on Wino’s radar was because I had a blond ponytail and that if I got rid of that maybe I’d become a little less obvious. But Sarah said I had to do it gradually. Not like one minute White Platinum and the next minute like mouse brown because she said that would draw attention to me more than staying White Platinum. And the whole point of changing was not to draw attention. She said sometimes trying to stop drawing attention to yourself can actually draw attention to yourself. She said it’s like a man who wears a grey suit and a grey coat and then wears a grey shirt and a grey tie with it. She says that’s all too grey and people would go why is he wearing a grey tie and a grey shirt and a grey coat with that grey suit? It’s all too grey! She said I could stop hoiking up my skirt though. She said that two turns on the waistband to make it a mini was not going to achieve ostensible invisibility. Neither were over-the-knee socks that looked like stockings. Normal socks were fine, she said.
So when Sarah finally got home I told her the whole story about the fire and she said she thought it wasn’t necessarily Kathryn who had done it. She said that just cos a teenager nicks stuff from small kids doesn’t mean they’d set fire to things. But I said it was for definite. Sarah didn’t understand then how Kathryn Cowell was behind everything at South Haringey Secondary.
From the start everyone said that the fire in the languages block was started with petrol, but at the time all the police were banging on about was that it must have been started by pupils who were smoking round the back. The teachers all said that too. I guess they know we all smoke round there so they put two and two together and made five fucking hundred. The building is right next door to the recreation ground, we call it the Rec, and all the kids that were in languages for first lesson got evacuated to the middle of the Rec, which they all thought was fucking hilarious because all the time we’re told we’re not allowed to go there. Half of them just walked straight out of the smoking building, straight into the
Rec then straight out the other side, fag in hand, home to Jeremy Kyle and Marmite on toast, and the police got really annoyed because Mrs Backhouse couldn’t say who was missing in the fire and who was missing at home. The point is though that James Arney, he’s in Year 9, he got hurt. His legs got really badly burnt. No one else did, which everyone thought was well strange. That’s when the rumours started that it was Kathryn Cowell. Then someone said that one of the firemen thought he could smell petrol and that the fire maybe started because someone had thrown petrol over the wall from the Rec and it had spread into the boys’ toilets. The fire engines, like three of them, drove right across the grass in the Rec, which Clare said was totally awesome.
Two ambulances drove right over the grass too and took James Arney away as well as like five girls who’d said they’d inhaled all the smoke and couldn’t stop coughing but two of them are like morons who pretend to pass out the whole time in biology practicals and the other three are cutters – you know, they slash their arms and take pills and stuff, so they were probably just in it for a bit of attention. I’m not even lying. They probably just fancied a ride in a fucking ambulance.
The fire was put out by first break but the whole of the languages block was shut down and the police weren’t even allowed in cos the firemen said it was not safe and that the roof might fall in so they couldn’t even investigate it. But we were all like, what’s to investigate? Everyone knew it was Kathryn Cowell. After lunch we were all sent home.
No one asked the reason why Kathryn Cowell had burnt down the languages block because Kathryn Cowell doesn’t do stuff for a reason. For instance it wouldn’t be cos she hated languages or anything like that cos she’s never been to a language lesson. Everyone thought it was probably cos she just so happened to find a can of petrol and was sitting in the Rec, where she just about lives when she isn’t hanging out in the bike sheds or in the locker room, and she thought, what would be the most useful fucking thing you can do with a can of petrol when you don’t have a car or a motorbike or anything? And she came up with, throw it over the fence with a match. Everyone knew that she’d get away with it.