In The Dark

by Vikki Patis

  ‘There’s been an… incident,’ he says, pursing his lips.

  ‘Is he hurt? Was there a fight? I know it’s happened before, but it was nothing serious, just boys being boys, you know. But he’s assured me that–’ The headteacher raises a hand and I stutter to a stop.

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that. This is rather more delicate.’ He pauses, lifting a sheet of paper from his desk as if checking his notes before continuing. ‘An allegation has been made that your son–’

  ‘Grandson,’ I interject automatically.

  He clears his throat. ‘Your grandson, Sebastian, has been involved in the sharing of a graphic image.’

  I stare at him, my mind trying to understand the words. ‘A graphic image?’ I pause, a hand rising to my throat. ‘Not porn?’ I whisper, feeling my cheeks flush. I know Seb is a teenaged boy, and teenagers have their needs, but porn at school? I can’t believe he’d be so stupid.

  ‘It was an indecent image of a young girl. A student here.’ The words stun me, snatching my breath away. ‘It was apparently sent around a few group chats and on social media,’ Mr Loach continues, consulting the paper again. ‘Lots of students have now seen it, but it appears your grandson was involved in distributing it.’

  Distributing. I swallow, my cheeks burning. ‘So you’re saying that Seb has… shared this image around? Sent it to his friends?’

  ‘That is the allegation, yes,’ Mr Loach says, laying the sheet of paper down and placing a hand over it. ‘Now this is, of course, a serious matter, which is why we have had to inform the police.’

  I stare at him. ‘The police? Will he… Is he going to be arrested?’ The words of Seb’s other grandmother, Evelyn, flash into my mind. Don’t ever get yourself caught up with the law. They won’t see past the colour of your skin. I shake myself.

  ‘The police are investigating,’ Mr Loach says carefully. ‘And will be in touch with you in due course.’

  ‘What happens next?’ I manage to ask.

  ‘Seb and the other boys are being suspended for the rest of the week.’

  ‘Suspended? But how can you… How do you even know he’s involved?’

  He frowns as if he is disappointed in me. ‘We take such allegations very seriously, Mrs Taylor. We have a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying. You can take him home with you today.’

  He stands, and I realise the meeting is at an end. I follow suit, my legs so weak I grab hold of the desk to stop myself falling to the floor. My mind is racing, the revelation sending waves of nausea through me. Indecent. Suspended. Police.

  I make it as far as the door before the question bubbles up inside me, forcing its way past my lips. ‘And the girl? How is she?’

  Mr Loach purses his lips into a thin line. ‘Isabelle tried to take her own life a few days ago. She’s lucky to be alive.’

  7

  Seb

  He is waiting for his nan in reception. When she exits the headteacher’s office, her back ramrod straight, her bag clutched against her side, anxiety prickles up his spine. His premonitions have come true, and suddenly he feels as if he is standing on the edge of a cliff, the wind buffeting him from behind, as if the slightest misstep will send him hurtling over the edge.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Liv says shortly, nodding at the receptionist before turning towards the double doors. He follows, sheepishly, his heart pounding.

  ‘Nan,’ he says when they’re outside, but she shakes her head.

  ‘Not here. We need to have a private conversation.’

  If Seb had to pick his nan’s three favourite sayings, they would be: have you eaten? rise and shine! and don’t make a scene. Her ‘not here’ means she is likely to make a scene if forced to discuss this outside of the privacy of their home. The thought sends another stab of unease through him.

  She marches down the road, her back still stiff, and Seb trails along behind her, worry gnawing at him. Liv rarely shouts, and she has never raised a hand to him, not once, but he cannot shake the intrinsic fear of disappointing her. Of throwing everything she has done for him back in her face. He knows without being told that she has sacrificed a lot for him, sees it in the holes in her socks, the teabags used twice, the extra hours at the petrol station. Money has always been tight, but never has Seb gone to bed hungry or to school in a dirty uniform, and that is all down to her.

  As they approach the hill past the train station, Seb suppresses a groan. He hates walking up this hill. It feels never-ending, a long, arduous climb that makes his calves and lungs burn. But his nan strides ahead and he follows without complaint. He should stop smoking, he thinks, while he’s still young enough to reverse the damage.

  When the front door has closed behind them, and Liv has kicked off her shoes, Seb heads for the stairs, hoping against hope that he can slip away unnoticed.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ she says, her hands on her hips. ‘Kitchen, now.’

  He follows her into the kitchen, sliding into a chair as she fills the kettle and flicks it on. Her solution for everything: a cup of tea. But that won’t solve this situation. Seb stares at the wall beside him, the paint faded to a pale yellow that reminds him of the time he vomited after eating the gelatinous mashed potato from the school canteen. I could paint it, he thinks. Make it look nicer for her. But when Liv turns to him, two steaming mugs of tea in her hands, he knows it will take a lot more than a bit of paint to get out of this one.

  ‘Nan,’ he says, but she holds up a hand and he falls silent.

  ‘I know you,’ she says, sitting down opposite him. ‘I know what kind of boy you are. What kind of person you are. You have always been so kind to Izzy, and she’s a lovely girl.’ She lifts her mug, takes a sip. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ Seb says, relief flooding through him. ‘I got sent a photo on Snapchat that Izzy seemed to have taken herself. She was… half-naked, in her room.’

  ‘She took it herself?’ Liv asks, bewildered. ‘But why?’ Seb shrugs. He has no idea either. ‘Who did she send it to?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s not answering my messages. All I know is that it got sent to me, and I didn’t share it, I swear.’ He looks down, the reality of the situation hitting him again. ‘Am I going to be in trouble?’ he asks, and his nan reaches out, taking his hand in hers.

  ‘No,’ she says firmly. ‘You didn’t do anything. It’ll be fine.’

  He nods, tries to believe her, but he can’t stop the anxiety building inside him, or the frustration. Why did Izzy take that picture? Who did she send it to? Why isn’t she answering him?

  Liv squeezes his hand. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she says, pinning him with her gaze. ‘But you need to show me the photo.’ Seb opens his mouth to argue, but Liv speaks first. ‘I need to see what we’re dealing with here. I need to know all the facts. The police are involved, love. This is serious.’

  Seb nods again, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. ‘It’s just a group chat,’ he says, opening the app. ‘We mostly share memes,’ he says, and her brow creases. ‘Funny pictures, you know.’ He feels his cheeks heat up. ‘Not… that. It’s not for that.’

  ‘Who sent the photo to the group?’

  ‘Ben, from the year below. He said he got it from someone else.’

  She sighs, wrapping her hands around her mug while Seb stares down at the table between them. ‘I know being a teenager is hard, love, but this kind of thing… You just can’t be getting involved with it.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Seb protests. ‘I mean, I’m just in the group, that’s all. I’d never do that, not to Izzy.’

  ‘And you didn’t send it on?’

  ‘No,’ he says, meeting her gaze. ‘No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t.’ He suddenly remembers being five or six, running around Izzy’s garden with water pistols. He remembers a birthday party when he was sick after eating a wedge of cake. He remembers her small pale hand in his and not noticing, not caring about their differences. He remembers the way she would look at
him, all the words they could not say out loud passing between them in that one look, one brow slightly arched, her lips twitching with the ghost of a smile.

  Liv holds out her hand and Seb passes her his phone. He knows she is young to be a grandmother, is barely older than some of his friend’s mums, but she has always had a certain amount of fear when it comes to technology. She didn’t even have Facebook until last year.

  She starts scrolling through the messages, her lips pursed as she reads. Seb suddenly feels uncomfortable, knowing that she will see the memes he’s sent to his friends, the side of his sense of humour he wouldn’t usually share with her.

  ‘I’m gonna get on with my homework,’ he says, standing up, then stops. ‘Nan.’ Liv looks up, the phone in her hand. ‘You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Izzy, don’t you?’

  She nods. ‘Of course I do, love.’

  He turns then, half-runs up the stairs, desperate to hide away in his bedroom. He collapses onto his bed, his hands over his eyes as he replays the day in his mind. Izzy hadn’t met him before school like she usually did, and he hasn’t heard from her since last week. It was during afternoon registration that the secretary had come to get him, after whispering to his form tutor for several minutes. He waited outside the science block while she went to other forms, and was surprised to see so many boys trailing after her. Josh gave him a look, and Seb went cold. He knew, suddenly, that it was about the photo. He thought about it still sitting on his phone and mentally kicked himself. Why hadn’t he deleted it?

  The secretary led them to the main hall, where Mr Loach and a uniformed police officer were waiting, a plastic cup of water in his hand. Chairs were set out in front of the stage, where the boys were directed to sit. There were six of them in total, four from Seb’s year, and two from the year below.

  ‘Right, chaps,’ Mr Loach said, his face grim. ‘We need to have a little chat.’

  8

  Caitlyn

  In the end, it is Alicia who gets to the bottom of it.

  I call my eldest daughter on my way home that night, so close to tears from fear and exhaustion, that it only takes her chirpy ‘Hi, Mum’ to make my eyes spill over. I tell her everything, minus the gory details, and she listens in shocked silence. I picture Alicia’s mouth open as she digests my words, her hand at her throat, the topaz ring we got her for Christmas last year glistening on her index finger.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ she says, and I have to choke back a sob at the tenderness in her voice. ‘You haven’t seen it, have you?’

  ‘Seen what? The photo?’ I feel my chest tighten. ‘Have you? Alicia, how have you seen it?’

  Alicia takes a deep breath. ‘I’m coming home.’

  ‘No,’ I say quickly, brushing the tears away as I drive on autopilot. ‘No, you can’t. You have lectures, assignments.’

  ‘And a sister who needs me,’ she says softly, and I start crying so hard I have to pull over.

  She turns up that night, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder, her battered Corsa parked at an angle behind my car on the driveway. Her key is barely in the lock before I rip the door open, throwing my arms around her neck and crying into her hair. Suddenly, she is the mother and I the child, the one who needs comfort and reassurance, and for all her adventurous ways, my eldest daughter has always been my rock. She always knows the right thing to do.

  She leads me into the open-plan kitchen, switching on the under-cupboard lights with an ‘Alexa, turn on the stars’. The smart lights were a gift last year, and Alicia and Isabelle delighted in giving them all bizarre names. Alicia’s bedroom is ‘the disco’, while Isabelle’s is ‘the cave’, and the decorative bulbs hanging over the dining table are named ‘the great hall’.

  ‘Why can’t we give them proper names?’ Michael complained while the girls told Alexa to turn the lights different colours.

  ‘Because that would be boring,’ Alicia said, turning round and sticking out her tongue.

  ‘God forbid, not boring,’ Michael said, rolling his eyes. ‘A fate worse than death.’ But a smile was playing around his lips. He is good with them, has always been kind and warm towards them since we got together, but lately I have sensed a pulling back, a distance growing between my partner and my daughters. Is it because of Izzy? I know Michael struggles to understand her, is of the ‘sticks and stones’ persuasion, but he still cares about her, doesn’t he?

  Alicia helps me onto a stool at the island and makes her way over to the kettle. She makes a face when she opens the fridge door, and I realise we don’t have any of the oat milk she prefers. She catches me looking and smiles. ‘Never mind,’ she says, ‘I’ve grown used to drinking black tea. Milk is the number-one thing that goes missing in student flats.’

  She busies herself making the tea, pulling out a plate and arranging chocolate digestives that neither of us will touch. I sit slumped against the counter, my head in my hands, only lifting my gaze when I feel her hand touch my wrist. In her other hand is her phone.

  ‘I don’t want to show you this,’ she says quietly, ‘but you need to know what’s going on.’ She unlocks the phone and places it down on the counter before me, tapping the screen to bring up a picture. It is dark, but my eyes quickly adjust and I feel a sense of horror wash over me as I realise what I am looking at.

  ‘Isabelle?’ I whisper, my hand fluttering over the screen as if it would scald if touched. I notice the way her body is positioned, awkward almost, one leg forward, toes pointed like she is practising ballet. Her hair is down, dark curls cascading over her shoulder like a waterfall, and her face is half-hidden by her phone. But it is my daughter, breasts and stomach bared, vulnerable.

  ‘She took this herself?’ I ask, but it isn’t really a question. I recognise her bedroom behind her, the bedroom she has slept in since she was a child, the dusky pink walls now fading and covered in posters. ‘Why? Who did she send it to?’

  Alicia shrugs. ‘That’s what we need to find out.’

  ‘Was it a dare? A game?’ A memory comes back to me, an article I read online about teenagers hurting themselves on social media as part of a game, and I tell Alicia about it.

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. I don’t think Izzy would do something like that.’ She frowns. ‘But maybe someone forced her to take it. What about her boyfriend?’

  ‘Seb?’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s not like that.’ Without looking at her, I know she is rolling her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. ‘What am I going to do, Alicia?’ I moan, feeling my eyes burn with tears again as she puts her phone away and grips my hands in hers. ‘How can I help her? She won’t talk to me. She won’t talk to anyone.’

  ‘She’ll talk to me,’ Alicia says, her eyes wet with tears. ‘Leave it with me, Mum.’

  9

  Liv

  I call into work first thing, and after waiting almost five minutes for Sean to get to the phone, I tell him that I won’t be in today.

  ‘It’s a family emergency,’ I say, remembering with a jolt the last time I used that phrase, though Sean had still been in nappies back then. Well, not quite.

  Sean sighs. ‘All right, Olivia,’ he says, drawing out my name, even though he knows everyone calls me Liv. It’s even written on my name badge. ‘I’ll get Tina to cover you.’

  ‘Twat,’ I mutter as I hang up.

  I go upstairs and tap on Seb’s door, and I’m surprised to see he’s awake, sitting against the headboard with his old, clunky laptop on his knees.

  ‘Morning, love,’ I say, going in to sit on the end of his bed. ‘How are you?’

  I take him in, this kind, honest, beautiful boy who I loved as soon as Paige placed him in my arms. ‘Hello, Nan,’ she whispered to me, and I felt something shift inside me, my heart growing bigger to make room for this new addition. My grandson, with his lopsided grin and deep-brown eyes that have always twinkled with mischief. His unmistakable teenage-boy smell which is hidden beneath a haze of Lynx or whatever they use these days. The row of
size-ten shoes in the hallway, neatly lined up on the row above my size fours. The cartoon boxers I bought him for Christmas one year which he still wears. The detritus I find in every pocket; old chewing-gum wrappers and tangled earphones and suspicious-looking tissues. The thought that he could be taken away from me takes my breath away, and I feel my eyes burn with unshed tears. The tears I have been holding back since I was called into his school yesterday.

  ‘What’s up, Nan?’ he asks. He looks worried and withdrawn.

  I try to smile. ‘Nothing, love. Just thinking.’

  ‘Don’t strain yourself,’ he jokes, and I tut before smiling for real this time. His face turns serious again. ‘What’s going to happen now?’

  The smile falls from my face. I think of the messages I read last night, hundreds of them, the ‘banter’ between the boys that made me cringe, the memes I didn’t understand, until I got to the photo of Izzy. That poor girl. My heart aches when I think of what she’s going through, how upsetting the whole thing must have been for her. How desperate she must have felt, to try to take her own life.

  And now the police are involved. Will they need to speak to Seb? Will he be arrested? I have a sudden vision of him in handcuffs, looking tiny in the back seat of a police car, and I shudder. No, I think decisively. That won’t happen. As awful as the whole thing is, Seb didn’t do anything wrong. He can’t control what others send him.

  ‘Have you heard from Izzy yet?’ I ask. He shakes his head. ‘Maybe we should go round there, see how she’s doing.’ I reach out and pat his knee. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, trying to sound confident. ‘It’ll all come out in the wash, you mark my words.’