In The Dark

by Vikki Patis

  His father did that. It is not that Seb ever forgets what Brad did, but when he remembers it like that, when he does not tiptoe around the harsh reality, he feels something tighten inside him. Those words are so simple yet so terrifying: my dad killed my mum.

  But he is sorry. Brad has apologised again and again for what he did, in letters in those early days and even now in his voice notes. I’m so sorry, Seb. And he never asks for forgiveness. He does not expect it, though Seb wants so badly to give it. For although he misses his mum and wishes she were with him, he knows that nothing will ever bring her back. But his father is still alive, and so there is still a chance for them both. Or so he hopes.

  He listens to his father’s latest message again, closing his eyes and trying to picture his face as his words fill his ears.

  ‘Hi Seb, it’s me. Dad. I don’t know why I say that every time. Who else would it be? But just in case, I suppose. Anyway, how are you? How’s the revision going? I was thinking of retaking my own exams soon, maybe you can help me. I didn’t do very well at school, much to your nan’s frustration. Rosa was a right boffin, straight A’s she got. Show-off.’ Brad chuckles, and Seb tries to breathe him in. ‘You’ll be the same, no doubt. Mr Clever Clogs. I’m proud of you, I hope you know that. We all are. How is Grandma Liv? Still working at that petrol station? What’s new with you? I hope you’re not missing out on too many nights out while you’re swotting for your exams. A social life is important too – though who am I to judge? I got the balance totally wrong. Anyway, let me know how things are going. Mum told me she’s got you a provisional licence, I can’t believe you’re old enough to start driving soon! I never learned, neither did your mum, but we managed all right. Still, it’ll be good for you to be able to get around. Go off on day trips! I remember going down to Southend with my parents when I was little, Rosa in a frilly swimming costume. She looked like a jellyfish in the water. I wish I’d done the same with you. Anyway, never mind. You’ve got so much to look forward to. I’m so proud of you. I’ve said that already, haven’t I? But I am. I really am, son.’

  Tears run down Seb’s face. He covers his mouth with his hand to silence his sobs. What is he doing? Who is he becoming? All his life, he has been steered down the right path, the path that will give him more than his nan and his parents had. Better. He had to do better. So why has he suddenly veered off?

  He thinks of Izzy, how everything can be traced back to that one event. It marked the beginning of a change in Seb, opened his eyes to what he had previously been shielded from. That he is untrustworthy, a suspect. That the people around him have been waiting for him to slip up, to show his true colours. That his friendships are tenuous, fair weather, superficial. What does he have in common with them after all? Most of them are white, all of them middle class, with no idea of what his life is like. He has hidden his council house from them, rarely inviting friends over. He has hidden his lack of money, not telling them about the pet-sitting and car-washing and gardening he has done for neighbours so he can attempt to keep up with the rest of them. His phone is a year old now, his trainers older and showing signs of wear. Is that what he looks like? A slightly outdated, scratched imitation of his friends?

  The only person he could be himself around, the only one who came home with him and had dinner with his nan, sitting at the wobbly kitchen table and eating from mismatched plates, the only one who seemed to listen, seemed to care, was Izzy. They had been friends since primary school, the only two at the time who did not have a father. They seemed to stand on the outside, apart from the others, but with Izzy, Seb did not feel alone. He felt emboldened. He learned how to be the joker, the one who was always up for a laugh, and though Izzy might have felt as if she were hiding behind him, Seb felt as if she had his back, and with her behind him, he could do anything.

  And then she betrayed him. She went behind his back, sending a photo of herself and god knows what else, probably to some rich, white boy who pretended to be Seb’s friend. Was it all a lie, a mirage? Did Izzy ever care about him the way he cared about her? He pictures Abby then, the way her lip curled when she found out Seb and Izzy were together. Had he stood up for her enough? No. The realisation hits him in the gut and he turns over, curling up in a ball, his face still wet with tears. He had thought the bullying had stopped, had even, stupidly, arrogantly thought that being with him would make it harder for Izzy to be targeted. He was popular, funny. The one who could get along with anybody, could sell Christmas to turkeys. But the truth was that he hadn’t been there for Izzy when she’d needed him. If anyone was to blame, if anyone was at fault, it was him.

  He doesn’t go to school. He waits for his nan to leave for her early shift, calling goodbye and switching on the shower as she leaves, before turning it off again and going back into his bedroom. He stays in bed, staring at the ceiling until the walls start to press in on him and he finally leaves the house, blinking in the bright midday sun.

  He wanders aimlessly, walking the route into town he knows by heart. He looks up at Sian’s house as he passes, as if surprised to find himself here. Returning to the scene of the crime, he thinks as he puts his head down and scurries away. He almost bumps into someone, steps back with alarm as he realises who it is.

  ‘Seb?’ Caitlyn says, her eyes wide with surprise and something else. Concern? Fear?

  He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t meet her gaze, flinches away when she puts out a hand to touch his arm, and then he is gone, hurrying back towards home, anxiety bubbling in his stomach. He tells himself that there are a hundred reasons why he might not be at school, there’s no reason she would tell his nan. She doesn’t know anything. Nobody does. He is invisible.

  45

  Izzy

  Izzy sits in maths, doodling in the back of her book as she listens to the chatter around her. The teacher has stepped out, leaving the class to complete an exercise nobody has even looked at. Her phone vibrates in her pocket and she pulls it out, unlocking it with her thumb. Her stomach lurches as she reads the message and she deletes it instantly, shoving her phone back into her pocket. She thinks of the comment she deleted on the Instagram post of Smeaton’s Tower, hopefully before Katie or anyone else saw it. Why won’t they leave her alone? She has moved away, has removed everyone from her social media, has changed all her profiles to private. But still they find her. Still they want to hurt her.

  ‘Psst!’ She looks up at the noise, sees Katie’s friend Chloe reaching toward her desk. ‘Katie asked me to give you this.’ She passes a folded-up note over.

  ‘Thanks,’ Izzy whispers back.

  ‘Have you done number three?’ Chloe asks.

  Izzy shakes her head. ‘I haven’t even started. I don’t have a clue.’

  Steph grins from behind Chloe. ‘That makes two of us then.’

  ‘I can’t get another detention,’ Chloe says with a sigh. ‘My dad said I’d be grounded for a month next time.’

  ‘You won’t get a detention if all of us don’t do it,’ Izzy says, looking around the room. Not one person has their head bent over their book, they are all chatting or flicking through their phones.

  Chloe smiles. ‘That’s true.’

  The teacher comes back in then, and the room falls silent, phones tucked under desks, bodies turned back to the front of the room. Izzy opens the note, trying not to remember the last time she got passed a note in class, the word blurring before her as she read it. Slut. This note won’t be the same, she tells herself. Katie is her friend. But so were the other girls, once.

  Meet me by the bench out the front, Katie has written. I’ve brought my stuff with me. So excited!

  Izzy exhales, smiling, and tucks the note into her pocket. Katie had had to delay their sleepover after her dad decided that they were having a ‘family dinner’ last weekend. Izzy had tried not to feel dismayed, tried not to think about the possibility that Katie had been lying to her, that she just didn’t want to spend time with her, but her fears were averted when Ka
tie had messaged to rearrange for tonight. Her mum didn’t let her do much on school nights, but her dad had quickly agreed.

  ‘She only lives round the corner,’ he said. ‘What’s the difference if she sleeps here or there?’

  And so it was decided.

  After school, Katie grabs her arm as they walk out of the gates and towards the waiting bus. ‘I’m so excited to see your house,’ she says. ‘I’ve walked past it so many times, I’ve always wanted to see what it looks like inside. Do you have your own bathroom?’

  Izzy nods. ‘A small one, but yeah.’

  ‘So lucky. My dad has his own en suite, but the stepmother “prefers baths” so I have to share the main one with her,’ Katie says. ‘I said, why don’t I have their room? I’d use the en suite. I’d even clean it myself. But no.’ She flicks her hair over her shoulder as she digs in her pocket for her bus pass. ‘Why are parents so insufferable?’

  Izzy laughs. She hasn’t found her dad to be insufferable, not yet anyway. Her mum, however, had always been stricter on Izzy than she was on Alicia, and she’d always thought it was because she’d done something, maybe when she was a baby that she can’t remember, to upset her mother. Now she knows that’s stupid – what could a baby possibly do to make a parent hold a grudge for so long? – but in truth she doesn’t know what to think.

  They get off the bus and walk the short distance to Izzy’s house, Katie chattering non-stop in the way she has that means Izzy can just listen.

  ‘To think,’ Katie says as Izzy puts her key in the lock, ‘if you hadn’t moved here, we would never have met.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Izzy says with a laugh.

  Katie rolls her eyes. ‘But what I mean is, how weird fate is, right? For you to move all the way down here, and only a few streets away from me, and get on the same bus as me, and be in my form. It’s fate. We were destined to be best friends.’

  Izzy smiles. ‘I like that. You’re a poet at heart.’

  Katie pretends to slap her as they kick off their shoes in the hall. ‘Wow,’ she says, looking around. ‘The stepmother has good taste.’

  ‘The stepmother has a name,’ Miranda says from the kitchen doorway. Izzy winces, but Miranda is smiling. ‘Come on in. Katie, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Katie says, her cheeks flushed. ‘Sorry. Hi.’

  Miranda waves a hand. ‘Dinner is at six. I’ve made spicy potato wedges with salad. Izzy didn’t say you have any special dietary requirements.’

  ‘No, I’ll eat anything.’ Katie grins. ‘Sounds lovely.’

  ‘Thanks, Miranda,’ Izzy adds. ‘Can we grab a drink and go upstairs?’

  ‘Of course. There’s Coke in the fridge. Help yourselves.’

  Izzy grabs two cans of Coke and hands one to Katie as they climb the stairs. ‘She’s so pretty,’ Katie whispers. ‘Is she like, a lot younger than your dad?’

  Izzy shrugs. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve never asked how old she is.’

  ‘She looks like, thirty or something. And she really does have good taste.’ Katie touches the frame of a painting hanging on the wall outside Izzy’s room.

  ‘My dad painted that,’ she says, opening her door. ‘He’s an artist.’

  ‘Is he? You kept that quiet!’ Katie follows Izzy inside. ‘Oh, my God. This is your room?’ She looks around, moving from the bedroom area into what Izzy calls the snug. She sits on the sofa and grins. ‘You have your own living room! This is mental. My room is barely big enough to swing a cat.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’ Izzy says, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘It’s just an expression, Iz,’ Katie says with an exasperated sigh. ‘You are funny.’ She springs up, so full of energy that Izzy laughs. ‘Do we have enough time to do our hair before dinner? My hair takes ages to dry.’

  Izzy glances at the time. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  They stand bunched up together as they wet their hair under the shower, applying the hair mask and giggling as they bump elbows. Izzy hands Katie a polka-dot shower cap, putting a flowery one on her own head, and they laugh again when they catch sight of their reflections in the mirror.

  ‘We look like old dears,’ Katie says. ‘Oh hang on, I brought face masks.’ She runs back into the bedroom and reappears a minute later, a small pink jar in her hands. ‘Australian pink clay,’ she explains as she opens it. ‘It’s meant to be amazing for your skin.’

  They apply it to their skin, giggling as Katie drops some down her front. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she mutters. ‘I didn’t bring a spare school shirt with me.’

  ‘You can borrow one of mine,’ Izzy says. ‘I think we’re about the same size?’

  ‘You’re definitely skinnier than me,’ Katie says, turning to observe her figure in the full-length mirror behind them. ‘Just look at my hips!’

  Izzy looks. She cannot see anything wrong with Katie’s hips, or anything else about her, but she doesn’t know how to say so without sounding weird. ‘Now we really look like old dears,’ she says instead. ‘Like Mrs Doubtfire.’

  ‘Mrs who?’

  Izzy laughs. ‘You haven’t seen Mrs Doubtfire? Right, that’s decided, we’re watching it tonight.’ In the bedroom, she finds the film on Netflix. ‘Better set a timer,’ she says, opening the app on her phone. ‘For the hair masks.’ They settle down on the small sofa together, Katie’s legs on Izzy’s lap, the warmth surprisingly comforting. They laugh loudly, sharing a bag of Haribo Katie pulls from her bag, until the timer goes off.

  Back in the bathroom, they wash their faces before Izzy rinses Katie’s hair with the shower head, scrubbing her scalp with her fingertips then applying conditioner and squishing in handfuls of water. ‘Seaweed hair,’ she says, rinsing it out. ‘Here, that’s how you want it to feel.’

  Katie reaches out blindly and touches a strand. ‘Ooh, yeah! It does feel like seaweed. Can I stand up yet? All the blood has gone to my head.’

  Izzy laughs. ‘Just a bit longer. I always wash upside down, it helps create volume.’

  ‘I’m in your hands, Isabelle!’ Katie trills. ‘I’m trusting you.’

  Izzy rakes the cream through Katie’s hair, using her fingers to create clumps, then she applies a gel, gently cupping the strands in her palms and scrunching upwards.

  ‘This won’t give me crunchy curls, will it?’ Katie asks.

  ‘It will, but we’ll scrunch it out once it’s dry. That’s the trick. Now you can flip your hair over.’ Katie stands, tipping her head one side as Izzy scrunches her hair, then the other. ‘Okay, I’ll just do mine quickly.’

  ‘I’ll watch,’ Katie says, sitting on the closed toilet lid. ‘I want to see what you do.’

  Izzy tries not to feel self-conscious as she switches on the shower, pulling down the hem of her top as she bends under the water. She quickly washes and conditions, taking time to squish in plenty of water, before smoothing her hair over with a brush.

  ‘You didn’t do that with mine!’ Katie protests.

  ‘You have looser waves,’ Izzy explains, parting her hair like a curtain to look up at her friend. ‘I didn’t want to stretch them out. Every curl is different, remember?’ Katie nods, and Izzy suddenly feels warm inside. It is nice to be the expert for once, the one leading things. It feels good to be trusted.

  Once she has applied her styling products, Izzy steers Katie towards the dressing table, where she attaches the large diffuser to her hairdryer and switches it on. ‘We’ll just set the cast,’ she says over the noise, ‘then go down for dinner.’

  ‘Won’t we look stupid?’ Katie asks, her worried expression reflected in the mirror.

  Izzy shakes her head. ‘They’re used to it. And even if we do, who cares? We’ll look stupid together. That’s what friends are for.’

  46

  Liv

  I leave work late, walking quickly to Mum’s house. Someone from the care company is coming today, to discuss ‘Mum’s needs’. I hurry up the drive, noticing an unfamiliar car parked there already. A woman gets ou
t and smiles as I fumble with my keys. ‘Liv? Hi, I’m Kez.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, dropping the keys as I reach out to shake her hand. ‘Oh, bugger.’

  ‘Have you come from work?’ she asks as I retrieve the keys and slot them into the front door.

  ‘Yes, my shift ran over a bit.’ I push open the door and call out to Mum before turning to let Kez inside.

  ‘I’ve not been here long, don’t worry,’ she says kindly as she passes. ‘Wow. This is a nice house.’

  ‘And you’ll have none of it,’ Mum’s voice floats through from the living room door. ‘I won’t be selling to pay your fees.’

  I smile awkwardly at Kez, shuffling past and entering the living room. ‘Hi, Mum,’ I say, bending down to kiss her papery cheek. She wrinkles her nose.

  ‘You smell like fags,’ she says. ‘And onions. I hope you haven’t made me any for dinner, you know how they upset my stomach.’

  ‘No, Mum,’ I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. ‘I’ve just got here. I’m making a curry tonight, get some of those nutrients like the doctor ordered.’

  ‘I’m not eating any of that muck,’ she says. ‘I’ll have two boiled eggs.’ She looks at Kez then, who is hovering in the doorway. ‘Well, come in then if you’re coming. You’re making the place look untidy.’ I can’t help noticing the look Kez gives the room as she enters, her gaze flickering over the piles of newspapers and dirty mugs. She sits on the sofa, her briefcase on her lap and her hands folded on top of it as if she is loath to touch anything.