The Visitors Book

by Sophie Hannah

  Yet.

  I don’t bother to recite my speech about knowing without knowing how I know. What’s the point? It’s never going to satisfy anyone but me. It’s not logical.

  ‘I believe I’ve been shown this truth because I need urgent medical treatment to save my life – treatment for a brain aneurysm. I need you to give me that treatment.’

  ‘So your theory is . . . what? That you yourself have this condition, and you therefore see others with the same condition as ghosts for that reason? Some kind of . . . intuitive link between people suffering from the same problem?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’ Thank God. She gets it.

  ‘Then why don’t they see you as a ghost? Why doesn’t it work both ways?’

  ‘I don’t know! Maybe it’s just . . .’ I stop, open-mouthed. ‘No, that’s wrong. They do. They do see me as a ghost. Dermot the welder, and the man in your waiting room . . . they looked terrified when they saw me, when I spoke to them. And the woman crossing the road didn’t look in my direction. I was in my car. Pedestrians don’t see beyond the car, usually, to the person or people inside it.’

  If she’d seen me, she’d have screamed. I know she would.

  Dr Simm nods. ‘And the man in my waiting room now – he’s one of these three ghosts that you’ve seen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the two women?’ She glances down at her appointments diary, which lies open on her desk, and frowns. ‘Aren’t there two women out there, as well?’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘They weren’t ghosts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then your theory falls down.’ Dr Simm smiles. ‘Both those women have intracranial aneurysms.’

  But they weren’t ghosts. Definitely not.

  ‘There’s a difference,’ I hear myself say. I don’t want to ask, but I can’t stop the words coming out.

  You don’t need to ask. You know.

  That’s true. But how, for God’s sake? How do I know?

  ‘What’s the difference between the two women and the man?’ I ask, struggling for breath.

  After a pause, Dr Simm says, ‘His aneurysm’s in a more dangerous position. It’s more likely to kill him. Brain aneurysms are sometimes, though not always, fatal.’

  The two women in the waiting room saw me and showed no sign of fear or aversion.

  ‘The ghosts are the ones who are going to die of the same thing that’s going to kill me,’ I say, as dread spreads through my body. ‘A brain aneurysm. We see each other as ghosts, though no one else sees us that way.’

  Is this what fully inhabiting my spiritual potential means? Becoming a ghost, becoming dead?

  Dying. Dying, dying, dying.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ I say, trying to laugh. ‘I’m talking rubbish, aren’t I? Dr Simm? Why don’t you tell me I’m talking rubbish?’

  All the Dead Mothers of My Daughter’s Friends

  I feel sick when I see Grace Taggart waving the shiny gold envelope in the air. ‘I got it again!’ she yells across the playground with a little hip wiggle before running towards her mother. Now I know why my daughter Bee is walking so slowly – at the back of the crowd, head down.

  ‘Fucking great,’ I mutter under my breath.

  ‘What’s great?’ a clear voice beside me says. I turn and see a woman I haven’t noticed before. Her hair looks flammable: thick, straw-like, dark blonde.

  ‘That’s wonderful, darling!’ Rachel Taggart calls out to her daughter. To the mother on her right, she says, ‘God, this is embarrassing. Some children haven’t won it at all, and Gracie keeps winning it. But, I mean, what can I do? I have to be pleased for her, don’t I?’

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ Straw Woman lowers her voice beside me. ‘You’re annoyed Bee didn’t get Star of the Week.’

  And that someone I’ve never laid eyes on before knows my daughter’s name.

  I nod. Too upset to be diplomatic, I say, ‘I fucking hate Star of the Week. All it does is create twenty-one non-stars every week in each class, some of whom, like Bee, have never won it. Grace Taggart wins it literally every other week.’ I want to know who I’m talking to before I say any more. ‘Are you . . .Do you have . . .?’

  ‘Lisa Paskin.’ She holds out her hand. I shake it. ‘I’m Harriet’s mother. She’s new in Bee’s class.’

  ‘Oh.’ Shit. I ought to know the name, in that case. Harriet Paskin, Harriet Paskin. Right, that’s in my memory now. ‘Good to meet you. Bee’s newish too – start of last term. She’ll never win Star of the Week; she’s too rude to the teachers. It’s my fault. She’s inherited my loathing for authority figures. Last week Mr Orton made a joke in front of the whole class about Bee hating science – I mean, she does hate it, but even she can see that he ought to try to help her to like it more, not enshrine her hatred of it in class legend. What was I saying? Oh yes . . . so he said that, and everyone laughed, and Bee just turned very calmly to face him and said, “Sir, when you were my age, did you always dream of being a supply teacher?” Apparently his mouth actually dropped open in shock, and the class laughed more at her joke than at his. I tried to be angry when she told me, but secretly I was thinking, Hah! Nice one, Bee. But I did point out that, with an attitude like that, she can hardly expect to win Star of the Week. The thing is, she does. It’s like she thinks the award’s given in recognition of great dialogue, not good old-fashioned proper behaviour.’

  Bee and her friends have stopped halfway across the playground. Some of the girls are chatting frantically, but I can see Bee’s not really engaged. She looks over at me, signalling with her eyes that she’d like to get out of here as soon as possible, but she has to go through the motions if she wants to fit in. So far, she’s popular in her class. She’s the Fearless Backchatter – that’s why she can’t stop being rude to teachers. None of her friends would guess that she’d love to be Star of the Week. She’d be nonchalant, even dismissive, if she got it, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, Harriet would give Bee her Star of the Week award every week,’ says Lisa Paskin. ‘I would, too. Thanks to Bee, they learned about perspective in Art this week, and light and shade. That wouldn’t have happened without her . . .’ Lisa stops and claps a hand over her mouth. ‘Oops. I might have put my foot in it. I assumed . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, Bee told me about her, um, intervention. And again, subversive monster that I am, I was on her side. I mean, it’s Art! Fucking Art, and they propose to devote the whole of term one to making hats?’

  ‘“That’s not art, it’s millinery. Did Leonardo da Vinci start his art career by learning to make a felt hat?”’ Lisa quotes my stroppy daughter. ‘Brilliant!’

  I can’t help smiling proudly. ‘She followed that up by writing and handing in a list of everything the Art teacher ought to be teaching them but wasn’t, starting with a breakdown of all the different sorts of pencils and which kind to use for what type of drawing. Again: my fault. She wouldn’t have known what to put on that list if she hadn’t spent hours listening to me and her artist father bitching over the dinner table.’

  ‘She’s great, Mel. Seriously. Who cares about a stupid certificate? Your Bee’s a real star.’

  ‘Yeah. Trouble is, she won’t see it that way. She’s in a bind – a natural rebel who nevertheless wants approval. But won’t lift a finger to get it.’ I sigh. I’m trying hard to like Lisa Paskin – I ought to like her, in the light of her strong support for Bee – but I find it unnerving that she knows so much about me and my family. She knew my name was Mel. How? I haven’t introduced myself to her.

  ‘Anyway, I think you’ll find Grace Taggart hasn’t won Star of the Week, though she evidently believes she has,’ Lisa says with an enigmatic smile.

  What’s she talking about? ‘No, she’s won it. Look, she’s brandishing the gold envelope. Her adoring acolytes have gathered round to shower her with congratulations. Yes, I am being bitchy about an eleven-year-old. I can’t help it. H
ave you seen her Instagram account? Her user name’s “babybeautiful”. I mean, ugh. Every single photo she posts is of her, pouting like a Botoxed goldfish.’

  Lisa laughs. ‘What do you expect? You know her mother buys her new clothes every day, practically? Dresses her up like a doll.’

  ‘Ssh, keep your voice down. She’ll hear you.’

  ‘She wouldn’t bother listening to the likes of you and me. She has no interests apart from Grace, her Baby Beautiful – you know that’s where Grace’s Instagram username came from, right?’

  I shake my head. How does Lisa know so much? Perhaps she doesn’t do her best to stand fourteen miles away from the other mothers at pick-up time, like I do. I’m sure some of them are lovely and fascinating – just not the ones I’ve met.

  ‘Rachel Airhead Taggart doesn’t even have her own email address,’ Lisa sneers. ‘All her jolly round-robin emails to us lesser mothers, entitled “Long-Overdue Mums’ Night Out!”, come from her husband’s email.’

  ‘I know. GRAHAM TAGGART, all upper case. That’s how I think of her. In my mind she’s not Rachel, she’s GRAHAM TAGGART in Caps Lock.’

  ‘If there’s one thing worse than this school, it’s the mothers at the gates. Not you, Mel – you’re the exception, which is the only reason I’m talking to you.’

  This woman is nasty, I can’t help thinking. Worryingly, though, she’s said nothing that I haven’t thought many times myself. Maybe I’m equally nasty.

  ‘But the others, Jesus wept! They’re appalling. That one over there with the auburn bob, in those hideous half-leggings, half-jeans things – her name’s Julie Laycock.’

  I know that, Lisa. Bee has been at the school longer than Harriet.

  Which among the dishevelled uniforms in the playground is Harriet Paskin? I’ve memorised her name but I have no idea what she looks like, this fan of Bee’s. I wonder if she’s nicer than her mother.

  ‘Julie invited me round to hers for coffee when we first met, and then spent two hours complaining about her husband,’ Lisa tells me. ‘Whenever he buys her a present, apparently, it’s always something he wants himself, but he pretends it’s something he thinks she’d really like. I made the mistake of asking her if she did like some of the presents. She made a disgusted face and said, “Even if I liked the things themselves, I’d never give him the satisfaction of admitting it. They’ve all gone straight in the bin. He has to learn.” I can’t imagine why he stays with her, unless he’s equally awful.’

  ‘He is,’ I can’t help saying. ‘Both times I’ve met him, he’s found an opportunity to tell me his Life Motto. Oh, yes, he has one – an official one: “I don’t live to work, I work to live.”’

  ‘Ha! I’m sure he works mainly to avoid his reptile of a wife!’ Lisa giggles. ‘I used to think Jenny Buckley was okay – dark, ponytail, bright-green coat – but then there was the baby name thing. You know she’s preggers?’

  I nod.

  ‘I asked her what she was planning to call the baby and she said Fred. They know it’s a boy. I laughed, assuming she was joking and said, “Yeah, right. What are you going to call it, really?”’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she call it Fred?’

  ‘Because her daughter, in Harriet and Bee’s class, is called Rose.’

  Bee and Harriet’s class, actually. Bee was there first.

  Ugh, get over yourself, Mel. You’re being pathetic.

  ‘Fred and Rose! The Wests! World-famous serial killers!’ Lisa shakes her head. ‘I felt obliged to tell her, thinking she’d obviously want to think twice before naming her children after a pair of rapist-murderers, but she said, completely straight-faced, “My grandparents’ names were Fred and Rose. That’s who I’m calling my kids after, not the Wests.” She said she didn’t think anyone would remember the Wests in a few years time anyway. How deluded can you get?’

  ‘Yes. One might not think of the West connection oneself, but once it’s pointed out . . .’

  ‘And then there’s the revolting Suzanne Fox! She’s the worst of the lot. The other day she was wittering about how she’s going to make sure Ethan always spends Christmas Day with her, for the rest of his life. She’s happy to have his future wife and her entire family to stay for Christmas, she says, but she won’t allow Ethan, ever, to spend a single Christmas Day away from her. “Allow” – that was the word she used. The boy’s eleven, for Christ’s sake, and she’s making Christmas plans for his hypothetical future wife’s parents. How mental can you get?’

  ‘I think Anna Gimblett might be okay,’ I say. ‘The one with the wide face and long blonde hair.’

  ‘Yeah, I know her. I thought the same at first – that she was all right – until she started talking to me about ghosts.’

  ‘Ghosts?’

  ‘Yup. She started in the usual way: she’s not the sort of person who believes in any of that nonsense, but . . . and then some ridiculous story about waking up in the middle of the night and feeling a presence, blah, blah. It’s always the middle of the night, isn’t it? And the person telling the story is always a perfectly rational atheist who had no truck with the supernatural, until. I mean, no one ever says, “I’m precisely the sort of suggestible idiot who’d believe anything, so really I wasn’t surprised at all when a ghost selected me as its audience.” Hey!’ Lisa grabs my arm, as if she’s just remembered something exciting. ‘Are you going to the Mums’ Night Out tomorrow?’

  ‘I think so,’ I say. ‘Not that I want to, but I missed the last one. GRAHAM TAGGART has made it clear, in that deadly light-hearted way of hers, that all the mums expect me to be there this time. Two consecutive absences . . . well, let’s just say there would be consequences. Why, are you going?’ I ask Lisa.

  ‘Not a chance. I’ve got better things to do. But . . . I don’t suppose you could do me a favour, could you? Anna “Ghosts” Gimblett annoyed me so much, I decided to try and out-ghost her. I fed her some bullshit about the difference between ghosts you see at night and the ones you see in the daytime. She didn’t believe me, I don’t think, but . . . it’d be hilarious if you told her the same story. The more people she hears it from, the more she’ll start to wonder if it might be true. She might start telling other people. Fancy playing Torment the Credulous Cretin with me?’

  No, I don’t. I don’t want to be assigned a stupid chore by Lisa Paskin. I’m curious, however. ‘What did you tell Anna about the difference between night ghosts and day ghosts?’

  Before she has a chance to answer, there’s a piercing howl. I turn and see that Grace Taggart is sobbing, her face red and wet. The gold envelope lies by her feet, torn in half. In her hand, she’s holding her Star of the Week certificate, but she’s . . .

  Can she be tearing it up?

  ‘What the hell?’ I stare in disbelief as the fragments fall to the ground.

  ‘Mumm-yyyy!’ she screams. Most of the girls in Bee’s class say ‘Mum’, but not Grace. I once heard Rachel say to Suzanne Fox about her son Ethan (he of the preemptively restricted Christmases), ‘Aren’t you devastated that he’s stopped calling you “Mummy”? I’ve told Gracie I want to be “Mummy” forever!’

  Rachel Taggart hurries towards her Baby Beautiful. I try not to be happy that a child is unhappy. It’s hard. For as long as she’s been Bee’s so-called friend, she’s done everything she can to undermine Bee’s confidence. In our house, we have a Classic Grace Taggart Comments Collection. Our favourite so far is: ‘You’re pretty, Bee, but you’re not beautiful like me. I’m not being big-headed, I’m just confident. That’s a good thing. You should try to be more confident. Confidence makes you more attractive.’

  Bee isn’t allowed to buy clothes from Ballihoo because that’s where Grace buys her clothes. Bee isn’t allowed to wear white nail varnish because that’s Grace’s favourite colour, or part her hair on the left because Grace does that. All of these rules Bee grudgingly accepts, instead of telling Grace to set fire to her head and stick it up her arse, as I’ve suggested on many occasio
ns.

  ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’ Rachel Taggart is holding up the pieces of the torn-up certificate. ‘This is monstrous. Look at this! Who’s done this? Who’s done it? You’d better tell me right now, whoever you are!’ Mothers are hurrying towards her to see what’s the matter.

  ‘We’d better go over, I suppose,’ I say to Lisa.

  ‘Why? So that we’ll look like we care? I couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried. Grace Taggart’s a vile little bitch.’

  ‘Basic curiosity?’ I suggest. ‘I want to find out what’s going on.’ This is absurd. I don’t need Lisa Paskin’s permission to show an interest.

  ‘I can tell you what’s going on: Grace opened her gold envelope, thinking she knew what she’d find inside it, and instead she found something superficially similar but substantively different: a Bitch of the Week certificate.’ Lisa smiles. ‘Of course, the big mystery is: how and when was the switch done? And by whom?’

  ‘How do you ..? You? You did it? You put a certificate saying “Bitch of the Week: Grace Taggart” in that envelope?’

  ‘Not personally.’ Lisa winks at me. ‘I might have arranged for it to be done.’

  ‘Fuck, Lisa. How did you arrange it? Aren’t you worried about getting booted out of the school if they find out?’

  ‘You mean, aren’t I worried about Harriet getting booted out? I’m not a pupil here myself. No, I’m not worried – about that or anything. I never worry. Besides, anyone who gets booted out of this school’s lucky. You know what Bee and Harriet did in their most recent PSHE lesson? Did Bee tell you?’

  ‘No, I . . . No. I don’t think she did.’ I’m finding it hard to concentrate on Lisa, with Rachel and Grace Taggart both weeping a few metres away, and other mums and girls crowding round to comfort them.

  ‘The subject was racism.’ Lisa’s face hardens as she speaks. ‘The message was the obvious and correct one: racism’s terrible. Guess how that message was conveyed? A video was shown to the class of a group of racist thugs racially insulting a black person on the tube. The class was actually made to watch the film of racist abuse! They were made to watch it happening, as if they were there watching it live! Guess how many black kids there are in Harriet’s class? One! Only one. And that poor girl had to sit and watch this film of horrible racist invective.’