by Ali Land
‘She’s going to fall, Phoebe, stop it.’
But she doesn’t listen, she pulls harder on the rope, her smile bigger, enjoying the power. The control. Georgie swings like a baby monkey without its mother’s back or tail to hang on to. No branches, no trees. Nothing to break the fall. Up there alone. Out there alone. We all are.
‘Go on, Clon, your turn.’
She does as she’s told, pulls the rope to the left, spins Georgie around. Every time the rope turns I can see her eyes, wet. Tears. Frightened. Body slips a little, more than last time. Tired. Help her. Can’t. Can. Don’t want to.
Nobody helped me.
The rope begins to slow, Clondine steps away, calls to Georgie.
‘That’ll be a tenner for the ride, please.’
The other girls lose interest, they presume only a good outcome, that the rope will no longer be swung, that Georgie will slide down to the ground in a minute or so, complaining to Phoebe and Clondine about how scared she was. The circle of spectators begins to disintegrate into twos and threes, wander away. The rope, almost stationary now. A cartwheel competition begins on the mats, gossiping resumes. Most of the girls, but not Phoebe. Whatever it is, it lurks in her too, she can’t resist one last pull on the rope. A fire inside her burning just that little too brightly.
Georgie, too tired to hang on.
I look away before she hits the ground. The noise, distinctive. Bones do that. Pop. Crack. The laughter I joined in with minutes ago peters off to silence. Silence becomes fuck.
‘You fucking idiot, Phoebe,’ Clondine says.
I turn round. Georgie. More slumped than sitting, face white, the same colour as the bone jutting out from under her chin. A knife of calcium, a collarbone. A flurry of leotards, no longer cartwheeling, move, flock around her. I move too, but round the back, sit down next to her. Breath, hers, coming in short gasps, the rope swinging accusingly over our heads. We all had a part to play. The noise in the gym different now, pitches higher than before, a panicky edge. The girls cling to each other, trauma.
‘Fuck. It wasn’t just me, it was you as well, Clondine.’
‘No, I’d walked away at that point and so should’ve you.’
‘Oh my god, I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Shut up, Clara, think about poor Georgie.’
‘We’ll get you to Jonesy, okay, Georgie? You’re going to be okay,’ says Annabel. Decisive. Captain-like.
Phoebe squats down, she has a small window of opportunity to make this right and she knows it. She’s straight in there.
‘I’m so sorry, I thought you were on your way down. I would never have done it if I thought you were going to fall.’
‘It’s a little bit late for that, don’t you think?’ Annabel responds.
‘Would you shut the fuck up for once, go and get Jonesy and bring her here and don’t you dare say anything. Anyway, everybody will back me up, right? We were all laughing, we’re all to blame, it was an accident.’
She’s good. So very good. The girls nod in solemn agreement. Clara turns away and gags into her hand, shoulders heaving. Georgie begins to moan. An eerie sound that grows into a wail when she looks down, sees the bone piercing her skin. Annabel sprints to the door, shouting behind her, I’m getting Jonesy.
‘Don’t look,’ I tell Georgie.
Phoebe hears Georgie’s wailing the loudest, wants it to stop.
‘Fuck,’ she says. ‘Calm down, please, Jonesy will be here soon. Just remember to say it was an accident, okay?’
‘Shall I get her some water?’ asks Marie.
‘No,’ somebody replies. ‘You shouldn’t give her anything to drink, I saw it on the telly, just keep her warm until help gets here.’
‘What about the hoodie over there, should we put it over her legs? Are you cold, Georgie?’
I feel her body begin to shake. Shock. I lean her back into my shoulder.
‘Why don’t we try and get her up, sit her on the bench?’ suggests Phoebe. ‘Can you do that, Georgie, can you manage?’
She shakes her head, begins to cry.
‘You have to try, come on, let’s help her up.’
I know what Phoebe’s trying to do, to ‘clean up’ the scene, make it look less savage. The broken body of a girl looks better on a bench than it does slumped under the rope she fell from, was spun from.
‘No, don’t,’ I hear myself say.
A sea of purple and blue velour stares at me.
‘Mind your own business,’ Phoebe replies.
‘She’s in too much pain, you can’t move her.’
‘And what makes you such an expert on broken bones?’
A movement on my scalp, a slow creeping heat. I support Georgie’s weight, tell her to hold her elbow, cradle her arm into her stomach.
‘Yes, like that, it’ll help with the pain.’
It helped with mine.
Jonesy, the school nurse, arrives, takes one look at Georgie and tells Annabel to go to the office and call an ambulance. She pushes a vault in behind us, thanks me for helping and tells Georgie to lean back gently. Mrs Havel must have heard the news too, arrives looking furious.
‘What happened?’ she asks. ‘I told you to be careful.’
‘We were,’ replies Phoebe. ‘We were just having a bit of fun and then Georgie fell from the rope.’
‘Were none of you listening? I said mat work only. Go and get changed, all of you, hurry up.’
Phoebe’s waiting for me outside my cubicle, comes up to my face, so close I see tiny brown flecks bedded into the blue of her eyes.
‘Next time, don’t get involved in things that don’t concern you, okay?’
I ignore her, walk away. She follows, shoves me backwards as she passes. I land hard on the wooden changing benches.
Bruised, but alive.
So very alive, Phoebe.
13
A few days after the gym incident, Phoebe passes round a card at the end of biology.
‘Everybody sign it,’ she orders. ‘I’ll get Mrs McD to send it home to Georgie.’
When the card gets to me, I read Phoebe’s pink swirls – Sorry about your accident, get better soon, love P xxx.
‘Your accident’, an interesting choice of words. Reads nice, to a teacher or parent. No reason to suspect foul play, and Georgie knows better than to squeal. Everybody does, but me, I squealed on you, didn’t I, Mummy? I told the story again and again, a blinking red light from the video camera.
When everybody’s signed it I watch Phoebe lick the flap, press it down with one hand, a smooth V-shaped motion. She applies Vaseline to her lips, the colour pink, kisses the centre of the V on the back of the envelope. I think about how different she is at school. So self-assured. How different I was as well, so good at pretending, at keeping our secrets. I wonder what the girls would think if they knew that Phoebe calls out in her sleep. Cries. I’ve heard her on the nights I’m too frightened to sleep, too frightened to stay in my room, all the shadows and whispering from dark corners. From you. Sometimes I get up, sit in the corridor nestled into the long velvet drapes. Restless and troubled Phoebe is, small lonely yelps in her sleep that turn into tears when she wakes up. Sometimes a lamp goes on, a slice of bright underneath the door. I’ve thought about going in, telling her it’s okay, though likely it’s not. I’m not sure which is worse, a mother like mine that was too much, or one like Phoebe’s. Not enough.
The bell goes for lunch and I head over to the prep school. I’ve only helped out twice before but the kids seem to like me and I like them. I find their company to be a little like magic. They exist half in our world, half in theirs. Dragons to be slayed, princesses to rescue. Read it again, Milly, we love this story, pl-e-e-e-e-e-ease. One of the girls fell over last week, I rubbed her hands, brushed the gravel from her knees. Be brave, I told her, you’ll need to be.
When I arrive in the playground a small crowd runs at me, smiles and arms outstretched. ‘Yay, Milly’s here.’
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�Can we play horsey?’ asks Evelina, a tiny fragile-looking girl, pale skin, pink around her eyes. A mummy at home, who I bet runs oatmeal baths for the dry patches of eczema, visible behind her knees.
‘Climb on then,’ I reply, bending so she can reach.
I do it a lot. Think about what sort of parents other children have. The staff at the unit were so quick to tell me what you did was wrong. Abnormal. So I’m trying to learn what’s right, I’m trying to be different from you.
Evelina, a koala, locks her arms round my neck. As we canter past a classroom window, a trail of kids running behind, keen for it to be their turn next, I catch a glimpse of my reflection. I look away.
When I bend down, let Evelina slide off, a chorus of ‘me next’ starts up. I make a big show of pretending to look overwhelmed, run in a circle, they follow, of course. One girl lags behind, eyes trained on the floor, occasional glances, watches the other children, how they interact with me. I remember doing the same when I was her age. I offer her my back to climb on.
‘Would you like a go?’ I ask.
She shakes her head, fiddles with the buttons on her blazer, looks away. A chubby girl I’m keen to avoid launches herself at my back, tells me to giddy up. I’m angry that the other little girl, the one I want, doesn’t trust me enough to join in. You taught me how to be with children, yet it seems I still lack a lot of your charm. Your skill.
I take off, galloping.
‘Faster, faster,’ demands the shrill voice behind me.
She squeezes her legs round my waist, the sensation bothers me. Suffocates me. It’s a big drop from my back, not as far as Georgie’s fall but enough to hurt a five- or six-year-old. I should hold her tight.
I should.
She lands with a thump, begins to cry.
‘You dropped me.’
‘Oh, come on, Angela, no need for dramatics. All good riders take a tumble every now and then. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down.’
And move along. Out of my sight.
Hopscotch squares are painted on to some of the concrete slabs of the playground. I see the little girl pretending to look down at them. I don’t ask her to play, I know she won’t, but I walk over, give her a sweet from my pocket. Children like sweets, and the people who give them to them.
Your praise follows immediately – THAT’S MY GIRL – but instead of leaving me feeling victorious as it did in the toilets with Clondine and Izzy, this time it leaves me feeling sordid.
‘Hey, not fair,’ says Angela, when she notices the sweet. ‘I was the one that fell.’
I ignore her. Fat. Little. Piggy. The bell rings, signals the end of lunch.
‘Come on, everyone, let’s form a train and choo-choo to the registration point.’
Three teachers wait to sign the children back in, a headcount each time. You never know who lurks outside the playground.
Or in it.
‘Miss Carter, Milly dropped me.’
‘What’s that, Angela?’
I answer instead.
‘It was just a game, we were playing horsies, all okay though.’
‘Hmm, well please be more careful next time, Milly, the last thing we need is a complaint from a parent.’
‘Sure, I’ll be careful.’
‘Do,’ she replies, beady eyes on me.
I meet her stare, smile. It’s not me who should be careful.
Miss Evans, one of the other teachers, asks the kids to thank me. They do it in unison, a beautiful birdsong. It fills me, warms me. I look for the girl. She’s at the back of the line, still trying to look small. Invisible.
Mike came home late from work yesterday so we only managed a short session. He wanted to talk to me about Daniel, about the possibility of what I’d be asked if I’m cross-examined in court, how the defence might try to imply I should have done more. Could have done more. It’s vital you resist internalizing these feelings, he said, hang on to the reality that none of it was your fault. Nobody blames you. Not true, I wanted to say.
I blame me.
He asked to meet again tonight so we could continue with guided relaxation, said it’s crucial for releasing trauma buried in my subconscious. I told him I don’t like not being able to remember everything I’ve said. You have to trust me, Milly, he replied, I know what I’m doing, I’ve been doing it for a long time.
Before I meet with him I reply to Morgan’s text from earlier. She said she’d been spying on the ‘blonde bitch’ and did I know she smoked? No I didn’t, I reply. I see her writing a response – Well she does, wonder what else I can find out about her?!! I never asked her to, but I like the idea of her creeping about, spying for me, it makes me feel closer to her, like she’s someone I can trust.
When I arrive in the kitchen Phoebe’s telling Mike about Georgie’s accident and how she helped. She goes on to tell him I froze, didn’t help at all. As pale as Georgie was.
‘Never mind,’ he says, looking at me. ‘Sounds like it was good you were there, Phoebs.’
‘Also, Dad, have you seen a chemistry paper of mine lying around?’
‘I don’t think so, darling. When did you last have it?’
‘I’m not sure, yesterday maybe, but it’s due for tomorrow and Mr Frith will flip out if I don’t hand it in.’
‘You better get searching then.’
Saskia joins us, dressed in yoga gear. Vagina obvious as ever.
‘Did you hear that, Sas? Phoebs helped Georgie Lombard, she had an accident in the gym a few days ago.’
‘That’s nice,’ she replies. ‘I have to shoot though, I’m late for class.’
It stings Phoebe. The fact she doesn’t ask for more details. She gives Saskia a filthy look and pushes past her. Saskia gestures to Mike and says, what?
‘Nothing,’ he replies. ‘Come on, Milly, we should get started.’
None of us notice her at first. Three. Floors. Up. Perched on the edge of the banister.
‘Enjoy yoga, Mummy dearest,’ she says, looking down at us.
She taunts Saskia, takes her hands off the banister, does a faux wobble, wants her to say be careful, but it’s not her, it’s Mike who says it.
‘Don’t be so stupid, come down from there, it’ll be the death of you.’
Let down again, she flicks her middle finger at her mum, disappears off the landing into her room. Mike attempts a smile, but Saskia replies with: ‘You’re the psychologist, fix it.’
‘Sas, she’s our daughter, not something to fix. She’s angry because –’
‘Because of me, that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?’ Saskia replies. ‘It’s my fault. It was years ago now but it’s still my fault, right?’
‘That’s not what I meant. Look, I’ll talk to her, just not tonight.’
‘Perhaps if you spent more time with your own daughter things would improve.’
A low blow, she’s sorry as soon as she says it, apologizes immediately. I stare at her thin body, not much different in size from Phoebe’s, same hair, eyes. Much like a teenager herself but out of her depth in a house with us teenage-for-real girls. The lessons these days, faster. Cruder.
On the way to Mike’s study he explains that the psychiatrist from the unit called him today, checking in about my current medication regime. I remember his office well. Walls full of framed degrees and certificates. The questions, the same every week. Appetite. Headaches. Flashbacks. And finally, sleep. How are you sleeping? Every night’s different, I told him. Yes, to be expected, he replied. A rip of a pad, another cocktail of pills ordered. Blue for the morning, white for the night. Pink, if I didn’t want to think at all. One of the other teenagers showed me how to hold them in the side of my mouth, spit them out in the toilet afterwards.
Taking them felt like cheating.
A kindness I didn’t deserve, still don’t when I think back to what I let happen to Daniel the night before I handed you in.
‘How would you feel about increasing your night-time dose?’ Mike asks.
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nbsp; I tell him I feel groggy at school, first thing in the morning.
‘Still? That’s not great, let me note that down so I remember to mention it when I call him back tomorrow. We’ll arrange a full review once the trial’s over.’
Mike, so diligent at dispensing my medication. Not so at making sure I take them. A sock full of tablets in my top drawer. He opens his diary, writes a note in it, then sits down in the chair opposite me.
‘Ready?’ he asks.
‘Not really.’
‘This is important work, Milly. There are parts of your mind we need to access in order for you to be able to move on. For example, the night-time episode you had a few days ago in the cellar when you were dissociating is linked to guilt, and how you feel about the things you did that weren’t your fault.’
Fear inches up from the lower part of my stomach, moves into my throat.
‘You need to address these feelings, you need to feel secure in the fact your mother can’t control you any more.’
Mike said yesterday he knew what he was doing, he’d been doing it for a long time, so why can’t he see the strings, yours, attached to me still? Why can’t he see what’s going on?
‘Let’s do some relaxing and we can talk more at the end.’
He makes me visualize my safe place but all I can see are faces of ghosts, forming in smoke. The cigarette you enjoyed afterwards. The little ghosts swooping still. They can’t rest in peace, they don’t like where they are.
Where they were put.
‘Describe what you can hear,’ Mike asks.
‘Somebody calling for help.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Somebody in the room opposite mine.’
‘Did you go and look, see who it was?’