by Ali Land
‘The recipient of this year’s Sula Norman Art Prize is Milly Barnes in Year Eleven.’
The applause is slow, better than none. Ms James goes on to say that my name will be etched in gold paint on the awards board in the stairwell leading up to the Great Hall, and to see Miss Kemp for the rest of the details. I feel uncomfortable, not because of the public praise but because I haven’t seen MK since the day she was supposed to meet me at the gallery. And because I can sense Phoebe’s eyes on me. When I look over at her, she immediately looks away.
MK finds me in the library during lunch, trying to work on a history essay, but I’ve read the same sentence over and over again. She smiles as she approaches me.
‘Congratulations, I had a feeling you’d win. Sula’s parents and the gallery owner loved your sketches, it was a unanimous decision.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You should be very proud, especially with everything that’s –’
She stops but it’s too late, the look on her face, the telltale signs of her adjusting each layer of beads round her neck, her rings next.
‘Everything that’s what?’
She sits down next to me. I was right to suspect when I saw her on Monday.
‘That’s why you didn’t come.’
‘Come where?’ she asks.
‘To the gallery. You said you’d meet me at seven, I waited for over half an hour.’
‘You mean Monday? Oh, Milly, I said I’d try but couldn’t promise anything.’
‘It’s fine, I understand.’
‘It’s not like that, my friend came over earlier than expected, we went out. I forgot. I’m sorry.’
She breathes in through her nose, lets it out slowly, her cheeks inflate. She leans in towards me, the scent of lavender.
‘I had a feeling something was up, Milly. The sketches; the emails; the present you tried to give me; you being off school. I spoke to Ms James again and she ended up telling me about, well, where you’re from.’
I count the books on the shelf above her head. I get to eleven, then she says, ‘I know about your mum, Milly.’
‘That’s why you don’t want to be my guidance teacher any more.’
‘That’s absolutely not the reason but it might have been helpful for me to know.’
‘You signed your emails MK.’
‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘I thought you cared.’
‘I do care but I sign all my emails MK, have done for years. I’m sorry if you felt I was misleading you. I’d have been more careful if I’d known.’
A banner pops up, the upper-right corner on the screen of my laptop, an alert for an email: ‘New post added on Year 11 forum.’ I click on the link, it takes a while to open, an image downloading.
The image is a picture of you.
The title: ‘Ding dong the Wicked Witch who SHOULD be dead.’
Underneath, two thumb icons. One facing up, one facing down. Vote whether you agree. Seventeen votes so far. One thumb, redundant.
I slam the lid of my laptop down, stand up, my chair tips over, crashes on to the ground. Move. Can’t. Walk. Can’t.
MK stands ups, says, ‘Milly, what is it?’
Wicked witch. SHOULD be dead. Ding dong. You. You should be dead, that’s what they’re voting on and I know who’ll be next.
The librarian comes over and asks if everything’s okay.
‘I’m not sure. Milly? Is everything okay?’
‘I need to go.’
‘Go where? What’s happened?’
‘I can’t talk about it, I’m sorry,’ I say, gather up my things and walk away.
‘Sorry about what? Where are you going? I haven’t told you about the art prize yet.’
I go straight to the sick bay, a hidden typewriter in my head punching out the words as I walk: Phoebe knows. Phoebe knows.
And soon everybody will, if they don’t already.
‘I don’t feel very well, Miss Jones, please can I go home?’
‘You certainly look a bit peaky. Any idea what it is?’
‘I think it’s a migraine.’
‘Yes, I remember reading on your medical form you suffered from them. I’ll need to call the Newmonts, they’re your guardians, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
The clock on the wall has a gentle tick, a trance-like rhythm like the one in my bedroom the night the police came. I have the same feeling I had then, the waiting, the wishing it was over. Only this time I don’t know what the ‘it’ is.
‘That’s fine, I spoke to Mr Newmont. Either he or his wife will be home in an hour or two, the housekeeper’s there at the moment. Will you manage the walk back?’
I nod.
‘Good, well feel better, get some rest and lots of fluids.’
Sevita’s waiting for me when I get there.
‘Hello, Miss Milly, you like some lunch?’
‘No thank you, I’m going straight to bed, I don’t feel very well.’
‘Okay, I’m in the laundry.’
I see her hand cross her chest as she walks away from me, a Hail Mary. A prayer for me, or her. Home alone. With me.
I pace in my room for a bit, need to think clearly. Does Phoebe know? Was the post on the forum directed at me or just a sick game in response to the trial verdict? Cornered. Me. No way out. Fight, flight. Where would I go if I ran? There’s nowhere for someone like me to go.
I have to find out what Phoebe knows and if anyone else does. Who would she have told? Clondine? Izzy? All of the girls in my year maybe but I saw some of them on my way out of school and nothing happened. They’d have said something if they knew. I sit down on my bed, try to still my mind, all the while feeling sand in the timer slipping away. I stand up, pace back and forth again. Think, damn it, think. A golden nugget of memory lands when I see the top corner of my laptop poking out of my school bag.
The door I open I shouldn’t, it’s not mine. One of the house rules, bedrooms are private, it’s forbidden to go into each other’s without permission. Mike. His idea of domestic utopia but there’s nobody here to ask so I give myself permission. Her room is a cliché, I’ve been in before over half-term. Posters and pink, a sweet smell in the air. Candyfloss. Caramel. Sugar and spice. Polaroid strips of her and her friends sit Blu-Tacked on the wall above her desk. Fairy lights the shape of hearts hang over the foot of her bed. A grotto. A sleigh for a princess, a queen made of ice. Sticky tubs of lip gloss stand tall like stones from Stonehenge on her bedside table, you never know who you’ll meet in your dreams. I do.
I find what I’m looking for in the middle drawer of the desk. I’m lucky, it could’ve been at school with her but I know she hardly takes it, prefers her phone, that’s where most of the action happens. I slide the laptop out, power it up, her email account open on the screen, one new message. I can’t risk reading it – she’d know if it had been opened – but I read the most recent ones between her and Sam, where she tells him she’s lonely, hates her life, wishes she could live in Italy with him. The last email she sent was late last night, mentions some notes she saw in Mike’s study about me. She goes on to say she thinks I might have something to do with the Peter Pan Killer, that it’s fucking freaky because I look just like her.
The unread message is his reply. What did he say? What will she do?
I put the laptop back where I found it, leave and close the door, go along the corridor to my room. I lie down on my bed until it gets dark outside. Until the migraine subsides and no longer bears down on the back of my neck or pinches the top of my spine. I turn on my side, open my eyes, head hurts less now but when I look around my room, my heart hurts more. What will Phoebe do? What will happen to me? Where will I go?
I can’t lie still any more so I go downstairs. Both Saskia and Mike are talking to Phoebe in the snug. I look for clues she’s told them what she thinks she knows but nothing seems untoward.
‘See, Mike, she’s fine, there’s no reason to stress about goin
g out,’ Saskia says.
Phoebe won’t make eye contact with me, leaves the snug shortly after I arrive.
‘Where are you guys going?’ I ask.
‘Sas and I have been invited to the Bowens’ for dinner tonight but seeing as you’re not feeling very well I thought we should stay home instead.’
‘I feel better now after resting.’
Perhaps if they go out I could talk to Phoebe, reason with her, persuade her I’m different from you.
‘I’m not sure we should go, you’ve had a lot to deal with recently,’ Mike says.
‘I’m fine, honestly, I’m going to catch up with some schoolwork.’
‘I hope you’d tell us if you weren’t, Milly, that’s what we’re here for.’
‘Mike, she said she was okay, didn’t she? Anyway, we cancelled last time, we really should go.’
Mike nods, says, looks like I’ve been out-voted. Once they have their coats on he delays their departure, a series of time-wasting tactics, sorts through the junk mail on the shelf by the door, uses his foot to rearrange the pile of shoes on the floor. Comments on how the porch could do with being re-tiled.
‘Shall I quickly measure it now?’ he says.
‘No, we’re already late, come on,’ Saskia replies.
It’s not maternal his instinct but he senses it, some kind of tension in the house. He makes a final attempt.
‘What about Rosie then, she needs to go out.’
‘One of the girls can do it,’ Saskia replies.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind us going, Milly?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘The number for the Bowens is on the blackboard, call us if you need anything, anything at all,’ he says before they leave.
I don’t know what to do. Whether I should go up to Phoebe’s room, knock on the door. Ask her if I can talk to her about something, but I’m not sure what to say. I sit down on one of the sofas in the games room to think, Rosie at my feet. Her sharp ears hear it first, movement from above. She sits up, cocks her head, listens to Phoebe’s footsteps coming down the stairs. She calls for Rosie, but the dog doesn’t move. She calls again, this time more impatient. Forceful.
‘She’s in here with me,’ I respond.
She doesn’t answer straight away, must have thought I was elsewhere. Then she says without coming into the room, ‘She needs to go out, Mum just texted me.’
Rosie gets up at the mention of going out, pads into the hallway towards Phoebe.
‘For fuck’s sake, I’ll do it then.’
When she comes into the games room she ignores me, walks over to the patio door and opens it. Rosie follows her but won’t go outside, sits down at the open door.
‘Out, now.’
She still doesn’t move so Phoebe grabs her collar, drags her out on to the patio. The security light goes on overhead. She stays outside with her even though she doesn’t have a coat on and I know from the air filtering in, it’s freezing. When Rosie’s finished Phoebe brings her in, closes the door, her eyes trained on her phone. Mine, on her. It’s now or never.
‘Can I talk to you about something, Phoebe?’
She looks up from her phone but finds it hard to look directly at me, her eyes wandering all over the place.
‘Depends.’
‘I know we haven’t really been getting on very well but I’d like that to change.’
‘No point.’
‘Why?’
‘You won’t be here for much longer.’
‘I’d like to stay for as long as I can.’
‘Not up to you, is it?’
I stand up, she looks at me, asks, ‘What are you doing? One of my friends is coming over, he’ll be here in a minute.’
She’s scared. I don’t want her to be. I want to tell her together we could run the world, a killer team, excuse the pun. She walks past me, gets to the doorway, and just before she leaves the room she says, ‘Before you know it, Dad will have some other fucker in your room. It’ll be like you never existed.’
32
The next day when I leave the school courtyard Phoebe’s there with Clondine and Izzy. Clondine smiles but the other two turn away. How long have I got before smiles and ignoring turn into staring and pointing? That’s her, can you believe it, the Peter Pan Killer’s daughter.
When I get home both Mike and Saskia are there. Good timing, he says, we wanted to talk to you about something before the weekend begins. Saskia won’t meet my eyes when we sit down, Mike offers to put the kettle on, neither of us replies.
‘We wanted to tell you, Sas and I, that we’re very proud of you, of what you’ve managed to do. There aren’t many other teenagers I know that could have coped with such pressure, and in such a mature way, but now the trial’s over we need to look forward and discuss what the future holds.’
Two days, that’s all it’s been since the verdict. Can’t. Wait. To get rid of me.
‘June and the social services team have been looking into a permanent placement for you. They think they might have found a potential family who live in the country near Oxford, lots of space and fields and two dogs, I believe. It’s not confirmed yet, obviously you’ll have to meet them and see how you get on, but it looks very promising. What do you think about the idea?’
‘Sounds like I don’t have a choice in the matter.’
‘We don’t want you to feel that way, we’re just trying to work out what’s best for you.’
‘When am I leaving?’
‘Milly, please don’t be like that,’ Mike says.
I cross my arms, feel for my scars. Turn my face away from them both.
‘We’d really like you to have your birthday with us and finish the term at school, we’ll have to work something out for the art prize exhibition.’
Too late, by that time everybody will know. The cat. Out of the bag.
‘I feel so stupid.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mike asks.
‘I thought you liked me.’
‘We do,’ Saskia replies. ‘Very much.’
‘Sas is right,’ Mike says. ‘But you staying here was never supposed to be a permanent arrangement, we spoke about this in hospital, remember?’
It was never supposed to be permanent because of Phoebe. Sugar and spice. And all things.
‘Like we said, nothing is set in stone yet but we’ll be looking at arranging a preliminary visit with the family in Oxford, perhaps even next weekend.’
The sooner the better, they all think.
It’s the early hours of the morning and my head is clear for once. No battle raging inside me, pulling me this way and that. I suppose I’ve known for a while now that I don’t belong here. Fit in. I’ve also known for a while that maybe there isn’t anywhere for someone like me. If I’d known that before I left you, I might have stayed, nestled into a bosom that didn’t necessarily give love but a familiar place to be. Birds of a feather.
I take the sock out of my underwear drawer, tip the pills I’ve been hiding into my hands, months of deceiving Mike. I walk into the bathroom, put them on the floor, bring my laptop too, slide the lock on the door, it can’t be opened from the outside. I look at the pills, enough there I’m sure. I sit down, my laptop on my knees, a secret folder hidden in documents labelled:
You.
I reach for some of the pills, wash them down with a drink from a half-empty bottle of water I left by the sink. I watch the video clips of you arriving in a van. Windows, tinted black like Mike’s car when I went to court too. The next clip is the last day of the trial. Verdict. Guilty times twelve. The crowd surged as the van transporting you left the courthouse, the press with their cameras held high. I take another mouthful, a mixture of blue and white pills, a few pink too. I press pause when the picture of you comes on screen. The room becomes furry after an hour or so, my body full of sand, slides down the wall a little. I feel like giggling, high from the drugs, but I don’t remember how to, or the last time I did.
I
take the rest of the pills, a good handful. Mainly pink, not to make the boys wink but so I don’t have to think, any more. I take a gulp of water, mouth dry, a snail made of chalk meandering down my throat. I close the lid of the laptop, pull myself up on the side of the sink. This time I do want to look in the mirror, I want to see you before I go, but my hands slip off the side, the mirror melts. Bright spots of light in my eyes. Shooting stars. Make a wish, no point. I’m tired, so tired.
I climb into bed, no, I think it’s the bath. The shower curtain moves in my hand, I need to cover myself quick, phone’s at the ready, she takes pictures of me, remember. Fourteen tiles at the foot of the bath, I counted them the night before your trial began, when I couldn’t sleep. My head rolls to my chest, a place of rest, a belly full of pills.
I’m pulled. My legs.
Grabbed from below.
Up eight. Up another four.
The door on the right.
Now I am dead, they’ll find the things I hide.
The sketches of you taped back together.
Sick, they’ll call me. Her mother’s daughter.
There’s other things too.
The first one by accident on my hands and knees cleaning the room.
A sugar cube on the floor. No. A milk tooth from a boy.
In my pocket it went.
After that I looked, searched. Pieces and bits, clothing, an item from all nine, an obsession of mine smuggled out in my bag the night of your arrest.