by Helen Eve
Opening my eyes, I see flames in place of my gown.
‘Oh no, Romy!’ Libby says in the voice she developed for the line ‘Out, damned spot!’ in last year’s Macbeth. The Temperley Tribune called her an ‘eerily competent villain’. ‘Your gown is on fire!’
The candles have gone out, and the room is now pitch black apart from the flames by the window. I should have been prepared for such a disaster, but I’m powerless as four shadows stampede towards the trapdoor. By the time I reach my gown, the fire has spread halfway up the curtain.
I’m shaking as I yank it onto the floor and stamp it out, thankful at least to be wearing my own boots and not the kind of Starlet-approved stilettoes that would have set my feet alight. Even so, my shirt is singed before the flames are extinguished. I lean on the wall, coughing and wheezing, in time to hear the trapdoor slam shut.
Chapter Nine
Siena
I’ve already told Jack that if his mother didn’t change her meds so often, she’d be less likely to confuse her dosage. And it’s not as if I can help. He’ll only wait on a hard chair in the corridor as she’s filled with charcoal and his father flies in from Singapore and promises to stay with them, and then they’ll pretend it was a total accident and take her home. At which point she’ll find a new hobby, like watercolours or patchwork quilting or even spending quality time with Jack’s delinquent baby brother Edward, while her husband waits until he can reasonably return to his more enjoyable life overseas, reigniting the whole cycle.
I sit on the window ledge trying to explain this to him tactfully on the phone, ignoring my guilty resentment at Romy’s comment. She of all people should know how committed I am to Jack, and that my reluctance to visit hospitals is no reflection on that.
‘I wish you were with me.’ His voice sounds miserable, but he’s already en route to the hospital, so I’m safely off the hook.
‘You’ll be fine.’ The ledge is so narrow that it’s hard to balance, and I’m getting cramp. I flex my legs and wonder if they look thinner today, or if moonlight is flattering. ‘You know it isn’t my thing.’
He pauses, and when he speaks his voice sounds quieter than usual. ‘I get that. But right now, I want to be your thing.’
‘You know you’re my thing.’ My legs are definitely thinner. I’ve joined the swimming team and it’s obviously working, but chlorine is so distressing for my hair that I’m in a quandary about whether to continue.
‘You’re totally my priority,’ I add. I can pull off pretty much anything, but latex headwear is a step too far.
‘I know exactly where I come on your priorities,’ he says. ‘Somewhere between your third-favourite pair of shoes and the number of calories you’ve just ingested.’
‘That’s not true.’ As a conveyor belt of footwear runs through my mind, I relegate my YSL loafers to fourth place, behind my Lanvin flats. ‘I’d be with you every step of the way if Libby weren’t having a serious crisis right now.’
It’s funny he should mention shoes, because tonight I’m wearing my lifelong favourites. They belonged to my mother, although she only wore them once. They shine variously white and crystal and silver in different lights, and sometimes – I like to think – in my different moods. They’re embellished with sequins and embroidered flowers, but my favourite feature is their heels, which look like glass.
I’d never have worn them tonight if my alarm hadn’t failed. I’d already laid out my Charlotte Olympia wedges, but, even though Libby woke me with a whisper that could cut through any degree of unconsciousness, I was rendered disorientated. As I’ve never worn the shoes outdoors, they’re clean enough to sleep in, and sometimes (don’t tell anyone I said this) I do. I didn’t realize my mistake until we were in the circle, but now it occurs to me that I’ve always wanted to see what they’d look like up here in the moonlight.
I straighten my legs to admire the shoes, loosening one so it dangles from my toes. As I move, it’s dislodged, and I jerk forward to save it, almost losing my balance.
‘Damn,’ I hiss, grabbing the ledge with my free hand. Tucking my phone under my chin, I wipe my sweating palm on my gown.
‘I need you,’ Jack says, as if it’s an effort to tell me.
I consider the hospital and dismiss it as soon as I think of squeaky floors and heinous rubber shoes, and hot corridors and cupboards full of blankets used by contagious people, and clipboards and vending machines and wheelchairs and doctors who say we just don’t know. It’s natural to feel this way about hospitals, and until Chanel No 5 can be pumped through the air vents and the invalids hermetically sealed, I have no intention of entering one.
‘Libby needs me too,’ I tell him. ‘Really badly.’
I cover the receiver too late to muffle Libby’s unmistakable screech from inside. ‘You bitch, Romy.’
‘I can hear that she does,’ he says. ‘I thought you were going to leave Romy alone?’
‘What’s she got to do with this?’ I snap. It’s disturbingly easy to visualize Romy beside Jack, unflinching at his mother’s gaping hospital gown as she fetches slippers and keeps Edward out of jail and holds Jack’s hand with an intensity borne primarily of support. ‘Shall I ask her to join you? I’m sure she’d clear her schedule right away.’
‘Goodbye, Siena.’
He hangs up, and I stare at the image of his face on the phone, trying to connect that smiling, happy-go-lucky boy with this conversation.
‘Hospitals are a step too far,’ I whisper. ‘I never signed up for that.’
* * *
I’m restored to my precarious present by the sound of an unwelcomely familiar voice.
‘What is it?’ I ask without turning my head.
‘You should come and see this.’ Romy sounds a little hysterical, and my situation out here is beyond repair, so I lift myself carefully back inside.
‘What happened?’ I stare at the empty room and ebbing smoke clouds.
‘Your friends happened. They started a fire – with my gown – and left. We can’t get out.’
‘Of course we can.’ I run my hands around the trapdoor. ‘Help me open it.’
She’s frowning. ‘It only opens from the outside. There’s no handle in here.’
‘I know that already.’ I straighten up and reach for my phone.
‘Don’t you dare call Jack!’ she tells me shrilly. ‘He has enough to deal with right now.’
‘I’m not calling Jack.’ Cancelling the connection, I dial Libby instead. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘They couldn’t get out of here soon enough, once they’d burned my gown as incriminating evidence,’ Romy says. ‘Don’t play innocent.’
Libby isn’t picking up, so I try Phoebe.
‘No answer?’ Romy is unbearably smug, despite the trouble she’s in.
I ignore her, jabbing the screen for Madison and then Cassidy. Both calls ring out as Romy walks to the window. ‘Come and look at this.’
I’d like to ignore her, but there’s nothing else to do, so I limp unwillingly after her. ‘Why are you wearing such ridiculous shoes?’ she asks, pulling up my gown. ‘Do you have a wedding to attend tonight?’
I lean out of the window to see the Starlets speeding across the courtyard, gowns billowing behind them. ‘Why haven’t they noticed I’m missing?’ I mutter. ‘Shouldn’t Libby have done a headcount?’
They swarm in strict formation like a single entity. ‘They all seem fine without you,’ Romy muses as we watch figures who are so interchangeable that from this distance Libby could be Madison could be Cassidy could be Phoebe. I wonder if, amongst them, I might be interchangeable too. But this idea is absurd, because not one of them could be me.
‘So what happens now?’ Romy asks. ‘Do they realize that this is going to get me kicked out once and for all? If not killed?’
‘Of course they realize,’ I say lightly as I pick up the vodka bottle. The burn in my throat is an effective antidote to my prickle of apprehension at being in line f
or a punishment.
She looks away. ‘So this isn’t a … twisted reinitiation or anything? You’d rather see me burn to death than come back?’
We survey the still-smoking gown detritus and the forlorn candle remains, and I wonder if I should have listened to Libby’s insistence on details after all.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I say. ‘The fire wasn’t part of the plan. We’d never go that far!’
She raises an eyebrow and I blush, because, truthfully, Libby would go that far. It’s not even the most extreme action she’s taken against outside threats (not that this is the time for nostalgia).
‘The other Starlets didn’t know,’ I say. ‘I’m sure Libby was working alone.’
‘I bet the prospect of a night with Jack’s dying mother is quite attractive right now,’ Romy says snidely. ‘If only you weren’t so selfish, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. You’d have avoided trouble and his bad books.’
I throw my useless phone into my pocket and smooth my hair, because an unsightly mug shot is the very last thing I need. ‘There’s no predicament, because I’m not taking the blame. I’ll say that…’
‘I kidnapped you?’ she suggests. ‘Forced you up here at knifepoint?’
‘Yes,’ I say in relief. ‘Knifepoint is perfect.’
‘And I suppose I forced you to wear your gown, did I?’ she continues. ‘What a weird request for me to make. I must be even more sick and twisted than before.’
I consider removing my gown before remembering that my Victoria’s Secret lingerie would curry even less favour with Mrs Denbigh than the misuse of official school robes. I could ask Romy for her pyjamas, but my mother would definitely consider expulsion preferable to me wearing that charred heavy metal T-shirt.
‘Libby will get me out of this,’ I shrug. ‘And deservedly so, because this is entirely your fault.’
‘You invited me here. You tricked me! Why couldn’t you leave me alone?’
‘You hurt Libby,’ I say. ‘How can we forgive you?’
She looks stubbornly away, even as I realize how desperately I want her to tell me that this isn’t true; that there’s been a terrible misunderstanding.
She doesn’t, of course: she has the same mutinous and stubborn expression as she did on the day she left. ‘You hurt me. How can I forgive you?’
We’re so caught up that we don’t notice the banging trapdoor until it swings violently open, revealing Mrs Denbigh. She’s wearing her housecoat over a nightdress, her hair untidier than ever. Her eyes widen as she takes in the candles, the gown and the vodka bottle.
‘What’s the meaning of this, Romy?’ she bellows. ‘I thought Liberty must be joking when she told me I’d find you in here up to no good.’
Mrs Denbigh hasn’t rubbed in her neck cream properly and I wonder whether to tell her that it’s congealed around her ears.
‘Have you been…’ She lifts her nose and sniffs incredulously. ‘Have you been lighting fires up here?’
Romy gestures helplessly at me, and, in Libby’s absence, I step forward. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Mrs Denbigh. I can’t imagine what my mother would say if she knew that this dangerous tower wasn’t cordoned off from students. I was about to report it to the governors when you appeared.’
Mrs Denbigh cuts me off. ‘I’m waiting for an explanation. A truthful explanation.’
In the resulting silence, I count along with the ticking clock. At fifty, one hundred, two hundred seconds, she’ll break.
Finally, at closer to five hundred, she gestures furiously at the ladder. ‘Get to bed now. I want to see you in the morning, and, unless you’re seriously reconsidering your future here, you’d better be ready to talk.’
I smile sympathetically at Romy, as it’s the last time I’ll ever see her, but Mrs Denbigh is still looking at me.
‘Both of you,’ she barks as she thumps her way back down to solid ground.
Romy and I see the discarded key at the same second. We both snatch at it, but I’m faster, and I smile as I hide it inside my gown.
‘If you ever come back here, then you must have a death wish,’ Romy mutters as I follow her down the ladder. ‘You deserve whatever happens to you.’
I tread on her hand by way of reply.
Chapter Ten
Romy
Mrs Denbigh doesn’t care about privacy, even for Sixth Formers. Siena gets off lightly, as she manages to close her bedroom door before Mrs Denbigh can block it, but when we reach my room, she grabs the door handle before I can do the same. I get into bed and pull my knees up under my chin, trying to control my shivering before she mistakes extreme cold for fear.
‘What’s this all about?’ She walks inside and starts to fold the clothes I’ve thrown across the floor, repressing a grimace at a crumpled shirt. ‘Do you want to be expelled?’
I open my mouth to tell her that expulsion would be a gross overreaction to creased clothing, but only a sob comes out. I hide my face in my bed sheets instead, emerging when my expression is under control. She’s dropped the shirt on a towering, unironed pile, evidently at a loss as to what to say, or how to repair the various messes that constitute my life.
‘Get some sleep,’ she tells me as she leaves. Not until her footsteps have padded away do I wish I’d asked for reassurance that I wouldn’t be expelled after all.
I edge my feet underneath the starched, freezing sheets until I’m lying flat. Last year I was in a dormitory, warmed by the bodies of five other girls whose regular breathing might not have cured my insomnia but at least allowed me to share it. Even if Sixth Formers didn’t have their own rooms, though, it’s not as if Siena would ever again push back our dividing curtain so we can spend the night whispering and trying not to laugh as Libby – for once unable to interfere – sleeps soundly across the room.
I clench my fists at the unfairness of everything: that I haven’t slept properly in days, or months, or probably a year; that Siena, on the other side of our adjoining wall, might still be an ocean apart. In a wave of fury I sit up and hurl my shoes against the opposite wall, hoping that the sound, if not sufficiently loud to wake the corridor, will disturb her. But I’m railing against unmovable marble, and, if Siena hears, she makes no sound. More likely she’s sitting before her looking glass as woodland creatures put on her nightgown and brush her hair and replace her glass-heeled shoes on their display cushion, while her conscience troubles her not one iota. Why should it, when she’s so revered that she’s never needed to suffer a moment’s self-doubt?
Even as a Shell, Siena ruled the hallways with a sureness that cast no doubt on her future legacy. Older students avoided her gaze and shifted to let her walk catwalk-centre, and teachers were helpless to make her conform to the compulsory yellow-ribboned boater hat that made us as indistinguishable as ants.
My mother provided an explanatory note, she’d say calmly when ordered to put on the hat, proffering a letter on thick cream paper that stopped all arguments. Defiant bareheadedness made Siena neatly distinct from her contemporaries, as well as exempting her from the most troublesome and prosaic affliction blighting the rest of us: an itchy head.
Burdened with boaters, Shells Phoebe and Cassidy used magnetic attraction and a couture wardrobe respectively to stamp their own identities on the school, while Libby, blessed with the kind of self-confidence of which tyrants only dream, turned potential embarrassment into a school-wide reputation as government cipher after Jennifer Zhou revealed that her much-fêted Mandarin business calls, conducted at echoing volume right across the campus, contained nothing more lucid than the phrase Pass me the pigeons, favoured candle.
* * *
When the rising bell drills through my ears, I have no idea if I’ve been asleep at all. Lacking time and inclination to excavate my bags for ridiculously tight and costly clothes, I throw on my oldest jeans. Tipping my head upside down in half-remembered Starlet advice to make my tangled hair look less like an accident, I long for the relative ease of school uniforms,
when one’s sartorial disasters at least remained within an agreed framework.
I drag my feet towards Mrs Denbigh’s office, vaguely cheered to find Siena there before me. She’s leaning her head against the back of her chair and her eyes are closed, giving her a deceptively childlike appearance. Her flaws are practically undetectable, but I’m gratified as I draw closer to see a tiny smear of eyeliner on her cheek; that her chignon is an inch out of line; and that the blue of her handbag doesn’t quite match her nail varnish. I wonder fleetingly if she’s been kept awake with worry, but this is unlikely.
It’s very incongruous for her to be here at all: Libby should be dealing with this appointment, and, if she can’t actually undertake it for her, should at least have provided a stand-in to endure the waiting room stage.
‘Stop staring at me,’ she commands in a whisper.
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ I tell her.
A smile plays across her lips as she opens her eyes to prove her point.
‘There’s nothing else to look at,’ I mutter. ‘Sue me.’
‘You might glance at yourself,’ she says scornfully as she takes in my outfit with a laser-beam gaze. ‘What do you think you look like?’
‘I look like me,’ I say. ‘What do I have to prove, to you or anyone else?’
‘Nothing, I suppose,’ she says after a pause. ‘Nothing at all.’
She doesn’t react as Mrs Denbigh bellows our names, not even to complain at being summoned in this way. I understand her passivity and obedience as she follows me into the office: it’s classic Starlet behaviour to gauge a situation fully before reacting, and she’s a master at it. Her white dress, draped modestly below her knees and buttoned neck-high like a pilgrim’s, is a calculated, genius choice.
Usually Mrs Denbigh greets us from her array of mismatched and cheerful armchairs, handing us a biscuit tin that no Starlet would ever open, but today she gestures from behind her enormous oak desk for us to sit opposite her on plastic orange seats. Siena, wincing at this insult, mimics Mrs Denbigh’s body language, crossing her legs and clasping her hands in her lap. I deliberately slouch and fold my arms.