Boarding School Girls

by Helen Eve

  I take Syrena in now, a little Russian doll replica. She’s growing tall, and it strikes me as curious that she takes after me in stature rather than Stella, when we have nothing in common and they have everything. They’re almost the same height, with identical features, but to me they could hardly be more distinct.

  ‘Hello, Syrena,’ I say politely.

  She says hello back, her voice cautious. Stella whispers that she’s set off fireworks in the summer house, destroying the ceiling. This doesn’t fully explain her reticence, but, although I don’t like to have her look at me so, I can’t bring myself to extend my arms to her. To her credit, she doesn’t appear to expect it.

  ‘Where’s Seraphina?’ I ask.

  Stella nods up the stairs. ‘In her room. She said we weren’t to expect her.’

  Our mother has spent each of Syrena’s birthdays in her own bedroom, feigning a spectrum of ailments from a headache to the onset of a tropical disease.

  ‘I should go to her,’ I say reluctantly.

  They follow me upstairs, circling me like little birds, but shrink away as I open our mother’s bedroom door. This is unnecessary because she can’t see them anyway; she’s never seen anything more than the shadows they’ve made themselves. She sees only me.

  She’s in bed, facing away from the door, but she watches the mirror as I cross the room to sit beside her. I compare our reflections, even though one section of the glass is obscured by her wedding dress, hung as though she’s expecting a reprieve.

  Our features grow more identical with each passing year, and today there are further characteristics to link us: corpse-pale faces, prominent cheekbones and eyes darkening from cornflower to violet. Our expressions, too, are indistinguishable. It’s strange to think that tonight’s intention was to eradicate forever her expression of frenzied disappointment, now that I’ve succeeded not only in intensifying it in her, but in replicating it in me.

  Our father has never visited since the night he left, but for some reason, be it guilt or, more likely, fear of Seraphina’s reaction, he’s allowed us to stay in this house. There are plenty of bedrooms, but I never use my own, just as Syrena never uses hers. I’ve no way of knowing where my mother sleeps when I’m away, but as far as I can be sure (because she’d never admit this) she prefers me to stay with her. This is a practice I began soon after my father left, but, whether she knows it or not, it began more for my own sake than for hers.

  * * *

  Seraphina was first taken – under coercion, as I remember – to see Syrena three days after her birth. Stella was asleep, the baby in her lap.

  ‘History repeats,’ Seraphina said drily. ‘Stella was exactly the same with you, Siena. It seems I’m destined to be irrelevant to you all.’

  ‘You’re not irrelevant,’ I tell her. ‘You’re our mother!’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘This time you’ll learn how it feels, Siena.’

  ‘I think Stella’s going to love this baby enough for all of you,’ said the nurse cheerfully, shaking Stella’s shoulder to wake her up. ‘What are you going to call her?’

  Stella unwillingly tried to pass the baby to Seraphina, at which point Syrena, who had been sleeping soundly with a hand wrapped around Stella’s thumb, opened her eyes and began to scream. Seraphina shrank away, at which the noise ceased.

  ‘We decided to call her Serena,’ I said. ‘Didn’t we?’

  ‘Absurd,’ Seraphina muttered. ‘There’s nothing serene about this little hurricane.’

  ‘She’s peaceable,’ said Stella.

  ‘She’s a Syren.’ Seraphina laughed bitterly. ‘And so we’ll call her, in the hope that she’ll one day direct her destruction at the proper targets.’

  ‘She means men,’ Stella whispered into Syrena’s ear.

  * * *

  Soon after Syrena came home, I woke to hear her crying. She didn’t howl like other babies, in piercing wails; she cried like a real person who understood loss. Stella had slept in my bed all her life: apparently scared of losing me in the vastness of the four-poster, she always wound her hand tightly into my hair until it encircled the length of her arm. But when I reached out for her this time, she was gone.

  Hearing Seraphina leave her own room, I got up too. But although whispering emanated from Syrena’s nursery, I knew even before I looked inside what I’d find.

  Why are you here? I thought furiously as I watched Stella rocking a little cuckoo in her crib. We were a family before you came.

  Something white hot rose and threatened to consume me. They were a pair now, and Syrena needed Stella in the way that Stella had once needed me.

  I felt it so keenly that I actually choked.

  Stella didn’t return to me that night; in fact, she never returned. She shared the nursery until Syrena outgrew her cot, at which point they both slept ever after in Stella’s room. I visited only once, to find that Syrena had gathered Stella’s abundant hair under her own head as a golden pillow.

  From my window I watched Seraphina cross the lawn in her nightgown and bare feet. She was more wraith-like than ever against the red petals of her rose garden, but her frailty was irrelevant as she uprooted stems and pulled off flower heads; as she snapped branches and ripped stalks and tore entire branches from an earth baked hard with frost. She worked as if she didn’t feel thorns ripping her fingers; as if she didn’t see bloody soil coating her arms, her feet and her face. The nursery lullaby drowned other sounds, but when Seraphina turned her face towards the sky I saw her crying and cursing and perhaps even screaming as she carried out her Armageddon. When the garden was battered like a hurricane, she looked up and stared at me for a long moment. Then she returned to the house as a veteran returning from war.

  I fell asleep on the window seat, waking at dawn to see Stella in my mother’s place, a white rose amongst the devastation.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked as I joined her in the garden. Despite having massacred her own, Seraphina had left Stella’s white and my pink flowers untouched. Stella was now surrounded by new roses, as yellow as the sun that was starting to break over the horizon.

  ‘I’m planting Syrena’s roses,’ she said, tipping out a flowerpot into a childishly dug hole. ‘She’s our sister now.’

  ‘That’s not deep enough,’ I said, not wanting to laugh at her bucket and spade, which were adequate for rock pools only. Not that Stella had ever been in proximity to a rock pool. ‘Let me help.’

  She edged a few inches as I crouched beside her. ‘Where did you get these?’ I asked as we sank yellow roses into the ground.

  She looked around furtively. ‘He sent them.’

  ‘You mean…’ I tailed off, already struggling to remember how to refer to our father.

  She nodded. ‘They came this morning with a note about yellow roses meaning forgiveness.’

  ‘So they were for Seraphina?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Stella. ‘But I don’t think she likes roses anymore. So Syrena will be yellow, here with us.’

  ‘But…’ I was perturbed that Stella, who had only recently learned to read, should be so decisive. ‘What does Syrena have to do with forgiveness?’

  ‘Yellow is beginnings,’ Stella said. ‘Like the sunrise. And friendship.’

  ‘Are you sure Syrena even belongs in our garden?’ I asked, the sweetness of Stella’s our tasting bitter in my mouth.

  ‘Syrena is our beginning, and our sunrise, and our friend,’ said Stella. ‘Syrena belongs with us.’

  * * *

  ‘Where is your ring?’ Seraphina asks me now, grasping my hand in a claw-like grip. ‘Where is your fiancé?’

  I stumble over where to begin. ‘It … didn’t work out.’

  ‘How,’ she asks, ‘could this have not worked out?’

  ‘Jack wants something else,’ I say. ‘Something other than me.’

  It gives me no relief to say these words: the pain is only transferred, like a drop of ice, from somewhere inside me to somewhere before me. It hangs a
s pendulous and precarious as a pearl drop on a necklace.

  ‘What does he want?’ Her face is a mask of disbelief.

  ‘I’m not enough for him. He wants more than just beauty.’

  She lets my hand drop, and doesn’t speak another word as she stares into the mirror.

  ‘You will help me?’ I say when I can’t stand the silence any longer.

  ‘Help you?’ she asks as if the concept is crazy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t know how to make it better.’

  I make no effort to check the tears that stream down my cheeks. Perhaps I hope she’ll react; that for once she’ll say the right thing. But how can she, when my failure has broken her too?

  Her face is ashen. ‘What did I tell you, Siena? Didn’t I teach you the consequences of carelessness?’

  I open my mouth to tell her that this isn’t the end; that there’s a life for me beyond tonight. But I can’t, because, as I look at her, I don’t believe it to be true.

  ‘You…’ I search for reassurance. ‘You do love me? Even if Jack doesn’t?’

  I wait all night for an answer as we lie side by side, watching the sky change colour outside the open curtains of a prison we created and in which we hold ourselves captive, even though we both must know that these shackles could be destroyed as easily as our rose garden.

  Chapter Thirty

  Romy

  No one leaves school for the Easter holiday, either because it’s not long enough to bother doing so or because no one wants to deal with what awaits them beyond the stone walls. I fall into the latter category, even though I’m desperate for a break from Libby and the #asksiena rota on which my name appears for the entire weekend. The endlessly regenerating Which vegetable would you be?… Who’s your favourite Olsen?… Courchevel or Gstaad? … was unappealing, but preferable to the prospect of facing my father.

  I change my opinion after the disastrous ball, when I find myself alone in the echoing courtyard to wonder how easily Libby could take me out without anyone noticing. Pride battles my will to survive as I write and delete a text message twenty times before sending my father a post-midnight plea to come and collect me. I’m almost sure he’s the least of the evils that await me: I wouldn’t even risk returning to my bedroom to pack a case if I didn’t need to collect Elisabeth.

  I’m waiting on the steps when his Daimler rolls up the drive an hour later. He takes longer than necessary to turn off the engine and undo his seat belt, exiting the car only when there are no more excuses.

  ‘I’m ready to go,’ I mutter as I throw my case into the back seat, twisting away as he awkwardly kisses my cheek.

  ‘Good morning to you too,’ he says wryly. It’s half past one.

  ‘Did I wake you?’ I ask. ‘I remembered that you often work late, and so…’

  ‘I was awake,’ he says. ‘Although I dislike this habit of collecting you in the middle of the night. Am I to take it that you’re fleeing another crisis?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong this time,’ I lie. ‘I just feel like spending a few days away. It was a last-minute decision.’

  With her uncanny knack for finding trouble, Libby appears from the shrubbery when we’re halfway down the drive. She’s probably taking advantage of the new moon to gather herbs for her cauldron, and she steps out, forcing us to stop.

  ‘You’re leaving,’ she says sternly. This irks her either because she’ll have no one left to blame for everything, or because my absence will mess up the symmetry of the Starlets walking downstairs.

  ‘I have commitments at home,’ I say, glancing at my father.

  Her expression remains neutral but her voice is acid. ‘Jack’s gone home tonight too. What a coincidence. He lives near you, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I’d have thought that spending time at home would be more important than seeing Jack,’ my father rebukes.

  Resentment boils over in me, even though Libby is watching closely. ‘I’m coming home, aren’t I?’ I snap at him, hating myself for sounding so childish. ‘Fully rehabilitated?’

  He sighs in embarrassment as he addresses Libby directly. ‘I’m glad to see you looking so well, Liberty.’

  Libby shows off her scar to its best advantage in the headlights. She smiles as one who has borne intolerable suffering, and then leans towards me while I resist the impulse to raise the window and decapitate her.

  ‘Stay away from Jack,’ she mutters as she air-kisses me twice. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Happy Easter to you both,’ she says more loudly as she draws back. ‘We’re so glad to have you safely back in the fold, Romy.’

  A frightened expression crosses her face as her phone clangs; she answers within the first ring. ‘I have a very good explanation,’ she says hurriedly. ‘Yes … sorry … no … of course…’

  ‘She’s very forgiving,’ Dad says as we drive away. ‘I’m not sure I could be so civil in the same circumstances. You’re lucky to have such a good friend.’

  Plugging in my headphones, I ignore him for the entire journey back to his house. Home hasn’t been an accurate description since a confusing chain of events five years ago left me with a stepmother in place of a mother.

  Your mother’s gone, my father told me when I returned from my last day of the prep school term. She’ll be in touch when she’s settled, but I’m afraid she won’t be back.

  Gone? I asked stupidly. Why?

  It’s not your fault, he said hastily.

  It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Complaining that she found family life stifling, she often took extended holidays with no fixed date of return. I waited for her to reappear, believing in her even when the facts became inescapable. She’d left behind the Tarot cards that always told her when to come home. She’d written me a letter reminding me that my name was Romy, not Roma as my father maintained, and that I’d been named as a symbol of the curtailed wanderlust that she’d always planned to resume once I was old enough to be without her. Finally, Vivienne, previously known to me as a family friend seen only at Christmas parties, took up residence in my mother’s place.

  How could you? I screamed at my father when he told me of his plans to remarry. My mother left me because you’re in love with someone else!

  No, he maintained stubbornly. Your mother made her decision long before I did.

  I ignored his explanations, concentrating instead on a phone that never rang and a postman who brought no letters. I hated him as weeks passed with no news. I hated Vivienne as the gaps in our house filled with her belongings until it was as if she’d always lived there. Finally I began to hate my mother for leaving behind her unwanted possessions: clothes that no longer fitted, Tarot cards that no longer amused her, and, least desirable of all, me.

  * * *

  ‘Where’s Vivienne?’ I ask now, peering warily down the dark hallway and hiding Elisabeth inside my coat for protection.

  ‘She’s in bed,’ my father says. ‘If you’re not too tired, I thought you and I might talk.’

  My heart lifts at this entirely unprecedented announcement even as I try to rationalize an involuntary hope that maybe, maybe, he’s missed me during our time apart. I follow him into my bedroom and then stop short, because I smell my mother’s perfume. For a crazy, paralyzing second I believe that she’s come back: that I’ll see her at the window, or by the bed, packing my bags ready for me to join her on her next trip.

  When he steps aside I feel immediately foolish, as well as glad that I didn’t have time to articulate this hope. He avoids looking at me as he gestures at a pile of boxes into which my belongings, alongside my mother’s, have been neatly packed. My furniture and walls are stripped bare, and the floor is covered with colour charts and carpet samples.

  ‘I’m afraid Vivienne and I need this room,’ he says. ‘We’re having it redecorated.’

  ‘There are other bedrooms in this house,’ I point out. ‘Why do you need mine?’

  He looks awkward. ‘This room is next to ours, and we
need to be close by.’

  The colour charts are all shades of pink and blue, and I notice a flat-pack cot in the place of my bookshelf. ‘You’re having a baby.’

  ‘Yes.’ His tone, cautious and perhaps even fearful, prevents me from feeling any happiness at this news.

  ‘Where will I sleep?’ I ask, trying to smile. ‘In the stable?’

  He shakes his head. ‘We’ll see you through school, of course, but we’d like you to start using the London flat during your holidays. You won’t appreciate a screaming baby when you’re revising for your exams, and you’ll find it much calmer there.’

  I calculate how much waitressing pays; what kind of career I can expect to have without a degree; and how much sooner I’ll be out of his debt, and out of the sterile Fulham studio he uses when he’s working late in the city, with a Head Girl fee waiver. ‘From when?’

  ‘Vivienne thinks it might be better if you moved right away,’ he says. ‘I’m sure you understand that this is an emotional time for her.’

  ‘This baby will be my brother or sister,’ I say. ‘I don’t mind losing my room, but please don’t send me away.’

  ‘This is a big adjustment for us all. Some space will help us gain perspective.’

  I swallow hard. ‘I don’t want to leave. My mother won’t know where to find me.’

  ‘How many times?’ he says, exasperated. ‘She isn’t … she’s not coming back. I’m sorry, but what else can I say?’

  I kneel beside one of the boxes and run my hand over a pile of my mother’s scarves. ‘Why are all her things here?’

  ‘We’ve kept them for long enough,’ he says. ‘I thought you might want to go through them and see if there’s anything you want to keep. Let me know if there’s anything particularly special to you.’

  I open my mouth to ask him how I should decide which of my mother’s belongings are particularly special, and then close it without making a sound. He hovers outside the doorway as if he has something else to say, and then leaves.