The Rumour

by Lesley Kara

  ‘I need to speak to Mr Matthews. About that photo on the noticeboard. It’s very important.’

  Mrs Haynes presses her lips together. I see her glance at someone beyond my shoulder and I know she’s weighing up her options and deciding that, actually, it’d be better for everyone concerned if she just took me straight to Mr Matthews before this all gets out of hand.

  Tears have started to pool in my eyes.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘If you wait here for a moment, I’ll let him know you’d like to see him.’

  She’s using that slow, deliberate tone of voice people use in tense situations. What she really means is, I’ll just let him know that a hysterical mother wants to come and rant at him. She’s probably gone on one of those courses: How to Deal with Angry Parents.

  While I’m waiting for her to come back Teri appears at my side, a worried look on her face. ‘What’s going on, Joanna? What’s happened?’

  I tell her about the photo and she charges off to look at it. She stands in front of it for a while before walking slowly back to my side, but by this time Mr Matthews has come out of his office and is speaking to me in that low, well-modulated voice of his.

  ‘Mrs Critchley, would you like to come into my office? Do you want a cup of tea or something?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No, thank you. And it’s Miss Critchley. Not Mrs.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and I catch the fleeting look that passes between him and Teri.

  ‘Joanna, shall I wait with Alfie outside?’ Teri says. ‘I’ve got a PTA meeting at nine so if you’re not back by then, I’ll take Alfie to his classroom for you, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, yes, please,’ I say, and I watch her leading him away. He looks back at me over his shoulder as if to say, What’s happening, Mummy?, but I’m too wound up to reassure him right now.

  Mr Matthews’ office smells of coffee and aftershave. He gestures for me to sit down and closes the door behind us.

  ‘That photo,’ I say. ‘I need you to explain.’

  Mr Matthews rests his fingertips on the desk in front of him and takes a breath.

  ‘Celebrating Halloween can be a divisive topic,’ he says, and pauses. He looks like he’s trying to think of something diplomatic to say. He must think I disapprove of it on religious grounds.

  ‘No, you don’t understand. I’m not anti-Halloween. But I’m strongly opposed to you singling out my son in that hideous way.’

  Mr Matthews frowns. ‘Excuse me a moment. Let me go and get the photo in question.’

  While I’m waiting for him to return my breathing slows. What am I doing in here? Am I overreacting? Letting my imagination run away with me again? If it weren’t for all this business about Sally McGowan and all the things I’ve been reading about her – those stupid tweets – I wouldn’t even be giving this a second thought.

  Maybe I didn’t look closely enough. Maybe there were more children with gruesome Photoshop additions. Maybe in my shock, my eyes skimmed over them, seeing only Alfie in that horrible, blood-spattered shirt. That knife. Maybe there were other children still wearing their recognizable Perrydale Primary uniforms, just like Alfie, with blood spots on their shirts. No knives in their chest, but even so. It’s just a horrible coincidence. A random click of a button on a computer.

  It’s not as if Alfie was in the least bit upset about it. He loved it, didn’t he? The way he was staggering around like a zombie in the hall with the other boys. And now I’ve made a complete fool of myself. Ruined his moment of gory glory.

  Mr Matthews returns a few moments later with the photo and sits down to give it his full attention. I watch his eyebrows move closer, see the lines on his forehead deepen in a frown. He’s working out what to say to me. He looks up then and places the photo on the table between us. I close my eyes, mortified with embarrassment. I’ll have to apologize for making a scene and get out of here as soon as possible.

  And then Mr Matthews begins to speak. ‘I’m extremely sorry about this, Miss Critchley. I can see exactly why you’re so distressed about it. The thing is, nobody actually knows who did this. Mrs Haynes said she found it by the hatch when she came in this morning and assumed one of the parents had left it there as a joke. She showed it to the other staff before assembly and they all thought it was really clever. None of them noticed the …’

  He pauses and looks down at the photo. ‘None of them noticed how Alfie was made to look so … different from everyone else.’

  He leans back in his chair and sighs. ‘This should never have been put on the noticeboard. I can only apologize.’

  It takes a moment or two for his words to register in my brain. So it wasn’t created by a member of staff. Mrs Haynes found it by the hatch this morning. Which means they have no idea where this picture came from.

  My mouth goes dry. I can barely swallow. Mr Matthews doesn’t think I’m making a fuss over nothing. He isn’t just trying to placate an overprotective mother. He’s visibly disturbed at what he’s seen. Because someone has singled Alfie out.

  The knot in my stomach twists tight. Out of a class of thirty children, someone has deliberately chosen to depict my son with a knife sticking out of his chest.

  23

  ‘But I want to tell Jake and Liam about my Darth Vader costume,’ Alfie wails, tugging at my arm to slow me down.

  How typical that the first morning he’s shown any kind of enthusiasm for going to school, here I am hauling him back home again.

  ‘Sorry, darling, but we’ve got to do something else today.’

  I’m walking too fast for his little legs. He’s almost having to run to keep up with me, but I won’t slow down. I can’t. Not till I get us safely home.

  ‘But you said if I don’t go to school, the police will tell you off.’ His voice is high and wobbly. He’s on the verge of tears.

  ‘You’re right, I did say that, and if you stay at home every day, then I will get into trouble, but this is just for one day, Alfie. I’ve forgotten something very important I have to do.’

  ‘What, Mummy?’

  I rack my brain, trying to think of something. I hate lying to him, but there’s no way I’m going home without him, I’d be worried sick. Whoever brought that photo in walked into the school unchallenged. Which means it must have been somebody dropping off a child, or someone who works there. A teacher? Mrs Haynes or her assistant? An early-morning cleaner? It could have been anyone. How can I leave him there on his own when I don’t know who it is that’s doing this, or what they’re capable of?

  You think your children are safe at school, but are they? Are they really?

  ‘I can still go to Liam’s party, can’t I? Can’t I, Mummy?’

  Bloody hell. The party. I can’t keep him away from that, not when he’s so excited and Kay’s gone to all the trouble of making him his costume.

  ‘Don’t worry about the party, Alfie. I’ll sort something out, I promise.’

  By the time we get home Alfie is sobbing. What kind of mother am I, not letting him go to school with his new friends, practically dragging him along the street in my haste to get home? It’s a good fifteen minutes before I manage to calm him down, and even then he’s sulky and withdrawn.

  ‘I want Daddy,’ he says, his lower lip jutting out.

  ‘Daddy’s had to go back to London today to meet the couple who want to rent his flat. You know he has. He’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘I want Grandma, then.’

  I sigh. ‘If you’re a good boy and play quietly for a little while, we’ll give Grandma a ring and see if she wants to pop round. Okay?’

  Alfie nods. His bottom lip has started to quiver.

  I pull him on to my lap and give him a big hug. ‘And of course you can go to Liam’s party.’

  Alfie leaps on to the floor and does a silly dance. I’m forgiven. At last.

  I exhale slowly and go into the kitchen to make some coffee and phone work. Dave says not to worry when I lie to him about having to take Alfie t
o the doctor’s, but he can’t be best pleased at me taking a day off after a whole week’s leave. I feel dreadful letting him down, but what choice do I have? I promise him I’ll make the time up as soon as I can.

  The doorbell startles me. For a couple of seconds, I consider ignoring it. I’m not expecting anyone, so it’s probably a door-to-door salesperson. They’ll go away in a minute. But Alfie is already peeking through the letterbox and shouting for me to come and answer the door.

  My relief when I see Kay standing on the doorstep with a red lightsaber in her hand is so overwhelming I dissolve into nervous giggles.

  She steps inside, waving it about. ‘Every Sith lord needs his own lightsaber,’ she says, passing it into Alfie’s eager little hands. ‘But you need to be very careful with it. Because this one is made out of cardboard tubes, gaffer tape and sticky paper.’

  Alfie runs upstairs with it, making lightsaber humming noises.

  Kay follows me into the kitchen, laughing. ‘I thought he’d be at school.’

  I’m about to tell her the same lie I told Dave, but before I know what’s happening my eyes have filled up with tears and I’m telling her everything.

  ‘Now look here,’ she says, when I’ve finished. ‘Whoever created that photo isn’t Sally McGowan. It can’t be.’ She takes the jar of coffee from my hands and starts spooning it into the mugs. ‘From everything I’ve read about her, she’s a reformed character now. A woman trying to put her past behind her and get on with her life.’

  I let her pour the hot water into the mugs and get the milk from the fridge. The state I’m in, I’d probably slosh it all over the counter.

  ‘But what if she isn’t? What if she’s somehow wangled a job at the school?’

  Kay stirs the coffee. ‘They do police checks, love. That could never happen.’

  ‘Yes, it could. Someone in the witness-protection programme isn’t known to the police any more than to us. Only a very small group of people know where she is. Two or three at the most, from what I’ve read.’

  A frown furrows Kay’s brow. ‘But there’ll be some kind of flag that comes up on a computer somewhere if she tries to apply for a job with children.’ She reaches out and touches my wrist. ‘Not that I’m any kind of expert on these things, but I’m sure she wouldn’t be allowed to get a job in a school.’

  She’s right. Of course she is. There’s no way someone like McGowan could end up in a school. They wouldn’t take the risk.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ Kay says. ‘She was just a child. And don’t you think we’d have heard about it if there was any suggestion of her being a danger to the public? I mean, what about that other one – the one who killed those little girls in the nineties? He’s always in the news, isn’t he? Because he keeps reoffending.’

  We go into the living room and sit down with our coffees. I feel better already.

  ‘You’re right. I mean, why would she put herself at risk just because of a rumour?’

  I put my coffee on the table between us. ‘But the fact remains that somebody did make that horrible photo. Somebody chose to show my son with a knife sticking out of his chest. And maybe whoever it is is also the person who’s following me on Twitter.’

  Kay frowns again. ‘What do you mean?’

  I fetch my phone from my bag. ‘Someone called Sally Mac is following me. She tweets quotes about rumours.’

  Kay pulls a puzzled face. ‘Sally Mac?’

  I nod and click on my followers, hoping she won’t still be there, that I was right about it being a random coincidence and that Sally Mac, whoever she is, has realized I’m not going to follow her back and has unfollowed me and moved on to someone else. Someone who enjoys reading her silly quotes.

  No such luck. There she is, although her tweets seem to have dried up. There aren’t any new ones, as far as I can see.

  Kay peers at my phone. ‘Now let’s get this into perspective,’ she says. ‘I don’t do Twitter but, as far as I can see, someone’s trying to scare you. Think about it, Joanna. It’s Halloween tonight. This is just someone’s idea of a sick joke. Maybe it’s one of the other mums. You know what that lot are like.’

  I shake my head. ‘Surely they wouldn’t do something like this. I mean, the Twitter thing I can just about understand, but that photo … it was horrible.’

  Kay presses her lips together and sighs through her nose. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but …’

  ‘Say anything about what?’

  She clears her throat. ‘Fatima had a really hard time last year.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  She twists her mouth. ‘Debbie Barton said some nasty stuff. Slightly, you know … racist.’

  ‘Oh God, really?’

  ‘It only happened once, and Fatima challenged her about it. So did I.’ She gives a wry laugh. ‘Of course, Debbie acted all upset and offended. Said she’d only been messing around and Fatima had got the wrong end of the stick. It all blew over in the end. They’re friendly with each other now. After a fashion.’ Kay sips her coffee. ‘Although they’ve never babysat for each other.’

  ‘Are you saying that Debbie might deliberately be trying to freak me out because she’s a racist and I’ve got a mixed-race son?’

  Kay wrinkles her nose. ‘I’m not pointing the finger at anyone in particular. I’m just saying that it’s more likely to be something ignorant like that, rather than … well, rather than anything else.’

  I’m trying to get my head round the implications of what Kay has just said when the phone rings.

  ‘Hello, darling.’ Mum’s voice sounds all weak and croaky. ‘Any chance you could take Sol out for a walk later? I’ve come down with some kind of virus. I feel awful. All aches and pains.’

  ‘Oh no. You poor thing. Of course I will. I’ve got Alfie at home with me today, but we’ll pop round in a bit.’

  ‘Why isn’t he at school? He’s not still having problems, is he?’

  Oh God. If she thinks I’ve put Alfie in any kind of danger, I’ll never hear the end of it.

  ‘No, no. He’s fine. It’s a long story, Mum. I’ll tell you later. You get yourself off to bed and I’ll let myself in with the spare key.’

  When the call is over Kay stands up. ‘Sounds like you’re wanted somewhere else, love,’ she says. ‘I’d better make a move.’

  From upstairs comes the sound of Alfie, still making lightsaber noises in his bedroom.

  ‘Thank you so much for making that for him. It’s very kind of you.’

  When Kay is halfway down the path she stops and turns around. ‘Can I give you some advice?’ she says. ‘Stop worrying about that silly Twitter account and the photo. It’s a Halloween prank, that’s all.’

  I nod. She’s right.

  ‘By the way, love, if you ever need anyone to look after Alfie at short notice, say if your mum can’t do it, or she’s too poorly, you know you can always knock on my door. I’m usually in. Save going through the babysitting circle every time.’

  ‘Thank you, Kay. That’s really, really kind of you.’

  24

  After much soul-searching, I decide that I’ll take Alfie back to school after lunch. I can’t justify keeping him off all day and it’ll look bad if he goes to Liam’s party when he hasn’t been at school. Besides, now that I’ve spoken to Kay, I feel much calmer. She’s so kind and level-headed. Of course it’s a Halloween prank. Not a very nice one, admittedly, but a prank nonetheless. It has to be.

  Alfie is delighted when I tell him we’re taking Sol for a walk. He seems to have forgotten all about being cross with me earlier. That’s the great thing about children. They live in the moment and, right now, he’s happy. Which means I am too.

  At Mum’s, I call through the letterbox before using the spare key. This is the first time I’ve had to use it and Sol is confused and excited, running back and forth between the hall and Mum’s bedroom, and barking non-stop.

  At last he settles down and pads off to his ba
sket, closely followed by Alfie. I perch on the end of Mum’s bed.

  She heaves herself up into a sitting position. ‘Sorry about the mess. I didn’t feel up to tidying.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You look awful.’

  ‘What’s the story with Alfie, then?’ she says.

  I hesitate. If I tell her about the photo, she’ll only start worrying.

  I lower my voice. ‘Alfie had a little accident as we arrived. It was my fault, I forgot to remind him to go to the loo. He was really embarrassed. Don’t say anything, for goodness’ sake. Now then, is there anything I can get you while I’m here?’

  She shakes her head and points to her cluttered bedside table. ‘I made myself a mug of Lemsip.’

  ‘What about something to eat?’

  ‘No, I just want to sleep. Maybe when you get back?’

  Propped up against her pillows, she looks pale and weak. ‘Why do I have to go down with something now?’ she says. ‘We’ve only got two more weeks before the concert and there’s no way I’ll be well enough for rehearsal tonight.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re all brilliant at it already.’

  Mum snorts. ‘We’re so not. Our new choirmaster is insisting on us learning all the words off by heart. We’ve always been able to keep our song sheets before.’ She sighs. ‘It’s going to be a disaster.’

  She gives me a sideways look. ‘Are you sure you won’t consider joining us one day? If we had some new blood it would make such a difference, and you’ve got a lovely voice.’

  Not this again. Will she never give up?

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  She gives me the same look she always gives me when I refuse to join the Flinstead church choir, but I stand my ground.

  ‘Don’t forget the poo bags,’ she says, and wriggles down under her quilt.

  Sol is getting on a bit now. He has the characteristic greying around the nose, mouth and eyes, and the long hairs between his toes are also turning grey, but he isn’t overweight like lots of old Labradors and he still enjoys a good walk. We head for the beach. I’m pretty sure, if left to his own devices, Sol could make his own way here, he’s done it so often.