The Pact_A gripping psychological thriller with heart-stopping suspense

by S. E. Lynes

  I will be way less conventional.

  Are you OK, Rosie babe? The tea OK?

  Oh yes. Thanks. Tea’s nice.

  It’s not – it’s rank. But I can’t say that. I think I have fallen in love with Saph except I don’t want to, like, kiss her or anything. That would be gross.

  She makes me laugh while she takes the photos.

  Think of the most annoying boy in your year.

  Urgh.

  Now pretend he’s asked you out on a date.

  Oh my God, no!

  OK, think of a hot boy in your year. The hottest.

  I think of Ollie. I think of all the photos of him, how his hair flops over one eye, how his teeth are all even and white. My face is probably radioactive by now. Thank God no one can see my thoughts. I laugh with Saph and feel my face go even hotter. I bet I look gross. I bet I’ve got a big fat cherry head. I bet the concealer on the zits on my forehead has worn off.

  Snap snap. Snap snap snap.

  She has a thing called a light meter, which she makes me hold under my chin. Her drum kit is in the opposite corner. After the photos are finished, she lets me have a go on it. It’s awesome – so loud. Then she plays the drum opening for ‘Middle of the Road’ by The Pretenders and I say I know it because Auntie Bridge is a Chrissie Hynde nut, and she says, Yes, I know, she is. I take a photo with my phone for Instagram. Then I get back on the drums again and ask Saph to take one.

  Later, I put it on Instagram: Me on the drums at Saph’s #thepromise.

  Ollie likes it. He comments: Looking cool, rock chick.

  Which is a bit lame, but I don’t care.

  * * *

  Saph sends the pictures through a week later. Normally, clients can only have three, she puts in the email, but she sends, like, twenty or something and says we can use whichever we want. We will have to put them on a USB stick and get them printed at Boots or somewhere, save on costs. She says she doesn’t want paying for the shoot.

  You’re all teary. That’s so kind of her, you say. She’s basically done that for free. And she’s got to make a living just like the rest of us. We’ll have to think of a gift for her. Honestly, Rosie, the less people have, the more generous they are.

  You always say that last bit: The less people have, the more generous they are.

  You are generous, Mum. You are kind. Even though things are tight for us, you always make sure I have what I need and most of what I want. I do know that. I do appreciate it. I wish you would get yourself some new things sometimes. You never buy new clothes or shoes, and your boots went out of fashion in, like, Tudor times, LOL. I’ve got an iPhone and you’ve got an old, crap phone. You haven’t even got a laptop and you know Auntie Bridge would get you one – she’s always offering.

  Anyway, on the pictures, Saph made me look much more beautiful than I am in real life. She made my eyes bluer, my freckles cuter, my hair richer. She made my skin glow. I thought I’d have a bright red face but no, it was kind of lit up and peachy.

  Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? I say when I see those photos for real. Not me!

  This is the next day when we pick up the actual physical pictures from Boots in Kingston, and you want to look at them properly, straight away, so we go across the courtyard to Caffè Nerd. It’s Caffè Nero obvs but we call it Caffè Nerd because that’s what the sign looks like and that made us laugh once and then it stuck.

  Hot chocolate? you ask.

  Actually could I have a cappuccino?

  Your face, like I’ve said something confusing. A cappuccino? Since when did you like coffee?

  Since… I don’t know. Not a big deal, is it?

  No, of course not. Just didn’t realise, that’s all.

  You give me your card to go and order while you get us a table. I carry the drinks over. You are still flicking through the photos even though there are only three.

  You’re so like your daddy. Your eyes are wet.

  I look Irish. I hope you’re not going to start crying – what if someone I know comes in?

  Irish, yes, you say. He had that Celtic charm, did your dad. He was from Cork – you know that, don’t you? And he was so funny. He adored you.

  I know. I know. And I know.

  You press your nose to mine, and your eyes go all fuzzy because we are so close. I know you know and you know and you know.

  I know you know I know and I know and I know.

  You’re silly.

  You’re sillier.

  * * *

  That night, I make one of the photos my Facebook profile pic. Later I check it to see how many likes it’s got: 146, which isn’t even all that many for some people, but it is for me, and loads of my friends have commented. All of them are really nice, apart from Zac, this lad in my year, who has written Sket, which means slag or whatever. But he’s a weirdo and no one likes him.

  After that, I change my Instagram profile pic to my favourite headshot. A second later, Ollie comments: Beautiful.

  That’s so quick, I think. As if he’s been waiting.

  Twenty-Two

  Toni

  Emily emailed us to say she would get your photo onto Spotlight ASAP. I felt my guts flip at the thought of your image out there for public consumption, beyond the realm of Facebook. Things were moving so fast – too fast. I tried to remember that your picture had been in the programme for Little Red and the Wolf, alongside your name, and reassure myself that it was all part of the process, but I was still uneasy.

  In the past I would have called my misgivings instinct, but since the accident my instincts had been well and truly cocked up. It’s one of the things that came out in the post-trauma counselling. I got, still get, nervous about things that turn out to be fine. More often than not, it’s just my own fears about life and death manifesting themselves in these smaller worries. That’s what the counsellor said anyway, and what that means in practical terms is that my instinct has joined the long line of things I can’t rely on any more. Don’t sweat the small stuff, they say, don’t they? You’d think, having gone through the big stuff, I would know that. But I do sweat the small stuff, now more than ever. I’ve tried so hard not to let the way I am affect you, my darling girl, but I know that it has. It did. Perhaps that was inevitable. But I’m still sorry.

  Anyway, according to Emily, before we could upload the photo to Spotlight and to her website, there were forms to fill in. In the meantime, she said, she would send your headshot through to a couple of casting agents she knew on a friendly basis. She’d copied me in, so I replied:

  Thank you so much, Emily. All very exciting. Let us know if we should be doing anything.

  When you got home, I showed you the email and my reply on your laptop, and honestly, your outrage was such you’d have thought I’d rolled naked down the high street on a carnival wagon, singing aye aye yippee yippee aye.

  ‘I can’t believe you replied for me,’ you shouted at the top of your lungs, as if I’d burned all your clothes or sold your childhood toys without asking. ‘I’m capable of replying to an email, you know. And Emily’s contract is with me. She’s my agent. Mine.’

  ‘All right, all right, keep your voice down. You’re fifteen, not twenty. And you haven’t signed anything, there’s no contract yet, so strictly speaking she’s not your agent. She’s not anything.’

  ‘I’m fifteen years old!’ You threw your rucksack on the table so hard your Tupperware bounced out and onto the floor. I didn’t remark on the irony of you getting cross with me for treating you like a child while still allowing me to make your packed lunches for you.

  You sighed and gripped the chair back. I could see you were making a great effort not to lose it with me.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t being overprotective; I was trying to help. You’ve been a child since you were born; you were a child a year ago. Six months ago, you liked hot chocolate, now you like coffee. I can’t suddenly switch into treating you like an adult’ – I snapped my fingers – ‘like that. It’s
a gradual thing. And you’re not an adult yet. You’re an adult when you’re paying your own rent, buying your own food and doing your own washing, and until you’re doing that, you’re a kid. A child. My child.’

  You threw your eyes to the ceiling. ‘Do you realise, Mum, that in less than a year, I could go by myself to the GP and it would be, like, confidential?’

  I struck back. ‘Why, what’s the matter, are you not well?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ You were shouting again – you didn’t pick up on my flippancy. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that I’m old enough to email my own agent!’

  ‘All right. All right. I get it, I get it.’

  You sighed again, softer this time, your frustration ebbing. ‘I know you’re trying to help,’ you said. ‘But don’t, OK? Just don’t.’

  ‘All right.’

  From that point on, you must have emailed Emily directly and asked her not to copy me in, because that was the last email I saw live, or however you say it. I had to wait for our weekly checks to see any further correspondence, and even then, you wouldn’t leave me alone to read anything. Looking back, you could have deleted whatever you wanted. The next thing, you were telling me that your first audition had come around. It must have been a week, maybe two weeks later.

  ‘It’s for a soap advert,’ you said. You were jumping up and down with joy. ‘I have to go into London. I have to be there by 11 a.m. the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘London? But what about school?’

  ‘It’s only double PE, which is, like, a waste of time, and Naomi said she’d photocopy the biology notes and I can catch up on maths in, like, ten minutes.’

  ‘Hold on a second. You can’t miss school.’

  ‘It’s just PE, Mum! I want to be an actor, not an athlete.’

  I met your eye and saw ice. You were so passionate. And I thought about how I had missed not the odd day but years of school for much less edifying reasons. What was one day if it was for something that meant so much to you, something worthwhile?

  ‘You’re sure it’s OK to miss lessons like that?’ I said.

  ‘Of course it is! Everyone does it and that’s not even for anything important. I’m doing something towards my, like, professional career.’

  ‘How are you going to get there? I can’t take the day off just like that. I won’t be able to drive you.’

  ‘I know how to get on a train, Mum.’ You laughed sarcastically. ‘It’ll be fine. Anyway, Emily said she’d come with me. She might even drive.’

  ‘But we don’t know Emily that well.’

  Another laugh, dripping with disdain, as if you, not me, were the one who knew about the world and all its terrors. ‘Oh, Mum. Don’t be mental.’

  ‘Don’t say that, it’s offensive.’

  ‘Soz. Don’t be silly then. Emily wouldn’t be much of an agent if she… I mean, what do you think she’s going to do?’

  I felt my chest sink. You were right – I was being paranoid. And the thought of you, in the centre of the capital, on your own…

  ‘As long as Emily goes with you,’ I said, ‘that’s fine.’

  You sat on my knee and kissed my cheek. Were you manipulating me? I think you probably were. I can’t believe now I agreed to any of it, frankly.

  ‘This is so what I want to do with my life, Mum,’ you said. ‘The rest of the time, it’s like I’m living in black and white, but when I act, I, like, go into colour. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I do. It’s just—’

  ‘So will you call the school and tell them I’m sick?’

  I know you think I’m too strict, but it’s you who’s in charge, my love. Always has been. I told you it was OK, but that you’d have to keep in touch. I would need Emily’s mobile number as well as yours.

  ‘Yes, Mum, yes, Mum, three bags full, Mum.’

  The next night, I made lasagne for dinner, to celebrate. It’s been your favourite since you were a little girl. I even made Rice Krispie cakes and put them on the cake stand. You took a picture of them, do you remember? You stood on a kitchen chair like a real live food photographer.

  But that night, in the early hours, you crept into my room.

  ‘Mummy,’ you whispered, ‘my stomach’s killing me.’ You climbed into my bed and seemed to sleep all right, but in the morning you were as white as a sheet.

  ‘I haven’t slept at all,’ you moaned. ‘I feel so sick.’

  The involuntary gesture of mothers everywhere: I laid my hand across your head. ‘You’re not hot or anything. And your auntie Bridge is all right and I’m all right. You feel sick, did you say? Is it nerves, do you think?’ It occurred to me as the words came out of my mouth that it could conceivably be anxiety.

  ‘I was on the loo all night,’ you said, your mouth set in misery.

  ‘Do you think you’re well enough to go?’

  You closed your eyes and shook your head. I felt so very sorry for you. I know I’d had my misgivings, but now that you were sick, I felt awful. But it was more than just sympathy. It was the old, old fear: that you’d never be the same little girl you were before the accident – fearless, tap-dancing on her picnic-tabletop, needing nothing more than the little things to keep her happy: a glass of lemonade in a pub garden, her favourite dinner, a Rice Krispie cake made by her mummy. I had thought after your success in Little Red that your nerves would go away or at least become something you could control.

  But why would you be able to go back to your old self any more than I could?

  We think we’ve got over things, don’t we? We think we’ve made our peace with trauma, that we’re strong again. We keep going, we smile, we manage day to day. Then something comes along, something so very small compared to things we’ve faced before, something we think we can more than handle, and it floors us once more. And we realise we’re not strong after all. The fault lines have not healed over. We’re not living, not really. We’re still surviving.

  You were strong, my love, getting stronger all the time. But in that moment, I knew you were still afraid. The fearful, quiet thing you became in those terrible years after we lost your dad had returned.

  No, it had not returned.

  It had never gone away.

  * * *

  I left you sleeping and promised to take the afternoon off. I called the school to let them know, then texted Emily:

  Hi, Emily. Toni here. Rosie’s been very poorly in the night so won’t be able to make the audition today. So sorry. T x

  A few seconds later, she replied.

  Oh heavens, what a shame! Tell her not to worry. Always lots of young girls at these things, they won’t even notice. I’ll let them know. Tell her to get well soon. Regards, Madame Belle x

  You’d woken up. You were calling me. I went in to see you and you said you wanted me to help you into the living room so you could lie on the sofa.

  ‘Of course, darling,’ I said. ‘Lean on my shoulder and we’ll take it slow.’

  I helped you into your panda onesie and together we made our way to the living room. You lay on the sofa, and I tucked you under your duvet and left the remote control and a glass of water within reach.

  ‘I don’t know how you can wear that onesie,’ I joked. ‘If I had that on, I’d boil.’

  ‘If you had this on, you’d look insane.’ You gave a weak laugh, then smiled.

  ‘Best not to eat anything until this evening, eh?’

  You nodded and gave me another wan smile. ‘You’re the nurse.’

  ‘Listen, I’ve got to go to work, but I’ll be back later. You going to be OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I’ll keep my phone with me, all right?’ I kissed you on the cheek and made a dash for it.

  I was fifteen minutes late to work – not too bad considering.

  ‘Afternoon, Mrs Flint,’ said Richard as I babbled my apologies. He tapped his watch and winked. ‘Don’t you worry, babe. I covered for you.’

  ‘Sorry, R
ichard.

  ‘I gave him the usual kiss on both cheeks. ‘Rosie was sick in the night. I’ve had to leave her on the sofa.’

  He pursed his lips with concern. ‘Babe! Do you need to go home?’

  ‘I’ll probably go after lunch if you think you can manage without me.’

  ‘Of course. If anyone comes, I’ll tell them you’ve gone to the loo. Don’t let those bastards take any more off our shitty pay, eh?’

  You’ve never met Richard, have you? I bet you feel like you know him though, with all I’ve told you about him. Oh, the laughs we’ve shared in that place. Richard is a real tonic. I would never have thought working in hospital records could be so much fun. A lot of it is gallows humour obviously. We see a lot of sadness. It was the same when I was a nurse. You have to cope with it somehow, and humour is as good a mechanism as any. We like to diagnose too, Richard and I. We love to see if we were right.

  The morning you were off sick, I remember Richard calling me over to look at something on his computer screen.

  ‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘Bet you that’s a cyst.’

  ‘I think you’re right. It’s huge, isn’t it? Must be the size of a football.’

  He pressed the ends of his fingers to his chest and looked at me over the top of his glasses. ‘I wouldn’t know, babe. Football’s not really my thing.’