Scarlett

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘I drop everything each time you get into trouble,’ she says. ‘I talk to your snotty teachers and tell them you’ll change, try harder, toe the line. But you won’t, will you? You just couldn’t care less!’

  I shrug, switch off, let it all wash over me. Mum sits down suddenly, and covers her face with one perfectly manicured hand.

  ‘I don’t know you any more,’ she says. ‘I don’t know who you are.’

  This makes me feel bad.

  ‘Get to know me then,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not so difficult.’ I give her a shaky grin, but she’s not buying.

  ‘I meant it, Scarlett, when I said that Greenhall was your last chance,’ Mum says. ‘I can’t give you the time and attention you need, you’ve made that very clear. I’ve tried, but it’s just not working. Five schools in two years, and every one of them was glad to see the back of you. Your so-called friends are a nightmare, your behaviour just gets worse and worse. Well, not any more. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Enough of me?’ I ask in a very small voice.

  Mum closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against the sofa. She takes a deep breath in. ‘You need to get away from here, make a fresh start. It’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since the scalpel incident, and the tongue piercing.’

  ‘Not Nan’s again?’ I protest. ‘That didn’t work, you said so. Mum, I was so lonely…’

  ‘Not Nan’s,’ she says. ‘It’s time to try something different,’

  ‘Boarding school?’ I ask in a whisper. ‘Please, Mum, not that!’

  She shakes her head, pulls the clips from her hair and shakes it free. My mum looks at me, all rumpled honey-blonde hair and cool blue eyes, and I’m scared.

  ‘You leave me no option, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘I’ve done all I can. I know it’s something we agreed we’d never do, but really you leave me no choice. You have to learn that your actions have consequences. I’ve made my decision. No arguing, no discussion. It’s decided. OK?’

  ‘What, Mum?’ I ask. ‘Just tell me.’

  There is silence in the flat, except for the ticking of the clock, the thump of my heart.

  ‘You’re going to live with your dad,’ she says.

  World War III breaks out in our flat then.

  ‘No,’ I tell Mum quietly. ‘Seriously, no. No, no, NO!’

  She puts her hands over her ears and closes her eyes, and leans back on the sofa like she hasn’t a care in the world.

  ‘You promised!’ I say. ‘You said I’d never have to see him again, not after what he did to us! He left us, Mum, he walked away. You said he was scum! You said we were well shot of him, that we’d make like he’d never existed!’

  ‘That was two years ago, Scarlett,’ Mum sighs. ‘Things change. I was angry, I shouldn’t have said those things.’

  But she did say them, and all of them are true. My dad left us, and I’ll never forgive him for that. He walked out of our lives and didn’t look back, and I don’t care if I never see him again as long as I live. There is no way on this earth I am going to live with him. Or her.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ I say. ‘You hate him as much as I do. He dumped us – to be with that witch Clare and her stupid, snotty kid. He replaced you, Mum. He replaced me.’

  ‘It’s decided, Scarlett,’ Mum says.

  I lose it then and my voice builds up to a scream. All kinds of stuff is tumbling out of my mouth – bad stuff, mean stuff, spiteful stuff. She’s not listening, though. She never listens. Sometimes I don’t think she’d take any notice if I burst into flames right in front of her.

  I kick over the coffee table, still littered with this morning’s cereal bowls and empty glasses. A pool of juice slides out from the tipped-up carton and stains the cream-coloured carpet. Mum doesn’t even blink.

  I pick up my school bag and hurl it against the wall with a satisfying thud. A framed school photo of me aged five, all gap-toothed grins and neatly pressed uniform, clatters to the floor. The girl in that photo is happy, hopeful, without a care in the world. I can’t even remember what it was like to be her. I stamp on the picture with my red wedge sandals until the glass shatters, and then I rip the photo into little pieces.

  Someone knocks loudly on the door, and Mum snaps to attention and goes to answer it. She doesn’t have a problem hearing other people, only me.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ asks the man from downstairs. ‘I could hear lots of shouting and crashing about. Is something wrong?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ says Mum smoothly. ‘Just a little disagreement.’

  ‘Well,’ says the man, frowning, ‘OK. But keep it down, could you?’

  He turns away, and I fling a sheepskin cushion at the back of his head. Mum grabs it before it hits home and calmly puts it back on the sofa, then moves on to pick up the coffee table, and carries the dirty dishes out to the kitchen. She mops up the orange-juice stain, and wraps the shards of shattered glass and tattered bits of photograph in newspaper to put in the bin.

  She is very efficient, my mother. She covers my tracks, hides the evidence, tidies up the mess. It’s like I never got mad in the first place.

  Pretty soon, there’ll be no trace of me left here at all.

  Everyone has choices, according to Mum. Life chucks a bunch of stuff at us, stuff we have no control over, but we can decide how to handle it all. We shape our lives with the choices we make.

  What a load of rubbish. Life isn’t fair – you think it’s going to be one way, and then it tips in the other direction and everything’s upside down. How do you make choices when everything’s turned to dust in your hands? It’s impossible.

  It’s Tuesday night. Five days have gone by and we’ve had all the talks, the rows, the tantrums. We’ve been round and round in circles till there’s nowhere left to go.

  ‘This is the best option,’ Mum says gently, helping me to pack my suitcase. It’s the same case I took to Nan’s, the same one I took to Uncle Jon’s, and just looking at it gives me an ache in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘Best for you or me?’ I ask, but I already know the answer. Best for her. She’s the one with the choices, she’s the one calling the shots. I just get pushed around from place to place, like a bit of unwanted luggage.

  ‘Scarlett, please,’ says Mum. ‘We have to be positive about this.’

  ‘I am,’ I tell her. ‘Positive I’ll never forgive you.’

  She folds up my red Chinese dress, and a pair of black parachute trousers. ‘It’s all about attitude,’ she tells me. ‘Lose that chip on your shoulder, stop feeling sorry for yourself. None of that helps, Scarlett. You act like the whole world’s against you.’

  ‘Not the whole world, just you,’ I snap, stuffing rolled-up tights and neon plastic bracelets into the case.

  ‘You made your choices,’ she repeats. ‘You knew the score. D’you think I’ll just stand by and let you mess up your entire education? Greenhall was your last chance, Scarlett, you knew that. Don’t blame me for the fact that you blew it.’

  ‘How come you’re so hard?’ I ask her.

  ‘Maybe I learnt it from you,’ she says. ‘Too bad. I’ve done my best, and maybe it wasn’t good enough, but I’m not going to stand by and watch you throw your life away.’

  ‘No, you’re packing me off to the middle of nowhere so you won’t have to. You won’t even have to hear my screams,’ I point out. ‘It was bad enough being parcelled off to Milton Keynes to stay with Nan, and then to Uncle Jon’s, but this time we won’t even be in the same country. You can’t make me go there, Mum. You might as well bury me alive.’

  ‘Scarlett, it’s Ireland, not Outer Mongolia,’ she says.

  ‘Please don’t, Mum,’ I beg. ‘I’ll be different, I’ll be better, I won’t break the rules or get into fights, I promise. One last, last chance. I won’t let you down. Don’t send me away, OK?’

  She pulls out a drawer, folding summer shorts and little black vest-tops into the case.

  ‘Not yet then, OK?�
�� I appeal, changing tack. ‘I can go in the summer holidays, ready for the autumn term. Not now!’

  ‘Your dad’s expecting you,’ she says, and my heart sinks to my boots. ‘He’s enrolled you in the local school, sorted out a room for you, everything. There’s no point delaying things.’

  I turn away, lift a neatly folded jumper from the bed and hug the soft black mohair against my skin.

  ‘C’mon, Scarlett,’ she says, putting an arm round my shoulders. ‘The break will do us good. We can write, and email, and call, can’t we? Look – I bought you a present!’

  Mum is good at presents. She is a top advertising executive and she earns a small fortune, so money is not a problem. In spite of myself, I take the box-shaped parcel, tear off the silver tissue paper. It’s a mobile, a new colour-screen model with video messaging. A week ago I’d have squealed and laughed and told her I loved it, but today I just feel empty, hollowed out, and I can’t even find the words to say thanks.

  A mobile phone, so my mum can keep in touch when she sends me to live a million miles away, with the enemy. Hundreds of miles, anyhow. Am I meant to be grateful?

  ‘Give it a try, Scarlett?’ she says. ‘See how it goes? Your dad still loves you. I was the one he wanted to leave, not you, never you. I was wrong to let you think otherwise, but I was hurt, I guess, and I wasn’t thinking straight. He’s so happy that you’re coming over, really he is.’

  ‘This is such a bad idea,’ I whisper, sinking down on to the bed beside the suitcase. ‘Don’t make me do it.’

  ‘Choices, Scarlett,’ says Mum. ‘I’ll miss you like mad, but I think it’s for the best. It’s a fresh start. A last, last chance, if you like. Don’t waste it. Don’t throw it away. OK?’

  ‘But I hate him,’ I protest. ‘Seriously.’

  Mum puts her arms round me and hugs me tight, and I think of the smiling face in the torn-up photograph, the little girl who didn’t know her dad was going to leave and pull her whole world to pieces as he went. I take a deep breath in, my voice all raggedy and sad. ‘I hate you too.’

  Mum holds me tighter, rocking me, stroking my back. ‘I know, sweetheart,’ she whispers into my hair. ‘I know.’

  The picture on my passport shows a brown-haired girl with bunches and sparkly eyes, and the girl at the airport check-in desk squints at it hard, trying to make the connection between that kid and me. I scowl at her, stony-faced, and she swallows hard, checking in my bag without another word.

  Mum gets permission to come through to the departures lounge with me, because twelve is kind of young to be on the loose in an airport, on your own. I think she just wants to be sure I get on that plane.

  ‘Now, Scarlett, your dad doesn’t know you got your tongue pierced,’ Mum says briskly. ‘Let’s face it, he’d have a fit if he knew – blame me, probably. How about you take it out, put it away for a couple of days?’

  I grin, tapping the gold stud against my teeth. If Dad’s going to hate my piercing, it’s staying for sure.

  ‘Well, how about you just keep your mouth shut for a few days?’ Mum suggests. ‘First impressions count. No sense asking for trouble, is there? For me, Scarlett?’

  ‘OK.’ I sigh.

  ‘I’ve packed some goodies for your lunch,’ Mum says as we walk up to the departure gate. ‘Your dad will meet you by the main exit at Knock Airport. Just collect your suitcase and go through, OK? Scarlett, don’t be like that – you know it’s for the best.’

  I nod listlessly. I don’t have the strength left to argue. It’s a fight I can’t win, a risk I can’t take. I don’t want to fall apart, right here in the middle of the Stansted Airport departures lounge, with snotty businessmen in pinstriped suits looking on. That would never do.

  The flight is called, and everyone clumps together at the gate, waiting to board the plane. I catch Mum looking at her watch. She collars a passing cabin-crew girl and asks her to keep an eye on me until the plane lands at Knock. The girl smiles and nods, then catches sight of my scowl and pales a little.

  ‘I’ll ring you,’ Mum says. ‘Sweetheart, don’t let me down this time. Be good. Remember, it’s your last, last chance.’

  She hugs me, swiftly, lightly, with an air-kiss on each cheek. Then she steps back, brushing an imaginary speck of dust off her caramel-coloured trousers. ‘Speak to you later, sweetheart. Take care!’ She turns and strides away, tan shoulder bag swinging. I watch until she is out of sight in the crowd, but she doesn’t look back.

  The cabin-crew girl is leading me through the corridor, down a flight of steps and out on to the tarmac. I stumble up the steps and on to the plane, taking my seat in a trance. Two elderly ladies who’ve been scooshing themselves with the duty-free perfume squeeze in next to me, offering me a boiled sweet to suck during take-off.

  I should have made a run for it while I had the chance, because I’m stuck now, no escape. There’s a sad feeling in my chest, a cold, empty ache that won’t go away.

  I crunch my boiled sweet and try to unzip my rucksack, but my fingers feel numb and clumsy. It’s a new rucksack, a red, fun-fur circle with sticky-up ears, googly eyes and a zigzag, growly mouth – a last-minute present from Mum. I’d have loved to throw it back at her, but of course, I didn’t. It’s cool, so I ignore the fact that it’s also a bribe.

  The cabin crew show us what to do in case of an emergency, and I find myself wishing the plane would plummet down into the middle of the Irish Sea, because then they’d be sorry they made me go. Maybe.

  We taxi along the runway, the cabin crew take their seats and suddenly we’re hurtling along so fast I just about choke on my boiled sweet. The plane tilts upwards, climbing, and just for a minute I forget to be scared because we’re flying now, up through the clouds, higher and higher, until the stuff down below looks tiny and faraway, like toys scattered across a musty green carpet.

  I check out the packed lunch Mum’s provided. Rolls, crisps, apple pie and pop, all from the Marks & Spencer food hall. The rolls are chicken salad. Did she really not remember that I’m vegetarian now, or does she think that chicken doesn’t count? ‘Not another silly phase,’ she said when I first told her. ‘I think you do it just to irritate me!’

  Mum’s packed a magazine too, one with lots of pictures of ponies and kittens that I haven’t bought since I was ten.

  We’re flying over the sea now, and the ladies sitting next to me are reading magazines full of knitting patterns and cake recipes and heartwarming stories about country doctors. The sad feeling in my chest has become an ache. It’s scary, I swear. If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was a big splinter of glass lodged just above my heart, pressing down, making everything hurt. I can barely breathe.

  I lean back against the soft plush seat and close my eyes. When I open them again, my neck feels sore, my face stiff, and outside the plane the view has changed to mottled green and grey.

  ‘A11 right, pet?’ one of the old ladies asks. ‘Nearly there.’

  I fish around in the rucksack for my hand mirror. My hair falls round my face in dark red ringlets; my eyes are ringed with smudgy black. It’s a good disguise. I don’t look scared, I look scary, and that’s the way I like it.

  The plane is dipping down through the clouds, banking and turning and finally swooping in to land with a roaring, whooshing sound that has my heart pounding.

  Then the cabin crew are wishing us a safe onward journey, and we file off the plane and troop across to the terminal building and along to the hall where you get your luggage. It takes ages for the conveyor belt to start up, so I sit on a bench and ring Mum on my mobile. I can’t get a signal for ages, and when I do she has her mobile switched off. I call the office, but Alima, her secretary, says Mum is out all afternoon.

  I write a text message. Kidnapped and sent 2 Ireland. Please help. I press send.

  The conveyor belt creaks into life and luggage starts tumbling down on to the carousel, black bags and brown bags and fancy plaid bags, suitcases and rucksacks and finally my ol
d case. I let it circle the carousel three times before dragging it off the conveyor belt and on to a trolley and by then all the other passengers have gone.

  It’s only when I turn to start pushing the trolley that I see a familiar figure in the distance, watching me. I miss my footing for a moment, and have to grab on to the trolley. It’s just these stupid sandals – walking on three-inch wedges is never a picnic.

  He’s coming towards me. There’s nowhere I can hide, and that’s not fair, because Mum said he’d meet me by the main exit. He’s not allowed to turn up here, when I’m still tired and rumpled from the journey. I am not ready for this.

  ‘Scarlett!’ he says. ‘I waited a while and you didn’t appear, so I thought I’d come and find you. Couldn’t wait to see you!’

  I fix my face into a cold, blank mask and refuse to look at him. He touches my arm and I shake him off furiously. How dare he touch me? How dare he?

  ‘OK, Scarlett, OK,’ he says softly, the way you’d talk to a startled pony or an unruly puppy. He grabs my case and swings it off the trolley, striding through the hall and out to the car park where his old Morris Traveller is sitting, a stupid, ugly, ancient car from about a hundred years ago. It actually has strips of wood round the windows and doors, like something out of The Flintstones.

  He dumps my suitcase on to the back seat, so I have no choice but to sit in the front beside him. The car smells of warm leather and Polo mints, just like it always did. He turns the key and the engine shudders to life, sounding like a small tractor and moving only very slightly faster. It is easily the most embarrassing car in the whole universe.

  ‘Right then,’ says Dad. ‘Let’s go home.’

  Think of a girl, a skinny, grinny ten-year-old girl with curly brown hair and freckles and the kind of giggle you can hear a mile away. That was me. I was pretty I was popular, I worked hard at school – yes, me. Seriously.

  I was pretty much your typical middle-class, over-achieving London kid, with classes every night of the week, from karate and keyboards to drama and ballet.