by Lisa Jewell
‘I don’t really know what to say,’ said Jenna.
He sighed. ‘Well, maybe you could have a word with your mum when you get home? Tell her to come and have a chat, next time she sees me, or my wife? Say hello. Maybe we can work out where we know each other from? Yes?’ He smiled warmly. His laser-beam eyes turned soft.
‘Yes.’ Jenna nodded eagerly, sensing the end of the conversation.
‘Good. And remember, you have good friends here. Not just me and the staff, but your peers – Bess, for example. People who really care about you. So never feel like you can’t talk about things. Because you totally can. OK?’
‘OK.’ She nodded again and began to rise from the squashy chair.
She felt the touch of Mr Fitzwilliam’s hand against her sleeve and something rushed through her, sluice-like, ice cold but red hot both at the same time. She pulled her arm away and covered the spot with her own hand.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Bye.’
‘Goodbye, Jenna. Stay in touch.’
Bess ran to catch up with her at the end of school. For a moment Jenna was tempted to cold shoulder her but she knew that would be pointless. Bess didn’t have the neural pathways to intuit things like cold shoulders.
‘So,’ she said, falling into step with her as they neared the gates. ‘What the hell? Tell?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘It was nothing.’
‘It can’t have been nothing,’ she said. ‘No one gets called into the head teacher’s office in the middle of lunchtime for nothing. So?’
‘Urgh.’ Jenna capitulated. ‘His wife told him she’d seen my mum following them about. He was just asking me about it, that’s all.’
‘Oh.’ Bess inhaled sharply and fell a step behind her before quickly catching up again.
‘You told him, didn’t you?’ said Jenna, stopping and turning to face her friend. ‘I could tell he knew something. You told him about my mum.’
‘No! I didn’t. I swear! He just … he asked me if I knew what your mum looked like. That was all.’
‘Was this when you were chatting on a hotel landing in the middle of the night?’
Bess nodded, nervously. ‘But it wasn’t anything like what you’re thinking! He just said, What does Jenna’s mum look like, and I told him and he nodded and that was that.’
‘But didn’t you want to know why he was asking? I mean … it couldn’t just have been that. Like, no context, nothing. He must have asked something ese.’
Bess shrugged. ‘He asked if she was all right. He asked if you were all right. I said …’
Jenna inhaled.
‘I said your mum had some issues but that it wasn’t my place to talk to him about them and that if he wanted to know about them he should talk to you.’ She tipped her chin up stubbornly. ‘So—’
‘Fucking hell, Bess. Fuck!’
‘What? It was nothing! I didn’t say anything! I swear.’
‘You said enough though, didn’t you? Enough to have him asking questions. Enough for him to get other people involved. And now everything’s going to get completely fucked up!’
‘God, Jen, it’s already fucked up! I don’t see how it could get any worse! You know everyone in the village is starting to talk about your mum? My mum said when we were in Seville your mum was out on the high street all the time, talking to people, being really weird. Maybe it’s a good thing if Mr Fitzwilliam wants to help. Maybe you should let him.’
29
The cinnamon suede skirt had arrived on Monday.
‘What’s this, love?’ his mum had asked, handing him the package distractedly. ‘Forever 21. Isn’t that girls’ clothes?’
‘It’s a thing,’ he’d said, taking the parcel from her. ‘Costume. For a project.’
‘I could have ordered that for you,’ she’d said. ‘No reason for you to be paying for school things out of your own money.’
‘I know. But you weren’t here and I needed it.’
She’d turned to locate her handbag, pulled out her purse. ‘Here,’ she’d said, fingering a twenty. ‘How much was it?’
He hadn’t wanted her to pay for it. He’d wanted it to come from him. ‘Just cheap,’ he’d said, ‘four pounds. Something like that. Don’t worry about it.’
‘No,’ she’d said, moving her fingers to the coin section. ‘No. I insist. Here.’ She’d handed him two two-pound coins.
He’d taken them. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
In his room he’d unwrapped the package. The skirt had looked disappointingly cheap in the crinkly plastic bag but once he’d pulled it out and refolded it and wrapped it in some silver tissue he’d found in the Christmas bag under the stairs it looked fine.
He took it to school on Wednesday in his rucksack, folded inside a manila envelope. Attached to the package was a note saying, ‘From an admirer.’ Each time he reached into the rucksack he felt the contours of the thing like a whispered secret in his ear. He left school urgently at 4 p.m., whistled down the corridors and bolted through the front door, eyes straight ahead. He walked unnaturally fast towards town, casting his gaze over his shoulder every now and then, checking for the flash of royal-blue blazer. By the time he reached Romola’s house he was breathless and sweating. He heard the high-pitched yap of the chihuahua as he approached the front door. He pushed the package swiftly through the letterbox, not waiting to see if anyone was home.
He passed Romola on her way home a few moments later. Her hair was in two complicated-looking plaits that were woven into her scalp. He saw her eyes pass over the badge on his blazer before resting once again on the pavement beneath her huge feet. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t notice him. She passed by in a wash of odd sadness and gut-gnawing beauty. Freddie felt his head spin and for a moment he forgot how to walk. After a few steps he stopped and turned. He saw Romola from behind, watched her strange gait, her plaits, her glory, walking out of view.
He overheard a conversation between his mum and dad the next morning. They were in the kitchen. From outside he could hear drawers sliding and banging, cutlery jangling, plates from the dishwasher being stacked one on top of the other, the low rumble of BBC news in the background.
‘I spoke to the girl yesterday,’ he heard his father say. ‘The daughter.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Told her what you said.’
Freddie heard the plate-stacking come to a sudden halt, then his mother’s voice. ‘Yes?’
‘She says that apparently her mum thinks she knows us. That they met us on holiday a few years back.’
‘Oh.’ He heard a cupboard door open and then bang shut. ‘And did they?’
Silence again.
‘She didn’t seem to know. She was vague. Had no idea even where this holiday might have been.’
‘Well, it’s not like there’s a lot to choose from. It’s not as if we’ve even really been on holiday the last few years. Apart from the Lakes that time and a few nights at your mum’s. And I certainly don’t recognise her.’
Freddie drew in his breath. He hated thinking about the holiday in the Lake District. It had been the worst, worst, worst time. His dad hated holidays and had made it clear from the outset that he didn’t want to be there and resented them both for persuading him to go. He’d been grumpy all week, which had made Mum even more subservient and desperate to please him and they’d both walked on eggshells constantly and it had been hot, so, so hot. The steaming B & B with the sealed-up windows, Freddie’s mattress on the floor at the foot of his parents’ bed, like a baby, even though he was nine years old, and his mum shushing him every time he opened his mouth to complain about something. And then there’d been that day when they went on a coach. And that woman had come over and hit Dad. Really hit him, hard. Her face had been contorted and spit had spun from her lips as she shouted. Freddie had never before seen a person so angry, so black and red with rage.
Then the woman had said swear words that wouldn’t rattle Freddie now but had shocked him at the time, the
sound of each word cutting into him like a knife. She’d been shouting at his dad: How can you live with yourself, she kept saying, how can you live with yourself?
His dad had taken the woman by the arms, quite roughly, and moved her like a sack of rocks to a spot across the street. Freddie had watched as they gesticulated silently at each other, their words swallowed up by passing cars. Then thirty seconds later his dad had stalked back across the street and hustled him and his mum back on to the coach. ‘Get on!’ he’d hissed in Freddie’s ear, his hand tight round Freddie’s arm. ‘Just get on.’
And everyone had been standing and staring, and Freddie had felt his face burn hot.
When they got back on the coach Freddie peered through the window to the spot across the street where the woman had been standing with Dad. She was still there, encircled now in the arms of another woman, a younger woman, similar in appearance. The younger woman looked up at the coach and caught Freddie’s gaze. Inside that gaze he saw pure, distilled hatred. He looked away and buried his face in his mother’s shoulder.
When he looked back again, both the women were gone.
Neither of his parents would talk about it afterwards. Just a loony, they said. Thought Dad was someone else. Mistaken identity. Just forget about it. There are some very strange people in this world.
But the rest of the holiday was even worse after that. His mum stopped being subservient and was instead brittle and silent. His parents barely spoke a word to each other until it was time to come home. And then all they talked about was road directions. It was at least a week or two until things felt normal again.
‘Anyway,’ he heard his dad continue, ‘I said we’re here to help. I still suspect mental health issues. It’s one thing to think you recognise someone. It’s another to hide in the undergrowth taking photos.’
Freddie nodded to himself. Of course. They were talking about the weird woman across the way. The one who watched him when he was watching her. The one he’d given the finger to. Jenna Tripp’s mum. Was it possible, he pondered, that they’d met them on holiday? Had they been at the B & B? Had they been there that day? Had they seen what had happened? Did they know the truth?
A blurred figure appeared the other side of the stained-glass panes of the front door, followed by a polite thrum of the doorbell. Freddie opened it. It was him, the big guy with the tattoos, Joey’s husband. He was wearing paint-splattered overalls and huge brown boots. He peered down at Freddie and said, ‘Morning, mate,’ before wiping his feet at least ten times on the mat. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Good,’ said Freddie, closing the door behind him.
‘Glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘Your mum about?’
Freddie pointed in the direction of the kitchen.
He watched the big man head down the hallway, knock gently on the kitchen door, push it open and say, ‘Morning Mrs Fitzwilliam, Mr Fitzwilliam,’ and then he heard his mum say, ‘Please, Alfie, I keep telling you, call me Nicola. Cup of tea?’
The door closed behind him and Freddie stood alone. He grasped the banister for a moment. There was crazy stuff swirling about his consciousness, disconnected things randomly hurtling towards each other: the strange woman in the village and the angry woman in the Lake District; Red Boots and his dad; his dad and his photos; his photos and Romola; his mum and the big man in the kitchen come to paint their walls for no particular reason because wouldn’t they be gone from here soon anyway? Wasn’t that how their lives worked? The moment Freddie found a reason to want to stay somewhere his dad breezed in and told him it was time to move on.
He rested his forehead against the cool wood of the banister and kicked his foot hard against the skirting board. He wanted … he didn’t know what he wanted. His giant brain was not helping him now. His ridiculous IQ was not showing up on a white steed to navigate him through this maze of weirdness. He just wanted to touch Romola’s hair. That was it. He wanted to touch her hair and make her smile.
30
9 March
Jenna saw Mr Fitzwilliam at his usual post the next morning, standing sentry at the school gates, greeting each student by name, throwing out hail-fellow-well-met greetings as though they were dog treats. She noticed how the children loved them, lapped them up. She could see why he was so lauded, why they called him the Superhead. He clearly knew how to run a school, knew what to feed it, how to nourish it, when to slap the back of its hand and when to pat its head. He had the aura of humorous capability and effortless control that children liked in an adult.
But still.
That didn’t mean she had to like him too.
He shouldn’t have touched her arm like that in his office. It was unprofessional. A bit like talking to fifteen-year-old girls on hotel landings in the middle of the night. And he shouldn’t have approached her directly about her mother. She was sure there were other paths he should have taken, protocols he should have followed.
Jenna could see the shadow of a white T-shirt beneath his thin blue shirt. She didn’t like the idea of it, of Mr Fitzwilliam in a white T-shirt. It was sort of gross.
She passed him with pursed lips and a hard, awkward grind to her stride.
‘Good morning, Miss Tripp,’ he said.
‘Morning, sir,’ she said without making eye contact. But even without looking at him she could tell he was smiling down at her. She could sense his hands in his trouser pockets, the subtle rut of his hips, a twinkle in his eye. Was it in fact mildly inappropriate for him to call her Miss Tripp?
She strode towards the front doors and marched up to the lockers. Bess was already there. She’d left without her this morning; Jenna had seen her halfway up the road out of the village. She’d written a text saying, Wait up bitch, but deleted it. Then she’d watched Bess run to catch up with Lottie and Tiana and she’d felt a stab of sickening sadness in her guts. Now that she was face-to-face with Bess she didn’t know what to say.
‘Sorry I didn’t wait for you,’ Bess said, nibbling on a fingernail. ‘Just felt a bit weird after yesterday.’
Jenna ached to say, Me too, and draw the line and make things good. But she couldn’t do it. The words were too deeply buried under piles of other stuff for her to quite reach them.
‘Whatever,’ she said instead. She unlocked her locker and started to fold her coat into it. She wanted Bess to say something, but she didn’t. She just locked her locker and took her books and turned away. Jenna watched her walk down the corridor, tears aching against the back of her throat.
Bess didn’t eat her lunch in the classroom that day and she wasn’t waiting for Jenna to walk home together at the end of the day either. Instead Jenna walked home alone, listening to a Sam Smith channel on Spotify. As she passed Caffè Nero on the other side of the main road she spotted Bess’s creamy blond head, tipped back with laughter, surrounded by the heads of Tiana and Lottie and Ruby. Jenna turned the volume right up and walked faster.
As she walked she became aware of someone behind her, matching her pace. She turned and saw a boy wearing a black blazer from one of the posh schools across town. She recognised him, vaguely; he was familiar. As her eye caught his he picked up his pace and stood alongside her.
‘You’re Jenna Tripp?’ said the boy.
He was odd-looking; around the same height as her, a pinched face, too much very straight hair growing downwards from his crown like a spillage, a slight air of dark superiority.
She suddenly realised that it was Mr Fitzwilliam’s son. She pulled out her earbuds and nodded.
‘Freddie Fitzwilliam,’ said the boy, holding out his hand for her to shake. ‘My father is the head at your school.’
She stared at him, not sure how to respond.
‘And I live just over there.’ He pointed towards Melville Heights, a stripe of dark colour in the distance. ‘Near you.’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It depends.’
‘It’s about the Lake District.’<
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She stopped walking and turned to him. ‘What about it?’
‘Is that where your mum recognises my dad from?’
‘What?’
‘I overheard my dad telling my mum that the reason your mum keeps following him is that she remembers him from a holiday. And we’ve only been on one holiday. And that was the Lake District. Was it that? Were you there?’
Jenna shrugged. ‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘Can’t remember. Why does it matter?’
The boy called Freddie stared intently at a spot on her shoulder, stepped from one foot to the other and back again. He put a delicate hand to the side of his face and made a strange noise. He looked as though he was about to say something and then he suddenly brought his gaze from her shoulder to her face and said, ‘It doesn’t. Really. Forget I said anything. And don’t tell my dad.’
She shook her head slightly.
‘Promise.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. Whatever.’ She wanted this boy gone; she wanted this encounter to end.
He looked once more from her shoulder to her face and then back again before picking up his pace and darting ahead of her. She stood in place watching him until his outline was a smudge in the distance and then she carried on home.
Her mum was at the computer when she got back. She was on one of her chat rooms, one of the many places on the internet where she could go to have her craziness validated.
Gang-stalking.
Jenna had googled it the first time her mother had triumphantly lifted her head from her laptop, eyes blazing and said, It’s real! It’s happening to thousands of people all over the world! I’m being gang-stalked! It belonged to the same school of delusion-based psychiatric disorders as Morgellons and alien abductions. Her mother genuinely believed that she was being persecuted by a huge network of strangers, and that Mr Fitzwilliam was the puppet master. She believed that strangers came into their home while they slept and rearranged things and stole things and damaged things, just to mess with their heads. Her mother believed that her persecutors saw it as a kind of perverse hobby, a huge, boundless real-life game that ate into their own time and finances. She believed that she was being persecuted for her many political protests as a young person. She believed that Mr Fitzwilliam was not a head teacher but a powerful man with connections to the government who was being sent into schools and communities to manage the gang-stalking from the inside.