by C. J. Flood
‘I was in a daze, because I’d been rushing around for so long, panicking, and now the school was on fire, and I was on the run, and Dad had hit me. I was just watching the rain, which had started pouring, hoping it would put the fire out before it got too bad, and then, all of a sudden, Will started shouting back.
‘We were on Castle Road, on that bend near the car park, and he just . . . lost control of the car. It veered left, and we went crashing off the road, through the trees down there. I thought we were dead. We were right by the spot where those girls went off the cliff last year – what were their names?’
‘Emily and Amelia.’ I said. I would never forget their names. Emily had been racing around the castle, like lots of the Beacon kids did, except she had misjudged the turn and was unable to stop in time, and her new car had gone careering off the cliff with her best friend in the passenger seat. The road had been designated a driving black spot, and speed bumps were scheduled. Amelia’s grieving parents talked about it on Pirate FM quite often. They were the ones who had petitioned the council.
‘Emily and Amelia, that’s it . . . There were still flowers around the tree; I saw them as we passed. I saw everything. I could see branches ripping off as we hit, they were slowing us down, and then the car stopped, just before we went over the edge – like something from a film – and me and Phe threw ourselves out, but Will was stuck. His seat belt wouldn’t budge, and he was shouting, and the car just tilted there, right on the edge of the cliff, about to go over any second.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘It was insane. I still can’t believe it. I was frozen. I couldn’t move. If it wasn’t for Phe . . . She was like an action hero; she knew exactly what to do. She pulled a piece of glass from the smashed windscreen and started hacking at the seat belt. Will was crying, like a little boy, telling her to hurry up, and all I could think was that the car was going to topple over with her still leaning in the window, but then she’d sawed through it, and we pulled him out, and less than a second later the car went.
‘The noise it made, Rosie. It was so loud. It crashed on to the rocks – it was like an explosion – all the birds flew up from the reef. Will was proper white, like a ghost, he just lay completely still on the ground. We all did. None of us saying anything, getting soaked.
‘It was his idea to leave our clothes on the beach. We all felt really calm, like we had to stick together . . . Afterwards, when the shock wore off. Will admitted he had been lying about Chase, and told us what had happened with Dad, and Ophelia admitted she’d started the fire. And it was weird. I can’t explain it. We’d almost died, but we hadn’t, and being alive was this huge present, and we knew that if we had died, people would have forgiven us. For everything.’
Her necklace was still clutched in my hand, and I held it out now. She took it from me.
‘You got a new chain,’ she said.
‘How did you break it? Did you rip it off your neck?’
‘I can’t explain. It was like we were becoming free of everything.’
‘You wanted to be free of me?’
‘I thought you wanted to be free of me! That’s what it felt like.’
‘I don’t want to be free of you, Ti, I never want to be free of you. I’m so sorry I made you feel like that. I’m sorry for . . . what I said. About . . . prison.’
‘Maybe you had a point,’ Ti said, sitting up. Reaching behind her head, she fastened the necklace, settled it to rest between her clavicles. ‘Anyway, thank you. I don’t know . . . It seemed right when Will said it, like the only answer.’
‘And how about now? Does it seem like the only answer now?’
Ti shrugged, too wrapped up in her story. ‘Will sneaked back into his to get some of Charlie’s old clothes, and me and Ophelia got undressed, and then we paddled along the shore to the rocks so our footprints wouldn’t be in the sand, and it was so cold I thought we were going to die, and then Will brought us this stuff to put on.’
‘And what about now?’ I said, again, pushing. ‘Do you regret it now?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go to The Bridge and I don’t want to work in the café. No one here likes me – except for you and Phe, and she’s not going to be here any more anyway . . . and you’ve, you know, got other friends.’
‘Not like you. None like you. Dad took my phone, you know. I didn’t see your calls till after.’
Ti shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It isn’t,’ I said. ‘I should have been there. Maybe none of this would have happened.’
‘Maybe it would have been worse,’ she said, and I imagined Ophelia on the rampage without Ti following her about.
‘So how come you’re still here?’
‘Will’s getting a car for his birthday. We’re going to drive to London, and find somewhere to live.’
‘Really?’ I wanted to say how unrealistic that sounded, but Ti could hardly keep her eyes open. ‘When?’
‘Saturday. There’s no going back, not now,’ Ti said, and her voice was soft and sleepy, her breathing shallow. ‘Not unless . . .’
‘Unless what?’
‘Chase gets better.’
‘I’m going to make it up to you,’ I said, and Ti murmured something I couldn’t catch.
Resting my head against the arm of the settee, I watched steam rise from her socks in front of the blow heater, while fog crept up the windows.
‘I’ll go and see Chase for you,’ I said, but Ti’s breathing had shifted. She was fast asleep.
Forty-five
The hospital was up the road from school, a big concrete fronted building that I’d visited lots of times before Grandad died two summers ago. Inside it was white-painted and busy, with medical staff charging to and fro. Non-medical people looked blank-eyed or sad or super-charged: a girl on crutches, a gowned man with magazines.
My heart galloped, another day at the races, but I was getting used to it. I breathed in my new way, in and out slowly. My only idea of how Chase was, and where she might be, had come from what Charlie had said, and she’d been lying. Grandad had been so thin at the end that you could feel his bones when you hugged him, and walking to intensive care without a breaking heart felt lucky and wrong in equal parts.
Waiting rooms, corridors, optimistic murals intended to distract dying people. Plants, a bald toddler, over-cheerful parents. I exited the lift with a doctor smiling over his text messages, and sneaked through the door that he was buzzed through without him noticing.
The carnations I’d bought on the way slipped in my sweating palm as I arrived at the nurse’s station. ‘I’m her niece,’ I said to the severe-looking woman that questioned me. She had thick blonde hair scraped into a huge donut on top of her head and broad shoulders.
‘Is she doing okay?’ My voice sounded hollow, and for the first time in my life I wished I were better at faking, that I’d paid more attention in Drama.
‘Oh, she’s in good hands, hen,’ she said with a thick Scottish accent, friendlier than she looked. ‘What pretty flowers! We’ll have to find another vase for the waiting room, they can’t go into the ICU – well-loved lady your auntie, isn’t she? It’s chock-a-block in there with cards and flowers and balloons. But I can’t let you see her.’
I froze.
‘I’m sorry, poppet. Nice try, but I have it on good authority that Ms Chase is an only child. No nieces or nephews, though they do keep turning up. It’s sweet, but your teacher’s very ill. Last thing she needs is a load of teenage germs getting to her. We’re very careful here, hen; we have to be. I’ll find that vase, shall I?’
She took the flowers, as I was backing off, away from her knowing smile, and into the nearest toilet.
I needed to see Chase for myself. To collect the facts for Ti. I’d woken her before dawn, and she’d leapt up in a panic and rushed back to Will’s shed, but before she left I’d promised her that this evening I’d have news she could trust.
After splashing cold water on to
my face, I rested my forehead on the mirror. My hair needed washing, and I had bags under my eyes, and I remembered something I’d heard Ms Chase say dozens of times before: to be a good actor you have to fool yourself. I needed to channel my panic over Ti and lack of sleep into concern for my poorly aunt. Perhaps every staff member wouldn’t be so well-informed. Perhaps I could fool somebody.
P. M. A. This nurse would let me pass. Forcing my feet to retrace their steps, I walked to try again. This time it was a different woman, older and more distracted, and I smiled sadly, remembering Grandad and how it felt in those last visits with him. How I still regretted not hugging him more.
A tear rolled down my cheek, and I didn’t wipe it.
‘I’m here to see my godmother, Laurie Chase,’ I said.
‘Good for you, and did they make sure you used the antiseptic wash on your way in?’ she asked, and I nodded, turning my head away as I caught sight of the blonde donut bobbing around in a half-curtained area just to our left.
‘She’s quite poorly, so be prepared,’ she said, coming out from behind the desk. ‘It’s good to keep a low-key reaction, if you can. Talk as you normally would.’
The nurse lifted her ID card to the sensor, and we were through into the ICU. Chase’s bed loomed ahead of me, like the danger room at the end of a nightmare.
Patients were enclosed in separate capsules, and I could see them lying under pale blue sheets. No one did a crossword, or watched TV or listened to music, like Mum since her illness struck. These people were solely recovering. That was the only activity taking place here.
The nurse led me to the last capsule on the right. A body was propped up against pillows, and at first I thought it must be the wrong person because this couldn’t be Ms Chase.
Her head was wrapped in bandages, and she was alone. Her face tilted to the left, mouth open and out breaths audible, a tube led from her nose, and her eyes were closed. A machine beeped out her heartbeat.
The shock of it made me jump back from the bed.
‘She’s on a lot of painkillers for the burns,’ the nurse said. ‘But you can still read to her or talk to her. That’s what her mum does.’
I nodded, shell-shocked – Ms Chase had a mum – staying back, near the entrance to her area, I knew I shouldn’t be here. ‘Is she going to be all right?’ I managed to say, and the nurse squeezed my shoulder before looking me in the eye.
‘She’s not out of the woods yet, doll, but she’s being very brave, and you need to be brave too.’
Beep . . . beep . . . beep . . . beep . . .
Sweat poured from my palms and I wiped them on my jeans. It hadn’t been real when I bought the flowers. I had been focused on Ti. I hadn’t understood. Intensive care wasn’t for ill people; it was for people who might die.
The kind nurse’s mouth was moving, worried about me, but I dodged out the way, as she reached forward to offer comfort. I didn’t deserve to be consoled. I was a horrible little liar, and Ms Chase was a real person with a mum, like anyone else. Ti was right; I couldn’t fix this. And I should never have come.
Forty-six
Dad came to wake me from a too-long pretend nap at one o’clock, and my stomach chugged with dread. I was due at June’s and Fab’s to discuss my speech. They’d rung as I arrived home from the hospital to ask if I would read at the vigil, calling me Ti’s greatest friend and their honorary daughter with such affection that I’d burst into guilt-ridden tears and agreed at once, though I had no idea if I could manage it.
Setting down a cup of tea, Dad told me how proud he was that I was stepping up finally, and speaking my truth, and when I mentioned a stomach ache I thought his head was going to fly off his neck. His ears went red, and he told me to not even think about it, and ordered me out of bed right now.
After making me a fried-egg sandwich – ‘Protein will give you energy’ – he walked me all the way to the De Furias’ though it was the opposite direction to the university.
‘You’re a good girl,’ he said, knocking on the door. ‘You’ve just got to resist this urge to do nothing all the time.’
June told him I was a little treasure, and I wished it were true.
‘I bought sfogliatelle,’ June said when Dad had left and I was struggling to take my shoes off in the hallway. My fingertips were sweaty and I couldn’t breathe. When had I become such a fraud? Fab smoked by the back door in his grubby grey dressing gown. My heart beat fast, making me twitchy. I didn’t deserve sfogliatelle. If the opportunity arose, I would sneak it out to Ti. But perhaps she didn’t deserve it either.
Coffee boiled on the stove, and June rushed to remove it from the hob before Fab had a go at her for scalding it. Though perhaps those days were over.
The candlelit vigil was the next evening, and June talked about the arrangements so far. The weather was promising to hold – a gift from god, she said – and she’d been worrying about whether they should buy candles or if people would remember to bring their own, and then St Benedict’s Church had stepped in and offered to provide tea lights for the evening.
‘We’re so happy to have you speak, Rosa. You’re such a good girl,’ she said, but I wasn’t. Had I ever been a good person? Or had I always just been a sneak? Lying about who I was and keeping secrets that shouldn’t be kept.
The girls are safe, I wanted to say. I saw Ti last night. This whole thing is a sham.
But June was on to her next question, about how many candles would be needed, and it was a tough one, because the De Furias weren’t the biggest collectors of friends, especially the young ones.
‘How many do you think will come from Fairfields? A guestimate,’ June asked shyly, and my heart sank.
‘Quite a few,’ I offered, and June’s sad eyes sparked a little, inspiring me. ‘Yes, quite a lot, I’d think.’
Fab threw his cigarette over the fence, and spat in the drain.
‘You don’t have to lie to us, Rosie; we’ve had enough of that. We love the truth round here. New policy.’
I looked at my feet, and June tutted as she poured milk into a pan on the hob.
‘They were little pigs sometimes, June, and you know it. Especially Ophelia. Takes after her effing father.’
‘Fab! I mean it. Stop now. All morning he’s been like this: negative, every word that comes out his big mouth. Ignore him, Rosie, please. Ignore him. Maybe the girls weren’t nice to every single child at school every single day of the year, but people like to give second chances. People like to think they’d get a second chance themselves. Wouldn’t you agree, Fabio?’
Fab sat at the kitchen table, and closed his eyes.
‘My friends Alisha and Ava and Kiaru will come,’ I said, wanting to give something that was true, however puny. June looked pleased as she poured the coffee.
Kiaru didn’t call any more, but this morning he’d sent an email telling me they’d be at the vigil, along with an attachment of an orang-utan cuddling a koala. We’d talked about it once, odd pairings of different animals, and whether there was anything better. I sent back a tiger and a bear, wondering if he’d still want to email me if he knew I was hiding my best friend in his garden. If he knew the real me. (Who even was that?)
At June’s insistence Fab showed me the leaflets they’d had made: the same birthday picture of the twins, with the words HAVE YOU SEEN US? at the top, and then details of the vigil printed at the bottom. My eyes were drawn like magnets to the question, and I thought I might gag.
‘Take some with you,’ June said, and I took them in silence.
‘Alex Riviere printed those for us,’ June said. ‘He got in touch with Pirate FM too. He’s going on the radio tomorrow, to put a call out. He’s friendly with one of the DJs apparently. Poor boy, he’s quite distraught. I think he might have a soft spot for our Ophelia.’
Fab harrumphed, and June shot a look at him that said quite clearly: don’t you dare.
She pulled a plate of sfogliatelle from the oven, and with a determined expression turned
to me. ‘Eat them while they’re warm,’ she said, and her hand visibly trembled as she added milk to our gold-rimmed cups.
Fab took the darkest pastry, and shoved half of it in his mouth. With flakes on his lips he spoke, and his voice was soft and quiet, like I’d rarely heard it. ‘Nothing tastes the same without the girls, does it, eh? Pigs or not.’
June dipped her head, leaning over to wipe at Fab’s lips with the cuff of her cardigan, and my mouthful of cream and pastry turned to cat litter on my tongue.
Forty-seven
‘I can’t keep your secret,’ I said to Ti.
It was around one o’clock in the morning, and we had just arrived at the summer house, were sitting on the sofa with the heat turned high. Ti refused to look at the flier Fab had given me, twisting her body away when I put it in front of her face. ‘Please don’t, Rosie. I feel terrible as it is.’
‘No, you need to know what you’re doing.’
‘Stop it!’ She grabbed the flier from my hand and scrunched it up.
‘See! You couldn’t do it, if you knew. If you could see your mum and dad, you wouldn’t be hiding like this. They haven’t given up on you, you know. And they’re never going to.’
Ti closed her eyes.
‘I went to see Chase too.’
Oh my god.’
‘I wanted to have something good to tell you, that’s why I went, but there isn’t anything good, and I shouldn’t have gone. She’s not out of the woods yet, that’s what the nurse said. She’s got breathing apparatus, and bandages all over her face . . .’
Ti had her head in her hands.
‘People are accusing your dad of . . .’
‘Don’t! Will already told us; we know all about it.’
‘And it’s okay with you is it?’
‘No, but . . . you know. It’s not like they’re going to find our bodies, is it?’
‘Can you hear yourself? What you’re saying? Your dad’s not shaving or getting changed out of his dressing gown, Ti. They’re thinking of selling the café. I mean, are you even sorry?’