Is Anybody There?

by Jean Ure

“No. But he drove me the wrong way, he took me down Gravelpit Hill, it was really, really scary. And now there’s all this about Gayle, and a blue car, and … you know on Saturday, we played The Game?”

  “Yes,” said Chloe, “and you went all peculiar.”

  “I didn’t go peculiar, I saw something … I was in a car. It was a car I’d been in before. Or a car like one I’d been in before. Only I couldn’t work out whether it was me, or whether it was Gayle, so that’s why I didn’t say anything, ’cos you can’t always tell the difference. But now there’s these women, and a blue car, and I don’t know what to do!”

  My voice came out in a self-pitying wail. Some Year 9 girls gave me these weird looks as they walked past.

  “What do I do?” I said. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “There’s only one thing you can do,” said Chloe. “Go to the police. Jo, you’ve got to!”

  “But suppose it wasn’t really Gayle? Suppose it was just me?”

  “It’s the same car,” said Chloe.

  “It might be the same car.”

  “It’s the same colour. And he did try to abduct you! I don’t know why you didn’t say something before!”

  “I didn’t want Mum knowing about it. And I didn’t want to upset Dee. I still don’t want to!”

  “But if he’s done something to Gayle, and he did something to you, he could do something to Dee, as well. She could be in danger!”

  “Except he didn’t actually do anything to me.”

  “No, ’cos you managed to escape! Think how you’d feel,” said Chloe, “if something happened to Dee and you could have stopped it.”

  She didn’t say, think how you’ll feel if something’s happened to Gayle, but she didn’t have to, because I was already feeling it. I knew that I should have gone to the police ages ago, or at least told Mum.

  “Jo, you’ve got to report it,” said Chloe. “I think you should go and see Miss Adams.”

  “She’ll be so angry,” I quavered.

  Miss Adams is our head teacher, and is quite frightening at the best of times. But I couldn’t really argue; Chloe was only telling me what I already knew.

  “I’ll come with you,” she said. “I’ll give you moral support.”

  She marched me back into school and along to the office, where she announced in ringing tones for everyone within a five mile radius to hear, that “Jo has to see Miss Adams. It’s urgent!” Mrs Biswas, the school secretary, raised an eyebrow. She is probably not used to Year 8 pupils demanding to see the Head.

  It’s usually the other way round, the Head demanding to see you. I was trembling now. I was probably looking like I was in a bit of a state, because Mrs Biswas asked me quite gently, and not in her normal dragon tones, what the problem was. Chloe, all self-important, said, “She’s got something to tell her. About Gayle.”

  Well, that was it; Mrs Biswas immediately went into action. Within seconds – it seemed like only seconds – I was in Miss Adams’s room pouring out my story (Chloe having been sent packing, much to her indignation). Miss Adams listened to me in grave silence, and at the end she said, “Is your mother at home?” Oh, God, she was going to ring Mum! But Mum would have had to hear sooner or later, so it was probably just as well.

  While we were waiting for Mum to arrive, Miss Adams asked me lots of questions, which I did my best to answer truthfully and in as much detail as possible; then when Mum appeared, looking worried and flustered, and obviously wondering what kind of ghastly trouble I had got myself into, we had to go through it all again for her benefit, only this time, thank goodness, Miss Adams did most of the talking. Every now and again she would say, “Is that right, Joanne? Is that what happened?” and I would mutter “Yes” and do my best not to catch Mum’s eye.

  Neither of them lectured me, or told me how criminally stupid I’d been. The lectures came later. And how! But that day, in Miss Adams’s study, they were mainly concerned about Gayle. Miss Adams rang the police, and two CID people came round, like, at the double. So then it all had to be told for the third time, and the more I heard it the more guilty I felt at having kept quiet for so long.

  Nobody actually blamed me for not saying anything, though one of the CID officers, the female one, did ask me why I hadn’t. I went scarlet and mumbled that I hadn’t wanted to upset Dee. Mum looked at me rather hard, as if she knew that that was only part of the reason. Her look seemed to say, “I’ll speak to you later, my girl.” (Which she did, but I think I will draw a veil over that.)

  After I had been thoroughly grilled – I believe that is the correct word for when someone is being questioned by the police – Mum and I had to go down to the police station. In a police car! (They brought us back later to pick up our own car.)

  I felt very self-conscious, walking out of school with two CID people. Even though they were in plain clothes I felt that everyone who saw them would guess they were police, and would wonder what I had done. As it happened, it was the middle of the first period after lunch, so lessons were in progress and I don’t think anybody did see me, but I still didn’t like it. I felt like I had committed some crime and was under arrest. Mum was grim the whole time, and I knew she was saving up things to say to me.

  Once at the police station I was taken to an interview room, where I had to give a statement. It should have been easy, because by now I had told the story at least three times, but I kept worrying that I wasn’t remembering properly, or wasn’t saying it right. Like when the police wanted to know – again, ’cos they had already asked me once – whether Paul had done anything to me, and I said he hadn’t; but then I suddenly remembered how he had leaned across me to get to the glove compartment and how there had been a screwdriver in there, and I had screamed and jerked away, and he had almost lost control of the wheel. That was something I hadn’t said first time round, because it didn’t really count as “doing anything”, and it had somehow just slipped my memory. But as soon as I said it, they pounced, and wanted to know more, like did I think he was actually reaching for the screwdriver; to which I had to say that I didn’t know. All I knew was that he had driven me down Gravelpit Hill and I had been terrified.

  There was one thing I didn’t tell the police and hadn’t told Miss Adams, either. I didn’t say anything about my session with Dee and Chloe, when they had given me Gayle’s chain to hold. I didn’t think that they would understand; and, besides, it didn’t really seem relevant. But I did tell Mum about it, when we finally arrived back home. I’m not sure what prompted me, except perhaps that I needed to get it off my chest. And oh, it was such a relief! I realised that I had felt really guilty about it.

  I thought Mum would be angry, but she said that what concerned her far more was that I had accepted a lift from a virtual stranger, rather than that I had “misused my gift”.

  “I know the temptation. Believe me, I do!”

  “Did you ever misuse your gift?” I said.

  Mum said she was ashamed to admit that she did. Mum had grown up in ignorance of the fact that she had psychic powers. Her gran – my great gran, that I never knew – had been reputed to “see things”, and her mum – my gran – had once predicted that her next door neighbour would find her missing wedding ring “down the side of the sofa”, and she had.

  “But everyone just put that down to a lucky guess.”

  Nobody ever warned Mum about misusing her gift, because nobody ever realised that she had it. Mum herself only knew that sometimes, when she was with someone, she would get these “feelings”. One day at school she borrowed a pen from her best friend, Liz, and she got really strong feelings.

  “Of excitement,” said Mum. “So I asked Liz and she said it was true, she was excited. She was going up to London, to the ballet. So then I started doing it deliberately … borrowing things from people. Pens, rubbers, rulers, seeing what feelings they gave me. It was just a game – except in the end it wasn’t, as you’ve discovered.”

  I asked Mum what had happened, and
she said that even after all these years she didn’t really like to talk about it.

  “Which is why I’ve never told you before. It still makes me feel bad. I borrowed something from a girl called Janice Baker. She was one of those girls … we all used to gang up on her. I suppose today you’d call her a nerd, or a wimp. We just thought she was wet. Anyway, I had these really dark feelings come over me, like someone was walking across my grave. A few days later we learnt that she’d been taken to hospital … she’d been in a car crash.”

  “Did she die?” I said.

  “Yes.” Mum nodded. “I know it wasn’t anything I did, and there was probably nothing I could have done to stop it, but after that I didn’t play the game any more.”

  “I’m not going to play it, either!” I said.

  “Well, I’m glad about that,” said Mum. “But, Jo, I’m really horrified that at your age, after all the times we’ve talked about it, you could be so foolish as to get into a car with someone you don’t know. How could you do such a thing? What were you thinking of? No! Don’t tell me.” She held up a hand. “I remember … what was it? Glitter boots! All for a pair of tacky fashion items that wouldn’t last five minutes, you go and put your life in jeopardy! I’m at a loss. It hardly bears thinking about!”

  She went on this vein for quite some time. This is the part I’m drawing a veil over, as it was rather uncomfortable. I didn’t try defending myself because I knew that I couldn’t.

  “All I can say,” said Mum, “is that I hope to goodness you’ve learnt your lesson.”

  I said, “Mum, I have!”

  “Even I,” said Mum, “have never done anything quite as stupid as that. And heaven knows,” she said, “I’ve done some stupid things in my time!”

  “It’s just that he was Dee’s brother,” I pleaded.

  “I hear you,” said Mum. “But has it never occurred to you that people are always someone’s brother? Someone’s father? Someone’s husband?”

  I hung my head.

  “Anyway,” she said, “you did the right thing in the end. It’s a pity you didn’t do it sooner, but—”

  “Dee’s going to hate me!” I said.

  “It won’t be easy,” agreed Mum, “for either of you. But she’s a sensible girl, I’m sure she’ll understand. She couldn’t expect you to keep quiet indefinitely. You had to speak out, Jo. I know Dee’s your friend, but if there’s any danger at all of him doing to other girls what he might have done to you … even Dee herself could be at risk.”

  “I know.” I heaved a sigh. “That’s what Chloe said.”

  “Well, Chloe talked sense for once.”

  “But suppose Paul isn’t anything to do with it?” I said.

  “In that case, there’s no harm done. At least the police will be able to eliminate him from their enquiries. Even so,” said Mum, “we still have to ask ourselves why he was taking you down Gravelpit Hill.”

  “He said he liked it better than the other way.”

  “Even though the other way is half again as short?”

  “Yes, and why did he have a screwdriver?” I said.

  Mum said she wasn’t so bothered about that. “People might have a screwdriver for all sorts of legitimate reasons. But to take you off in the wrong direction … that needs some explaining.”

  A few minutes after I’d had this conversation with Mum, the phone rang. It was Dee.

  “Where were you?” she demanded. “What happened?” I said, “I—” “What?”

  “I had to –

  “What?”

  “Had to—”

  “Chloe said something about you going to see Miss Adams.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I had to go and see Miss Adams.”

  “About Gayle?”

  “Yes. I had to – had to – tell her something.”

  “What?”

  “I c-can’t s-say, it’s …”

  “Does Chloe know?”

  “Ch-Chloe?” I said.

  “She’s got that look. You know that look she gets? When she’s hiding something?”

  I swallowed.

  “If you could tell her, I should have thought you could’ve told me,” said Dee.

  She was obviously feeling hurt. I could understand it; I would have felt hurt in her place. How could I tell Chloe something and not tell Dee? I muttered that I had told Chloe before I had been warned by Miss Adams “not to go talking about it”.

  “You weren’t there,” I said. “You’d gone off somewhere.”

  “I was at a meeting,” said Dee.

  “Yes. Well … this is what I’m saying. You weren’t there! If you had have b—”

  “Hang on,” said Dee. “Something’s happening. I’ll ring you back.”

  As I put the phone down, I found my hand was shaking. What did she mean, something was happening? Was it the police? Had they gone round there? I had these visions of Paul, being dragged from the house in handcuffs . Except that surely they wouldn’t do that until they knew for certain? Surely they would just ask him – politely – to accompany them to the police station for questioning. That was what they did. They didn’t go round arresting people before they had proof. Did they?

  Before I could consult Mum, the phone had rung again. This time it was Chloe, in a state of barely suppressed excitement.

  “Hi! What happened? Did you go to the police?”

  I said, “I don’t want to talk about it. Dee’s just rung me. It was awful!”

  I heard a little gasp from Chloe’s end. “Does she know? Have they taken him away?”

  I said, “I don’t know. We shouldn’t be talking about it!”

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” said Chloe, virtuously.

  “You told her I’d gone to Miss Adams about Gayle!”

  “Oh. Yes – well. I had to tell her something.”

  I didn’t see why she had to, but I wasn’t about to get into an argument.

  “Look, I have to go,” I said. “Tea’s ready, and I’m expecting Dee to ring back.”

  “OK.” Chloe said it quite amiably. She’s always very good-natured, which is just as well since she spends a large part of her life putting her foot in things, upsetting people and being yelled at. Chloe, for goodness’ sake! Chloe, you IDIOT! Chloe, how COULD you? She never takes offence.

  “See you tomorrow,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “See you.”

  I spent the rest of the evening waiting in a kind of dread for Dee to ring back, but she never did; and on the news next morning they announced that there had been “fresh developments in the case of missing teenager Gayle Gardiner”.

  A local man was helping police with their inquiries.

  It had never occurred to me to swear Chloe to secrecy; I mean, I just never thought. I knew she was a blabbermouth, I knew the only way you could rely on her to keep a secret was if you sealed her lips with sticky tape and tied her hands behind her back. But this was more than just a secret. It was more than just our usual girly chitchat about who was going out with whom and who had stolen someone else’s boy friend. It was something I had told her in strictest confidence. I never for one moment imagined she would go and blurt it out – and especially not to Gayle’s sister.

  I could sense the minute I walked into the classroom that the atmosphere was tense. Ellie was huddled in a corner with two of her friends; she was crying, and they both had their arms round her. Other people were standing around in little groups, looking shocked and not talking. I saw Dee, sitting at her desk, with her head bent over a book; and Chloe, hovering on the fringe of Ellie and her friends.

  I was about to go over to Dee when Mr McFarlane breezed in, brisk and ill-tempered as usual, to start on the first lesson of the day. Maths, heaven help us! Dee, being some kind of genius, was in the A group for maths, which meant she took herself off to a different classroom and thus I didn’t get a chance to speak to her; for which, to be honest, I was profoundly grateful. I just didn’t know what I would find to
say. Or if she would even let me.

  After maths we had French. Dee and I were in the same group for French and normally sat next to each other, but that morning Dee deliberately chose a desk as far away from me as it was possible to get.

  As far away from everyone else, as well. I could understand why I was being shunned – if I had had a brother and my best friend had shopped him to the police, I probably wouldn’t want to talk to them, either; but what had the others done to upset her?

  Shayna Phillips, who was sitting near me, leant across to whisper.

  “It must be so awful for her!”

  I said, “W-what must?”

  “Well – you know! Her brother.”

  I obviously looked confused. Which I was.

  “Being arrested,” mouthed Shayna.

  “But—” How did Shayna know that Paul had been arrested? All they had said on the news was that a local man was helping police with their enquiries. They hadn’t given out his name; and in any case, helping the police was not the same as being arrested. “Who told you?”

  Mrs Armstrong came in at that point. Shayna had just the time to whisper the one word, “Chloe.”

  “Chloe?” I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe that even Chloe could be that … untrustworthy. That disloyal. How could she do such a thing?

  “She told Ellie.”

  I opened my mouth to say, “Ellie?” but Mrs Armstrong got in ahead of me.

  “Joanne, I cannot believe that my somewhat ample presence has escaped your attention?”

  Mrs Armstrong is rather plump, hence her reference to ample presence, which would normally have made everyone laugh. Today people just gave nervous smiles. I gazed across at Dee, willing her to look in my direction, but she kept her head down the whole lesson. I felt so bad! She must have thought that Chloe and I had ganged up on her, gone behind her back – which of course, in a way, we had. I wished with all my heart that I had never confided in Chloe. Dee would probably still have hated me, for going to the police, but at least no one else would have known about it. Now, thanks to Chloe – thanks to me – it seemed that the entire school knew. Certainly everybody in our class.