by Matthew Crow
We both took a moment to catch our breath from laughing.
‘What have people at school been saying?’ I asked.
I lay my head in Donna’s groin as she dragged her fingers from my scalp towards the tips of my hair.
‘Oh, not much. I don’t think many people noticed. It’s GCSE season. It’s all revision timetable this and coursework that.’
‘Really?’ I asked, momentarily forgetting that the whole town seemed to know where I’d been. Donna fixed me a pitiful look.
‘Of course not,’ she said with a roll of her eyes as I dug my elbow into her leg. ‘Sorry, but what do you expect? You had a breakdown in the middle of lunch.’
‘I’d thought at least with Sarah gone they’d have switched their attention.’
‘Turns out Year Eleven have mastered the art of multitasking.’
I felt myself wither.
‘Who cares though? You’ve got me. I’ll protect you,’ she said. ‘I missed you too, C-dog, I was just saving face when I said I didn’t.’ She reached out her right hand and squeezed my tits, one by one. ‘Promise me you won’t let it get that bad again.’
‘I promise,’ I said, and hoped that I meant it.
‘Bros before hos,’ she said, ruffling my hair.
‘Bros before hos,’ I said, as she stood up and made her way to the door.
‘Donna,’ I said, just as she was leaving.
‘Claudette,’ she said, turning and walking slowly backwards.
‘What do you think happened to Sarah?’ I asked.
She thought for a moment and shrugged.
‘I think,’ she said, and sighed, ‘I think Sarah went wherever girls like Sarah go. Wherever it is. I doubt it’s a good place.’
5
Smoke and Mirrors
My room must have been on fire during the night.
When I first opened my eyes it was filled with smoke.
I didn’t smell burning so I blinked once then rolled over and went back to sleep.
When I woke back up my arm was outstretched and numb. My alarm clock lay in two halves on the bedroom door.
The smoke was all but gone.
‘Paula said she might pop round for a cup of tea later on,’ Dad said as we were getting ready to make our way into school; a meeting had been arranged to discuss the possibility of my return.
I would be faced with a panel of disapproving teachers.
I would act remorseful for smashing the window.
I’d apologise for the mirror.
I’d acknowledge it was probably wrong to have sworn so much at Mrs Bradley as she grasped at my bloodied arms, trying to hold me to the floor while people took video clips on their phones and the receptionist called Dad, the police, the hospital – just about any authority that they could think of.
I sighed, feeling almost as nauseous at the thought of Paula popping round as I did about heading back to school. Paula and Dad had been in some form of a relationship for as long as I could remember. I used to call her my Aunty Paula until she became my nemesis. By the time I hit secondary school I could just about bring myself to grunt at her. By the time the depression hit I would physically recoil from her attempts at bonding.
‘Fine,’ I told Dad, putting on my jumper, ready to go.
‘She’s been worried about you, Claudette. You got her letters.’
‘I know,’ I said, and tightened the laces on my trainers.
‘And the perfume she sent,’ he added.
‘I wasn’t allowed it, in case I fashioned a weapon.’
‘Oh,’ Dad said. ‘Still, it’s the thought that counts I suppose.’
Paula was not a bad person and I knew it. Paula had what people describe as ‘a good heart’. In her spare time she ran exercise classes at the old people’s home and volunteered at the food bank. Dad loved her and she loved him. They made one another happy. I wanted Dad to be with someone – I really did (though nobody would believe me). I guess I just thought he could do better. In that sense my problem was with him, not her. I wanted him to want more from life. Paula was low-hanging fruit. She wore fleeces with Alsatians on them that she bought at the indoor market. She hand-made most of the presents she gave. She clipped a pedometer to the elastic of her jogging bottoms every morning without fail. She walked ten thousand steps a day and still ended up back in the same place that she started.
Just watching her exhausted me.
‘Try, Claudette,’ Dad said. ‘For me.’
‘For you, my dear, anything,’ I said, aping one of Dad’s preferred phrases.
‘Good girl,’ he said, sounding not entirely convinced.
There were police cars in the school parking lot by the time we arrived.
‘Bleak, isn’t it?’ I said as we made our way towards the back entrance. Two policemen were walking dogs across the playing fields and looked over towards us. I stifled a yawn and leant into Dad, still not entirely awake.
Some nights I just wouldn’t go to sleep at all. I’d lie with my eyes wide, watching the minutes drip past. Other times sleep would be all around me, like fog. No matter how much you gulped down, that thirst could not be quenched. This was one of those times. I wanted to sleep for ever. It was my true love and my only fate. I felt only hatred for those that stood in our way.
‘Nonsense,’ Dad said. ‘It’s a shining beacon of education. It glows brightly even on the darkest of days. You should be as proud of it as it no doubt is of you.’
‘This way, my learned friend,’ I said, leading him in through the rear entrance.
My school smells of industrial detergent, mostly – synthetic citrus top-notes suffocating the stench of cheap deodorant and nervous sweat. But school is also a feeling. Being in school, especially out of hours, feels like a memory even when you’re still a pupil. It’s a nostalgia for something that hasn’t yet happened. Some feelings we can’t describe. Some feelings we can’t explain. In these cases we attach them to the nearest sensation to hand. With school it’s the smell.
It felt strange walking the halls with Dad.
There were the parts of school that I know he knew about: the lunch hall, the head of year’s office, the art room with the drying paint and the shoddy clay pots, the French room with the conjugated verbs and the cartoon baguettes on the walls, the playing fields and the dining hall.
Then there were the other parts. The illicit parts.
There was the bathroom, where Sharon Marshal had opened the toilet door with the faulty lock to find me digging into my legs with a pair of nail scissors.
There was the cloakroom where the Sixth Formers would sell cigarettes to the Year Tens. A pound a pop and a free match with every purchase.
The science block where Donna and I once spent a lunchtime sniffing solvent so strong that at one point I fell backwards and collapsed onto a plastic skeleton, snapping most of its ribs and all of my phone screen in the process.
The physics lab where Sarah would meet Mr Darvill and nobody would mention it.
The German class where they found me, asleep.
The other bathroom, with the mirror I broke.
Silently, Dad and I walked past a hundred different secrets that seemed to moan like ghosts.
Donna’s bizarre devotion to the athletics team meant my lunchtimes would often be spare. So I’d wander the corridors until I found a space for myself, or a girl as lost as I was.
More often than not I found Sarah.
I laughed the first time I saw her, sitting alone in the copier room of the library (her usual lunchtime haunt, I learned), with Brian Farrell’s Doctor Who lunchbox open.
‘What the fuck is this?’ she asked through a mouthful of borrowed crisps, holding up a capped syringe.
‘I think it’s Brian’s insulin,’ I said nervously.
‘Will it give me a buzz?’ she asked sceptically.
‘I doubt it.’
‘Or turn a profit?’
‘I don’t think there’s much of a black market for tha
t kind of thing. It’ll probably kill him if he doesn’t have it though,’ I said, taking a seat on a copier.
Sarah shrugged and slipped the needle into her back pocket.
‘He’s in my maths class,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Or at least one of his crew is. If I’m still around last period I’ll hand it over then. Say I found it in the yard or something.’ She went at his biscuit bar with the hunger of a lion before clocking my awe at her appetite. ‘What are you staring at? A girl’s got to eat.’
‘Most chew first,’ I said, and Sarah laughed, scattering biscuit crumbs which we both ignored. ‘You went at that like an anaconda. I didn’t know you could unhinge your own jaw.’
Sarah thought for a moment before raising her eyebrows.
‘Yeah you did,’ she said and again we laughed, only this time sadder.
‘I haven’t seen you in a while,’ I said, as she began hiding the remains of her borrowed feast behind a photocopier. In truth I’d even started leaving the house with the specific intention of finding Sarah at night.
‘I’m keeping a low profile,’ she said.
‘Are you in trouble?’ I’d asked quietly, as footsteps in the corridor slowed and then paused and then carried on their way.
‘Almost always,’ Sarah said, listening at the door to check the coast was clear for a swift and unobserved exit. ‘You ever feel like you’re in over your head?’ she asked quietly.
‘Almost always,’ I said. The air in the room became thick with longing, as if Sarah wanted so desperately to say more. ‘You know you can always talk to me. Tell me anything. I won’t tell anyone else. I promise.’ She turned and opened her mouth, before shaking her head. ‘Is this why you’ve been in school so much recently?’ I asked and she shrugged.
‘Got to hang out somewhere, might as well be here. At least it’s free,’ she said as dismissively as she could manage.
‘And why you’ve been going to homework club every night even though you’ve never completed a piece of coursework in your life?’ She shrugged again. ‘Sarah, come on. I can see Dan Vesper parked outside school every night at home time, I see Ross talking to him. If something is wrong, you can say. I can help,’ I said. Her face froze momentarily at the mention of Dan’s name.
‘Nothing to tell.’ Sarah was clearly done with sharing. ‘Just keep your mouth shut about this place, or you’ll know about it,’ she said, as she made her way out and closed the door behind her.
‘Mr Harper will see you now,’ said Miss Spence, popping her head out of the head teacher’s door.
The teachers sat three abreast behind a desk that didn’t contain them entirely. Miss Spence, my head of year, Mr Harper, the head teacher and Mrs Archer, the guidance counsellor, all nodded politely as I sat down.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see us out of hours,’ Dad said, as he took his seat before the panel.
It was the weekend before the last week of term. Already posters and artwork had been removed from drawing boards in the hallways. The whole place was being stripped back to its skeleton in anticipation of a fresh new year.
‘We had to come in for the investigation anyway,’ Mr Harper said, as he handed a sheet of paper to Miss Spence. ‘Otherwise it would have been on Monday.’
‘Oh,’ Dad said. ‘Still, thanks anyway.
‘How are you, Claudette?’ Mrs Archer asked, nodding encouragingly at me. ‘You look well.’
I smiled and shrugged.
Mrs Archer had taken to me as one of her personal projects. When I had my first real crash, Dad got in touch with the school to let them know. I was as furious as someone who couldn’t physically get out of bed could be, and once the fog subsided and I was back on my feet I felt mortified when every teacher asked me how I was doing, always with a sideways smile. Mrs Archer was convinced that she alone could cure me. She signed me up for music lessons and exercise classes – neither of which I attended; and brought in self-help books from home about Finding Your Inner Light – none of which I read.
She was kind and she had tried, which I appreciated.
‘We’re all very proud of the progress Claudette has made since she went into hospital,’ Dad said, filling the silence from me. It’s not that I didn’t know how to explain how I felt; it’s that I felt nobody really wanted to know. Not properly. There are only so many times you can say that you are fine before the word becomes rusted and redundant. ‘She’s back home with me now, we’re doing well.’
‘Yes, well we all need a rest every once in a while,’ Mr Harper said, not quite meeting my eye. ‘I had a niece that stopped eating. She had a rest and had to drop out of school altogether. Now she’s a section manager at River Island and studying for a Geography degree on the OU, so…’
‘You should give me her number. We could be friends,’ I said with a sneer.
‘Claudette,’ Dad said with a stern smile and nodded at Mr Harper. ‘What we really want to know is that after the summer holidays Claudette will be able to return to school and that she will be treated with the care and attention she needs.’
‘I don’t need care. Or attention,’ I said. Miss Spence smiled awkwardly and nodded. ‘I just want to know it’s OK to come back. Can’t we deal with the rest afterwards?’
‘Well…’ Mr Harper offered, stretching his words. ‘Normally, in cases of… vandalism… permanent exclusion would be the only solution.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘You broke a bathroom mirror and a full-length window, Claudette,’ Miss Spence clarified.
‘You spat at a dinner supervisor,’ Mr Harper added.
‘And the language…’ said Miss Spence.
‘We’ve been over this on the phone,’ Dad said, more bluntly this time. ‘Claudette’s behaviour that day was symptomatic of an illness over which she has no input nor control. Her grades are vastly above average in a school where average is considered an achievement, her approach to learning is exemplary and her attendance is…’ Dad tried, ‘OK, I suppose.’
This was Dad at his most impressive, I had to admit.
‘But there are other things to take into consideration,’ Mr Harper said. ‘The welfare of other pupils for one.’
‘Claudette has never hurt anybody in her life.’
‘And Claudette herself,’ Miss Spence offered.
‘I disagree,’ Dad said curtly.
‘What I mean is that children can be cruel. There will be a lot of questions. We’ve already had to shut down two websites with videos that were posted of Claudette’s last day here.’
‘What you don’t understand about the situation is —’ Mr Harper began, only for Dad to cut him off with a raise of his hand.
‘Please. I have lived with this – situation, as you put it – since Claudette was a girl. I’ve watched it come and I’ve watched it go and through it all I’ve seen a bright, intelligent, caring young woman grow, despite the occasionally huge odds stacked against her. I recognise that Claudette is occasionally unwell. I recognise too your predicament. What I am saying is that if you do not find a way to accommodate my daughter at your school solely because of a terrible illness from which she suffers and with which she copes as best she can, I will inform the education authority, the government, the press… anybody that will listen. So. What I suggest is that we spend a little while here, now, going over just how we’re going to work this thing out.’
Dad took a deep, shaken breath.
He was on fire. The closest Dad usually got to real anger was when it started raining after he’d hung the washing out. I could tell that confrontation was a new experience for him. I liked it. I’m pretty certain he didn’t, not judging by the vibrating table leg.
‘Well,’ Mr Harper said, taking control, while Miss Spence was looking straight down at the desk and Mrs Archer was beaming at Dad like she wanted to punch the air and cheer. ‘I’m starting to see where Claudette gets her spirit from.’
‘We’re passionate people,’ Dad said, with a hint of pride.
> Mr Harper sighed and looked at Miss Spence, who seemed to shrug with her eyes.
‘I suppose there may be a way around this.’ He took out a file from his drawer and opened it on the desk in front of him. ‘But I tell you now it won’t be easy.’
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ I said on the bus on the way home from school. ‘I mean, I could have just moved schools.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said, pressing the bell as we neared our stop. Donna was waiting for me at the bus stop, eating a bag of chips. ‘You’ve got your friends there. Or at least Donna. It’s all you’ve ever known. And they know you, Claudette. I know it won’t be fun going back, it never is. But it’ll be worth it in the long run.’
‘Time will tell,’ I said as we got off the bus.
‘Anyway, you’ve got the summer yet. Have you got any plans? Anything you’d like to do?’
‘I suppose I have,’ I said, thinking about Sarah and my goal as we stepped off the bus. ‘I’m a woman on a mission. Watch me soar.’
Dad said hello to Donna with a hug. I looked at her and sneered and she sneered back.
‘You look after one another,’ Dad said as he faded into the distance.
I apologised for Dad’s familiarity as we stepped down onto the beach. The tide was frothed white and dragging out like a pulled sheet. The police tent that had been erected cast a long, lazy shadow in the sand, and people began making their way home after a day of determined sunbathing.
‘I love that man,’ Donna said. ‘So, what’s the news?’
‘I’m going back to school after summer,’ I told her. ‘They didn’t want to let me, but Dad went full on ‘eighties Arnie with Mr Harper when he started umming and aahing.’
‘Good lad.’
We climbed up and took a seat on the lip of the old waste pipe while Donna described, in alarming detail, a series of sex dreams she’d been having about a ticket inspector who’d recently ejected her from the bus. ‘I wish I liked sex the way you do,’ I said. Our legs dangled down, catching brown flecks of the rusted metal as above us shadows from the promenade passed us by.