She sees me looking at her stomach and pulls down the knot. ‘Just relaxing,’ she says.
‘Don’t worry. I couldn’t care less if you were naked. Do you know where Gracie Lovell is? That girl I was talking to the other day at supper?’
‘Oh yes, I know exactly the one you mean,’ she replies. ‘She was in my breathing class yesterday. She looked awful. All weird and haunted. Like, she had seen something that had frightened the life out of her.’
‘Really? Like what?’
‘She just had this strange look in her eyes. Like . . . I don’t know.’
‘Do you know where she might be now?’
‘No idea. Oh – wait, hang on, actually, there’s those special therapy lessons going on – the ones where you learn those new techniques? I can’t remember what they’re called. But anyway, she’s probably there. She’s always in those classes. The list is up at the main entrance. You’ll find the timetable there.’
‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’
‘No worries.’ She rolls over, pushes up her tartan top, right near her breasts even though it’s freezing cold, and starts reading her book again.
The timetable is a large sheet of paper, full of illegible markings and highlighted sections. I look for today’s session and find a class called ‘Life, Body and Soul. Breathe yourself better.’
It’s signposted as being in the Clareville Wing, so I make my way over through the main building. The corridors go from smelling of boys’ locker rooms, to antiseptic and, when I finally reach the therapy rooms, the scented candles come as a welcome relief.
I can see Gracie through the door window and the girl was right. She looks dreadful. Everyone is standing up, all aligned and neat, and she’s lying down. I can see her eyes shut but they are all red-rimmed. Her skin looks waxy, like she’s dead and, for a minute, I can’t see her breathing and I’m about to go in when I see her rolling onto her side and looking straight at me. She sees me, lifts her hand a couple of inches off the ground then shuts her eyes again.
I wait for the class to finish and she comes out, pushes past me with a white towel in her hands and runs off down to her room. I’m so perplexed by this, after how cosy she was with me the other day, that I don’t think to chase after her.
‘Are you alright?’ says one of the patients.
‘Yes, fine, I was just trying to speak to that girl there.’ I point down the corridor but Gracie has gone.
‘Ah, Gracie? She spent the entire class crying. Didn’t do anything at all. Poor thing.’
‘Oh.’ I can’t think of anything else to say, so I thank the girl and walk to Gracie’s room before something else stops me.
I can hear a strange noise when I press my ear against the door and it’s Gracie howling. I knock anyway and she opens up immediately, like she’s expecting me.
‘Come in.’ She points to her bed, which has all the sheets rucked up at the bottom. There’s orange make-up smeared over the sheets, which is really odd, given that she’s been totally bare-faced since I’ve seen her in here.
‘Sorry it’s a bit of a mess.’ That’s an understatement. There are empty water bottles filled with sweet wrappers all over the floor, ripped-out pages of magazines strewn all over the room and her clothes and shoes look like she’s tipped them out and flung them all over the floor. There are even dead flowers stuffed in an open drawer.
‘No worries.’ I sit down on a red-leather-covered wooden chair and wait for her to do something. Instead, she just stands staring at me.
‘My husband’s left me,’ she laughs. She’s itching her nose in a manic fashion and then throws her head back and laughs even more in a freaky way. Then she starts crying and crying. I sit and look outside the window, until she’s finished. There’s not much to look at – a concrete wall and a long hosepipe taped up with plastic binding, presumably to stop people hanging themselves with it. The thought gives me a wry smile and then Gracie leaps at me. ‘What are you laughing at? Me? Are you laughing at me? You always laughed at people, didn’t you? You and Freya.’
‘No, I’m really not laughing at you,’ I say, still looking at the hosepipe. ‘I was thinking of something else entirely.’
‘Oh. I feel you were laughing at me.’
‘I promise I wasn’t.’ Then Gracie lies on her bed and cries for what feels like an hour. When her sobs subside, I ask her if she’s alright, whether she needs me to make her some tea, or bring her some water. She turns to face me, eyes all swollen.
‘You’re being kind,’ she says, lifting her head up off the bed. ‘Really kind to me. Thanks for sitting here with me.’ Gracie seems genuinely shocked. It’s nice to see her smiling a bit, so I move and sit next to her on the bed and tell her I’m sorry she’s so upset. She cries some more.
‘How come you are being so nice to me?’ she laughs. ‘You must have changed since school.’ The slight hurts more than I would have expected it to.
‘I guess school was . . . different,’ I reply.
‘It was, wasn’t it?’ Gracie finds the strength to sit up and I move her forward and place an extra pillow behind her. The intimacy of it is both strange and comforting to me.
‘Gracie, I know you are feeling bad at the moment but I wondered if you could tell me what Freya wanted. When she was phoning everyone from school. Asking about me, I mean. I just, well . . . it’s in my head at the moment and I thought you might be able to help me.’
Pleased to be asked, Gracie reaches out and pats my arm. She slumps back onto her pillow and starts to talk.
‘She got in touch with everyone from our year. She’s been ringing around for the past two months. So Sarah Maynard said. She’s been really hunting you down. She’s been harassing everyone about when they last saw you.’
‘Everyone in our year? But that’s over fifty people,’ I say, shocked.
‘Right. Well I don’t know if it was literally everyone. But most. I was away at the time, with Felix’s school. Volunteering at their summer camp.’ Gracie starts crying again and then shakes her head muttering to herself to pull it together. ‘So.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘On my last day at the school trip, Neil – that’s my husband – actually, ex-husband, rang the landline at the cottage where we were all staying. Said there must have been an emergency of some sort because this Freya woman had rung so many times.’
Gracie stops there and reaches over to the bedside table and pulls out a tissue from a box.
‘Do you want me to go on?’ she asks.
‘Yes. Please.’
‘OK, so anyway, I think it’s very peculiar but I can’t do much about it because there’s nigh on forty boys running around in this summer camp place and so I decide to wait till we’re back home to ring her.’
‘Go on, Gracie. You’re being great. I appreciate it.’
‘So then I get back and ring her and she is being really, really weird with me. I mean, I was never really very good friends with her but she says that she had to find you and that I was her last hope because she’d been through everyone else in the year whilst I had been away.’
The floor is spinning but I’m having to show Gracie I’m totally calm.
‘OK, go on.’
Gracie gets up and picks out those flowers from her drawer. She sniffs one, tickling her nose with it.
‘Well, so then the weirdest thing of all happened. And actually I had forgotten about this because of stuff with my husband and everything. But she said the strangest thing. She said that I had played my part in all of this. That I had been instrumental in nearly . . . causing her to go six feet under. Because I’d given her the wrong stuff? Something that was too much for her? I couldn’t really make sense of what she was trying to tell me . . .’
As Gracie’s saying this, I can tell she’s remembering Freya, those sunken eyes after the suicide attempt, and there’s a small gasp, a hint of a memory that I can tell has jolted her into the room. She looks at me, eyes huge, questioning, pleading.
‘What you gave her?’ I say. ‘What did you give her?’
‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘Freya. She was getting at something in particular, wasn’t she? About me being responsible for her nearly dying? I honestly had no idea what she was talking about on the phone. So I just sort of thought she was sounding a bit mad. That she wasn’t making sense. I wasn’t even friends with the girl, really. I always wanted to be, but really, I kept myself to myself, didn’t I? I see what she meant now . . . I see. I think she is blaming me? Blaming me for her suicide attempt?’
‘How can she blame you for something she did, Gracie? Don’t be ridiculous, you’re just adding one plus one and getting four.’
‘No, no, I remember now, Josephine. I remember all of it. I hadn’t thought much of it but she’s right, Josephine. She’s right. What am I going to do? Does she know you’re here?’
‘No. No one does. I was worried you might tell her.’
‘No, I haven’t wanted to get back in contact. Especially not now. Josephine, am I really to blame?’ Gracie wipes her nose on the edge of her top. Her fingernails are all grey.
‘Well you haven’t told me what you think you are to blame for, Gracie, I have no idea what you are talking about. Freya tried to kill herself at school; she blamed me for sending her over the edge. I’ve had to live with that for many years. I don’t see what you’ve got to do with it.’
‘Well, I’m not sure but I think she’s talking about the pills. I gave her the pills. We had been in the san together for some reason I can’t quite recall, so she knew I had them. She wanted loads, you see. Said she had period pains and could I give her all the painkillers I had. I had some left over from my appendicitis operation. I gave them all to her. They were super strong. Codeine. I didn’t tell her the dosage or anything. I remember her hand, snatching the packet from me. And me being so pathetically grateful that I had been able to help her, I hadn’t really given it a second thought. I remember her coming back afterwards with bandages around her wrist, so I didn’t really think of the connection before. Thought she had . . .’ Gracie makes a slicing motions towards her wrist. ‘And now she’s blaming me for giving her the wrong pills. I think she was telling me they nearly killed her? But if she meant to . . . I don’t understand, if she wasn’t attempting suicide, why would it . . .?’ Gracie stops and looks at me. Her eyes have gone all fiery and she’s trying to wipe her nose but her fingers are shaking. The impact of what we’ve just discovered seems to hit Gracie harder than me.
‘Ah yes, she did both. Pills and cut her wrists,’ I reply, thinking back to when I first saw Freya being wheeled out on that stretcher, fluorescent laces shining in the dark. And then I think of her afterwards, in the hospital, hair shorn and bloodied. Freya, I think. What did you do to yourself? I start to question everything in my mind and I look at Gracie and she’s looking back at me, ready to speak but not wanting to break the silence. In the past ten minutes the memory of Freya is taking a more fluid shape and I can’t pin down my thoughts enough to process this new information but a new idea forms in my mind. I open my mouth, stutter on my words and, when I finally manage to talk, I ask Gracie if she’ll go and get me a drink of water.
1996
I say goodbye to Father and sit on the school bench just by the main gates. Mrs Allen has told me not to leave the school premises. Verity comes out two hours later. Rollo had left by then, in his big silver car, slowly leaving the gates as if he can’t quite bring himself to go to the hospital. He had seen me waiting, sitting. Waved.
Verity doesn’t wave when she sees me. Doesn’t do anything other than walk right up to me and slap me across the face. I hold my head up high and stare at her, trying not to blink. Then she walks right off and doesn’t turn back. I wonder if anyone’s seen but not a soul is around. The sting burns my cheek. It feels good to have some physical pain. It’s nothing compared to that night. Nothing. Maybe this is why Freya slices her skin the way she does. And then I feel anger. How dare she? I think. I’m Head Girl – she is my Deputy. I wonder if I should tell anyone then realise the moment is gone and I get up and go inside. I see Mrs Allen and she looks at my cheek.
‘What happened?’ she asks.
‘Nothing. I just saw Verity,’ I say, lightly.
She looks at my cheek again.
‘Oh. I see. Well, we’ve had a long chat with her. She seems to think it’s you. Trying to frame her, or something ridiculous like that. We’re now losing sight of the real problem, which is Freya and the fact she might have been abused.’
I am horrified, the word feels like an electric shock. ‘Abused?’
‘By a teacher.’ The word ‘abuse’ had never crossed my mind.
‘Maybe they were in love?’ I say. Mrs Allen scoffs.
‘Mrs Kitts is being questioned now,’ she says.
‘And Freya?’
‘She’s pulling through. Seemed to rally round when she found out her dad was coming. She’s been in and out of consciousness but she managed to sit up earlier, apparently.’ Mrs Allen looks at me. Rubs the fleshy bit of her palm with her thumb.
‘Josephine. You know I trust you. That’s why I made you Head Girl. I trust your decisions. I trust your word.’ I’m waiting for the guilt to kick in but it doesn’t. All I can see is Verity’s hand coming towards me.
‘So I need you to tell me you are onside with this.’
‘Of course, Mrs Allen. Of course. I just want Freya to get better, that’s all,’ I say. And I mean it. I feel bad that she’s gone through all this. But now I know she’s going to pull through, I’ve got to concentrate on the matter in hand.
And Oxford. And keeping my Head Girl badge. I’ve let the scholarship go, I cannot, will not, let anything else slip away.
‘Right. Well we also need to find out what happened with The Lens sooner or later. Because of course whoever did this will be expelled.’
‘Expelled?’ It had never crossed my mind that the punishment would be that harsh.
‘Of course. Expelled. And if that happens, we’ll have to inform the appropriate universities, whether or not we’ve heard if you’ve got a place.’
‘Of – of course, Mrs Allen.’
‘Are you alright, Josephine? You look pale.’
‘I’m absolutely fine.’ I clench my stomach muscles. ‘I’m just thinking about Freya, that’s all.’
‘Right. Well I’ll let you know of any developments.’ Mrs Allen reaches forward and squeezes my shoulder. I tense up and she moves her hand away.
‘Don’t worry, alright? I’ll make sure Freya realises none of this is you.’
‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘Thank you very much.’ I realise this is Mrs Allen’s way of saying she believes me. Me and not Verity Greenslade. I’m still worried, though. Worried something will come out, somehow. In my head, I’ve covered all bases. Mrs Cape and Pete. Told everyone I had given the proof to Verity to hold from the moment she left the school up until it went to the printer’s. The only fly in the ointment would be if Sally Aylsford said anything. The only way she might is if she doesn’t get into Oxford. The realisation of this hits me harder than Verity’s slap. She may feel duped. I have to make her think I’ve done everything to keep her onside. Immediately I go and find her and tell her that I’m going to give her coaching. That she is going to get into Oxford, her interview is going to be brilliant, and I’m going to help her. I will go over and over all her notes until she has everything drummed into her head. Her interview is in two days and we sit down for three hours, discussing possibilities of what might come up, and what they had asked me.
‘You can’t get nervous,’ I say. ‘Because that will make you fluff your lines.’
‘I am nervous, though,’ she says. ‘I’m terrified.’ She’s pulling at her hair and putting the end of her ponytail in her mouth. ‘I can’t let my father down. And all this stuff with Freya. It’s putting me off my stride.’
I ignore that last part. ‘Right. So what are you really good
at? What are you best at?’
‘Lacrosse, I guess?’ she says doubtfully. I will myself to be patient.
‘No,’ I say slowly, ‘I mean as a person. In conversation. What are you good at?’
She looks down, sucks at her ponytail. ‘Nothing.’
For God’s sake. ‘You are. Yes you are. You persuaded me to talk to Mrs Allen. You did a great job there. I wasn’t willing at first but you managed to talk me round. That was really good. So persuasive.’ She hangs her head. Scratches at her cheek.
‘No, no don’t look like that. It’s a good thing,’ I say. ‘We’ve got to use this to your advantage. Use that in your interview. If they’re trying to outsmart you, you can use those skills. Don’t you get it?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘Right. And don’t suck your ponytail like that. Sit straight. Put your hands on your lap. Like this . . .’ I place both hands flat on my thighs. She does the same. Already she looks better. ‘Up. Sit further up. Straight. That’s good. Now, when they ask you a question, look them directly in the eye. Answer. Don’t think too much about their reaction. Just answer.’
She inhales. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘Watching people’s reactions,’ I reply. ‘Now concentrate.’ I ask her a series of questions. Difficult ones. The higher she sits, the better she answers. And she can see the nod of my head, the smile on my lips and she is bolstered. Sits up even higher, straightens her fingers out and she’s beginning to really get it.
‘What about the Cosmological Argument? What would an atheist have to say about that?’ I ask. She looks flummoxed. Brings her hand up to her ponytail.
I scrape my chair forward and slap her hand down.
‘Stop.’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she mutters.
‘Don’t say sorry. Just do as I say. If you can’t answer the question, think of a way round it. That’s what you’ll be good at. Just pretend you are in a social situation. OK? Pretend that you are with me, trying to get me to get you into Oxford. Don’t think of yourself as Sally Aylsford trying to impress these people. Think of yourself as Sally Aylsford, Oxford candidate, with the cunning of a fox.’ She laughs and so do I. It sounds odd, these bubbles of sound escaping from my mouth. Even Sally looks taken aback. I feel self-conscious and put the back of my hand up to my face. ‘Now you’re doing it,’ she says. And we both laugh some more.
The Exclusives Page 23