by Anne Cassidy
Be Careful What You Wish For.
What happens when someone from your school goes out of their way to pick on you and make you miserable?
She paused and thought inevitably of Rachel Bliss, her old best friend from boarding school. How could someone so close have made her so unhappy? Ricky Harris had been completely different. She had never been close to him. She had disliked him from the moment she set eyes on him until he said, Here’s your train, posh bird! She continued writing her blog.
It happened to me. I hated this boy, Ricky Harris. I detested him. I avoided him but last week I bumped into him while waiting for a train. I had no choice but to listen to his taunts. Was there a moment when I might have unconsciously wished him dead? That I might have imagined him falling on to the tracks as a train thundered in? Maybe. I may well have wished this but never imagined what was going to happen later.
This boy got stabbed. He is dead. End of story.
It was a harsh but truthful post. Her blog wasn’t a diary, just a jumble of her thoughts and feelings with pictures and links to other interesting sites and blogs. At the moment she was the only one who read it, but one day she might invite Joshua to look at it. She closed her laptop and stretched her arms up, flexing her fingers.
Later her grandmother joined her for lunch. They talked about Camden.
‘Is there a lot of violence there?’ she said. ‘Day to day, I mean?’
‘No. ’Course not. In the time I’ve been there I’ve only seen a bit of horsing around,’ she said, thinking ironically of Lewis Proctor pretending to stab himself with a plastic knife.
‘But you read such things in the newspaper about these institutions,’ her grandmother said, biting daintily into a sandwich.
‘No,’ Rose said. ‘It didn’t happen in school. It happened outside, on the station platform. It wasn’t to do with school. It could have happened anywhere.’
But that wasn’t true. Rose thought of Little Radleigh, the station in Norfolk which was near to the Mary Linton School. She and some of the girls had used it to get to Norwich at weekends. It was tiny, with hanging baskets swaying in the breeze and the sound of cows mooing from nearby fields. The sky was vast and they could see the train from miles away. It seemed to take an age to get there and when it did it had a single carriage and looked as though it had been abandoned by a rushing locomotive. The girls from the school were metropolitan. They were used to big cities and expensive cars and air travel. Stepping on to the local Norwich train was quaint. Nothing bad could have happened on that platform, Rose was sure.
‘Camden really isn’t such a bad place,’ Rose said.
Her grandmother didn’t answer.
Rose studied her. She was wearing a lemon-coloured jumper with cream trousers. Her hair, shoulder-length, was pulled back into a lemon tie at the back of her neck. She had neat gold studs on and the thick gold chain that she always wore round her neck. Rose looked down and saw brown leather high heels. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a matching handbag sitting on the floor beside her. Anna looked like she was going for a job interview even though it was Saturday and she was simply at home.
Rose, on the other hand, was in black jeans and a black and white T-shirt. On her feet were pink slipper socks, the kind with rubber patches that stopped her sliding across Anna’s wooden floors. Indoors she was prepared to wear colour.
She spent the afternoon working on an essay.
A beep sounded. She had a new message. She expected it to be from Joshua. They had been emailing each other on and off since lunch. He had been telling her about a paper he had to give on Brunel and bridges and she had been telling him about the essay she was planning on Dickens’ Great Expectations.
She looked at her in-box and was puzzled to see the name Emma Burke. Emma Burke? She opened the message.
Hi, Rose. Got your email address from school. I wanted to talk to you about something. Could we meet somewhere? Emma.
It was Ricky Harris’s girlfriend.
Her first thought was to send a quick answer to say that she couldn’t manage a meeting, that she was busy. Her fingers hung over the keys wondering how exactly to word it. She sat back. She had no wish to be in contact with Emma and her difficult stepsister, Sherry.
She decided not to answer the email. She deleted it from her in-box and sent a message to Joshua instead. How’s the computer whizz, Skeggsie? Does he have a life away from cyberspace?
She got an almost immediate answer. Skeggsie is his computer. It does not exist without him. He does not exist without it.
She answered, Half boy, half chip. Where does he insert his memory stick?
The answer came seconds later. He is the human memory stick.
As she was trying to think of a reply a new message came. The name Emma Burke was in her in-box. She opened it.
Rose, I need a quick answer. This is important. It’s about Lewis Proctor.
Rose hesitated before deleting the message.
Joshua sent another. Fancy meeting up tomorrow afternoon? We could walk over the Millennium Bridge. Part of my research. 3 p.m. St Paul’s underground.
She answered instantly. Yes, see you outside the ticket office. I’ll be carrying a violin case.
He came back with And I’ll bring the bassoon.
She looked at the time. It was 16.03. She felt happy. The work was almost finished. Afterwards she intended to go on Facebook for a while and maybe look at some movie blogs.
She pulled her sleeve back and focused on her tattoo. It looked better today. Was that because it was finally healing? Or was it because she had seen that Joshua had a butterfly tattooed on his side? His was bigger, more powerful-looking, its wings at an angle as if it was in flight. Hers was still and flat and beautiful, as though it was in a display case. How had that happened? That both of them had had this tattoo done independently of the other? While standing looking into his bedroom mirror, her fingers on the side of his chest, he had laughed and said Great Minds Think Alike, Rosie, and she had looked at his reflection and felt a rush of emotion.
There was a knock and her door opened slightly.
‘There’s someone to see you,’ her grandmother said with a forced smile.
Rose stepped out of her room and looked over the landing. There, in the hallway, was Emma Burke. She was standing close to the front door. She looked up and saw Rose and gave a little wave.
‘Who is she?’ her grandmother said.
‘She’s from school,’ Rose said, flustered.
How did she know where to find her?
‘Do you want me to bring her up here?’
‘No, I’ll come down.’
Her grandmother went off into her bedroom and Rose went down the stairs.
‘How did you get my address?’ she demanded.
Emma was wearing a bright purple top. It was tight and stretchy and showed her shape. She was thin, no spare flesh at all.
‘Oh, thanks. Hi, Emma, how are you feeling? How are the arrangements for your boyfriend’s funeral going?’ Emma said, her face puffed up, her fingers tapping the wooden surface of the hall table.
‘How did you find out where I live?’
‘A mate of Sherry’s works in the administration office at school. She gave us your details yesterday, when we were looking for you.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I need your help. That’s why I’ve come.’
‘I don’t want anything to do with your boyfriend. It’s not my business that he was killed. I was just unlucky enough to be there,’ Rose said, looking straight at her. ‘I wish I hadn’t known him because he was nasty to me. Truthfully, I’m not shedding any tears.’
Emma stared back at Rose, her face stony, only a quiver on her bottom lip showing any emotion. Her cheekbones looked more prominent or maybe she’d just pulled her hair back in a tighter knot.
Rose shrugged.
Emma blinked and a tear hung at the corner of her eye.
‘I don’t see ho
w I can help you,’ Rose said hopelessly, ‘I don’t know you. I’m not your friend.’
‘That’s why. Everyone else is too involved. I need someone who doesn’t care one way or another.’
The words stung. Rose was uncaring. Was she?
‘You want a drink?’ she said.
‘No.’
She walked towards the kitchen. Emma followed. She pulled a chair out and sat down and gestured to Emma to do the same. Seated, Emma seemed to shrink against the big room. Above them pots and pans were hanging from a rail, polished and glossy, bunches of dried herbs drooping down between them. On the table there was a pyramid of lemons which sat in a bowl. They were never used, Rose knew, just replaced one by one when their skins started to harden and their colour lost its early morning sunshine glow. It was a showroom kitchen. There were no breadcrumbs on the side, no smeared knives lying around, no half-used tins of beans in the fridge.
Emma shivered as if she was cold.
‘I might as well start at the beginning,’ she said. ‘Me and Ricky were together for three years. We grew up on the same street on the Chalk Farm Estate.’
Rose knew the Chalk Farm Estate. It was where most of the students from school came from.
‘I knew he wasn’t an angel and he hung around with some bad types. Maybe that was what I liked about him. He was a bad boy. He had a reputation. Maybe I’m attracted to that kind of person. I know he was horrible sometimes but it was just a front. His mum is a nightmare and his older brother made his life miserable. You have to be hard round our way. That stuff he said to you, it was nothing personal …’
Rose huffed. It had felt personal to her.
‘Anyhow, just before the summer we broke up. I was sure he was seeing someone else but he denied it. I didn’t believe him so I finished it.’
She hadn’t known this.
‘I started to see this kid. It lasted about six weeks. It was great at first. We were all loved up but as time went on I got fed up with him. He was immature.’
Rose frowned. She wondered why Emma was telling her this.
‘It was Lewis Proctor.’
Now she understood.
‘I don’t know know why I chose him. Maybe to get back at Ricky? He and Lewis were sort of rivals, I suppose you could say. Two bad boys on the same estate. They had different groups of friends, They hung around in different parts of Camden even though they lived streets away from each other. For a while it felt really good. We spent a lot of time together. I’m not sure when it started to go bad. It was coming up to school time and I saw Ricky around. He was sweet and nice to me and I kept thinking about old times. Anyway I finished it with Lewis on the weekend before school started again and got back with Ricky.
‘You think Lewis stabbed Ricky?’ Rose said. ‘That was why you asked me to look at him?’
Emma shrugged.
‘Lewis is capable of it. When he was fourteen he was involved in a stabbing. He said he was just an onlooker but …’
‘Have the police spoken to him?’
‘Yeah. Word is that Bee Bee’s given him an alibi.’
‘Bee Bee?’
‘His new girlfriend. She was there the other day. The one with the silver boots. She’d say anything to help him. She’s been desperate for him for months. For years.’
Rose was quiet. It was too much information.
‘Why are you telling me all this stuff?’
‘I got this, today, through my front door.’
She put an envelope on the table. There was a name on it; EMMA.
‘Open it.’
Rose pulled out a piece of paper. There were just a few words written in the middle.
Come and meet me at the cemetery at six. That’s if you want to know who killed Ricky. Lew.
A heart had been drawn after the name.
‘It’s Lewis’s handwriting. He was always sending me little notes. After I gave him up he sent me a note every day for a couple of weeks. I had to hide them from Ricky.’
‘Why does he want to meet you at the cemetery?’
‘We went there a lot.’
‘The cemetery?’
‘It’s next to the station. You know it?’
Rose nodded.
‘It’s this private place. Lewis showed it to me. It’s huge and has all these hidden areas to sit where no one bothers you. Not many kids use it because they’re freaked out by the graves and stuff. It was perfect for me and Lewis. I didn’t want to go anywhere where I might come face to face with Ricky and his mates. We just found a bench or a gravestone or some grass by a tree and sat and talked and drank and smoked. There’s this rose garden, a kind of walled-off area. There aren’t any graves there and it’s quiet …’
‘Why does he want to meet you?’
‘I think he wants me to go back to him. He’s been making cow eyes at me for weeks. I think the stuff about Ricky is just a way to get me there. Trouble is, I can’t be absolutely sure. He knows a lot of people. There are some bad guys out there who didn’t like Ricky and Lewis might have heard something.’
‘Will you go?’
‘I will if you come with me.’
‘Why me?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because this isn’t anything to do with me! Ask Sherry to go with you.’
‘Sherry’s at her dad’s in Brentwood. In any case she hates Lewis. She’d just lose her temper and then he wouldn’t say anything. She’s too involved. I need someone who won’t get Lewis’s back up.’
Rose shook her head. ‘Why not just go alone?’
‘I’m a bit nervous. If it’s really not about Ricky, and if he doesn’t want to get back with me, then this might be about shaming me in some way. In front of Bee Bee, maybe. You saw what he was like in the cafeteria the other day. He likes a bit of drama. I just don’t want to be on the receiving end of it. Not now. That’s why I need someone with me. I don’t know who else to ask. You’re a hard person. You don’t take any crap from anyone. He doesn’t know you and I think he would be careful in front of you.’
‘I’m not hard.’
‘Yeah, you are. I see the way you walk round school. Most people say you’re a stuck-up cow but I think you’ve grown this iron shell.’
‘I can’t come. I don’t want to come!’
Emma stood up. She looked as though she was about to say something else but instead she pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and stared intently at the screen.
‘I just don’t want to get involved,’ Rose said softly. ‘I want to put what happened last Tuesday behind me.’
‘That’s OK. I understand. I just thought I’d ask. I’ll go on my own.’
Rose closed her eyes. This just wasn’t her problem. Emma walked towards the door and she followed her along the hallway. The house was quiet. There wasn’t a sound.
‘Nice house,’ Emma said.
‘It’s my grandmother’s.’
‘Be yours one day.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want anything from my grandmother. I have to live here until I finish high school and then I’m gone.’
Emma opened the front door.
‘You’re not a very happy person, are you?’
‘That something else you noticed about me when I’m walking round school?’
‘It is. You should lighten up. People might get to like you.’
‘I don’t care if people like me.’
‘I don’t believe that. Everybody cares,’ Emma said with a wan smile.
Framed by the big doorway she looked childlike. Her hair extensions hung in strings over her shoulder. The pink of her mobile phone reminded Rose of a mobile phone that one of her dolls had had. Emma gave a wave and then turned away. It was the second time she had come to Rose for help. Rose felt herself softening. She called after her.
‘What time does Lewis want to meet you?’
‘Six,’ Emma said, stepping hopefully back towards her.
Rose looked up at the hall clock. It showed
twenty to five.
‘I’ll come. I’ll meet you outside the cemetery at ten to six.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’
‘You won’t turn up.’
‘I will come. When I say I’ll do something, then I’ll do it.’
‘At the cemetery?’
Rose nodded.
‘At ten to six?’
‘I might be a stuck-up cow but I don’t go back on my word,’ Rose said.
Emma gave a shaky smile. Then she walked off.
EIGHT
Rose left a note on the kitchen table for her grandmother.
I am going out to meet a friend for a coffee. Will be back in a couple of hours. Rose.
It was 5.35. She had fifteen minutes to get to the cemetery to meet Emma. It was light but there was a greyness in the air, a hint of night. Feeling chilly, she zipped up her jacket and walked briskly along. All the houses in the street were set back and there were ornate garden gates and crisp brick walls that divided them from the pavement. Some houses had lines of short conifers or perfectly boxed hedges. It was quiet, as if there was some kind of soundproofing that kept the city noises at bay. It was a picture-postcard street and she should be grateful that she lived there. Anna had told her often enough.
She turned out on to the High Street. There she was met with light and noise and people. Thudding music came from a stationary car which had its windows open. She walked past it and thought of Emma and Lewis Proctor. She was puzzled by the situation. She, who had never had a boyfriend, found it strange that Emma could just finish with one boy and start up with another. She remembered Lewis Proctor from the cafeteria the previous day. She hadn’t liked the look of him. He was an example of so many of the boys who strutted round the school wearing their pristine sports clothes and trainers. She’d seen them in her class looking down at themselves, at the shape of their jeans or the length of their T-shirts or the fit of a jacket. They smelled of scent and cream and spearmint. They were interchangeable and Rose found herself repelled by their self-absorption. She suddenly thought of Joshua and his floppy hair and the beads around his neck. There was something soft about Joshua that made her want to touch him. Lewis Proctor on the other hand seemed hard and angular.