You and Me

by Nicola Rayner

  Meilin was the first to reach Juliet, grabbing a wad of tissues from Mrs Fyson’s desk and pressing it hard against the wound to staunch the flow. ‘Fran,’ she said. ‘Find help.’

  I ran out of the classroom, without looking back. Blood still spattered on my shirt.

  48

  Dark thoughts pursue me all the way back to my front door, where Branwell is waiting. In the corridor there’s a familiar scent: I can’t place it but it’s as if someone has been waiting here, has only just left. I let Branwell in and begin to run a hot bath. I don’t seem to be able to stop shivering. While it’s running, I try the number for Ellie’s apartment block again, listening to the phone ring and ring. I try to picture where it might be: in the concierge’s office perhaps – on a desk littered with paper, next to a brimming ashtray. Or ringing in an empty corridor – I imagine Madame, an older woman in court shoes, coming to pick it up, to fetch my sister. But nobody does.

  In the tub, I lean back and close my eyes. I don’t want to think about Juliet but my mind is tugged back to that dreadful night when I was waiting for Ellie outside the staffroom. After Mother told me to go to bed, I couldn’t help myself, I went to Juliet’s room. When she answered the door, her eyes were pink as a mouse’s. Guilt, I thought. The boys shouldn’t have had access to the sports hall; they shouldn’t have been able to get through to the pool. Ellie knew the key code as a special privilege, because of her training, but the only other student who would have known it was our athletics prefect. The person I’d caught messing around in the changing rooms with Charles. Putting on the kind of show she hoped someone would see.

  There was a strange atmosphere in the boarding house that night. Girls whispered as they got ready for bed, between brushing their teeth, washing their faces, but there was no giggling, no music. Or is that my memory playing tricks on me? Is that just how it felt?

  In the staffroom, there was a conversation about whether Ellie should see a doctor, if the police should be called. My mother won the first battle, but lost the second. No police, said Mrs Morgan. Their friendship was never the same after that.

  The boys were suspended, but they were allowed to sit their A-levels the following term. By then, the three of us were long gone. We wanted a fresh start and stayed at first with Mother’s aunt in London, before finding the flat on the estate.

  That day, when I went to Juliet’s room, it occurred to me that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel scared of her.

  ‘How did the boys get into the swimming pool?’ I asked.

  ‘Fuck off, Fran,’ she said, slamming the door in my face. ‘You don’t know anything about it.’

  She was quick, but I was quicker. I put my foot in the door. ‘What did Dickie do to Ellie?’

  ‘Please go away,’ Juliet said. She started to snivel again. I just watched her.

  I didn’t understand what had happened to Ellie, but I knew from the way Mother had sent me away that it was something unusually bad, with the power to make grown-ups cry.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Juliet. ‘The pressure that comes with …’ She shook her head and managed to push me away, slamming the door.

  She never said what the pressure came with, so I was left to guess what she meant: her beauty? Going out with Charles? I wasn’t sure, but it was the first glimpse I had of another Juliet. One with an inner life of her own. Regrets, perhaps.

  In the weeks between the assault and the end of term, Charles and Ellie grew closer. He started to visit her in Mother’s room. He was the only one she’d see, apart from Mother and me. I think that’s when their friendship began to take root, and Juliet didn’t like it. By our final English lesson, a few weeks later, she’d recovered sufficiently to exact her revenge.

  Lying back in the bath, I dip my head under water, comforted by the heat of it. My mind flickers back to Juliet standing next to Tom on the night of the auction. The pair of them watching as our taxi pulled away. Was that an alliance between them as I had thought, or something else?

  And was Juliet talking to the journalist purely out of malice? Even for her, I found that hard to get my head around. I thought of her fingertips tapping nervously on the table. The voicemail I’d never answered.

  After Dickie and Tom, was Juliet frightened she might be next?

  Beneath the water, the world sounds different – the whir of the washing machine, the footsteps of the children next door. I hear knocking but I can’t tell where it’s coming from in the building or how long it has been going on for.

  It stops for a moment and I imagine a neighbour answering the door, throwing their arms around a loved one – a relative, an old friend. It’s a bittersweet thought. Then the knocking starts again. I sit up in the bath and listen more closely. It’s coming from my door.

  Ellie, I think. Is it possible?

  I leap out of the bath and dry myself hastily, throwing on the clothes heaped on the bathroom floor. What shall I say? How should I greet her?

  ‘Hello?’ I call through the door. ‘Ellie?’

  ‘It’s not Ellie,’ says a crisp voice from the other side. ‘It’s Kat. The journalist. We met earlier today at the shop.’

  Kicking myself for not being more cautious, I open the door carefully, keeping the chain on. ‘How did you find out where I live?’ I say. ‘Was it Juliet?’

  ‘It’s my job to find things out,’ she says with a sly smile. ‘Would it be possible for me to come in? I’d really like to talk to you some more.’

  I don’t make any move to take the chain off.

  ‘I think it’s in your interest to speak to me.’ She is less deferential in private, I notice. Away from the arena of the shop floor. She pauses, as if weighing up whether to say more. ‘Juliet has told me a lot – including some pretty strange things about you,’ she continues quietly through the gap in the door. ‘About your temper, for example. And the fact you were there, on the scene, when Dickie Graham died.’

  She says those last words lightly but the impact of them is like being punched in the chest.

  I have always known it might come to this, since the night it happened when I paced the streets on my way home, rehearsing my explanation. I have always known someone might come to my door and ask: Why were you there?

  It felt inevitable, but I didn’t imagine it like this. I thought it might be a pair of policemen with buzzing walkie-talkies and handcuffs – not a slight journalist carrying a reporter’s notebook. The pen is mightier than the sword, though. I should know that.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ I say, and lead her through to the front room.

  I don’t want her standing on the doorstep, where the neighbours might be able to hear.

  The flat has a neglected air – sticky crumbs on the counter, a sofa covered with Branwell’s hair. It’s not how I’d want her to see the place. From nerves more than anything I grab a cloth and make a last-ditch attempt to wipe the surfaces down, but she seems most interested in the globe in the corner, my 1,000 Places book next to it and the framed photograph of Ellie and Mother in Whitby.

  ‘The night Dickie died,’ I begin, trying to call to mind the speech I’d rehearsed all those weeks ago, but the words evaporate like smoke. I turn to her with a cloth in my hand. ‘It was a coincidence,’ I say inanely. ‘Merely a coincidence.’

  ‘It’s a strange coincidence to be there when someone you hate is killed,’ she says softly. ‘I’ve heard how you felt about Dickie.’ She is quiet for a moment. ‘I don’t blame you – I know what that feels like.’

  I stare at her, wondering what else she knows about Dickie’s death. The women on the platform, Dickie’s glance over his shoulder: does she have any idea?

  ‘None of this looks good for you and your sister,’ she says in an oily voice. ‘But I’m on your side, believe me. I want to help – and the best thing would be for you to talk to me. Both of you. You mentioned she was with you for Christmas, for example. I’d like to hear more about that.’ She glances down at her not
epad. ‘You should make that information public, don’t you think?’

  Folding my arms, I glance over at the globe – the piece of Blu Tack that follows Ellie around the world. Two things occur to me. The first is that I need to make this woman go away. I need her out of my flat, so I have space to work out what to do.

  The second is that, above everything else, I must get hold of my sister and find out what she knows.

  Or what she did.

  ‘Look,’ she says, pushing harder, misinterpreting my silence, ‘either way, I’m going to do this story. About the abuse at Chesterfield. With or without your help. But I think it would be much better if you and your sister were part of it.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Ellie,’ I hear myself saying, ‘and we’ll talk to you together. You’re right – we need to tell this story.’

  What we really need is to clear our names. She knows it and I know it, but if this is what it takes to make it all go away …

  ‘You promise?’ she says. ‘You still have my card?’

  I nod. ‘I’ll get in touch with her immediately.’

  49

  As soon as she’s gone, I call the number for Ellie’s apartment again and listen to the phone ring and ring. My heart leaps when someone picks up – the same woman as before, I think – but once again my schoolgirl French abandons me and I’m forced to bellow, ‘Can I speak to Ellie Knight?’

  ‘Qui?’

  ‘Ellie Knight,’ I shout again. ‘Une fille anglaise.’

  She says something too quickly for me to grasp and hangs up.

  Just as I’m intending to try again, there’s another knock at the door. I curse under my breath. Surely the journalist can’t be back so soon.

  ‘Fran, it’s me,’ says a female voice. ‘Caroline.’

  I open the door and there she is with Daisy in her arms and enough luggage at her feet to give the impression she might be attempting to move in permanently.

  ‘Hi,’ she says quietly. ‘I think we should talk.’

  I’m so grateful to see a friendly face I want to fling my arms around her, but there’s something about her bearing that warns me off. She’s still unsure about me, still making up her mind. She looks sober, though, and I can’t smell alcohol on her in the way I could before. There’s no trace of the dark, heavy energy she had when she was drunk – just the sense of someone who is fatigued. Wary.

  ‘Take a seat,’ I say over my shoulder. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says quietly. ‘I wanted to talk first.’

  She doesn’t sit, but props Daisy up on the back of an armchair in the front room, facing her rather than me as she speaks.

  ‘I’m so sorry about what happened to your sister at Chesterfield,’ she begins. ‘I had no idea.’

  I stand with the kettle in my hand.

  ‘When she replied to my email about it,’ Caroline continues, ‘she made it sound so much more insignificant – like a prank.’

  ‘It was worse than that.’ I turn to switch the kettle on.

  ‘Yes.’ She pauses. ‘I always got the impression from Dickie that it was.’

  ‘He didn’t really do anything – it was Tom – Dickie just watched.’

  ‘But to watch and not do anything to stop it,’ Caroline says. ‘That’s as bad in a way, isn’t it?’

  Looking down at my feet in Mother’s slippers, I consider her question, remembering cases in the news – ubiquitous at the moment – in which people did terrible things while everyone else just watched.

  And was I any better? I hadn’t stopped Dickie and Juliet’s bullying at Chesterfield. Or reported my suspicions about how Dickie died. Bad things happened around me all the time and I did nothing to stop them.

  ‘I know you’re probably wondering if I think Ellie did it,’ Caroline continues, ‘if she killed Dickie and then Tom. Or, if it wasn’t her, was she behind it somehow?’

  I keep quiet, letting her speak.

  ‘But I can’t bring myself to believe she did. I spend my days looking out for victims, believing them. And the way Dickie spoke – he always felt so bad about Ellie – it never seemed like he saw her as a threat.’

  My breathing changes, slows.

  ‘Charles dropped the gravy when he heard the news,’ she says. ‘We were clearing the table after lunch and he switched the television on in the kitchen. That’s how we found out. Fiona and I were in the dining room with the children and we heard the crash.’

  I can picture Charles standing like that, cold gravy congealing on the floor while he stared at the screen.

  ‘I didn’t know who Tom was until then.’

  It strikes me that she’s very keen to make this clear.

  ‘He was at the auction,’ I say. ‘Sitting on the table next to yours.’

  Tom’s face as Charles made his bid. The rest of the room smiling, clapping with encouragement, but not Tom. Why was he there after all those years if he and Dickie hadn’t stayed in touch? If Caroline had no idea who he was?

  ‘I don’t remember,’ she says. ‘There were so many people that night. Anyway, they told me he was the other boy. That hurt Ellie. When I heard what they did, I threw up in their downstairs loo – I just couldn’t believe it; that Dickie could be involved with something like that.’

  ‘Tom was worse.’

  Caroline sighs. ‘Did Ellie talk about it much?’

  ‘Only once,’ I say. ‘She didn’t like to.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  Daisy kicks her feet against the back of the armchair and her mother moves her to the floor, where she rubs her toy giraffe on the sticky linoleum and then pops it in her mouth.

  ‘There’s a woman from The National who wants to interview Ellie and me,’ I say. ‘She knows I was there when Dickie died.’ I glance at the floor in shame. ‘Juliet has been talking to the press.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘I think she’s scared.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘That she might be next? Maybe she thinks if she talks it’ll protect her somehow. I always suspected that she might have had something to do with it. That she let the boys in.’

  Juliet was never quite the same after what happened to Ellie. Nor was her relationship with Charles. They didn’t break up immediately but he started to avoid her in those last weeks and she seemed to wander the corridors like a ghost. I’d hear her husky voice asking: ‘Have you seen Charles?’ like a refrain. People would dart into their rooms at the sight of her coming. And Charles hid from her like the rest of them, concealed behind doors as she swung them open looking for him.

  ‘Poor Juliet,’ Mrs Morgan used to sigh. ‘Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.’

  Mother was silent in response. We were all miserable by then – Mother, Ellie and I. Ellie lay in bed for weeks, stopped washing, stopped speaking, except to Charles, when he popped by to see her. Perhaps because he was the one who rescued her, he became the only person she’d confide in. The only person she trusted.

  ‘We need to talk to Ellie.’ Caroline’s voice brings me back.

  ‘I agree.’ I get to my feet, knowing what we have to do. ‘Do you speak French?’

  ‘Yes, not badly.’

  ‘Could you call this number?’

  My hands are shaking as I pass the scrap of paper. Caroline dials it from her mobile and then there’s what feels like an eternal wait as the call tries to connect and fails.

  She hangs up and shrugs.

  ‘Let’s try again,’ I say. ‘Try from the landline.’

  Caroline picks up the receiver, dials the number and waits again. The sound of the ring echoes down the line and I imagine the noise of it filling an anonymous corridor. A voice at the other end.

  Caroline speaks. ‘S’il vous plaît, je peux parler à Ellie Knight?’

  She is quiet as the murmur of Madame’s voice fills the receiver. I imagine her explaining that Ellie is out for now and that we shoul
d call back later. Or maybe she’s saying – I dare to hope – that she will just put us through.

  My heart beats a little faster.

  Ellie and Rose in their apartment. Rose tucked up in bed, her hair tumbled across the pillow. Her chest rising and falling.

  ‘Attendez une minute s’il vous plaît.’ Caroline places a hand over the receiver. ‘Ellie is short for Eleanor, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying to read her face. ‘Why?’

  ‘Y a-t-il une Eleanor? Eleanor Knight?’ she asks. ‘Y a-t-il une jeune femme britannique avec un bébé?’

  She pauses again and then there’s another murmur.

  ‘C’est étrange,’ Caroline is saying. ‘Merci.’

  ‘That was quite weird.’ She puts the phone down carefully as if it’s something fragile. ‘She said there wasn’t an Ellie there. Or an Eleanor.’

  ‘That is weird. I suppose it’s possible she could be using another name?’

  Caroline shakes her head. ‘That’s the thing – she said there wasn’t a woman with a child living there. Whatever Ellie told you, it’s not true.’

  50

  Sometimes fear feels like hunger. A strange fluttery feeling you can’t place. An emptiness or a need for reassurance. I tear into a packet of digestives. Caroline shakes her head when I offer her one, but Daisy’s more interested and sucks on a piece while I tell Caroline about Christmas Day.

  ‘Ellie left me something.’

  ‘A present?’

  ‘No – it sounds silly – a footprint in icing sugar. It was a family thing – something our mother used to do.’

  Caroline’s face softens. ‘Where?’

  ‘Just outside my door.’

  ‘But you didn’t see her?’

  ‘No.’ I glance down at my hands. ‘I haven’t seen her for three years. Since 2014.’

  ‘Can you be sure it was her?’

  ‘It’s just … It’s not something anyone else in the world knew about.’