by Tamar Cohen
‘Sasha told you that?’
Mrs Mackenzie shook her head vigorously, setting her black curls trembling. ‘Not Mrs Fisher, no. Mr Fisher was the one who let us know. And he came in today, with his new friend. After September had gone home, of course.’
‘His new friend? You can’t mean he brought her here?’
Mrs Mackenzie pressed her lips together discreetly. ‘Like I said, September wasn’t on the premises, so there was never any question of any awkward meetings. I imagine he just wanted the support.’
Hannah was conscious that her mouth was still hanging open, but she was struggling to take this in. Could Dan really be so insensitive? Did he imagine that now Sienna was pregnant, they could present themselves at school as a new family unit and no one would object? Josh was absolutely right. They needed to distance themselves from Sasha and Dan. Not only for their sake, but clearly for Lily’s as well.
On the way home, she held Lily’s hand so tightly the little girl eventually wriggled her hand loose. ‘Ouch, Mummy,’ she scolded. ‘That’s too hard.’
As they walked, she could feel her phone vibrating inside the pocket of the hoodie she was wearing. Sasha, said the caller display. She put it back. Almost immediately it started vibrating again. She ignored it.
Back in the flat, Lily was unusually clingy, asking Hannah to cut up her food for her and even feed her – something she hadn’t done for a while.
‘Were you and September fighting?’ Hannah asked her. ‘Was that why she bit you?’
Lily fixed her round blue eyes on her mother and shook her head.
‘But September must have been cross about something.’
Again Lily shook her head. Afterwards she lay on her bed listening to a CD of her favourite story, and fell asleep with her thumb in her mouth.
By this time, Sasha had left more than ten messages.
‘What shall I do?’ Hannah asked a shocked Josh, when she finally got through to him between classes and explained what had happened.
‘Call her back, but be firm, no matter how much she grovels. Tell her the girls need a break from each other. And so do we. We’re not blaming her, or September, but we need to step back.’
Afterwards, Hanah knelt on the floor of Lily’s bedroom for a long time, watching her sleeping. Then she took a deep breath and picked up the phone.
‘Finally!’ Sasha didn’t sound like someone about to grovel. If anything her tone was combative. ‘I’ve been calling you all day!’
‘Yes, well, I’ve been busy. Lily has been very upset, as you can imagine.’
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. How is Lil? Hope she’s over it now.’
When Hannah finally responded, her voice cracked with indignation. ‘Over it? Sasha, did you see Lily’s arm?’
Sasha made a noise that sounded dangerously dismissive. ‘Oh, it was just a little bruise, that’s all. You know how Lily likes to play up an injury. Remember how she was when she had that MMR vaccine. You’d have thought the nurse was trying to kill her!’
Hannah’s fingers gripped the phone so tightly she wondered it didn’t shatter into millions of tiny pieces. Shut up, she urged Sasha silently. Be quiet now.
Sasha, clearly failing to intuit what Hannah was telling her, continued, ‘But what I really want to talk about is how we’re going to tackle the issue of why September reacted how she did.’
‘What do you mean?’
Hannah’s words were shards of glass, sharp enough to sever an artery, sharp enough to rip open the scab on Sasha’s arm.
‘What I mean, Hannah, is that September would never have done what she did if Lily hadn’t been taunting her about having a new baby sister or brother. Lily knows September has just seen her own family ripped apart, she didn’t need to rub her nose in it, telling her she’ll never have a brother or sister because her daddy doesn’t love her or her mummy any more.’
‘Lily would never say anything like that!’
‘Hannah, Lily’s no angel, as you well know. None of them are. I’m not blaming her, I’m just saying it would have been so much better if you’d told me you were pregnant first, so that we could have agreed a strategy for the girls.’
‘I don’t fucking believe you!’ Hannah was so choked up with bile, she could hardly get the words out. ‘How dare you criticize my daughter, when she’s lying here with your daughter’s teeth marks in her arm? She could have been scarred for life.’
‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Hannah.’
‘This conversation is over, Sasha. If it goes on any longer, we’ll both say things we regret. I think the best thing is that we take a breather from each other. You and September and Dan have things you need to sort out by yourselves. And me and Josh and Lily need time to get used to the idea of a new baby, and really solidify our family unit.’
Did she use that phrase deliberately? Because she knew it would cause the maximum hurt? Well, good. For a moment she savoured a vicious stab of triumph, visualizing Sasha’s stricken expression, September’s crumpled face.
‘I’m sorry, Sash,’ she said, and her voice was softer now. ‘I know you’re going through hell at the moment, but I need to concentrate on my f— On things at home.’
She pressed the End Call button gently, hoping Sasha would somehow be able to tell that she hadn’t cut her off in anger. Then she went to look once more at her sleeping daughter, her sandy lashes resting on the still-rounded curve of her cheek, her thumb firmly clamped in her mouth. Could Lily really have said those things to September? Might she be just another blinkered parent, unwilling to admit that her child was capable of wrongdoing? Suddenly Hannah felt swamped by a crushing tiredness. She picked up the edge of the blanket covering Lily and slid in underneath, curling herself around her sleeping child. Then, with one hand over her belly, where, incredibly, new life was stirring, whether or not she wanted it to, and the other arm wrapped around her daughter, she too fell asleep.
She woke to the sound of the doorbell. A long, persistent buzzing, as if someone was leaning against the bell. Outside the window, the sky was caught in that no man’s land of an English late-autumn afternoon where the greyness of the incoming night met the greyness of the outgoing day and it could be any time at all.
To her surprise, she heard Josh talking into the intercom. She hadn’t even heard him come home. She sat up, trying not to wake Lily, and made her way out of the bedroom.
She could hear raised voices in the communal hallway. ‘You can’t,’ she heard Josh say loudly. Then a woman shouting. Seconds later, Sasha burst through the door, closely followed by Josh. Her skin was sallow in the gloomy half-light, her eyes huge and wild in her shrunken face, and her chest was juddering as if there was some living thing loose in there, slamming itself against the ribcage, desperate to be free.
‘Someone tried to kill me!’
‘For heaven’s sake!’ Beyond exasperated, Hannah put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder and steered her roughly into the living room, where she was less likely to wake Lily.
‘Hannah, I’m not joking. Look!’ Sasha wrested off her coat and threw it to the floor before rolling up the leg of her jeans, revealing a distinct red mark on her tiny calf at least five inches long, which was already starting to bruise. Hannah couldn’t help noticing that, breakdown or no breakdown, Sasha had had time to wax her legs.
‘I was in Brent Cross. I’d gone to start Christmas shopping and because I was so upset about the argument with you, and the thing with the girls. I left September with Katia. She wanted to come with me, but I told her it was her punishment for what she’d done to Lily.’
Sasha shot a sly glance at Hannah, as if seeking approval, but Hannah didn’t react.
‘All the time I was there, I felt like someone was watching me. You know that creepy feeling you get sometimes? There was this one time I was in Gap – you know that bit where the knickers are? – and I swear to God there was someone right behind me, kind of breathing on to my neck. I was so freaked out
I just froze, and by the time I turned round they’d gone.
‘I was going down those escalators – the ones outside Marks and Spencer – and the next thing I knew . . .’ Sasha stopped to gulp down a sob. ‘The next thing I knew, I felt this shove from behind and I went tumbling down. If there hadn’t been a man a few steps further down who broke my fall, I’d have gone right to the bottom. Hannah, I thought I was going to die. You know how they say your whole life passes through your head? Well, the only thing going through mine was Brent Cross? Really? I’m going to die in Brent Cross?’
She was trying to smile, but tears were leaking from her eyes.
‘But there must have been loads of people around.’ Trust Josh to get straight down to practicalities. ‘If you’d been pushed someone would have seen something.’
‘That’s precisely it,’ Sasha said. ‘The place was packed, and after I fell it was just pandemonium. Can you imagine? At the top I’d pushed in front of a group of women who looked like they were on some sort of wedding mission – to pick bridesmaids’ dresses or something. They were moving so slowly, I made sure I nipped on to the escalator ahead of them. There was only that one man ahead of me and when I fell I knocked him over and we both lay at the bottom with a crowd around us. Whoever did it would have been able to just saunter away. And apparently no one noticed who was directly behind me.’
‘Maybe someone just accidentally bumped into you.’
Josh had his teacher’s voice on, Hannah recognized.
‘No, Josh. I was there, it wasn’t an accident.’ Sasha’s voice caught.
‘And this “someone” who tried to kill you. I’m guessing you think it’s Dan?’
Sasha glared at Josh as if calling his bluff. ‘How many other people have threatened to kill me recently?’
‘And you told the police, I take it?’ Hannah kept her voice neutral. She was still furious with Sasha over what she’d said about Lily earlier, but on the other hand her friend was clearly distressed.
‘I told the security guards,’ Sasha said. ‘They wanted me to wait until the police arrived, but I just wanted to come home. They took a statement though, and they said they’re going to look at the CCTV footage, so maybe they’ll catch someone.’
Hannah glanced over at Josh to see what he was making of it all. Their eyes met, and he gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of the head.
‘I think I’d better take you home, Sasha,’ he said gently.
‘But I don’t want to go home. I’m scared.’
‘You must go home, for September’s sake,’ said Hannah. ‘Today can’t have been easy for her either.’
‘Let’s not get into that again, please,’ Sasha begged. ‘The school totally overreacted. You know what they’re like.’
Hannah dug her nails into her palm and forced herself to take a deep breath.
‘I’m taking you home, Sasha,’ Josh repeated, and this time there was no hint of a question.
‘Hans?’ Sasha appealed directly to Hannah now. ‘You’ve got to help me. I feel like I’m going crazy. Someone pushed me on that escalator, I swear. Please believe me.’
Hannah dropped her gaze. ‘Sasha, I’m sorry, but I’m really tired. It’s been an emotional day. Why don’t you go home and be with September? I’ll call you when I’ve had a bit of time to think about things. Maybe after we’ve been away.’
‘Away?’
‘We’re going to Oxford for a couple of days. At the end of next week, probably. To tell my mum about the baby.’
Sasha stared at her as if she’d been slapped. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she said. ‘Why are you cutting me out? Is it because I’m not a family any more? Am I no use to you now I’m not part of a cosy couple?’
‘Let’s go, Sasha.’ Josh put a hand under Sasha’s elbow and manoeuvred her out through the door, picking up her coat as they went.
Hannah listened as Sasha’s sobs outside the window grew fainter and then died away altogether.
Then she listened to the silence.
Eloise, aged fifteen
Daddy’s funeral is the first time I’ve seen Maman in nearly two years. I can’t believe I ever used to think her beautiful. Her skin is yellow and seems to have shrivelled up, wrapping itself around her bones like old clingfilm. One of Juliette’s dogs got ill last summer and its eyes were covered over in a disgusting kind of milky stuff and that’s what Maman’s are like, too. Like she is staring out through a film of cack. Auntie Valerie and Uncle Michel are with her, supporting her between them as if she were made of glass. Fiona and Hugh, Juliette’s mum and dad, dropped me off at the church. They’ve been so nice to me – looking after me in the holidays and telling me to treat their house like my own home. Of course, you can never really feel at home in someone else’s family. But it’s good of them to say it. Sometimes I wonder what they would say if they found out what I’m really like – if they reached a hand deep inside me, inside Eloise, and scooped out a handful of Lucie instead.
Maman comes over and kisses me on both cheeks. Her lips feel dry, like toast. Juliette’s older sister is on a raw-food diet and puts her food in a dehumidifier to take out all the water. I think Maman has been dehumidified, all her moisture sucked out. The service is long and dull. I wonder if Eloise will be mentioned, but the vicar only talks vaguely about ‘family tragedies’.
Afterwards we go back to the house. I haven’t been here in so long I’ve forgotten how it feels, even though it used to be home. Home is where the heart is, hey Maman? Daddy used to come to school to see me, or sometimes to Juliette’s home. Twice we went away, just the two of us – once to Paris, once to Barcelona. Daddy didn’t like talking about feelings. He once told me that’s why they’re called feelings, because you feel them, not because you speak them or hear them or see them. I think I know what he meant. He told me that what happened to Eloise sent something skew-whiff in Maman’s brain. Well, not just that, but that was the thing that pushed her over the edge. The straw that broke the camel’s back. He said she loved me really, but we both knew he was lying.
I sit at a table with Maman and Auntie Valerie and Uncle Michel and she asks me about my school and my life and which subjects I like, and every now and then she breaks off to talk in French with the others and it’s so RUDE my blood BOILS (see, Maman, how good I’ve become at those clichéd British sayings you always loved?). She tells me I look well, but she doesn’t quite look at me while she says it. Instead her eyes slide off my face as if it’s made from ice.
I look at her, though. Her face is so thin it makes her blue eyes look huge, the irises round like water balloons. I imagine taking a pin and popping them.
21
The head had assured him he had everyone’s support, but still as he walked about the school, Josh felt as if he was being judged. He’d stopped going into the staff room, imagining what the other teachers and admin staff might be thinking. Mud sticks, as his mother had often said. Most days now, he brought sandwiches to school, hastily prepared affairs soggy with mayo, and spent lunchtime at his desk in his form room as he was doing now, pretending to plan lessons but often just staring out of the window.
After his initial euphoria about the new baby, he now found himself beset by doubt. If Hannah had to take time off, the financial pressure would fall completely on him. Was he up to it? And what if the disciplinary hearing went against him? His insides turned to liquid as they always did when he thought about what had happened.
It was weeks now since he’d been called out of one of his classes and ushered in to see the head. The only other time he’d been summoned like this was to be told he hadn’t got the Head of Department promotion, and for a wild moment he’d thought maybe the head was going to say he’d made a mistake and Josh really was the best candidate for the job. But when the head’s PA wouldn’t meet his eyes, he knew it was bad news.
‘I’m sorry to tell you there’s been an allegation made against you, Josh.’ The head hadn’t bothered with small talk. ‘A v
ery serious allegation.’
The head wasn’t allowed to give him the details of the allegation, only to say it involved ‘inappropriate behaviour’. Only later would he find out through the school grapevine that one of his Year Eleven pupils, Kelly Kavanagh, had accused him of ‘touching’ her while they were alone in the classroom between the end of one class and the start of the next. But even just the sketchy details the head was able to provide were enough to make him feel he might be sick, right there on the head’s orderly desk.
Afterwards everyone had privately rallied around him. It was well known that Kelly Kavanagh would say anything for attention; she had form on making accusations against staff. There was that teaching assistant and the allegation of a slap around the face, the other staff members reminded him. Kelly had later withdrawn her allegation, but by then the teaching assistant had been so traumatized she’d had to go on long-term sick leave, and had never returned. Josh had had a recent run-in with Kelly over a test where he knew she’d copied her answers from the person in front, so she had clear motivation. He knew that was why the decision had been made not to suspend him while the investigation into the allegation was underway, although the head had warned him never to put himself in a position where he was on his own in a classroom with a pupil. But still, there was always that faint chance, wasn’t there, that he wouldn’t be believed? Since the Jimmy Savile scandal, everyone was scared of missing something, scared of being the one who failed to listen.
Josh had been intending to tell Hannah about the allegation and the investigation for ages, but it had never been the right time. It seemed at the moment that she was perpetually disappointed in him. He longed to bring her some good news, something to make her proud of him the way she used to be, not more shit to heap on top of all the other shit that was going on. And now that she was pregnant, coming clean seemed more impossible still. He was supposed to be the provider, and yet all he was providing was yet more problems.