‘Shut up!’ Helen shouts. ‘Hey! Shut it.’
Volume is not – and never has been – a problem for Helen. It’s like she’s swallowed a foghorn and she has her silence in an instant.
‘I don’t know why you’re here,’ she says, ‘but I’m here to celebrate the life of a person we know, not to mention the end of term. If we can all stop shouting for a couple of minutes we can get back to whatever we want.’
There are more grumblings and then another series of shushes. Helen’s red hair is rippling gently and she’s giving everyone a shit-stare that’s so good, my mum could learn tips. She’s bound to end up being a teacher one day.
When she’s done, Ollie clambers back onto the table. It is as quiet as it’s going to get. He coughs and then tries again. ‘Sorry, I know some of you don’t want to hear from me and that’s fine. I understand – but whatever you might think, I loved Sarah and she loved me.’
He takes a breath and peers slightly upwards, pushing any hint of tears away from view.
This time, nobody interrupts. ‘I know she’s not coming back but if we’re here for any reason, then let’s remember who she was. She loved animals – so much so that, even though she was scared of spiders, when she spotted one, she’d make me pick it up carefully and then take it outside so it wasn’t harmed. She wanted to travel through South America, to teach in Hong Kong, to sing and write her own music.’
Ollie stops again, taking a larger breath this time. He has his silence. There’s no holding back the tears this time. ‘She liked rocky road brownies, those ones you can get in the café in Westby; she ate ketchup with everything; she had these Little Miss socks that she loved so much, she kept wearing them even though they were full of holes.’ Another breath. ‘Those are the things I remember but a lot of you knew her, too. I know we’re here to celebrate the summer and the end of term – but if you knew Sarah, then please remember her, too.’
Ollie glances quickly around the crowd and then spots me. He offers the slightest inclination of his head and then ducks down, out of sight.
With him gone, there’s a strange atmosphere around the clearing. There’s a hint of sympathy but also confusion. Many only knew him as ‘that kid who killed his girlfriend’ – and now people don’t know what to think.
A low ripple of chatter starts and then silences as another person appears atop the picnic bench. Rebecca the Raven straightens her skirt and stands tall. Her hair is so dark, skin so bright, that the white glimmer of the moonlight is making it look like she’s glowing. As much as I dislike her, she’s utterly breathtaking.
‘Hello, everybody,’ she says, using a girly, childish voice. ‘I know you didn’t all know Sarah as well as I did, but she was the kindest, sweetest, most bestest friend…’
I have no desire to hear the rest because it’ll only be the same load of made-up look-at-me self-indulgence that she came out with a year ago. For most of the people around me, Rebecca is the tearful face of what happened.
As everyone listens in reverence, I slip between the people around me and then make my way through the crowd until I’m on the edge of the woods. It’s quiet but not quiet enough – Rebecca’s bleatings are still floating on the breeze, so I press on through the trees. It’s hard to keep my footing at first as the clingy, thin roots criss-cross the ground, shielded by a blanket of grass and moss. I trip three times before steadying myself until I eventually end up in front of an enormous tree that is three or four times the width of me. It’s so big that the trunk has branched into two and then grown back on itself, creating a natural heart shape.
I lean against it and stare up at the sky, listening to the silence. When the stars become too bright, I close my eyes.
The water comes instantly this time. I try to breathe but it’s swilling around my mouth, in my nose. I push up towards the surface but there’s a hand on my chest, another on my head. I’m thrashing, trying to fight, but the person is stronger than me and the only thing on which I can get a proper grip is the strap around his or her wrist. I pull the bracelet, while pushing up as hard as I can, fighting for air, scrapping, heaving but getting nowhere.
Dislocating my finger did not hurt at all – but this is agony. I’m reliving it all again, gasping, coughing, crying, pleading.
If I can only open my eyes and stare through the water, I should be able to see the shape of my attacker. Even a silhouette would help. Spiky hair, or long? Wide shoulders or narrow?
I don’t get a chance to find out because the river evaporates, the hands disappear – and I’m jolted back to the present by somebody grabbing my arm.
Chapter Twenty
‘Are you okay?’ Robbie is standing over me, gripping my wrist. It takes a second or two for me to get my bearings: the water becoming earth, darkness becoming trees, my attacker becoming… my boyfriend.
‘You looked like you were choking,’ he adds.
I tug my hand back and brush invisible grit from my face. I feel tired, perhaps even exhausted enough to sleep.
‘I’m fine,’ I say.
Robbie takes a small step backwards, clouding almost all of his face in shadow. There’s nobody behind him, no one anywhere near us. When he reaches for me again, I flash back to the water. My instinct is to get away but the tree trunk is at my back and there’s nowhere to go.
‘I’m sorry if I upset you,’ he says.
‘You didn’t.’
‘I know we’ve not seen much of each other recently – and I know it’s my fault. I’ve got my exams, plus I’ve had the uni application forms. Football’s picking up, too. Then I was feeling ill on Sunday and my dad’s got me that factory job next month to get some money before I go away. I’m not trying to avoid you, I’m just really busy.’
I shrug and he steps towards me, but the thought of the river is still burning into my mind and I slip to the side. Robbie stops, crossing his arms.
‘What’s up, Ell? Did I do something wrong?’
I stare up at him, wondering if he did… knowing I did.
‘What happened on Saturday night?’ I ask. The question is finally out there.
‘When?’
‘We left Helen’s house in your car. What happened?’
‘Don’t you remember?’
‘I wouldn’t be asking if I did.’
I can’t escape his gaze but neither can I read it. I have no idea what he’s thinking. In this moment, we’re two strangers. He stares past me into the darkness and then his chest slumps. ‘I drove you home, Ell. Nothing happened.’
‘Before that.’
He shrugs. ‘We were at Helen’s house – at the party – and you disappeared. I asked Naomi where you were but she was out of it on that hammock in the garden. The next time I saw you was when we heard the sirens. You were at the bottom of the stairs saying we should go, so we did.’
As he says the word ‘stairs’, it’s like he’s telling me that he knows I kissed Ben up those stairs. There’s resignation in his voice, perhaps sadness. Not anger, though.
‘I’d probably been upstairs for a wee,’ I say. Robbie doesn’t react, so I add: ‘What happened in the car?’
‘Not much – it isn’t a long journey back to the village, so you asked if we could drive around for a bit.’
‘Did we?’
‘You know we did. I took us out through Langham and we did a couple of loops out on the plains.’
‘What else?’
Robbie sighs again and starts tugging on his hair. He does this sometimes when he’s nervous or frustrated. This time, he catches himself and stops, folding his arms instead. ‘We played some music and you were singing along. Then we pulled up in the car park at the back of that Morrison’s and we talked.’
I have no memory of anything he’s telling me – either the driving around or the stopping to chat.
‘What did we talk about?’
‘Stuff.’
‘Stuff like what?’
Robbie stares straight at me and I know the
answer. His big eyes are dark and sad, like a puppy that has lost its favourite toy. ‘You really don’t remember?’
‘Please just tell me.’
‘We talked about the same stuff as always. You know what it’s been like for the past month or so. Since Easter, really. We both know what’s coming. This is the end, isn’t it?’
Robbie gulps and turns away. Not just looks away, actually turns so that I’m facing his shoulder. He can’t look at me, which is good because I can’t face him either. I so want to cry, yet it’s stuck in my throat. I have to keep speaking, to continue pushing, because I need to know what happened that night.
‘The end?’ My voice is a croak, a frog with laryngitis.
He turns away a little more, facing the trees and talking to them: ‘We’re going our separate ways, Ell. This is the end of an era. Our era. We both know any sort of long-distance relationship isn’t going to work. I’m going one way this summer and it’ll be your turn next year. Perhaps we’ll catch up a year or two down the line? Maybe we’ll end up together – but this is the time where we go and do our own things. If that eventually brings us back together, then great. If it doesn’t, then we’ve still had these past couple of years.’
Robbie peeps over his shoulder at me and there are tears in his eyes. He’s broken and that only breaks me. I screw my eyes closed, not to stop the tears but to try to summon them. I’m a tin can in a microwave, ready to pop. There’s a thump in my chest and then, from nowhere, I’m crying. Tears are running along my cheeks and then I’m sobbing even harder because I’m so relieved this part of me still exists. I squeeze my eyelids into my cheeks, pressing so hard that they hurt.
‘Did you drop me at home?’ I manage through the sobs.
‘You know I did.’
‘What time?’
‘I don’t know. Around half twelve or one o’clock, I suppose…’
He tails off.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I suppose I didn’t drop you home. I left you at the end of your road. You wanted to walk the last bit.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, Ell. You were upset. I was upset. We’d been talking about this stuff and I figured you wanted some air.’
It sounds like me and, if we had been having this conversation, chances are I would’ve wanted to try to clear my head before going home.
Robbie turns back to face me and his expression is so sad that I’m suddenly riddled with doubt, wondering if he does know about Ben and me. Moments ago, I was certain, now I’m not. I want to ask him if we talked about Ben in our ‘end of an era’ conversation on Saturday night but he seems so downhearted, so shattered, that I don’t know if I want to make it any worse for him.
He reaches towards me but I shake my head and sidestep away. I’m not ready to admit to him what I’ve done and I’m embarrassed by myself. But there’s also that tiny voice in the back of my mind saying he was the last person to see me before I woke up in the river. I find it impossible to separate the two thoughts. I should trust him but I absolutely can’t.
‘Sorry,’ I say, mumbling. ‘I’m not in the mood. Sarah and everything.’
He runs his tongue along his top row of teeth and nods. ‘Shall we go back?’
‘As long as Rebecca’s stopped talking.’
Robbie offers me his arm and I link mine through it, walking at his side as much as I can while we negotiate the twigs and branches.
Back at the clearing, the party has picked up again. Rebecca is no longer on top of the table and music is playing. For a moment, I wonder if she’s left, having had her time in the spotlight, but then I see her sitting on one of the benches, head in hands. She has a Raven on either shoulder, plus three or four lads crowding near, offering sympathies. There are fewer people dancing but more hanging around the edges of the treeline, drinking and eating.
Robbie says he’s off to find some of the football team, so I offer a thin smile and leave him to it. I ask a couple of people if they’ve seen Naomi but get only shrugs and head shakes. I want to avoid the corner of fake grief surrounding Rebecca so head in the opposite direction – where I walk straight into Ollie. He steps back and straightens his top, looking down upon me.
‘Hey,’ he smiles.
‘Hi.’
‘Does Mum know you’re here?’
‘What do you think? Does she know you’re here?’
‘What do you think?’
We offer sad smiles to one another.
‘How did you get out?’ he asks.
‘Teleport. You?’
‘Mission Impossible-style. Tunnelled into the attic, up onto the roof, jumped from house to house, then stole a helicopter.’
‘Nice. I thought about doing that but didn’t want to be a flashy git.’
He nudges my arm playfully. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t tell.’
‘I’ve always been a fan of mutually assured destruction.’
He holds out his little finger towards me. ‘Pinky swear?’
I think about it and almost link fingers with him. In the end, I tilt my head and offer my best look of disdain. ‘How about you don’t tell Mum I snuck out and I won’t tell her about that hidden folder of video files you keep on the laptop?’
He gulps and then lets his arm sag to his side. ‘You know about that?’
‘I do now.’
I give him a wink and then spin on my heels, off to find Naomi.
III
Tuesday
Chapter Twenty-One
I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to do but figure that by acting completely normally with my friends and family, eventually somebody will crack and ask me what’s going on. Someone held me under the water until I went limp – and now that person will be panicking, wondering what’s happened. By being myself, I’ll be driving him or her crazy. That is unless the so-called Hitcher – or some other stranger – was involved. If that’s the case, I’m not sure what I can do.
When I find Naomi, she’s dancing with Ben in the middle of the clearing. Actually, not just dancing, they’re partaking in what the swimming pool rules board would call ‘petting’. That’s something else I’ve never understood. No running, no bombing – fair enough. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, then the fun really begins. But no petting? Firstly, why is it called petting specifically at the swimming pool and nowhere else; secondly, if people are going to strip down to their barest of essentials, isn’t that a place where ‘petting’ is most likely to take place? Not only that, the rules board is woefully incomplete. The powers that be who run the place are worried about a couple sneaking a quick kiss, but they’re not fussed enough to have a ‘no weeing’ rule? That’d be the first line if I was writing that board – no bodily fluids. After that, take your pick.
My mind-drift to swimming pools is interrupted by Ben. Naomi has her back to me, so he’s peering over her shoulder, eyes open, staring directly at me as he clings to his girlfriend. It’s far too creepy, so I turn and watch Rebecca the Raven talking about the friend she never knew instead. That’s marginally more agreeable.
I’m wondering what I should do when an out-of-breath Naomi appears at my side, tugging my wrist. ‘C’mon – let’s dance.’
‘I’m not—’
‘C’mon!’
She’s bounding with excitement and it’s hard to say no to her in that state. She’s like a mini kangaroo, bouncing on her heels. I allow Naomi to drag me away and then I’m laughing again. We’re dancing and other people are too. It’s normal and it’s fun and wonderful.
The party continues and it feels like a final hurrah. Not just a goodbye to Sarah, but a goodbye to the older students who’ll be taking exams and then going off to do their own things. After this, it’s jobs, university and the rest of life. Even for those of us in the lower year, it’s so long to our friends.
There’s so much laughter and chatter that it stops feeling like we’re in a forest, surrounded by nature and the outdoors. We’re
cramped onto a sweaty dance floor somewhere, or squeezed into someone’s living room. It’s claustrophobic with everyone on top of one another but it doesn’t matter because, after this, we’ll all go our own ways. It’s all of those things, yet none of them.
I only notice people have started to drift home when the music stops. The lad who brought the speakers is ready to leave and offers an apologetic wave to those of us remaining as things go silent. The clearing has emptied, but I hadn’t noticed. There had been forty or fifty people crowded in but at least half have gone. The Ravens are nowhere to be seen, likely having got some lad – or lads – to give them a lift home. That’s what usually happens at college.
Ollie seems to have gone, too, and so has Helen. Robbie’s sitting on one of the benches slurping from a can of full-fat, full-sugar, teeth-rotting, we’re-all-doomed Coke. He looks exhausted, with sweat clinging to his arms. For some reason, he has taken off his shoes. When he spots me looking at him, he fails to stifle a yawn. Ben is lying on the floor at Robbie’s feet, either sleeping or pretending to. Naomi, meanwhile, has stopped bouncing as much as she was. Her hair is poking out at angles from under her Kermit beanie and has matted to her forehead. Her arms and face are drenched with sweat and her eyes are unable to focus properly.
‘Let’s get you some water,’ I say, hooking an arm around her and directing her towards the boys. Robbie understands and unscrews the lid from a bottle of water before passing it over. Naomi sips, then gurgles. She takes off her jacket and then lies on the ground next to Ben, her eyes closed, using the jacket as a blanket.
The Death and Life of Eleanor Parker_An absolutely gripping mystery novel Page 12