Growing Up Twice

by Rowan Coleman

  Ayla sat quietly on my bed and watched me. I was in a mood; my fight with Rosie had put me out of sorts. I wasn’t rude to her, but I was grumpy. I might have made her feel awkward, as if she was putting me out. I didn’t mean to.

  Once outside, the brisk bright morning made me feel better. We discussed what we were going to say to the head.

  ‘Now, the thing is I think you have to be totally honest. It’s no good pretending you’ve been a total angel, is it?’ I’d said sternly. I just wanted her to see how serious these things could be when they got out of hand.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry,’ she said, apologising to me for the sake of saying sorry.

  As we approached the school, herds of kids began to swarm in our direction, shuffling along in noisy twos and threes, skidding past on scooters and skateboards, gradually falling into flight with the rest of the flock. Teen couples strolled hand in hand, pausing every now and then to kiss with dogged open-mouthed passionless enthusiasm. The kids swore as much as they ever did and talked with a strange slang mix of North London and New York. I felt sorry for Ayla, isolated in their midst.

  As we crossed the playground to the main entrance a shrill voice hailed us across the tarmac.

  ‘Oi! Slag! I’m watching you.’ I turned around and saw Tamsin posed against a nearby railing, a thunderous scowl scarring her face, her minions standing sentinel on either side of her. I watched her until she felt self-conscious enough to tug at the hem of her skirt and turn her back on us, muttering, ‘Fat bitch,’ over her shoulder. Despite my suit and thirty years her words stung and I felt as intimidated as I ever have on a playground.

  With my hand on Ayla’s shoulder I guided her down the once-familiar corridors until we reached the head’s office.

  ‘We need to see Mrs Edgerton. It’s urgent,’ I told the same secretary who used to glare at me when I was hauled into the plastic chairs opposite her desk for some minor misdemeanour, usually involving too much make-up and back combing. She looked the same to me; why do people in education never get old? Maybe it was my suit and conservative make-up, but she didn’t recognise me, question me or try to stall me. She took one look at Ayla’s sheet-white face and went into the head’s office. A moment passed and before long we were both seated in low orange-covered easy chairs, each with a cup of instant coffee neither of us wanted in our hands.

  ‘So, Ayla, what’s all this about?’ Mrs Edgerton asked her.

  It was almost ten when I left. Ayla had been sent back to class, pupils had to be interviewed, parents had to be called and procedures followed.

  ‘You do understand that they have threatened her?’ I said finally, taking in the stricken look on Ayla’s face precipitated by the news that she had to go back to lessons. ‘It could be very difficult for her out there today.’

  ‘Her teachers will be alerted of the situation, Ms Greenway. This is Stoke Newington, not Bosnia. Nothing will befall Ayla on school property. You have my word.’ I looked at her sensible, calm face and took her at her word. She agreed to contact Ayla’s parents last, to give Ayla a chance to talk to them in person after school.

  ‘But I will be calling them first thing in the morning, Ayla. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ she had mumbled, looking about as wretched at the prospect of a confrontation with her family as was possible. It almost made me smile.

  I had been in a hurry, I needed to get on the bus and into work before my public-transport excuse became null and void. I didn’t stop to take an extra moment with her, to check that she was OK.

  ‘See you later then, kiddo, about 3.30, yeah?’ I ruffled her hair in a way that would really have annoyed her. ‘Cheer up. It’s never as bad as it seems.’

  ‘Yeah, 3.30.’ She paused and turned in her toes just the way she used to as a child when she’d been up to no good. ‘Cheers and everything,’ she said and she kissed me on both cheeks, turned her back on me and went to class. I remember thinking how tall she was and how young really, for all her plucked eyebrows and gelled-back hair, her adult airs and graces.

  Georgie and Jackson were both out of the office when I finally made it in. They had gone to a seminar on e-marketing, which I think I had known about at the back of my mind, and wouldn’t be back in the office for the rest of the day. There were three voice mails from Georgie on my office phone giving me jobs to do, and a further seven that just clicked off after a short pause. I guessed that she’d been phoning me all morning and stopped bothering to leave messages after a while. Georgie isn’t exactly Gordon Gecko but even I got that sinking feeling of being caught out and possibly landing in trouble. I phoned her mobile, which I knew would be switched off, and left another apology for being late.

  And then the worst thing that I thought could happen happened.

  After Friday night I hadn’t expected any more fun-and-games flirtations from Jackson but as I logged into my e-mail unread mail poured into the in-box, stacking up in intriguing little yellow envelopes. Out of twenty-two messages, eleven were anonymous messages from the same website as my message on Friday. At first I thought it might be a virus but our IT department checked them out and said they were clear, said they were just mails from a secret admirer. I opened them one by one. Each came with the same kooky animation and a clunky nursery-style tune as the first one, but each had a different slogan:

  I never stop thinking about you

  You are the one for me

  I saw you Friday

  Be my valentine all year round

  Pick up my calls

  I want to fuck you

  I’ll see you soon

  Wait for me

  You are in my dreams

  We should be together

  And then in the final message was the only repetition:

  I’ll see you soon.

  It clicked; these messages weren’t from Jackson. There was no way they could be from Michael, he didn’t have my e-mail address and even if he did, this wasn’t his style.

  Ostentatious declarations, insinuating ways of grabbing your attention, egomaniacal refusal to let the past go. Owen had never e-mailed me in the past, but I guess it’s not that hard to get my address, and I suddenly knew with instinctive certainty that they were from Owen. He’d love this, he’d love the fact that he’d surprised me with these unexpected communications. I imagined his sudden conversion from Luddite quill user to internet café fly. It makes perfect sense really, coming from Owen who wants to insinuate his way into one’s life and still keep his distance. The internet is his heaven and a new-found way of reaching me from beyond the grave of our relationship.

  Instant big silent tears plopped on to my desk and I had to turn my back away from the window to my only solid wall. God, I was never going to be allowed to make that final break. With a heavy heart I picked up the text messages that had been languishing on my mobile phone since Saturday morning. Owen again, I was pretty sure. It didn’t take much of a leap of imagination to connect him with the constant hang-ups at work either, although it wasn’t really his style not to have anything to say. This was a new departure for Owen, using technology to court me, and typical of him to insist upon spelling every text message exactly. Once, his overtures would have made my skin tingle with anticipation, I would be thrilled, caught all over again in the romance of our doomed relationship as it turned on its upward circle. Now I just felt exhausted, and thanked God that he no longer knows where I live. All I can do is wait it out until he finally goes away.

  I called the IT department again and had them set up my e-mail so that all mail from this site would be automatically deleted. If he sent me anything from another address I would have to call them again. I wanted to phone Selin but I was scared I’d blow Ayla’s cover, it only seemed fair to let her do the talking herself, poor kid. I couldn’t phone Rosie because we still weren’t talking and I couldn’t phone Michael, he had double physics. The rest of the day passed slowly, my body aching with tension and anger. Still under Owen’s thumb after all
this time.

  When two o’clock came around I knew I should start winding up my work and find a reason to leave the office, but as soon as I started to pack my things away a call came in from Georgie. She wanted me to check for an urgent order on the fax and make sure it had gone through before the end of the day, it was a new client and a big order. She didn’t say anything about my lateness but she was pretty sniffy with me and I could tell the next couple of days would be icy until I had proved again that I wasn’t a total slacker. Shame I was planning to walk out of the door just as soon as I could then, but I have always believed your real life is more important than your job. The order wasn’t on the fax. I called the client who said they had sent it half an hour earlier. I checked everyone’s in-tray, and then everywhere I could think of until I found it in the recycle bin amidst a ream of the discarded status reports that the machine automatically churns out.

  ‘Please check these through before you throw them away,’ I shouted uncharacteristically. People raised their eyebrows and little ‘ooooh’s echoed from behind monitors. It was good to know they respect me so much.

  It was just after 3.00 when I finally left. I would be late for Ayla. As I left the building I found myself looking long and hard up and down the street before I went to the bus-stop, just in case Owen was there. Silly really.

  The bus crawled along, the lurching movement making me feel sick. The man who sat next to me had his mobile soldered to his ear and his inane drivel about the girl he claimed he had shagged Saturday night and how many ways he’d done it to her on Sunday didn’t exactly improve my mood. The poor cow was probably sitting by a phone somewhere waiting for her new future husband to call.

  Another rainstorm cleared the air and by the time I made it off the bus and stepped on to Newington Green I was running about fifteen minutes late and was around fifteen minutes from the school gate. Thirty minutes late. I had planned to be early, to be there when she came out. I hoped that with any luck she would have overestimated the whole thing and walked the short walk home alone, but I’d promised to meet her so the least I could do was try to catch her halfway.

  Walking as fast as I could in my work shoes, my toes stung as I took each step.

  As I walked past the Mehmet firm window I peered in through the slatted blinds. Both Selin and her dad were there, their heads bent over their desks, Selin leaning into the earpiece of her phone, a smile on her face. It didn’t look as though Ayla had gone home, or if she had she’d gone straight upstairs to her room to avoid talking to her father, maybe to practise what she was going to say.

  But then at the corner of Clissold Park and Green Lanes I saw her. Either she hadn’t waited or she hadn’t been given a choice; at any rate she was pinned up against the park railing with Tamsin’s face millimetres from hers, Tamsin’s right forefinger stabbing her point violently home, the fist of her other hand coiled around the neck of Ayla’s biker jacket. So she hadn’t underestimated them, things really could get that bad. I picked up my pace, but the road was busy and the traffic stopped me getting across as quickly as I wanted. To scare them off I shouted across the busy road. To get them to leave her alone, I shouted Ayla’s name as loudly as I could.

  ‘Ayla!’

  The tick of the clock on the wall moves forward again and for a moment I let my eyes wander to the peach stipple-paint effect of the wall it hangs on and the tatty fruit-themed frieze that runs along behind it. My eyes are drawn back again to the second hand, and it marches haltingly forward. No amount of concentration can turn it back now.

  ‘Ayla!’ I shouted across the busy road.

  All heads in the group turned towards me, relief flooded Ayla’s face. She seized the moment and pushed Tamsin away from her, shoving the others clear as she ran towards me, her eyes locked on me.

  She ran towards me, across Green Lanes, glancing at the changing lights on the crossing before locking her eyes on me.

  A lorry driver ran a red light. Over the road a terrier tied up outside a newsagent began to bark. The way I remember it, I saw his owner come out of the shop to quiet him and cover her eyes with her hands before I saw everything that happened around me.

  A world of noise and chaos crash landed into the afternoon.

  The lorry skidded across the road and crashed into a parked car, its horn sounding a long and unremitting note. Cars braked to a panicky stop, doors slammed, people ran out of shops and leaned out of windows. Tamsin and her friends ran away into the park. And during the single moment that all this happened Ayla’s body curved through a violent arc in the air. A moment later her head hit the kerb at my feet, the rest of her sprawled in the road.

  It took me time, just a fraction of a second, to take in what had happened, to realise that she had been hit by the truck, to realise that she was bleeding at my feet.

  I knelt beside her.

  ‘Ayla? Ayla?’ I repeated. Her brown eyes were still fixed on mine but they were not focused. I fumbled for the mobile in my bag, but someone in the crowd called out, ‘It’s all right, love, they’re on their way.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, love, five minutes they said.’

  I knew enough not to try and move her, so I covered her shoulders with my coat.

  As I moved I said, ‘Her parents, her parents …’ But some one must have told them already because all at once Selin and her parents were at my side.

  ‘Oh, my baby,’ Mr Selin whispered as he sank to his knees in the gutter. Selin’s mother pushed me out of the way and took her daughter’s hand, whispering to her to wake up, rocking gently on her heels.

  I looked up at Selin, and met her gaze. Her eyes were wide with horror and disbelief.

  ‘She ran, she ran into the road,’ I whispered, unable to find my voice. Selin nodded silently and turned her back on me, kneeling to wrap her arms around her mother, gently rocking her back and forth. I felt as though I had stepped into someone else’s nightmare, an invisible ghost. From then on everything seemed like a dark dream.

  The ambulances arrived. I was dimly aware of the lorry driver being bundled into one of them and it left quickly. The police arrived, closed off the road and began asking questions. I remember thinking that they would have to put the buses on divert. Further up the Lanes, car horns had begun to sound angrily, unaware of the reason for the delay to their journey.

  We all stood back on the kerb while the paramedics tended to Ayla. Gently, quickly and quietly they prepared her for her journey without exchanging a look and only the occasional word.

  ‘She’s my daughter,’ Ayla’s mother said and the paramedic nodded and let her climb into the ambulance. Selin and her father looked at each other, at a loss for what to do, when a police officer offered to take them to the hospital.

  ‘Do you want me to fetch Hakam?’ I asked as they climbed in to the car. Selin’s father looked at me as though he had seen me for the first time.

  ‘Jenny? Why are you here?’ A sudden panicked sense of guilt knotted into my stomach. I called to her across the road, she ran to meet me.

  ‘I … I came to meet Ayla, we … I came to meet her,’ I finished lamely. Mr Selin looked around him as if he had just been dropped into an alien world, I don’t think he really heard me. For a moment he focused again and caught my hand.

  ‘Don’t worry about Hakam. He’s at his grandmother’s, he’ll be fine there for now. Let’s leave him for now,’ Mr Selin said. He pulled me down towards him. ‘Jenny, find Josh, tell Josh and bring him, please?’

  I nodded, relieved to be given something to do. ‘Of course, right away. I’ll bring him. Leave it to me.’ I paused only to watch their quiet pale faces as the cars pulled away.

  The squat Josh lives in is maybe twenty minutes’ walk away. I began the journey at a brisk walk but soon I found I had broken into a run and I kept running until my chest felt like bursting, my head pounded and my feet screamed each time they touched the pavement. Eventually I was forced to come to a halting stop and
I bent double gasping for air, my stomach lurching in revolt. Passers-by carefully avoided looking at me. I reached into my bag and pulled out my inhaler, taking two doses in quick succession and breathing deeply.

  There wasn’t far to go now, I could have just walked it, it wouldn’t have made much difference, but I knew that I couldn’t.

  I kicked off my shoes, shoved them in my bag and began to run again. Five minutes later, out of breath again, with torn tights and bleeding toes, I pressed the bell of Josh’s house and didn’t remove my thumb until the door had been opened. A girl I didn’t recognise opened it and I pushed past her into the hallway.

  ‘Josh,’ I wheezed, looking around me for any sign of him.

  ‘Hang on just a minute,’ she said indignantly. ‘Just who the hell are you?’ I ignored her and burst into the living room. Danny was watching Ready Steady Cook.

  ‘Where’s Josh?’ I asked him, gulping in air, my heart pounding, feeling sweat cool on my forehead. I couldn’t see him, it hadn’t occurred to me that he might not be here. ‘Where’s Josh, I need to see him?’ I repeated anxiously.

  Dan eyed me speculatively. ‘He’s upstairs, working. What’s going on? Has something happened?’

  I didn’t bother to answer him and headed for the stairs.

  ‘Josh!’ I called as I closed the gap between us. He met me at his bedroom door, and at the sight of me backed in again and sat on his bed. His walls were covered with charcoal drawings and a painting in progress leant on an easel by the window.

  ‘Christ, Jen.’ He looked me up and down and pulled me into a hug. ‘Fuck, darling, what’s happened to you?’ He took my face in his hands and said, ‘Did Owen do this to you?’

  I shook my head and prized myself out of his embrace. ‘No, no. It’s you. I came to get you.’

  He stood up, confused and concerned. ‘Get me?’ he said, his voice filled with intuitive dread.

  A moment’s silence ticked by, I spread my hands out before him, unable to bear what I was about to say.