by Tanya Byrne
‘No. Why?’
‘Orla? Orla Roberts?’
‘Yes, Orla Roberts. What’s the big deal?’
‘She would never come to this party!’
‘Why not?’
‘Not after Sam dumped her.’
I blinked at her. ‘She went out with Sam?’
I tried not to look horrified, but I must have failed, because her eyes lit up. ‘Yeah. For ages. He dumped her after the last Alphabet party.’
‘Orla dumped him,’ I muttered, turning to check if there was any cranberry juice. When I couldn’t find any, I settled for Coke, my hands shaking as I picked up the bottle.
‘You didn’t even know they were going out,’ she told me when I turned back to her. She tried to hide her smile behind her cup as she took a swig from it, but I saw and I made myself take a breath in case I bit back and gave her what she wanted.
‘I knew she was seeing someone.’ I did. Orla had told me that she’d broken up with her boyfriend after what happened because she couldn’t bear him touching her, but she didn’t say that it was Sam. It made sense when I thought about it; he didn’t seem the type to be sensitive about something like that. ‘But I’m not surprised she left out the fact that it was Sam,’ I added with a sweet smile.
I knew that she wasn’t going to agree with me, but I was still surprised when she feigned confusion and asked, ‘Really? Why’s that?’
I humoured her. ‘Because he’s vile.’
‘And Orla isn’t?’
I thought she was joking, so I laughed.
She didn’t.
‘You weren’t at the Abbott party, Adamma. You should have seen her—’
‘Oh yeah,’ I interrupted, and I don’t know whether I lost my temper or the music got louder, but I raised my voice. ‘And why wasn’t I there, Scarlett?’
She knew what I was getting at, but waved her hand at me and carried on, raising her voice as well. ‘Orla was a mess that night. She was absolutely wasted, falling all over the place in a dress that she really shouldn’t have been falling all over the place in,’ she said and I was astonished. I would never describe Scarlett Chiltern – Scarlett Chiltern with her unbrushed hair and red lipstick and bread-making father – as sanctimonious, but my God.
I stared at her. ‘And you didn’t think to check that she was OK?’
‘Why would I?’ She looked equally bewildered, then she gasped, her blue eyes wide. ‘Holy shit! Is Orla the girl you think was raped at that party?’
I looked around, my cheeks burning as I wondered if anyone had heard. The only people close enough to hear were two girls, who were standing behind Scarlett, but they didn’t seem to be listening as they bickered over the last bottle of gin.
When I didn’t deny it, Scarlett laughed, long and hard. ‘Oh, Adamma.’
All of my muscles clenched at once. ‘What?’
‘Silly, Adamma,’ she sang, tilting her head at me with a nasty smile that I wanted to slap right off her face. ‘Orla wasn’t raped.’
I was so angry, I couldn’t breathe, my heart thumping. ‘Says who?’
‘Says me.’
‘And how would you know, Scarlett?’
‘I know.’
‘Why? Were you there?’
‘I didn’t need to be. Everyone thinks it’s bullshit. Even Dominic.’
My heart reared up like a startled horse mid-gallop. ‘Dominic knows?’
‘He told you, Adamma.’
‘He told me about Chloe Poole, not Orla.’
‘Same thing.’ She flicked her hair and looked at me like I was mad. ‘He told you about the pervert in the car, didn’t he?’
‘So?’
‘So, Orla heard about that and is using it as an excuse.’
It was my turn to stare at her like she was mad. ‘An excuse for what?’
‘For shagging a random.’
I took a step back and stared at her. ‘What the hell, Scarlett?’
‘I’m just saying, Adamma –’ she snapped, so loudly that the girls behind her stopped wrestling with the gin bottle and looked at us – ‘she can’t go around behaving like that, drinking herself silly and fawning all over boys, then cry rape.’
I wanted to tell her to lower her voice, but I knew that would make her worse, so I took her by the arm and tugged her towards the other end of the table.
‘You’re disgusting,’ I hissed when we were far enough away from the girls with the gin.
‘Why? It’s true, Adamma. You didn’t see the state of her.’
I couldn’t look at her. My hands were shaking so much that I put my cup down on the table, terrified that I was going to drop it. I would never give her the satisfaction. ‘God forbid something like that ever happens to you, Scarlett.’
I don’t know whether what I said registered or she was horrified at being compared to a drunken slut like Orla, but she was suddenly furious and pointed at me. ‘And you’re gullible, Adamma. She’s just saying this for attention.’
‘Why in God’s name would she say something like that for attention?’
‘You’d be surprised the lengths some girls will go to, to be noticed.’
I arched an eyebrow at her. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’
I didn’t mean it to sound as nasty as it did, but as soon as I said it, her eyes went black and I couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of my heart in my ears. I thought she was going to slap me, but then Molly was between us, gushing about catching two Year 10 girls kissing. When we didn’t react, she frowned.
‘What are you two talking about?’
I gave Scarlett a look that pleaded with her not to say anything and when she smiled, I thought that was it, that was her retaliation for what I’d said, but instead she sighed. ‘We’re just talking about what a drama whore Orla Roberts is.’
She said it with such relish, the word rolling long and loud from her tongue – whore – but I was so relieved that I reached for my cup and drained it in two gulps. However, I shouldn’t have been relieved, because when I looked at Scarlett, she was still smiling and I knew that it wouldn’t be the end of it.
She’d call the favour in soon.
Molly laughed. ‘Oh God. Remember last year? With Mr Lucas?’
They both laughed and it made my nerves rattle. ‘What about Mr Lucas?’
Molly turned to face me, standing next to Scarlett. ‘She had this ridiculous crush on him. She wrote him poetry and everything.’ She and Scarlett exchanged a glance then giggled again. ‘It was pathetic. She let me read it.’
‘She probably let you read it because she thought you were friends.’
‘Oh well,’ Molly said with a smirk as she reached for a bottle and refilled her cup. ‘I was only friends with her for the key to the broom cupboard.’
She and Scarlett laughed again and it made me shudder.
‘Didn’t she say they did it?’ Scarlett laughed, her nose wrinkled.
‘They kissed.’ Molly rolled her eyes. ‘And then she gave him a hand job.’
‘As if!’ Scarlett squealed.
At least Scarlett and I agreed on that.
‘Come on, Molly.’ I crossed my arms. ‘Orla’s gone from having a ridiculous crush on him to giving him a hand job? Which is it? Either it happened or it didn’t.’
‘That’s my point,’ she said slowly, the way the kids at my last school did when I started, as though they didn’t expect me to speak English. ‘She’s a fantasist.’
‘Pot, kettle, black, Molly.’
She and Scarlett exchanged another glance, then Molly turned back to me, her gaze narrowed. ‘She is. She makes stuff like this up all the time for attention.’
Scarlett looked at me as if to say, Told you so.
I could feel
myself losing my temper and I couldn’t, not in front of Molly, of all people. So I took a deep breath. ‘I’m not saying that she didn’t have a crush on him,’ I said, carefully. ‘I’m just questioning the bit where it was reciprocated.’
‘Exactly! My family has known him for years and he never would,’ Scarlett said, completely missing that it wasn’t Orla I was doubting, rather Molly’s version of events. I almost corrected her, but it would have been futile; Scarlett was on a roll. ‘Besides, Daniel is gorgeous,’ she added, saying his name grandly, as though it was something we were lucky to know. ‘He’d never go for someone like Orla Roberts.’
I wanted to scream, but bit down on my lip. The pair of them were either too drunk – or stubborn – to respond to logic. I have no idea what Orla did to piss them off, but she’d been shunned like the Amish girl who’d been caught with the flat irons.
‘Now he is.’ Molly shook her head. ‘But Dominic Sim says that there are photos of him up at Eton and he was really ugly when he was our age.’
‘No way!’ Scarlett looked appalled.
‘Yeah. He was lanky and his nose was too big for his face. He’s definitely grown into his looks.’ Molly nodded when we stared at her. ‘He must be loving the attention he’s getting now. He could have any girl at Crofton he wanted. Abbey Ascot found out his mobile number and has been texting him pictures of her breasts.’
‘Yes. Well,’ Scarlett said with a shake of her head before she finished her drink. ‘He’s gorgeous now and there’s no way he’d risk losing his job here for someone like Orla Roberts.’
I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I’m just saying, Adamma,’ Scarlett said, sighing and waving her empty cup. ‘Orla was fifteen last year. Even if he could prove consent, it’s still Statutory Rape. He’d never work again. There’s no way he’d risk it. His family isn’t like ours. His father’s a mechanic, or something. He went to Eton on a scholarship. If he lost this job, he’d be back to living with his parents on a council estate in Sheffield.’
‘A council estate?’ Molly asked and when Scarlett nodded, she said, ‘Ew.’
‘He wouldn’t risk that for someone like Orla Roberts.’
I held my hands up and stepped back. ‘I have to go.’
I’d heard enough. Scarlett had said nothing to convince me that Orla was lying, but had said more than enough to convince me that she wasn’t who I’d thought she was. I tried not to look at her, but I couldn’t help it, I was so disappointed.
I guess she knew that, because she stared at me, her cheeks flushed. ‘What? We’re not saying anything that isn’t true, Adamma.’
‘Exactly,’ Molly added. ‘Everyone knows that Orla’s a lying bitch, Adamma.’
I shot a look at her. ‘Don’t call her that.’
Molly stared at me, her lips parted, and I could hear my heart in my ears again as Scarlett took a step towards me. But I wasn’t scared this time, I was livid. ‘Sorry, Adamma. Did we say something about your new best friend?’
It was so juvenile, I almost laughed. But I didn’t want to dignify it with a response, so I just shook my head as Sam swaggered over.
‘Everything OK, ladies?’ he asked with a smile so smug that, if he was a cat, he would have had feathers poking out of the corners of his mouth.
‘Fine,’ we said in unison.
He chuckled, then reached between us for a bottle of beer, but before he swaggered away again, he reached for Scarlett’s hand and squeezed it. I don’t think they knew I saw, but I did, and I would have dismissed it because it was Sam, but he squeezed her hand, not her hip or her ass, but her hand and finally – finally – I put two and two together and got, OH GOD. I’M GOING TO BE SICK.
Scarlett was seeing Sam.
That explained why she said all of that about Orla. But that made it worse, somehow. If she’d said it because she actually believed it, I’d understand, but the fact that she’d said it out of jealousy made it more despicable, especially as, if the photo I’d seen on Dominic’s camera was anything to go by, she’d been seeing him, as well.
I couldn’t look at her, scared that I would say something I couldn’t take back, so I turned and walked away, my heels sinking into the damp forest floor as I wove between the trees towards the road. After a few minutes, the sound of the music began to fade and I stopped to suck in a long breath that seemed to make each of my bones rattle. I sighed it back out again and in the moment of quiet that followed, I heard it, a twig snapping – then another and another and another – and suddenly my breathing was hysterical again as I looked around frantically.
I’d held my breath during the walk to Savernake Forest with Molly, my heart jumping up in my chest like a startled cat each time I heard something or saw a shadow between the trees. I guess I was so angry when I stormed away from Scarlett and Molly that I’d forgotten about the threat, about what had happened to Orla, but I was suddenly achingly aware of it: a voice in my head roaring at me to run. But before I could tug my heel out of the earth, someone emerged from between the trees and I put a hand to my chest.
‘Jesus, Dominic,’ I gasped, my heart still thundering.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m getting the hell out of Dodge,’ I told him, turning and continuing to walk towards the road. It hadn’t felt this far when I’d come with Molly earlier.
‘What was that about?’ he asked, walking alongside me.
I eyed him carefully. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘You’re shit out of luck if you think I’m letting you walk back to Burnham by yourself.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Really?’ He nodded in the opposite direction. ‘The road’s that way.’
‘I knew that,’ I told him with a scowl and began stomping the other way.
‘OK, Miss Okomma.’
We walked in silence, him watching and offering his hand every now and then as I navigated over the cluttered forest floor in my heels. I refused it each time, so was grateful when the trees parted and the road finally came into sight. It wasn’t lit, but the break in the foliage let the moonlight in so I could see the long line of the tarmac and the chewed-stone pillars further up. He turned to hold out his hand as he stepped onto it, but I didn’t take it, too concerned for my heels as I heaved my feet out of the mud. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the day of the hockey match.
‘So what’s up with you and Scarlett?’ he asked when I joined him on the road, but I ignored him and he chuckled. ‘I told you so.’
I crossed my arms. ‘Told me what?’
‘That if you want to be friends with Scarlett you’d better get used to that.’ He nodded back down the road towards the party.
‘That what?’
‘Whatever you were arguing about. Sam, I assume.’
I thought of Sam, reaching for Scarlett’s hand, and almost missed a step.
‘You know?’
He wouldn’t look at me. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, pausing to chew on the corner of his mouth. ‘Sam says nothing’s going on, so I guess nothing’s going on.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘He’s my cousin.’
‘That isn’t a yes, by the way.’
I turned my cheek towards him, but when he wouldn’t look at me, his forehead creased as he stared at the stone pillars at the top of the road. I suddenly felt so sorry for him. It must be awful to be in love with someone like Scarlett, to hope that she takes you with her the next time she runs. To hope you’ll love her more than the next guy promises to. And the next guy. And the next guy. And the next guy.
‘We weren’t arguing about—’ I started to say, then jumped, my hand flying to my chest as I heard a twig snap somewhere between the trees next to
me. But before I could look to see what it was, Dominic took me by the arm and tugged me back so that I was behind him.
‘I thought the Chloe Poole thing was bullshit?’ I breathed, and I had to suck in a breath before I did, my heart hammering as he peered at the black tangle of trees.
‘It’s nothing. Just a bird,’ he muttered, letting go of my arm, but he sounded almost robotic, like an automated message. Press 0 to connect to the Operator.
When my breathing had settled and we began walking in step again, I turned to look at him. ‘I spoke to her, by the way.’
‘To who?’ he asked, glancing at the trees again.
‘Chloe Poole.’
He looked at me then and the skin between his eyebrows creased. ‘When?’
‘The day you told me.’
‘What did she say?’
‘It’s a long story, but let’s just say you got the wrong hockey player.’
It was suddenly so quiet, I could hear him breathing and it made me uneasy. Perhaps he was processing it, but there was something about his gait, about the way his chin was up and his hands were in his pockets, that seemed a little too relaxed.
‘You don’t seem surprised, Dominic.’
‘Nothing at this school surprises me any more,’ he said, but I knew.
‘Scarlett told you.’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘Don’t be mad at her.’
‘I’m already mad at her.’
‘She was worried.’
I almost choked on a laugh, too angry to respond as I crossed my arms and recalled what she’d just said about Orla.
‘What did the police say?’
She’d told him that, too? So much for crossing her heart.
‘They can’t do anything unless she reports it.’
He stopped. I did, too, and when I eventually lifted my chin to look up at him, I was so surprised to find him looking sad, that my arms dropped to my sides.
‘I hope she’s OK,’ he said, softly. ‘Do you think she’ll be OK?’
‘She will be.’
He nodded, looking at me from under his dark eyelashes, and I don’t know if I reached for his hand or if he reached for mine, I just remember thinking that I had to do something a second before I felt his fingers between mine. But before our palms touched, I heard someone say, ‘Well, this is becoming quite a habit, isn’t it?’ and we sprang apart to find Scarlett watching us.