‘Where’s the drama in that?’ Rose’s grin snaps on and off.
‘Your dad is going to find out that some creep sprang you from jail,’ I warn her.
‘Nope. He won’t, and he isn’t that interested in me.’ For a second Rose looked disappointed. ‘I told him I had a hangover this morning, just to see what he’d do, and he said that in a few weeks we’ll be taking our GCSEs and that I’m a bright girl, and if I stop fucking around I will have a bright future. But that if I am determined to ruin my own life there isn’t much he can do about it, he needs to focus on Amanda. Really she’s all he cares about, it’s like keeping Amanda happy is a full-time job. Me, I’m just an inconvenience, a great big fat hairy gooseberry in their eternal honeymoon.’
‘Well at least he was at home,’ I say. ‘Dad wasn’t there when I got up this morning. I don’t even know if he came home.’
‘Ugh, who needs fathers, right? Actually, it’s better this way,’ Rose says, wiping the lipstick mark off my cheek with her thumb. ‘Life would be much more boring if he did care. And I don’t need him to care about me, anyway, there’s a new daddy in town!’
‘Rank,’ Leo groans.
‘What does that even mean?’ I ask her as the bell sounds.
‘What do you think it means?’
God, Rose is infuriating.
‘Rehearsal at lunch,’ Leo calls to us, breaking into a jog to get to class, clearly keen to get away from Rose’s drama and taunts about older men.
‘Yes, boss!’ Rose salutes him, before turning to me. ‘He thinks I’m a dick, doesn’t he?’
‘You are a dick,’ I say. ‘And, anyway, since when have you cared what anyone thinks about you, and what the fuck do you mean a new daddy, because that sounds as creepy as hell.’
‘I’m just messing around,’ Rose says. ‘And I do care, I care what you two think of me, and Nai. And maybe Leckraj a bit.’ With the corridor clear she takes off her glasses, behind them the thick black eye make-up that she usually wears is gone, just her pale blue eyes, rimmed with red, lids swollen from crying. ‘It’s the rest of those fuckers I don’t give a shit about.’
I pull her into a hug, getting lost in the sweet scented cloud of her hair.
‘Leo doesn’t think you are a dick,’ I reassure her. ‘I totally do, though.’
She thumps me pretty hard in the ribs but at least she is laughing as I watch her fall into class, her sunglasses firmly back in place.
Rose takes her place on the teacher’s desk, sitting right in front of Mrs Hardyman and waits until the whole class is looking at her.
‘You’ll never guess what happened to me last night . . . ’
‘Red?’ Mr Smith leans out of his classroom and beckons to me, standing alone in the corridor.
‘I’m late for registration, sir,’ I say, tearing my eyes off Rose as Mrs Hardyman closes the door with a notable slam.
‘I’ll give you a note, I just wanted a quick word on how things were going with Naomi? Must be hard on you all seeing her like that, but you most of all, I guess. You two were really close, weren’t you? I mean you are, of course . . . ’
‘Yes,’ I say as I walk into his classroom, and he closes the door behind us. ‘I used to think we were but I don’t know what happened, it doesn’t make sense to me. She never said anything to me or the others that made us think this could happen. I feel like I let her down somehow.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone has something they don’t talk about with anyone,’ Mr Smith says. His voice is low, kind. ‘I know I do, I bet you do, too. Doesn’t mean you weren’t, aren’t, important to her.’
‘S’pose,’ I say. I could go now, but I don’t want to. I like it here, it’s quiet and still. ‘What’s your secret, sir?’
He laughs and shakes his head. ‘I guess I walked into that one. I like urban exploring, there you go. That’s my secret. Getting into derelict and old buildings you’re not supposed to be in and having a look around. Not strictly always legal, but a lot of fun.’
‘If you say so.’
He laughs again. ‘Keep that to yourself, OK? I don’t want to get into trouble.’
I don’t really see how you can get into trouble over that but I nod anyway.
‘How’s Naomi’s family doing? I thought about going round there, but I don’t want to intrude.’
‘I don’t think you would be, sir,’ I tell him. ‘I think Mrs Demir likes it, people round, lots of support and stuff. Takes her mind off things. I think she’d appreciate it.’
I watch as he carefully rearranges the papers on his desk.
‘Anything else you’d like to talk about?’
I shake my head, so close to telling him everything that’s circling round and round in my mind. But I don’t. I don’t even know why, really, except that if I say all the things I’m thinking out loud, he’ll think I’m having some sort of breakdown and make me go to Inclusion and talk to a counsellor about feelings and shit. A girl killed herself a few years ago, and ever since then all you’ve got to do is look a bit sad and they send you off to therapy, and therapy has never helped my mum. But if I’d turn to anyone, it would be to him.
‘Red—’ He hesitates for a moment. ‘Your exams are coming up, and . . . look, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I think you are coping with a lot. I saw your mum the other day in the supermarket and . . . ’
Oh God, please tell me he didn’t. I want to turn inside out from shame.
‘She was pissed,’ I say, every word feels stone heavy.
‘Looked that way; you hadn’t told me she was drinking a lot again. Are things very bad at home?’
If I say yes, what then? Social services again, and this time anything I tell them will only makes things worse. It’s hard, I want to pour it all out, every little thing that makes up the cracked mosaic of life at home. If anyone would understand, it would be him. But I can’t. Me, I might come out of it OK, but what about Gracie? What if she got taken into care or something? I can’t risk that.
‘No, no they aren’t as bad as they look. I mean Mum isn’t great but Dad’s around and he’s getting her help. And she wants to stop, so you know, it’s all under control. Please don’t talk about it with anyone, sir. You know Dad’s one of the school governors, he’d be sick as a pig if it got out.’
I find the idea briefly appealing, but if I’m honest, I don’t want the truth about our mess of a home life getting out any more than he would.
Mr Smith nods as he looks into my eyes and I drop my gaze, not wanting to be caught in a lie.
‘I just want to know that you can come to me for help, if you need it,’ he says. ‘You’re a talented kid, you’ve got a bright future ahead of you. And sometimes we all need someone to be on our side, right? Well, I’ve got your back.’
I nod, ‘Thanks, sir.’
‘Here.’ He scribbles out a note for me, and I take it and go to the door.
‘Red?’ Turning back I look at him. ‘Remember, my door is open, any time.’
And weirdly, as I head for registration I do feel kind of better.
Neither Leo nor Rose are at the hospital when I get there.
There’s a message from Leo.
Soz, shit I’ve got to deal wiv at home.
But nothing from Rose. So I’m on my own, following the now familiar route through a maze of corridors to get to Naomi’s side. There’s no one in her room, no nurses around or any sign of her family. It seems dumb to just stand outside, so after a moment I open the door and go in.
‘Hey,’ I sit down next to her, ‘what’s up? Same old, here. How’s your head? Still caved in? Hey, Mr Smith asked about you today. I think the whole school is making you a get well card, and choir is recording a song for you, which is probably enough to make you want to stay in a coma, to be honest.’
Naomi doesn’t answer, of course. I don’t know why but I keep expecting her to.
Three days in and the bruising I can see has faded, her face looks a li
ttle more like the one I knew before she vanished.
‘And my mum’s been spotted pissed and in charge of a trolley. Wake up, Nai,’ I whisper into her ear, desperate to hear the sound of her voice, that low sardonic growl when she tells me to get my shit together. ‘Wake up and tell us what the fuck is going on.’
‘She couldn’t today, even if she wanted to.’ Dr Patterson walks in. ‘You aren’t supposed to be here, you know, only family.’
‘But Mrs Demir said come any time.’
‘Mrs Demir doesn’t quite grasp that this is ICU, it’s not like she’s just broken a leg. She needs quiet.’
‘Is she getting better?’ I ask.
‘I can’t tell you,’ said Dr Patterson. ‘Family only, remember?’
I reach for my bag, and she sighs. ‘You can stay for a minute. I’m updating her family when they come in. You’ll know more then.’
‘Thank you,’ I reply. As she leaves I open my phone, searching my recordings.
‘Listen,’ I say, turning back to face Nai. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I took your notebook, the ones with the lyrics you wrote after, well, when you started to write on your own, and I set one of your songs to music last night. I couldn’t sleep so I recorded it. What do you think?’
Pressing play, I hold the phone up to her ear.
As the music plays on I think about the words.
‘The way you touch me, turns me inside out,
The way you want me,
Makes me scream and shout,
I don’t want to take another breath unless you’re in my face,
I don’t want to fake another death unless you’re in my place . . .’
Fake another death. Is that a clue? Was Naomi planning to vanish into thin air all along? I shake my head as the recording finishes; fuck, any of those words could mean anything. It’s crazy to try and read stuff into them, other than the obvious fact they have been written by someone who has had a lot of hot sex.
Sighing I go to our Tumblr blog, and see someone has commented with a link to a fan page. A Mirror, Mirror fan page!
‘Fuck, Nai, we’ve got a fan page.’ I can’t help smiling as I click on the link and there are loads of our song lyrics, set against these beautiful intricate drawings, the words merging into the pictures, and vice versa. ‘It’s amazing, Nai,’ I say. ‘Someone has really listened to our stuff, they really get it.’ I scroll on and on, and follow the blog. No new posts for a few days but before that there was one almost every day. And then I see the blog owner, username Eclipse, and follow a link to her Instagram.
Her avatar is an illustration of a girl, her profile and long loops of hair encircled in a full moon. Only a few posts, no selfies, just some motivational shit, some boring photos of the same exact view and that’s it.
Typical, our first super-fan, and she’s a loser.
Then I see that the link in her Instagram profile is to Toonifie, so I follow it. Only there her username is different. DarkM00n. This is the person who has cloned all of Nai’s playlists. Wow, that really is a super-fan. Or someone with a morbid curiosity. Dark things bring out even darker shit in people, that’s for sure. In the weeks after Nai disappeared our social media following doubled, and again just after the news broke that she’d been found and was in a coma. People like tragedy. People are weird.
DarkM00n really wants us to notice her.
I wonder if she’s hot?
Maybe she might be our first groupie.
Or stalker.
I mean I guess she’s a she, but who knows? She could be a forty-five-year-old trucker called Ken.
‘Who is this person, do you reckon?’ I say to Nai. ‘Probably some year seven art student wanker. Still a proper super-fan and we always wanted one of those, right?’
The mechanical sound of her breaths, the beeps on the machine continue, and it feels like my insides are collapsing in on themselves.
‘I miss you so much Nai,’ I whisper. My throat feels thick, and my eyes burn, but I’m not going to cry. Nai would never let me forget it if she caught me crying over her.
My phone suddenly starts pinging with notifications. Twitter? I haven’t used that in months. But one after the other, the notifications keeping coming.
@Keris has retweeted your tweet
@BeeCee has retweeted your tweet
@HunNun94 has retweeted your tweet.
What fucking tweet?
Hurriedly, I log into @mirrormirrorband and see I’ve got 29 RTs and they keep coming. Apparently I’ve tweeted a photo of Nai’s tattoo.
Do you know who did this, or have one like it? Please help us find out what happened to Naomi.
‘Fucking Ash,’ I say.
‘Rude,’ Ashira says, standing in the doorway. She gestures for me to follow her, which I do, into the corridor outside Nai’s room.
‘You hacked my Twitter!’ Keeping my voice low, I shove my phone in her face.
‘No, I borrowed it to post the photo of the tattoo. Twitter made the most sense as a platform to get it out there, more likely to get re-tweets, more eyes on it, more likely to get a hit. I knew you’d say yes, so I thought I might as well just get it up and running. 4 p.m. is optimal tweet time, you know.’
‘You fucking hacked my Twitter,’ I say again, getting a pretty stern look from a passing nurse.
‘It’s the band’s Twitter, so at least twenty-five per cent is Nai’s, and anyway what kind of a prick doesn’t set up a two-step verification. You. You’ve learnt something, you’re welcome.’
‘Hello, darling, hello, Red, love.’ Jackie and Max come out of the lift, looking crumpled and weary. ‘Others not here yet?’
‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘Leo’s got something going on at home, but Rose says her dad’s dropping her off later.’
‘OK then.’ Jackie pats me on the arm before going to see Nai.
‘I need to tell you something,’ I whisper to Ash, pulling her away from the open door of Nai’s room. ‘I was reading Nai’s lyric books last night and I . . .’
‘Mr Demir?’ A voice behind us interrupts us and Ash puts her fingers to my lips to quiet me, taking me completely by surprise. She nods at her dad, taking my hand and leading me back over to where he is talking to the doctor.
‘Dr Patterson?’ Max smiles at the doctor, but the doctor doesn’t smile at Max.
‘Do you want to get your wife,’ she says. ‘So I can brief you both at once?’
Jackie appears in the doorway, tears already standing in her eyes.
Max takes her hand and holds it tightly as Dr Patterson talks, directing her gaze anywhere but at us.
‘So Naomi’s last CT scan shows the bleeding on her brain has stopped, which is positive news. However, her brain is still very swollen. We’ve decided to keep her sedated for another twenty-four hours and reassess the situation then.’
‘But she’s no worse?’ Jackie frowns deeply.
‘Slightly improved,’ Dr Patterson says. ‘It’s going to be a long road, Jackie, you can’t expect miracles. More importantly, you shouldn’t.’
‘But she’s no worse.’ Jackie nods as if that is all she wants to hear.
‘She’s no worse,’ Dr Patterson repeats heavily.
Jackie and Max go in to sit with her and Ash looks at me.
‘You know what, it doesn’t matter,’ I say.
‘Tell me,’ she says, taking a step closer to me. I remember her fingers on my lips and take a step back.
‘It’s just a hunch,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I have literally no proof.’
‘What the fuck is it?’
‘I think . . .’ I sigh. ‘I think Nai was seeing someone. Someone really serious before she disappeared. I think maybe it wasn’t that she was running away from us. More that she was running towards someone. Someone she thought was more important than anything else. Someone she didn’t want to tell us about.’
‘I think so too,’ Ash says, taking me by surprise for the second time.
‘You do?’ I gl
ance at her, and she nods.
‘It’s the only thing that makes sense to me, that something, someone happened to her to change her so completely.’
‘So what do we do?’ I ask, as she closes that gap between us once again. This time I don’t back away.
‘We find out who the fuck it is,’ she says.
14
I walk up and down the white-tiled floor of Rose’s kitchen in my bare feet, my socks and shoes out on the decking of her small walled garden, glad to be out of the hospital, away from Ash and her confusing intensity. On the one hand it’s cool to be around her, she’s got this sort of buzz that makes me feel like maybe I can do something about Nai. On the other hand, I don’t know. There’s something about her that puts me on edge.
Here, in Rose’s house, it’s quiet, it’s sunny and tranquil.
She only lives a few streets away from me, but that’s London for you. High-rise flats and council estates, identikit semis like mine and then something like Rose’s place – fancy houses with drives, and dug-out basements and glass extensions – all crammed together in the same postcode. The rich and poor live side by side, in million-plus mansions like this one, and Leo’s two-bed flat a stone’s throw away. It’s always been that way round here, the rich and the poor don’t have to look very hard to see how the other half live.
When I got Rose’s text, telling me she needed to talk to me, I left the hospital quickly, and I could tell Ash was angry with me for bailing on her. In her head, something bad happened to Nai, that was the only explanation, she couldn’t believe that her sister might actually have wanted to run away to a new life, might actually have planned it. And I understand why, I guess, but whatever it was that put her in that river, isn’t it better to know that she wasn’t abducted by a psycho?
Not that we know anything, really.
I sigh and cool my toes on the marble kitchen tiles. Rose’s kitchen is so different from my kitchen, which is old and dark, with a massive noisy fridge and a washing machine you can tell is a washing machine. Rose’s dad is rich, and her house shows it. You can’t see the fridge or the washing machine or the dishwasher in this house. The telly in the living room is the size of a wall. The floor is cold under my hot feet, so I pace, back and forth, in and out of the open doors that lead into the garden, where Rose is sitting under a gazebo practising what she is going to say to camera, and back into the living room to look at my reflection in the giant telly. Repeat.
Mirror, Mirror Page 10