‘I wanted to say thank you,’ she says, carefully, each word a tiptoe. ‘For this morning. For getting Gracie up and getting her changed. I was a cow to you, I should have said thank you.’
‘That’s OK.’ I watch her, warily. Her eyes look swollen and dark. ‘I don’t mind helping out.’
‘Look, love,’ she says. ‘I know things haven’t been right for a long time. And I know they are getting worse. You see it. You see that your dad hardly ever comes home any more, and that I . . .’ she hesitates. ‘I know I’m not perfect and I suppose I take it out on you.’ She looks at me then, and for a second I remember how when I was very little I used to sit on her lap and she’d put her arms around me and whisper stories into my hair.
‘It’s OK,’ I say again, and I want it to be true, so badly. I want to make it OK for her. ‘Things have been hard, and you’ve been managing on your own. But you’ve got me.’
‘And it’s no wonder you find everything so hard. What with Naomi and . . . I don’t know, everything. There really hasn’t been anyone there for you. Dad’s . . . well he’s not around much and I give Gracie much more attention than I do you, and that’s not fair. I don’t show you how much I care about you, love you. And that makes me a shit mum.’
I sit back in my chair, and of all the things I thought I might feel, it’s relief that floods through me and threatens tears. Relief that my mum maybe doesn’t hate me after all.
‘So I thought I’d sort a play date for Gracie so that you and I can really talk. Sort out a few things, get things back on track. Would that be all right?’
‘That’d be great, Mum.’ But when I go to hug her she backs away.
‘If you really want to help me . . .’ Her eyes fall away again, her hands withdraw from mine. ‘It’s just that I worry for you, love, the way that you seem to be heading. I look at you, your hair and your earrings and how the band takes up so much of your life, and then I think about your poor friend Naomi and what happened to her, and I just . . . I get that you feel left out, overlooked. Who can blame you? But now it’s time to stop. Time to go back to normal, please. Please. You’re embarrassing me with all this nonsense, and I’ve got enough on my plate.’
Normal, that word slices through me, leaving an open wound.
‘I am normal,’ I tell her steadily. ‘This is normal for me, Mum, don’t you get that? I’m not trying to hurt anyone, I am just being me.’
‘No.’ Mum shakes her head, back and forth, back and forth. ‘No, I don’t get it. And you have to see that the way you are, it won’t make you happy, love. It won’t make you accepted or successful. For all your life, you will be on the outside, drawing attention to yourself for all the wrong reasons. And you think I’m saying this because I hate you, but I’m not. I’m saying it because I love you, and I don’t want your life to be full of pain. Please, Red, please. That eyeliner, the black nail varnish. It’s a costume, and it’s the wrong one. You look like a kid who’d take a gun to school and start shooting. Please, Red, please listen to me and take out your nose ring, the earrings.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Please just be normal again. It might be the only thing you are good at, but stop attention seeking.’
‘Mum,’ I say very carefully. ‘If I was attention seeking you’d know about my tattoos. Three of them.’
‘Your what?’ Her jaw drops.
‘If I was any good at attention seeking you’d have noticed that I used to smuggle food into my room and eat in secret until I got so fat I could hardly walk without being out of breath, at ten years old. But you didn’t notice, and you didn’t notice when later I stopped eating and stayed in bed all weekend because I was too exhausted and depressed to get up. You didn’t notice because it’s all about you.’
‘Three tattoos?’ is all she manages to splutter.
‘You want me to be normal, do you? But if I do that,’ I say, my body springing up and out of my seat before I realise it, my mouth speaking before the thought appears in my head, ‘if I could do that then what would I do about my drunk mother, about the woman who disgusts my dad so much he can’t stand to be in the same house as her? Who passes out on the sofa without feeding her seven-year-old? Because if that’s normal, normal can fuck off.’
I run up the stairs, up past Gracie’s room and into mine, turn my music on loud, take the pads off the drums, grab my sticks and play until my arms hurt, my head hurts and the neighbours are hammering on the walls. I keep going, lost in the music, nothing more than the rhythm of crashes, high tops and bass drums and series of syncopations, and then when every one of my nerves twitches in time, when every cell leaps to the beat, I stop and switch the music off. She didn’t even come up here to shout at me.
Gracie must be home. I can hear Mum running her a bath, and singing ‘Five Little Ducks’ to her as she plays with the bubbles. She’s in perfect mum mode. As soon as she is in Gracie’s room reading to her, I go to get some toast. It seems like Mum is still sober as she sits on Gracie’s bed, bathed in pink light. Her voice sounds normal, and she isn’t hurrying over the pages in the story, desperate to be downstairs in the company of her TV and a drink. But then I see a tall glass of cold clear liquid, bubbles rising, waiting for her on the bannister. At least she’s made herself wait for Gracie to be in bed, I suppose that’s something.
I’m waiting for the toast to finish when the back door opens and Dad is standing there. Shirt crumpled, stubble. He looks fat and tired.
‘Hiya,’ he says.
‘You’re home?’
‘Yes, don’t sound so surprised, I do live here.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
‘You all right, school all right, working hard? Any news on Naomi?’
‘Dad,’ I grab the toast as it pops up, thinking about that photo of him with Carly Shields in her swimsuit, ‘If you were ever around, you’d know.’
‘Look, I know I’m away a lot right now. But I’m doing it for you and Gracie. And Mum. Putting a roof over your heads, paying for all of the stuff that you want.’
‘Mum misses you,’ I say. ‘She gets upset. We know there is someone else, Dad.’
‘There isn’t,’ Dad insists. ‘It’s work.’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Whatever. Honestly, Dad, I don’t care if you work with her or you are fucking her, I don’t give a shit.’
Dad blinks, the muscle in his cheek tensing and I know he wants to shout at me, but he doesn’t and that tells me everything I need to know.
‘Well, I’m home now. I’ll pop up and see Gracie and then how about a Chinese, hey, the three of us? You can have what you like, no lecturing you on ordering too much.’
‘I’ve got toast.’ Dad looks both disappointed and then relieved. I take my chance. ‘Dad, you’ve been a governor at the school a long time haven’t you? Since before I started even. How come?’
‘You really want to know?’ Dad asks me, frowning. ‘They had this initiative to get more business people and local politicians involved in the school’s development strategy. Full spectrum initiative, they called it.’
‘Oh, I see.’ I smile like that’s interesting. ‘Do you enjoy it?’
‘Yeah.’ Dad relaxes. It’s rare that I ask him about his life, and he likes it which makes me feel bad about my next question.
‘Do you remember Carly Shields?’
Dad sits up a little. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says.
I press him further. ‘Carly was the girl that stepped in front of a double decker. Killed herself right outside school.’
‘Oh yes, of course.’ Dad pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘Terrible tragedy, she was having a lot of problems but kept them to herself. Very sad.’
‘You gave her a medal for winning a swim meet right before it happened,’ I remind him.
‘Really?’ He gets up. ‘Well I don’t recall that. I’m knackered, too tired to eat. I think I’ll turn in.’
It’s not even eight o’ clock.
The same cold feeling that crept down the back of my neck f
inds its way into my veins. He remembered Carly, so why won’t he say more?
‘Dad?’ Calling his name makes him start in the doorway. ‘Look it’s bad here. I’m worried about Gracie. Stay here tonight please. Stay with Mum, please. Don’t bail on us.’
He stares at me, like he doesn’t really understand what I’m saying. So I try again.
‘You are the grown-up, Dad. You are the adult. It’s not fair that you get to run away, do whatever the fuck it is you’re doing and leave me and a seven-year-old little girl to pick up the pieces. You are the man, so act like one.’
‘Now listen—’
‘Oh fuck this.’
‘Get back here, Red,’ he shouts up the stairs after me, just as Mum comes out of Gracie’s bedroom.
‘He’s back for his laundry,’ I tell her.
The house is quiet, I stand on the landing and listen. Dad is here, I can hear him snoring in the spare room. Slowly I make my way down the stairs and go into the living room, his laptop is on the sofa. Holding my breath I open it. There’s a password required to get past the lock screen, which I don’t know. What would Ash do, I wonder? I think about Dad and the things he cares about and I give it a go. The 9th of May is Gracie’s birthday, so I try Gracie09. I get it right first time.
But the smile freezes on my face as I get onto his desktop. Because the first thing I see is a photo of a girl, round about my age, maybe a little younger. A girl I don’t know, a girl who doesn’t know this photo has been taken of her. She’s pretty, laughing, long, slender arms and a Hello Kitty backpack. I click on the photo and zoom in; she has dimples when she smiles. There doesn’t seem to be anything attached to this photo, no document, no names. Just this pretty young girl, being looked at from a distance.
He has loads of folders on his desk and I click through them one by one. I’m knackered, my eyes are burning with exhaustion, but I keep looking, hoping not to find anything. And then I do. I find a folder full of encrypted files. I try the main password again but nothing. I try three or four times and I can’t get in. I stare at the files, they don’t have legible names, just a series of numbers – it’s impossible to guess what’s inside. But it crosses my mind.
The way Dad looked at Rose’s legs.
The fact he was helping Naomi apply for Duke of Edinburgh right before she vanished.
Him putting that medal round Carly as she stood there in her swimsuit.
The smell of different women that’s always there.
I don’t want to think that those files contains photos of more girls. Girls like this one. Girls that I know.
I don’t want to think it, but I have to. I have to know.
Rose
Awake?
Rose
Red?
Rose
Red?
Red
Yeah. Groggy. Dude its late/early. K?
Rose
I know but I’m sorry.
Red
Wha?
Rose
Was a bitch to you, don’t know why
Red
S’OK
Rose
Nah. Not
Red
Honest, I’m just glad u r OK. R u OK?
Rose
Yaaasss. You are my Bae
Red
Rose
Did you go see Nai today?
Red
Yah
Rose
I don’t know why I can’t go see her. I don’t know . . .
Rose
. . .
Rose
. . .
Red
What? Something up? Talk to me
Rose
Nothing. Things good. All good.
Rose
Talk tomorrow?
Red
KK
Rose
Keep slaying the world, you rule.
Red
So see you tomoz?
Rose
YaaaSSS! ♥ ♥ ♥ Movies and junk food round mine?
Red
Sure thing
Rose
♥ ♥ ♥
22
I wake up to a message from Ash.
Cutting school, been up all night. No progress, need more time. Will be at the hospital.
OK, I need to see you, I reply and wait. Need to ask you something.
She’s too busy to ask me what. I see the ellipsis rise and fall a few times and then disappear. Last night felt like a very dark and twisted place, but today the sun is up and nothing I saw or read last night feels as bad or as dangerous. It’s amazing how much better I feel today than yesterday, and there is one difference.
Rose.
I can’t explain how it felt to have her words and emojis filling up my screen again, after twenty-four solid hours of streak-breaking silence. Until my phone began buzzing under my pillow I hadn’t really slept, I’d just closed my eyes and chased thoughts around and around in the dark. But then Rose was there again and everything felt better.
The sky is clear and the day is warm and I love the look of London as it spreads out over the river, the London Eye standing out against the blue sky, the old buildings and the new jostling side by side, looking like they exploded from the earth at exactly the same moment, instead of over centuries. I love this place where everybody from everywhere can come and be whoever they want, and no one gives a toss. I love it because in this city you can never feel like you don’t belong somewhere.
For a few minutes everything feels good. Like it used to before everything hit the fan.
Leo is waiting for me on the corner by the tube, and next to him is Rose. She’s leaning against a lamp post, studying her phone and Leo is looking in the opposite direction. Together, but not together.
‘Hey,’ I say as I approach, feeling suddenly shy, like I used to back in the early days of the band.
‘Mate.’ Leo peels himself off of the wall, but Rose stays slouching until I am almost there, and I wonder if she can tell that there’s heat in my cheeks and sees the way I find it impossible to look at her full on.
‘Band’s back together again.’ Rose smiles when she finally looks up from her phone. ‘Look, I’m sorry I went awol for a couple of days. Girls’ stuff, you know. But I am fully on it now, OK? Fully here. I want to do well, for Nai, and I don’t want to let you guys down. I love you both.’
Leo and I exchange a look, but it’s Leo who shrugs.
‘We’ve all let it slide a bit,’ he says. ‘I’ve been stressing about shit, too.’
‘I know,’ Rose touches his arm, ‘I’m sorry I bailed on you. I’ll do better, I promise. Forgive me?’
Something passes between them that I pretend not to notice. They could have said all of this before I arrived, but they waited until I was here to witness it, why?
‘Red’s coming over tonight,’ Rose says. ‘Movies and popcorn and shit. Wanna join?’
Leo glances back at me and I half shrug. Inside I am willing him to say he can’t make it. I want her to myself for a few hours. If I can just get a few hours alone with her then everything will be all right.
‘I can’t make it,’ he says. ‘Aaron wants me around.’
‘For what?’ Rose asks, the crease between her eyebrows deepening in concern.
‘Numbers.’ Leo shrugs and tries to look like it’s nothing, but it’s not.
‘Numbers?’ Rose looks at me.
‘He’s going to see this bloke about this beef they’ve been having, and he wants numbers to have his back. I’m his right-hand man, he says.’
He lifts his chin as he says it; he’s proud.
‘Leo, seriously, don’t go with him. His issues aren’t yours,’ I say. ‘Guy’s been out five minutes and he’s already looking for trouble. Maybe that’s just Aaron, but it doesn’t have to be you.’
‘Listen, Leo,’ Rose says, surprisingly gently. ‘Please.’
‘Why do you care, anyway?’ Leo asks her, but it’s not an angry question. It’s a serious one, one that hopes
for a very particular answer.
Rose glances at me and I see uncertainty there. Leo isn’t going to get the answer he wants, and the terrible thing is that part of me is glad.
‘Because you are a mate, you dork,’ she says. ‘Plus if you get caught doing something you shouldn’t right before the concert, we’re fucked, aren’t we?’
Leo rolls his eyes, like he doesn’t care, but I know that he does. I feel it, exactly the same way he does. I know that if Rose told him she felt the same way about him as he does about her, he’d do anything for her.
‘Did you ask Aaron about Carly?’ I ask him.
‘Nah, man, he’s not been in the mood for nostalgia, know what I mean?
‘Carly who?’ Rose asks.
‘Carly with the remembrance garden,’ I say.
‘Oh that Carly,’ Rose sighs. ‘I thought you meant a girl. Why are we talking about Carly?’
‘Red met a girl in Camden though,’ Leo adds, deftly distracting her and Rose’s mouth drops open.
‘What? What happened!? Red? Have you suddenly got a sex life?’
‘No,’ I say firmly, enjoying seeing that the news, as over-reported as it is, annoys her little. I need to somehow talk to Aaron, even if he is the last person I want to be in the same room with. ‘Look, Leo, can I come back with you right after school, chat to Aaron? And then I’ll go to Rose’s after. When you have to go off and be a number, whatever that is.’
Leo looks me up and down.
‘I dunno, Red, you and Aaron aren’t exactly . . . compatible and things are a bit heavy right, now. You know. The thing with the numbers.’
‘Jesus, I just want to chat to him, not marry him,’ I say. ‘And maybe me being around will give you a reason to not get involved with Aaron’s shit.’
‘Your funeral.’ Leo shrugs and grins at the same time. It’s kind of menacing.
‘Good plan,’ Rose whispers as Leo jogs across the street to catch up with a mate. We’ve just turned into Dolphin Square, joining the steady stream of the hundreds of kids all heading in the same direction. ‘Now you can keep an eye on him, make sure he’s not getting mixed up in any heavy shit.’
And when Rose lags behind, to get in on the gossip going down between Kasha and the girls, Leo hangs back and waits for me.
Mirror, Mirror Page 16