by Nicci Cloke
‘Oi –’ he yells after me, but then someone calls him from the basketball court and his attention is instantly and totally diverted. I climb up the concrete steps towards the Keep and my heart starts to slow and I can loosen my hands out of the fists they seem to have formed.
I can’t remember the first time I met Deacon Honeycutt, but I do remember the first time I heard he didn’t like me and that definitely happened before we met. It was just something someone said in passing, in the corridor outside assembly – Ollie Birchall, now I think about it: ‘Honeycutt’s got it in for you, mate.’ I was sure it was a mistake, just mistaken identity. But no. A week later, I happened to pass the famous Deacon Honeycutt on my way across the playground between lessons, and I heard him cough ‘Twat’ in a stagey way to the two guys with him.
Later, when I asked Scobie about it, he looked a bit shell-shocked and just muttered, ‘Honeycutt hates everyone.’ But it was more than that. I’d hear rumours about myself – I’d been caught cheating at my old school, my dad was in prison, I’d had sex with my sister (I don’t have a sister) – and whenever I dug a bit, they always led back to Deacon.
I’d heard plenty about him, obviously – he was the captain of the St Agnes’s football team, as well as Abbots Grey’s Under 16’s. He was tipped for big things, always bragging about this team or that team who were on the verge of signing him. I’d already been to camps at Norwich, knew their scouts were keeping an eye on me, but I didn’t tell anyone at Aggers that, not even Scobie.
So I guess it was the bad part of me, the part I was supposed to leave in London, that made me try out for the Aggers team when I could’ve just kept my head down and hoped Deacon Honeycutt would forget about me and move on to the next new kid to come along.
I made the team and became the new favourite of the coach, Mr Connolly, and, inevitably, official enemy number one of Deacon Honeycutt. The rumours started getting more creative – I was a drug addict, I was having an affair with Connolly – and often, when I was walking through the car park on my way home, a football or an empty drinks bottle would hit me on the head or in the back.
We didn’t have our first real run-in, though, until the Year 11 prom – two years after I’d started at Aggers, six months after people had started finding out about me training with the Norwich Youth Squad, and one week before Lizzie and I stopped talking.
That fight, and the fall-out from it, almost meant the end of Aggers for me, and now, with Lizzie gone, thinking of it is even worse; it gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I try to squash it back down; try to stop remembering. I push open the door to the Keep, and find myself face to face with a policewoman. Mahama.
‘Aiden,’ she says, and the fact she remembers my name does not make me feel good.
‘Detective,’ I say, and I feel like I’m playing a role. One that I haven’t read the script for.
‘I’d say it’s nice to see you,’ she says, ‘but, given the circumstances –’ She spreads her palms wide, as if it’s the whole world she finds unfortunate, not just the fact that a classmate of mine has disappeared.
‘Is there any news?’ I ask, but before she can answer Mahama’s phone starts ringing in her pocket, shrill in the otherwise silent hallway. She frowns at me, answers it and then, putting one finger up to me in a Hold that thought kind of gesture, she walks away.
I’m ten minutes early for registration, so I take a seat in the almost empty common room and get out my phone. I’ve got Facebook on there, sports news, games, but something makes me open AskMe.com, and something makes me type in Lizzie’s name.
Her profile loads, and my stomach flips when I see the most recent question is still ‘Do you love me?’ from aiden k. Why would someone write that? Who would write that? I wonder what Lizzie thought, reading it. I wonder how she felt.
I scroll down the page, reading the questions and answers more carefully this time.
Why’s your sister such a slag? someone asks about two weeks ago, and Lizzie replies:
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
How many people have you slept with? asks another. Lizzie’s reply is part of a poem:
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot –
The big strip tease.
It’s Sylvia Plath – I remember reading it in English last year. I Google it and find the title of the poem: ‘Lady Lazarus’. It takes me a minute to remember the story we learnt in RE about Lazarus, and when I do, I feel sick. Lazarus who came back from the dead.
Who u finks fit? another one asks, and to this, she just puts a winking face.
You so pretty babe. That’s the only properly nice one I see, and it’s the only one that’s not a question. Lizzie answers anyway.
I am not what I am.
Soon after, they go back to being abusive. you think you’re well fit don’t you? someone asks, and I think again how childish this is, how horrible. Lizzie’s reply only makes me feel worse.
Physical beauty is passing. A transitory possession. But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit and tenderness of the heart – and I have all of those things… But I have been foolish – casting my pearls before swine!
They’re words I know well. Words I’ve heard her say aloud.
Nearer the top, more recently, someone says haha how can your sister call herself a reality star when she’s the fakest bitch on tv?
Lizzie’s answer is long, and another one I recognise.
I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! – don’t turn the light on!
That, and the one before it, are from A Streetcar Named Desire. And that play will always, always make me think of Lizzie.
r all the Summersall women sluts? bitches be cray someone else puts, and Lizzie puts another long quote, and this one I recognise too.
Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! –
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th’observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. Oh, woe is me,
T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
Her Ophelia speech. It seems like so long ago that I saw her say it. That I first saw her. So much has happened since then.
I glance at the clock in the corner of the screen and realise I’ve missed the start of registration. I shove my phone in my bag and head for my form room.
Dr Radclyffe is my form tutor as well as my history teacher, and he’s just the same in both lessons; soft-spoken, quiet, but alert – his eyes always darting around, always watching, always listening, like really listening, when you’re speaking to him. He’s a nice guy, and funny, too, although a lot of his jokes are obscure history ones we don’t get.
He looks up as I walk in and makes a mark against my name on the register without saying anything about me being late. He waits for me to sit, adjusting his little wire glasses on his long nose before he starts speaking again.
‘The police are setting up an interview room in Mr Maclaren’s office, and they’ll be calling some of you from your lessons throughout the day. They’ve been given a comprehensive list of your timetables by Mr Selby and they’ll try to schedule interviews during your free periods. So please do not leave school grounds during those times.’
He taps his pencil against his desk, long fin
gers crooked around it. ‘It’s really nothing to worry about. They’re just trying to get a wider picture about Lizzie Summersall’s life here, and anything that might shed light on her disappearance.’
Scobie catches my eye from across the room where he’s perched on the windowsill. Radclyffe has a pretty slack policy on us sitting at our desks in form room.
There’s a couple of groans from people who aren’t too happy about being kept on site when such glamorous places as the Rec or the chippy downtown await.
‘It’s like she’s a little kid,’ Darnell Hudson, the goalie on our Aggers team, says. ‘Get over it.’
‘Errr, sensitive much?’ Jorgie Mitchell, a pretty blonde girl from my English class, says, turning to glare at Darnell. ‘Her poor family.’
‘Oh what, cos she wanted to get away from her moron sister? No wonder she ditched them,’ Darnell says, folding his arms and leaning back against the wall.
I ignore the fact that Scobie is still trying very hard to catch my eye.
‘You’re such a dick, Darnell,’ Jorgie says, and the girls around her tut in agreement.
‘Just to be clear,’ Radclyffe says, in his usual level, diplomatic voice. ‘Lizzie’s disappearance is being treated as suspicious. I don’t know what the police know, but if they’re asking for our help, that’s because they want to make sure she’s safe. And I’m sure that’s something you’ll all be more than happy to help with.’
Scobie’s eyes are practically boring holes in me by this point. Everyone gets up to head to lessons and I push my way out, not wanting to hang around and listen to all the muttered conversations about Lizzie. I walk slowly so that Scobie can catch up with me as I leave the Keep.
‘We have to tell them, Aiden.’ He takes off his glasses and polishes them on the bottom of his jumper as we walk, something he always does when he’s distracted.
‘I know,’ I say, the thought of being interviewed about Lizzie again making my stomach turn.
‘I mean, you’d hope they’d be able to figure it out for themselves,’ he says, pushing his glasses back up his nose. ‘It’s hardly advanced stuff.’
We push through the double doors of the Keep and onto the playground. We’re in maths together first, which is in a draughty old classroom on the top floor of the main building. We head across the pristine black tarmac towards it, its spires dark against the grey sky.
‘I’m worried, Aiden,’ Scobie says. ‘I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.’
He isn’t the only one.
I’m not called for interview but all day long I hear stories from people who are, hear that the police are asking everything from what Lizzie liked to eat for lunch to whether she talked about the people she slept with. I can’t get my head around any of it.
As for the Hal Paterson account, the latest news comes from Scobie at break.
‘It’s gone,’ he tells me, polishing his glasses for the fiftieth time. ‘Deleted.’
I double-check. I check several times. It is gone. Hal Paterson does not exist, and there’s no internet evidence to suggest he ever did.
I’m glad when it’s the end of the day and I can get away from Aggers’s whisper-filled classrooms, away from the buzzing phones and the knowing looks. Until I remember I’ve got a date. With the very worst kind of human.
Cheska Summersall has told me to meet her at her salon in town, but what she’s neglected to mention is that she’s in the middle of shooting a scene there. As I head down one of the cutesy little mews off the high street, I can see a group of teenagers outside, trying to take photos through the windows. They’re being occasionally shooed off by a harassed looking member of the production crew, but each time they just regroup a few seconds later.
I push past them and in through the doorway of the salon, Ginger’s, which has shiny white counters and floors and walls, and those little potted trees pruned into balls everywhere. It’s not actually Cheska’s salon, but they kind of make it seem that way on the show. I can’t imagine the real owner loves that, although judging by the way the salon is heaving with preening customers, all of them orange-skinned and glossy-nailed, it’s good for business.
There’s a camera crew huddled around one station – a sound guy with his big fluffy mic, two cameramen and a tall woman with a shiny black bob and headset, a clipboard in her hand, staring intently at a monitor. At the centre of it all, a girl is having her nails examined by Cheska in her pale pink uniform. I stand and watch as she frowns at the girl’s hand.
‘How are things with you and Thomas Jay?’ the customer asks, sounding about as natural as her nails. I glance over at the woman with the clipboard and see she has a list of questions, including that exact one, on a sheet in front of her. As I watch, she checks it off with a pencil. Her nails are long and sharp and red, like cartoon claws.
Cheska sighs, a really fake-sounding sigh, and picks up a nail file. ‘It’s tough,’ she says, ‘because I keep hearing all these rumours. And it’s like it’s happening again. But I trust him, you know. I know, here,’ and she thumps on her chest, roughly where, assuming she has one somewhere in there, her heart would be, ‘that he means it. He’s changed, you know?’
The girl makes an unconvincing ‘Mmm’ sound, and then, after a strange stilted pause, she says, in a lower voice, ‘Have you heard anything about your sister?’
Cheska looks up, and her eyes fill with tears under her thick false eyelashes. ‘No,’ she says, in a hoarse whisper. ‘We’re all so worried. It’s all I can think about.’ Right on cue, a tear rolls down her face, leaving a pale track mark in her make-up.
‘Annnnd cut,’ someone says. The woman with the clipboard, who I guess must be the producer, says, crossing off something on another list. ‘That’s great, thanks, Cheska.’
Cheska instantly lets go of the girl’s hand, which flops down to the table with a thud. ‘Cool,’ she says, standing up and shrugging off her pale pink overall top to reveal a tiny little strappy thing. ‘I’m heading out for a bit.’
Even though she hasn’t looked up once, hasn’t acknowledged me, she heads right for me and slots an arm through mine. ‘Let’s go,’ she says, brightly.
Up close, she smells like coconut and something biscuity. Her perfectly curled long hair doesn’t even move in the breeze outside. It’s blonde like Lizzie’s, except not like Lizzie’s – her hair is bright and fake where Lizzie’s was soft and darker.
Why do I keep talking about Lizzie in the past tense?
We walk down the high street, Cheska’s heels clacking on the cobbled pavement.
‘Thanks for coming,’ she says.
‘No problem.’
‘Guess it’s kind of exciting to see behind the scenes, right?’
I glance at her. ‘Not really.’
She either doesn’t hear me or pretends not to, and instead beams and waves at two girls across the street taking photos of her on their phones. ‘You’re friends with my sister,’ she says in a low voice, and it’s not a question.
‘Yeah,’ I say, because it’s simpler than saying ‘I was’ or ‘I don’t know’.
‘I heard the police wanted to talk to you.’
‘They’re talking to a lot of people,’ I say, thinking of the police taking over our headmaster’s office. Wondering if they’re looking in the right place. Lizzie.
‘She said things about you.’
These words go through me like sharp stabs of a whispered knife. That Lizzie would talk to Cheska, who she argued with constantly, about anything personal, is a shock. That I was important enough for her to talk about is worse.
‘What kind of things?’
Cheska looks sideways at me with a little smirk. ‘You had a thing, right?’
‘No. Not exactly.’
‘Don’t be shy…’ We’ve reached the riverfront, the part where all the posh little tearooms and wine bars are. A low, grey wall runs along the edge of the bank, and Cheska perches on it and pats a spot beside her. ‘Sit. Tell me everyth
ing.’
I stay where I am. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
She shrugs and flicks her hair over one shoulder. ‘Whatever.’
‘Is that all you wanted to meet me for?’
‘Aid,’ she says, as if we’re old pals, and as if ‘Aid’ is a normal nickname for someone, ‘my sister is missing. The least you can do is talk to me.’
This would do a lot more to convince me if it was delivered with even the slightest hint of emotion, but it isn’t. We could just be talking about the weather or what she’s having for dinner.
She looks at me, eyes narrowed. ‘What do you know?’
‘I don’t know anything,’ I say. ‘I wish I did.’
She laughs. ‘Just checking. No need to get so defensive.’
I don’t reply. I’m too shocked. I can’t believe she can act so relaxed, can laugh and joke, when Lizzie’s out there somewhere. On-camera is one thing, but off…
‘Look,’ she says after a while, tipping her head back to look at the sky, letting her hair trail prettily behind her. Like this is a photo shoot. ‘I know you want to help Lizzie. So let’s help each other.’
I sit down beside her. ‘And how exactly do you want me to help?’
‘I’m still working on that,’ she says, airily. ‘But I need to know that I can count on you. That Lizzie can count on you.’
My mouth feels dry. ‘Of course.’
‘Good.’ She straightens up and looks at her watch. ‘Better get back. I’m supposed to be having an argument with Aimee outside the salon.’
She gets up and smooths down her way-too-small top.
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘What do you mean, you’re still working on it? Do you know something about Lizzie? Do you know where she is?’
She’s already walking away. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Aiden. I just wanted to meet you. I want us to be friends.’
‘But why me?’ I call after her, and she glances back at me.
‘Like I said,’ she says, flicking her hair again. ‘She said things about you.’
And she winks.