by Sarah Lawton
Vivian’s face fell as she looked at the paper, her eyes widening in a horror that would have been comical in any other situation. Her mouth fell open, but she didn’t say anything.
‘I found this in your room, sweetheart. It made me feel a bit worried about you, Vivian. About how you’re feeling. This isn’t very nice. I think that me and you and Mummy need to talk about how you’re feeling.’
Carol reached out again for Vivian’s hand, but the little girl snatched it away and suddenly sobbed. ‘Please, don’t tell Mummy! I won’t do it any more, I promise.’ She rubbed her eyes with her fists and her voice hitched. ‘Please, Nana! Please! Don’t make Mummy hate me even more.’
‘Shh, love. Come here. Mummy doesn’t hate you, why would you say that?’ asked Carol, shocked by the unusual emotion in her granddaughter’s voice.
‘Because she’s never here, she never wants to see me, and because I cutted Lexie’s hair but I was just playing, I thought she would like it!’
‘Mummy doesn’t hate you,’ said Carol, her guilt warping into shock and sadness as she pulled Vivian around and onto her lap. ‘And I won’t tell her if you don’t want me to, but we need to have a proper talk about this, okay? Me and you. I didn’t know you were feeling so bad.’
She held Vivian on her lap for a long time, rubbing the shaking little shoulders and feeling terrible about confronting her.
When Vivian finally pulled away, though, she couldn’t help noticing that her eyes were dry.
Vivian
I’ve just come out of science when Mrs Barker, who is hovering outside the lab, catches sight of me and beckons me over. She asks me to follow her to her office above the art block. It seems to take for ever to get there, like we are walking through glue. The air is thick and hazy and I wonder if I’m still dreaming. The noise of everyone else moving through the school to lunch is muted, like I’m listening underwater.
As I follow behind her I notice that she’s wearing thick beige tights, despite the heat. There is a run in them that goes from her ankle right the way up to underneath her skirt. I imagine grey, bristly hairs sticking through the little holes; and grease from her skin, leaking through the gaps, hot and moist and sticky.
I’ve never been in Mrs Barker’s office before. I look around. I thought it would be sparse, empty – she seems like such a sparse and empty sort of person. But the office is cluttered with photos and books and piles of paper and folders. There are wildflowers in a jar on the windowsill, starting to wilt. The colours sting my eyes and give me a headache. I wonder if someone gave them to her, or if she picked them for herself. I don’t know who would want to pick flowers for Mrs Barker. We always joke that Mr Barker is her dog.
‘Vivian, do you know where Molly is?’ she asks me, as I stand there in front of her desk. There’s no lead in – she doesn’t ask me to sit down, and I wonder again about why she doesn’t like me. Her mouth breathing is the only sound I can hear: it hisses in and out, in and out. She doesn’t blink as she looks at me, and I see her dislike in the stiffness of her shoulders, the tilt of her face. What does she know about me? What is hiding in the grey filing cabinet under my initial? S for Sanders. S for secrets. There shouldn’t be anything about me from my old school, but you never know. People have loose lips.
‘No, miss.’
‘You were at her house on Saturday night, though? For a sleepover?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Molly messaged her parents on Saturday night saying she was staying with you for the rest of the weekend. Where did you go?’
‘I left her at her house, miss, she didn’t come back to mine. I don’t know why she said that. She was still asleep at her house when I left. I don’t know where she is. She’s probably just run off again.’
Mrs Barker’s eyes are flinty and boring into mine. I hold them; I know she’s trying to intimidate me and she can fuck off. Her and her nasty, muddy eyes. What business is this of hers, anyway?
‘Did you have a falling out, Vivian?’
‘No. I just wanted to go home.’
I can see that she doesn’t believe me, but I don’t care. The silence stretches between us until I break it, snap.
‘Can I go now, miss?’
She nods reluctantly and I pick up my bag and leave her office, and I hear her pick up the phone, presumably to report back to whoever wanted to know what I knew about Molly. I want to go and find Serena and Tilly – assuming she’s back – because I didn’t see either of them this morning, and talk about where they think Molly might be.
I find both of them in the canteen at our table, poking at their lunches. Tilly looks thin and pasty, and I can see a rash of acne dancing across one cheek despite the layer of foundation that’s plastered over it. I figure that grief must be a good diet, but not so great on the complexion. I’m surprised she even came back to school looking like that. Maybe her parents made her come. I wonder if Serena did the make-up. I picture her painting Tilly’s face with gentle strokes of a brush, giving her a new mask to wear that is supposed to cover her sadness. It hasn’t worked. I can still see it.
‘Have you seen Molly?’ I ask them, as I sit down. ‘Barker just dragged me into her office to ask me. No one has seen her since Saturday, apparently.’
Serena just rolls her eyes.
‘She’s such an attention-seeker. I bet this is because I told her I knew about her and Matt. She’s probably just off with some other boy somewhere.’ She glances over to the corner where Matt is sitting and listening. He frowns and turns his head. I see him angle his body so he can hear what we are saying.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ adds Tilly. Her voice shocks me for a minute. It’s corroded. It sounds like it’s coming from somewhere far away: her light feathery voice has gone and been replaced with a dirty, grinding husk. ‘She’s always done it. She hates it when people are pissed off at her. She wants us to feel worried about her instead, so she runs off. She managed a whole night one time before you moved here and she wouldn’t tell anyone where she had been, do you remember Serena? Her mum went mental.’
Even though Molly means nothing to me now, I feel an old tug of jealousy that their friendship, their group, predated me. They have all been friends since they were really small, they grew up here. I’m an interloper, an invasive species. These two never let me forget that, and the resentment bubbles up in me again. I try and squash it down, because I need them now. I still want everything to go back to how it was before. Everyone likes us. We are the popular girls.
‘Well, I don’t know where she is. She’s been behaving really weirdly all summer, I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I hope she’s not pregnant or something.’ I deliberately pitch these words so blabbermouth Matt can hear them, and he goes a satisfying green. That will teach him to eavesdrop. Serena and Tilly don’t react to this statement – obviously they know what Molly has been up to as well as I do, by now. We all leave our food to congeal on the plastic plates. We don’t talk, or laugh like we usually do. They share heavy looks that I don’t understand. It’s all wrong.
After the break I go into the bathroom and I wash my hands over and over until after the bell is gone before I come out. I’m going to be late for registration but I want to walk past the college to see if I can see Alex anywhere. I don’t, and I feel a burn of annoyance. Where is he? Why isn’t he answering my messages?
* * *
There still aren’t any messages from Alex when I get up, and it’s Tuesday now. It’s been fifty-six hours since I’ve seen him, or touched him, or even heard from him at all. I’m furious all over at the thought that he somehow might have tricked me into having sex, then ghosted me. I can feel the rage stabbing into my body, singing in my head, trying to provoke me into a storm. I’m lying on my bed trying to do a meditation exercise like the ones we had to do at the hospital, but it’s not working. I’m breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, but I can feel the air. It’s like it’s squirming into my body, hot and a
live, and it’s making me feel even worse. I grit my teeth until my jaw throbs with pain. I refuse to believe that he has just used me for sex. It’s not happening to me.
I need to get ready for school. I shower, dress, and the routine takes the edge off. The walk through the woods will calm me down. I’m tempted to go to the stream first, it’s still early enough, but I don’t want to spoil all the memories I’ve made there this weekend, so I will just go to school as normal, as new normal anyway. I will try and make Serena and Tilly understand that I can be Molly now. She’s left them, hasn’t she? Left them to fend for themselves, but they don’t need to if they have me. We can still be the popular girls. I can be Molly. Better than Molly, once Alex comes back.
They aren’t waiting for me near reception like they should be. I wait on my own for ten minutes, like an idiot. They’ve already gone into class. They did this yesterday too, but I thought that maybe it was because it was Tilly’s first day back since her stupid brother died. Why haven’t they waited for me today? Serena always waits for me and Molly while Tilly gets a lift, or she used to. Things have changed, I have to expect that, but they still should have waited for me.
I walk in pretending that nothing’s wrong. ‘Hi, guys.’
‘Hi,’ says Serena, without a smile. She angles her body slightly away from me, facing Tilly like she’s protecting her, blocking me out.
‘Thanks for your messages by the way, Vivian. They really helped me last week,’ Tilly murmurs in her rusty new voice.
I’m confused. ‘What messages?’
They just look at each other, and then ignore me. It dawns on me that maybe I should have been messaging or calling Tilly to ask her how she was after Tristan’s accident. I just didn’t want to. I didn’t know what to say. I should have asked Molly what to do, damn it. It’s not just me, though, is it? There’s a ring of silence around Tilly, like she’s exerting this forcefield that no one wants to enter. I saw Chloe actually turn around and walk the other way when she caught sight of her yesterday after lunch. It’s like she’s diseased. I still can’t believe her idiot brother actually managed to go and die. How fast was he going, anyway? It’s his own fault he’s dead, speeding in that crappy car. I almost tell Tilly this, just to see the look on her face, but I keep it in, tickling in my mouth. I imagine her reaction instead. Pale shock. The scar on her nose standing out in a silvery band, each freckle popping out. She hates them, her freckles. We used to tease her and say she sunbathed under a sieve, and she used to cry. It’s harder to make them cry now, but I’m sure I could manage.
The end of registration saves any tears and the rest of the day is boring. I have two mock exams, which I didn’t bother revising for. There’s no point, really, as I already know all the answers – they’re easy. I hope A levels are harder than these, or I’ll be bored to death before I even get to leave school. Everyone else is moaning and groaning and saying they’ve definitely failed. They probably haven’t. I hate that you’re meant to pretend you are stupid, like it’s a thing, to want to be seen as not clever.
The bell whines for the end of the day and there’s the usual mob stampede to leave. I see Serena and Tilly’s shiny blonde heads make their way down the path. They didn’t wait for me again. I can feel annoyance unfurling in my stomach, and I try and breathe it away. I don’t understand why they are doing this. Are they not worried that Molly will come back and that they will have offended me, Molly’s best friend? Or is this a planned break-up of the group? Do they think they are in charge now? It hurts my head thinking about it. I still don’t have any messages from Alex.
I’m holding my phone when it goes off in my hand, and I almost drop it, and do an embarrassing slippy catch thing, but luckily no one is watching me.
I hope it’s Alex, but it isn’t – it’s Abi. Molly must have given her my number for emergencies. She wants me to go over and talk to her about Molly running off. This is going to suck. I walk slowly through the woods and past the back of my house. I peer into the garden but Mum isn’t in the studio, she must be out or in the house. I don’t text her to tell her where I’m going. I can feel the threads that tie us together, that smother me, starting to fray and snap, slowly, slowly. I think she would like to keep me here for ever as a child under her watch, safe as she sees it in this tiny hole of a village. I don’t want to be safe, it’s stifling. I can’t wait to get out and start again, and forget about everything that ever happened here, except for Alex. Who still hasn’t called me. I will have to deal with him at some point too. I won’t have it.
It’s hot and hazy walking to Molly’s house. All I can hear are crickets squeaking in the long grass of the verge. Even the birds are too hot to fly; there is nothing in the sky except blue and the blazing sun. I’ve got another headache coming. I can feel it pulling then pressing behind my eyes, gathering itself up for a pounding assault in my skull. I don’t want to do this but I know it will look odd if I refuse, so I walk straight up to Molly’s green door and before I can even lift the brass knocker it opens and Abi almost falls out, falls onto me and grabs me in an unusual and most unwelcome sticky embrace. I can smell something on her, something sour, bitter. Despair, perhaps. Or wine.
‘Vivian, thank you so much for coming over. Come in, please. Do you want a drink?’
She pulls me into the cooler interior of the house. I have always liked it here, with its plain walls and simple furniture. It’s soothing. I know Molly hated it and preferred the exploding coloured chaos of my house, but I can’t understand that. This house makes my headache abate somewhat. I think maybe Molly and I were born to the wrong mothers – I would have been happily neglected here, left to my own devices in a restful white box.
‘Can I have a glass of water, please, Mrs Barnes?’
‘Yes, of course – and I’ve told you, my name is Abi. Mrs Barnes is my mother-in-law!’
She clutches at this weak joke like she’s been clutching at her neck. I can see the marks of her fingers on it, red welts that she probably isn’t even aware of. I can see her hands shaking as she gets a glass from the tall cupboard and runs the tap for a moment before filling it for me. I’m glad of it, because my mouth and throat have gone papery and dry from the walk here, and perhaps from nerves as to what it is she wants from me.
She clears her throat and looks at me expectantly, hopefully. She thinks I know where Molly is, and that I’m going to tell her. I’m not.
‘I don’t know where Molly is, Mrs Barnes. I haven’t heard from her since Saturday night, when I left.’
Her hopeful expression crumples. ‘Why did you leave, Vivian? I don’t understand why you left.’
‘I was boiling hot. Molly wouldn’t open the window – you know what she’s like. I didn’t want to wake her up so I just left. I figured she’d call me in the morning but she never did.’ I let my own face fall, as if I’m worried and scared too, as if I miss her, though I’m none of these things: I’m still furious with her.
Her face pales at this and she closes her blue, Molly-like eyes and lifts a hand and runs it into her thick blonde hair, tangling her fingers up in it. It looks like she’s pulling it, tight, at the scalp. Is she hurting herself on purpose? I lean in slightly to look. She rears back away from me and releases the fistful of hair, smoothing it down again.
‘Vivian, why do you think Molly keeps doing this?’ I know the answer to this. So does Abi. She just doesn’t want to face up to what her benign neglect turned Molly into – a girl desperate for affection and attention from anyone who would give it to her. Even when it ruined everything else she had, that we had. I just shrug and look sad.
‘Could you have a look in her room for me? You’d know better than me, I think, if anything else looked wrong, or was missing? All her perfume was smashed – I don’t know why, she loves her perfume.’ A lone, fat tear rolls down her cheek, cutting through her make-up. ‘The police won’t do anything, they just told me she’ll turn up again, but something just doesn’t feel right. They won’t help
, because of the other times she ran away.’ She trails off, and the slick left by the first tear on her cheek pulses as another joins it. Rather than watch it, I leave her and go upstairs.
Molly’s room looks like it usually does, but somehow it’s different. Maybe it’s the smell, but there’s something stale about it. No one has been in here, breathing the air in and out; it’s just been hanging, unused. I could do anything in here. I half-heartedly look down the side of the bed. There’s a bundled-up pair of lacy knickers and a lot of dust. I wonder if they are there from the night with Matt. I lift the quilt and see if anything has been slipped between the frame and the mattress. I don’t see anything at first, but then I spot a flash of something. It’s a torn-off corner, a piece of blue foil from a condom wrapper by the look of it. She wasn’t entirely stupid, then. I leave it there – there might be a fingerprint on it, or something useful.
I don’t think Molly kept a diary or anything that sad. I never found one the times I poked around, and she never mentioned one. Most of her is out there in the world anyway, online, posed. Shiny hair, shiny teeth, shiny life. Except all those secret thoughts she had – she kept those to herself, locked up in her pretty yellow head. I wonder what secrets she had bubbling up out of her head on Saturday night, running away from her. I didn’t ask her because I didn’t care; it was too late to do anything about her wanting me. I think maybe she just wanted everyone, all of everyone, all the time. There was no room for anyone to want anything else but her.
I rummage through her drawers. Everything is just stuffed in, all jumbled and mixed up, trousers with pants and socks and tops. I have to stop myself from sorting it out into piles, tidying up as I search. But there’s nothing here to tell Abi about, nothing embarrassing or shameful. Did Abi know what her daughter was up to, secretly? I bet she did. No one can be that blind, except maybe my mother, but that’s taken a lot of work. I think Molly wanted her mum to notice what she was doing. Poor Molly-wolly.