All the Little Things

by Sarah Lawton

  Both of them look at me for a long moment. They think I am a Judas, betraying Molly, but it’s the truth. Everyone will find out eventually, anyway. They’ll find out, and then they will forget, everything will blow over and everything can go back to normal. I can be popular again, everyone likes us. I just need to get Serena and Tilly back on my side, we don’t need Molly. Molly went wrong.

  PC Red Cheeks passes Mum a card with several phone numbers on it. Her fingernails are bitten right back to the quick, a red bead of blood glistening on one raw cuticle. She must have been chewing it on the way here. It holds my eye. There’s nothing quite like the colour of fresh blood, but it’s gone so quickly into a nasty, dark stain.

  ‘My name is DS Henderson. Please call us straight away if you remember anything that might help us find Molly.’

  They both stand up and I see that the policeman is even taller than PC Red Cheeks, Henderson, whatever. Mum is sitting like a statue on the sofa as I walk out with them, close the door behind them.

  I stand for a second leaning against it – I need to take some deep breaths to settle my stomach. When I get back Mum is still there, frozen in the same position on the sofa, staring up at me all pale and wispy. The sudden lack of her substance, of her there-ness, is disquieting.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this, Vivian?’ she whispers.

  ‘Any of what?’

  ‘Don’t be evasive. What has been going on with Molly? You know where she is, don’t you?’

  ‘No! I don’t know where she is – she’s been a complete nightmare recently and I didn’t tell you about any of it because it’s not any of your business! I’m not nine! You can’t expect me to tell you everything any more, you have to let it go. I’m not doing it.’

  ‘Viv… you can’t blame me for being concerned, not after what happened before…’

  I can’t believe she would bring that up. I lose it then. ‘Just shut up! Shut! Up! Why didn’t you tell me the police were here? Did you not think that it might upset me? I hate you!’

  She rubs at her temples, then slowly pushes herself to her feet, moving like she aches everywhere. ‘This weather is giving me an awful headache, Viv. I need to go and lie down. Are you okay to fix yourself some tea? There’s still pasta in the fridge from yesterday.’

  Did she not even hear any of that? Did I even say it? I feel like there is a vortex in my head, mixing everything around. I don’t know where I am any more. I can only whisper. ‘Mum, are we still going to Dorset on Friday?’

  ‘Yes, darling, I don’t see why not, unless you want to stay? I think we both need to get away from here for a while.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay, no.’

  And then she goes upstairs, slowly, like an old person. I get my phone out of my school bag, but there’s nothing on it. Nothing.

  Rachel

  I woke up the next morning with a ringing head. I’d been drinking again after Vivian had gone to bed: I crept downstairs and drank a bottle of wine followed by gulps of vodka straight from the bottle I kept in the freezer for emergencies. The icy cold liquid had burned a trail from my throat to my stomach like acid, and there was still acid there when I got up. It didn’t help me forget. Vivian’s anger, the police visit. It frightened me to see her like that. It brought up bad memories of before. I kept picturing Lexie’s mother, Lucy – how she’d looked when I’d seen her a few weeks before. I was so worried about how exhausted and worn she had looked. I had been so hopeful that Lexie would have recovered, learnt to cope with her injuries, that the scars had healed and could be masked, but there had to be a reason for Lucy to have looked so heartsick.

  I’d managed to get as far as the kitchen table, wrapped in my dressing gown despite the stifling weather, and I was sitting wallowing, when there was a knock at the front door. I ignored it, but the knocking came again, insistent.

  I edged my way along the hallway feeling like an old, worn-out husk. My head was light, my vision tunnelling, bile at my throat. I opened the door into the blinding light.

  It was the police, again. DS Henderson and her henchman.

  ‘Ms Sanders? May we come in?’

  ‘Vivian isn’t here. She’s gone to school.’

  ‘We wanted to speak to you, Ms Sanders.’

  Feeling more than slightly confused I let them both bustle into my house and down into the kitchen. Not wanting to speak to them straight away, trying to gather my thoughts, I offered to make them tea. My hands shook as I picked teabags out of the little clay pot Vivian had made at school. It was an ugly little thing but I treasured it: one of my only clear memories of my father was his delight when I presented him with some small and lopsided object I had myself made at school. I made us all a cup and we sat at my small kitchen table in a stuffy, uncomfortable hush. DS Henderson broke it.

  ‘Ms Sanders. Can you remember what time Vivian came home on Saturday night? We are still trying to establish a clearer timeline of Molly’s disappearance.’

  ‘So you’re taking it seriously then? It’s taken you long enough, she’s been missing for four days!’ I didn’t want to answer the question. I had absolutely no idea what time Vivian had come home. I just knew it was dark – it had been pitch black in my room, everything I remember was touch, hands in the darkness and the taste of the salt on his skin.

  ‘What time did Vivian come home, Ms Sanders?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. It must have been late, well after sundown anyway. I just remember it was dark and I had already gone to bed, and been asleep, but I don’t know how long for.’

  ‘Were you alone?’

  ‘What! Yes, I was alone. I woke up when the front door opened. I heard her come up the stairs and into the shower.’ The lies slipped out of my mouth easily, but my heart was pounding wildly, remembering the kisses on my body that had woken me, not Vivian.

  ‘The shower?’

  ‘Yes. She had a shower when she got in. She said yesterday, didn’t she, that she’d left Molly’s because she was hot. She probably wanted to cool down, rinse off. The weather’s awful, isn’t it?’ I tried to laugh, but their faces remained stern.

  ‘Are you aware of any issues Molly and Vivian may have been having recently?’

  ‘With each other? None, as far as I know. They are very close – they have been for years. I think all the girls have been struggling with Tristan’s accident, though. It’s so awful.’

  ‘Ms Sanders, we are fairly certain at this point that Tristan Beaumont’s car had been tampered with before the accident.’

  ‘I just can’t believe it. Who would want to hurt him? I don’t understand – surely it was something he did by accident? He was always tinkering with the stupid thing himself.’

  The man was scribbling in his notepad. I could see his handwriting, a tiny illegible scrawl scattered across the page ignoring the lines. He pressed too hard with the pen; that must have made his hand ache, the grip.

  ‘After we left you yesterday, we spoke to several of Molly’s teachers. We were told that Vivian and Molly had a detention in the week before she disappeared. For fighting in the canteen. Did you know about this?’ My eyes told them that I did not. Vivian’s lies, coming to the surface. I could feel panic juddering in my chest – did they think Vivian was involved in Molly disappearing? Did I?

  ‘Why are you even questioning me about this? Is this because of the accident? That’s supposed to be sealed!’ I blurted it out and then fear hit me with an almost physical shock. I felt like I was on a tightrope without a safety net, nothingness yawning beneath my feet.

  ‘What accident, Ms Sanders?’ The man spoke suddenly, looked up sharply, keen eyes piercing me. I couldn’t answer, just shook my head, pressed my stupid lips together tightly. They didn’t know, and I had told them. The scribbling went on again, question marks, the only noise in the room.

  ‘I’m sorry to upset you. You’re sure there wasn’t any trouble brewing between Vivian and Molly?’ DS Henderson took over again.

  ‘No! N
othing, I told you! She didn’t even mention the fight, and they were together same as always last week. It obviously wasn’t anything serious.’ I had to make an effort not to screech, and I put my shaking hands under the table. ‘My daughter had nothing to do with Molly disappearing – she obviously has issues none of us knew about. Vivian adores Molly, she would never do anything to hurt her, or make her run away. This is ridiculous.’

  They exchanged a cynical look, and then drained their cups at the same time. Standing up, looming over me, they thanked me for my time and then left, letting themselves out and leaving me nervous and worried.

  No. There was no way she was involved in this, I refused to believe it. Before, in London, it had been an accident, the strain Vivian had been under that I had been too stupid to notice. It had been my fault, not hers. She wasn’t a bad person. She loved Molly. She wouldn’t hurt Molly.

  Almost as the front door closed, the back door opened, and Alex came in. My head was still spinning. I saw him looking at the empty wine bottle on the side, the vodka bottle beside it. A cool look at me. I realised the police had probably seen them too. They must have thought I was a lush who kept no track on her daughter, let her stay out to all hours. A small burn of real awareness started inside me, waking me up from the stupor I had let myself slip into. What was I doing?

  Alex walked over to me and put his hands on my shoulders, ran them up to my neck, rubbing at the tension he found there. He always felt so cool to touch, cool and smooth and good. I put up one of my hands, held onto his. I knew it had to end, that foolish episode. But it was so hard; despite the difference in our ages, there was a genuine attraction and connection between us. I could feel it, and my head was full of constant, running justifications for my behaviour. But there was nothing healthy in it for either of us. It was a mistake.

  ‘Alex. Alex, I’m so sorry, but this has to stop. We can’t keep doing this, it isn’t right. I’m old enough to be your mother. It’s wrong. I can’t do this any more.’

  I looked up at him. I knew it might be the last time I got to see him, and I knew he would probably hate me. I wanted to punish myself by memorising the look on his beautiful face so I could remember it in the small hours of the night when I was alone, again.

  It crumpled in shock. ‘Please don’t say that, Rach, please. I think you’re amazing. This is the only good thing that’s happened to me in years, you don’t understand, please don’t.’ To my horror I saw tears beginning to gather in his beautiful eyes, threaten to spill, pooling onto his thick eyelashes. I’d had no idea there was any real emotional involvement, for either of us, really; I thought that it was just some awful physical addiction we had got caught up in. He got down onto his knees next to me as I sat there, shocked, put his hands to my face. ‘Please, Rachel, please. Don’t do this.’

  I reached up, took his hands away and pushed them gently back towards him, traitorous fingers revelling one last time in how they felt on my skin. ‘Alex, please – you must realise that this wasn’t ever going to go anywhere? I thought you knew that, that it was just…’

  ‘Just what? You were just using me?’

  ‘No! Never! It’s only been a week, it wasn’t like that, it was never…’ But I didn’t know what to say to him, to that boy kneeling in front of me, beseeching me. I didn’t understand what he wanted and it broke my heart. I didn’t say anything else, I couldn’t. His face lost all expression, closed up, his eyes a dark, pained green full of bitter tears that he brushed away, angrily. He shoved himself to his feet and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving me with his parting words.

  ‘You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you. I should have known.’

  By the time I understood what he should have known, it was too late.

  Vivian

  I still haven’t heard from Alex. It’s like he’s disappeared off the face of the earth. I even went into the reception in the college, made up some rubbish about him tutoring me and needing to find him. I don’t think that the horrid woman there believed me, though; she just looked at me and laughed and said she couldn’t tell me. Bitch.

  After my failure with her I went to class and found that Tilly and Serena have moved tables. We all used to sit on the second row, but they have moved to the back, and there wasn’t a space for me there. The rejection feels like a dagger under my ribs. I hold my hand briefly to my side, look at it, expecting blood. There’s no blood, but there is the ever-present cold, simmering loathing. They’ve never liked me. They’ve always been jealous that Molly liked me the best. I’ll show them.

  I walk over to where they are sitting quietly, heads together over a magazine. Looking at some stupid make-up tutorial, vain little bitches. I hate them.

  ‘Did you get an email from Molly?’ I ask them, cool as you like.

  ‘What?’ says Serena, jerking toward me. ‘No, what email? What did she say? Where is she, she’s being fucking ridiculous now, her mum has rung me about eleventy billion times asking me if I know where she’s gone!’

  I smile at them. I’ve got the power now.

  ‘She just said she was pissed off with her parents ignoring her and leaving her on her own all the time, so she’s gone now and how do they like it. She probably emailed them the same thing, so hopefully Abi will stop giving you a hard time now. Like Molly would ever tell you anything, anyway.’

  I take a second to enjoy the hurt look on her face – serves her right – and then I turn on my heel and go and sit in my usual seat as if everything is completely normal.

  I don’t have any lessons with Tilly and Serena because they are both thick, but I do find myself missing Molly a bit. She made me laugh in lessons, taking the piss out of everything and gossiping. I have maths first, and instead of sitting on my usual, now Molly-less table, I decide to sit next to Becky. She almost jumps out of her seat. Chloe isn’t in this class either, also being a bit thick, but Becky can’t hide her intelligence all the time. They moved her up a set a while ago. Maybe she is more interesting than she looks.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, as I get my books and stuff out.

  ‘Err,’ is the best she can manage. God, she really can’t cope without her twin, can she?

  ‘How is Chloe? I heard she was knocked up.’

  Becky just gobbles like a turkey, mouth opening and closing, swallowing air. I half expect her to blow up like a balloon, or one of those puffer fish that are full of poison as well as being so spiky and expanding. ‘No!’ she manages, choking it out. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘Tilly heard her crying in the loo about being late.’

  ‘Oh. Well, no. She went to the doctor and he told her she missed her period because she wasn’t eating enough and to stop starving herself.’

  ‘Starving herself? I thought she was vegan?’

  ‘It’s just an excuse to not eat anything. I’ve seen her eating ham straight out of the fridge at her house when she thinks no one is watching.’

  I burst out laughing; it takes me by surprise. I haven’t laughed properly for weeks. Becky’s pudding face breaks into a wicked grin. I didn’t know she was capable of subterfuge against her beloved Chloe. I have misjudged her. Maybe I don’t need Serena or Tilly after all, if I can get someone new. Becky isn’t that ugly or fat or anything embarrassing, I suppose. Could she be moulded into something better than she is? Becky might be more biddable than Molly ever was.

  * * *

  We spend the rest of the lesson whispering and having a bit of a laugh: Becky has a vicious humour that I like, but then once the bell goes she shoots straight off and when I catch up I see her with Chloe. Well, I see her standing next to Chloe, who is snogging Dan’s face off in the queue for the vending machine. I give her a cold look on my way past. She should have stuck with me.

  I don’t want it to look like I’m being shunned by sitting by myself at lunch so I take my sandwiches out to the field and sit under the oak tree. I know part of me is hoping that maybe Alex will be there. He isn’t. I’m not going to message him any more;
I’m not going to be some sad, desperate loser crying over wasting her virginity on some arsehole. It’s not important. I feed most of my sandwiches to two fat wood pigeons, because each bite I take turns to sawdust in my mouth. I watch them bumbling around for a while bobbing for crumbs and making stupid cooing noises, shitting their purple shit all over the dead grass, and then I slowly walk back into school as if I don’t care at all that I am alone.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon lessons hardly focusing. I hate these last days of school at the end of the year that we waste on whatever the teacher deems to be a ‘fun’ end of term treat. They should just let us go. Finally, at the end of the day, I head back to my locker to get my stuff and find a piece of paper has been shoved through the gap. It’s an amazing sketch of a girl lying beneath a tree, naked. At first I’m mortified in case anyone sees it, and press it quickly to my chest, but I glance furtively around me and see everyone is oblivious as usual.

  It’s a picture of me, from that afternoon. It’s beautiful.

  Alex is back.

  * * *

  By the time I get home I’m so hacked off about his disappearing and reappearing act that I don’t go into the house because Mum will be bound to notice how cross I am yet again, despite her pathetic depression. I pace around the garden instead, avoiding the heavy bees that stagger through the air around the lavender. I hate the smell of lavender. Nan always stank of it. I decide to poke around Mum’s stuff instead – see how she likes her privacy being invaded for once. The studio is a glass box shining in the sun. It’s hot in here, and messy. Her artist’s desk is piled high with sketches, scraps of paper and ends of charcoal, littered with a dusting of rubber from a mass erasure of errant lines. There are finished paintings on the other work bench drying in the heat. I have to open all the doors to try and let some air in before I suffocate.