by Sarah Lawton
There is a large clock ticking on the wall, an unceasingly annoying noise that, once in your ears, refuses to leave. Tick tock, your life tick tocking by.
Trying to ignore the clock I take a deep breath. I love the smell in here: paints and pastels, charcoal, even the paper itself, a smooth creamy smell, the end of trees. Underneath all that is the chemical kiss of white spirit cleaning the brushes that Mum leaves higgledy-piggledy in pots, ruining the bristles and distorting the points. You’d think she would have learnt to look after her things by now, but no.
Even the floor is untidy: half-empty packets and cellophane pieces, empty paint tubes and splatters of colour everywhere. A toddler would make less mess than my mother. There’s no organisation here at all; this is a purely creative space and it itches at my mind, scurries in it, insistent. I don’t know how she can work in here. It makes my head feel all fucked up. I don’t know how she copes with it. I can’t help it, I have to sort it out a bit – sorting has always calmed me down, everything should have a place, an order it belongs in.
Sketches and half-finished paintings from the Prince of Dark Wings are scattered everywhere so I sort them into piles. That pile is various versions of the prince from the back, wings arching, on the beach watching a boat disappearing over the waves. These ones are of the girl passing through the veil to his Fae world. There are loads and loads of paintings of creepy trees which I really like; I might ask if I can have one of these for my room. I keep making piles until I come to one that makes me freeze.
What the fuck? What the actual fuck? That’s Alex. With wings.
Rachel
The day before we went to Dorset, Vivian came running in from school like she was being chased. She bombed into the house without even pausing to speak to me, running right past my seat on the sofa where I had tucked myself with a book, trying vainly to read to distract myself.
I went up to Vivian’s room to speak to her, to ask her why she had run in like the hounds of hell were after her. She was lying on her bed on her phone, tapping away, an intent, bristling look on her face.
‘What on earth is wrong with you?’
She looked up and a blanket came down over her expression, smoothing away the fierce, pointed glare and replacing it with a stiff, calm mask. She looked straight at me. It was so rare that she would look directly at me, into my eyes. Usually hers would slide away, look to one side. I was almost chilled by the intensity in them.
‘Nothing.’
I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t know how to press it without risking that look reappearing on her face. I stood there, voiceless.
‘What?’ she glanced up again, jaw tight.
‘Do you know where Molly is?’
‘No. Can you go now, please? I’m busy.’ Eyes firmly back on the screen in her hands. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the infuriated scream inside me, breathed out slowly. ‘Darling, can you please get your packing done tonight so we can go straight to Dorset when you finish school tomorrow afternoon?’
She ignored me.
‘Vivian! Are you listening to me?’
Her grey eyes flicked up to me for a scornful second before returning to her phone. She made one of her noncommittal grunts which I took to mean she had heard me. I decided that if there was no sign of any packing in the morning then I would pack for her, and she would not be impressed with what I chose. I was sick of her. I had spent the whole morning frantic with worry over how she was coping without Molly, and she was behaving like a shit. I was still sick over what I had done to Alex and I just didn’t have the headspace to deal with a moody Vivian too.
I was walking past the phone in the hall when it rang, almost giving me a heart attack.
‘Hello?’
‘Rachel? It’s Abi. Has Molly been in touch with Vivian? We’ve had an email from her!’ Her voice was shaking.
‘Oh, Abi, thank god. Is she okay?’
‘It says she is. She says that she’s punishing us for never being here, but we aren’t away that much, Rachel, are we? I had no idea she felt this way, why wouldn’t she tell me?’
The hurt and bewilderment in her tone was palpable, and I thought about the uncommunicative grouch in the bedroom upstairs. What wasn’t she telling me? What secrets filled these girls, and stained their hidden lives?
‘Abi, don’t blame yourself. They’re at such a difficult age. Did she say where she was? Is she okay? Is she coming back?’
‘No, no, it didn’t really say anything, I’m just so relieved to hear from her. Vivian didn’t say anything on Tuesday. She came round to get one of her tops from Molly’s room.’
‘She didn’t tell me she’d been to see you. I’ll ask her if she’s heard from her and I’ll let you know, okay? I’ll text you. I’m so happy she’s got in touch, Abi. Speak soon.’
I carefully put the phone down, my head swimming with pure relief. It felt like wings unfolding inside me. I loved Molly almost as much as I loved Vivian, she was such a bright, shining girl. I can still remember the first time Vivian brought her home for tea after school. She had been so interested in everything, asked me a hundred questions about the cottage, the books, my pictures. Vivian had sat beside her, face glowing and enraptured with her clever new friend. I remember feeling a sharp dagger of concern – she was so like Lexie – but I had to give Vi the benefit of the doubt. All the therapists had told me that the accident had been just that – an accident. I couldn’t blame a nine-year-old for those actions. She had been tormented by the other children and, unable to process her emotions, she had snapped and lashed out. It was my fault for not listening, letting it get that far: not hers. History wasn’t repeating itself, and their friendship had seemed entirely normal. They’d been friends for years, and would be again I thought, once Molly came home. Again, I forced down the niggling doubts. Everything would be fine.
‘Vivian! Viv!’ I shouted up the stairs, transporting back to an utterly normal thing to be doing, a mother yelling to her teenager up the stairs. ‘Have you heard from Molly?’
‘Yeah.’
I barely heard the reply and stormed back up the stairs into her room. She was still on her phone, hair falling across her face.
‘I just asked you if you knew where she was and you said no! Did you not think to tell me that you had actually heard from her? Did you not think I was worried sick about where she is? Anything could happen to her, Vivian! Where the hell is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Vivian, still not looking at me. ‘The email just said sorry for being a dick and she’s not coming back.’
‘What? Why is she not coming back? Where is she?’
‘I just said. I. Don’t. Know.’
‘Do not speak to me like that, Vivian! I am not in the mood!’
I quickly texted Abi that Vivian had an email too and promised to get her to forward it to her so she could show the police.
My relief that Molly had been in touch curdled at the thought that she was saying she didn’t want to come home. What was wrong with her? What had happened? Had Vivian done something to make her run away? Oh, I adored her, but she was flighty and impulsive. I was so afraid for her, thinking she was so grown up when she was still just a little girl; she was always that sweet little girl.
I rattled round the house, packing up things for Dorset, thinking about Molly and Vivian, all the quiet years I had lived through since we left London, how much Molly was a part of them, a healing part.
I finished my packing late, and couldn’t hear anything from Vivian’s room. I hadn’t cooked any dinner, and she hadn’t appeared to forage for herself. She was probably cross with me about something, but I really struggled to care. I managed to force some toast down, sitting again at the kitchen table where I had broken Alex’s heart only a few hours before. I wanted so badly to text him, but I didn’t want to lead him on or give him any false hope. I deleted his messages and his number so I couldn’t. I was tempted to open more wine, but I didn’t; I just went to bed instead,
alone again.
I didn’t sleep well that night either, snatches of rest broken with dreams of two golden girls and a dark, bleak boy.
* * *
The next day, with my concern over Molly having abated only slightly – she was still missing after all, and only fifteen despite her pretended maturity – my thoughts returned again to Alex. I hadn’t heard from him since the morning before, but I could somehow sense a brooding hostility hanging over me, and a small part of me missed him badly. I checked my phone and the messages I’d gotten from Steve. Judging by all the pictures of cocktails, I could only imagine he was nursing a severe hangover by a pool. I sent him a message telling him I missed him. I was envious of his away-ness. I didn’t want to be where I was any more.
I busied myself finishing packing for our trip, piling our travel easels and blank canvases into the back of the car, so we could leave after Vivian finished school that afternoon. We went every year to Lulworth Cove; it was one of my favourite places, I had holidayed there since I was a child myself and it was full of happy memories. Vivian’s school finished a little earlier than most so we usually had a few days to ourselves by the sea before the hordes arrived.
I wasn’t so unaware as to not have noticed that she had gradually disappeared into herself in the last few weeks. I told myself it was her age, hormones, teenage angst, Tristan’s accident, and now missing her friend, but that small, niggling thought whispered in my head, Remember. I couldn’t stop thinking about Lexie Coleman. I wondered if I should try and get in touch with Lucy, but I had even changed my number when we moved because I couldn’t cope with bringing anything with us except memories, and they were heavy enough. Perhaps it really was best just to let it all lie. But it had proved surprisingly easy to disappear. I guess no one knew what to say to me: it was better to let me slip away unremarked. No one had ever looked for us.
Five minutes later, and I had changed my mind again. I didn’t have any social media accounts except for my work website, which was just my name, Rachel Sanders Art, but I managed to find her easily enough. The account was private, but I could see her profile picture. It was of Lexie, aged five or six by the looks of it, an impish, gappy grin on her little face. It had been cropped down, but I could see the thin arm of another child around her shoulders. It hurt me to look at her face, her eyes. What did she look like now?
I still don’t know how I let it all happen, that horror in London. Mum had warned me several times that Vivian wasn’t behaving in a healthy way and that she was worried about her, but I didn’t want to listen. I brushed it off as typical young girl behaviour – they do get obsessive at that age, and it’s always about power games in girl groups. One day you were best friends, the next it was you-can’t-sit-with-us. There was that incident at a sleepover with Lexie that I didn’t like to remember, but I had been sure that it would all blow over. Lucy had been so good about it at the time. Mum didn’t think it was normal, though. She thought that there must have been a deeper issue, and that there was a definite problem with how Vivian was coping with what I thought were normal childhood issues.
Apparently Vivian had had screaming rages about it, followed by hours of icy silence. I had tried to talk to her, about why she’d done it, but I’d never seen any of the tantrums. My mum was more a parent to her than I was, and I left her to deal with it like the coward I am. But then she died, and everything in my life blew up and I just ran away, like I ran away from Manchester and Ciaran. I just buried my head in the sand the way I always do.
I decided to stop moping and finish putting everything in to the car, cramming the small boot and backseat. I went upstairs to check if Vivian had actually listened to me and done her packing. Her room was almost spartan in its emptiness. Everything was hidden away in its own place. She always told me mess hurt her head. I hated the dull grey walls, which I had let her choose despite my own preference for rich colours: plums, currants, blues and deep elf-forest greens. But grey it was. Cold grey walls and a colder grey carpet, with white furniture.
There weren’t any curtains at the window. She refused to have them, would never shut them even if I had hung some, preferring to be able to see the outside. There hadn’t been any windows in the hospital, curtained or otherwise. I always wondered if that had something to do with the almost pathological desire she had developed to have a clear route out of anywhere whenever she wanted to.
Her little black suitcase was open on the bed. A quick sift through told me that she just needed to add in her many toiletries and chargers and we would be good to go. I turned to leave, and caught myself painfully on the edge of her desk. I stopped and rubbed my leg where I’d caught it, looking down at her stuff. Everything on it was arranged with military precision, angled just so, piled in size order. When a place is so irredeemably neat, it’s easy to spot when something is out of place, and I noticed a piece of sketching paper: the familiar texture caught my eye. It was tucked into a copy of Jane Eyre. All I could see of it was a small part of the torn edge peeping out from between the pages, rumpling them slightly, and even as a needle of guilt stabbed at me for invading her privacy I slid it out from between them.
I breathed in, but no air reached my lungs, only shock. It was a nude sketch of a girl, laying prostrate on a blanket underneath a tree. She was on her back, slender arms raised above her head, knees up and apart, toes pointed like a dancer. A scribbling scratched nest of lines joined the top of her thighs, almost ripping the paper. It was chilling – the girl didn’t have any features at all on her face, despite the careful details everywhere else. It gave her a blank, haunting appeal. I traced my finger over the collarbones, the slim shoulders. I knew the considered, precise lines of that body as well as I knew my own, as well as I knew who had drawn this.
It was Vivian.
Vivian
I had such a bad headache on the way to school this morning. I couldn’t sleep last night. My room was so hot I just sweated, trying to lie spread out on my bed so no bits of skin touched any other bits. The weather is heavy and almost crackling today, it lifts the little hairs on my arms and tickles the back of my neck. There’s a storm coming.
Alex has been texting and calling me, but I’ve been ignoring him. He thinks he can have sex with me and then go missing for nearly a whole week? He said he had to go back to London to see his granddad and forgot his phone or some such bullshit, but I’m pretty sure the internet works up there just as well as it works here. He could have tracked me down. He thinks he can make it up to me with stupid gifts – a bloody drawing of all things. I didn’t know he could draw, but he’s nearly as good as my mum.
He doesn’t know that I know that he knows her somehow. I haven’t figured out what his game is yet, but I’m on to him. Finding that sketch of him in my mum’s studio was so weird. It was definitely him as the faery prince with black raven wings. She always uses people she knows in her illustrations. Steve was on the last book cover she did, much to his eternal delight – he was showing off a copy to everyone that came in the pub for months.
Why would he have met her and not told me, though? And where? Unless she just saw him in the street and decided she liked his face. That’s entirely possible here – it’s a small place. And he is so ridiculously beautiful.
I decide to tell him I don’t want to see him, and that we are going away after school, anyway. He replies straight away, and asks me to bunk off the afternoon and meet him at the gates in his car. He’s never mentioned a car before. Another thing I didn’t know about him – the things we could do with a car! More secrets. I know I shouldn’t really fall for this, that if I go and see him now then he wins, but I am intrigued.
I also really want to have sex with him again. He needs to realise that he’s mine. You don’t just leave me; I’m the one who decides when things are over. Maybe sex is the way to teach him that, or maybe it isn’t. Do I withhold it, or use more of it? We’ll see. This isn’t really something I’ve thought about before: the idea of it always repulse
d me until I found out what it was like. Being wanted like that. When you’re small and weedy you need all the power you can get, and he needs to be taught a lesson.
On the last day of term, there’s always this restless, antsy feeling around, like everyone is holding their breath. It feels like we’re all being squeezed in a fist. Serena and Tilly are still angry because I told them Molly had emailed me, when they haven’t heard from her. I don’t know what they expect, really. They haven’t spoken to me all week since she’s been gone, since they decided to act like six-year-olds and move fucking desks like I have leprosy or something. Did they ever even like me? Did they just pretend to because Molly did? I wonder what they would think if I told them what she did to me, how perverted she was. I don’t need them, anyway; if I’m with Alex we won’t need anyone. They’re just lucky I have him to distract me. They can wait, anyway.
I’m thinking of how I can punish Alex for this week, but maybe I need to remember what he means to me, and what he knows. Alex knows what Molly did, because I told him. He knew about Tristan too, what he tried to do to me. I wouldn’t tell Serena and Tilly anything about that but I trust him more than them, even if he did do a disappearing act on me. There’s just something about him that makes me think he’s like me. We’re different, we’re not like other people. Special.
Thinking of everything we’ve shared makes me change my mind – I will meet him – as I need to find out where he’s been and how he got in my mum’s pictures. Because they can’t know each other. She tells me everything, doesn’t she? She would have told me she had met someone who was at the college. And I can’t even bear to think about them actually knowing each other – what if they talked about me? What would she tell him? The thought leaves a bad taste in my mouth so I push it away.
When everyone goes to lunch I gather up my things and I slip out of the door. As promised, Alex is waiting in a battered-looking car that’s even more of a shit heap than Tristan’s was. The doors have gone pink from the sun and there is a hub cap missing.