Me. It’s meant for me. It was our song.
An anonymous caller. The bunny rabbit. The strange feeling I’ve had of something being not quite right, that someone’s watching me, and now here’s the song, our song, requested in secret, and I think my heart might explode in my chest with the fear of it all. Frankie Vein’s husky voice fills the car, and fills my head and the years vanish and each lyric is a knife in my brain.
‘Fucking hell, Mum!’
I start suddenly as Ava grips the dashboard, and from outside, a dim and distant place belonging to other people beyond my panic, comes the squealing of brakes and blast of horns. The car stalls as I stop too quickly, my feet leaving the pedals and my breath coming in gasps as I pull myself back into the present as best I can.
Beside me, Ava’s eyes are wide. ‘What are you doing?’
I’ve come to a stop halfway on to the roundabout, and in my daze, all I can see is the anger and road-rage hatred in other drivers’ contorted faces as they go by.
‘Weren’t you looking?’ Ava barks.
‘I … I didn’t … I thought it was clear.’
Frankie Vein is still singing and making my head throb. I want to turn it off but I can’t let Ava see my shaking hands.
‘I should have got the bloody bus,’ she mutters. There she is, my surly teenager. Her disdain kick-starts me into action, and I force myself to turn the key again and move on, watching each exit this time, thankful that we’re so close to the school. The song finally fades out.
‘Great song,’ Steve’s disembodied voice says. ‘Whatever happened to Frankie Vein?’ he asks. ‘Where is she now?’
I can’t turn it off quickly enough. Where is she now? The question makes my face hot and I press my back into the seat as if I can hide inside the fabric.
‘Good luck,’ I say, the words thick in my mouth, as Ava gets out. She looks back at me, and I expect some form of reproach, but instead she looks concerned.
‘Drive carefully, okay?’
I nod and give her a weak smile. My daughter is worried about me. Worried or fearful? Did I frighten her? Of course I did. I nearly crashed the car. For all my secret terrors, I could have been the one to harm her. As soon as she closes the door, I pull away, trying not to race over the speed bumps. I turn a corner and keep going until I’m away from the prying eyes of other parents and then stop at the kerb. I lean out of my door and retch violently as the rain soaks me. My vomit is hot and burns my chest as I expel my breakfast and coffee and stomach acid and I wait until I feel entirely empty before flopping back in the car.
My whole body aches and trembles. I’m purged but it’s a false emptiness. I can’t get my fear out by vomiting. My terror will never leave me. Nor the grief I keep hidden like a precious jewel, a hard diamond made from the black carbon of my burnt-up heart.
The toy rabbit.
The song.
The feeling I’ve had of something being just a little bit wrong.
How much of it can be coincidence? Random events? None of it? All of it? Am I going mad?
I stare out of the window at the ordinary world and wonder how much of my make-up has run. I have to look presentable for work. I’ve got a jacket on, so my blouse is relatively dry, and my hair doesn’t have enough life to get wayward after some rain. I can always stick it under the hand-drier at the office and put it up in a bun.
Eventually I push all thoughts of the past aside – not away though, never that – and check my reflection in the rear-view mirror. It’s not as bad as I thought. I won’t have to go home and re-do it all.
At least I’m not a crier, I think as I start the car again. I’ve never been a crier. In the silence the song lyrics echo in my head and I know they’ll stay there all day. I can’t wait to get to work. I don’t care about Julia and the money. I don’t care about Simon Manning. I only want to be somewhere I feel safe.
12
AVA
My bedroom is more like a bedsit really. I’ve got my double bed, my desk with a little drinks fridge under it, and there’s even a sofa up against the wall – one of those reclining ones you can slob on and watch TV. It all came as part of my bedroom revamp last year. We only got mine done, not Mum’s. She said it was because she loved her room and didn’t want to change it and I was growing up and needed something different. I was young and I believed her. Now I know she could probably only afford to do one room, and by making mine so cool I might spend more time at home. It was around the time I started going out more on my own. Being a proper teenager. It’s kind of backfired because recently we spend most of our time at Jodie’s rather than here.
‘Thank fuck no exams tomorrow.’ Lizzie is stretched out on the sofa, Ange is lounging on the bed with me, on her side, all hips and curves, and Jodie’s sitting against the wall on the old beanbag I had when I was little. Coke cans and crisp wrappers are strewn across the coffee table.
‘But we’re nearly done,’ I say. ‘And then freedom.’
It’s not only the long hot summer holidays waiting for me this time, it’s a sense of a new future. Even though Ange and I are staying at KEGS for sixth form, it’s still going to be like going somewhere new. Different rules and freedoms. Being above everyone else. Crossing a new boundary. Another step towards the adult world. It makes me think of Saturday night. I crossed a boundary then. In some ways, staying at KEGS feels a bit lame, but the college is too far and our A-level pass rate is high.
‘Swimming tomorrow?’ Ange says. ‘We should train even if we don’t have any proper meets coming up.’
‘It’s so lame they won’t let us race during exams.’
My phone pings. Courtney. Again. Do I want to meet up tonight?
‘Him again?’ Lizzie asks, and I nod, chewing my bottom lip, trying to think how to respond.
The lethargy in the group evaporates and I’m sure Angela purrs. We’re on heat all the time. Sex is everywhere in the summer, and we’re like dogs waking up to it, sniffing it in the air. We’re nearly adult. Sex is part of that. It’s what adult is in many ways. I hadn’t wanted to do it with Courtney on Saturday, but I had wanted to do it, and I get a strange thrill remembering the feeling of him inside me and the sounds he made when he came, and it all seemed so different to the things we’d done before, even though I liked that stuff better. I spend so much time thinking about sex. Just not sex with Courtney. Sex with him.
‘He loves you, he wants to kiss you …’ Ange mocks.
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘When are you going to do it again?’ Lizzie says, blunt. She’s always so direct. ‘It’s better the second time.’
‘Like you’d know,’ Ange says.
‘Better than you.’
It’s probably true. Lizzie is a year older and is on the pill. Ange figures it’s only to regulate her periods, but at Christmas when Lizzie went out with Chris or whatever his name was for a couple of months, she swore blind they’d done it. She went into pretty graphic detail, and Lizzie isn’t a liar. Maybe I should talk to her about what pill she’s on. Just in case. Not that I’m worried. My period is due soon and my boobs are getting sore like they always do, so I’m sure it’s fine.
‘I can’t see him tonight. My mum won’t let me out in the week while the exams are on.’
‘Your mum never wants to let you out past eight,’ Ange says. ‘Like primary school.’
‘She’s got better,’ I answer. It’s true, she has. And as much as she drives me mad, I still have pangs of loyalty to her. It’s always been just us and now I’m growing up and abandoning her. I don’t mind slagging her off myself but it bothers me when Ange does it.
‘Ava!’ The voice sounds distant through the door but instantly recognisable.
‘Jesus, what is she, psychic?’ Jodie says and smiles. It’s not malicious like Ange was. She gets it. Weird mums club.