The white noise in my head is getting louder and louder. “Dad?” I manage to squeak. “What do I do?”
Dad clears his throat, leans toward me and puts his hand on my head. “Harriet,” he says gravely, in his most un-my-dad-like voice. “Think about it carefully. If you don’t want this, we walk now. No questions. If you do want it, I’m behind you.”
“But Annabel…”
Dad sighs. “I’ll deal with Annabel. She doesn’t frighten me.” He thinks about this. “OK, she frightens me. But I’ll just frighten her back.”
I try to swallow, but I can’t. The door has just been thrown wide open when I thought it was locked. This is the forked road that the poem talks about. I can take my old life back. I can be Harriet Manners: Best Friend to Nat, Prey to Alexa, Stepdaughter to Annabel, Stalkeree to Toby. Stranger and total Hand-sniffing Weirdo to Nick. Geek.
Or I can try to become something else entirely.
Something inside me breaks. “I want to do it,” I hear myself saying. “I want to try and be a model.”
“Well, duh,” Wilbur says happily.
“But what happens now?” Dad asks, taking hold of my hand and squeezing it. I squeeze it back. My whole body is trembling.
“Now?” Wilbur says, laughing and leaning back in his chair. “Well. Let’s just say that Harriet Manners is about to become very fashionable.” And he laughs again. “Very fashionable indeed.”
o Dad and I have worked out a cunning plan. It’s not particularly complicated and it consists of one simple step: lie. And that’s it.
We debate the telling-the-truth option for about thirty seconds, and then decide that it’s probably much better all round if we just… don’t. Because we’re scared mainly. As Dad says, “Annabel is absolutely bonkers at the moment, Harriet. Do you really want to awaken the Kraken?”
So we’re going to lie to Annabel. And – I add this silently in my head – Nat. We’re obviously not going to lie to them forever. That would be ridiculous. We’re just going to keep the truth from them until the timing is right. And it feels like a suitable moment.
And we have absolutely no other alternative. Which makes me feel no better about anything at all, so as soon as we’re home from the agency, I make my excuses and go straight to the only place in the world I go when I need to run away.
The local launderette.
It’s about 300 metres away from my house, and I’ve been coming here since I was allowed to leave the house on my own. For some reason it always makes me feel better. I love the soft whirring sounds, I love the soapy smells, I love the bright lights, I love the warmth coming out of the machines. But most of all I love the feeling that nothing could ever be bad or wrong in a place where everything is being cleaned.
I dig fifty pence out of my pocket and put it in one of the tumble dryers. Then – when it’s switched on and hot and vibrating – I lean my head on the concave glass window and shut my eyes.
I don’t know how long I sit with my head on the dryer, but I must nod off because I suddenly jerk awake to the sound of: “Did you know that the average American family does eight to ten loads of laundry each week, and a single load of laundry takes an average of one hour and twenty-seven minutes to complete from wash to dry? That means that the average American family spends approximately 617 hours a year doing laundry. What do you think it is for England? Less, I think. We just seem to be a bit dirtier.”
And there – sitting on top of a washing machine – is Toby.
I stare at him in silence.
“Hey, you’re awake!” he observes. “Look!” And then he points to his T-shirt. It has a picture of drums on it. “It’s interactive! When I press the drums, they make the sound of drums.” Thud, thud.
“Toby. What are you doing here?”
“Did you hear that?” He’s wearing a yellow bobble hat and it’s bobbling in excitement. Thud, thud, thud. “They’re realistic, aren’t they? Do you think if you got one with a guitar on it, we could start a band?”
“No. What are you doing here?”
“Obviously I’m doing laundry, Harriet.”
I raise my eyebrow. He looks completely at ease with this terrible excuse, which – considering the fact that he has no laundry with him – is a little worrying. “Did you just follow me here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You looked sad. And also because it’s dark and it could be dangerous if you wander around on your own.”
I scowl. “Yes, Toby. I might be at risk from stalkers.”
Toby looks around us. “I think it’s just me, Harriet. I’ve not run into any others while on the job. Are you excited about the modelling assignment?”
I stare at him for a few seconds. “How the hell do you know about that?”