The following day at school I remained on high alert, knowing Phoebe wouldn’t wait long to get me back. Tit for tat. A game of cat and mouse. A matter of time.
I wasn’t supposed to but I also went to see MK, and as I walked up to her room I was aware of my eyes. Dry. Click as I blink, not enough sleep, a thought that unnerves me knowing I’ll be on the stand in two days. I don’t know what’s happening in court, Mike said he and June were in touch daily but I should focus on myself, on getting as much sleep as possible before Thursday. I’d like that too but every time I close my eyes, I see nine little somethings, crying, pointing at me, asking for help.
I told MK what Mike and I agreed, that I’d be off school Thursday and Friday for a small procedure. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ she asked.
No, only the severing of an umbilical cord.
Should’ve been removed years ago. Toxic.
As I get undressed to shower before bed, I keep hearing your voice, imagining you standing, waiting for me outside the courtroom tossing a coin. Heads or tails. The elongated one you had made when we visited a seaside town in Wales last year, not for a holiday, new territory you wanted to explore, you said. New hunting ground, is what you meant. When I went to the toilet you asked the man at the stall to stamp both sides of the coin with the same. Heads we play, tails we don’t, you said when we got home. It took me months to work out, both sides were heads. You won, every time. But you’re not the judge any more, a man in a wig is. Twelve other people too. You don’t get to decide this time. They do.
I didn’t even hear her open the bathroom door, too busy lathering shampoo on my head, trying to quieten your voice. She yanks the shower curtain to one side. Enough time to cover my ribs with my arms, hide the scars, but not my breasts or my crotch. The flash on her phone, she takes what she needs.
‘That’ll teach you to try and drown me, bitch.’
I wrap the shower curtain around me, scared she’ll pull it down, but she doesn’t. She asks me if I’ve been anywhere interesting lately. When I don’t reply, she says, ‘Don’t think I don’t know all about your little friend from the estate.’
Hide. Don’t show. Steam making it hard to breath. Hot.
‘I’m right, aren’t I? Izzy said she saw you with the little shit that sits outside the house. What’s the matter, can’t find friends your own age? Maybe I’ll tell Dad and he can ask you about it in your “private” time. Wonder what he’d think if he knew you were hanging out with one of the estate rats, especially one much younger.’
She’s twelve, almost thirteen. Small for her age. And I know what your dad would think. He’d be worried.
‘Pathetic. That’s what you are. I bet you loved it in the Cotswolds without me, playing happy families with my parents.’
I did, yes.
‘Not that I care, it won’t be long until you’re gone anyway, you probably won’t even get to stay for Christmas.’
I look at her angry face. I should reach out, offer her my hand and say, let’s shake on it. Call a truce. Let’s do this together, think of the fun we could have. Think of the mischief. But the temptation to push back, to fight, is so much stronger. Her fault, she keeps feeding the wrong wolf, giving it permission to be in charge. So instead of trying to make peace, I say to her, ‘I hear you at night sometimes.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘I hear you.’
A bullseye on her body, square in her chest, stops her in her tracks. She knows what I mean, that I hear her cry. I might be naked but she’s just been laid out bare.
It takes only minutes after she leaves for my phone to vibrate, she’ll have got my new number from the blackboard by the front door, Mike insists everybody’s is up there. I unfold myself from the shower curtain, wrap a towel round me, walk over to my desk and pick up my phone. A picture message. Hair frothy with shampoo, skin shiny, arms folded round my ribs. Nipples hard, a dark bush below.
I can see she sent it to a number of people. Girls and boys, Joe included maybe. I walk back into the bathroom, drop my towel. Slice. Once. Twice. Red. A more interesting photo, if only she’d asked.
26
Before I left for school this morning Saskia gave me a small velvet pouch. It’s a present, she said, from the crystal shop on Portobello Road. When I opened it, took it out, rolled it around my palm, the edges rough and raw, the top and bottom smooth and black, she told me it was a Black Tourmaline. The talisman of protection. I thought you could keep it in your pocket while you’re in court, I thought it might help, she said. I thanked her but the gesture, although kind, made me feel worse, reminded me I needed protection.
I don’t feel ready for tomorrow, a dark-coloured bruise. Aubergine. Indigo. Deep inside. Pulsates. I go over the lawyers’ questions in my head as I walk to school – tell the court what your mother did, tell the court what you saw – but I can’t remember the answers.
Just tell the truth, Mike says.
Easier said.
We meet in the hall for a run-through of the play. The words, their meaning, so familiar to me. Skulls gleaming white, the end of innocence, the girls dressed as boys. Phoebe was lucky last time, she wasn’t narrator when Ms James watched, but today she stumbles her way through her lines, a prompt needed every minute or two. Miss Mehmet loses it, says, that’s it, Phoebe, you’re out, Milly’s taking over as narrator. The look on her face, and while the score’s not even – she’s way ahead after the photo last night – I’m hot on her tail.
The punishment for stealing her part comes quickly. She posts my photo on the Year Eleven forum, a few alterations here and there, hair on my breasts and thighs. Frankenstein’s bride. She changes the password for the forum to ‘freak’, a tactic employed to keep snooping teachers at bay. She sends an email out alerting us to the change. These highly selective schools, a breed of smart yet sneaky teens. Tricks and trolls.
A comment from LadyLucie2000 suggests, let’s set up a Facebook page called Milly the Freak. Phoebe added underneath: ‘Good idea!!!! I snapchatted it to Tommy at Bentleys, he’s going to pass it on to all the boys’ schools out of London.’