It was the way she said it yesterday, when we’d finished Sunday brunch with Mike and Saskia and we were going up to our bedrooms. So how was your little procedure anyway, she asked, what actually was it? It was fine thanks but I’d rather not talk about it. She smiled, nodded, said, must be difficult for you, not being able to talk about things, lots of things. The emphasis on ‘lots’. An uneasy feeling, a seed planted in my stomach. Pandora’s Box being nudged open. She knows. What does she know? How can she? Mike and me have been so careful, haven’t we?
Today is the last day to enter our portfolios for the art prize, the winner is to be announced next week. The first thing I do when I get to school this morning is send MK an email. We arrange to meet at the end of the day and when I arrive she tells me I’m a little behind.
‘The other entrants finished last week, while you were … away.’
I don’t want to be paranoid but it was the pause, the gap she left before finishing her sentence, as if she harbours doubt as to where I was, what I was doing. Imagining it, I must be, just as I am with Phoebe. Surely.
‘Why don’t you lay out all of your sketches in the order you did them and we’ll whittle them down to the five you need.’
As I lay out the sketches of you I think of the trial still going on, you sat in a chair, handcuffed, facing life in prison, no contact with me. You don’t cope well with loss. Losing Luke changed everything, your desires turned darker, more fatal. You got bored of it just being me and you, took Jayden, the first boy, less than a year after Luke left. Love is a lubricant and, though it was warped, you got it from us. Who will you get it from now? You might make the woman in the cell next to yours swallow her tongue. There’s always possibilities you said, opportunities for mischief.
MK’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
‘Wow, when they’re laid out like that you can really see.’
‘Really see what?’ I ask her.
‘The journey, as if each one’s a piece in a puzzle.’
Then she asks me something strange.
‘Are you feeling more secure now you’re staying with the Newmonts?’
The sketches are heavily disguised, face smudged, eyes a different colour from yours. It’s not possible to recognize the subject, I’m certain.
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
She shakes her head and says, ‘It doesn’t matter. I’d go with those two for definite, that one at the end, and you choose the other two, perhaps some that demonstrate a real depth of shading.’
Somebody says goodnight as they pass the door. MK says, hang on, Janet, is that you? But the corridor door opens and closes again, she can’t have heard.
‘Give me a second,’ she says. ‘I need to catch her about something.’
The room feels empty, less appealing, when she leaves. I choose the last two sketches, find myself walking over to her desk, her diary, open. A Post-it note – order more clay. Her writing’s glorious, all loop di loops. Loving. The y in the word clay is drawn long, wraps round the other letters, an inky hug. A thick piece of card is sticking out of the back page of the diary. Cream. Gold calligraphy on the front. I slide it out. A wedding invitation, names I don’t know, but it’s not the names that interest me it’s something else, the envelope behind the invite. I turn it over, an address, an address for MK. I know where her road is, I’ve walked along it with Morgan. I replace both the card and the envelope, hear the door at the end of the corridor open and walk back to my sketches.
‘Sorry about that. Have you made a decision?’
‘Yes, these five.’
‘Great choice, they’ll be hard to beat, that’s for sure. Janet just reminded me that the Muse gallery on Portobello Road has a fantastic exhibition of charcoal sketches on at the moment. It’s a shame it’s the last night, I think you’d have enjoyed it.’
‘We could still go, couldn’t we? Tonight? I’d have to ask Mike but he won’t mind if it’s for school.’
‘Actually, I meant for you, you should go. I didn’t mean we’d go together.’
‘Oh, okay, sorry, it just sounds really great but I don’t think Mike will let me go on my own.’
Anxious, a bit overprotective since court, wants me home every night until the verdict’s announced.
‘I’d really like to go, Miss Kemp, especially after the procedure I had last week.’
‘Yes, how was that by the way?’
‘It was okay, it’s over now.’
‘Something to be glad about, I’m sure. I’m not promising anything, I have plans tonight, but I might try and pop into the gallery around sevenish. I wouldn’t mind a quick look myself. Why don’t you go with Mike and if I see you there, great.’
‘Okay, sure, I’ll ask him. You’ll be there at seven?’
‘I’ll try.’
Mike offers to accompany me to the gallery, I say no, it’s only a short walk away. I left out the part about meeting MK, told him all of the entrants for the art prize were going. He was unsure at first but I persuaded him, I’m good at that. After everything that’s been going on, I say. He nods. Understands.
Before I leave he checks I have my phone, tells me I look lovely, grown up even. I hope I haven’t got it wrong, chosen the wrong dress. I wait for her outside the gallery, it’ll be nice to walk in together I think. A few people drift in and out, I was a little early, so when it gets to ten past seven I’ve been standing there for almost twenty minutes, can barely feel my feet, pull my school coat tight round my body. I check my phone which is pointless as she doesn’t have my number nor do I have hers.
When it gets to twenty past I try to stay calm, reassure myself she’s just a bit late, that her artistic chaos will wrap round me when she arrives, making everything feel better. Timekeeping and discipline are the keys to success you used to say but I don’t want to think about you.
‘MK’s nothing like you.’
‘Sorry?’ comes a reply.
I realize I’ve spoken out loud as a trio of women exit the gallery and pass by. I mumble an apology, say something about practising my lines. They smile as they remember their schooldays long gone, happy days, judging by their smiles. Or the fact that time dilutes the bad memories as I hope it will mine.
I look at my phone, twenty-five to eight. She’s not coming, I know that now. When I get home I go straight to my room, hug a pillow to my chest. I long for the one from Mike’s office, blue, so soft.
You whisper in my ear, remind me that you’re my mummy, and what MK did was wrong. I put the duvet over my head, but your words get to me anyway and after a while I begin to listen to what you’re saying, begin to agree. You’re right, I know you are, what MK did wasn’t nice.
I hear it when you reply, the excitement in your voice.
THAT’S MY GIRL, ANNIE. WHAT WILL YOU DO?
TELL ME, WHAT WILL YOU DO?
30