We’ve been living in a hotel for the past week, Rosie in kennels. The house no longer felt like home, the marble in the hallway needed lifting. Replaced. The area, deep cleaned again. I can’t help imagining how Mike and Saskia would have reacted when they found Phoebe’s body. Saskia. Dropped to her knees I bet, screaming, Mike there by her side. Footsteps. Urgent. He would have run to Phoebe’s body, checked for a pulse, that’s why his hands and his shirt were stained. He’d have crumpled on to the floor, gathered her body into his. Saskia, mute, after the shock set in.
I worry for them both, the spotlight on their grief shines twenty-four seven. Mike, going through the motions, moving more slowly than usual, each step reminds him of what he saw. He’s the keeper of the pills, both Saskia, if she makes it out of bed, and I line up in the mornings. She takes whatever he gives, her hand outstretched for more. She slept all day, Mike told me when I returned from my first day back at school, a sense of structure, normality, enforced on me. I thought I’d be glad to escape but I just want to be with them. Mike feels it too, says it helps when I come back each day.
During the night, through the wall, I hear Saskia weep, their room in the hotel next to mine, a sad continuous noise, childlike. Grief does that, it ages with its horror yet diminishes too, back to a state where we want to be coddled and protected from the world. Yesterday we were given the all-clear to return home. Not so long ago I would have gone straight to my room, taken out a sketch of you, traced the outline of your face, but I don’t. I spend as much time as I can with Mike, providing warm drinks, snacks, taking care of Rosie. Being useful. Sevita has been given time off, as much as she needs. Devastated Mike said she was when he phoned her the day after it happened. Phoebe and she were so close, he said.
I heard him crying on the phone yesterday, talking to his dad in South Africa, too elderly to travel, won’t make the memorial being held in the Great Hall at school today. Saskia’s seen nobody, calls nobody, her parents died when she was in her twenties, no siblings. Mike’s been rescuing girls for years.
Yesterday a steady stream came to the house. Hushed voices, cards, flowers. Friends. Enemies. Frenemies. There’s been a marked change towards me at school as if Phoebe’s death has evaporated a force field of isolation erected by her around me. Clondine hugged me the first time she saw me, cried into my neck, I went to the toilets afterwards, washed her tears off my skin.
Today when we arrive in the Great Hall we’re met with a sea of pink, Phoebe’s favourite colour. Hats, skirts, a feather boa, one big, pink sorority gathering. Hundreds of eyes on us as we walk to the front. I managed in court but this crowd feels worse, somehow.
Ms James talks about Phoebe’s achievements and the promise she held for the future, successful at whatever she’d have chosen. A wave of sobs and nose-blowing fills the hall. Girls lean into each other, some genuinely sad, others enjoying the drama such as teenage girls do. Clondine next, dedicates a poem to Phoebe. The last two lines, do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die.
Mike goes on to the stage, thanks the school for their support. I slide into his chair so I’m next to Saskia. Eyes. Glassy like a doll. Distant. Lost. Chemicals take her there. Izzy ends the service by playing guitar and singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. Drinks are served in the library afterwards. Miss Kemp comes over, offers her condolences, the skin on her hands still dry. People mill in the spaces around the three of us, hands touch my back, my shoulders and my arms. I do my best not to flinch. Such a terrible accident they say, yes, I reply. Terrible.
Just before we leave, Izzy’s mum approaches us, small and French. Toxic. Now I know where her daughter gets it from.
‘What good can come from this?’ she says. ‘A mindless tragedy.’
Mike nods, she turns to look at me.
‘Have you enjoyed your time at Wetherbridge?’
Enjoyed. The past tense.
‘I heard you’ll be moving on somewhere new soon, Sas told me before this happened.’
Saskia says nothing, cat’s got her tongue, or it’s the chemicals she swallows every day.
‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘quelle bonne nouvelle. What wonderful news.’
She kisses Mike and Saskia, ignores me. When she’s gone, Mike apologizes. I nod, try to look brave, but all around me tiny angels raise tiny trumpets, for Phoebe, not me.
After the school memorial Mike and Saskia went on to Phoebe’s funeral. A small service, family and close friends. Mike left me at Valerie’s, said it was better if I didn’t come, he and Saskia needed time to say goodbye. I said I understood but I felt disappointed he still doesn’t view me as family and I know it’s selfish to be thinking like that but I can’t help it. Like a carrot being dangled. Room for me now.
You came to me, in the middle of the night, the first visit in weeks. You said it was time. Time for what, I asked. You didn’t reply but shed your skin before you left, a scaly outline under my pillow, so real I check for it now.
I’m not able to sleep, find myself opening the door to Phoebe’s room. Her smell remains strong, sweet and inviting. I close the door behind me. Her room is as she left it, school bag and folders dumped on the floor, a copy of Lord of the Flies on the bedside table. In time Mike and Saskia will go through her belongings, dismantle her life. I open the drawer in her desk but her laptop’s not there, I check in the bottom of the wardrobe and inside her bag. She might have left it at school but she hardly ever took it. I don’t like the fact it’s not here, I don’t like the way it makes me feel.
38
My birthday tea was cancelled, it was supposed to be last weekend but we were staying in the hotel. So we’re having it today instead, the Saturday before term ends, a quiet dinner, no guests, Mike said. Just the three of us. When I go down to the kitchen there’s a present on the table addressed to me. I open it. It’s a watch with a message inscribed on the back: HAPPY 16TH WITH LOVE M & S. The feeling it gave me. Like I belong.
When Mike comes in I notice the way he moves, still much slower than he used to before Phoebe’s accident. Simple tasks like filling the kettle require more effort, the exhaustion of being alive when someone you love isn’t. His shirt is done up wrong but I don’t have the heart to tell him so I take the kettle from his hands and ask him to sit down. He does without protest.
I’ve hardly seen Saskia but when I do her eyelids are red, swollen, like living up close with one of the mothers you stole from. How they must have felt knowing they’d never see or hold their child again. Once I’ve made a pot of tea, I ask Mike if I can take her a cup.
‘You can try,’ he says. ‘She’s going to make an effort for today.’
I take the tea up to her room, knock on the door, no response. I knock again, this time she says, come in. The room’s dark, a small amount of natural light creeping in from the window in the bathroom. The air is still. Dusty. She’s thinner in frame, doesn’t see Benji any more, doesn’t see anybody.
‘I made you some tea.’
She nods but doesn’t move from where she’s sat on the edge of the bed.
‘Shall I leave it here for you?’
She nods again, I place it on the dressing table, her eyes fill up with tears. Kindness when you’re wounded hurts more.