‘Bye.’
He steps away from me and I immediately want to be back in the room. I want to take back what I said. I want him to touch me again. Like a piece of driftwood, I float out of the hotel, careful to ease the door shut rather than let it bang, and step out into the blustery car park. The air is hot and dry. Dead dry leaves scatter across the asphalt and disappear under cars. Felix follows me a few moments later and through my windscreen I watch him walk the short way to his car. He fumbles in his pockets for his keys. I start my car and crank the fan up to full power. Just as I am about to flick on the lights I notice a girl watching Felix from a parked car at the petrol station, parallel to the hotel, about fifty metres away. Her face is almost yellow in the streetlight. She stares at Felix intensely, her mouth open. Suddenly she looks over in my direction and I flick the headlights on, shielding myself from view. She must be one of the students from Smithson, their made-up, young faces blurring into a hazy MTV montage.
I am halfway home when I realise that the girl is someone I see almost every day, smiling serenely from the wooden frame on Felix’s desk: his eldest daughter, Maisie.
Chapter Fifty
then
‘Is it true? Did you and Jacob break up?’ Janet shoved a plastic cup into my hand and sticky red liquid sloshed over my fingers. Janet’s eyeliner was too dark. Her eyes looked piggy in her broad face.
I shrugged, trying to hide the pain I felt. ‘We’re on a break,’ I said, sipping at the cup, the sharp tang of vodka hitting the top of my throat.
Janet’s eyes bulged. ‘Wow! No way! So it’s true? I thought you two were the forever couple … Come on, let’s go outside, it’s way too noisy in here.’ Janet pulled on my hand.
I followed her through the dark wood-panelled kitchen. There were people everywhere. Kids from Smithson. Kids from the surrounding schools. All high on freedom and booze. High on the future. There was a glass panel between myself and the others. I wondered if they could see it too. A guy pushed past me and his sombrero scraped across my face. ‘Sorry!’ He laughed and a wave of beer fumes made me wrinkle my nose.
‘Ugh. Everyone has gone mad.’ Janet was laughing. She looked at me and her face dropped. ‘So what happened with Jacob?’
What happened? What happened? That was all I had wondered since Jacob pulled me aside at school the week before and smashed my world apart.
‘I don’t know. It’s like the exams just made us a bit crazy or something. I mean, we’re basically adults now so I guess it makes sense that we spend a bit of time apart. You know?’
Janet looked at me dumbly. I wanted to slap her fleshy cheeks. Slap the stupid away.
‘You’re so cool about it,’ she said.
I shrugged. I needed to eat: it had been days. The vodka had gone straight to my head and I imagined it sitting behind my eyes, shooting out silver sparks. I had to sit down. I pulled Janet into the porch swing. She lit a cigarette and smoked it awkwardly. I spied Fox watching us from the back of the garden, the grey tails of his cigarette disappearing into the night.
‘I always thought you and Jacob would be forever, I guess. It didn’t seem like a high school thing. It seemed more … real or something.’
It was. It is! I wanted to scream at her. ‘Well, we’ll see. I don’t know that it’s over, over. Like I said, we’re on a break.’
Janet bit her lip. She sucked hard on her cigarette and then coughed out a burst of smoke. I pushed at the ground with my toe and rocked us forward gently. My heart sank into my gut and my voice sounded strange when I finally spoke.
‘What is it, Janet?’
A glass smashed onto the floor inside, the noise tinkling down my spine.
‘Well …’ Janet swallowed. She stuck her foot out, pausing our swinging seat. ‘It’s just that Lauren told me that Jacob hooked up with Rose Ryan at Mark’s thing last night. But maybe it’s not true. Or maybe it’s just like a dumb, nothing thing.’
Squeals of laughter exploded from somewhere and a dance song started up in the house. The beat pulsed through the deck as the blood rushed through my body. Janet rested her head on my shoulder and in that moment I missed my mother so intensely I thought I might faint.
Jacob and Rosalind twisted into my thoughts. It didn’t seem possible, but at the same time it made perfect sense. How dare he? How dare she? She was everything I’d ever wanted to be and he was everything I wanted. I couldn’t get the two of them touching out of my mind.
‘Do you want more?’ asked Janet.
‘Ah, yeah,’ I said. ‘Sure.’
She got up and left me alone on the swing. Laughter poured out of the house again and I looked at the dirty cigarette smudge on the ground, watching as a few tiny spots glowed fire for a few beats before fading to black.
Chapter Fifty-one
Thursday, 24 December, 9.52 pm
I don’t know what to do about Maisie and have no idea whether she’ll say something to Felix, but equally I’m feeling stressed about being home late. I promised Scott I’d be home by 9.30.
‘C’mon, c’mon.’ I tap on the wheel as I drive. My heart races and my thoughts flit madly between Maisie, Felix and Ben, and John Nicholson’s confession. Did he fly into a rage at the thought of losing his daughter again? Did Rose confess something to him? Perhaps she told him she was pregnant? Or who the father of her child was? A child that he thought was his grandkid. Or am I simply refusing to consider that Rodney might be guilty, just like Felix says?
My hands clutch at the steering wheel as I turn into our street. I feel high, light-headed, as if someone else is driving the car.
The weight of the disappointment I cause weighs heavily on me as I step inside. Ben, up unusually late, hears my footsteps and squeals, the sound growing louder as he races down the hallway. Scott appears behind him, a tall dark shape. I keep my eyes on Ben.
‘Mummy!’
‘Darling! Were you waiting for me? I’m sorry. Are you excited about Christmas tomorrow?’ I bend down and Ben’s tiny arms wrap around me and I close my eyes and hold on tight.
‘Santa, Santa, Santa!’
I laugh. ‘Yes, Santa! We should put out some biscuits and milk for Santa.’
My voice sounds hollow, as if I’m on stage trying to remember my lines. Trying to remember how to move around my family, what props to pick up, what furniture to navigate. How to feel about them. I remember back to Christmases from my childhood, hazy montages of helping Mum wrap gifts, and Dad putting out red wine for Santa. Mum taking photos of me as I opened gifts, always so careful not to rip the paper.
‘Okay,’ I say brightly. ‘Well, come on then. Let’s see what we’ve got.’ Ben pads along happily after me into the kitchen. Scott doesn’t follow us but I can still feel his eyes on me. The smell of pine is everywhere, sickly sweet. It mixes with the heat. I flick on the light and see a plate of biscuits, a carrot and a glass of milk already laid out on the bench.
Chapter Fifty-two