Everything changed after that. We moved house and I moved schools. We changed phone numbers and left behind everything and everyone that was smoke-damaged.
I think I missed the idea of having a mum more than her actual presence. She was never one of those hands-on parents like Dad was, so Alice and I learned pretty early on not to expect a lot from her. Sometimes she looked at us as if she wasn’t quite sure how we’d landed in her world. Not Henry, though. She worshipped him. I loved him, too. He was sweet and funny and he was always trying to make Alice and I laugh with a silly dance or funny face. Now, by all accounts, he was little more than a vegetable.
We adapted from being a family of five to a family of three fairly well. In my last school, I’d seen how Farzana Singh had been relentlessly picked on when her mum came off her bipolar meds and started dancing Bollywood-style during parents’ evening. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me in my new school. So from day one I went in there all guns blazing, cocky and confident, and I surrounded myself with like-minded bitches. I told them Mum had remarried and moved to Australia, but all the time that I ruled those corridors, I was just waiting to be unmasked.
I wasn’t sure about Janine when Dad started seeing her. I’d heard so many horror stories from my friends about how their parents’ new partners totally messed with the family dynamic, and I didn’t want Janine doing that to us. But she didn’t try to fill Mum’s shoes and she actually wanted to spend time with us, which is more than Mum ever did. I knew Janine volunteered with Mum at End of the Line, but not once did Alice or I ask how she was. We rarely even spoke of her between ourselves. Janine tried to bring her up a few times, but she changed the subject when it became obvious we weren’t comfortable with the conversation. I overheard Dad talking to Janine about Mum a couple of times, and a small part of me was curious whether Mum was better or had gone full-on Looney Tunes. But in the end, it was easier not to think about her than to remember what she’d done to Henry.
Then, after a two-year absence, Mum came crashing back into our lives without warning. I’ll give her credit, she timed it well. I’d fallen pretty hard for my English teacher, Mr Smith, and I was sure the feeling was mutual, but then he did a one-eighty and totally blew me off. I was gutted and had no one to talk to – I’d lost so many friends when Thom spread it around I’d sent his naked selfie to his family and boss and he’d lost his job because of it. Then my grades suddenly turned to crap and I stopped caring.
I was cautious at first, because the mum I remembered wouldn’t really have cared about what had happened with Mr Smith and me. But this all-improved, brand-new version of Mum was desperate to know everything that was going on in my life. I figured I should be able to trust her with anything.
I took a chance and told her what a fool I’d made of myself over my teacher. I thought she might tell me I’d probably got the wrong end of the stick and imagined he was interested in me, but she believed every word I said. She was convinced he was a paedo and had been grooming me. I didn’t think he was, but I was so angry with him I played along and started exaggerating what had happened. I thought it was what she wanted to hear.
It surprised me how much I enjoyed having a mum in my life again and on my side, so when she came up with a plan to get back at Mr Smith, I was more than willing to go along with it. Then, gradually, I saw her change. It was as if, rather than just teaching Mr Smith a lesson, she got a thrill out of ruining his life. It was like revenge mattered more than I did. That didn’t stop me from doing what she asked. I didn’t even question her when she told me to steal a dead piglet from the school science freezer.
Then she gave me a memory stick and told me to transfer its files onto Mr Smith’s work computer. That’s when I started to get scared. Mum had told me not to open it, but curiosity got the better of me. There were dozens of pictures of young girls in school uniform on it, some with their tops off and others showing everything else. I knew in my gut that Mum had taken it to extremes and I should end it, there and then. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to disappoint her.
When Mum told me Mr Smith had been arrested for breaking into her house and threatening to kill her, I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Then, after we played Mr Atkinson the recording of Mr Smith apologising to me and he was kicked out, I knew this had all gone way too far. Mr Smith became the talk of the school, but nobody knew why he’d gone until the police turned up and took away his computer. Then the rumours started that he was a paedophile.
Had he molested someone at school? That’s what everyone wanted to know. My name came up a few times. It was known I’d had one-on-one meetings with him about my falling marks. I denied it and, because of my reputation for taking no shit, they knew not to push me too far and left me alone.
Meanwhile, after their initial meeting, Dad agreed to let Alice stay in touch with Mum. At first just by text, and then finally he allowed them to spend an afternoon together. That was the day when, early in the evening, I caught Alice going through Janine’s handbag while Janine was in the bath.
‘Are you stealing?’ I asked.
Alice glared at me, red-faced. ‘No.’
‘Then what are you doing?’
‘I can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.’
‘Well, you’d better tell me or I’m telling Dad.’
‘Mummy wants to borrow something from Janine,’ Alice said reluctantly. ‘This recording thing.’
She held up a Dictaphone.
‘What does she want with it?’
‘I don’t know. I think she wants to play a trick on Janine. I’m going to give it to her at school in the morning, then she’s going to give it back to me at lunchtime. I can put it back when I get home. Am I in trouble?’
‘Not if you give it to me first.’
In my bedroom, I pressed play on the Dictaphone. I couldn’t see why someone had recorded Mum talking on the phone at End of the Line. Then I realised who she was speaking to – it was Mr Smith, although he was calling himself Steven. I looked at the display: it had been recorded about ten months ago. And then I understood why Mum wanted to get her hands on it.
She was trying to talk him into dying.
I listened, part fascinated and part horrified by the things she said. Conversation after conversation: she agreed to watch him die, then began listing the best ways to do it . . . It was sickening. She was totally fucked up. I gradually understood that there’d been some kind of game between Mum and Mr Smith and they had both used me to get at each other.