If she meant what I think … pregnant. Nancy’s little sister didn’t breathe a word of this; neither did Vicky, her classmate – gossip like that would fly round a school. But only if people knew. If her little sister wasn’t told, say, or she didn’t confide in her friends, they could hush it up.
So that’s two of them.
Two girls who ran away. Two girls with secrets. Two girls who never came home.
29
SOPHIE
There’s lots of stuff I don’t like to think about, these days. But you know what actually makes me pull a face when I remember? How I used to be.
I was so lonely in here, so starved of people, that I was so happy to see him whenever he turned up. Like some dog that still wags its tail when its master arrives to give it a kicking.
Even when he started to be different. He could be so short with me sometimes, like he never was on the outside. Sometimes he barely talked when he came round, only stopping to drop off the bags of food. He’s just busy, I told myself, I’ve got to understand that.
But when he did stay he wasn’t the same any more. It felt like nothing about me was right.
‘Why’s this place such a mess?’ and ‘Can’t you brush your hair? You’d feel better if you did.’
‘I know, you’re right, and I was meaning to.’ I just felt tired, all the time, falling asleep in the day. What was I going to do, anyway? I knew I shouldn’t say that.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I’d tell him, dissolving into tears all too easily now. ‘I’ll try harder.’ But he didn’t want to look at me, let alone touch me. Sometimes he said I was ungrateful.
I cried about that, too.
I suppose he was getting nervous, the longer I was in here. I was too.
This is my third summer. It’s hard to keep track of the date. We don’t do Christmas, or birthdays. I just got upset, so he stopped. I did ask for a calendar, a paper one, because now I didn’t have a phone, but that never came. I know I’ve been here two winters. The days have been so long. But he doesn’t like me to be bored. Correction: he doesn’t like me to seem bored. Whether I’m about to cry with frustration at another day inside these walls, let’s be honest, he doesn’t care.
I’ve got the TV. It’s just a little one, with a DVD player, and he brought me films. That was a relief. The silence was getting to me. Now I have it on nearly all the time, I just turn it down when I’m going to sleep. For a while I thought I might get a mention on the news, but it must have been too late: he didn’t get it for me until a few weeks in. I don’t know what that means. But it’s nice to hear voices other than my own. I’ve got in the habit of chatting away to Teddy, telling him things about my family and my life at home, like he could understand. I suppose it’s better than talking to myself. And I don’t do it when he’s here, of course.
I read the stuff he gives me. The classics, ‘proper’ books. Some of them I’ve liked though. Jane Eyre, I’ve read that again and again. She’s like a friend now, Jane. And I exercise, press-ups and sit-ups and the rest, things that I make up. Sometimes I’ll put on a music channel and dance around. I like feeling my muscles ache, the sweat cooling on me. It reminds me I’m still real. And it keeps me strong. I’ve never mentioned that to him. At first, I thought it sounded silly. Now I’m glad.
Some days I get a different itch, a funny urge just to fidget, to fiddle, to do something with my hands. I drew, at first. I asked him for paper, and pens, and pencils. And he gave me them: a beautiful sketchbook, to start with; expensive chalks and waxy crayons from a proper art shop. He got cross when he saw what I did with them though. No beautiful landscapes, no glowing portraits of him. I like making things up. So now I’m careful, keeping things out of sight.
I miss my mum. I miss everyone, of course, even the people I thought I didn’t like. I even miss school, can you believe it, all my teachers, like nice Mrs Vale and even grumpy old Mr Kethrick. But mostly, I miss Mum.
I’m OK really. When I can’t bear it, when it almost gets too much for me, I’ve got this trick. I’ll close my eyes and imagine that none of this ever happened. I’ll just think, really hard, about how it used to be. Not about people. That just upsets me.
I think about the boring stuff. Sitting on my bed, doing my homework, the noise of the kitchen radio trickling up to me. Curled up on the sofa watching TV, King snoring softly on the rug in front of me, the rain slapping against the windows in big drops. And I’ll picture the scene, in my mind, so I don’t forget.
I don’t do it when he’s around. He caught me once. He came in when I was sitting propped against the wall, with my eyes closed and my hands over my ears. He didn’t like it. He wants all my attention. I still do it though, even when he thinks I’m right there with him. When he wants to be together, I can go somewhere else in my head.
A long time ago, it made me feel closer to him. He was always so controlled, unknowable, despite all the nice things he used to say. And I felt so special, chosen.
But now I don’t want to be close to him, I don’t want to be close to him at all, though I try not to let it show.
Because I have realised something while I’ve been in here, something important. Trust can be a weapon.
I trusted him. He knew my secrets, my fears. How I felt about school, my parents, how much they argued, if Holly really did want to get with Danny. Just everyday, teenage stuff – good in a way I didn’t understand then.
It all seemed so much at the time. Mum and Dad were arguing, more than usual. It didn’t seem to have stopped them, moving up here, like they wanted. I wasn’t doing well at school, my exams looming on the horizon like some horrible slow-motion disaster – a hurricane or a tsunami – inching closer. Just thinking about them, how behind I was getting with everything … I wasn’t academic like Mum and Dad, not really. And then Holly and Danny – that was a mess, with her so jealous, it just got awkward. I couldn’t keep everyone happy, any more, so I was seeing less of him. It seemed such a big deal at the time.
And then he came along. I met him through school. I know now how bad that sounds. But it was just a crush, at first. I wonder, was that why I liked him, because it seemed so safe? Nothing was going to happen; I wouldn’t get hurt. He seemed so gentle, and reassuring.
But then it did happen.
I was the one who made the first move. I just stood up on my tiptoes, my hand on his sleeve, and kissed him. I was blushing. He’d just told me, looking down into my face, that we couldn’t do anything, that however much he wanted to, however much it felt we were meant to be together … I felt like it was up to me to show him that we could.
So he kept my secrets and, afterwards, we had our secret.
But now I’ve had time to think about all this, I’m not so sure, really, if it was me who started it, or if he just made me feel that way. In fact there’s lots that I’m not so sure about now.
It’s like I’ve finally woken up, and I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been, and how messed up this all is, and if I go too far down that road I crumble and cry, and the panic rises up again, and I’ll start shaking and choking, and that won’t do at all, not while he’s here, not in front of him.
So I don’t, I just take big slow breaths and I fix my eyes wide open and make my face look sweet and pretty and all the time I’m thinking, this isn’t over. I do my big wide-open eyes and smile and nod and don’t say much – it’s easier that way – and I think my thoughts behind my happy face.
Because now, I need him to trust me.
30
KATE
I go from sleep to waking in an instant, no slow swimming to consciousness, the way you do sometimes. Suddenly my eyes are open, and I’m alert.
I sigh. I’ve been doing so well, I haven’t had to take a pill for ages. I was going to tonight, I was so restless and cross, but in the end I forced myself to read, just a few chapters of Pride and Prejudice, my old comfort book. I poured my thoughts into its safer channels until, calmed, I could sleep.