The Dare, page 4
We laughed so much, the two of us. If only I could blank out all the dreadful things that followed. The terrible way Alice died. The hatred in her sister’s eyes. The rumours and the bullying.
My heart beats furiously at the back of my throat. One moment of idle curiosity about what lay between the covers of an old school exercise book, and the past has come reeling back. I drop the book into the bin bag along with the others and squash the memories down. This ends now.
Outside, it’s sunny and bright. I tip the contents of the bag into the blue wheelie bin that stands outside the front door like a sentry box. Soon, all those sentences and diagrams and sums, all those verb conjugations and clumsily sketched maps will be carted away and turned into pulp, ready for spreading and rolling out and starting all over again. If only memories could be recycled so easily.
Above the hum of traffic I hear birdsong and a peal of distant laughter. In the garden of one of the slightly bigger houses on the other side of the street, a magnolia tree is just coming into bloom, the tightly coiled flower buds like pink flames against the sky. I take a minute to stand on the doorstep and fill my lungs with air. Now that I’ve got rid of this lot, I feel freer. Lighter. I turn to enter the house, galvanized by my decision to apply for a place at uni. I’m going to surprise Ross and make a nice chilli for supper. We’ve been eating too many ready-meals lately.
I almost don’t answer the phone. But in the end, I do. Just in case it’s something important.
Damn. There it is again. That odd muffled sound, only this time it’s getting louder. Alarm flutters in my chest like a trapped bird. My skull vibrates. This time it sounds like …
I drop the phone to the floor. This time it sounds like a train.
9
My hand is clammy with sweat as I pick the receiver up from the floor. The line is dead. With trembling fingers, I stab the numbers on the dial pad: 1471. ‘The caller withheld their number.’
I yank the plug out of the wall, my pulse still thudding in my ears. There must be a logical explanation for this. There must be. It’s got nothing to do with that toy train on the wall. The two things are not connected. Of course they’re not. Someone was phoning me from a station and a train went by. That’s all it was. Probably the same person who’s called before a couple of times. They’ve realized they keep phoning the wrong number and are too embarrassed to say anything. I’ve done that myself in the past.
Maybe it wasn’t a train. It could have been something else. Another sort of engine. I didn’t even listen to it properly. I dropped the phone. Why do I always jump to the worst possible conclusion?
After a while, I feel brave enough to plug the unit back in. Ross usually calls me on my mobile, but what if my parents have an emergency? I can’t have the phone out of action. Ross has left the instruction booklet out and I flip the pages to the index at the back, find the page number for setting up the answerphone. If it rings again, I won’t answer it unless it’s someone I know.
As soon as this is done, I try to calm myself down by starting on the chilli. Ross taught me how to make it when we first got together, along with spaghetti bolognese and shepherd’s pie. Maybe one of these days I’ll move on to recipes that don’t involve mince.
As I chop the onions into tiny chunks and fry them till they’re soft and translucent, my heartbeat returns to normal. By the time I’ve laid the table and lit a candle, I’ve made a decision. I need to tell Ross about Alice. I’ve been stupid, keeping it from him. This is the man I love. We’re going to get married.
I should speak to my parents, too. We can’t keep skating round the subject for the rest of our lives, as if it never happened. That awkward moment in the restaurant yesterday was totally unnecessary. My best friend died. I was there when it happened. Except I wasn’t, was I? My body might have been, but my mind wasn’t. It was an accident. The coroner said so, didn’t she?
When half past seven comes and goes with no sign of Ross, I turn the gas off. He’s probably catching up on his paperwork. Even so, he could have rung. I drift into the living room with a cream cracker. Now that I’ve made up my mind to tell him, I want to do it right away. I don’t want to waste any more time.
By eight o’clock, my stomach is rumbling. Where the hell is he? I ring his mobile but it switches straight to voicemail. I can’t bring myself to leave a message. I don’t want to sound like the nagging girlfriend, checking up on him. Surely he’ll notice the missed call and ring back?
By half past eight, I’ve munched my way through four crackers. By nine, I’ve rung him five times. If I don’t eat soon, I’ll be ravenous, and that’s not good for my epilepsy. Being seizure-free for the last two years isn’t just down to my medication. It’s about me being disciplined and monitoring my health as closely as I can, not taking any unnecessary risks. Avoiding triggers. Like stress and hunger. Hmm. I’m not doing very well today.
I hear his key in the door just as I’m spooning some rice on to a plate and heating up a portion of the chilli in a small pan just for me, which is what I should have done two hours ago. He breezes into the kitchen, and it’s a real struggle to keep the anger and disappointment from my face.
His eyes take in the pans on the stove and widen in surprise. ‘Hey, you’ve made a chilli.’
He washes his hands at the sink. ‘I did tell you, didn’t I? That I was doing home visits this evening?’
I stare at him. ‘No, you didn’t. I wouldn’t have made this otherwise.’
‘Shit. I’ve had so much work stuff on my mind lately. I was sure I’d told you.’ He dries his hands on the tea-towel. ‘Never mind, it’ll last, won’t it, in the fridge? We can have it tomorrow.’
‘Don’t you want any now then?’
He gives me a sheepish look. ‘I’m really sorry, but … I ate something earlier.’
He goes to the fridge for a beer. ‘The new practice nurse had to attend one of my visits as a chaperone.’ I stop stirring the chilli. ‘We had chicken and chips to keep us going.’
My hand tightens round the wooden spoon. ‘You definitely didn’t say anything this morning about having to do home visits.’
‘I should have rung you. I’m sorry. The chicken and chips were shit as well. I’d much rather have had your chilli.’ He grins. ‘It smells almost as good as one of mine.’ He puts his beer on the counter and draws me to his chest. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’
‘Of course not. It’s no big deal.’
Actually, I’m livid, especially at the thought of him grabbing a bite to eat with a nurse while I’ve been stuck at home checking my phone every five minutes, but there’s no way I’m telling him that. He’s right. It’s all just a misunderstanding and I’ve over-reacted.
He picks up his beer. ‘Come on, I’ll sit with you while you eat. You must be starving if you’ve waited this long.’
We go and sit on the sofa in the living room, using one of the unpacked boxes as a table. The evening can still be salvaged. Although I don’t think I’m strong enough to tell him about Alice now. There’s been quite enough emotion for one day.
‘I went to Greenwich University this afternoon,’ I say instead. ‘They had an open day.’
Ross looks at me, surprised. ‘You didn’t say anything about that,’ he says.
Just like you didn’t say anything about working late, I almost say, but stop myself just in time. He warned me when we first got together how overworked GPs are. He’s bound to forget things sometimes and I know how difficult it is for him to have to do home visits on top of his already heavy workload. Plus, there’s even more for him to worry about now that he’s decided to go for the new partnership position that’s coming up.
‘It was advertised in the local paper. I only looked at it properly this morning.’
‘And?’
‘And I really like the sound of doing an English degree.’
Ross takes a swig from his beer. ‘Just so long as you don’t meet a good-looking, earnest young man who wants to read you poetry and get in your knickers. Because you’ve already got one of those at home.’
‘I don’t remember you ever reading me poetry?’
‘True, but I am good-looking.’ He gives me a worried look. ‘Would you like me to read you poetry?’
I laugh. ‘No, you’re all right, thanks. I appreciate the offer, though.’
Later, when we’re in bed, I picture myself at the Greenwich Maritime campus, sprawled on the grass by the river, nose deep in a nineteenth-century novel. I feel myself drifting off. Then someone walks by the house in high heels. My eyes snap open and it’s like I’m thirteen years old all over again, fistfuls of duvet tight round my neck, waiting for Catherine Dawson to get bored with tormenting me and walk away.
I snuggle up to Ross. His muscular body is warm to the touch and the strength of it comforts me. I close my eyes. All the bad things are in the past. Catherine can’t hurt me now.
10
Then: After
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
We’ve been told to assemble in the refectory to meet our form teachers and collect our timetables. I usually enjoy the first day back after the summer holiday. Now, I’m dreading it. Walking through the school gates on my own. Seeing Melissa Davenport and the others for the first time since Alice’s funeral. Everyone looking at me. And the worst thing of all is that I’ve lost my friend and ally. The one person who made everything all right. Who made me feel normal. I can’t believe she’s gone and that the last words I spoke to her were full of spite.
This time two years ago, we were giggling behind our hands at the form teacher’s wacky dress sense, getting lost together in the endless corridors as we searched for the art department or the science labs, bonding over our packed lunches. When Alice’s mum was ill, her dad just chucked a load of random items into her lunch box: half a packet of peanuts, a roughly peeled carrot and a chocolate biscuit, or a Marmite sandwich made with two crusts. On Alice’s ‘bad lunch days’, we always shared mine.
I swallow the knot in my throat. I can’t believe we’ll never sit at the picnic benches in the playground again, trying to split a Mr Kipling Bakewell tart in half with the handle of a plastic spoon. It doesn’t seem possible that she’s dead.
I see the girls in my class long before they see me. They’re halfway along the wide concrete path that leads to the main block and reception, gathered in a big group outside one of the prefabs.
‘Try not to take any notice if they say anything silly or hurtful,’ Mum said this morning, before I left the house. ‘Rise above it.’
I’m getting closer to them now, but they still haven’t seen me. They’re too busy talking and messing around with a couple of boys from the year above us. Then one of them spots me and says something I can’t hear. They all stare at me as I walk past. I think of Mum’s advice and imagine myself rising above them, far up into the sky like an angel, my delicate wings fluttering in the breeze. But it doesn’t work. I knew it wouldn’t. My cheeks go red.
‘Here she is. The girl who pushed Alice Dawson in front of a train.’
I stop dead and swing round to face Melissa Davenport. I can’t let her get away with that. I just can’t.
‘No I didn’t! Alice was my best friend! I had a seizure, you know I did.’
‘So you say,’ she taunts. ‘We’ve only got your word for that.’
‘Why would I lie?’
‘Because you don’t want to go to prison,’ she says.
Tears of anger prick the backs of my eyes. ‘You’re talking bollocks!’ I say, and they all pretend to be shocked at my language, even though they say far worse things than that all the time.
Melissa steps towards me, a horrible mean expression on her face, but I stand my ground. I won’t let her get to me.
‘Wash your mouth out with soap, you ginger freak!’ she snarls in my face. Someone in the group sniggers and one of the older boys miaows like a cat.
‘Alice’s sister knows what kind of person you are,’ Melissa sneers at me. ‘She says you’re evil. She knew it from the first time she set eyes on you. You were jealous of Alice coz she was prettier than you. She didn’t want to be friends with you any more so you killed her. You might think you got away with it, but we know the truth. And so does he.’ She points her index finger towards the sky.
I launch myself forwards and yank her finger right back as far as it goes. She lets out a blood-curdling scream and stumbles back. ‘She’s broken my finger. The evil bitch has broken my finger!’
‘No I fucking haven’t!’
‘She has! She really has!’
The headmaster’s office always smells. Alice once joked it smelled of fart and aftershave, and the memory makes me smile.
‘What’s so funny, Lizzie?’
‘Nothing, sir. I was just thinking of something Alice used to say.’
He sighs deeply and laces his fingers together on top of his desk. ‘The last couple of months must have been awful for you,’ he says, and before I know what’s happening, tears are streaming down my face.
Mr Davis pushes a box of tissues towards me and waits while I wipe my eyes and blow my nose.
‘Luckily, there’s no damage to Melissa’s finger, but I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything like that again.’
‘But she said I killed Alice! It’s not fair. Why aren’t you making her promise she won’t say things like that again?’
‘I’ll be talking to Melissa in a moment. But whatever she did or didn’t say, attacking someone is never the right thing to do.’
‘I didn’t attack her, I …’
I look down at my shoes. I did attack her and I can’t pretend otherwise. It’s a miracle I didn’t snap her finger right off. Now I’ve made things a whole lot worse for myself. Everyone’s going to think I’ve got violent tendencies. Melissa will tell her parents and they’ll talk to the Dawsons, and then the police will want to talk to me again and maybe the coroner will change her verdict and I’ll have to go to court and it’ll be in the papers, and it’s all Catherine Dawson’s fault. Catherine Dawson is the evil one. Not me.
11
Now
On Saturday morning, I’m already up when Ross comes down in his lounge pants and T-shirt. He peers over my shoulder as I scroll through the Greenwich University website.
‘If you’re going to do a degree,’ he says, ‘you’ll need somewhere to do your assignments. Maybe we could put a desk in the spare room.’
He’s right. We might call this room the study, but we both know it’s really his. Just like the house. When Ross first suggested that I move in with him, I told him I’d feel guilty about not being able to contribute to the bills, at least not until I’d found a job. ‘But we’re a couple, aren’t we?’ he said. ‘And couples look after each other. Besides, it’s going to be your house, too. As soon as we’re married, we’ll get the deeds put in our joint names.’
He leans across me to reach for his diary and, as he does, his eyes settle on the photo of his mother that he’s slid under the edge of the noticeboard frame to avoid putting a pin in it. She’s wearing a long black raincoat and smiling, shyly, at the camera. It’s one of the few pictures he has of her.
‘You should get a frame for that.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I keep meaning to.’
‘I wish I’d met her,’ I say, and make a mental note to buy a frame for it myself. Surprise him with it.
‘You’d have loved her,’ he says, his voice gravelly with emotion.
He leans forward to take a closer look. ‘I remember taking this picture,’ he says. ‘It was the week after my birthday and the camera was a present – one of those cheap, disposable things. She was walking me to school.’ He clears his throat. ‘That was when we talked the most, when she escaped the house. And my dad.’
It’s the first time he’s mentioned his father in ages and I wonder whether now might be a good time to suggest a visit. Surely it’s time the two of them made their peace. I don’t care if he is the cantankerous old bully Ross says he is. He’s still Ross’s dad. And he’s in a nursing home now.
‘About your dad,’ I say, but before I can finish my sentence he’s shaking his head and reaching for his briefcase.
‘I know what you’re going to say, Lizzie, but you don’t know what he’s like. He made Mum’s life a misery. And mine.’ He pulls out an over-stuffed buff folder and plonks it on the desk.
‘I tried to persuade him to move nearer London, but he insisted on staying in Aberdeen. There’s no way I’m trekking all the way up there to sit and listen to his self-pitying rants.’
He breaks into an impersonation of his father. ‘Ah dinnae wantae die in Englan’.’
I can’t help smiling. Most of the time I forget about Ross’s Scottish roots. He’s lived in England so long he’s lost most of his accent. I only hear traces of it now when he’s watching Aberdeen play Rangers.
‘Isn’t he lonely, up there on his own?’
Ross gives one of those sneering laughs through his teeth. ‘The Jim Murrays of this world are never short of companions. Other blokes talking shite.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘It’s real friends and family they can’t keep hold of.’
He opens his diary and his face crumples.
‘Shit!’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I asked Gloria if I could have a meeting with her about the partnership position yesterday then forgot all about it.’
Gloria Williams is the senior partner at Plumtree Lodge. If Ross is to stand any chance of being offered that partnership, he needs to keep in her good books.
‘Can’t you speak to her on Monday?’
‘I’ll have to, although it doesn’t look very professional, does it? Arranging a meeting then not turning up.’
It’s not like Ross to forget something like that. He must be more stressed at work than I thought.
