The Night They Vanished, page 15
“But wouldn’t you end up in trouble then for helping me?”
“You have a point there. Maybe it’s something we’ll have to sort out ourselves.” He smiles and nudges me. “I have a few other friends who could have a word, scare the living shit out of them. Hell—I could get Owen to do it.”
What am I getting into here? That’s not what I want, some of Ethan’s scary prison friends threatening someone. But I think of the sleepless nights those messages have given me, the near panic attack at school. Maybe it is what I want—for them to be as scared as they made me. Maybe if they think I’ve got a scary prison gang to back me up, they’ll leave me alone.
“But what if we did that and they went to the police about us? Wouldn’t it be enough to message them back and tell them I know who they are? Wouldn’t threatening to go to the school or police be enough?”
“Sasha, calm down. I was joking. And I can’t imagine they would go to the police anyway—they’ll know they’re in the wrong sending these messages.”
I chew on my thumbnail. “But what if I get more messages and you’re not here. Dad said they’re cutting your hours right back.” Urgh—I sound so whiny and needy.
“They’re just messages—stay away from Facebook. They’ll soon get bored when you stop posting.”
“Can I call you?” I blurt out. “If anything happens, if I’m worried about anything?”
He’s silent for ages. Long enough for me to just die of embarrassment. Oh God, could I be anymore pathetic? Why the hell would he want to give me his number?
“Look—forget it,” I say. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s fine. You can have my number. It’s just…” There’s another long pause. “I know I’ve been helping you out, but… I think you should be calling your friends if you’re worried about anything, not me.”
I pass him my phone to put his number in and wince as I see him hesitate when he goes into contacts. I should have thought, should have put his number in myself. Because how humiliating is it to have an ex-convict pitying me because there’s only one other name and number in my contact list and it’s my sister.
“I haven’t got round to adding more contacts yet,” I say, snatching the phone back. “That’s why it’s just you and my sister so far.”
The silences are getting beyond awkward now. I need to make an excuse to leave so I can find a rock to crawl under.
“So, what’s your sister like?” Ethan asks as I’m about to slink away.
I glance at him. “Did Owen used to know her?” I ask, not answering his question. “He mentioned her yesterday.”
Ethan shrugs. “No idea. He grew up round here, though, so if they’re a similar age, it’s possible.”
I picture Owen and try to work out how old he could be. “It’s possible, I guess. I don’t really know her that well—she’s much older than me. She was already a teenager when I came along. She left home when she was really young. She was… she got in a lot of trouble. Went off the rails after her mum died.”
“Maybe that’s what Owen was on about. Is that why your dad’s so strict with you? Because of what your sister did?”
My turn to shrug. “I guess. I’ve never known anything different.” I pause. “But they do always bring up Hanna as an example of everything not to do, without ever going into detail of what she did that was so wrong. She’s a proper mystery black sheep.”
“Maybe you’ll end up closer now that you’ve got your own phone and can keep in touch easier.”
That’s what I’d hoped too. I texted her as soon as Ethan gave me the phone. Sneaking a look at her number in Mum’s address book, sending a text asking her to keep my secret phone hush hush but saying for her to text back so we could set up a time for a safe call. She hasn’t replied yet.
I think of how when Hanna visits, she barely talks to me, doesn’t even look at me. I’m always so shy around her, I sit in my own uncomfortable silence, but Hanna is anything but shy. Is it guilt? The way she avoids eye contact, the way she avoids any contact? Guilt because she’s not around?
It stings. It always stings. Is it because she doesn’t see me as her real sister? It’s not like we grew up together. I get it’s difficult on those visits because Mum and Dad are always around, but I’ve given her an opening now, with the text I sent. I look down at my shiny new phone, willing a text to appear, willing Hanna to be finally reading my text and happy to have a safe way to communicate with her little sister.
But there’s nothing.
Chapter 19
I feel odd looking though the old photographs again, with my new perspective, my new sting of rejection. The stories I used to invent included me as part of this trapped-in-time gang: me and Hanna the same age, the best of mates.
But now when I imagine Hanna and her gang walking the corridors at school, the same age as me, they don’t even look at me, unless it’s to sneer or laugh. I’d be invisible to them, not even worth their notice. I’d be too intimidated to speak to any of them anyway, even if one of them tripped over me and was forced to see me. And that makes me kind of mad, because nothing ever changes, does it? Just because I’m quiet, just because I don’t dye my hair, plaster myself in makeup, or pierce my face, that makes me unworthy, somehow? Because I work hard in school and don’t get in trouble, that makes me boring and dull? How dare they make those judgments when they’ve never even bothered to speak to me?
I realize it’s stupid. I realize it’s bloody ridiculous to be railing against the people in those photographs because the photos are fifteen years old and the people in them must be in their thirties now. But would any of them have changed? Hanna hasn’t, has she? She still looks impatient when I stutter shy answers to her questions. She still looks bored in my company without ever making any real effort to get to know me. No, people like them, new incarnations like Carly and Seren, never change. I could leave town, come back a multi-millionaire at the top of whatever career I choose, and they’d still look at me the same way.
I carry on flipping through the snapshots, pausing as I get to the last one. This is the one I was looking for. It’s another photo of Hanna and her dodgy-looking gang. And there’s one particular boy there, standing behind her, all scowly and grumpy looking. He’s a lot younger and his hair is longer in this photo, but I think—I’m almost positive—it’s Owen King. I didn’t make the connection before, because I wasn’t looking for it. If he wasn’t so horribly intimidating, I could ask him about Hanna… but from the tone of his voice, I’m not sure I want his memories of her.
But there’s someone else I recognize in the same photo—Mr. Garner from the village. I squint closer to be sure. Yes, it’s definitely him: Mr. Garner, who was Reverend Garner back then, smiling away in the background in his dog collar. I didn’t really bother puzzling over it before, but now I’m wondering: why on earth would my troublemaker, rebellious sister have a photograph of herself with the vicar?
I return the photos to their hiding place and sit back on the bed with a frown. Does it matter? The thing is, it does. I can’t rail against being pigeonholed myself while doing the same to Hanna—dismissing the photo because Hanna and the vicar? Plus, the photo was clearly taken in the garden of the vicarage in West Dean. Or what used to be the vicarage. The new vicar is stuck with a three-bed new-build on the outskirts of town now. The old vicarage was sold off years ago, but it’s still one of the prettiest and most recognizable houses in town, so it’s not just a case of him accidentally photobombing.
I chew on a loose nail, wondering what I want to do about this. Obviously, the easy answer is nothing, but… Hanna has been a stranger to me my whole life. She exists in a mysterious mythical realm of the bad girl, my living lesson of what not to do and what not to be. We just don’t talk about her. She’s like a scandalous character out of a costume drama who’s been shunned. And even when she does visit, we don’t talk, we don’t share anything. All I know is she was a troublemaker at my age, she left home very young, and now she lives a mystery life in Cardiff, in a house I’ve never seen, with friends I’ve never met, doing a job I know nothing about.
Every time she does visit, I have a million questions I want to ask, a million things I want to know that would make her less of a stranger and more like family. But I never do, because she is a stranger, and with all the hostility simmering in the air between her and Mum and Dad, there’s never any room or space for those questions, even if I weren’t usually intimidated into awkward silence around her.
So, if Dad won’t tell me anything, and she won’t tell me anything—and she won’t even answer my text—maybe I should find out for myself exactly who Hanna used to be. Then it might give me an insight into who she is now. Maybe it’ll give me something real to say, so I can text her again and this time she’ll answer.
I’ll treat it like an English or a History essay—I’ll analyze the evidence and draw conclusions on character based on my findings. Breaking it down like that, into a project, helps it make sense to me, and I actually go so far as to get a new notebook off my shelf and start a list: what I know (very little), questions based on evidence presented (lots), tasks to do. And task one is to visit Mr. Garner, because that photograph presents the most questions and offers up the most possibilities of answers. Plus, it’s either ask the nice ex-vicar or ask Owen King.
With my guise of this as a sort of school project, it’s actually easy to get permission to go into the village after school the following Tuesday to go and see him—I tell Dad it’s for Religious Studies, that we’ve been tasked to interview someone who is or used to be in the Church. Mr. Garner lives in Littledean now. Dad never says no to anything that involves schoolwork. He’s surprisingly amenable to me going by myself as well; in fact, he seems almost eager not to have to pick me up at three. Instead of collecting me straight from school, he arranges to meet me in the village at five o’clock and gives me permission to get the bus from school to Littledean. The sense of freedom is dizzying. Obviously, I will go to Mr. Garner’s house… but if I got the four o’clock bus rather than the three thirty… I’d have nearly an hour, alone and loose in the town. I could go to Greggs or the Spar with Emma, hang out on the benches by the rugby club like half the school do. I could stand on the edges and pretend to be one of them.
Of course, the problem with that is—why do they want to? Hang out in the freezing cold and do nothing? Fair enough in the summer, but now, at the beginning of December? All my daydreams of having a gang of friends and hanging out involve going to someone’s house, someone who has central heating, books, a TV—maybe a phone or iPad I could have a sneaky go on.
But—if Mr. Garner isn’t home, or my visit is done really quickly—there’s not exactly much to do in Littledean, although the shop has one of those Costa Coffee vending machines. I could buy a hot chocolate or a cake, or both.
My plans get me through what is pretty much a crappy day at school. Seren and Carly and their idiot mates are only low-grade annoying in math, but it’s the worst day of my schedule—double science, double math, and PE. Worst day known to man. Especially PE, because it’s one of those gray, drizzly days but not rainy enough to keep us inside, so they still make us go out and play netball, which I’m horrible at. No one ever passes me the ball, so I spend forty minutes hovering and shivering at the edges of the court, flinching every time the ball comes near me. The only good thing about it is that it’s last lesson, so I don’t have to run the full gauntlet of the showers and changing room. It’s not like I did anything to get sweaty, so I just put my school jumper over my polo shirt and leggings and I’m free to go.
I fight my way through the crowds at the door to find Emma, hoping she’ll ask again about going into town. I’m meeting a friend, but maybe for half an hour? I’ll say, cool and casual. Where are you going? But she doesn’t ask today. To be honest, I’m not sure she even noticed me hovering behind her.
Doesn’t matter, though, because today I have plans.
I have to walk past the rugby club and the crowds of teenagers queuing outside Greggs to get to the bus stop, but I don’t feel as self-conscious as usual in leggings and trainers, and no one shouts anything or stares. It’s a funny kind of invisibility, being the below-the-knee-skirted weirdo from the holiday park; most of the time, I’m beneath anyone’s notice, but I’m also a target if one of them is in a vicious mood. I’m a full-on Schrödinger’s cat experiment, both invisible and visible at the same time, all dependant on what side of the bed the school bitches get out of.
It’s only a ten-minute ride on the rickety old town bus, and then a walk up the hill. Mr. Garner has moved to one of a row of cottages dotted up a hill on the outskirts of Littledean. It’s a really pretty cottage, not as nice as the old vicarage, but proper picture-book pretty, with pots of flowers and roses and ivy climbing the walls. The gate squeaks when I open it and it must act like an alarm system, because he opens the door before I get chance to knock.
He gives me a smile, although I don’t know if he really recognizes me. I’ve met him before; everyone knows Mr. Garner, but only in passing, like if he stops to chat to Mum when I’m out shopping with her.
“Hi, Mr. Garner,” I say. “I’m Sasha Carter and I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions?”
His smile widens in recognition. “Ah, Sasha, of course—hello. How are your parents? Is it a school thing you want to ask about?”
“Not exactly.” I rummage in my bag for my Hanna project notebook. I’ve tucked the photograph inside for safekeeping and I take it out to show Mr. Garner. “I found this photograph of Hanna among her things and I recognized you as well. I was wondering if I could ask you about her.”
His smile dims a bit as he takes the photo and looks at it, and I itch to get a pen and start making observational notes about his reaction.
“You’d better come in,” Mr. Garner says.
He makes a pot of tea and puts chocolate biscuits on a plate. In his cluttered, cozy living room I feel way more comfortable than I would have sitting in a café in town.
“You looked sad when you saw that photo,” I say, then hesitate, unsure how to word what I want to say next. “I know Hanna got in a lot of trouble when she was my age… did she do something really bad?”
He smiles and shakes his head. “Hanna used to come to my wife’s Sunday-school class, did you know that?”
I almost laugh. Hanna at Sunday school?
“I don’t think she particularly wanted to come, but most of the local children did,” Mr. Garner goes on. “We had another group, as the children got older. Nothing religious at all, more an opportunity for young people… often the more troubled young people… to spend time together away from their homes. It was my wife who set it up, and I’d help out. She’d get them to bake, or make things, sometimes sit and talk. After she died, I carried it on, but I was never as good at the baking and crafts.” He pauses and smiles at me. “As you said, Hanna got into a lot of trouble when she was younger. Many of my little group did, but a lot of it was to do with troubled home lives, or simply the classic adolescent problem of clashes between parent and child. Hanna met several of her friends there.”
He looks down at the photograph again. “Including Owen and Jacob. Sadly, they found gathering at the vicarage with tea and biscuits a bit boring after a while and stopped coming. But she used to call in to say hello if she was passing.”
He sighs and leans back in his chair. “Hanna was a lovely girl,” he says. “Too many people are quick to judge and won’t look beyond what’s on the surface. Miriam and I always tried to.”
“And what about Owen?” I say, pointing to the boy in the picture. “Is that him? And the other name you mentioned—Jacob? What happened to him—does he still live around here?” I don’t let on that I know the grown-up Owen. Well, sort of know him. I want to keep Mr. Garner reminiscing about the teenagers in the photo, about Hanna.
“Yes, that’s Owen. There were a group of friends—Owen, Jacob, Lee, Carrie… Hanna joined later. She was younger but they let her in.” Mr. Garner pours himself more tea and stirs milk in. “Owen and Jacob struggled the most, far more than Hanna,” he says. “We tried very hard to help them, but sometimes people won’t let themselves be helped. I’m sorry I can’t tell you much. Besides the confidentiality issue, the group stopped coming to our gatherings very early. Hanna would be the best person to tell you about them.”
I look down at my notebook. All I’ve written is Sunday School and Church Youth Group. I don’t know what to think about everything Mr. Garner has said, or not said. I’ve grown up with Hanna as the villain in the family, someone I sometimes envy, sometimes hate. I fantasize about going to stay with her, becoming a whole new person hanging out with her and her friends in Cardiff. Other times, I think I’d be happy if she never visited again. But no one, ever, has said she was a lovely girl. And all the talk of troubled home lives and troubled teens… I don’t like the way he made that sound. Like it was Mum and Dad who were the problem, not Hanna. I’m not sure if I’m glad or not that I came. I notice the time then, and jump up. “I’m sorry, I’d better go—my dad’s picking me up soon.”
Mr. Garner gets up to show me out, still talking as he walks me to the door. “Sometimes it’s better to let things go,” he says. “We all make mistakes—it’s what we do with the rest of our lives that matters.”
He shakes his head and sighs as we stand in the doorway, me on the outside, him on the inside. “And if you do find any of the others… you shouldn’t necessarily believe everything they have to say. There was some trouble between the group and Hanna and they… Well, she certainly wasn’t the first and won’t be the last teenage girl to fall pregnant. I will never stop regretting what happened—to Hanna, and to you as well, Sasha—but I won’t ever regret helping.”
