Furious Thing

by Jenny Downham

  He blinked at me and I felt my words fall into him. It was like the tree accident all over again. I wondered if he was thinking that too. ‘She’d have woken you up, wouldn’t she?’ he said. ‘Or left a note?’

  Not if it was an emergency, I thought. Not if Iris broke her neck climbing out of her cabin bed, not if she had meningitis. I said, ‘Should we call the hospital and check?’

  He didn’t answer. I watched him breathing – his belly going in and out. He hadn’t shaved, and he had dark circles under his eyes. He looked old and tired. He looked like he couldn’t decide anything. I clamped my fists shut and dug my nails in because I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. This was the same man who took me to a doctor.

  When the phone rang, we both jumped.

  ‘Quick,’ he said.

  I reached for it. ‘Meryam?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s me. OK, I got hold of your mum and everything’s fine. She was driving, so couldn’t speak much, but she’s on her way to Brighton with Iris. A day trip, apparently. She did send John a text, but only a few minutes ago, which is probably why he hasn’t seen it yet.’

  I put my hand over the receiver and told John and he scrambled for his mobile.

  ‘There’s nothing else?’ I whispered. ‘No message for me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lex. It was hard for her to talk while she was driving, and she sounded stressed. Why not give her a call in an hour or so?’

  ‘I called her just now and she didn’t pick up.’

  There was a long pause and Meryam said, ‘Have the two of you fallen out?’

  Why did she think this was something to do with me? Why couldn’t she say, ‘Poor baby, being deserted like this. I imagine your heart is breaking into pieces.’

  But then I remembered that last time I’d seen Meryam I’d slammed out of her house without even saying goodbye and she’d stood on the doorstep calling after me.

  ‘Come over after school if you want,’ Meryam said. ‘Come and have tea with us.’

  I mumbled something about an after-school club and having homework. I wanted to be at home when Mum got back.

  ‘Anything happening with that text?’ Meryam said. ‘Has he got it?’

  I turned to look at John. He was huddled over his mobile. Every bit of him was angled, like he suddenly had corners. Even his knees and elbows looked sharp.

  ‘What does it say?’ I asked.

  ‘Has he read it?’ Meryam said. ‘Can I speak to him?’

  I didn’t know how to tell her that he wouldn’t want to speak to her, so I just passed the phone to him and when he shrank from it, I said, ‘She asked for you!’ in a loud voice, so he had no choice.

  I couldn’t tell what the conversation was, because John was mostly monosyllabic. But I guess she asked if he knew why Mum had gone because he said, ‘I have zero idea what goes through that woman’s mind.’ Then Meryam must’ve asked if there was anything she could do to help, because he said, ‘I’m perfectly capable of managing, thanks.’ He got impatient after that and said, ‘This isn’t helping. You’re not helping. Just let me know if you hear anything else, OK?’ And he put the phone down.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. Then he closed his eyes and slumped back on the sofa.

  ‘What did the text say?’ I asked him.

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?’

  ‘Was it about me?’

  ‘Go on, or you’ll miss registration. And leave me your phone, in case she gets in contact.’

  21

  Everyone turned to look as I walked into Media Studies over half an hour late. I glowered at the lot of them. ‘What are you staring at?’ I snarled.

  ‘Lexi,’ the teacher warned.

  Ben waved at me across the tables. ‘You OK?’

  I shook my head.

  He scrambled to his feet and I motioned him to sit back down. His mum had clearly told him mine had abandoned me. I was the sad case, that was obvious.

  ‘We’re going over coursework,’ the teacher said. ‘So, get your project book out please, Lexi. You’ve a great deal of catching up to do.’

  I wanted to smash something. Saturday, Kass left. Followed by John doing his silent treatment for days. Wednesday, the doctor. Today, Mum and Iris were gone. And now I was stuck at school with no phone and a massive backlog of work. I took the doctor’s questionnaire out of my backpack along with my project book and began to circle my answers. Yes, I wanted to cry. Yes, I had a stomach ache and yes, a headache too. Did I get angry a lot? Definitely. Feel sad a lot? Every day. Did I dread being called on in class because I hadn’t been listening? Absolutely. Did I feel left out and argumentative? All the time. I hated everyone, and everything was wrong. I was a misfit surrounded by misfits. I circled so hard I made holes in the paper.

  I felt a bit better after that and passed some time staring out the window while the teacher droned on about deadlines. The sky was blue and tightly stretched and I watched a plane skim its surface and thought of all the people in their seats above us. Kass told me once that there were a million people airborne at any one time, like a city in the sky. I wished I was up there right now. None of them would know me, so I could be anyone.

  Ben wrote me a note. It said, TALK AFTER? I put it in my pocket and didn’t look at him.

  I felt him watching me across the room. I didn’t want him to do that. I didn’t want people thinking we were together – the gawky red-headed boy and the weirdo girl.

  He wrote another note and got it passed along: LEX – U WANT 2B A MOVIE STAR?

  I put that note in my pocket too. Wasn’t it him who’d said to concentrate on revision? I scrawled a reply and passed it back along the line. FUCK OFF. I’M TRYING TO WORK.

  He smiled as if he was impressed and put that note in his pocket. I made a show of listening to the teacher get all enthusiastic about exam technique and the importance of timing ourselves with practice papers. I was never going to do that. Panic rose in my throat again. What if Mum never came back? What if I failed all my exams and had to live with John by myself for ever? I had to find a way of getting hold of Mum, finding out where she was and going to her. What was I doing sitting in a classroom doing nothing about anything?

  When the bell went, Ben dodged other kids to walk next to me in the corridor. ‘So,’ he said, ‘can I ask you something?’

  I thought he was going to ask me on a date and my face turned to fire. ‘I don’t have time.’

  ‘I’ll be quick,’ Ben said. ‘It’s just that we both need to submit a media project and we both know you haven’t done yours yet. So, I was thinking – why don’t you be an actor in mine? It’s a win-win situation because you’re brilliant, so I’ll get a great mark, and you have no other options, so you can’t refuse.’

  Not a date. Of course, not a date. Meryam had put him up to it. ‘Poor girl – even her mum can’t stand her. Be nice to her, Ben.’

  I stopped in the corridor and folded my arms at him, ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘Because you’re an amazing actor.’

  I thought of the note in my pocket. He’d written my name in the same sentence as the words: movie star. ‘You’re making a documentary,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t need an actor.’

  ‘A presenter then. Or I could change the format.’

  ‘You’d change the format of your film, so I could be in it?’

  He glanced along the corridor. I’d raised my voice and people were looking. ‘Why not?’

  I took the note out of my pocket and handed it back to him. ‘I can’t believe you’re asking me about this when my mum’s missing.’

  Ben looked down at the note squashed in his hand. ‘I thought she’d just gone off for the day?’

  ‘Yeah, leaving me with a psycho.’

  He flicked me a look. ‘What’s he done?’

  But words never quite cut it and I didn’t have time for searching for ones that didn’t make me sound ridiculous. ‘I have to go, Ben, sorry.’


  I walked quickly out of the door, across the playground to the main entrance. I didn’t look back. At the reception desk, I asked one of the women if they had my mum’s mobile number on file. She checked, but only had the landline or John’s mobile, would either of those do instead? I asked if she had Kass’s number. She told me the school didn’t keep ex-students’ details, but surely, if I rang John, he’d have my mum and brother’s details, wouldn’t he?

  ‘Kass isn’t my brother,’ I said.

  She nodded sympathetically. I asked her to double-check for Mum’s number and she patiently searched again and still didn’t have it. One of her colleagues came over and asked if everything was OK? They both looked at me. Was I feeling nauseous? they wondered. I looked a bit peaky. Did I want to sit down?

  I said, ‘If I tell you the name of my sister’s primary school, could you give me that number? They might have details for my mum.’

  One of them looked it up and the other one warned me that the primary school was unlikely to give information unless I physically went there and proved who I was. A slip of paper with the school’s number was passed over. They blinked at me over the counter. Was that everything?

  ‘Can you lend me a mobile?’ I said. ‘One of the confiscated ones, I mean? Just until tomorrow?’

  They couldn’t do that, they said, their eyes moving from sympathy to suspicion. School policy didn’t allow students using phones, and lending me a confiscated one would be an invasion of some other child’s privacy, wouldn’t it? And no, of course they couldn’t give me money for a train fare if I promised to pay it back, and anyway, whose class was I in? Because they were thinking they should call my tutor to come and have a word with me. Wasn’t I the girl who broke the window? But then the bell went for third period and two boys turned up covered in blood from clashing heads on the AstroTurf pitch and the women’s eyes turned sympathetic again and they lost interest in me.

  The ache in my stomach got heavier as I turned away. I took a deep breath, had to stop, had to sit on the low wall by the gate and put my head down. I didn’t know what else to do, where else to go. I watched my own hands gripping my bag, my own feet in my shoes. This is you, I thought. This body is yours. It’s the one you were born with and the one you’ll take to your grave. This is your life. And your mum has left you.

  Ben came bounding over. ‘I’m sorry about just now. Of course you’re worried about your mum. I’m an idiot. Have you heard from her? Do you know why she went?’

  Help me, I wanted to say. I don’t know what to do. But I just shook my head and breathed some more.

  Ben said, ‘Are you ill? Is that why you were at reception? Did they say you should go home?’

  I did feel feeble. But it was probably sadness. Did that count as an illness? Whatever was wrong with me, I wasn’t going home. If I couldn’t have Mum or Kass, what I wanted was for some giant to pick me up and carry me somewhere cool and safe. A forest maybe, a Canadian forest with pine trees and a brisk wind.

  ‘Have you got a mobile on you, Ben? Do you have my mum or Kass’s numbers?’

  He shook his head. ‘Cerys will have Kass’s, won’t she? You want me to see if I can find her?’

  My life was a mess. Everything was falling like a card house. It was useless to think I could come to school and be normal. Nothing about me was normal. Even asking Cerys for Kass’s number was weird because the last person to kiss her boyfriend was me, not her. But she was the closest thing to Kass I had. And my only chance at speaking to him.

  I stayed sitting on the wall as Ben scampered off. He reminded me of a puppy I’d made friends with on a farm once. I heard the second bell go and watched the gate swing open and shut as sixth-formers hurried in from break, eager not to be late. I sat there for ages before Ben and Cerys came walking across the playground. She looked brisk and efficient.

  ‘Hey, Lex,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

  I wondered if I should tell her I’d suggested me, Mum and Iris run off together and that Mum had taken my advice, but only taken Iris. I wasn’t sure Cerys would understand how it felt to be left behind.

  ‘Well,’ I said eventually. ‘My mum seems to have gone to Brighton.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘She says it’s a day trip. But she took Iris out of bed and left without saying anything.’

  Cerys narrowed her lovely eyes at me. ‘Do you have a theory?’

  I could tell by her face she had one of her own and was waiting to see if mine tallied. I toyed with giving her unhelpful and stupid theories, such as alien abduction or brainwashing and cult membership. But I just stared at the ground instead. ‘Maybe John did something terrible and she’s run off with Iris to punish him?’

  ‘Surely, if he did something terrible she’d kick him out?’

  ‘She’s not that brave.’

  ‘Why not? John doesn’t have a gun, does he?’

  ‘He doesn’t need one. He’s scary all by himself.’

  ‘If he’s so scary, why did your mum leave you behind?’

  I looked at Ben for help and he said maybe we needed to turn the question round and ask why John was frightening? But I wasn’t going to answer that either. There was no point. Instead I said, ‘Can I borrow your phone, Cerys?’

  ‘Of course, yeah. We have to go off campus to do it, come on.’ She used her sixth-form pass to open the gate and me and Ben followed her through. It made her special somehow – older and more mature than us fifteen-year-olds, who had no such thing.

  ‘I’ll text him first,’ Cerys said, ‘so he can get out of class if he’s in one. I’ll say it’s urgent.’

  I nodded and sat on the kerb and stared at the leisure centre opposite. I used to go swimming there when I was at primary school. Mum took Iris for lessons now. I wiped my sleeve across my eyes. What was wrong with me? This was so exposing. Ben kept shooting me worried looks. Why did that make me feel sadder? Why did his concern feel so moving and unusual?

  ‘He’s not answering,’ Cerys said, handing me her phone. ‘He probably thinks it’s me. Tell him it’s you and see if he answers then.’

  She stepped away into sunlight, leaving me in the shade of the wall. I texted: IT’S LEX, NOT CERYS. IMPORTANT.

  It took him twenty-two seconds to call. We were bound, that was why. Girlfriends came and went.

  ‘Lex?’ he said. ‘What’s happened? Why are you calling from Cerys’s phone?’

  I loved the urgency in his voice. ‘Can we FaceTime? I need to see you.’

  ‘I’ll call you back from my laptop.’

  Behind me, Cerys and Ben weren’t talking. Cerys had her arms folded and was gazing at the school buildings. Ben was sitting on the wall by the gate, hunched up, still watching me. I moved along the pavement out of earshot.

  ‘So,’ Kass said, ‘What’s up?’

  He was in his student room and his face on Cerys’s phone looked elongated and in shadow and there was a tiny lag with FaceTime. It made him seem as if he might be in a different time zone.

  I told him the whole story – from the moment he’d got on the bus, through the argument and the laptop incident to the doctor and how I’d suggested me, Mum and Iris bugger off.

  He laughed. ‘Might’ve known it was your idea!’

  ‘But why didn’t she take me?’

  ‘You’ve got exams coming up.’

  ‘You think I’m his punishment? You think she took his favourite child and left me behind to piss him off?’

  ‘Hey,’ Kass said. ‘You’re a beautiful human being, OK?’

  The look between us was profound. It held all the mystery of our kiss in it.

  I nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘Just lie low. Keep out of his way. This is them going round in their ridiculous circles. He’ll buy her flowers and she’ll come back and it’ll all be fine. You never know, this might give you and my dad a chance to get along.’

  I sighed and looked away across the road. The leisure centre doors swung open a
nd a line of little kids with wet hair came out clutching their swimming bags. Watching them made my throat swell again.

  ‘Please, Kass,’ I whispered. ‘Can’t you come back? It’s an emergency.’

  ‘Your mum’s gone off in a strop. How is that an emergency?’

  ‘A strop?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘They’ve had a row, then. A tiff.’

  ‘You think I’m exaggerating?’

  ‘I think you need some perspective.’

  A text came through on Kass’s mobile and he looked away from his laptop to click it open. ‘Sorry, I need to get this.’

  I watched him read it. I watched him tap out a reply. I sat on the kerb doing nothing while he scanned through other messages. Behind me, Ben and Cerys were quietly talking now. I felt a strange stab of envy.

  I had to look away, back at Kass – remind myself of his hand gripping mine, his lips feverish on mine, his arms pulling me close. ‘Kass, can you put your phone away?’

  He made a big deal of turning it face down on the table and then leaning back and folding his arms at me. ‘Right, I’m back.’

  ‘I know I’ve already asked you this once, but can I come to Manchester? I wouldn’t get in the way.’

  ‘That can’t happen, Lex. You know it can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’re too distracting?’

  I didn’t want that to thrill me, but it did. Especially when he smiled his beautiful crooked smile. ‘Go to school,’ he said, ‘feed yourself and stay out of trouble until tonight when your mum gets back. That’s all you have to do.’

  ‘That’s a definite no then, is it?’

  Silence. Because it was. Because he was busy and had a new life. Because I had to get some perspective.

  ‘I’ll go then,’ I said.

  ‘Call me again if you need me.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I mean it. Anything at all.’

  I clicked the phone off. I was on my own. I had to stop being needy, stop asking for stuff, stop being weak. As Cerys said, John didn’t have a gun, did he? Kass said it was a chance for me and his dad to get on, that it wasn’t an emergency. Even Ben had said, ‘Isn’t it just a day trip?’