by J. A. Baker
‘Yes. Thanks again, Sally. I’ll see you soon.’ Gravel has filled her throat, stopping her from speaking properly. Her gums are sore, her eyes heavy, her tongue thick and furry with the anxiety of not knowing. And yet at the same time, knowing.
She puts down the phone, leans her head under the tap and takes a long gulp of cold water, clearing her mouth, soothing her throat. Attempting to wash away her terrible thoughts.
Her hands are trembling, her knees are weak. Without a shred of evidence, she is already faltering, assuming the worst, picturing her life falling down around her, a wrecking ball battering against the crumbling walls that hold her life together. She visualises it smashing against the bricks, watching as they topple, too broken and fragmented to ever be rebuilt, turning to dust as they hit the ground. This is worse than what happened at the weekend. Much, much worse. And if Dane is involved, then she did this.
If he is involved.
There are almost 1,000 pupils at that school. The odds are stacked in her favour.
And what if this person is wrong? What if this lady who spotted the armed police heading into the school has a vivid imagination and a loose tongue? What if she is no more than a conniving old gossip who doesn’t care how much worry and anxiety she causes?
Word has spread rapidly. Parents are frightened, their senses heightened, every nerve ending shrieking at them, putting them on red alert as they wait for updates. And still no word from the school. Surely parents would have heard something by now? It would be remiss of them to not inform parents and carers. And yet, all those calls to make. The families of almost 1,000 pupils to contact and only a handful of office workers to do it. It could take them all day to get in touch with everyone. Nina’s heart rate increases. She swallows, rubs at her eyes. She is exhausted. It is only 11am and already she is so incredibly weary, too tired to think clearly, her logic and lucidity in free fall.
Dark unwelcome thoughts tumble and fight for space in her head. Dane and his new friend. Dane and his sullen behaviour. Dane and the events that took place in their house recently…
Then she thinks of the obvious and turns on the television. Armed police storming into a school will make the news. It has to, doesn’t it? There will be some sort of attention for such an event. There has to be. Lesser stories have made the news. Surely an event of this magnitude will warrant major coverage?
Sky News and the BBC report on the usual mundane matters as she stands and waits, watching the scrolling updates at the bottom of the screen. Nothing. The weather, falling share prices, the usual bickering of MPs who bat comments back and forth like a ping-pong ball. Nothing about armed police entering a school. It feels conspicuous by its absence. It feels as if this woman has dreamt it up, set in motion a story that has gained speed and is now an unstoppable rock rolling down a hill, ready to crash into the lives of every parent in town while she sits, sated and replete, happy that her words have stirred up a whirling eddy of terror and uncertainty.
The wait continues, Nina’s guts a mass of hot liquid. Theirs is a small town, tucked away in the remoteness of North Yorkshire. It will take time for word to filter through to the national news. That’s what it is. This woman won’t have lied. Why would she? What is to be gained from fabricating such an outlandish tale? Nobody is that stupid or thoughtless, are they?
Nina nibbles at her nails, wishing she hadn’t read those notes in Dane’s room, wishing she could be sitting here in blissful ignorance. Her insides shift and growl some more as she recalls those images, those words. She has done her best to blot them out, to pretend she didn’t see them. Except she did. She has spent weeks and months and years making excuses for her boy. So many excuses, so many sleepless nights. He’s an immature lad, still trying to work out the dynamics of the world at large. She knows that, she really does. Dear God, he barely understands his own emotions. He certainly doesn’t have the capacity to climb inside the heads of those around him, the figures of authority who hem him in, force him to do things he doesn’t want to do. He was lashing out when he wrote those notes, drew those images, that’s all it was. A kickback against the adults in his life.
She has lost count of the number of times he has told her to shut up, calling her a stupid cow and telling her she has ruined his life, this boy, this lad who is almost a man. Her baby. And then with things turning sour at home, it may well have pushed him over the edge. They did this to him – his parents, her and Rob. They created the perfect storm for their boy and then cut him adrift, left him to flounder, watching as he splutters and drowns, sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
For so long now she has buried the feeling that something is wrong, told herself he cannot process his emotions in the usual fashion, that it is simply a phase he is going through – a long drawn-out phase that seems to have no end – but a phase borne out of teenage angst and anger nonetheless. She is his mother and despite her deep-rooted sensation that all is not right in his world, she still feels the need to protect him, to provide a rational explanation for his actions and conduct. But now that sensation is rising to the surface, threatening to drag her under. She struggles to breathe, her head swimming as she stands and makes her way upstairs, her legs carrying her towards his bedroom. His sanctuary. The place where he hides away from everybody and everything. Including his own mother.
It is everything she expects it to be – untidy, smelly, his personal possessions strewn far and wide. Wires snake over the floor, trailing a path to a pile of unfathomable machines that take up so much of his time. She has no idea what they are, these machines and computers, and admittedly has long since stopped monitoring what he watches or who he interacts with. Which parents do? Even the ones who claim to be vigilant and responsible, let things slide. It’s a minefield, this technology thing, a bloody minefield and she wouldn’t have the first clue how to work out what sort of content he views. Christ, he could be watching porn or murder videos or any kind of shit that undoubtedly fascinates and repulses many teenagers in equal measure.
Telling herself he’s no different to any other fifteen-year-old out there, Nina slumps down onto his unmade bed, idly smoothing out the covers with her palm, breathing in the scent of him, questioning her parenting techniques. Wishing, wishing, wishing. What exactly is she wishing for? A different life? A different child? She shakes her head, tears falling freely now. Maybe she has it all wrong. Maybe Dane is at school, working hard, oblivious to what is happening around him. Maybe this is all one big fucking nightmare. He’s her son. She needs to quell her niggling fears, have a little faith in her boy. He’s not a bad lad, just slow to develop.
If she hadn’t found those notes, she wouldn’t be having these doubts. If things hadn’t escalated so badly at home over the past few days, she wouldn’t be so nervous about his mental state. She would be concerned for his welfare, worried he may be in danger. It wouldn’t be this. Definitely not this. She wouldn’t be having these bad thoughts. Thoughts that he is the one behind all of this. She wants them to go away, to leave her be, let her think clearly, not clutter up her mind, drip feeding her bits of toxic information that poison her brain, turning her against her own child. For all she knows, he could be crouched behind a desk, cowering from an unknown assailant, praying to be saved. Thinking about his mum. Wishing she was there to help him.
A sob escapes. She searches for the drawings, her hands quivering as she sifts through his things, moving socks and underwear out of the way, opening books, tipping them upside down, hoping for those incriminating pieces of paper to flutter out and miraculously land at her feet.
God, this is terrible. She stops, her hand pressed to her breastbone in despair. What is she thinking? This isn’t some American High School shooting. This is a small town in North Yorkshire. It’s all in her head – an imaginary scenario. She is losing control, letting her imagination run riot, letting her worst fears take over.
Her footfall is loud and clumsy as she heads back downstairs and grapples with her phone. The school wi
ll have the answers she needs. No point in wild guesses and suppositions until she has all the facts. That’s what her dad would say – get all your facts sorted and in line before you start firing your weapon. A bad analogy given the circumstances, she thinks.
She punches in the number, the one she knows off by heart, and waits, a thousand unimaginably horrible visions filling her head. She is greeted by an answer machine that tries to direct her to different departments and in her confusion, she presses the wrong key and ends the call.
Shit!
A visit to the school website and Facebook page proves fruitless. No news there. No updates, no pleas for parents to remain calm. No notifications to reassure them that everything is in hand and that it is a regular occurrence for armed police to visit the school. Nothing to see here. It’s another normal day at a normal school in an average town.
Just as she begins to think that perhaps this is all a big mistake, a terrible misunderstanding by a witness who has alerted the entire neighbourhood over a false alarm, the phone rings. It stills her blood, makes her feel weighted to the ground, as if she has been encased in concrete, the ringing a shrill echo in her ears.
Her palms are slippery, her brain, her skin, her entire body burning with fear and anticipation. She wants to know. She doesn’t want to know. She snatches up the phone, hardly able to breathe, her heart a caged bird banging against her ribs, desperate to be free, its wings fluttering manically. She sits, her legs too weak to hold her upright, clears her throat and speaks.
2
The house seems to shrink around her, the walls moving closer and closer, squashing Kate into a tiny compacted being. This is how it is now. This is how she is expected to live – as a housewife in a small property that is identical to every other house on the street, living the life of a nobody. Complaining or voicing her concerns feels pointless. It simply riles Anthony into a state of apoplexy. Besides, there isn’t enough space for private conversations and disagreements in this place. The house is too tiny for big voices. Any shouting or arguing rattles the windowpanes, shaking the very foundations on which they stand. So she hisses at him instead, her deteriorating mood conveyed by her lowered, tight voice and even tighter expression.
Time is a piece of elastic, stretching out ahead of her with no beginning or endpoint. She once asked Anthony when it would all be over, when her nightmare existence in this house, in this town, would ever end, to which he replied, ‘Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.’
Maybe never is her thinking. She cannot see any changes ahead, not as things stand and the thought that this is it, that this is her life forevermore turns her stomach, twisting it into a tight painful knot.
Her recent actions have backfired spectacularly, serving only to exacerbate their problems. She isn’t sure they can survive this latest catastrophe. The one that she caused. She and Anthony are now treading a fine line, the already thin strands of their marriage now hanging by an almost invisible thread. Maybe it’s a good thing, them coming apart and unspooling. Maybe Anthony had his chance and blew it, ignoring her wishes, ignoring the needs of his family. Ignoring her.
Control and routine were the things that kept her going. She lost control when Anthony lost his job and as for routine – how can anybody be expected to have routine and order living somewhere like this? In this pinprick of a house on a new estate full of faceless, hapless families who think their success is measured by the extra foot they have gained in their living room or the fact they now have a fourth bedroom and, in some cases, a double driveway. Working class people who think they’ve made it big, making their mark in society by upgrading to a bigger, better property, that’s all they are. And now she is one of them.
She keeps telling herself that she doesn’t blame Anthony, but deep down she feels such anger that there are times when she can barely bring herself to look at him. She sometimes visualises herself slapping him, hitting and punching him. Inflicting so much damage he no longer resembles himself at all but a wounded soldier, a war victim. Their war. Their own personal ongoing battle. White hot fury rages inside her, an unstoppable furnace, its flames scorching her insides, and the longer she contains it, the hotter and angrier it becomes.
Outside, a car passes by. It is so close it feels as if it’s about to drive straight into their living room. The rumble of a tractor, the screech of a bus, the inane chatter of passers-by, they penetrate her thoughts, disturb her musings, invading her personal space. Not that her musings are anything of value anymore. There was a time she felt able to paint, to attend the local choir, to do something creative, but just lately she feels stripped of ideas, her artistic tendencies turned to dust along with their bank balance.
It could be worse. That’s what she keeps telling herself. It could be a whole lot worse. It could also be a whole lot better. Still, at least they are all healthy. At least they have that fact to cling onto. She tries to stay positive, to remain upbeat and fight the tsunami of misery that regularly engulfs her, but she fails every single time.
How else is she supposed to get through this? She has Jocelyn and Alexander to think of. They need her. She needs them. Soon they’ll grow up and leave, start lives of their own, independent of their parents. She shudders. The very idea of just her and Anthony alone together in this house chills her blood.
None of this is how she envisioned it all those years ago when she married him. She pictured an easy life together, a large family home, a decent car, a couple of holidays a year and hopefully some leisure time – badminton club, art classes, shopping, eating in exclusive restaurants – that was what she hoped for. She certainly didn’t bank on this – sitting in this bland, newly-built house, surrounded by strangers, fearing for their future, wondering where they will all be in ten years’ time. Wondering whether or not their finances will ever recover from this catastrophic downturn.
She loves him. Of course she does. He is her husband. It goes with the territory. Whether or not she likes him is another matter entirely.
The picture on the wall screams at her, its presence suddenly ugly and unwanted. A photograph of the four of them taken when they were happy, when they gelled together as a family. Taken before everything became unglued and fell apart.
Prior to the recent telephone call from Nina, Anthony didn’t seem to think they had hit any sort of disaster. In fact, he seemed frighteningly happy with their situation, revelling in the fact that he no longer has to take on any heavy responsibilities. He appears to have settled nicely into his new role – too nicely. It won’t last. It can’t. She nibbles at her recently painted nails. This sort of life isn’t him. She knows him better than he knows himself. It’s not who he is. His ego will need a massage at some point. He will become bored, unused to being left out of making major decisions, pissed off at being ignored by his senior colleagues. Anthony is used to being top of the pile, not squashed underfoot by people with half his experience who are young enough to be his children.
It can’t come soon enough, him reaching that boredom threshold. She isn’t being uncharitable. She isn’t being anything. He is the one who has changed, lowering his standards, being only too ready to accept less than his worth. He certainly isn’t the man she married.
And they have their own children to think of. What about them? It isn’t snobbery to want the best for them, is it? It’s common sense. That’s what parents do – they look after their offspring and care for them, give them the best opportunities, protect them from the blows of the world. Right now, their children are attending the local comprehensive school, mingling with what she is sure is a fair sprinkling of decent children whilst also sitting elbow to elbow with a goodly number of undesirables. She has seen them in town – youngsters milling about on bikes, wearing hoodies, leering and shouting at passers-by, cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths, profanities swilling about in the air above their heads. And that’s how they act in public. God only knows what they get up to in the privacy of their own homes.
She wants better than that for her children. What is so wrong with that? The fees at the school they used to attend now feel astronomical given Anthony’s current salary. That sort of money used to seem like chicken feed. Now the thought of forking out those staggering sums of cash makes her eyes water. What have they become? She blinks back tears. How far they have fallen in recent months.
She worries about the children. They’re young, impressionable. They have been forced to start their lives all over again, to move schools, move house, leave old friends behind, make new ones. It’s a traumatic time for them. And they’re sensitive too. The confidence they exude is a thin veneer. Behind it are two frightened youngsters who have had their lives torn apart. They had no say in this move. It was thrust upon them by Anthony’s mistakes and inertia. He had become lazy and inept in certain areas. Being a hedge fund manager requires a razor-sharp mind and dynamism. In recent years he has let things lapse, blaming his age and younger colleagues who lack his ethics and integrity. He said he didn’t care for their methods, the way they aggressively managed the funds. His sensitivities got in the way of his need to keep a decent salary coming in for his family and he was ‘let go’ earlier in the year.
Damn Anthony and his soft edges. Damn his sudden inability to develop a tougher side so they can all go back to how things were before everything tumbled and crashed around them. From hedge fund manager to financial adviser within the space of a couple of months. He now spends his days advising elderly couples where to shift their measly pensions to ensure they can afford their yearly cruise and still be able to buy their grandchildren half decent presents every Christmas.
More tears sting at her eyes. She suppresses them. They threaten to flow almost daily. Rather than sit here maudlin, wishing for something better, wishing her recent plans had paid off, she tries to do something – anything, but even the most basic of tasks feel so incredibly draining.
