Wonder Women

by Fiore, Rosie

  She pushed the door open and went in. The room wasn’t terribly untidy: there was a pile of clothes on the end of the bed (which wasn’t made), but at least there were no dirty dishes or food containers, and the floor was relatively clear. The waste-paper basket was full, but she could empty that – she had a big black bin liner with her to empty all the bins in the flat. She pulled the waste-paper basket out from under Serena’s desk and tipped it into the bag. The bin was very full and a few bits spilled out on to the carpet. She bent to pick them up. There were a few soiled cotton buds, a tissue and a distinctive piece of red and white cardboard. Mel was streetwise enough to recognise a piece of card torn from a Rizla cigarette paper package. She also knew that a fragment of a Rizla packet meant that (a) you’d had a whole packet of cigarette papers at some point, and (b) when rolling a cigarette, or possibly a joint, you knew enough about what you were doing to use a piece of the package rolled into a cylinder as a makeshift filter. She sat heavily on Serena’s desk chair.

  So at best, Serena was smoking roll-up cigarettes. Quite possibly, she was smoking marijuana. Mel couldn’t stop herself. She took the bin liner and tipped its contents on to the floor. It made an almighty mess, but she sat picking through each piece of rubbish to see what else she could find. There was nothing else terribly incriminating: lots of crumpled pages of half-done schoolwork and an enormous amount of junk-food packaging. There were also a few beer bottle tops, but in the greater scheme of things, she wasn’t terribly worried about that. But Rizlas? Rizlas were not good.

  Mel finished picking up all the rubbish and set about hoovering the carpet. In order to clean under the desk, she pulled the chair right out, and in doing so, jogged the computer mouse that Serena had attached to her laptop. The computer hummed and lit up. She must have left it on and let it go into sleep mode, rather than switching it off completely. Damn! Well, as long as she didn’t touch anything, hopefully it would put itself back to sleep before Serena came home from school. Serena’s desktop wallpaper was a picture of some awful grime group that she loved. They were all standing in front of a graffiti-covered wall and making gun shapes with their fingers and pointing at the camera. Yawn, thought Mel. How unoriginal. Unlike her room, Serena kept her computer desktop very tidy. There were a few progam icons neatly lined up along the left-hand edge, but that was all. Mel’s own computer desktop was covered in random programs, copies of pictures and documents she’d opened or downloaded. Hamish was always on at her to file or delete things so she didn’t lose them or clutter up her hard drive, but she couldn’t be bothered. She knew where things were, more or less. It seemed Serena was a lot more disciplined.

  Mel should have walked away, but a tiny voice said to her that if there was a Rizla packet at the bottom of Serena’s bin, what else was her daughter hiding? She didn’t know the first thing about looking for things on a computer, so she clicked on the ‘Start’ button and looked at the menu that came up. There was an option for ‘Recent Items’, and she chose that. There were fifteen or so items listed. There were about ten Word files that were clearly school course-work. Then there were three video files. Mel clicked to open one and saw it was a pirate copy of a film. She sat through the title sequence to see what it was, and it was Hannibal. She checked the other two video files: American Psycho and 28 Days Later. All 18s, all films she would have prevented Serena from watching had she known. But how did Serena get them? Had someone lent her a DVD that she’d copied on to her computer? That seemed unlikely … Mel didn’t even know if it was possible. But if not, where had she got them? From illegal file-sharing websites? But how was she accessing them when Hamish had set all the parental controls?

  The last two files in the ‘Recent Items’ list were photos, and Mel had a feeling before she opened them that she would wish she hadn’t. She was right. In the first picture, Serena was in a bathroom, not theirs, one at someone else’s house. She was standing at right angles to the bathroom mirror, wearing just a bra and pants, and the angle of the picture told Mel she had taken it herself with her mobile phone. Like Mel, she was small and compact. Unlike Mel, she had quite big breasts, and they were spilling out of the bra, a sexy black lace one that Mel had certainly not bought for her. Why would Serena take a picture like that? Why was it on her computer? Did it mean she had posted it somewhere? Or sent it to someone? If so, whom?

  But the second picture, which showed Serena lying on her back on her own bed, was even more worrying. Not so much because of what she was wearing – a T-shirt and very short shorts, but what horrified Mel was firstly the look of naked, adult sex on Serena’s soft, teenage face, and secondly the camera angle. The picture had been taken from over by the window, looking down on the girl lying on the bed. That meant that Serena couldn’t have taken it herself. Someone had been in this room, and had taken an intimate picture of Mel’s teenage daughter. The kind of picture you took of a lover.

  She felt sick. Sick, angry, powerless and very, very alone. She didn’t know how to handle this. Serena was only fifteen, and she clearly had a secret life that was much more adult than Mel had imagined. It seemed to involve both sex and drugs. What was Mel to do? She knew from experience that confronting Serena would end badly. There would be screaming, and then there would be a wall of silence. And if she admitted she had seen the pictures or the contents of Serena’s bin, she would be forced to explain that she had been in the room and had used the opportunity to look at Serena’s private things. She knew that the betrayal of trust would slam doors closed and that Serena would never forgive her and never tell her anything again. She was walking on eggshells with her as it was. Was the Rizla packet Serena’s, or had someone else left it there? Who had taken the picture of her on the bed? Who had seen the picture of her in her underwear? Who had helped her to get around the controls on her computer? It seemed there was one, or more than one, mysterious figure in Serena’s life, convincing her to get involved in things she shouldn’t. It would help to know who they were, and what exactly she was dealing with, before she started asking Serena questions.

  Mel looked at her watch. She was already late for work. She closed the last picture on the computer and put the mouse back exactly where she had found it. She pushed the desk chair back in, grabbed the bin bag and the hoover and left Serena’s room.

  That evening, when she came back from work, Serena was in the living room, slumped on the sofa, watching an Australian soap opera. Mel looked at the back of her head. This girl, this child, had come from her body. She had thought she knew her better than anyone in the world, that they were partners for life. But it seemed Serena was a stranger. If Serena had secrets, she would have to have secrets too. If she was going to watch over her daughter and protect her, she would have to learn to be sneaky. She called on all her acting experience, took a deep breath and said, ‘Hi,’ in the most breezy, indifferent voice she could manage. In response, Serena muttered darkly, something Mel didn’t quite catch. ‘What was that?’ she said, because that was what she would say if today was a normal day, a day the same as any other.

  ‘Why did you go in my room?’ Serena said. She didn’t seem angry, just petulant.

  ‘I was cleaning and your door was open so I thought I’d give it a quick hoover and empty the bin.’ And before Serena could say anything else, Mel said, ‘I got pizzas for dinner. Hope that’s okay.’

  She went into the kitchen and started putting things away. She was shaking, but she thought her performance had been convincing. Serena had a day off school the next day, Friday, as there was some sort of staff training. Bruce would be coming over to collect her in the morning to spend a long weekend with him. She would take the laptop with her, that was a certainty. But Mel had already decided to try to meet up with Hamish, who, she hoped, would shed some light on how Serena had bypassed the parental controls. It was a first step, a small one, but it was something, and she had to do something. She had to.

  Bruce arrived the next morning. He was half an hour late, which was no bi
g surprise; he was always late. It was just particularly infuriating that morning, because it meant Mel had to leave for work as soon as he arrived. She had been hoping to invite him in for a cup of coffee, so they could have a talk about Serena. But she’d been late for work the day before, and lenient though Jo was, she wouldn’t take kindly to Mel opening the shop late. All she had time for was a quick, ‘You’re late. We need to chat at some point. I have to go.’ She kissed him quickly on the cheek, grabbed her bag and ran out of the door. ‘Bye, Serena, have fun!’ she yelled, as she headed for the stairs. At any other time, she would have gone in and said a proper goodbye, maybe given a few instructions about homework over the weekend, and she would definitely have kissed Serena goodbye. But she just couldn’t bring herself to go near her daughter. If she did, she would either weep, or slap her, or hold on to her with all her might and never let her go.

  When Jo came in at noon so Mel could take her lunch break, she walked up to the sandwich shop. On the way, she rang Hamish, the IT expert. Hamish was a big, shy man, never married, who had been part of Mel’s circle for as long as she could remember. He liked to sit in the corner at social events, sipping a beer and listening to the conversation. He was a man of few words, but when he did offer comment it was often dry, witty or surprisingly insightful. He and Mel had never really socialised one on one, tending to see each other as part of a large group. But tonight, that would hopefully change. Hamish answered his phone after a few rings, sounding a little out of breath and slightly surprised. ‘Melster!’ he said warmly. ‘Don’t often see your name coming up on my phone. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Mr Hamish,’ Mel said, ‘I wondered what you were up to this evening.’

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual: threesome with Beyoncé and Angelina, a little light skydiving and a lobster barbecue on the beach.’

  ‘So you’re free?’

  ‘As a bird. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘I thought I’d win you over with my awe-inspiring spaghetti bolognaise and a bottle of Tesco’s finest Vino de Special Offero, and then pick your brain on what my wayward daughter’s been up to on her laptop.’

  ‘Throw in a Viennetta and I’m all yours,’ said Hamish.

  *

  He arrived just before eight. He looked very large in Mel’s small flat, a shambling, tall man who had worn the same Buddy Holly-style spectacles for as long as Mel had known him. He invariably wore rather baggy trousers and jumpers in shades of olive green and brown, and his shaggy hair looked as if he cut it himself.

  Mel wasn’t much of a cook, but she knew how to make a big bowl of pasta, and she could grate Parmesan with the best of them. She made a small salad, but didn’t go to town on it, guessing rightly that Hamish wasn’t much of a lettuce man. They chatted easily over the meal. Hamish had been working as the IT manager for a charity for the last seven years so he didn’t have much to report about work that was new, but he had recently bought himself a cottage down in Devon, near the area where they all gathered for Christmas. He’d got it for a song because it was practically a ruin, and he’d been going down there most weekends to work on it.

  ‘I’m lucky to have caught you in town then,’ said Mel.

  ‘It is a bit unusual for me to be here, but they’re putting in new windows this week and the house is basically a few walls surrounding some large gaping holes. Not really where you want to spend a January night.’

  ‘Not ideal. So what’s the plan, ultimately? A holiday home? Let it out and earn an income?’

  ‘Well, the plan, if I can make it work, is to move down there permanently.’

  ‘Wow. And what about work?’

  ‘Chuck it in.’

  ‘And do what?’

  Hamish blushed. He actually blushed. ‘Well … write.’

  ‘Write? I didn’t know you wrote.’

  ‘I don’t tell people, because they mainly take the piss, but I write fantasy.’

  ‘Fantasy?’

  ‘You know, like science fiction, but with goblins and elves and stuff. I’ve been doing it for years.’

  ‘And are you …?’

  ‘Published? Well, yes. I’ve had a series of books published by a specialist fantasy publisher.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘The first one was about ten years ago.’

  ‘Ten years? And you’ve never told us?’

  ‘You never asked. I tend not to talk about it. It’s one of those things, like trainspotting, that if people know, they either think you’re a hopeless anorak, or they ask lots of stupid questions.’

  ‘Like I’m doing now?’

  ‘Well, so far your questions haven’t been too stupid.’

  ‘So, here’s a stupid question: do you make a living doing it?’

  ‘Well, not really. I’ve been putting the money I’ve earned away since I started, and that was how I put the deposit on the place in Devon. But then last year my agent called me—’

  ‘You have an agent! Oh my God, you’re famous and you have a secret life, don’t you?’

  ‘And there’s our first stupid question. No, I’m not famous. I’m mildly well known in one tiny circle of nerds. Anyway, my agent called, and told me they’d sold the series in America. So now I’ll be pulling in the medium-sized bucks. Not an enormous amount, but enough to give up my job, which bores me to tears, and go and sit in my cottage in Devon and write.’

  Mel sat back and took a sip of her wine. ‘Well, I never, Hamish. You’re a dark horse, you are. I had no idea.’

  ‘Well, now you do, so can we drop it? No Gandalf jokes, okay? No Hobbit quips? And please, please don’t ask me if I earn the same as that J.K. Rowling.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Now, talk to me about our Serena,’ said Hamish, briskly changing the subject. ‘What’s going on there?’

  ‘Well, remember the laptop Bruce gave her?’

  ‘Of course. I set all the permissions on it and got it going for her.’

  ‘Well, I have a feeling she’s managed to bypass them.’

  ‘Is it here?’

  ‘No. She’s gone to Bruce’s for the weekend and taken it with her.’

  ‘Well, the first step is to have a look at the monitoring site. That way we can look at her web habits and see where we go from there.’

  Mel stood up and pointed to her ancient PC in the corner, but Hamish actually snorted, reached into his bag and pulled out a sleek compact laptop. Within seconds he had booted it up and connected to Mel’s Wi-Fi.

  He went to the site and Mel told him her log-in details. He sat quietly staring at the screen for a minute or so.

  ‘According to this, the last time she logged on to the Internet was about four weeks ago.’

  ‘But she’s been on loads since then. Of course she has.’

  ‘I’m sure she has. She’s somehow found a way to switch off the parental controls entirely.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, it’s not that difficult. If she knew where to search, there’d be cheats and instructions on all sorts of sites. Or she could have got someone to do it for her.’

  ‘She must have known she’d be found out.’

  ‘She probably has a good idea about how computer phobic you are …’

  ‘I’m not computer-phobic!’

  ‘Okay, maybe not phobic, but you’re not exactly Ms Techno-Literate though, are you?’

  ‘Well, maybe not.’

  ‘So she probably gambled on the fact that once you’d got me to set up the safeguards, you either wouldn’t know how to check, or you wouldn’t bother. At least for a while.’

  ‘Or maybe,’ Mel said, her voice cracking a little, ‘she didn’t care.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think she just doesn’t care what I think any more. Somehow, and I’m not sure how, I’ve become the enemy. We used to be so close, and now all her energy seems to be devoted to lying to me and trying to do stuff against my wishes. This is all going to end badly,
whatever I say. I mean, I’m playing the whole scenario out in my head. I’ll ask her why she bypassed the safe-surfing controls, and she’ll yell at me and say all I do is restrict her freedom and ruin her life. Then I’ll yell back, and I’ll have to play the stern-mum card and take the laptop away, and then she’ll hate me even more, speak to me even less and feel she’s even more justified in lying to me and sneaking around behind my back.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Hamish, and he looked very uncomfortable. This was clearly too much for him to handle. Whether he was uneasy with Mel’s frankness, or with the insight into ugly mother–daughter stuff, or whether he thought Mel was just plain wrong, she had clearly dragged him way, way outside his comfort zone.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hamish. I’m just venting. This is so hard though. There’s so much advice to tell you how to raise a baby, but dealing with a teenager, well, these are uncharted waters. But I know they’re my waters, and I’m sorry to have pulled you in, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Hamish, rallying. He was nothing if not brave and polite. ‘I’m sure you’ll work it out. Listen, I must go. Last trains and all that. Thanks for dinner.’ He gave her an awkward kiss on the cheek and was gone.

  There were two alternatives, Mel thought. She could curl up in a ball on the floor and sob, then finish the bottle-and-a-half of wine left from dinner, then throw up and sob some more. Or she could wash the dishes. She went for option two. She had to be at work at eight the next morning and the tear-stained, red-wine-hangover look wouldn’t go down at Jungletown.

  Once she started, she couldn’t stop. The cooker got a thorough clean, the floor was mopped and she was busy scrubbing the countertop viciously when the phone rang. She leapt to get it. It was just after midnight, and a call that late could only be bad news, but then she saw on the caller display that it was Hamish. She hesitated for a second and then answered it. Maybe he’d left something behind and would need her to send it to him. He started in without preamble.