The Drowning Lesson

by Jane Shemilt

  At Shania’s house Ted knocked firmly. The night was silent and still around us, but if anyone had been passing in a car, they would have seen a couple like any other. We were wearing warm coats and clean shoes as we waited quietly, heads bowed in the rain. We probably looked normal.

  Shania’s face was prepared. She looked calm and serious as she hugged us. It was hot in her house, the gas fire flaming in her tidy sitting room. Nikita was hunched on the sofa, a cushion held tightly to her, her long legs in rabbit-patterned pyjamas tucked beneath her. I smiled at her, but my mouth felt stiff and trembled at the corners. Shan sat close to her on the sofa, we sat opposite and Ted took my hand.

  ‘Ted and Jenny want to ask you about Naomi now, babe.’ Shania put her arm round Nikita, who looked down as she twisted a thick lock of her dark hair in her fingers.

  I moved to sit by her on the other side, but she shifted slightly away from me. I tried to make my voice gentle.

  ‘Where is she, Nik?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She bent and pushed her head into the cushion; her voice was muffled. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.’

  Shania’s eyes met mine over her head.

  ‘I’ll start, then,’ Shan said. ‘I’ll tell Jenny what you told me.’ Nikita nodded. Her mother continued: ‘Naomi told Nikita that she was going to meet someone, a bloke, after the play.’

  ‘A bloke?’ Ted’s voice cut across my intake of breath. ‘What bloke?’ The word in his mouth sounded dangerous. Not a boy. Older. My heart started banging so loudly I was afraid Nikita would hear and refuse to tell us anything.

  ‘She said …’ Nikita hesitatingly began. ‘She said she had met someone. He was hot.’

  I uncrossed my legs and turned round to face her properly. ‘Hot? Naomi said that?’

  ‘That’s all right, isn’t it? You asked me.’ Nikita’s forehead puckered, her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Of course,’ I told her.

  But it wasn’t all right. I’d never heard her use that word. We had talked about sex, but as I desperately scanned my memory for clues, I couldn’t remember when. Relationships, sex and contraception – Naomi didn’t seem interested. Had she been? What had I missed?

  ‘Was he … did she …’ I groped in a forest of possibilities. ‘Was he from school?’

  Nikita shook her head. Ted spoke then. Lightly, casually, as though it wasn’t important.

  ‘This guy. She must have met him before?’

  Nikita’s shoulders dropped fractionally, she stopped twisting her hair. Ted’s calmness was working, but I felt a stab of anger that he could manage it so easily. I could hardly keep my voice from trembling.

  ‘Yeah. I think he was around in the theatre sometimes.’ She glanced down. ‘You know, at the back.’

  ‘At the back?’ Again, barely inquisitive.

  ‘Yeah. Where people waited. Maybe.’ She looked up and there was reluctance in her dark eyes. ‘I didn’t really see.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ I asked quickly.

  ‘Don’t know.’ Nikita didn’t look at me. There was a pause. ‘Maybe dark hair?’

  She moved nearer Shan on the sofa and closed her eyes. I didn’t think she would tell us anything else, but Ted was asking another question.

  ‘And tonight? What did she say to you about tonight?’ There was silence. Nikita was completely still. Then Shan stood up. ‘She’s tired now.’ Her voice was firm. ‘She needs to go back to bed.’

  ‘Tell us, Nikita, please.’ I touched her on the arm lightly, carefully. ‘Please, please tell us what she said.’

  She looked back at me then, her brown eyes wide with surprise. Her best friend’s mother was a busy figure in the distance: cheerful, running in and running out. In charge of her life and her family. She didn’t plead.

  ‘She said’ – Nikita paused for a fraction – ‘she said, “Wish me luck.’ ”

  THE BEGINNING

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  First published in Great Britain in Penguin Books 2015

  Text copyright © Jane Shemilt, 2015

  Cover image © Trevillion

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  ISBN: 978-1-405-91532-8