The Exclusives

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘Right,’ says Mrs Allen. ‘Let’s get a move on. Josephine, do you want to do the honours?’

  I start talking. My heart is clacking around because I know something here is not right. I carry on, looking only at Sally, who provides me with some sort of comfort. I tell the room how I had nothing to do with the ‘Guess Who?’ entry and that I’d already been through the whole ins and outs of my whereabouts, about what I did after the proof went to the printer’s and that if anyone had any questions, they were welcome to ask. I look up and Mrs Cape is staring at me, giving me a reassuring nod and then she goes and gives me a bloody thumbs-up sign.

  ‘Is everything alright, Mrs Cape?’ Mrs Allen says.

  ‘Yes, yes it’s great. I’m getting everything down, don’t you worry. I’m just wondering about Josephine here and the PM. I hope you didn’t end up getting in trouble with him!’ Mrs Cape is looking thrilled to have been privy to this information and is beaming at my father.

  My mind is speeding. I’m trying to think of ways to stop the meeting – faint, maybe? Ridiculous, I think. Tell them I know more about Freya and Mrs Kitts?

  No. No more. I’m tired. My mind is going too fast for me to think straight anyway. My field of vision is skewed with fluorescent green lights and I can hear my breathing getting faster and faster.

  ‘Josephine? Josephine?’ My father is shouting.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ I manage. Breathe. And somewhere, in the distance, I can hear Mrs Allen going over the same old story that we’ve heard a million times but, of course, this is all new to Mrs Cape. I’ve given the proofs to Sally and Verity, Sally doesn’t touch them but they go down to the printer’s together and blah blah blah. Blah, fucking, blah. And that’s where it happens.

  ‘Just imagine the Prime Minister himself!’ Mrs Cape’s voice has gone all jaunty. ‘Josephine, your dad’s here now so it’s OK for us to talk about it, isn’t it?’ Mrs Cape winks at me and nudges her elbow in my direction. The pinprick of vision I have left is directed at Father, who is frowning and looking at Mrs Cape. She is grinning away, panting like a dog. ‘Your daughter here rather heroically tried to save the nation!’ she chortles.

  ‘My daughter? I’m a bit lost, sorry Mrs . . . Cape.’

  ‘The manifesto that the PM was desperate to take out. Could have ruined the country your daughter said, when the first copies arrived from the printer’s. Ruined the whole place! Dust to dust, I thought to myself.’

  Mrs Allen is standing up, creasing down her pleated skirt. It’s pink. Flesh-coloured. Most unlike her. She’s normally a dark-green, grey or black type of person

  ‘Mrs Cape, please. We’ve got a lot to get through and, if you don’t mind me saying, it’s not really your place to comment at this meeting.’ If I’m not mistaken, Mrs Allen knows. She’s sounding panicked. ‘Please could you be quiet and concentrate on finishing the notes.’ There’s a cough lodged in my throat and I can’t release it. If I do, I’ll look like I’m trying to cause a distraction. I hold on to it, bulging in my windpipe.

  ‘No, I’d like to hear what this lady has to say,’ my father interrupts, thinking he’s doing me a massive favour. The room falls silent but I can practically hear the blood whooshing through my veins. I take a quick look round the room and every single person is frowning.

  ‘Well, when the copies of The Lens first arrived at the school all ready to be distributed to the girls and all –’ Mrs Cape has her hand on her chest and she’s all breathless with excitement ‘– Miss Josephine comes running up saying there’s been a huge mistake in the magazine and could we stop giving them out to all the houses and that. She’d been speaking to the Prime Minister himself that very morning! Said he’d stepped over the mark because she was a personal friend . . . a personal friend! Imagine that! And of course could she please keep all the copies of the magazine and rip out the bits that weren’t meant to be seen. Then she told me to be quiet about it but I guess with your father here, now, it’s OK . . . That’s why you’re all here, isn’t it?’

  Everyone is now standing up. Staring at me. Mrs Cape, oblivious, carries on.

  ‘Anyway, I said, “No, Miss Grey. I’m terribly sorry, they’ve all gone out already.” White as a sheet you were!’ She looks at me. Then she looks at everyone else and realises something’s wrong. I lift my head up high and look Mrs Allen straight in the eye. She doesn’t say anything at all. Doesn’t look cross. Or upset, or disappointed. Just walks over to me, slowly. Looks me in the eye and holds out her hand.

  I raise my hand and unpin the badge from my school jumper. I give it to Mrs Allen and she takes it. Holds it in her palm, squeezes it. Father is walking towards me, arms open but I don’t have the courage to look at him.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he is saying. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know.’ And I feel it is OK because now the truth is out. Verity is staring at me, and Sally is holding her head in her hands. She lifts her neck up at me and I can see the pleading in her eyes. I give her a small reassuring nod and she falls back into her chair, thankful. Nothing matters.

  Father is standing opposite me now, hand outstretched. I take it. His fingers and palms feel swollen and hot. He pulls me up and we walk out of the room. My footsteps are slow, like I’m walking through treacle. I can hear Mrs Allen asking the other parents to make their way out of the room. By that time, I’m already closing the door behind me and walking out of Main School, into the fresh, blue air. I take a deep breath.

  ‘Please can we go home?’ I say to him.

  ‘Yes. Your mother isn’t here at the moment so we’ve got the place to ourselves.’

  I breathe in the coldness, sucking it down into my lungs. I’m ready, I think. I hope.

  I have no time to pack; Mrs Allen says she’ll get all my clothes sent home. No one says goodbye. Mrs Allen follows me and Father outside and holds open her palm.

  ‘This,’ she says. Red and gold sparkle in her hand. ‘This was your curse. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I expected too much.’ I open my mouth and then shut it. I want to say I’m sorry but I can’t. Her face scrunches up. Like she needs the loo, or something. Her glasses have steamed up but she doesn’t clean them.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. For what, I’m not quite sure.

  ‘Come on, Josephine.’ Father pushes me into the car. The journey back is silent. There’s a Radio Four programme on, about university, and I can feel the air expanding with thoughts of my education. Eventually, Father switches it off. We edge into London. The street lamps are on and there’s a mist descending over the city.

  ‘Why?’ Father says, looking straight ahead.

  ‘Why what?’ I snap. But he doesn’t say anything, just rubs his right temple. We never speak of the incident again, other than when Mrs Allen rings up to tell me that I’ve been formally expelled and that she’s had to inform Oxford.

  ‘They’ll tell us in due course,’ she says, ‘whether your offer will be rescinded or not. You’ll still take your A levels, though, when the time comes. We’ve arranged for you to be invigilated somewhere in London. Just you. I’ll let you know details in due course.’

  ‘Right. Thank you. What do you think? Do you think they will? Rescind, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know. I really . . . I just don’t know. I really don’t. I can’t even think about any of this.’ I hang up and Father appears from nowhere.

  ‘What did she say?’ he asks.

  ‘I’ve got to wait to find out what’s happening with Oxford. She didn’t say. Can’t you speak to someone?’

  ‘Speak to someone?’ I know he’s considered it. ‘After this whole sorry mess? I don’t think so, Josephine. It’s just too wrong. I think it would be too wrong. And what if it got out? My job would be on the line.’

  The next week is spent in the Kensington library. I walk past Freya’s house a couple of times but there are no lights on and the blinds are down. I think I see Leon at the end of the road but it’s not him, just someone
else with dark hair. It’s good to be away from the school grounds though. It allows me to focus. Being on my own feels nourishing in a way that I could never get at Greenwood. My father and I don’t see much of each other – he spends all his time out and that’s also fine with me: whenever he’s in the house, he keeps looking at me and then the phone.

  I don’t hear from Mrs Allen for a few days. I receive a bumper package from her on Tuesday, with carefully photocopied notes and test papers. She’s filed everything and I know she’s done it herself because she’s made little markings where she thinks something is important. There’s no compliments slip or anything, but at the end of one of the notes she’s underlined a quote, double lines, in red. ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.’ It has no relevance to the text and I read it again and again, waiting for it to buoy me up. It doesn’t.

  It is not until the end of the week that Mrs Allen calls again. Father picks up and asks how she is and, without waiting for her response, hands me the phone. He accidentally hits my chin with the receiver.

  ‘Mrs Allen.’

  ‘Josephine. I hope you are well?’

  Father is pretending not to listen. Goes over to the drinks cabinet and pours himself a large whisky.

  ‘I’m well, I’m good, thanks. Working hard.’

  ‘Good. Now, I’ve sent you some more stuff in the post. It should help with your History exam.’

  ‘Thanks so much.’ I wonder if there’s a reason she’s ringing.

  ‘Now, about Oxford.’ Father has sat down and is flicking through the Radio Times. Front page, through to back page. And again.

  ‘We’ve had a long discussion with them. Me and the governors . . .’ Hurry up, I think, before Father rips that fucking magazine apart.

  ‘And we’ve come to a conclusion together. Now it’s a strange one . . .’ Of course it’s strange, I think. Father gets up and hands me his whisky glass. I wave him away.

  ‘They’ve left it in my hands.’

  ‘Your hands?’

  ‘Yes. My hands. They’ve left it up to me and the school to make a decision. About you. About your future.’ Neither of us speaks.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ Father is mouthing. I hold a finger to my lips.

  ‘So, what have you decided?’ I laugh a brittle, hopeful laugh.

  ‘We haven’t yet. I – I have to think of what is best. Greenwood Hall must come first. But you know I have . . . well, I’ll have to let you know tomorrow.’ She hesitates and then, ‘Goodbye, Josephine.’

  I hang up and sit down next to Father. He sets his whisky back on the table and for the first time I can remember puts his arm around me and holds me tight.

  Montreal, Canada

  22 December, 2014

  Dear Mrs Cape

  Please find enclosed a signed and framed message from the Prime Minister. I’m writing to apologise for the terrible way I behaved at Greenwood Hall all those years ago. I sincerely hope you can forgive me.

  Best wishes,

  Josephine Grey

  Montreal, Canada

  28 January, 2015

  Dear Verity

  I hope you are well. Freya and I finally managed to meet after all this time – she told me you two are still in touch. I’m writing to say that I’m deeply, deeply sorry for the way I behaved at school. For trying to frame you for something I did. You have to believe me when I say I look back on that time with great shame. I can’t blame it fully on things that happened in my life but some events made me go down paths I might not normally have taken.

  I hope, truly, that you have not carried this in your heart for all this time, as I have in mine.

  I wish you great happiness.

  All my best,

  Josephine Grey

  Montreal, Canada

  28 January, 2015

  Dear Pete

  You may not remember me. I probably saw you about nineteen or so years ago. I was Head Girl at Greenwood Hall. I know this may come late but I’m writing to everyone I think deserves an apology from me. Everyone I hurt in some way, or misled, and one of those people, which I’m so ashamed about, is you.

  You helped me print the copy of The Lens, our school magazine. I was hugely indebted to you. I asked you not to tell anyone I’d come asking if I could change the magazine’s print run. I told you this was because the Prime Minister would get involved, and I’m writing to tell you that I lied to you. This wasn’t true. I did something very bad to hurt someone I once loved very much. I suspect you may have always guessed I hadn’t been entirely truthful but perhaps didn’t want to believe it of me. I’m sorry.

  I can only imagine what you must think of me. For all these years, I have felt so awful, and guilty, about what I did to you. I have learnt from all of this though – and I hope you’ll believe me when I say it – that, truly, I’m not a bad person. And I’m trying, whole-heartedly, not to let the guilt consume me and take me down even uglier paths.

  I really wanted to write to you because you were so kind to me that day and you tried so hard to help me out. I wanted not only to say I’m sorry, but that I got my comeuppance, which I thoroughly deserved. I ended up getting expelled by Mrs Allen, the school’s headmistress. I was unable to go to Oxford University – something I’d worked towards all my life.

  I now live in Canada, doing academic research, and lecturing at a good university. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this but I’m really trying to be good. To be kind, like you.

  You also gave me ten pounds. Here is the same ten pound note you gave me, all those years ago. The exact same one. I never could bring myself to spend it.

  Yours sincerely, with gratitude and apologies,

  Josephine Grey

  Montreal, Canada

  28 January, 2015

  Dear Freya

  I don’t know where to start with this letter. I’d been wanting to write to you for all these years. To tell you things I knew you’d laugh at, to share my thoughts with you but, all this time, I haven’t been able to. I know how much we both fought through to get to this point in our lives and I just wanted to say that I’m so, so glad we shared what we did when we met in Hyde Park last year.

  It made me feel so nostalgic for our old days, before all the bad stuff happened. Didn’t you feel it too? I also felt that we came to an understanding about what happened that night. And about everything that followed. I hope with every shred of my being that we don’t allow it to ruin us again and again, like it has done for all these years. We must not let this be bigger than us. I know I’ve failed at things in my past but I am sure, both of us, will be able to succeed at this. By seeing each other we have already, in part, won.

  I know that we won’t be able to recapture what we once had. Those glorious, carefree days. But I really, really would love to be a part of your life somehow. To meet little Evie one day, who looks so like you. So beautiful and radiating such goodness. Maybe it’s too late, but maybe not. I spent so long not saying the things I should have to you, I don’t want to continue that any more.

  Freya, you will always be a part of who I am and I will always hold you with such fondness in my heart.

  Thank you, for being able to see me as I truly am, even when I wished it otherwise.

  With fond love,

  Josephine

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to:

  My agent Nelle Andrew, whose incredible wisdom, editorial insight and kindness helped bring this book to life. Also to the fabulous Foreign Rights team at PFD: Rachel Mills, Rebecca Wearmouth, Marilia Savvides and Alexandra Cliff.

  Joel Richardson, Mark Smith, Robert Woolliams and Claire Creek at Bonnier and Twenty7. Thank you for taking the book on and Joel, for your hawk-eye editorial skills and for all your support. Becky Short and Fliss Denham at Midas and Annabel Wright at whitefox.

  Kerry Hudson, who set up the WoMentoring Scheme. I’m very grateful to have been taken on by Alison Henn
essey, whose time and efforts were invaluable.

  To my Faber Academy tutors, Esther Freud and Tim Lott, who kick-started this book. My fellow writing buddies, Neil, Richard, Bernadette, Jo, Jude, Mike, Jill, Kate and Jackie. And also to Ian Ellard.

  Adrian Thornton, Jamie Evans, Hetty Cavanagh, Matthew Heath and Annabel Mullin for your introductions, inspiration, knowledge and help. Any mistakes are my own. Emily Heath and Cyrus for the amazing reflexology sessions.

  Jo Bloom for answering all my writing-related questions and for the encouragement.

  My family. Special thanks to my parents, as always, for your unending love.

  My in-laws, Karen and Ellis, and to Zoe, Nick, Jamie and Carly Spero.

  My godmother, Anne Kriken Mann, for the support, generosity and wonderful suppers.

  Isabel Benson, Elizabeth Day, Jasper Thornton, Elizabeth Thornton, Asia Trotter and Charlotte Wilkins. I cannot thank you enough for your friendship, endless writing advice and editorial suggestions along the way. I love you and couldn’t have written this book without your input and support.

  And also to: Emilie Bennetts, Daniel Cavanagh, Gemma Deighton, Maria Guven, Caroline Jones, Philip Taylor and Isobel Wield.

  Finally, Olly, Walter and Dominic, for everything.

  About the Author

  Rebecca Thornton is a journalist and runs an online advertising business. Her work has been published in Prospect magazine, the Daily Mail, the Jewish News, and the Sunday People. She was acting editor of an arts and culture magazine based in Jordan, and she’s reported from Kosovo, London, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Rebecca is a graduate of the Faber Academy and The Exclusives is her first novel. She lives in London.

  About the Publisher

  House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi's commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada's pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as "Publisher of the Year."