Too Close to Home

by Susan Lewis

  Bena had no answer for that.

  “He wants me to find out,” Jenna said shakily.

  Looking almost as wretched as Jenna felt, Bena said, “Have you actually asked him if he’s having an affair?”

  “Not in so many words, but he knows it’s what I’m thinking. He keeps saying I’m paranoid, or telling myself stories, but the one thing he’s not doing is denying it.”

  “Then you have to ask him straight out. I know it won’t be easy, but until you do you’re going to keep putting yourself through this, and there might not be any need.”

  Though she could feel herself recoiling from the confrontation, Jenna knew Bena was right. She had to make herself face it, somehow deal with it if it was true, yet how was she going to do that if he was serious about whoever it was and wanted out of their marriage?

  —

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” Charlotte was gasping excitedly as she checked her phone. “We’re in! She can see us at five on Friday.”

  “No way,” Paige cried, a bolt of nerves shooting like splinters through her own excitement.

  “I swear, look.” Charlotte passed over her mobile. Appointment for 2 people confirmed for 5 pm on Friday. Thank you for your enquiry. Jasmina is looking forward to meeting you. Please see our website for further information and directions.

  They looked at each other, round-eyed with awe, and burst into girlish laughter. “We have to do it,” Charlotte insisted.

  “Definitely,” Paige agreed. “I mean, she won’t tell us anything bad, will she?”

  “I don’t think they’re allowed to. My cousin said she was brilliant. Told her loads of things that were true that she couldn’t possibly have known.”

  Hearing the bus doors hiss open, Paige led the way on board, choosing two seats close to the front. Kelly Durham and her gang would be bound to sit at the back, but they had to pass Paige on the way, so Paige kept her head averted and nudged Charlotte about the fortune-teller, trying to make it look as though she hadn’t even noticed the Durmites were passing.

  “It’s going to be totally amazing,” she whispered to Charlotte.

  “I know, I know,” Charlotte whispered back. “She might tell us if we’re going to get married, how many babies we’ll have, how many husbands even.”

  Kelly’s voice cut across their giggles. “Oh my God, it’s laughing. Please someone tell it not to—it only makes it look even uglier.”

  As the Durmites snorted and guffawed, Paige’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment.

  “Oh, get her with the filthy looks,” Kelly mocked as Charlotte treated her to daggers. To Paige’s relief she moved on through to the back.

  “Well, we know now,” Paige commented as Owen followed the Durmites without as much as a glance in her and Charlotte’s direction, “who managed to convince him that it was me who put that post on Facebook.”

  Casting another of her vicious looks in Owen’s direction, Charlotte said, “I should have realized on Saturday, when he told me he knew for a fact that you’d done it, that Kelly bloody Durham had got to him.”

  “You know what really gets me?” Paige declared, trying not to be upset. “It’s that he could never stand her before.”

  “I know, and I’d love to see her face if she heard some of the things he said about her.”

  Paige would too, though she knew neither she nor Charlotte would ever repeat them. She didn’t imagine Hayley, Courtenay, or Nicole would either, though not out of loyalty to her, but because they too seemed to be getting friendlier with Kelly lately. It was unnerving Paige considerably, the way the Durmites were drawing in all her friends, though she couldn’t imagine they’d ever succeed with Charlotte. She and Charlotte were solid; nothing and no one was going to come between them.

  Hearing a text ping into her phone, she decided not to read it. It would only be something vile from Kelly again, such as:

  Faggot basher.

  Homophobe.

  Two-faced bitch.

  Sad fucking loser.

  Ugly fat cow.

  These were only some of the names she’d been called by text or email over the past twenty-four hours, and not only by Kelly Durham but by Owen and others too. Though she was putting a brave face on it, determined that no one should think they were getting to her, each text that arrived upset her more than the last. Worst of all were the messages that said things like, You’re just a fucking nobody with no right to live, so why don’t you do the world a favor and die? Or It’s no wonder your family can’t stand you, no one can. Or You make everyone feel totally sick the way you think you’re so much better than everyone else. Filthy swot! Teacher’s brown-noser.

  “Oh my God,” Charlotte suddenly gasped as a text dropped into her phone. “I don’t believe this. Please tell me I’m not dreaming.”

  Paige took her mobile and read the message. Hey you, going to send me a Snapchat? Liam LOL.

  Paige turned to look at her, envious and confused. “Why ‘laugh out loud’?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “Do you think he’s taking the piss? Maybe it’s not even him.”

  Paige looked at the text again.

  “Shall I answer it?” Charlotte ventured.

  Paige was trying to make up her mind. “I know,” she decided, “ask him to send you one first.”

  Charlotte lit up. “Genius.”

  A few moments later, as Miss Kendrick, a stocky yet glamorous young woman, joined the bus, a shot of Liam blowing a kiss appeared on Charlotte’s phone.

  Charlotte looked like she might pass out. “Oh my God. It is him,” she murmured. “I am so going to shag him.”

  “Phones away now,” Miss Kendrick instructed, “and take out your copies of Under Milk Wood. We’ll have a rehearsal during the journey.”

  “Oh no!” Charlotte panic-whispered. “I have to Snapchat him back.”

  “Do it when we get there,” Paige advised. “We can go into the loo or something.”

  Since the alternative was having her phone confiscated, Charlotte managed a quick In bad situation, more later Cxxx before switching it to silent.

  As Miss Kendrick gave the driver the go-ahead to start the fifteen-minute trip into Swansea, Paige stared fixedly out of the window, willing her teacher to pick on anyone but her to lead the rehearsal. She might as well have kept her telepathic energies to herself, because they’d gone no more than half a mile before the microphone was being thrust into her hand and Miss Kendrick was saying, “Get us in the mood with the opening lines, Paige. Go up to ‘Schooner House dreams of.’ Then we’ll have a little discussion on the syntax. I take it we all know what syntax means? Ruby, can you tell us?”

  “Uh, it’s kind of like grammar, miss.”

  Miss Kendrick sighed. “I suppose that’ll do for now. Paige, off you go.”

  Trying not to think of the others pulling faces and gagging behind her, Paige steeled herself and started, very quietly, “To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless—”

  “Speak up, we can’t hear,” someone shouted from the back.

  “It’s meant to be spoken softly,” Miss Kendrick reminded them, “but perhaps you could give it a little more volume, Paige.”

  Wanting only to thrust the mic back at the teacher and tell her to get someone else to do it, Paige forced herself to start again. This time she got as far as “blind as Captain Cat,” when a small chorus of voices began howling and meowing.

  “That’s enough,” Miss Kendrick snapped. “Whoever’s responsible, put your hand up.”

  No one did.

  She waited, eyes shining with outrage. She adored Dylan Thomas—practically wet herself over him, Cullum had once said—so to treat his work to this kind of mockery would be seen as nothing short of a capital offense.

  “I don’t know who was making the noise, miss,” Kelly Durham piped up sweetly, “but it’s not the play that’s the problem, it’s Paige’s voice. It’s making people want to howl—you know, like dogs do when they hear music that’s ou
t of tune.”

  As the others laughed and Paige flushed to the roots of her hair, Miss Kendrick said to Kelly, “For such an inane and unpleasant remark, you have just earned yourself a report. Now kindly keep quiet, everyone, while Paige finishes the opening.”

  Somehow Paige got through it, mainly because she managed, by some miracle, to lose herself in the words, as though she were in the dawn hours of Llareggub rather than trapped amongst enemies on the school bus.

  “Miss?” a boy’s voice called out from just behind her. “Did you know that Llareggub, the name of the town, is ‘bugger all’ spelled backward?”

  As everyone snickered, Miss Kendrick rolled her eyes. “Do you have to tell us that every time we read the play, Michael?”

  Clearly proud to have got away with swearing again, Michael Preddy stood up and took a bow.

  “I think Paige ought to carry on reading,” Bethany Gates called out.

  “Yeah, definitely,” Kelly Durham agreed. “All the voices this time.”

  “Paige, Paige, Paige,” the Durmites started to chant.

  Knowing they were doing it to humiliate her, Paige looked imploringly at Miss Kendrick.

  “Paige has done enough,” Miss Kendrick shouted over the noise, “and as we’re practically there, we’ll delay our discussion until our visit is over.”

  Paige’s eyes widened with alarm as she glanced at Charlotte.

  “Miss,” Charlotte cried, “I thought we were supposed to be making our own way home from the center.”

  “Indeed, I’d forgotten,” Miss Kendrick admitted, “so we’ll resume the reading at our next lesson, by which time I will expect every one of you to have rehearsed your role or roles thoroughly enough to convince me that you have a fuller understanding of the piece than you seem to have now. Part of that will come in the essays I will set for homework.”

  As everyone groaned, the bus came to a stop outside the elegant old building in the Maritime Quarter that had once been Swansea’s guildhall but was now home to the Dylan Thomas Centre. With its exquisitely smooth Bath stone frontage, circular and arched windows, and neat little side garden, it was a place Paige knew quite well, due to several visits with her mum.

  “Thank God for that,” Charlotte muttered as they clambered down from the bus. “I thought for one horrible minute she’d changed her mind and was going to make us go back to school when this bloody trip is over.”

  Paige suddenly gasped. “I forgot to tell my dad not to pick us up.” She opened up her phone. “I’d better call him.”

  Going through to his voicemail, she left a message saying, “No need to meet us at the Dylan Thomas Centre. Thanks anyway. Love you.” After clicking off she rang her mother. “Hey, is Dad there?”

  “No, he’s out,” Jenna answered. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. He was going to pick us up later, but he doesn’t need to now. Charlotte and I have decided to go over to Oxford Street and do some shopping. Is that OK?”

  “I guess so. Do you have any money?”

  “Some. We’re not going to buy anything. It’s just for a look round.”

  “What about homework?”

  “I’ll do it later. I’ve got to have some freedom, Mum.”

  “I understand that; I was just asking. Did you leave a message for Dad?”

  “Yeah. Where is he?”

  “I’m not sure at the moment. He had a meeting with Martha and her team earlier, but he could be with the lawyer by now, which would be why he’s not answering his phone.”

  “Right. Actually, that’s who rang him before he went out on Saturday. Martha. I saw it come up on his phone.”

  There was a moment before her mother said, “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what I saw. Anyway, sorry, got to go. I’m not supposed to have my phone on.”

  As she rang off there was a sudden scuffle behind her, someone fell into her, and the next thing she knew her phone was being snatched from her hand.

  “Hey!” she cried as Bethany Gates made off with it. “Give it back.”

  “Keep your mouth shut,” Kelly Durham hissed in her ear, “or I’ll shut it for you.” Jamming an elbow into Paige’s ribs, she took off after Bethany.

  Paige turned to Charlotte, shock and fear darkening her eyes.

  “They won’t keep it,” Charlotte told her. “They’re just being stupid.”

  “What if they wipe everything, or send texts or emails making it look like they’re from me?”

  “Hey, Paige!” someone shouted.

  Paige looked up, the camera went off, and all she could do was watch as Kelly, Bethany, Owen, and the others glanced at the shot and roared with laughter.

  “What’s going on?” Miss Kendrick demanded, coming up behind her. “Paige, are you all right? You’re looking a little pale, dear.”

  “I’m fine, miss, thanks,” Paige assured her. Clearly Miss Kendrick hadn’t seen the phone being stolen or she’d have done something about it, and Paige was too scared of the consequences to tell her.

  For the next interminable hour she tried to pay attention as Miss Kendrick and one of the center’s organizers talked them through what was to happen and where they were to go on the evening of their special performance. Though Paige was excited about it, another part of her was starting to seriously wish that Miss Kendrick hadn’t chosen year ten to perform for the centenary. It wasn’t like most of the class was even familiar with the piece, and at least half of them probably never would be, the way they carried on.

  “It’s your fault,” Cullum had grumbled when Miss Kendrick had first announced the honor she was bestowing upon the GCSE group. “You’re the one who knows it, who can bloody recite from it, who loves it like she does, and now you’ve dropped the rest of us in it. Just don’t go backing out, that’s all I can say, because no way in the world am I getting up in front of anyone to play First Voice.”

  Since he was her understudy, he’d have to take part if something happened to her, but she’d assured him he needn’t worry, because nothing would make her miss out on the role, even if she had to go onstage in a plaster cast or a wheelchair.

  Famous last words?

  At last the visit to the center was over, but no way was Paige leaving without her phone, so while Charlotte Snapchatted Liam she went to confront Bethany.

  “Where is it?” she demanded, her heart thudding so fast she was sure everyone could hear it.

  “Where’s what?” Bethany answered snootily, while Kelly sniggered behind her.

  “You know what I’m talking about. You took my phone and I want it back.”

  “I don’t have your stupid phone,” Bethany informed her.

  “Yes you do.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Flushing deeply, Paige said, “You know you have it, so please give it back.”

  Coming up beside her, Charlotte said, “Give it to her, Bethany.”

  Kelly’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe you’re sticking up for her after what she said about you on Facebook.”

  “She didn’t say it,” Charlotte shot back.

  Kelly sneered. “No, of course, someone hacked her account. Like as if.”

  “Owen,” Paige said, appealing to him, “please make them give my phone back.”

  “Nothing to do with me,” he retorted, turning away.

  “Oh, looks like you dropped it,” Bethany suddenly declared.

  Paige turned round, and seeing a phone lying on the grass, she ran to it. It was hers, thank God, and grabbing it up, she hurried away to check it. Thankfully all her information still seemed to be there, but so too were several text messages sent during the past hour. A couple had gone to Kelly and Bethany with the photo they’d taken of her attached; the rest, she realized to her horror, had gone to Oliver.

  How the hell did they know about Oliver?

  With panic tearing through her she began to read.

  Hi Oliver, I’ve just got to tell you how much
I want you to shag me. Let me know if you want it too. Paige Moore.

  Oliver, baby, I want your dick in my mouth.

  I can’t stop thinking about you. Come all over me.

  She stopped reading. Sobs were tearing through her so hard that she could no longer see the words anyway.

  Putting an arm round her, Charlotte took the phone and read the messages herself. “What’s the fucking matter with them?” she hissed angrily. “They’re sick, that’s what they are. Sick and twisted.”

  “But how…how did they know I like Oliver?” Paige gasped. “I never told anyone apart from you.”

  Charlotte took a step back. “You don’t think…Jesus Christ, Paige.”

  “No, I know you wouldn’t have…I just…I mean…” She couldn’t think what to say. She really hadn’t told anyone else, so how had Kelly and Bethany found out?

  “You’ve got to have told someone else,” Charlotte insisted. “What about Julie the stalker? Did you tell her?”

  Paige shook her head. “No way. She asked once if I had a boyfriend and I said no, because it’s the truth. Oh God, Charlotte, what’s he going to think? I have to text and let him know that someone stole my phone.”

  “Definitely,” Charlotte agreed.

  “What shall I say?”

  Charlotte tried to think.

  “What about if I say something like ‘I’m really, really sorry you’ve received those vile messages. Some girls at school stole my phone and they thought it was funny to try and make me look stupid. Please ignore them. Sorry again’?”

  “Yep. That sounds good,” Charlotte agreed.

  After tapping out the message, Paige said, “I want to know how they found out. It’s like they’ve read my mind, for God’s sake….Are you sure nothing got said on Saturday?”

  Charlotte was starting to color. “Actually, Hayley asked me if you fancied him.”

  Paige’s face paled. “Why did she ask that? I’ve never mentioned anything to her.”

  “No idea. She just came out with it.”

  “And so you told her I did?”

  “No, of course not. All I said was even if you did it was no one’s business.”

  “So you more or less confirmed it?”

  “No! I just tried to make light of it. Listen, I reckon Owen’s behind it. He was with us when we went to watch Oliver playing rugby—it could be he noticed you looking at him, or overheard us saying something. I’m just guessing, but I can’t think how else they’d know.”