I’m so enthralled in the video feed that I hardly notice the children come back. I missed playground duty altogether. My face burns with embarrassment. I can’t remember who I was supposed to work with on playground duty. Maybe it was Samuel, the one male teacher on our staff, an older man with grey nose hair and a tea-spotted tie. I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, failing to rub away the thoughts from my mind.
The rest of the afternoon is a diluted version of my lesson plan. I let the children get way out of hand during their individual work while I watch more of Erin and Mum going about their day. I see nothing out of the ordinary on the video feed. Mum is her usual stubborn self, nearly always sitting or standing with her arms folded, her chin high and haughty. Erin spends most of the time chatting, all smiles and patience. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I imagine it’s the same kind of chatter I hear when I’m with them, comments on the weather or compliments on Mum’s outfit, anything breezy and light.
At the end of the day I have no desire to stop and chat with my colleagues, and I definitely want to avoid Moira, so I pack up my things and rush to my car.
The summer weather appears to be breaking. Dark clouds have formed above. The air is thick with a pre-storm atmosphere. My skin is slick with sweat from the muggy climate. At these times, when the weather changes so quickly, I no longer feel like I’m in England. I miss the grey drizzle of two-thirds of the year. This dramatic atmosphere belongs in an exotic country far from here. I want the comfort of my homeland back. I want a soggy umbrella and damp feet, not a pressure that makes my sinuses ache.
I want things to be normal again.
I run my fingers through my hair and take a deep breath.
*
PC Hollis promises to watch the video footage from the front of the house. But I know he won’t find anything significant about the shadowy figure appearing from the hedge. I check the camera in Mum’s room to find that a wire has come loose at the back. Then I email the security guy, who can’t fix it for another week. So I swap Mum’s camera with another while she’s taking a bath.
I have a few more calls from Peter on my phone. I take screenshots of each one for my log. I had hoped he’d got bored of me and moved on to someone else, but it seems he’s harder to shake than that.
It’s late by the time I finally stop moving. I sink into bed and fall into a deep slumber, dreaming of walking outside to find Mum hunched over the bag of clothes. Her head jerks to the left, like a startled animal’s. I take a step forward, holding out my hand as I would with a wild deer or a frightened horse. She rips open the bag and lifts out one of my shirts. I can only watch as she places the cuff of the shirt in her mouth and begins to chew.
“Stop it!” I cry.
But she keeps on chewing on my shirt until saliva drips down her chin.
I take a step back, horrified at the sight, when another figure appears from the hedge. There’s nothing about the figure that’s recognisable as a person. It’s a shadow, devoid of features, but it seems so familiar. Ignoring Mum, I step towards the shadow, but my head is ripped back.
I wake up with a start, sitting bold upright in bed. My alarm is blaring out. As I reach out to turn it off, I notice that my hand is clasped tight. When I open my fist, tiny flecks of brown scatter from my fingers.
Strands of hair. My hair.
I leap out of bed and examine the mattress. There is a clump of hair strewn across the bed and a patch of drying blood on my pillow. Slowly, dreading what I know I’ll find, and with a numb feeling spreading over my flesh, I lift my hand to the back of my head. When I find it, I let out a little gasp. Blood. I stare down at the hair in my hand with disbelief washing over me. Am I really so crazy that I’m ripping my own hair out of my head? In my sleep?
And yet… there’s something… so familiar about seeing hair in my hand. I close my fingers and make a fist, and as I do, I get the strongest sensation of déjà vu, that at some point in my life I’ve done this before.
“Will you turn off that alarm!” Mum bustles into the room, breaking the spell. She snatches my phone from the bedside table and thrusts it into my hand. “Deal with it!”
With shaking fingers I slide the bar across the screen to turn off the alarm. Then I turn and regard my mother.
She shakes her head. “Sort yourself out.” And walks out of the room.
I hurry to the mirror to examine the damage to my hair. Luckily, I pulled most of the hair from the back of my head, and the bleeding has already stopped. If I can wash my hair and get a plaster on the cut, I can tie my hair back and cover up the issue.
I drop the dead hair onto my nightstand and stare at it one more time. What am I forgetting?
The thought of my unconscious self ripping the hair from my head haunts me in the shower and even as I make breakfast. Every slight sound jolts me from unsettled thoughts. The toaster is a gunshot. The scrape of a chair is an intruder. My toes are kissing the knife edge, and I can’t see my way down.
When I greet Erin at the door, I expect to be soothed by her presence. Instead, I find a withdrawn woman with smudged makeup and red eyes. She barges past me into the hallway without even saying hello.
“I’m only doing today,” she announces.
“What do you mean? What’s happened?”
She yanks her jacket from her body, which is damp from the rain that finally began in the early hours of this morning. “I don’t know how you have the gall to ask me that.”
“I… I don’t understand—”
“You made it perfectly clear in the email. I don’t understand how you could have accused me of anything like that. I take good care of your mum. I’ve never done anything… I… I thought we were friends—”
“Erin, slow down. Tell me what you think I’ve done.”
“There’s no point denying it,” she says. “I know you didn’t mean to send it to me, but you did. We’re done, Sophie. I’ll work today because I know you can’t find another nurse on such short notice, but tomorrow you need to find someone else. I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind. I can’t work with someone who would stab me in the back like that.”
Before I can respond, she strides into the kitchen and slams the door behind her, leaving a clear signal for me to leave her alone. And I’m late for work. But on my way out, I check my email account to figure out what she could be talking about. There, in the sent items, is an email from my account going to Erin and her boss, with the subject: Erin Jones is abusing my mother.
Eddington, 1997
“This is good work, Sophie.” Mrs. Vaughan hands me back my essay and straightens up, stretching her back. She’s always doing that. Every now and then she warns us “young ’uns” that we should maintain good posture or we’ll end up with bad backs when we’re old. Like her. “We need to talk to you about university.”
I stare down at my desk, hoping that no one notices the flush working up my neck. Even though the rest of the class is busy with their own work, my scalp prickles with the sensation that they are all watching me.
“Oh, I won’t be applying to university.” The words seem awkward and clumsy. I pull on my sleeves, hiding my hands. I don’t want to have this conversation, not now. Why did I open my mouth?
Mrs. Vaughan shifts her weight from one foot to the other and folds her arms, crushing the rest of her papers against her chest. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t afford to move away.” Again, I feel eyes on me. I want to shrink into the ground, or at least somehow get Mrs. Vaughan to stop talking.
“But you can apply for a grant,” she continues. “Don’t worry, I can show you how. I can help you fill out all the paperwork, if you like.” She pauses as I struggle for another reply. “Hold on. I’ll find a pamphlet.”
I stare down at the circled “A” on the top right-hand corner of my essay, wondering how I’m going to explain to Mrs. Vaughan that there’s no way my mother will let me go to university. How do I put into words that Mum just wants th
e best of me? Everything I think of sounds weird. Like, I’m a freak with a freak mother. Everyone thinks it. I hear them whispering when I walk past them in the corridors. They know about my mum and her affairs and the times when she gets fired. This town is small, and people talk.
She wants the best for me. She’s my mum. Maybe I should trust Mum when she says that uni won’t be any good for me. Maybe she knows what I should and shouldn’t be doing.
“Here you are.” Mrs Vaughan passes me the leaflet, and I thank her. Then she backs away and goes back to handing out essays. I guess she knows that she’s already said enough.
I slip the leaflet into my bag. The school bell rings, so I make my way out of the classroom. The low sun makes me squint as I hurry across the carpark to the bus. It’s coming up to Christmas break, and the deadline for university applications will soon be approaching. My estimated grades are good. I could go wherever I want. I could get out of Eddington and find my way in the world. But what if university is like school? What if I don’t make any friends, or they call me names behind my back? What if I’m not clever enough, and all my grades have been a fluke so far?
The cold winter air bites my skin as I exit the bus at my stop. Mum won’t be in yet. She’ll still be at work. What is it now? Another secretary job? Or maybe it’s the cleaning job? I can’t remember. All I know is that I can eat as many jam sandwiches as I like when she’s not around, even if my jeans are getting a little tight. Now that I’m in the 6th form I can wear my own clothes, but the problem is, I don’t own anything cool. All my clothes are from charity shops and sales racks. I don’t have designer sportswear or the right shoes.
After tucking into my second jam sandwich, I pull the leaflet out of my bag and start to read through it. There are a lot of figures and facts. I’m more of a words person than a numbers person. They make my head spin.
But I keep reading, despite everything. My excitement builds up and up. I see the happy faces of the students on the front of the leaflet and wonder whether that could be me. I could be the smiling girl surrounded by friends. I could work, and learn, and live with people my age, and listen to loud music, and go to concerts. I’d make a best friend and eat ice cream with her while we talk about boys and exams. We’d argue about the washing up or who used the last of the milk, but then we’d open a cheap bottle of wine or go out and drink shots until we passed out on the sofa in a fit of giggles.
I’m so deep into my fantasy that I don’t even hear the door open. It’s not until Mum is striding into the kitchen that I realise she’s home, and I don’t have an opportunity to hide the leaflet. I freeze.
“Fuckers. The whole lot of them.” She throws her bag onto the table and kicks off her heels. “That fucking little Tracy with her perky tits and big eyelashes. She only has to flutter them at Bob and he’s drooling like fat kid in a bakery. What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck are you eating?” She snatches the plate away and tosses it onto the kitchen work surface. Our kitchen is so tiny that she only has to turn and stretch her arm. The motion is so fast that she catches me trying to hide the leaflet from her view as she turns back to me. “What’s that you’ve got?”
I place my arm over the pamphlet, ignoring my pattering heart.
“What is it? Why are you hiding it?” she demands.
“It’s nothing. School stuff.”
“What, are they teaching you about periods? Come on, show me.” Her manicured fingers grab my arm and wrench it away. Then she snatches the folds of paper with her other hand. “Financial aid for…” Her eyes move rapidly across the front cover. She lets my arm drop back onto the table, and I rub the sore spot where her long red nails clawed into me. “What is this? You think we’re poor? You think we’re poor enough that you have to apply for aid? After all the work I do for you. Two jobs. Two jobs, Sophie, all to put jam sandwiches in your belly. Fat little bitch.”
I stare at my hands as they tremble against the tabletop. I should never have brought the leaflet back. I’m such an idiot.
“Financial aid for university applicants,” she reads in a mocking voice. “Miss Smartypants wants to go to university, does she? She wants to be part of the pompous crowd. She wants to leave her mother here to rot on her own because she’s a selfish little cow. And after everything I do for you? I work my fingers to the bone for you.” She shakes her head and backs away from the table, starting to pace back and forth across the length of the room. “I can’t believe you’d leave me, at the drop of a hat.” She snaps her fingers. “To be all alone. You know how lonely I’ve been since things ended with Mark. And you know it was all your fault. No one wants a moping teenager for a stepdaughter. Why can’t you put on make-up and do your hair? Stop shovelling food in your gob for one minute and actually get some exercise. Do you think I look this way from being a slob? I work for it. And if I hadn’t had to push you out seventeen years ago, I would look a damn sight better.” She runs her hands through her hair. “I’m over the hill now, Sophie. Don’t you understand that? I’ll never find a man. I’ll be alone for the rest of my life, and you’re going to leave me here to rot while you go off gallivanting with students.” She starts to cry, great, heaving sobs.
“Mum,” I say quietly, holding back my tears. I’m frozen as always, caught by her outburst and too terrified to even move. “I’m sorry I brought the leaflet home. Don’t cry.” I can’t bear it when she cries. The guilt is unbearable. I never meant to make her feel this way.
She wipes her eyes, smearing mascara across her temples. “I just want to protect you, honey. I want to keep you safe because I love you. Don’t you know what happens to girls like you who go to university? There are men there. Predators. They wait until you’re drunk and put drugs in your drink. Then they take you home and rape you—”
“Mum, stop!”
“It’s true! It happened to my friend. Sophie, if you go there, you’ll be hurt. I don’t want that to happen.” She rushes over to me and wraps her arms around me, smothering me against her satin blouse. “I want to keep you safe. You’re safe at home with me. If you knew what I’ve done for you, you’d never question me. You’d never disobey. If you knew what I’ve given up…”
Chapter Twelve
As the stormy weather fades, the stifling heat returns, turning the children feral and the adults irritable. There are two fights on the playground this week, prompting Moira to call an emergency assembly about bullying and violence. Alisha and I stand on the sidelines as the head talks us through appropriate behaviour and “using our words”.
While the atmosphere at school is taut, the atmosphere at home is deadly. Despite a phone call to Erin’s superior—and several emails to them both, explaining that there has been a terrible mistake and I don’t believe Erin is hurting Mum—she still refuses to come back to work for us. Instead, we have Susanne, an older woman in her late forties who never makes chit-chat and complains about car trouble every time she steps in the door, bringing cigarette breath into our home.
I even try leaving Erin a voicemail to explain that I believe Mum sent that message during one of her confused moments, but Erin never replies. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to work in that environment, either. If one of the students ever accused me of something that terrible, I don’t think I’d be able to come to school and look people in the eye. So we’re stuck with Susanne, a woman whose sour face makes Nurse Ratched seem like Mary Poppins. At the end of each day Mum seems subdued and quiet. I am too. We sit and eat our meals in near silence.
PC Hollis and PC Chowdhury call round to tell me that they have investigated the video and saw nothing helpful, but they will be canvassing the area as well as contacting Peter. They have no proof it was Peter, so it’s not like they can arrest him. But they see the action as harassment and make a point of telling me that they take such behaviour seriously. That in itself worries me. Why do they feel the need to reassure me? I can tell they think they have better things to do than follow up on a vandalism case against a ba
g of clothes meant for a charity shop. They’re placating me with their assurances.
I decide not to tell them about my suspicions about Mum. If it is her, it’s a private matter.
All day at school I watch the cameras. Susanne is not as bright and breezy as Erin was. She dumps food in front of Mum before sitting down with a magazine. I see Mum flailing her arms, clearly shouting, while Susanne turns away and leaves the room. A few moments later, Mum appears to have forgotten whatever she was mad about, and Susanne returns. I need to take notes from this woman. She doesn’t take any of the crap that I’ve had dished out from Mum.
But most of the time I think about everything that has happened, from the button outside the house, to the time Mum drank bleach, to the voice on the recording and the shredded clothing. Do I honestly believe Mum could be responsible for all those events? Can I imagine her orchestrating each one? Taunting me about the shadow because she knows there’s a hidden memory from my past that I can’t access? Finding a way to break the camera, logging in to my email and sending that nastygram to Erin’s boss? Sneaking out of the house at night? Pretending to lose her keys? Drinking bleach?
The question I cannot answer is whether I believe my mother is capable of all those things. Yes, she can be manipulative and nasty. Yes, she can be cruel when she feels that she’s been wronged. But what, apart from existing, have I done to warrant this?
I close the laptop and sigh, which is lost amongst the noise from the classroom. The students are supposed to be reading from The Hobbit, but they’ve taken to chatting and passing notes around instead. I raise my voice and order silence.
There was only Chloe not talking to any friends. My eyes linger on her sat in the corner, gazing out of the window. With all this going on, I forgot to keep an eye on Chloe like I’d said I would. I don’t know if she still talks to her imaginary friend.
The Broken Ones Page 9
