by Sanjida Kay
Laura opened Skype but there was something odd about her account. Instead of showing pictures of Vanessa, Julian, Damian, and Matt in the Contacts section, her address list was empty. She opened up the ‘Find Contact’ box and typed in Damian’s name and pressed enter. An error message appeared. Laura frowned. She was useless with computers, with any kind of technology. She tried a few more times with the same result. She put in Damian’s name but the familiar error message appeared. She turned off the laptop and then switched it back on again, intending to try again. This time, when her laptop started, she couldn’t find Skype on her computer at all. Normally it was on the desktop but now it wasn’t even under the list of programs.
Surely it wasn’t a coincidence? The email virus and then Skype malfunctioning in such an odd way? She thought of Aaron and how he had set up a program that would allow him remote access to her computer. She shivered. She felt like smashing her laptop.
She called her best friend, Lucy. She was the perfect combination of optimism and sympathy. Laura imagined her as she listened to the phone ringing: Lucy was petite with long, blonde hair in tight curls. They’d met on Laura’s first job in TV, when Lucy was starting out too, as a production assistant. Perpetually on the hunt for the perfect man and childless, Laura had bursts of envy when she heard the latest details about Lucy’s life – cocktails in Soho, in London and New York, long, lazy Sunday pub lunches, coffee and the papers in bed on a Saturday morning after a late night out on Friday – but she knew Lucy well enough to know that she was probably jealous of Laura too. It was hard being in your mid-thirties and single, and because she’d recently been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, Lucy might never be able to have a baby.
Lucy’s voice was warm and chirpy. It brought tears to Laura’s eyes. She was tempted to call her again, just to listen to the message. She resisted the impulse and put the phone down firmly.
Wednesday 31 October
LAURA
There’d been a cold snap overnight and each blade of grass was rimed with frost. The orange-red fruit of the strawberry tree shone amid the glossy evergreen leaves, silver-tipped in the wan light. Laura held her mug of tea tightly to her chest. The radiators made choking sounds; they probably needed to be bled.
She looked at the clock. It was growing late. Autumn, silent and pale, had picked at a piece of toast and stirred some Rice Krispies around the bowl without actually eating anything. She’d gone to brush her teeth but she was taking longer than she needed to.
‘Autumn,’ she called. ‘We need to leave now.’
Laura struggled to achieve the right tone. She didn’t want to sound cross. She walked upstairs to the hall and put her trainers and fleece on. She was about to shout again when Autumn appeared, though not from the bathroom as she’d expected. She came running down the stairs and paused near the bottom.
Laura gaped at her. Autumn looked at her defiantly, then jumped down the last two and grabbed her coat.
Laura swallowed back her instinct to shout, You can’t go out looking like that.
Instead she said softly, ‘Why have you done that?’
Autumn shrugged. ‘All the girls do.’
She bent to put on her boots. She’d taken her hair out of her plaits and was wearing an Alice band. She must also have rummaged about in her room and found Laura’s old make-up case. She looked like a drag queen, with large spots of pink on her cheeks and a slash of lipstick and purple eyeshadow smudged over her eyelids. It might have been comic but the effect, with her pallor, the dark circles under her eyes and her perfect child’s skin, was horrific.
‘No,’ said Laura. It came out much louder and firmer than necessary. ‘They don’t. Not to school. Go upstairs and take it off.’
Autumn stood up and looked out of the window for a moment, one boot on, the other lying like something eviscerated on the floor. She burst into tears. Laura hugged her tightly. Her daughter felt scrawny and hard; she was unresponsive to her touch.
‘Everyone says I’m ugly,’ she sobbed.
‘You’re beautiful,’ said Laura. ‘Who says you’re ugly?’
‘Levi. And then the other boys and some of the girls say I am too.’
‘Well, they’re wrong,’ said Laura. ‘You’re perfect.’ She crouched down. ‘Hard as it is, you have to learn to ignore Levi. He’s trying to hurt you. You mustn’t let him.’
So the bullying hadn’t stopped, she thought grimly.
She took Autumn’s hand and led her upstairs to the bathroom, where she found a half-empty bottle of make-up remover and some cotton wool and gently started to sponge the garish colour off her daughter’s face. She remembered this had once been a nightly ritual for her too, before Autumn was born, when she’d made herself up to look artfully fresh, as if she were not wearing make-up at all.
‘Your skin is so pretty,’ she murmured, as the make-up came off, revealing Autumn’s smooth, unblemished cheek. She kissed her and Autumn, almost reluctantly, hugged her back. It was a hug lacking in strength or feeling, thought Laura, dropping the soiled cotton wool in the bin and watching her daughter slowly descend the stairs.
Autumn pulled her boots on and turned to let herself out the back of the house.
‘It’s Wednesday.’
‘Oh.’ Autumn stopped and waited for her at the front door.
‘Had you forgotten?’ said Laura, putting out a hand to stroke her hair. That wasn’t like her. Autumn jerked away. Laura always dropped Autumn off at school by car on a Wednesday as that was the day she went to university for her horticulture course.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ asked Laura, as she pulled out of Wolferton Place. Autumn looked peaky and was staring glumly out of the window. She didn’t reply. It was such a short journey to school by car; even so, Laura felt relieved that it was almost over. She had no idea how to try and cheer Autumn up, or make her feel better about herself; she found her passive-aggressiveness hard to deal with and she was at a loss to know how to stop Levi.
Just as they reached the school, Autumn sat up straight and said, ‘Did you speak to Tilly’s mum about the sleepover?’
‘It’s not until Friday, Autumn.’
Autumn slumped back against the seat. Laura pulled over and Autumn opened the door while the car was still moving.
‘Autumn!’ shouted Laura.
Her daughter grabbed her satchel and jumped out without looking at her.
‘Bye. I love you,’ called Laura, but Autumn had already slammed the door.
She watched her for a moment; her daughter was walking along the pavement as if she were about a hundred instead of nine. Laura doubted that Autumn would be welcome in Tilly’s house, but she hadn’t talked to Rebecca about it. She couldn’t bear the thought of Autumn’s disappointment. This was the first time she’d been invited to have a sleepover at any of the other girl’s houses since she’d joined this new school and she was desperate for Tilly to be her friend.
A car hooted behind her and she held up her hand in apology before easing back into the stream of traffic. She’d have to speak to Rebecca tonight after school and tell her that whatever Rebecca believed she’d done, it was nothing to do with Autumn and her friendship with Tilly.
Her classes started at ten, so there was usually just enough time after parking at the Frenchay campus to grab a coffee. It was disgusting stuff though. She was standing in the corridor, sanitized graffiti on the walls like lobotomized impressions of street-wise students, her rucksack full of text books slung over one shoulder, the coffee burning her fingers through the thin plastic cup, thinking about Autumn wearily trudging the last few metres to school this morning, when Jacob walked in.
‘Hey, how are things? What did you think of Sunday’s class?’ He gave her a wolfish grin.
‘I’m still stiff,’ she said, managing a smile. ‘I could barely walk. Climbing all those stairs in our house is torture.
’
Jacob laughed. ‘Are you going to give it another go?’
‘Sure,’ said Laura. She didn’t know how she’d manage to attend another class without Vanessa or, indeed, anyone else, to look after Autumn, but she was determined to try. ‘I hated it, Jacob, I want you to know that. But I’m going to get fit if it kills me.’
He laughed again and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Well, if you come to another session, I’ll buy you a coffee afterwards.’
‘And chocolate cake. It’ll be the only thing that’ll keep me going,’ she said.
‘You ready to go in?’ he asked, glancing at her full cup of coffee.
‘I don’t know why I bother,’ she said, smiling at him, ‘it’s the worst coffee I’ve ever had.’
Laura always had to leave her classes early to reach school on time and usually she left as late as she possibly could but, today, she left even earlier than normal. When she arrived at Ashley Grove, Rebecca was already there, surrounded by a small knot of women. She steeled herself to speak to her. As she walked over, Rani and Lily hugged Rebecca. Poppy had her arm around Tilly’s shoulder, as if she was comforting her. Amy, holding a baby in her arms and clutching the hand of a small boy, straining away from her like a dog on a short leash, was standing with her daughter, Molly, to one side of the group. She and Molly looked up at her as Laura approached, their small, heart-shaped faces pale. Rebecca swung around, looking furious.
‘I was prepared to put your behaviour to one side for Autumn’s sake, but this is the limit,’ she spat out. ‘Autumn is no longer welcome in my house.’
Laura opened her mouth to speak but Mrs Sibson came bustling out. She was frowning, her expression pained.
‘Could you please come inside for a moment?’ she said to Laura.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Laura, walking past the hostile group of women.
‘I kept Autumn behind so I could talk to her. I’m concerned about her. She copied Tilly’s work today.’
‘What?’ said Laura, raising her voice. ‘That’s ridiculous! Autumn would never do that.’
‘It would be easier if we could discuss this inside,’ said Mrs Sibson, looking annoyed at Laura’s reaction.
Laura felt chastened. She never normally shouted. It was the stress, she thought, as she followed the teacher into the classroom. There were plastic spiders hanging from the ceiling and three pumpkins lined up in the window, tiny candles guttering through the holes cut in their skin, all sharp teeth and ghoulish grins. Autumn was sitting in the far corner, bent over a piece of paper, her hair resting on the desk. When she saw Laura she burst into loud, noisy sobs.
‘I didn’t copy her work. I didn’t do it,’ she wailed.
Laura rushed over to her, tripping over small desks and chairs.
‘I know you wouldn’t do that, love.’ She hugged her and sat down on one of the tiny chairs. ‘What happened?’
‘We all had to write a story about autumn, what happens in autumn and what we like best. We did it on the computer and saved them in a folder. Then today when Mrs Sibson printed them all out…’ She was having trouble speaking through her tears, gulping and choking on snot and saliva. ‘Mine was the same as Tilly’s, but Tilly had written hers earlier – she used the computer before me. So everyone said I’d copied hers.’
She put her head on the desk.
‘What did you say you liked best about autumn?’ asked Laura gently.
Autumn didn’t look up and spoke very quietly through her hair. ‘I said I liked the smell of bonfires and making gingerbread with raisins and dressing up on Halloween with my best friend, Cleo. Tilly said she liked toffee apples and spiky sweet chestnuts and red leaves. They were different, Mum. I don’t like all the same things as Tilly.’
Laura put her hand on Autumn’s. The child withdrew hers. Laura looked up at Mrs Sibson.
‘I think you’ve jumped to conclusions far too rapidly. Isn’t it obvious she didn’t copy Tilly?’
‘Tilly’s story was cut and pasted into the document that was labelled as Autumn’s work. Autumn had changed a couple of things – she’d added that she liked the smell of bonfire smoke and eating gingerbread. All the rest of it was identical to Tilly’s.’
‘Did you copy Tilly’s work?’ Laura asked Autumn.
‘No!’
‘Someone must have done it deliberately to get Autumn into trouble,’ said Laura, standing up and facing Mrs Sibson.
‘No one else has access to this classroom apart from these children and the other teachers,’ said Mrs Sibson.
She looked resigned, as if dealing with Autumn and her mother was one more chore she had to endure before she could leave and go home. Laura suspected that this brave new world of tablets and iPads did not interest Mrs Sibson in the slightest; she was the kind of woman who wanted children to copy lines neatly from the blackboard and paint pictures with poster paints, and she was grimly slogging her way through digitized photos and touchscreen drawings for her final few years until retirement.
‘It was probably Levi.’
Mrs Sibson sighed again, as if her evening with a meal for one and a glass of wine on a tray was now utterly ruined. ‘You seem to have a real problem with Levi. And Aaron. By the way, we received a virus from you. Aaron managed to pick it up and contain it before it did too much damage. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss,’ she went on quickly before Laura could interrupt. ‘I think we should have a proper discussion about Autumn. She’s clearly unhappy and displaying some odd behaviour. I know Dileep, Mr George, is planning on speaking to Social Services about your attitude.’
‘My attitude? Social Services? Are you out of your mind?’
‘Mrs Baron-Cohen, our PE teacher says Autumn’s arm is severely bruised.’
‘And you think I did it? Come on, Autumn. Get your coat. My daughter is not spending another minute here,’ said Laura, sweeping up Autumn’s satchel and grabbing the child’s arm.
Autumn whimpered and flinched.
‘Oh, sorry, love.’ She’d seized her sore one.
‘I think you should know,’ said Mrs Sibson quietly, as Laura reached the classroom door, feeling even more ashamed than before, ‘Aaron changed his mind and he did file a report with the police…’
‘What?’ She spun back towards Mrs Sibson.
‘He told us that today they started interviewing the boys who saw you hit Levi.’
Laura slammed the door behind her, a childish act that made her feel better momentarily and then mortified. The teacher hadn’t spoken to her out of anger or malice; she’d actually been attempting to be sympathetic, Laura realized.
‘Tilly’s not going to let me go round for a sleepover, is she?’ said Autumn as they walked across the deserted playground, their breath freezing in small clouds around them.
Laura inhaled deeply and tried to focus on Autumn’s concerns and ignore her skipping heart-beat and jagged adrenaline surge.
She said carefully, ‘If she didn’t believe you, she’s not worth having as a friend, Autumn. It takes time to build new friendships but, I promise you, by the end of the year, girls will be falling over themselves to invite you to their houses. You’ve still got all your friends from London and you’re making friends here. What about Molly? I bet she didn’t think you’d copied Tilly’s work.’
She looked down at her daughter to see how she was taking the disappointment and her pep talk. Autumn’s face was set in a cold, hurt expression. Laura wanted was to shake Rebecca for breaking her daughter’s heart.
AUTUMN
Her mum became all sparkly like tinsel at that point. She was trying to make it up to her, Autumn could tell. She felt bad about the sleepover but not that bad. If she’d felt that bad she’d have done something about it – gone round to speak to Tilly’s mum, or something. Instead of making everything worse with everything she tried to do.
>
Let’s go and buy a pizza, she said in her new bright and shiny voice, and watch a movie on TV. It’ll be fun!
Autumn could practically see the exclamation marks hovering in the air. Her mum fished the car keys out of her handbag and they drove straight to the supermarket without even going back to the house. Autumn trailed listlessly behind her. She hated being in school uniform out of school. Everyone stared. And it wasn’t proper pizza and not a proper treat if it came out of the freezer from a shop and not from a pizza place. Even if it was a school night. Tilly had pizza at Napolita every Friday with her mum and dad and Poppy. If her Mum hadn’t ruined it, Autumn would have been eating proper pizza in a proper restaurant with her new best friend and all the other most popular girls in her class on Friday too.
Her mum picked up two pizzas, which Autumn supposed was a bit of a treat because normally they only bought one and shared it. Her mum put a chocolate Swiss roll and some mango juice and a bottle of sparkling wine and a bag of cheap sweets in the basket too. Autumn guessed the mango juice was for her but she didn’t even like it. It had been her favourite drink when she was, like, eight, but not now, not now that she was nine. And the sweets were distressingly rubbish if anyone were to come round tonight for Trick or Treat.
After a few minutes, Autumn realized that they were still wandering around the shop instead of going to pay.
‘What about this one?’ her mum said.
‘It’s a mobile,’ said Autumn listlessly.
‘Yes. I think you should have one.’
‘We’re not allowed them in school,’ said Autumn, feeling a little more interested.
She’d asked and asked for a mobile all last year and her mum had said no, she wasn’t old enough. And the one she was holding was pink.
‘I don’t care,’ said her mum. ‘You’re more important than their rules. You can turn it to silent. If there’s a problem, call me.’
Autumn nodded and her mum tossed it into the basket in a kind of carefree manner. They went to the self-service tills and Autumn was looking at the display of chocolates, wishing her mum had bought a Mars bar or a Snickers instead of a horrible Swiss roll, when it happened. The red light started beeping on the top of the flagpole-like thing and her mum looked uncomfortable and Autumn didn’t know where to look. People were staring. A black girl with her hair in millions of plaits and two-inch plastic leopard-print nails sauntered over.
