by Sanjida Kay
‘Like I said on Friday, it was paint. She was extremely frightened, as you can imagine, but she wasn’t hurt,’ her mum answered. Her mum didn’t look at Mrs Sibson. She crouched down in front of her. ‘I will be here to pick you up. Do not leave without me. And ignore anything that Levi says to you. We will get through this together. You are beautiful, just remember that.’
Autumn looked down at her toes as her mum made this little speech. She hoped no one was watching them but she knew they would be. Mrs Sibson put her hand on her shoulder and left it there until they reached the entrance. As they were about to go inside, Autumn turned to look at her mum. She was jogging across the playground and had just reached the gate. Autumn felt bad. Her mum would be late too, and Barney would be cross. She felt guilty that she’d ignored her mum all the way to school. She held up her hand to wave, but her mum didn’t look back.
As they went inside and the smell of the school hit her – bleach and oranges and smelly shoes – she tried to remember what her mum had told her. It was something she’d said last week. When her mum was little, she’d travelled backwards and forwards between Namibia and London so Granny and Grandad could carry on studying in Africa. Each time she started again at school, the girls would tease her.
‘You’re so brown,’ they’d say when I was in London. ‘You look dirty!’ And, ‘You’re so white!’ when I arrived at my Namibian school. It’s just because you’re new, Autumn. They think you’re different. It’ll settle down soon, I promise.
What did Granny say? Autumn had asked.
Her Mum had replied, Granny said I’d just have to ‘get on with it’. Sometimes the girls wouldn’t let me play with them when I first arrived, but they always forgot about it and let me join in again.
She’d been trying to make her feel better, Autumn could tell, but the story had made her mum sad. Her mum was not like Granny. She thought about things and wondered what might happen and worried about all the possible outcomes and then couldn’t decide what to do. Her mum was right about this though. It would settle down.
That afternoon they had Maths. Mrs Sibson clapped her hands together and said they had to put their coats on and line up in pairs, without making a racket. They were going to measure the playground. Autumn stood up slowly, not looking at any of her classmates in case they saw she was frightened of being the only one that no one wanted to partner with. But then Molly touched her elbow and smiled at her and they walked out to the corridor together to fetch their outdoor clothes.
It was cold and their noses ran and their hands went all tingly but it was okay because Autumn liked working with Molly. There was something satisfying about stretching out the yellow tape measure and writing down the numbers and making a little chalk dash on the Tarmac where the tape measure ended and then putting the other end of the tape measure to the chalk sign and starting all over again. When they reached the end of the playground they smiled at one another and rolled up the tape measure and added up the numbers, while around them the other children high-fived and hollered, and Jason ran around the yard twirling his tape measure behind him like a streamer and Mrs Sibson shouted at him.
There were only five minutes to go until afternoon break started so Mrs Sibson collected up their clipboards and tape measures – Neatly rolled up, I said, neatly rolled up – and told them to remain outside. She and Molly sat on one of the logs and banged their hands together to warm them up. As soon as the bell rang for the proper start of break, the children from the older classes poured noisily outside. A couple of the boys made faces at her and taunted her about her teeth, but she ignored them and soon they stopped. She turned to Molly and was going to ask about her little brother Jack’s fifth birthday and what sort of cake they were going to make, when Levi and his posse sauntered over. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe but she said over and over again in her head, I am strong, and her heart stopped thundering. She remembered how Jacob taught her to punch and kick.
Don’t let anyone push you around, kid, he’d said, and he’d held her hand, sheathed in its boxing glove, and made her corkscrew her arm through the air, shooting all the energy out.
Don’t punch the pad. Punch through the pad.
Levi started calling her names. Worse, more hateful than before. Autumn didn’t respond. She tried to talk to Molly but Molly was looking frightened and didn’t answer about the kind of cake they were making for Jack.
‘Maybe a chocolate one? In the shape of a train?’ Autumn said hopefully, thinking that would be what a little boy would like.
Levi imitated her in a stupid, whiney voice. Autumn could feel her cheeks beginning to flush. Levi sniggered. He touched her hot face with the tip of one finger. He made a sizzling sound. Everyone in the playground was laughing at her.
She jumped to her feet.
She heard her mum’s voice in her head, You’ve got to stand up for yourself, love, and Jacob saying, Go for the knee or the groin.
She kicked Levi in the knee as hard as she could.
There was a long moment when time seemed to slow down. She heard Molly gasp and saw her put her hand over her mouth. Levi winced and folded slightly, almost gracefully, at the waist. A couple of the older boys sniggered. Levi stood up straight. His mouth twisted slightly.
‘Hey, she’s not such a wuss after all,’ said one of Levi’s gang.
Could she really have hurt him? Perhaps it would stop now, he’d know she could stand up for herself. A feeling of relief swelled inside her. Jacob would be proud.
Levi squared his shoulders and glanced at the other kids. The laughter stopped immediately. He turned to look at her. He gave her a long, sweet smile.
He leant towards her and said quietly, ‘You’re in trouble now.’
She felt pure terror flood through her body.
All that afternoon she felt anxious, wondering what he’d do, how he’d retaliate. Her insides were like cold, broken-up jelly.
It didn’t happen until home time. Her mum hadn’t arrived and the playground was nearly empty. Barney is being really mean to her, Autumn thought, not letting her leave on time because she was late for work. A crisp packet skittered across the concrete and the day had grown grey. Levi must have been hiding around the back of the porch, waiting. Suddenly he was by her side and she jumped. He grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her behind the school building. It was so quick, she didn’t think anyone else had seen him. For a moment it was just the two of them, standing on an empty strip of playground, the playing field, grassy and muddy behind them, pocked with puddles of ice like cracked glass. Seagulls picked their way through worm castes across the pitches.
Suddenly his face distorted with hate and she shrank back and turned to run, and that was when he pulled out the scissors.
They were large and she could see how sharp they were, the dull sheen of the metal blades in the sunless light.
She screamed and he put his hand over her mouth, pulling her towards him. He bent forward.
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he whispered.
He didn’t touch her with the scissors. He didn’t wave the blades in front of her face. He didn’t have to. He held her plaits in his hands and she could hear the shearing sound. Once. Twice. And then there was a sudden feeling of freedom, the tightness released from the back of her head. An icy chill down the back of her neck where her hair had hung.
He ran then. She looked down at the ground, as if her severed plaits might lie there like limbs that could be sewn back on. But there was nothing, just a couple of strands of hair, spiralling gently towards her feet. Slowly, slowly she reached up and touched her hair with her fingertips.
It was worse than she thought.
LAURA
That evening she phoned Jacob. She was shaking with cold. The pavement was coated with black ice and her breath was a frozen fog in front of her face. A loud bang made her jump. Over the top of the park a cloud of pink
sparks blossomed and died. Bonfire night. She’d forgotten.
‘Please, Jacob. It has to stop.’
She pressed her mobile to her face, her hand numb. She saw her child’s white face, the tears she’d dashed away with her fists. And her hair. There was no way Autumn would go to gymnastics tonight looking like that. Autumn had refused to tell her who had done it, although it was obvious. It had to be Levi. She’d spent twenty minutes phoning hairdressers to find one that could fit Autumn in after school – but the earliest appointment was not until Wednesday. She felt at a loss to know what to do, how to begin to rebuild her daughter’s shattered confidence.
‘If you just talked to him. He won’t listen to me. I don’t know. Maybe…’
Laura was standing outside the house so that Autumn wouldn’t hear her. Another rocket gave an eerie whistle and exploded.
‘I’ll meet you after school,’ Jacob said finally. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll see you then.’
She tried to ignore the horrid feeling she’d had during the phone call. She hadn’t rung Jacob on Sunday to check that he was okay and she could tell by his tone of voice that he hadn’t been happy to hear from her. It might be the garden – the loss of their one decent job. Or it might be that he felt ashamed. He’d told her that he wasn’t the man he thought he was. He’d cried in front of her. Jacob didn’t seem like a man who could accept feeling weak.
She realized that she was clinging to Jacob, that she’d become too close to him too quickly. The old Laura, the one with her best friend by her side, the network of mums she’d known since Autumn was born, her mismatched assortment of allotment-buddies and fellow students, would never have latched on to someone like Jacob and decided to go into business together on the strength of lunch on an away-day and an assortment of chats in coffee-breaks about planting annuals.
She shut her eyes. She couldn’t think about it now. She had to make sure nothing else happened to Autumn. She turned to run back inside the house to the warmth, to Autumn, when she slipped on an ungritted patch of black ice. She had a single moment of clarity as she was falling, the mobile shooting out of her hands, seeing the night sky, lit up by a white comet.
How stupid.
Now, more than ever, she had to concentrate. She had to look after herself for Autumn’s sake.
She landed with a jolt and felt her spine jar. A shooting pain ran through her wrist. For a few seconds she was stunned. She was aware of tiny details: her phone lying a couple of metres away in the middle of the street, the muffled sound of traffic from the main road, fireworks exploding above the small park, a pine cone digging sharply into the back of her knee. She stood up slowly and rubbed her back and her wrist, sliding slightly as she did so. She walked gingerly across the road and picked up her phone.
Thank God, it’s still working.
She limped the last few metres back to the house, fumbling for her key, the heel of one hand bruised and tender, indented with marks where gravel had dug into her skin.
Tuesday 6 November
AUTUMN
When she looked in the bathroom mirror, her stomach hurt. Someone she did not recognize was staring back at her. Her skin was pale and puffy from crying the night before and her raggedy hair, without the weight of its length, didn’t know what to do with itself. She wet her mum’s brush and tried to slick it down. Last night her mum had trimmed her hair. Autumn had cried silently the entire time. She knew her mum was doing her best, but Autumn couldn’t help feeling that she was making it even worse. Eventually her mum had put the scissors down and blown her nose.
Autumn felt her breath, rapid and shallow, like the time she had a chest infection, as she walked into school. A few children looked at her and then glanced away. But when she went inside, several of her classmates giggled and pointed at her hair.
Olive said, ‘It’s a really shit haircut, Autumn.’
Jason jeered and said, ‘Did you do it yourself? What did you use, Autumn? The garden shears?’ and Tilly wrinkled her nose and said, ‘You look like a boy,’ which seemed like the worst insult of all.
Mrs Sibson clapped her hands together to get them to all keep quiet, but she didn’t tell Tilly or Jason off for being mean or Olive for swearing. Maybe she hadn’t heard them? Mrs Sibson gave her a strange look and then said that in Modern Foreign Languages today they were going to examine how stories are told around the world, and then they were going to draw a picture inspired by the story – either the one she told them or a story of their own choosing.
‘Gather around, children,’ she said, and they sat in a circle on the carpet in the corner of the room where the reading books were. ‘Once upon a time there was a little girl…’
Autumn glanced at the other children. Had Mrs Sibson forgotten how old they were? They all knew the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. It was for young ones, like Jack, Molly’s brother. She rubbed the back of her neck. It felt naked and cold and her back was light without the heaviness of her hair.
‘All the better to eat you with!’ said Mrs Sibson, and most of the children, even Tilly, laughed. Autumn tried to smile.
Mrs Sibson explained that it was a very old European fairy tale. It may originally have come from France but it was told in lots of different countries. It was first written down by a man called Charles Perrault and it was called Le Petit Chaperon Rouge. His ending was different, she said. In his version, the wolf gobbles up Little Red Riding Hood. Mr Perrault said that the moral of the story was that little girls should not listen to strangers.
‘But the hunter comes and saves her,’ said Olive.
Mrs Sibson nodded. ‘The story was told another way,’ she said. Two German brothers, called Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, rewrote it and in their version, called Rotkäppchen, the wolf eats the girl but then a hunter with a sharp axe comes along and he slices open the wolf and pulls out Little Red Riding Hood.
‘And she’s still alive?’ asked Jason.
‘Yes, he saves her and the wicked wolf dies,’ said Mrs Sibson.
‘What about the grandmother?’ asked Autumn and her classmates turned and looked at her and she could see their eyes straying over her hair. Tilly smirked. She blushed and wished she hadn’t spoken.
‘In both of those original versions of the story, the grandmother doesn’t hide in the cupboard, like she does in ours. The wolf eats her too,’ said Mrs Sibson. ‘In the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, when the hunter opens the wolf up, the grandmother, as well as the little girl, is alive and well.’
Mrs Sibson smiled at her but Autumn thought there was nothing very much to smile about. Really it was a nasty little tale about a girl who has to walk through a dark forest on her own because she wants to be nice to her sick granny and take her some cake.
Autumn imagined the girl, with long dark hair in plaits and a red cape, running through the wood and stopping because she hears something: soft paws crushing damp moss, an animal breathing. She runs on. She’s frightened. She knows what will happen is inevitable. All the while the wolf is keeping pace with her, watching her, its pink tongue lolling over its sharp, white teeth. Waiting for its chance.
No one believes wolves are like snakes, swallowing their prey whole, like it showed you on Deadly 60. From somewhere, a phrase drifted into her mind: Torn limb from limb. She decided she was not going to draw a picture inspired by Little Red Riding Hood.
LAURA
She made sure she was wearing an extra layer of warm clothes and she arrived early to wait for Levi, Autumn and Jacob.
Predictably, Barney had been annoyed. He’d looked pointedly at his watch as she started to pack up her tools at five to three.
‘Leaving us already?’ he’d said in a voice filled with bluster.
‘I’m really sorry, Barney, I’ll make it up to you, I promise,’ she said and smiled at him.
It had been a difficult day.
They’d been laying tiles for a garden path. Normally it was the kind of repetitive, methodical work that Laura liked but it was bitterly cold and hard to keep the tiles level and even while wearing thick gloves. Ted cut the tiles with an axel-grinder; the noise gave her a headache and she could feel his resentment. He’d objected to Barney hiring her from the beginning because she wasn’t a bloke and therefore wouldn’t be any good at lifting or using power tools.
She knows her plants, Barney had said at the time. But in winter there was little planting to do and Ted was right. She wasn’t fit enough or strong enough for this job and the cold ate into her bones. She hoped he wasn’t going to let her go.
She looked up to see that Jacob had arrived early too. She wasn’t sure whether he was a disciplined person or whether he clung to discipline as a way of surviving as a civilian after his years in the army. She was at once relieved to see Jacob and then shocked.
Jacob had parked his black Land Rover a short way down the street. He jumped out and started walking towards the school, looking around for her. In those few moments before he’d spotted her, she saw him, not as she thought of him – a warm, caring friend with a particular fondness for roses – but as others might see him. Either because he’d just led another fitness class or because he thought it would help, he was still wearing his army gear: combat jacket and trousers, black calf-high boots. His jacket was open, affording a glimpse of a flat, toned stomach, covered by his cotton top. His head was shaved and, as he walked, he practically bounded. His casual glance, searching for her, gave him the impression of a man checking the lie of the land, seeking out his enemies. In spite of his slightness, his small stature, he looked hard, predatory, every inch a soldier. She hesitated and then waved.
Jacob smiled and held up his arm. He darted across the road towards her. She was never sure how to greet him. A double kiss seemed wrong, somehow, with Jacob. Besides, she’d always hated it, going for the wrong side first, bumping noses, spending too much time in another person’s space. But equally, one kiss seemed too intimate and they were too close for a handshake. As usual they nodded and smiled awkwardly at one another.
