‘It does,’ Ashira says. ‘It does have to be me.’
‘What does?’ As I speak, Leo sits up, rubbing his eyes.
‘I have to be the one to get him. I want to be the one to make him feel trapped and scared with no control over his life, unable to see a way out. I want vengeance. And what I’ve got planned means we can’t fail. But I need you two on board to make it work. If you’re not OK with it, if you can’t keep what we know to yourselves – no matter what – for a few days then it won’t work. But if you trust me, and let me do my thing, as soon as I find out who he is we can make this bastard pay. And pay hard. But to do that, you can’t tell Rose anything.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Leo shakes his head. ‘We can’t use Rose as bait.’
‘We aren’t doing that, we are making sure this bastard doesn’t close any loopholes I might be able to get through. If we spook him, that’s what he’ll do, or he’ll run and pop up again with a different username and then how many other girls will there be? It’s really important he doesn’t know that we nearly have him.’ Ashira closes her laptop, to show how serious she is. ‘I get that you want to talk, I want to. I want to go to Jackie and Dad, and tell them. But we can’t, not yet. We can’t run the risk of him finding something out about us, before we have everything on him.’
‘But couldn’t we just tell Rose and explain why she can’t tell anyone?’
‘No.’ Ash narrows her eyes at me. ‘Look, when you think you are in love with someone, someone who’s told you to keep your relationship a secret because the outside world wouldn’t approve, then you expect to be told something bad about them, you expect people to try and split you up. If it was you and Rose, and someone said you can’t see Rose, what would you do?’
‘But I hate lying to her,’ I say. ‘Because eventually she’ll know that we lied to her, and what then? And what if we had a chance to save her from something really awful, and it’s too late?’
‘She’s not even really talking to you now, so maybe you won’t notice the difference.’
‘She’s talking to me.’ Leo picks up his phone, and shows us another message from Rose. ‘What do I say to her?’
‘Tell her almost everything about yesterday. Just not about me being there, and not about what I found out, OK?’
Leo nods and unlocks his phone, I see how his mouth curls into a smile when he sees her messages, and I flop back down onto the bed.
Nothing feels normal.
Nothing feels safe.
Everything feels kind of awkward, a puzzle that’s been put back together wrong.
I don’t know why I am surprised.
This is my life after all.
Rose, Leo
Rose
Where you at, fam?
Leo
It all went down last night, with Aaron. Red got me out. Close thing, but I’m OK and I think maybe Aaron’s gone
Rose
Fuck. You all right?
Leo
Dunno yet, really. It got pretty heavy. Where you been?
Rose
Stuff, you know
Leo
Rose . . . I care about you, you know
Rose
I care about you too
Leo
I’ll see you at rehearsal
Rose
In a while crocodile. Got to go, am getting breakfast in bed!
34
School is always weird when it’s out of hours and there’s no one around, and on a Sunday it’s especially strange, like it’s watchful and awake, waiting for the life and energy that will come surging through its doors again tomorrow morning.
Even so it’s may be the only time that I really like being here, when I feel like I’m not supposed to be.
I like how the corridors are dark and empty, the classrooms quiet and full of shadows. It’s when no one is here that you hear the secret sounds you never notice when it’s full of other people’s lives. The creak and squeak of your shoes on the floor, the echo that bounces off the walls when you shut a door behind you, the whisper of the ancient heating system, or at least that’s what I think it is.
There’s something about this place when it’s empty. It stops being a place of work where dull-as-fuck hours of your life slip away, and starts to be a movie set.
But not today. I’ve got no idea how I am going to get through the next two hours.
I take a breath outside the double doors that lead into the school hall and remember what Ashira said.
‘If you agree to the plan, you have to stick to it. You have to act normal around Rose, OK? No matter what. It will be hard, but it will be worth it.’
Hard doesn’t touch it.
Rose is there already, standing on the stage by the mic stand, walking through each track while Smith and the kids from drama club go through the lighting plan. They’re up in the gallery, the sort of balcony that runs along the back of the hall where the school’s sound, vision and lighting mixing desk is situated. I walk down the centre aisle, flanked on either side by the chairs that have been set up in readiness for the concert. I’m about halfway when the lights drop. Rose sees me and her smile falters and fades, she hooks the mic back in the stand, and walks off stage.
‘Red, come up here a sec.’
I look up at Mr Smith and he waves at me, I wave back, turning on my heel to go up to see him. It crosses my mind that I could tell him everything, that maybe if I told him, he’d take all this worry off our shoulders and everything would be sorted. All I want is for someone else to be in charge of this, because I don’t want to be any more. I want to go home and go to bed and stay there until all of this has gone away.
‘Come and have a look at the stage from up here, it looks great,’ Mr Smith says, his face beaming, as I arrive in the gallery. He’s right. He’s managed to sweet talk a professional audio-visual hire place into lending us loads of equipment and it looks amazing. The lighting rig looks properly pro, and there is a screen almost as wide as the stage, right behind where my drums are set up, and small screens up and down the auditorium. The plan is for a multi-platform event, with videos and photos of Naomi growing up that her dad has carefully put on a USB stick for us. Her words, song lyrics, all of that combined together with our music. It was meant to be the perfect way to make sure no one forgot the missing girl. But now instead I suppose it will be a kind of a prayer, a wish that the girl we love will open her eyes.
‘This is great,’ I say to Smith. ‘I’ve had my head so stuck in the band that this part kind of passed me by, but it’s really good. Thanks, sir.’
Mr Smith grins. ‘As much as I’d like to take the credit, it’s Emily and her team who have done most of the magic.’
Emily, the same Emily that didn’t make the band, grins at me proudly. I know that I look like an idiot the moment I realise she is there, sitting behind the light mixing desk. The sight of her takes me by surprise.
‘You’re in charge of all of this?’
‘Don’t sound so amazed.’ She smiles at me.
‘No . . . I didn’t mean . . . I just thought it was the drama club.’
‘I am the drama club, well a bit of it anyway. I asked Mr Smith if I could help with this to go on my CV, and because I just wanted to . . . ’
‘Amazing.’ I turn back to the stage, wondering if Emily was maybe even flirting with me a bit. ‘And you’ll be able to see the performance on the screens all around the hall?’
‘Yeah, more than that,’ Emily says. ‘We’ll be cutting between you, live on stage, and the videos and photos of Naomi. It’s going to be a total blubfest . . . oh fuck, sorry. I mean it’s going to be really moving. How is she, by the way?’
‘No news yet, and this – it’s great,’ I reassure her. ‘Really great. So how do you know it’s not all going to go wrong on the night?’
‘Well, no one but me will be here between now and tomorrow. I’ll run a rehearsal tonight alongside you, and then just cue it up to start over again.’
> ‘Can I get a picture of you?’ I ask, and Emily beams. ‘For our Tumblr?’
‘Sure.’
‘Move to the side so I get all your tech in,’ I say, and she does, though she leans forward a little in the frame and smiles right into my eyes as I focus my phone camera.
‘I hate to interrupt, but Leo and Leckraj are on stage now.’ Mr Smith makes me jump, I’d actually forgotten he was there for a moment. ‘Better get down there for a sound check?’
‘Sure, see you, Emily.’
‘See you, Red!’ She calls after me as I trot down the stairs and realise that Mr Smith is right behind me.
‘Red?’
‘Sir?’ I stop and turn on the bend of the stairs.
‘I couldn’t help but notice your face, I hope it wasn’t a student that did that to you, because of that video Rose put online?’
‘Oh no,’ I touch my finger to my cheek. ‘No, that was . . . well it was my little sister. Jumped into my arms, knocked me off balance and I fell against the corner of our coffee table. It could have been worse.’
I’ve no idea where the story comes from, it’s just there, and I tell it with ease, because even after everything she’s done, I still want to protect my mum, our home, my sister from the prying eyes of outsiders, even Mr Smith.
‘If you say so.’ He smiles, but his eyes don’t stray from my bruises and I know he’s deciding whether or not to believe me. ‘What’s the situation with Naomi? Any updates?’
‘They are waking her up tomorrow,’ I say, feeling a flash of anxiety when I think about the uncertain outcome. ‘Or they hope to, anyway. It’s her birthday so . . . well, I just hope she’s OK. It would be great to know she was awake when we were onstage, you know? It would really mean something.’
‘Yes, of course. I think I’ll pop and see her tonight, check in with her folks and update them on tomorrow.’ He walks down one step towards me. ‘I just wanted to check before we go out there, how you are holding up? I mean I know you and Rose were very close, it must have been hard for you when you fell out like that. If you need someone to talk to, or confide in, then you can always come to me, right?’
‘Thanks, sir,’ I say. Just for a second it almost all comes out, and then I think of Ash, and that look in her eye, and her quiet determination and I know that I have to trust her. No, that’s not right, I don’t have to. I want to. ‘Everything’s cool.’
‘No problem, Red.’ He smiles at me. ‘Anytime.’
A few seconds later and I am climbing up onto the stage, taking my place behind the drums.
‘OK?’
I nod at Leo. ‘Yeah, I just need to get going,’ I say.
I nod at Leckraj, who plays a riff for me to join in with for a few bars while I loosen up. Rose stands by the mic, right in front of me, her head bowed as she reads over the set list, her foot tapping to my bass drum. And seeing that is just enough to lift me, as I find my way into the music, syncing my body to the beat.
There will be several long dull minutes of sound checking ahead, adjusting levels, working out the mix in the PA and my in-ear monitors, but as I sit there going through the motions I feel excited to get started on the full set. I can’t wait actually, because right now all I want to do is beat the shit out of these drums until one of us bleeds.
‘Dude, you were on fire,’ Leo says to me moments after the last number, and I love the way his eyes are alight and his smile is so wide, and that just for a moment everything that happened is erased by everything that used to be. Rose skips up next to him grinning, hooking her arm around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek.
‘Wow, that was great, we sounded great, right?’ She looks at me, for a second her face open and full of joy before she remembers she doesn’t know how to feel about me any more, and she looks away. ‘And you were great too, Leckraj. Really on-point.’
Leckraj, who is already on his knees, quietly packing away his stuff, smiles.
‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘My dad’s picking me up, so I’m just going to wait out the front. See you tomorrow.’
The three of us watch him go and then burst into laughter.
‘That guy is ice,’ Rose giggles. ‘Nothing phases him.’
‘He’s on it, for sure.’ Leo smiles at me. ‘This was good, guys, it was really good to play with my two best mates tonight, to play the whole set without one fuck-up or bum note. It was good. And I know shit went down between you two, that was weird, but . . . well we’re us, right? We’re stronger than that.’
Rose smiles.
‘This was great, really good,’ she says, half smiling. ‘But I better go, I got a thing so . . . ’
‘Oh, I thought we could hang out, get a pizza before I have to trek halfway across London to my aunty’s to check up on Mum.’
‘Can’t, thing,’ she says, shrugging.
‘What sort of thing?’ I ask before I can remind myself that I am exactly the wrong person saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. Her tentative smile vanishes.
‘Really none of your business. See you tomorrow.’
‘Wait!’ Leo calls after her. I look away but I can just about hear what they are saying.
‘Rose, look, you don’t need to tell me who you are seeing, but I need to say something to you.’
‘What?’ Rose sighs.
‘You’re the most amazing girl I ever met,’ Leo says. ‘I never have the guts to say it, but now I’m watching you slip away from me, and I got to tell you, in case I don’t get another chance. You are more than just a mate to me, if you change your mind about this guy, you just got to know that. You got to know I’d treat you right. I’d care for you.’
Careful not to get caught watching, I see Rose’s eyes hold Leo’s for a long time and her hand reach up to his cheek. I see her stand on her tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek and then she is gone, waving a hand as she disappears through the doors.
‘Why now?’ I ask him. ‘Why tell her all that now?’
I expected jealousy and pain, but that’s not how I felt when I was listening to him open up to her, it was . . . admiration. That took guts.
‘Because it’s true,’ Leo admitted. ‘Because if making a fool of myself means there is even just the smallest chance that she might think twice about whoever this creep is, then it’s worth it. I mean, if she knocks me back, my life is basically over. But if it keeps her safe for five more minutes, then who cares?’
35
The unexpected smell of cooking when I walk in through the front door stops me in my tracks, I lean into it, and it takes me back to being a kid. There’s something about the night getting darker, the yellow of electric lights behind closed curtains and the smell of our family’s traditional Sunday evening roast that makes me feel not quite sad, not quite happy, but lost for a moment in remembering what family life used to be like. When it was always like this smell, familiar and warm.
‘You’re home!’ Dad opens the kitchen door and I see he’s set the table, four places, salt and pepper in the middle along with a massive bottle of ketchup because there is no food that Gracie will eat without it. ‘Thought I’d do dinner for when you got in, as we didn’t really see you yesterday.’
‘Great,’ I say, hanging my jacket on the end of the banister. Of course, I’m not great; I’m thinking how tired I am, and how my face still hurts and how very much I want to talk to Ash to see what she has found out – if anything – and check in with Leo to see if Aaron really has stayed away, and that this family dinner will be hell with roast potatoes.
‘Red!’ Gracie comes thundering down the stairs and leaps into my arms with such force that I stagger back.
‘Kiddo!’ I kiss her faintly sweet-tasting cheek. ‘Had a nice day, I see. Enjoyed some candyfloss?’ Gracie’s mouth makes an astonished ‘O’.
‘Yeah, how did you know? We went to the zoo!’ She looks as surprised as I am by the news. I look at Dad who shrugs slightly. You have to say this one thing about my parents, nobody goes from
family apocalypse to pretending everything’s just peachy quite as easily as them.
‘Go wake your mum up from her nap, Gracie,’ he says, and my little sister runs up the stairs with just as much enthusiasm as she walked down them.
‘Trips to the zoo, Dad?’ I follow him into the kitchen, as he begins to carve up a chicken.
‘Look, I’m just trying to get some normality back, for Gracie. For your mum, for everyone. That’s why I made dinner, it’s nice, right? Like old times.’
‘But it isn’t old times, is it?’ I’d barely thought of the bruise and cut on my cheek for hours, but now it suddenly throbs as I remember how it got there. ‘Pretending everything is happy families isn’t going to make Mum stop hating me, or stop drinking. Or fix the fact that you have a girlfriend, is it?’
‘I know that.’ Dad turns suddenly, lowering his voice. ‘But we’ve got to start somewhere. Give me a chance, love. I’m trying.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Can I help?’
‘Pour some glasses of water for us?’
As I take four glasses out of the cupboard Mum comes in, led by Gracie.
‘Red’s here!’ Gracie says, when Mum doesn’t look at me. She sits down at the table, and so does Gracie, patting the chair next to her for me.
‘How was your dress rehearsal?’ Mum asks. Still her eyes don’t meet mine, but at least her voice isn’t hard or cold. All I want is for everything to be OK between us, to be like it used to be when she was my mum and I was her little girl. I don’t want to have to find it in myself to forgive her, or for her to need to forgive me for being who I am. I just want us to be us, so hard it hurts, much more than my face.
‘Good,’ I say. ‘Really good.’
‘I asked your mum if we had tickets, and she said no, so I said we’d get some on the door, hey, Gracie? We’ve got to see Red strut her stuff, right?’ Standing next to the oven, Dad stretches out the oven glove taut and does some mortifying air guitar.
‘You’re coming?’ I didn’t realise how much it had hurt me to assume that they weren’t until that moment.
Mirror, Mirror Page 24
