CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I know I’m supposed to want to hug Leah when she walks back in with Mum. But she’s pale and sick and they both smell alien, of hospitals and bleach and smooth metal bed frames and plastic pipes and fear. Leah’s got bruised dark shadows under her eyes and her hair is dull and lifeless, tied back with an unfamiliar purple hair band. She looks at me and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. The expression on her face is strange and it scares me.
‘Grace –’ Mum begins, but I step backwards and pick up Withnail as a shield, holding her in my arms. She squirms, but I don’t let her go, rubbing under her ears until she stops protesting and starts purring even though she doesn’t want to.
‘Morning,’ says Leah.
Lisa is standing in the hall and she’s picked up the duster again and is twisting it in her hands, watching. I think she looks like she wants to leave. I think that I’d quite like to leave too. I wonder if I could just walk away from everyone and everything and start again as a new person.
It’s as if we’re hanging in the air now, like the dust motes. We’re suspended here in this strange, static atmosphere for a moment that seems to last for ages, and then –
‘I could kill for a coffee,’ says Mum. And Lisa steps forward and hugs her, and Leah looks at me over her shoulder and half shrugs and I smile at her and let Withnail drop to the ground. She lands on featherlight feet and dances away to the top of the stairs where she sits licking her front paws and watching.
‘Leah, in you come to the kitchen,’ says Lisa, and I step back out of the way and watch them all go through. And again I feel as if I’m not part of this picture and I don’t know how I’m supposed to behave. So I sit down on the stairs and I try not to think. And thoughts sneak into my head. I see Mabel lying on the beach and I feel a raw ache of guilt and panic, and I make that thought go away by opening my eyes and focusing really hard on the pattern on the carpet until my eyes go funny.
And then I close them again and see everyone in the distance waving their arms and shouting as I’m running. I remember how I turned back just once, and their arms were flailing in the air and the shouts were whipped away from their mouths so all I could see was angry faces, Anna’s angry face, and I knew then that I had to get away.
And I open my eyes again because I don’t want to see that in my head, either. And then I close them again and I see Leah, ghostly white, lying still on the carpet. And I don’t know how to make any of it disappear, and it frightens me.
Eventually Lisa leaves. She smiles at me sitting folded up on the stairs and tells me to get some rest and not to worry about anything, which I think means that it doesn’t matter that I’ve lost my best friend and I have to go back to school on Monday and there will be nobody there who’ll speak to me. I nod at her but don’t speak. I think I’ve run out of words.
‘I’m putting you in the shower, honey,’ says Mum to Leah, and as she passes me on the stairs she drops a hand on my head for a moment and looks at me and her face looks – quizzical, I think. ‘You all right there, darling?’
And I give a tiny little upward nod because I can’t make words come out. It’s like they’ve got stuck.
I don’t speak all afternoon, and nobody notices. Mum comes through and says that Polly has told her she’s looking after Mabel and she’s fine and I nod again.
And I want her to ask me what’s wrong. And I half want her to hold me in a cuddle and squeeze me tightly and tell me she loves me and that everything’s going to be OK, but she’s busy looking after Leah and I think she hasn’t really noticed that I’m not OK. Or maybe she doesn’t really care. But she doesn’t seem to realize that my words have got stuck like paper gets jammed in a printer and I can’t make a noise. I’ve shut down.
I sit on the stairs for so long that my legs go numb and ache. And I need to go to the loo, but I let the pain of that sit inside me too until I’m so desperate that my bladder feels as if it might burst. But I feel like I deserve that – to be uncomfortable and sore feels right. I sort of want to stop being. I go to my room once I’ve been to the bathroom and I sit down on the floor with my back to the wall, crunched up really tiny in the corner. My hands are freezing.
Sometimes I hear Mum taking Leah upstairs and the sound of her throwing up in the toilet. And then flushing and muttered words and kind noises, and then silence again.
I don’t know how long I sit in my corner.
‘Grace, dinner,’ Mum shouts.
I’m not hungry, I think. I can’t open my mouth to say it because it’s as if my lips have been stapled shut. I tip forward on to my hands and knees, and straighten up to standing. All my bones and muscles feel hard and unyielding. This is how Mabel feels, stiff-legged in her paddock.
I get halfway down the stairs and sit down.
‘Come on, darling.’ Mum comes into the hall. She sounds more like her usual self, by which I mean she’s nagging. ‘What have you been up to all afternoon? I bet you’ve been glued to that phone. Honestly, I tell you, things are going to change around here.’
I get up and walk into the kitchen.
Leah’s quiet too, but she wants to know how Mabel is. And Mum tells her how she ran away and how amazing Polly is being and how brave Mabel was for the vet and that she’s got stitches in her leg and I just sit there listening.
‘My God,’ says Leah, looking at me as if she hadn’t spent the night in hospital. ‘Are you OK?’
And Mum looks across at me as if she’s waiting for me to finish the story. She puts down her glass and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. I push my chair away from the table because I can’t sit through any more of this.
So Mum continues.
‘When Anna rang me to tell me what had happened, I jumped in the car – thank God Eve and I hadn’t actually made it into the cinema or I’d have had no reception.’
I sit back down on my chair, heavily.
‘Where’s Eve now?’ Leah flicks me a conspiratorial look, and it’s the first spark of her old self I’ve seen. She’s been quiet and withdrawn until now – not just because she feels like shit (I assume she’s got the mother of all hangovers) but also because at some point, when Mum finishes being lovely about this, she’s going to be grounded from here to kingdom come.
Mum gives us an odd look. ‘Oh, we had a bit of a –’
Leah leans forward slightly. ‘A – what?’
‘It was nothing,’ says Mum. ‘Bit of a difference of opinion, that’s all.’
My jaw unclenches slightly and I move it from side to side. It starts to ache.
Mum picks up her glass and spins it between her fingers. Normally she’d have red wine, but I notice that it’s sparkling water. I guess after the whole hospital thing she doesn’t want us getting any ideas. After listening to Leah throwing up all afternoon, I don’t think she has anything to worry about.
‘So what happened?’ Leah shoves her food around her plate a bit. She hasn’t eaten anything yet, I notice. Nor have I, because my mouth is still superglued shut. Mum’s done her usual stress thing and catered for a family of ten. There are dishes of vegetables and rice lined up right down the middle of the table.
‘Oh.’ Mum’s mouth twists sideways. ‘When I got the call from Anna, Eve told me to leave it. Said you’d be fine and you were old enough to sort yourselves out.’
‘Huh.’ Leah looks at me.
I don’t say anything.
Mum and Leah chat about Eve and they don’t seem to notice I’m not talking. I get up and clear the table after a while, and as I’m heading out of the door Mum says –
‘You look exhausted, sweetheart. I’ll be up in a moment. Want me to run you a nice bath?’
I shake my head.
When she comes into my room, I’m sitting perched on the end of the bed. I feel as if I’ve got a sour-tasting wave of tears and shouting threatening to break at any moment, but it’s like the switch has been turned off and I can’t find it. I’m rubbing my finger along the lines that pattern the woollen throw that lies over the end of the bed.
‘Grace,’ Mum begins. She puts an arm over my shoulders and it lies there, warm and heavy. ‘I want you to know that I’m not angry. Do you think I’m angry?’
I shake my head.
‘Have you spoken to Anna?’
I shake my head again.
‘She’ll be worrying about you, I’m sure.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say, and my voice sounds creaky and rusty, like it’s been left out in the rain.
‘Oh, honey,’ Mum says. ‘Have you had a falling out?’
I look down at the bedspread and run three fingers side by side along the indentations, watching them rise and fall as they follow the bulk of the crumpled duvet that lies underneath.
I don’t say anything.
‘We’ve all been a bit –’ Mum bites at her thumbnail for a moment, looking at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s been a bit all over the place this time, hasn’t it?’
I look at her.
Yes.
‘I’ve spoken to Grandma today about what’s going on. And I think – she thought – we –’ She pauses, as if she’s nervous to say whatever it is, and she straightens out the pillowcase at the other end of my bed before she carries on talking, pulling out a crushed T-shirt that’s been missing for ages from down the side of the bed.
‘We thought as you’ve had a bit of a time of it, and Polly’s happy to look after Mabel, maybe you could go down to Grandma’s for a few days. Just get a change of scene.’
She doesn’t know what to do with me. I’m not surprised, really, because I don’t know what to do with me.
‘I mean of course if you don’t want to that’s OK and I know you’ll miss the first week back to school but we can tell them you’re off sick and –’ She’s talking faster and faster, so I can’t find a gap to respond.
‘Fine,’ says my rusty voice.
Before I go, I sneak into Leah’s room when she’s in the shower. Mum’s cleaned it up so it’s all spotless and new bedcovers and even by Leah’s (much tidier than mine) standards it looks perfect. I leave her my favourite bath bomb that I’ve been saving for a two-hour bath-and-book session, and the two pony books that Grandma gave me from Aunty Lou’s room – the ones I guard with my life and won’t normally let her touch. And I fasten my TARDIS key ring to her keys and write a note on a yellow sticky Post-it that says, ‘Try not to have any disasters while I’m gone,’ and a smiley face.
And that’s how I end up alone on the train to Euston. I’m packaged up like a parcel, with a bag full of food and two new books I’ve wanted for ages (that’s when I know Mum’s feeling guilty, because normally I beg and beg for her to spend money on them and she tells me to go to the library and put a reservation in, complaining that my reading habit costs her a fortune and moaning on about how important it is to use your library). I’m at the window in a double seat with my bag next to me so nobody will sit there, and at the other end – ‘As soon as you open the door, darling, I’ll be there’ – Grandma will be waiting.
I could spend forever on trains. I watch the backs of houses in the rain, the gardens stuffed with trampolines and discarded ride-on cars, the neatly cut lawns and scruffy-looking yards full of scrap metal. We slow through towns where identical houses line up neatly back to back, reaching off in pairs into the distance. Through hills and trees and the flat nothingness of the middle of the country and then the never-ending squat grey warehouse buildings that seem to surround every city. I’m lulled to a half-sleeping state by the sound of the train on the tracks and the hum of people talking, but not to me.
I don’t even read my books. I just stare and stare. When Mum discovered I’d lost my phone – I didn’t tell her what had really happened, because I suspect that if she knew I’d deliberately drowned the expensive phone I’d begged for just a few months ago she’d have gone mad – she insisted on giving me the ancient Nokia brick we call the punishment phone. Normally it’s only handed out when our phones have been confiscated for bad behaviour, and being forced back to a unresponsive grey-black screen is torture. Now, because I don’t want to know what anyone is saying to me or about me, it’s heaven. Because I know that what’s happened will be everywhere and when school goes back tomorrow there’ll be a sea of whispers, and eyes rolling over the crowds searching for me, waiting to land on my face so they can turn to each other.
Did you hear what Grace did? Can’t believe she’d run off like that and leave her horse. Horse? I can’t believe she left Gabe’s cousin lying there. Gabe Kowalski? Can’t believe she was hanging around with him, anyway.
‘It’ll have all blown over by the time you get home,’ Grandma says sagely when she collects me at Euston. I follow her like an obedient puppy as we make our way through the people and the smells and the banging bells and noises and the clatter of announcements and down through the silver metal-smelling escalator and on to the tube to change stations.
I sleep through the next train journey that takes us down to the seaside where Grandma’s house sits, set back from the road, looking over the pebbles of the beach. It feels so far away from home. The sky is different here, the light brighter somehow. I stand at the window of the sitting room and look out to sea, imagining if I stare hard enough I might catch a glimpse of France in the distance. And I wonder if I could just wade into the sea and swim there, and start walking, and keep walking, and just disappear.