Follow Me Down (3 page)

She frowned. ‘The French?’

‘You said your parents met in Paris.’

‘Oh, yeah. No. They met in Paris, but they’re both English. My mother’s a Lister.’

As with her house, she assumed that I knew that too, but I had no idea who the Listers were. Very important, I guessed, so I just smiled sweetly as she told me about her mother who was an only child and, like most of the girls at Crofton, was raised by a nanny. I had a similar upbringing. That surprises some people, they seem to think all Africans are desperately poor. Someone at my last school once asked me if I lived in a house in Nigeria. I guess she thought I lived in a mud hut. I don’t. I live in a house. A very nice house, in fact.

I felt a sudden ache as I thought about home, about my big white house and the garden, with its hot, bright flowers and the curved palm leaves that cast shadows on the lawn like black eyelashes in the afternoon sun. I could never run away like Scarlett’s mother did; I’d miss my parents too much. Miss how my mother still likes to plait my hair before I go to bed and how my father eats breakfast in a suit while frowning at his copy of
The Vanguard
. But I suppose I can understand why her mother did it, why she felt like she had to run away. I’m an only child, too. I understand the burden of knowing that my family’s name ends with me. But that’s a good thing, too, I think. When I marry, I can shuffle it off. Make a new name for myself. I guess that’s what her mother was trying to do.

The story is hopelessly romantic, and, to be frank, a little cliché, but it is what it is: her mother packed a bag, left a note for her parents, and fled in the middle of the night to Paris. Scarlett spoke of it with such joy: of how her parents met in a café and fell in love; of the top-floor apartment they shared in the twentieth arrondissement and their second-hand brass bed that they dragged into the living room so that they could wake to a view of the rooftops and the Eiffel Tower in the distance. And it was a charming story, one Scarlett was clearly proud of, even though I’m not sure that what her mother did was remarkable enough to warrant being spoken of with such reverence. When I thought about it, it was actually pretty selfish; she was in Paris for a year before she told her family where she was. But I couldn’t say that, could I? So I nodded and smiled in all the right places and waited for her to finish.

‘So what are your co-curriculars?’ she asked without stopping for breath.

‘Running, tennis and lacrosse. And I’m thinking, maybe, swimming as well.’

‘Oh God, I couldn’t.’ Her eyes widened as she reached for a grape. ‘I hate swimming pools. I can’t go near them. My sister, Olivia, swims, though.’

‘Does she go to Crofton?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What year is she in?’

‘Ours,’ she said with a shrug, offering me the last cherry tomato, then putting the lid back on the Tupperware tub. ‘We’re twins. She’s doing A-levels, though.’

I grinned. ‘You’re a twin? I’ve never met a twin before.’

‘I was born first,’ she said with a grand wave of her hand that told me she was done talking about it, then pulled a magazine out of her bag and started flicking through it. ‘So what other co-curriculars are you interested in?’

‘I want to go for the
Disraeli
. I used to write for my school newspaper in New York, but I hear it’s super hard to get on to.’

‘I know the editor, Hannah. I’ll introduce you.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course,’ she said, ripping a page out of the magazine, then pulling a pen out of her bag and scribbling something on it.

I didn’t know what to say so I just smiled clumsily and said, ‘Thank you.’

‘Plus Mr Lucas is going to be overseeing it this year and he’s a family friend.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. My parents rent out rooms in our house to artists, and—’ She stopped folding the page and looked up. ‘I almost told you his name then!’ she said with a smile, savouring the secret as though it was a truffle. ‘
Mr Lucas
is a poet. He stayed with us a couple of years ago, after he graduated from Oxford and again when he got the job at Crofton, while his cottage was being decorated. I’ve never had so many girls drop by unannounced to see how I was.’

She winked then held up her hand, a folded paper boat cupped in her palm.

‘That’s so cute!’

‘It’s a ship. I used to make them with my dad when I was little. His were much better, though. He’d find a toothpick and stick a sail on it with my name on. The
HMS
Scarlett
.’ She smiled to herself and touched the top of it with her finger.

‘Why ships?’

She shrugged. ‘No idea, but it was our game. We have a globe in our nursery and he’d tell me to find a country. I’d look for somewhere really random like Kazakhstan and we’d go down to the library and find out as much as we could about it, then we’d make a paper ship, walk down the garden to the bridge over the canal and set sail to it.’

‘That’s lovely.’

‘Now I write secrets on them, send them off to Kazakhstan.’ She smiled at me, then handed me the paper ship. ‘So that’s your thing, huh?’ she asked when I took it, then started gathering the empty Tupperware tubs. ‘You want to be a journalist?’

I nodded, putting the paper ship in the pocket of my blazer. ‘Wannabe Gwen Ifill.’

‘I have no idea who that is,’ she admitted with a chuckle. ‘But I can tell you who’ll also be going for the
Disraeli
–’ She paused for effect – ‘Dominic Sim.’

‘Let him.’

‘Oh really?’ she said, shoving the last Tupperware tub into her bag.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, watching as she stood up and shook the grass off her blazer. ‘He just helped me find Mr Lucas’s classroom this morning.’

‘Dominic Sim doesn’t
just do
anything.’

‘You think he likes me?’ I stood up and shook my blazer too.

‘Just hold on to your knickers around him, Adamma, that’s all I’m saying.’

I laughed. ‘Thanks for the tip, but he isn’t my type.’

‘Dominic’s
everyone’s
type. Didn’t you hear why he got kicked out of Eton?’

When I shook my head, she smirked. ‘He got a teacher pregnant.’

THE DAY AFTER

MAY

The first time she ran away she was six. She announced it over breakfast, apparently, and I can just see her, a spoon in her hand, little chin raised, telling her parents that she was going to live in Darkest Peru. She even packed a suitcase, a tiny brown leather thing that belonged to the Paddington Bear that stood next to the bookcase in her nursery. She packed the essentials – her toothbrush, her bridesmaid’s dress and her grandmother’s pearls – then added the round of marmalade sandwiches her father had made her and put on her coat.

Her parents were amused by the whole thing, she says, and even took a photograph (I’ve seen it, Scarlett in her yellow wellington boots, pouting and clutching the tiny suitcase, the lace from her bridesmaid’s dress trapped in the clasp) as they stood by the back door waving her off. Edith and Olivia did too, but as she walked down the stone steps towards the lawn, Olivia began to cry. Her father told her that Scarlett would get scared and turn back, but she didn’t, she just stomped and stomped, and when she’d almost reached the end of the lawn (quite a feat for a six year old given it was almost half a mile long), her father ran after her. He grabbed her just as she reached the bridge that arced over the canal and she wriggled in his arms all the way back to the house.

It’s in her DNA, apparently, that restlessness, that need to run. She inherited it from her mother, she says. That’s why no one was surprised when we found out that she’d run away this morning; she bounces off every wall she touches, like a butterfly trying to find an open window. She’s done it so many times – when she went to Glastonbury with Dominic the summer before we met, last October when she went to New York to audition for
Hamlet
and didn’t tell anyone because she didn’t want to jinx it – that it’s just become her ‘thing’. Some people play the ukulele, some collect stamps, Scarlett Chiltern runs away. So before Ballard had even finished telling us in assembly, Sam had started a book on when she’d be back. Most people went for twenty-four hours, Molly put £50 on thirty-six because she was sure she was in New York again. When Dominic found out, he told Sam to stop being a dick.

It didn’t take long before the theories began to circulate. I was only in the dining hall a few minutes before I heard three: she was in Vegas with a guy she’d met on the Internet, she was doing a campaign with Stella McCartney and she’d got a part in a film with James McAvoy. It’s a shame she missed it, she would have loved it.

When I spoke to him earlier, he told me to sign in for lunch then meet him in the prop room. We haven’t done that in months, not since we first got together and the thought of waiting until 3 o’clock was unbearable. It feels like it’s always me calling – breathless and a little desperate – asking to see him, so I was so excited that I didn’t even bother to pretend to queue in the dining hall. I just signed in, then slipped out again. But of all the people to catch me, of course it was Molly.

‘Off to meet Dominic?’ she said with a satisfied smile.

‘Jesus. Will you let it go? I’m not seeing Dominic,’ I said over my shoulder, turned and ran towards the theatre, my bag knocking against my hip.

By the time I got to it, my heart was pounding. My fingers trembled as I reached for the handle on the door. It’s been five months but I feel that every time and I love it, love how every bit of me shudders at the thought of seeing him again. I held my breath as I ran through the warren of corridors behind the stage, past the dressing rooms and abandoned ladders, checking over my shoulder every other step until I got to the prop room. I sucked in a breath and blew it out again, hoping it would satisfy my throbbing lungs as I stepped into the dim light. But as I walked past the metal shelves of wine bottles and candlesticks, and the rails and rails of costumes, to the back – where the painted wooden cut-outs of ships and cars stood propped against the wall – I couldn’t catch my breath.

I went to the corner, to the red-velvet couch we’d claimed as our own, to find it cloaked in a paint-splattered dust cloth. I was tugging it off when he jumped out from behind a painted crocodile, clearly thrilled as I screamed. I slapped his arm, but he was unrepentant, grabbing my waist and pulling me to him.

‘I’ve missed you, Miss Okomma.’ He breathed, nose in my hair, mouth on the shell of my ear and, I don’t know how, but I knew he was smiling.

‘I haven’t missed you,’ I lied, slapping him again.

He laughed and I could feel his whole body humming as he pulled me closer and it was like when we first got together and he couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop looking at me, touching me, his finger turning in my hair then tracing the curve of my bottom lip then playing with a loose button on my blazer.

‘Are you OK?’ I breathed.

He looked at me, then pressed a kiss to my mouth. ‘I am now.’

When he held me again, I felt him shaking. He was nervous, I realised – jittery – like when I’m swimming a medley relay and I’m on the starting blocks waiting my turn. I stood back, sweeping his dark hair out of his eyes with my hand.

‘Hey, you.’

‘Hey.’ He smiled, but he wasn’t looking at me. His finger and thumb pinched my chin as though he was trying to memorise the shape of my mouth.

‘Look at me.’ When he did, I tilted my head. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I just needed to see you.’

‘I saw you yesterday.’

He pinched my chin. ‘You know I love you, right?’

‘Of course.’ I moved my hand and let his hair fall back over his eyes.

‘Don’t say of course.’ He frowned and took my face in his hands, the pads of his fingers pressing into my cheeks. ‘Say you know, Adamma, because I wouldn’t be doing all of this, all of this sneaking around and lying, if I wasn’t in love with you.’

‘I know.’

He kissed me again, then pressed his cheek to mine. When I’d caught my breath, I put my hand in his hair again and started playing with it.

‘This Scarlett thing hasn’t got you spooked, has it?’

‘Of course not. I just hate this.’ He took a step back and looked at me. ‘I saw you with Molly. I hate that I can’t
just be with you
, that you can’t even sneak out of the dining hall without someone seeing you.’

‘I know.’ I closed the gap between us, pressing my palms to his chest. ‘But it’s May, this year is almost over and then we have one more before we can move to Cambridge and be together.’ He shook his head, but I reached for his lapels and tugged. ‘My parents will be pissed as hell, but I’ll be eighteen.’

‘A year.’

‘I know.’ Panic plucked at me as he took another step back and rubbed his forehead with his hand. ‘But it’ll fly by. The last five months have felt like nothing.’

He reached for me again, one hand on my cheek. ‘Not nothing.’

I immediately felt better, pressing my cheek into the curve of his palm with a smile. ‘So stop fretting.’ But when he didn’t smile back, I knew it was more than that and I tugged on his lapel again. ‘What? Talk to me.’

He sighed and stepped back. ‘Why did you go to her party?’

‘I told you—’

‘You pissed her off,’ he interrupted, hands on his hips.

‘How do you know?’

Before he could tell me, my cellphone rang. I took it out of the pocket of my blazer to reject the call, but when I saw that it was Mrs Delaney, I muttered, ‘Damn.’

‘Hello, Mrs Delaney.’

He sighed and shook his head again and when he walked over to the painted crocodile he’d just jumped out from behind, I knew what he was thinking, that there was always an interruption, always
something
.

‘Where are you, Miss Okomma?’

If it was anyone else, I would have lied and said I was in the dining hall, but it was Mrs Delaney. ‘By the canal. I wasn’t feeling well so I thought I’d get some fresh air.’

‘Well, that’s hardly surprising. It is Tex Mex Day in the dining hall,’ she said with the sort of contempt usually reserved for paedophiles. ‘But you must remember to sign out, Miss Okomma.’

‘Sorry, Mrs Delaney.’

‘I need you to go to the car park,’ she said, pausing to tell someone to do up his tie. ‘It seems that someone tried to break into your car last night.’

‘
My
car? Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure, Miss Okomma. Security have arranged for it to be towed—’

‘Towed?’ I interrupted with a gasp.

‘I don’t know the extent, but there seems to be some damage. Security need you to sign the relevant paperwork.’

‘Yes, Mrs Delaney,’ I muttered with a sullen sigh.

When I ended the call, he asked me what was wrong and, even though he was sympathetic enough, I knew he was still pissed about Scarlett’s party.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll call you later,’ I promised, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth, before hurrying out of the prop room.

I was about to cross the Green when Olivia started walking towards me and my heart sank. I haven’t spoken to her since, I don’t remember the last time I spoke to her, but it was probably about Scarlett so I knew she didn’t want to chat about the weather.

‘I can’t stop.’ I put my head down. ‘Someone tried to break into my car last night and the Mercedes garage are coming to tow it.’ She followed and the shock of it almost made me break into a trot. ‘I have to go, Olivia. If I don’t give them the keys now I’ll be late for my one-to-one with Madame Girard.’

She’s as stubborn as her sister and caught up with me. ‘Didn’t you write a piece for the
Disraeli
about how Crofton is the safest boarding school in England?’

She wasn’t giving me a reason to slow down, but she kept pace as I crossed the Green and I realised that she wasn’t going to leave me alone so I slowed down. ‘Irony wins again,’ I muttered, reaching into my bag and pulling out my sunglasses.

Given all the drama, the weather should have been grim, but today was perfect, the sky clear and the sun gilding all of Crofton’s edges. I hadn’t expected it to be so warm; last week everyone was wearing scarves and gloves. But that’s England; one day I’m wearing a sweater, the next I’m in sandals.

I think that’s what I love most about the English: as soon as there’s a hint of sun, everyone goes outside. The Green was cluttered with girls sitting on their blazers watching the boys play an impromptu game of rugby. As Olivia and I walked past, heads popped up from each huddle, eyes wide, like meerkats, and I knew what they were thinking: Why was I talking to Olivia Chiltern? I’d wondered the same thing as I weaved between the clumps of girls, stepping over piles of bags and discarded sweaters. I heard a roar and turned to look as a boy skidded across the grass, hugging the ball.

‘What are you working on now?’ Olivia asked, as we took the short cut to the car park through the trees.

I was startled by her attempt at polite conversation and answered robotically. ‘A profile on Mr Lucas,’ I told her, ducking under a particularly low branch.

‘A profile on a teacher? Wow.’ She shook her head and whistled. ‘That’s front page news, Adamma. That’ll get you that Pulitzer.’

I shot a look at her, but when I saw her red eyes and unwashed hair, I softened. I wanted to ask if she was OK, but she wouldn’t look at me. Her gaze was on the rows of cars below us at the bottom of the hill, their roofs glistening in the sun, and it was kind of beautiful; if you squinted hard enough it looked like the ocean.

‘It’s the
Disraeli
, Liv,’ I said, then caught myself; Liv sounded too much like we were friends. ‘It’s for the parents and governors. They only care about exam results and if we beat Cheltenham in the hockey.’

‘And teachers.’

‘He sold a collection of poems to Faber,’ I told her with a sigh. She knew that – everyone did, it was announced in the
Disraeli
last month – so I don’t know why she was giving me a hard time. ‘Ballard’s asked him to revive the
Crofton Review
.’

‘Because a lit mag is so much more important than my missing sister.’

So that’s why she was so upset.

‘Of course it isn’t, but parents don’t want to read about pupils running away.’

‘Scarlett didn’t run away.’

I was about to walk down the hill towards the car park when I realised that she’d stopped and walked back over to her. When she crossed her arms and glared at me, I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to lie and say I was sorry, that I was worried too, and it was suddenly so quiet that I could hear the trees trembling in the wind.

The sun was so bright, even though I had sunglasses on, that I had to shield my eyes with my hand to see her. I’m rarely warm enough to sweat in England – usually I’m the one in a coat while everyone else is in shorts – but my shirt was sticking to my back under my cardigan. I wondered if she’d noticed, if she’d seen the skin around my hairline glisten and asked herself if I was nervous, if I knew something that I wasn’t telling her. After all, I’d noticed how pale she looked, how she was holding on to the strap of her satchel with both hands.

Olivia has never been more than Scarlett’s sister to me, but I suddenly felt protective of her. She isn’t like her sisters. She isn’t as restless, as reckless. She doesn’t have Scarlett’s swagger or their older sister Edith’s charm. She’s named after her grandmother – a formidable woman who, when introduced to Winston Churchill at the age of seven, told him that she didn’t like him much – which isn’t as cool as Edith who’s named after Edith Piaf or Scarlett who’s named after
that
Scarlett and is just as stubborn as Miss O’Hara. So Olivia always describes herself as the boring one, even though she isn’t. She may be quieter than her sisters, more careful, but she’s the bravest one. She must be to come to me asking for help. Not that I was in any mood to give it to her.

‘She’s fine,’ I told her with a sour sigh. ‘It’s Scarlett. She’ll be back in a couple of days with another tattoo and an epic story about how she got it.’

‘She didn’t run away, Adamma.’

I shook my head as I remembered last October, the rolling boil of panic from the moment Olivia called to ask if I’d seen Scarlett until I tracked her down to the Bowrey Hotel and she answered with a bored
Hello?