Just Not Mine (17 page)

“How do you
know what kind of girl I am?” At least she wasn’t looking heartbroken anymore.

He smiled again. “Let’s say I have a pretty fair idea. And I can’t wait t
o find out more. But not today.”

Hugh opened his eyes on another summer morning, but it hadn’t been a dream waking him this time, or any sound
, either. He frowned at the quality of the light coming around the edges of the blinds, turned his head to squint at his alarm clock. Then hauled himself up on an elbow, grabbed the clock and stared at it, and swore.

Forty-five minutes late, because he’d been up late the night before, after the kids had gone to bed, watching the All Blacks’
game against the French for a second time, and then hadn’t been able to sleep afterwards. Keyed up by the victory, and wishing he’d been there. He’d been lucky in the past with the injuries, partly genetics, partly because he trained so hard, and had never missed an entire series like this, and he was hating it. Especially since Luke Hoeata
had
had one hell of a game, had impressed in the 7 jersey, had taken full advantage of the opportunity afforded by Hugh’s absence.

In
the reasonable light of morning, though, there was nothing new about players competing for their spots, or about the tenuousness of life at the top of the rugby heap, and his unease of the night was overblown and served no useful purpose. Better to spend the energy training. But for all that, he hadn’t slept, and then he’d overslept, and why hadn’t Amelia woken him up? She’d never been shy about that before.

He walked into the kitchen, and she wasn’t there. Just Charlie, eating cereal in his pajamas, and well behind schedule.

“Morning,” Hugh said. “Sorry. I overslept. You’ve got to leave for school in …” He looked at the clock. “Fifteen minutes, so rattle your dags. Amelia already done?”

“Nah,” Charlie said, shoveling cereal into his mouth, speaking around it. “She’s in bed. She didn’t come out to eat breakfast.”

“She ill?” Hugh asked with a little alarm. He was doing better at the general feeding and watering, but that would seriously stretch his capabilities.

“She said.”

“Well, get dressed,” Hugh decided, “and I’ll find out.”

Her bedroom door was shut. He gave it a rap with his knuckles. “Amelia? You in there?”

“Go away.” She didn’t sound ill. She sounded unhappy, or worse. What?

He rapped again, then tried the door. Locked. He rattled the handle. “Amelia. Open the door.”

“Go
away,”
she insisted, and he thought she might be crying. “Leave me
alone.”

What was he meant to do now? “You need to let me in,” he said. “If you’re ill, I need to see.” Not that he wanted to.
But it didn’t matter anyway, because no matter what he said, the door remained locked.

He went and found the
key, which took some searching. Charlie stood in the hall, still in his pajamas, and said worriedly, “I knocked, but she wouldn’t come.”

Hugh looked at him in exasperation. “Why didn’t you come get me? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Charlie shrugged, looked away. “You were asleep.”

“That’s the point. If something’s wrong, you come get me, you don’t just ignore it!”

“I didn’t …” Charlie said. “You were sleeping,” he repeated. “You’d get angry.”

“I don’t—
” Hugh stopped. “Go get your uni on,” he said instead. “Get ready for school.”

“I’m late, though
,” Charlie said.

Hugh ran a hand through his hai
r. “All right. Well, that’s too bad. You’re late. You still need to go.”

“I need a note.”

“A note? What note?”

“
For school. Saying I’m late.”

“Won’t they see that by themselves?”

“You have to have a note. So you’re excused. Otherwise you’re in trouble.”

“Just—
” Hugh looked at Amelia’s door, back at Charlie. Amelia didn’t seem to be in dire distress, and her voice had been strong enough, so whatever was wrong, it could wait five minutes, he decided. “Go get dressed,” he told Charlie. “I’m going to the kitchen right now to write you a note.”

“And I don’t have my lunch,” Charlie said.

“Well,
get
your lunch,” Hugh said with exasperation. “Now. Go.”

It took another fifteen minutes,
in the end, and Charlie was standing at the front door, note in hand, trepidation clear.

“They’re not going to imprison you,” Hugh said.

“We have a maths test, though,” Charlie said. “And I’ll have missed it. Mrs. Anderson will be angry.”

“Nah, she won’t. Because I wrote ‘family emergency,’” Hugh told him,
taking the note from him and shoving it into the outer pocket of Charlie’s backpack.

“It isn’t an emergency, though,” Charlie said. “It’s because you were asleep.”

“Close enough.” Hugh opened the door. “Go.”

Except that it was raining. Actually, pissing down. Brilliant. He grabbed Charlie’s mac off the hook and helped him off with his backpack and into the raincoat, then got the pack on him again. “OK. Now go.”

“What about Amelia?”

“I’ll look after Amelia.”

“If she’s ill,” Charlie said, still standing on the porch, “you have to take her to the doctor. I mean, if she’s really ill. Or you have to buy her ginger beer, if it’s a tummy bug.”

“I’ll
figure it out,” Hugh said. “Go take your maths test. I’ve got it.”

He didn’t knock this time because, truth to tell, he was getting worried himself. He turned the key in the lock and pushed the bedroom door open again. “Amelia? Mel?”

He hadn’t called her that since she’d been little, but the figure huddled on her side under the duvet,
her back towards him, did look little, and he remembered, all of a sudden, how she’d used to march into his room in the mornings on his rare visits amongst the obligations of rugby and university—not to mention his lack of enthusiasm for being a fifth wheel in the happy family that wasn’t quite his.

Amelia at three, four, five
years old, an imperious little figure with a sturdy body that was all their dad, nothing of her petite, graceful French mother. Her dark hair mussed, still in her pajamas, she’d climb up to sit cross-legged on his bed, poke him until he woke up, and tell him her dreams. Long, elaborate tales of ponies and kittens and princesses and magic that he’d barely been able to follow, but had listened to all the same, more or less, because her adoration had been flattering. She’d clamored for rides on his shoulders, for him to read her bedtime stories, had come to him at night and demanded cuddles when he’d be watching sport on the telly with his dad, having a rare father/son moment.

Charlie had been shyer when he’d come along, a mummy’s boy, and Hugh hadn’t been around
enough anyway by that point for the attachment to form. But Amelia had worshiped Hugh from the start. When had that changed? When had he lost that, and why hadn’t he tried harder to get it back, especially once she’d lost her parents?

Because he hadn’t been here
, that was why. And by the time he was, she’d been walled off behind her almost-adolescent superiority, and, who knew, probably by her own ways of coping as well, and he … well, he’d been intimidated at the prospect of breaking through all of that. He’d told himself he wasn’t necessary anyway. He was doing his part. He was paying, and he was around—some of the time, anyway—and Amelia and Charlie had Aunt Cora for the rest.

But
right now, they didn’t. Right now, Amelia had him, and that was it, so he was going to have to do his best to make that be enough.

He
went and sat on the side of her bed, just as she’d done all those years ago, and put a tentative hand on her shoulder.

And felt her shrug it off again
immediately, roll over further, and pull her legs up into a tighter ball. She spoke, her voice muffled by the pillow, or by tears, or both. “Go away.”

“Are you ill?” he asked again. He put his
hand back all the same. “Mel. Look at me.” He kept the note of command in his voice, but tried to soften it a bit. “I need to know. I can help.”

“No you can’t,” she said, and she wasn’t looking, either.
So much for the note of command.

“Is it something at school?” he pressed, because she didn’t seem ill to him. “Or something about your mum and dad, maybe? Or
…” He hesitated. “A boy?”

“No.
You’re so
stupid.”

That set him back a little. He thought a moment, then tried again.
“Maybe I am,” he said, “because I don’t know what’s wrong. But I know that whatever it is, you can tell me. I was a kid too, not that long ago. I know about bullies. I know about exams and feeling like you don’t fit in. I know about feeling awkward and about friends who don’t want to be your friend anymore. I know how much it all feels like it matters. Try me. Please.”

“You can’t know about this,” she said, “because you’re not a girl. Aunt
ie Cora would know, but she isn’t
here.
I tried to ring, and she didn’t answer. And Mummy’s dead. So there’s nobody.”

“Aunt
ie Cora could be there now,” he said. “We could try again, if you like.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “We could do it now.”

“I rang Holly and June too,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. He could hear her voice breaking
, and she sounded so forlorn. So lost. “I thought maybe June’s mum would help, but she said she had to work, and maybe after school. But after school’s too
late
. And she said June had to go to school, and I should go too, but I
can’t.
I don’t have the stuff. I don’t even know what to get. So there’s nobody who can help.”

He was startin
g to get the glimmer of an idea, because she was twelve. And he was an idiot, not to have thought about this happening. “Is it …” He hesitated. “Is this a girl thing? Is it your period? Did you start it?”

She pulled the duvet all the way over her head, and he thought he’d guessed right.

“Because that’s not a disaster,” he said, trying his best to sound cheerful and persuasive. “That’s normal. All girls have that, don’t you know? Didn’t you have some class, and all? Didn’t they explain?”

“I can’t t
alk to you about it,” she said, her voice anguished under the covers. “Go
away.”

“Why?
” he pressed. “Because it’s embarrassing? I know it is. Bodies are embarrassing. Mine was, too, when I was twelve. In a different way, but still, and I didn’t have a dad to ask, so I do know what it’s like. And I’ve known heaps of girls, Mel. They all have periods. Boys your age may laugh about it, but that’s just because they’re embarrassed too. So get up, and we’ll get you sorted so you can go to school, and afterwards, you can ring Auntie Cora, or you can talk to June’s mum, and they’ll answer your questions. It’s going to be fine.”

She
rolled over at last to face him, only her blotchy face visible, flushed and angry, her hair tangled, one sweaty strand stuck to her cheek, because it was too warm and humid to be under that duvet. “You don’t,” she said. “You don’t know. Because …” She’d begun to cry, an angry sound. “There’s blood
everywhere
, and I don’t know how to get it out, and I don’t have any of the stuff, like I said. I need …” Her color was even higher. “I need the
stuff,”
she said again, and it was a wail.

“
We could go get it,” he suggested. Oh, geez. Crying. He wasn’t good with crying. “We’ll go to New World right now, and we’ll deal with the blood, too.” What did you buy? All those shelves of mysterious boxes—he had no clue. He’d always just gone for the condom packet and got out of there, away from the rows of tampons and pads. Light Days. Heavy Days. Wings. What the hell were wings, and would she need them or not? The women he’d known had all used tampons. Would Amelia know how to use a tampon, though? He abandoned that entire idea pretty smartly. June’s mum would have to sort that out. He’d study the boxes, read labels, ask somebody, and find something, something that wasn’t tampons, for now. He hoped.

“You can come with me,” he said
again. “Change your clothes, if there’s blood, put some … I dunno, some TP or something in there, and we’ll go find the right thing.”