Tell Tale (29 page)

I almost got used to Betsy going missing. She was six. She chatted away, mostly about nonsense. She lived in a different world to the rest of us – a make-believe paradise that she’d been born into long before she came to Roecliffe.

She didn’t go to school. They enrolled her and she lasted two days. I was at secondary school by this time so, even though I walked her down to the village on my way to the bus, even though I kissed her goodbye at the school gate, even though I put an extra sweet in her pocket for break time, she still peed herself, still rocked in her chair, still pulled out her hair and bit the other kids.

Betsy, they said, was anti-social. She was marched back from school and got a beating by one of the nameless male carers. I found her, curled up on her bed, looking like a bruised apple – little rosy cheeks with soft smudges of battered flesh beneath. Her legs were spotted blue and looked like the skin of a dead fish. When I bathed her, I asked her why she wet herself.

Betsy shrugged, her bony shoulders bumping her ears. ‘Because I can,’ she said. I knew exactly what she meant.

After her bath, we went for a walk. It was warm. I wanted it to be just us, to pick daisies and chain them together. Something normal.

‘My mum died,’ I told her. There were cows in the field opposite the paddock that we meandered through. When she was with me, Betsy was just like any other kid. Quiet, but she behaved well and affectionately. I needed her as much as she needed me – the contact of someone who knew. ‘It was ages ago though. I don’t really remember her.’

Betsy ran up to the post and rail fence that separated us from a hundred beasts. She mooed and spiked her fingers out from her forehead, pretending to butt the fence. We were the same. Parentless, lost, waiting for childhood to pass. Banging our heads relentlessly against nothing. The only difference was that I
knew
this now. I’d lost the benefit of childish ignorance.

‘She got cancer,’ I said. Betsy found a long stick and poked it through the fence. She pushed it into a cow pat; squealed when all the flies buzzed off and swarmed around us. ‘I’ve not seen my dad for ages. He got married to Patricia. Did you know that, Betsy?’ She wasn’t listening, but it was good to talk all the same. ‘But then they split up.’ I’d always wondered why Patricia didn’t talk about her marriage to my dad. I think she was embarrassed that she was my stepmother, that she’d got a kid of her own who was free, living a normal life. Such a waste of family, I thought, when here’s me with none.

It was on the walk back that we found James hanging
from a tree in the orchard, his neck all purple from the rope, his head bursting with blood.

Betsy spotted him. She stared ahead, her lips stiff and thin, her eyes big as the cows’. We shook at the sight of James’s elongated body slowly turning beneath the biggest branch of the apple tree. His feet weren’t far off the ground. The sun shone through the leaves, making his face blotchy. I screamed and dropped the daisies.

‘No, no, oh no!’

Betsy’s eyes transformed from disbelieving moons into slivers of wonderment as she stared at the body. It was as though she’d spied a fairy up in that tree, that James was beautiful now, untouchable, and came from the same place as her.

We stood for a while, each of us just a tiny bit envious that he’d gone, that he’d escaped his demons. He’d suffered from terrible nightmares, but now, at sixteen, he was old enough to realise it wasn’t dreams he’d been having all these years.

When we were brave enough to draw closer – our feet dragged on by curiosity – we could make out the deep groove carved into his neck by the rope. It was a twine necklace, layers of thin parcel string plaited together to make a long thick strap. We couldn’t take our eyes off him.

‘He planned this,’ I said. I reached out and touched his shoe. The black leather shone in the sun. He was wearing grey socks and navy shorts. His shins were mottled with bruises like Betsy’s. I stared up at his face. It looked nothing like James. James was pale and shy and quiet as a mouse.
Everyone thought he was about eleven even though he was nearly a man. His voice was as high as a girl’s, and his top lip smooth. James barely had the muscle to haul himself up the tree, but ultimately he proved he had guts.

‘Goodbye, James,’ I said.

‘Bye, James,’ Betsy mimicked. She threw the stick at him, but missed. ‘What’s James doing?’ she asked.

‘He’s dead,’ I told her.

‘Like your mum?’

‘Yes.’

We stared at James for a while. A fly landed on his knee and I brushed it off. Red spit oozed from the corner of his mouth, and he wouldn’t stop staring at a cluster of apples growing level with his face.

‘Come on,’ I said to Betsy. ‘Let’s go back.’ I didn’t tell anyone what we’d seen. After all these years, James deserved some peace.

‘Will we get dead?’ Betsy asked. She picked up a handful of gravel from the drive.

‘Maybe one day,’ I said, wondering why I’d not thought of it before.

In return for his help on the computer, I reluctantly agree to go with Adam to interview a woman from the village. I silence the inner voice that tells me not to be reckless. Adam wants to find out more about his sister, and if I’m honest, so do I. Besides, I like him and I want to help him.

He hunches over his laptop, finally resorting to thumping it when it locks up for the third time. ‘I need a new one,’ he mutters. Then he grins and stares at me, as if he finds my presence amusing. I’m perched awkwardly on the edge of his bed while he sits at the desk. There are books and papers piled everywhere. Even in the dim light, I can see the skin of dust on everything.

‘Fourth time lucky.’ He stands, walks across the room with its sloping floor and knotty beams, and shocks me by clamping his hands on my shoulders. ‘I’ll drag you into the twenty-first century if it kills me.’ He recoils when he realises what he’s done.

‘I’m not from another planet,’ I say. ‘I have used the internet before.’ I grin. He’s just trying to help. He’s becoming my friend and, even though I’m quite unprepared to cope with the feelings that brings, I like it.

‘Finally,’ he says, sliding his finger over the touch pad to bring up the internet. He beckons me over.

‘You sit here.’ He directs me to his chair. ‘This, Miss Gerrard, is called the internet. It’s an amazing other-worldly place where you can connect with people from China, from Australia, even, I imagine, from space.’ He pours the tea, carrying on as if I’m a complete technophobe. ‘We do make tea in banana land,’ he says when I stare at the pot rather than the screen. ‘Now, let’s get you registered on the school
intranet
.’

Adam leans across me with one hand resting on the back of the chair. ‘Then you can read all your missed emails. A bulletin goes out every day with school news.’ He smells of sandalwood, of the forest, of fresh rain. I don’t want to notice these things. ‘Only staff and pupils can log on to the intranet. And staff get a higher grade internet access. So if you want to catch up with friends on Facebook or have an eBay addiction, there’s no problem. No barred websites. School policy keeps the girls on educational sites only.’

‘Sorry?’ Suddenly I’m listening. Having the internet explained to me is not something I either need or asked for. ‘No barred websites?’

‘Not for staff.’ Adam towers above me. He’s wearing jeans rather than his usual dark grey work trousers. Instead of a smart shirt, he’s put on a faded T-shirt with the name of a rock band I don’t recognise splashed across the front. His chin is grazed with a day’s worth of stubble, darker than his hair. Above all, Adam looks tired, weary, fed up. Of what? I wonder.

I watch and listen as he registers my school email address and shows me how it all works, how to log on, how to get on to the internet with unlimited access. ‘Easy, see?’ he says. I ask to do it myself, repeat what he’s shown me. For a second, our hands fumble over the keys.

‘You can use my laptop any time. The staff terminals aren’t always free.’

‘Thanks,’ I reply, wondering if I should take a peek now, just to see if it really works. Hacking through the firewall with Jenny and Fliss, having them peer over my shoulder, wondering why a grown woman is hanging out with teenagers, was never going to work. ‘Could I use it now?’ I ask, hoping my shaky voice doesn’t betray the enormity of what I’m about to do.

‘Of course,’ Adam replies and opens up a new window. ‘It’s all yours.’

The whole world is suddenly at my fingertips. Another life is only a couple of clicks away. Adam sits on the bed with his mug of tea. He flicks through a couple of books, but soon he is lolling back on his elbows. I hear him put down his tea; hear him sigh, plump his pillow, ease himself further on to the creaky mattress.

I swallow. I glance back at Adam. He’s reading a book, not watching what I’m doing. From Google, I head to the Afterlife log in page. I stop, as if I’ve reached a locked door, as if I wasn’t invited to the party.

New – Demo – Register – Login – Contact – Privacy

‘Adam,’ I say. I find myself wanting a virtual squeeze of his hand before I step inside; to know that there’s another
person nearby – especially one that has such a curious interest in Roecliffe. ‘Have you ever done something so irreparable, so damaging and life-changing, something you can never undo or take back – not without hurting those you love most in the world – that you can hardly stand to wake up each morning?’ My shoulders drop. ‘That you wish you’d died instead?’

I hold my breath, waiting for his reply. When it doesn’t come, I turn to find him asleep, snoring gently, the book spread open on his chest, his lips puffing apart every few seconds.

The sigh bursts from my lungs.

It takes ten minutes to create a basic account. It’s free unless I want to upgrade to an account with extra benefits, or buy more than the standard-issue belongings for my virtual apartment. I choose a name for myself, enter some personal details – all made up, of course – and finally confirm my identity through a school registered email address.

I feel like a different person as I create a little icon to represent me in this strange new world. I choose a body type, hair colour, facial features – having already confirmed myself as female and fifteen years old. Suddenly, my icon changes to a pretty teen with scarlet hair and painted nails. Once clothes are added – jeans, T-shirt, sandals – I know I will fit right in, look like any other fifteen-year-old girl wasting away her time by chatting, flirting, gossiping, redeeming.

Chimera_girl28
is born.

‘OK,’ I whisper, careful not to wake Adam with my clumsy keystrokes or laboured breathing as Afterlife creates my new living environment. I find myself in a room that’s simply furnished. Several icons and banners flash at me from the top and bottom of the screen. There’s an advertisement suggesting I upgrade for only £2.99 a month.

After a while spent clicking various links, experimenting, I find myself in a public area. Then I discover how to search for a specific character. I repeat what Jenny did the other day, and up comes the list of all the members called Josephine Kennedy. I click on the correct one, the one from Portishead, and notice that she has changed her character’s look. The little cartoon picture looks sad, unkempt, as if its owner doesn’t care any more. As if Josephine Kennedy has given up.

‘Send a hug?’ or ‘Say hi?’ it asks me. Other alternatives include blocking this person from my friends’ list, adding them as a friend, rating this friend, or inviting this friend to an event. I’m baffled but focused. I don’t want to just say hi to Josephine Kennedy, I want to crush her in my arms. I don’t want to block her out because, I think, tears fuzzing the screen, I’ve already done that.

‘Add as a friend,’ I whisper, clicking, biting my lip in frustration when it asks me how I know this person. There are a couple of standard options – at school together, friend of a friend, related – but none really fulfil my reasons for contacting Josephine. There is a space for typing a message to confirm to the other person how you know each other.

Hello Josephine,
I type.
Can’t believe I’ve found you after all this time. Would love to be your friend again.

I stare at it for ages, mouse pointer poised above the ‘Confirm’ button. I go back and add,
‘We were friends at primary school
,’ hoping that she’ll take the bait. I click and wait, as if her arms are going to burst from the screen and embrace me, pull me against her in a tearful yet ecstatic hug, as if she will forgive me with just the click of a button.

After twenty minutes, when Josephine Kennedy’s icon remains offline, I log out and close the window. I shut the lid of Adam’s laptop. I will not be going home today.

I leave Adam sleeping. He doesn’t even wake when the bell for supper sounds. I don’t eat much. Sylvia is glowing and tells me about her night out. She snaps at a couple of girls who want off-games notes for no good reason. ‘Don’t be so lazy,’ she tells them. ‘Go and run it off on the hockey pitch.’

The sixth-formers swagger away with pouting lips and torrents of hair spilling down their backs. I grip my knife and fork and mash the broccoli on my plate. I force a smile when Sylvia frowns.

‘Do you need me tonight?’ I ask.

I am exhausted and empty. Since I’ve been at Roecliffe, I’ve been everything from cleaner to counsellor, laundry maid to sports assistant. I’ve iced hundreds of pulled muscles, found girls who’d skipped lessons, spoken with concerned parents, and combed out matted hair. I’ve sat up all night and watched over ill pupils, and slept beside the homesick ones when they refused to be left alone. I’ve kept
food diaries of our poor eaters, and ironed countless uniforms. I’ve dealt with Katy’s crush and Lexi’s tantrums, but worst of all I’ve lived in constant fear of being found out.

Sylvia rests her hand on mine. ‘No. I don’t need you. Why don’t you get away for a few hours and forget this place exists.’

That will never happen, I think, nodding appreciatively.

Later, when the girls are immersed in their evening activities, Adam catches me in the library looking at the paintings again. I wanted to see the one hanging on its own at the end of the long room. Vigorous brush strokes cross-hatch the large canvas in a style quite different to the nineteenth-century portraits hanging nearby.