The Accident (17 page)

Ellsbells: What?

Charliethecat15: Will you still cover for me? I will for you.

Ellsbells: Fine. Just don’t ever contact me again.

Charliethecat15: Fine. I won’t. Just wanted to clear that up.

Ellsbells: Whatever.

I read it again. And a third time. And I still have no idea what they’re talking about. Why do they need to cover for each other and who is Mr E? I glance at my watch. 2.45 p.m. I’m going to have to hurry if I want to catch Ella before school kicks out for the day.

I glance at Milly who looks at me hopefully.

‘Okay,’ I grab her lead. ‘You can come too.’

Chapter 16

It feels strange, standing outside the school gates. I haven’t picked Charlotte up from school since she was twelve and when I see Ella strolling out of the main doors, her books clasped to her chest, her blazer thrown over one arm I half expect to see my daughter walking alongside her, knocking elbows and laughing at each other’s jokes.

‘Ella?’ I reach out a hand and touch her elbow as she draws close. ‘Could I have a word?’

She glances around to check the reaction of her classmates but they don’t seem to have noticed me as they stream out of the gates, laughing, chatting and pulling faces at each other. Or if they have they don’t care.

‘Ella please, it’s important.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She waves a hand to signal that we should move away from the gates, glances over her shoulder – to check for what I’m not sure – and then looks back at me. ‘What about?’

‘About you and Charlotte covering for each other?’

Her defiant expression fades ever so slightly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you do.’

I could pretend that I know everything but if she realizes I’m lying this conversation is over. ‘I read the conversation the two of you had on MSN Messenger. It was saved onto one of our home computers.’

Ella’s eyes grow large as she searches my face. She’s trying to work out if she’s in trouble or not. I need to go carefully.

‘Who’s Mr E, Ella?’

She glances away, towards the school, then back at me.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs Jackson.’

‘Mr E. In the conversation you and Charlotte had on Messenger, Charlotte said that if Mr E found out what you’d done, he’d kill you both.’

She shrugs. ‘I think you’ve mixed me up with someone else.’

‘Ellsbells,’ I say. ‘That was the username of the person Charlotte was talking to. I know it was you.’

She shrugs again, purses her lips into a half-smile, half-pout and turns to go. She knows there was nothing in that conversation to incriminate her and I can’t do a thing to persuade her otherwise. How can she be so callous when her best friend is in a coma she might never wake up from?

‘Ella, please.’ I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I don’t care what you and Charlotte did or why you had to get your stories straight. I won’t be angry and I won’t tell your mum, just please tell me who Mr E is.’

‘I told you.’ She shakes my hand from her shoulder. ‘You’ve got the wrong person.’

She turns to walk away but I grab her again. ‘Is he someone’s dad, this Mr E? Or a teacher? Is he one of your—’ the expression on Ella’s face changes from anger to something else. ‘He’s a teacher, isn’t he?’ I can’t keep the jubilation out of my voice. ‘What’s his name, Ella?’

‘Get your fucking hands off me!’

Now
the other kids are staring at us. The stream of bodies passing by has stopped and I’m surrounded on all sides by staring, surprised faces. Conversations fade and laughter turns to embarrassed giggles. ‘Who is she?’ I hear someone ask then, ‘Oh my God, it’s Charlotte Jackson’s mum.’ ‘Shit, yeah! Total nut job. Apparently she wouldn’t let Charlotte have a bath or shower for a month because she thought someone had put acid in the water!’

Ella notices the commotion around us too. The base of her throat blushes red but she flicks back her hair defiantly. I know I should remove my hand from her shoulder but I’m terrified that if I let her go I’ll never see her again.

‘Ella,’ I keep my voice soft. ‘There’s no need to cause a scene. Just tell me Mr E’s full name and I promise I’ll never bother you again.’

The girl smiles and, for a second, I think that this awful, awkward moment is about to end but then the smile disappears and is replaced by an ugly curled lip.

‘Help!’ She tosses back her head and screams, ‘Someone help! Help! Help!’

I let go of her but it’s too late, I’m shoved to one side as someone bowls through the crowd and stands between us.

‘Mrs Jackson?’ There’s an astonished expression on the face of the woman standing in front of me. It’s Clara Cooper, Charlotte’s English teacher.

‘She hurt me. I thought she was going to pull my arm off.’

Miss Cooper turns to look at Ella. A group of girls have appeared around her, forming a protective arc of patting hands, murmured reassurances and raised eyebrows.

‘Mrs Jackson hurt you?’

‘Yes, Miss. I was just going for the school bus when she grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go.’

‘Yeah,’ says one of the girls behind her. ‘Yeah, she did.’

‘I thought she was going to hit me.’ Ella’s face is the epitome of wide-eyed innocence. ‘I was really scared.’

Miss Cooper turns back to me and raises her eyebrows.

I feel hot, faint and terribly dry-mouthed. I can’t believe this is really happening. I just want to go home. I want to crawl into bed, go to sleep and wake up to find that all of this – Charlotte’s accident, James’s presents, the argument with Brian and this – were all just a dream. ‘I tapped her on the shoulder,’ I say. ‘That’s all. I just wanted to talk to her.’

Miss Cooper gives me a searching look then turns back to the crowd. ‘You lot, go home. Show’s over. Ella, go and stand by the gates. I’ll have a word with you in a second.’

Ella pulls a face. ‘But Miss—’

‘Go.’

She pouts, puts her palms out as though she’s about to object then seems to think the better of it and she makes her way through the crowd. They disperse slowly, grumbling with disappointment that the spectacle is over.

Miss Cooper waits until there are no children within earshot and then looks at me. The frown has left her forehead now we no longer have an audience. ‘How are you, Mrs Jackson?’

The word ‘fine’ is on the tip of my tongue but there’s something about the softness of her tone and the gentle concern in her eyes that makes me say ‘Tired’ instead.

‘I’m not surprised.’ She touches me lightly on the arm and then her hand falls away. ‘How is Charlotte? She’s very much missed.’

‘There’s no change,’ I say, ‘but thank you for asking.’

Miss Cooper smiles sadly then glances over her shoulder. Ella is leaning against the gate. She has one foot on the ground, the other kicking the metal fencing beside the entrance.

Clang-clang-clang.

‘Ella!’

She stops the second the teacher says her name and shoots a sulky look in my direction. Clara looks back at me.

‘What’s going on there? With Ella?’

I explain about the MSN Messenger conversation and tell her I’m concerned that this ‘Mr E’ might be some kind of threat to the girls.

‘And you think he might be a parent or teacher?’

I explain about Ella’s reaction when I suggested that Mr E might be a teacher and Miss Cooper looks thoughtful.

‘There’s a Mr Egghart,’ she says. ‘He teaches Physics.’

I shake my head. Neither of the girls are studying Physics.

‘It’s definitely a Mr?’ she asks. ‘It couldn’t be Mrs Everett, Miss Evesham or Miss East?’

‘No. They definitely talked about a Mr E. One of them called him a prick.’

‘I’m struggling to think of any more teachers with surnames beginning with E.’ Miss Cooper twiddles her earrings and looks at the pavement, frowning in concentration. ‘Jenny Best from the office has a full staff list. She’d be a better person to as— Oh!’ She looks up in delight. ‘I’ve just remembered. There’s a teacher covering Business Studies for Mrs Hart while she’s on maternity leave. His name begins with E. What is it … Eggers? No. Ethan? No. It’s a very common name. It’ll come to me. I know!’ She smiles in triumph. ‘Evans! That’s it. Mr Evans.’

‘Evans?’ I repeat, suddenly feeling as though I’ve been lifted out of myself and I’m watching us have this conversation from ten feet above my head. ‘You don’t happen to know his first name, do you?’

When Clara’s lips part I know what she’s about to say before she says it.

‘James,’ she says. ‘Same name as my boyfriend.’

The floating feeling stops as quickly as it started and I’m snapped back into my body so violently I have to take a step to the side to stop myself from falling over.

‘James Evans?’

‘Yes.’ Clara is still smiling. ‘Why? You don’t think he’s somehow respons—’

‘What does he look like? Is he over six foot? Blond? Well spoken?’

‘Yes.’ She looks at me in confusion. ‘Yes, he’s all of those things.’

‘Wait!’ She calls after me as I run past Ella and through the school gates. ‘Mrs Jackson, please stop!’

Sunday 1st April 1991

I bumped into Hels on Oxford Street yesterday. My first reaction when I caught sight of her, looking beautiful in a black and green polka dot dress with her red hair piled on top of her head, was delight – but then I remembered we weren’t friends anymore and darted into HMV to try and avoid her. She must have seen me because the next thing I knew there was a hand on my arm and, ‘Sue? It is you, isn’t it?’ She looked so pleased to see me I could have cried. I didn’t though. I didn’t want her to see how miserable I’d been without her. I made small talk instead – telling her about the costumes I was making for
Waiting for Godot
and how my mum was a little happier in the care home, although her condition was continuing to deteriorate. Hels, in return told me she’d been promoted at work and that she and Rupert had just got back from a week in Florence where they’d got engaged. I hugged her then, I couldn’t help myself and it was only when she pulled away and raised my left hand so she could get a good look at my ring that I remembered that I was engaged too.

‘Aren’t you the dark horse?’ she said but, instead of a smile, a cloud crossed her face. ‘Congratulations Susan, you must be very happy.’

That’s when I started to cry, right there and then in the middle of HMV surrounded by people picking through the latest chart CDs.

Hels looked so horrified I tried to run off. It was bad enough that I was crying in public without my ex-best friend looking at me like I was some kind of basket case. She chased after me, grabbed my hand.

‘Please Susan, let’s go for a drink. Tell me what’s wrong. I’ve missed you.’

We went to the Dog and Duck in Soho and found a dark corner where I could talk without too many people seeing my tear-stained face. I told Hels everything. I told her about meeting James’s mum, about the trip to Prague, about James refusing to sleep in my bed and him throwing Bunny out of the window and she listened attentively, saying nothing apart from the occasional uh-huh or hmmm. But when I told her how he’d asked me to have anal sex with him to prove how much I loved him she gasped.

‘Did you?’ Hels looked at me, her big green eyes wide with concern. ‘You swore you’d never do it again after you tried it with Nathan.’

‘I know. And I kept telling James that I didn’t like it and I wasn’t going to do it again but he kept going on and on, saying that I obviously loved my ex-boyfriend more than I loved him if I would do it with Nathan but not with him. He brought it into every conversation and it got to the stage where, even if we were having a nice time, I couldn’t relax because I was waiting for him to start up again. I figured if I just got it over and done with once then that would be that.’

‘And?’

My eyes filled with tears and I looked away.

‘You need to leave him, Sue,’ Helen reached for my hands, ‘and you need to do it now.’

I tried to argue. I tried to explain that James had been abused as a child, that he felt stifled living with his mother, that he’d been such a romantic he’d hung onto his virginity until he was twenty-four and that he really did love me, he was just struggling with disappointment and jealousy but Hels kept on shaking her head.

‘That’s not love, Sue. The things he says, the way he treats you, that’s not love.’

‘But …’ I tried to explain how it wasn’t all bad, how things could be magical between us, how we had so much in common, how I’d never felt so alive, how every day could be an adventure when James was in a good mood.

‘Exactly – when he’s in a good mood. Because we both know what happens when he’s not. Is it worth it, Sue? Is it worth being criticized, degraded and judged just for a few happy moments? Is it worth walking on eggshells, constantly wondering when he’s going to have a go at you next?’

‘But it’s not like he hits me. He’s never done that, not once.’

‘Yet.’ She shook her head. ‘Just because James doesn’t raise his fists doesn’t mean he’s not abusing you, Susan. You need to get out. Now.’

She didn’t need to say any more because everything she had said I’d thought myself a hundred times. But it was different hearing someone else say it, it was different seeing the shock and concern in her eyes. It made me feel like I wasn’t overreacting or going mad, that James wasn’t treating me how I should be treated, that I’d be happier alone.

So I’m going to do it. I’m going to leave him. I’ll do it on Friday when we’ve agreed to go for a drink.

I just hope I’m not shaking as much as I am now.

Chapter 17

‘Brian!’ I shout into my mobile as I sprint down the corridor, past artwork displays, sporting achievements and tall metal lockers. ‘Brian, you need to come home
now.
James Evans is working at Charlotte’s school. I read a conversation on your computer between her and Ella and they were scared of him. Call the police, Brian. I’m at the school now.’