The Broken Ones (9 page)

“This is good work, Sophie.” Mrs. Vaughan hands me back my essay and straightens up, stretching her back. She’s always doing that. Every now and then she warns us “young ’uns” that we should maintain good posture or we’ll end up with bad backs when we’re old. Like her. “We need to talk to you about university.”

I stare down at my desk, hoping that no one notices the flush working up my neck. Even though the rest of the class is busy with their own work, my scalp prickles with the sensation that they are all watching me.

“Oh, I won’t be applying to university.” The words seem awkward and clumsy. I pull on my sleeves, hiding my hands. I don’t want to have this conversation, not now. Why did I open my mouth?

Mrs. Vaughan shifts her weight from one foot to the other and folds her arms, crushing the rest of her papers against her chest. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t afford to move away.” Again, I feel eyes on me. I want to shrink into the ground, or at least somehow get Mrs. Vaughan to stop talking.

“But you can apply for a grant,” she continues. “Don’t worry, I can show you how. I can help you fill out all the paperwork, if you like.” She pauses as I struggle for another reply. “Hold on. I’ll find a pamphlet.”

I stare down at the circled “A” on the top right-hand corner of my essay, wondering how I’m going to explain to Mrs. Vaughan that there’s no way my mother will let me go to university. How do I put into words that Mum just wants the best of me? Everything I think of sounds weird. Like, I’m a freak with a freak mother. Everyone thinks it. I hear them whispering when I walk past them in the corridors. They know about my mum and her affairs and the times when she gets fired. This town is small, and people talk.

She wants the best for me. She’s my mum. Maybe I should trust Mum when she says that uni won’t be any good for me. Maybe she knows what I should and shouldn’t be doing.

“Here you are.” Mrs Vaughan passes me the leaflet, and I thank her. Then she backs away and goes back to handing out essays. I guess she knows that she’s already said enough.

I slip the leaflet into my bag. The school bell rings, so I make my way out of the classroom. The low sun makes me squint as I hurry across the carpark to the bus. It’s coming up to Christmas break, and the deadline for university applications will soon be approaching. My estimated grades are good. I could go wherever I want. I could get out of Eddington and find my way in the world. But what if university is like school? What if I don’t make any friends, or they call me names behind my back? What if I’m not clever enough, and all my grades have been a fluke so far?

The cold winter air bites my skin as I exit the bus at my stop. Mum won’t be in yet. She’ll still be at work. What is it now? Another secretary job? Or maybe it’s the cleaning job? I can’t remember. All I know is that I can eat as many jam sandwiches as I like when she’s not around, even if my jeans are getting a little tight. Now that I’m in the 6
th
form I can wear my own clothes, but the problem is, I don’t own anything cool. All my clothes are from charity shops and sales racks. I don’t have designer sportswear or the right shoes.

After tucking into my second jam sandwich, I pull the leaflet out of my bag and start to read through it. There are a lot of figures and facts. I’m more of a words person than a numbers person. They make my head spin.

But I keep reading, despite everything. My excitement builds up and up. I see the happy faces of the students on the front of the leaflet and wonder whether that could be me. I could be the smiling girl surrounded by friends. I could work, and learn, and live with people my age, and listen to loud music, and go to concerts. I’d make a best friend and eat ice cream with her while we talk about boys and exams. We’d argue about the washing up or who used the last of the milk, but then we’d open a cheap bottle of wine or go out and drink shots until we passed out on the sofa in a fit of giggles.

I’m so deep into my fantasy that I don’t even hear the door open. It’s not until Mum is striding into the kitchen that I realise she’s home, and I don’t have an opportunity to hide the leaflet. I freeze.

“Fuckers. The whole lot of them.” She throws her bag onto the table and kicks off her heels. “That fucking little Tracy with her perky tits and big eyelashes. She only has to flutter them at Bob and he’s drooling like fat kid in a bakery. What the fuck are you doing? What the
fuck
are you eating?” She snatches the plate away and tosses it onto the kitchen work surface. Our kitchen is so tiny that she only has to turn and stretch her arm. The motion is so fast that she catches me trying to hide the leaflet from her view as she turns back to me. “What’s that you’ve got?”

I place my arm over the pamphlet, ignoring my pattering heart.

“What is it? Why are you hiding it?” she demands.

“It’s nothing. School stuff.”

“What, are they teaching you about periods? Come on, show me.” Her manicured fingers grab my arm and wrench it away. Then she snatches the folds of paper with her other hand. “Financial aid for…” Her eyes move rapidly across the front cover. She lets my arm drop back onto the table, and I rub the sore spot where her long red nails clawed into me. “What is this? You think we’re poor? You think we’re poor enough that you have to apply for
aid
? After all the work I do for you. Two jobs. Two jobs, Sophie, all to put jam sandwiches in your belly. Fat little bitch.”

I stare at my hands as they tremble against the tabletop. I should never have brought the leaflet back. I’m such an idiot.

“Financial aid for university applicants,” she reads in a mocking voice. “Miss Smartypants wants to go to university, does she? She wants to be part of the pompous crowd. She wants to leave her mother here to rot on her own because she’s a selfish little cow. And after everything I do for you? I work my fingers to the
bone
for you.” She shakes her head and backs away from the table, starting to pace back and forth across the length of the room. “I can’t believe you’d leave me, at the drop of a
hat
.” She snaps her fingers. “To be all alone. You know how lonely I’ve been since things ended with Mark. And you know it was all your fault. No one wants a moping teenager for a stepdaughter. Why can’t you put on make-up and do your hair? Stop shovelling food in your gob for one minute and actually get some exercise. Do you think I look this way from being a slob? I work for it. And if I hadn’t had to push you out seventeen years ago, I would look a damn sight better.” She runs her hands through her hair. “I’m over the hill now, Sophie. Don’t you understand that? I’ll never find a man. I’ll be alone for the rest of my life, and you’re going to
leave
me here to rot while you go off gallivanting with
students
.” She starts to cry, great, heaving sobs.

“Mum,” I say quietly, holding back my tears. I’m frozen as always, caught by her outburst and too terrified to even move. “I’m sorry I brought the leaflet home. Don’t cry.” I can’t bear it when she cries. The guilt is unbearable. I never meant to make her feel this way.

She wipes her eyes, smearing mascara across her temples. “I just want to protect you, honey. I want to keep you safe because I love you. Don’t you know what happens to girls like you who go to university? There are men there. Predators. They wait until you’re drunk and put drugs in your drink. Then they take you home and rape you—”

“Mum, stop!”

“It’s true! It happened to my friend. Sophie, if you go there, you’ll be hurt. I don’t want that to happen.” She rushes over to me and wraps her arms around me, smothering me against her satin blouse. “I want to keep you safe. You’re safe at home with me. If you knew what I’ve done for you, you’d never question me. You’d never disobey. If you knew what I’ve given up…”

As the stormy weather fades, the stifling heat returns, turning the children feral and the adults irritable. There are two fights on the playground this week, prompting Moira to call an emergency assembly about bullying and violence. Alisha and I stand on the sidelines as the head talks us through appropriate behaviour and “using our words”.

While the atmosphere at school is taut, the atmosphere at home is deadly. Despite a phone call to Erin’s superior—and several emails to them both, explaining that there has been a terrible mistake and I don’t believe Erin is hurting Mum—she still refuses to come back to work for us. Instead, we have Susanne, an older woman in her late forties who never makes chit-chat and complains about car trouble every time she steps in the door, bringing cigarette breath into our home.

I even try leaving Erin a voicemail to explain that I believe Mum sent that message during one of her confused moments, but Erin never replies. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to work in that environment, either. If one of the students ever accused me of something that terrible, I don’t think I’d be able to come to school and look people in the eye. So we’re stuck with Susanne, a woman whose sour face makes Nurse Ratched seem like Mary Poppins. At the end of each day Mum seems subdued and quiet. I am too. We sit and eat our meals in near silence.

PC Hollis and PC Chowdhury call round to tell me that they have investigated the video and saw nothing helpful, but they will be canvassing the area as well as contacting Peter. They have no proof it was Peter, so it’s not like they can arrest him. But they see the action as harassment and make a point of telling me that they take such behaviour seriously. That in itself worries me. Why do they feel the need to reassure me? I can tell they think they have better things to do than follow up on a vandalism case against a bag of clothes meant for a charity shop. They’re placating me with their assurances.

I decide not to tell them about my suspicions about Mum. If it is her, it’s a private matter.

All day at school I watch the cameras. Susanne is not as bright and breezy as Erin was. She dumps food in front of Mum before sitting down with a magazine. I see Mum flailing her arms, clearly shouting, while Susanne turns away and leaves the room. A few moments later, Mum appears to have forgotten whatever she was mad about, and Susanne returns. I need to take notes from this woman. She doesn’t take any of the crap that I’ve had dished out from Mum.

But most of the time I think about everything that has happened, from the button outside the house, to the time Mum drank bleach, to the voice on the recording and the shredded clothing. Do I honestly believe Mum could be responsible for all those events? Can I imagine her orchestrating each one? Taunting me about the shadow because she knows there’s a hidden memory from my past that I can’t access? Finding a way to break the camera, logging in to my email and sending that nastygram to Erin’s boss? Sneaking out of the house at night? Pretending to lose her keys? Drinking bleach?

The question I cannot answer is whether I believe my mother is capable of all those things. Yes, she can be manipulative and nasty. Yes, she can be cruel when she feels that she’s been wronged. But what, apart from existing, have I done to warrant this?

I close the laptop and sigh, which is lost amongst the noise from the classroom. The students are supposed to be reading from
The Hobbit
, but they’ve taken to chatting and passing notes around instead. I raise my voice and order silence.

There was only Chloe not talking to any friends. My eyes linger on her sat in the corner, gazing out of the window. With all this going on, I forgot to keep an eye on Chloe like I’d said I would. I don’t know if she still talks to her imaginary friend.

I’m not on the rota for playground duty at lunchtime, so I stay in the classroom and eat my sandwich. When I check my mobile phone, I see there are a couple of missed calls from a withheld number. Normally I would think nothing of it, but with everything that’s going on, the sight causes a chill to run down my spine. It could be Peter again, though his calls seem to have quieted now. I gave his details to the police, and there’s a chance they got him to back off. Perhaps this is him returning with gusto, withholding his number so I won’t know it’s him. I should make a note. Perhaps the police have some way of tracing the call.

My fingers are itching towards the laptop on my desk. If I could just watch some more of the feed, maybe I’ll be able to figure all this out. I’m missing an important piece of the puzzle; I know it. I wish I knew what it was.

Chloe is the first child to come back to the classroom. By the way she’s holding out her right arm, I can tell she’s pretending to hold someone’s hand. Her lips are moving, but she’s talking so quietly that I can’t make out what she’s saying. I’m about to call her over so I can talk to her when the rest of the class walks in, and I launch into teaching them about ancient Egypt.

This is a subject I love to teach. I love telling the kids about the mummification process and seeing the expressions of delight and disgust on their faces when they discover that the dead person’s brain would be scraped out of their skull. But today it all seems to fall flat. The students are disruptive and mocking, I can’t seem to pull my attention away from Chloe, and my delivery falls flat where I usually have an engaged audience. The afternoon is a slog until I split the kids into groups and let them have a go at drawing their own hieroglyphs.

Except for Chloe. I feign a special task for her and bring her to the front of the desk, waiting until the rest of the class are too busy to notice me talking to her individually. I hate to single her out like this, but I feel the need to check on her. And to be honest, I need the distraction from watching the camera feed again. It’s becoming an obsession.

“So, how do you like the Egyptians?” I ask, easing into our conversations.

“They worshipped cats,” she replies. “That’s cool.”

“Oh, yeah? Do you have a cat at home?”

She nods. “He’s called Fluffy. I named him when he was a kitten.”

“Excellent name for a cat. I presume he lives up to his name?”

She grins. “Yeah. Mum goes mad when she has to hoover every day. But it makes him cuddly.”

“What does Jessie think about Fluffy? Does she like him too?” I try to mention her imaginary friend as flippantly as I can, as though it’s completely normal to act as though Jessie is real.

“Jessie likes Fluffy too.” She talks with her head down, concentrating on drawing the hieroglyphs I set her. “But sometimes she gets a bit jealous.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, Jessie likes to spend time with me on my own. Sometimes she thinks I spend too much time with Fluffy.”

“Does Jessie get upset if you spend time with your friends?”

“I guess.” She sounds less sure of herself now.

It hurts my heart to hear that note of uncertainty in her voice. She’s at least aware that she doesn’t have any friends aside from Jessie. Maybe I can pass that along to Chloe’s parents or her therapist.

“Does Jessie allow you to have friends, Chloe?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Yeah.”

“What do you and Jessie talk about?”

She lifts her head and smiles. I can tell she feels more comfortable talking about her imaginary friend. “Everything. What we had for lunch. Oh, and we play games too. Like, I hide things and Jessie has to find them. Or we play hide and seek where Jessie has to find me.”

The way Chloe talks about her makes Jessie seem so real. Despite my trying to maintain a straight face in front of Chloe, a slight quiver ripples through my stomach. A chill spreads over my skin. I attempt to shake it away. I don’t want her to think I believe she’s weird or creepy. That won’t help her.

Chloe’s strangeness isn’t the only thing bothering me. When she mentioned playing hide and seek, I heard a distant giggle in my mind. It was so real that I almost turned around to check that one of the other kids hadn’t crept up on me. Yet at the same time I was aware that it was a memory. A memory from long ago.

I shake my head and try to focus on Chloe. When I shut my eyes for the briefest of moments, the strongest scent of strawberries ignites my senses. It isn’t the smell of fresh strawberries. It’s more like the sickly, candied scent of a strawberry lollipop.

“What else can you tell me about Jessie?” I ask.

“She likes the colour purple, Minecraft, and One Direction, but she hates Little Mix and Elsa from
Frozen
. Sometimes she likes to cut my Barbie’s hair or paint my nails red. Mum hates that, though.”

I nod and smile, trying hard to concentrate. All I can think about is that fleeting moment where things suddenly started to make sense. I force myself to think back. To remember.

There’s a garden, and some sunshine. It isn’t our garden in Eddington. No, it’s harder and dustier. The grass is patchy and yellowed. There’s a rusted old bucket in the corner and…

“We make tea together,” Chloe says. “We have tea parties in the garden with the teddy bears that Mum says I’m too old for…”

One, two, now you.

One, two, now you.

I’m on my feet. My hands are in my hair, pulling it free from the bun at the back of my head. The room goes quiet. Every child turns to stare at me. Chloe slinks away to the back of the room.

One, two, now you.

I hear the childish voice speaking to me in my mind. Who is that? Is it me?

The memory hits me. It lasts only a few moments, but it’s enough to have me rocking back on the heels of my shoes, amazed by the emotional power that resonates within. The pain is like a stab to the gut.

It’s a short memory. I’m outside in the garden playing with my imaginary friend, whom I called Shadow. We had a little rhyme:
One, two, now you
. Then one of us would have to do a dare. I’d spoken the words when Mum came into the garden seeming upset and dishevelled. She asked me who I was talking to, and I told her it was my shadow. I remember that she was angry with me for that and told me that I must never, ever play with my shadow again.

The shadow.

I have to get home. Fortunately, the bell rings.