What You Become (22 page)

‘Effing hell!’ Ophelia gasped. ‘We thought you were Charlie.’

‘She’s been following me,’ Will said, standing, and brushing dust from his front. ‘She knows something’s up.’ From their lack of shock I knew Ti had told them we’d been meeting.

Will picked a bag from a pile, and made for the door.

Ophelia’s eyes were bright, and her cheeks flushed even in the low light. Ti wasn’t looking at me.

‘What’s going on?’ I said.

‘Road in two minutes,’ Will said. ‘Not a second more.’

Ophelia grabbed him in a hug, and laughed, and Will reached over to Ti and clamped her head in his palm, the way I did to Joey sometimes, and she dodged out his way, a reluctant smile on her face.

‘Ti, what’s going on?’ I said again, though it was obvious. Will nudged past me, preparing to dash through his garden. ‘What about the vigil?’

‘What about it?’ Ophelia said, at the same time as Will said: ‘It’s the perfect cover.’

‘Won’t it look suspicious if you’re not there, though, Will?’ I pleaded.

‘Two minutes,’ he repeated.

Joey was going to be heartbroken. I couldn’t even think about Fab and June.

‘Ti, you can’t do this. People are coming out for you.’

Ophelia sneered. ‘They’re coming out for themselves. They’re only sorry because they think we’re dead. Soon as we’re alive we’re criminals.’

‘You’re a criminal anyway! Jesus, Ophelia. You set fire to the school! And how long do you think you’ll be able to hide for? Ti? Are you never going to see your mum or dad or me or Joey again?’

‘Oh, just go away, would you? This is nothing to do with you,’ Ophelia said, picking up a huge rucksack and pushing past me. Ti stood with her arms limp at her sides, eyes cast down.

‘If you go now, I’m going to tell everyone you’ve been hiding. I’ll send them chasing after you.’

‘You haven’t got the guts,’ Ophelia said, walking away perfectly confident across the garden.

‘I bloody have!’ I called after her.

She scoffed, and I felt a hand on the small of my back – ‘I’m sorry’ – then Ti hurried past me too.

‘Ti,
please
,’ I said, following her.

‘I can’t do it,’ she said, hurrying forward. ‘I
am
sorry. I just don’t want Ophelia to go to prison. I don’t want to be hated even more. “No more strikes”, that’s what they said last time they picked her up. And I got a warning for being
at Chase’s house
. What if they make it look like it was premeditated?’

‘Ti, you didn’t start the fire.’

‘The only way I can stay is if I say I did, though,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought about it all day. Do you want me to do that?’

‘That’s not the only way you can stay! Stop saying that!’

From the beach floated up the sound of June singing ‘Ave Maria’, and Ti dissolved into tears, backing away from me.

‘That’s your
mum
down there,’ I said, because we both knew how much it must have taken for June to get on stage. Her voice was so full of hope. How could Ti do this to her? In the road a horn honked, and I could imagine Ophelia reaching over Will to press it.

‘If you cared about your sister at all, you would make her face up to this.’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t do it. Please don’t tell everyone, Rosie.
Please.
They’ll hate us.’

And then she ran after her sister, the same way she always had, and I wanted to scream because she was so pathetic, and how had I ever followed her anywhere? Sprinting back to the coast path to find my brother, I didn’t care if anyone saw. What was there left to lose? Crushing my speech into a ball as I left Will’s garden, I lobbed it into the hedge.

Forty-nine

Joey grinned, offering me what was left of his ice cream. ‘Not long now,’ he said, falling into step beside me. He looked confused when I refused the flake he’d saved.

You won’t see her again
, I wanted to say.
Ti is leaving right now, and I don’t know how to stop her.

But that wasn’t true. I knew exactly how to stop her, I could whisper in June’s ear or tell Dad or grab the microphone.
She’s been hiding. I’ve been hiding her. Will is driving them out of town; we can catch them if we leave now.

But what Ophelia had said rang in my ears. As soon as people knew the truth – especially if it came from me – they would see them as criminals. The girls were forgivable if they were dead or missing. But not if they came back. Where was the logic in that?

Joey put a sticky hand on my arm, wanting to know what was wrong, but I was trapped with my thoughts. I should have told the truth that first day, instead of making promises I couldn’t keep because I felt guilty. Now I’d backed myself into the same corner they had. Why wasn’t I able to think ahead? Why did I always get it wrong?

I hated Ti. No wonder I’d been so easily distracted by Kiaru and Alisha. Ti was a disaster. She acted so different when Ophelia was there, like I wasn’t important at all. And did she really believe she was helping her sister? It was exhausting watching her make a mess of every chance anyone gave her. I was sick of it. Sick of her.

Joey licked his ice cream beside me, and I felt like such a gruesome phoney down here at the vigil when the twins were on their way out of town. They would cause trouble in London, and nobody would be there to pick up the pieces. No parents or money or friends. The gorse threw out the smell of coconut, and the sea turned the stones on the shore, and I knew I’d never enjoy a day at this beach again.

My lip hurt and I realized I was biting it. I
knew
she didn’t want to go, but she wouldn’t say it and it made me so mad. All this time I’d thought she was strong, because she looked out for me, but she was weak. She was even weaker than I was! How had I never realized?

I scanned the candle-carrying people filling the beach, my eyes searching nervously for June and Fab. How could I face them? My involvement no longer seemed kind or noble. It was impossible to remember what I’d been thinking.

We were right by the makeshift stage that Dad and his colleagues had built from crates and scaffolding planks, and I closed my eyes, wanting to kick at the tiny stones and shout at the sky, because I was such an unbelievable idiot. I’d gone along with someone else’s plan when I should have spoken up.
Again
. I was still doing it. The same coward I’d always been, that I’d always be, getting it wrong over and over.

Julie from Dad’s department walked through the crowd, handing out candles to those without. She squeezed my shoulder as she passed me a tea light in a jar, and it was a shock to feel something outside of me, I was so deep in my own thoughts.

Joey let go of my hand, and bolted over to where Dad was standing, giving out fliers, and then I saw them.

Fab and June.

Hopeful smiles plastered on to their faces, arms stiff and hands clasped together. My stomach flipped, and I made a dash for Dad.

‘Rosie!’ Fab was heading through the throngs of people towards me, candle in hand, June a step behind, her expression suddenly animated.

He pulled me into a hug – the first one he’d given me since before Chase’s garden – and I thought I would die, but June was next, and I could feel her fast bird-like heartbeat as she clasped me to her.

‘You’ve done such a good job!’ she said, and her voice was so cheerful I could have cried. ‘Your dad knows so many people!’

‘We couldn’t have done this without you,’ Fab agreed, his deep voice cracking as he pulled me in for another hug. ‘I’m sorry, I wanted to be strong, not cry, but it’s hard. All these people . . . and then you, Rosie, cuddling you, you feel just the same size, the same shape as, as . . .’

June pressed her lips together in apology, and began whispering to Fab who nodded, eyes scrunched shut, and I pointed in the general direction of my dad, backing away and heading over to him, stumbling over the layers of rocks. I couldn’t go along with this, and I couldn’t confess either.

Joey leapt out from where he had been crouching, and I thought I might puke I jumped so much.

‘Got you!’ he screamed. ‘Got you! I got you! I got you!’

‘Have some respect, Joseph! This isn’t a party,’ Dad hissed at him, and Joey toned down his grin, but his eyes still sparkled.

He looked at me for reassurance, but I was all out.

‘Rosie?’ He pulled against me, dropping all his weight off the end of my hand.

‘What if they have gone, Joe? What if they really have gone?’

‘Not possible,’ Joey said, but his eyes had changed: glitter shifted to wood. His mouth was pressed firmly into a line, and he held his own weight again.

‘No!’ he said, stamping his foot, as if scolding a dog.

People jostled all around us, pushing forward as more made their way on to the beach, and then the microphone screeched and Dad was up on the stage.

‘Thank you for coming! Thank you so much for coming here tonight in solidarity for our missing girls: Titania and Ophelia De Furia. And thank you to June, for that emotive performance. We are all extremely hopeful that the twins will return, and I would like everyone to bear this in mind as they light their candles tonight – lighters are making their way around, don’t worry – this is not, I repeat,
not
, a memorial.’

Fab and June stood to the left of him, at the side of the stage, clasped together like a pair of teenagers. Tears ran down Fab’s face and June’s lips moved fervently, the fingers of her hand not held by her husband clutching rosary beads, and my heart hurt with all their wanting. I wondered if Fab was really going to speak, and if I would be able to stand it if he did.

The road out of town would be quiet now. Everybody who was coming would be here or close by, everyone else tucked away in their houses. Will was right: it was the perfect cover. Soon they would reach the bypass.

If I spoke up, we could catch them. But it would confirm all of the worst charges against them as well. Ti might never forgive me. But if I didn’t speak, they would be lost. And Ophelia would be right about me.

Dad talked on, but the babble in my head was so violent I couldn’t understand. Somebody lit my candle, and I stared at the flame. All around me people clapped, and Dad stood with the microphone held out, eyes resting on me as he waited for the next speaker. The crowd looked at me, and it was like a nightmare –
what did they want
? – and then I realized.

I’d asked to speak early because I was so nervous. I’d thought I would be speaking up for Ti, finally, saying the things I should have said a long time ago. Deep down, I’d thought that somehow she would be here, in the crowd or listening on the coast path, I’d never believed she’d be able to run like that.

The audience applause was running dry, expectant. It was like falling into a dream, and the flamethrowers threw, but what did that matter? It was dark, and clouds rushed overhead in a smooth grey stream, and I had no idea what I was going to say.

Letting go of Joey’s hand, I walked onstage.

Fifty

Hundreds of faces peered at me, candles twinkling, and I wondered how many of them had been kind or helpful to Ti before tonight. How many would be willing to give her a second chance? Silence across the beach, except for the disrespectful gulls, and looking around I saw Kiaru and Alisha huddled together near the caves. Charlie and Mia sat on a rock to the back of the beach, looking skeptical, and Charlie’s eyes were wet, but I couldn’t tell if she’d been laughing or crying or was drunk.

My eyes flicked over the familiar faces of the crowd, and I lifted my chin. I wasn’t scared of any of them. My voice, when it emerged, was flat, but I couldn’t alter it.

‘I threw my speech away, because it was lies. I was going to thank everyone for coming, for making the effort, and all that, but I don’t feel grateful, to be honest. I feel angry because it’s too late. None of you cared about Ti or Ophelia when they were here. Maybe you were right not to . . .’

I froze, looking at my feet.

The words wouldn’t come.

‘This whole thing’s a sham. I’m sorry, I can’t do this.’

I blew my candle out, unable to go on with the charade, unwilling to look at Fab and June or Mum or Dad or Joey, not wanting to see their response. Ophelia was right, I didn’t have the guts.

Dad stepped on to the stage, and put his arm round me and I felt my brother’s small hand slide into mine. Dad and Joey blew their candles out in solidarity, and we stood together, dazed, looking out at the yellow flickering faces on the beach as one by one flames were extinguished, until there were hardly any left, and we stood in silence in the dark, seagulls shrieking.

Joey wrapped his arms round me, and I leaned on the top of his sweet-smelling head. Dad had taken the microphone, and was trying to cover up the awkwardness, talking about emotions running high, and how we shouldn’t lose hope.

A noise had begun somewhere near the back, people were leaving, thinking the show was over, and I hated them for not caring enough. Not caring when it counted. But I understood too because more than anything I just wanted to go home. To put on my pyjamas and climb into bed and pretend all of this didn’t matter. That I was blameless.

People whispered amongst themselves as they left the beach and I kept my head down, never wanting to let go of Joey, and then a voice, far away.

‘Wait!’

The crowd gasped, peering into the dark at a figure running down the coast path.

People moved out of the way, murmurs rising to exclamations, and then they started to say her name.

Joey had his head back, and his arms raised as though he had just finished an incredible routine in a gymnastics floor show.

‘YES!’ he shouted, his voice filling the beach. ‘YES!’

Tears streamed down her face, footsteps echoing around the cliff top, it was Titania, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand as she ran.

June barged through the crowd, tugging Fab along in her wake.

Joey tried to make a dash for it, but Dad and me held him back at the same time.

‘Not yet, Joe,’ Dad said.

Grabbing her parents’ hands, Ti kept running, the three of them heading for me, and my whole body was electric with relief and joy, as my best friend and her parents stepped on to the stage. Ti took the microphone, which still dangled in Dad’s hand.