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Nina’s thoughts raced. Mick simply wouldn’t do that. He would never dream of interrupting Josie in the bathroom. And he wasn’t really one for practical jokes, either. ‘You know, I bet Dad took them as a joke,’ she said, not believing a word of it. ‘He’s probably hidden them under the sofa.’ Nina forced a smile. ‘Come on. Let’s go inside and get a drink.’ She swallowed, but her throat was dry and rasping.

  ‘Nope. I already asked him. I’m so annoyed. They were my new jeans.’

  ‘I’ll buy you some more,’ Nina said quietly. She poured juice for Josie and then she couldn’t help it but she went round the house shutting and locking the windows. She double-locked the front porch and secured the door leading on to the deck.

  ‘Mum, we’ll swelter. It’s so humid today. What’s got into you?’

  Nina tried to hide her shaking hands from her daughter. She smiled as much as she could manage. ‘Well, as it happens, I’m cold. Probably a bit stressed or going down with something. The new contract’s a huge responsibility. But I’ll be OK. Don’t you worry about me.’ Nina’s words were flicked with brightness.

  Josie frowned. ‘Whatever, Mum. Just let me know if my stuff turns up.’ She took her drink and went to her room.

  ‘It’s OK. She’s always losing things,’ Nina muttered, pacing. Tennis racquets, books, sweaters, homework, even footwear – Nina recalled the day Josie had walked home from school barefoot because she’d misplaced her new shoes. A few missing clothes weren’t out of the ordinary.

  ‘Stay home the rest of the day, yeah?’ Nina called up the stairs. Keeping Josie in the house would be unsustainable long term, she knew, but the thought of letting her out right now wasn’t appealing.

  Nina hadn’t thought she’d ever have to do this. A remarkably happy family life, she’d believed, had eroded the need to worry. She sighed and spent ten minutes collecting her thoughts before deciding what to do.

  Finally, she fetched her handbag and sat down at the kitchen table. She rummaged through the bag – a gift from Mick last birthday – and dug out the battered notebook. It was concealed in a zip-up compartment and went everywhere with her. In the past, the fabric-covered book had been used for notes and lists and reminders. It was full now and never got used. But at the back was written the most important telephone number she had ever been given.

  Nina stared at the number and her heart sank. It was so outdated, it was unrecognisable. But, peeling out the original number and adding a modern code, Nina dialled and held her breath. She recalled his last words. ‘If there’s trouble, you know where I am.’

  All she wanted was reassurance, just to be certain.

  After four rings, a woman answered. ‘Claire’s Bakery, can I help you?’

  Nina’s head dropped to the table in despair as she hung up.

  CHAPTER 15

  A dozen pairs of eyes focus on me. The common-room walls are painted with swirls of red, making me feel as if I’ve been swallowed up by my worst nightmare. I’m being digested alive.

  ‘So.’ I clear my throat. ‘I’m Miss Gerrard and I’ll be taking you through the PSHE syllabus this year.’ I’m shaky, nervous, unqualified. ‘There’s a lot to cover, but I want to make it fun and get to know you all at the same time.’ Silence fills the room with its vaulted ceiling and huge windows overlooking the school grounds. But despite this, it’s a friendly space with bean bags, a couple of squashy sofas, a television and a rack of DVDs. There’s a fridge, a small sink, and a worktop with a kettle and sandwich toaster in one corner, while on the opposite side of the room there is a desk with a lone PC. The monitor rotates with a screensaver featuring photographs of the school’s various sports teams.

  ‘I thought I’d start our sessions off with a subject that’s sometimes hard to talk about.’ A couple of girls glance up. ‘Bullying is a serious issue.’ Someone groans and a couple of girls giggle. One yawns and snaps open her mobile phone.

  ‘We did that last term,’ a pretty girl with dark hair says. The girl I saw talking to Adam.

  ‘Then I expect you to be an expert on the matter.’ I already sound like a teacher. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name.’

  She stares at me for longer than necessary, squinting her devious eyes up and down me, sizing up my worth, deciding whether or not I’m fit to take the class. ‘Katy,’ she tells me. ‘And I don’t know yours either.’

  ‘Miss Gerrard. I already told you.’ More giggles as Katy mumbles something to the cluster of heads that have drawn around her. ‘If you like, you can call me Frankie. It’s short for Francesca.’ The name crunches off my tongue.

  It takes a while, but the group finally settles to listen to what I have to say. I show them a short film to discuss afterwards, but it seems rather basic for a bunch of worldly fifteen-year-olds.

  ‘Miss, Katy shouldn’t have watched that.’ A girl’s arm shoots up into the air as she speaks.

  ‘Katy?’ I ask. More giggles as I wait for her response. I look back and forth between both girls, raising my eyebrows.

  ‘Her parents don’t allow her to watch television. They’ve signed a form.’ A spray of laughter ensues.

  ‘Can Katy speak for herself?’ I imagine myself hauled in front of a red-faced Mr Palmer, Katy’s angry parents making a complaint against me. ‘Is this true?’ The girl nods, clearly stifling a grin. ‘Will they mind that you watched this little film?’ Katy nods again, and my session in the headmaster’s study becomes all the more real. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before I switched the film on then? You could have waited outside.’

  ‘Because I wanted to see if what’s happening really is bullying,’ she says. Katy’s eyes darken and her mouth pouts, pulling her cheekbones inward so that she suddenly looks more vulnerable than a lamb without its mother.

  ‘And is it?’ I ask. At last, we are getting somewhere.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Katy replies, wide-eyed and smug, suddenly animated again, suddenly very much fifteen and cocksure. The rest of the class explodes into fits of raucous laughter.

  Lying underwater, I am encased, warm, safe, and everything is silent except for the dull sound of me tapping my fingernail on the side of the cast-iron bath. I blow out bubbles. In one swift move, I am sitting upright again, dripping, gasping, completely exhausted of oxygen.

  The underwater tapping has been replaced by a similar sound. Someone is knocking on the bathroom door. ‘I’m nearly done,’ I call out, sighing. It’s late. I thought I’d be guaranteed peace in the bathroom once the school had settled for the night.

  ‘It’s me,’ a female voice whispers through the old wood. ‘Katy,’ she adds.

  ‘Katy?’ I reach for a towel. ‘Do you need to speak to me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she sends back urgently.

  ‘Just a moment then.’ I am up and out of the bath, wrapping my dripping hair in a towel. I pull on my robe, tie the belt, and open the door. ‘What’s up, Katy? It’s nearly midnight.’

  She slips into the steamy bathroom and slumps down on the closed toilet. She is wearing her pyjamas – white ones with pink bows dotted all over. Her feet are bare, her toenails painted. I crouch in front of her, touched that after one rather chaotic session with her class, she feels she can talk to me.

  ‘There’s this problem,’ she says. Her face puckers like a baby’s. ‘It’s really hard.’

  ‘Take your time,’ I say.

  ‘There’s someone that’s after me.’ She sighs. ‘Really after me,’ she adds. ‘And it’s scaring me.’

  ‘Is this to do with the bullying you mentioned in class?’

  Katy nods. ‘He tried to . . .’ she trails off. The bud of her chin tightens and her lips curl. She’s trying not to cry. ‘He made a move on me and . . .’

  ‘And you didn’t want him to?’

  She nods again and covers her face. I hear a sob, which, if I couldn’t plainly see the pain she is suffering, I would have taken to be a snicker, based on her behaviour in class.

  ‘This isn’t something you coul
d talk about in our session, is it?’

  Katy pulls off some toilet paper and blows her nose. ‘No way,’ she admits. ‘I’m sorry if I mocked what you were telling us.’ She looks up at me as I pull back the curtain of her hair. Pain radiates through me at the simple act. She smiles as a strand gets stuck on her wet cheek.

  ‘Is it someone you know through school?’ I ask. ‘Or a boy back home?’

  ‘It happens while I’m at school,’ she says. Suddenly she looks like a very naive child, rather than the fifteen-year-old that she is. Her age, depending on how far this has progressed, presents an array of extra problems. Whoever’s doing this is messing with a minor.

  ‘Can you tell me who it is?’

  Without a thought, Katy shakes her head.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I say, not expecting a name just yet. Courage is a seed; Katy has sown hers. ‘How far . . . how far has this all gone, Katy?’ I’m asking if he’s had sex with her . . . forced her to have sex.

  Katy just stares straight ahead. With every breath, her body shudders. Her mouth gapes open; something trying to escape. I rub her back. ‘No need to speak,’ I say. I look round at the ceiling, the walls, the cracked windowpanes, wondering about all the things this building has seen. I reach over to the bath and plunge my hand underwater. I pull the plug. ‘All in your own time.’ I shake my arm. We sit and listen to the water draining, each hoping that what we are thinking will be washed clean away.

  The term forges on in an unstoppable schedule of lessons, sports events, musical preparation and, for Sylvia and me, an endless stream of motherly duties ranging from laundry to sprained ankles to homesickness.

  ‘Adam was looking for you earlier.’ Sylvia snaps out a sheet and deftly folds it on to the ironing board. With two quick shots of steam, she has it pressed, crisp, and folded on the stack of others.

  ‘He was?’ My heart skids and I don’t know why. So far I’ve done a reasonable job of keeping my colleagues at arm’s length. Angie Ray, English teacher and netball coach, asks me almost daily to join her and some others on their Friday night drink at the village pub.

  ‘You’ll meet people,’ she always says.

  But I don’t want to, I think, while smiling politely. ‘Perhaps,’ I tell her. ‘Maybe.’ Then the headache comes, or the extra duties for Matron, or the made-up excuse about a family get-together an hour’s drive away.

  ‘It seemed quite important.’ Sylvia moves on to pressing school skirts. Then her pager bleeps and she flicks off the iron. ‘Someone’s been hit in the face by a hockey ball,’ she says, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Did he say he’d come back?’ I ask before she shoots off with the first-aid bag.

  ‘Adam?’ Her gaze flicks behind me. ‘Speak of the devil.’ She grins and slips between the door frame and Adam, who’s standing there, looking awkward, hands on hips so that his elbows zigzag the space.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, when Sylvia is long gone down the corridor. If he’s been sent by Angie, then the answer will be the same. I don’t want to join their happy little pub nights. I don’t want to meet people. All I want is to keep my head down.

  ‘Hello,’ I reply. ‘Haven’t lost anything else, have you?’ I switch the iron back on. I will tackle the skirts for Sylvia.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. Adam’s tone is gravelly and serious. He sits in the saggy old armchair by the gas fire. ‘I came to ask you about the PSHE classes you take with the girls.’

  ‘Yes?’ I glance up from the board.

  ‘Have you met a girl called Katy Fenwick yet?’

  ‘Katy?’ I say. It gives me a moment to think. Last night she was in a terrible state; now Adam is asking me about her. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve probably seen her around but—’

  ‘Will you let me know if she says anything to you?’ Adam shifts in the squat chair. He looks uncomfortable, both body and mind.

  ‘Like what?’ I can’t betray her confidence. ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘Just let me know if she says anything.’ Adam stares down the long room, past the banks of washing machines and dryers, over the stacks of clothes, and beyond the tall window that looks out over the sports field. Distant spots of green and yellow, the school colours, flash through the early autumn mist as the girls dart about the hockey pitch.

  ‘They’re gunning for me,’ he says, suddenly standing and striding away, the remnants of his voice leaving me wondering if someone really is out to get him, or if he is perhaps not the man I thought he was.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sometimes I got asked to help with supper. The other kids stared as I was singled out and led off by the arm to the kitchen. I didn’t want to be special, I thought, the first time Patricia took me. I just wanted to go home. The kitchen was huge and filled with car-sized machines that were covered in a greasy yellow film that stayed on my fingers even after I washed them. The smell put me off my food.

  Patricia stayed in the kitchen with me, but she didn’t exactly cook. She watched as Chef tramped about, sweating from the hot, food-heavy air. She said I could help him. She thought it might cheer me up and help me to settle in, make me feel at home. I scowled when she nudged me towards Chef because, honestly, how could chopping celery into little horseshoes make me feel as if I was back with my dad, with all my toys, with my pet cat? Anyway, I didn’t even know you could boil the silly stuff, so when Chef scooped it all into a huge saucepan bubbling with water, I wondered what we were making. He ran his fingers down my arm, making my skin tingle as if it was boiling too.

  ‘Is it soup?’ My voice rang tiny through the steam and smells.

  Patricia laughed fondly. She was leaning on the wall, watching Chef in his chessboard trousers and funny hat. ‘You’ll have pie and vegetables,’ she called out, not taking her eyes off Chef. Patricia was leaning in an ‘S’ shape against the wall. Her hips stuck forward and her legs bent back, ending in pencil points. In the kitchen, Patricia acted differently to anywhere else. It was as if she forgot herself, became someone else entirely.

  ‘Pie?’ I asked. ‘I don’t see any.’

  Chef laughed and when he did, his face reddened. He glanced at Patricia. He had a moustache that sparkled as if it was wet. ‘Pie’s in the oven, girl.’ His voice was too high for his chunky body – a voice that should sound like beef and dumplings, not lemon meringue.

  ‘Can I see it?’ I asked. I’d never seen a pie cooking before. Chef beckoned me over to the oven. I heard Patricia’s soft laugh as I was scooped under the armpits and swept up to peer through the glass door. My own face was reflected over the browning crust as the pastry and gravy smells sent me wild with hunger. Breakfast was ages ago and the pie smelled so good.

  ‘That looks yummy,’ I said. I was slipping from Chef’s hands. At nearly nine years old, I was a bit too big to be held up. My arms began to hurt and I wriggled, so Chef pushed his arm between my legs like a bicycle saddle.

  ‘Now you can watch the pie cook, little one. And afterwards, I will give you some ice cream as a treat. Strawberry or vanilla?’ He couldn’t say vanilla properly.

  ‘Why is there a blackbird poking out?’ I thought it looked cruel. I fidgeted. I wouldn’t like to be that blackbird in there, all hot and trapped.

  ‘It’s not real. It’s made of china. It lets the steam out of the pie. It’s like the nursery rhyme.’

  Then, as Chef moved me about on his arm to keep hold of me, I heard the rhyme being sung. I was uncomfortable now and just wished he’d put me down. When he finally did allow me to slide off him, I realised that it had been Patricia’s soft voice humming the tune all along. She leaned against the wall smiling, looking happy, looking quite pretty, watching me and Chef. It gave me a funny feeling I didn’t like.

  ‘My daddy says my name means little bird,’ I told him, pulling down my skirt. ‘You won’t put me in a pie, will you?’

  Chef laughed. ‘No, silly. But now you can be my little bird. My secret helper in the kitchen.’ He took my hand and led me to a big silver door and pulled i
t open. Clouds of fog fell down on me. ‘Time for ice cream,’ he said in such a sweet voice it made me grip his hand tighter.

  ‘If you ever feel sad, Ava bird, just come into the kitchen for a treat.’ I can’t remember if it was Chef or Patricia who said it, because their voices were nearly the same. But it made me feel oddly happy, as if I shouldn’t have this secret with Chef, but I was special because I did. He made me promise not to tell.

  CHAPTER 17

  Nina left Ingleston Park without noticing the sodden litter spilling from the dumpsters. She didn’t notice the tied-up German shepherd baring its teeth at her as she walked between trailers. The echoes of a slap and a woman’s screams didn’t make it into her consciousness either, and neither did the wail of a baby or the thud-thud of loud music.

  ‘Mick. Mick Kennedy,’ she said to herself over and over. She was soon soaked by the rain as she walked back to the main road. Half of her was still back in the messy trailer.

  It was a long walk to the bus stop, but she didn’t care. Mick had done strange things to her mind in the hour that she had spent in his company. He exuded the kind of inner strength she’d not seen in a man before. Through the detritus of his trailer, through his extraordinary paintings, shone a mind that she felt she would like to know better.

  Thursday seemed a lifetime away. It was only a drink in a pub, but he had asked her, which meant he liked her, which meant that perhaps things weren’t so bad in her life after all. That getting up at 6 a.m. every morning, padding across the sloping landing to the shared bathroom in the hope she would reach it before the other tenants occupied it for hours, wasn’t such a hardship. That chasing coffee and bagels for the news team when she’d been trained to do their make-up didn’t really mean that she was just a lackey. That her bank balance wasn’t as desperate as it had seemed yesterday.

  Rising at the edges of Nina’s life was a halo of hope. She didn’t feel quite so alone, quite so abandoned, quite so unwanted – even though, if she was honest, getting to know someone new was about as terrifying as crossing the road blindfolded.