Torn

  ‘So how’s Alice doing this term?’ Dad sits back in his chair, legs loosely crossed. He’s obviously expecting the same spiel he’s had from all the others.

  Daley looks down at her notes, shuffles them a bit, then meets Dad’s gaze. ‘I have to be honest with you, Mr King. I’m a little worried about Alice.’ I stare at the whiteboard just over her head. Someone hasn’t done a very good job of cleaning it. I can make out what looks like the word ‘Chancer’ but I’m guessing it’s actually ‘Chaucer’. That would make more sense.

  ‘Worried? Why’s that?’ Dad uncrosses his legs and leans forward in his chair.

  ‘I’m not sure she’s coping so well, after …’ Why can’t she say it? Why can’t anyone just say it?

  ‘But her marks have been fine, haven’t they?’ Yes. They have. You tell her, Dad.

  ‘Yes, her marks have been fine. The essay Alice handed in last week was well written and well argued and just … fine.’

  Dad shrugs. ‘So what’s the problem then? Everything’s fine.’ WILL EVERYONE STOP SAYING FINE?! Please.

  I finally risk a look at Daley. She looks like she wants to crawl into one of the desk drawers and hide. She sighs. ‘Alice is one of the brightest students I’ve ever taught.’ This statement is ridiculous for two reasons: 1) She’s been a teacher for all of ten minutes. This makes me one of the ONLY students she’s ever taught, and 2) I’ve always been OK at English. Never great. Never crap. I’ve never won any prizes or anything. Never had one of my essays chosen to enter those competitions they put people up for every now and then. She goes on, ‘But she’s not reaching her full potential. Not even close. She’s been distracted since we got back, which is perfectly understandable. A lot of us have had trouble … adjusting.’

  Dad’s sitting so far forward in his chair I think he might topple over and whack his chin on the edge of Daley’s desk. At least that would put a stop to this. ‘Of course Alice has been distracted! What happened was … terrible. I don’t know how she even manages to get out of bed in the morning.’ He pauses to squeeze my knee and give me a sad smile. ‘She copes with anything life throws at her.’ Oh God. Please don’t bring Mum into this.

  ‘Yes, that may be so. But I’ve noticed she’s not been concentrating in lessons.’ What is this woman’s problem?!

  ‘Surely you can give her a bit of leeway, considering what she’s been through?’ Dad’s pissed off. His voice has an edge to it. Maybe Daley won’t notice, but to me it’s as obvious as if he had a wailing siren attached to his head.

  ‘Mr King, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Alice isn’t in any trouble or anything like that.’ Now she leans forward in her chair. Their body language is exactly the same. Didn’t I read something about that happening when people fancy each other? I think it’s called ‘mirroring’. Dear God, please don’t let there be any mirroring happening in this room.

  Daley turns to look at me. Finally. ‘Alice, I want to help you. I’d like for us to meet after school, once a week perhaps. We can go through the week’s work and any questions you might have. And we can talk. About anything you like.’ She’s all hopeful and expectant, like I’m supposed to jump at the idea or something. Not gonna happen.

  ‘Um …’ Every word in the English language seems to have momentarily fallen out of my head.

  Daley and Dad both wait for me to say something coherent. They’ll be waiting a long time. I have the right to remain silent, etc.

  After an extraordinarily long pause – filled only by the ticking of the clock above the whiteboard – Dad finally pipes up, ‘I think that sounds like a good idea.’ No! Traitor!

  Daley breaks into a grin. Her teeth are slightly too small for her mouth. ‘I’m so pleased you think so!’

  Dad smiles back. I would like them both to stop smiling now. It’s making me nauseous. ‘It’ll be good for Alice to have someone to talk to. I think she’s lucky to have a teacher like you – someone willing to go above and beyond.’

  Daley blushes way too easily – just like me. ‘Oh, it’s no trouble. Really.’ She glances down at her notes again and then back up at Dad. ‘Alice is worth it.’

  Dad nudges my arm and laughs. ‘Y’hear that, Alice? Because you’re worth it!’ The smile I give him in return is like weak tea versus his double-bloody-espresso, high-beam Smile of a Thousand Teeth.

  ‘This is OK with you, isn’t it, Alice?’ asks Daley. Nice of her to bother.

  I know when I’m beaten, but I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of thinking I’m actually happy with the idea. ‘I suppose so.’

  They take my agreement as a sign to ignore me completely and talk about anything but English, schoolwork, Bransford Academy and me. I can’t believe they’re making small talk. Dad never bothers with any of the other teachers. It’s usually a matter of pride with him – how he can get a fifteen-minute appointment done and dusted in six minutes. But not this time. Now he’s acting like he’s got all the time in the world and he’d like to do nothing more than to spend it in this bloody classroom, talking to bird-lady.

  I do my best not to listen. I try to tune it out the way I’ve been trying to tune out Ghost Tara recently. It doesn’t work. They end up talking about cycling. Apparently it’s a ‘shared interest’. FFS. Maybe I should stab myself in the eye with Daley’s biro? Anything to make this stop.

  I will not let myself think about what this might mean. They CANNOT be interested in each other. It’s impossible. He’s, like, fifteen years older than her or something. No. He’s just being friendly. That’s all there is to it. He hasn’t been interested in anyone since Mum died. He’s perfectly happy on his own. He told me. It’s his motto or something: ‘Just me and you, kid – me and you against the world.’ We like it that way. Of course, we liked it a whole lot better with Mum around.

  An ugly screeching sound interrupts my thoughts – Dad’s chair dragging across the floor. I stare at Daley and Dad as they say their goodbyes. It’s all perfectly formal and fine. They shake hands again, and it’s not like he keeps hold of her hand for too long or gazes into her eyes or anything like that. But Daley does smooth down her skirt and fidget a bit. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do now there’s no more hand-shaking to be done.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Alice?’ I can tell Daley’s trying to catch my eye, but I don’t want to look at her. I just nod vaguely and head for the door. I walk down the corridor as fast as I can without looking like one of those crazy power-walkers. Dad catches up just as I reach the front entrance. The doorway is clogged with overly glam mothers and tired, rumpled fathers (and a few overly glam fathers and tired, rumpled mothers). The girls trailing behind them are various shades of bored, disinterested and too-cool-for-school. I spot Rae and her parents. Her folks look normal. Not that I was expecting them to be all emo or anything. Rae’s shoulders are hunched up and her arms are sort of wrapped round herself. She looks like she’s trying to make herself as compact as possible so that no one will notice her. It seems to be working. I see her though. I always see her. I’ve become painfully aware of Cass and Polly and Rae whenever they’re around. I can’t stop myself from staring, wondering what they’re thinking. How they’re coping. How they manage to get through each day without breaking.

  It’s a relief when we finally get outside, and an even bigger relief when we pass through the school gates and escape from everyone milling around the car park.

  Neither of us says a word until we’re at the bus stop.

  ‘So that was pretty rude.’ Dad doesn’t sound angry – not exactly.

  I give him my best wide-eyed innocent shruggy sort of look.

  Dad shakes his head. ‘Don’t give me that! You barely said two words to Miss Daley back there.’

  ‘What was I supposed to say? You two seemed to be getting along just fine without me getting involved.’

  ‘She’s trying the help you, Al. The least you can do is act like you’re grateful.’

  ‘Grateful? For being kept
behind after school like there’s something wrong with me?’

  ‘It’s not like that, and you know it. She’s taking an interest in you, and I for one am glad about that. It’s more than the rest of that lot have ever done.’

  ‘I don’t need anyone to “take an interest” in me. I’m fine!’ My voice betrays me and cracks in the middle of the word ‘fine’, breaking it into two syllables. Tears spring from nowhere and Dad immediately looks alarmed. He hates to see me cry. It’s his kryptonite.

  ‘Hey, hey, don’t cry.’ He gathers me up in his arms and I practically collapse into the hug. I have no idea why I’m so upset. I really hope no one from school drives by and spots us. Hopefully the tinted windows in their BMWs make it just as hard to see out as it is to see in.

  The bus arrives but I can’t stop my snivelling, so Dad lets it pull away without us on-board. Eventually he disentangles himself from the hug and says the one word that he knows will cheer me up. It works every time. ‘Doughnuts?’

  We catch the next bus and neither of us speaks on the journey. Dad has his arm around me, and that’s enough. Just me and him. Against the world.

  The doughnut shop is perfectly situated between the bus stop and our house. It’s our favourite place. We sit in our usual booth and I have one glazed raspberry-jam doughnut and one maple-glazed. I can never quite finish the second doughnut, but Dad always manages to polish it off for me. Each bite of doughnut is like a little piece of heaven in my mouth. Each bite makes everything seem that bit better. Sugary goodness is my drug of choice.

  We talk about nothing in particular and both of us manage to ignore the fact that I’m still all snotty and red-eyed from the random tears. It’s only when the doughnuts are all gone and I’m starting to come down from my sugar high that he sips his coffee and looks at me out of the corner of his eye and says, ‘I think you should tell me about Tara.’

  23

  I’ve been waiting for this. I knew it was coming. He’s asked about it before – quite a few times, in fact – but never with that look. That Dad look that tells me that he can make everything OK, as long as I tell him the truth – Superdad will save the day. It used to be sort of true – he could solve my problems. But my problems were different back then. Smaller, simpler problems. I haven’t done my maths homework and it’s due first thing in the morning … It’s my turn to take Bruno for a walk, but I’m not feeling very well … Barbie’s head’s fallen off (well, actually I sort of somehow managed to pull it off) … These were Dad-sized problems. Sort-ofbut-not-really-murdering-one-of-your-classmates-and-throwing-her-down-a-well is most definitely not a Dad-sized problem.

  I have an idea of what Dad’s expecting to hear. So that’s what I tell him. Tara’s death stirring up memories about Mum. How I still miss Mum every day. How it doesn’t get any easier, not really.

  Most of what I say to him is true. But the lies I do have to tell come easily. Dad is silent for the most part, but he squeezes my hand once or twice and does a lot of nodding. I can tell all this talk about Mum hurts him. But I manage to convince myself that the truth would hurt him a whole lot worse. The truth would kill him. Maybe not literally, but something inside him would die. The part of him that thinks I’m his little angel. The part of him that thinks I’m his reason for soldiering on after Mum died. I will not let that happen.

  I head straight to bed when we get home. I need to be by myself for a little while. Should have known she wouldn’t let that happen.

  She waits until I’m getting undressed. I’m in my bra and pants.

  ‘Hmm … have you put on weight, Alice? Been comfort eating again? Maybe you should lay off the doughnuts. Especially if you want my little brother to be interested. I don’t think he digs fat chicks.’

  I grab my dressing gown and put it on as quickly as possible. Tie the cord around my waist as tight as it will go.

  ‘Oh, come on, Alice, there’s no need to be shy! I was only joking, for Christ’s sake. The least you can do is laugh at my jokes.’

  I can’t do this. Not tonight. I climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.

  ‘Talk to me. Please? I’m bored. Did you have fun this evening? Teachers falling over themselves to say nice things about you? And how was Daley? Has she got over it yet? Can’t be good for your career, letting one of your students get a severe case of dead on your first school trip, can it?’

  ‘Please stop this, Tara. I’m begging you.’ I’m not even sure if I say this out loud, but she hears it anyway.

  ‘Why?’ Her voice is quiet. More thoughtful than usual. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into a single word.

  ‘Because I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. I feel like I’m going mad.’

  ‘Maybe you are.’

  ‘Maybe I am.’ I burrow deeper under the duvet and try not cry. The trying is a waste of time.

  In English the next day Daley keeps glancing over and I do my best to ignore her. I concentrate on drawing hundreds and hundreds of tiny squares in the margin of my notebook. Towards the end of the lesson I realize that the nib of my biro has torn a hole in the page, ruining everything.

  Daley keeps me behind after the lesson – again. As everyone else files out, Danni turns in my direction. Our eyes meet for maybe a second or two and then she’s gone.

  Daley’s fussing around, putting papers back in her bag and pens in the desk drawer, waiting for the room to empty. I’ll give her that. At least she’s not broadcasting the fact that she’s forcing me to have after-school lessons/counselling sessions for Special People. She wants to know what day is best for me. She can’t do Thursdays apparently, as that’s ‘salsa night’. I try to picture her with a flower in her hair, wearing a stupid black dress and dancing with some Latin god. The picture evaporates in my head as soon as she says that she goes with Miss Schuman, my German teacher. I bet they end up having to dance with each other when there aren’t enough blokes to go round.

  I must have been smiling slightly, because Daley says something about me seeming a lot brighter today. I wipe the smile off my face immediately. I will not give her the satisfaction of thinking she’s helping me somehow.

  We settle on Tuesday afternoon. At least that way I’ve got almost a whole week before I have to face it.

  On my way to history I see something that stops me in my tracks. There are flyers everywhere. And I mean everywhere. They’re all different colours, but they all say the same thing:

  The Tara Chambers Memorial Dance

  Friday, 12 November

  Special guest band: Blackdog Sundays Please see Polly Sutcliffe for tickets – £5 each

  All proceeds to the Tara Chambers Memorial Society

  People are rushing past me, jostling me with their bags. I’m a rock in the middle of a raging torrent. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I can’t even begin to understand what she’s playing at. Blackdog Sundays is Jack’s band. He’s the guitarist (or the bass guitarist … something involving guitars anyway). He told me about them at the weekend – somewhat reluctantly. He didn’t mention anything about this though.

  I am going to kill Polly Sutcliffe. I mean, I knew the proceeds of the dance were going to her little society, but I didn’t think they’d rename the thing – it’s been called the Bransford Bop for something like fifty years. I don’t know what I’m angriest about: the dance itself or the fact that she’s getting Jack’s band to play. I feel hot and cold at the same time. My hands ball up into fists and I swear I’m about to punch something.

  ‘Weird, isn’t it?’ Danni is standing behind me, a little bit too close.

  ‘Um … what’s weird?’

  ‘The Tara Chambers Memorial Dance?! Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? If Tara was around to see this, she’d have a fucking fit. Here, hold this.’ She shoves her bag into my arms and starts tearing down flyers. People are stopping to watch. They’re staring at me like I’m an accomplice. She rids one whole wall of flyers before she turns to me. There are tears
in her eyes.

  ‘What on earth is going on here?!’ It’s Daley. Of course it would have to be Daley. And she’s looking at me. God knows why, when Danni’s the one standing there with bunches of scrunched-up paper in her hands.

  ‘Um … nothing.’ Very convincing.

  ‘Alice, Danni, come with me.’ Great. Just great. I wait for Danni to explain that I haven’t done anything wrong. She doesn’t. She just grabs her bag and follows Daley down the hall, dropping the flyers as she goes. For the first time I notice Rae standing in a doorway, a purple folder clasped against her chest like a shield. Our eyes meet and she turns away. I should talk to her. I keep meaning to talk to her.

  Daley leads us to her classroom and makes us sit down while she hops up onto her desk. She looks like a small child playing at being teacher.

  ‘Now, does one of you want to tell me what that little scene was all about?’

  I look at Danni as pointedly as possible. Tears are trickling down her face and she’s not even trying to stop them. She says nothing.

  ‘Danni, I realize you’re upset, but that’s no excuse for vandalizing school property!’

  Vandalizing? That seems a little extreme, but I know when to keep my mouth shut.

  ‘Danni? Talk to me, please.’

  ‘That fucking dance,’ she says quietly.

  Daley doesn’t even flinch at the swearing. ‘What about the dance?’

  ‘It’s twisted! Tara’s dead, for Christ’s sake. We shouldn’t be having a fucking party! Who does Polly Sutcliffe think she is anyway? She wasn’t even friends with Tara.’ I couldn’t agree more.

  Daley’s sitting there nodding as if she agrees with everything Danni says. But she’s just biding her time, formulating her argument in her head.

  ‘I can understand how you feel, Danni. But you have to understand that people grieve in different ways. And just because Polly wasn’t necessarily friends with Tara, that doesn’t mean she’s not hurting too. I think Polly’s doing a wonderful thing, dedicating so much of her time. I think Tara would appreciate that too, don’t you?’ Her eyes are big and wide and full of sympathy and I can tell she’s so sure that she’s saying exactly the right words.