46
Mike
Jealous
‘What . . . what’re you talking about?’ Gemma’s hand fell to her side. She stared at Mike, profoundly shocked.
Puzzled, Mike frowned at her. Why did she have that look on her face? Like she didn’t know. His frown turned into a scowl of disbelief. ‘Don’t play games, Gemma. Go back and tell Mr Butterworth the truth. I’m not going to be around to care.’
‘You killed your dad?’ Gemma’s expression hadn’t changed. Her eyes were still as wide as saucers and her mouth was hanging open.
‘Oh, come on. You knew that already,’ Mike dismissed.
‘I didn’t. I didn’t know anything of the kind,’ Gemma denied vigorously.
‘What’re you going on about? You’ve been threatening to tell everyone the truth about me since I had the bad luck to end up in your class.’
‘But I was talking about . . . the way you didn’t want anyone to know about your mother, about her being in prison. It was obvious you were ashamed of her. That’s what I was talking about.’
Mike regarded Gemma with suspicion but the look on her face couldn’t have been feigned.
‘So you really didn’t . . .’ Mike’s voice trailed away.
‘Of course not. I don’t know your mum or any of your family. I didn’t know you until you came to our school. How could I have known about . . . about the rest?’
Silence.
‘Did you really . . .?’ Gemma lowered her voice. ‘Did you really kill your dad?’
Mike swallowed hard. He looked at Gemma and nodded.
‘What happened? I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’
‘Yeah, right!’ Mike sniffed with derision.
‘I won’t. I know you have no reason to believe me or trust me, but I won’t tell a soul.’
‘Why not? You could blackmail me until I’m ninety with that bit of information,’ Mike said bitterly.
‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘Oh no?’ Mike’s expression told all too clearly what he thought of that statement.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Gemma said bitterly. ‘I think I must’ve gone crazy for a while, but I’m not crazy now – I promise you. You don’t know what it’s been like. I have no friends and school is just as bad as home. It’s hell having people look through you and past you like you’re not even there. Like you’re invisible.’
‘It’s worse to have them look at you all the time, like you’re under a microscope,’ Mike told her.
‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ Gemma said. ‘You’ve got a family – your mum and your grandparents all care about you. You matter. You make a difference to other people’s lives. I never have. At least you know you’re real. At least you know you exist. But I couldn’t say the same thing about me. I was really beginning to wonder. When someone dies they say that they’re still alive as long as they’re remembered. Well, I’m alive and no one noticed me or cared I was around – even my dad and my brother. They didn’t bother – until I found out that Dad had chased Mum away. She wasn’t dead at all. Then he noticed me but only because he had a guilty conscience and that was worse. You don’t know what it’s like to be invisible. It’s like being dead and forgotten. It’s like never living at all. You try living like that for a while.’
Mike glared at her, unable to hide what he was feeling. ‘I’ve never heard such a load of twaddle. You’re so full of self-pity there’s no room for anything else, is there?’
‘You don’t understand . . .’
‘I understand perfectly. Because you were hurting, you wanted everyone else to hurt too. Your mum left you. And everything bad that’s happened to you and everything bad you’ve ever done is because of that. It’s your mum’s fault. It’s your dad’s fault. It’s the man-in-the-moon’s fault.’
‘I never said that,’ Gemma denied, tears pricking behind her eyes. ‘If I want someone to blame, I’ll look in a mirror. I’ve figured that much out for myself.’
‘Then why go after me?’ asked Mike, looking out across the canal water. ‘What did I do to you?’
‘I knew something about you and you couldn’t ignore me.’ Gemma lowered her head. Her words were a whisper now. ‘It’s difficult to explain, but I was a real, live person to you. And I wanted someone to pay for all those people who thought I was . . . was nothing.’
‘So it was just my luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?’ Mike said with contempt.
‘No. It wasn’t you. It could’ve been anyone.’
‘So it wasn’t me personally?’
‘Oh no. I like you. I mean . . .’ Gemma broke off in confused embarrassment.
‘You like me? If all this is you liking me, I’d hate to see what you’d do if you hated my guts.’ Mike frowned.
Gemma smiled, a smile that faded almost immediately. Mike stared at her. What was so amusing? Then he realised what he’d said. And whilst he didn’t smile, the despair that’d been crippling him for so long was now somehow, if not bearable, then certainly less. He had no idea why. Gemma knew about him and he’d been the one to tell her. He should feel worse, but somehow he didn’t. Maybe because he’d reached as low as he could go. What else could she do to him?
‘Mike, I never hated you,’ Gemma said quietly. ‘I think that was part of the problem.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘You’re all the things I’m not. You make friends easily. You’re not shy. People automatically like you.’
Mike watched as Gemma lapsed into silence. She was looking at him but Mike knew that at that moment she wasn’t seeing him. Her gaze was turned inward.
‘I think that in a way I was jealous,’ Gemma said quietly. ‘I didn’t mean to . . . It all just got out of hand. And it was easier for me to pretend I didn’t care.’
Mike understood that perfectly. He’d told himself the same thing when he went into Material Girl.
‘So what happened to your dad?’ Gemma asked.
Mike considered. It was a strange thing, but now he did want to tell her.
‘Did you really kill him?’
One word. ‘Yes.’
47
Gemma
Protection
Gemma waited for Mike to continue. She sensed that if she asked any more he would withdraw from her. It had been so hard to tell him all those things about herself, things she had never told anyone else. Some of them she hadn’t even admitted to herself. But it was right that she tell Mike. It was peculiar but Gemma could think of no one else she could tell.
‘Dad was made redundant about five years ago,’ Mike said at last. ‘That’s not an excuse. That’s just part of the reason.’
Gemma nodded.
‘He tried to set up on his own and lost his redundancy money. He tried to get the money back but he just lost more.’
‘How did he try to get it back?’
‘By betting on anything that moved,’ Mike said with contempt. ‘For a while I’d spend every evening listening to Mum and Dad argue about money, money, money. At first, they’d go into their bedroom to quarrel and I’d have to listen at the door. But after a while they stopped caring whether I heard or not.’
Gemma found herself wondering about why her own mum had gone away. Had it been as bad between her and Dad?
‘Then Dad starting playing his games. We couldn’t eat dinner without him and he’d turn up later and later each evening and then complain the food was inedible. If Mum and I were ever watching anything on the telly, he’d switch it over. He had to show us who was the boss. And he started hitting Mum. The first time he swore there’d never be a repeat. He cried and cried. But after that he started drinking. That was his excuse to do it again.’ Mike snorted derisively. ‘It sounds like a soap or something, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. It was my life – and my mum’s and dad’s. He gave Mum and me lists of things to do. They had to be done in order and on time or there’d be hell to pay. It took months and months but Mum finally had enough
. She packed up our stuff and we were going to leave.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
‘Glad,’ Mike said fiercely. ‘I never wanted to see him again. Not after what he’d put Mum and me through.’
‘What happened?’
‘Mum was in the car and we were all ready to go, but then I insisted on going back into the house because we’d forgotten Brewster.’
‘Brewster?’
‘Our cat. I went back into the house, into the sitting room to get him, and Dad was there. He’d come in the back way. He took one look at me and he instantly knew what was going on. He asked where Mum was and I told him she was outside in the car. I’ll never forget his face . . .’ Mike looked away over the canal.
Gemma opened her mouth to speak, only to close it without saying a word.
‘He was frightened, actually frightened. You see, Mum had threatened to leave plenty of times before, but she’d never done anything about it. Dad tried to push past me. I knew what he was going to do. He was going to try and persuade Mum to stay . . . I didn’t want Mum and me to live with him. I was desperate. I pulled him back and he shrugged me off. So I . . . so I pushed him.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Gemma frowned.
‘I pushed him – hard. To this day I’m not sure why. I think I wanted him to turn around and lash out at me. I wanted to have some bruises to show Mum so she wouldn’t give in. Only he . . . he fell against the mantelpiece and hit his head. When he didn’t move, I . . . I . . . panicked. I ran back to the car and we left.’
‘You didn’t tell your mum what had happened?’
Mike shook his head.
‘Why not?’ Gemma asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Mike shrugged, not looking at her. ‘No, that’s not true. I do know. I wanted to get away from Dad and that house and the whole street just as fast and as far as I could. I didn’t think he was that badly hurt. I reckoned he’d just knocked himself out for a while and by the time he woke up, Mum and I would be long gone.’
Silence.
‘When did your mum find out?’
‘When it was on the news.’ Mike sighed. ‘Mrs Everett, our neighbour, saw Dad go in the back door and heard Mum drive away soon afterwards. When she found Dad she put two and two together.’
‘And made thirty-seven,’ said Gemma. ‘What happened to your dad was an accident.’
‘But it wasn’t. Don’t you see? I’d wished he’d disappear or die for so long and then it happened, because of me.’
‘You pushed him and he fell. It was an accident,’ Gemma insisted. ‘It didn’t happen because you wished it – unless you had a genie or a leprechaun in your pocket at the time.’
Mike looked at her then, her comment bringing him out of the past and back into the present. ‘When I told Mum what’d really happened she said that the police would never believe me. She said that if and when they caught up with us, I was not to say anything. I was to let her do all the talking.’
‘And she took the blame?’
Mike nodded. ‘By the time I realised what she was doing, I tried to tell the police the truth but they thought I was just trying to cover up for Mum. And then she made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone what had really happened. She said it would ruin my life.’ Mike gave a brittle laugh. ‘What a joke!’
‘And then you met me and I made things worse,’ Gemma said sombrely. She shook her head.
‘That doesn’t matter now.’
The minutes ticked by as neither of them spoke.
Gemma looked down into the canal. ‘You’re not going to . . . to do anything stupid, are you?’
Mike jumped down off the bridge wall and followed Gemma’s gaze to look down at the canal. Just one word. ‘No.’
An icy shiver raced through Gemma’s body. If she hadn’t been there . . . ‘If you had . . . done it, you’d have been taking me with you.’
Mike turned to her. He didn’t need to ask her what she meant. ‘Maybe that was the whole point. I would’ve done it, you know.’
‘I know.’
They both stood looking out over the wall into the water below.
‘So you’ve never told anyone about your dad?’ Gemma asked.
‘No, not since the police and the probation officers didn’t believe me. And when Mum found out what I was saying she told me to stop at once. She ordered me never to repeat my “ story” to anyone else,’ Mike replied.
‘I’ve never had anyone to talk to about how I was feeling either,’ Gemma admitted.
And it was then that Gemma realised the pain in her chest had gone. She looked at Mike. He didn’t look much like a safety valve but that’s what he was. Maybe that was what she was too. They’d both had so much inside them with no way to release it, that sooner or later it had to explode out. Gemma wondered what would have happened to both of them if Mike hadn’t joined her class. The possibilities made her shiver.
Gemma looked up and took a deep breath. Funny how the water should look so mucky and the air could smell so clean. It was a beautiful afternoon. The sky was becoming overcast and grey, the air was humid and uncomfortable, and yet Gemma had never felt so alert, so alive. Today was the first day of the rest of her life. She’d heard that said before but she’d never really understood it until now.
She could see the pathway beside the canal to the right and the mass of briars, weeds and bushes behind the rubbish which fringed the canal on the left. Just beyond all the foliage were buildings. Houses mostly and tall office blocks behind those. Gemma had never seen anything so wonderful. She risked a shy glance at Mike. He was looking around too. For now they stood in silence – apart but together. It was a strange feeling and Gemma knew it couldn’t last. But she was going to make the most of it whilst it did.
‘We’d better get back to school,’ she sighed.
‘I suppose.’
They walked back without saying a word. Once they’d entered the school gates, Gemma said, ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you.’
‘Yeah, OK,’ Mike said.
And they walked off in opposite directions just as the buzzer sounded for the end of the lunch break.
48
Mike
Stories
‘Robyn, can I talk to you?’
The whole class quietened down. It was the first time in a long while that Gemma had spoken to anyone in the class apart from Mr Butterworth. Mike looked around. All eyes were on Gemma. She was swallowing convulsively like there was something stuck in her throat. Mike saw her look around the classroom, a slow burn of red creeping over her cheeks. She looked almost terrified. What was she doing now?
‘What about?’ Robyn frowned.
‘It’s about Mike.’
Mike’s heart gave a lurch. A whole day had passed since the . . . canal business and Mike had begun to think that Gemma meant it when she said she wouldn’t say a word. He should’ve known better.
‘He didn’t steal the jumper, he was bringing it out of the shop to show me,’ Gemma said. ‘He wanted to ask me if I thought his nan might like it for her birthday.’
‘But it was stuffed under his jacket . . .’
‘Only because he thought the shop assistant wouldn’t let him take it out of the shop. He was going to pay for it.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Robyn dismissed.
‘Yes, I do. He told me so. Besides he wouldn’t take anything from your mum’s shop. One – he’s not a thief. And two – he likes you too much.’ Gemma smiled.
Robyn turned to look at Mike – as did everyone else. There were a couple of wolf whistles and some giggles. Mike wanted a ravenous hole to appear under his chair and suck him in! Couldn’t Gemma come up with anything better than that?
‘He didn’t have to steal that jumper from your mum’s shop, and I can prove it,’ said Gemma. ‘He left his money with me. See!’ Gemma handed Robyn an envelope.
Robyn reached out and took it. She shook the money out on to the table.
‘It’s all there
. You can count it if you like,’ Gemma told her.
‘I don’t understand.’ Robyn’s frown was carved around the corners of her mouth. ‘How come you’ve got his money?’
‘Because Mike is too embarrassed to tell you what really happened. It was all just a misunderstanding. Mike’s not a thief. I was there. I know.’
‘You’re the girl who ran away when Helen asked you if you knew Mike,’ Robyn realised.
‘Helen?’
‘Mum’s shop assistant.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know that was her name. She looked like some kind of harpy. I took one look at her face and scarpered.’ Gemma shook her head. ‘It was really cowardly. I should’ve hung around and told her what was really going on. But honestly, Robyn, that woman looked like she was about to chew a chair leg!’
‘Yeah, she can be a bit ferocious!’ Robyn agreed drily.
‘So I’m sorry about all the hassle. I should’ve stayed and explained to everyone what was happening.’
‘But why didn’t Mike say something?’ Robyn turned to look at Mike again. ‘Mike, you should’ve just told Mum and Helen what you were up to.’
Mike shrugged, looking helplessly at Gemma.
‘He wanted to, but when I ran off he didn’t think anyone would believe him. That’s why he never said anything, even to the police. And he didn’t want to get me into trouble, which makes me feel even worse. That’s the kind of person he is.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Robyn said doubtfully.
Mike stared at her. She wasn’t going to believe that load of old guff, was she? But from the tentative smile she was giving him, it seemed that she might.
‘I’m really sorry about that. I know I caused a lot of trouble by running away. I didn’t mean to,’ Gemma said. ‘And it wasn’t fair to Mike either.’
‘It’s OK.’ Robyn smiled. ‘I’ll tell my mum.’
Gemma picked up the money and stuffed it back into the envelope. She went back to her table and sat down, her hands and the envelope on her lap. Everyone was watching her. Gemma smiled tentatively.
‘Oops! Mike, before I forget, I’d better give this back to you before Mr Butterworth arrives.’ She leaned across her table and handed over the envelope.