Tobey picked up his tray and strode away from me in a right strop. What was up with him? What was up with us come to that? The older we got, the less I understood him. Was this something to do with getting older or were we just drifting apart?
'Hi, Rose. Lost your shadow then?'
'Huh?' I stared stupidly at Lucas, who appeared from nowhere to stand in front of me with some of his friends, Axel and Jack – and Amyas. Inside I groaned. His Chronic Lushness was standing before me and all I could say was – huh!
Tobey Durbrain. He is your shadow, isn't he?'
'They're in love!' said Axel. What an idiot!
'Don't be ridiculous. As if I'd ever have Tobey as my boyfriend. We're just friends, that's all – and barely that at the moment.' The words were more dismissive than I'd meant them to be, but I didn't want Amyas to get the wrong idea. Then Lucas, Amyas and the others started laughing, but it wasn't directed at me. My antennae started to quiver. I turned sharply, just in time to see Tobey turn away. And though I only caught his face in profile, I saw enough.
'Tobey, wait.'
With the laughter of Lucas and the others pushing me forward, I ran after Tobey.
'Tobey, I didn't mean that the way it sounded,' I said.
'Thanks for sticking up for me, Callie Rose. I really appreciate it,' Tobey said, with quiet bitterness.
At that moment, I felt I'd have to stretch up to scratch an amoeba's kneecaps.
'I just meant we're always arguing these days,' I tried to explain. 'That's all I meant.'
'And you think that's why I'm upset?'
'Well, yes. What else have you got to be upset about?'
'You really don't know, do you?' said Tobey.
'What have I done?'
'Nothing,' said Tobey. 'You haven't done anything or said anything. And I didn't expect anything else.'
'I don't understand.'
'I know you don't,' said Tobey. 'That's the problem.'
And this time when he walked away from me, I let him go. Because I was wrong about the tone of his voice and the look on his face. It wasn't bitterness he was directing at me. It was something far stronger and much deeper.
sixty-six. Sephy
'You do realize that Jordy Carson is never going to leave you alone,' I said, sweeping up the last of the glass. 'I know his type. He's got the scent of blood in his nostrils and he's not going to stop.'
'Now tell me something I don't know,' said Nathan with understandable tetchiness.
'So what're you going to do about it?'
Nathan emptied his dustpan full of broken glass into the large cardboard box, liberally lined with crumpled newspapers. I looked around Specimens. Jordy's cronies had done a better than average demolition job on the place. The last time they'd done this, we were up and running again in a couple of days. This time it would take longer. And Jordy's tactics were beginning to work. This was the third time there'd been a 'break in' at Specimens where nothing had been stolen but the place had been trashed. It was getting almost impossible for Nathan to get insurance on the place any more. And his staff turnover rate had to be eligible for entry in The World Book of Records. Jordy Carson had been very clever. This way he got the best of both worlds. Nathan was going broke rapidly, losing days having to fix up the place, some of our regular clients were staying away and the staff were leaving anyway. And it was so frustrating to sit at my piano, sing cover versions and watch it all happen.
I slowly became aware of Nathan watching me.
'Sephy, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to let you go.'
'What? Why?'
'Look at the place.' Nathan indicated. 'It's not safe. And I don't want you in the middle of this.'
'I'm a big girl now,' I told him. 'I can take care of myself.'
'Not against the likes of Carson and his lot. They don't play by any rules you've ever heard of.'
'I'm not leaving, Nathan.'
'Then you're fired.'
'Then I'll sing just inside the restaurant door or sing from the toilets as a patron if I have to. You can't stop me doing that.'
'I could have you thrown out as a nut job!'
'If you throw me out, I'll come straight back in.'
Nathan stared at me. 'Are you serious?'
'What d'you think?'
'God, you're stubborn.'
I grinned at him. 'I know.'
'Persephone, listen. Bless you for wanting to stick by me but this place is just bricks and mortar—'
'And years of your life and sweat and tears,' I interrupted.
'But there's nothing here that I couldn't walk away from if I had to. I'll just move to another town and open up a new bar and restaurant. Everything here is replaceable. You're not,' said Nathan.
Surprised, I regarded Nathan. The last thing I wanted was for him to capitulate to a low-life, pond-slime weasel like Jordy Carson because of me.
'You're worrying too much—'
'It's not just you. All my staff are irreplaceable and I'm not going to take any more chances. Sooner rather than later, Jordy Carson is going to move on from breaking the furniture and start breaking bones,' said Nathan. 'If I don't let Jordy have what he wants, someone is going to end up on a slab.'
'But you can't just let him win,' I urged. 'You can't just let him have it all without a fight.'
'Don't worry, Sephy. I still have a trick or two up my sleeve.'
'As long as your tricks don't—' My mobile phone started to ring.
Impatiently, I flicked it open. Minerva was phoning me. It had to be serious then. My sister never phoned just to chat. I pressed the button to answer the call.
'Hang on, Nathan. It's my sister,' I told him before talking into the phone. 'Hi, Minerva. What's up?'
Our conversation lasted less than five minutes. But they had to be amongst the worst five minutes of my life.
'Sephy? What is it? What's happened?' asked Nathan. 'Your face has gone ashen.'
'I have to go, Nathan,' I said. I propped my broom against the bar in a daze.
'Has something happened to Callie Rose?' Nathan took hold of my arm and turned me round to face him.
I shook my head. My head felt so strange, like I had sleepwalked my way into a new world and I couldn't understand anything that was going on.
'I have to go . . . ' I said.
'I'll take you,' said Nathan.
'No, I—'
'You're in no fit state to drive,' Nathan insisted. 'Has your sister had an accident?'
I shook my head again. 'It's not Minerva, it's Mother. She's in hospital.'
sixty-seven. Jasmine
'Mother, why didn't you tell us? You should've told us.'
'What would you have done, Minerva?' I asked.
'We could've been here for you. You wouldn't've had to go through all this alone,' my daughter said angrily.
Children! Honestly! They thought all they had to do was rage against something to get what they wanted. They thought all they had to do was shout, 'I DON'T WANT THIS!' and whatever it was would disappear. The optimism of youth. But at least I'd told them now. I had to tell them some time, but this was even worse than I'd imagined. Minerva couldn't stop shouting at me. Sephy stood by the window, staring out of it, her arms folded; her profile could've been cast in bronze. And she hadn't said a word since she'd entered my hospital room.
'Why on earth didn't you go to the doctor as soon as you felt a lump in your breast?' Minerva was the picture of angry bewilderment, eyes blazing, words spoken through tight lips and gritted teeth. She thought of me as an ornament in her life, old and getting older, definitely out of fashion but something that would be around for ever – with a little dusting now and again! 'Why did you put it off and put it off?'
Minerva looked at me expectantly. She really believed that was a question I could answer.
'How bad is it?' Sephy asked from across the room. She was still looking out of the window, not at me.
I'd practised how I was going to tell my daughters
the truth about what I had, but now the words in my head seemed blunt and stark. And there was no other way to say it.
'I have stage one breast cancer. As the tumour is still relatively small and there are no lymph nodes involved, I'm to have a lumpectomy and then start a course of radiotherapy. As long as there are clear margins when they remove the tumour I should be fine after the radiation therapy.'
'Clear margins? What does that mean?' Minerva asked sharply.
'As long as there are no cancer cells in the tissue surrounding the tumour,' I explained.
'And if the margins aren't clear?' asked Minerva.
'Let's cross that bridge if and when we get to it,' I told her.
'How long did you wait before going to see a doctor?' asked Sephy quietly.
Ah! Sephy knew me better than I thought. And it was a question to which she probably already knew the sorry answer. She was still looking out of the window. How I wished she'd look at me. But she was bristling with anger and trying to keep it from me.
'I went to my GP as soon as I realized the lump wasn't going away,' I said.
I wasn't about to add that worry had turned days into weeks, before the fear of not knowing had overtaken the fear of what it might be.
'Why didn't you go straight away as soon as the lump appeared?' asked Sephy.
I shrugged. 'It could've been nothing. Besides, I . . . I find it awkward discussing these things. You girls know that.'
Sephy turned to face me for the first time. 'If something happens to you, Mother, I know just what we should write on your gravestone,' she said. 'Here lies Jasmine Hadley, She died of embarrassment.'
'Sephy!' Minerva admonished.
Sephy turned away to stare out of the window again. But not before I saw the tears streaming down her face.
Oh, dear.
sixty-eight.
Callie Rose is 13
Double science was fantastic today – 'cause I got to sit next to him. Of course, when Mrs Mayne split us into pairs and said we had to work together, he moaned like the north wind down a chimney about having to be my partner. But then he had to do that – otherwise his friends would've teased him about sitting next to me and working with me. But I bet he was just as thrilled as I was.
I got to sit next to Amyas. Yippee!!
I know I didn't like him much when he joined the school, but since then he's got really buff and become knock-down yummy on a stick. And I've grown up in a year. Grown up a lot. I can appreciate boys now – well, some boys. Well, one boy.
'I'm in charge of this experiment and I'm going to do all the mixing. You can write up everything,' Amyas told me.
'OK. Whatever you think best.' I smiled. Not too many teeth, smile with the mouth and the eyes – I read that in Ms Young Thing magazine two weeks ago (How to Win His Heart With a Winning Smile – Part 1). Smirking, I glanced around to make a note of all the girls who were jealous of me. And the first person I saw looking at me was Tobey. Looking straight at me, with that knowing, mocking smile of his. His expression immediately made me feel self-conscious, not to mention put my back up. What was his problem? Maybe I was drooling a bit around Amyas, but he was soooo lush. Cool? He was red hot!
Amyas and I worked together for the whole double lesson. He did all the best, most interesting bits, but I really didn't mind. I enjoyed working with him. He was so clever without even having to try at it. I made a couple of suggestions for our experiments, both of which he shot down with flaming arrows of sarcasm. But I didn't even mind that, although I didn't suggest anything else.
Once the second buzzer had sounded, Amyas was one of the first out of the room. I ambled out, only to find myself walking next to Tobey, who started up immediately.
'If you could see how ridiculous you look when you're around Amyas, you'd run a mile from him,' he said. 'Everyone's laughing at you.'
'What're you on about?'
'Rose, why don't you wake up and smell the toast burning?' Tobey said blisteringly. 'If you really believe Amyas would go out with someone like you, then you need to get back to the same postcode as reality.'
'What does that mean – someone like me?' I asked through narrowed eyes.
'You're half-Nought,' Tobey shot back.
My body blazed hot, then burned icy-cold. 'So?'
'So Amyas would never go out with a Nought or a halfer. He's said so.'
'I don't believe you. And I'm not half anything,' I said with contempt. 'Where's the line running down my body to separate the Nought bit from the Cross bit?'
'Amyas doesn't see it that way.'
'That's not true. You're just sorry that I don't fancy you instead of Amyas,' I challenged.
Tobey inhaled sharply, his cheeks blooming like red roses. 'D'you really think I'd want a loser like you dripping all over me. The whole class is laughing at the way you carry on around Amyas and you're too stupid to realize. It's embarrassing.'
'You're jealous! How funny!'
I didn't for one second believe that Tobey really was jealous of me and Amyas. After all, Tobey and I had been good friends for ever. And if Tobey hadn't launched in with all that spiteful poison, I might've taken it back and apologized, but Tobey was scowling at me like I'd accused him of fancying his mum's best friend or something. The last couple of stragglers in the class trooped past us, leaving only Tobey and me in the science lab.
'Jealous of Amyas? You must be joking.' A strange, icy look swept up and over Tobey's face. A look I'd never seen before.
'You are jealous.' I began to sing tunelessly at him, ''Cause you want to kiss me and have a smoochie, because you lurve me, you're green with envy, because you lurve me . . . !'
'Your dad was in the Liberation Militia. He killed loads of people. Amyas could have his pick of any girl in our year, so why on earth would he choose you – the daughter of Callum McGregor, a bastard Nought terrorist they hanged 'cause he was so evil!'
The ground beneath my feet suddenly vanished. I was like a character in a cartoon, standing stock still on nothing at all for what was an eternity. My mind started free-falling, spinning out of control. I didn't move, didn't even blink. The slightest gesture would've had me crashing like bad software. The hard, scathing look on Tobey's face softened almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Softened and shifted into regret and something even more contrite. But I was outside myself and looking through my shell, 'watching him apologize with everything he was, every part of his body, but without a single word being spoken.
'What did you say?' I whispered inanely. As if Tobey saying it again would somehow cancel out the first time he'd said it. 'I don't believe you. What did you say?'
'Oh my God!' Tobey breathed. 'You . . . you didn't know?'
I pushed him back just as hard as I could. 'YOU'RE A LIAR!' I shouted.
Tobey didn't speak.
'Tell me you were lying.' Each word was a plea. It was all lies. My dad . . . my dad was a gardener. It was just a mistake . . . mistaken identity . . .
'Callie Rose, I didn't mean it,' said Tobey. There was no mistaking the desperation in his voice. 'I was just being . . . I didn't mean it. It's not true.'
His voice was a long way off, but like a sonic boom each syllable had me cracking, crumbling, tumbling inside. I couldn't stop it. This was pure hell. My mind couldn't stop replaying Tobey's words. It was like being constantly put back together just so I could feel the pain of being demolished all over again. What was it that convinced me Tobey had been speaking the truth? The anger which flushed out his words in the first place or the sorrow on his face because his words had sprouted wings and taken on a life and flight of their own? Not that any of that mattered now.
I whispered, 'My dad was a terrorist?'
'No. Listen, it wasn't your dad. It was someone else.' Tobey took hold of my arm. 'It wasn't your dad – honest.'
But my dad was Callum McGregor . . .
'Rose, listen to me. It's not true,' Tobey persisted. 'He wasn't a terrorist. I just made that up . . .
'
I pulled away from his grasp. 'We may not be friends but let's have honesty between us if nothing else.'
Tobey's hand dropped to his side.
'When and where did you hear about . . . about my dad?'
Tobey didn't speak. He just looked at me.
'Answer me. How did you find out about my dad?'
'I heard my mum and dad talking about it when I was younger,' Tobey admitted.
My mind was dive-bombing, kamikaze style. Thoughts like desperate arms scrambled to find something real, something true to hold onto.
My dad was a gardener.
My dad was a terrorist.
My dad loved my mum and me.
My dad was a terrorist.
My dad was evil.
My dad was a terrorist.
My dad didn't kill anyone. My dad killed – what was Tobey's phrase? – 'loads of people'.
My dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad mydadmydadmydad . . . Spinning around me. Laughing at me. Mocking me. I should've found out the truth for myself. But how could I find what I hadn't been looking for?
'Mum said my dad died in an accident . . .' I whispered.
A lie. Tobey was a liar. My mum was a liar.
Someone help me, please.
I closed my eyes briefly. Was it true? Did all our neighbours know? How many people knew the truth about my dad? If it was the truth. If there was any such thing.
'And you've told everyone here at school?'
'No, I haven't,' Tobey denied. 'I've never said a word to anyone.'
'But everyone knows?'
'Not from me. And there's no reason why they should. It happened years and years ago and most people can't even remember what happened last month. Your surname is Hadley, not McGregor. And not many people have figured out who your mum really is. Everyone expects Kamal Hadley's daughter to be living in luxury and rolling in pots of money, not living with a Nought woman in Meadowview.'
'A Nought called McGregor,' I pointed out.
'Yes, but apart from church, your nan keeps herself pretty much to herself and so does your mum.'
Tobey knew all about me. Every sordid little detail. He knew more than I knew myself.