Miss Gilbert nods, then starts to wash some brushes, black paint swirling down the drain. “Were you really trying to look at it, Tess? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Well, she was holding it. Two other girls were hanging around my desk as well. Tara McCloud and Sarah Horsfall. They’re not exactly innocent.”
“Tara and Sarah? About as innocent as I am.” Miss Gilbert suddenly grins. It bursts out of her, this wild smile of amusement that she sucks back in, but not before it’s done its work, warming the air a couple of degrees. She scrubs the brushes with her fingers, the black paint turning gray. “I suppose there’s no major misdemeanor, is there? I mean, it’s not as if she stole the phone.”
“No. Not at all.” I look at Mr. Richardson sharply. That’s not what he said after the lesson, but maybe he’s doing me a favor.
“And she’s never done anything like this before,” Miss Gilbert continues as I try not to think of the wallet. “She’s a good student.”
“I know that. She’s excellent,” Mr. Richardson replies—and there he is once more, the man I recognize, soft and kind with all this Like in his warm brown eyes. The knot in my gut unravels and I breathe with lungs that feel as if they’re floating. I’m okay. It’s okay.
The water runs clear. Miss Gilbert bangs the paintbrushes on the sink and my teachers carry on chatting about nothing whatsoever suspicious.
42
“Is Tess in? I’m a friend. Just thought I’d say hi.”
I’m sprawling on the sofa in my tiger-print onesie watching Embarrassing Bodies, hood pulled up because I’m cold. Was cold. Now I’m hot and stressed because that voice belongs to Henry. I don’t want him to see me dressed like this.
“Yes, yes, I suppose she is.” Mum’s taken aback. Let’s face it, beautiful boys don’t usually turn up on the doorstep, asking for me on a Thursday night, or any night at all for that matter. She gestures behind her back, pointing up the stairs as she keeps him talking so that I can get changed. I tiptoe past, surprised Mum is being so relaxed about it. In my bedroom, I pull on my black jeans, a black top, and some odd socks. The world is okay, maybe even good, and I stare at the sky out my bedroom window, yellow and hazy in the light of a massive moon.
Even Jack was happy when I got home from school, whistling as he printed off three copies of his script to take to the first rehearsal this evening. He was buoyant over dinner, shoveling pasta into his mouth while stapling the scripts together.
“I’m going to send one to my agent as well. Make him aware. Let him see that I have a few more strings to my bow. I’ve loved it, Hels. And it’s come so easily. I’ve written thirty-seven thousand three hundred and ninety-one words almost effortlessly. Not that it’s about word count, but that’s a lot, eh? An outpouring. I almost didn’t feel as if I was writing it at times.”
“Who was then?” Mum said, only half-listening because she was watching me devour pasta, hungry for the first time in three days. “Do you want some more, Tess?”
“It was me, Hels, obviously. But I was channeling something else. That’s what I’m saying. The spirit of Beckett, maybe.”
“There’s plenty in the pan.”
“I can’t wait for the guys to read it tonight,” he said, bashing the stapler. “What could be better? A bit of a read-through over a pint.”
“Sounds good, darling.” Mum gave me another dollop of pasta, looking pleased when I started to eat it.
I walk into the living room to see Mum and Henry chatting away as a man on the TV pulls down his trousers. It isn’t exactly Settle for Less now, is it, so I grab the remote.
“Don’t turn it up,” Mum says as I go to turn it off. She glares at me and I glare right back, my thumb hovering over the Power button. “You have a visitor.” She rolls her eyes at Henry. “She loves this program for some strange reason. Can’t get enough of it. Do you watch it?”
The man on TV is edging down his boxer shorts. “No, I can’t say I do,” Henry says. I’m dying inside, but he sounds amused.
“Thank you!” Mum says. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Why would anyone want to show off their weird ailments on TV?”
“The ailments aren’t weird though. That’s the issue I have.”
Mum points at the naked man showing something to a doctor. “You’re telling me that’s not weird?” I switch it off in a fluster.
“Not really,” Henry says, grasping his foot as he leans back in the armchair. “People don’t watch this show to see something weird. They watch this show because the weirdness is familiar, and therefore not weird at all.”
I move closer to the kitchen, hoping Henry will stand up and follow, but Mum is determined to continue the conversation.
“That sounds like a paradox to me.”
“No, I don’t think it is.” He’s not being rude, just thoughtful, wiggling his foot up and down. “I mean, I don’t really watch it or anything, but I reckon the appeal of the show lies in the fact that we all have something secret we’re trying to hide, something we’re ashamed of—a rash like that poor bloke on the telly! We worry that we’re abnormal and that’s why people watch it, right? Because it’s reassuring. We love realizing that other people are abnormal, too. Flawed. Messed up. But that’s the funny thing,” he says, wiggling his foot faster now. “If we’re all weird, no one’s weird. In fact, if you think about it, in an imperfect world, the only truly odd thing would be perfection.”
He’s mesmerizing.
Mum is mesmerized.
I am practically draping myself around the door to tell him it’s time to go into the kitchen.
“Wow. That’s very—well, that’s very interesting. An unusual perspective, certainly.” Mum seems impressed. And pleased for me. And delighted by this whole evening in general, thrilled with this smart, sensitive, and, yeah, incredibly gorgeous boy turning up unexpectedly to visit her daughter. That’s how I feel as she catches my eye and gives me a secret smile—like her daughter for the first time in a while. “You should talk to my husband. He’s a perfectionist.”
“It’s hard not to be, isn’t it?” Henry replies, climbing to his feet at last. “But it’s such bullshit… nonsense, I mean, sorry. If we told the truth, there wouldn’t be a problem. But we don’t. We’re so scared of being judged, aren’t we? So what do we do? Hide our flaws, airbrush our lives until they look like everyone else’s, not realizing they’re airbrushing their lives to look like ours.”
“So what’s the answer?” Mum asks, sounding awestruck.
Henry laughs as he moves toward me, Mum’s eyes following him all the way. “I have absolutely no idea. Shouting the truth louder than the lies, maybe? Or opting out completely like Tess has. Perhaps silence is the best form of protest.”
Jack returns as Henry’s leaving. The two pass awkwardly in the doorway.
“Cheers,” Henry calls to Mum before disappearing down the road. I spin around to see Mum watching me with fizzy eyes.
“So that was Henry.” A smile dances on her face, trying to entice mine into a duet. I’m dangerously close to yielding so I go into the kitchen to get a drink, leaving Jack to splutter in the living room.
“That wasn’t the boy, was it? The one who drove Tess home on Monday?”
“Yes, it was, actually. But it’s okay. He’s, well, he’s extraordinary, to be honest with you.” She laughs. “Some of the stuff he was saying, Jack. Talking with more wisdom than a seventy-year-old, never mind a seventeen-year-old. This stuff about perfectionism and the lie we’re living, trying to impress each other.”
“Hmm.”
“It shouldn’t take a teenager to point it out, but it’s really got me thinking.”
“Has it?”
The sofa creaks—Jack flopping down, turning on the TV with a jab of the remote. I lean back against the fridge and hold a glass against my forehead. Mum picks up where she left off, babbling away as Jack hits the volume, turning it up not down so the headlines of the ten o’clock news boom around the living room.
“I’m talking to you,” Mum shouts over the noise. “What’s up?”
The volume returns to a more reasonable level. “Nothing.”
“How was the rehearsal?”
“Good.”
I wait for him to elaborate, and Mum does too. “Did they like it, then?”
“Yes. They got really into it. It was great. A treat for me after all the hard work on my own in the study.” He’s saying the right sort of things, but in the wrong sort of tone. Mum obviously decides not to push it.
“Excellent. I’m pleased. And if it doesn’t work out then it doesn’t matter, darling. Nothing matters. That’s what Henry seems to think. All the stuff society’s obsessed with—the effort we put in to impress other people, none of it—”
“I’m not doing this to impress other people,” Jack snaps. “Jesus. I’m doing it for me.”
“You know what I mean,” Mum says, trying to jolly him along. “Worrying about what your agent might think, and Andrew next door, and Paul and Susan.”
“I don’t care about them!”
“Good,” Mum says, determined not to have an argument. “That’s fine, then. Henry would say that’s an excellent point of view.”
“I don’t give a damn about Henry. Will you stop banging on about him as if he’s some sort of prophet? Do I need life lessons from a pretentious teenager who can’t even drive?”
“He drives,” Mum says, flaring up now. “We saw him drive.”
“You know what I mean. Tell him to come back and lecture me when he’s finished puberty. Henry would say that’s an excellent point of view. For crying out loud, Hels! Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not trying to patronize you.” I peep into the living room. They’re both on the sofa, Mum leaning toward Jack, touching his knee as he glowers at the TV. “I’m just sharing. He said some interesting things. Some very interesting things, actually, about Tess in particular.”
Jack slams his hand against the armrest. “Did he now? What did this total stranger have to say about our daughter, eh? No, go on,” he says as Mum crosses her legs and looks the other way. “Spit it out. I’m interested to know what this Henry person had to say. I mean, he’s known Tess for what, two minutes? Ten? I’m sure he’s extremely enlightened.”
“He said it was a protest. The silence,” Mum shouts, uncrossing her legs, unable to resist the fight. “He made it sound as though she is taking a stand.”
“Against what?”
“Us.”
They look at each other.
“Henry said that?” Jack asks, after a pause.
“Well, no. He didn’t say that last bit. But that’s what I think—that she’s taking a stand against us. She isn’t scared, Jack. She’s furious. The question is, why?”
43
I’m sitting on the bottom stair on Friday morning, pulling on my boots, when Jack swings around the banister and jangles the car keys in practically my face.
“I’ll give you a lift, Tess.” It blurts out of him, all in a rush.
“You’re giving her a lift?” Mum says, hurrying down the stairs, clutching the brown strap of her teaching bag.
“It’s threatening out there.” Threatening in here, more like. Since Mum told Jack that I was furious yesterday evening, the atmosphere’s been tense. Heavy. Bearing down on me and giving me a headache. I think Jack knows that I know about the blog. The secret is hanging above us, black and menacing.
Mum points at the windows, three rectangles of bright light. “If you say so, darling.” She gives Jack a kiss then ruffles my hair. “Have a good day.”
The words flit around the room and then they’re gone, swooping out the door as Mum leaves for work. I lace up my boots. Recheck the bows. Adjust the hem of my trousers. There is nothing else to do but stand up. I put my right foot on the living room floor. My left. My hands sink into my thighs as I heave myself up to face the day. Maybe even The Day.
Jack’s jaw sets into a determined line as we go through the motions of leaving the house. He fills Jedi’s water bowl and checks that the patio door is locked. I pick up my salad from the kitchen and grab my jacket off the banister. The rhythm is familiar, but there are new odd beats. A splash of water as Jack has a quick drink. A nervous cough. A creak of floorboard as he pauses by the mirror in the living room, glaring at his reflection, psyching himself up to maybe admit the truth.
He ushers me onto the pavement as Andrew emerges from the house next to ours. Jack swears quietly before bellowing, “Morning!”
“Morning to you too, Mr. Turner! Chauffeuring again? What’s the excuse this time?” Andrew shields his eyes from the sun as he looks up at a clear blue sky. “Can’t be the weather. She should be walking on a nice morning like this.”
“Should she?” Jack replies, a new bite in his tone. “Is that so?”
“That’s what I always tell my Suzie when she’s being lazy. And I see you’ve quit the day job again.” He gestures at Jack’s tracksuit bottoms. “The acting work coming in at last?”
I expect Jack to lie, but he swallows it down then runs his tongue over his teeth. “Nothing much at present.” The words are slow, pushed out into the open one at a time.
“Sorry to hear that, mate. It’s a tough profession.”
“It is.”
“Couldn’t do it myself.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
“I like this too much,” he says, rubbing his thumb against his forefinger. “Kids aren’t cheap, are they?” It even irritates me, the implication that Jack can’t provide. He grimaces but doesn’t rise to it. I’m impressed, and Henry would be too. “Case in point—the school ski trip to France. That’s costing an arm and a leg, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“See if you can still get on it,” Andrew says to me. “It’s a great trip. Week in the Alps over the Christmas holidays. Brilliant.”
“We’re having a family Christmas,” Jack replies. “The three of us together.”
Andrew gives me a patronizing smile. “Bit of a homebody, are you, Tess? Our Suzie is so independent these days. We’ve encouraged it from the very beginning, mind you.”
“Yes, I remember you putting her in full-day nursery school.”
“It’s good for them, mate.”
“Good for the parents, more like, but each to their own.” Jack gives me a gentle elbow in the ribs. “I took two years off to look after this one when Helen went back to work, and I don’t regret a second of it.” My heart jolts. I must know this, but I don’t really remember. Two years with Jack when I was a baby. Seven hundred and thirty days. Jack copies Andrew, rubbing his thumb against his forefinger. “You can’t put a price on that time, mate.”
We leave Andrew, flushing on the pavement, crossing the road to the car.
Jack gives him a friendly wave as we set off. “What an idiot. Total plonker.”
Seven hundred and thirty days is seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours. I don’t regret a second of it.
“I meant what I said,” Jack mutters as if he’s reading my mind. He squeezes the steering wheel so the veins appear beneath his skin. I wonder if his blood feels as hot as mine. “I don’t regret it, Tess.”
It’s painful, how much I want to believe him. Hope hurts. It swells in my chest, pressing against my bones.
“Two of the best years of my life, actually.”
I wait for him to say something more, but we drive in silence. Not the comfortable kind of silence. This silence is full to bursting with all the things we want to say but can’t, or all the words we don’t want to speak but have to, at some point, because there’s no going back. It’s humming in the air above us. The cloud’s beyond breaking point. A downpour is inevitable.
And yet nothing happens.
Maybe to buy himself more time, Jack drives past school and pulls into the Texaco station where I bought Mr. Goldfish the night of the burned spaghetti. The sun turns into a moon and I’m back there agai
n, the scent of charred pasta stinging my nostrils as a fire alarm beeps and my eyes struggle to take in Jack’s words. I’m running out of the house. Wandering aimlessly along dark streets. Hurrying up and down the aisles of the petrol station, buying supplies to run away to London.
I need answers, but not from the HFEA.
Jack doesn’t speak when he returns to the car after filling up with petrol. He pulls into the bus lot amid a series of honks from irritated drivers.
“Shut up,” he murmurs, sneaking into a space. He’s flustered, but I don’t think it’s because of the honks. I give him five more seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Then finally step out of the car.
“Tess?”
I spin around quickly.
“Don’t forget your salad.”
I don’t notice at first.
At lunch, I’m still submerged in frustration, drowning in it. We were close, so close, and now the opportunity has passed. I wade through the hallway, yearning for Jack to appear at the end of it, brandishing a megaphone. He’d shout the truth louder than the Jehovah’s Witness, louder than the doubts in my mind, so loudly I’d hear his words in space. The blog was fictitious, Jack would bellow. Something I wrote for a script rather than real life. Of course I’m your dad. I chose to look after you for two years, didn’t I? You don’t need to search anymore. I’m here, Tessie-T. I’m right here.
I don’t see the boys until I walk into them, a group of Year Nines reading something on the wall. There’s another piece of paper a few steps away, and another just past that. I look around. The hallway is covered.
I squint to make out the words.
No. No, no, no!
Photocopies of Isabel’s notepad, highlighted neatly in pink. I picture Anna doing it, oh so calmly moving the pen across the names so they don’t get lost in the text. Isawynka. The Great Blade of Turner. Connoreah, a troll with a checkered past. I pull them down, swiping violently to tear them on purpose because the cool efficiency of the display angers me more than anything. This has taken time and effort and premeditation and a whole lot of Sticky Tack, rolled in tight little balls by a cold, white hand.