13 Minutes (5 page)

Hayley glanced down at her boots. Uggs, of course. Becca could see the tag across the heel. Jenny’s style might be fake – Jenny’s mum, a single parent, had no money – but Hayley must have been wearing two hundred quid on her feet. She scuffed snow from the heel of one onto the toe of the other, dirtying it, as if flipping the finger to the cost. Becca could see where the damp was soaking through the outside. Despite the Uggs’ cost, Hayley’s feet were probably as cold as her own.

‘You heard from Tasha?’ Hayley asked, her eyes down. The words were snowflake-light, but Becca tensed.

‘Should I have?’

‘I’m only asking, Bex.’ Hayley mimicked Becca’s own response, but she sounded tired, the polish her smoking and make-up and designer clothes gave her slipping for a moment. ‘Whatever.’

‘No,’ Becca said. ‘I haven’t.’ She paused, her cigarette almost in her mouth, and looked at Hayley, the reason behind her question clicking into place. ‘Why? Haven’t you?’

Hayley shrugged, non-committal, but the answer was there. A fat no. ‘I’m just worried about her, you know.’

‘Can’t you call her?’

‘Her phone’s wrecked. I tried her home number. Alison said she’d given Tasha her iPhone and got herself a cheap one that just does texts and calls. She said at last she had a phone she understands how to use.’ She half-smiled. ‘You know what she’s like with technology.’ Becca didn’t, really. The last time she’d been hanging around in the Howland home, phones and computers weren’t important. Building dens and playing pirates had taken up most of their time. ‘Anyway, I called it then sent a text but she hasn’t replied,’ Hayley finished.

‘Maybe she’s not feeling great. She might still be sedated.’ Becca wasn’t sure why she was trying to make Hayley feel better. Natasha was the one in hospital, after all. What did it matter if she hadn’t texted the Barbies for a day? How needy were they? She took a long pull on her cigarette as Hayley ground hers out and kicked it under the snow. She was down to the filter but didn’t want the awkwardness of heading back to school with Hayley.

‘Yeah, that’s probably it.’ Hayley pushed away from the wall. ‘She’s probably not allowed to text much in there. Me and Jenny will go and see her tonight.’

‘Cool.’ Becca didn’t know what to say, the sting of that old rejection still needling her skin as Hayley brushed past and ducked elegantly through the bushes. She disappeared without so much as a glance back.

Bitch
, Becca thought.
Fucking bitch.
She stamped on her cigarette with more force than was required.

*

After the calming influence of double Art with Miss Borders and her hippie relaxed atmosphere, school was finally done and she headed through the throng of shrieking kids racing for buses and cars and the school gates in general, then forced her way to the sixth form locker corridor. She frowned to see the small crowd gathered there. It was rare. Required presence in the school building was more relaxed in the final two years, and if there was no assembly or tutor meetings last thing then no one cared if they slipped out early. The same applied to coming in late. Normally by the end of the day there were only a few stragglers at the lockers; most of them left their bags in the common room if they didn’t take them to lessons.

‘Ah, Rebecca!’ A male voice called from somewhere within the slowly fracturing throng, which was breaking up into small, splintered swarms of the hive’s whole. She looked up, catching glimpses of the caller through the gaps. Light brown hair. A friendly smile. Creases in his face that would one day be proper wrinkles but for now were just enough to make him interesting. Older. Hot.

‘Mr Jones,’ she said, raising a hand in a half-hello. Suddenly she understood the crowd. Mr Jones was the Head of Drama and today should have been auditions for the school play. He wormed his way through a gaggle of girls trying to get his attention to reach her. ‘Glad to have caught you,’ he said. Becca thought that up here, in the corridor, he was the caught one, a dolphin in a tuna net. She wondered if he could feel it – all the
heat
coming from the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls around him. The way they glowed at him.

‘Are you going to do the set this year?’ he asked. ‘Would be great if you could. You’re the best. And now you’re sixth form, you could run it. What do you say?’

Behind him, she could see Hayley and Jenny. She ignored them.

‘I thought the auditions were today?’ she said, not answering his question. ‘You cancelled them?’

‘I didn’t cancel,’ he said, one hand tucked into his jeans pocket. ‘Just moved them until Friday. Jenny asked if it could wait until Natasha was out of hospital because she really wanted to audition. Couldn’t really say no to that and a few days’ delay won’t matter.’

‘If she’s back by Friday.’ Her eyes kept flitting to Hayley and Jenny beyond his shoulder. Why didn’t they just leave? Were they loitering to flirt with Mr Jones? Probably. So tragic.

‘Oh, she will be,’ he said. ‘I rang the hospital to ask how she’s doing – apparently they’re going to send her home in the morning. She’s a very lucky girl.’

‘She was dead for thirteen minutes,’ Becca said. ‘How freaky is that?’

‘That’s the kind of thing you shouldn’t think about.’ His brown eyes were kind. ‘Trust me, if you think about those things you’ll go a bit crazy. She’s going to be okay and that’s what actually matters.’ Becca smiled. She couldn’t help herself. She didn’t like Mr Jones like
that
, like all the other girls seemed to, but she did like him.

‘So,’ he said, holding out a battered copy of the play, ‘can I rely on you to make us all look brilliant, Lieutenant? Now that I’m promoting you to colonel?’ She stared at the book, and then at the disappearing blonde heads of the Barbies and their minions who’d given up waiting for him and were no doubt going to loiter outside his office instead, and then raised her hand in a weary salute. ‘Oh, go on then, sir.’

‘Excellent!’ He grinned and winked at her. ‘I feel better already. Take a look and see what you think. Draw up a couple of sketches then we’ll meet and go through it. Doesn’t have to be anything clever. Striking and stark could work.’

‘This had better look good on my Uni forms,’ she said.

‘You’d do it anyway.’ Mr Jones squeezed her arm. ‘I know you.’

‘Whatever.’ She rolled her eyes, in part to disguise the blush that rose from nowhere to appal her with its existence, and then went to her locker.

‘Come to the auditions on Friday,’ he called out, walking away. ‘Help me manage the fragile egos!’

She snorted a laugh at that. Mr Jones wasn’t fooled by the Barbies, either. He might humour their flirting with him a bit but that was all. Her phone buzzed. Hannah.

You going home? Or fancy Starbucks hot chocolate?

She’d hoped it was Aiden but he was shit at texting unless he actually had something to say. She probably wouldn’t speak to him until that night, and wouldn’t see him till tomorrow, and then only for a couple of hours. That was the only fucker about having a boyfriend who wasn’t at school. You couldn’t even pretend you were studying together.

Meet you at the gates in 5.

A hot chocolate with Hannah might be a good way to end the day.

Eight

TAKEN FROM DI CAITLIN BENNETT’S FILES: EXTRACT FROM NATASHA HOWLAND’S NOTEBOOK

I’d been looking at all the local newspapers, laid out over my bed, when Hayley and Jenny turned up. It’s been so strange to read it all, in sensational black and white. To see my own face staring out at me. My mother must have given them that picture (absolutely not one I’d have chosen). Taken some time last year at a family lunch. I look chubby in it. Then there’s a photo of where I was pulled out of the river, and an awkward picture of the man who saved me, Jamie McMahon, so clearly caught unawares by the cameras when leaving his house. He used to be a solicitor in London before switching careers, according to one of the papers. Why the hell would you live in London and then move here?
Hero dog-walker
, they’re calling him.
Reclusive musician saves ‘dead’ teenager.
How many other people have had their deaths recorded in inverted commas? He hasn’t said much, the usual
anyone would have done the same thing
stuff that people always say. We all know most people wouldn’t. He said he was late that morning and was just grateful he wasn’t any later.

You’re grateful?
is what I thought as I stared at his grainy face.
How do you think I feel?
I closed the papers. It was the third time I’d pored over them, reading and rereading the details. I wondered what that said about me. I wondered what Dr Harvey and her blank eyes would make of that.
Like I’m ever going to let her read this stupid notebook!

I’m twitchy and bored being stuck in bed and I want some fresh air. My bruises hurt and my muscles ache most of the time. It’s like I’ve been running cross-country or something. I’ve been running a lot recently and my jogs have become something more. Something stronger. I’ll never be as leopard-quick as Hayley but I’m faster and firmer than I was. The thought makes me stare through the glass at nothing. I just want to go home.

It’s only about five o’clock but it’s pitch dark outside already. An empty, cold dark. No one usually closes the curtains for ages and I don’t mind. The room’s high up. No one can see in. I quite like being able to look at that darkness, even though it reminds me of that
other
darkness, the one inside the freezing cold. The one that took my breath and my heartbeat. If I stare into the night for long enough I can defy the fear. It can’t touch me anymore.

Hayley and Jenny were both smiling when they came in, but it instantly felt awkward, like we were suddenly strangers. Maybe it’s the hospital. These kind of places can do that to people.

Anyway, it felt weird, and they looked so uncomfortable in the doorway, but I smiled at them (because, to be honest, I’m so bored of my family visiting and even though it was odd at first, they are a million times more fun than my gran) and pulled at my blonde hair, so much like theirs now. The mood softened after we hugged and they’d squealed their happiness at my continuing survival, and saw I was pleased to see them. They stripped off their coats and scarfs and I could almost feel them relaxing in the overheated room. Normality again.

Jenny’s mum has saved all the newspapers. Jenny told me while rolling her pretty doe eyes after seeing them on my bed. Apparently she’s put them in a scrapbook, like she did with Jenny’s baby pictures. It’s like everyone want a piece of the excitement of me nearly dying. It made me smile, though. Jenny’s mum is from a different planet. She’s poor, at least in comparison with mine and Hayley’s comfortable middle-class wealth, and too often drunk. She’s trailer trash or Essex scum and Jenny tries so hard to metaphorically wash it off. But sometimes you can still smell it on her. That slight
Eau de Desperation
. It’s a mean thought, I know, but it’s true.

‘Am I supposed to look at them in the future and think, “Aww . . . remember that time Tasha nearly drowned? How sweet?” She’s barking,’ Jenny said.

I almost pointed out the technical error in her statement. I
did
drown. There wasn’t anything
nearly
about it.

Then it was Hayley’s turn. She didn’t look at me. She was nonchalant when she said, ‘I texted you,’ folding up the papers and tucking her perfect hair behind her ear. She was so nonchalant that I knew it hurt that I hadn’t texted back.
I’m still their leader
.
Even after everything. Maybe more so now.

‘My gran was here and I had my phone on silent,’ I told her, which was a blatant lie. ‘They don’t really like us using our phones in the rooms.’ Which
is
true, but the nurses let me off because they feel sorry for me.

They sat close together on the end of my bed, my two best friends. Watching me. Wanting to ask me questions. Not knowing how to.

‘So,’ Hayley said as Jenny pulled some chocolate and crisps out of her bag, ‘do you remember anything yet?’

I don’t. I shook my head. It’s so weird. I remember nothing from Thursday lunchtime to waking up here. I shrugged at them and for a moment Hayley didn’t say a word. She just studied me, then she smiled a little. That enigmatic smile of hers. I used to always know what was going on in Hayley’s head, but these days I’m not so sure.

Jenny was still focused on the contents of her disorganised bag, her face hidden from me until she finally, with a grin, produced three Crunchie Bars. My favourite chocolate.

I took them but just put them on the side. Every calorie counts, as my mum always says, and all I’ve done is lie in bed for days. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said to them. ‘I’m sure it’ll all come back at some point.’ We talked about it a bit then, what I’d done in that time. Went to school, went home, then the mysterious going out again. Until the actually-falling-in-the-river bit, it all sounds so dull.

‘We were all so scared for you,’ Jenny gushed, before saying how everyone at school was talking about me, like I wouldn’t know that already. She gets that from her mother, that sudden blurting. Her words come out in clumps. No real control, and just a rush of feelings wrapped in words. Her face was flushed while she talked, her eyes darting around the room. It was like she was nervous of me but I think maybe it’s just that she doesn’t know how to behave after something like this. Maybe she’s trying too hard to be normal. Hayley cut her off in the end, otherwise I think she’d have been going on about school all night.

‘That policewoman actually thought you might have tried to kill yourself.’ Hayley grinned when she said it. ‘I mean, fucking what?’

It made me laugh a bit, too. I told them about Dr Harvey and how I have to go to all these follow-up counselling sessions, and rolled my eyes and laughed at how bland and dull and boring she is. (She really is.) I didn’t tell them about this notebook, though. About how I’m supposed to write everything down. Firstly, it’s private and I’m only doing it because I’m so bored, and secondly, I don’t want them thinking I’m putting everything we say and do in here and that someone else might want to read it. (That’s
not
going to happen! Dr Harvey can keep her head out of my head.) I don’t want them worrying about that.