Best of Friends (73 page)

Exam trouble, boyfriend trouble, parent trouble, bitch at school trouble—Jess had it all.

But why was she relying on the train stopping to keep her from school? The idea was so startling in its simplicity that she wondered how she hadn’t thought of it before. She wouldn’t go to school at all. Everyone else was behaving badly, so she would too.

She’d go away somewhere and let everyone sort out their own stupid problems because nobody cared about her. Bunking off school was something Jess had never done before. But today, Jess would join the ranks of the bunkers-off. At the station, she got off the train long enough to buy a soda from the shop. Then, once it was empty, she got back on and let it take her back to Dunmore. At home, she let herself in quietly, though knowing her mother wouldn’t be there.

The idea about where to go had come to her on the journey back to Dunmore. In the animal refuge, she’d read about a fantastic new animal rehoming centre outside Galway city, where people interested in careers with animals could train. Jess was sure she’d read that you didn’t need lots of exams to get in—all you had to do was demonstrate a love of animals and a willingness to work hard. That was where she’d go to see if she might get a job there in the future.

Everyone else was worrying about their future—Jess would worry about hers. She’d visit and ask about working there when she finished school, or maybe doing shifts there in the holidays. It wasn’t as if anybody would care where she was on her holidays—they all had so many other things to worry about, they seemed perfectly happy to ignore her.

Mum could go to Dublin, Dad could obsess about his precious school extension, and Oliver, Saffron and Sherry could go to hell.

Jess couldn’t remember all the details of the new centre but a few minutes’ Internet surfing would reveal all, and she could check out somewhere to stay. She wasn’t exactly in funds and there had to be a hostel or cheap bed and breakfast she could stay in for a couple of days. Jean would give a reference over the phone if they needed one; surely they’d be keen to offer her a job in the future because she was young, enthusiastic and cheap.

It didn’t take her long to track down the refuge and find a hostel nearby. Pleased that she’d managed to plan all this ahead of time, she shoved a few things into her rucksack and changed her school uniform for her jeans, a sweater and her new cord jacket that Steph said made her look at least eighteen. Good, she’d need to look older if her plan was to work.

Her purse with her bank card, her mobile phone and her address book completed the kit. On impulse, she took the brown beanbag puppy she’d had for years too. He was faded and a bit bedraggled, but he might be company for the trip.

Wilbur was nestled up on a towel on the radiator in the main bathroom. He protested as Jess picked him up from his cosy nest, but she held him close and told him she was going away for a while but she wouldn’t be long.

“You’ll miss me, won’t you, Wilbur?” she murmured into his warm fur. In reply, the cat wriggled from her grasp, digging his claws into her arm as he made his getaway.

“You could have been sweet just this once,” said Jess tearfully.

In the kitchen, she took two small bottles of orange juice, some granola bars and thirty euros from the wooden teabox where her mother kept cash for people like the window cleaner. Then, she wrote a note. They hadn’t bothered keeping her informed about stuff like getting divorced, she thought grimly, but she at least would behave properly. She propped the note up by her mother’s calendar, took one last look round the homely kitchen, and left by the back door, taking her old light windcheater and an umbrella as a last-minute thought. There was another train in half an hour and she wanted to be at her destination by nightfall.

The phone was ringing that afternoon when Abby arrived home after a day working on a private commission. It was Katya to discuss some messages she’d taken, and although Abby noticed the message light winking on the answering machine, she hardly thought it was urgent. When she’d finished talking to Katya, she switched the answering machine off and went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. Then she set the oven for dinner before going back to listen to her messages. The last one startled her.

“Mrs. Barton, this is Rebecca Tierney from Bradley Secondary School. It’s midday on Monday and I’m phoning because Jess hasn’t come to school today. If a student is ill or has to take time off, it’s school policy that the parent phone and tell us so we can mark them as ‘absent with permission’ or ‘ill’ on the register. We’d appre-ciate it if you could adhere to this policy.” The voice drilled out a phone number and hung up.

Abby had to play the message again to get the number and her hand shook as she wrote the digits down. She dialled hurriedly and the phone rang out without anybody picking it up. There was no facility to leave a message either.

Shit. She looked at the time. It was after five and there was prob-ably nobody to answer the phone in the school office. She dialled Jess’s mobile but it was switched off.

“Jess, it’s Mum. Can you give me a buzz back when you get my message, love?”

Grabbing the phone directory from the hall table drawer, Abby found the school’s listing and dialled every number, but no one an-swered. Abby felt panic begin to set in.

From her address book, Abby found Steph’s mobile number but another recorded voice told her the number she’d dialled had been changed. So she rang Steph’s home and found herself talking to Lisa Anderson, who clearly thought Abby had called for a chat.

“It’s about Jess, actually,” Abby interrupted. “I’m worried about her. She didn’t go to school today, her mobile is off and when I phoned Steph’s phone, it says the number has changed. Has she got a new number?” Even as she said it, she felt like an utter failure again. She didn’t have the phone number of her daughter’s closest friend. How uncaring was that?

“I’ll murder the pair of them if they bunked off school,” said Lisa. “Although it is unlike them. They’re good girls, really. Well, we don’t see Jess as much now, of course, and she’s so involved in that animal place, isn’t she? Steph says Jess loves going there. You’ve raised a good kid, Abby. Nobody could say she doesn’t care about anything but herself or that your fame or money have changed her.”

Abby felt sick to her stomach to think that Jess hadn’t changed but she had. Lisa rattled off Steph’s new phone number. “Ring me back if you can’t reach them,” Lisa continued. “Steph’s been driving me mad to give her the money for a new pair of trousers, so ten to one the pair of them are in town trailing through every shop on Patrick Street. We’ll track them down.”

Abby hung up, aware that she’d felt so down since she and Jess had come back from Florida that she wouldn’t have had a clue if Jess had needed new clothes.

And why had she been feeling down? For so many reasons that seemed inconsequential compared to Jess being missing.

She’d felt down because Tom still spoke to her on the phone as if she could transmit the plague through the receiver, and because there was no hope for her marriage and she’d finally had to face it. She’d felt miserable because Roxie in Beech was behaving like a prize bitch now that it was almost certain that Abby was leaving. Even when Mike had leaked a story to a favoured few contacts in the press, saying that Beech had realised too late that they’d treated their star badly, Abby hadn’t cheered up. Brian, faced with a few snide television comments about how Abby had been the true star of
Declutter,
was back-pedalling furiously and trying to get Abby back, but it was too late. Anyhow, Brian being hypocritically nice to her didn’t stop Roxie from being as poisonous as ever, so that had upset Abby.

But none of these things mattered really, did they?

What selfishness had made her think that her own problems were more important than communicating with Jess, Abby asked herself over and over again. She’d been so tied up with her career and her marital problems with Tom that she’d forgotten her daughter.

Steph was indeed trailing round shops in Patrick Street when Abby phoned her, but she was on her own.

“No, Jess didn’t come to school today and I’ve texted her about twenty times asking her where she is,” Steph said indignantly, “but she never texted me back. I thought she must be holed up in her room feeling sick ’cos she didn’t phone me back on Sunday, either.”

“She isn’t sick.” It was Abby who was feeling bad now.

“She’s never done that before, not ever.” The mild indignation was gone from Steph’s voice and she now sounded worried. “Do you think it’s because of Saffron and the hassle she’s been getting? I did tell her to talk to someone about it but Jess said teachers were clueless about bullying.”

“Bullying?” Abby was glad she was near the stairs so she had something to sink onto when her legs would no longer hold her up-right. “I … I didn’t know. What bullying, Steph?”

She could hear the hesitation in Steph’s long-drawn-out “Well …”

“Please tell me. It’s important, Steph. Jess is missing, that’s serious.”

“It’s … Jess pissed Saffron off last term, and this one, for some reason, Saffron is in real bitchy form. Since we got back last week, Jess has been getting these nasty texts on her mobile and some-one’s been mucking with her things. There was nail varnish spilled all over her new trainers last week. We figured it was Saffron and I think she had a go at Jess at that party at the weekend too. Horri-ble bitch.” The grapevine meant Steph had heard that Saffron had fought with Jess, but over what, nobody knew. She had learned one or two interesting things about Saffron, though. Steph de-cided it was about time that lying, cheating Ms. Walsh got her comeuppance. When Jess got back, they’d sort out Saffron once and for all, Steph vowed.

“What did the text messages say?” asked Abby, rage growing in-side her.

“They just called her names and said she was a waste of space. I said she should tell Docker, Mrs. Doherty, I mean,” Steph said. “But Jess said she couldn’t prove anything ’cos Saffron blocked her number on the texts and, anyhow, she reckoned Saffron would get bored with it eventually. I’d have taken Saffron on but Jess isn’t like that. She hates confrontation. Didn’t she tell you anything about it, Mrs. Barton?”

“No, I wish she had. Steph, Jess wouldn’t do anything to harm herself, would she?”

“Fuck no!” said Steph, startled. “Oh God, sorry, Mrs. Barton, I didn’t mean to swear but Jess would never do that. If she was going, she’d leave a note, wouldn’t she?”

Abby took the stairs two at a time. In Jess’s room, her uniform was lying on the bed, but apart from that, the room was exactly the same as normal. There was no note to be seen. She checked her own room but there was nothing anywhere there, either. Back downstairs, she ran into the kitchen and scanned the room hurriedly. Be-side her calendar was a folded-up piece of paper.

Mum, I’m taking a few days away. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’ve got money and my phone. I’ll call.

Jess.

After getting no joy from Oliver, except for learning that there’d been some misunderstanding and that Jess hadn’t phoned Oliver back despite him leaving endless messages on her mobile, the first place Abby thought that Jess might go if she really wanted to get away was the animal refuge.

As she drove against the traffic out into the countryside, the rain began to fall again and Abby thought of Jess possibly wet and miserable, instead of safe and dry at home. By the time she followed the sign up the second road on the left, Abby had never seen so much mud. Old Farm Road was axle-deep in a thick blancmange of it, and she wondered how someone without a four-wheel drive—let alone on a bicycle—could ever reach the refuge. Fifth gate to your left, a man walking a dog had told her. Abby kept a wary eye out for the fifth gate but, even in the evening gloom, she had no trouble spotting it.

A wooden sign swung jauntily on a post, with “Dunmore Ani-mal Refuge” inscribed in poker work. The gate was shut and Abby had to brave the deluge to open it.

The “Keep the Gate Shut” sign looked like an order rather than a request. The sound of dogs barking brought a woman out of a large barn to survey Abby. She was tall, very thin, possibly in her late forties and dressed for flood in ancient waterproofs. Her hair was completely hidden by a large knitted cap covered in turn by the sort of see-through plastic rainscarf Abby hadn’t seen since her grandmother was alive.

“Hello,” the woman said.

“I’m Abby Barton,” said Abby. “I’m looking for Jess.”

“Jean,” said the woman, holding out a hand. “She’s not here.”

“Oh no,” said Abby, and burst into tears.

Jess reached the hostel in Galway at four in the afternoon. After the train, it had taken a bus journey and a half-hour walk to get to it but now that she was there, Jess wondered if it had been such a good place to stay. The on-line site had mentioned a bright, friendly place with modern accommodation and a rec room for resi-dents. In reality, the dorm she was shown into was very shabby and the bunk beds were practically antiques. But she wasn’t there for a luxury holiday, she reminded herself, investigating her upper bunk. The hostel was useful because it was just a mile away from the Gal-way Bay Animal Centre.

She phoned the animal centre from the hostel and got talking to a very nice man who said they were always looking for carers, but that they had their quota at the moment and were full for holiday work for the foreseeable future too.

“We might have a holiday placement in about a year, but if you’re still in school, that’ll be no good to you,” he said. “Why don’t you phone the refuge in Kildare? I hear they’re looking for holiday workers.”

That threw Jess. “But … I’m here now,” she said, thinking of how far she’d travelled.

“Sorry, you should have phoned first,” the man said.

That wasn’t what she was hoping to hear, Jess thought in de-spair. She needed some sort of positive response after coming all this way. They couldn’t turn her away without talking to her. Maybe then they’d see how much she loved animals and how perfect she’d be for a place there in the future. “Please can I come and see you?” she begged. “I’m really good with animals and if somebody dropped out of the Christmas holiday work, I’d fill in.”