Tell Tale (18 page)

‘She’s called Betsy,’ I told Patricia. ‘She said that her name is Betsy and she wants to be my friend. I will look after her. You won’t need to bother with her if you let her sleep next to me.’

At that, Patricia visibly relaxed. She always moaned how busy she was, that they were understaffed, that the council should give the home more money. Carers came and went. Patricia and Miss Maddocks said they’d been working at the home forever, knew everything there was to know about it.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll have the spare bed shifted next to yours. We don’t know much about where she came from, just that the last children’s home kicked her out because they couldn’t cope with her.’ Patricia shook her head and walked off, stopping after a couple of paces. ‘And don’t let her piss everywhere, Ava, or you’ll be on your hands and knees scrubbing it up.’ She left, satisfied that there was one less thing to worry about.

‘Alison,’ I said grinning, excited by my mission. ‘Set to work.’ I sat Betsy on my bed and let Alison hack off the knots. Within an hour, Betsy had a new style. It was ragged and chopped close to her scalp and made her look like a
boy, but when I washed it, my fingers slipped easily between the strands. I picked out the lice one by one and drowned them in the bath.

‘Nasty creatures,’ I told her, showing her one. She smacked it into the water and let out a noise that I hoped was a laugh. Then I rubbed soap all over her, stripping the layers of dirt and revealing pink skin. I scrubbed at her neck and cleaned in between her toes. Then I wrapped her in my towel and sang nursery rhymes to her.

‘You know, Betsy,’ I said as we padded the corridors back to my dormitory. ‘I’ve always wanted a little sister or a brother.’

Betsy suddenly stopped and sat down on the cold floor. She huddled within the towel and began to rock. ‘Bruvver, bruvver, bruvver . . .’ she whined over and over. I scooped her up in my arms and held her tight. It was the first time she’d spoken. A clue to her past.

‘Do you have a brother, Betsy? Where’s your brother?’ She grabbed my hair as I set her on the bed.

She nodded and stared right inside my head. ‘Bruvver gone,’ she said in a voice that reached around my heart. And then she repeated this a dozen more times before stripping off the towel and pulling my bedspread over her head.

Later, I dressed Betsy in some clothes that I’d found in Dawn’s chest. The girl was eight and small for her age when she disappeared. I didn’t really think it odd that Dawn had left all her belongings behind; didn’t really think it strange that my little Betsy stepped right into her shoes as if the other girl had never existed at all.

It’s like the tide going out. A reversal of the influx of pupils I’d watched only a few weeks ago. So much has happened in that time, yet nothing has really changed. From my bedroom window, up in the eaves, the girls look like angry ants, impatient for their parents to take them home.

Katy told me that she’s off to Italy with her parents for the half-term break. A fine punishment for her display of irresponsible adolescent behaviour. Since I saw her with Adam in the woods, I’ve dreamed about her several times. In the morning, I wrote down the details in the hope it might stop them coming. If anything, it’s made them worse. In the last one, the police were exhuming Katy’s naked body from a shallow grave of wet earth in the exact same spot I saw her with Adam. A faceless man was hiding in the shadows. I woke up drenched in sweat, frozen with fear.

I huff breath on to the windowpane and wipe an X in the mist; a farewell kiss for each of the girls as they leave Roecliffe for half-term.There’s a gentle tap-tap on my door. I ease it open from its old frame.

‘Lexi,’ I say. ‘Are you OK?’ She has mascara streaking down her cheeks and the thick eyeliner she keeps getting
told off for wearing makes the seam of black look as if she’s been thumped.

‘He’s going to be late,’ she says. ‘Bloody late at half-term. I’ll be the only one left.’ She’s talking about her father.

‘You won’t be alone. I’m not going anywhere.’ The words sit thick as concrete on my tongue.

‘You’d think that he’d want to see me.’ She storms into my room and hurls herself on my bed. She picks up my scarf and winds it through her fingers. ‘You’re lucky,’ she continues. She reaches to my dressing table for a tissue. ‘You can just up and leave whenever you like.’

I am about to tell her that I can’t, that I will be staying at Roecliffe instead of taking a break by the sea, or staying with family, or going on a walking holiday. I will be trying my best to avoid the handful of diehard staff who choose to remain at school, who, like me, have nowhere else to go, but I stop. I know Lexi well enough to know that she would ask why.

‘How late is your dad going to be?’

Lexi doesn’t answer. She picks her way through my scant belongings on the dressing table as if they were her own.

‘You don’t have much make-up,’ she says. ‘And is this what you put on your hair?’ She pulls a face and opens a bottle of supermarket brand shampoo. ‘Yuk. It smells like toilet cleaner.’

I doubt that Lexi has ever cleaned a toilet in her life, let alone knows what the cleaning products smell like, but I humour her. ‘It does fine for me.’ Truth is, money has been
tight. My pay has so far been two hundred pounds cash in advance from the bursar who told me, rather impatiently, that until I submit my bank account details, I won’t be getting my salary.

‘If you ask your hairdresser, they will recommend something. Daddy sends me to London every holiday and buys me a day in a salon. They do whatever I ask and it’s all paid for—’

‘Take it.’ I hold out the pale blue bottle. ‘Try it. You might be surprised.’

Lexi’s hand rises slowly and she takes the shampoo. She holds back the scowl that’s forming, and actually finds it in herself to thank me.

‘If it turns your hair to frizz, just pour it into your dad’s girlfriend’s shampoo bottle.’ We both laugh. ‘Now, will you be staying here overnight?’ Sylvia and I have already stripped the beds.

Lexi shrugs. ‘I could be here for the whole week,’ she says glumly. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. And what did you mean when you said a while back that we have lots in common? Did you get dumped at boarding school while your parents went off having fun?’

‘Not exactly,’ I reply. I think of different answers – some are lies, some skirt around fact, and some crush me with the truth. She wouldn’t believe any of it. ‘I was headstrong like you when I was younger. I got angry when other people let me down, just like you’re angry at your father now.’

‘What did you do?’ Lexi sits cross-legged on my bed,
hugging the scarf and shampoo as if they are her only worldly possessions.

‘I guess I just changed over time,’ I tell her.

The kitchen staff don’t work during half-term. For those who choose to stay on at school during the break – and those who have no choice – a supply of food is left in the giant refrigerator. I’m staring at it all, wondering if I should offer to cook for the others. But that would mean conversation, a gathering, a meal shared, stories told, questions asked. I pull out a block of cheese and set it on a chopping board.

‘There you are.’

I swing round, knife in hand, mouth gaping open. Adam holds up his palms in mock self-defence.

‘Whoa,’ he says. ‘I was only going to ask if you wanted to join us all. We’re going down to the village pub for a bite to eat. Kind of a celebration.’

‘Celebration?’ A shard of light reflects off the knife, dancing around the kitchen walls.

‘It’s half-term,’ he says. ‘A bit of peace.’

‘Peace?’ I say, chopping the cheese.

‘Are you going to repeat the end of every sentence I say?’ Adam glances at his watch. ‘Meet us in the hall in ten minutes?’

I stare at Adam, not seeing him, rather someone else entirely. Someone I’d rather be with, someone not quite so tall, someone who would wrap their arms round me and, if I didn’t want to go to the pub, someone who would lead me
up to my bedroom and fetch a tray of food for me, lie beside me, comfort me, laugh with me. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m a bit tired.’

I concentrate on the cheese but it’s gone all blurry, as if it’s melting. I wipe my eyes on the back of my wrist.

‘Have you been chopping onions?’ Adam asks. I shake my head. The sniff draws him closer, leaning on the other side of the stainless steel counter. He peers at me. ‘Are you OK, Frankie?’ I know that he’d rather be fetching his coat, stamping his feet impatiently in the hall, waiting for his friends to gather, to walk down to the village pub for some cheer.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
Please go away,
I think, even though I don’t really want him to.

‘See you tomorrow then.’

‘See you tomorrow.’ And I wait for the sound of his footsteps to disappear completely before I hack up the entire block of cheese.

The fire is quick to start. It was the matches sitting on a shelf in the kitchen that set me thinking. I turned the box over and over in my fingers, wondering where I might find wood. The library waste bins provided enough old newspapers to set the entire building alight, so I carried a few bundles back to the dining hall and dumped them on the hearth.

‘Logs,’ I pondered, wondering if anyone would notice a couple of missing school benches. I headed off to the basement, feeling my way along the rough damp walls until
I found a light switch. A network of rooms and low-ceilinged passages finally led me to a stash of broken furniture that had been crudely hacked up, perhaps for the single winter fire that was allowed.

I grabbed an armful of wood and took it back upstairs. Then I went down and fetched more. I did this until I had enough wood to last the evening. I shook out the newspapers and rolled them into knotted twists. I put a dozen into the fireplace and stacked the smallest bits of wood on top in a wigwam shape. My heart was in my throat.

Then I lit a single match and held it against the paper. I watched as the tiny flame spread, taking only seconds to rise between the splintered wood. In ten minutes, the fire had taken hold and the stack settled and dropped to a steady blaze. I went back to the kitchen and fetched the tray of food I had prepared.

So here I sit, a lone chair dragged next to the chimney, the tray set between my feet, my left cheek pricking scarlet from the blaze. I’m chewing slowly on cheese and crackers. I helped myself to the supply of wine left for staff and find that, after several glasses, it helps wash everything away.

I chuck more wood on the fire and watch it ignite. A fresh wave of heat makes me take off my cardigan. Time drags slowly, silently, as I think of the others in the pub. It’s quarter to nine. I saw four of them leave – a woman who I think teaches Latin, Mr McBain the IT teacher, plus a new teacher recently over from Paris who works in the languages department, and, of course, Adam.

I pull my feet up on to the chair, hugging my knees. ‘I
suppose he doesn’t have a home to go to either,’ I mutter to myself, sipping the wine. Something about the heat, the alcohol, being alone, sends me to a place I don’t want to be. Setting the drink on a small table nearby, I pull a photograph from my back pocket. It’s in a sealed plastic bag, slightly crumpled, and the faces in it appear ghostly and silvered because of the shiny bag. I push my fingernail through the seal and open it up.

Then I scream.

‘Oh my God, you scared me half to death.’ Relief turns into a hysterical laugh.

‘That was exactly what I was trying
not
to do.’ Adam bends down, laughing, and picks up the photograph I dropped. ‘Here.’ He hands it back to me after giving it a quick glance. ‘I’m sorry.’

He drags another chair and places it opposite me. My cosy dinner for one is over, but deep down I’m grateful for the company.

‘What’s all this?’ he asks, pointing at the remains of my food, the blazing fire. ‘And who doesn’t have a home to go to either?’

My entire face reddens, not just the side that is closest to the fire. ‘I thought you were at the pub,’ I say, sidestepping the question.

‘Would you rather be alone?’

No, please stay with me,
I beg in my head.

I shrug. ‘Up to you,’ I say, sliding the photograph under my leg.

‘Nice-looking kid. Family picture?’ he asks.

‘No. Just a photo a friend sent me. Do you get many letters from banana land?’

Adam snorts a laugh. ‘Sadly not,’ he says. ‘I don’t have any family in Australia. In fact, I don’t have any family anywhere apart from an ex-wife who, if she did have my address, would probably send me rotten bananas.’

My turn to laugh. ‘Don’t tell me. She liked hers with ice cream and you liked yours spread on bread with jam.’

‘Something like that.’ Adam touches the bottle of wine. ‘Mind if I join you?’ In a moment, he’s back from the kitchen with more wine and another glass.

I try to convince myself that the company is harmless, that it doesn’t mean I’m betraying anyone or putting myself at risk. He’s just another teacher, not even from this area. The risk is low.

‘No family anywhere, then?’ I ask. If we’re going to do it, if we’re going to spend the evening together, then I only want to talk about him. ‘And you didn’t tell me why you came back from the pub.’

‘No, not anywhere, and because I was worried about you. Satisfied?’ Wide-eyed, almost mischievous, Adam fills our glasses. He shifts closer to the fire, to me. ‘There’s a real chill in the air tonight.’

‘You didn’t have to worry about me,’ I say, angry at myself for liking it that he did. ‘I’m absolutely fine. It’s been a busy few weeks.’

‘You’ll become institutionalised in no time,’ he says. His lean body bends towards the heat like a plant seeking the light. ‘Outside of Roecliffe Hall, I’m officially homeless.’ He
pushes the iron poker into the fire and the wood drops down into the bed of embers. He chucks more wood on, sending a rain of sparks up the chimney.

‘How does that make you feel?’ I put my cardigan back on and stretch it around my legs.

‘Free,’ he admits, nodding. ‘For the first time in my life, I feel free.’

‘Did you feel trapped in your marriage, then?’