The Perfect Girl (24 page)

I can’t do up the strings of my hospital gown because they’ve got lost round the back of me somewhere. I’m humiliated by having to shuffle along holding it together to avoid everybody being able to see my underwear.

The MRI scanner looks familiar to me from television but I’m not prepared for the noise once I’m inside it, or the discomfort of staying still for such a long period, my hands held above my head.

Amidst the darkness of the machine and the thumping sounds that penetrate in spite of the headphones they’ve given me, I try to think about what Nick has told me and what it means for Tessa and Zoe.

It means that unless somebody broke into the house, the chances are extremely high that somebody in Maria’s household murdered her, and the police will adjust their investigation accordingly. I think back to Tess’s arrival at my flat the night before, and her silence, and I wonder what it was she didn’t tell me.

I think of Zoe in my office this morning and I hope to God that she was telling me the truth.

I think of the magnetic waves that are passing through my body.

I think of all the people in the waiting room and how almost all of them had family with them, or a friend, somebody to hold their hand, or at least to talk to. Self-pity creeps in and ratchets up the feelings of desperation and claustrophobia I’m experiencing.

My relationship with Tessa is the best thing and worst thing about my life. I want nobody else, but while she stays with Richard I can’t have her.

There is nothing I would like more, at this moment, than to know that she would be there when I emerge from this machine.

It’s a terrible effort to keep still, but I tell myself I must because the very last thing I want is for this scan to have to be repeated.

A voice comes through the headphones I’m wearing and tells me that they’re moving on to my spine now. The scan of my brain is complete.

I wonder what the radiologist can see.

The Family Liaison lady, who tells me to call her Stella, is everywhere I go. She has what she calls ‘just a little word’ with Richard, even though it’s more of a bursting fishing net of words if you ask me. She tells him that I was online on his computer and then says to him and to me, like twenty times, that it’s probably a good idea if I don’t go online at the moment because I might read something that wouldn’t be good for me to see.

But I know that’s not just what she means. I know she’s watching me for signs to see if I’ve done something. And the thing is, I’m desperate to read the end of Lucas’s script.

My dad’s in the kitchen and even though I’m still angry with him I figure he’s my best chance of reading the script because he still has his phone. He’s sitting in there on his own at Tess’s little kitchen table, which looks like it should be in a diner, with a cup of tea in front of him that he’s not drinking. He raises his eyes slowly and looks at me like he’s afraid that I’ll go off on one again.

‘Can I borrow your phone?’ I ask him.

‘What?’

‘Just for a minute.’

He takes a deep breath, and I think he’s going to say ‘no’, but instead he says, ‘Zoe, I think it’s best if I stay in a hotel tonight, so it doesn’t put too much pressure on Tessa.’

‘Can I come with you?’ It would be good to get away from here, from the police, from Chris, and Richard, and all of the people. It would be good to be just me and Dad.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should probably stay with the others.’

‘Why?’

He can’t seem to answer that even though I’m standing right in front of him waiting for him to say something.

‘Why, Dad?’

‘Well…’ he says eventually, but I’m fit to burst by then because sometimes I feel like I can read his mind, and I know what he’s going to say, so I shout at him.

‘I didn’t do anything! Honestly, I swear it, what do you think I’m like?’

‘That’s not what I’m thinking; but there are other things to take into account if we’re talking about you coming back to Devon,’ and that sounds like he’s getting ready to tell me that he doesn’t want me, and it makes me feel as if some big heavy teeth have sunk into me.

I try to blink back tears, and to focus only on what I want, which is his phone. I’ve already made a sore patch inside my mouth from the biting and I dig my molars into the soft, sore tissue there again and pull myself back into togetherness. Jason would be proud.

‘Can I borrow your phone, please?’ I ask him again. ‘I just want to look something up.’

He hands his phone over to me, because he feels obliged now. Guilt is a good way to leverage people. Jason didn’t tell me that; nobody needed to tell me that. I learned it because my guilt about what I’ve done makes me bend the shape of myself to fit what other people want every day of my life.

In the hallway I meet Stella, who reminds me of the sheepdog on the farm, always trying to round everybody up.

‘I’m just going to the loo,’ I say. I’ve slipped Dad’s phone under the waistband of my trousers, and my cardigan’s wrapped over it.

I walk up the stairs, dragging my hand up the banister purposely slowly, so that she doesn’t think I’m rushing.

I lock the bathroom door behind me and sit on the toilet.

I can’t get on to Tessa’s WiFi on the phone because I don’t know the password for it and the phone doesn’t log in automatically like the computer did, but that’s OK because my dad is getting a 3G signal here so it takes no time to log into Mum’s email and access the script.

The ending is so sad.

BY LUCAS KENNEDY
 

ACT III