What You Become (23 page)

‘Hey,’ she said breathlessly.

A few people said hi back, uncertain. She put her hands on her knees for a second to get her puff back; she never had been much of a runner.

‘Thanks for coming.’ She gulped. ‘Sorry for . . . all the trouble.’ She let the microphone hang for a minute, wiping at her face. ‘The rumours are true. I did start the fire. But it was an accident.’

Knowing looks and whispers sped around the audience, and I took her hand and squeezed it. She’d come back; that was what was important.

‘You can think what you like about me,’ she said, her voice getting louder, as she turned to look at Fab. ‘But my dad is a good man. And he deserves a second chance.’

Her voice cracked, and tears ran down Fab’s face, as he pulled Ti into a bear hug. A few people in the audience clapped, and I saw Mum wiping her eyes, seated at the front, in her deckchair. Joey grinned beside me.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I could hear Fab saying. ‘I’m so sorry. My littlest girl.’

Ti pulled away, still holding Fab’s hand, and the microphone screeched, causing Dad to shoo her away from the speakers.

‘I wish I could say I was brave enough to stand up here like this because I love my dad so much, but the truth is I almost left, I was in the car. And if it wasn’t for my best friend, Rosie Bloom, I wouldn’t be up here. She told me that people like to give second chances because they want them for themselves. And I wanted to find out if that was true.’

Her parent’s gazes shot to me, and then June reached for Ti’s necklace. She lifted it for a second and I didn’t know where to look as the silence expanded.

And then, gradually, the audience began to clap. I saw Mum, on her feet, and Kiaru with his hands in the air. Dad’s flame sputtered back to life, and then Joey’s. Lighters making their way from person to person, until there were dozens flickering against the night, and over by the caves Kiaru and Alisha grinned at me. Kiaru put his fingers in his mouth, and a piercing whistle rose above the applause.

People laughed and cheered, and held each other, and I cuddled Ti, who sobbed against my neck, until her parents took over. I jumped off the stage to stand with my family, who crowded round me, kissing my hair and cheeks and ears. People’s faces were soft in the candlelight, and the sea fussed around us, like a concerned aunty, and onstage, with their heads bent together, in a hug that seemed never ending, Ti, Fab and June.

Fifty-one

Dad, Joey and me were packing away the beakers and banners and rubbish when the hug finally ended, and Ti made her way over. Her face was difficult to read, a mixture of relief and sadness, and I was glad, because the way I felt was complicated too.

Dad pulled Joey along with him to collect any rogue paper cups littering the beach, and I could hear my brother complaining, furious to be removed from the action, but I was grateful to have Ti to myself. I didn’t want to have to fake our reunion. I was done with all that.

We walked to the caves, where Kiaru and Alisha had been, to the rock we liked to sit on in summer if Durgan wasn’t too crowded. The beach was mostly empty now, except for our families who stood together, talking and clasping hands, and we watched them for a while.

‘Thank you for not telling,’ Ti said, and I bit my lip.

‘Ophelia was right. I didn’t have the guts.’

‘You’ve got the guts,’ Ti said, looking me in the eye.

I shook my head. Something was rising in me, something that I’d held down a long time.

‘I haven’t, Ti.’

‘You have, you just chose not to use them.’

‘I never confessed to Kes.’ I blurted the words out, and my heart was in my throat. ‘I tried, but he brought up Mum, and I didn’t want to make things worse at home. I’m so sorry, I felt horrible about it but I couldn’t do it. Ti?’

She had picked a handful of stones, and was sieving them through her fingers, like she didn’t know what to say, and I felt more worthless than I ever had, because she’d stood up there and made out I was some kind of hero.

‘Look, Rosie, I already knew you never owned up. It was obvious after the appeal.’

‘Oh. Really? Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I knew my lie about Chase was worse. I thought maybe you . . . Suspected.’

I leaned back onto my hands, and looked at the night sky.

‘Let’s just never lie to each other again, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Ti said, and I realized in a deep and sudden way that she was more Daphne than I would ever be. She was more Daphne because she loved the sea for what it really was underneath.

‘I’m glad you came back,’ I said, but Ti’s smile was weak, and I knew she was thinking of Ophelia. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘I hope so.’

‘You really going to take the blame?’

‘I’m partly responsible.’

Picking at a patch of seaweed, I wondered if I was partly responsible too. It could easily have been my fault that Fab discovered Will and Ophelia’s relationship. Nobody knew until I confided in Alisha and Kiaru. But there was a difference between telling a secret, and making a threat and starting a fire. Still, I was finished arguing. Ophelia was Ti’s sister, and that was that.

I took Ti’s hand and squeezed it, and she squeezed it back, and then June, Joey and Dad were walking towards us, with Fab struggling to push Mum in the wheelchair Dad had borrowed from the university, over the pebbly beach.

Yodelling, Joey tore away from Dad. He held Ti as though he would never let go.

‘Why’d you set fire to the school, though?’ he said, as he pulled away. ‘I’m going to have to pay out, like, seven pounds forty. You owe me.’

Dad swiped at the back of his head and Joey ducked.

‘Took balls,’ Dad said, to Ti. ‘Getting up there in front of all those people. We were wrong about you, Titania.’

‘You’re a good girl,’ Mum said. ‘And Alistair’s right – you must have a labia of steel, confessing onstage like that!’

I couldn’t keep a straight face, but Ti looked sombre, like she was receiving a medal from the Queen.

Fab and June beamed proudly, and Joey side-skipped around, as though herding us all to stay together.

Fifty-two

Later that night, Ophelia returned too. Mum, Dad, Joey and me were eating Fab’s lasagne at the café when she walked in, shivering, mascara smeared beneath her eyes. Her parents and Ti hugged her, laughing and crying, but she only looked blank, and I stayed out of her way.

Ophelia hadn’t been able to let Ti take all the blame, but she wasn’t happy to be back, and I felt sorry for her.

The Friday before summer term started Dad got a call from Kes. Chase was out of intensive care, and well enough to discuss my fate, and they had decided to give me another chance at Fairfields, seeing as I had the potential to be a good student. They had learned of my innocence regarding the distribution of the posters, thanks to Alex Riviere, who had confessed in a moment of conscience.

At school I was famous by proxy. Ti and Ophelia had taken on legendary status, as though risen from the dead, and everyone thought it was me who had made them come back. It was well known that I’d taken the photo of Chase and Kes too, even if I hadn’t put up the posters, and somehow it was a good thing. People asked me about nightwandering, and laughed at my jokes, and paid attention as I walked around the school. Turned out Alisha was like Joey when it came to secrets.

It was Ophelia who had convinced Alex to put the posters up, and I felt sorry for Charlie Fielding. Alex had dumped her after he found out that she’d encouraged Ophelia to think Will was cheating with Chase. He went out of his way to be nice to everyone these days, and avoided cliques. Most of the time, he devoted himself to rugby training.

Fab and June adored him because of his help when the girls were lost, and he often tucked into complimentary pizza at the café when I was waiting for Ti. Ophelia sneaked him cakes and pastries, too, watching him eat with the determined expression I knew so well.

I still hadn’t spoken to Kiaru properly, and I felt so weird about it, but I didn’t know what to do. I hung around with him and Alisha every day, but Alisha talked so much that we didn’t get chance. She had ended things with Ava because they got too serious too fast, and she wanted me to set her up with Ti, who she swore was as gay as a dancing flame. Kiaru seemed happy to let her dominate, and I guessed it had ended, whatever we had begun, until one day I found a drawing of a tiger and a collie in my school bag.

The next day, I put a postcard of an ostrich and a giraffe cuddled together into the back of his Maths book in a flurry of Ti-encouraged daring, and when he came to find me after the lesson finished I understood the phrase
jump for joy
.

Fifty-three

I still hadn’t spoken to Ophelia when her court case came round months later. She had admitted arson at an earlier hearing, and today the decision would be made as to whether she had intended to set the fire or not. Her solicitor had prepared us for the worst, and Ti was sick with fear. She was a witness, and was terrified she would send her sister to prison.

Mum was well enough to come downstairs most days by now. She set about finding things to distract me, like animal clips or new music she’d discovered or flapjack.

By lunchtime I was so restless that she persuaded Dad to drive me to the city so I could be there when Ti came out. How must she be feeling if I was this twitchy? Mum made sure I looked as neat as possible, even though I wouldn’t be allowed in court, combing my hair so that it turned into a fuzzy eighties-style frizz that she thought looked smart. She brushed the fluff from my least worn-out cardigan, and I tried not to be embarrassed by Dad’s faded cords and scuffed moccasins as we walked into the pillared courthouse.

‘Don’t feel bad about me not having court clothes,’ he told me when I wished aloud he had a proper jacket. ‘It’s a good thing.’

We sat in the waiting room, joint-reading a newspaper, and drinking chicken Cup-a-Soup from a vending machine Dad had found, until eventually June and Fab emerged from the court. There was no sign of Ophelia, and I guessed that the worst had happened. What would I say to Ti?

Then I saw the two of them, clinging on to each other, just behind their mum and dad. Ophelia looked particularly beautiful with her long dark hair tied back in a low ponytail, and without eyeliner or lipstick she’d lost her untouchable edge. She was unable to hold in her sobs, and June nodded her head happily, as she saw us.

Ophelia had been sentenced with a Youth Rehabilitation Order, which meant no prison but a lot of other conditions, and looking around at her family she seemed as gentle and law-abiding as June.

Everyone hugged Ophelia’s solicitor, apart from Dad and me, and then Ophelia hugged her again, and all of them were talking at the same time, while we stood awkwardly by, Dad kneading my hand.

Fab was in bright yellow trousers, which made me feel a little better about my Dad’s gormless outfit, and Ti was wearing her black and white café uniform with the dorky black patent work shoes she hated so much. Only Ophelia wore a new dress, charcoal grey, with a white lace collar that brought out her Italian side.

She was still too overwhelmed to talk when we went into the street, but June told us that Ms Chase had been a revelation.

‘We didn’t even know she was going to speak! She’d asked to be there, and she was allowed, as she was involved in the case, but we had no idea. I’m sure it was her that made the magistrates lenient, you know. Absolutely sure of it.’

Fab had one arm round each of his daughters, and seemed to have lost the power of speech, while June was more talkative than ever. Youth courts didn’t allow members of the public, as a general rule, or I would have insisted on attending myself. Luckily, June couldn’t say enough about it. She’d even taken notes.

‘She said it had been a privilege to teach Ophelia, and that a more “passionate, rambunctious young woman, you would have trouble finding”. What else did she say, Phe?’

Ophelia shook her head. She was staring at the stone steps we were standing on, as though she couldn’t trust them to hold her, sticking very close to Ti.

‘It was her that did it, I’m telling you . . .’

June turned the page of her notebook.

‘Right. “She wasn’t the most academic kid, but put her on stage, and she would give you goosebumps.” That’s what she said. And that if it was up to her, all charges would be dropped, and medical advice sought. Sorry, Phe, I shouldn’t have read that bit. She thought it was “an act of passion entirely without serious consideration by an emotionally unbalanced teenage girl, and it would be disastrous for her future if she were to be made an example of.”’

It was clear from the power of Ophelia’s relief that she hadn’t expected this outcome. None of us had. Ti hadn’t slept properly for weeks.

Holding her mum’s hand, Ophelia looked like a harmless little girl, and it was hard to compute exactly how much damage and disaster she’d managed to create.

Fifty-four

At the bottom of the stone steps we stood in a circle, winding down the conversation before we went to our separate cars. I’d said goodbye to everyone except Ophelia, who seemed to be purposefully avoiding my eye, and I was trying to work out what the best thing to say might be, and how to go about it, when she appeared in front of me.

‘Hey,’ she said stiffly, and her eyes were pink and swollen as she wiped them.

‘Hi.’

Ti and our dads had made their way down the stairs to the roadside and were swapping ideas about possible routes home, though there were only two that anyone knew of. Ti joined them as they talked about the weather, which was doing that thing of being everything at once, and the price of bread, which had gone up again, apparently, and I was grateful to her for giving us space.

‘I owe you an apology,’ Ophelia said, surprising me, and I thought how amazing real apologies were, because all of my resentment towards her drifted away from wherever I had been holding it, and all I wanted was to give her a hug.

Up close, her hair smelt the same as Ti’s: like pina colada.

‘I know you think I’m such a bully and Ti doesn’t get a look in, but it isn’t like that. I love her. I’d do anything for her.’