I sit alone in the semi-dark for a while, finishing the wine she probably left here deliberately, knowing that I would need it. When the bottle is empty and the house is silent again, I walk back over to the answering machine. Then I delete the message.
Sometimes it feels like I don’t know who I am anymore.
Her
Wednesday 04:30
I wake up covered in sweat and not knowing where or when I am.
The first thing that comes to the surface is her, my little girl. It is always the same.
Then I remember the hotel, and the drinks – before and after my embarrassing encounter with Richard – and I squeeze my eyes shut. As though, if I keep them closed for long enough, it might be possible to delete all of my memories.
I was having a nightmare before I woke up.
I was running through the woods, and I was scared of something or someone that was chasing me. I fell, and as I was lying in the dirt, someone came into view then stood towering over my body, holding a knife. I was screaming for help in the dream, and now my throat hurts, as though I might have been screaming in real life.
I’m probably just dehydrated. I’d give anything for a soft drink right about now. I turn on the lights and am surprised to see a bottle of still mineral water by the bed. I don’t remember putting it there, but I silently thank my past self for being so thoughtful. I twist off the lid and gulp down the chilled liquid, so cold it is as though it has just been taken out of the fridge.
I check my phone and see that it was a text from Jack that woke me. For some reason it makes me feel better to know that he is having trouble sleeping too. It’s not sweet, but it is short, just four of his favourite words arranged in a familiar order:
We need to talk.
Not at four in the morning we don’t.
I climb out of the bed and creep over to the minibar, in search of a little something to help me get back to sleep. I fear I might have emptied it completely before I passed out, but gasp when I see that it is actually fully stocked. I pull out the bin from under the desk, but it is empty too. I was sure I had sat on the bed eating snacks and drinking alone last night, but that must also have been a dream.
I open a miniature bottle of Scotch and knock it back, then I notice the photo on the desk, the one that I found in the jewellery box at my mother’s house yesterday. We’re all there. Five young teenage friends the night before it happened, some of us with no knowledge of what was to come. I’ve spent so many years trying to forget these girls and now, once again, they are all that I can think about. I remember when we first met.
The grammar school was my mother’s idea. I used to be cleverer back then – before all the alcohol drowned my brain cells – too clever for my own good, she used to say. Without my father, there was simply no way to pay private school fees. I had to finish my education somewhere, and she thought that St Hilary’s would be the next best fit.
It wasn’t.
The all-girls school was a twenty-minute walk from our house, but Mum insisted on driving me there on my first day – probably to make sure I went in – and pulled up right outside the gates. She’d bought an old white van, and had her brand-new company name stencilled on the side: Busy Bees Professional Cleaning Services. It was like a tin can on wheels.
I could see people staring at us, and it, as though it were an ancient relic that belonged in a museum, not on the road. I didn’t want to get out of the van, or go into St Hilary’s, but I didn’t want to let my mother down either. I knew she had sweet-talked my way into the school mid-term.
Mum was the headmistress’s cleaner – she seemed to be cleaning for half the village by then – and I think she persuaded the woman to take pity on me and us. I was getting used to her calling in little favours here and there. Cleaning for influential people and local businesses had its benefits, including free bread from the bakers, and just-past-their-prime flowers from the florist. She always did whatever she needed to do, to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads. I tried to look happy and grateful about it as I stared up at the imposing brick building, but my first impressions were that the school looked like a Victorian asylum, with its ancient-looking sign above the main door, its name carved into the stone:
St Hilary’s High School For Girls.
When I didn’t get out of the van, my mother tried a few words of encouragement.
‘It’s never easy being the new girl, no matter how old you are. Just be yourself.’
This seemed like terrible advice to me then, just as it is now. I want people to like me, so being myself is never an option.
I still didn’t open the van door. I remember looking up at that school, as though it were a prison I might never be allowed to leave. I wasn’t far wrong. There are some self-inflicted life sentences. We all carry prisons of regret inside our heads, unable to break free of the guilt and pain they cause us.
There was a knock, followed by a smiling face peering inside the van window. My mother leaned across me to wind it down. The girl was dressed in the same uniform I was wearing, except that hers looked new. Like the rest of my clothes, mine was second-hand. My shoes were new, but they were also a size too big. Mum always bought them like that, so I could grow into them, and stuffed cotton wool in the ends to stop my toes from slipping around.
The girl standing outside the car was slim and very pretty. We were the same age, but she looked considerably older than fifteen. She had highlights in her hair; long golden strands of it shone in the morning sunlight. Her dimpled smile made you want to be as happy and kind as she looked. That was the first thing that I thought about Rachel Hopkins: that she looked like a nice person.
‘Hello, Rachel. How lovely to see you,’ said my mother.
I was starting to think that there was nobody left in the village that she didn’t know.
‘Hello, Mrs Andrews. You must be Anna?’ said the beautiful stranger.
I nodded.
‘First day today, right?’
I nodded again, as though I had forgotten how to speak.
‘I think we’re in the same class. Want to come with me? I can show you around and introduce you to everyone?’
I remember that I did want to do that, very much. She seemed so nice, that I think I might have followed her anywhere. My mother leaned over to kiss me, but I got out of the van before she could – I have never been comfortable with public displays of affection – and she drove away before either of us had a chance to say a proper goodbye. I didn’t have to ask how Rachel knew my mother; I had guessed already that Mum probably cleaned her house too.
Rachel talked. A lot. Mostly about herself, but I didn’t mind. I was just grateful not to have to walk into that building on my own. She led me to a classroom that was already full and loud with teenagers. A hush fell over them when we stepped inside, and I wasn’t sure whether that was for her or for me, but the chatter soon resumed and I tried not to feel too self-conscious.
Rachel marched over to a group of girls, with a swagger only the most popular people know how to perform. They were sitting by the antique-looking radiators – that school was always cold in more ways than one – and she didn’t hesitate to interrupt her classmates in order to introduce me.
‘Anna, this is everyone you need to know. My name is Rachel Hopkins and I am your new best friend. This is Helen Wang, she is the clever one and edits the school newspaper, and this is Zoe Harper, she is the funny one, who likes to make her own clothes and get random parts of her body pierced to annoy her parents.’