His & Hers

I consider not telling her any more, but she’s going to find out soon enough.

‘They’ve found something that might help identify the killer,’ I say, starting the engine and driving away without looking back.

Her

Tuesday 11:00

I watch Jack drive away, and wonder what my face did when he told me that the dead woman was Rachel Hopkins. I hope I didn’t react at all, but it’s hard to tell, and Jack knows me a lot better than anyone else. He has always been able to see straight through me when I’m trying to hide something.

I saw his crappy car parked on the street as soon as I stepped outside Mum’s house. It’s a second-hand rust bucket, probably all he can afford, now that he’s living with a woman who is allergic to working for a living. Since leaving me, Jack has found himself a new home, along with a new mortgage to pay, and a new child to support. All on just the one salary. We were together for over fifteen years, and for a long time I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it. I think I understand now. It’s as though I’ve lived lots of different lives in one lifetime, and the one I shared with him was never meant to last for ever. Sometimes we hold on too tight to the wrong people, until it hurts so much we have to let go.

I wait until his car has completely disappeared from view, before taking the photo out of my pocket. Finding it inside the jewellery box in my old bedroom gave me goosebumps, and what Jack just told me made them return. It might have been a very long time since we were all at school together, but I still recognise every one of the faces in the picture. And I remember the night it was taken. When we all dressed up trying to look older than we were, getting ready to do something that we shouldn’t. An evening not all of us would live to regret.

I peer down at the face of Rachel Hopkins, a younger version of the dead woman in the woods staring back at me. We are standing next to each other in the photo. Her arm is wrapped around my bare shoulder, as though we were friends, but we were not. She’s smiling, I am too, but I can see mine isn’t real. If only I’d been more honest then, I might not have to hide behind a lifetime of lies now. I wish I’d never had to move to that awful school. We would never have met and it would never have happened.

I found out something was wrong during a double English lesson, a few months after my father had disappeared. The school secretary – with her unnaturally pale face and contrasting colourful clothes – knocked once then stuck her too-small head around the classroom door.

‘Anna Andrews?’

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. The whole class turned to stare at me.

‘The headmistress would like to see you.’

It made very little sense at the time; I’d never been in trouble before. I followed the secretary in obedient silence, then sat outside the office with no clue as to what I had done, or why I was there. The headmistress didn’t keep me waiting long, and as she beckoned me inside the warm room – which I remember smelled like jam – I saw all the books on her shelves and felt a bit better. It looked like a library, and I thought nothing too terrible could ever happen inside one of those. I was wrong.

‘Do you know why I’ve asked to see you?’ she said.

The woman had short grey hair, styled in a way that made it look as though she was wearing rollers and had forgotten to take them out. She always wore twinsets, pearls, and pink lipstick, and had a large brown mole on her cheek that I struggled not to stare at. I thought she was prehistoric at the time, but she was probably no older than I am now. People my age seemed ancient back then.

I could think of no reason why I had been summoned to her office, so I shook my head. I can still picture the twisted expression resembling a smile on her face. I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was the kind or cruel variety.

‘Is everything all right at home?’ she asked.

I knew enough to know that meant she suspected it wasn’t.

My father never came back after the night he hurt my mother. I had heard them argue before, and I knew he had hit her on several occasions. I’m ashamed to say that back then – having seen them behave like that my whole life – I thought it was normal. People will go to extraordinary lengths to hurt those they love; far more than they ever do for those they hate.

From the day he disappeared onwards, my mother was either selling her jewellery at the pawnbroker’s, planting things in her new and expanding vegetable patch – because we could no longer afford to shop at the supermarket – or drinking what little money we had left, pouring it into wine glasses. At all other times she was asleep in front of the fire in the lounge, as though guarding the front door. She didn’t like to sleep upstairs anymore, in the bed she had shared with him, and we couldn’t afford a new one. Anything belonging to my dad that she couldn’t sell, she burned to keep us warm. So, the answer to the headmistress’s question was most definitely no.

‘Yes, everything is fine at home,’ I said.

‘Nothing that you might want to talk about?’

‘No. Thank you.’

‘It’s just that your school fees weren’t paid last term and, despite writing several letters to your parents, and calling, we haven’t managed to speak to either of them about it. I’d hoped that your mother or father might have come along to parents’ evening last week. Do you know why neither of them was able to attend?’

Because my mother was too drunk, and my father was too busy not being my father any more.

I shook my head.

‘I see. And you’re sure everything is OK at home?’

I waited a while before answering. Not because I had any intention of telling her the truth. I just hadn’t had enough time to come up with the right lies, to fill the gaps her questions kept making.

Everyone stared at me again when I got back to class, and I felt like they all knew things about me that they couldn’t, didn’t, and mustn’t ever know. I’ve hated people staring at me ever since. It might make my choice of career – presenting the news every day to millions of people – seem a little odd. But it’s just me and a robotic camera in the studio. If I can’t see them looking at me, it’s OK. Like a child who thinks nobody can see them if they cover their own eyes with their hands.

I slip the photo back in my pocket, and notice the red-and-white friendship bracelet I’m wearing. I remember making it all those years ago, along with four identical others. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it’s one that has often come back to haunt me. I pull the end until it tightens around my wrist. I deserve the pain, so I feel bad when I start to enjoy it.

A noisy bird catches my eye and I look up at my mother’s house. It feels like I need to get away from this place; it’s bad for me in more ways than one. I get back in the Mini and rest my hands on the steering wheel. Then I look down at the bracelet again, pulled so tight that it hurts. I loosen it a little, and see the angry red groove it has cut into my skin.

We pretend not to see the scars we give one another, especially those we love. Self-harm is always harder to ignore, but not impossible. I rub the line, as though trying to erase it with my fingertips, to undo the hurt I’ve caused myself. The mark on my wrist will fade, but the scar on my conscience because of what happened the first time I wore this bracelet, will be there forever.