A Quiet Kind of Thunder(57)

‘Mum? It’s me. Look, don’t panic, but something’s happened to Bell . . .’





In the end, Bell only needs a couple of butterfly stitches, but the way Mum goes on you’d think she’s going to be scarred for life.

‘She might be traumatized,’ she frets.

‘She’s clearly not traumatized,’ I say impatiently. If anything, Bell just seems thrilled that she’s allowed to eat ice cream for dinner. The only person really bothered about the hole where her teeth should be is Mum.

I end up going back to Dad’s house earlier than usual, blaming it on coursework but mainly wanting to get away from all Mum’s fussing. Rita is beside herself, leaping all over me as I drag my suitcase through the hall.

‘Happy New Year,’ Dad says, giving me a huge hug. ‘And welcome home.’

I grin, hugging him back. Dad isn’t really supposed to say things like that to me, but I don’t mind. His house always feels more like home to me than Mum’s, anyway, and I’ve missed him and Lucy over Christmas.

The three of us celebrate my homecoming with a curry made from leftover Christmas turkey and vegetables and then have a quiet evening in watching Pixar films. We don’t talk about Clark, but he’s all I can think about, and I can tell he’s on their minds too. It’s like the polar opposite of how the last few days have been with Mum, Keir and Bell. Midway through Cars, I fall asleep.

By the time I see Rhys again, we’ve been apart for over an entire week and I’ve missed him more than I ever thought I could miss someone. He comes over to pick me up and I’m giddy just waiting in the hallway, listening for his car. When I open the door I actually leap at him, throwing my arms round his neck like some kind of period-drama damsel. He hugs me back just as tight; his grin is just as wide, and it feels like something has changed. The word ‘love’ hovers. It waits.

But not yet. Not quite yet.

School starts up again and with it normality. It’s Friday and I’m sitting in English, the last lesson of the day before we’re all released back into freedom and the weekend. Everyone is a little bit restless, watching the clock and letting out audible, periodic sighs that Mrs Baxter studiously ignores.

‘I want us to think about women and girls,’ she says, her back to us as she writes on the board. I think, as I always do now, about Rhys and his lip-reading. If he was here, he’d be lost right now. ‘How are women represented in Atonement?’

I knit my fingers together over my copy of the book and rest my chin on the ridges, listening as Cassidy King starts in on a rant about passive women in books written by men. If I were a talker, I might challenge her on this, but I’m not, so I don’t.

‘Are they passive?’ Mrs Baxter asks in a voice that gives away nothing of her own opinion. ‘Wouldn’t you say they are the impetus for the narrative?’

‘That doesn’t make them active participants in it,’ Cassidy says. ‘The story happens to the men.’

‘Only if by “story” you mean “war”,’ Anthony Mitchell says.

I write ‘passive?’ on my notepad, then add a few more question marks for good measure. Anthony and Cassidy – who have been on-again off-again for the last three years – start arguing about strong female characters, so I doodle a caterpillar wearing fluffy slippers from one end of my page to the other.

‘Let’s bring in some more people on this,’ Mrs Baxter says, her voice cutting through Cassidy’s increasingly shrill tone. Something tells me she and Anthony are off again. Again. ‘Kasia, what do you think makes a strong female character?’

‘Not needing a man,’ Kasia suggests. ‘Like, fighting her own battles.’

‘Literal battles?’ Mrs Baxter asks.

‘Those too.’

‘How about you, Steffi?’ Mrs Baxter’s voice is casual. ‘What makes a girl strong?’

‘Agency,’ I say. One word. Three syllables. I haven’t looked up from my notepad; my caterpillar looks great in his slippers.

‘Nice word,’ Mrs Baxter says. ‘What do you think Steffi means by agency, George? And does Briony have it?’

I can feel eyes on me, but I still don’t look up. My cheeks feel red but my heart isn’t hammering; my palms aren’t sweating. Under the caterpillar I write ‘agency’ and then add a smiley face.

Do I have agency? I give my caterpillar a hat with a fluffy bauble on top. OK, yes, I have it. But do I use it? Or do I just let things happen to me?

I feel like I’m hovering on the edge of some kind of epiphany, but it’s just out of reach. I carry on drawing, sketching out a beetle friend for my caterpillar, letting my mind whir as the pencil moves. If I really did have agency, wouldn’t I be the one choosing about going to university, not my parents? Why am I letting them act like it’s their choice to make?

And Rhys. Being with him is my choice – my choice and his – and maybe that’s part of the reason my parents are so angsty about the whole thing. Maybe they’re used to making decisions for me, and I’ve just let them for so long they don’t know what to do with this new, agency-having Steffi.

I should do something, I think. Make a choice that is so definitively mine they’ll realize that I really am my own person, and it’s fine to let me be that. That they can trust me not to fall apart. (Can they trust me not to fall apart?) (Yes. Yes they can, Steffi, and so can you.) Then I can go to university. And then my life will really begin.