Good Me Bad Me(33)

I try to focus on the sounds around me, I try not to listen to your voice. Goading me. YOU WERE THERE TOO, ANNIE. I watch how the boys take pleasure in pretending to trip up the girls. Grab them. Grope them. The girls giggle and push them away, only to return to their sides moments later. More screams released, rats running overhead. A toothless woman begging, a dead baby by her side, a crow pecking at its eye. You say it again. YOU WERE THERE TOO, ANNIE.

Eyes like pools. Threaten to overflow. Tears. Hot. I push my way through the group, try to get to the front, find some air. Light. I don’t even notice I’m not the one pushing any more. Phoebe is, and a few other hands too. They push me into one of the prison cells, barricade the door, and I know there’s no point in shouting.

Help.

Numbers make me feel safe but not when I know approximately sixty pupils separate me from the teachers and the exit. I try to remember my breathing exercises, the panic attacks I experienced in the first couple of weeks after I left you. In through my mouth, out through – No, the other way, in through my nose, out through my mouth.

Pitch black.

I try the cell door again, but somebody’s holding it shut. I sense a movement behind me. Three small lights embedded in the floor switch on, highlight a shadow. A display, not real.

It’s okay, I can do this.

A figure by the wall, a woman. I press the back of my hand into my mouth, I don’t want to scream. Tears prick at my eyelids. Memories pinch and grab me, like fish feeding on bread in a pond. HELLO, ANNIE. No, go away, you’re not real. TURN ROUND, ANNIE. No. I lean into the door, close my eyes, bang my fists on the metal.

‘Let me out, please, let me out.’

I hammer on the door. Head swimming. Images of me, carrying something in my arms, opening a door. Dark, so dark. The smell. Rotten, yet sweet. A low hum of activity, flies hatching. Rats scratching.

I didn’t want to. I didn’t.

You. Made. Me.

NOT ALWAYS, ANNIE.

That’s not true.

I see their faces, the faces I try so hard not to see, small and afraid. Can’t get to them. Crying. I close my eyes. Shout.

‘Let me out, please. Somebody let me out.’

Please.

I feel hands on me.

‘You’re okay, chill out, you’re fine. Open your eyes.’

Laughter as I do. I’m hunched in the corner of the cell, my arms round my head, covering my ears.

‘Hurry up, Mr Collier’s calling us,’ says a girl’s voice.

Joe’s there, he offers me his hand. I refuse, not sure if he was in on it.

‘Are you okay? You seem really freaked out.’

‘That’s because she is a freak,’ says Phoebe.

‘Shut the fuck up, can’t you see she’s terrified?’

‘Oooooh, someone’s got a crush on dog-face.’

‘Dog-face? Have you looked in the mirror recently?’

‘Nice try, Joe, we all know that’s not what you were saying at Lucille’s party.’

‘Yeah well, I’m not wasted now, am I?’

‘Must be if you’re trying to help her.’

‘Sound a bit jealous if you ask me.’

‘Jealous? Of her?’ As I stand up, she points at me.

‘Looks that way, yeah.’

‘Fuck off, Joe.’

She shoves him in my direction, heads up the passage towards the next exhibit. I hear Mr Dugan telling us to hurry up, another group’s due behind us. My left nostril feels warm and full. Stress, anxiety, any kind of heightened emotion, triggers it. I tell Joe to leave me alone, turn my face away.

‘Let’s walk up together,’ he says.

‘No, please go away.’

He hesitates, but walks off, just before my nose begins to bleed.

We return to school in time for lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon setting up the Great Hall for Subject Evening, a chance for parents to come in and discuss career choices for their daughters. General feedback on how we’ve settled into the first few weeks of term. Mike and Saskia attend and ask to speak to both Phoebe and me when they get home. Phoebe goes first, I wait in the snug. After a while she comes out of the kitchen, slams the door behind her, gives me a hateful look as she passes.

Mike opens the door, I ask him if Phoebe’s okay. He explains she got a double detention for losing her chemistry paper. Shame, I think, I could have told her where it was, the drawer under my bed. A small price to pay for Georgie’s ‘accident’.

Mike does most of the talking. Reports that I’m amongst the top five academically in Year Eleven, a little unsure in the social aspect, but making progress. Saskia squeezes my shoulder, it doesn’t make me feel good, it makes me think of you. Parents’ evening last summer, I was there helping. You wore a dress, red and blue flowers. One of the teachers commented on how well-mannered and compliant I was, wanted to know what your secret was. You squeezed my shoulder, replied with a smile, don’t know, lucky I guess.

‘Miss Kemp told us she encouraged you to enter the art prize.’

‘I didn’t really want to but she thinks I’ve got a good chance of winning. I’m working on some sketches for it.’

‘Sounds like you and she are a great match,’ Mike says.

‘I really like her.’

And as I say it out loud, I realize it’s true.