Good Me Bad Me(56)

I check behind me. The instructor is busy. Mrs Havel, at the other end of the pool. Girls being girls, absorbed in themselves. I tell Phoebe I’ll count to three, then roll.

‘Just hurry the fuck up,’ she says.

So I do. One, two, three and roll, all the way over.

Not.

Quite.

I stop halfway through. One elephant. Two elephant.

Three.

She realizes at three. Her hands uncross from her chest, thump on the sides of the canoe. I feel her body move, whacking and writhing from side to side.

Six elephant.

Seven.

The noise in the pool bounces off the tiles, laughter and coughing as water is cleared from mouths. Nobody looks, nobody notices. How long can the average person hold their breath underwater? Thirty seconds? Sixty?

Nine elephant.

Ten.

Her nails dig into my hand, a vague swirl of pink in the water. Half-moon-shaped injuries, carved out by beautifully filed nails, her pride and joy. The instructor moves closer, Mrs Havel too. I roll the canoe, her head is up, out of the water. Emotions. A rainbow of colour across her face. Panic. Fear follows next. Relief she’s alive, and fury, the last to make an appearance. I revel in every single shade. She gasps, her chest heaves up and down, looks at me.

‘You bitch,’ she says. ‘Mrs Havel. Miss.’

The instructor blows his whistle, shouts for us to switch over, those who’ve done the canoe roll now practise rescue swimming, and vice versa.

‘Mrs Havel.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Phoebe, can’t it wait?’

Clondine and Izzy swim towards us, it’s Phoebe’s face they see. Pale. Panic. Stuck on repeat. The feeling her lungs are about to burst. Trapped.

‘What’s wrong?’ Izzy asks.

‘I almost fucking drowned, that’s what’s wrong,’ she replies, staring at me. The whites of her eyes slightly red, the chlorine.

‘Drama queen,’ Izzy teases.

‘Fuck off, Iz, all of you just fuck off.’

She climbs out of the canoe, swims to the steps nearest Mrs Havel and hauls herself out of the water. Goosebumps visible on her skin. You get them when you’re cold, other reasons too. Her hand reaches to her throat, reassuring herself she can breathe. I don’t know what she says to Mrs Havel but whatever it is she’s allowed to leave the pool and doesn’t return for the last part of the lesson.

In her emails to Sam she mentioned me – there’s something I don’t like about her, she wrote. In what way, he asked. Don’t know, she’s just a bit of a weirdo or something.

Or something, Phoebe.

At the end of the lesson as I swim the canoe back up to the shallows, my right hand nips. Four indentations, the shape of her fear. Behind the privacy of the cubicle door I use my phone to photograph my hand. A keepsake.





25


The following day at school I remained on high alert, knowing Phoebe wouldn’t wait long to get me back. Tit for tat. A game of cat and mouse. A matter of time.

I wasn’t supposed to but I also went to see MK, and as I walked up to her room I was aware of my eyes. Dry. Click as I blink, not enough sleep, a thought that unnerves me knowing I’ll be on the stand in two days. I don’t know what’s happening in court, Mike said he and June were in touch daily but I should focus on myself, on getting as much sleep as possible before Thursday. I’d like that too but every time I close my eyes, I see nine little somethings, crying, pointing at me, asking for help.

I told MK what Mike and I agreed, that I’d be off school Thursday and Friday for a small procedure. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ she asked.

No, only the severing of an umbilical cord.

Should’ve been removed years ago. Toxic.

As I get undressed to shower before bed, I keep hearing your voice, imagining you standing, waiting for me outside the courtroom tossing a coin. Heads or tails. The elongated one you had made when we visited a seaside town in Wales last year, not for a holiday, new territory you wanted to explore, you said. New hunting ground, is what you meant. When I went to the toilet you asked the man at the stall to stamp both sides of the coin with the same. Heads we play, tails we don’t, you said when we got home. It took me months to work out, both sides were heads. You won, every time. But you’re not the judge any more, a man in a wig is. Twelve other people too. You don’t get to decide this time. They do.

I didn’t even hear her open the bathroom door, too busy lathering shampoo on my head, trying to quieten your voice. She yanks the shower curtain to one side. Enough time to cover my ribs with my arms, hide the scars, but not my breasts or my crotch. The flash on her phone, she takes what she needs.

‘That’ll teach you to try and drown me, bitch.’

I wrap the shower curtain around me, scared she’ll pull it down, but she doesn’t. She asks me if I’ve been anywhere interesting lately. When I don’t reply, she says, ‘Don’t think I don’t know all about your little friend from the estate.’

Hide. Don’t show. Steam making it hard to breath. Hot.

‘I’m right, aren’t I? Izzy said she saw you with the little shit that sits outside the house. What’s the matter, can’t find friends your own age? Maybe I’ll tell Dad and he can ask you about it in your “private” time. Wonder what he’d think if he knew you were hanging out with one of the estate rats, especially one much younger.’