Into the Water(27)

‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you know how the police asked about Sunday night, about where we were and all that?’

He nodded, but as he did I saw him look over my head to check Mum wasn’t listening. ‘You said you didn’t hear anything unusual, didn’t you?’ he asked. I nodded. ‘You told the truth.’

I wasn’t sure whether he said, You told the truth? like a question, or You told the truth, like it was an instruction.

I wanted to say something, I wanted to say it out loud. I wanted to say, What if? What if she did something bad?, just so Dad could tell me how ridiculous I was being, so he could shout at me and say, How could you even think that?

I said, ‘Mum went to the shops.’

He looked at me like I was thick. ‘Yes, I know. She went to the shops that morning to get milk. Josh … Oh! There you go,’ he said, looking over my shoulder. ‘There she is now. That’s better, isn’t it?’

She’d changed her red shirt to a black one.

It was better, but I was still scared of what was going to happen. I was scared that she’d say something, or that she’d laugh in the middle of the ceremony or something. She had a look at that moment that was really bugging me, not like she was happy or anything, it was more like … like the look she gives Dad when she wins an argument, like when she says, I told you it would have been quicker to take the A68. It was like she’d been proved right about something and she couldn’t get that winning look off her face.

When we got to the church there were already a lot of people milling around – that made me feel a bit better. I saw Mr Townsend and I think he saw me, but he didn’t come over and say anything. He was just standing there, looking around, and then he stopped and watched as Lena and her aunt walked over the bridge. Lena looked really grown up, different to how she normally is. Still pretty. As she walked past us she saw me and she gave me a sad smile. I wanted to go over and give her a hug, but Mum was holding on to my hand really tightly so I couldn’t pull away.

I needn’t have worried about Mum laughing. When we got into the church she started crying, sobbing so loudly that other people turned around and looked. I wasn’t sure whether that made things better or worse.





Lena


THIS MORNING, I felt happy. I was lying in bed, covers thrown back. I could feel the heat of the day building and I knew it was going to be beautiful, and I could hear Mum singing. Then I woke up.

On the back of my bedroom door hung the dress I was planning to wear. It’s Mum’s, from Lanvin. She’d never in a million years let me wear it, but today I didn’t think she’d mind. It hadn’t been dry-cleaned since she wore it last, so it still smelled of her. When I put it on it was like having her skin against mine.

I washed and dried my hair, then tied it back. I usually wear it down, but Mum liked it up. Totes sophis, she’d say in the way she did when she wanted me to roll my eyes at her. I wanted to go into her room to look for her bracelet – I knew it would be in there somewhere – but I couldn’t do it.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to go into her room since she died. The last time I was in there was last Sunday afternoon. I was bored and feeling sad about Katie, so I went into her room to look for some weed. I couldn’t find any in the bedside table so I started looking through her coat pockets in the wardrobe, because sometimes she keeps stuff in there. I wasn’t expecting her home. When Mum caught me, she didn’t look pissed off, she just looked sort of sad.

‘You can’t tell me off,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for shit in your room. So you can’t get pissed off with me. That would make you a total hypocrite.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘that would make me a grown-up.’

‘Same thing,’ I said, and she laughed.

‘Yeah, maybe, but the fact is that I’m allowed to smoke weed and drink alcohol and you are not. Why are you looking to get wasted in the middle of a Sunday afternoon anyway? On your own? Kind of sad, isn’t it?’ Then she went on, ‘Why don’t you go for a swim or something? Call a friend?’

I lost it with her, because it sounded like she was saying the kind of thing that Tanya and Ellie and all those bitches say about me – that I’m sad, that I’m a loser, that I’ve got no friends now the only person who ever liked me topped herself. I started yelling, ‘What fucking friend? I don’t have any, don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what happened to my best friend?’

She went really quiet and held her hands up, the way she does – did – when she doesn’t want a fight. But I didn’t back off, I just wouldn’t back off. I was yelling about how she was never around, how she just left me alone all the time, how she was so distant it seemed like she didn’t even want me around at all. She was shaking her head, saying, ‘That isn’t true, that isn’t true.’ She said, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been distracted, but there are some things going on that I can’t explain. There’s something I need to do, and I can’t explain how difficult it is.’

I was cold with her. ‘You don’t need to do anything, Mum. I swear you promised me you’d keep your mouth shut. So you don’t have to do anything. Jesus, haven’t you done enough already?’

‘Lenie,’ she was saying, ‘Lenie, please. You don’t know everything. I’m the parent here, you have to trust me.’