His & Hers(41)

I open a miniature bottle of scotch and knock it back, then I notice the photo on the desk, the one that I found in the jewelry box at my mother’s house yesterday. We’re all there. Five young teenage friends the night before it happened, some of us with no knowledge of what was to come. I’ve spent so many years trying to forget these girls and now, once again, they are all that I can think about. I remember when we first met.



* * *



The grammar school was my mother’s idea. I used to be cleverer back then—before all the alcohol drowned my brain cells—too clever for my own good, she used to say. Without my father, there was simply no way to pay private school fees. I had to finish my education somewhere, and she thought that St. Hilary’s would be the next best fit.

It wasn’t.

The all-girls school was a twenty-minute walk from our house, but Mum insisted on driving me there on my first day—probably to make sure I went in—and pulled up right outside the gates. She’d bought an old white van, and had her brand-new company name stenciled on the side: Busy Bees Professional Cleaning Services. It was like a tin can on wheels.

I could see people staring at us, and it, as though it were an ancient relic that belonged in a museum, not on the road. I didn’t want to get out of the van, or go into St. Hilary’s, but I didn’t want to let my mother down either. I knew she had sweet-talked my way into the school mid-term.

Mum was the headmistress’s cleaner—she seemed to be cleaning for half the village by then—and I think she persuaded the woman to take pity on me and us. I was getting used to her calling in little favors here and there. Cleaning for influential people and local businesses had its benefits, including free bread from the bakers, and just-past-their-prime flowers from the florist. She always did whatever she needed to do, to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads. I tried to look happy and grateful about it as I stared up at the imposing brick building, but my first impressions were that the school looked like a Victorian asylum, with its ancient-looking sign above the main door, its name carved into the stone:

ST. HILARY’S HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

When I didn’t get out of the van, my mother tried a few words of encouragement.

“It’s never easy being the new girl, no matter how old you are. Just be yourself.”

This seemed like terrible advice to me then, just as it is now. I want people to like me, so being myself is never an option.

I still didn’t open the van door. I remember looking up at that school, as though it were a prison I might never be allowed to leave. I wasn’t far wrong. There are some self-inflicted life sentences. We all carry prisons of regret inside our heads, unable to break free of the guilt and pain they cause us.

There was a knock, followed by a smiling face peering inside the van window. My mother leaned across me to wind it down. The girl was dressed in the same uniform I was wearing, except that hers looked new. Like the rest of my clothes, mine was secondhand. My shoes were new, but they were also a size too big. Mum always bought them like that, so I could grow into them, and stuffed cotton wool in the ends to stop my toes from slipping around.

The girl standing outside the car was slim and very pretty. We were the same age, but she looked considerably older than fifteen. She had highlights in her hair; long golden strands of it shone in the morning sunlight. Her dimpled smile made you want to be as happy and kind as she looked. That was the first thing that I thought about Rachel Hopkins: that she looked like a nice person.

“Hello, Rachel. How lovely to see you,” said my mother.

I was starting to think that there was nobody left in the village that she didn’t know.

“Hello, Mrs. Andrews. You must be Anna?” said the beautiful stranger.

I nodded.

“First day today, right?”

I nodded again, as though I had forgotten how to speak.

“I think we’re in the same class. Want to come with me? I can show you around and introduce you to everyone?”

I remember that I did want to do that, very much. She seemed so nice that I think I might have followed her anywhere. My mother leaned over to kiss me, but I got out of the van before she could—I have never been comfortable with public displays of affection—and she drove away before either of us had a chance to say a proper good-bye. I didn’t have to ask how Rachel knew my mother; I had guessed already that Mum probably cleaned her house too.

Rachel talked. A lot. Mostly about herself, but I didn’t mind. I was just grateful not to have to walk into that building on my own. She led me to a classroom that was already full and loud with teenagers. A hush fell over them when we stepped inside, and I wasn’t sure whether that was for her or for me, but the chatter soon resumed and I tried not to feel too self-conscious.

Rachel marched over to a group of girls, with a swagger only the most popular people know how to perform. They were sitting by the antique-looking radiators—that school was always cold in more ways than one—and she didn’t hesitate to interrupt her classmates in order to introduce me.

“Anna, this is everyone you need to know. My name is Rachel Hopkins and I am your new best friend. This is Helen Wang, she is the clever one and edits the school newspaper, and this is Zoe Harper, she is the funny one, who likes to make her own clothes and get random parts of her body pierced to annoy her parents.”

Zoe tucked her strawberry blond hair—which did not look natural—behind her pierced ears. Then she raised her shirt high enough to display a pierced belly button, as though that were her idea of a greeting. I soon discovered just how good Zoe was with a sewing machine; half the school had paid her to take up the hems of their skirts.