Just My Luck(39)

‘Jesus, Jake. Are you listening to yourself? Ridley and Megan beat up Emily. Your daughter is bleeding. I’m going to their houses. I’m going to the school. I’m going to the police! They are not getting away with this.’ I am raging. Sounds are whooshing in my ears and I think it is actual fury whipping up a storm. This means it takes a moment for me to realise what Jake is saying.

‘I think we should just pull her out of the school. Walk away from them all. We don’t need the police involved. We don’t need a scandal. We’re just getting through one investigation.’

My mouth is hanging open. ‘You can’t expect me to ignore this,’ I splutter.

‘When she gets out of the bath, we’ll ask her what she wants us to do. Take a deep breath, Lexi, I’ll pour you a glass of wine.’

‘I don’t want to take a deep breath. I don’t want a glass of wine!’

‘Think what is at stake here.’

‘Our daughter’s health.’ I glare at Jake but can’t say any more. I’m conscious that Logan is still in the room with us. He looks shaken enough. I put my arms around his shoulders and pull him into a hug, kiss his forehead. He’s clearly upset because he allows this, uncomplaining.

‘Will I have to change school too?’ he asks.

Jake and I answer at once. I say, ‘Your dad wasn’t serious about that. We’ll discuss it.’

Jake says, ‘Yes, you’re changing schools. Fact.’

When Emily emerges from her bath, wearing candy-striped pyjamas, she looks about ten years old. Vulnerable, overwhelmed. Her skin bleached. There’s a film glistening on her upper lip and her forehead. My heart aches for her.

I am making pasta arrabiata for supper, it’s her favourite. She sits down at the kitchen breakfast bar and watches me. ‘OK, so we have some options. As this attack was on you, I want you to be comfortable with my response so your father and I can go to their houses right now, we can have it out with them and their parents.’

‘Then what?’ She slouches forward and rests her head on the breakfast bar.

‘Well.’ I’m stumped. ‘Demand apologies at the least.’ I can hear how inadequate I sound.

‘Their parents won’t even care. I mean they hate us, right?’

I’m not prepared to give up at the first hurdle. ‘We can talk to the school to have them punished.’

She shakes her head. ‘What do you think will happen if you go in to school and get them into more trouble? Are you going to get me bodyguards?’

‘Then the police. We’ll go to the police, press charges.’

‘They can’t follow me around twenty-four/seven. They can’t make me safe. Besides, Dad isn’t pressing charges against Fred or Patrick and they assaulted him.’

‘Well, no, but that’s different.’

‘How?’

I don’t know what to tell my daughter. Maybe Jake should press charges. We just don’t want a scandal. Have we set a bad example?

‘Well, what do you want to do?’ I try to swallow my exasperation. I’m not angry with Emily but my sense of injustice is so ferocious I’m not able to keep a lid on it as well as I’d like.

‘I want to watch TV.’ Her eyes swim. She’s fighting tears.

‘What?’

‘I want to leave the school. Go to a private school where everyone is rich and they won’t hate me for it.’

‘Sweetheart, I’m not sure that running away is the answer.’

‘It is.’

I drain the pasta and slowly stir in the sauce. ‘Are you saying you don’t want me to do anything?’ I can’t believe my feisty little daughter would respond like this.

‘Yes.’

‘You are content with them getting away with this?’

‘Don’t make things worse, Mum.’ She walks through to the sitting room. Jake shrugs. He doesn’t look as surprised as I am. I wonder whether he talked to her before I did.

‘That’s that settled then,’ he says. ‘Shall we eat this in front of the TV?’

‘It’s spaghetti, it will get everywhere.’

‘We’re getting a new sofa soon anyway, right, and I think the important thing is to cuddle up with Emily and Logan.’ He’s right about that at least.

Somehow, I hold it in while we eat dinner and watch a Netflix movie, all together as a family. Ostensibly. The thing is, I know we are in the same room but I don’t feel we are very together. I have to concentrate to try to ignore the issue of our daughter taking a beating, since she is sat with a split lip and bruises. If Ridley or Megan were stood in front of me, I would push my thumbs into their eyes until they popped. I would rip their heads off and use them as footballs. Instead, I put my arm around Emily and reassure her I won’t do anything to ‘make things worse’.

She lets me tuck her into bed. I kiss her forehead and despite the trauma of the day, she’s out like a light. She’s always been a good sleeper.

I sit on the floor by her bed, surrounded by bags of shopping and make-up. I lie my head on the side of her bed. I remember back to when she was a baby and the fact that she always slept so well had Carla and Jennifer believing I was some sort of baby whisperer with a special knack. Carla used to get me to put Megan to bed whenever she could. I remember this and I cry, silent, fat tears that dampen my daughter’s duvet.