He's After Me (15 page)

‘So what? Worried they’ll have your DNA on them? They’re never going to be able to trace you through a pair of dirty knickers!’

‘Don’t be so gross!’ I look at his mocking face and I want to slap it. Hard. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

‘What?’

I shake my head, speechless with shame. All I want to do is crawl into my bed, pull the duvet over my head and never get out again. I stand up abruptly. My chair clatters to the floor and the filthy old guy jumps out of his alcoholic stupor as I rush out of the door.

It’s Art, first period. I’m the first one there. It wasn’t even eight when I got to college. Breakfast was on in the canteen but I couldn’t face it. Plus I don’t want to see anyone, looking like this. So I sit on my own in the Art room for an hour, dizzy with tension and regret. By the time Bill Thomas walks in and comes to an abrupt halt, my head is thumping and I have a raging thirst.

‘Tell me I’m dreaming!’ he says, slapping his hand to his head. ‘Anna Williams is here before me, raring to go.’

‘Ha, ha!’ I say drily, hoping against hope that he won’t perch in front of me with his legs splayed for a chin-wag but, of course, he does.

‘How’s it going, Anna?’

‘Fine.’

He gives me the benefit of one of his intense looks over his specs and says, ‘Hmmph!’ as if he doesn’t believe me. ‘Get your homework done last night?’

‘Yep.’

‘Like me to take a look while it’s nice and quiet?’

‘If you want.’

I dig into my bag and manage to locate the History of Art homework among the stuff I’d crammed in there in the dark a few hours earlier. Mr Thomas takes the crumpled sheets and makes a play of smoothing them out and starts to read. After a while he says, ‘Hmmph!’ again and stares at me morosely.

‘What?’ Even to me, my voice sounds sulky.

‘Not good enough, Anna.’

Shit. I lighten my tone. ‘Give it to me straight, why don’t you?’

But he’s not playing. ‘If I gave it to you straight, I’d suggest you go back and start A-level Art all over again. This is not worthy of you. Plus, I took a look at your portfolio yesterday. It’s not up to much, is it? As far as I can see, it’s just full of graffiti.’

I feel as if he’s punched me in the stomach and I can’t breathe. When I’d told my dad I’d chosen Art as one of my A-level subjects, he’d said, ‘What for? Anyone can draw and splash paint on to paper.’

Wrong again, Dad. Wrong on so many counts.

I can’t. I can’t do anything right any more.

How did I get to this?

I stand up.

‘Where are you going?’

I don’t answer. I don’t know.

‘Anna, come back. We need to talk about this.’ Mr Thomas sounds anxious now, but it’s too late. As the bell goes and people start to pour into the Art room, I barge straight past them, shouldering my way through the door.

I didn’t know I was holding my breath until suddenly I take two ugly, rasping gasps and tears start rolling down my cheeks. I hold on to the rail outside the Art block to stop myself falling blindly down the steps. People are looking at me but I don’t care. A couple of girls stop and say, ‘Anna, are you OK?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ and they move off, whispering.

Soon the yard empties out as lectures start and I’m left on my own. I sink down on to the steps, and hug my knees to me, head bent, and give myself up to despair.

‘Anna? What’s happened?’

It’s Ben. He crouches down beside me, pushing my hair away from my wet face.

‘What’s wrong?’ he says and I turn into him. His arms go round me and I sob my heart out.

OK, she was upset now but she’d be fine when she’d calmed down. He loved her, he’d never stopped loving her, he never would.

He would be there for her.

Always.

S
omeone tells Zoe that her best mate’s having a breakdown on the steps of the Art block and soon she turns up and gets rid of Ben.

She’s brilliant. She listens without interrupting as I gulp out my tearful tale of how I was nearly discovered by my own father in
his
bed with
my
boyfriend. Then she does something I don’t expect.

She giggles!

‘It’s not funny!’

‘It’s hilarious! I can just imagine you two hopping around in the dark, trying to get dressed. It sounds like a farce!’

I sniff loudly. ‘I suppose, when you put it like that. Then we had this mad race downstairs while Dad and Jude were coming up in the lift.’

She shakes her head, still spluttering. ‘It would’ve served you right if you’d got caught red-handed. I knew what you were up to, you know.’

‘Do you think I’m terrible?’

‘Nooo,’ she says comfortingly. ‘No harm done, is there? Who’s to know?’

‘That’s what Jem says.’ I feel better already.

‘I was just mad at you because you didn’t let me into your sordid little secret,’ she confesses.

‘Well, you know it all now.’

Not quite all. She doesn’t know about the state we’d left the flat in, the food and drink we’d consumed, the clothes I’d worn. I pull my coat tighter around me. She’s forgotten about Jude’s top, the one she noticed yesterday, the one I’m still wearing right this minute. No need to remind her. No need at all.

‘What was it like?’ she asks suddenly.

‘What was what like?’

‘You know. Spending all that time with Jem. Together, in the flat. Just the two of you?’

Images from the past few days crowd into my mind:

A soft bed, the centre of our existence; damp towels on a bathroom floor.

Laughing and loving together; waiting and worrying, alone.

Falling asleep in each other’s arms, drunk with love; waking up with a hangover.

Champagne and olives; morning breath and a raging thirst.

Jem’s beautiful mouth; a borrowed razor, thick with hair …

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, her face pink. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘No! It’s just so hard to explain. It was … it was …
more
.’

‘
More?
More what?’

‘Just … more. More than anything else I’ve ever known.’

‘Lucky!’ she breathes.

But I’m not sure she’s right. I don’t know if I want
more.
I think I just want normal.

I muddle through the day somehow, keeping my coat on all the time, so Zoe and my eagle-eyed English teacher, Mrs H, won’t notice the top I’m wearing. I bump into Mr Thomas again at lunchtime and he looks embarrassed and hummphs a bit and suggests that perhaps he (hummph, hummph) and I (hummph, hummph) overreacted and things aren’t as bad as we thought. Jem phones to see how I am, sounding really unfazed, and says he’ll pop round this evening. It looks like life is returning to normal again, thank goodness.

At the end of the day, Zoe walks back to mine with me. Her suggestion, so Mum can see I’ve been staying with her. What a mate! Mum is already home and pleased to see us.

‘Hi, girls! Productive few days? Get lots of revision done?’

‘Not bad.’

‘We’ve seen quite a lot of Jem since you’ve been at Zoe’s. He popped round last night and the night before. I think he was missing you.’

‘Yeah, he said. On the phone. He’s coming round tonight too.’

‘Thought he might be. He’s one of the family now, you know.’ Livi sidles round the door. I’ve only been away three days but she looks different somehow. Sort of cocky. She’s changed out of her school uniform already and is plastered in make-up.

‘Where you going?’

‘Nowhere. Some of us care about the way we look,’ she says, looking me up and down insolently. ‘Is this the new grunge look you’re cultivating?’

‘Meow!’ says Zoe and everyone laughs.

‘Actually, I think I will go and grab a shower before dinner,’ I say graciously, even though I’m aching to slap my sister’s impertinent little face.

‘No hot water at your house, Zoe?’ asks Livi. I glare at her as I pass, then stop and sniff suspiciously.

‘Is that my perfume you’re wearing?’

‘No!’ she says, but her face goes pink.

‘Better not be!’ I say grimly. But upstairs I can tell she’s been using it – the bottle’s moved. Little thief!

Forget about it, Anna. You’ve just borrowed someone else’s apartment without asking. Someone else’s lifestyle. Don’t begrudge your kid sister a drop of perfume.

I peel off my clothes, stuffing Jude’s top and panties into the back of my wardrobe with a grimace, turn the shower up high and step in. The hot water makes me gasp, but I refuse to turn it down as it cascades over me, cleansing my body and my guilty conscience simultaneously in fierce, scalding blasts. Afterwards I dress from head to toe in clean clothes and dry my hair. As I sit with my head bent, hair dangling down in front of me, above the noise of the hairdryer I hear the doorbell and a deep, male voice downstairs. Jem’s here already.

I stand in front of the full-length mirror, appraising myself. Clear brown eyes, thick straight hair, smaller than average but everything in the right place. I don’t look any different from normal. Nothing to suggest I’ve spent the past three turbulent days, unbeknown to anyone but my best friend, in a secret love nest with my boyfriend.

I glance longingly at my bed, neatly made and inviting, my pyjamas, folded nicely, peeking out from under my pillow.

Later.

At the moment the man of your dreams is waiting downstairs for you, Anna. Most girls would give the world to be in your shoes.

I heave a huge sigh and go downstairs to see him.

I
 push open the lounge door, expecting to see Jem, but it’s my dad who’s standing there in front of the fire. My mouth goes dry.

‘What are you doing here?’ I say.

‘Anna!’ says Mum. ‘Your father’s come to bring you a present from New York.’

‘Look what I got!’ says Livi and shows me an iPad. ‘You’ve got one too.’

‘Wow!’ I take the shiny bag from his hand and peer inside. ‘That’s generous.’

‘They’re cheaper in the States,’ says Dad. ‘I was going to keep it for Christmas, but Jude said you’d need it for college.’

She would. I don’t know what to say. ‘Thanks.’

‘That’s all right.’ Dad smiles at me and I smile back, nervously. This must have been one of the bags I’d seen Jude clutching this morning.

As if she’s reading my mind, my mum says, ‘Your father had a bit of a shock when he arrived home this morning.’

Shut up, Mum, please. Just shut up.

I take the iPad out of the bag and make a show of examining it. ‘This is amazing, Dad. Thank you.’

‘Someone broke into his apartment while he was away!’ declares Livi excitedly.

‘Really?’ I can’t trust myself to look at Zoe. But then Livi asks, ‘Did they take much, Dad?’

‘Not a lot, as far as we can tell. My watch, some cash that was lying about, and a few personal items of Jude’s, that’s all.’

Zoe’s jaw drops in surprise as I feel the blood draining from my cheeks.

‘Your watch was stolen?’

‘Yes, the one your grandma bought me when I qualified. That’s the thing I’m mad about.’

‘That was probably the most expensive gift she’s ever bought anyone in her whole life,’ says Mum softly. ‘Don’t tell her, she’ll be upset.’

I think of my grandma, scrimping and saving to buy that expensive watch all those years ago for the high-achieving son she was so, so proud of, and I know I’m going to cry. It had to be Jem – there was no one else there, except me and him.

Zoe’s voice, hard with anger, rings out. ‘The bastard!’

‘Yes,’ agrees my mild-mannered mother. ‘I think that’s what we all feel, Zoe.’

‘He took cash too?’ asks Zoe.

‘Yep. About two hundred and fifty quid, that’s all. I don’t leave much lying about.’

I feel sick.

‘You mentioned a few personal items of Jude’s?’ prompts Mum.

‘Bits of jewellery – gold mainly. He knew what he was looking for, all right. Left all the cheaper bits. And … he took some clothing, actually. A top she’s particularly fond of.’ He looks a bit embarrassed. ‘And items of underwear.’

‘Yuck!’ says Livi, her little nose creased up in disgust. ‘Pervert!’

‘You said it!’ says Zoe.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ says Dad. ‘I’ve had the locks changed. He won’t be back.’

‘What did the police have to say?’ asks Mum.

‘The police! You called the police?’

‘Of course they did!’ Livi looks at me as if I’m stupid. ‘They got broken into, didn’t they?’

Dad gives a little laugh. ‘Actually, technically speaking, we didn’t. There’s no sign of a forced entry.’

‘So how did he get in then?’ asks Livi curiously. I stand there afraid to breathe. It’s all going to come out now. It’s pretty obvious.