Precocious (21 page)

We were listening to Nirvana, but Todd was flicking through my albums. He seemed impressed at all the ‘really cool
old
stuff’ I had: Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan. Funny; I had always thought that stuff made me
not
cool. I smiled, the marijuana working its magic and sending happy little swirls into my brain. I felt as though I was watching them. It was also making me chatty, giddy.

‘D’ya know where I’ve been this weekend?
London
.’ I said it reverentially;
if you only knew what I was doing while I was there
, I thought. ‘Have you ever been to London, Todd?’

‘Me?’ he inhaled. ‘Nah, never been anywhere, me. I mean,’ hurriedly, ‘I go to Manchester, like, all the time. Hacienda and that …’

He trailed off and stared at me. His eyes were chocolate-coloured, and like a dog’s; round and baleful. His hair dropped in curtains around his face, decades away from turning grey. He looked untouched.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ I brought my hands up as though to brush something from my face. Todd was grinning.

‘You’re not like the other girls. You know that?’

‘Hmm, so I’m told,’ and perhaps he thought my smile was for him, instead of belonging somewhere else, across town, or in London, or in an English classroom, because he leaned in a little too close and I had to feign a coughing fit, which turned into laughing.

‘You know what it is,’ he was saying, ‘that attracts you to people?’

‘Err, usually a fit bum,’ I giggled. I was the funniest person alive right now.

‘No, no, I mean you know like when you fancy someone and, erm, you’re not really sure why you do? I mean … do you know what it is that causes that?’

I tried to be solemn.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, Todd, I don’t. Tell me!’

‘It’s the smell. Not, like, perfume or whatever. It’s pheromones, or something. You don’t even know it, you’re not conscious of it, I mean, but that’s why you like people.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ But then I was off again, until I thought I would die laughing, and eventually I started to fall asleep, my eyes too heavy and my head too thick, even though my shoulders were still shaking. And I was thinking of you, and your smell, of Aramis and cigarettes and coffee, and I thought, sometimes it’s perfume, sometimes something else. And Todd said sweetly that he should leave, and said something serious about friendship that made me suddenly want to cry.

So when he kissed my forehead a chaste goodbye, I smiled with my eyes closed and whispered, ‘Nice smell.’

There are two, or maybe more, sides to every story. Sometimes people will try to muffle every version of the story but their own. ‘Where they burn books,’ Mrs Syms, our History teacher, once said, ‘sooner or later they end up burning people.’ She told me she’d seen it inscribed at a concentration camp. I didn’t know why anyone would want to visit such a place, but Mrs Syms was the kind of woman who seemed to want to surround herself with other people’s suffering. She was kind, and interesting, and was the person who made me understand the importance of the past.

This was about the time that Mari found the letters. It turned out her dad, the missing dad who had served as the template for all her expectations of men, had been writing to her for years, and her mum had been hiding the letters from her.

‘All men are the same,’ used to be Mari’s line; ‘selfish bastards, all of ’em.’ The funny thing was, this never seemed to bother her, it was just a fact that she’d accepted. She even seemed to
like
men; she had several close male friends. She just had no expectations of them. So she’d never seemed particularly hurt by her view of the world. But after she got hold of the letters; this was what did it. Having to rewrite years and years’ worth of your version of events; this is how your heart gets broken.

She never shouted and screamed at her mum. They were too close, she said, had been through too much together. In spite of their strange co-existence, meeting only ever in the crossover place of day and night, one eating breakfast, the other tea, with brief words and even briefer hugs, they were close. In spite of their seeming independence, a relationship more like sisters than mother and daughter, or more like friends than sisters, no, not even that – more like co-lodgers – in spite all of this, in the way of family they were all the other had. They were very ordinary letters, Mari said, telling her what he’d done at work that week. Hoping she was being good at school. They never suggested meeting up, never explained why he’d left or said sorry. But they were regular, and carefully written. She said she only read them once, but she kept them, in a shoebox on the top of her wardrobe. And when she moved into her flat, the shoebox came too, and was placed on top of another wardrobe, and is still there.

What I never understood was why, if her mum hadn’t wanted Mari to see the letters, she had kept them at all.

‘That’s easy,’ Mari said, and I suddenly realised why there had been no recriminations over the whole thing, ‘because they’re part of him. She still loves him, of course. The letters were meant for me, but she took them and kept them because they were all she could have of him.’ She shrugged. ‘How could I be mad at her for that?’

Diary: Monday, 12 April 1993

Laura is sleeping over tonight. We’ve had cheese on toast and we’re in our PJs now, writing our diaries. She’s been talking about Mr Hill – she’s got it bad for him, bless her. She swears he stares at her in assembly, giving her the PPs (piercing, passionate looks, in case you were wondering!). She’s probably right – why wouldn’t he? She’s gorgeous.

I didn’t mention HM. I said I still like him, yes, when she asked, but nothing else. She knows we’re friends, which we are – good friends. According to him. He hasn’t asked me to keep the other stuff secret, but I keep it to myself anyway. I haven’t even told you everything, Dear Diary! Ha ha. (Prying eyes and all that.)

The whole thing with HM just feels so different from the rest of my life, I have absolutely no idea, if I did want to talk about it, where I would begin or what words I would use.

Ten-ten, TTFN.

I dress for court as though for a funeral. Black skirt, black tights. I want to be in shadow, today.

My hair, disobedient as ever, won’t lie flat. Or rather, on one side of my head it is too flat; limp against my temple, resistant to the coaxing of the brush. On the other it skips out at chin level, a jaunty curl I can only tuck behind my ear. I stare at myself in the mirror. For at least fifteen minutes I’m convinced that today’s outcome somehow depends solely upon my ability to control my hair. My eyes fill with frustrated hot tears and I brush them away impatiently and slick concealer under my eyes.

You are surprisingly upbeat. Whistling, even. Behind me in the mirror, you straighten your tie, bare your teeth to check for stray crumbs. Is your confidence completely unshakeable? What would have to happen to make you weak, make you crumble?
Losing you
, you would probably say, and I would smile and nestle into your shoulder, only half daring to believe you.

‘Shall we go?’ you smile, as though suggesting a visit to the shops. I nod and follow you numbly out to the car.

The court building smells sterile, like a hospital. The people in its halls look lost, dazed. Most stare into space. The clicking of heels down wooden floors echoes around the vaulted ceilings of the hallways. I sit on a plastic chair, my hands clasped.

I can’t help but wonder what Alice is doing now.

I scan the courtroom desperate to see a friendly face, and dreading seeing a familiar one. I have an aunt who’s been known to pop up in the public areas of court cases completely unrelated to her. And what about the jury? They could be anyone.

I suddenly remember reading somewhere that in the earliest courts the jury comprised one member of each zodiac sign. That’s why there are still twelve jurors today. The reason was to represent every facet of the human personality and therefore assure the defendant of a fair trial. As they file in I look at their faces, try to read from their clothes, the way they hold themselves, whether they are the type of people who would find you guilty.
Am I?
I wonder, but I don’t have time to give myself an answer because we are beginning.

I hadn’t thought about seeing some of my former teachers here. I know you’ve aged, but some of them look ancient. Mrs Syms – my beloved History teacher – is grey-haired now, and seems smaller, her shoulders bony. I don’t like looking at her, and don’t want her to see me. I sink further down in my chair.

One by one, a procession of witnesses trot out the same mantra. Lines repeat themselves as though from a higher source: well-respected. Unblemished record. Previous good character. Moral.

When Sister Agnes, the head teacher, takes the stand, I glance at Alice. She looks as though she might faint. A couple of jurors, their faces inscrutable until now, lean forward perceptibly. Who wouldn’t be interested in the testimony of a nun?

What’s more, Sister Agnes seems to want to take the opportunity not only to defend you but to attack Alice. When asked how she remembers the plaintiff, she scoffs, ‘Hardly a model pupil.’

Sister Agnes is still a physically slight, unimposing woman, but her voice seems to boom around the courtroom and her stare and her words are like knives. Even Imogen Cartwright has to ask her to stick to the point. When she finally leaves the dock I could swear she casts Alice a triumphant glance.

Your part is brief.

‘Have you ever invited a pupil, past or present, to visit you alone at home?’

‘No.’ An unflinching lie.

‘Can you explain how this young woman could have provided an accurate description of the inside of your house?’

‘Yes, I think I can.’ You smile disarmingly at the jury, address your answer to them, patiently, as though talking to a small child. ‘Alice had an aunt who lived just along the road. It’s a fairly new estate, all the houses have a very similar layout,’ you shrug. ‘Alice was at her aunt’s reasonably frequently as far as I can make out. She could probably give you the exact dimensions of the rooms.’ That smile again.

‘And the decor? Your furniture?’

‘Not sure.’ You stroke your chin as if puzzled, as if unrehearsed. ‘I suppose it’s possible she may have seen photographs. I have a few family photos on my desk at school. Nieces, nephews, that sort of thing.’

Imogen opens her mouth to speak but you chip in, ‘Of course, I suppose she may have looked through my window one time on a visit to her aunt’s.’ At this you look directly at Alice, a lingering look. A gentle look. With a soft laugh you finish, ‘But I’m not suggesting she was
that
obsessed.’

‘But you do think Alice Webb was obsessed with you?’

A sigh, the hands through the hair. ‘I’m afraid so, yes.’

She had a crush. She’d become something of a teacher’s pet, hanging behind after class, signing up for extra lessons. You didn’t worry too much about it at first – you were pleased because it marked a turnaround in her behaviour, which previously could at best be described as ‘rebellious’.

Down in what increasingly are looking to me like stalls in a theatre, I catch sight of Sister Agnes nodding furiously.

The allegations; this is the first time I’ve heard what they actually are, in detail.

Three counts of sexual activity with a child.

Once in your car. Twice in your house.

Described in detail, not by Alice in person, but by a statement written by her and read out. I hear her voice in it. I listen carefully for your voice, for any piece of you in the descriptions, but to my relief I don’t hear you.

Letters are produced but they’re quickly discounted as nothing can be proven from them. You admit when questioned that it was ‘ill advised’ to write letters to a pupil. You were trying to support her, you say. To ‘reach’ her.

You were concerned; Alice had stopped turning up for her extra tuition. She was troubled, but she was bright. You wanted to help her. That’s why the letters said things like: ‘talk to me’ and ‘we can sort it out’.

One of them was signed with a kiss; all with your initial or initials, but never your first name. That, you say, would have been inappropriate.

Drinking champagne seems wrong, somehow. We’re an odd collection: me, you, Imogen Cartwright, Mr Addison. Mr Addison: star witness! Mr Addison, I mean Bill, Bill Addison, I should call him by his first name, of course, as I silently top up his glass like a waitress. Instead I still see him as my Geography teacher; see chalk in his hand, remember exercise books tossed disdainfully across desks, bored scathing comments from his weasel lips hanging in the air.

I don’t think he recognises me. Why would he? I don’t suppose he would be expecting to see two former pupils in one day and, besides, he’s engrossed in his own self-importance. I’m just the girl holding the bottle, the girl in black, in the background. Bill Addison, greedy champagne slurper, is too busy swallowing praise: yours, and Imogen’s.

‘Now, now,’ he blusters, ‘it was nothing, really.’

His testimony was key. He was the colleague you had confided in – shared your concerns with about this poor, troubled pupil whom you feared was getting ‘too close’. His words, careful and clear as though rehearsed, were: ‘If there was something going on with the girl, why would Henry have told me his concerns about her?’

It had annoyed me that he kept referring to her not by name, but as The Girl.
Alice
, I kept thinking.
AliceAliceAlice
.

What an odd foursome we make, laughing and supping our bubbles; looking out over the freedom of the garden.

The dry taste of champagne in my mouth, the smell of freesias, transport me to a summer day only two years ago. I look down at my severe black outfit, feel uncomfortable in the thick tights. Is it so long since I was wearing white?

Our wedding, over the course of its planning, had become a thing that got out of control, grew legs (‘and hair and teeth,’ Dave used to laugh). Well-meaning aunts and friends had done their ‘bit’ with table decorations, flowers, candles, favours. It had all seemed odd to me; beautiful, but odd, like wearing jewellery that doesn’t belong to you.