Chapter 3
Three
SOMEHOW TIME PASSED, AND I returned to school.
I texted Obi the night before our first day back, asking if he wanted to enter the gates together, to present some sort of united front, but he never got back to me.
His texts (he was always too busy to come to the phone) had been strange ever since an official-looking email had been sent around the student body notifying us of Victoria’s death.
It was the email that had broken the news to Obi, not me.
I did try to contact him, but what could I say?
What words existed to explain such horror to him, and how could my mouth be the one to form them?
Instead, I coated myself in denial and resolved not to let Obi’s silence worry me too much.
Whatever it was that he and Victoria had been to one another, it was only natural that he should take some time to grieve.
When I entered the rehearsal room, Obi was already there, stretching in the corner. He glanced up at me. ‘Shannon.’
I waited, but he didn’t elaborate.
‘How have you been?’ I asked, instantly regretting the female brightness in my voice.
‘I’ve been . . .’ He lowered his arms. His brow twitched, a frown. But then he shook his head, unable to connect to the next thought.
‘I texted you. Did you see that I texted you?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘Cool.’ I waited. ‘Hey, a new Chinese place has just opened up near mine and Jolly’s. Why don’t we go there after school and try it out?’
He looked at me oddly. This wasn’t working.
‘Or not,’ I laughed. ‘Maybe we could just get a pint at The Masons or something instead.’ I could feel it, the wrongness of my behaviour. I was too excited to see him. I’d misread the situation. Obi was upset, he was upset with me. I should’ve found a way to tell him what had happened.
Just then Stefano and Poppy pushed open the door. Poppy was crying. Stefano guided her inside. His lip trembled as he made eye contact with Obi. They gave each other a restrained nod, then Stefano handed Poppy a tissue. That’s it, I thought. That’s how I should’ve entered.
‘We haven’t got long,’ Obi mumbled. ‘I should warm up.’
‘Yeah, OK,’ I said. ‘No worries, we’ll catch up later.’
I went to the opposite end of the room, shrugged off my jacket and began stretching.
Over the next half-hour, more people trickled in, hugging, whispering, dabbing at their cheeks with crumpled tissues.
I watched my classmates, studying their behaviour for instructions on how to act.
I’d seen my mum and dad grieve for my sister, for my grandmother, but this was different.
Victoria’s presence, or lack of, seemed to flood the room.
My classmates drifted across it like flotsam, limbs waterlogged, picking through the sharp wreckage of her absence.
At 9 a.m. Frida entered the room. I was relieved to see her. She would know what to do, how to bottle all this mushy, unrestrained grief.
‘Actors’ – she clapped her hands – ‘if you please.’ We formed a circle around her.
‘By now you should all be aware of the tragedy that took place over the winter break. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about then I will assume you haven’t been checking your emails, in which case please come and speak to me after class.
’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s very sad news.
But I thought it my duty to speak with you all before we get started so you understand the school’s expectations of you.
Now, we—’ She paused, unexpectedly lost for words.
I stared at her, willing her to regain her composure. Her fingers trembled then clenched into a fist.
‘We will all, of course, miss Victoria terribly. She was a warm, bright and immensely talented member of the class. I’d like to make clear that the school does not expect you to just switch off your emotions about what has happened, but I would ask that you all please remember this is a professional space.
You are here to learn. This term will be the most challenging of your time at the school.
You have showcase ahead of you and much work to do to prepare yourselves for the industry.
Victoria’s death was a tragedy, yes, but you must not let it ruin your chances of graduating successfully.
’ She looked at us. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
A ripple of murmurs went around. ‘Good. Now, the, err’ – she picked up a black Moleskine notebook, her fingers fumbling as she turned its thin pages – ‘pastoral care office have asked me to remind you that there’s a helpline you can call and that, if needed, two fifteen-minute counselling sessions are available to every student.
’ She shut the notebook and tossed it aside.
‘Right. Get out your scripts and find a partner.’
IT FELT LIKE ALL anyone wanted to talk about was Victoria.
Anecdotes were summoned from thin air about her benevolence, her beauty, her humour.
She was the funniest person I knew. Remember comedy term?
What talent. I did everything I could to switch off from the noise.
But I could feel my mean-spiritedness, my unwillingness to reminisce about her, transforming me into a pariah.
Wherever I went, there was someone glaring at me, their whispers trailing away or else their heads bent low, conveniently shtum.
I tried to shake off the looks, the gossip, the rumours going around the school, and train my attention on what was being taught, on our rehearsals, on all the prep that still needed doing.
But I found it impossible to focus. Victoria made it impossible.
The school thrummed with her memory. She was everywhere: a pair of Doc Martens poking out from beneath the heavy curtains of Rehearsal Room Two, a flash of light in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, the back of her head in the canteen queue at lunch, in the bathroom, a stall door swinging back on its hinges, a laugh, hers maybe, bouncing around the atrium, the soft curve of her cheek glimpsed through a row of books in the library.
When I got home on Friday evening, Jolly was already shut up inside his room.
He’d been inconsolable all week and had left school early that day.
‘Wuthering Heights’ pulsed from behind the door.
I considered knocking, but decided against it.
Jolly didn’t want to see anyone; Jolly didn’t want to see me.
I went to my room instead, where I found a package sitting on the bed.
My heart quickened.
I stared at it, uncertain what to do. It didn’t look dangerous.
I glanced around. Everything was just the same as I’d left it.
I took a step closer, whereupon I saw that it wasn’t one package, but two, red and gold ribbon binding the whole thing together.
There was a strip of card attached. I turned it over in my hand.
Merry Christmas, Shan. (Better late than never.) V xx
I dropped the label, a white-hot thing, and stumbled backwards. My heart pounded in my ears, so much so that I didn’t hear the footsteps in the hall.
‘She meant to give it to you.’
I gasped and spun around.
‘Sorry.’ Jolly was leaning in the doorway. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said coolly. ‘She left it in the car. Lawrence sent it over this morning.’ He paused. ‘I suppose there’s no reason you shouldn’t have it.’
The hairs on my neck rose. I looked up, but Jolly was examining his fingernails.
‘Do you know what it is?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘You should just open it.’ He picked at his nailbed.
He looked bored. But I knew Jolly by now; I knew when he was holding back, when he was fighting the urge to say the unsayable – he’d had the same look on his face the night before Victoria’s death.
Go on. My heart pounded, a low and distant drumbeat. Tell me what I did.
A jewel of blood emerged from his finger. I saw his lip tremble.
‘Jol . . .’
‘I did it.’
This surprised me. ‘You didn’t.’
‘I did. I killed her. I’m to blame for all of this.’
‘No, Jolly.’ I stepped towards him.
‘That argument—’ He stopped and without warning let out a sound, a terrible, sepulchral cry from the depths of himself. ‘That argument – I did this to her.’
‘No, Jolly, you didn’t—’
‘She was upset. Maybe if she hadn’t been so upset she wouldn’t have . . .’ His body started to shake; tears streamed from his eyes. He buried his face in his elbow. ‘W-we all knew she had stuff going on, that she wasn’t stable, the partying, th-the drugs—’
‘You didn’t do this to her, Jolly.’
‘Then who did, Shannon? Who did this? Because V wouldn’t. I mean, why would she do this? V, our V, she wouldn’t do this, she couldn’t. She had everything to live for. Why would she do this? Why would she do this to us, Shannon?’
Something rose up inside me. I pushed it down. ‘I – I don’t know.’
‘She was good. She was so, so good. She was brilliant and kind and funny and – why? She was generous. God, she was generous. She’d do anything for her friends.
She’d do anything for you.’ He paused, his shoulders heaving, the breath leaving his body in fits and starts. ‘I wish I’d been with you that day.’
‘There was nothing you could’ve done.’
‘No, maybe not,’ he said, his breath slowing. He wiped his cheek with his sleeve. ‘But still.’
I couldn’t stand it, the guilt and resignation in his voice.
I turned around and busied myself, searching through a drawer until I heard him slink out into the hall.
Once he was gone, I shut the door and pressed my ear to the grain.
When the plaintive wail of Kate Bush started up again, I went towards the bed.
The first package pulled apart easily. A crystal flower girl dropped into my hand, the one from the department store.
I stared at it, turning it this way and that so shards of light shone around the room.
I placed the girl on the windowsill and reached for the other package.
This one was heavier. I pulled back the Sellotape and slid it from its wrapping.
It was a book, faded, the binding a little loose.
Jane Eyre.
I unpeeled the cover; a note slipped out.
‘There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures’ Love you, bestie. Not a first edition, but old. Handle with care . . . Just like me xx
THAT NIGHT, VICTORIA WAS in my room.
She appeared as herself, corporeal, walking, silent.
She wore the same clothes as the first day I’d met her: creamy overalls, the sleeves rolled up halfway. Her feet were bare. Her hair, loose and long again.
She didn’t seem aware of me and if she was, she made no indication of registering my presence.
She was standing at the far end of the room by the dresser.
I watched her, peering over the lip of my duvet as she handled the objects upon it: a notebook, a picture frame, a bottle of nail polish.
At the last, a necklace, a cheap trinket I’d picked up in Rome, she shook her head, displeased.
She dropped the necklace, sighed, and raked her fingers through her hair before padding over to the window, where she settled herself on the sill.
I watched her from the warmth of my covers, my eyes heavy with sleep. But she never looked over. She just stared out of the window, a small frown etched between her brows, puzzling out some mystery only she could solve.
IN THE MORNING, I woke shivering. I shimmied out of bed and pulled the window closed. It was then that I discovered the crystal girl, lying in pieces on the floor.