Chapter Two
Two
The first thing that confused Harriet as the fog of sleep began to dissipate was the light shining in through her closed eyelids. She had blackout curtains in her bedroom—had she forgotten to close them last night? Her eyes were stuck shut with last night’s mascara, and as she unpeeled her top lashes from her bottom ones, the sight of the unfamiliar room caught her momentarily off guard before the events of last night slammed back into her mind like a series of stills being played at top speed on an old movie projector. The images might have been grainy, but there was no mistaking their X-rated nature. Sweet Magic Mike! What was his name? J. Jake? Jacob? James! Okay, that was something, at least she had a name. The crumpled sheets in the space next to her were barely warm and she could hear a shower running in the en suite. Ooh, an en suite! Fancy. She peered around the room. There was a lot of dark wood furniture and a seascape canvas on the wall; it screamed well-heeled bachelor with taste . What was the etiquette these days with one-night stands? She was a bit rusty; it had been…years. Did one stay for awkward conversation over breakfast or leave quietly and maintain an element of mystique? She fast-forwarded her mind through their sexual gymnastics—feeling slightly smug that she could still bend like that in her midforties.
The problem was that the Harriet who lay disheveled in expensive Egyptian cotton sheets was not the Harriet of last night. The cool, confident woman-about-town with mulled wine sloshing through her veins was a different version of the one who preferred quiet nights in and big knickers and was currently scrabbling about trying to find the estrogen patch that was missing from her left butt cheek. There it is! Thank God. She peeled the scrunched patch off the sheet and dropped it into her handbag. James had gone to bed with a woman channeling Kristin Scott Thomas and woken up with Velma Dinkley. She wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with his polite disappointment when reality struck home. Better to leave. She could be his “one that got away”; too bad she didn’t have a glass slipper to leave behind.
Her phone bleeped and she reached for it on the side table as she pulled herself up to sitting.
Lyra: Can’t wait to see you! xx
Who’s Lyra? she wondered. And then she looked again. Not her phone. Oops! In that case, it’s not my business to wonder .
She slipped out of bed and gathered up her clothes, screwing her nose up as she stepped back into yesterday’s knickers and dressed quickly. Dammit, she was missing a cardigan. And it was her third favorite. She found her own phone complete with eighteen emails forwarded to her from her boss. She groaned, stuffed the phone into her bag, and slung her bag onto her shoulder. With her shoes in one hand, she tiptoed out of the swanky bedroom and into a very sleek open-plan living area. It was movie-set-chic with a wall of windows that overlooked Foss Waterfall cascading down a rock face before crashing frothily into the River Beck, which ran through the town of Little Beck Foss. This guy must have serious money. And great taste in décor. The shower stopped running, and Harriet stopped admiring the marble kitchen worktop and wondering if he had to buff his gleaming black matching cupboards daily and—briefly noticing the pair of shiny oxblood brogues sat neatly side by side on the doormat—ran out of the apartment, pulling the door closed quietly behind her, saying to herself, Goodbye, third-favorite cardigan as she scuttled down the corridor, not stopping to put her shoes back on until she was safely in the lift.
Despite being icked out by her lack of a shower and the inside of her mouth feeling like a suede jockstrap, she felt invigorated by her night of passion with a stranger. Harriet didn’t often throw caution to the wind; she kept her caution tied down away from stiff breezes, but when she did let it fly, she did it with style. She smiled to herself.
A bitter wind whipped along the street, tossing a discarded paper cup this way and that along the pavement. People walked with heads down against the cold. Snow was in the air. She could feel its peppermint breath on her lips, and her eyes teared up at the scent of cold pine in her nose. Thick ecru clouds gathered, lying low over the forests of fir trees that covered every hill surrounding the small Cumbrian town.
Christmas had been seeping slowly into shop window displays since the first of November, seamlessly replacing the pumpkins and witches on broomsticks. Now, a snarling mass of festive lights crisscrossed above the main high street in a glittery carnival of greens and reds. A Christmas tree that reached as high as the church steeple stood resplendent in the center of the town, discreetly masking the dilapidated and long-defunct Winter Theater from tourists.
Until Maisy’s phone call last night, she had been itching to get going on Christmas. It was her favorite time of year, and she made a stonking big deal of it. The twinkling lights all over the town and the overly tinseled shop windows had always made her inwardly—and sometimes outwardly—squeal with delight. Until now.
Was it her imagination or was it more Christmassy this year than ever before? Or was it simply that now she wanted to forget all about it because Maisy wouldn’t be here? Christmas felt pointless without someone to make Christmas for.
In the three weeks since her daughter had left for the U.S., Harriet had, not to put too fine a point on it, mislaid her mojo. She’d stopped cooking from scratch after work because what was the point in cooking for one? Instant noodles and microwavable fisherman’s pie had become her food staples. It was tough to go from being somebody’s chef, chauffeur, revision buddy, best mate, comforter, confidante, and housekeeper to being suddenly surplus to requirements. The long evenings felt as though she was merely killing time until Maisy came home and she was made vital again. Only of course now Maisy wasn’t coming home, at least not until after Christmas.
It wasn’t that they had lived in each other’s pockets; Maisy had an active social life, and quite frankly Harriet enjoyed the time to herself. But when all her time was time to herself, it rather lost its appeal. Was this what her life was going to be like when Maisy went to university? Am I Schr?dinger’s mum? Immaterial until summoned into being by my offspring?
The Salvation Army band were playing “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” outside the bank, and Harriet had to bite her tongue to stop herself from shouting Bah humbug! as she passed them by. Get a grip! she chided herself as she threw a pound coin roughly into the charity tin. This is what you wanted! Harriet had helped to create a strong, confident woman and she could not be prouder. But she also felt like a discarded hermit crab shell left to drift along the seabed, empty and alone.
It was almost eight when she pushed open the door to her quiet flat. She missed the sounds of her daughter, even if it was only the tinny commentary of whatever TikTok video she was watching. The emptiness was loud, and the space left by Maisy’s absence felt cold and dull, like someone had draped a gray filter over her home. Her breath caught in her chest as she remembered that all too soon this sensation would be her permanent flatmate. She wasn’t ready to be retired from parenting. She sighed as she looked around her too-tidy, Christmas-free home. Her intentions of going full Santa’s Grotto for Maisy’s return had been smashed like a dropped snow globe. She didn’t think she could face putting the decorations up now. They would remain in the cupboard under the eaves, and the fancy orange-and-cinnamon-scented candles would stay in their boxes. Christmas was officially canceled.
Her phone pinged. Emma. Again.
Hey, so, I’m guessing after last night’s Christmas bombshell you crawled into your cave and ignored my calls. You know you’re still welcome here. You’re family and my bestie, which makes you double welcome. Give me a call when you’ve finished sulking. Love ya xx
She messaged back.
Hey. No cave for me. Woke up in a sexy stranger’s bed this morning. Think I’m rebelling. Call you later. Love ya xx
She grinned, knowing this would drive Emma crazy because she’d be in the middle of getting the kids ready for school and herself ready for work and she wouldn’t have time to call and get the goss. Her phone pinged with a voice note, Emma’s voice squeaking out from the speaker.
WHAT!!!!!!!! We need to talk. I need to know everything! Shit, I’m late. You did that on purpose. Jordan, take that nose ring out, you know you can’t wear it to school, I’m not having you suspended again!
There were some mumbled arguments and a distant bloodcurdling scream, presumably from one of the twins, enraged that one of her siblings had “stolen” her phone.
Sorry. Kids. Who knew teenagers would be such little shits? I’m calling you at lunchtime, you better make sure you’re somewhere private, I’m gonna need gory details! Kisses Mrs.
Harriet smiled. Emma was married to Harriet’s ex, Pete. On paper, the two should never have become friends, let alone best friends, but she and Emma had found in each other a kindred spirit, so much so that Pete had often joked that they should have got married instead.
She stood under the shower and hoped the water might wash away some of her hangover. No such luck. Had booze got stronger, or had she become a lightweight?
Harriet and Pete had split up when Maisy was a baby. They’d met in foster care and were childhood friends who became sweethearts almost by default and who should have let their courtship take its course and fizzle out naturally. Instead, they were so afraid of risking the friendship they had come to rely on that they’d had Maisy, hoping that their shared love for their daughter might ignite some passion between them. It didn’t. Nobody cheated, nobody said unkind things, they loved each other, just not that way. They co-parented as friends, and—even if they said so themselves—they’d done a pretty good job. A couple of years after their split, Pete met Emma and unsurprisingly, given how similar she and Pete were, Harriet and Emma hit it off too. The rest, as they say, was blended-family history.
Forty-five minutes later, Harriet arrived at work late with freezing cold wet hair, a headache, and the beginnings of cystitis, which had become more frequent; it was one more kick in the hoo-ha beside the long list of things her body had decided to reward her with in her forties.
“Psst! Harriet!”
Harriet turned to see Ali, one of her colleagues on the pastoral care team, violently gesticulating to her from the doorway of an empty classroom. She hurried over to him.
“Cornell is on the warpath. Billy didn’t show up for his revision session yesterday and he hasn’t registered today,” he whispered loudly.
Crap! This was all she needed. Sebastian Cornell was the head of the English department and the pastoral care team. He made sure to milk both of his titles to their fullest, while shirking his responsibilities for both by being an Olympic-standard delegator. He was a permanently outraged human as old-school as his beige toupee. He complained bitterly about the “malcontent youth of today” and seemed to feel as though students were sent here to try him. Billy, one of her charges, had a way of getting right up his snobby nose.
“Are you sure he hasn’t just signed in late?”
“Like you?” Ali winked at her, and she poked her tongue out.
“I had a rough morning.”
He smirked. “Looks more like a rough night.”
“Oh god, is it that obvious?”
“Only to me.”
At thirty-five, Ali was almost diabolically youthful-looking, with jet-black hair swept back off his face and large brown eyes sporting obscenely long lashes. He was many a student’s secret crush and some of the parents’ too. Harriet suspected he had borrowed Dorian Gray’s portrait for his attic.
An electronic bell bleeped out the start of first period, and the corridor filled up with students. Ali pulled Harriet into the classroom and closed the door.
“Drinking on a school night’s not usually your style. Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Maisy’s not coming home for Christmas.”
Ali’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, babe! That is shit. No wonder you got rat-arsed.”
Harriet decided to change the subject before Ali delved further. “I can’t believe Billy. Cornell’s been looking for a reason to exclude him, and he’s giving him the excuse he needs.”
“It’s not just Billy. I’ve found three more missing from the list so far.” The “list” accounted for the students on the pastoral team’s radar. “Carly, Ricco, and Isabel. I haven’t checked the rest of the registers yet, but it’s a bit of a coincidence that four of the famous five are all absent at the same time, wouldn’t you say?”
Foss Independent was a private school catering to both boarders and day students from all over the world. It had been established by the “old guard” in the early 1900s, back when Little Beck Foss was still a thriving town making hay while the favor of the wealthy shone upon it. The town was still as pretty as ever, but behind the ancient stone buildings much of the prosperity had dwindled and many of the shops on the high street lay empty.
Each year as part of their “leveling-up” scheme, the school took in a certain percentage of students from the town. Harriet was not a particularly cynical woman, but she knew well enough that the scheme was as much about ingratiating Foss Independent with wealthy philanthropic sponsors as it was benevolence. The famous five—so named because they were almost always together—were “level-up” kids living in Little Beck Foss, and they were often at odds with their peers at the school.
Though many of the students came from privilege, it offered them little immunity against the pitfalls of adolescence. The “list” therefore tended to be a long one. Most were teenagers struggling with the transition from child to adult, which could manifest itself in anything from mild depression to eating disorders and self-harm, and everything in between. It was the pastoral team’s job to keep these young people safe and help them evolve into well-adjusted adults. It wasn’t easy.
Unsurprisingly, a chunk of the list contained the names of level-up kids, many of whom dealt with added complications such as poverty or unstable home lives. Billy, for instance, carried a lot of weight on his young shoulders and sometimes it spilled over into bad decision-making.
“You think we’re looking at a mass truancy?” Harriet asked, ruffling her drying hair.
“Could be. If I’ve clocked it, it’s only a matter of time before the attendance team join the dots.”
Harriet bit her lip. “Billy’s already skating on thin ice. He can’t afford another discipline point. Can you try and keep this on the down low for me, just for a little while?”
“I know that look. What are you going to do?”
“A spot of teen wrangling. If I can find them.”
“Are you going to lasso them back to the school grounds?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Ali looked at her, and she watched the cogs of his mind whirling.
“Okay, I reckon I can hold the truancy hounds off for two hours. Isabel could do without another demerit against her as well. Where are you going to start looking?”
She shrugged. “Coffee shops along the high street maybe? The park? Any ideas?” She didn’t relish the thought of going back out in the cold, but needs must.
“Maybe the falls?”
“Okay, I’d better get going. Call me if there’s an emergency.”
“I’ll try and field Cornell’s calls if I can, keep him off the scent.”
“Thanks, Ali. I owe you one.” Harriet refastened her scarf around her neck.
“But if they pull out a lie detector, I’m giving you up immediately!” he called after her, and her replying laugh echoed down the corridor.
She was almost home free when she heard her name snapped out like a pinged elastic band. She turned to find Sebastian Cornell marching toward her. The swish of his corduroy trousers sounded like laundry being rubbed hard against a washboard.
“Sebastian.” She smiled tightly.
“Billy Matlin is absent…again! That takes his unauthorized absences to eleven this term.”
“It’s not unauthorized,” Harriet lied. “He called in earlier, I forgot to put it in the register. He has a dentist appointment.”
Cornell gave her an appraising look. Lying to a senior member of staff, excellent move. She smiled sweetly. Cornell narrowed his eyes.
“The fact remains, he is a disruptive student who has the rare ability to be just as disruptive when he’s not here.”
“The world needs disruptors.”
Cornell’s thread-veined nose flushed a deeper shade of purple. “People like Billy are the reason this country is swirling itself down the toilet!” he spat, before turning and striding away, the sound of his corduroy thighs chafing loud in the quiet entrance hall.
The receptionist gave Harriet a knowing look and stifled a snigger.
“One day his trousers will burst into flames from all that friction,” said Harriet.
“I really hope I’m here to see that,” said the receptionist, smiling.