did at the kitchen table during the hate-mailer days.
‘I’m not suggesting for one minute that it’s one of your friends. Really. I just want to know if there was anything you didn’t tell us.’
She looks away from me and I can’t read her expression.
‘You got pretty fed up with us always wanting to know your movements,’ I say.
‘You
policed
me,’ she corrects. ‘Dad
tailed
me, for heaven’s sake. I used to see him.’
‘He just wanted to make sure you were safe. That’s all. And when you refused his offer of driving you to—’
‘I’m
seventeen
.’
Yes, only seventeen. And so pretty. And so unaware.
‘Then Maria’s party, you wouldn’t let me go,’ she continues. ‘Because it didn’t start till nine.
Nine.
Everyone else went but you grounded me because of something I didn’t even do.’
Jenny made me a dictionary a couple of years ago, as a kind of joke, so I could understand her vocabulary. (I had to promise I wouldn’t actually
use
any of the words myself.) ‘Grounded’ was one word I already knew.
She’s right though. It wasn’t fair, was it? She hadn’t done anything to deserve what she saw as punishment and we saw as protection. And our increased need to keep her safe just fuelled her desire to pull away from us. Thinking about it now, ‘hate mail’ is the right term for it, not just because of what the messages said and the awful things that were posted – but because while it was happening it sapped so much happiness out of our family.
‘I went,’ Jenny confides, ‘to Maria’s party. It was the night I was staying over at Audrey’s house after the squash tournament. She’d been invited too.’
Why has she felt the need to come clean about this?Did something happen at that party? I wait, but she doesn’t say anything more.
‘Was there
anything
you didn’t tell us about the hate mail?’ I ask her again. ‘In case we “policed” you even more?’
She turns a little away from me.
‘Sometimes, I’m back there, inside the school,’ she says quietly. ‘I can’t escape. Can’t get out. I can’t see anything. I mean, it’s not like a memory. Not like that. Just pain. And fear.’
She’s shrinking into herself, making herself as small as she can.
I put my arms around her. ‘Hey, it’s over. All over.’
There must be something she didn’t tell us. Because asking her made her think deeply about the fire, made her
feel
it again, as if she connected the two. But she’s trembling and I can’t ask her again. I can’t. Not yet.
I think that she will tell me though, in time.
When I used to pick her up from school she’d tell me, as Adam does now, that school was ‘fine, Mum’. But an anxiety was often tucked into a uniform pocket, a problem slipped up a sleeve, fears hidden under a jumper. You had to wait patiently for the pocket to be emptied as you drove home; a rumpled problem pulled out during homework; the fear finally revealed from under the jumper on the sofa at TV time. You had to wait till bath-time to hear if there was anything really big; I suppose there was nowhere for it to hide any more.
She gestures towards the burns unit.
‘So how am I?’ she asks.
I’ve been preparing my answer.
‘I didn’t see you properly. But the nurse says you’re doing everything they’d expect. It’s still another few days until they’ll know about the scarring.’
That much is true at least.
‘Is Dad there?’ she asks.
‘No, he’s had to go to a doctors’ meeting,’ I say.
It’s the meeting with my doctors about me. They’ll have the results of my brain scans now. I decide to use the decoy conversation again.
‘Shall we go and see what Tara is doing?’ I suggest.
‘Shouldn’t we be with Dad?’
‘He’ll be alright on his own for a little while.’
I don’t want Jenny to hear what the doctors say to you.
I
don’t want to hear.
Not yet.
Not yet.
‘D’you remember when I got the dog mess?’ she asks.
‘It was in a
‘I’m not suggesting for one minute that it’s one of your friends. Really. I just want to know if there was anything you didn’t tell us.’
She looks away from me and I can’t read her expression.
‘You got pretty fed up with us always wanting to know your movements,’ I say.
‘You
policed
me,’ she corrects. ‘Dad
tailed
me, for heaven’s sake. I used to see him.’
‘He just wanted to make sure you were safe. That’s all. And when you refused his offer of driving you to—’
‘I’m
seventeen
.’
Yes, only seventeen. And so pretty. And so unaware.
‘Then Maria’s party, you wouldn’t let me go,’ she continues. ‘Because it didn’t start till nine.
Nine.
Everyone else went but you grounded me because of something I didn’t even do.’
Jenny made me a dictionary a couple of years ago, as a kind of joke, so I could understand her vocabulary. (I had to promise I wouldn’t actually
use
any of the words myself.) ‘Grounded’ was one word I already knew.
She’s right though. It wasn’t fair, was it? She hadn’t done anything to deserve what she saw as punishment and we saw as protection. And our increased need to keep her safe just fuelled her desire to pull away from us. Thinking about it now, ‘hate mail’ is the right term for it, not just because of what the messages said and the awful things that were posted – but because while it was happening it sapped so much happiness out of our family.
‘I went,’ Jenny confides, ‘to Maria’s party. It was the night I was staying over at Audrey’s house after the squash tournament. She’d been invited too.’
Why has she felt the need to come clean about this?Did something happen at that party? I wait, but she doesn’t say anything more.
‘Was there
anything
you didn’t tell us about the hate mail?’ I ask her again. ‘In case we “policed” you even more?’
She turns a little away from me.
‘Sometimes, I’m back there, inside the school,’ she says quietly. ‘I can’t escape. Can’t get out. I can’t see anything. I mean, it’s not like a memory. Not like that. Just pain. And fear.’
She’s shrinking into herself, making herself as small as she can.
I put my arms around her. ‘Hey, it’s over. All over.’
There must be something she didn’t tell us. Because asking her made her think deeply about the fire, made her
feel
it again, as if she connected the two. But she’s trembling and I can’t ask her again. I can’t. Not yet.
I think that she will tell me though, in time.
When I used to pick her up from school she’d tell me, as Adam does now, that school was ‘fine, Mum’. But an anxiety was often tucked into a uniform pocket, a problem slipped up a sleeve, fears hidden under a jumper. You had to wait patiently for the pocket to be emptied as you drove home; a rumpled problem pulled out during homework; the fear finally revealed from under the jumper on the sofa at TV time. You had to wait till bath-time to hear if there was anything really big; I suppose there was nowhere for it to hide any more.
She gestures towards the burns unit.
‘So how am I?’ she asks.
I’ve been preparing my answer.
‘I didn’t see you properly. But the nurse says you’re doing everything they’d expect. It’s still another few days until they’ll know about the scarring.’
That much is true at least.
‘Is Dad there?’ she asks.
‘No, he’s had to go to a doctors’ meeting,’ I say.
It’s the meeting with my doctors about me. They’ll have the results of my brain scans now. I decide to use the decoy conversation again.
‘Shall we go and see what Tara is doing?’ I suggest.
‘Shouldn’t we be with Dad?’
‘He’ll be alright on his own for a little while.’
I don’t want Jenny to hear what the doctors say to you.
I
don’t want to hear.
Not yet.
Not yet.
‘D’you remember when I got the dog mess?’ she asks.
‘It was in a
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