hallway. Doors were opening; girls who hadn’t dared leave their rooms before were appearing in the hallway.
‘Is she OK, Tox?’
‘She doesn’t look too good.’
‘She’ll be fine. She just needs to get warm. Can someone make tea?’ We’d reached the door of the bathroom and Talaith ushered me inside. She reached over and turned on the shower. Steam began to rise. ‘Go on, love,’ she told me. ‘You’re filthy. Get yourself warm. I’ll get you some towels. Can you manage? The front door’s locked. They can’t get in.’
She was still talking as the door closed and I was left alone. Without even bothering to take off my clothes I stepped under the hot water, telling myself I was OK, the front door was locked, they couldn’t get in. I was OK.
At my feet mud swirled in the basin. Grass and pebbles were already clogging the drain. I was still shaking. Talaith was wrong. The door to our block was left open all the time. The girls who lived in it, their visitors, the cleaners, came and went continuously. They could get in any time they liked and I was a very long way from being OK.
Berkshire, nineteen years earlier
THE MOTHER STARTED howling as the coffin sank. The father, almost as green as the foliage on the coffin lid, took hold of her more firmly and a collective shudder ran through the mourners. This was always the moment when it hit home. To put someone you loved so much into the ground. To lose your only child. At thirteen years old. How did you deal with that
?
‘
The days of man are but as grass, for he flourisheth as a flower of the field,’ said the minister. ‘For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone
.’
The seventeen-year-old boy, in the smart, blazered uniform of a good public school, looked at the perfect rectangle of the grave and pictured the still, cold face of the boy inside. I did this, he said to himself. There were thunderclouds overhead and he wondered perhaps if guilt would hit him hard and hot, like a strike from a lightning bolt
.
Since the news that young Foster had hanged himself one Saturday morning in the dorm while the rest of the school were watching an inter-house cricket match, he’d been waiting for the guilt. He’d seen the horror-struck faces of his co-conspirators, the ones who’d helped him make Nathan Foster’s life a misery for the past twelve months, but, unlike him, had never really expected it to come to this. They were feeling it already, it was written all over their faces. Shame and contrition that would eat away at them like a parasite in their guts for the rest of their lives
.
Any time now it was coming for him too and it was going to hurt. Like a physical pain, he imagined it, a vicious cramp squeezing in on his heart, or maybe like maggots nibbling away at his brain. He knew, from the faces of those who were almost as guilty as he, that guilt was going to be bad
.
‘
Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground
.’
Good God above, his English teacher was snivelling. Who’d have thought old Cartwright had a shred of compassion in him? Around the grave, mourners were throwing handfuls of earth on to the coffin like they didn’t have two perfectly good sextons with ruddy great shovels less than a hundred yards away. One of the undertaker’s staff was standing directly in front of him, holding out the box of soil. No choice but to dip in his hand, take hold of stuff that felt damp and slimy, and step forward for one last look. I did this, he said to himself, as he opened his hand and the soil fell directly on to one perfect white rose
.
Shadows were spreading fast around the crematorium garden. The day was getting colder and those with umbrellas were glancing down at them, as though to check they were still there. Maybe guilt would be like a heavy downpour from above, the first drops hardly noticeable,
‘Is she OK, Tox?’
‘She doesn’t look too good.’
‘She’ll be fine. She just needs to get warm. Can someone make tea?’ We’d reached the door of the bathroom and Talaith ushered me inside. She reached over and turned on the shower. Steam began to rise. ‘Go on, love,’ she told me. ‘You’re filthy. Get yourself warm. I’ll get you some towels. Can you manage? The front door’s locked. They can’t get in.’
She was still talking as the door closed and I was left alone. Without even bothering to take off my clothes I stepped under the hot water, telling myself I was OK, the front door was locked, they couldn’t get in. I was OK.
At my feet mud swirled in the basin. Grass and pebbles were already clogging the drain. I was still shaking. Talaith was wrong. The door to our block was left open all the time. The girls who lived in it, their visitors, the cleaners, came and went continuously. They could get in any time they liked and I was a very long way from being OK.
Berkshire, nineteen years earlier
THE MOTHER STARTED howling as the coffin sank. The father, almost as green as the foliage on the coffin lid, took hold of her more firmly and a collective shudder ran through the mourners. This was always the moment when it hit home. To put someone you loved so much into the ground. To lose your only child. At thirteen years old. How did you deal with that
?
‘
The days of man are but as grass, for he flourisheth as a flower of the field,’ said the minister. ‘For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone
.’
The seventeen-year-old boy, in the smart, blazered uniform of a good public school, looked at the perfect rectangle of the grave and pictured the still, cold face of the boy inside. I did this, he said to himself. There were thunderclouds overhead and he wondered perhaps if guilt would hit him hard and hot, like a strike from a lightning bolt
.
Since the news that young Foster had hanged himself one Saturday morning in the dorm while the rest of the school were watching an inter-house cricket match, he’d been waiting for the guilt. He’d seen the horror-struck faces of his co-conspirators, the ones who’d helped him make Nathan Foster’s life a misery for the past twelve months, but, unlike him, had never really expected it to come to this. They were feeling it already, it was written all over their faces. Shame and contrition that would eat away at them like a parasite in their guts for the rest of their lives
.
Any time now it was coming for him too and it was going to hurt. Like a physical pain, he imagined it, a vicious cramp squeezing in on his heart, or maybe like maggots nibbling away at his brain. He knew, from the faces of those who were almost as guilty as he, that guilt was going to be bad
.
‘
Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground
.’
Good God above, his English teacher was snivelling. Who’d have thought old Cartwright had a shred of compassion in him? Around the grave, mourners were throwing handfuls of earth on to the coffin like they didn’t have two perfectly good sextons with ruddy great shovels less than a hundred yards away. One of the undertaker’s staff was standing directly in front of him, holding out the box of soil. No choice but to dip in his hand, take hold of stuff that felt damp and slimy, and step forward for one last look. I did this, he said to himself, as he opened his hand and the soil fell directly on to one perfect white rose
.
Shadows were spreading fast around the crematorium garden. The day was getting colder and those with umbrellas were glancing down at them, as though to check they were still there. Maybe guilt would be like a heavy downpour from above, the first drops hardly noticeable,
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