By Any Other Name Page 4

  Katie arranges the salad around her plate in a pattern. Only when she’s got it all exactly where she wants it will she start eating, and nobody is allowed to arrange it for her or to help. She must do it herself. She puts the cherry tomato halves on the rim of the plate like numbers on a clock face. Cucumber slices go beneath in a ring. Lettuce is piled in the middle, with pepper rings crowning them. Her pizza slices are on another plate because she screams if hot food touches cold food. She eats the salad first, then the pizza. There’s something hypnotic about watching her. She’s been doing this for three or four years in exactly the same way and the repetitiveness pulls me back to another room, another house, another life.

  I’m Lou . . . and I’m happy . . . safe . . . no worries . . . my world is turning as it should . . .

  ‘Are you OK – Holly?’ Mum asks sharply. There’s that unnatural moment’s pause between her breath in to speak and her actually saying my name. It brings me back. My world tilts on its axis again.

  ‘Just tired. Today was kind of stressful.’

  Katie nibbles on a cucumber slice now the tomatoes are gone.

  Mum makes a sympathetic face. ‘Of course. It’ll be easier tomorrow, darling. But I’ll run you a nice hot bath after dinner and you can have a relaxing soak.’

  Mum firmly believes that bubble bath can cure most ills and it’s only when I see her pouring the last of her Molton Brown foam under the hot tap that I realise she knows how stressed I was about my first day in the new school. Every Christmas, Dad buys her a hamper with those bath gels, but not the last one. That Christmas was marked by a few hastily wrapped presents and a pub lunch, followed by afternoon TV in a strange house in Devon surrounded by cardboard boxes. We tried to be cheerful, but we’re a family who love the old rituals: the patchwork stockings with our names cross-stitched on the top, hung at the foot of the bed; gathering round the tree in the morning with coffee and OJ and croissants to open our presents; the pre-lunch walk to get out of Mum’s way while she does the last preparations in peace; Dad’s stupid festive CDs playing in the background all day. These are the things that make it Christmas, that make us safe and secure and at home.

  Away from the familiar patterns, Christmas Day felt like walking a rope bridge over a waterfall. I finally understood how Katie must feel when we break her routine. I hugged my sister extra hard that day.

  ‘Ready, darling,’ Mum calls as I collect my bathrobe.

  ‘I could have done it myself.’ I’m guilty that she’s wasting her time on me when she has so much to do herself.

  She strokes my hair. ‘I know, but a little pampering after a hard day never hurt anyone.’

  Mum always could read me better than anyone. I smile a thank you and hook my robe on the bathroom door. She closes it quietly behind me and the scent of ginger and some flower I don’t recognise envelops me. I sink into the warm water gratefully and inhale the aroma. Mum’s right – a long soak in expensive bubbles does make the world seem a better place for a while.

  I breathe in and out, and in and out, letting the scent and the warmth calm me until I feel boneless and floaty. When I close my eyes, the smell transports me back to my old bathroom: the en-suite with its cool, tiled floor, heated chrome towel rail with soft fluffy towels waiting. I pretend I’m there. It’s wrong, I know, but I can’t resist. Today was my hardest ever day of being Holly. Maybe because it was my first day alone? I don’t know. I just know I’m sick of her.

  I breathe in. I breathe out.

  I’m Lou again now. Holly’s put to sleep. When I get out of the bath and pad through on to the white carpet in my bedroom, I’ll turn on my netbook and check out my Facebook page. Listen to the latest YouTube tracks that Kirsten’s linked to. Flick through Talia’s photo uploads. See who’s changed their relationship status, and who’s written what on their wall, while I dry off and lounge on the bed.

  And I can’t wait to do it. The bolt of elation at the thought of it is like an electric shock. I splash around with the soap hastily and wash my hair in record time. I hop out of the bath, ignoring that it’s grotty lino under my feet, not smooth tiles. I ignore that I have to walk down the hall to my room and that there’s hard grey cord carpet under my feet when I get there. I ignore the fact that when I log into my netbook, my Facebook account isn’t saved in my Favourites and I have to do a search to find my page.

  My fingers tremble as I key in my account name and password.

  I ignore the voice that tells me I shouldn’t be doing this.

  Ignore everything I’ve been told.

  Ignore . . . ignore . . . ignore.

  My profile page flashes up.

  Four weeks ago, from Tasha:

  wherever ur, hope ur ok. stay safe, babe <3

  That’s the last post on my wall. There’s nothing since.

  I scroll down and read the earlier posts from the start. 6th December at 19.36 from Tasha.

  why u not in school 2day? i txtd u like 15x!!! what’s going on with u? call me xox

  7th December at 18.56 from Kirsten.

  Retro time! Check these out!

  7th December at 19.05 from Tasha.

  ur scaring me. ru ok? plz call <3x1000

  It’s hard to read some of them but I do, through the whole lot since the day Holly was born. Next I click on to Tasha’s page and read that. Then Kirsten’s, Talia’s, Lea’s . . .

  At first, it’s all full of where am I and has anyone seen me, and worry and then fear. But then . . . and I swallow hard here . . . then it all gradually goes back to normal. Lea’s seeing a new guy. Kirsten’s blown away by this track from a band she’s just discovered. Talia’s slaving away on a portfolio of photographs for her art project. Hardest of all, Tasha’s mum is sick and it’s serious.

  Their lives are going on without me. I feel like a peeping Tom, spying on them. There’s no place for me with them now. I don’t even exist.

  Four weeks since the last message on my page. They’ve forgotten me. They’ve moved on.

  And then I do it. I force my finger down to tap the touchpad and open up Dan’s profile page. I read his wall.

  Dan Wharton

  In a relationship with Callie Tyler

  It’s like someone’s spun me upside down and round and over and . . . I feel sick . . . I don’t know whether I’m standing up, lying down . . .

  He has a new girlfriend.

  It should be no surprise. He hasn’t posted on my wall at all since I’ve been gone.

  But still, to see it there in text on the screen . . .

  I know I’m crying. I can feel the tears on my cheeks, but I don’t know what to do to stop them. It’s like I could cry forever.

  I realise I’m angry when I’m sitting in assembly the next day. I’m not angry just with Dan, or Kirsten, Talia, Lea, Tasha. I’m not even just angry with Them, the reason I have to be Holly. I’m angry with myself. If I hadn’t stuck my nose into stuff that was none of my business then we wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have lost my friends, my boyfriend and be marooned here in Boringsville. This isn’t a red mist of anger. It’s more like embers smouldering inside, heating slowly until I feel their burn all the way through me.

  This morning I went into registration and everyone looked at me. I didn’t recognise anyone from yesterday. One or two might have been in a class I had but the faces merged together into one big mess as I tried to avoid their gaze. A girl with a dyed blonde ponytail looked me up and down and sniggered. I eyeballed her. My stomach wobbled – part stress and part anger at the attitude she was giving me. Who did she think she was? She had a face like a camel.

  There was an empty chair by the front and I dropped my bag beside it.

  ‘Are you the new girl?’ Ponytail Girl’s friend didn’t waste any time, sauntering over.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did you go before?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know it. I’m not from around here.’

  She shrugged and walked away, back to her friends in the cor
ner. I got my timetable out and looked where I was supposed to be next. The girls glanced over at me a couple of times, but mostly they lost interest. I’d checked that timetable four times already since yesterday, like a nervous tic, but I couldn’t just sit and stare at nothing.

  The room hummed with conversation. I could have listened in, but I couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to be here at all. Speaking to those people would make it feel more real than I could stand. My mind was with my heart – back home, wanting to pick up the pieces of my life. Holly could go to hell.

  A teacher came in and walked to the front desk. She did a double take when she saw me sitting there. She was youngish with OK-looking clothes, which seemed to be a rarity among teachers in this place.

  ‘Hi! You must be the new starter. I didn’t know you were going to be in my form. Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. They did say but . . .’

  ‘Holly.’

  She smiled, and pathetically I felt a puff of tension release at the sight of a friendly face. ‘Hi then, Holly. Do you know anyone?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The girls who showed me around yesterday – Nicole and Ella – I don’t think they’re in this form?’

  She frowned for a second. ‘Oh, I know who you mean! No, they’re not. I’ll introduce you once I’ve done the register.’

  She took the register quickly and then beckoned a couple of girls over and asked them to take me to assembly. They smiled and nodded politely, eyeing me with faint curiosity. The bell rang quickly, one blast, and I got up and followed them to the hall, feeling like a spare part. It appeared we had to sit on the floor, because there were no chairs out. I hadn’t sat on a hall floor since primary school.

  Another form trooped in and sat behind us and younger kids arrived to sit on the other side of the hall. I recognised the Head standing on the stage from the day I came to look around.

  People were talking noisily, but the teachers didn’t try to stop them, nor did the Head. Nicole and Ella came in with a bunch of other girls I vaguely recognised from lunchtime yesterday. They smiled over at me and I was surprised by how grateful my return smile was. The Emo was obviously in their form because he came in after them. A girl was talking to him, but he didn’t seem to be listening to her. Ignorant pig. He sat down a couple of rows in front of me and a flash of a skinny but very toned bum caught my eye. I blinked, and remembered the girl from yesterday copping a good look. OK, she had a point, but his personality definitely didn’t match the quality of the rear view.

  The last few people shuffled in and the Head started the assembly. It was much less formal than I’m used to, with no standing for a hymn or a prayer. Just a long and patronising reading about racism, which she gave in a monotone that could cause an insomniac to fall asleep in seconds.

  It’s during this lecture that I understand I’m angry. It takes a while for me to recognise the burning feeling inside, which gets stronger and stronger as we sit in silence and I think about what I saw on Facebook last night.

  Dan and I were never a forever thing. I’m not ready for one of those. There’s exams and uni and a career to build before I think seriously about all that. But Dan was hot and good fun to be with. It wasn’t love with a capital L, but that doesn’t mean I want to think of him being with another girl. It gives me a pain like bad tummy ache to think of Callie – who I never liked much – stroking the back of his neck while they kissed, the way I used to. I don’t even have Tasha to bitch to about it like I would if we’d had a normal break-up.

  Tasha. And the others. They’ll be out this weekend, in our old haunts. And I’ll be here in Dump Central, thinking of them, wishing I was there, wondering what they’re doing. They’ll be having fun and not giving me a second thought. Or if they do, it’ll be something like, ‘I wonder what happened to her. Wasn’t it weird how she disappeared like that?’ And then they’ll shrug and forget me again.

  I wish, wish, wish I’d never done it now. I wish I’d stayed silent, never run out of the cottage that night last summer, never listened to Katie when she told me what she saw. I wish Katie hadn’t seen the car. I wish she wasn’t so stupid and retarded so I could just have told her to –

  No!

  I close my eyes and drown in shame.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  I hate myself for a moment.

  Because the awful thing is that, no matter how bad this feels for me, it feels worse for Katie. Routine and ritual are her twin gods and we sacrifice them every time she has to move.

  I know why she screams now. I’ve learned the hard way how it must feel to be in her head. I want to scream too at everything I’ve lost, and the much-too-newness of how my life is now. I wish I could sit here and rock and scream until someone with familiar arms comes and makes it all better.

  Two rows down and six to my left, the Emo boy shifts on the hard floor and I glare at the back of his dumb, floppy-haired head. He’s chewing on a hangnail as the Head starts reading out notices. I shift my glare to her for a second. I didn’t like her to begin with and I like her even less after being bored to death by her for fifteen long minutes. But I dislike Emo even more; when I imagine what it’s like to be inside his head, I shudder. I bet it’s all about him, the self-centred loser.

  I’m angry with Dan, yes. I’m angry with Tasha and Co. too. I’m angry with me, and with Katie when I’m honest. I’m angry with the world’s most tedious head teacher for having such a sucky school. I’m angry with the Emo just because. And I’m angry with Holly for having to exist at all.

  For having to be dull, mousy, unobtrusive little Holly. Hiding from shadows. Passive. Always running, never fighting back.

  So sick of it all. The endlessly long months of it. Months of her. Of the real me being squashed down, like I’m the one who did something wrong.

  Well, I didn’t.

  I didn’t do anything wrong at all and I’ve taken as much as I can of my life being destroyed.

  Screw Holly. Screw Them. I don’t care what happens any more.

  First lesson is maths. I get there quickly and take a seat on the back row, second from the corner. The other students come in gradually, but the teachers often arrive last, I’ve noticed, as if they don’t want to be here either.

  Predictably, I’m stared at.

  Yes, I’m new and I dared to take a back-row seat. What are you bumpkins going to do about it?

  The first few people into the room sit at the front, but eventually a group comes in who head for the back. They don’t need to get there early. Their status is established and no one will take their seats.

  Except today someone just did.

  They stop and look at me, three boys and three girls. ‘Don’t you know who we are?’ their shocked faces ask.

  Don’t you know I outrank you in every way possible? You’re top set in a grotty comp in Nowhere’s End. Get over yourselves.

  I feel hot all over with the anger still burning inside me.

  Is it a stand-off ? I’m not sure yet. But I’m not backing down. Because Holly can be this person instead. Holly can be whatever I want her to be.

  The girls are pretty. The boys are cute – not smokin’ hot in the case of two of them, but the third is gorgeous. He looks right at me and I look back without any discomfort.

  Holly is going to be confident and unintimidated now. I choose this.

  The teacher comes in behind them and the gorgeous one tilts his head on one side. ‘You’re the new girl.’

  It’s not a question but I answer anyway. ‘Yes.’

  He grins. It’s mega cute. ‘Got a name?’

  The girls laugh and roll their eyes in a way that tells me he’s not with any of them.

  ‘Holly.’

  His grin settles into a smile that melts my insides in a totally different way to the anger I was feeling just a few seconds ago. He nudges the boy closest to him, who shakes his head good-naturedly and takes the seat in front of me with exaggerated resignation. The hot one sits down beside me, and
the others sit at the tables to the right of us. I’m too distracted by the dark-haired, blue-eyed gorgeousness next to me to pay much attention to them.

  ‘And do you?’ I say, trying to sound cool and unruffled.

  His grin dispels any calmness I’ve managed to gather.

  ‘I was wondering when you’d ask.’ He winks at me and my stomach twirls again. ‘Yes, I do.’

  I wait . . . and wait . . . and then I can’t help laughing. ‘What is it then?

  He laughs too. A proper laugh, head thrown back. ‘Fraser.’

  ‘Can we get started now?’ the teacher calls, making me jump. I’d forgotten she was there.

  Fraser gives me a slow, lingering smile and then faces forward. The teacher starts her introduction, writing the ‘aims’ of the lesson on the board. Seems pointless to me but they all do that here. Halfway through her scribbling, the door opens and Emo comes in. He walks to the back and takes the empty table to my left. Suddenly I understand why Fraser’s friend didn’t sit there.

  Again, nobody shows any reaction to his lateness, not even the teacher. What is it with him? Is he the village mafia or something?

  I notice him glance at me as he sits down. Then his eyes slide over to Fraser and he suppresses a snigger. Idiot. Who does he think he is?

  I know exactly who he is – a nobody with no friends.

  As the teacher doesn’t seem to notice me, Fraser gets up and walks to the front and I get a great view of the back of him. It’s just as good as the front. He’s tall and toned, as if he does a lot of sport. He picks up an exercise book from a pile on the shelf behind the teacher. She doesn’t register this at all, and he brings it back and passes it to me.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem.’ That smile again.

  He’s the perfect distraction to stop me from brooding over Dan, but he’s not going to have it all his way. He might be uber-cute, but I’m not going to throw myself at him.