Sister Shannon takes her time, looking across the sea of faces before her. The whole of sixth-year is gathered on the tiered wooden stands in the music room, waiting for her to speak. Sister Mullen stands behind her on one side, Sister Keating on the other; this is going to be serious. Shauna glances over at me anxiously and I give her a reassuring smile. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet, not with Melissa clamped on to me, and I vow to catch her at break.
“I shouldn’t need to remind any of you,” starts Sister Shannon, “about the importance of upholding the school’s reputation at all times, especially when you’re in school uniform.”
I feel a rush of blood to my cheeks, and I can only hope somebody’s been caught smoking or shoplifting.
“I have been reliably informed of a gross breach of conduct and morality by students of this school and I am here today to tell you that I will not stand for this.”
There’s a mass inhalation across the stands, the sheer thrill of this revelation dressed up as outrage. There are probably several of us holding our breath, but I bet only Shauna’s as alarmed as I am. It wouldn’t take a detective to work us out from our descriptions—I can’t think of any other short, skinny girls with spiky black hair that hang around with tall, blonde-haired beauties. I’ve no doubt Sister Shannon would love nothing more than to parade my perverted arse around in front of the year, but I can only hope she wouldn’t want to do the same to her precious poster girl.
“When we let temptation lead us into shameful, unnatural acts, we make a mockery of everything Highfield stands for, all the values we strive to instill in you as young women and upstanding, principled members of our community.”
Her voice rises in pitch and volume, trembling with righteousness as she raises a finger to emphasize her fervor.
“I will not have the good name of our school tarnished by deviants, and I will expose anyone who tries to bring Highfield into disrepute. You will have me to answer to, as well as the good Lord himself.”
She leads us in a decade of the rosary to cleanse our souls and we’re into our fifth “Hail Mary” before I realize we’ve probably got away with it for now. Still, I’m shaking when she leaves and we climb down from the stand and file out into the corridor.
“What the fuck was that all about?” says Melissa.
I shrug as my eyes follow Shauna hurrying down the stairs, putting as much distance between us as she can.
THE STREETLIGHTS SPILL SHAFTS OF amber and yellow onto the footpath while the moon tries to penetrate the thin film of cloud above. There’s a surreal silence in the gauzy black of night as I walk from the tiny terraces at our end of the estate to the park-side semis at the other.
Out here, the smell of burned rubber pricks the air and I take the long way round to the Forresters’, avoiding the open green in the center of the estate, a place where cars and loiterers come to no good. As I get closer to the park at the end of the estate, the gardens widen and an outburst of privet guards against the casual voyeur. There are proper driveways too—you could park a car in them, if you had a car. On the corner, I take a moment to steady myself before I turn into full view of the house I treated as a second home for so many years, a gray pebbledash semi with neither hedge nor car.
I know every crack and creak of this house as well as my own, the split in the concrete at the end of the drive, the rattle of the front door behind the porch add-on. Through the dimpled yellow glass, I see the shape of Joe and I breathe out the relief of my temporary reprieve. I haven’t spoken to Mrs. Forrester since the funeral, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to be ready for a reunion.
“Howiye,” says Joe.
“Hi,” I say and take a deep breath as I cross the threshold.
I follow Joe through the hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. There’s no radio or telly to distract me and I’m hit with the full force of music and laughter past. On the pine dresser inside the kitchen door is a photo of Tina on her confirmation day, the gray of her school uniform pale and drab against the flash of her smile and the neon-pink headband tied across her long, brown hair.
“Are you OK?” asks Joe as he puts the kettle on.
“I dunno,” I say quietly.
I’m not here to reminisce or look for absolution. Joe’s article is out tomorrow, and I need to know what I’ve let myself in for.
“It must be weird for you, you know, coming back here.”
“Yeah. It is a bit.”
It’s no time at all, the eight months since I was last in the house, the night of Tina’s death. Everything is the same: the orange flowers on the wall tiles, the soupy smell of leftovers on the stove, the brown rings on the speckled white Formica table. I sit down and Joe makes two cups of tea with one tea bag and takes a bottle of milk from the fridge.
“Just a drop,” I say.
“I remember,” he says with a smile.
He puts the two cups on the table and nods his head at the door.
“It’s in my bag in the hall,” he says.
He leaves me alone with the thought that Tina is never going to walk through that door, rifle in the fridge, slap on her dad’s old radio. I walk to the counter, turn it on myself and flick through the wall-to-wall pirate stations until I find Capitol, her favorite. That Petrol Emotion bang out “Can’t Stop” from their new album and I think she would’ve liked it. At the midpoint breakdown, I hear a scratching at the back door and a shadow slinks across the lower glass panel. I rush to open it, pulling the door tight toward me as I turn the key. A black cat with white paws trots in, tail aloft, and rubs her head gratefully against my legs.
“Footsie,” I say as I lock the door and scoop her up. We rub noses as tears roll from my eyes onto the soft shine of her fur.
“Ah, you’ve found her,” says Joe, closing the kitchen door behind him. “She must’ve smelt ye.”
I laugh and brush the tears from my cheeks as Joe hands me the magazine.
“Lou,” he says, “are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah, I’ve just missed her.”
Footsie curls up on my lap, the contented hum of her easing my heart.
“It’s on page four,” says Joe.
I turn the loose-leaf pages until I come to a headline that can’t be anything else.
When Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
“Jesus,” I say. “So you went for the jugular.”
He’s credited as Joseph Forrester.
“And you used your real name.”
“Yeah, I thought if I’m going to do this, I’m going to have to be up front about it. And I didn’t want to have to explain to my classmates why I’d used a false name.”
Underneath is a black-and-white photo of McQueen, arms folded at the edge of the Highfield pool. I read the opening in silence, my chest tight with nerves.
Celebrated Irish swimming coach Maurice McQueen “is a sexual abuser,” according to one of his students at Highfield Manor school. McQueen is the founder and head coach at Highfield swimming club, as well as a PE teacher at the school itself. But behind Highfield’s closed doors, girls at both the school and the club have fallen victim to McQueen’s abuse of power. I spoke to sixth-year scholarship student Louise Manson about the sexual assaults she says took place in his car, his office and in her own home.
“Fuck,” I say quietly.
Joe nods his head in sympathy, but it’s the mention of the scholarship that has me rattled. I skim through Joe’s observations at the pool, the girls scared to move without McQueen’s instruction, his reluctance to let any of them have their say. I hold my breath when I see Shauna’s name, afraid I have said too much.
Shauna Power is one of Highfield’s swimming stars and has been tipped to make the national team next year. She is the only swimmer authorized by McQueen to talk to me and she is guarded, looking over to him for approval as we speak. She tells me about her regimented training schedule, how hard she has worked to get this far and her hopes for next year’s European Championships. She praises McQueen as a coach and mentor, and lists her achievements with him. When I inquire further about the nature of this relationship, she won’t answer, and it’s at that point McQueen puts an end to our conversation. It appears he controls what these girls say as much as what they do in his presence.
I exhale, relieved there’s nothing in it that Shauna could read as betrayal. I continue on to my own story, wincing at each clinical description of his hands on my body, this double violation he’s forced upon me.
“Anger is an energy,” shouts PiL’s John Lydon on the radio, and I don’t hear Mrs. Forrester arrive home. I jump as she pushes open the kitchen door while Joe slides his magazine under a copy of the Evening Herald.
“Lou,” she says, stopping in the doorway, an overfull Crazy Prices bag in each hand.
“Hello, Mrs. Forrester.”
She puts the bags on the counter and turns down the radio.
“How are you?” she asks, her back to me.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“I hear you’re over in Highfield Manor now,” she says, glancing at me as she puts the shopping away.
“Yeah.”
She’s still got her hat and coat on, that same belted, tweed overcoat she’s worn since I’ve known her. It’s as if she’s so eager to get on with things she’s forgotten the order in which to do them. She says nothing more until the fridge is full and the plastic bags are shoved under the sink.
“Did Joe say anything to you?” she asks, facing me for the first time. “About the autopsy?”
I look at Joe, and he nods, almost imperceptibly.
“Yeah,” I say. “He told me.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“God, no, I’m sorry,” I say. “I should never have…”
“Shh,” she says.
A half-smile passes between us and that’s all the vindication I need.
“Footsie’s glad to see you,” says Mrs. Forrester, taking off her wool hat.
I’m shocked at the waves of gray in her short, wiry hair and I look down at Footsie and tickle under her chin.
“I’m very glad to see her too,” I say.
“Do you want to go up?” asks Mrs. Forrester, raising her eyes to the ceiling.
I say nothing. I don’t know what I want.
“There might be something you want to keep,” she says.
“I can go with you,” says Joe.
“OK,” I say, before I have a chance to think about any of it.
Joe rolls up the Evening Herald, his magazine inside it, and puts it under his arm.
JOE FLICKS ON THE LIGHT and Tina’s room is flooded with a warm orange glow from the vintage glass lampshade overhead. It takes a moment to focus, to see the details as they are instead of how I want them to be. I could close my eyes and picture it all, the constellation of our lives. The wall beside her bed papered in posters of pop and indie bands, the collage of photos and concert tickets on the back of her door. The tiny burn marks on the flimsy white curtains, evidence of our sneaky cigarettes out the window. And our beloved John Taylor looking down on our favorite hangout spot, the orange shag-pile rug at the end of the bed.
But John Taylor isn’t there anymore. She replaced him with American swimmer Matt Biondi almost a year ago, and John Taylor had moved on to The Power Station by then anyway. I couldn’t understand it, why he’d ever want to leave the pop perfection of Duran Duran.
Tina’s bed is made for once, its yellow-and-white-striped covers smoothed into parallel lines, and the air is thick with damp and dust. I’m sure I can still smell her, gasps of White Musk from The Body Shop lurking in her wardrobe or on the cuffs of the herringbone jacket still hanging over the back of a chair. I press eject on the tape deck on her bedside locker and it glides open, releasing my Depeche Mode tape.
“It’s still here,” I say, taking it out to show Joe.
“We haven’t really touched anything,” he says.
There is one thing that has been removed, probably destroyed. The orange rug. The place I’d left her crying that night, the same spot where she’d bled to death not long after. The speckled red-brown carpet has been scrubbed, the color bleached out of it in parts, and I have to look away. The strength goes out of me and a fitful shiver forces me onto the bed, the straight lines of it warping and twisting around me. Sweat beads across my nose and my stomach lurches once and then again, and I’m on my feet, running across the landing to the bathroom. I heave into the toilet until the legs go from under me.
For so long, I’ve wanted to go back to that room. As if all my questions about truth and love could be answered by returning to the exact instant when I could have made a difference. But there was no single moment, we were changing all the time, even before either of us had ever heard of Maurice McQueen.
“You OK in there?” asks Joe.
“Yeah. Just give me a minute.”
When I return to Tina’s room Joe’s on the bed, and it’s only when I sit beside him that I see the tears on his face. I put my arms around his waist and he sobs quietly onto my shoulder, and I’m glad there’s something I can do to ease the crippling guilt in me. Over his shoulder, I see the shape of our embrace in the mirrored wardrobe door and it looks like the only sure thing in my life.
“C’mere,” he says after several minutes. “D’ye want to have a look at the rest of the article?”
“Yeah, OK.”
He unrolls the Evening Herald and hands me the magazine. I flick through to the last page of his piece and find the end of my interview.
When I ask Louise if she knows if this has happened to anyone else, she says yes.
“He raped a good friend of mine, a swimmer at Highfield. She told me that he used to force her to have sex in the storeroom behind the pool.”
I let it fall onto my lap.
“I’m sorry, I can’t…”
“It’s OK,” says Joe. “You can keep it and finish it later.”
I roll it up as tight as I can.
“Who’s going to see it?” I ask.
“It’ll be distributed around college tomorrow. After that, I dunno. I was going to post a copy to the papers, you know, The Times, The Press, The Independent. I might contact some of the smaller pirate stations, ones that wouldn’t be scared off by the libel laws. If that’s OK with you, of course.”
“Yeah,” I say, out of duty more than anything else. “But what will I say to my mam?”
“I have the same problem myself.”
“Oh Jesus,” I say. “She’ll work it out, won’t she?”
“Well, yeah. Remember, you already told her most of it.”
My outburst at Tina’s funeral, the upset I caused her grieving family.
“You know I’m so sorry about that?”
“I know, but you were only telling the truth. It was us that didn’t want to hear it.”
I stare at a photo on Tina’s door, the two of us at Echo and the Bunnymen last Christmas. Our faces pressed together, grinning as if we hadn’t a care in the world. As if she wasn’t being forced to fuck her swimming coach, as if I was nothing more than a best friend enjoying her company. And I can’t say what truth is anymore. A snapshot in time or the contradictions that span a life. But maybe this was never about truth. Maybe it was only ever about revenge.