I’m at Highfield less than three weeks when I’m first accused of a crime. I’m the last to find out as the transgression happens during double swimming on a Wednesday morning, that glorious hour and a half I get to spend alone. The library is my refuge, a long, dignified room that smells of old newspapers and floor polish. Light filters through the cedars outside onto the long wooden desks that carry their own secret histories, the messages gouged into the dull, faded oak. I trace my finger along etchings of hearts and flowers, boys and bands, and wonder if Matt really was the one, if The Sisters of Mercy are the goths or the nuns. You never can be sure in this place.
On the bookshelf behind me, under dusty dictionaries and ragged reference books, is a pile of Paris Match magazines. This is my go-to library read and I spend a happy hour learning about Princess Stephanie’s burgeoning pop career and her sister Caroline’s new baby. I read about Luc Besson’s much-hyped film Subway and vow to see it when it comes to Ireland.
If I’d come to Highfield under different circumstances, I’d probably love it. The overspill of lilac at the front gate, the vast corridors of science and language labs, music and art rooms. The expectation of excellence and the small classes and rigid discipline that ensure it. At Santa Maria, it was always the loudest voices that set the agenda and I’d have to decipher my notes with the help of textbooks later. They made such a big deal about all the As I got in my Inter Cert, but the truth is I learned more in the quiet calm of Shankill library than I ever did at school.
When I get to our form room, I can tell something is up. There’s no sign of Sister Keating, our religion teacher, and the girls are huddled around desks and in the window alcoves, whispering and chattering. Carol Sheridan sits head-in-hands near the door while Eva O’Brien crouches beside her, a thick arm around Carol’s narrow back. Conversation withers to a hum as I enter and Carol is on her feet, wiping kohl-blackened tears from under her eyes.
“Where have you been?”
She folds her arms and fires disdain from the slits of her eyes.
“In the library. I don’t do swimming.”
“Were you in the locker room?”
The low autumn sun catches the side of her face and, even in this ambush, I marvel at the jut of her cheekbone, the deep blue of her eye.
“No. I told you where I was. Why d’ye want to know?”
“Somebody stole my grandmother’s earrings from my locker while we were in the pool.”
I know them: gold flower studs with diamonds for petals. They’re beautiful, too precious to take for granted.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I scout the room for a free desk, for any means of escape.
“You know, the locker room is being searched as we speak.”
I think of the packet of Silk Cut cigarettes in my coat pocket, the trouble I’ll be in if it’s found, and maybe I show a spark of discomfort. Triumph sweeps across Carol’s face and I try to walk away, but she grabs my wrist from behind.
“Where are they?” she says as I turn, stunned into silence.
I pull my hand free and look to the room for support, to Melissa perched on a desk beside me, but they’re all waiting for my answer. It’s a lesson, how easily Carol can put on this display, how eager everyone else is to go along with it.
“Keep your hands off me,” I say, my voice unsteady now. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Are you sure?” says Carol. “We never had a problem with security before you arrived.”
It’s true, nobody locks their lockers here. Books and belongings are left on open shelves in classrooms, hockey sticks and tennis rackets line up along changing room walls.
“Ah come on, Carol.” It’s Shauna who finally breaks the deadlock. “She said it wasn’t her.”
She smiles sympathetically and I scuttle to the empty desk next to her.
“You think you’re so clever,” says Carol, “but you’ll never fit in here.” And even though I ignore her, the words ring in my ears for the rest of the class.
I SLIP OUT AFTER CLASS to check the contraband in my coat pocket. Smoking is a suspendable offense, even outside of school grounds, and it’s not like Mam can throw money at the problem if I’m caught. It’s the scholarship I’m worried about, and I need to know. I tell the others I’ll see them later and I skip down the stone staircase to the locker room.
Highfield gave me that scholarship with such ease I’m afraid they could take it away just as quickly. I never had any worries about the entrance exams but I was always surprised the award had been granted without a cross-examination of my obvious failings—my Ballybrack address, my absent father, my abandoned Leaving Cert. And the headmistress, Sister Shannon, must have known I’d gone to the same school as Tina, although she never mentioned it. I’m not their ideal candidate, despite my results, and I’m sure there will be no special dispensation for any lapses of judgment.
My coat is where I left it, on one of the hooks inside my locker, my tracksuit opposite. I squeeze the right pocket, shove my hand inside it. It is empty. Adrenaline courses through me as I pull at the left pocket and dig deep down into it, but there is only a tissue and a few coppers. No purple cigarettes, no yellow lighter. I grab the jersey fabric of the tracksuit with shaking hands, pull everything out of the locker, run my fingers along the top of it. There is nothing. Somebody has taken them and it’s just a matter of time before my punishment is served.
I’M ON MY WAY TO the bike shed after school, head full of the day’s dilemmas, when Shauna scoots up behind me.
“I’m sorry about Carol earlier,” she says. “She’s really not that bad when you get to know her.”
I want to tell her there’s no danger of that ever happening.
“Thanks,” I say. “You know, for standing up for me.”
A smile breaks across her face and I can’t take my eyes off the apples of her cheeks, the perfect curve of her lips.
“Ah, it was nothing,” she says. “Like, I know she was upset, but there was no need to take it out on you.”
“Well, it was a nice thing to do.” I’m grinning, the cigarettes forgotten for now, and I don’t want her to leave. “Are you walking out this way?”
“Yeah, my mum’s picking me up outside.”
“Here, let me just get my bike and I’ll come with you.”
As we walk and talk, I take it all in, the way her blue eyes smile intensely when I speak, how she catches a wisp of hair with her fingers and slides it behind her ear. There are no wasted words, each one considered and thoughtful as we bond over music and books, and I start to see beyond the purple sash and the perfect teeth.
“I’ve never met anyone else who’s read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,” I say, and when she smiles, I want to believe it means something.
I keep the conversation going, even when we get out past the front gate, and I try not to look disappointed when a silver-blue Mercedes pulls up beside us.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, and I swear I see an expectant pause before she opens the car door. I don’t know what it is, the scale or scope of the connection between us; all I know is I don’t want it to end.
WHEN I GET HOME, MAM’S in the hall, running a neon-red lipstick over her smoke-thinned lips. She leans forward, scrunches her hands through her peroxide bob and flicks her head upright.
“How do I look?”
“Only gorgeous,” I say, and she smirks at me.
“I don’t know if I should believe a word that comes out of your mouth,” she says, but she’s still pleased with herself.
She always scrubs up well for work, her customers at the Black Swan the only company she keeps these days. Now and again, I catch a glimpse of one of them, a balding rocker or a cocksure young fella, skulking out the door before sunrise, but I don’t pass any judgment. She hasn’t had anyone on the scene since Keith left four years ago and after that car crash, I’m happy with any setup that keeps the peace in the house.
I’ve one eye on EastEnders when the doorbell rings, and I curse it. I’ve half a mind to ignore it, but Mam’s warned me Bridie Brady from next door might call round with the out-of-date fruit and veg she gets working at Quinnsworth. Mam has no problem taking handouts from the neighbors. When you’ve known poverty, she says, you choose the principles that keep it furthest from your door.
It’s not Bridie that’s looming over me in the fading light, and it takes me a second to focus on the once-familiar face, the sandy mullet and hazel eyes of Joe Forrester, Tina’s older brother.
“Howiye, Lou.”
“Alright.”
I don’t know what else to say. I haven’t seen Joe since the funeral almost six months ago and the memory of it still haunts me. My ill-timed allegations upset him and his ma so much, I was asked to leave. Now, I can’t even guess what he wants and I’m not sure I’m able for it anyway.
“So it’s true?” he says.
“What?”
“You’ve gone over to the dark side,” he says, pointing at my uniform.
I look down at the purple jumper and think how quickly I’ve got used to it.
“Oh yeah, yeah, I’m one of them now.”
Joe sucks his teeth and I wish I could explain.
“You never made it to Trinity then?” he asks.
Joe is a journalism student at Rathmines College, and he always thought I had notions with my talk of university.
“Not yet,” I say, with more conviction than I feel.
“Can I come in?”
There’s a pleading in his eyes, and I relax, relieved to let my guard down.
“D’ye want tea?” I ask as he follows me to the kitchen.
“Yeah, go on.”
I put the kettle on and start spooning tea into the teapot, my back to Joe.
“You were right,” he says.
I stop and the air stills around me.
“Tina was pregnant.”
It’s as if I’ve been holding my breath for five months and I’ve just been given permission to exhale. I turn to Joe, and his awkward smile fills my stony heart with such gratitude there are tears racing down my cheeks before I can stop them.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “We didn’t find out until the inquest, and Ma, well, she ended up in John of God’s hospital again and I just … I dunno, there was so much to deal with, you know?”
I did know. I saw her around the estate, eyes glazed and empty as she wandered the streets.
“I want to apologize,” says Joe.
I rub my fingers roughly under my eyes, across my cheeks.
“And I want you to tell me everything.”