Evie stands in the school playground alone. It’s cold but this morning she, along with all her classmates, rolled her skirt up high above her knees and her legs are bare apart from the white socks that reach midway up her calves. She folds her arms across her chest, pursing her mouth as she waits for her mother to arrive to pick her up.
She is late.
It’s three-fifty and the playground is empty. Evie turns back to look up at the school building behind her, its windows vacant, the doors shut. Inside, she knows there are teachers to whom she could go, ask them to call her mother. But something in her resists. She is pissed off. Pissed off with her mother. Pissed off with everything.
How can Mum be late after everything that happened down in Devon? Isn’t she worried that Evie could be taken just like Georgie was? How can she seem not to care?
Because she doesn’t love you, the voice whispers inside of her. That’s why she’s late. That’s why she isn’t bothered about Devon, why she sent you there in the first place. She just doesn’t care.
This voice.
It has been growing louder and louder inside of her for the last few months. It started long before her father took up with the sister of the most infamous female murderer since Rose West. It shelters inside of her, fading away, and then booming out when she least expects it. It tells her vile things; things she doesn’t want to think about.
Ever.
She wants to shut it out entirely but then, perversely, forces herself to think about her dad. How popular he is at school. How he’s the one who always comes to the quiz nights; the school fetes; and the parents’ evenings. Always smiling, always bounding around as if nothing’s ever wrong. Her friends ask her why it is that, after the divorce, she chose to live with her mum. Vanessa. The parent who doesn’t give a shit about Evie and wouldn’t notice if she never turned up again.
What can she say? The answer never comes fully formed. It sticks in her gullet like the first hard bite of an apple that scratches your throat on the way down.
And as for Hazel . . . Evie shakes her head, trailing her foot across the asphalt in the playground, scuffing her shoe. Her expensive shoe that her mother moaned about when she bought it at John Lewis, telling her this kind of expense was something her father should be responsible for.
Whatever.
Hazel is practically her own age. Evie had nearly spat out her Coke when she’d first met her, seen how young she was. All she does is trot around after Dad, doing everything he says.
It’s all so fucked up, Evie thinks, raising her head to a sky banked with clouds that dip close to the ground. Even in the city, you feel it. You know that you’re only a step, a moment away, from death. Those clouds, they could come down at any time. Rain hell upon you, wash you away, drag you from everything you know. The threat is there all the time. Hovering over you.
Droplets of water start to fall and Evie lowers her gaze. She looks at the school gates where a car has pulled up silently. A woman opens the door and steps out. She has a mild-looking, friendly face. Mousy hair tied up in a ponytail, jeans and boots and one of those cool jackets that Evie’s school friend Arabella was given for Christmas.
‘Hello, Evie,’ the woman says in a cheery voice. ‘Weather’s looking bad. Can I offer you a lift?’
Evie looks at the car. Inside she can hear The Chainsmokers’ latest song. She stares up at the darkening sky and down again at the hard drops of rain hitting the ground beneath her feet and wetting her hair. She turns her wrist to see her watch. Her mother is over half an hour late.
She doesn’t love you, the voice whispers again. She doesn’t care. Evie sniffs, a hot kamikaze-like feeling stealing over her. Suddenly the anger feels good, like she’s the one in control. Maybe her mother will finally get it if she arrives at school and Evie has gone. See that, for once, she hasn’t waited around like a fucking loser. Maybe that’ll make her realise what a failure of a parent she is.
‘Yes,’ Evie calls to the woman, slinging her bag over her shoulder and moving towards the gate. ‘That would be great, thanks.’