We sit at the table for a long time. Mum and Dad want to have A Talk with us all, explain what might happen. Jamie’s going on about the campaign.
‘It’s gone national now. Look at the feeds, and the petition. We can still fight this. We’ve got people on our side,’ he’s saying, but Mum and Dad aren’t convinced.
‘Even so, son, it’s not going to be soon enough for us,’ Dad says.
He’s been quiet throughout and now I see how defeated he is.
‘You can’t give up now, we’re just getting started. I’m telling you –’
But we don’t hear what Jamie has to say, because Dad’s reached his limit. He slams away from the table and he’s shaking with rage. ‘It’s time to get real, Jamie. They’ve had it all worked out, right from the beginning. Your campaign’s just been prolonging the inevitable. There’s no way to win. Not against that scum. There never was, never will be.’
He stomps out the back door, crashing it behind him. It sounds like he’s smashing up the garden furniture out there, like the pain of what’s happening has overtaken anything his back’s giving him. No one speaks for a minute and then Mum says, ‘Get the tea going,’ to Jamie, and, ‘You two go and do some homework,’ to me and Jack. She disappears into the garden.
I escape upstairs, because some of Dad’s helpless rage has reignited my own.
I need to call Annabel.
My hands are shaking as I get out my phone. There’s several missed calls and a string of texts from Kelly. You’re in the papers! Then, Oh shit, just read about A’s dad. Did you know? Did SHE know? Are you OK? And, Joni? Call me. And finally, Joni???? Xxxxx.
Nothing from Annabel.
She answers as I’m on the point of hanging up. ‘Joni?’ Her voice sounds muted, like she’s exhausted too.
‘Yeah, it’s me.’
There’s a silence. I try to keep my voice steady as I say, ‘I know you didn’t know before last night …’
At the same time Annabel says, ‘I wanted to speak to you. I feel terrible …’
We both stop. Then I say, ‘You go.’
I can hear Annabel breathing at the other end, almost feel her hesitation as she tries to find the words. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know his company owned White Light, I swear.’ I think she’s crying. ‘When I tried to tell him about the campaign and ask if he could help, he just started shouting. He’d already seen your picture in the paper. It was like lighting a match the second I mentioned your name. He thinks you only got to know me because of the campaign, that you’re some sort of – I don’t know, a spy or something. That you never – that you made up your feelings. But I know you didn’t.’
There’s a hint of uncertainty in her voice that sends white heat through me. ‘How can you even think … Jesus, Annabel.’
‘He threatened all sorts of things if I didn’t … I know I should have stood up to him, but I’m not … I’m not brave like you … And he’s my father,’ she lets out a sob, but I can’t feel for her.
‘We got an eviction notice today,’ I say.
‘What? I – I don’t know what to say.’
I’m finding it hard to speak, but I make myself. ‘I thought I knew who you were. Who I was. But it turns out I was worrying about the wrong thing. See, I kind of get why your dad was so worried. Wouldn’t exactly look great in the papers, me and you together. And maybe someone like him would believe all that crap about me. Screwing people’s the way he operates, isn’t it? Why shouldn’t he think everyone else is doing the same? But what about you? You were worried he’d find out about us way before last night.’
‘No, I –’
‘Stop lying. All this time I was thinking you were scared of coming out, but it wasn’t that at all, was it? No, you were worried I wasn’t going to be good enough for your precious daddy. Not good enough for you. Well, I guess you made your choice. But you know what? I’ve realised something. You’re not good enough for me.’
I hear Annabel’s intake of breath at the other end, then it’s like a storm breaking. ‘Why has everything got to be a competition? Everyone’s the same! Did you ever consider you might have things I could never have? Like parents who love you for you, unconditionally. Not as some sort of fucking trophy?’ She’s shouting now, the sound of it shocking me into silence. ‘You know, it didn’t even cross his mind you might actually like me for me,’ she says, and her voice is bitter like mine.
But I’m still so angry. ‘And how hard did you try to convince him? You’re the one who’s too scared to do anything that might threaten your oh-so-perfect life that you pretend you hate anyway. You’re terrified of even thinking about letting go of your massive bit of the orange, even when –’
‘What on earth –’ She’s more controlled now and posher than I’ve ever heard her. It feels like a weapon. ‘– has an orange got to do with anything?’
‘Everything. It’s got everything do to with it. But you’ll never get that because you won’t open your eyes.’
I hear her breathing hard down the phone, picture her fighting for composure.
But I only have one thing left to say.
‘You remember the talk we had at the stones? About being brave?’ My voice is starting to crack, but I plough on. ‘Well, I did do the research and I decided what I want to be. I’m going to become a conservationist,’ I say, and then my voice gives in completely.
I press the button to end the call without waiting for her reply.
Heartbreak isn’t like in songs. This pain is too big for music. I stay in bed for a whole day and then I find I can’t keep still. I spend a lot of time on the Downs and in the tree in the garden, trying to find comfort in the branches, the open sky and the birds, but nothing helps. It’s like someone’s ripped out my insides and had a good stomp about.
A couple of weeks in, I cut my hair, slicing off strands with vicious snips of the scissors. Then I dye the remainder bright purple. Mum gets really pissed off about the dye marks on the bathroom rug, but even she relents when she sees my face. About the only person I can stand to be around is Jack, and now it’s the summer holidays and I have nowhere else to be. I spend a lot of time with him on the PlayStation, shooting stuff, which kind of helps.
I go to see Kelly and tell her everything.
She listens right through and then she simply says, ‘What a bitch,’ and holds me while I cry.
The anger comes back slowly, then all at once, but this time it has a different texture.
It finds me in my dreams, where Annabel’s face is so vivid. I feel it in the sharpness of the wind up on the Downs. And it lifts my head up, slows my tears until they dry altogether and in their place is a cold fury that feels strong.
I can’t change what’s happened with Annabel, can’t undo what she said, how stupid I still feel. But there’s one thing I can still do and that’s the campaign. Every time I picture Annabel’s dad’s face on those steps, or the way Mrs H simply went along with him because of who he was without even talking to me first, it makes that fury inside harden that bit more until I feel like I’ve got icicles shooting out of my fingers.
Dad’s still in bed most days and Mum is working every single shift she can manage, even though it’s not going to do any good. The eviction process is rumbling on, a date set for the end of September.
One day I go through every single bit of information on the campaign that I can find on Jamie’s laptop.
I’m waiting at the kitchen table for Jamie when he gets in from work that night, a notebook and his laptop open in front of me.
‘How you doing, chick?’ he says, then takes in the stuff on the table, the hardness in my eyes. ‘Like that is it?’
I nod and he sits next to me, starts to read the list I’ve made over my shoulder. ‘You’ve been busy.’
‘I had to do something.’
Jamie nods slowly, then gives me a long look and I suddenly see it again in his eyes, the thing he backed off from telling me before.
‘You know I would never say I told you so,’ he begins and I raise an eyebrow at this, because he totally would, but he’s still talking. ‘There was a reason I said what I did about Annabel. You remember when I was working up at the old place? Well, I didn’t just leave for no reason.’
‘Figured as much,’ I say.
Jamie stares off for a while. ‘I really thought I had it made there. Anton was going to teach me everything, and I’d get my own restaurant eventually.’
‘I remember.’ I could hardly forget; Jamie used to talk about nothing else. The old Jamie. ‘So what happened?’
‘Mr Campbell. Or his son at least.’
I frown. Mr Campbell was the guy who owned the hotel; Anton was the Head Chef but he didn’t actually own the whole place.
‘I don’t think you said –’ Then I do remember suddenly, Jamie mentioning a guy called Tarquin, mainly because we all thought the name was hysterical. ‘Didn’t there used to be a guy called himself Quinn?’
‘That’s him. Tarquin Campbell.’ Jamie narrows his eyes. ‘One of the Edrington types, although he’d already left there. Pretty sure he’d have been booted out if it hadn’t been for Daddy’s money. Anyway. He was a posh twat all right. He’d come swanning in when we were doing service, getting in everyone’s way, bragging about how he knew his cuts of meat or some bollocks. And we all had to tolerate him, even if Anton threw him out once for wrecking a plate just before it was due to go out.’
‘Sounds like a knobber.’
‘Oh, he was more than that. He’d mess with the waitresses as well, try and grab their boobs or arse as they went by, and everyone was too scared to say anything because one girl did and she got the sack. I used to give them the nod when he was coming, so they’d go the other way.’
I raise my eyebrows, but he’s not done.
‘Anyway, one night after service had finished I was walking out with one of the waitresses, Gemma, and he did his usual trick of grabbing her arse as she went by, and the look on her face … I lost it, shoved him up against the wall and threatened to smack him one if he carried on. After that, I knew I wasn’t going to last there long and funnily enough, about a week later at the end of one of my shifts, Mr Campbell marches in with a coat, shouting he wanted to know whose it was. Well, it was mine, wasn’t it and guess what was in the pocket? A nice shiny bag of white powder. He said if I went quietly – without my wages of course – he wouldn’t call the police. Didn’t want the scandal in his establishment. God, he looked at me like I was a piece of scum when he told me I wasn’t going to get a reference and he’d see to it I’d never work in any high-end restaurant again. And that little scrote stood behind him, giving me these looks like he knew someone like him would always win and someone like me would always lose.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jamie. I had no idea.’
I do remember him being out of work, how he went everywhere before he got the job at The Olde Inne – for way less cash than he’d been on before.
‘Don’t tell Dad, OK?’
I shake my head.
‘I’m only telling you now because I think it’s important you know what people like them are like. They’re all the same and you shouldn’t ever forget it. And they’ve got the dice rigged. Anyone who doesn’t think it’s us against them is deluding themselves.’
The way he says ‘us against them’ reminds me so much of Deal that it makes me say, ‘Then you met Deal.’
Jamie’s face brightens. ‘Yeah. He taught me a thing or two for sure.’
And suddenly I can see what a big gap Deal filled for Jamie, after he lost Anton and the restaurant. I sling my arm around him and he hugs me back. ‘I’m sorry, Jamie.’
‘I just wish I could’ve stayed there, you know? Someone like that Quinn knob gets as many chances as they want, but that was my one shot.’
I stare at him, at the mixture of pain and humiliation on his face, and I know what he’s feeling, because that’s where I am too.
He blinks a couple of times and then says, ‘It’s all right. I’m over it now. But it taught me a lesson about people like that. I kind of hoped I was wrong, about you and Annabel. I’m not pleased I was right.’
I put my head on his shoulder. ‘God. I can’t believe you never said.’
‘I was embarrassed as well. The whole thing, it made me feel really small inside.’
‘I know.’
‘And I swore to myself I wouldn’t let anyone make me feel small like that again.’
‘I’m glad you told me.’
We sit for a while, my head still on his shoulder, and then he stirs himself and points to the stuff spread out on the table. ‘So what’s all this then?’
‘I guess it’s like you said. I don’t want to be small either. I don’t want to just leave here without a fight. And I’ve been doing some thinking. Petitions and demos aren’t going to do anything. They’re like, I don’t know, a fly on a horse. Annoying, but doesn’t exactly hurt.’ I point to the list I’ve made. ‘But some of these things, they might. I don’t know if they’ll stop the eviction – probably not, but we can at least cause some pain, make it harder for him. That would be worth it on its own.’
Jamie’s nodding. ‘Show them we’re not flies they can squash without bothering to even think about it.’
‘Yeah.’ I square my shoulders and look at him. ‘Why shouldn’t we show them we’ve at least got some bite?’
‘Well, then.’ He grins at me suddenly. ‘I’m in.’