39

5 September 2019

I got up early, knowing that I was too old to be scared on my first day at big school, but feeling absolutely fucking terrified. I had packed up everything I thought I was going to need (A4 paper, folders, lots and lots of different pens) and planned an outfit in what I was trialling as my new sixth-form style (long skirt, vintage trench coat, clumpy boots). I was meeting Izzy at nine because we were due at an orientation session at ten. Yet here I was, sitting downstairs, drinking coffee, at half past six. The baby hadn’t woken me: I’d done it myself.

Starting sixth-form college was another big step away from Joe. I wasn’t at his school any more and I was nearly two years older than him now. It was that thought that had woken me up and kept me awake.

I hadn’t seen him at all for nearly five months, ever since the day he told me not to visit, but I was wondering whether, perhaps, it would be OK if I went today. We hadn’t really ended things, and my anger and confusion had faded. I really wanted to see how he was. Whether he was even still there.

When exams finished, I found myself reintegrated with old and new friends. I spent the days with Izzy (who had broken up with Tally solely because she wanted to try dating), but also with Alice, Priya, Jack – who had settled into being a solid friend – and a whole group of new people, friends of friends, people from other schools, or who I’d just never spoken to before. I spent a lot of time just hanging around, sitting on the beach, drinking cider, savouring the feeling that I was kind of normal again. I’d even met a boy called Finn, a friend of friends. Nothing had happened between us, but I thought there was potential, if I wanted it. Finn wasn’t Joe, but he was real. He had curly hair and a surfy kind of aesthetic, and I liked him.

It had been almost impossible to make myself turn away from Joe and towards this real boy. That was why I hadn’t visited Joe all summer, not even when I’d been in Beachview with Zara and Coco. Not even to tell him about the baby. It was too hard to move on from him and I knew that if I saw him I’d be right back where I started.

I felt a constant low-level guilt, but it was tempered by the fact that this was his plan too. He’d been right all along: my life had come back into focus in the real world and I needed to live it. I was never going to solve the mystery of his disappearance after all this time, when even the police had failed. The last thing that had happened, in that respect, was that email from Lucas with the message from Troy, and I’d just sent a short reply thanking him for trying, and left it at that.

In July the most magical thing of all had happened: twelve days later than planned, on July the fourteenth, Rafael Joseph had burst into our lives, and now nothing was ever going be the same.

Sasha hadn’t been sure about the middle name at first because she knew I’d been interested in Joe Simpson and thought the name might bring bad luck. But I persuaded her, in the end, that it was silly to be superstitious, and since I’d been part-time looking after Zara and Coco all summer, and they’d spent many afternoons hanging out at our house, talking about the baby, she came round quickly. Raffy Joe was the best thing that had ever happened to us. I’d considered taking him to meet my Joe, but I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t gone to visit two weeks ago when I got my exam results either.

I knew that if I went back I’d never leave.

I put two pieces of bread into the toaster and checked the peanut-butter jar. There was just enough, and I went to the list stuck on the fridge and wrote PB on it. I’d been doing most of the shopping and general admin while Sasha was busy with Raffy, and that had been fine. Now that I had college I was going to have to be a bit more organized about it all, but it was definitely easier than being the one in charge of the baby.

I heard footsteps on the stairs, and turned to see Sasha in the kitchen doorway looking sleepy. I rushed over and took Raffy from her arms.

‘Hello, Raff,’ I said, and he looked at me with his serious face. Raffy had been born perfectly himself. He had thick black hair and huge dark-brown eyes, and when he smiled (a recent development) it was a wide cartoony smile that took up his whole face. It was Mum’s smile. He carried her inside him.

He stared at me for a few seconds, then bestowed his huge grin upon me.

‘Thanks,’ said Sasha, stumbling towards the kettle, yawning.

‘How was he last night?’

‘Shit. One day he’ll be a teenager and he’ll be sleeping all morning and I won’t be able to get him out of bed. Imagine.’

‘You will,’ I said to Raffy. ‘You’ll sleep all morning and Mum will be saying, “You treat this place like a hotel,” and all those things.’

‘Oh Christ, Arry!’ said Sasha, looking at my bag. ‘It’s your first day! Good luck. Have you got everything you need?’

‘Everything. And lots of things I don’t. And loads of time before I have to go.’

‘You show them. I mean, I know you will. You showed the world what Ariel Brown can do with your exam results, so of course you’ll show them now.’ She paused. ‘I’m not sure who they are, but anyway. The whole of the world outside this house, I guess.’

‘I’ll do my best to show them,’ I said. Sasha was right: although I hadn’t quite got all nines as I’d hoped, my results were close enough, and I was extremely proud of them. It had all come together at the last minute solely thanks to Joe knowing what was good for me better than I knew myself.

Maybe I would go and visit him later.

Raffy went purple in the face and started huffing dramatically. I laughed at him.

‘Are you doing a poo?’ I said as an unmistakable smell filled the room. ‘Don’t worry, Sash. I’ll change him.’

‘You are an angel. Coffee?’

‘Got one, thanks.’

‘Can I have a piece of your toast?’

‘Have both. Just put another one on for me, yeah?’

‘Sure.’

We still hadn’t heard from Dad. We’d made no effort to tell him about the baby, so he probably didn’t know that he was a grandfather, though he could have worked it out easily enough from the dates. When I occasionally thought about him, I pictured him in a new relationship up in Scotland, probably with a younger woman who’d put up with his moods.

I hated him, but he had no hold over me any more. He was a stranger and I sincerely expected never to see him again. I had tried once, when I sent him that email in March, but he’d never even replied.

I took Raffy into the bathroom and changed his nappy, expert at this now. I changed his onesie too as he definitely needed a fresh one. I put him into a bright green outfit that Ms D, or Florence as I was now supposed to call her, had given him.

‘There you go,’ I said. ‘All fragrant again. Fragrant and gorgeous and really quite neon.’

Sasha had made me some toast, and put another coffee next to my plate.

‘There you go,’ she said. ‘I got you a coffee because I couldn’t remember if you wanted one or not.

‘Thanks,’ I said. I’d drink it anyway.

She took the baby and sat on the sofa to breastfeed. Our house had been entirely baby orientated since the middle of July. It was hard for me to remember a time before Raffy. I sat and talked to my sister about nothing in particular, and then it was time to go to college. I laced up my boots and tried to prepare myself for this new world.

‘Good luck!’ said Sasha. ‘You look good. Studenty.’

At four o’clock I stood outside the Beachview room. I knew he was in there. I put my hand on the door, knowing it would take a second to push it open and see him.

If I saw him would I be able to leave? Would I mess up whatever equilibrium he had? Would it be a massive step back for both of us?

It was too much to risk. I walked away.