‘I have an illness,’ Debra announced proudly.
It was Monday. We were walking home from school. Debra was back and Rachel was absent.
The school felt empty without her.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘It’s called scurvy,’ she said.
‘Isn’t that what pirates get, something to do with fresh water?’
‘Sailors as well as pirates,’ she corrected me, pleased that she knew more about a subject than I did. ‘And it’s to do with fruit. Vitamin C. I don’t have any.’
‘How do they know?’
She held out her thin arms. ‘I bruise easily and I’m getting scaly.’
I looked at her dry skin.
‘Frank says the reason we don’t have fruit is because it’s so expensive but he’s going to get another job so that we can.’
We were passing Spar and I said I had to go inside. I bought a bag of oranges and gave them to Debra. She took them, eyes wide with disbelief, and carried them home like jewels.
I was due for a shift at the cafe. A couple of builders lounged at the tables and the moustachioed policeman was deep in conversation with Maggie.
‘Turns out we were on the same demo back in seventy-four,’ she told me brightly. ‘Different sides, naturally.’
She laughed and I eyed him, wondering if he could tell I had information just by looking at me, but he was too busy slurping the tea Maggie had given him and sinking his teeth into a custard tart to spare me more than a glance.
There was nothing much to do, so Maggie suggested I tidy the flat. I started by washing up and then putting the cups on the hooks and the plates on the rack. I set about dusting the dream catchers, enjoying the sound of the wind chimes. Turning to the cluttered shelves, I found a wad of pound notes bound by an elastic band and weighed down by a crystal. It would buy Debra a lot of fruit, I thought, dusting all around.
Downstairs, Karl had arrived. He’d grown lanky, and his legs were too long to fit beneath the table so he’d stretched them along the aisle.
Grinning when he saw me, he gave an exaggerated thumbs up.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Want a drink?’
‘Drink?’ I blinked back at him.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
I watched him suspiciously. ‘No thanks. Maggie needs me.’ I gestured towards the counter.
‘It’s fine,’ said Maggie, noticing. ‘Take a break.’
Karl’s grin widened. ‘See. Have a seat.’ He felt around for coins in his pockets. ‘Coke?’
Reluctantly, I accepted and sat down. I wanted to get on with my jobs and wallow in my thoughts, sort out all the different bits of information I’d acquired lately about Dad and Rachel and even Debra. I still felt hot waves of guilt at thinking so badly of Frank.
Karl came back and sat in the same position, trapping me with his legs. I sipped from the can while he rummaged inside his bag, producing an exercise book and a pencil. I watched him through narrow eyes, waiting patiently for him to say what he wanted. Eventually, he cleared his throat and asked if I could deliver a note.
‘Who to?’
‘Rachel.’
I spluttered. ‘Me?’
‘Yeah.’ He flashed me a persuasive grin.
‘Why?’
‘Well …’ He stopped and fiddled with the pencil, sat back, raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Her dad, you know.’
‘What about him?’
‘He might not be happy … you know … with me hanging about.’ He grimaced.
I remembered the way Mr Wright had dealt with Karl’s dad and the reporter and didn’t contradict him.
‘So,’ said Karl, ‘will you?’
I concentrated on my can. Why should I help the boy who’d insulted me? On the other hand, I felt a rush of pleasure because he thought I was so close to Rachel.
‘I want to know she’s all right,’ he said.
I looked at him. His eyes flickered away. ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘I just want to know she’s OK.’
He hadn’t answered my question. I was quiet thinking about it. He looked at me properly again and I noticed his eyes were slightly different colours. One dark brown, the other more of a tawny shade. I warmed towards him seeing that imperfection. Maybe he wasn’t so bad and maybe if I delivered this letter it would make up for the one that I hadn’t. Rachel’s card to Charlotte was still hiding inside my drawer.
‘All right,’ I said.
He grinned, wrote on the paper and folded it over. He held out his hand and then pulled back sharply. ‘Wait. No envelope.’
‘I won’t read it,’ I promised.
He hesitated, shrugged and then passed it across.
I pushed the note into my pocket, not caring what it said. I had another excuse to visit Rachel and that was good enough.
No one opened the door.
I kept on knocking and then calling through the letter box until eventually Rachel appeared wearing the same old-fashioned dressing gown.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked straightaway. Her face was red and blotchy, hair damp and plastered to her scalp. ‘Were you in the bath? You look awful.’
‘Thanks.’ Automatically, she put her hand to her face and I saw that her fingertips were ragged where she’d bitten the edges; spots of blood had dried inside the tiny wounds. The sight made my stomach turn.
‘You weren’t at school.’
‘I know.’
‘I missed you.’
She smiled weakly and folded her arms, sagging in the doorway as she leaned against the frame.
‘Have you got a temperature? Have you eaten?’ I sounded like my mother.
‘Probably and yes, I have. Sorry, Elizabeth, I can’t do this now.’
Do what? I was only trying to help.
She went to close the door, but I wasn’t giving up. ‘Let me come in. I can keep you company.’
She sighed. ‘I need to lie down.’
I softened my tone. ‘I’ve got a note for you.’
Her curiosity was piqued. ‘Who from?’
I paused. ‘Karl.’
Her expression softened. She thought about it for a moment more and then let me come inside.
The front room was even hotter than usual and stuffy with the curtains closed. There were tissues dropped on the carpet. I picked them up automatically as if I was at home.
‘Stop,’ said Rachel, ‘it doesn’t matter.’
‘But—’
‘Leave them. Who cares?’
We sat down and I fished out the note and gave it to her. She read it and smiled a little, but then just as quickly the smile disappeared.
She drew a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. Coughed. A glass of water stood on the table in front of her. I passed it across. She took the glass and as she drank, her sleeve slipped to her elbow.
My blood chilled. Cuts. On her forearm. Old cuts and new cuts, tiny slices across the skin. I stared, trying to work out what this was. Rachel saw me looking, and quickly dropped her arm. For a second she held my gaze as if daring me to speak, but I couldn’t breathe. My throat felt swollen, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, and now it was too late anyway because the key turned in the door.
Quickly, she leaned forward and put the glass back on the table. I caught the smell of it. Not water. Gin.
She stood up and tightened the belt on her dressing gown. ‘You’d better go,’ she said.
I moved obediently, dazed by what I’d seen, out into the hall as Mr Wright disappeared through to the kitchen.
‘Don’t tell,’ Rachel whispered on the doorstep.
I opened my mouth to protest.
‘Don’t,’ she said.
‘But you should …’ see a doctor, I wanted to say, tell Mr Wright … a teacher, anyone, but none of the words would come.
‘Promise me,’ she said.
‘OK.’ But it wasn’t OK. It was terrible. Those ugly marks on her beautiful skin.
She pushed me gently out of the door, closed it quietly without saying goodbye.
I stood outside the house thinking about what I’d seen. A couple of years ago a girl in the sixth form had tried to kill herself. She’d sliced her wrists and her mother had found her just in time. Why had she done it? I recalled the rumours about a boyfriend who’d left her for somebody else. None of us had known the absolute truth.
But Rachel’s cuts were on her arms, not her wrists and anyway, they were a mix of faded scars and fresh wounds. Had she made the cuts herself? What had she used? A kitchen knife? A penknife? A razor blade?
How delicate her skin was, her wrists so tiny, her arms so slender. What was she thinking and how had I failed to notice?