Mae used her last morning shift to watch the tapes.
Three weeks back, she propped her tired eyes open and saw the town of West, the people ambling by.
The old skywatchers, the young summer couples. Children ate ice creams, their parents walked behind, hand in hand. Something about the perfect normality of it helped Mae to breathe.
There was a timestamp in the corner. On the Sunday she watched hundreds march up towards the church, old men in suit and tie, young boys in smart trousers. She tried to pick out Abi but the cluster was too tight. She did see Jon Prince, and in a perfect pause she captured the way he looked over at Luke Manton. Mae wondered if business had come between them, money or something equally worthless. People still cared about their standing when they fell.
A few came into the store, dropped off their movies. She stamped cards, took payment, let people borrow whatever they wanted. The due date a day past Selena.
An old lady cried, took Mae’s hand and told her sorry.
Across the street, Felix pressed a sign to the glass.
THE REVEREND IS HOME.
She wondered if the heart attack had brought Felix closer to God, or closer to the doctors that pumped his father’s chest.
Mae stood in the open doorway.
She saw a couple of men on ladders, stringing bunting and fairy lights. From the top of the high street all the way down to the marina.
Mr Cleeves swept the pavements.
West was readying for the last days. The Final. The school concert. Stella’s play. She’d seen adverts in the local newspaper, the excitement was muted among the adults, palpable in schools. West Fashion had posters in the windows.
END OF THE WORLD SALE.
The owner was Trixie, and she’d placed her own advert, telling anyone that was struggling they could come in and hire anything free of charge. Mae watched a couple of boys walk out carrying suit bags.
She turned back to the tape, saw Felix struggling with a box of papers, then trip and send them flying across the high street. Mae laughed to herself.
Another hour, Mae finally saw the girl on her screen.
‘Abi,’ she whispered, as she slowed it.
The clarity was good, she could see Abi’s solemn face as she walked up, her head low as she disappeared into a shop.
Mae couldn’t see from the angle exactly which shop.
She watched in real time.
Fifteen minutes passed before Abi walked out. She clutched a piece of paper in her hands. The paper was dark with bright lettering, too small to read but striking.
Tears streaked down Abi’s cheeks.
And then she was gone.
Mae held her breath as she rewound and froze the tape on Abi’s face.
Crying.
She knew she was close, she felt it then. All the wrong turns, the misdirection, she was closer than she’d been before.
Mae strained to see the shop, but still could not. So she counted, down from the salon.
Seven down.
Mae ran out into the street and up to the salon.
The shops were busy, the cafes hadn’t yet run out of coffee.
She pushed by a couple of summer people, the last in town.
Mae counted carefully, one by one as she passed them.
Seven.
West Pharmacy.
She found Lexi eating lunch beside the tennis court.
‘You mind if I sit?’
Lexi sighed, like she wanted to be alone.
Mae sat anyway.
Two boys played on the court, grunting and sweating as they powered the ball back and forth. Mae recognised one of them as Callum.
Lexi wore a stylish sunhat.
‘How’s the head?’
‘Itchy.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘You ever got drunk and done something you regret?’
‘Pretty sure that’ll be my degree.’
Lexi took a drink from a sports bottle. ‘I keep seeing girls with tattoos and they smile at me, and then I remember I have one too. I mean, I’ve always been in a gang. It used to be the hair, with Hunter.’
‘We’re not a gang. We’re just … human.’
Lexi glanced over at the court. ‘He likes me to watch him play. You know his parents came here because the tennis coach is some former player.’
‘Part of the Sacred Heart gifted.’
‘It’s so boring. Back and forth.’
Lexi took the hat off, scratched her head and caught a look from Callum so put it back on quickly.
‘He doesn’t like it?’ Mae said.
‘He makes me keep it on when we … you know.’
Mae bit her lip, then saw Lexi begin to laugh so she laughed with her.
‘You want to tell me why you came to sit here, Mae?’
‘Your mother –’
‘I can’t get you drugs. Believe me, everyone thinks I can, but I can’t.’
The sun crept from behind the old school building.
A group of younger girls sat in a circle and played some kind of game Mae couldn’t work out the rules to.
‘Abi went to the pharmacy. The day before she … the day before it happened.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You knew?’
Lexi sipped her water. ‘I was helping out that day.’
‘She was crying.’
‘A lot of people come in crying. Or angry. Or just so sad. They want something to help them sleep, or something to help them smile. Or just something to take away all the feeling they’ve got.’
‘That’s what Abi wanted?’
Lexi shrugged. ‘There’s a room at the back, you can go there and talk to my mother. If you don’t want the whole town knowing your business.’
‘Abi went in there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You think your mother would tell you what she wanted?’
‘No.’
‘Not even now she’s dead?’
‘Principles, Mae. My mother has them. I think maybe they skip a generation.’
They looked up when Callum started to walk over, a towel draped over his shoulders.
Callum saw them together and frowned.
‘I thought her mother could get me drugs,’ Mae said.
Callum shook his head, then slipped an arm round Lexi and they walked away.
The pharmacy was empty.
Mae walked down each aisle and looked at the myriad of placebos. Anything of use was locked away now.
Lexi’s mother was tall and striking, and she had that look on her face like she was more than used to teens coming in with fake illnesses and trying it on without a prescription.
She had a white coat, smooth skin, almond eyes.
In the gene lottery, Lexi had won the jackpot.
Mae was so distracted she bumped right into Jeet Patel.
His bag fell to the floor, the contents spilling.
Mae bent to pick up a bottle, saw a dozen warnings printed all over it. Hydrochloric acid.
‘Damn, Jeet. Are you building a bomb?’
He laughed as she passed him the bottle. ‘I’m making the costumes for the concert. Distressed is in right now. Wait till you see us, Mae. Just …’
‘Fabulous?’
He smiled widely.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘I have to pick up sequins from Trixie.’
Mae held the door for him. She wondered what it was like, that eternal optimism.
‘Mae,’ Lexi’s mother said. ‘How’s your grandmother?’
‘Still with us.’
No smile. ‘What can I do for you?’
Mae cleared her throat, her shoulders dropped a little. ‘Abi Manton came to see you.’
The woman’s face softened then, her eyes filled with tears so quickly Mae was taken aback.
She sniffed, her composure returned quickly. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything.’
‘I do. I just … I need to know she was okay. She tried to call me, I wasn’t there for her.’ Mae swallowed. ‘I think maybe she needed me, and I let her down.’
‘You can’t blame yourself for this.’
‘Do you think she killed herself?’
The question hung long in the air. Outside, the street lost its colours. Mae held her breath.
‘I can’t answer that.’
Mae breathed out slowly.
‘But I do know that whatever Abi was going through wasn’t your fault, Mae. Do you have someone you can talk to? Lexi tells me there’s a school counsellor.’
‘I just … I can’t sleep any more. And I know that’s a thing, right? I see it in the newspapers. No one can sleep. I don’t know what I’m saying.’
Lexi’s mother reached out and took her hand, gave it a squeeze and smiled gently. ‘It can’t be easy, your situation.’ A smile. Pity.
Mae steeled herself, turned and walked towards the door.
And then she stopped deathly still.
The display, the bank of leaflets.
One stood out far.
The same leaflet Abi had left with.
Mae picked it up slowly, her throat dry as she took in the bright lettering.
ABORTION.