It’s Jay’s birthday. He’d be eighteen today if he was living at home. He might be eighteen somewhere else. If he’s still alive.
I ask Mum if I can stay off school, because I know I’m not going to be able to concentrate on dull things like Maths and Science.
‘I don’t think so, Lilah,’ is all she says, but her voice is low and firm enough to have me sigh and stuff my schoolbooks into my bag.
She doesn’t have any parties today, so she’s going to use the morning to write a letter to Jay instead.
She wrote him one last birthday, too, and the one before that.
She’s keeping them for when he comes home, so that she can show him how much he was missed.
Dad’s working with the big cats today, but he’s coming home early to have lunch with Mum and support her because it’s the hardest day of the year for her, other than Christmas, which is pretty rubbish without Jay too, and the anniversary of the day he disappeared, which is probably the worst of all.
When he first went missing, I did that thing you do when you come back from a really cool holiday and it’s a bit crap being back in the usual boring routine, so you think, This time last week, I was still on holiday doing x or y.
This time two weeks ago I was still on holiday doing x or y.
Except that I started to do the same thing about Jay.
The day he went missing I thought, This time yesterday we were talking up in his bedroom.
Well – arguing, more like. I try to not think about that last conversation too much.
And even three weeks after he went missing, I was still doing it. This time a month ago he was still living with us, and everything was OK.
Except it wasn’t.
Not really.
So I’m at school and in a foul mood.
I don’t want to be here, and I can feel the familiar anger burning up in my throat and chest like acid.
Bindi’s doing her best to cheer me up, but she’s a bit distant this morning and I don’t have the energy to ask her why, and I get told off in Maths for staring out of the window and watching the caretaker sweep the tennis courts and chewing my pen when I should be thinking about percentages.
Here’s my take on percentages:
I’m eighty percent angry and twenty percent miserable. And that’s on a good day.
Dad is sixty percent miserable and forty percent OK.
And Mum?
She’s one hundred percent miserable.
All the time.
I didn’t get angry straight away.
For the first year after Jay disappeared, I was so shocked that I crept around not speaking to anybody and lying awake at night.
At school I stopped joining in with group activities and sat at the back of the class with my head lowered so that the teachers wouldn’t pick on me.
That never works, right?
I learned that the hard way.
Teachers always pick on the people trying to hide at the back.
I lost count of the number of times I’d flush bright red and not be able to answer a question.
Bindi’s grades went up and up and mine went down the opposite way, until she was at the top of the class and I was at the very bottom.
Bindi’s the only person who has really got me through the last two years.
We’ve been friends forever.
Well, OK, not forever, but it feels like it.
I went round to her house the evening of the same day that Jay disappeared.
‘He’ll be back,’ she said. ‘He’s probably just gone to get a bit of breathing space.’
Turns out she was wrong, of course. I mean, nobody needs to breathe away from their family for two years, do they? But I was glad that she said it.
She’s nudging me right now.
‘What?’ I hiss back. The teacher is chalking up a load of complicated-looking symbols and shapes on the board.
I hate Maths.
My head doesn’t work that way.
It doesn’t do neat angles and lines and boxes and worked-out answers.
My head is a jumble of songs and clothes and animals and big red flashes of rage. All these things spin around in a random order. It can be quite tiring.
Bindi’s brain works in a different way. She’s tidy and organised and has great powers of concentration, like one cat trying to outstare another. But now she’s not paying attention to the teacher, she’s waving a bit of paper at me.
I snatch it and read it under my desk.
Adam’s staring at you! it says, in her neat spider scrawl. Maybe you’ve still got a chance with him. Why don’t you ask him out on another date? Take your mind off things.
I give my best sardonic snort at that.
As if going out with Band Boy is going to suddenly take away all my problems.
It’s not going to bring Mum’s smile back again, is it?
It’s not going to get Dad to focus on me for a change, instead of worrying about his lions.
And it’s not going to bring my brother home again.
I might, I scribble. Cheers.
But I’m way too embarrassed after what happened last time.
Bindi gives a self-satisfied smirk and a nod, like she’s running a dating agency or something and has just nabbed a client. Then she turns her cat-eyes back towards the gibberish on the blackboard and picks up her calculator.
When I get in, I expect to see both my parents in the kitchen, but Dad’s not there.
Mum’s sitting in a pool of lamplight at the kitchen table, staring at a piece of paper. There’s a plate with two half-eaten cream crackers and a wedge of cheddar next to it and a half-drunk glass of red wine.
‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask. ‘I thought he was supposed to be here today. Because of – you know. . .’
Mum looks up and gives me a wan smile. Her skin looks dry and tired and her blue eyes are small and watery. She’s still got traces of greasy red make-up around her eyes from yesterday, when she had to be a clown for a group of seven-year-olds.
‘Lazarus has injured his paw,’ she says. ‘Dad’ll be a while yet.’
Lazarus is the biggest lion at Morley Zoo. Of course Dad gave him that weird biblical name. He’s obsessed.
I sit down at the table with her and there’s an awkward silence, the sort we’ve had a lot of over the last two years.
I look at Mum’s wrinkled hand on the table and I wonder if I should hold it, but we stopped doing all that sort of thing ages ago, and now the only contact I ever have with my parents is when Dad gives me a brief head-kiss in the mornings before he heads off to the zoo.
‘Did you do your letter?’ I ask instead.
Stupid. I can see it there in front of her, complete with big blurry splodges where her tears have fallen.
Mum nods. She pushes the piece of paper towards me.
‘You can read it if you like, love,’ she says.
I shake my head in a panic.
Mum’s written three of these letters since Jay went missing and I’ve not read a single one of them.
That’s because, if I do, I’ll remember that him not being here is all my fault.
Mum does her mind-reading thing.
‘I’ve told you over and over,’ she says. ‘But I’m going to tell you again. What happened was not your fault. OK? You did the right thing.’
I give her a small smile because it’s what she wants to see, but deep down I know that it’s a lie.
The flame of anger starts to lick and flicker at my insides.
I want to kick something. Hard. Or do what I usually do when some well-meaning but annoying adult asks me how I am, or tries to tell me that things aren’t my fault – go up to my bedroom, sit on the bed and bang the back of my head as hard as possible against the cold, white Artex wall until the anger just gets numbed away.
I make an excuse and leave the table to write what I can’t say in my diary. I don’t want to upset Mum.
Not today.
I should have done the wrong thing instead. If I’d done the wrong thing, then maybe, just maybe . . . Jay might still be here.
