Sometimes I feel as though my life is made up of other people’s stories.
Do I have any perspective on my own affairs when I spend so much time entrenched in other people’s?
I’m not sure if I would want an answer to that.
“Some pupils are talented with numbers or language,” Ms Foster told me. “Very few are truly talented artists. Not in the way that Mary was…is.” She ran a hand through her long hair. Uncomfortable, maybe wondering just how much she should be telling and what she should be keeping back.
“She came to your attention?”
Ms Foster allowed herself to smile. “You try to keep in touch with what’s going on…out on…” she hesitated, as though choosing her words carefully, before saying, “the front lines.” She shot me a nervous grin, as though checking I was in on what was clearly a joke shared among the teachers. “Some pupils float to the top of the pile. Sometimes for the wrong reasons.” She made sure I caught the eye contact this time. The firm seriousness in her face. “But not with Mary.”
“Her mother told me, she’s a model pupil.” I was careful to avoid slipping in past tense, no matter how accidentally.
“Aye, I guess if there is such a thing. Like I said, talented. And smart. Her test scores were…impressive. We were guessing A’s by the end of her higher exams.”
“You knew her to talk to?”
Ms Foster nodded. “Like I said, I try to keep in touch. Try and meet as many pupils face to face as I can. She was assured, you know.”
I sensed something else.
Didn’t tease it out.
Just waited.
Let Ms Foster interrogate herself. Sometimes all you have to do is sit back and listen.
She gave a little cough, as though clearing her throat. Passed a hand delicately in front of her mouth. “I mean, for a teenager. The thing…I mean, I don’t…she was confident, and the staff adored her, and so did most of her peers, but…”
I had to push. Just a little.
Call it a nudge.
“…Sometimes she’d drop off during class, I guess. Drift, I mean. She wouldn’t quite be there. I mean, you asked her a question, she’d answer it, but I think it unnerved a couple of the more demanding teachers.” She smiled again, too broadly for it to be comfortable. “I still teach a few lessons. Keep my hand in. A few Soc-ed – that’s Social Education – classes on the timetable so that I can keep in touch with the pupils. I’ve witnessed it myself, this sudden distance that would come over her.”
“Don’t most kids have a short attention span?”
She nodded, smiled. “Of course. I don’t even know why I mentioned it.”
Neither did I. But there was a reason, somewhere.
“She never had any troubles at home?”
“Not that I knew.”
“And you say…her peers…her classmates…they all liked her?”
“Yes. Like I said, I didn’t know of –”
“What about Richie Harisson?”
That made her pause. She lifted her head. “What about him?”
“They were going out, right?”
She licked her lips. A quick, darting motion. “I don’t see –”
“The police must have asked already. I’m not asking for anything you didn’t tell them.”
She took a breath. “I don’t know about that.”
“You know something.”
“Like I said, I knew her. She stood out. For her talent. For her attitude. For being in the drama society, volunteering on the paired reading programme with the younger kids, all of that. But that doesn’t mean I knew anything about her life. Not outside of –” She cut herself off. Maybe regretting the fact that when asked she knew only facts about this girl who had gone missing, but had nothing to say about Mary as a person that was definitive and utterly personal.
What had I expected from her, of course?
I said, “Maybe you didn’t know her. But you knew Deborah Brown.”
And she did. Didn’t have to say a word to tell me that.