13 Minutes (6 page)

‘Are you okay, though?’ Hayley asked.

The question was heavier than it needed to be and their smiles were suddenly gone. I could see beneath their veneer for a moment – because veneer is what we three do
so
well – to the worry underneath. We were in different territory – uncharted waters. I nearly died. I
did
die and I don’t remember why. It changes everything.

I said, ‘Yeah.’ My voice isn’t quite such a growl any more but I still sound as if I’ve had the worst tonsillitis ever. I said I just wanted to get out of here and Hayley said she didn’t blame me because the whole place smells like old people.

It does and we all laughed at that – Hayley’s not often funny, but when she is it’s dry and on the money – and the weird tension faded. Things have changed but our old camaraderie is like me: it doesn’t die easily.

Jenny gave me a copy of
The Crucible
from her bag. She’d had to get it from Mr Jones. She admitted she’d looked for my copy when they found my iPod and other stuff to bring me but couldn’t find it. She flushed slightly as she said that. I wondered how much rummaging through my stuff they really did.
How many drawers did you two check out? All of them? The boxes under my bed?

The copy she handed me was battered and worn but I liked the feel of the paper. Apparently the auditions are on Friday now. They made Mr Jones put them back so I could take part. ‘You’ll make a great Abigail,’ Jenny said. Jenny was really thinking that
she’d
make a great Abigail but she’ll never say it. She wouldn’t before and she definitely won’t now. Even if she was offered the part I bet she’d persuade Mr Jones to give it to me. Jenny is such a
pleaser
. Most of the time, anyway. And the thing is, she probably will get offered it. I’m good – I’m way better than Mr Jones gives me credit for – but Jenny shines on a stage. She doesn’t realise it, though. Not properly. She is sort of sweet at heart, I guess. In her own way. We may be quite different, we three best friends, but we all love Drama, in life and on stage. We all love the school plays. It’s where we rule.

‘Maybe he’ll give James Ensor the part of John Proctor,’ Hayley joked. We laughed at that. I went on two dates with James in the summer after drunkenly kissing him at a party. The hottest boy in school, or so they say. I thought he had a tongue like a wet fish and clumsy hands that shook too much. It was never going any further and James has mooned around after me ever since. I’ve never told Hayley or Jenny – even we have our secrets – but I don’t really understand the sex thing. I giggle and squeal along but I must be the only girl in school who pretends things have gone further than they really have. The idea of it leaves me cold. Maybe I belong in that river in some ways. Maybe I should be Elizabeth Proctor, not Abigail. But that wouldn’t be very
Barbie
-like of me, as they call us at school, and I
am
the Barbies.

I said that maybe Mr Jones would play the role himself and that I couldn’t imagine a teenager taking it on, not even James. It needs rough skin and hands. I looked at my friends then. They were both thinking the same – an unbidden thought of Mr Jones naked and doing
it
, passion made somehow more powerful by the unlawfulness. Abigail and John Proctor all mixed up with the whole school’s crush on the Drama teacher. I could almost feel the temperature rising in the room.

‘But I hope not,’ I said, in the end. ‘That would be weird. And a bit disgusting. I mean, fucking someone that age. Even just acting it.’ I made a vom face. ‘Creepy.’ They made suitably appalled sounds – of course they did – but they looked guilty. (Sometimes they are so predictable.) I felt a strange warmth for them, though. Maybe I shouldn’t play with them so much.

‘What about that person who texted you?’ It was Jenny this time, bringing the conversation back to my story – my
event
– to pick over the bones of it. ‘The policewoman asked us about the number but we didn’t know it.’ She was trying to sound casual but I didn’t buy it. I told her I didn’t know it either and that it must have just been a wrong number and nothing to do with what happened to me.

‘She asked Becca, too,’ Hayley said. She was flicking through the pages of the play but her eyes looked up from the shield of her poker-straight hair and I noticed how perfectly arched her eyebrows were. I need to get mine done again. ‘Like Becca would know.’

‘She was here.’ I said it quietly. ‘She read to me when I was unconscious.’

‘Could you hear her?’ Jenny asked. She doesn’t care about Becca. She doesn’t share the betrayal Hayley and I do. She was never Becca’s friend. ‘That would be weird.’

‘I don’t know,’ I told her. I say: ‘Maybe a little bit like in a dream.’ I don’t even know if that’s true, but it’s what they wanted to hear.

‘What about . . .’ Jenny leaned in ‘. . . when you were . . . you know . . .’

‘Dead?’ I finished.

Hayley was grossed out by that. Hayley hates death. We all do now we’re realising it will happen to us one day – although I may have reached that moment somewhat faster than my friends. We hate it and are fascinated by it, but Hayley has a real terror of it. She’s really grasped it, I think. Under her perfection she’s well aware of the fragility of her flesh. I’ve seen her worry over a freckle when she thinks no one is looking. Did someone in her family die when she was young? I don’t remember. Maybe. Perhaps it was something she didn’t talk about, but which stopped her swinging in trees and climbing walls and scaffolding – something more than just the advent of her boobs.

‘Well, it’s true.’ I smiled, but all I could think about was the blackness and the overwhelming enormity of my fear in that memory of trying to reach the branches. Like the darkness was waiting for me. Like it was laughing at me. It makes my breath catch a bit in my throat. Not that I can let it show. I want to get out of here in the next few days. I have to. I must stay
normal
. I told them I can’t remember anything. Judging from Hayley’s face, I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one for her many fears. Maybe she wanted stories of bright lights and tunnels and angels.

When the nurse came to say that Hayley’s mother had arrived to take them home, I wondered for a minute how she knew which of my friends was which and then remembered that they spent the weekend crying around my bed. It’s strange to have been here but not here for that. It still makes me shiver, despite the warmth. It was like they’d attended my wake and I was some kind of vampire risen from the dead.

My friends squealed their disappointment but the nurse told them I needed to rest (I’m so bored of resting) and looked at me with such warmth it was as if she loved me. She must be a good nurse. ‘They’ll be round with your dinner soon,’ she told me and then spied the crisps and chocolate. ‘If you still have room after all that.’ She’s a large woman, comfortable with her fat. I doubt she’s ever eaten just one piece of chocolate from a bar and thrown the rest away. Did she ever feel the pressure of perfection? Yes, I wanted to eat chocolate. Someone like her would eat it without a second thought. I almost envied that.

Hayley and Jenny hugged me and we three became a tangle of hair and coats and hot breath. Lean arms were the tightest on me and I knew that was Hayley. When they pulled away, we were all damp with condensation.

‘Text us,’ Hayley said. She looked sad. She paused for a moment. And then she said, ‘We do love you, Tasha. You scared the shit out of us.’

Jenny nodded. ‘Hurry back to school. We miss you.’

It’s only been one day. I wonder quite how much they could have missed me when no doubt all they’d done was talk about me the whole time. I know it’s a bitter thought. I should be happy we’re friends again. It’s what I want, after all. Things have been a bit
creased
between us recently.

‘I’ve missed you, too,’ I said. The past tense slipped out but they didn’t notice it. I
have
missed them, in my own way. They’ve been my best friends.

Maybe things will be different now.

Nine

18.20

Jenny

That was 2 weird. Don’t u think?

18.21

Hayley

U really txting me from

the back seat? ;-)

18.22

Jenny

Want 2 talk about it. Grrrr to ur mum. And what is this shit music?

18.23

Hayley

90s crap.

18.24

Hayley

Yeah it was weird. She really

doesn’t remember.

18.24

Jenny

U think she will? Im scared.

18.24

Hayley

Me 2. I’ll call you l8r.

18.25

Jenny

I wish she’d died.

18.25

Hayley

DELETE! We’ll be ok.

18.25

Jenny

Delete thread or just that?

18.26

Hayley

Thread.

18.26

Jenny

This shit is so crazy.

18.26

Hayley

Don’t worry. Now delete.

Ten

Aiden rolled joints faster and smoother than anyone Becca knew. His joints, Becca concluded as she sucked in deep and watched the paper burn orange-red, small grass seeds popping inside, were goddamn awesome. Three, five or seven Rizlas, they were always even, a perfect balance of weed and tobacco, and you never had to tug too hard nor did you ever get a mouthful of shit because the roach and paper were too loose.

She giggled and coughed as the buzz hit, warming her face which still stung from the cold outside even though the room was roasting. Aiden’s mum did not skimp on the heating. And long may she live for that alone. That and the pizza she’d bought for them.

‘Good shit?’ Aiden said.

Becca was lying in the crook of his arm looking up at the ceiling. ‘Good shit,’ she said and grinned. ‘Now feed me pizza.’

He dragged a heavy slice out of the box, holding it over her head. She reached up for it and he held it just out of her reach.

‘Swap.’

She waved the joint at him and then hauled herself up, letting her head fuzz, smiling at him as she took a huge bite of the Hawaiian, cheese stretching out in a long thread until it broke and landed wetly on her chin.

‘Sexy.’

She shrugged. ‘I’m not a Barbie. What do I care?’

‘A Barbie?’ Aiden blew a lungful of sweet smoke into her face, and she breathed it in while pulling away the offending food.

‘You know, like Natasha and her gang. They never eat. They probably
purge
. How fucking tragic.’

‘I think you’re an amnesiac bulimic,’ Aiden said, thoughtfully. He grinned. ‘You binge and then forget to throw up afterwards.’

‘Arsehole!’ The word had less potency spluttered around a mouthful of pineapple and cheese. She finished the slice and then took the joint back from him.

‘Anyway, why are you even talking about them? You never do. Why do you care? Natasha’s fine. All this shit will blow over.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I guess it’s just brought it all back. What bitches they were to me.’
More than that
, she wanted to say.
It’s brought back how much I wanted to keep them. How I would have let them be bitches to me forever if I could have stayed in the circle
.
I was such a loser.
Some humiliations, however, you had to keep to yourself if you wanted to keep your boyfriend. No one needed to know what a twat she could be, least of all Aiden.

‘Jamie went up to see her,’ Aiden said, ‘but she was too tired, apparently. I think it made him feel like a bit of an idiot. He doesn’t do people at the best of times.’ She offered him the joint back but he shook his head. ‘You finish that. I’ve got to play guitar in a bit.’

It was the only thing that irritated Becca about Aiden working with Jamie McMahon – they recorded at night from seven or eight through to midnight, or even later if they were close to a deadline. It meant that sometimes she barely saw Aiden at all for days, whereas if they worked during the day like normal people his evenings would be free.

‘I’d want to see him if he’d saved me,’ Aiden continued. ‘To say thank you if nothing else.’

‘She didn’t text Hayley back, either. Maybe she’s not as well as they think. When I was reading to her in the hospital she was so still. It was hard to believe she wasn’t dying. Or dead or whatever. Maybe you can’t just bounce back from that stuff?’ Why was she suddenly defending Natasha? How hard did old habits die?

‘Still odd. And very Natasha not to give a shit that he’d gone all that way to see her. She could have managed five minutes.’

‘True,’ Becca said. ‘Her mum rang mine. Apparently she doesn’t remember very much. Like, nothing from that whole day.’