Don't Ask (13 page)

I waited for about ten minutes, hoping we might chat about it, but she didn’t reply. That wasn’t like her. I told myself she must have been asleep.

When I next saw Jack, two days after the night of revelations, he turned up at my house, unexpectedly, with a present.

‘This is for you,’ he said, nervously, even before I’d fully opened the front door. He pushed a small package wrapped in shiny ‘Many Happy Returns’ paper into my
hands and gave me a clumsy kiss. The wrapping was clearly second hand, a leftover from someone’s birthday, because I could see faded marks from old sticky tape on one side. ‘I’m
sorry about the wrapping,’ he added, with an embarrassed grin. ‘I mean the balloons and stuff. I do know it’s not your birthday for months – I just couldn’t find any
other paper.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I mean, oh my God. I mean, thank you.’

I was surprised, in a good way. Jack had never given me a present before or, to be more accurate, he had never given me any present you can’t find on the confectionary shelves in the
newsagent (‘I was buying a Snickers bar and thought you might like a Twirl’ or ‘Here, I saved you my last Rolo’). Certainly not a gift-wrapped, ‘I’ve put some
thought into this’ present. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to open it in front of him, or save it for later. I squeezed it between my fingers and traced its outline in my palm, trying,
inconspicuously, to work out what was it was, and whether I’d like it, so I could prepare my reaction. It had hard corners, like a box, and there was something inside that rattled.

‘Go on then, open it,’ he said, with anxious impatience.

‘Yay!’ I grinned. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. Hang on . . .’

We were still standing in the hall, leaning against the radiator. I motioned towards the living room and he followed me inside. We both perched on the edge of the sofa, as I fumbled with the
wrapping paper. He’d put so much sticky tape on that it took me ages to find an opening. When I did, the paper came away in strips, revealing a blue, lidded cardboard box. Lying inside was a
silver bracelet covered in turquoise and pink sparkly stones, which were arranged in the shapes of flowers and stars.

‘Oh my God, thank you, Jack,’ I said. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

It was lovely. OK, maybe it wasn’t the colours I’d have chosen for myself – I think gold looks better on me than silver, but boys don’t tend to know about colours and
skin tones and undertones, do they? – but it was really pretty, nonetheless. Jack had obviously taken some notice of my taste, because it wasn’t too delicate, or too girly, but solid
and chunky, with a sturdy clasp that made a satisfying clicking noise when you closed it. Kerlick. And opened it. Kerlick. And closed it again.

Jack appeared relieved. His shoulders relaxed and he smiled. ‘I didn’t buy it for you just because you gave me the scarf,’ he said, which was silly, because I hadn’t
thought of that explanation until he suggested it. ‘I was planning to get you it, anyway. I saw it and I thought you’d like it, and Ruth said you would. I wanted to give you something
to show you how special you are to me.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thanks so much.’ I forced a smile. It’s not that I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t feel special, just confused and guilty. Jack put his
arms around me and I felt grateful that when you hug someone you can’t see each other’s faces. ‘Thank you again,’ I said, my mouth pressed into his back . ‘I really do
like it.’

He kissed me and I allowed him to put the bracelet on my wrist. It glittered gorgeously under the spotlights, even though the stones clashed horribly with my brown and red school uniform. Mind
you, pretty much everything clashes with that.

‘I like you a lot, Lily,’ Jack said. ‘I wanted you to know that.’

‘I like you a lot too, Jack.’

Jack’s mission completed, he went home shortly afterwards and so I didn’t have the chance to ask him any of the questions that had been collecting in my head since he’d told me
about his dad. I didn’t get the opportunity the following weekend either, and it didn’t seem right to talk about it on the phone, when we only ever had a few minutes, and there were
always other people around.

Two weeks went by and still Jack hadn’t mentioned his dad again. If I’d imagined that on the night he’d told me he had chosen to open a door and let me in to snoop around in
his past, I was dead wrong. It turned out I was the kind of visitor you invite to wait in the porch but don’t allow to come into the actual house. By not asking all my questions that night
– which would have been impossible, given that I hadn’t thought of them then – I’d unwittingly missed my chance to uncover any more details. Now the door was bolted shut.
Whenever I tried to bring up his dad or his childhood, Jack would change the subject, just like before. Each time I pressed him, he’d tell me, sweetly, that he didn’t want to talk about
it: I knew everything anyone needed to know and the matter should stay in the past where it belonged. He’d say things like, ‘It’s not who I am any more, Lily,’ or
‘It’s me and you, right now, that matter, not what happened five years ago.’ And although he never actually said he wished he hadn’t told me, I could see he was thinking it.
If we were watching TV together and one of those ‘Stop child cruelty’ adverts came on, he’d shuffle around awkwardly, not looking me in the eye, while I’d cringe inwardly
and pretend I hadn’t noticed. It was almost as uncomfortable as sitting through a movie sex scene with my parents.

It eventually dawned on me that Jack hadn’t told me about his dad for my benefit at all, even if he’d made it seem that way. Whatever he said, he hadn’t done it to bring us
closer, or because he thought I needed to know, or because it would help me to understand him. He’d done it to make himself feel better, like a bulimic throwing up when they’ve gorged
on a secret stash of cakes and sweets. After he’d purged himself of his secret, he felt ashamed and wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. I began to wonder if he’d given me the
bracelet to buy my silence. When I put it on, it felt tight and restrictive, like one of those tags that criminals have to wear. Kerlick.

The fitting of this bracelet means that you are now electronically tagged, Miss Lily Lawton, and if you ask any difficult or deeply personal questions an alarm will sound at the police
station and you will be taken directly to jail. Do you understand?

Katie said I should be satisfied that Jack been honest about his dad at last. ‘Drop it,’ she warned. ‘You know Jack’s big secret now, plus you know he
really cares for you. Stop worrying about his waste of space dad. He doesn’t. And so what if he said Alex finished with him when it was the other way round? It’s not against the law. I
don’t get what more you want from him. If you keep going on and on about it he’ll just get pissed off.’

Part of me knew she was right, but I also knew she was still sore at me for not breaking off contact with Alex and fed up with the whole business. What she really wanted was for things to go
back to the way they used to be, when it was just the two of us, fooling around and hanging out together. No boys, no complications. Sometimes, I felt I wanted that too. Life was undeniably simpler
and a lot less stressful before I met Jack and Alex.

But, try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack’s dad. I suppose it was almost becoming an obsession, although I wouldn’t have admitted that. It was certainly weird;
I’d never been particularly interested in anybody else’s parents. They don’t tend to be all that fascinating. Normal parents have three basic modes: tired, hassled or angry; and
if you try to talk to them, they don’t listen properly. You have to tolerate them and be polite to them because they come as part of the package with your friends or boyfriends. And they can
be useful for food and for lifts.

Jack’s dad was different. He was one hundred per cent a
bad
man, and that made him intriguing. I’d never known anyone truly bad before. Sure, I’d met people who did
bad things – playground bullies and people who lied and stole things from shops – and, let’s face it, I’m hardly Snow White – but I’d never knowingly met a
wicked person. I wanted to know what he looked like, whether he had an evil aura. Was he a big man? Did he have muscles and tattoos? What did his voice sound like? Was it gruff and deep? Could you
tell he was cruel just by looking in his eyes? I also wondered if any of his badness could have leaked into Jack. Even if he hadn’t directly inherited it, they’d lived together for
twelve years, which was more than long enough for some of it to have seeped in through his pores. Maybe he didn’t even realise it was there. People always tell me I’m like my dad, even
though I can’t see it.

I decided to see if I could find Jack’s dad on the internet. All I knew was that he was called Mr Mullins and that he was a teacher, so I put ‘Mr Mullins’ and
‘teacher’ into Google. It turned out there were tons of teachers called Mullins; perhaps, for some reason, it’s one of those names that influences what you do, even if you
aren’t aware of it, like being called Mr Payne and becoming a dentist. I didn’t know his first name, so I couldn’t narrow my search that way, but I did know that Jack had lived in
Milton Keynes. Was his dad still there? Had he taught at a local school? I searched again, this time adding ‘Milton Keynes’ to my keywords. Now there was only one result: a profile of a
Mr David Mullins, ‘a headteacher with over twenty years experience in the profession’ – including in Milton Keynes – from a school in Luton. Was he Jack’s dad? Above
it was a small, black and white photograph showing a balding man in glasses, with a warm smile. There was something familiar about his expression, the slight lopsidedness of his grin, that made me
certain I’d found my man. I stared at the picture for a few minutes, trying to glean something from it. But the man’s face didn’t tell me anything; it certainly didn’t
radiate evil and it wasn’t the face of a monster. His eyes didn’t follow me around the room and his teeth didn’t transform into dagger-sharp fangs. He looked average, normal,
dull, like the next old guy in a suit. He could have been anyone.

Whoever had written his profile (although I suppose he could have written it himself) thought very highly of him:

Mr David Mullins has been the headteacher at Mountview High for the past two years and has helped to cement the school’s reputation for academic and sporting
excellence. Before taking up this position, he enjoyed an illustrious career as a teacher and as a deputy head at schools in Milton Keynes and throughout Buckinghamshire. Prior to becoming a
teacher, he studied chemistry at Manchester University and he retains a keen interest in the subject. In 2008, he initiated the school’s ‘Young Chemist’ award for children who
have shown an aptitude for science. He lives in Luton with his wife and young child . . .

I gasped. His what? His wife and young child? Did Jack even know his dad had married again? Was he aware he had a half brother or sister he’d never met? Did he know that
his dad lived in Luton? And if he didn’t know all this, should I tell him? I toyed with this possibility for a few minutes. If I did, Jack would find out I’d been secretly investigating
his dad, but there’s no law against Googling someone. I’d be doing him a favour, wouldn’t I? It could help him to come to terms with everything. Surely, if his dad had a whole new
life, he wouldn’t stalk Jack’s family any more. Maybe he’d changed for the better.

But what if he hadn’t? What if he hit his new wife too? My heart began to pound. Did anybody know what he was really like? Shouldn’t someone report him? I imagined a classroom of
Year Sevens chanting in unison, ‘Good morning, Mr Mullins’, unaware that after breakfast that morning he’d punched his wife in the stomach, and it made me shiver.

There was an email address on the profile, for people who wanted to contact the school, and I mulled over the idea of writing an anonymous email to Mr Mullins, telling him I knew his secret and
that he was being watched. But then I figured, if he’s so darn good at science he’s probably good on the internet too, and he would find a way of tracing me, and that might put Jack and
his mum in danger. So I thought better of it.

That night, for the first time in years, I dreamed that the Bogeyman was hiding under my bed. He was hairy and green, with a slightly lopsided grin.