The Drowning (10 page)

That night Jenna took the diary from her desk and huddled into bed with it.

I’ve got to read the rest of this . . .

It’s like it’s burning into my brain.

Wednesday

The twins want me to steal from Dad’s till in the café. They said it would be easy. Do it when he’s not looking. I said, NO WAY. There’s no way I’ll let you turn me into a thief. They just laughed. They said if I didn’t they would tell me to do something even worse. That I had one week to do it and then it would be something worse.

Friday

I don’t want to go to school. I told Mum I felt sick. I stayed in bed. I didn’t eat anything all day. I played with Klunk and Splat. I set up the train in a different way. I tried not to think of the song, but it goes round in my head. Bye bye baby try, You must do it, Do or die. Over and over in my head.

Monday

They wanted to know why I hadn’t been to school for a week. They said they wanted to welcome me back. They said there was a note stuck on the door of my locker, but I wasn’t to read it until I got home. After school I waited until they had left. Then I read it. It was gross. I tore it up and stuffed it down a drain in the road.

Wednesday

The twins caught me on the way home. They said I had one more day to get the money. I said, Go away or I’ll tell Teacher. They just laughed. They said if I told him they would say I was making the whole thing up.

Thursday

After school they followed me again. They said they’ve got friends in their street who will come and beat me up. I was really scared. More than before. I went into the café. I hung around the till, but there were too many people. Mum said, Go and have some tea. I went into the hall and found her bag. Her purse had a lot of money in it. I took out one of the notes. I didn’t look at it. I didn’t know how much it was. I just shoved it into my pocket. Then I rushed upstairs to my room. I felt gross. Like dirty and mean. I’m sure Mum will notice. What will I say if she does?

Friday

On the way home, I gave the note to the twins. P sneered and said, Only £20! This isn’t enough! This is peanuts and you are a monkey! I started to shout, It’s more than enough. I don’t know why I did it. There won’t be any more. I won’t do it again. No way.

Saturday

Only one more week of school and then it will be the end of term. I’ll come home and it will be freedom! I can hardly wait. I hope I don’t see the twins in the holidays, not even on the other side of the street. I never want to see them again.

Jenna closed the diary.

There were no further entries, there was nothing more to read.

Anyway, she had seen quite enough.

She switched off her bedside lamp and lay staring into the darkness.

Mum thought
I’d
taken that money . . . It never even occurred to her it might have been Benjie. I remember now . . . He disappeared from the table pretty fast . . .

I can’t show anyone the diary. I’ve got to keep it private, for Benjie’s sake.

But there’s one person I
could
talk to. Eva Simons, the Head at Benjie’s school. Bet she’d like to know what’s been going on.

Those twins . . . Bastards . . . Pair of bullying thugs. Expect they were bigger and older than Benjie.

I’d bloody well like to know who the hell they are.

Tamsyn put down her cup.

“That was delicious, Elwyn. You still make the best breakfast in the world.” She glanced across the table. “Doesn’t he, Lydia? Have you ever tasted bacon fried to such perfection?”

Mum pushed her chair aside and stood up. “I’ll just go and finish packing.”

The room fell into thick silence as she left.

Dad started humming. Then he began to clear the plates.

“You’re a diamond to do this for me, Tammy. Lydia seems really together this morning. Cheerful, spick and span. She hasn’t been downstairs this early since—”

“I’ll do my best with her, for your sake and for Jenna’s.” Tamsyn stared pointedly at her brother. “While Lydia’s away,you will look after my one and only niece for me, won’t you, Elwyn?”

Dad beamed at Jenna. “She’s my one and only daughter, don’t forget. The apple of my eye. And we make the most wonderful team now, don’t we, Jenn?”

Jenna pushed her plate away.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “We make a
wonderful
team.”

After they’d closed the tea room and cleared up at the end of the day, Dad slumped at one of the tables.

“It feels really odd without Mum.”

Jenna stood behind him, flung an arm across his shoulder.

“We’ve never been apart in all these years.” He reached up and covered her hand with his. “You know we met here, don’t you? She was on holiday—”

“Yes, Dad. You’ve told me the—”

“From London. Came in for a cream tea. We started chatting. Everyone else had gone. We sat over there in the corner, talking our heads off. Hester, old friend of mine – we were at school together – she was helping me, but she had to leave early. Lydia offered to clear the tables. I thought she was fantastic, so confident and polished and organised. We were a team from the start.”

“Yes, Dad, I know.”

He clutched her hand more tightly. “She will come back to me, won’t she, Jenn? She won’t suddenly decide she’s had enough of all this . . . enough of me?”

Jenna slid her hand away. She sat opposite Dad and looked him in the eyes.

“I can’t answer that.”

“No, sorry, don’t suppose you can.” He made a brave effort at a smile. “But I’ll always have my Jenn.”

“Course you will.” Jenna pulled off her apron and smoothed her hair. “Though not for the next hour . . . It’s a bit urgent. There’s someone I need to see.”

“Oh? And who might that be?”

“Just a friend,” Jenna said.

Jenna hauled herself up the steep hill to Benjie’s school.

I thought if I did this walk – as I used to do when I was younger, as Benjie did right up until his death – I’d feel closer to him somehow, be able to imagine more clearly what he had to go through.

In her head, the bullying twins were skulking heavy-weight boys with short hair gelled into aggressive spikes and dark threatening eyes. They looked so alike that even their parents found it hard to tell them apart. At school they often used each other’s names to make their classmates snigger behind the teacher’s back. One of them carried a surfboard as if he intended to smash someone’s head with it; the other held a £20 note which he stuffed guiltily into his pocket.

Jenna shivered.

It was late August and the school was still closed for the last week of the summer holidays. No cars stood in the driveway. She remembered her own years there. Now there was nobody singing Cornish songs in the hall, fiddling with spreadsheets on their computers, drawing maps, flinging their bodies into indoor aerobics, learning about a balanced diet, whispering in the library, gossiping behind the bikesheds, jostling for lunch-time strawberry cheesecake, pushing out of the gates.

Or chanting songs in the playground:

“Bye, bye, baby, try,

You must do it,

Do or die.”

She stood looking down over the cliffs towards the beach that had claimed her brother’s life, trying to decide what to do. Bury her head in the same sand? Pretend she’d never found the diary?

I can’t do that. I feel as if I was meant to find it, that I’m supposed to be doing something about it.

If I don’t, who on earth will?

She held on to her bag more tightly. In it lay the diary, as if to give her strength.

I’m going to tackle the Head. She needs to know what’s been going on.

The Head lived on Ocean View Terrace,in a large,double-fronted house perched high on the cliffs above Porthmeor Beach, five minutes from the school.

Jenna remembered walking there the day after Benjie’s death, her feet dragging with dread; how the Head had already heard the news; how she had comforted Jenna and offered any help she could.

It felt strange to be standing on this doorstep again, as if her previous visit had happened years ago, in a different life. She forced herself to ring the bell. The door opened almost immediately: someone must have spotted her from a window.

“Jenna Pascoe? What a surprise . . .”

“Mrs Simons—”

The Head wore a simple long cotton shift. Her arms and face were deeply tanned, her eyes sparkled cornflower blue. Jenna instantly felt dull and pasty, as if she’d spent the entire summer shut in a windowless room.

“Do call me Eva . . . Won’t you come in? . . . Please . . . Take a seat.”

In the large, airy front room, Jenna sank into a plump leather sofa.

I’d better soften all this with a bit of gratitude.

“You were so kind to me when Benjie died. I wanted to say thank you. I was in such a state at the time, I didn’t manage to say it properly.”

“I’m sure you did . . . You must miss him terribly.”

“Yes.”

Jenna’s heart sank. She longed to tell Eva just how much she missed having Benjie around, how she’d give anything to be able to replay that fatal afternoon. They could have caught one of his beloved trains from St Ives to Penzance, or gone to the cinema to see the latest blockbuster – anywhere, anything but that beach.

She sat frozen, unable to find the words.

Eva filled the silence. “Everyone liked him, you know. I’ve only been Head at the school for a year – God, how it’s flown – but I can tell pretty quickly how each class is panning out. There weren’t many problems in Benjie’s.”

Jenna took a deep breath. She said carefully, “I think that’s where you’re wrong.”

Eva gave a start, as if she’d pricked her finger on a rose’s thorn. “Am I?”

“It’s why I’ve come to see you.” Jenna bit her lip. “You have twins at your school.”

“Yes . . . Actually, we have
three
pairs of twins—”

“Well, one pair were gang leaders, intent on bullying Benjie. They made him steal money and give it to them.”

“How do you—”

Rapidly, as if the words in her mouth were on fire, Jenna described how she’d found the diary. “Here, read it for yourself.” She pushed it into Eva’s hands.

Eva caught her breath. “Thanks, but I don’t need to.” She stared down at the forlorn red notebook on her lap. “Did Benjie
name
the twins?”

“No. One of them has a name beginning with P. That’s all I know. If he
had
named them, I’d have gone to find them without involving you.”

“Why? Are you out for revenge?”

“Yes.” Jenna flushed. “No . . . I don’t know, I haven’t thought it out. I
don’t
know who they are, so I’m asking if you do.”

“I certainly do not. And even if I did,I couldn’t possibly give you their names.”

“I see. Then I’ll have to find out who taught Benjie’s class—”

Eva said quickly, “Mr Robinson. He’s taken early retirement and moved away from Cornwall. A new teacher replaces him next week. Benjie’s class have also left, Jenna. They’ve all moved on to different schools. Everything’s changed.”

“It
can’t
have.”

“Look,let’s take a rain check. After the accident,on the Monday of the last week of term, I told the school in assembly what had happened. Some of the children had already heard. Everyone was devastated. Mr Robinson spoke to Benjie’s class. The police also came to question them. Afterwards, I went to see your father at the Cockleshell—”

“I know you did.”

“I told him. None of the children had been on Porthmeor Beach that afternoon.”

“Some of them must have been lying. I want to talk to them.”

Eva said quietly, “That’s quite impossible.”

Jenna leapt to her feet. “This is outrageous. There must be
someone
who knows what had been going on. Benjie said the gang made his life a misery. One week he even refused to go to school at all because he was too scared to face them.”

“But—” Eva frowned, trying to remember – “we had a note from your mother saying that Benjie probably had a touch of flu.”

“You mean you won’t do anything?”

“Look, Jenna. We take bullying very seriously. I’ve seen how children can be wrecked by it. But I’m only responsible for them
while they’re in my care.
I can’t watch over them every minute of their lives, now can I?”