You Don't Know Me (12 page)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Sasha Bayley

F
or a long time, we just stare at each other. Me and the guitarist from Call of Duty, with his tousled hair hidden under a beanie. His name's Dan, I think. Somebody told me. One of the girls from the band's fan club, probably. They said his eyes were the colour of stormy seas, or something like that. It may be true. They're grey, or blue, and troubled. But that's understandable, because HE'S JUST MADE ME SMASH UP MY FOUR-HUNDRED-POUND PHONE.

It's in smithereens, with endless train carriages still trundling over it. I bet the driver didn't even see it happen.

‘I can't believe you just did that! Look what you made me do!' I pant, when I get my breath back enough to talk.

‘Are you OK?' he asks, pulling back from me. ‘I mean, you said you were OK, but I thought you were going to . . .'

He's wearing an old green jumper under a muddy shooting jacket. Now that I look closely, I realise that he has a rifle bag over his shoulder. He must have been going out shooting. It's always dangerous to attack a boy with a gun, of course, but I am so incandescently angry that I could punch him or slap him or pummel him. I could throw something at him, if I still had anything to throw.

‘OK? Of
course
I'm not OK. You made me drop my phone . . . down there.'

I'm so furious I can hardly explain myself. Instead I lean forward and point under the disappearing train. Dan grabs me again and I shake him off.

‘How
could
you?'

‘I'm sorry!' He looks white and shocked too. ‘I just had to do something! It looked like you were going to . . .'

‘Well, I wasn't.'

He steps back from me again, still breathing hard.

‘Right. OK. But maybe it's for the best. Whatever you were looking at on your phone . . .' He stops and gazes out down the track, taking a deep breath before continuing. ‘It looked like it was hurting you.'

There's a pause, while I take in the total
ridiculousness
of what he just said.

‘
Hurting me?
That phone's my lifeline. Don't you understand? It's the only thing I have that tells me
anything
. How am I going to tell my mum where I am? How am I going to find out what people are saying about
me? How can I tell my dad you've just made me smash up the last thing he ever gave me? He's in
Vegas
, by the way. I can't exactly shout.'

I
am
shouting, though – at Dan. I'm getting hoarse with it, because it feels like I haven't used my voice for so long. He looks as if I've just slapped him.

‘Your dad? I'm sorry.'

‘It's no good saying you're sorry. You hardly know me and you've just smashed up my life. If people need to call me . . . If someone needs to call me . . .'

If Rose ever decides to call me, how can she do it now?

I turn on my heel and start heading away from the bridge, up the track that leads towards Mr O'Connell's fields. Dan comes after me, still hangdog apologetic, which is good, because I can keep telling him off. It's such a relief to let off steam after so many days of hardly talking. And how could he
do
that? My tone is as scathing as I can make it.

‘I hardly ever see my dad and that's the first thing he's given me since a Barbie doll.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘It was the latest version. It had HD video and voice commands and everything.'

‘I said I'm sorry.'

‘You're sorry, but I bet you can just go out and get yourself another phone whenever you want to. I have to
earn
my money.'

He falls into step beside me. He has long legs, like mine. And he's athletic. When he walks fast, his cheeks get a ruddy glow. I have to admit it suits him. For an unprovoked iPhone-smasher, he's not bad looking at all.

‘Oh, God, and it wasn't insured,' I remember. ‘I bet I
have to keep paying that stupid contract. Look, don't let me keep you.' I stop and turn to him. ‘I'm sure you need to go and . . . shoot something.'

‘Oh, that.' He looks at the bag on his shoulder, almost as if he's forgotten it's there. ‘It's not a gun, actually. It's a telescope. I lent it to a friend. I just use my dad's old gun bag for . . . carrying.'

We've reached the end of the stony track and from now on it's a question of climbing stiles and tramping through muddy fields. Dan clearly doesn't know where I'm going, and has no reason to come with me any further. He sighs.

‘I didn't mean to . . . Look, I didn't know about your dad. Or your contract. I didn't really think. Promise me you'll look after yourself?'

I stick my chin out and glare at him again. ‘I always do.'

He doesn't seem so sure. Even so, he turns away, with his telescope in its bag knocking gently against his shoulder, and doesn't look back. I watch him go.

Once he is halfway down the hill, I pause and instinctively feel for the smooth lines of my phone case in my pocket. My muscles seem to move faster than my brain, which has to remind them it won't be there. No way of telling Mum where I've got to. No way of finding out what's happening with the numbers, or if the crazy stalker is still watching me. I can't plug my earbuds back in and listen to music, either. I have to put up with the quiet of the landscape: wildlife in the hedgerows, a tractor at work in a far-off field, and another approaching train, travelling in the opposite direction.

In the peace of the countryside, it seems harder to
believe that those messages really happened. Do thousands of people really want me to die?

I mean, really – I made one stupid mistake. I tried to put it right. I can't help it if the TV cameras were there for that one bit and not for all the others.

It was never me who called Rose fat. Never, ever me. I didn't care what size she was. I still don't. I was only uncomfortable with her being in the band because she didn't want to dance and she was . . . different. She was totally different! Surely everyone can see that now: more talented, more dedicated, more unique. I have nice legs, apparently, but she has a voice and a deep, poetic soul, and an extraordinary talent for the piano, and a whole career ahead of her. I always suspected it. I always encouraged it, as much as I could.

Actually, it's good to stride through the fields and think, really think.

There's this Sasha Bayley, and the one everyone else thinks they know. This Sasha Bayley is
not
a freak or a witch, and she will make it through somehow. I don't know how, but somehow. Mum and I survived when Dad left us and our world fell apart. I can survive being hated by strangers. And even, perhaps, by Nina Pearson. As long as I can stay alive, of course.

That last text still haunts me. Being stalked takes things to a whole new level, but I will cope with that too, somehow. I'm angry now, as well as frightened. The anger helps.

The walk home seems strange. I can't remember the last time I wasn't listening to music, or a podcast, or at least checking my mail as I trudged along. This time, in the near silence of farm machinery and birdsong, I can
feel a lyric forming in my head. It's about railway lines and battle lines and lines in newspapers. I feel as if I'm fighting a war. The song might be called ‘Between the Lines'. Its images shimmer around me and gradually form themselves into words and a tune.

I'm still humming it to myself as I head for home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Don't Know Me: Part 1

W
hen I get in, Mum's busy doing accounts at the kitchen table. She smiles with relief when I walk through the door.

‘Sasha, darling. I was worried about you. You're all right, aren't you? You'd tell me if you weren't?'

‘Of course.'

Of course I wouldn't. What's the point of explaining if there's nothing the other person can do? I mean, she can't exactly find out who's stalking me, or give me twenty-four-hour protection. Knowing she's there is good, though. I kiss her forehead through her frizzy, grey-streaked
fringe and make us both a mug of tea.

When mine's ready, I take it up to my room. There's something I need to do. It's funny: when Rose was here, she was the songwriter so I never bothered, apart from ‘Sunglasses'. Now, these new lyrics seem to be pouring out of me. They're probably all rubbish, but I still feel the need to get them down. I dig out an old notebook that Rose gave me ages ago and I never used. As soon as I find a pencil sharp enough to write with, the lyrics flow onto the page. And the next page. And the next.

Now I need to see if I can capture the tunes that come with them. I wish I was better at playing guitar.

The ‘teach yourself' book is hiding behind two unwashed mugs at the top of my bookcase. I reach up and bring it out. Rose has always had a guitar teacher, but John Lennon learned this way, she told me. So did other guitar greats like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. And Rose's spare guitar – she named it Molly – is right there in the corner, asking to be used.

By the time Mum calls me to lay the table for supper, I've just about mastered two chords: A and C. Sort of. Given that the guitar is badly out of tune. I still have a lot to learn. My hands are aching, but it's a good ache. It reminds me of when Dad tried to teach me in Vegas. The pads of my fingers feel numb from holding down the strings and strumming them. I'd forgotten that guitar playing was such hard physical work.

After supper, I add D major to my repertoire. Instantly, it unlocks one of the tunes in my head, and I can start to describe it with my fingers. It's amazing what you can do with three simple chords. Perhaps, looking back, I was giving Rose more credit than she deserved. Or maybe not.
OK, so she knows an awful lot more than three chords. This morning, Ivan Jenks announced that she'll be recording ‘Breathless' for release as soon as possible.

Anyway, it's bedtime and I've written half a song. I may have lost my phone because of some IDIOT, but it hasn't been an entirely wasted day.

For the first time in weeks, I sleep straight through, without nightmares, and wake up feeling better. From the amount of sunlight in the room, I'd say it was mid-morning. One day left until I have to face everyone at school again.

I get up and check over the lyrics I wrote last night, before assessing the state of my bedroom. As always, it looks as though there has recently been a minor explosion in the vicinity. It's a constant work in progress, my bedroom: something I mean to tidy, and turn into a ‘calm, relaxing sanctuary', but which ends up as a snapshot of my messy life.

I tackle it bit by bit. Slowly it becomes less of a disaster scene: the washing machine is on full-time; my wardrobe re-emerges from under its curtain of tops and dresses, and now contains only clothes that still fit me; the clean, white surface of my desk reappears from under the mass of papers. Eventually my carpet is empty except for a pile of clothes to get rid of, and Rose's two cardigans, which I really must return. I slip the one with the coral bead edging on again.

At school the next morning there are several men with cameras outside the gates, trying to take pictures. They call out my name, but I ignore them, hiding my head
under the biggest hat I could find in the porch this morning. It's good to be surrounded by people. I feel safer here, even though I still don't know what to expect from my friends.

Nell gives me a brief smile in the locker rooms, but Jodie hurries her away. The rest of the day is pretty bad, but not quite as horrific as singing to millions of people on live TV when you've just betrayed your best friend, or being told that somebody wants to kill you. About eighty per cent as horrific, I'd say.

One thing I realise: I used to be quite popular. I never really knew. But people used to include me in conver -sations, and call me over if something interesting was happening. Now they always seem to be whispering, and the whispering stops whenever I come by. The people I thought were my friends seem to be busy whenever I approach, while others that I hardly know grab me to have their picture taken with me, grinning and pointing, so it can be a trophy on their Interface page. Every single teacher looks at me with pity or disgust.

When I get back to my locker at home time, someone has scratched DROPTHEFATGIRL into its surface. The pointed letters, inscribed with something sharp, set my heart racing. All the way home on the bus, I keep checking behind me to see if anyone's following me.

In the evening, after homework, I check on Rose online. If I can't talk to her, this will have to do. Besides, she is everywhere – on every chat show and news clip, with Linus or Roxanne or Sebastian – talking about her win. She has been for weeks; I wonder how much sleep she's had.

‘And how does it
feel
to be a total internet phenomenon?' they ask her in a news clip. ‘I think your song's got sixty-five million views now. What's that like?'

‘Unreal,' Rose says. ‘I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who's supported me.'

‘I bet you would. It's a beautiful song. And tell me, you've had some people being pretty mean about . . . your figure. But you've shown that it's possible to rise above all that. So, are you comfortable with your body image now?'

There's a long pause, and I watch Rose silently squirming at being asked the question. But she avoids rolling her eyes, takes a deep breath and smiles graciously.

‘I don't think anyone is totally comfortable with their image,' she says. ‘But I'm OK with myself. All I ever wanted to do was write songs.'

‘Isn't she fabulous?' Linus chips in from beside her, beaming. ‘Isn't she wonderful? She's a real advert for the non-typical girl. She shows there's hope for us all.'

He laughs and pats his own impressive stomach. But Rose
is
a typical girl, I think angrily. Just not typical of singers and people on TV. It's sad to watch her smile fade slightly while everyone else in the studio laughs along with Linus, but I wonder how many people notice. Soon she's fixed her grin back on and she's busy talking about how amazing it was to meet Jessie J backstage.

I still miss her. I'm wearing her cardigan now. Across the room Molly, her guitar, is propped up against the window, where I left it last night. If people knew that Sasha Bayley, official #skinnycow, was looking after Rose's spare guitar for her, what on earth would they think?

The thought makes me sad, then it makes me giggle. It
gives me the idea for a new song. I grab my notebook and start writing again.

Then I try a few experimental chords, to match the tune in my head. From now on, this feels like the closest I will ever get to Rose.

I'm back at my computer a few days later, looking at pictures of her doing a fashion shoot for an entertainment magazine, when an email arrives in my inbox. It has the subject, ‘Rose Ireland research'. So many people want stories about her. Is there anything left that they don't know – apart from how I really feel about her, of course? Warily, I open it.

Hi Sasha. I'm doing a background piece on Rose Ireland and her stunning rise to fame. I noticed Andy Grey talking about the record-breaking votes you got with your band in the early stages of Killer Act. I've looked at these more closely and they intrigue me. Don't they look unusually good to you? Is there something you'd like to talk to me about? I can help you tell your side of the story. It's time to set the record straight. You can contact me using the details below. Fiona Kennedy.

I read it over and over.

What kind of ‘background piece'? It doesn't sound very flattering to Rose.

. . . unusually good . . .

What does Fiona Kennedy mean by ‘unusually good'? Of course those votes were unusually good. We couldn't believe it at the time. It was the weirdest experience, from the first time we saw ‘24 votes', to when they went into the thousands. We were just lucky, weren't we?

But staring at Fiona's words, I suddenly wonder. For a girl band no one had heard of, those votes were
insane
. Looking back, I can see why the journalist's intrigued. Honestly, can anything
else
horrible come out of this story for me?

Not just for me. For
us.

Of course, if there was something wrong about the votes, I wouldn't be the only one to suffer. I've given up trying to contact Rose, but Jodie and Nell should know about this too. Whether we like it or not, we're all in this together.

With a sinking heart, I go downstairs to call Jodie's number. I know she doesn't want to talk to me, but I don't think she'd forgive me if I didn't warn her.

To my surprise, when I call, she answers. I'm so used to being ignored by Rose now that I've come to expect it.

‘Hi. Yes?'

Cold, clipped Jodie. I hate it, but at least she's listening.

‘Look, something's happened. There's this journalist who thinks she's found something to do with our votes. We need to talk.' I tell her about Fiona Kennedy and her suspicions. ‘Don't you think something was strange?'

‘Not really,' Jodie says. ‘The Head had us as her
ringtone, remember?'

‘Yes, but . . .'

‘Ignore her. That's what I do. Ignore them all. Our lives are ruined anyway. Don't let her make it any worse.'

The accusation in her voice hurts as much as if she'd smacked me with a ruler. Sometimes I wish she wasn't such a drama queen.

‘They're not
ruined
,' I say, trying to summon up the weird feeling of hope and courage I felt coming back from Crakey Hill, after that boy
smashed up my phone
. But right now, it's hard to recapture.

‘Anyway, see you tomorrow,' she says gruffly, over the increasingly loud noise of heavy metal in the background. ‘Got to go now. My brother's being an idiot.
Turn it down
, Sam! Elliot! I can't hear myself think.'

Elliot. Elliot Harrison. The weird computer geek who's best friends with Jodie's brother. The guy who put our video online. What else did he do?