Sally locked the car and went inside quickly, hurrying down the vaulted-stone corridors. The classroom was at the other side of the school – it was very old-fashioned, lined with bookshelves, stuffed with books and learning aids. Light came through the tall mullioned windows. At one of the individual desks that faced the windows, Millie sat with her head drooping forward. When she heard the door open she turned. Her face was tight, as if a hand was holding it from behind and forcing her head to move.
‘Mum.’
She came and stood at the desk. ‘Are you OK? I saw Sophie.’
‘I don’t feel well, Mum. Can you bring the car in through the back entrance and pick me up next to the sports hall?’
‘What’s wrong? You should have called.’
‘Nothing. I mean – it’s my stomach. It’s just a bit-’
‘Your stomach?’
‘It’s crampy.’
‘Your period?’
‘No – just – I don’t know. It feels a bit squirmy.’
Sally examined Millie’s face. She’d never been good at knowing when her daughter was lying. But right now she suspected that whatever was wrong with Millie it had nothing to do with her stomach. She looked as if she was hiding something. ‘Did you speak to Matron?’
She shook her head, moved her eyes from Sally’s scrutiny and stared out of the window. ‘Please, Mum, can you just get the car?’
‘Is this about Lorne? Are you upset?’
‘No.’
‘Then is it Glastonbury? Because, Millie, I can’t change my mind, darling.’
‘
Sally sighed. ‘OK. I’ll be waiting round the side in five minutes.’
She picked up the car from the street and stopped it in the courtyard that faced the modern buildings of the new sports hall. Millie came out, her school blazer draped over her shoulders, her face down, and got quickly into the car. ‘Can we go straight home?’
‘You’ll have to tell me what’s happening.’
‘Please.’ She curled into the seat and pulled her knees up. ‘Please, Mum.’
‘Either you tell me what’s going on or we’re going to the doctor’s.’
‘No, Mum, I feel better now. I just want to go home.’
Sally put the car in gear and drove to the end of the tarmac drive, stopping at the intersection. She indicated left. Millie jerked sideways in her seat, her hand shooting out to grab the steering-wheel. ‘No! Wait – wait, Mum, please wait. Don’t.’
‘What is it?’
Millie was trembling. Her face was white, but Sally knew it wasn’t pain. If she had to put a finger on it she’d have said it was fear. ‘Millie?’
‘Go right.
‘But left is the way home.’
‘We can go the back way. All my friends are out there. They’ll do the L on the forehead thing if they see me taken off by Mummy. Loser.’
‘No one’s there. They’ve gone.’
‘Can we just go the back way, Mum? Please go right.’
Sally took the car out of gear. ‘I’m sorry, Millie, but it’s left. Unless you tell me what’s going on.’
‘Oh,
‘What are you doing?’
‘There’s someone out there. In a purple jeep. I’ve got to avoid him.’
‘Who?’
‘Just someone.’
Down on the floor Millie’s face was white, her pupils dilated, She wasn’t just afraid – she was terrified. As if there was a monster out in the street. Sally eyed the phone in its holster on the dashboard and wondered who she could call. Isabelle? Steve?
‘Please, Mum! Can we go?’
Sally swallowed and put the car in gear. She inched it out over the junction and peered up and down the street. Her palms were sweating on the vinyl steering-wheel. The street was quieter now – the schoolkids had indeed gone, but, on the far side of the road, its nose facing the school gates, was parked a strange-looking purple four- wheel drive. It had bull-bars, a snorkel, and what looked like daggers embedded in the wheels.
Sally pulled the Ka out into the road.
‘Is he there?’ Millie dragged the blazer over her head and shrank further into the footwell, her hands over her head. ‘Is he? Oh, my God, I’m
Sally pulled up alongside the purple car. She let the car stop in the middle of the road, and turned woodenly to look at the man. He was mixed race, with a little pencil moustache and very shiny gelled hair. He wore a tight white T-shirt and a thick gold necklace. At first he didn’t notice her. He was watching the gates of the school. Then he sensed her presence. He turned, met her eyes and gave her a slow smile, revealing a single diamond mounted in one of his front teeth. ‘What?’ he mouthed. ‘What?’
She floored the accelerator and the little car shot down the hill, screeching, making pedestrians stop and stare.
‘
At the bottom of the hill she glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw that he hadn’t attempted to follow. She swung the car left past the big nineteenth-century church on the fork, then to the right, then left again, putting as much distance as she could between themselves and the man. She didn’t stop until she’d reached Peppercorn, way out in the deserted countryside. She got out and stood on the lawn, breathing the sulphury smell of the engine and the organic waft of cow manure and grass – scanning the valley where the line of commuters wound its sluggish way towards the motorway. When she was sure nothing had followed them she went back to the car and opened the door. Millie ventured out from under the blazer, her hair mussed and sticking out all over the place, a bleary, lost look on her face. She crawled out, limp and exhausted, her head hanging.
‘Can we go inside now?’
Sally carried all her work gear into the cottage and put it in a pile in the corner. Then she went into the bedroom, Millie following. Sally kicked off her shoes and pulled back the covers.
‘What?’
‘Get in.’
‘But it’s only five o’-’
‘Please.’
Millie obediently kicked off her shoes and crawled on to the bed. Sally checked the curtains were drawn tight, then switched off the light and got in next to her daughter, embracing her from behind, her head resting on her back. She didn’t speak. She lay there, listening to Millie breathing, her eyes on the slit of light between the curtains. She counted in her head, slowly and rhythmically moving herself through the minutes, through the silence.
It was almost a quarter of an hour before Millie spoke. ‘I’m sorry.’
Sally nodded. She was sure it was true.
‘He’s involved in drugs.’
‘Oh, God,’ she said wearily. ‘Oh, God.’
‘He sells drugs in the school, and at Faulkener’s too. He goes back and forth between the two. I don’t take them, Mum. I don’t. I tried it once with Nial and Soph. Please, please, don’t tell Isabelle – please. We hated it. It made my heart race and I thought I was going to die, but everyone at school’s done it, honestly – you’d be so shocked, Mum, at who’s done it. The prefects have, some of the ones in the hockey teams. They do it before they have a match. It’s like it’s totally normal.’
