Sally could have stayed at home if she'd asked. Her mother wouldn't have minded and had almost suggested it.
She'd turned from the cooker, where she was stirring porridge when Sally came down for breakfast.
'Are you OK to go in?' she'd asked, dead sympathetic. It would have only taken Sally to hesitate for a moment for her to add
But Sally had answered firmly and immediately 'I'd rather be with the others. Take my mind off things!
And her mother had nodded approvingly, thinking probably how brave her daughter was. It was ironic. There'd been hundreds of times when Sally had dreaded school, had dreamed up vague illnesses, headaches and stomach aches. Her mother had never shown the slightest sympathy then. She hadn't understood what it was like to grow up as a teacher's daughter, so there was no escape from school. The piles of exercise books on the shelf in the kitchen, her mother's painstaking writing of lists on the shiny card, all that was a reminder of what would happen when they walked across the yard and into the classroom. The calling of names, the sly pinches, the blank stares. And none of that had changed much when she moved to the high school. The kids were more subtle in their torture, but it was still a nightmare. Not even Catherine had understood that.
'Today her mother had asked if she fancied porridge for breakfast. Would she rather something else? An egg, maybe? When Sally had been bothered that she was putting on weight again and suggested fruit instead of porridge some days for breakfast, her mother had only sniffed and said she wasn't running a restaurant. She hadn't understood the agonies of needing to fit in.
Sally's father had already gone to work by the time she got up. She wasn't sure what he made of Catherine's murder. She never knew what he thought about anything. She thought sometimes that he had a life that none of them knew anything about. It was his way of surviving.
After breakfast her mother had begun to pull on her coat. 'I'll wait with you until your bus arrives. I don't like the thought of you standing out there on your own.'
'Mother, there are police all over the hill.' Because the last thing she wanted was her mother fussing over her, appearing concerned, but prying and poking for information. Robert Isbister took up so much room in Sally's head, it'd be hard not to let something about him slip. She couldn't bear her mother knowing about him. Not yet. Margaret would go on and on about him, about what a waster he was and nothing like his father. Sally could picture her right in her face, mocking and jeering. Sally had never been able to stand up to her mother. She might end up believing some of the things she said. And it was only the dream of being with Robert which kept her going.
So now she was standing by the bend in the road, waiting. Every now and again her mother's head appeared in silhouette at the kitchen window, to check that she hadn't been raped or murdered. She tried to ignore it. Her mind was suddenly filled with memories of Catherine. Although she tried to think of other things – the old romantic fantasies of Robert – pictures of Catherine wouldn't go away. She could see the two of them on New Year's Eve, first of all in Lerwick, then stumbling into Magnus Tait's house. Catherine had been so in command of herself that night, hard and bright and invulnerable.
The caretaker had put salt on the paths leading into the school, turning the snow into a slushy mess, which they carried on their shoes into the corridors. In the fourth year area a bunch of kids sat on the pool table, shoving and giggling. She thought they seemed very young. The radiators were full on and condensation ran down the windows.
The place smelled like a laundry, with all the drying coats and gloves. The first person she met was Lisa, tarty Lisa, whose boobs were so big you wondered how she managed to stand upright.
'Sal,' she said. 'I'm so sorry.'
In school it seemed everyone was still in the phase of considering Catherine's death a drama laid on for their own entertainment. Walking to the house room to dump her coat Sally could hear them whispering in corners, passing on rumours and gossip. It made her sick.
When she pushed open the door there was a brief silence, then suddenly they all crowded round, wanting to talk to her. Even the posse who'd taken over the table in the middle of the room and were usually too aloof to mix with anyone outside their own crowd. She'd never felt so popular. She'd never had a proper friend at school. Catherine had been the closest to it and Catherine was far too wrapped up in her own concerns to bother much about Sally.
Now she was the centre of attention. They gathered around her, covered her with mumbled commiseration:
Then came the questions, tentative at first, becoming more excited:
Before, floating around the edge of several groups, not really accepted by any of them, she'd tried too hard.
She'd talked too much, laughed too loud, felt big and clumsy and stupid. Now that they wanted to hear what she had to say words failed her. She stumbled through some answers. And they loved her for that. Lisa put her arm around Sally's shoulder.
'Don't worry,' she said. 'We're all here for you.'
Sally knew that if Catherine had been here, if she'd heard, she'd have stuck two fingers down her throat and pretended to be sick.
Sally was tempted to tell Lisa and all the others that she could see through them. They weren't sorry Catherine was dead at all. Certainly they hadn't particularly liked her when she was alive. Lisa had called her a stuck-up southern cow only last week, when Mr Scott had read out a chunk of her essay on Steinbeck. They were enjoying every minute of this. They weren't in the least sorry that Catherine would never take her place again in the front row for English.
But she didn't say that. She had to survive in school without Catherine. And she was enjoying all the sympathy, the arm around the shoulders, the loving whispers. It didn't matter any more what Catherine thought of them.
Catherine was dead.
A bell rang and they wandered off to first lesson, leaving the posse in the house room gagging for more.
She and Lisa had English and they walked together. Sally hated the English department. It was housed in the oldest part of the school and the high-ceilinged rooms were always freezing. They had to pass a glass case with a load of stuffed birds inside. Catherine had loved those birds. They'd made her laugh. She'd brought in her camera specially to record them, though Sally had never been able to see the joke. Catherine had said the whole English department would make a brilliant set for a Gothic movie.
In the classroom too, there was a ready audience. Lisa acted as her agent, protective, encouraging, helping her to put the most exciting spin on the story. Sally was in the middle of describing her interview with the detective from Fair Isle when Mr Scott came in. The girls who'd made up her audience slipped reluctantly from the window sill where they'd been warming their legs on the radiator and into their seats. There was no urgency in this manoeuvre. Even in ordinary times he wasn't a teacher who inspired fear or respect. Today, they knew they'd get away with anything.
Mr Scott was a young man, straight from college, unmarried. Everyone said he'd fancied Catherine. That was why she'd got good marks, why he raved about her work. It was because he was trying to get into her knickers. And perhaps there was some truth in the rumours. Sally had seen him staring at Catherine when he thought no one was looking. She knew about unrequited lust. She'd dreamt of Robert Isbister for months following the dance when they'd first met up. It had been enough just to see him out in the town to make her blush. She recognized the signs.
Mr Scott was a pale, thin man. A
evening. Today, in the snowy grey light he seemed more pale than usual. He blew his nose over and over. She wondered if he had been crying. Catherine had always been scathing about him. She'd said he was a crap English teacher and a pathetic human being. But Catherine had talked about everyone in that cold, hard way and she hadn't always meant it. Looking at him now, as he tried to speak without breaking down, clutching on to the big white handkerchief, Sally thought there was something cute about him. With her new popularity she could afford to be generous.
After taking the register, Mr Scott stood in front of them in silence for a moment. He looked very serious, and
