He stares out into the trees and I don’t know what he is thinking about. This is not going how I thought it would. He is supposed to be grovelling at my feet and begging for my forgiveness. I am not impressed. I attack.
‘Alex, do you know my mother?’
The way he freezes, just for a split second, is enough to make all the suspicions I had come roaring back into my head. The picture of him I found in her studio, with great black raven wings. The eyes were all wrong, but I knew it was him.
‘Who is your mother?’ he asks, swallowing. Smooth neck, rippling.
‘Rachel Sanders. Short, curly hair, stupid hippy clothes.’ I can almost see his mind ticking, then he relaxes, shoulders leaning back against the seat.
‘Does she teach the life drawing class in the village hall? I went a couple of weeks ago, but I never spoke to her. I thought she might have been your mum when I met you but I forgot to mention it. You look a bit like her, your bone structure maybe. Why are you asking?’ He smiles and turns his attention back to me, lifting my hair away from my face and tucking it behind my ear. He strokes his thumb over my cheekbone before leaning in and kissing me gently at first, but then firmly, and I almost forget to answer him, swept up on the rush of his returning affection.
‘She’s stolen your face.’ I tell him between kisses, laughing, relieved. ‘She’s a nightmare.’
He doesn’t reply, but I feel him relax further, tension leaving.
‘Stolen my face?’
‘In her illustrations. I found a drawing of you with big raven wings; it freaked me out for a minute. But she always steals people’s faces – it’s not the first time I’ve recognised someone.’
‘She sounds like a witch, stealing faces.’
‘You have no idea. She’s such a nightmare. What’s your mum like?’
All the tension rushes back into his body and face, and he moves away from me, pretending to adjust the mirrors in the car, and reclipping his seatbelt.
‘You okay to walk from here?’
‘What?’
‘Are you okay to walk home? I need to go the other way.’ He leans past me to open the glove box and digs out a pair of knock-off aviators. Half the gilt is missing off the arms.
After a second of shock has passed, I don’t reply to him; I just climb out of the car and slam the door, walking off without looking back, ignoring his wave as he drives past me down the road. He could have dropped me off a bit closer! Every bone in my body is telling me that something is very off about Alex’s hot and cold behaviour.
There is something delicious about secrets that you can wheedle out of people, or just uncover through snooping, because then you have influence over them. Really good secrets mean they will do quite a lot for you, and I wonder if Alex has secrets like that. I wonder if he’s just… bad. The thought of plucking them all out of him, using them, is delicious.
Mum is in the garden when I get home, looking miserable as usual and clipping the heads off all her manky-looking flowers, letting them fall to the ground. Everything is dead – the weather has murdered all her plants. She should have looked after them better.
‘Is the car loaded?’ I ask her. ‘Have I got time for a quick shower?’
‘Not really,’ she replies. ‘I only need to put your bag in and we’re ready to go. Pack up your wires and washbag.’
I go into the house and run up the stairs. There’s a weird smell in the air, like burning. God knows what she’s been up to today; she’s definitely losing it. I decide to have a very quick shower anyway, to wash Alex off me, and then I get everything together and drag my suitcase bump, bump down the stairs. The hollow noise reminds me of something and makes me smile.
Mum is already waiting in the car, tuning the radio as I lock the door. I hope I don’t have to listen to her nineties crap all the way to bloody Dorset. I squeeze my suitcase in the boot and then get in the car.
I hate these road trips. Mum always tries to talk to me in the car. Apparently, it’s easier to talk to people when they aren’t directly looking at you. I don’t like looking at anyone much, so maybe it’s true. I don’t really like talking to anyone either, unless I want something, so this is a losing situation for me. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to leave home. I might never speak again.
She’s fiddling with the sat nav, trying to get it to stick to the inside of the windscreen. Its electronic voice is already demanding we perform a u-turn when possible. I suspect it won’t be the last time it asks us to do that.
‘I meant to ask you – how are you getting on with your pill? Did you go back to the doctor? What did she say?’
What? Oh, for god’s sake. ‘The same as when we went. She asked me if my period was less painful. She said I can take them back to back if I want so I don’t have to have any periods at all if I don’t want to.’
‘So, you’re still using them?’
‘Yeah, she gave me another three-month prescription and told me to look out for any weird hormonal stuff, headaches, DVT… you know.’
‘Do you take them properly, Vi? You have to take them at the same time every day for them to be really effective.’
‘Effective for what? Not having a period? I didn’t know that, but I take one as soon as I wake up if you must know, not that it’s any of your business. You should just be glad I’m not crippled in pain all the time, like I have been since
