Finding Audrey

Here’s what I’m not supposed to do after a stressful event: ruminate about it. Brood. Replay it over and over. Take responsibility for anyone else’s emotions.

Here’s what I’ve been doing ever since my fight with Linus: ruminating about it. Brooding. Replaying it over and over. Taking responsibility for his fury (yet resenting it). Lurching between despair and indignation. Wanting to call him. Wanting to never call him again.

Why can’t he understand? I thought he’d admire me. I thought he’d talk about Closure and Courage and say, ‘You’re right, Audrey, this is something you have to do, however hard it is, and I’ll be right behind you.’

I’ve barely slept, the last two nights. It’s like my mind is a cauldron, cooking away, throwing up noxious bubbles and fumes and fermenting itself into something quite weird. I feel light-headed and surreal and hyper. But kind of focused too. I’m going to do this, and it’s going to be like a major turning point, and afterwards things will be different – I don’t know how exactly, but they will. It’s like I’ll have got over the hurdle or run through the finishing tape or whatever. I’ll be free. Of something.

So in short, I’m a bit obsessed. But luckily Mum and Dad are too preoccupied with Frank to notice me right now. I’m way down under their radar. Basically, Mum found the Atari in Frank’s room last night and it all kicked off again and now we’re in Family Crisis Mode.

As I come down to breakfast, they’re at it again.

‘For the millionth time, it’s not a computer,’ Frank is saying calmly. ‘It’s an Atari console. You said no computers. I classify a computer as a machine which can process information in a number of ways, including word processing, email and internet browsing. The Atari does none of these, therefore it’s not a computer, therefore it wasn’t a basic breach of trust.’ He shovels Shreddies into his mouth. ‘You need to tighten up your definitions. That’s the problem. Not my Atari console.’

I think Frank should be a lawyer one day. I mean, he’s totally nailed the argument, not that Mum appreciates it.

‘Do you hear this?’ Mum is appealing to Dad, who looks like he wants to hide behind his newspaper. ‘The point is, Frank, we had an agreement. You do not play any kind of video games, end of. Do you know how damaging they are?’

‘Jesus.’ Frank holds his head in his hands. ‘Mum, you’re the one with a problem with computer games. You’re becoming fixated.’

‘I’m not fixated!’ She gives a scoffing laugh.

‘You are! You can’t think about anything else! Do you even know that I got ninety-five in my chemistry?’

‘Ninety-five?’ Mum is stopped in her tracks. ‘Really?’

‘I told you yesterday, but you didn’t even listen. You were all, Atari! Evil! Get it out of the house!’

Mum looks a bit chastened. ‘Oh,’ she says at last. ‘Well . . . ninety-five! That’s great! Well done!’

‘Out of a thousand,’ says Frank, then adds, ‘Joke. Joke.’

He grins at me, and I try to smile back, though my stomach is churning. All I can think is: Three o’clock. Three o’clock.

We’ve stuck to the meeting place in Starbucks, even though the Lawtons have been constantly texting, wanting to change it to a ‘more conducive location’ and offering their own house or a hotel suite or a room at Izzy’s counsellor’s office. Yeah, right.

Frank has been in charge of all the correspondence. He’s brilliant. He’s batted away all their suggestions in a way that could totally be Dad, and refused to give them an alternative email address, which they keep asking for, and texted in exactly Dad’s style.

It’s actually quite funny. I mean, they have no idea it’s just us, two kids. They think Dad and Mum are coming. They think this is a big family meeting. They hope it will be ‘cathartic for all’, according to their last text.

As for me, I can’t believe I’m going to see Izzy again. It’s going to happen. The big showdown. I feel like I’m a spring that is slowly coiling up and up, tensing, waiting . . .

Only seven hours to go.

And then suddenly it’s seven minutes to go and I truly feel sick. My head is pounding – not with a headache, but with a kind of impending, heightened sense of reality. The street seems brighter than normal, somehow. Noisier. Rawer.

Frank’s bunked off school early, which is OK because exams are over, so all they do in lessons is watch ‘educational’ DVDs. He’s walking along with me, chatting about what happened in assembly this morning when someone brought their pet rat in and let it go. I half want to snap, ‘Shut up! Let me think!’ and I’m half grateful for the distraction.

I’m wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and black trainers. Serious clothes. I have no idea what Izzy will wear. She was never a particularly cool dresser; that was Tasha. I even half wonder if I’ll recognize her. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago, but it feels a whole lifetime.

But of course I do recognize her, instantly. I see them through the glass before they see us. The mother, the father, both looking anxious, but doing that fake-smile thing. And her. Izzy. She’s in some childlike T-shirt with pink ribbon edging, and a pretty skirt. What’s that all about? I want to laugh. But . . . I can’t.

I can’t smile either. It’s like all my powers are slipping away, one by one.

As I step inside the coffee shop, I know I can’t speak either. My insides have turned hollow. Just like that, in an instant. All the inner strength I’ve been building up, the tensed-up spring, the fighting talk . . . it’s all disappeared.

I feel small and vulnerable.

No, not small. I’m taller than her. I still have that. I’m tall.

But vulnerable. And speechless. And now they’re all looking our way. I squeeze Frank’s hand in silent desperation and he seems to get the message.

‘Hello,’ he says briskly, heading towards their table. ‘Let me introduce myself. Frank Turner. You must be the Lawtons.’

He holds out his hand but no one takes it. Both Izzy’s parents are looking him up and down in bewilderment.

‘Audrey, we were expecting your parents,’ says Mrs Lawton.

‘They were unavoidably detained,’ says Frank without blinking. ‘I am the family representative.’

‘But—’ Mrs Lawton looks flustered. ‘I really think your parents should— We understood this would be a family meeting—’

‘I am the Turner family representative,’ Frank repeats adamantly. He pulls out a chair and we sit down opposite them. The Lawtons look at each other anxiously and make little mouthing gestures and raised-eyebrow signals, but after a while they quieten down and it’s clear that the conversation about parents is over.

‘We bought some bottles of water,’ says Mrs Lawton, ‘but we can get some teas, coffees, whatever?’

‘Water is fine,’ says Frank. ‘Let’s get to the point, shall we? Izzy wants to apologize to Audrey, yes?’

‘Let’s put this in context,’ says Mr Lawton heavily. ‘We, like you, have gone through some pretty hellish months. We’ve asked ourselves Why? over and over. Izzy has asked herself Why? too. Haven’t you, darling?’ He looks gravely at Izzy. ‘How could such a thing happen? And, in a way, what did happen and who, in actual fact, was at fault?’

He presses a hand to Izzy’s, and I look at her properly for the first time. God, she looks different. She looks like an eleven-year-old, I suddenly realize. It’s kind of disturbing. Her hair is in a ponytail with a little-girl bobble and there’s the infantile ribbony T-shirt going on, and she’s looking up at her father with huge baby eyes. She’s wearing some kind of sickly strawberry lip gloss. I can smell it from here.

She hasn’t given me a single glance this whole time. And her parents haven’t made her. If I were them, that’s the first thing I would do. Make her look at me. Make her see me.

‘Izzy has been through a pretty tough journey.’ Mr Lawton continues on what is clearly a prepared speech. ‘As you know, she’s homeschooled for now, and she’s undergone a fairly rigorous programme of counselling.’

Snap, I think.

‘But she’s finding it hard to move on.’ Mr Lawton clutches Izzy’s hand, and she looks imploringly up at him. ‘Aren’t you, darling? She unfortunately suffers from clinical depression.’

He says it like it’s a trump card. What, are we supposed to applaud? Tell him how sorry we are – Wow, depression, that must be horrible?

‘So what?’ says Frank scathingly. ‘So’s Audrey.’ He addresses Izzy directly. ‘I know what you did to my sister. I’d be depressed if I were you too.’

Both Lawtons inhale sharply and Mr Lawton puts a hand to his head.

‘I was hoping for a more constructive approach to the meeting,’ he says. ‘Perhaps we could keep the insults to ourselves?’

‘That’s not an insult!’ says Frank. ‘It’s the truth! And I thought Izzy was going to apologize? Where’s the apology?’ He pokes Izzy’s arm and she withdraws it with a gasp.

‘Izzy has been working with her team,’ says Mr Lawton. ‘She’s written a piece which she would like to deliver to Audrey.’ He pats Izzy on the shoulder. ‘Izzy devised this in one of her poetry workshops.’

Poetry? Poetry?

I hear Frank snort and both Lawtons look at him with dislike.

‘This will be hard for Izzy,’ says Mrs Lawton coldly. ‘She is very fragile.’

‘As we all are,’ says Mr Lawton, nodding at me and making a face at his wife.

‘Yes, of course,’ says Mrs Lawton, but she doesn’t sound convinced. ‘So we ask you to listen to her piece in silence, without comment. Then we can move into the discussion phase of the meeting.’

There’s silence as Izzy unfurls a wad of A4 pages. She still hasn’t looked at me properly. Still.

‘You can do it, Izzy,’ whispers her mother. ‘Be brave.’ Her father pats her hand and I see Frank make a barf gesture.

‘“When the Darkness Came”,’ says Izzy in a trembling voice. ‘“By Isobel Lawton. It came on me, the darkness. I followed when I should not. I acted when I should not. And now I look back and I know that my life is a twisted knot . . .”’

OK, if they paid good money for this poetry workshop, they were done.

As I listen to the words, I’m waiting for some strong, visceral reaction. I’m waiting for some part of me to rise up and hate her or attack her or something. I’m waiting for the big moment; the confrontation. But it’s not coming. I can’t get traction. I can’t feel it.

Since the moment I stepped through the door, this hasn’t been what I thought it would be. I’m not the warrior I imagined. I’m hollow and vulnerable and kind of lesser. I’m not winning any battle, sitting here, silently clutching the table, unable to speak, just thinking my own rapid, restless thoughts.

But more than that – there isn’t even any battle to have, is there? The Lawtons aren’t interested in me. I could say what I like – they wouldn’t listen. They’re playing out their little story in which Izzy apologizes and she’s the hero and I’m the bit part. And I’m letting them do it. Why am I letting them do it?

I feel a sudden wave of revulsion as I survey Izzy’s bowed head.

She won’t look at me, will she? She can’t. Because I might pop the bubble.

I mean, I guess that’s one way to go. Slip back into being eleven years old, wear ponytails and get homeschooled and let your parents take over and tell you everything’s OK, you weren’t really a bullying monster, my sweetheart. It was the nasty people who didn’t understand you. But if you write a poem, everything will be OK.

Out of nowhere, Linus’s voice comes into my head: Why would you even give her the time of day?

Why would I? Why am I giving her the time of day? What am I doing here?

‘“ . . . but bad forces come from every direction, no affection, just affliction . . .”’

Izzy is still droning on in what seems to have become a tragically bad rap. She’s got another A4 page to go, I notice. It’s definitely time to leave.

I squeeze Frank’s hand and look at the door. He raises his eyebrows and I nod firmly. I even make a small, inarticulate sound.

‘Yes, we have to go now,’ says Frank, cutting across Izzy. ‘Thanks for the water.’

‘Go?’

The Lawtons look pole-axed.

‘But Izzy hasn’t finished reading.’

‘We haven’t had any discussion.’

‘We’ve only just begun the meeting!’

‘That’s right,’ says Frank cheerfully as we both get to our feet. ‘OK, Aud?’

‘You can’t leave before Izzy has even finished her piece!’ Mrs Lawton sounds quite shirty. ‘I’m sorry, what kind of behaviour is this?’

And then I finally find my voice. ‘You want to talk about behaviour?’ I say quietly.

It’s like a magic charm. Everyone else is silenced. Paralysed.

There’s an odd hush around the place – it feels like the whole of Starbucks might have picked up on our vibe, just for a second. Mr Lawton’s face has kind of crumpled. It’s as if reality has pushed its way through his soap bubble of denial, just for a second, and he’s been forced to see exactly who I am. I’m the one they did all those things to.

Yes, those things. The ones they did. And said. And wrote. Your daughter in her ponytail. That’s right.

I don’t look at Izzy. Why would I expend the energy that swivelling my eyeballs in her direction would require? Why would I expend even one microjoule of energy on Izzy?

And then we’re walking out, Frank and I, not looking back, not talking about it, not wasting a second more of our lives on that load of shitty, shitty crap.