The One Plus One

29. Tanzie

Tanzie had sat in her room for almost an hour trying to draw Mum a card. She couldn’t work out what to put on it. Mum seemed like she was sick, but Nicky said she wasn’t really sick, not like Mr Nicholls had been sick, so it didn’t seem right to write a Get Well Soon card. She thought about writing ‘Be Happy!’ but it sounded like an instruction. Or even an accusation. And then she thought about just writing ‘I Love You’ but she’d wanted to do it in red and all her red felt-tips had run out. So then she thought she’d buy a card because Mum always said that Dad had never bought her a single one, apart from a really cheesy padded Valentine’s Day card once when they were courting. And she burst out laughing at the word ‘courting’.

Mostly Tanzie just wanted her to cheer up. A mum should be in charge, taking care of things and bustling around downstairs, not lying up there in the dark, like she was really a million miles away. It made Tanzie fearful. Ever since Mr Nicholls had gone, the house had felt weirdly quiet and a massive lump had lodged itself in her stomach, like something bad was about to happen. She had crept into Mum’s room that morning when she woke up and crawled into bed with her for a cuddle and Mum had put her arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was a bit greasy and she had no makeup on but Tanzie nestled into her anyway. ‘Are you ill, Mum?’ she’d said.

‘I’m just tired, Tanze,’ Mum’s voice did sound like the saddest, tiredest thing in the world. ‘I’ll get up soon. I promise.’

‘Is it … because of me?’

‘What?’

‘Not wanting to do maths any more. Is that what’s making you sad?’

And then Mum’s eyes filled with tears and Tanzie felt like she’d somehow made things even worse. ‘No, Tanze,’ she said, and pulled her close. ‘No, darling. It is absolutely nothing to do with you and maths. That is the last thing you should think.’

But she didn’t get up.

So Tanzie was walking along the road with two pounds fifteen in her pocket that Nicky had given her, even though she could tell he thought a card was a stupid idea, and wondering if it was better to get a cheaper card and some chocolate or if a cheap card spoiled the whole point of a card full stop when a car pulled up alongside. She thought it was someone going to ask for directions to Beachfront (people were always asking for directions to Beachfront) but it was Jason Fisher.

‘Oi. Freak,’ he said, and she kept walking. His hair was gelled up in spikes and his eyes were narrowed, like he spent his whole life squinting at things he didn’t like.

‘I said, Freak.’

Tanzie tried not to look at him. Her heart had begun to thump. She began to walk a little bit faster.

He pulled forward a bit, so that she thought maybe he was going to go away. But he stopped the car and got out and swaggered over so that he was in front of her and she couldn’t actually go any further without pushing past him. He leant to one side, like he was explaining something to someone stupid.

‘It’s rude not to answer someone when they’re talking to you. Did your mum never tell you that?’

Tanzie was so frightened that she couldn’t talk. She just shook her head.

‘Where’s your brother?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice came out as a whisper.

‘Yes, you do, you little four-eyed freak. Your brother thinks he’s been a bit clever messing around with my Facebook.’

‘He didn’t,’ she said. But she was a really bad liar and she knew as soon as she’d said it that he knew she was lying.

He took two steps towards her. ‘You tell him that I’m going to have him, the cocky little shit. He thinks he’s so clever. Tell him I’m going to mess with his profile for real.’

The other Fisher, the cousin whose name she never remembered, muttered something to him that Tanzie couldn’t hear. They were all out of the car now, walking slowly towards her.

‘Yeah,’ Jason Fisher said. ‘Your brother needs to understand something. He messes with something of mine, we mess around with something of his.’ He lifted his chin and spat noisily on the pavement. It sat there in front of her, a great green slug. Tanzie hesitated, not wanting to tread in it.

She wondered if they could see how hard she was breathing.

‘Get in the car.’

‘What?’

‘Get in the fucking car.’

‘No.’ She began to back away from them. She glanced around her, trying to work out if anyone was coming down the road. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a bird in a cage.

‘Get in the fucking car, Costanza.’ He said it like her name was something disgusting. She wanted to run then but she was really bad at running – her legs always swung out to the sides at the wrong angle – and she knew they would catch her. She wanted to cross the road and turn back towards home but she knew that as soon as she started to run they would get her. And then a hand landed on her shoulder.

‘Look at her hair.’

‘You know about boys, Four Eyes?’

‘Course she doesn’t know about boys. Look at the state of her.’

‘She’s got lipstick on, the little tart. Still fugly, though.’

‘Yeah, but you don’t have to look at its face, do you?’ They started laughing. Her voice came out sounding like someone else’s: ‘Just leave me alone. Nicky didn’t do anything. We just want to be left alone.’

‘We just want to be left alone.’ Their voices were mocking. Fisher took a step closer. His voice lowered. ‘Just get into the fucking car, Costanza.’

‘Leave me alone!’

He started grabbing at her then, his hands snatching at her clothes. Panic washed over her in an icy wave, tightening her throat, pushing her heart against her ribs. She tried to push him away. She might have been shouting but nobody came. The two of them grabbed her arms and were pulling her towards the car. She could hear their grunts of effort, smell their deodorant, as her feet scrabbled for purchase on the pavement. And she knew like she knew anything that she should not get inside. Because as that door opened in front of her, like the jaws of some great animal, she suddenly remembered an American statistic for girls who got into strange men’s cars. Your odds of survival dropped by 72 per cent as soon as you put your foot in that footwell. That statistic became a solid thing in front of her. Tanzie took hold of it and she hit and she kicked and she bit and she heard someone swear as her foot made contact with soft flesh and then something hit the side of her head and she reeled and spun and there was a crack as she hit the ground. Everything went sideways. There was scuffling, a distant shout. And she lifted her head and her sight was all blurry but she thought she saw Norman coming towards her across the road at a speed she’d never seen, his teeth bared and his eyes black, looking not like Norman at all but some kind of demon, and then there was a flash of red and the squeal of brakes and all Tanzie saw was something black flying into the air like a ball of washing and all she heard was the scream, the screaming that went on and on, the sound of the end of the world, the worst sound you ever heard, and she realized it was her it was her it was the sound of her own voice.