Checkmate (27 page)

'Mother, why didn't you tell us? You should've told us.'

'What would you have done, Minerva?' I asked.

'We could've been here for you. You wouldn't've had
to go through all this alone,' my daughter said angrily.

Children! Honestly! They thought all they had to do
was rage against something to get what they wanted.
They thought all they had to do was shout, 'I DON'T WANT THIS!' and whatever it was would disappear. The optimism of youth. But at least I'd told them now. I had to tell them some time, but this was even worse than I'd imagined. Minerva couldn't stop shouting at me. Sephy stood by the window, staring out of it, her arms folded; her profile could've been cast in bronze. And she hadn't said a word since she'd entered my hospital room.

'Why on earth didn't you go to the doctor as soon as you felt a lump in your breast?' Minerva was the picture of angry bewilderment, eyes blazing, words spoken through tight lips and gritted teeth. She thought of me as an ornament in her life, old and getting older, definitely out of fashion but something that would be around for ever – with a little dusting now and again! 'Why did you put it off and put it off?'

Minerva looked at me expectantly. She really believed that was a question I could answer.

'How bad is it?' Sephy asked from across the room. She was still looking out of the window, not at me.

I'd practised how I was going to tell my daughters the truth about what I had, but now the words in my head seemed blunt and stark. And there was no other way to say it.

'I have stage one breast cancer. As the tumour is still relatively small and there are no lymph nodes involved, I'm to have a lumpectomy and then start a course of radiotherapy. As long as there are clear margins when they remove the tumour I should be fine after the radiation therapy.'

'Clear margins? What does that mean?' Minerva asked sharply.

'As long as there are no cancer cells in the tissue surrounding the tumour,' I explained.

'And if the margins aren't clear?' asked Minerva.

'Let's cross that bridge if and when we get to it,' I told her.

'How long did you wait before going to see a doctor?' asked Sephy quietly.

Ah! Sephy knew me better than I thought. And it was a question to which she probably already knew the sorry answer. She was still looking out of the window. How I wished she'd look at me. But she was bristling with anger and trying to keep it from me.

'I went to my GP as soon as I realized the lump wasn't going away,' I said.

I wasn't about to add that worry had turned days into weeks, before the fear of not knowing had overtaken the fear of what it might be.

'Why didn't you go straight away as soon as the lump appeared?' asked Sephy.

I shrugged. 'It could've been nothing. Besides, I . . . I find it awkward discussing these things. You girls know that.'

Sephy turned to face me for the first time. 'If something happens to you, Mother, I know just what we should write on your gravestone,' she said.
'Here lies Jasmine Hadley, She died of embarrassment
.'

'Sephy!' Minerva admonished.

Sephy turned away to stare out of the window again. But not before I saw the tears streaming down her face.

Oh, dear.

Double science was fantastic today
–
'cause I got to sit next to
him.
Of course, when Mrs Mayne split us into pairs and said we had to work together, he moaned like the north wind down a chimney about having to be my partner. But then he had to do that – otherwise his friends would've teased him about sitting next to me and working with me. But I bet he was just as
thrilled
as I was.

I got to sit next to Amyas. Yippee!!

I know I didn't like him much when he joined the school, but since then he's got really buff and become knock-down yummy on a stick. And I've grown up in a year. Grown up a lot. I can appreciate boys now
–
well, some boys. Well, one boy.

'I'm in charge of this experiment and I'm going to do all the mixing. You can write up everything,' Amyas told me.

'OK. Whatever you think best.' I smiled. Not too many teeth, smile with the mouth
and
the eyes
–
I read that in
Ms Young Thing
magazine two weeks ago
(How to Win His Heart With a Winning Smile – Part 1).
Smirking, I glanced around to make a note of all the girls who were jealous of me. And the first person I saw looking at me was Tobey. Looking straight at me, with that knowing, mocking smile of his. His expression immediately made me feel self-conscious, not to mention put my back up. What was his problem? Maybe I was drooling a bit around Amyas, but he was soooo lush. Cool? He was red hot!

Amyas and I worked together for the whole double lesson. He did all the best, most interesting bits, but I really didn't mind. I enjoyed working with him. He was so clever without even having to try at it. I made a couple of suggestions for our experiments, both of which he shot down with flaming arrows of sarcasm. But I didn't even mind that, although I didn't suggest anything else.

Once the second buzzer had sounded, Amyas was one of the first out of the room. I ambled out, only to find myself walking next to Tobey, who started up immediately.

'If you could see how ridiculous you look when you're around Amyas, you'd run a mile from him,' he said. 'Everyone's laughing at you.'

'What're you on about?'

'Rose, why don't you wake up and smell the toast burning?' Tobey said blisteringly. 'If you really believe Amyas would go out with someone like you, then you need to get back to the same postcode as reality.'

'What does that mean – someone like me?' I asked through narrowed eyes.

'You're half-Nought,' Tobey shot back.

My body blazed hot, then burned icy-cold. 'So?'

'So Amyas would never go out with a Nought or a halfer. He's said so.'

'I don't believe you. And I'm not half anything,' I said with contempt. 'Where's the line running down my body to separate the Nought bit from the Cross bit?'

'Amyas doesn't see it that way.'

'That's not true. You're just sorry that I don't fancy you instead of Amyas,' I challenged.

Tobey inhaled sharply, his cheeks blooming like red roses. 'D'you really think I'd want a loser like you dripping all over me. The whole class is laughing at the way you carry on around Amyas and you're too stupid to realize. It's embarrassing.'

'You're jealous! How funny!'

I didn't for one second believe that Tobey really was jealous of me and Amyas. After all, Tobey and I had been good friends for ever. And if Tobey hadn't launched in with all that spiteful poison, I might've taken it back and apologized, but Tobey was scowling at me like I'd accused him of fancying his mum's best friend or something. The last couple of stragglers in the class trooped past us, leaving only Tobey and me in the science lab.

'Jealous of Amyas? You must be joking.' A strange, icy look swept up and over Tobey's face. A look I'd never seen before.

'You
are
jealous.' I began to sing tunelessly at him, ''
Cause you want to kiss me and have a smoochie, because you lurve me, you're green with envy, because you lurve me . . . !'

'Your dad was in the Liberation Militia. He killed loads of people. Amyas could have his pick of any girl in our year, so why on earth would he choose
you
– the daughter of Callum McGregor, a bastard Nought terrorist they hanged 'cause he was so evil!'

The ground beneath my feet suddenly vanished. I was like a character in a cartoon, standing stock still on nothing at all for what was an eternity. My mind started free-falling, spinning out of control. I didn't move, didn't even blink. The slightest gesture would've had me crashing like bad software. The hard, scathing look on Tobey's face softened almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Softened and shifted into regret and something even more contrite. But I was outside myself and looking through my shell, 'watching him apologize with everything he was, every part of his body, but without a single word being spoken.

'What did you say?' I whispered inanely. As if Tobey saying it again would somehow cancel out the first time he'd said it. 'I don't believe you. What did you say?'

'Oh my God!' Tobey breathed. 'You . . . you didn't know?'

I pushed him back just as hard as I could. 'YOU'RE A LIAR!' I shouted.

Tobey didn't speak.

'Tell me you were lying.' Each word was a plea. It was all lies. My dad . . . my dad was a gardener. It was just a mistake . . . mistaken identity . . .

'Callie Rose, I didn't mean it,' said Tobey. There was no mistaking the desperation in his voice. 'I was just being . . . I didn't mean it. It's not true.'

His voice was a long way off, but like a sonic boom each syllable had me cracking, crumbling, tumbling inside. I couldn't stop it. This was pure hell. My mind couldn't stop replaying Tobey's words. It was like being constantly put back together just so I could feel the pain of being demolished all over again. What was it that convinced me Tobey had been speaking the truth? The anger which flushed out his words in the first place or the sorrow on his face because his words had sprouted wings and taken on a life and flight of their own? Not that any of that mattered now.

I whispered, 'My dad was a terrorist?'

'No. Listen, it wasn't your dad. It was someone else.' Tobey took hold of my arm. 'It wasn't your dad
–
honest.'

But my dad was Callum McGregor . . .

'Rose, listen to me. It's not true,' Tobey persisted. 'He wasn't a terrorist. I just made that up . . .'

I pulled away from his grasp. 'We may not be friends but let's have honesty between us if nothing else.'

Tobey's hand dropped to his side.

'When and where did you hear about . . . about my dad?'

Tobey didn't speak. He just looked at me.

'Answer me. How did you find out about my dad?'

'I heard my mum and dad talking about it when I was younger,' Tobey admitted.

My mind was dive-bombing, kamikaze style. Thoughts like desperate arms scrambled to find something real, something true to hold onto.

My dad was a gardener.

My dad was a terrorist.

My dad loved my mum and me.

My dad was a terrorist.

My dad was evil.

My dad was a terrorist.

My dad didn't kill anyone. My dad killed – what was Tobey's phrase? – 'loads of people'.

My dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad my dad mydadmydadmydad . . .
Spinning around me. Laughing at me. Mocking me. I should've found out the truth for myself. But how could I find what I hadn't been looking for?

'Mum said my dad died in an accident . . .' I whispered.

A lie. Tobey was a liar. My mum was a liar.

Someone help me, please.

I closed my eyes briefly. Was it true? Did all our neighbours know? How many people knew the truth about my dad? If it was the truth. If there was any such thing.

'And you've told everyone here at school?'

'No, I haven't,' Tobey denied. 'I've never said a word to anyone.'

'But everyone knows?'

'Not from me. And there's no reason why they should. It happened years and years ago and most people can't even remember what happened last month. Your surname is Hadley, not McGregor. And not many people have figured out who your mum really is. Everyone expects Kamal Hadley's daughter to be living in luxury and rolling in pots of money, not living with a Nought woman in Meadowview.'

'A Nought called McGregor,' I pointed out.

'Yes, but apart from church, your nan keeps herself pretty much to herself and so does your mum.'

Tobey knew all about me. Every sordid little detail. He knew more than I knew myself.

'Everyone knows.' I closed my eyes against the sick humiliation I felt.

'Everyone doesn't know, Callie. And most of the Noughts who do know don't care. My mum admires your mum for going against your grandad and fighting for one of us.'

'And what about the Crosses who know?'

'They're either your friends or they aren't,' said Tobey.

Thousands of butterflies fluttered against my stomach lining. I was going to be sick.

'All this time you knew the truth and you never told me?'

'You never said anything either—'

"Cause I didn't
know –
not about how my dad really died.'

But I remembered so many things now
–
TV channels being turned over when I entered the room, quiet asides to teachers at the beginning of each academic year, history books being read by my mum first before they were given to me . . . And I'd never clicked. I was too happy living in my bubble of fantasy to question what I'd been told. But I had trusted my family to tell me the truth. I'd never make that mistake again.

'Rose, I'm so sorry. I honestly thought you already knew. I'd've cut my own tongue out before saying anything otherwise.'

'All this time, that's how you've thought of me
–
as the terrorist's daughter? The daughter of a bastard?'

'That's not true. I don't think of you that way at all—'

'But that's what you just said.'

'Please, Rose, I didn't mean it. Didn't you ever say or do something that you instantly regretted?'

'Yeah,' I replied. 'I believed in you and my mum and everyone else around me and you've all been lying to me.'

'Rose—'

I pushed past him and walked then ran away. And all the while, Tobey kept calling out my name.

'Wait! Rose, wait.'

But I didn't recognize that name. The person who was Rose and whose dad was a gardener didn't exist. A bomb had exploded within me and every bit of happiness had been blown out of me and scattered to the four winds.