Rachael's Gift (7 page)

I exchanged a look with Cam. Hers was to question if this was the right time and mine was to say, Goddamn it, the girl is ready to talk – don’t stop her!

Rach took a deep breath and began her story. ‘It wasn’t just me. But the others won’t come forward.’ She looked down again, trying to swallow. ‘It started . . . I don’t know, ages ago, but it was so subtle, hardly noticeable. Like, he would pick a stray hair from your jumper, or he would smile a little too long, or just hold a look for a few more seconds . . . I guess they were things that could be interpreted either way. He’s youngish and we liked him. We thought he was cool – you know?’ Her eyes went bright as she looked at us. ‘He spent time with me. He talked about Paris in the 1920s and how Modigliani and Chagall and Dali and Miro hung out at cafes like La Coupole, and how the Beaux-Arts is the best school in the world and he wished he had gone there and encouraged me to apply – he said I’ve got the talent for it and was sure they would accept me. He said he wanted to take me there one day.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I trusted him.’

I glanced at Camille to see if she was buying this.

Cam reached out and patted Rachael’s arm. ‘You don’t have to go on, darling, not if you’re not ready.’

I touched Cam’s sleeve and she sat back reluctantly. I was afraid the smallest movement would make Rach flee.

Rach brought her tea up to her lips with both hands and blew on it. ‘It’s okay. I want to.’ She took a sip and I tried not to stare at her too hard. ‘He knows so much about art and obviously loved my stuff – why else would he want to take me to Paris? I think some of the girls became confused – they’re pretty immature. Some of them have never even kissed a guy let alone have a grown man take an interest in them. I don’t know . . . maybe they took it for romance? You know what teenage girls are like.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘One day I walked in on one of them obviously flirting with him. I didn’t actually see anything but there was just an atmosphere, like I’d interrupted something. They had these guilty looks on their faces and I remember feeling . . . disturbed.’ Rach looked to us for confirmation, then her tone changed and when she spoke again her gaze was far away. ‘Then things began to happen. He started to make these comments, like, “Be careful where you put that weapon,” referring to my bum, and, “You’re growing up so fast, Rachael, you’ll have to get a new school uniform soon.” And then the touching. Again, nothing too obvious, but he’d put his hand on me as we walked out of class, or he’d stand really close when we were developing images – sometimes I could smell his breath he was so close to me. Then one day I was developing negatives – you have to do this in complete darkness – and he asked me if I was having trouble and cupped his hands around mine and then my nose bumped something soft and wet, which I think must have been his lips, and I pulled back and he said, “Sorry! It’s hard to know where things are in the dark!” The whole thing was completely creepy. And I just questioned myself the whole time – had I led him on in some way? Was it my fault?’

Camille gasped and grabbed Rach’s hand. ‘Of course it’s not your fault!’

Christ. This didn’t sound good.

‘So I stopped going to classes. And then the rumours started. At first, they were just within our group. One of the girls began boasting about her crush on him and how he fancied her and then a couple of the other girls said they had crushes too. I thought the whole thing was a joke – that they were just desperate for some male attention. I didn’t think any of them would actually do anything – I didn’t think a
teacher
would do anything. So it was just a game. Some of them even made it a competition – the first one to kiss him. But even then I didn’t think they were being serious.’ She let out a small laugh. ‘And I guess it was pretty good gossip. Until someone started spreading rumours that they’d seen me kissing him.’ She looked us dead in the eye, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘I don’t know who started it, but after that the girls began ignoring me and bitching about me and I really couldn’t understand what was going on. All I wanted to do was my art. And then it got back to the teachers and finally to Ms Sheehan. The girls cornered me and pressured me not to say anything – they had made a weird pact. They said if I said anything they would get me . . .’ Her voice became small. ‘And that’s when I got scared. So I didn’t say anything – at first. But Ms Sheehan accused me of taking Becca’s painting and I got upset . . .’ Rach was all choked up now, her eyes filling with tears. ‘And it all came out. She seems to think I’m some kind of liar.’ She stopped and wiped her eyes. ‘It’s not fair. The girls have been bullying me on Facebook and sending me horrible stuff on Snapchat. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know why they hate me. What did I ever do to them?’ She picked up her phone and opened her Facebook page. ‘See? Here’s one: Rachael and Ashley sitting in a tree f-u-c-k-i-n-g. And here’s one calling me a slut. The stuff on Snapchat is worse but I can’t show you them ’cos they disappear. They’re like little bombs waiting for me.’

Camille pressed her fist to her lips. ‘I think you should shut your account –’

Rachael opened her mouth to protest, then shook her head. ‘You’re right.’

‘Just until this thing blows over,’ Camille said. ‘Close all the others as well – I don’t think you should speak to anyone about this.’

Rachael glanced up at me with watering green eyes and then turned to Camille. ‘Please don’t make me go to Anne. It’ll just make things worse. I don’t want to press charges – I just want the whole thing to go away.’ She wiped the corners of her eyes with her finger.

Camille reached over and stroked her shoulder, handing her a tissue. ‘Of course not, darling.’

I gave Cam a look to say, What the? But she avoided my eyes. It was clear we were out of our depth here.

A conflict raged inside me. On the one hand my heart was torn in two to see my kid like this, but on the other all I could hear was the name Clippo. At first it was faint, a tiny drumming in the background, but as I watched the tears roll down her cheeks, the echo got louder and louder, roaring at me. There was something all too familiar about the ring of this speech. The no-bullshit part of me was howling:
Don’t be a sucker!

*

‘So what do you think?’ We were lying in bed, the heat radiating us apart, the light of my lamp shining. ‘Are you buying it?’ I had to admit the girl told a good story.

‘Oh God,’ said Cam. ‘You can’t be serious?’

I propped myself up on my elbow. So that was how it was going to be. I closed my eyes, wrestling with this thing. ‘We need to go see Anne.’

‘No!’ she said, too quickly, almost violently. ‘I mean, not yet – I need to think things through.’ She found her composure again; Cam never lost control.

‘Come here,’ I said, reaching out and pulling her close. Her heart scampering through her t-shirt, her shoulder blades trembling, razor sharp and fragile. ‘What if there’s a sexual predator on the loose? He could do it again.’

She pulled back, her face above mine. ‘I just . . . it’s just . . .’ she wavered. ‘Maybe we should change her school? Like Sheehan said.’

I froze. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ I felt her body tense. ‘You want it swept under the carpet too?’

‘Sheehan’s just trying to protect her.’

‘Were you and I in the same meeting?’ She looked at me strangely. ‘It’s not what you were saying a few days ago – I’m just wondering where all this is coming from.’

She untangled herself from my arms. I tried to hold on, but she pushed me away. ‘Of course you wouldn’t get it.’

Did Cam question Rach as I did, was that what all this was about? Was it shame that kept us from saying it out loud?
She seems to think I’m some kind of liar
. There was something about the way Rach had said those words, almost as if it were a line.

Hook. Line. Sinker. I fell on to my back and a weird laugh, not like my own, escaped. If it wasn’t all so fucked up it would have been genius. ‘Oh she’s good, Cam. So fucking good. She nearly had me there. Just for a moment, she nearly had me.’

Cam looked at me in disgust. ‘You’ve lost it.’

‘Can’t you see?’ I sprang up and grabbed her hands. ‘Can’t you see it’s Clippo all over again?’

A look of horror crossed her face and then poise won over. She snatched her hands away. ‘Stop it. Don’t be ridiculous.’

I let her go and she turned her back on me.

‘Fuck, Cam, it’s all right to say we have doubts about her – okay?’ Her face was mournful. ‘You’re scared, that’s all.’

I got out of bed, went to the study and switched on the computer. Opening the internet browser, I typed in ‘antisocial personality disorder’. A bunch of stuff came up. I clicked on Wikipedia and skimmed the definition:
a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others . . . failure to conform, lying, impulsiveness, irritability, aggressiveness, lack of remorse, lack of empathy, cold-blooded, expert manipulator, thrill-seeker, sexual promiscuity, unable to take responsibility . . .
I shut down the computer.

*

It was still dark when my eyes popped open, woken by something, but not sure what, my mind in a fog – it must have been late. The left side of the bed was empty, the sheets wrinkled, the cover thrown off in haste. I rubbed my eyes and heard a voice coming from the hall. It was Camille. She mumbled and then was silent. She was on the phone. The fluorescent hands on my watch read two thirty a.m. Who could she be talking to at this hour?

Then I heard her clearly. ‘Cremation. Last week.’

She fell silent again, presumably while the other person spoke.

‘It’s a possibility.’ She paused. ‘I’ll let you know. Okay. Goodbye.’

I heard the phone click back into its cradle. The floorboards creaked as she tiptoed into our bedroom and slid under the covers.

An engine rumbled. Golden headlights moved across the wall and then vanished. Silence, darkness, covered us like a bandage.

The sheets rustled as she moved her legs.

‘Who was that?’

‘My mother’s sister, Francine.’

‘What’s that about?’ I knew there’d been a rift in the family for years.

‘They want me to come to Paris – to bring Mum’s ashes for a Catholic service. Can you believe it?’ She turned on her side.

I saw the rise of her hip under the sheet and reached out, tucking my arm over and pulling her into me. She sighed, but nestled into me all the same. I buried my nose in her neck. ‘Baby,’ I murmured, ‘something’s really bothering me about this whole situation. I don’t know what to believe. I want a professional to see her.’

‘Jesus, what is wrong with you? You’ve never worried before. Don’t you trust her?’

‘Is your memory that short?’

‘God, can’t you let sleeping dogs lie?’ She threw the duvet off and pulled away from me. ‘She’s been through so much and you want to make it worse!’

‘Has she? Something’s off.’ After a moment, there was that familiar tap-tapping again. A dim blue light shone in the dark. That bloody BlackBerry. ‘Don’t shut me out, Cam.’ I caught her wrist.

She exhaled loudly, the whites of her eyes staring at me through the darkness, and then she slowly tugged her wrist from my grip and padded out the door and down the hall to the living room. I blinked into the dark corridor, seeing Mr Brown’s backside as he lay sleeping in his beanbag outside our room. It was all well and good to let sleeping dogs lie, but there were times when you had good reason to wake ’em.

It was dawn. The sky was mauve. Light enough for me to get out of the house and go to the cliffs. I stood on the bottom rail of the wooden fence. The sun peaked on the horizon. The water was still. I breathed in the sea air. The fence was meant to keep people out, but it was easy to climb – a small child could have done it. So still they came and they jumped. Growing up here, you knew what the sound of a siren meant. Sometimes the kids came here to smoke dope and scare themselves and sometimes they succeeded.

I tasted salt. Always salt.

I remembered the soft haze that descended over us when we were first together. The sleepless nights and yet we were never tired. I loved his skin. It was olive and smooth and dark next to my paleness. The first time I saw him surf I sat on the sand with Mr Brown, who was just a puppy back then, on my knee. I watched Wolfe twisting back and forth over a five-foot wave. My heart beat in fright for any number of reasons: the reef, a shark, the weight of the water holding him down. When he disappeared under the froth, I held my breath, straining to see the top of his head pop up. Then he would appear between waves, lying flat on his board, rising up a wall of water only to duck-dive beneath it and spring up on the other side, as he paddled calmly and resiliently back out to sea.

We sat in silence on the way home, his board, his wetsuit and Mr Brown sliding loose in the back tray of the truck. His hair dripped with water, his towel was wrapped around his waist, his eyes focused on the road. He poked my thigh with his finger and grinned and I smiled back and then looked out the window at the passing traffic. The day was overcast with a tension in the air that I couldn’t explain. Something heavy. He turned into the driveway, killed the motor, and we sat there for a moment. There was a ticking, a click from the dead engine. Mr Brown had jumped out and gone around the back of the house. Wolfe was looking at me, leaning against the window and watching. He ran his finger lightly over my arm. I saw he had a mole beneath his shoulder and I reached out and touched it. Then he leant across and cupped my face in his hands, kissing me gently. He took my hand and we went inside to his bedroom. He unbuttoned my top, slipped it over my head and undid the clasp on my bra. He kissed one shoulder and then the other while I unzipped my skirt. We sat on the edge of his bed. He ran his hands over my thighs, following the curve of my hip with his fingers, then with his mouth. I felt his hair; it was matted from the salt water. He pressed against me, moving upwards, burying his head in the crook of my neck. He tasted of the sea.

We did not leave each other for the first few weeks. We talked and then we didn’t, sometimes we just looked at each other for hours. A stranger at a dinner party told me he could tell when a woman was on heat. Embarrassed, I laughed it off and stared across the table at Wolfe. We left the party. Perhaps the stranger was right, for not long afterwards and soon, all too soon, I discovered I was pregnant with Rachael.