The Circle (18 page)

But, no, she thinks. It’s not my secret to tell, and Minoo would never forgive me. ‘I’m not allowed to say.’

‘Of course you are.’

‘No, I promised.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘Why are you so curious? Are you hoping she’s in love with you?’

She laughs when Gustaf pretends to scowl at her. Then he throws his leg over her, pins her to the mattress and tickles her. She lets out a shriek and starts to laugh.

‘Tell me.’ He’s laughing too.

All she can do is shake her head –she can barely breathe.

Eventually they calm down. He starts kissing her but now everything he does tickles. His stubble against her neck makes her cry out again, and she pulls up her shoulder to protect her sensitive skin.

And as she’s lying there, she can’t understand how she could ever have doubted that he’ll love her no matter what happens.

16

REBECKA COMES HOME
at midnight and stays up for another two hours with her French homework. Then she can’t sleep. Her thoughts are drawn constantly to the figure at the mall. And when she does fall asleep, it follows her into her dreams.

I have to tell Minoo, she thinks, as she gets up the next morning.

Immediately she feels lighter inside. She isn’t alone, after all.

Music is filtering softly from the radio when she comes into the kitchen. Anton and Oskar are still asleep. Alma tries to lift Moa out of the high chair, and Moa lets out a high-pitched shriek that hurts Rebecka’s ears. Her mother is standing by the window with her battered mobile pressed to her ear, mumbling gravely.

Rebecka takes the carton of buttermilk out of the fridge and glances at her.

‘No, I can’t do that,’ she says. ‘You’ll have to tell her yourself.’ She holds out the phone to Rebecka. ‘It’s your father.’

Rebecka takes the phone, sensing that she’s about to hear bad news. ‘Hi, Beckis.’ Her father sounds tense. ‘I’ve got bad
news
. I have to be at a conference over the weekend so I’ll miss your birthday.’

She shouldn’t care about something as childish as a birthday without her father, but she does. ‘Oh,’ she says, and stares at the fridge, focusing on a magnet that looks like a smiling bumble bee. She feels her mother watching her.

‘It’s very important that I’m there for it. Otherwise you know I wouldn’t—’

‘I understand,’ Rebecka breaks in. ‘Talk to you later. ’Bye.’

Her father tries to say something else, but she hangs up.

‘Beckis,’ her mother says, in the soft voice that makes Rebecka’s skin crawl.

Her mother wants to comfort her, but she doesn’t know that her tone and her pitying expression make everything worse. Rebecka just wants to pretend that nothing happened so she can forget about it.

‘It’s okay,’ she says, and avoids her mother’s eye.

She puts the buttermilk back into the fridge. She’s hungry but decides to suppress it, which gives her that hard, powerful sense of control. The one she knows is dangerous.

‘How about we go out to eat? At the Venezia, maybe?’

‘I’m celebrating with Gustaf,’ says Rebecka.

‘Ask him to come with us.’

‘Maybe. Do we have to decide now? I’m so stressed out …’

Her mother lays a hand on her cheek, and she has to stop herself flinching so she doesn’t hurt her feelings.

‘Okay. We’ll talk about it later,’ her mother says.

‘I’ve got to have a shower,’ Rebecka mutters, and walks towards the bathroom.

‘Wait a minute,’ her mother calls. ‘The principal rang, too. She wants to speak to you after school today.’

‘About what?’

‘A routine chat, she said.’

‘All right,’ Rebecka says, in as detached a tone as she can muster.

She goes into the bathroom, takes off her nightie, turns on the shower and waits for the water to warm up.

There’s no such thing as a ‘routine chat’ with the principal. It has to be about her eating disorder. She’s sure of it. It couldn’t be anything else.

She steps into the shower and lets the water gush over her. There’s only one person she’s ever confided in about it. And that’s Minoo.

There are five minutes to go before the first lesson starts. Minoo is sitting at the back of the biology class waiting for Rebecka.

They don’t sit next to each other in every lesson they have together, but it happens more and more frequently. Minoo knows they should be more careful, but human contact is addictive. Before she’d got to know Rebecka it was as if she had put part of herself into the deep freeze – the part of her that longed for friends and companionship. But then Rebecka had come along and thawed her. Now Minoo understands that it’s one thing to be alone
when
you don’t have any friends, but being without them once you’ve got them is a lot more difficult.

She looks at Anna-Karin, who is sitting on a desk at the front talking to Julia and Felicia. They’re not even in this class. Minoo had felt sure that Anna-Karin would eventually stop brainwashing Julia, Felicia and half of the school. She thought it was so wrong, so dangerous, that Anna-Karin would come to understand it sooner rather than later.

Now she sees that maybe she isn’t going to stop. After all, she herself would never consider going back to being alone. Why should Anna-Karin be any different?

Rebecka enters the classroom a few seconds before the biology teacher appears. It’s not like her to be late. She’s not wearing any makeup and has dark circles under her eyes. Yet she’s still so pretty. Minoo never gets tired of looking at her. There’s such variation in her features, so many different Rebeckas from one moment to the next, yet she’s clearly herself all the time.

Rebecka sits next to Minoo but barely returns her smile. Instead she is preoccupied with putting fresh lead into her propelling pencil.

Mr Post, the biology teacher, goes to his desk and turns to the class. He’s wearing the same red sweater with egg stains – at least, that’s what Minoo hopes it is – that he’s had on every time she’s seen him.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’re going to talk about the fascinating world of plants.’

He’s sucking a throat lozenge as he starts drawing a plant cell on the board. Someone lets out a muffled giggle. He
went
through exactly the same subject last time. Everybody knows why he sometimes falls asleep at his desk and why he’s always got a lozenge in his mouth. How else would he hide the smell of booze on his breath.

Minoo writes in her notebook and slides it over to Rebecka.
How are you
?

Rebecka stares at it as if it were a riddle. She spins her pen in her hand. Hesitates. Then starts writing.

‘Can anyone give me a synonym for cryptogam?’ says Mr Post and Minoo automatically raises her hand. ‘Milou?’ he says.

Someone laughs. Minoo has stopped trying to remind him of what her name is.

‘Cryptogams are spore plants. Phanerogams are seed plants,’ she says.

Kevin groans, and she regrets having answered the question more thoroughly than was called for. Why does she always have to be such a know-all? Why is it so important for her to see the teacher’s contented little smile when it makes the rest of the class hate her?

Rebecka slides the pad back to her and Minoo reads it. Rebecka has written several things and erased them. The only thing that was allowed to remain is:
Have you told anyone what I said to you at the fairground?

Minoo goes cold inside. She meets Rebecka’s gaze and blushes. She’s innocent but becomes so nervous that she probably looks like the world’s biggest liar. She grabs the pen.
No! Why do you ask?

I’ve been called to the principal’s office for a ‘routine
chat
’. She looks at Minoo probingly and writes
Sorry I
doubted you
.

Minoo meets her eye and whispers, ‘It’s okay.’

It’s more than okay. She feels as she did when she narrowly escaped being run over by that lorry. Rebecka nods and starts writing again.
Someone was following me yesterday. Don’t know who but I’ve seen them before, the day after Elias
.

Minoo thinks of the figure outside the house that night. She scribbles down that she thinks someone’s been following her, too. When Rebecka finishes reading she looks up. Minoo knows they feel the same: relieved not to be alone. Afraid now that it is doubly real.

Rebecka writes:

We
have
to meet
. All of us.
At midnight. I’ll text the others and tell them. They
have
to understand now. I don’t know what we’re going to do but we have to
help
each other
.

Minoo nods. She wonders if Rebecka understands that she’s the only one who can hold them together. She’s the only one that everyone likes. The combination of Vanessa, Ida, Linnéa and Anna-Karin is like a minefield, and Rebecka is stopping the whole thing from blowing up.

17

‘I’M SURE IT’S
nothing,’ says Gustaf.

They’re standing on the stairs. Rebecka is one step higher so, for once, they’re the same height. They’re speaking softly so their voices won’t echo.

‘She said it was a routine chat, right?’ he continues.

‘Have you ever had a “routine chat” with the principal?’ Rebecka asks.

Jari Mäkinen from year twelve is running down the stairs with a pink bag that looks completely out of place in his arms. He and Gustaf greet each other with a nod.

‘Well, have you?’ Rebecka repeats, once Jari has disappeared.

‘No. Maybe it’s something new she’s starting. After Elias and that. She wants to speak to students who—’

He breaks off. Rebecka swallows. This is it. This is the moment they’re going to talk about it.

‘Students who what?’ she asks.

Gustaf presses himself close to her and breathes in the scent of her hair.

‘You smell nice,’ he mumbles.

She almost shoves him away.

He looks at her anxiously. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘What was it you were going to say about students like Elias and me?’

Why don’t you say it yourself? she hears a little voice inside her say. Don’t wait for him. Tell him the truth. Minoo’s right. You have to trust him.

‘I just mean that maybe she wants to check up on all the new year eleven students,’ Gustaf says.

Her disappointment in him and herself for their cowardice weighs on her chest.

‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ he says.

‘Okay,’ Rebecka mumbles.

‘I love you,’ he says. ‘You won’t forget that, will you?’

They look at each other, and Rebecka discovers how close she is to tears. She can only shake her head in response.

It’s dark in the principal’s office. The blinds are down and the only light is from the desk lamp. The shade is a glass mosaic, a circle of dragonflies standing wingtip to wingtip. There are no papers on the desk, not even a pen. The computer is switched off.

The principal is wearing a dark-grey suit with a large silver brooch on the lapel. It looks old. Her bone-white blouse is buttoned up to the neck, and her black hair is perfectly in place. As usual her face is well made-up. It strikes Rebecka that many people would describe the principal as beautiful.

‘Sit down,’ the principal says, with a stiff smile.

Rebecka takes the armchair placed in front of the desk.
The
principal looks her steadily in the eyes, but suddenly she is distracted.

‘Excuse me,’ she says, and reaches for a strand of hair caught on Rebecka’s knitted sweater.

Rebecka doesn’t know what to say.

‘You’re probably wondering why I wanted to speak to you,’ the principal says, and drops the hair into the wastepaper basket.

‘I think I know why.’

The principal has dark, intelligent eyes.

‘Yes?’

The weight is still pressing on her chest. Rebecka has to force herself to speak. ‘Who’s been talking to you?’

‘Talking to me?’

‘Was it Julia or Felicia? Ida? Or was it the school nurse? Is she allowed to talk about that kind of thing? Was it Minoo?’

She regrets adding Minoo’s name. She wants to trust her – she has to if they’re going to be friends. But why did she look so guilty?

‘What would they have said about you?’ the principal asks.

She’ll start crying if she doesn’t close her eyes. She squeezes her eyelids together.

Suddenly Rebecka knows what a relief it would be to let go. To let herself fall and see if they catch her. Let go of the fear that her secret will be exposed. Expose it herself instead.

‘We’d better start at the beginning,’ the principal says.

Rebecka opens her eyes. The bewilderment on the principal’s face seems genuine and Rebecka realises she may have been mistaken. Perhaps this really is a routine chat?

‘Rebecka, what did you think this meeting was about?’