Vicky Angel (16 page)

“Poor Jade,” she says softly. “Are you feeling really sad today?”

I nod.

“Though Mrs. Wainwright says she feels you're working through things well. You're getting on OK with her?”

“Oh yes. She's very nice. I wish I could see her today.”

“I think she's tied up somewhere else today. But maybe you could phone her tonight?”

“I don't want to say stuff with Mum listening.” I pause. “You know what my mum's like.”

Mrs. Cambridge nods. We don't quite meet each other's eyes, embarrassed.

“I'm sorry my mum and dad were so …” I can't think of the right word.

“It's OK, Jade, really.”

She's being so sweet to me I decide to ask her.

“I've been sent a letter, Mrs. Cambridge. About
Vicky's inquest. They've asked me to come to give evidence. And I don't want to. Mum says I don't have to. Is that right?”

Mrs. Cambridge takes a deep breath.

“I rather think you'll have to go, Jade.”

“Can't I say I'm ill?”

“They need you there, Jade. But I'm sure it won't be too much of an ordeal. They'll be very kind and gentle. I shouldn't think there'd be any cross-examining. They'll just ask you to say what happened in your own words.”

“But that's it. I can't remember. I've tried, but it all gets muddled. I can't stand to think about it.” I'm starting to think about it now and it's making me shake.

“They'll understand. Your mum will be able to go with you. If she can't get off from her work then I'll see if Mrs. Wainwright can come. Or I could try to arrange for someone to take my classes and come myself.”

I want to give her a hug because she's being so kind, but Vicky has bobbed back and I daren't give her a chance to make mischief.

I just blurt out “Thanks” and make a dash for it. I'm not in my PE kit or trainers but I go for a run on the playing field. My feet burn in my school shoes and my blouse is too tight under my arms but I speed along all the same. I haven't warmed up, I'm doing it all wrong, but weirdly it's working, I'm not having to think about my arms and my head position and my pounding legs. It's
all just happening, as if I'm floating. I can do it. I can run. I've learnt. It's something I've done by myself.

“Rubbish!
I've
been with you. It was all my idea in the first place. And you're useless at running anyway. Look at me!” Vicky flies in front, nimbly running a foot above the ground. She peers back at me mockingly.

I keep on running steadily, trying to ignore her.

“Look at you! You're bright red in the face. And yuck, you're all sweaty! You'll stink the classroom out this afternoon. No one will want to sit next to you. Not even Madeleine Marshmallow. Not even Fatboy Sam,” Vicky jeers, circling me.

“Why do you always have to be so horrible to me? We're supposed to be friends!”

“Great friend you were!” says Vicky.

“What do you mean?” I stop, my heart pounding.

“Don't you remember?” says Vicky, hovering above my head.

I shut my eyes but I can still see her. I put my hands over my ears but I can still hear her. I can run and run and run but I'll never be able to get away from her.

I can't face school this afternoon. I say I have a bad headache—which is true—and they let me go home. I hope Dad will still be in bed but he's up, sitting at the kitchen table in his underpants and dressing gown, ringing adverts in the paper.

“I'm just looking if there's any jobs going,” he
says. “I'm getting so sick of working nights. It's doing my head in. And it's not helping things with me and your mum.”

I don't want to talk about it. I want to go and lie down in my room but he starts fussing, making me bend my neck and checking my arms for a rash.

“For God's sake, Dad, I've just got a headache.”

“Yeah, all right, just want to make sure. Sit yourself down and I'll make you a cup of tea. I wonder where Mum keeps the aspirins, eh?”

It's too much effort to argue. I slump on my chair. The kitchen is still cluttered with our dishes from breakfast, the yogurt congealing in the bowls. I feel sick looking at it. I go to scrape it in the bin. There's a crumpled letter in amongst the apple cores and teabags. I fish it out. It's the inquest letter. Mum must have chucked it away.

“What's that?” Dad asks.

“Nothing,” I say stupidly. “Well. It's about Vicky's inquest.”

“I thought they had her inquest right after she passed away?”

“They just started it then. It was adjourned. Till now.”

“And you've got to go?”

“I don't want to. Mum said I didn't have to. But Mrs. Cambridge at school says I don't have any choice.”

“She's right, Jade. You've got to go. But don't you worry, I'll come with you.”

I don't want him to. I don't want Mum to come either. They keep rowing about it. But on the morning of the inquest they both get ready, dressing up in the same clothes they wore for the funeral.

I really do feel ill. I've hardly slept. I keep trying to work out what I'm going to say but I can't sort it out in my head. There's just this terrifying blank and then Vicky's scream. I keep on and on hearing it. I shake my head and rub my ears.

“Have you got earache, Jade?” says Mum. “You look really dreadful. It's madness, this inquest. I
knew
it would stir things up.
Why
did you have to talk her into going?” She glares at Dad.

“She has to go. You could have been prosecuted, chucking that letter away. Typical you. You just won't face up to things.”

“You're the one who keeps his head in the sand,” Mum says sharply.

I stare at them. This isn't just about the inquest.

“Mum. Dad.”

They look at me. In weird unison Mum takes my left hand and Dad my right.

“Try not to worry, Jade,” says Mum.

“We'll be there for you, sweetheart,” says Dad.

We haven't held hands since I was little. We stand linked together and then fidget and feel foolish and break the clasp. They still walk either side of me as we walk down the road, past Vicky's bedraggled tributes outside the school, into the town to the Coroner's Court.

I've seen the old building lots of times but didn't realize what it was. We go up the steps. Mum and Dad look scared too. A man with little crowns on his jacket takes my name and shows us into a waiting room.

Vicky's parents are there. They look so different. They're both very brown but they don't look healthy in spite of their tan. They're both much thinner. Mr. Waters has lost his stomach and his round face is hollow now. Mrs. Waters is carefully made up and she's got a new modern hairstyle but she looks years and years older, almost like Vicky's gran.

I don't know what to say. No one does. Eventually Vicky's dad nods at us and my dad asks how they're doing, which is a stupid thing to say. Mr. Waters says, “Fine, fine,” which is stupid too, as they both look so terrible. My mum mumbles something about it being an ordeal for all of us. Vicky's mum doesn't bother to reply. She's staring at me. She makes me feel so guilty for being there.

I want to tell her it's not my fault.

But it is.

Then a pale middle-aged man comes into the room, walking stiffly in a sharply pressed suit with a black tie. He looks stricken when he sees Mr. and Mrs. Waters. He must be the driver. He looks different from the way I remember him. Much smaller. He sits down at the opposite end of
the room, as far away from Vicky's parents as possible. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. He keeps flexing his fingers. I think of them on the steering wheel. If only he'd swerved in time.

But it wasn't his fault. He was going very slowly. Vicky ran straight in front of him. He couldn't help it. He braked, I can remember the squeal, and then Vicky's scream. The scream the scream the scream …

“Jade? Have you gone woozy? Put your head between your knees,” Mum says. She tries to press me down. I wriggle away, embarrassed.

“Mum! I'm OK. Don't!”

“You're white as a sheet. You need a drink of water.”

Dad springs toward the drinks machine.

“What about Coke?”

I sip from the can of Coke, spilling some down my chin and onto my white blouse.

“Jade! Do you have to be so clumsy?” Mum hisses, scrubbing at the stain with her hankie.

I wish Mum and Dad would stop flapping. They're trying to be supportive but it's so awful in front of Vicky's mum and dad because they haven't got a daughter to care for anymore.

The room is filling up. There's the woman who phoned for the ambulance but I don't know who half the others are. Witnesses.

“Maybe they won't need you to give evidence,”
Mum whispers. “I mean, they've got all these others. And like you say, you can't remember it properly anyway.”

But my name is called midway through the morning.

“Oh dear,” Mum says. “Well, best of luck, pet.” She gives the Coke stain another quick rub.

“You'll be fine, Jade,” says Dad, giving my hand a squeeze.

His palm is cold but sweaty. I don't know whether I'm hot or cold. I don't feel as if I'm in my body at all. I feel as if I'm drifting up in the air … beside Vicky.

“Our big day, right, Jade?” she says. “OK. Time to take a trip down Memory Lane.”

I'm led into a large room with a man sitting on a raised platform. There's a policeman, a shorthand writer, someone telling me to tell the truth. My voice is a little mouse squeak.

“Now, Jade, tell us exactly what happened when you and Victoria came out of school on the afternoon of the fourteenth.”

He waits. He looks at me. They're all looking at me. I swallow. I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

“Don't worry, Jade. Just take your time. Tell us in your own words.”

I don't have the words. I can just hear Vicky screaming.

“Vicky screamed. When the car hit her,” I whisper.

“Yes, yes. But before? Tell us what happened before the accident.”

“I—I don't know. We were coming out of school. We walked along the pavement a bit. And then the car was there and Vicky screamed and—”

“What happened in between?” he persists. “You were walking along the pavement, you said?”

I suddenly see us, Vicky and Jade. Linked arms, the way we always walked.
No
. Unlinked.

“We were quarreling,” I say.

I see Vicky taking a swing at me with her schoolbag. I feel the pain again as it bangs my hip. It really hurts, making me feel sick.

“Oh, Jade! Why didn't you get out the
way
?” says Vicky.

She tries to rub my hip but I slap her hand away.

“You hit me with your schoolbag and it's
my
fault?”

“God, I'll take a swing at your head in a minute. You've no idea how pompous you sound,” says Vicky, laughing at me.

I'm not laughing. Not even when Vicky pulls a silly face and sticks out her tongue.

“Grow up, Vicky.”

“Who wants to grow up?” she says. She suddenly shivers and links arms with me, tired of teasing.

I won't make up yet. “Get off,” I say, pulling away. “I can't stand you sometimes.”

“Come on, you know you love me really,” says Vicky, hanging on.

“You're not going to get round me this time. Get lost!” I say, and I give her a push.

She staggers a little, looking shocked. Then she grins to show she doesn't really care.

“OK,” she says, and she dashes out in the road without looking …

and then there's the scream and it's all my fault.

I killed her.

If I'd made up with her we'd have walked along the pavement with linked arms and the car would have driven past and life would have gone on.

It stopped when Vicky screamed.

I can hear the screaming now, louder and louder. It's in me. It's coming out of my mouth. They're rushing toward me so I run, right across the room. Someone takes hold of me but I push them away, I'm running down the corridor to the door, I'm out and in the street, running and running and running.

Vicky's running near me. I don't know if I'm running to her or away from her. I don't know anything. There isn't anything in my head except the truth. I've remembered. It's all my fault.

I run down the road. There's shouting behind me, someone calling my name, but I can't stop. I run and run through the town toward the school, past the gates, along the pavement, slipping on the flowers, kicking toys out of the way, I can hear a car, I run, out into the road …

A squeal of brakes, a scream, my scream …

But there are arms round me, pulling me back, hands digging right into my shoulders, pulling my hair, yanking my clothes. I turn. It's Vicky.

The car driver yells abuse and then drives on.

“Wow! What a mouthful!” says Vicky, laughing shakily.

“You saved me,” I say. “But I didn't save you. It was all my fault. I pushed you away.”

“You pushed me, yeah. But you didn't push me under the car. I ran out, you know I did. It wasn't your fault. It was mine. My bad luck the car hit me. Your good luck the car didn't. OK? No big deal.”

“Oh, Vicky, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

We hug tightly, my arms right round her. I feel her warmth, her smooth skin, her silky hair, and …

“What on earth?”

Vicky looks over her shoulder.

“Oh my God!” She bursts out laughing. “Hey! Vicky Angel! I've made it.”

We have one last long hug and then, as Mum and Dad catch up, Vicky leaps into the air. She flaps wings as white as swansdown, waves one last time, and flies away.