The magazine slithers from her knees and onto the floor. I take her hand—God, her skin is still sowarm,she must surely have a fever—and squeeze it gently. She looks at me, her eyes wide and wet.
“That’s what hearing voices means, doesn’t it? Everyone said so.”
“Like who?”
She looks upward, toward a series of photographs tacked to the notice board that hangs over her bed. I move closer, leaningin to see the faces of this group of teens clowning around for the camera—there’s Alice, long hair swept over her shoulder, sitting on the lap of a tall, brown-haired boy. There she is again, pouting in a bikini with a friend wearing mirrored sunglasses. There are several photos of Alice and what appears to be the same girl, hair coiled into tight little curls, skin pale. All freckles and teeth and neon bracelets. Bright young things.
“Who’s this, Alice?”
“Vicky.”
Her voice is dull, and she doesn’t offer any further information. I lean closer to read the words scrawled on the bottoms of the photographs.Best M8s 4 Ever!in coiled, swirly writing. Another readsFeelin’ Gr8 in ’88!
“Those people outside the house, the ones that have been hanging around the last few days—they say I’mholy.They write me letters and post them through the door. They’ve left things out there, little statues, toys. Did you know that?”
I think of the small offerings I saw when I arrived at Beacon Terrace; the wreathed bay leaves, dried to a dark green, the ratty-looking teddy bear leaking stuffing. I nod.
“But people at school don’t think that. They don’t think I’m special. They all think I’m a nutjob. Even the teachers.”
“I’m sure they don’t,” I tell her, but it isn’t true. I know how it can be. School wasn’t kind to me, the girl with the dead brother and the father who handed out religious pamphlets outside the shopping center in his brown shoes and coat, face a study in grief. I suffered, too.
“Besides, you’re not at that school anymore, are you? Sam told me you were going to college in September.”
She brightens a little at this, picking at the chenille bedspread with her fingernails.
“Yeah! I’ll be studying hair and beauty. They have the classroom all set up like a salon, it’s so cool.”
I nod and smile and pick my notebook back up. During my studies I learned that teens value self-determination.“Let them set the agenda,”the professor told us, rolling up her sleeves,“and engage with them on their terms.”Besides, I don’t want to keep thinking about that chimney breast and the dark cracks in the brickwork, the way Alice whispered to me,“I see her eyes in the holes.”
“Have you always wanted to do that? Be a hairdresser?”
“For sure. I was cutting the hair off all my Sindy dolls as soon as I could hold a pair of scissors. I cut poor Tamsin’s hair when she was a toddler, took off all her beautiful baby curls. Not sure Mum will ever forget it to be honest but she asked me for a trim the other day so I hope that means I’ve been forgiven. I’ve been cutting our neighbor Mary’s hair and at Christmas her and Bert bought me my very own proper hairdressing kit to take to college.”
“I met Bert yesterday, up at the church. He mentioned his wife was ill.”
“Yeah. It’s a real shame. Mum said she had got really sick a few years ago and she’ll never get better. She talks funny now, like her voice is all mushy, and she needs Bert’s help to get around. I still cut her hair but I don’t know if she even knows I’m there sometimes. It makes me feel sad. Especially for Bert. He loves her more than anything.”
She looks up and gives me a weak smile.
“They used to look after me and Tamsin a lot when Billy was born. It made Mum sad having Billy. She cried every day. Bert said that some women feel like that sometimes, after having a baby. That the pregnancy can make them unhappy but they get better in time. Billy was a proper handful, he was wild. Still is,although I don’t notice it too much anymore. He doesn’t mean it, but some days it’s like the Devil got inside him, that’s what Bert says. At the time I didn’t mind too much because Bert and Mary used to make us nice dinners and let us help ourselves to the choc ices in the freezer. It was a bad time but not a bad time, does that make sense?”
I tell Alice it makes perfect sense.
“A few years ago, I started going ’round some evenings to set Mary’s hair and Bert would come in and play his old records for us. I sort of pretend I don’t like it but I don’t mind really. He made us funny little cocktails out of orange juice and pineapple from a tin. He calls themBertinisand puts little paper umbrellas in them. It always makes Mary laugh. Sometimes he plays a song that was the first dance at their wedding but it’s slow and Mary always falls asleep before the end of it.”
She sighs, hugging her knees to her chest.
“After I started cutting Mary’s hair, I had other people want me to do theirs. People in our street mainly, friends of my mum. I’d go to their houses and I didn’t charge much—I just needed to practice. At Christmas I had a booking for an address on the other side of town. It was raining that evening and I remember thinking maybe I won’t go. I couldn’t really be bothered, and I didn’t want to get wet. I wish I hadn’t gone. I really, really do.”
“What do you mean?”
Alice swallows loudly.
“I don’t want to talk about this now, Mina. I’m tired.”
Ah, I think. Here it is. Alice folds her arms, jutting out her lower lip. It’s a sulky, petulant posture that would seem like artifice in anyone else but this exhausted young teen, her eyes suddenly hooded and cold. I lean forward, keeping my voice calm, trying to hold her gaze.
“Alice, I can’t help you unless you give me the information. Otherwise I’m just out here working in the dark.”