44. After

Deandra has discovered her calling. She's going to be a translator. She already speaks English, French, Swahili, Urdu and a smattering of Japanese due to a rather eclectic upbringing, but her written English is, quite frankly, not great.

When I come into our room after dinner, she's waiting with her exercise book, twirling her pen in her hair. ‘If only my teachers could see me now,' she says. ‘Well done, Deandra! A star, star, star!'

She's also studying law through the Open University, so she can translate for lawyers and figure out how to screw her husband once and for all. I don't know all the details, but I would characterise him as a giant walking penis.

‘What?' she says, raising her eyebrows, taking in my wide grin.

‘I'm going to have a visitor,' I say.

‘What? When? Who?' She puts down her pen.

I shrug. ‘That's all I know.' My smile fades a little. ‘I suppose I should say I might have a visitor. Maybe.'

The guard told me that someone had enquired about how exactly one went about visiting this particular prison.

Who could it be? I hadn't had a single name to put on my approved visitors list.

I wish I could say that I wanted it to be someone from my dark past, someone who could help bring me the closure I'd been searching for the day I took that rainy drive back to Port Emblyn. But not all of them are exactly accessible these days, hence my present abode, and, honestly, I don't care about that any more.

All I want is Neil. I want his heavy arms and rough beard and the smell of his sandalwood shower gel.

The morning of the day Jenna went missing, I woke up in his bed. He was showering. Next to me he'd left a cup of tea.

I sat up and pulled the white duvet around my shoulders. Below the hiss of the water he was humming, of all things, ‘Mysterious Girl' by Peter Andre. I sipped my tea and laughed to myself, breathing in the scent of him and me.

I had told him everything. Almost.

I had told him about my mother and father's bizarre relationship. About what the Beaufort-Bradleys did to me, and how they had been responsible for the death of my mother. About the estrangement between me and my father. How I had been living. How at forty-six, this was my first real relationship.

I had even told him that I had come back to Port Emblyn with half-formed thoughts of revenge. I had told him that the moment I saw Jenna, I'd suspected she was struggling, and now I knew her, I was worried.

And he was still here and I was still here and the world still stood around me.

My omissions were small and necessary.

‘I know you're only doing it because you care,' he'd said. ‘But do you think maybe you should take a step back from Jenna? For your own mental health? We have a good safeguarding lead here.'

I looked into his dark eyes and knew he was right. I should have just told him about the bullying and walked away. He didn't know it, but he was offering me a new life.

If only I had seized it. That was my moment; my one chance.

But that was the morning I saw Frances clock me at the school gates, and Jenna walked towards me with a face like thunder.

She had cut her hair. Just as I had once after a particularly dog shit day. I had told Jenna about it. I had said it made me feel like I was taking back control. When really it had made me feel like an idiot.

She was copying me. With her hair she was telling me she felt seen by me, that she felt what I felt: we were kindred spirits – echoes in a time warp salon mirror.

I had tried to beam strength into her with my smile and she had followed me to my classroom.

I waited and waited, but she said nothing.

‘Jenna?'

She shook her head.

‘You don't have to tell me,' I said.

She rubbed her face.

‘Only, it seems as though perhaps you'd like to?'

She nodded, but her lips stayed shut.

What could have happened? ‘Does this have something to do with the rehearsal later?'

‘Well, I'm not doing that,' she said, flicking her hand like it was by the by.

‘Not doing what?'

‘Lucy Jenkins' part. The second witch.'

I nodded slowly. She had already told me that the only reason she did drama was because she loved, loved, plays. The texts, the theory, the watching, the set design and music. I'd reassured her that's how it had started out for me, and we'd made her an understudy for a part with very little time on stage. Even though I'd promised I could help her learn to enjoy acting, just as I had.

She laughed. ‘Do you know what Ava came as to our last Halloween party?'

I shook my head.

‘Sexy witch. Obviously. Do you know what every other girl came as?'

I shook my head.

‘Sexy witches. Obviously.'

‘I see.'

‘Do you know what my mother did to my witch costume?'

I shook my head.

‘Made me a sexy witch. Obviously.'

‘If you don't want to play the part, someone else will do it.'

As was so often the case with Jenna, I could feel that there was something she was keeping from me. Something big.

Bullying was a terrible thing. On its own, it could destroy a person. But Jenna had so many other things going on – how was I to know which battlefront she was fighting on today?

I remembered something she'd said that had made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, about a boy with his own car who she'd gone on a date with. She'd said something like, ‘He's getting this big promotion,' like she was trying to impress me, and it made me think he was much older than her – not a boy at all – but then she'd backtracked and claimed she was talking about his sports team. I'm sure she was lying.

I opened my mouth but she sat down suddenly and started crying and then wiped her face clean and started fiddling with a wooden ruler. ‘You like it though,' she said.

‘I like what?'

‘Being sexy.'

I opened my mouth but I wasn't sure what to say.

‘Rose isn't speaking to me,' she said, changing the subject. I was happy to move on from my apparent sexiness.

I had noticed they hadn't been sitting together recently. She had shrugged me off when I'd tried to ask about it in the library. ‘Did you two fall out?'

She started crying again, black eyeliner smudging onto her cheeks. ‘How are you meant to know what to do? How do you know what's right?' I could see tension building inside, flushing her cheeks.

‘Jenna?' I sat next to her. ‘What's going on?'

She shook her head. ‘I saw something,' she said, seeming to make up her mind.

I nodded, staying quiet. It's usually the best way.

But she looked away.

‘Is this about Rose, or is it something to do with this… older boy?'

She started running a corner of the ruler over the notches in the desk. It was ancient, like everything in this place. I had even found some of my own carvings from when I was a pupil. DIE BITCHES DIE. I can't pretend I had been at my creative peak.

Jenna slapped the ruler on the desk. ‘All of the above,' she said.

‘Okay, so, what did you see?'

‘I could go to Glastonbury, you know, if I wanted,' she said.

I frowned. This was affected, this jumping about. She wanted to tell me something, and she didn't. She wanted me to force it from her. But people have to want to tell you.

‘That's wonderful,' I said.

‘It is, isn't it?' And she picked up the ruler and snapped it in half and walked out.

I felt lost, which wasn't something I felt often. I wanted to run to Neil.

But I had to remember. I had a plan for Jenna Beaufort-Bradley. I had to let this play out.