65: Amber Alert
65: Amber Alert
Friday - Sex games all day. Is it raining?
Friday night - Nat rich, takes them out
Sat morn - Droog glory? Getting fit. Fieldwork in Barmouth
Sat evening - more sex games, all nighter
Sun morning
Talking about r’ships and finding THE woman?
Do they find out Tobias was just bird bones? But how? Through a phone call from someone at the party? From newspaper? From Dean?
Calling Becky
Brief reprisal of Clockwork Orange topic, did they finish watching it last night? Refs need to the famous eye scene
*I want to put something from the Sex In History book*
*She wants to go biking but guys can’t be bothered. We’ve done enough Famous Five exploring. But I haven’t rode a bike in years! Driving lesson was enough. You’re our bike. Now bend over
Might wants to pay Ed back too at least for the sunglasses etc
Cheerios talk, after which Ed says yes he’s serious, said he wants to take you to Gretna Green
How’s Natalia’s anus feeling after everything
Joke about friend of Dorothy - code for gay man.
You said the money’s all Dorothy’s. Well I’m a friend of Dorothy. Oh, you are quite!…What do you mean? Friend of Dorothy is code for gay man.
What about Neill putting off the speeding course?
Clothes WASHING after the caravan… Her knickers at home - all streaked - what happens to them?
When do they resume writing?
FRIDAY
Dear Diary, well it was Ed’s idea to write The Novel of The Bad Headmaster, and I’m not having him stealing my mantel, so whilst the guys fix dinner downstairs I’m going to write. Fix? Fix dinner? God I’m talking American like Nathaniel. Yank wank, as Neill would say.
It’s Friday 13th! I want to write down the stuff that’s happened on this trip before I forget it. So this morning I left the bed and Neill called me back and I remembered what he said about ‘getting it bad’ so I did as I was told cos I did NOT want them playing with my arse after yesterday’s snooker table ass torture. Luckily Neill ordered my arse a no-go area. He’d say ‘this little piggy - went aaaall the way… up my cunt’… and my cunt only, thank god.
Now the boys are calling me to eat. Who knows what exactly. I’ll come back and write more, I promise…
‘The guys are calling me. ‘We wanna get inside yoooou!’ Jeez, we already shagged this morning. I bet they want to shag again before dinner. I’m getting kind of sore. Not sore in my cunt, surprisingly. But sort of sore in my bum bone. The muscles around my cunt. Feels like I’ve been riding a horse. But as soon as they get a glimpse of me, just going downstairs in my knickers for a cup of tea I get grabbed over the kitchen island. This morning I got fucked for about twenty minutes over the wobbly table. Now the table’s even wobblier.
Doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere today, everytime I put clothes on, they pull them off. I LOVE seeing their chests so I pull theirs off too…
TO PLACE…
We played cards. A game that’s supposed to be called Go Fish, but we called Go Fuck. Whenever they wanted a card to complete a set they would …
Ed said… I liked it when he says that. He always laughs at my jokes. I like that.
Neill said tonight that he…
Pinball. I was laid out on Ed’s exercise bench. They tied my hands up underneath it and played my pussy like a pinball machine. They would race to make me come and then make me come together. They had a ball taped in my mouth so I couldn’t quite say when I’d had enough, but I ended up coming about nineteen times I counted. And I don’t know who did it, because I was also blindfolded, and quite pissed!
Archway. This one I quite liked. Neill would hold me over his lap, really tight by my neck - my hair touching the floor, and my ankles tight with his other hand, so I’m sort of like an arch. He tied my dressing gown girdle round it all, and whistles to Eddie, spank her. And they’d do that whilst they watch and laugh over some shitty morning TV show, till they saw enough dribble that was ‘better than this drivel,’ and then he’d flip me over and I’d land on his cock, Ed wanking in my face, Neill telling me to open my mouth and catch it, and if I caught it all, that Ed would have to stack the dishwasher.
Double Dutch, or soggy biscuit as Ed called it. We played a cumming race. We all wanked over a biscuit and whoever came last had to eat it. Not a big deal for the guys to eat a biscuit with some of my faint juices trailed on it - they eat me every day. But for the guys, well, you can guess Neill wasn’t going to eat Ed’s come. And in the end, they almost fought because Ed didn’t eat it. So I did. Was alright. Wasn’t a really big deal after the ice cream I had in the caravan.
Neill keeps coming in and asking what I’m writing, and I say revision, and he pats me on the head and calls me a good girl. Ha! Gullible git. And he says because of that, we’re not going home till Sunday night! ‘‘Sunday night darling, Sunday night. Let’s make it last!’ Woohoo! Our holiday has been TWO WEEKS END TO END just like I was end to end with them earlier…___
Oh, guess what! I am RICH! Ed came in with his phone saying look, Rich… they money’s come through, and Neill’s face was a picture. Then he said transfer it to Natalia’s (!!!!!!!)
He asked how I even have a bank account, lol. I had to think back. Mum opened it for me when I was 12 - only because se wanted the £20 bonus they give you for opening it. They guys’ mouths fell open. Sometimes I forget what a cunt she’s always been to me! She must have shown them my birth certificate, I don’t even remember because I was busy playing with my paying-in book. And now I’m too busy checking and re-checking… I have £2,057 in my account! Omg!!!!! ‘Thirteen pairs of Nike Vapor-whatevers would make Sam’s eyes pop out of her head! Or that ugly £1995 silk yellow Versace dress I once saw Lana and Aish ogling on Net-A-Porter! Of course, I wouldn’t dream of spending her money on either of those idiocies. Neill reckons it’s dirty money, Ed said go check it with the police, and Neill’s like no way! He’s having nothing to do with the police! Ha! Guess what, I’m taking the guys out tonight and the food is ALL ON ME and I’m in charge of everything - even the AFTERS! Yum ;-)
…Forgot I had to pay 150 of my money on a fine that came in for Neill’s smoking in the caravan. Although it was also my fault for having stinky Hetty in there.
MEAL… WHAT WE HAD…
TALK ABOUT FOOD TECH??
Guys wanted to watch Liverpool Bournemouth football but I said NO WAY, I call the shots tonight. And we’re playing a board game. Ed said Scrabble. I said I’m bored of words and Neill will just win. Monopoly! But we’re going to play Dirty Scrabble.
Dirty Scrabble…
Or Monopoly… Ahh! Wait till she runs out of money, we’ll make her pay! / So we played Monopoly but not just any way! ‘Well you’re gonna let the guys play and you’re going to play alright - just not for houses,’ Neill said, his usual cocky smirk, and took out this large dice that he said Ed chose for me in a shop somewhere, and stuck it in my mouth. Then I bent over a stool naked, they tied my hands, then tied a kitchen bowl around her neck, and for every turn they took, they would slap my bum hard enough for the dice to roll out of my mouth into the bowl… before they stuff it back in again, and so on for every turn. By the time I’d had enough, they counted up who’s won the most assets, and and then that person fingered me to try make me come within 1 minute. Well that didn’t happen, because Ed’s fingering is a bit off, so it went to Neill, who got to use the lube pooled in the bucket to fuck my arse. Sort of glad it wasn’t Ed in the end because Neill can usually tell when I’m constipated so luckily he switched to my cunt after five minutes, right over the board.
Neill was looking worried again, sitting there puffing his after-dinner fag (or three) and I asked him what his secret is. He said he’s wondering whether Alana will go back to her mum and tell her I’m not with my boyfriend after all. I told him she won’t bother, Alana thinks I’m a loser and won’t want her mum to know she’s friends with losers! Then Ed came down for coffee and we started talking about what grades he got for GCSE, and I said I bet Lana gets all A*s. Then Neill was ranting away about how much girls like Lana are ‘oh, girls who get A*s in all the subjects, but with no pizzazz in any of them; no character, no goals…’ and went on about someone called Roxana Badeau who was top of Drama in RUT… a ‘great big buxom kitty of a girl’ who I thought would be a BAFTA actress by the end of college, and I ended up seeing on Model Mayhem a year later, in the lesbian section, pimping out the worst duck pout he’d seen. And then Ed says what were you doing in the lesbian section of Model Mayhem, Rich! And we all burst out laughing, and pulled me down to have a ‘rug munching contest’ and whoever made me come last, had to chew the actual rug for five minutes.
By the night, Neill was like… I want her constantly coming. I don’t want her to stop. I want Ed’s bed sodden. I want Natalia passed out by the end. She won’t even remember her name. She’ll need a day to recover and then we do it all over again to her tomorrow night.
SATURDAY
So here’s the thing. This morning, I went to the loo and Neill calls me back, and I didn’t answer. And oh, my pussy starts throbbing thinking of the film last night, and he calls again, in that voice he does, where you know you’re gonna get it. And after the third time, by which point I was downstairs creeping out of the front door, I hear ‘Eddie! Fetch!’ And it’s like a hundred fingertips tapping down there.
And they get her, droog-style. You’ll be stripped, cuffed, blindfolded, gagged, dragged back here…
Before I know it, Ed’s got hold of me like the dim bloke in the Kubrick film, and I think he sort of enjoyed this idea of finally getting proper revenge after what we did to him on the staircase. He cuffed me, taped a snooker ball into my mouth, then I couldn’t see anything because something was wrapped over my head, and I was carried upstairs, and oh god, I think I was dribbling by this point, well - they said I was, once they stripped my nightie off, in about three seconds, and I get the worst spanking I’v ever had. I mean… it stung like hell. And I was making so much noise with the ball in my mouth but it felt by then like I’d wet myself. My arms were cramping and I couldn’t tell them, but suddenly I was flipped the other way and one of them was holding both of my ankles in the air whilst the other one hit my bottom so I think I really did wee myself, because they were something about ‘messy girl’ that sort of turned me on even more, though I was glad I had a jumper or whatever was over my head, because I felt really stupid. In a kind of nice, private wanky way. Then one of them started fingering me, like four fingers at once, I think it was Ed, because Neill doesn’t normally just thrust in like that, and then it stopped abruptly, and I was turned over and I think Neill could tell by my gag-moaning sort of whimper that I wanted his cock, and his scent starts riding me.
I love my lamb
The lamb Ed had won for her, she didn’t just hug because she missed Hetty, nor because it was like hugging Hetty without having to constantly wash her hands. It was also because it was the sweetest soft toy she’d ever seen. It had a little ruffled head, black beads for eyes and a simple three stitches for a mouth. Its arms and legs swung-weighted forward like the design was originally for a bear. Its ruffled white fur smelt like cotton.
And now it was worth even more than the small fortune Ed paid to grab it, for it had a diamond twinkling at its ear.
‘She’s found the ring. There - she’s put it on the lamb’s ear!’
‘Ne-eeill,’ Natalia lay twiddling it, ‘ I was thinking. If you got this ring from Mr Trust Fund Trollop before we started sailing, how did he get it if the island loot hadn’t been brought out yet?’
‘Transacted beforehand I imagine darling.’
‘The whole point of the party was to build anticipation for the island,’ yawned Ed. ‘And the hold was locked up, I know, because I tried twice to take Poundstretcher down there.’
Neill sighed.
‘So maybe this ring isn’t stolen! Maybe it’s his own!’
‘Sure, sure. Bought and paid for with the honest living of a sly old snollygoster.’
‘Come again?’
‘No, Ed. I’ll pull your ears this time.’
‘I mean is the ring even real?’ Natalia frowned.
‘Pass it here,’ said Ed.
‘I already did the water, dot and fog test,’ said Neill. ‘Checked online, it’s probably worth about £__k but not sure I want to live off Rob’s dirty cash.’
Neill drew a breath. ‘Let’s see what I can do when we get back to Leeds.’
‘Can I wear the ring till then!’
‘Only if you keep bouncing like that.’
So I was doing Yoga. And Ed doing press-ups… ‘Having a hot, fit girlfriend is literally good for your health!’ - they kept saying, and perving all over my bottom. And whilst someone’s finger is lodged up my passage whilst I’m in the __ position they start talking about exams. And Neill casually goes onto his emails to bring up a schedule that’s come through for my exams whilst I’m fucking Ed’s finger and just as I cum, I gasp that the first exam is 7th May, that’s in 3 weeks!! It’s English Spoken Language and Ed’s like, you'll have to make more sense than you just did there!
But after that I got worried cos on top of revision I’ve got three lots of coursework that I haven’t started ANY of. Food Tech, a whole cooking thing. Art! And even Geography I’ve got to do some sort of fieldwork. I started despairing and the guys offer to help… as they always do. Well I haven’t got my sketchbook or any of my art stuff, they offered to buy some but nearest art shop is like 30 miles away, so they suggested the Food Tech one. I haven’t even picked a topic. So they start googling and come up with the idea of “designing a three-course meal for a themed event, such as a local street food festival or a restaurant's international week”. Ed cracked out ideas and my headmaster love approves them… ahh.
They start looking at food festivals but there’s none on till next week… / we find the Caernarfon Food Festival is on. We went there and it was almost as good as Borough Market! So we change the topic to “Create three dishes for a local street food festival to showcase world street food.” They didn’t let me spend any of my money. I was being fed food into my mouth by both of them and everyone stared and I couldn’t help laughing. I took loads of pictures and even filmed little interviews with the chefs. So now I have this monster list to pick. “Select dishes that allow the demonstration of complex technical skills like making pasta from scratch, kneading dough, or filleting fish.” So then when we get home they give me a masterclass in the kitchen.
We enjoyed the Food Tech so much we began to tackle the Geography one. This is the one I hate much more. I only picked Geography because I thought it would be about travelling not boring things like “measure the traffic sound levels on Leeds Briggate to see if they’re higher than WHO recommendation”. So Ed says in his hooligan voice that always cracks me up - fuck Leeds Briggate! We’re in exotic CUM-REE! …Cymru or whatever Wales is called - and says let’s go down Lake Tegid and measure how many times we can make you come before someone walks by, but Neill picks up the brochure from the shelf and says let’s go to Barmouth beach, so then Ed goes googling (oh I love having two boyfriends) and comes up with: “Location: The beach at Barmouth. To investigate the effectiveness of groynes in trapping sand and to understand coastal erosion and deposition processes.” Fuck!! And even the headmaster sitting puffing weed is impressed. “Collect and record the characteristics of pebbles (e.g., size, shape, degree of roundness) on different parts of the beach, perhaps across a transect from the high-tide to the low-tide mark.” “Record the types and extent of coastal erosion (e.g., cliff erosion) and deposition (e.g., sand dunes) along the coastline.” “Compare sand heights to see if sand is being trapped on the updrift side of the groynes.”… Natalia tails off into notes
Day in Barmouth…
Sunday - we went to a car boot, I got £100 cash out…
So we played Twister, but instead it’s Twist-Her. Which sort of turned into Operation by the end…
So we have this thing called Wheelbarrow where Neill fucks me from behind, grabbing my arms like he normally does - but with my face planted right down on Ed’s cock, and the last one between them to come has to make breakfast, or unload the dishwasher, or whatever. Except this time I wanted Ed to hold his gun to my head. Not the water gun, but his real gun… I LOVED the look on Neill’s face when I said it… Neill was saying no way, but Ed unloaded it, and then Neill came first, and made me suck on the gun whilst Ed finished.
The guys were playing cards and two sentences into trying to explain how to play Poker, I was yawning, and so you can probably guess what happened. The game changed to…
So today we became a Headmaster’s Sex Show. Last night in Ed’s house and Neill sat back and made us shag over the table…
Sunday morning car boot sale - managed to drag me out of bed for the last hour of a car boot sale - got £50 out of a cash machine in town - I could barely walk, my groin is killlllling me…
‘So what do you think to all that, Eddie?’
‘Christ I reckon if anyone got hold of that diary, it’s Amber Alert!’
Neill stared.
‘Amber Alert. A child abduction emergency!’ Ed.
‘Yes I know what it is,’ Neill said wryly. But she’s not a child.’
‘I’m joking mate. I’m horny as hell. I reckon that’s the novel right there.’
‘Give me my diary back NOW!’ She laughed and jumped up and down.
‘Hang on, hang on. What did you call me - a gullible git? Listen, you’re the one who has your exams in a matter of four weeks. We have done nothing on this holiday but shag.’
‘Give me it back!’
‘Get down and suck for it.’
‘Today I talked with Ed about the thing that was worrying me.’ Oh?…’
‘Neill!’
‘Mate, give her it back. It’s a girl’s diary for god’s sake.’
‘Oh? You pipe up now, Eddie boy?’
‘Rich, you’re being a prick.’
‘Alright, alright. I don’t even care what you two were talking about. Stay on my cock and you can have your diary back.’
Neill goes off for a fag /shit whilst…
‘Thanks, Ed.’
‘Might have been a good way to ask him, huh? Taste of his own medicine whilst prying into your diary.’
‘I forgot about our Cheerios chat. I don’t want him knowing I saw his email. It just bugs me that I don’t understand why his wife Rose would mention Cheerios.’
‘So the only other way is if she saw the cereal at his cottage.’
‘So that means he’s invited his ex wife to his cottage? But why, if he’s got her blocked, he would never let her in - unless … he’s lying? And he’s still seeing her.’
‘Nah. Why would he? He has a face like a bulldog whenever his wives are mentioned.
Ed frowned. ‘What was that thing you mentioned the other day? Doing London in one day, you said, and he swiftly changed the subject.’
‘Yep. And what about when his phone rang on Thursday night - the first time, and there was the sound of a woman shouting, he said it was a governor…’
‘What governor calls up seven in the evening?’
She shrugged. ‘In term time he gets evening calls, but…’
‘When he came back he looked odd as. Poking the fire like he was stewing over something.’
‘Usually does over business. But I just can’t help thinking it’s something he’s hiding. Something to do with headmistress Joan. Has he told you about her?’
‘Is that the high-flying blonde who would striptease for him?’
She frowned. ‘Not that I know.’
‘Tell you what. Consider me your private investigator,’ he patted her hand. ‘Case in point,’ he nodded, ‘here the subject comes.’
‘Eddie! Get your grubby mitts off. She’s mine, reserved, and never to be …. Sex game follows?
*
The bags were packed, Ed had run around for the past three hours cleaning the place, and Natalia had helped the best she could with a cup of tea in one hand, Neill with a fag in his, till Ed kicked him out for making a stink. ‘I should fine you like Marine Park did.’ And their goodbyes were soberly amicable for those two, the antithesis of the arrival, Ed and Neill ensconced in a bear hug with Natalia’s rubbed head trapped under one arm, before Ed scooped her up into carry-hold and swung her round before plonking her into Neill’s and then sliding down his body as he talked M54 and knackered already, straight to bed when we get back, and Eddie says he’ll save his journey for the morning, to give him chance to bleach the jacuzzi tub.
‘Well, Eddie boy. It’s back to the grind.’
And with the slam of the boot and after more goodbyes in the dark mountain chill, Neill’s Merc was winding down the dark country lane, Natalia in disbelief that it was school tomorrow, tomorrow - ‘and ‘tomorrow! Back to the witches!’ And her checking she could go straight to her old form class? - and he assuring her that she could do anything she likes, and he’ll approve it - ‘think of yourself as secretly heading the school, little wifey.’ And once the bumping ride and glimmer of Araf and duck warning signs had sobered into sleepy tatty M54 signs to Leeds, she was asleep, woken by the gravel stone of Fir Cottages, and the cut out of the engine, as Neill tugged at her neck and knees, ‘where’s your shoes? It’s all wet out out there, I’ll have to carry you over the threshold’ - and carried her in with one hand unlocking the cottage door whilst she kissed ravenously at his mouth. ‘Haven’t you had enough, hmm?’ - ‘Of Ed, yes… I’ve finally got you all to myself again…’ - ‘Oh but I cannot perform like two men…’ - ‘I agree, more like five.’ - ‘What does being your wife entail?’ - ‘The same, but harder fucking, harder spanking and no escape…’
‘When do we get Ras back?’ - ‘oh, I’ll fetch him after school tomorrow…’
‘Missing Ed and your secret chats with him?
‘Shut up, it was nothing.’
‘Aw, like most holiday romances, eh!’
She look at him, all starry-eyed, and he looks at her back, and…
‘Nee-ill…’
‘Yee-ess…’
‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Oh. Here we go… ‘
She cleared her throat.
‘Go on then.’
‘I'm scared now.’
‘Ohhh.’
‘Well… I just wanted to know. Just because it’s bugging me. And Ed said to just ask you… so here goes.’
‘Oh, dear. What.’
‘There was one time… I… saw an email.’
‘An email.’
‘On your computer.’
‘Oh?’
‘It was on the screen! I’m not a pryer!’
‘Just a pariah.’
‘I mean… there’s plenty times I could have seen something by accident, like when you got me to send emails when you were ill… you know…’
‘Yes, yes. Come on. What was the email? Something about penis enlargement?’
‘It was from Rose, I think.’ She watched him inhale. ‘Just something weird in the email that’s been bugging me since.’
‘Goodness. And how long have you let this bug you?’
‘Oh, no, I just wonder sometimes.’
‘Oh, Natalia…’
‘Hey that’s not fair. There are weird things you do and say, and, I could ask you about any of those.’
‘Like what?’
She paused. ‘Going to London from 11 to 6.’
He sighed.
‘Well, it’s weird? You haven’t explained it. Anyway, the email…’
‘Please do elaborate on this email.’
‘You said you didn’t tell Rose about me. But in the email it said, that place in London you stayed in! That box of Cheerios? So she must know about me?’
Neill stared softly.
‘Neill?’
He cleared his throat.
‘Well? Explain it then.’
‘I’m trying to think of how.’
‘Well, what do you mean? You can’t just tell me?’
‘Sort of… not.’
‘You’re… seeing Rose?’
‘No, of course not. It’s just a bit of a weird, long story. I’m tired, but I will tell you. I promise. In the morning, with Cheerios and a nice cup of tea…’ And he squeezed her, and she felt everything was ok, more relief if anything, as if he was squeezing a lighter body, a body that had blown out a worry that hung like a stone, and now could lay with him back in their own bed, where the linen its crisp fresh clean, nothing like they’d left it.
‘Did you get a cleaner in whilst we were away?’ - ‘yes, yes. Not the one who knows your mum, don’t worry.’ And the bed feels gorgeous, a different gorgeousness from Ed’s big white islands in big sandy rooms, but more like a puffin’s burrow, the old scent of Neill’s abode filling her sinuses like sweet soft gas reminding her of every nuance of their first days together, till her dozing mind slowly comes round to the latest tears and illness on the timeline just before they left, and how the holiday washed it all from her, it washed it all from her, just like he said. And the hard thing on her ring finger is solid evidence against the softness that it was not a dream, although she may be falling into one now, of Barmouth beach and Ladies of Llangollen House and Llandudno pier and Portmeirion high tea. And Tobias’s mansion and Hetty the lamb, oh, at least she knew her address, and that she’d never go to slaughter. What was their name..? Bartlet. Bassett. Barstards. Zzz…
He’s ‘trying to think of how to tell her.’ He’s trying to think of a lie to tell her? Is he a liar? But he never cheats, she knows that.
Whizz! Pop! Neill’s snoring was epic level. Piii-ung! Goodness, it sounds like Bonfire Night. Now someone was shouting in the landscape of her dream. It was her mum in the kitchen, calling Dad a no good ‘un. Then it was Joan at the door, sad and angry. Then it was Anna, storming off from the Ladies’ of Llangollen House, and blonde tart Poundstretcher, falling off the boat. The voice went on, like a little girl’s now. Then it was her own, shouting at the guys on the island to stop fighting. Then it was her child self on the stairs, shouting at her mum and dad to stop fighting. But Dad’s blanked out, like a silhouette, and she’s soothed by a bowl of ice cream he gives to her. But still the shouting goes on, as she throws her ice cream to the floor and stomps her foot on the stairs.
Does this get your attention now, DADD-YYYY!’
This Northern voice is more confident than hers. At least in her dreams she can be confident. Clammy between her fingers, she marvels at the stress of the dream. Whizz! Pop! Bang! …Liar! Liar!
Is he a liar? He can’t be. He’s her daddy. He’s her…
‘…DADDD-YYY! YOU LIIII-AAAAR!’
Her eyes pop open. It’s all dark, but something glimmers above her.
‘N-neill? What’s that? On the ceiling?’
It pops and glimmers and sparkles again. It’s coming from the window.
‘Neill?’
He was still laying next to her, but she could sense that he was not asleep. It was like a sweating log next to her had stopped breathing. She scrambled out of the duvet just as she felt him arise too, and her head is first between the curtains.
A burst of colour was landing sparkles in the garden. Every burst illuminated something on the grass, something glinting ginger.
‘Neill, is that… a fox! Again? But what…’
Whizz! Pop!
‘I know you’re there!’ the fox screams, with another burst of colour. Foxes can’t scream. What’s there has two upright legs and human hair.
‘Oh my god it’s Maisie. It’s Maisie from the book!’
‘Dahhhh-DEYYYY!’
‘Natalia, come away, come here.’ But she is glued to the window.
‘I’m fucking dreaming. It’s Maisie!’ Two nimble feet planted nimbly astride the lawn, a shouting O of a mouth, face inclined up, it could be a Quentin Blake sketch drawn right there in the garden. Matilda taking down Mr Wormwood with another FLASH! POP!
‘Goodness, oh my goodness…’
‘Neill what is it? Neill who is it? Dinkey’s daughter? Who?!’ This is obviously a dream, and she’s finding it remarkable, that both Maisie and Matilda were here, holding now aloft a cat, wriggling wildly in Maisilda’s hands, its fur a jagged terrified shard as another firework flew over.
‘Oh, hallo, who are you!’ She screams with laughter. ‘Daddy’s HEADMISTRESS, is it? Here’s your CAT, BITCH!’ …the cat flew out of her hands and ran like a slivery grey bolt into the bush.
‘Is that… Ras? Ras! Oh my god!’ She feels sick now, that this dream was more real than usual… she was coming to her senses; the hard ring on her finger was felt, this was not a dream, and now Neill was dragging her by the hand away from the window, muttering in some dashing despair to the bedroom door, just as Natalia although still incognisant to what was on each going on, gives the first instinctive pull of resistance, that there is something wrong, something majorly wrong… a cat was being let out of a bag.
‘Fuck, fuck,’ he mutters, ‘she’ll have the police and whole street up. Stay here. Keep the curtains closed. I need to go sort this out before the neighbours call the police!’
‘What! I’m not staying here!’ All obedience to Neill is as insentient to both of them as she flings on her nightie and races after him down the stairs to the back garden door that is flung jittering on its hinges, and the silhouette of a strange coward disappears against a popping orange blare as the mysterious shouting girl meets with growling man-voice, chorusing yelps of indignation as the hosepipe snakes over the patio and the fireworks are hissed into silence.
‘What the hell are you doing, Amber. Do you want me arrested?’
‘You lied! You lied! You lied! You said you’d be back and you LIED and I’m not having it ANYMORE you big fat-bottomed LIAR!’
‘Keep your voice down for goodness’s sake. Who brought you here?’
‘Fury! Fury did! Like a woman scorned, you always say!’
‘Mum brought you?’—And now mutterings of placation to Bert over the fence, about how fireworks from our shed set themselves off, good heavens! I’m terribly sorry, family drama! …Family drama. And just as Natalia, stood in her nightie barely able to even feel the cold garden air, starts to comprehend, the flashing eyes of Amber catch onto her from the darkness of the garden into the darkness of the kitchen, just as Natalia turns away and shields her face.
‘Oh! Who’s that little wench! She doesn’t look like a headmistress!’ She erupts into peels of laughter, followed by more of Neill’s earnest placations to ‘get indoors, get indoors for goodness’s sake,’ Natalia runs back through the living room, just as the garden door slams, then the kitchen door, and Neill’s step is behind her, grabbing her arm just as Natalia is fumbling in a confused daze at the front door, with no other compunction but to get out, before her arm is seized.
‘Natalia, Natalia. Wait!’
She turns round to the dim-lit face of a man she hardly knows.
‘She’s my… oh dear. I’m so sorry, I had to fetch her in… This is what I wanted to talk about, you see I—’
‘Amber’s all good,’ she stared back. ‘Amber’s all good.’
‘Well, yes she’s sitting in the kitchen. Listen…’
Before he could even blink she wrenched open the door and shot out like a bolt of white into the dark.
*
She ran and ran down the country lane till she had no breath left, then turned down a field track. Last thing she wanted was Neill’s car headlights picking her up. Would he come looking for her? She can’t be another girlfriend. But how could it be his daughter? She had Ras! So she was ‘the teacher’ that was looking after her him? Well, he said his ex-wife Rose was in teaching. Rose was ‘mummy’ he referred to? Oh god, something wasn’t right. Why had he never told her he had a daughter? The Secret of Amber, she once watched a documentary about the tree, amber is fossilised tree resin, amber, the colour of her sunglasses, no wonder he corrected her and said tiger-stripe! …All these thoughts flashed through her as she ran in her ballet slippers suddenly realising she had no money, no phone, no way of contacting anyone, and she wasn’t going back to Neill’s - but she was heading in the direction of the bus stop to school, and wondering at the direction of the house that Stuart that time had pointed, when she saw a shape looming across the field, and she caught the glint of red of the bus stop far away on the right.
She hastened her step, feeling sudden gladness that she was near a house of someone she vaguely knew, and even if he wasn’t there, the mention of his auntie might gain her admittance.
She came up to the house. It was detached country cottage, a lot more inviting and homely looking than Tobias’s Georgian mansion, but still had to be owned by someone rich. Breathless she knocked on the door. Then knocked louder, knowing whoever was in there would be asleep.
‘Hello!’ She called. She paused, then added, ‘I’m so sorry, I need a little help! I’m Stuart’s friend!’
Silence. She knocked again and repeated.
A few seconds later she heard a scuffle and jangling of keys. Relief, and also, awkwardness as the door opened and a woman’s face, lined with sleep, eyes grew wide with surprise.
‘Bloody ‘eck!’
‘I’m so sorry, I can explain everything, but I just need to be somewhere… something happened, I… I know Stuart, is he your…?’
‘Stuart? Are you his girlfriend?’
‘No, no… I just know him, he’ll know me… is he here?’
‘Not right now, no. He said he were coming back in the morning. Come in, come in - you’re shivering all over. A bloody cold night for April.’
Sitting in the lounge, the woman, Mandy, made them some hot chocolate, ‘not too much sugar, mind, for this time of night,’ and Natalia, as she sipped the dense dark milk, suddenly wondered what she was going to say.
‘I, erm, I’m with a relative nearby. We had a fight tonight. I discovered something about them I didn’t know.’
‘Oh? A relative? As in, someone about to become family?’
She eyed her ring finger. Natalia glanced down and bit her lip. ‘Oh, yeah. Well, yes, a man.’
Just then came a knock at the front door.
‘Ah, so he does keep his phone on at night, the little fibber,’ Mandy chuckled and arose, and within a moment there was Hot-Stu, looking red-nosed and flustered, staring at Natalia.
I got a taxi over. Natalia! Well! What a surprise! His grin halts. ‘Are you… ok?’
Yess…
Awkward convo…
I’m just so tired… she needs time to think of what to say.
Oh, of course. My aunt will make you up a bed.
Sleeps in spare room. She laid awake, stunned. She feels inside her vagina where there’s still a Scrabble piece. It’s the letter… R? R for Richard. Or the last letter of Amber…
She borrows clothes off Mandy and has breakfast.
Mandy leaves early for work. Stuart stays on.
‘I had a presentation lined up for Leeds Grammar this morning, but I’ve cancelled. I’m far more intrigued to entertain my night guest.’
‘Leeds Grammar!
‘Yes, you know them?’
‘Oh, no. I just know the headmistress is a battle-axe.’
Stuart convo.
It’s funny, don’t ask me how I know, maybe it’s my Spidey-Sense, but those times I saw you at the bus stop… I knew you weren’t local, you know. That you were staying with someone, of the male company sort… there was one morning, you looked sort of shellshocked? Like you’d had an argument with someone. It’s like how I remember my sister after our dad would tell her off.
Which would tell you I had a dad.
Well, but your friend Aisha, was it - she mentioned you have a single mum.
So maybe it was a morning that my mum told me off.
No, because she also said she’s a single Gipton mum on benefits.
So you’ve figured I have a boyfriend round here.
My aunt also said you were wearing a diamond ring, which… he nodded down, has now gone of course. Sorry, I seem to know a lot about you through gossip imparted on me, but with you coming to my house for rescue, I can’t help but put two and two together. I, ah - also know, because I asked Aisha if the single mum on benefits’ daughter is also single, and she said you’re away in south Wales with your boyfriend.
And what are you doing asking Aisha if I’m single? She smirked, and he smirked back.
‘Oh, only because I wanted to know if it would be likely for you joining the Maya scheme this year.’
‘Does a boyfriend make it more likely or less?’
‘Depends if he’s rich, I guess, but by the sound of the diamond ring my aunt seems sure twinkled like a night sky, I’d say your boyfriend has the money to send you on one, but perhaps not the willing to part with you for the summer,’ he grinned.
Well it doesn't matter now that we’ve split.
He sighed. It can’t have been good, in the middle of the night like that? An argument in the middle of the night?
I learnt something from a messenger. Call it a carrier pigeon.
He sighed and rummaged in the cupboard. ‘Matcha?’
‘What?’
‘Matcha green tea leaf. I have it every morning.’
‘Yes please.’
Silence between them…
‘Older than you, is he? Was he.’
‘Yes.’
‘I figured.’
‘He…’ she sighed, ‘he lied to me. For a long time. About something.’
‘He’s married.’
‘No.’
Silence.
‘It’s ok. I’m sorry to pry…’
‘No, it’s… it’s good. I need someone to talk to.’
‘Doesn’t anyone else know?’
‘No one else knows who my boyfriend is.’
‘Who your boyfriend is,’ he chuckled. ‘You make him sound like 007! Or the headteacher of your school!’
He couldn’t help notice a flush envelop her face.
‘What… not…?’
‘What? No of course not the headmaster… I…’ Her eyes filled with tears and she could have ripped her eye ducts out there and then. ‘God, I….’
‘Natalia, it’s not… it’s really not..? Oh…’
‘Stop it.’
‘Hey, don’t worry, you can talk to me. Hey—’
He came and sat next to her.
‘I don’t judge anyone, for anything. And least of all, you. You know, the African have a proverb, ‘Walk a mile in other people's shoes, then you will know where it is pinching.’ I don’t know half of what you’ve been through. I do know Mr Neill lives around here, which is probably why I said it… and’ he coughed, ‘ok, I did see you in his car. Twice.’
Oh, you knew all along!
Well, I just thought it was odd, but now it all makes sense. Crazy sense. How did… I mean, how did it start between you? It’s not often you hear of a headteacher and a school pupil.
Of course not. Because it’s utterly illegal, she glared. And you can’t tell anyone, not a single person. If you do, he’ll go to prison, and I will jump off a bridge.
Hey! Mi boca es una tumba, my mouth is a tomb. Ni lo sueñes!
So are you Spanish or something?
I’ve spent a lot of time out there.
Pretending to be Spanish at the bus stop was never going to wash well with you, was it?
It was hilarious and a sure sign we were meant to meet again.
‘We were going to go to a posh Chateau in France. Absolutely ginormous, like an antique Disneyworld! But I don’t have a passport, so we went to Wales!’
‘No passport! Ay, caramba! Well, you’ll have to get that sorted for the summer,’ he smiled.
‘I do dream of Yoga on Christmas Island,’ she smiled.
‘Well dream no more! Aren’t you going to go for real? Only three weeks till our deadline for this summer, you know.’
‘Oh, I don’t have money for that.’
‘We grant bursaries to three students a year whose families are below income threshold. On the agreement that they’ll make a case study for our website… just a little video diary, testimonials and such. We interview them on their skills, and you miss, with your head standing Yoga skills, would for sure top the candidates. Shall I send you a link on Messenger?’
‘Er, sure.’
‘You’ll have to get your passport sorted in time,’ he winked.
What else do we want from Stu and Nat’s exchanges?
1 - *FIRST MEET* Some inspirational cultural starry-eyed exchanges where he describes some sort of trip he went on, maybe Ayuhasca! - **or relationship or situation he was in**, which develops trust and empathy between them, and makes her see herself, him, Neill and life in general in a new light. She starts to think she could connect with her dad or rather her *self* through a psychedelic experience!
…He throws light also on a gift or talent of hers, that hasn’t been fostered so much in the time with Neill, that could grow into an opportunity that goes beyond life with Neill. Mostly this is travel opportunity that Neill earlier shunned as being ‘too risky for his princess’
2 - *LATER AND THRU OUT* Health, lifestyle and political differences. Physical things she tries, like matcha green tea and smoothies. Some she likes, some she doesn’t, some she tries convincing herself she likes. He will give the odd monologue like alcohol being bad for such and such. Maybe he gives a story about damage alcohol did to someone in his family. Smoking, too, he will chastise. And weed. Focus on fitness. Charity. Displays of altruism as ritualistic belonging to a certain consciousness. And he will also be woke - defending trans etc. Important. There will be moments he presents a viewpoint opposite of Neill’s. On BDSM in relationships too. That’s all about childhood trauma. Not healthy. She’ll be completely new and naive to this point. What do you mean?!
3 - advances and sexual experiences with him that are subtle, gentle, but not altogether fulfilling or lacking in some way
‘Thanks for helping me out last night, and this morning. I really don’t know what I would have done. I guess I would have been walking back to Gipton or… crawling back to… his.
It was an honour, truly, to have a true princess turn up at my doorstep, and I only regret I lacked the necessary pile of mattresses and all my peas are in the freezer.
Ha, but I’m not a princess. I don’t want to be a princess. Last night I felt like a wild animal, on the prowl… Jane Eyre on the moors, but with no family to stumble upon.
You certainly are an animal, wild and free as you should be.
And as I am now. I’m off back to mum’s. Can I borrow some cash for the bus? You’ll get it back.
Por supuesto! Of course. Or do you want to borrow my aunt’s bike?
Bike? Oh!
Cycles… in Mandy’s free flowing dress. She imagines what it would be like if Neill passed by in his car right now and saw her, lady on a basket bike with billowing dress. The wind blew her frown upside down, as she laughed in glee for a whole twenty seconds before Neill’s cottage came into view and everything came back to her.
His car wasn’t in; he’s back to school. No way she’s showing her face at school. But she needed to get her things at least. Glad to find the spare key under the stone, she walked in to see her phone on the coffee table. As if placed there expectantly for her return. Missed call from Neill, before he must have heard it ringing in the house.
A text was on it.
‘Natalia? Are you ok? Are you home? Please let me know when you see this… just to know you’re ok please.’
‘Almost home - to Gipton.’
She is glad she has £1756 in her bank account.
**Ras sleeping on couch? Cat carrier there, or maybe she leaves Ras there?
She sits with the gravity of the thought that she suddenly realises those weird phone calls and looking glum and fearful! Because he left his daughter a second week. Did he see this coming? Was this why he was eager to let her have the reward money?
Now Neill’s number sprang up. She let it ring off.
‘Natalia, I need to talk to you. I’m at work but I can come back to cottage in 20?’
‘Is she your daughter?’
‘I can make my way back in 20’
‘ANSWER ME.’
‘Yes, she is.’
She goes back to mum’s house.
Darren has taken over her room like the lodger in A Clockwork Orange.
She realises she hasn’t taken her pill this morning, and neither can she bring one to her lips. For what? She was closed off. She sellotapes paper round it and tosses it to the bottom of her bag.
Does she get ill with cold, just like beginning of the book…. Or wait till after she’s talked with Neill, gets sick or injured or both
Does she continue taking her pill or stop? Probably stops, and then starts bleeding in next 2-3 days.
For the next three days she didn’t leave her room.
Texts to/from Stuart, invite back to see him/meet him
She watches Neill repeatedly texting and calling.
She rings Ed.
‘Hey Ed. Amber Alert,’ she said.
‘Hey Nat! Er, what’s up? How’s Leeds?’
‘Amber. Amber is the name of Neill’s daughter.’
After a pause: ‘What the gaboodle are you talking about? How stoned has Rich got you? Put that fucker on—’
‘You didn’t know he has a daughter?’
‘Nat, what are you talking about?’
‘Did you know? DID YOU KNOW?’
‘Rich doesn’t have kids?’
‘Another liar! You’re all liars!’ She hung up and blocked him.
Next day - Stuart checks in. She goes to his, or out for a meal or something.
Talk about writing… mention Schuster card… and Wales trip segments… etc etc
He talks about a past relationship and spiritual Aya experience
Talk about BDSM and link to childhood trauma
They end up smooching. (If they do, he might find a Scrabble tile or something up her vag) Maybe just deep talk for now…
He might refer to Neill as something that sticks in Nat’s head and makes her text him the next day
At home… Next day… she finally writes back to Neill, after all Stuart’s venom about him:
‘I’m ok’. Keeping him worried sick won’t help him be much of a father.
Can we talk, on the phone, at least? Just five minutes
Five minutes to say what?
More then
Whilst you lie and lie and I can’t watch you lying
Come to mine then. I won’t touch you… I just want to talk…
Ed sounded sort of genuine.
She has too much questions that she needs answering. She finally says yes.
*
Neill was sitting… She was sitting…
There was an iceberg between them, after being the happiest they’d ever been, had flickered away like a dream, with those fireworks, packets of which were still littered in the garden, she saw when she went to make tea, till he insisted he do it. Sit down, sit down, please….
‘Natalia, I have a daughter.’
‘Well I didn’t think she was your girlfriend. With Rose?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘How old is she?’
‘She’s 12. 13 in __.’
‘From London?
‘No. York. Where she lives with Rose. Natalia… that’s why—’
‘Why the heck didn’t you say, why—’
‘…That’s partly why I came up North. To be closer to her, and see her more.’
‘Huh?’
‘Because I abandoned them.’
Neill watched her sorrowfully, as if this was entirely what he dreaded, anticipated.
‘What! Ed, Monica, Claire… none of them know?’
‘I lived in complete denial since.’
‘So this explains all the baby and parent references. All the little things you said in front of your mates, about breastfeeding and smoking around babies - you said you’ve gleaned it from Call the Midwife in the football halves AND…
‘I don’t even remember,’ he frowned.
She stared at the fire. ‘It’s why Monica’s pregnancy and jokes triggered you.’
‘Oh. Probably.’
Neill’s story
I always thought it was odd that you had a wife for 5 years and didn’t have a kid?
Oh, that was our agreement. When Rose and I first got together, we were career people. She was the best in her game, writing screenplays that were picked up by __ and __ and won a contract with __ theatre house etc.
Then as soon as Rose’s best mate Elise got up the duff, that was it. Elise didn’t stop rubbing her belly whilst Rose looked on starry-eyed.
And you were as good at using contraception as you are with me?
Oh, we used condoms, and somehow Rose got pregnant, and that’s why I’ve never liked condoms, nor trusted women with them. You might say that’s why I favour withdrawal. You see where it’s going, whereas with a prophylactic, who knows where that bag of mini-Mes is going.
She stared. Are you seriously saying that you spunked into whisky, tea, ice cream and god knows what else, so that you could see your sperm get destroyed in front of our eyes and I couldn’t carry it away and make a baby from it?
Maybe, unconsciously. I didn’t really think it through that precisely.
But you gave me a condom that time.
Precisely. Like I said at the time, by then I trusted you. I knew a schoolgirl wouldn’t want a kid any more than I did.
God. I’m so flattered. Anyway, carry on. Rose… basted herself with a condom of your spunk, to desperately procreate with you, and then…?
Well I don’t have proof of it.
Maybe Amber isn’t yours!
Well, Natalia, sadly you have stumbled upon one of the reasons I ditched her. Amidst my parenting torment I hit upon exactly the same idea, with grew and grew in my mind, to the point I asked for a DNA test. She stared at me like a villain. Well, I asked it an hour after the birth, so my timing wasn’t great—’
Jeez, I’m not maternal exactly, but…
She was born in 2006…. maybe traumatic birth with blood
I said sorry, and endeavoured to be a good father, whilst the thought grew and grew in my mind., even whilst Amber’s eyes stayed as blue as mine past 1 year old, I told myself she got her eyes from Rose. I was not a good dad. I felt like I had been saddled with a sack of potatoes on my head.
‘I’d watch her, toddling along with her like she was a big stupid kid herself. All sexual allure went out of the window. We didn’t have sex for eight months from mid-pregnancy. Having a newborn is like ten times a lamb in a caravan. It screams like a banshee when it’s hungry. Rose would get her tits out everywhere for her, and I’d feel like she was keeping a tally chart of everywhere she could tick off. Her breasts were no longer this font of allure. They were feeders, big dangling drippers that would pool through her top. Her belly was striped like a tiger and scarred like it had been attacked by one. Oh, I know all this sound terrible,’ he watched Natalia wincing. ‘Of course it is. But it’s how I felt.’
‘I don’t know. I guess it’s how I feel about babies. But I’m sixteen. You’re… well, you ought to know better.’
‘Quite. Yet when I see a parent now, stooping to run after their toddling bambino, I remember that same dread. The man and the woman have this new screaming obstacle between them. This big screaming sack of potatoes that guzzles milk like a calf and then one day needs feeding solids, so off you go watching your beloved carry little bottles of stinking mush around. I don’t know if we just had a kid that screamed a lot, or whether she could pick up on my hatred of her screaming, so she did it more and more. I ended up sleeping in the spare room and Rose got more and more sexless and harried with it all. I went to work exhausted from getting no sleep, mainly from arguing with Rose. By the time she got to one year old, it felt like a lifetime. I don’t know how I did another year, maybe because we started having sex again, and Amber finally started sleeping through. I’d argued for her to go on formula milk so it would fill her belly up and Rose never let it go that she wanted to do breast for longer. She started to go into everything natural, wouldn’t allow a drop of Calpol or any sort of drug medicine and everything had to be herbal or homeopathic. She didn’t even go back to work, so all the pressure was on me. By that point, I’d had enough. Our trust fell apart and I convinced myself the child wasn’t mine anyway. I filed for divorce and moved back to London. I severed ties with everyone I knew up there. I vowed to never tell anyone, from that point on that I was a father. That I have a daughter. I’ve never told anyone. All the friends I’ve met since then, don’t know either—’
But as Amber grew up, there was no mistaking she was mine - to both my despair and joy. Not just the eyes but she has my teeth; my mother’s aquiline nose and my father’s wretched stubbornness. She is me, with Rose’s rose hair and freckles, and when she turned twelve, her hair all brushed out standing amongst the flamingoes like a fiery little Alice at Flamingo Land—’
‘Oh! Flamingo Land!
‘…I knew I had to come back up North and make amends, see her more. And I saw the post for Thornwood, spoke to my old mate Max Jones on the board who helped me clinch it, because ___. who Rose was cynical, but only because she’s just started seeing some Scottish twat.
‘So you moved up here, but why did you go on keeping it a secret!’
He drew a breath. ‘I didn’t plan that. I planned to start my post at Thornwood with everyone knowing I have a daughter. Well, when I first moved up here last September, for a few weeks Amber was repugnant to me, because she somehow thought she was going to live with me in my cottage! I categorically said no, that I agreed to only have visits. She didn’t talk to me for three weeks. I almost regretted the whole move. But I’d just completed this house sale and started the job at Thornwood, unimpressed as you know, by Neary’s handover, that I was careless enough to smoke out of the window even if I got sacked on the spot. And then you walked into the office.’
‘And then suddenly you wanted to play hero, change the school all for me?’
‘Well, truthfully no, it was a personal challenge. Snub Neary and, like I told you once, enjoy having my go calling the shots, doing everything I wanted to make the school better. And by the time Amber had calmed down, and willing to see me again, I was… rather fond of you.’
‘And why didn’t you just tell me about her, in the car talking about your wives? Telling me that my candidness enables yours, and all that!’
‘For a window of time I was considering it. You had this open door of sincerity in those meetings we had that, that when Amber finally spoke to me again, I realised you reminded me of her, with your flouncing monologues. And I felt sick with myself, like I once told you, for feeling something for a schoolgirl - but also, someone three years older than my daughter.’
‘Hence all your sweaty schoolgirl jokes.’
‘But it’s when you told me in my office that your own father ditched you as a kid, I clamped my mouth shut. I knew I couldn’t tell you. And the more my feelings grew for you, the more I locked away the truth.’
‘But the truth itself isn’t weird. It’s the fact you kept it secret!’
‘The truth that I abandoned my daughter like your father did?’
‘But you wouldn’t have had to reveal you abandoned her! You could have just told me you had a daughter and I wouldn’t know any more than that! You’d go on with your new resolve to see Amber, and I’d just assume you’d always have been a part-time dad!’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘Once she knew about you, she’d claw you to bits. She’s a wildcat. Green-eyed little monster. She would always be asking her mum if I was dating someone, and that she’d never let it go if I spent more time with them than her. When Rose found out I was dating Joan, Amber went crazy with jealousy… It’s not a great trait of hers.
Well, you made her like that! You made her crazy! She’s desperate to be seen by you!
Neill slowly blew out his cheeks. ‘And yes, I’ve learnt first-hand from you. Watching you weep over your dad, whilst I fall more in love with wanting to help and protect you, knowing I can’t commit the same to my own, without losing you. I was supposed to see her every week, but I saw her every month, less and less. How easy it was to go on as I always have done, talking to Amber on the phone every now and then, and going on living my life… with the love of my life.’
‘Why didn’t you just explain it all to me, like you are now, and I could keep it a secret with you?’
‘You became my reason not to.’
‘Huh?’
‘I wanted you. You… broke my resolve.’
Her eye ducts prickled. ‘I broke it? Screwing me became the reason another girl was screwed over by her dad?!’
‘I’m not blaming you, I—’
‘I should fucking think NOT!’ She flew to her feet. ‘I once sat in your lap, right there in that chair, crying about my dad! Only last week in the caravan you stroked and stroked and stroked me telling me you’ll help me FIND him! And you knew all the while, that you were letting your own precious daughter turn into the MESS I am?!’
‘You’re not a mess…’
‘No, you are!’
‘Natalia, sit down again, please—’
‘No!’
‘Listen! I thought you’d think it was uncouth, vile, gross! Doing things with me, whilst a Year 8 girl / a girl only Johnny Pollock’s age skulks in the backdrop!’
‘And didn’t you?’
‘You don’t know,’ he shook his head, ‘you just don’t know—’
‘Don’t know what? That you were on the way to breaking my heart as well as hers?’
‘The more I watched you, the more I knew I was going to tell you about her. That Maisie book, constantly in your hands, I creased out of indignation…’
It was just a matter of time… the pain that Dinkey’s daughter is going through, rather threw me—’
‘Weeks! Months! Of lying! And you didn’t tell me! Till she came parading into your garden with fireworks like a gun to your head!’
‘I was going to tell you the morning after,’ he sighed. ‘She beat me to it.’
‘Anyway, I don’t believe you! You’ve never felt guilty enough about this! You’ve never loved her, so it never bothered you! I’m a girl dumped by her father, who fell in love with a father who dumped his own kid. Ha! Write that down! Shall I ring Ed right now!’
‘Natalia…’
‘Wait. That fucking essay I wrote, right here, that you spunked and pissed on! You were triggered by it, and I knew it, and you just called me a funny little thing and sent me to bed!’
‘Ye-es. But from then on, I knew I would need to tell you… I mean, I’m like Rochester in too many ways, but that was a moment I was patently repulsed to be like him, and draw out - as you said - a tiresome, tedious lie—’
‘You just waited a few more weeks, took me on a holiday to Double Dutch with your best friend, and proposed to me like Rochester thinking he can marry Jane first and tell her his dirty secret AFTER?!’
‘A secret not as a bad as his, surely. I’m not cheating, after all.’
‘So she’s the schoolgirl you’ve been seeing in York,’ she said. ‘And the Goldilocks who’s been eating my Cheerios. Wait! The email from Rose! That place you stayed in, the big box of Cheerios!’
‘She was talking about Amber. I took Amber to London not long after our own trip. I had no money left after our 5* hotel, so we stayed in a cut-price B&B in Acton Town that had mildew down the walls. Rose couldn’t believe it when she heard. But when Amber came to visit my cottage she was waxing onto her mum that I’d got her favourite cereal. Amber was more excited about the box of Cheerios than a trip to London, much to Rose’s disdain. She only lets her eat avocado on sourdough for breakfast.’
‘You mean Rose is a bigger food ponce than you?’
‘You bet.’
‘Oh my god. You’re a dad.’ He drunk in her gaze as she continued. ‘It’s weird! I’ve always thought of you as a man who hasn't done that yet. A parenting virgin I mean.’
‘Er… yes.’
‘I mean, it’s a pretty big thing to a girl. For him to be a daddy or not.’
Silence feel as her stomach rumbled.
‘Shall I… shall I make you some dinner?’
‘No.’ Natalia sighed. ‘I feel like I’m in a parallel universe. Hearing all this. Things keep coming back to me. The McDonalds receipt, the milkshake…’
‘Along with the Happy Meal I didn’t want you to see on the receipt you found in my pocket.’
‘JR on your phone. That’s not Joan Rawley?’
‘Code. Junior.’
‘I texted JR that time! Saying sorry but I’m ending our relationship!’
‘Ye-es. I had a fair bit of explaining to do after that.’
‘In Wales! I got Ed to shout down the phone, go shag your Science teacher!’
‘Oh! That was you!’
‘Yes, that was me!
‘Well I had a fair pickle to get out of after that!’
‘Oh, my heart fucking bleeds!’
‘Goodness she was livid. I had to keep her blocked half of the time and she used withheld numbers like that night we were watching Kubrick!’
‘You blocked your own daughter. Wow.’
‘I couldn’t have her coming up all the time, goodness.’
Natalia’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know, she has guts. Guts to stand like that in the garden. Guts I never had.’ She got back on her feet. ‘And you’re WORSE than Rochester! At least he took care of Bertha, his poor deranged wife!
She stormed to the door.
‘And took custody of his child, as much as he would moan about her, he was there for her!’
‘Natalia, your bag—’
She snatched it.
‘Don’t you want a lift?’
‘No! But you can look after Ras! He’s safer on your roads!’
*
Does she go back to Stuart’s? How was it left with him? Or home to mum, and keeps in touch with Stuart? Does something put her off about Stuart? There should be some sexual action that leaves her sort of tepid.
She calls up Ed.
‘Ed, I’m sorry…’
‘Hey, Nat. I tried calling Rich, but…’
‘He’s been too busy trying to call me.’
‘Have you two split?’
‘Yeah. He lied to me. He has a daughter. Tell me the truth Ed, did you know?’
‘Nat, God, I swear to God, my jaw dropped but I didn’t know whether you two were playing drunk games on me the other night. So what happened?’
Natalia explains Bonfire Night.
‘Jeez. Well that explains all our mysteries. Nat, I don’t know what to say. Over the phone this is weird. Are you ok? Do you need anything?’
‘He says he was going to tell me but I don’t believe him.’
‘This explains why he was a bit cagey, though, you know. At the end of the trip, with me, anyway. He said something about getting his Yorkshire ducks in order, that he has a frog he has to swallow… and he could lose her. I said are you in trouble with the police? Then he said something about showing him the way to the next little girl and not the next whisky bar. I said Rich, what are you talking about? Then he stared into the air, puffing his fag talking about your Deputy’s daughter and how much pain Karen said she’d in, and I wondered if he was just stoned.’
‘Oh.’
She goes over everything in her mind.
New revelations come up. Maybe the stuff about ‘she was there all along!’
Saying Pardon to when she said I smell like your Amber, or calling her urine amber, or picking amber sunglasses
Bobble in car he looked worried at but she says it’s hers
And why my Cheerios kept going down, oh and everything he bullshitted about having a sweet tooth - the lollies
Fruit Pastilles in pocket on London trip
‘You creased the cover into a firework!
‘You put her on the fire.’
‘No wonder you
And then she goes over how much this means… how much it hurts…
That he comforted her so much about her missing dad, whilst he neglected and ignored his own.
Yet he played such a good father to her! This negated all of it! He was a terrible father, and worse, he knew all along he was doing the same to his daughter! He could live with himself, pleasure himself inside her body for so long, playing daddy to her when he deprived another girl of the basic thing that would prevent making another neurotic like her! He was happy fulfilling a neurotic’s desire whilst knowing he was creating a second neurotic!
But did she love him? She did? Did she still love him now?
*
Back to school by Thursday. Mainly to get out of her mum’s house.
Dinkey’s memorial, stuff going on at school, shockwaves from those who hadn't heard, but even so, teachers coming back to school feel re-grieved by it - before Ofsted etc stuff starts to come through
She thinks of what Ed said about Neill sad for Dinkey’s daughter.
Back at school, back in Sam’s class, and the mood with Alana. Alana will be suspicious how she managed to change class so easily.
Williams sniffing round post-Dinkey dossier destruction
Clarkey wants something
Ryan’s mum is better but now asks for higher grades which shows he’s been gossiping with Sam
Sees Neill as Headmaster again. All suit and twice the size. Dazzling, if he weren’t a shit dad lying cunt. When he saw her, he was with __. He turned, his words stumble as he tried not to stare.
Neill is under pressure from Ofsted revoking, Phil on his case and boards' legal action, teachers disappointed in him.
Miranda the new Deputy turns up and Natalia sees Neill with her and remembers coming on her face. Does Miranda stick around?
Who will be given handovers to be new Head?
She is getting ill or gets injured somehow. Or sick in the loo and Becky wonders if pregnant.
If she was ill, she’d be at home. So injury better, so it’s at school? Or maybe she just voms. Suggestion of A&E? Becky taking her?
Ends up in sick room with Becky and Neill. Take her [to A&E first? And] back to mine, Becky. And buy a test, you know…
Back at Neill’s home. She is all floppy and submissive, cos she just feels so ill/hurting and it’s so good to feel Neill’s hands on her again. Warm like a toasty oven.
He examines her and asks her things and checks over her… kind of like Doctor but without the fondle. Strangely it’s just as nice. She nods when he says back to bed.
‘Ok. But I’m not having any weed or valium. And don’t bring Dr Bloody Brown round.’
‘Bloody brown is already in my toilet.’
‘That’s what happens when you stop the pill.
In bed… Are you going to stay to keep an eye on me?
Not a good idea. [He won’t know the difference.]
His bed’s like a cloud, to her chagrin and relief. His smell is familiarity… just how much he is inside of her.
Shame, you liar. Because you’re such, such a good dad.
She comes downstairs to watch TV.
**Communication with Stuart about plans forming to go on Maya scheme somewhere
**Casual chatter with Neill. Talking about Maya scheme. Nat’s plans. Their own plans called off**
She goes back to Stuart’s maybe? In this chapter or next? And progress to some gentle (pathetic sorta) hanky panky?
But should she be travelling to his house after checking sick into Dr Neill’s? Too quick otherwise. Could be placed nicely in the recuperative gap between sick at Neill’s, and meeting Amber.
Make reader think her prospects are moving in toward Stuart.
Building an image of things she dunt like so much about Stu, so that by the time she gets back to Neill it will be ohhhhh yeah
At school… she asks him to look down below. Funny thing down there and doctor or Google or something says it might be… and I’m worried. Maybe she doesn’t want to go to doctor, because she’s still bleeding down there, and she’d rather wait till the period is finished.
He scoffs. Says he'd know within three seconds.
How?
He gives her a dumb look.
Oh.
Later… can u look. I’m worried.
Jump up on the desk.
Lock the door first!
He has a look and asks to put finger in and she’s like god… Neill doing consent.
And he touches a spot that is like… there… or whatever and she feels herself coming and knows he can see it in her cheeks but doesn’t say anything and nor does he and it makes it build more and she pants silently
Looks fine to me.
All better?
Ye-eah. Leaves quietly without looking at him.
Then another time she squeezes his hand in school somewhere, he looks surprised but she gives him earnest look and he strides after her and shags he wordlessly in a cupboard, hot and rampant that she stuffs something in her own mouth- maybe the toy lamb from her bag
Does he try get her to come back to his house?
MAYBE she doesn't ask about seeing Amber, till this point?***
By Sunday night…(?) ‘I want to meet her.’
‘That is madness. She’s a wild cat, you know that. She’s already upset you.’
‘No, you upset me. I want to meet her.’
‘She’s livid with you, as well as me. She’ll tear your face off quicker than Hannibal. I must admit, Natalia, this is another reason I kept her a secret. I knew that if she found out about you, and that I favoured you, you wouldn't be safe. That time I gave you my phone for Christmas? She wanted it. I had to lie and pretend it broke.’
‘Well that’s your problem, daddy. I’ll go find her myself! Amber Neill?!’
He blinked.
‘No, Amber Robinson! Mum is Rose, lives in York, do they still do the phone book? I’ll find her. I don’t need you!’
‘Natalia, don’t be ridiculous. What even do you want to say? You’ll just go upsetting yourself, and her, and Rose. We can’t have our relationship coming to light…’
‘TELL me how to find her! Or I’ll run to the…’
‘The…?’
‘Cock Beck, and throw myself in.’
‘Natalia, don’t be ludicrous. You want me to hand myself into the police? I’d do it. I’ll do it right now.’
‘No, I don’t! You need to be around for your daughter. Not for me! I’m the one in the way!’
‘Natalia, don’t you fucking dream of topping yourself.’
‘What, so you don’t have to live with the guilt?’
‘No, because this is all my fault! Let me top myself.’
‘What, so you don’t have to live with the guilt?’
Silence.
‘Just give me her number or address.’
He sighed. ‘Give me some time. I’ll figure something out.’
‘I want to see her within a day. I just have some things I want to say to her, and then I’ll never ask again. When I’m better I’m going back to mum’s. And then I’m doing my exams and then I’m going away. [Maya scheme]?
‘Give me two days at least.’