Mo Hayder - Hanging Hill

Sally felt like a wire stretched to its limit. She was shaking with tension and her jaw kept clicking as she drove, as if she was cold. The dark clouds had got even lower and were leaching a fine, almost invisible drizzle, but the lights were on in the windows when she arrived at the school, fighting the oncoming gloom. It looked so homely, the school, so normal that her throat tightened. That normality – the simple, unremarkable fact of doors closed, lights on, coats hanging on hooks and hockey boots lying in muddy heaps – all of that might never come back to her. She might have stepped out of its reach for ever.

She phoned and managed to catch Millie on her afternoon break. She said she could sneak out for a few minutes – no one would notice. Sally waited at the gate, clutching her umbrella. She couldn’t help checking around the street to make sure no one was watching her. She wasn’t good at hiding things – she didn’t know how people did it.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Millie’s expression was bright. But when she saw her mother’s face the smile dropped. ‘Oh. Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine. Are you?’

‘No, you’re not. What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’ She ran her eyes over her daughter’s face and hair. She wanted to hold her so much. She wanted to just grab her and carry her somewhere far away from here. She swallowed hard, and said conversationally, ‘How did the test go?’

‘Oh, pants. I revised the wrong page. Doh…’

‘You’ve got prep after school tonight, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. Till five. Why?’

‘Because I don’t want you going home on your own tonight. I’m going to call Dad, get him to pick you up.’

‘He can’t. He’s in London.’

‘Then Isabelle.’

‘She’s at that gymnastics meet with Sophie. In Liverpool. It’s OK, Mum – I’ll get the bus. Don’t worry about me, I’ll-’

‘No! For heaven’s sake, will you listen to me ? I’ve just told you – you’re not going home on your own.’

Millie blinked at her, shocked. Neither of them spoke for a moment, embarrassed by Sally’s sudden outburst. From the other side of the wall came the shrieks and yells of the other kids. They all believed they were grown-up, Sally thought, that they knew what they were doing – but they weren’t and they didn’t. Really and truly they were still babies. A car went by suddenly, its brakes screeching, and she jumped as if she’d been shot.

‘Mum?’ Millie frowned, her face curious. Suspicious. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then you pick me up after school, if you’re so worried. Don’t you finish work early today? You usually do.’

‘I’m not going to work. I’m busy.’

‘Busy? Busy doing what?’

‘It doesn’t matter what.’ She put a hand to her head and pressed hard. She thought of Peter Cyrus’s mother. Dismissed the idea. Tried to think who else she could ask. Who else she could trust.

‘Mum? Is this about what we were saying this morning? About that Metalhead muppet again? Why are you so scared of him?’

‘I’m not. It’s nothing to do with him. Just stay in the school after prep. I’ll make sure someone’s there to pick you up.’

‘Come on, something’s wrong.’

‘It is not ,’ she snapped. ‘Nothing is bloody wrong. Now please don’t ask me again.’

Millie shrank back a little, her mouth open. She looked for a moment as if she was going to say something, and Sally took a step forward, wanting to say sorry. But Millie turned on a heel and marched back inside the school gates, leaving Sally standing in the rain, trembling under her umbrella.

Shit, she thought, feeling in her pocket for her car keys. Life really was turning out to be the closest thing to hell.

‘I don’t want to do this.’ Zoë drew the curtains and switched on the overhead light. ‘You’re making me do this. So I’m asking you – as a fellow human being – to recognize that.’

Sitting on the chair at the end of the room Ben nodded dully. ‘I recognize you as a human being, Zoë. Maybe more than you do yourself.’

She stood in front of him, unbuckled her boots and kicked them aside. She unzipped the trousers and stepped out of them. Her own knickers were still on the floor at Kelvin’s so she was wearing a pair of Sally’s, which were too wide and flopped around her hips as she undressed. She hiked them up and unbuttoned the shirt, threw it on the floor, and stood a step away from him, arms hanging at her sides. She felt totally foolish.

Ben sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his head up. He was expressionless, his mouth slightly open, as he moved his attention all over her face, over the swollen nose, the bruises on her cheeks, and down, over her bare arms, covered with bramble scratches. Then the bruises and the scars. She held out her arms and sighed. ‘This one.’ She put a finger on the scabbed mess she’d made last week, the day he’d admitted sleeping with Debbie. ‘This is recent, but I did it to myself. And these ones here? They’re old. I did them too.’

Ben looked at her in absolute disbelief.

‘This one.’ She gently palpated a new bruise on her arm. She thought about the hatred that had caused it – Kelvin’s need to harm. She wondered how her life had got so twisted that she’d ever imagined doing the same thing to herself. ‘This was done this morning.’

‘How?’

‘When I was raped.’

There was a long, long silence. Then Ben dropped his head forward, put his hands on his temples and screwed up his eyes as if he had the world’s worst headache. She thought for a moment he was going to get up and leave. Then she realized he was crying soundlessly, his shoulders shaking. After a few moments he wiped his face angrily with a palm and raised his eyes to her. There was an expression of such grief, such loss, such fury in his eyes that she had to turn away.

She went and sat down at the table, put her hands between her knees and stared at her thighs, mottled with bruises. She felt every inch of her sore body – the tiny, intense jets of fury at all the places where Kelvin’s fingers had come into contact with her skin. There was a creak and Ben got up from the chair. He came to the table and dropped to a crouch next to her. He laid his hands gently on her knees.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t be kind, please. I can’t bear it.’ She couldn’t get her throat to open enough to explain. ‘It’s all right. I mean, it’s not your fault. How could you have been expected to know that I was the most pathetic excuse for a human being that ever walked this planet?’

‘It’s not true. Something’s happened to you – but you’re not to blame.’

She shook her head, bit her lip. A single tear came out of her eye and ran down her cheek. ‘Ben,’ she said, with an effort, ‘you’re going to have to listen. And you’re going to have to forgive.’

As Sally got into the car outside the school, still trembling, a figure in a waterproof, hood up against the rain, stepped out towards her from near the school wall. It was Nial. He looked odd. Determined, but nervous. He glanced over his shoulder as if to make sure no one was behind him, then hurried over to her.

‘Mrs Cassidy?’ He bent and peered at her through the driver’s window, raised his fist and mimed knocking on the glass. ‘Can we speak?’

Sally rolled down the window. ‘Nial? What is it?’

‘I’ll give her a lift home. I’ve got the van – it’s parked round the corner.’

She stared at him. The gel in his hair and the way he’d knotted his tie, instead of making him look grown-up and cool, just made him seem younger and smaller. Even more inadequate.