Mice

8

My optimism began to fade soon after I was discharged and found myself back in the matrimonial home, surrounded by gloomy memories of my parents’ failed marriage and my failed friendships.

Mum and I had a visit from a police inspector who dryly informed us that they weren’t going to press charges against the three girls I’d accused (the word accused made it sound as though they thought I was lying!). There simply wasn’t enough evidence, he explained. No other students had actually witnessed them setting fire to my hair. The parents of the younger girls — who had at least seen them throw me into the door — had made it clear they weren’t going to let their daughters become involved in a criminal trial. Unless one of them confessed to the crime and gave evidence against the other two, there was just no way a successful prosecution could be brought — and I knew hell would freeze over before that ever happened.

A week or so later a letter came from the school’s head teacher. Mum and I read it together at breakfast. He began by wishing me a speedy recovery on behalf of all the staff and students (all the students?) and then he broke more bad news. Following ‘a thorough investigation’, he wrote, he’d found no independent evidence to back up the ‘allegations’ I’d made in my diary. All three girls ‘strenuously denied’ waging a bullying ‘campain’ (misspelt!) against me and ‘disclaimed all knowledge’ of the ‘unfortunate incident’ on the twenty-third of October. He said he’d received ‘strong representations’ from the parents of the three girls, ‘forcefully protesting their innocence’ and pointing to the police’s decision not to prosecute as proof that they had no case to answer. In light of this, ‘the school board has decided that no disciplinary action will be taken against Teresa Watson, Emma Townley and Jane Ireson’.

The letter went on to say that the school had in place some of the toughest anti-bullying policies in the country, and took great pride in its exemplary anti-bullying record. He hoped Mum was not considering bringing any legal action against the school — but if she was, he ‘advised’ her that it would be ‘robustly defended’. The final paragraph read: We look forward to welcoming Shelley back into our community at the earliest opportunity. We don’t need to remind you, of course, that this is a vitally important year for Shelley, with her GCSEs due to take place next June, and therefore every effort should be made to ensure that her absence from the classroom is kept as brief as possible.

So not only was there to be no criminal prosecution, but they weren’t even going to be expelled for what they’d done to me — they weren’t going to be disciplined in any way at all!

There are people who would have roared up to the school and torn that letter to pieces in the head’s face; there are people who would have got on the phone to the national press and denounced the school and its lilylivered head in banner headlines; there are people who would have got the local TV station down to their house to film the scars on their face and neck. There are people who would have done anything to ensure that those girls were punished for what they’d done and that their viciousness was publicized the length and breadth of the country. .

But we weren’t that sort of people. We were mice. Meekly, we thanked the police inspector for his time and accepted that there could be no prosecution. Meekly, we accepted the head’s decision not to discipline the three girls. Meekly, we accepted, we submitted, we said nothing, we did nothing, because weak submission is all that mice know.

By the second week of November I was no longer in any pain or discomfort. There was really nothing to stop me from returning to school. Except that I knew Teresa, Emma and Jane were waiting for me. And when the three of them got me alone next time. . what then?

While Mum was at work, I moped about the matrimonial home. I sat in front of my dressing-table mirror futilely trying to do something with my cropped hair. It didn’t suit me at all — it made my face look mannish, my head too big for my shoulders, and showed my ears, which I’d always hated. With squeamish disgust, I examined my forehead and neck, the burns stretching their cobwebby brown fingers over my pale skin like some foul alien membrane. (Why weren’t they fading? He said that they’d fade!)

And my thoughts began to return to the beam in the garage, the towelling belt of my dressing gown. .

Then I received the best news imaginable. The head, mistaking our pathetic silence for defiance and terrified of bad publicity, wrote us another letter. This time it contained a proposal: if Mum would agree not to bring any court action against the school and not to discuss ‘the incident of the twenty-third’ with any ‘news media (including newspapers, television, radio and Internet)’, I wouldn’t have to return to school. Instead the school would arrange for the local authority to provide tutors to teach me at home right up to my exams in the summer — which I would also be allowed to sit at home. In addition, they’d strongly recommend to the exam board that the coursework I’d already submitted should receive a ten per cent ‘uplift’ in light of ‘the difficult circumstances under which it was prepared (but for which the school makes no admission of liability) . .’

Mum signed the agreement there and then, while I whooped and danced for joy around her, and sent it back to the school by return post. I was delirious with happiness. I didn’t have to go back to school! I didn’t have to face my tormentors! With tutors coming to the house five hours a day five days a week, I was sure I’d do really well in my exams. I’d go back to school liberated from the girls concerned and begin studying for university. I’d make a whole new set of friends. My life would start all over again. .

To celebrate, Mum made my favourite dinner that night: duck in orange sauce with roast potatoes, peas and broccoli, followed by apple pie and ice-cream. To my surprise, she placed a bottle of red wine on the kitchen table along with two large glasses.

‘You know you’re breaking the law, Mum?’ I teased as she poured the wine into my glass and it glugged and splashed deliciously. ‘I’m not legally allowed to drink for another two years. And you’re a lawyer!’

‘I think you deserve it.’ She smiled.

I noticed how tired she looked — the lines under her eyes etched a little deeper, more strands of grey in her dark frizzy hair — and I realized how hard all this had been for her, too. That’s the curse of mothers, I thought, doomed to feel their children’s pain as sharply as if it were their own.

‘You do too, Mum.’ I smiled, and we clinked glasses.

‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘you’re sixteen in — what is it — four months? If sixteen’s old enough to get married, it’s old enough to have a glass of wine.’

Halfway through the meal the phone on the breakfast bench rang, and Mum hurried to swallow the food in her mouth before answering. She made pained, comical faces as she stood chewing by the phone, moving her head from side to side, rolling her eyes, chewing and chewing and chewing but still unable to swallow. I giggled uncontrollably at her antics, no doubt helped by the wine, which had gone straight to my head. At last she was able to pick up the receiver. It was Henry Lovell, her lawyer. He told her that the couple who’d expressed an interest in buying the matrimonial home had now made a formal offer, which ‘the other side’ (meaning her husband, my dad) had accepted.

‘So. . how’s the house-hunting going?’ he asked.

‘It’s not,’ Mum said. ‘We’ve not even started!’

‘Well, you’d better get your skates on,’ he warned her. ‘I understand these people are desperate to move in as soon as possible.’

We drank the whole bottle of red wine as befitted a double celebration, and the next morning I woke up with my very first hangover. But even the gimlet pain in my temples couldn’t dampen my spirits. No more school. No more Teresa, Emma and Jane. No more humiliation. No more suffering in silence. No more pain. And, to top it all, the matrimonial home had been sold. We were getting out of that house of horrors, that museum dedicated to a failed marriage, at last!

Six weeks later I was standing in the front garden of Honeysuckle Cottage contemplating the funereal mound of the oval rose bed.