Private Lives

Chapter 25

Abi hadn’t planned to go. She’d deleted Mrs Greene’s email and neither Lily nor Abi had mentioned the parents’ forum to the other. They had agreed on the first flat they saw in Brighton, but they’d had to sign for it immediately, so they didn’t lose it. It meant going into savings to pay double rent for at least a month, but freedom, Abi figures, is worth it. This morning, at breakfast, Abi is blank when Lily asks, ‘Is the meeting today in the pavilion or the hall?’

Abi’s toast hovers between her plate and her mouth.

Lily rolls her eyes. ‘Tell me you’re going, Mum.’

‘Going where?’ Margot asks.

‘Lil, I really don’t think it’s a—’

‘You don’t think it’s a good idea? Mum, come on, you’ve got to go!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Margot drops her spoon, porridge and honey landing in a splat on the floor.

‘Mum, you have to show you’re not ashamed, that you’ve done nothing wrong …’

She casts Lily a warning look towards Margot.

‘What?’ Margot asks again, looking from her mum to her sister and back again.

She thinks Lily is going to tell her to defend Seb, to stand up for what’s right, so when Lily says simply, ‘I told Blake,’ it feels like she’s been kicked in the stomach.

‘Why is no one listening to me!’ Margot runs with a great extravagant huff out of the room.

Abi will go to her later. Right now, she can’t move.

‘You told Blake,’ Abi asks, both a question and a statement, ‘about me.’

Lily nods.

Abi feels like she’s been electrocuted. ‘When?’

‘Last night.’

Abi gets up to find her phone. The screen comes alive, but she has no new messages, there have been no phone calls. No one shouting, ‘Whore!’

Lily is looking at her steadily but it’s like Abi can’t find a safe place to land. She wants to kick things, throw the fucking bowls across the room. Instead she just pulls her hair away from her scalp and almost shouts, ‘Why the hell did you do that, Lil?’

Lily shrugs, enraging Abi even more. ‘You’re a part of my story and I’ve decided to give things a go with Blake after all, but I don’t want any secrets between us.’

She is heartbreakingly, shockingly naive. What does Lily know about romantic relationships? Abi hasn’t had a boyfriend since Lily’s dad fifteen years ago and that was a complete mess. When it came to relationships, the Disney channel had been her educator.

‘That’s not … Lil, that’s not good enough … You and Blake, you’re not going to be together forever, it’s …’

‘You said you weren’t ashamed of what you’d done, the choices you made …’

‘I’m not!’

‘Then why are you so scared?’

Abi turns away from Lily; she doesn’t want to scream at her. This fight is not between the two of them. It’s between Abi and the world that never understood her, never even tried.

She stays still, her hand covering her mouth, even as she hears the thump, thump, thump of Margot jumping down the stairs.

‘I’m still cross!’ her little voice calls from the hall.

Yes, Abi thinks, me too, sweetheart, me too.

Later, feeling calmer, she thinks Lily was probably right. They might be moving town, but the school is still going to be in all their lives for years to come. She’ll go if only to see what people are thinking; she’ll go to make sure Lily is still safe; she’ll go because not being there could mark her out, put her back on Lotte, Vita and Anna’s list of suspects.

The pavilion has the tense, excitable atmosphere of a New Year’s Eve party or – Abi imagines – a political party awaiting results on election night. There’s a long queue of people waiting to get inside, Mrs Greene at the front checking names, ensuring as best she can that everyone entering really is a parent and not a member of the press who hover by the school gates, smiling at parents, competitive and sly. As she walks through the gates Vita is talking to a friend, but her eyes fix on Abi.

On the stage at the front of the pavilion, Harriet sits behind a small desk, with two microphones on stands at either side. There are about twice as many parents as there are seats, so they spill up the aisles, a mess of chatter and expectation against every wall.

Lotte must have got there early as she’s in a prime spot on a chair at the front, holding Richard’s hand but leaning across him to talk to a couple of other people Abi only vaguely recognizes. Anna sits on her other side, her phone in her lap, staring blankly at the floor in front of her. Lonely in the noise around her. She glances up, like she can feel Abi looking. Abi looks away.

There’s no sign of Rosie and Seb.

The woman next to Abi accidentally elbows her. ‘Sorry!’ she says laughingly, before adding, ‘God, now I know how sardines feel!’

Abi smiles back at the woman, too nervous to trust herself to say anything.

On the stage Harriet moves to the nearest microphone and says, ‘Right, can you all hear me …?’ But no one can until someone at the back turns something and heads snap up as Harriet booms, ‘Afternoon, everyone. Good, that’s better. Thank you for being here. I think the incredible turnout demonstrates how committed we all are to ensuring our children have the best possible education, which is great to see.’

‘I think most people are here because they love a good gossip,’ the woman next to Abi talk-whispers as Harriet ploughs on.

‘As per my email we are holding this parent forum so we, the governors, can canvass opinion among you, which will influence our closed-door meeting when we shall decide whether Sebastian Kent has a future at our school. I want to reassure you that we are working closely with an advisor from the council who is here today, to ensure we follow procedure. Now, it’s critical that I remind you all that this meeting was scheduled before the awful fire last week, which is a police matter and not for discussion here. Understood? Good. We thought about cancelling in light of the shocking act of violence, but we governors must still make a decision for the children, and it feels more pressing than ever to do so in a timely manner. So, I’m asking that we please stick to the matter at hand, namely, whether Mr Kent should be asked to permanently leave his position after allegedly using school property during work hours for his personal’ – a few sniggers – ‘activities.’

Harriet looks up sharply.

The woman next to Abi mutters, ‘I heard there was no evidence at all – he’d wiped it, of course – so that computer stuff is just Anna’s hearsay. But then again, she hasn’t been wrong in any of this so far, has she?’

The man next to the woman looks down at her, arms crossed, frowning.

‘Oops!’ the woman says, running her thumb and forefinger across her mouth as though zipping herself up, and turning back to face Harriet who says, ‘Now. We have an hour, and I’d like to invite any of you up to the microphone here to voice your opinions, but please keep them short. I will stop you if you talk for longer than two minutes and if any of you go wildly off track.’

Harriet’s eyes cast around the packed pavilion like she’s doubtful anyone will have anything useful to say, before she moves back to her chair.

A wave of nervous energy ripples through the parents before a man sitting at the back gets up and, looking grimly determined, walks to the microphone.

‘Hello, I’m Tim. We have two daughters at the school. Now, before all of this, I was very liberal in my thinking, open-minded. But over the last few days, I’ve realized there’s a big difference between theory and practice. We can all be as liberal as you like when it’s just theory, but when it actually happens, when it’s your own kids who are being taught by someone you consider a sexual transgressive, then all theories are out the window. It’s my understanding that his laptop had been wiped clean, but he’s never come out and denied it, has he? I don’t trust the man any more and I certainly don’t want him anywhere near my daughters. We’d like him gone.’

Abi wonders what Tim gets up to when he’s alone. Pictures him for a moment in stockings and high heels. She should never have come. She looks towards the exit; she’d have to walk past so many people to get out. Everyone would see, but that might be better than standing here listening to these people bullshit about things they know nothing about for the next hour.

Tim going first has broken the seal; there’s now a small queue of people waiting their turn for the mic. A few echo Tim, adding their own sentence or two about sexual and power imbalances and how, in their mind, Seb orchestrated his own downfall. Then a woman, her cheeks pink and clashing furiously with her red dress, says, ‘I think he’s an absolute disgrace,’ and Abi realizes it’s not nerves making her shake, it’s rage. ‘What he’s done – buying a woman’s body – is deplorable. He’s broken his marriage vows and his sacred promise to God. We have no idea what else he’s capable of. Good riddance, I say.’

There are a couple of claps from her supporters in the audience, people growing bolder. It’s the strangest thing, almost comical, hearing people talk about her body. He never bought my body, Abi thinks, because look, here it is, just below my head. Like always.

Harriet reminds everyone to please keep to the matter of Seb using school property. ‘This is not’ – she glances at someone, off stage to her right – ‘about his personal choices.’

Next up is a tall, angular woman. Abi tenses but immediately relaxes as the woman says, ‘I just want to say that I find Mr Kent’s humiliation, his shame, very relatable. It’s many of our worst nightmares, isn’t it? The kind of thing that would keep you up at night, something hidden in your personal life becoming so public. Now, I’m not Christian, but while I’ve been sitting here, listening to others mention Christian values, I keep thinking of that bit in the Bible that says something like, “Those without sin throw the first stone,” and none of us can, can we?’

Abi wants to clap but no one else does so she keeps quiet as the woman stands down. Lotte is next, smiling, Vita behind her in the queue. Abi feels every one of her cells shrink back as Lotte, eyes cast down, takes the mic lovingly, like a jazz singer, and bringing it towards her lips says, ‘My friends and I are very concerned for the well-being of the woman, of the “sex worker”.’ Lotte enunciates the quotation marks. ‘We feel it’s only in hearing her side that we can be reassured that she was, as Mr Kent claims, “choosing” to work legally and independently, free of any coercion.’

Abi reels. The woman next to her mutters something, but she doesn’t hear, she’s too adrenalized. Abi thinks about how her mum called her a whore before making Abi and Lily homeless, and she thinks about a brothel owner who said if she offered him ‘freebies’, Abi would get more work.

Lotte steps down, allowing Vita to step forward. They whisper something briefly to each other before Vita nods and moves to stand behind the mic.

‘That’s one side of our concerns.’ Vita looks out at her audience before starting to talk more quickly, not knowing how long it’ll be before she’s shut down. ‘The other is that this woman came to Waverly with the express intention of blackmailing Sebastian Kent for his shitty betrayal, but she lost all her bargaining power when Anna went public, telling everyone that twice he’d hired a woman for sex, so …’

‘Stop at once!’ Harriet grabs the other microphone, but it’s not working and, besides, no one else wants Vita to stop. A few phones are waved, high in the air.

‘… enraged, it was her, the prostitute who put those fireworks through Eva Kent’s letterbox. Think about it, it makes sense, we’re not only looking for a prostitute but also for an arsonist!’

Harriet’s apoplectic now and a couple of teachers are bustling up the pavilion, trying to get to Vita. Everyone is talking at once, everyone enthralled by Vita’s audacity, high on their own shock. Vita’s microphone has been turned off and she hands it to a red-faced teacher before taking a step back, chin lifted high. Harriet, now with a working microphone in her hand, tells them all that she’ll end the meeting if there are any further – she turns dagger eyes towards Vita – unwelcome disturbances. It’s amid this chaos that Abi sees her mum’s expressionless face the last time she saw her, and hears the security guard sneer, ‘Fucking whore,’ as he shoved her out of the hotel. She sees the faces of the men who spat at her, and her friend’s brother who almost raped her. Where once she felt the throbbing ache of powerlessness, now a great calm rises in Abi. She can end this. She’s the only one who can actually end this. She starts pushing herself forward; she’s almost at the front of the queue now and she has no idea what she’s going to say, but now the only person she can see is Lily and it’s like Lily is leading her, showing her the way.

Chatter still ripples around the room as the man in front of Abi hands the microphone to her without saying a word. It’s heavy, shaking in her hand. She thinks again of Lily. How Lily refused to be ashamed. ‘I don’t know any of you or this town or Mr Kent well …’

‘Get on with it!’ A loud shout comes from the floor. Vita’s outburst has energized the crowd. But the man shouting at her has turned an engine on inside Abi. She feels herself vibrate with heat, like she’s about to burst open.

Her voice is calm but stronger than she’s ever heard it as she addresses the man. ‘I know you,’ she says. ‘You’re the man who thinks he can talk for me, about me, instead of me.’ She turns back to address the whole room as she says, ‘You all do, don’t you? You’ve been doing it for centuries, people like you talking about whores like me.’

She looks at them, all their little faces turned towards her – did she just say what they think she said? Eyes clicking from ambivalence to interest, some lift their phones slowly into the air again. Even Harriet has frozen on her way to grab the microphone from Abi.

‘Look at you – you’re like children, asking to be told what to think, how to feel, listening to any idiot who talks loudest. Well, at least now, for the first time, I’m the one with the mic. It’s your turn to listen. I do not want to tell you my story and I certainly don’t want your pity or need your help. All I’ve ever wanted, all I ever hoped for when I moved my family here, was the basic dignity of making changes in my life – in my own time, on my own terms. That’s it. That’s all.’

She feels like she’s staring into each and every one of them individually as she talks directly from her guts.

‘But now I know that’s not possible. Not here. Not with people who enjoy watching someone fall, enjoy it even more when the person falling had been trying to climb. So that’s it. You don’t get to say you got rid of me because, right now, I’m ridding myself of you. And just to be really clear – I consented to every man I had sex with in exchange for money. I don’t regret any of them. But this’ – she casts her hand around the pavilion to indicate all of them – ‘trying to be a part of this community – that, that I do regret.’

Her hands shake as Abi clumsily passes the mic to the man closest to her, but with adrenaline, not fear. Everyone is staring; those closest move back to give her space to pass before a few hands reach out for her. Someone shouts, another laughs, someone else starts clapping, slow and rhythmic, their neighbours dumbly joining in so by the time Abi reaches the back of the pavilion it sounds like half the audience is with her, but all Abi can hear is the blood rushing in her ears. She does notice how Mrs Greene smiles as she opens the door for her, respectful, like Abi’s just done something Mrs Greene has wanted to do for a long, long time. She wonders, briefly, about the older woman’s story. And now Abi is outside and people start calling her name, start clamouring and reaching for her; she breathes in one deep, chill breath and she knows that at last she is truly free.