The Perfect Girl

TESSA

I’m feeling pretty certain that the camera is actually filming when Zoe and Lucas start playing their duet because there’s a red light flashing on the bottom right-hand corner of its screen and a counter appears to be frenetically keeping track of the seconds and milliseconds that are passing.

Zoe and Lucas look great on the podium, as ever: a sweet vision of teenage perfection. They are yin and yang, blonde and dark, an ice princess and her swarthy consort.

I’m one of the first to notice Tom Barlow because the camera tripod and I are positioned just at the side of the aisle, quite near the entrance, so that I can stand up and tend to it without blocking anybody’s view.

I don’t recognise him at first, and by the time I do it’s too late to do anything.

Later, I wonder what might have happened differently if I’d acted at that moment, whether I could have stopped him, and changed the course of things, but it’s pointless speculation because, like the rest of the audience, I do nothing more than watch, open-mouthed, as he shouts, his spittle flecking the air in front of him.

Zoe is the last person in the church to notice him and, when she does, fear jerks her limbs like a puppet on strings, and she scrambles to get off the stage. I don’t blame her. Tom Barlow looks like a man possessed, and he’s a big man.

When Maria stands up and makes a feeble attempt to pacify him he’s having none of it. ‘You have your daughter,’ he says to her, and the words seem to strike her like blows. ‘Don’t tell me what to do. You have your daughter.’

‘I’m so sorry, Tom,’ she says, but he scythes her down with his reply: ‘It’s your fault,’ he says. ‘It was your fault.’

And then there’s a muddle, as people begin to leave their seats and surround Mr Barlow, and he sinks to his knees and begins to sob, and it’s an awful, wrenching sound, a sound to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

I know who he is, because I recognise him from the trial, of course. Zoe’s trial took place in a closed court, because of her age, so I never went inside the actual courtroom but I was still there every day, in the waiting room reserved for families of the accused, and I saw the families of the victims outside the courthouse in the street, day in, day out, huddled in groups.

We kept our distance, to avoid any scenes, but I’m certain I recognise Tom Barlow because his face was in the local paper too. He and the other parents were pictured prominently, black clad and riddled with grief at the funerals of their children.

In the mayhem at the concert, Maria follows Zoe off stage, though before she does there’s a tense exchange between her and her newish husband Chris, during which he seems to question her and she shakes her head vigorously. Maria meets my eye as she goes, she looks stricken, and I mouth, Do you want me to come? She signals that she doesn’t, so I sit down where I am. I’m keen not to draw attention to myself. Others are kneeling beside Tom Barlow, looking after him, so I don’t need to. Best if he doesn’t see me at this point. There’s a possibility that he might recognise me.

I wonder how Tom Barlow knew Zoe was here tonight. Since leaving Devon, she’s changed her surname, broken links with the families, with everything. We all thought she’d left Amelia Barlow’s family a hundred miles away.

If we’re unlucky enough that Tom Barlow and his wife and their remaining children have moved here too, it won’t be long before people make connections. Bristol, it seems, might not have been far enough away for my sister and Zoe to move to escape the tragedy, and Bristol is a place where news travels fast. Within certain circles, there are often only a few degrees of separation between anybody in this city.

Chris Kennedy doesn’t follow Maria and Zoe. Instead, he goes to stand beside Lucas who’s still sitting at the piano. Both of them watch the dying throes of Tom Barlow’s meltdown with shock and disbelief on their faces and I feel leaden as I think of all the stories that are now going to have to be told, all the truths uncovered, and I think sadly of the impossibility of my sister’s shiny, happy new life continuing as it is.

Zoe, our dear Zoe, has caused domestic bliss to implode yet again.

When Mr Barlow has been cleared away, mopped up off the floor like a spilled drink, it’s decided that Lucas will continue to play alone. As the audience settles into this news I double-check that the video camera is still recording. In the screen, I can see Lucas, and I think I’ve framed him quite well. I can also see Chris Kennedy in profile and he sits completely still, staring front and forward. Only a small fold in his forehead and the utter stillness of his features betray the incomprehension that he must be feeling.