Watching You: A Novel

The cinnamon suede skirt had arrived on Monday.

‘What’s this, love?’ his mum had asked, handing him the package distractedly. ‘Forever 21. Isn’t that girls’ clothes?’

‘It’s a thing,’ he’d said, taking the parcel from her. ‘Costume. For a project.’

‘I could have ordered that for you,’ she’d said. ‘No reason for you to be paying for school things out of your own money.’

‘I know. But you weren’t here and I needed it.’

She’d turned to locate her handbag, pulled out her purse. ‘Here,’ she’d said, fingering a twenty. ‘How much was it?’

He hadn’t wanted her to pay for it. He’d wanted it to come from him. ‘Just cheap,’ he’d said, ‘four pounds. Something like that. Don’t worry about it.’

‘No,’ she’d said, moving her fingers to the coin section. ‘No. I insist. Here.’ She’d handed him two two-pound coins.

He’d taken them. ‘Thanks, Mum.’

In his room he’d unwrapped the package. The skirt had looked disappointingly cheap in the crinkly plastic bag but once he’d pulled it out and refolded it and wrapped it in some silver tissue he’d found in the Christmas bag under the stairs it looked fine.

He took it to school on Wednesday in his rucksack, folded inside a manila envelope. Attached to the package was a note saying, ‘From an admirer.’ Each time he reached into the rucksack he felt the contours of the thing like a whispered secret in his ear. He left school urgently at 4 p.m., whistled down the corridors and bolted through the front door, eyes straight ahead. He walked unnaturally fast towards town, casting his gaze over his shoulder every now and then, checking for the flash of royal-blue blazer. By the time he reached Romola’s house he was breathless and sweating. He heard the high-pitched yap of the chihuahua as he approached the front door. He pushed the package swiftly through the letterbox, not waiting to see if anyone was home.

He passed Romola on her way home a few moments later. Her hair was in two complicated-looking plaits that were woven into her scalp. He saw her eyes pass over the badge on his blazer before resting once again on the pavement beneath her huge feet. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t notice him. She passed by in a wash of odd sadness and gut-gnawing beauty. Freddie felt his head spin and for a moment he forgot how to walk. After a few steps he stopped and turned. He saw Romola from behind, watched her strange gait, her plaits, her glory, walking out of view.

He overheard a conversation between his mum and dad the next morning. They were in the kitchen. From outside he could hear drawers sliding and banging, cutlery jangling, plates from the dishwasher being stacked one on top of the other, the low rumble of BBC news in the background.

‘I spoke to the girl yesterday,’ he heard his father say. ‘The daughter.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Told her what you said.’

Freddie heard the plate-stacking come to a sudden halt, then his mother’s voice. ‘Yes?’

‘She says that apparently her mum thinks she knows us. That they met us on holiday a few years back.’

‘Oh.’ He heard a cupboard door open and then bang shut. ‘And did they?’

Silence again.

‘She didn’t seem to know. She was vague. Had no idea even where this holiday might have been.’

‘Well, it’s not like there’s a lot to choose from. It’s not as if we’ve even really been on holiday the last few years. Apart from the Lakes that time and a few nights at your mum’s. And I certainly don’t recognise her.’

Freddie drew in his breath. He hated thinking about the holiday in the Lake District. It had been the worst, worst, worst time. His dad hated holidays and had made it clear from the outset that he didn’t want to be there and resented them both for persuading him to go. He’d been grumpy all week, which had made Mum even more subservient and desperate to please him and they’d both walked on eggshells constantly and it had been hot, so, so hot. The steaming B & B with the sealed-up windows, Freddie’s mattress on the floor at the foot of his parents’ bed, like a baby, even though he was nine years old, and his mum shushing him every time he opened his mouth to complain about something. And then there’d been that day when they went on a coach. And that woman had come over and hit Dad. Really hit him, hard. Her face had been contorted and spit had spun from her lips as she shouted. Freddie had never before seen a person so angry, so black and red with rage.

Then the woman had said swear words that wouldn’t rattle Freddie now but had shocked him at the time, the sound of each word cutting into him like a knife. She’d been shouting at his dad: How can you live with yourself, she kept saying, how can you live with yourself?

His dad had taken the woman by the arms, quite roughly, and moved her like a sack of rocks to a spot across the street. Freddie had watched as they gesticulated silently at each other, their words swallowed up by passing cars. Then thirty seconds later his dad had stalked back across the street and hustled him and his mum back on to the coach. ‘Get on!’ he’d hissed in Freddie’s ear, his hand tight round Freddie’s arm. ‘Just get on.’

And everyone had been standing and staring, and Freddie had felt his face burn hot.

When they got back on the coach Freddie peered through the window to the spot across the street where the woman had been standing with Dad. She was still there, encircled now in the arms of another woman, a younger woman, similar in appearance. The younger woman looked up at the coach and caught Freddie’s gaze. Inside that gaze he saw pure, distilled hatred. He looked away and buried his face in his mother’s shoulder.

When he looked back again, both the women were gone.

Neither of his parents would talk about it afterwards. Just a loony, they said. Thought Dad was someone else. Mistaken identity. Just forget about it. There are some very strange people in this world.

But the rest of the holiday was even worse after that. His mum stopped being subservient and was instead brittle and silent. His parents barely spoke a word to each other until it was time to come home. And then all they talked about was road directions. It was at least a week or two until things felt normal again.

‘Anyway,’ he heard his dad continue, ‘I said we’re here to help. I still suspect mental health issues. It’s one thing to think you recognise someone. It’s another to hide in the undergrowth taking photos.’

Freddie nodded to himself. Of course. They were talking about the weird woman across the way. The one who watched him when he was watching her. The one he’d given the finger to. Jenna Tripp’s mum. Was it possible, he pondered, that they’d met them on holiday? Had they been at the B & B? Had they been there that day? Had they seen what had happened? Did they know the truth?

A blurred figure appeared the other side of the stained-glass panes of the front door, followed by a polite thrum of the doorbell. Freddie opened it. It was him, the big guy with the tattoos, Joey’s husband. He was wearing paint-splattered overalls and huge brown boots. He peered down at Freddie and said, ‘Morning, mate,’ before wiping his feet at least ten times on the mat. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Good,’ said Freddie, closing the door behind him.

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘Your mum about?’

Freddie pointed in the direction of the kitchen.

He watched the big man head down the hallway, knock gently on the kitchen door, push it open and say, ‘Morning Mrs Fitzwilliam, Mr Fitzwilliam,’ and then he heard his mum say, ‘Please, Alfie, I keep telling you, call me Nicola. Cup of tea?’

The door closed behind him and Freddie stood alone. He grasped the banister for a moment. There was crazy stuff swirling about his consciousness, disconnected things randomly hurtling towards each other: the strange woman in the village and the angry woman in the Lake District; Red Boots and his dad; his dad and his photos; his photos and Romola; his mum and the big man in the kitchen come to paint their walls for no particular reason because wouldn’t they be gone from here soon anyway? Wasn’t that how their lives worked? The moment Freddie found a reason to want to stay somewhere his dad breezed in and told him it was time to move on.

He rested his forehead against the cool wood of the banister and kicked his foot hard against the skirting board. He wanted … he didn’t know what he wanted. His giant brain was not helping him now. His ridiculous IQ was not showing up on a white steed to navigate him through this maze of weirdness. He just wanted to touch Romola’s hair. That was it. He wanted to touch her hair and make her smile.