Read Online Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rosamund Lupton
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her.
‘She’s a seventeen-year-old girl, for fuck’s sake,’ you say.
Your sister tightens her hand on yours.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ you repeat. You never use that word in your sister’s hearing, or your children’s.
‘She was the victim of a hate-mail campaign, wasn’t she?’ DI Baker asks you, an edge now to his bland voice.
‘But that stopped,’ you said. ‘
Months ago
. It’s not connected. It has
nothing to do with the fire
.’
Beside me, Jenny has become rigid.
She never told us how she felt when she was called slut, tart, jailbait and worse. Or when dog mess and used condoms were posted through our letterbox addressed to her. Instead she turned to Ivo and her friends, excluding us.
‘She’s seventeen now, darling, of course she turns to them.’
You were so infuriatingly understanding, so ‘I’ve-read-the-manuals-on-teenagers’ rational.
‘But we’re her parents ,’
I said. Because parents out-rank everyone else.
‘There’s been nothing for almost five months,’ you tell DI Baker. ‘It’s all over.’
DI Baker flicks through some notes in front of him as if finding evidence to disagree with you.
I remember how desperate we were for it to be over. Those awful things that were said to her. It was shocking. Grotesque. The ugly, vicious world had come crashing through our letterbox and into our daughter’s life. And, this I think is key,
you hadn’t kept it at bay
. You thought you hadn’t done your job as her father and protected her.
Those hours you spent looking at the pieces of A4 lined paper, trying to trace the origin of the cut-out letters – which newspaper? Which magazine? Studying postmarks on the ones that had been posted, agonising over the meaning of the ones that had been hand-delivered – he’d been here,
right outside our door
, for God’s sake, and you hadn’t got him.
I’d understood after a little while that
you
wanted to be the person who caught him and made him stop. To make amends to Jenny or to prove something to yourself? I thought it was both enmeshed together.
Then two weeks after –
two weeks
Mike – the day the hand-delivered envelope with the used condom arrived, you told Sarah. As you’d predicted, she told us we mustgo to the police – and why the hell hadn’t we done that to start with? We duly did as she said but, as you’d also predicted, the police – apart from Sarah – didn’t consider it important. Well, not as important as it was to you and me. Not
life-stoppingly
important. And they didn’t find out anything. It wasn’t as if we could help them; we had no idea who might target Jenny like that or why.
Poor Jen. So furious and mortified when the police interviewed her friends and boyfriend. The teenage paranoia that adults disapprove of their choices taken to an extreme.
But you’d already interrogated most of them, grabbing them as Jenny tried to hurry them past us and up to her room. Those long-limbed, long-haired, silly girls seemed unlikely hate-mailers. But what about one of the boys who were friends with her? Did one harbour hatred? Unreturned love turning acrid and spreading across venomous letters?
And Ivo. I’ve always been suspicious of him – not as a hate-mailer but as a man. Boy. Maybe because he’s so different to you, with his slight frame and fine features and his preference at seventeen for Auden over car engine manuals. I think he lacks
substance
. But you disagree. You think he’s
a fine fella
; a
great lad
. Possibly because you don’t want to be a clichéd possessive father? Because you don’t want to alienate Jenny? But whatever our reasons, you support Jenny over Ivo, while I jibe.
Though even with my prejudices against him, I don’t think he’d send her hate mail. Besides, he’s her boyfriend, and she adores him, so why would he?
‘When, exactly, was the last incident?’ DI Baker asks you.
‘February the fourteenth,’ you reply. ‘
Months
ago.’
Valentine’s day. A Wednesday.
‘She’s a seventeen-year-old girl, for fuck’s sake,’ you say.
Your sister tightens her hand on yours.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ you repeat. You never use that word in your sister’s hearing, or your children’s.
‘She was the victim of a hate-mail campaign, wasn’t she?’ DI Baker asks you, an edge now to his bland voice.
‘But that stopped,’ you said. ‘
Months ago
. It’s not connected. It has
nothing to do with the fire
.’
Beside me, Jenny has become rigid.
She never told us how she felt when she was called slut, tart, jailbait and worse. Or when dog mess and used condoms were posted through our letterbox addressed to her. Instead she turned to Ivo and her friends, excluding us.
‘She’s seventeen now, darling, of course she turns to them.’
You were so infuriatingly understanding, so ‘I’ve-read-the-manuals-on-teenagers’ rational.
‘But we’re her parents ,’
I said. Because parents out-rank everyone else.
‘There’s been nothing for almost five months,’ you tell DI Baker. ‘It’s all over.’
DI Baker flicks through some notes in front of him as if finding evidence to disagree with you.
I remember how desperate we were for it to be over. Those awful things that were said to her. It was shocking. Grotesque. The ugly, vicious world had come crashing through our letterbox and into our daughter’s life. And, this I think is key,
you hadn’t kept it at bay
. You thought you hadn’t done your job as her father and protected her.
Those hours you spent looking at the pieces of A4 lined paper, trying to trace the origin of the cut-out letters – which newspaper? Which magazine? Studying postmarks on the ones that had been posted, agonising over the meaning of the ones that had been hand-delivered – he’d been here,
right outside our door
, for God’s sake, and you hadn’t got him.
I’d understood after a little while that
you
wanted to be the person who caught him and made him stop. To make amends to Jenny or to prove something to yourself? I thought it was both enmeshed together.
Then two weeks after –
two weeks
Mike – the day the hand-delivered envelope with the used condom arrived, you told Sarah. As you’d predicted, she told us we mustgo to the police – and why the hell hadn’t we done that to start with? We duly did as she said but, as you’d also predicted, the police – apart from Sarah – didn’t consider it important. Well, not as important as it was to you and me. Not
life-stoppingly
important. And they didn’t find out anything. It wasn’t as if we could help them; we had no idea who might target Jenny like that or why.
Poor Jen. So furious and mortified when the police interviewed her friends and boyfriend. The teenage paranoia that adults disapprove of their choices taken to an extreme.
But you’d already interrogated most of them, grabbing them as Jenny tried to hurry them past us and up to her room. Those long-limbed, long-haired, silly girls seemed unlikely hate-mailers. But what about one of the boys who were friends with her? Did one harbour hatred? Unreturned love turning acrid and spreading across venomous letters?
And Ivo. I’ve always been suspicious of him – not as a hate-mailer but as a man. Boy. Maybe because he’s so different to you, with his slight frame and fine features and his preference at seventeen for Auden over car engine manuals. I think he lacks
substance
. But you disagree. You think he’s
a fine fella
; a
great lad
. Possibly because you don’t want to be a clichéd possessive father? Because you don’t want to alienate Jenny? But whatever our reasons, you support Jenny over Ivo, while I jibe.
Though even with my prejudices against him, I don’t think he’d send her hate mail. Besides, he’s her boyfriend, and she adores him, so why would he?
‘When, exactly, was the last incident?’ DI Baker asks you.
‘February the fourteenth,’ you reply. ‘
Months
ago.’
Valentine’s day. A Wednesday.
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