Read Online Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rosamund Lupton
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Adam worried about his times-tables challenge; Jenny late down to breakfast asusual. But we’d been up for an hour already, waiting for the sound of the letterbox. Just the click of metal shutting made me feel physically sick.
It was the letter with the C word across it. I can’t say that word in connection with her. I just can’t.
But the day after that letter there was nothing. Then a whole week went by with no hate mail. Then a fortnight. Until over four months had passed, so that yesterday I picked up the post hardly bothering to check.
‘You’re sure there’s been nothing since the fourteenth of February?’ DI Baker asks.
‘Yes. I told you—’
He interrupts you. ‘Could she have hidden something from you?’
‘No, of course not,’ you say, frustrated. ‘The fire is nothing to do with the hate-mailer. Presumably you haven’t seen this yet?’
You slap the newspaper you’re holding in front of DI Baker. The
Richmond Post
. The headline shouts out: ‘Arsonist Sets Fire to Local Primary School!’
The by-line is Tara’s.
DI Baker ignores your newspaper.
‘Were there any other forms of hate mail that you didn’t tell us about?’ he continues. ‘Texts on her mobile, for example, or emails, or postings on a social networking site?’
You glare at him.
‘I asked Jenny and there was nothing like that,’ Sarah says.
You’re pacing the office now; five paces from one wall to the other, as if you can outpace whatever is hunting you down.
‘Would she have told you?’ asks DI Baker.
‘She would have told me, or her parents, yes,’ Sarah replies.
But we hadn’t just taken her word for it. We searched;you breaking every rule in the bringing-up-teenagers book, me being a normal mother.
‘MySpace? Facebook?’ DI Baker asks as if we don’t know what ‘social networking site’ means, but you interrupt.
‘The hate-mailer
had nothing to do with it
. Christ, how many more times?’ You jab at the newspaper. ‘It’s this teacher, Silas Hyman, you should be investigating.’
‘We haven’t read the paper, Mike,’ Sarah says. ‘We’ll read it if you’ll give us a minute.’
She must be humouring you, I think. After all, what on earth could Tara know about the fire that she – a policewoman and your sister – doesn’t?
The picture of the burnt-out school dominates the front page, the oddly undamaged bronze statue of a child in the foreground. Under it is a picture of Jenny.
‘It’s from my Facebook page,’ Jenny says, looking at her photo. ‘The one Ivo took at Easter, when we did that canoeing course. I
can’t believe
she’s done that. She must have gone onto my site and then just printed it off, or scanned it. Isn’t that theft?’
I love her outrage. Out of all of this, to mind about her photo being used.
But the contrast between our daughter in the burns unit and that outdoorsy, healthy, beautiful girl in the photo is cuttingly painful.
Maybe Jenny feels it too. She goes to the door.
‘The hate-mailer didn’t do it and Dad’s idea that Silas Hyman did it is completely ridiculous and I’m going for a walk.’
‘OK.’
‘I wasn’t asking permission!’ she snaps. And then sheleaves. Just the word ‘hate-mailer’ pushing those old buttons again.
Just after she’s gone, Sarah opens the paper out to show a double-page spread, with a banner headline across both pages.
‘Jinxed School.’
On the left-hand page is the sub-headline, ‘Fire Started Deliberately’, and another photograph of this ‘popular and beautiful’ girl.
Tara has turned Jenny’s torment into private entertainment. ‘Beautiful seventeen-year-old… fighting for her life… horribly burnt… severely mutilated.’ Not news, but prurient news-as-porn; titillating garbage.
Tara makes me out as a kind of superhero-mum racing into the flames. But a rather tardy superhero, arriving too late in the day to save the beautiful heroine.
Tara finishes with a flourish.
‘The police are
It was the letter with the C word across it. I can’t say that word in connection with her. I just can’t.
But the day after that letter there was nothing. Then a whole week went by with no hate mail. Then a fortnight. Until over four months had passed, so that yesterday I picked up the post hardly bothering to check.
‘You’re sure there’s been nothing since the fourteenth of February?’ DI Baker asks.
‘Yes. I told you—’
He interrupts you. ‘Could she have hidden something from you?’
‘No, of course not,’ you say, frustrated. ‘The fire is nothing to do with the hate-mailer. Presumably you haven’t seen this yet?’
You slap the newspaper you’re holding in front of DI Baker. The
Richmond Post
. The headline shouts out: ‘Arsonist Sets Fire to Local Primary School!’
The by-line is Tara’s.
DI Baker ignores your newspaper.
‘Were there any other forms of hate mail that you didn’t tell us about?’ he continues. ‘Texts on her mobile, for example, or emails, or postings on a social networking site?’
You glare at him.
‘I asked Jenny and there was nothing like that,’ Sarah says.
You’re pacing the office now; five paces from one wall to the other, as if you can outpace whatever is hunting you down.
‘Would she have told you?’ asks DI Baker.
‘She would have told me, or her parents, yes,’ Sarah replies.
But we hadn’t just taken her word for it. We searched;you breaking every rule in the bringing-up-teenagers book, me being a normal mother.
‘MySpace? Facebook?’ DI Baker asks as if we don’t know what ‘social networking site’ means, but you interrupt.
‘The hate-mailer
had nothing to do with it
. Christ, how many more times?’ You jab at the newspaper. ‘It’s this teacher, Silas Hyman, you should be investigating.’
‘We haven’t read the paper, Mike,’ Sarah says. ‘We’ll read it if you’ll give us a minute.’
She must be humouring you, I think. After all, what on earth could Tara know about the fire that she – a policewoman and your sister – doesn’t?
The picture of the burnt-out school dominates the front page, the oddly undamaged bronze statue of a child in the foreground. Under it is a picture of Jenny.
‘It’s from my Facebook page,’ Jenny says, looking at her photo. ‘The one Ivo took at Easter, when we did that canoeing course. I
can’t believe
she’s done that. She must have gone onto my site and then just printed it off, or scanned it. Isn’t that theft?’
I love her outrage. Out of all of this, to mind about her photo being used.
But the contrast between our daughter in the burns unit and that outdoorsy, healthy, beautiful girl in the photo is cuttingly painful.
Maybe Jenny feels it too. She goes to the door.
‘The hate-mailer didn’t do it and Dad’s idea that Silas Hyman did it is completely ridiculous and I’m going for a walk.’
‘OK.’
‘I wasn’t asking permission!’ she snaps. And then sheleaves. Just the word ‘hate-mailer’ pushing those old buttons again.
Just after she’s gone, Sarah opens the paper out to show a double-page spread, with a banner headline across both pages.
‘Jinxed School.’
On the left-hand page is the sub-headline, ‘Fire Started Deliberately’, and another photograph of this ‘popular and beautiful’ girl.
Tara has turned Jenny’s torment into private entertainment. ‘Beautiful seventeen-year-old… fighting for her life… horribly burnt… severely mutilated.’ Not news, but prurient news-as-porn; titillating garbage.
Tara makes me out as a kind of superhero-mum racing into the flames. But a rather tardy superhero, arriving too late in the day to save the beautiful heroine.
Tara finishes with a flourish.
‘The police are
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