I mean Abigail, shrugged and looked about the room, focusing on the damp patches in the corners, the second-hand filing cabinets with the bent sides, and the rust around the runners.
‘Have you ever listened to Led Zeppelin?’
There was a knock at the door.
It was Rebecca.
‘Hi, sir. You all right, Abigail? I was just wondering if I could get five minutes with you after you’re finished with Abigail?’ She dipped her eyes so they suddenly went all doe-like. She had applied a fresh layer of gloss to her lips. Abigail noticed how strange her name sounded coming out of Rebecca’s mouth. She was so used to hearing the oh so familiar, ‘Ugly Shy Girl.’
‘Yes, of course, we’ll be done pretty soon if you just want to hang about outside.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Rebecca grinned, as nice as pie, the unmelted butter perched on her malicious tongue. The door closed again.
‘Yeah sorry, where was I? Led Zeppelin? I’ll make you a CD, I’ll put some other stuff on there too, how about that?’ Matt said, winding his headphones around his iPod. ‘Sound all right?’
Ugly Shy Girl nodded. She rarely spoke to Matt, but she wasn’t stupid, she knew when somebody was actually doing something kind for her.
‘I’d like that,’ she mumbled.
‘Have a nice evening,’ he said and opened the door for her. ‘See you tomorrow for another crazy day, eh?’ He saluted to her and signalled a ‘chin-up’. Rebecca took no notice of Abigail as she passed by, she was busy texting on her phone. But before Abigail was out of earshot, she hissed, ‘Whore’ and stood up on her ostrich legs, moles scattered over them like bits of chocolate chip. She scooped her long dark hair over her shoulder, swanned into Matt’s office and the door clicked shut behind her.
Abigail’s walks home were never lonely, there was always somebody behind her calling her a ‘tit’ or a ‘moose’, asking her why she looked like she was going to the alps, or why she couldn’t afford a hair cut. Today was one of the trickier days. The boys were at the bus stop and she knew them all from making her life difficult at secondary school. These were the boys who chose not to go to college but preferred to sit on the wall outside Tesco’s smoking Sovereigns and drinking White Lightning.
‘Oi, Ugly Shy Girl!’ One of them tried to get her attention. It was Gary; he had once sat opposite Abigail at their previous school. Abigail recalled a particular art lesson where the task was to draw your reflection. Everybody sat around the room with their mirrors, the violin music playing in the background, shading their complexions, trying to capture their acne, the shape of their eyes. When it came to sharing their work at the end of the session, Gary had just drawn ‘up Abigail’s legs’. It wasn’t even a good drawing; it was just a very badly drawn cartoon. The class loved it, they smacked the table with their fists, stomped their feet and began asking Gary if they could keep it. Abigail was humiliated; she’d had no idea that the mirror was even under the table. Her drawing was put on display, not because it was good, but because the teacher felt guilty; she too knew how it felt to be isolated from class, like being the only sober one at a riotous party, she identified with Abigail.
‘HEL-LO! You got shit in your ears or what?’ yelled Aran who was always known as being ‘half a slice short of a sandwich’. He had once tried to shave three lines into his eyebrow and ended up cutting his forehead and removing his eyelashes. Aran had short-back-and-sides with peroxide tips that had gone a sort of chicken-korma greenish; he liked to go swimming and the chlorine had reacted with the bleach. Aran also had about five brown teeth that sat rooted at the bottom of his mouth like a rack of burnt sweetcorn. It would send shivers up anyone’s spine to look at his putrid mouth. The other boys were clones of each other, lined up in their Diadora tracksuits, Reebok Classic trainers, and yellow gold rings.
Abigail pretended not to hear them; she was actually really good at that. It was amazing how helpful a fringe can be when it comes to avoiding sounds or people.
Then she heard the scramble for bikes and knew it was about time to pick up pace. She walked slightly faster but could hear the rumble of tyres behind her and had no choice but to run.
‘GET HER!’ roared one of the boys, and so they came, like a swarm of vicious hornets, she felt them behind her. Her heart began to rush and her skin prickled against the frosty air. Abigail was clumsy at the best of times and her down-to-the-ankles denim skirt, her heavy school bag and her long fringe only made her clumsier. She ran, ran as fast as she could, feeling vomit collecting in her throat, and her eyes burning against the sharp wind. The boys had found bin lids now and those who were better at riding were slamming them together with their hands, charging towards her in an angry parade. Just when she reached the familiar kerb that told her brain she was close to home she began to run faster, pounding round the corner, tears streaming down her hot face. The boys went straight past her and rode off laughing throwing the bin lids onto the pavement, smacking hands and spitting, their hearts all racing as one.
Abigail kept on running, her bag dangling half way down her body now and giving her ankle a good bruising. She threw herself into the house and went straight to her room where she shut the door and slammed her body onto her bed – which she knew was dramatic, but that’s how she felt.
Abigail woke up to the sound of drilling. She sat up and checked the time, 4.05 am. She wasn’t childish but noises in the night did frighten her. It was one of those horrible moments when you feel too scared to sit in bed but too scared to go and investigate. She lay there for a bit, her eyes jerking about in their sockets, searching for light, her pupils as wide as saucers. Then she heard James’ door open.
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