yes, erm, I’ve forgotten what it was now,’ she chuckled. ‘I’m sure it’ll come to me. I must just tidy up these last few things and show my face at the staff Christmas party. I promised I’d do a little speech and announce Employee of the Year. Any idea where that gold picture frame I got from the mother-in-law last Christmas is?’
‘Yes, it’s on your tallboy in your apartments, ma’am.’
‘Oh good, I’ll wrap that up quickly and give that as a prize. Was there anything else?’
‘Er, no, ma’am.’
She got up from her desk chair as I got up from mine, and went over to her corner armoire and took down a coat hanger from which hung her Christmas end-of-term red trouser suit. ‘Be a dear and go up and hang this in my bedroom would you?’
I looked at her. I waited for her to look at me. Any sign, any inkling, any vestige of good news, vanished from her face.
‘That’ll be all for tonight, thank you, Natasha,’ she said finally, with a knotted brow, clicking off her desk lamp and leaving me in darkness.
I spent a fitful night, worrying about Seb and angsting over Head Girl. Obsessing over why my dad hadn’t called me with news. Fixating over why Mrs Saul-Hudson hadn’t mentioned some shred of hope that that badge was mine in our meeting. If I got that badge I would be able to cope better with Seb’s disappearance, I knew I would. I’d be able to focus myself on my duties and I would stop worrying so much. If I didn’t get it, what then? What the hell would I do? Who the hell was I at this school if I wasn’t Head Girl? Just some wannabe?
That Tuesday morning, the last day of term, I had a phone call.
I was waiting to be connected to my dad on the public phone outside the school office. There was a shiny prospectus on the shelf and I was absentmindedly peeling through it while I waited. It stated that Bathory School ‘prides itself on its record of pastoral care’. I looked through the pages of all the girls, six-year-old Pups, wide-eyed Tenderfoots, spotty Pre-Pubes, proud prefects and perfect Head Girls of years gone by, action shots of athletics and gymnastics, wondrous gazes down microscopes, contented smiles while reading books on beanbags, playing cellos in the Music room, waving through coach windows on the way to Switzerland, Venice or Amsterdam. I’d done all of that. I’d had all these experiences. My parents were paying £9,000 a term for all this and it wasn’t as though they were rich, not like a lot of the other girls. My mum and dad ran a bakery, that was all. They weren’t loaded by any stretch of the imagination. But they’d sent Seb to a private school, so they sent me too. I knew it was a struggle. I knew I had to do my best.
‘Nash, hi, it’s your dad.’
I closed the prospectus. ‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Nashy, it’s good to hear your voice, darling.’
I wanted to cry. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed his voice. ‘Is everything okay? You don’t usually phone this earl—’
‘I know, darling.’ He’d called me ‘darling’ twice. This really wasn’t good.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Uh, it’s Seb.’
That was all he’d needed to say. The bottom dropped out of my world. I reached behind me and felt for the corridor wall so I could lean against it.
‘Nash? Nash, darling, are you there?’
‘Yeah.’ I didn’t dare say anything. I didn’t want the silence on the line to be filled with words I’d always dreaded I’d hear. Words from my nightmares. But I had to ask. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Well, there’s still nothing. They think he’s gone off the map a bit.’
I sank back in the big leather swivel chair and it turned me towards the wide bay window. He hadn’t said dead. He still wasn’t past tense. There was still hope.
‘Oh,’ I said.
I could hear Dad scratching his stubbly chin, another bad sign. He hadn’t shaved. By the way he was talking so quietly and slowly, it sounded like he hadn’t slept either. He always talked like that when he’d done a night shift. ‘They’ve made contact with three of the lads on his expedition. Apparently, three of them went off to spot a pod of manatee while the others returned to camp. Seb’s group didn’t come back. I’m sure all will be well. You know Bash. If he fell into a pit of snakes he’d come up wearing snakeskin boots.’
This was Dad trying to make me feel better. It didn’t help. All it did was make me think my big brother had fallen into a pit of snakes.
‘He’s more than likely just gone somewhere remote where there aren’t any phones and he can’t get in touch.
‘We’re catching a flight out there this lunchtime. Managed to get a couple of cancellations. So, I’m afraid, you’ll have to stay there, baby, at least for now.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘Can’t I come?’
‘We can’t come and get you, darling, we’ll have to leave for the airport in a couple of hours.’
‘But I could get a train or something.’
‘It’ll take too long. We’ve got to get our flight. Look, you stay there, where you’re safe. Where we know where you are. We spoke to your Headmistress and she said Matron’s going to be staying over Christmas as well so you won’t be on your own.’
‘So, the Saul-Hudsons aren’t staying?’ I said. ‘First I’ve heard.’ They never went away for Christmas, always New Year skiing, but never Christmas. They always stayed here in case any girls were going home later.
‘Yeah, she said they’re leaving tonight to go skiing or something in Scotland. There’s a few other girls staying as well as you she said. Okay? Nash? They said Matron’s very happy to stay instead of them.’
‘Okay, Dad,’ I said. Cowards, was all I could think. And then my mind went to all the Christmas presents I’d wrapped and put under the loose floorboard in my room. I couldn’t wait to give Dad his. It was this board game he used to play as a kid and thought they’d stopped making. I got it on eBay months ago when I was home for the summer. When Seb was there. We’d had a barbecue for his birthday. We were always together for birthdays and Christmases. Always. Always.
‘What about Christmas?’ A single tear fell into the phone mouthpiece. I rubbed my cheek.
‘We’ll have our Christmas when we get back. All four of us. Okay? Try not to worry too much, Nashy. They’ll find him by then, I know they will.’
I swallowed down a lump of emotion and built a dam for any more tears. There was nothing to cry about yet, I kept telling myself. When I got off the phone, the pain in my throat was worse, but I wouldn’t cry.
‘There’s nothing to cry about, stop it. Stop it,’ I said aloud.
Often,
