Then she asked him the question about his having been abroad.
Hannah had always been an observer. Even in her youth she could usually work out what was going on between people. But the situation in the Brices’ home confused her. She couldn’t make out at all where Michael fitted in.
After tea the Brices refused the offer of help with the washing-up and Michael took Hannah to his bedroom to find her his notes. She was tidier than most of her friends but his room was almost Spartan in its lack of clutter. She wondered if he had planned to invite her back and had cleared it specially, but she went there on subsequent occasions and it was always the same. It reminded her of a cell.
‘Are they your grandparents?’ she asked.
‘No, we’re no relation. They’re just friends.’
‘Friends of your father’s?’
‘Yes,’ he said, seeming grateful for an explanation that worked. ‘That’s right.’
It was a small room but there was a big desk under the window, of the kind that you’d have found in offices everywhere. It had three drawers on each side of the knee-hole. It wasn’t well made. The varnish was scratched and the top was chipped. Michael seemed flustered when he couldn’t find the notes where he’d expected them to be, with others in the top drawer.
‘Sorry, I thought I’d brought everything with me. But obviously not.’
‘Couldn’t they be somewhere else?’ Hannah yanked open a bottom drawer which was wider than the others. When it came to school work she was competitive. She wanted the notes, a chance to shine in the essay. She hadn’t come along just for the chance to know Michael better. She had expected to find more files in the drawer, neatly labelled, but it was empty apart from a shoebox, the sort she had collected when she was young for use in Blue Peter projects. He must have had the box for a long time. It was too small to hold shoes of the size he wore then.
Michael slammed the drawer shut with a ferocity which almost trapped her hand.
‘There’s nothing in there. I told you, I must have left them behind.’
‘Sorry.’ She looked at him, expecting an explanation. He said nothing.
The incident seemed to have thrown him. Hannah thought he was angry about the invasion of his privacy and apologized more profusely. It was something she could understand. He hardly seemed to hear what she was saying and when she said that her mother would be expecting her he seemed relieved to see her go. When Hannah saw him at school the next day he greeted her as if nothing had happened.
For several weeks she was haunted by the mystery of the small, blue shoebox. She imagined it contained answers to her questions about Michael.
Just before Christmas she was invited back to the Brices for mince pies and mulled wine. She made an excuse to go upstairs, slipped into Michael’s room and opened the drawer. She hated herself for doing it. Her hands were sweating as she tried to turn the knob. She had kept the door open so she would hear if anyone was coming. But it was an anticlimax. The drawer was empty. When she returned to the others Michael looked at her as he had on his first morning in the common-room, as if he knew exactly what she’d been up to.
Chapter Twelve
Throughout the interview both Porteous and Stout went on about Michael having been Hannah’s special friend, as if they had been lovers from the start. But they were never lovers, not in the sense the detectives meant, and they didn’t even start going out with each other until after the lower-sixth exams. She tried to explain that to them. The detectives listened but she wasn’t sure they understood.
The town itself had nothing to attract young people. The cinema had shut and the pubs were gloomy and unfriendly. In the summer at least, they were drawn to the lake. A couple of years before, the valley had been flooded to provide water for northern industrial towns and the biggest man-made lake in Europe was created. It was news at the time. Although it was surrounded by forestry plantations and was miles from everywhere, the novelty of the development and the scale and spectacle of it attracted tourists. An enterprising farmer opened a caravan site, then built a bar and a club, so it was more like a small holiday camp. It hardly provided a sophisticated night life but it was livelier than anything else the town had to offer and it drew the kids like a magnet.
The Saturday after the end-of-year exams they gathered on the shore in the afternoon and collected dead wood to build a bonfire. Hannah had expected Michael to be there but he didn’t turn up. You could never guarantee his presence on these occasions, and he never offered explanations. They ate chocolate and crisps as a makeshift picnic and later moved on to the caravan park, to the bar where Sally’s boyfriend was DJ. It was only supposed to serve residents but no one asked questions when they all piled in. It was June, early in the season. No doubt the owners were glad of their money. The bar was a horrible place, furnished like a transport café with Formica tables and plastic chairs. Along one wall a row of one-armed bandits clacked and flashed. Hannah and her friends didn’t mind. There were no awkward questions about under-age drinking, and they took it over and made it theirs. When they arrived there were two residents, an overweight Brummie and his wife, leaning against the bar. Soon they shrank away and the Cranford Grammar brigade had it all to themselves.
Hannah still found events like that evening daunting, but she began to enjoy herself. She thought she’d done well in the exams, better than she’d expected. And she’d arranged to spend the night with Sally, so for once she didn’t have to worry about her mother. Since Edward’s death, Audrey had become increasingly anxious, in an obsessive, unhealthy way. It seemed that anxiety was the only way she could express her concern or her love. When Hannah went out Audrey always waited up. She would be pacing up and down the dining-room, her face knotted with tension, although Hannah was always back before the agreed time. Later she was to understand something of what her mother had gone through – she could never sleep until Rosie was in – but then it had seemed an unnecessary intrusion.
The evening of the party it was a relief to know there would be no prying questions to answer and she felt she could let herself go. She started drinking her usual halves of cider but later Sally’s boyfriend, Chris, bought all the girls vodka. He was always throwing his money about, trying to impress. They made him play the music very loud and they started to dance. At closing time, as she stumbled and giggled with the others down the sandy path to the shore, Hannah thought this must be what it was like to be drunk. She had led a very sheltered life.
The bonfire was already lit. They could see the flames from the path, reflected in the water beyond. Sparks from the burning wood shattered in the sky like fireworks. Michael had lit it and he was there, alone, tending it, throwing on more wood as soon as the flames subsided. While the others ran down the bank to join him, pretending to be angry because he’d started the fire without them, Hannah stood and watched him. He was absorbed in his watch over the flames and seemed not to notice the approaching crowd. Even when the others crowded round him, yelling and cheering, he didn’t look away.
Of course, she fancied him like crazy. In the beginning she had thought him cocky, still did if it came to that, but that was part of the fascination. And perhaps he’d seen her resistance as a challenge, because he’d made an effort to win her over. No one else had bothered to do that. She wasn’t seen as much of a catch – skinny with no figure to speak of, black oily hair and the hint even then of dark down on her upper lip. He said she looked Mediterranean. Perhaps he had heard about her father and felt sorry for her, though if his friendship was prompted by pity he hid it well. She could usually pick up a reaction like that. It turned her spiky and moody. Perhaps their unusual homes in this conventional town of happy families gave them something in common. She thought he was happy in her company and for a while that was enough.