Free Mindsight by Chris Curran Page B

where she was living. I went home, very defiant, late next evening, opening the front door to be met by Dad in the hall. He looked so angry I was terrified but hid it with a toss of the head as I pushed past him, heading for the stairs.
    He grabbed my arm, ‘Oh no you don’t, young lady. I want an explanation.’
    He was a big man with a loud voice, but he had never raised his hand to me or to Alice. I could see, though, that he was tempted to hit me when I curled my lips and met his eyes.
    ‘What?’
    He took an enormous breath. ‘I suppose you realise we had to call the police? You’ve made your mother ill and Alice hasn’t stopped crying. We thought you’d had an accident or been abducted.’
    I pulled my arm away. ‘Well I’m back now, so you can all relax.’ Then I headed upstairs with a look I hoped was loaded with contempt.
    I expected him to follow me, but he didn’t and he was at work when I got up next day. Mum was ill in bed and Alice was at school. No one seemed to care what I did. So I packed a rucksack and walked out. The first of many times.
    It didn’t take long to lose touch with Lizzie, but by then I’d met Gaz. I kidded myself it was love and we headed for London. Gaz disappeared after a couple of weeks and I went home for a bit, but the pattern was set. Gradually, I was staying away for longer and longer, moving from squat to squat, sometimes sleeping in parks or even shop doorways. It’s amazing where you can sleep if you’re drunk or wasted enough.
    I got picked up by the police and taken home a few times, but left again after a couple of days. My parents must have squared it somehow with school. Maybe they just carried on paying the fees and everyone agreed it was easier that way. I never went back to school.

    The only thing I ever felt guilty about in those days was leaving Alice, and even now I felt a twinge when I recalled looking up one day, as I was shambling up the driveway, to see her little face at her bedroom window. Her mouth was moving and she was trying to push up the wooden sash so that I could hear her. But she couldn’t manage it and that image of her tearful face as she tried to call me back stayed with me until the downers I’d pinched from Mum’s room began to take the edge off everything.
    The phone rang: Alice’s number. I took a swallow from the water beside my bed, but my voice must still have sounded croaky because Tom said, ‘You all right, Mum?’
    ‘I’m fine. I thought you were out all day today.’
    ‘I will be in an hour. Just wanted to speak to you before I went.’
    I held the phone to my lips for a moment unable to speak. ‘Well, it’s lovely to hear your voice.’
    ‘I’m sorry about yesterday, Mum. Alice said you might have been upset. I thought I told her about the table tennis and everything, but I must have forgot.’
    ‘Don’t worry. I can’t expect you to rearrange your life to suit me. Now off you go and win that tournament and I’ll be over to see you tomorrow or Tuesday – OK?’
    Alice came on then to ask about last night’s call. ‘It was nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a cold call, but it was so late I got worried.’
    ‘Do you want to come over for lunch?’
    ‘If you don’t mind, I won’t. I’m really tired. It was a bit of a day yesterday.’
    She had to go then because Tom was there, asking if she knew where he’d put his table tennis bat and did he have any clean shorts. It was just as well because I couldn’t face talking about Matt’s visit until I’d thought about it myself.
    I switched on the laptop, almost expecting an email from Emily, but my inbox stayed empty. I had her number in the notebook Alice had left for me, so I picked up the phone to call her, but somehow I couldn’t do it and phoned Lorna instead. There was no reply, but I left a message to tell her I wasn’t working on Friday and could come to her then.

    After that I stood eating some toast and staring from the window at the rain, the grey