She casts Lily a warning look towards Margot.
‘What?’ Margot asks again, looking from her mum to her sister and back again.
She thinks Lily is going to tell her to defend Seb, to stand up for what’s right, so when Lily says simply, ‘I told Blake,’ it feels like she’s been kicked in the stomach.
‘Why is no one listening to me!’ Margot runs with a great extravagant huff out of the room.
Abi will go to her later. Right now, she can’t move.
‘You told Blake,’ Abi asks, both a question and a statement, ‘about me.’
Lily nods.
Abi feels like she’s been electrocuted. ‘When?’
‘Last night.’
Abi gets up to find her phone. The screen comes alive, but she has no new messages, there have been no phone calls. No one shouting, ‘Whore!’
Lily is looking at her steadily but it’s like Abi can’t find a safe place to land. She wants to kick things, throw the fucking bowls across the room. Instead she just pulls her hair away from her scalp and almost shouts, ‘Why the hell did you do that, Lil?’
Lily shrugs, enraging Abi even more. ‘You’re a part of my story and I’ve decided to give things a go with Blake after all, but I don’t want any secrets between us.’
She is heartbreakingly, shockingly naive. What does Lily know about romantic relationships? Abi hasn’t had a boyfriend since Lily’s dad fifteen years ago and that was a complete mess. When it came to relationships, the Disney channel had been her educator.
‘That’s not … Lil, that’s not good enough … You and Blake, you’re not going to be together forever, it’s …’
‘You said you weren’t ashamed of what you’d done, the choices you made …’
‘I’m not!’
‘Then why are you so scared?’
Abi turns away from Lily; she doesn’t want to scream at her. This fight is not between the two of them. It’s between Abi and the world that never understood her, never even tried.
She stays still, her hand covering her mouth, even as she hears the thump, thump, thump of Margot jumping down the stairs.
‘I’m still cross!’ her little voice calls from the hall.
Yes, Abi thinks, me too, sweetheart, me too.
Later, feeling calmer, she thinks Lily was probably right. They might be moving town, but the school is still going to be in all their lives for years to come. She’ll go if only to see what people are thinking; she’ll go to make sure Lily is still safe; she’ll go because not being there could mark her out, put her back on Lotte, Vita and Anna’s list of suspects.
The pavilion has the tense, excitable atmosphere of a New Year’s Eve party or – Abi imagines – a political party awaiting results on election night. There’s a long queue of people waiting to get inside, Mrs Greene at the front checking names, ensuring as best she can that everyone entering really is a parent and not a member of the press who hover by the school gates, smiling at parents, competitive and sly. As she walks through the gates Vita is talking to a friend, but her eyes fix on Abi.
On the stage at the front of the pavilion, Harriet sits behind a small desk, with two microphones on stands at either side. There are about twice as many parents as there are seats, so they spill up the aisles, a mess of chatter and expectation against every wall.
Lotte must have got there early as she’s in a prime spot on a chair at the front, holding Richard’s hand but leaning across him to talk to a couple of other people Abi only vaguely recognizes. Anna sits on her other side, her phone in her lap, staring blankly at the floor in front of her. Lonely in the noise around her. She glances up, like she can feel Abi looking. Abi looks away.
There’s no sign of Rosie and Seb.
The woman next to Abi accidentally elbows her. ‘Sorry!’ she says laughingly, before adding, ‘God, now I know how sardines feel!’
Abi smiles back at the woman, too nervous to trust herself to say anything.
On the stage Harriet moves to the nearest microphone and says, ‘Right, can you all hear me …?’ But no one can until someone at the back turns something and heads snap up as Harriet booms, ‘Afternoon, everyone. Good, that’s better. Thank you for being here. I think the incredible turnout demonstrates how committed we all are to ensuring our children have the best possible education, which is great to see.’
‘I think most people are here because they love a good gossip,’ the woman next to Abi talk-whispers as Harriet ploughs on.
‘As per my email we are holding this parent forum so we, the governors, can canvass opinion among you, which will influence our closed-door meeting when we shall decide whether Sebastian Kent has a future at our school. I want to reassure you that we are working closely with an advisor from the council who is here today, to ensure we follow procedure. Now, it’s critical that I remind you all that this meeting was scheduled before the awful fire last week, which is a police matter and not for discussion here. Understood? Good. We thought about cancelling in light of the shocking act of violence, but we governors must still make a decision for the children, and it feels more pressing than ever to do so in a timely manner. So, I’m asking that we please stick to the matter at hand, namely, whether Mr Kent should be asked to permanently leave his position after allegedly using school property during work hours for his personal’ – a few sniggers – ‘activities.’
Harriet looks up sharply.
The woman next to Abi mutters, ‘I heard there was no evidence at all – he’d wiped it, of course – so that computer stuff is just Anna’s hearsay. But then again, she hasn’t been wrong in any of this so far, has she?’
The man next to the woman looks down at her, arms crossed, frowning.
‘Oops!’ the woman says, running her thumb and forefinger across her mouth as though zipping herself up, and turning back to face Harriet who says, ‘Now. We have an hour, and I’d like to invite any of you up to the microphone here to voice your opinions, but please keep them short. I will stop you if you talk for longer than two minutes and if any of you go wildly off track.’
Harriet’s eyes cast around the packed pavilion like she’s doubtful anyone will have anything useful to say, before she moves back to her chair.
A wave of nervous energy ripples through the parents before a man sitting at the back gets up and, looking grimly determined, walks to the microphone.
‘Hello, I’m Tim. We have two daughters at the school. Now, before all of this, I was very liberal in my thinking, open-minded. But over the last few days, I’ve realized there’s a big difference between theory and practice. We can all be as liberal as you like when it’s just theory, but when it actually happens, when it’s your own kids who are being taught by someone you consider a sexual transgressive, then all theories are out the window. It’s my understanding that his laptop had been wiped clean, but he’s never come out and denied it, has he? I don’t trust the man any more and I certainly don’t want him anywhere near my daughters. We’d like him gone.’
Abi wonders what Tim gets up to when he’s alone. Pictures him for a moment in stockings and high heels. She should never have come. She looks towards the exit; she’d have to walk past so many people to get out. Everyone would see, but that might be better than standing here listening to these people bullshit about things they know nothing about for the next hour.
Tim going first has broken the seal; there’s now a small queue of people waiting their turn for the mic. A few echo Tim, adding their own sentence or two about sexual and power imbalances and how, in their mind, Seb orchestrated his own downfall. Then a woman, her cheeks pink and clashing furiously with her red dress, says, ‘I think he’s an absolute disgrace,’ and Abi realizes it’s not nerves making her shake, it’s rage. ‘What he’s done – buying a woman’s body – is deplorable. He’s broken his marriage vows and his sacred promise to God. We have no idea what else he’s capable of. Good riddance, I say.’