Part 31 (2/2)

Parking Sacha in front of the sitting-room fire, I staggered into the kitchen and grabbed the hot chocolate. It seemed an absurdly homely and jolly thing to be doing, but it gave me time to think. As I slid a saucepan of milk across the hob, my eye fell on the phone.

Just dialling his number made me feel closer to my father. It was early morning in Bedfords.h.i.+re, but he'd be up. The telephone would be calling out to him now, in that softly coloured kitchen. I saw him with the cat on his knee, stretching out his hand to answer me. I had never needed him more than I did at that moment.

Click. Dad's resonant greeting. 'h.e.l.lo there. This is Hereward Norris.'

Dad, please be in. I don't know what to do.

'I'm sorry. You've missed me this time, but leave me a message and I promise to call you back.'

I stood mute as the seconds pa.s.sed. Milk rose mutinously in a white froth, seething over the edge of the saucepan. Then I quietly replaced the receiver. How could I confess catastrophe to a tape recorder?

Tama answered at the second ring. I think he was waiting.

'You were right,' I said. 'Thank you.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Kit's furious.'

'Yes.' A moment's quiet. 'If I can ever help, Martha . . . you know where to find me.'

Sacha sat hunched on the end of the sofa, a blanket over her shoulders like a pantomime crone, worrying at her arm.

'Feeling better?' I asked, setting down our mugs. 'Start at the beginning.'

Scrabble, scratch. 'You won't listen you won't listen.' She spoke too fast, no pauses at all, blinking rapidly. 'You'll shout at me.'

'I promise I won't shout. Are you on something right now?'

'What? Oh . . . yes. Coming down actually, cras.h.i.+ng, I really needed another burn when you found me in the hut and right now I'm starting to feel pretty s.h.i.+t. It's going to get worse, oh G.o.d oh G.o.d a lot worse, it's really going to hurt.' She stared into her mug, s.h.i.+vering. A minute pa.s.sed.

I shook her by the shoulder. 'Sacha!'

'Sorry.' Tears slid from the corners of her eyes. 'I was so lonely.'

Guilt was banging on my door, leading a lynch mob complete with pitchforks and flaming torches. Guilt is female, and she always has the moral high ground in a peculiarly irritating way. Like my mother, come to think of it. The best way to fight her off is by a volley of defensive mortar, which is what I fired now. 'Don't try to s.h.i.+ft the blame. This is all your own doing.'

The next moment she'd slowed down, right down, like a train with the brakes on. 'We got here, nice place and all that, tennis court, river, all lovely for the twins and you and Kit. But so far away . . . I got this ache inside me and it wouldn't stop.'

'I had that ache, too. You were homesick.'

'I kept thinking how if I found my real father he'd send for me. I imagined flying back to England and this tall, kind man called Simon waiting at the airport, and both of us crying with joy. I just kept obsessing. I couldn't sleep sometimes because this picture was going around in my head.' Sacha looked as though she'd lived a thousand years and hated every second of it.

See? Mum's voice was accusing. You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.

'I tried to be jolly, tried to fit in. I made friends with Tabby and the cool crowd.'

'I know you tried.'

'The Ivan thing, it was just too much. Somebody else was making him happy. He didn't need me, Lydia didn't, even you didn't. I was kind of . . . unnecessary. I ran out of the library and I was having a meltdown at the bottom of the playing field. Bianka found me there. She looked after me.'

'You mean Bianka got you onto this stuff?'

'No! I mean she listened, understood, made me feel I wasn't an alien. Mind you, she did . . .'

'Did what?'

'She gave me a spliff.'

I was about to explode when I remembered two things: first, that I had promised not to shout; and second, that it was at precisely Sacha's age that I first tried the same thing.

'Didn't do a lot for me though,' continued Sacha. 'Just made me feel s.h.i.+t. We met up with a crowd at that fireworks party-remember? Jani, some cousins and-dunno who. We were all on top of the woodpile. Bianka and these other guys were pa.s.sing their spliff and having this weird conversation, laughing about the most random things.' Sacha looked bewildered at the memory. 'I didn't see what was funny but they were just about wetting themselves. I was an outsider again. I just wanted to crawl away and hide in a hole. Which was when these people started talking to me.'

'Who?'

The shutters came down. 'Just people.'

'Jani?'

'We went and sat in a car.'

So. While I'd thought she was sipping fruit punch at a wholesome party in the country, my daughter was huddled in a shadowy car with complete strangers.

'That was stupid,' I said. 'Anything could have happened.'

'Anything did happen. There was this gla.s.s pipe. They were pa.s.sing it around. I hadn't a clue what it was, probably just some kind of cannabis, but they said I'd love it. I thought I'd give it a go. What did I have to lose? So I-'

'I've warned you a zillion times,' I moaned.

'And where were you while I was sitting in that freakin' car? You knew nothing about my life. You were too busy being everyone's ray of suns.h.i.+ne. I thought, what the h.e.l.l. And when the pipe came to me, I tried it.' Incongruously, her mouth curled up into a glorious smile: the old Sacha smile, wide and brilliant. 'My life turned to gold . . . like my head was full of fireworks and music. A brand-new world was just beginning. I could do anything I wanted. Anything.'

'The elixir of happiness,' I said quietly, and she nodded, twitching and blinking. Just talking about the stuff seemed to disturb her.

'Oh, yes! Spot on. The elixir of happiness. Maybe it was all worth it, just for that moment. I don't think most people ever in their lives get to feel such fantastic . . . what's the word?'

'Euphoria.'

'Euphoria. It was a million times better than anything I'd ever felt before. Think of something that gives you a buzz . . . driving fast with the music on, or . . . I dunno, riding a horse. Anyway, imagine that and then times it by a million, all tinged with sunlight. I had so much energy and power . . . I was a fantastic dancer, I was beautiful and popular . . . I felt like a film star and a superhero all rolled into one.'

She'd danced all night under the lanterns, on a farm by the Tukituki River. I'd been so happy for her. Now I saw a different scene: Sacha in a shadowy car, her lovely face wreathed in a noxious vapour, like the addict on the video; Sacha's mind, clouded and distorted; and Sacha's body . . . I couldn't bear it.

'Did you . . .' I hesitated. 'In the car. With this unnamed person. Or people. Did, um, anything else happen?'

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