The Golden Child Read online

  The headmistress bestows a regal smile on Andi. Andi is still in her pyjamas, too tired to even stand up, to greet her properly. The woman stands just inside the doorway for a moment, gazing steadily at the patient, taking in the formidable bank of machinery, the stark room with no illusions of comfort. ‘My eldest son almost died of meningitis when he was seventeen. He was in a critical condition for almost a week – we really thought we’d lose him. That’s almost twenty years ago now, and it’s still painful to think about. I’m sure he was in this very room. This place is so frightening. So . . . sterile. You know they’re doing everything they can, but all this just adds to the nightmare.’

  Andi is not sure what she’s meant to say; her instinct once would have been to ask after her son’s current state of health, seize on whatever sense of shared experience and camaraderie the woman is offering, but right now she doesn’t have the inclination, let alone the energy. She’s only just able to manage common courtesy. Empathy and curiosity are beyond her.

  Dr Holding walks over to the bed and looks down at Sophie. ‘You forget just what babies they are at this age. In a year or so it all changes, they seem to become women very rapidly, but she’s not there yet.’ She touches Sophie’s cheek gently.

  ‘We just really hope she’s going to get the opportunity to make that change, Dr Holding.’ The statement is bald, but the woman isn’t fazed. The smile she turns on Andi is gentle, her eyes are full of compassion.

  ‘I understand how worried you must be – and nothing the doctors say is going to mean anything until she comes out of this. But I know Dr Cominos well; I think you can trust whatever she’s telling you.’

  It’s a question as much as a statement, and Andi responds automatically. ‘Dr Cominos says the prognosis is good. That it might only be a matter of days. There have been some signs, some responses.’

  Dr Holding’s smile widens. ‘Sophie’s a very lucky girl.’

  ‘I guess it depends on your definition of luck, Dr Holding.’ There’s no disguising the bitterness in Andi’s voice.

  ‘I know that from where you are now it must all be very bleak. But believe me, things will get better. Believe it or not, in a few months’ time, things will be back to normal.’

  ‘That’s the thing, though. I don’t even know what normal is anymore.’ The confidence is wrenched from Andi almost unwillingly. ‘What was going on when I thought things were just going along normally? Obviously for Sophie, some kind of nightmare had become normal. How am I meant to trust my own perceptions? I obviously don’t have a clue.’

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Dr Holding moves over to Andi, takes her hand. ‘Do you know, I’ve been working with teenage girls for more than forty years. I’ve raised two of my own. I have three adolescent granddaughters. My God, I believe I may have been a teenage girl myself, once upon a time.’ Her laugh is surprisingly merry. ‘But I still can’t, with any honesty, say I understand what’s going on in their minds. And nor, believe me, can they. That’s the trouble. They’re the most horrendous little bitches one minute, utterly vulnerable the next. And then, something like this – what Sophie’s done – it seems like such a significant, such a calculated, act. But you’ll probably find that once she’s safely on the other side of it, it’ll be just as inexplicable to her as it is to us.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard – and from what I’ve seen – it’s not entirely inexplicable, Dr Holding.’ Andi’s tiredness is evaporating, replaced by a dull, angry energy.

  ‘You mean that repulsive website. And the online taunting. I agree – it’s hideous. It couldn’t be worse. But you have to get it into some sort of perspective.’

  ‘Into some sort of perspective? How can we have any sort of perspective on something like this?’ Andi can’t believe what she’s hearing. ‘Our daughter tried to kill herself because of that website. That girl told her to kill herself.’

  ‘It has to be put aside. Forgotten. For Sophie’s sake.’ She pauses, then says slowly, deliberately, ‘And for the other child.’

  ‘We don’t need to do anything for the other child. Charlotte Mahony,’ she says the name loudly, deliberately, ‘needs to be punished. She should be—’

  ‘What? Burnt at the stake? I know you don’t want to hear this, but the thing is, Charlotte Mahony is a child too. Her actions – whether she denies them or not – are, like Sophie’s, probably beyond her conscious understanding. She’ll wake up one day, maybe she already has, and be horrified by what she’s done. Truly, she will. And she should be given the opportunity to do that as privately as possible. Believe me, Andi, nothing you can say or do to her, or her parents, will make that happen any faster. She’s essentially a good child, from a decent family, and I believe – and my instinct is rarely wrong – that she’ll find her way. But if you go ahead and publicly shame her, whether it’s through the media or through legal action, you’re not going to . . . advance matters. It won’t be of benefit to anyone.’

  ‘Advance matters? What do we care about advancing matters?’ Andi laughs, can feel the hysteria bubbling up. ‘And anyway, how do you know about that . . . we haven’t told . . .?’

  ‘Let’s just say that there are a number of people worried about the school’s reputation.’

  ‘The school’s reputation?’

  ‘Andi,’ Dr Holding speaks gently, ‘I’m assuming you want Sophie to come back to school when she’s better?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. We really haven’t thought about it. We haven’t got that far. But maybe not, if that’s the sort of thing that goes on. If that’s the sort of school you run, the type of girl you attract. Maybe it’s just not the place for Sophie.’

  ‘I can assure you that the college doesn’t have a premium on any particular type of girl, Mrs Pennington. You’ll find that the same sort of thing goes on in every school – regardless of their PR. But I would suggest, and I suspect that her doctors will suggest this also, that the best plan for Sophie is to get her life back to normal as quickly as possible. To get her back to school, get her back to her music, get her back to everything that’s familiar. We can do a considerable amount of damage control. You’d be surprised. There are some girls in that year whom I can rely on to look after Sophie, to befriend her, if you like.’

  ‘If you can do that, why didn’t you do it earlier?’

  ‘I’m afraid we just weren’t aware of the extent of Sophie’s isolation, until it was too late. But now that we are, I think a bit of discreet social manipulation might work wonders.’

  ‘And what about the Mahony girl? Will she be coming back next term?’

  ‘As far as I know there are no plans by her parents to pull her out. I suppose we could ask her to leave the school – and I suspect that’s what you think we should do – but we don’t really have grounds for doing that. We’ve spoken to a couple of the girls in the class, just informally, as well as to the police, and there’s really no evidence that Charlotte masterminded all this. There’s only rumour. We have to consider whether she’s likely to be a further danger, and whether the school can help her to . . . get beyond this. We might look at some sort of disciplinary action, or perhaps compulsory community service for the four girls we believe were involved in some form of physical bullying, but without any firm evidence, we can’t do more. And we certainly can’t single out Charlotte.’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Andi. We’re not the police, or a court of law, we’re a school – we have no way of proving her culpability definitively – and our job is to educate children, not punish them. We will most certainly be implementing further anti-bullying programs school-wide.’ She waits for a response, but Andi only shrugs. ‘If Sophie comes back, we can rearrange the classes so that the girls are rarely together until this all dies down.’

  Andi looks up at the headmistress. ‘It’s not likely to die down, though, is it? Once the story’s . . . out there. I mean, we’ve kept it anonymous, but still – people will know.’

  ‘Everybo
dy at school knows that something has happened – there’s no way of shutting down that sort of gossip completely. And a number of girls in Sophie’s year will know quite a lot. But they don’t know everything. As it is, we have the opportunity to control the situation considerably, to put a certain slant on events, if you like. We can say the rumours are untrue, suggest that Sophie had an accident. And left to their own devices, people forget so quickly – you’d be surprised. But once the “official” story’s in the media, and if any sort of legal action goes ahead, damage control will be far more difficult.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘It’s going to be difficult to make this go away even if things are kept quiet. But once you make it public it’s another matter. Your story – Sophie’s story – won’t just be hers anymore. It’ll be public property. And it’ll never ever go away. It might be the thing that defines your daughter forever. And I don’t know if that’s what you – or anybody – really wants.’

  PART FOUR

  SOPHIE

  IT IS THE LOVELIEST OF LOVELY DREAMS. THE SORT OF DREAM she always wanted to have; the sort of dream she’s tried to conjure up herself. ‘If you think of all the things you love most, Soph,’ her dad once told her, ‘just before you go to sleep, you’ll dream about them.’ Every night she thought hard, pictured all the things that made her happy, but it never really worked. Her dreams were just the same mishmash of real life and fantasy – sometimes good, sometimes frightening – regardless of her efforts.

  But this dream – this dream is everything she thought so hard about all those years ago – things she’s practically forgotten. There are clouds like marshmallows: soft white clouds like the ones you see beneath the wings of a plane and wish that you could jump right into and tumble about in like a magical jumping castle in the middle of space. And there are unicorns; of course there are unicorns! Hundreds of them, all different colours, floating about with their gossamer wings and glittering horns. And there are sugar-coated sour-strap rainbows that can be climbed and eaten. There are tiny creatures like fairies, whizzing about busily. And then there are the characters from all the books she read as a kid, and the movies she loves – the BFG and Matilda, Miss Honey, Charlotte and the pig, Charlie and Willie Wonka. Dorothy and her crew are there too, and Harry, Hermione and Ron, playing quidditch and casting spells.

  Every now and then real people appear in her dream. Her mother and father, of course, though they don’t actually do anything, just speak endlessly to one another, their voices too low for her to make out what they’re saying, their faces always very serious and worried. Every now and then Gus makes an appearance, dressed only in a nappy and looking like one of those old-fashioned angel-babies with a bow and arrow. He has tiny white wings that he flaps sporadically, giggling madly as if he can’t quite control what he’s doing. Madame Abramova is there, looking years younger and almost pretty, conducting a choir that Sophie can’t see. There are people she hasn’t seen for ages, like Ruby Sussex, who was her best friend in Scone. Dad’s mum, Grandma Jess, who died when he was young, and who she only knows from photographs, is there too, smiling gently and telling her that everything is going to be okay . . .

  Of course there’s a musical soundtrack to this dream – it’s that piece from the Nutcracker Suite that her old ballerina jewellery box plays when she opens it. In the dream the song plays over and over without ever slowing down the way it does in real life, and it’s not the tinkly mechanical sound that comes out of the real box, but the deeper, more resonant – and oh so familiar – sound of the piano.

  The most interesting thing about the dream is that Sophie isn’t actually in it. Instead, it unravels just like a movie – as if she is there watching it, rather than participating.

  But then, as always, the dream comes to an end and she has to wake up. There are no more unicorns or rainbows, no more cherubs or quidditch or Matilda . . .

  Just bright lights in a white room and the sound of her own heart beating.

  And somehow, here, she, Sophie, is the centre of the story . . .

  ANDI

  ‘CAN I HAVE A PARTY, MUM?’

  Andi is surprised by the request, but pleased. They are due to leave the hospital only a few days before Sophie turns thirteen, and she’s been wondering how to mark the occasion. It needs to be celebrated, but she isn’t quite sure what Sophie, what any of them, will have the appetite for.

  A small family party would be perfect, she thinks, just the four of them and the grandparents, perhaps one or two of her siblings and their younger kids . . . but Sophie laughs when she makes the suggestion.

  ‘No way. That would be totally lame, Mum.’ Sophie is sitting cross-legged on her hospital bed, painting her fingernails a particularly vile shade of blue – the polish a gift from one of the nurses.

  ‘Lame. Right.’ Andi looks over at Steve but he’s busy amusing Gus.

  ‘Family isn’t a party, Mum. Family is just normal life. Don’t you think I deserve a proper birthday party after missing all of the school holidays? I can’t believe I’ve been in hospital for three whole weeks. That’s lame too.’

  Andi snorts. ‘Oh, like, totally lame. My feelings exactly. So, back to this party. Who do you want to come?’

  ‘Of course, you can invite all the family if you like.’ Sophie pauses, perhaps waiting for her mother to thank her for her generosity, but when a response isn’t forthcoming, goes on. ‘I think we should invite the neighbours, Geoff and Liz, and the people across the road. The ones with the Irish wolfhound – Mari and Michael. I really like them.’ Andi wasn’t aware that Sophie even knew any of their neighbours, who are all youngish childless professionals, but she murmurs her assent.

  ‘And I think the nurses, the three nice ones anyway, and maybe Dr Cominos should come. And,’ on a run now, not waiting for her mother’s response, ‘how about Dr Holding – you said she came to see me – and Madame Abramova and maybe some of the teachers. Miss Foley? Mrs Hinchcliffe? And then there’s my friends . . .’ Andi holds her breath, waits.

  ‘So do you think Ruby’s parents would bring her? She could stay overnight, couldn’t she? And there’s Tess, I’m sure they’ll let her out of school for a party. And Maya could fly up. Her parents can afford that, can’t they? Or we could pay?’ Sophie pauses again, thinking hard. ‘And I’ve been trying to make a list of my friends from school, but I really think it’d be easiest if we just invite the whole class – I know that’s heaps of girls, but I really don’t want to leave anyone out.’ She gives a small sigh, looks at her mother enquiringly.

  ‘The whole class, Sophie? Everyone?’ Sophie was over the moon when she realised that most of the flowers and cards in her room had been sent by her classmates. As Dr Holding had predicted, she was adamant that she wanted to go back to HLC, and as soon as possible, pooh-poohing any suggestion that she should consider changing schools. Even so, the thought of inviting the entire class to her birthday party seems a little over the top to Andi. ‘I don’t know that that’s such a good idea.’

  ‘I know it might be a bit expensive, Mum. It’s a lot of people. A lot of friends. But if it’s too much we can always ask them all to bring something, can’t we?’

  Andi says nothing for a moment. She looks across the room to Steve, who despite the wriggly baby has caught the tail end of the conversation. He appears to be laughing and crying simultaneously. She looks back at her daughter, who is now admiring her handiwork: ten garish fingers spread out across the pristine white of the sheets. ‘So Mum? Is that okay? If we tell everyone to bring something to eat?’

  ‘It’s okay, Sophie,’ Andi says. ‘It’s more than okay. It’s brilliant.’

  CHARLOTTE

  THE FIRST DAY BACK AT SCHOOL IS NOTHING SHORT OF surreal.

  There’s the news that greets her, that greets everyone, on arrival, initially whispered as rumour and then made official by the headmistress during morning assembly.

  ‘Girls, I would like to share the wonderful news that Sop
hie Pennington, whom I’m sure you’re all aware has been in a coma after falling seriously ill, has recently regained consciousness. According to her doctors, she has suffered no ill effects and is likely to be back at school in just a few weeks. Let us all bow our heads in prayer and give thanks . . .’

  There are heartfelt sighs of relief, tears are shed, and there’s even a little bit of sobbing from some of the more emotional girls. Charlotte’s eyes stay dry, but she keeps her head down during the prayer and is careful not to look at anyone for the remainder of the assembly. But when they’re filing out, and the whispered conversations start up again, she’s surprised to find that there’s no one seeking her out, or glaring at her; no one’s looking her way at all.

  Then, when she’s called up to the office during first period, Mrs Caress, the mostly grumpy school secretary, is weirdly warm and chatty, asking her how her holidays went, even offering a Mintie from her hidden supply while Charlotte waits to see Dr Holding. And when she’s finally ushered into the head’s office, her knees trembling, her throat dry despite the mint, Charlotte is surprised by the friendliness of Dr Holding herself. Oh, she’s stern enough, but Charlotte can sense that under the surface severity she’s all caring concern and motherly kindness.

  Dr Holding gives her the talk, of course she does, basically saying the same things that both her mother and father have said about what it means to be a good and compassionate person, about never being cruel, about looking after the weak. She brings God into it too, which she has to, Charlotte supposes, as HLC is a churchy school.

  The headmistress says that she knows that Charlotte is a good girl at heart, a bright girl, that she has so much potential – real leadership potential – and that she doesn’t think she should be made to suffer for one childish, thoughtless but serious error of judgement. Dr Holding expects that she has already been punished, perhaps most severely by her own conscience, and is certain that she has learned a great deal from this mistake, that it is one she will never repeat. Even so, there is a need to provide some corrective action: she and the Head of Academics and the school counsellor will be meeting later in the week to devise something appropriate, most likely a community service program, but in the meantime Charlotte should offer up thanks that Sophie has recovered, and should make an effort to reflect on what the Gospels, what Jesus, says about forgiveness.