Even so, all the shouty chest-beating was just what I wanted. I was suddenly playing me in the film of my life and it wasn’t some crappy play at Beau Sejour but a proper Hollywood blockbuster – the kind you’d never see in the cinema in Guernsey.59 My audience was small but select. Mrs Le Sauvage took me straight to Mrs Perrot, who cancelled her Friday night Ceroc class and sat me down with a box of scented tissues. Then Mum came rushing in from work to hold my hand and act like A Proper Mother for the first time in a long time. It all looked quite promising. And as Mr McCracken got more and more flustered his voice went squeaky and irritated everyone.
‘She’s confused, she threw herself at me. What could I do? I’ve only ever tried to help her and be a support to her. But I never crossed the line! This is preposterous! It’s insane!’
Mr McCracken got so worked up. He said I’d come to him talking about problems at home. He looked at Mum accusingly and her perm went all static like a storm cloud.
‘Is this true, Cathy?’
I shook my head so hard I thought it would fall off. I told Mum she was the best mum ever and that I loved her more than anything, which is why I hadn’t told her about Mr McCracken.
Mr Mac then got very angry and went off to the staff room whilst Mrs P. nodded sympathetically and watched me cling to Mum.
‘This is all such a shock,’ she kept saying. ‘We’ve never had a problem like this. I can’t understand it.’
Mr Mac then re-surfaced [stage right], brandishing a few of those nasty notes he’d been sent.
‘Look at these!’ He threw them down on the desk. ‘I’ve been getting them for a while, and I tried to ignore it but now I think it’s clear who must’ve written them.’ He looked across at me. ‘She’s fixated! It’s a crush that’s got out-of-hand, and these letters show she’s angry and knows full well her feelings aren’t reciprocated.’
I blinked at the notes spread out in front of us, and wiped the tears from my cheeks.
‘I never wrote those. I thought you were my friend. You were always giving me lifts home, and what about that Sunday afternoon when you took me to Island Wide?’
Mr Mac’s jaw tightened as I stood up to face him.
‘We had such good chats when we met on the cliffs. You spent so much time with me and you know I never sent you those notes. I remember that time we found one on your windscreen.’
Mr Mac stared back at me. ‘Cathy, come on. This is all in your head!’
I looked again at the notes. Maybe it was all in my head, but just because it was in my head didn’t make it any less real.
‘I thought you genuinely cared for me. I wasn’t the only one who thought so, either. The other girls tease me. You’ve always singled me out.’
Confusion rained like cats and dogs. I promised Mrs Perrot that I didn’t know who wrote the notes, although there was something strangely familiar about the curve of the ‘S’ and the crooked underlining. They were passed around and perusled. Our Reverend Head-Mistress then twitched her nose and asked Mr McCracken why on earth he’d not brought them to her attention. I started crying again and suggested that some other ‘confused’ pupil might have written them.
Mr McCracken flapped his arms like a cartoon penguin.
‘This is ridiculous! Are you all mad? Isn’t it obvious this is some deranged form of attention-seeking? Cathy, why are you doing this?’
‘I’m not doing anything,’ I replied.
Mrs Perrot carried on talking, but Mum stood up and walked over to the window. I watched her quietly out of the corner of my eye. She used to always stare out of the windows at home – especially at the weekends or when Dad was sailing on the boat. I wondered if she was watching for the little red hull to appear on the horizon. Dad would be out of reach somewhere and she’d sit close up to the glass, so close you could see her breath on it, like she was trapped and wanting out. I never knew why she did it until that night in Mrs Perrot’s office. It was then that I realised the window was a mirror. Mum was staring at her own reflection, at another impenetrable surface. I’ll be