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Suddenly I see it: the hair. Dark clumps scattered across white tiles.
I bite my lip. The haircut wasn’t because she fancied a change. It was a cry for help.
And I missed it.
But yes, Jenna skived off and then Rose met her and they’re somewhere having fun. Maybe they’ve gone to meet Sylvie, Devon and Dinae. I could go into Port Emblyn, but the cafés they like will have closed, as will the record shop, and I’d cheer with joy if I ever heard a report of my baby sneaking into a pub for some underage drinking, it’s that unlikely. They could just be eating fish and chips on the sea wall, or chatting to the boys who run the little boat taxi.
She’s friends with those boys, isn’t she? She went to sailing school with one of them and he doesn’t go to PES.
I pull over, scraping my already scraped car on the hedge, and search through WhatsApp till I find an old group with his mum in and text her.
Five friends – is that it? Rose, Dinae, Devon and Sylvie, and now this boat taxi boy. Shouldn’t there be more people to call? I’ve dug up this boy from ancient history. And it’s not like I’ve seen the others apart from Rose recently.
Is she really friends with Boat Taxi Boy or is it just that we got the taxi recently? Those boys chat to everyone. It’s how they earn tips.
Devon and Dinae’s mother still hasn’t replied. I message Sylvie’s mother, realising I haven’t yet, and see my last message with her was over a year ago – she had to cancel on Jenna joining them for Sunday lunch.
I’m surprised by my tears. Has Jenna not seen Sylvie since then? Did they fall out? I know Sylvie’s mother from the PTA and I wonder why it hasn’t ever come up that our children don’t see each other any more – why I’ve never thought to ask her or Jenna… or myself.
Bad mother. Bad, bad mother.
I restart the car and a memory comes back to me. Bad weather had meant we’d had to cancel Jenna’s last birthday party. When I asked her when we should reschedule, she shrugged and said she just wanted to do something small.
I remember watching her making a daisy chain, sitting on the grass with Rose at a tiny folk music festival. We were watching a four-man band, and I thought, Is this really how she wants to spend her sixteenth? Or is something wrong?
And then I turned to Dan and said, ‘We’re so lucky. What other kid would choose to spend their birthday with their parents, doing this?’
Why had I said the opposite of what I was thinking?
Dan shrugged. ‘I hope she learns how to have fun.’
‘This is fun for her.’
‘Is it?’
‘Everyone is different. Don’t judge.’
He shook his head at me and went off in search of more cider, and somehow I was angry with him for not wanting Jenna to be different, for thinking the same thing as me, and I never tried to find out if Jenna really was okay.
Does Jenna not have friends any more? Has it been going on since then? Have I been so wrapped up in my own problems that I haven’t seen it?
She cut off all her hair, and we drove to school in silence. I didn’t say a thing. I didn’t even try.
And then I saw Georgia, and instead of screaming at Jenna to get back in the car NOW! I told her to have a nice day. I didn’t even tell her I loved her.
16
NOW
I pull down a road with a corner shop covered in pictures of raw meat and beer, a pub with a sign advertising big screens and football times, and a skinny man walking a stout dog.
Lydia and Rose live in Polzeath, but not the nice bit. I don’t know how or why she gets by on her nurse’s salary. Her parents pay Rose’s school fees, and I know they’d pay for more.
The houses are arranged in cramped culs-de-sac off one main trunk. I pull up outside the tan-brick new-build with white paint peeling from the garage door.
It’s admirable, I suppose, doing it on your own, not relying on your family. And suddenly I feel a twinge of envy: just a little space that’s all your own, where no one else has any say.
I shake my head. I should be more grateful for the beautiful house we get to live in. And really I’m lucky my family and I are all so close we want to live together. Not many people can say that.
