AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I-I’m worried I might know who has her.’
Tristan tenses beside me. But even if it all comes out, none of it would reflect badly on him. He doesn’t understand that people these days don’t see trauma as a weakness. And we weren’t to blame for what happened. We… He was the victim, even if he wasn’t the one who died.
35
NOW
‘I didn’t realise you were going to mention her,’ says Tristan, his arm dropping from my shoulders so he can rub his face.
I shake my head, staring at the phone in my hands. The police are coming. Being so remote, we’re lucky someone is close by and will be with us in about fifteen minutes. ‘I had to. What if Georgia is behind all this?’
He nods. ‘Sorry. I’m being selfish.’ He sighs. ‘I was with Theo when you told me. Campaign campaign campaign, you know? But I need to think about Jenna. She really could be missing, couldn’t she?’ He seems smaller suddenly, my big brother, the only one in the family who has always been good to my baby.
My selfish little one-night stand bastard aberration. As my father once called her.
Father made me join the church choir when I told him I was pregnant, even though I can’t sing. And I had thought, until this minute, that I deserved the shame I’d felt as I’d mangled hymns before the congregation, my belly swelling. I owed God my humiliation.
But who else had even cared? I was thirty years old.
From that moment, my father made it clear that no one could look kindly on this affront to God. Mother got told off for giving Jenna a toffee, and Mina, when she tried to pass on the twins’ old clothes, was frozen out of conversations for a week.
The twins get Range Rovers – obviously, obviously that was my father’s money – and Jenna gets, what, fifty pounds by bank transfer if I remind him?
I know we’re so lucky. We have a roof over our heads and father takes care of everything. It’s not that I think every teenager deserves a Range Rover from their rich grandfather. But he treats Jenna like a second-class citizen compared to the twins. Why do I accept it? Just like I’ve always blamed his bullying of my mother on her, when she’s the victim.
To go against him would mean, what? Being cast out of the family? Losing my home?
My father and his religion. Sex out of marriage is a sin. A wife must honour and obey. Gays are evil.
Somehow, my own belief is tied up with an excuse for everything I let my father get away with. Because his faith is bigger than mine.
Shame on you, Frances. The god you believe in doesn’t put much in store by the Old Testament and he doesn’t think Jenna is an aberration.
I remember a few summers back when Jenna was ten or eleven, Tristan letting her stand on his shoulders to jump into the sea, climbing up again and again. Why was Tristan allowed to be nice to her?
But I know the answer. It’s because he’s the favourite. And he always knows just how to tread the line.
‘Frankie?’
Suddenly, I’m back in the present, crying in the foyer, clinging to Tristan.
‘There isn’t anything…’ Tristan’s voice trails off. ‘I know this sounds awful. I’m so sorry. But if the world must know about Georgia, it can’t hurt me, can it?’
I shake my head. ‘I know it’s not something you want to talk about publicly, but if you have to tell your story, there’s no way it reflects badly on you.’
‘And that’s all it is, isn’t it? A story.’
I nod, not quite getting what he means, then shake my head. ‘It’s not just a story. It’s what happened to you. It’s real.’ I squeeze his arm.
He looks me straight in the eye. ‘But it’s my word against hers.’
Something scratches at the base of my neck, but I push it away. What must this be like for him – having to revisit such terrible events? ‘Georgia has nothing to say. You were attacked, Tristan. Everyone knows you were attacked.’
‘Sorry.’ He sighs. ‘It doesn’t matter. Finding Jenna is what matters.’
I pull the hem of my dress over my knees.
‘She’s going to turn up though, you know? She’s a teenager. Father’s right. She’s got in a strop about something and cut off all her hair and she’s trying to scare you.’
