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The woman in the photo wasn’t Georgia though. I don’t think so anyway – she had skinny arms and blonde hair. I didn’t spend long looking at it; just quickly stuffed it in the bin under the desk – but somehow she’s behind all of it. She must be.
Stop it, Frances. No need to torture yourself. Focus on the now.
I dip my hand in the water: almost hot enough to take off the top layer of skin. I strip and climb in. All the blood rushes to my head and for a moment I think I might pass out. I sink right under.
Focus. Toes, ankles, calves… I check in with every part of me.
It’s no use though. I can’t keep her out of my head.
Georgia Smith.
We were best friends once. I remember laughing with her over hot chocolates on blustery days, climbing onto the roof in the summer and talking till the sun came up, waiting by the phone after dinner then hiding in the laundry, the phone’s curly wire stretched straight, all the way down the corridor.
Our families became entwined. In the summer we would follow the coast and take picnics. In the winter we would trudge along hedgerows. I loved those long walks. Only Georgia’s father Patrick could motivate my father into wellies and out across the fields, along the cliffs, scrambling over rocks, past signs that demanded no trespassing.
Wednesdays and weekends meant dinner at theirs or ours. The rooms would fill with laughter, and Tristan, Georgia and I would raise our eyebrows at each other as too much wine was drunk and then someone would make some excuse for Patrick to play something – a piano concerto, a violin sonata, or something modern on his guitar with his hair falling in his eyes as he sang.
Sometimes, Georgia would join him, and I would feel something like pride swelling – that was my friend making that angelic sound.
And then… and then everything fractured.
My stomach clenches. That woman is teaching at my sweet baby girl’s school.
The bath has gone cold. I let out some water and run the hot tap again. I’m not sure how many episodes of Friends have played but there’s a message asking if I want to go on watching. I close the laptop.
I remember, after that terrible day, how the fear ran down my throat and sat eating my stomach every time I saw Georgia’s dark hair in class. I remember her face, twisted with hate, the last time I saw her.
But that was thirty years ago. Maybe she’s no longer a threat. Maybe I’m being ridiculous and all of these little things are just coincidences.
Breathe, Frances. You can’t alter the past. You can’t control the future. People change, and she wasn’t always your enemy.
I remember further back, holding hands with Georgia, teetering across a branch over a stream. We were like sisters. I think in some way she held a kind of power over me, and it was only after that summer that I realised she wasn’t good for me, that there was something very wrong with Georgia Smith and her family.
5
NOW
After my bath I try to eat but it’s no good. I scrape my half-eaten lunch into the compost and start trawling local jobs before I buckle and google ‘Georgia Smith’ and after pages of scrolling find her LinkedIn.
She studied drama at Manchester and then did an MSc in educational psychology before her teacher training. She’s won awards for contributions to children’s literacy. There was a string of quick promotions, first in state schools and then in increasingly high-profile private schools. The last place she worked was Redmoor College – a private school with a reputation to match that of Port Emblyn School.
I find the Redmoor College website. It looks like a five-star country retreat even though it’s in south-west London. The fees are almost as high as those at PES. They have horses.
I feel like a negligent parent when I find educational blogs and school websites talking about Acting Up, a drama club Georgia started which has been credited with everything from fixing behavioural issues to launching political careers.
She runs the same club now, at Port Emblyn School. I encouraged Jenna to join a while ago, having read about it in some school literature. Jenna had rolled her eyes at the parental involvement and said she wasn’t sure she needed drama club on top of her drama A level, but she joined anyway. I never once thought that it would be Georgia Smith running the drama club, teaching my little girl.
God – the thought makes me want to leap up and go get her. Is Georgia her regular drama teacher too? Mrs Haynes, Jenna’s drama teacher for the last two years, was meant to be going on mat leave – is she off already?
It’s the big rehearsal this afternoon. Double Drama on Fridays. Jenna said something about the other Acting Up children getting to miss lessons to join in.
My baby’s in rehearsal now. Georgia Smith is teaching her now.
I clench my fists.
How had the club announcement not mentioned Georgia? Looking at her profile, she would seem quite the asset.
That’s what I’d have told Mr Whitlow, the head, if not for my history with Georgia. But then maybe she wrote it. Maybe she intentionally hid her name so none of her old friends would discover she was working there.
