Emma Harris was doing the most intense study she could, as she watched a DVD with her cat curled on her lap. The most intelligent girl in the class in most subjects, Emma was not bothered at all by the impending examination. She knew already that she was going to pass. Confident yet girly, Emma had straight strawberry-blonde hair that sat prettily on her shoulders, pushed forward gently by a combination of the soft seat of the sofa and the pink hairband on top of her hair. The romantic comedy was making her chuckle, her perfect white teeth baring slightly. She loved Hugh Grant films, and this one in particular was one she had bought from a shop in Covent Garden the Friday before. It was amusing and light, the way she liked to live life. The black cat stretched silently at this point, and flexed its claws gently against her heart. "Miles," she muttered as she readjusted herself so the cat's claws didn't stings quite as much. Her mobile phone chimed in the next room, and getting up reluctantly, she went to answer the call. It was a text from one of her friends, Paula MacNeill, inviting her to see a film the following Wednesday afternoon. One of the burdens of being popular, Emma reflected, was that it always left her short of cash. This wasn't a problem at the moment, though: Christmas had just passed, and she had received enough money to tide her over for a while. She knew that Paula and another friend, another Emma, Emma Newton, had been organising this event since before Christmas, and although wary of the location, she replied with a message of assent, convinced that it was going to be a blast.
There is a belief that whenever any action occurs, its exact opposite also happens somewhere else in the world. As it happens, a young Jitinder Singh was shaking his head at that very same time.
"I just told you, dad, I have this exam tomorrow afternoon and I need to study for it! I'm not confident enough on the subject matter"
"And whose fault is that, eh?" Jitinder's father retorted. A man of nearly sixty, he looked at his youngest child with apparent dislike. "You must come back to work now! You've had your lunch break and it's about time you relieved Seema"
Jitinder was hunched in the back of his father's coffee shop with his maths book in his hand. It was astonishing how selfish that man could be sometimes, he reflected. How can he say I don't try hard enough? He resented this side of his dad. Of course he loved him, but Jitinder always had the feeling that nothing he did would ever be enough to make his father happy. His sister, Seema, had recently returned from a gap year in Africa, and was about to start her degree in nursing at the University of Central London. She had always been a model student and naturally bright. Their brother, Raj, was similar. He had earned a job as an accountant and was now working in Cardiff, apparently very successful. What stung Jitinder most was that he felt he was more intelligent than his brother had been at that age, fifteen, yet because he was older, he was better. A lousy tradition.
"Don't look at me like that," his father bellowed, his skin turning slightly purple which clashed oddly with the turban on his head. "Don't play your face like that, when you could have paced that revision instead of leaving it until the last minute! Now go out and help your sister"
Deciding that there was no more point in pursuing the matter, Jitinder complied with a poker facehis father was fuelled up now; best not give him any further reason to argueand went to see his sister.
The café was always busy in January for some reason. Perhaps it was to do with the fact that people wanted to escape from their poorly-lit offices and homes, brace the coldness for a while, and curl up inside a cosy shop with a cappucchino and a muffin. His sister was waiting for him.
"Hi, Jit," she began, with a slight look of concern on her face. "Was dad in one of his moods again"
"What d'you reckon?" her brother replied sulkily.
"Well, if it's any consolation, I'm not going anywhere for a while, and I could try and help you with stuff if you'd like"
"How? My book's in the back, and I don't know how I can get it without dad noticing," Jitinder said, before twisting round to serve a new customer.
Seema paused until the man's order had been given, then continued. "If you like, I could always go in the back myself and get it for you.
Her brother smiled, thankful towards his sister. "Thanks, but no," he muttered. "If he sees you getting it, then you'll be in the dog house as well. That's two pounds ten, please," he finished turning to the customer.
Seema blinked acceptingly, and headed over to collect some discarded cups from a table. Jitinder admired his sister. She was fair and honest, yet liked to stand up for what she believed was right, and defended the underdog whenever she could. He really hoped he could be like his sister; standing up for himself, though sometimes futile, was a good habit to get into. Sadly, he didn't believe he possessed the mental strength to do that. His mind wandered to his brother, Raj. It was amazing that while he himself was toiling in a shop, his brother was receiving preferential treatment, even though he only ever came to visit his parents whenever he needed to, or at Christmas.
"Jit?" His sister's voice brought him to his senses.
"Yeah"
"Quit daydreaming and serve the next customers"
Seema chuckled slightly at her brother and proceeded to take the china to the sink. Jitinder returned to the desk, recognised the faces of his next two customers, and smiled.
Several miles away, Paula MacNeill received a message from her friend Emma Harris, who said she was indeed interesting in their party. With a slight, but unmistakable "whoop!", Paula bounced into the kitchen, where she was greeted by her father, whose pot belly was sticking out grotesquely from the bottom of his t-shirt and hanging over his boxer shorts.
"Ew, dad, put it away," Paula cringed as her father reached up to get a mug from the top shelf.
Her father, a portly man with dark hair and a soft face similar to his daughter's, threw the comment away with a snort.
"You sound happy," he asked impassively. "What's the good news"
"I just got a text from Emma," began the daughter, "who said she's going to come to the party we're organising"
"Which Emma"
"Oh, Harris," clarified Paula quickly, and with an air of recognition. "The other Emma's helping me"
The man smiled at his daughter, who had placed the phone on top of the microwave. She wasn't pretty, but her untidy, dull blonde hair and spectacles made Paula bear a striking resemblance to her mother.
His first wife.
Richard MacNeill's first wife, Carol, was tall and businesslike. Yet, it transpired that she had been cheating on her husband with another man, somebody whom he did not know. The affair only came to light when it was apparent that vast amounts of money from their joint savings had been swallowed somehow. Carol tried lying to protect herself, and her daughter, who at the time was aged eleven. But ultimately, Carol MacNeill put her own interests before those of her family. Though she walked out on her husband months later, she was soon wanted by the police. More dark secrets emerged: Carol had been taking money from her company to bolster her new lifestyle; Carol had lied to her new man, pretending she was unmarried and childless; Carol was forging her husband's signature to get more money. All the way, it was about what Carol had done, what Carol had done, what Carol had done. It was inevitable that the couple divorced, yet even so they would be parted shortly afterward; The woman's financial deceptions earned her a court summons, and eventually a short prison sentence.
At the time, Paula, young, gangling, and slightly myopic was in her first year at White Hill School. When her school friends found out about her home situation (for these things always leak out to some extent), the teasing began. The meaner children saw fit to mock her for having a criminal for a mother. Though time passed and the fuss about Carol MacNeill died down, the bullies switched their attentions to other aspects of Paula's persona. When her eyesight was poor, they mocked her for being blind. When she finally was prescribed glasses, she was taunted as being a four-eyed freckled freak. The harder she was bullied, the more her grades suffered. The more her grades suffered, the more she was bullied for being thick. She couldn't escape from the vicious circle. Feeling increasingly frantic, she started to attach to another girl, Lydia Fletcher, whom the bullies jeered for being overweight. This didn't help either; they were now just a pair of freaks, of misfits, who stuck together because nobody else wanted them.
A couple of years passed and Paula was thirteen. The students were Year Nines. Though the bullying had abated somewhat in favour of terrorising the school, Paula and Lydia were still outcasts from their own class. Lena Amornie, a tall girl with black hair and a fierce profile, frequently tried to play them off one another, but to no avail, until one evening in November. Parents' Evening. The Amornies and the MacNeills were in line, both waiting to talk to the same teacher. All it took was a whispered word and a snide glance from Lena for chaos to break loose. Though the events themselves were a blur, Lena left with a bleeding lip, and Paula was suspended until the end of term. Bitter at the teachers, at her father too (who lectured her when they got home), she vowed to change, to stand up for herself, when she returned to school in January.
Paula was reflecting about these events whilst filling up a glass of water. She had changed, she felt, when she returned. The bullying stopped, and she was a lot more resilient. A good thing, too: during her suspension, Paula's friend, Lydia Fletcher, was turned by Lena Amornie, and joined the ranks of the mean girls. There was no resent about this betrayal from Paula's part. She knew that Lydia was just doing it to protect herself; a wise tactic, even if it meant she would be in Lena's pocket indefinitely. At any rate, Paula had moved on from these times now, she felt.
"Are you listening to me"
Paula was brought out of her dreamlike trance by the sound of her dad's voice. The glass in her hand was overfilling with water, which was rising steadily in the basin. Her father smiled and passed his empty side-plate across, with a few greasy smears and breadcrumbs on it.
"Could you wash that up for me, darling? Cheers"
Paula nodded and rinsed the plate. She would do anything for her father. Except kill, perhaps. But when was that ever going to be an issue? Moments after getting her hands wet, her mobile phone rang again. Drying her hands down her front, she took the phone from on top of the microwave where she had placed it, and spoke to Emma Newton.
As Paula MacNeill washed up, Dominic Thomas was drying off. He had just had a shower, and was about to head into London city centre to meet a few friends. In the back of his mind, a voice was nagging at him to do revision, but right now, he had to meet up with these people. A stocky boy with blond hair and ample adolescent chin fluff, he was quite fearsome in appearance, though if one met him and spoke to him, it would be obvious how that is not the case at all. Though quite timid and introverted, he was known for having a strong opinion on issues; he was a vegetarian and was actively involved in a smattering of political pressure groups. His older brother, the one person whom Dominic idoled above all, was calling him from downstairs.
"Dom'nic," Josh Thomas called upstairs. "Are you going out now"
"Yeah," replied the younger sibling, coming down the staircase in two-step bounds. "I'm gonna get a bite to eat then head out. Why"
"I just wondered if you could pick up the papers while you're out"
Joshua Thomas was twenty-two years old. He was studying politics and law at university, and was halfway through his final year. At present, he was on the Internet looking for information on how capital punishment affected the families of the condemned. Dominic looked over his brother's shoulder and smiled when he saw what was on the screen. He was glad that they lived in Britain, he thought; the death penalty is illegal, and has been for some time now. He felt that, no matter quite how bad the world got, there would always be some resolve found in the sanity of the law. There was just one law that was frightening to him: and educational reform bill that was introduced several years ago. He did not know exactly what was involved, but to him it seemed tantamount to genocide. This was one of the causes he was interested in fighting, though at present he was tied down by other commitments. He looked over his brother's shoulder again, and noted that some notes about that bill had indeed been made, and another batch of students were due to be sanctioned at some point within the next few months. He thought nothing major about it. Right now, he had to get out of the house.
As he entered the kitchen for an apple, he saw one of his cats sat lazily on the work surface. Shooing her off, he thought about the exam. Maths never was Dominic's strong point. While he was out, he felt he should discuss the test with his friends. Pulling his coat over him, he bade his brother farewell, and stepped out into the storm.
Jitinder Singh judged that he had a few minutes free, so he went and sat down with Stephanie Green and Sam Carter, who were huddled in the corner with their exercise books and a calculator. On the pretence of collecting a plate from the adjacent table, he asked them how they were. Steph looked at her classmate. A girl with black, coarse-looking hair, and rectangular-framed spectacles, she took her studies seriously. A school librarian, ambitious and well-read, she could find her way around a book like nobody else. She was the sort of girl who did not have too many friends, but those whom she did like were close and inseparable, like siblings. In her case though, this band of friends were mostly freaks. The most normal one was Sam Carter, who was currently chatting to Jitinder as he binned some litter. The only way to describe Sam was 'pretty'. Short and delicately built, she had a very girly demeanour about her, which clashed oddly with her aggressive short-temper.
Jitinder smiled at Sam and replied to a question. Gazing into her eyes, he was always amazed by how pretty this girl was. He didn't love her, nor did he lust for her, but she was certainly one of the girls whom he would bend over backwards for to make happy. The opposite was true in his sentiments toward Steph; she was a bit of a freak, in his view.
"How much revision have you done?" Steph asked her male classmate. "I can't get my head round some of these formulae"
"Erm," Jitinder hesitated, and looked back at his sister, who was serving an elderly woman at the counter. "Let me come back to you"
Seema Singh saw her brother approaching with dirty plates. She muttered into his ear:
"Jit, Dad says he wants a newspaper, but we also could do with some bread for later. If I gave you some money, could you run over to the newsagents"
Jitinder grimaced slightly at the irony of what was being asked of him. On one hand, his father was demanding the son to work and stop lazing around, yet under half an hour later, it seemed obvious that the father could not even be bothered to go down to the shops to get his own newspaper. Jitinder looked outside at the howling January rain and frowned. This was deliberate, he thought. He probably asked Seema to ask him, or at any rate, knew that the back would fall to him, Jitinder, to run the errand.
"What's he doing over there?" Sam asked Steph.
"Not sure," her friend replied. "But he's getting some money"
"I'll be back soon," Jitinder said. "Will you stay here until I see you again"
"Of course," replied Sam with a carefree smile glancing out at the now-heavy rainfall. "I'm not going far, am I, huh"
"Saying that, though," interrupted Steph, "didn't they say the weather was going to get worse tomorrow"
"Yeah, I heard that too," replied Sam, forgetting about the exam completely now, in favour of idle chit-chat. "There was going to be snow in Europe, and the storm tomorrow was said to probably cause serious damage in some parts of the country"
"Jitinder!" Seema called from the other side of the room. "Are you going or not"
Jitinder nodded briefly to his sister, again at the girls, then ran out into the storm.
Emma Newton was out in the storm, too, but was sheltered from the rain inside a bus stop. The rain was kept off her (though this made no difference; she was soaked through, and her hair was plastered across the sides of her head), yet the wind was blowing spray across the hem of her jeans and causing a piercing chill to rip through her chest. She had seen the weather report. It was Sunday now, and the storm tomorrow had been forecast to be even worse. She and Paula MacNeill were supposed to be meeting a man tomorrow evening to settle the location of the party. To make a change from the usual parties at people's homes, they had decided they would rent out a function room somewhere, and hold a huge party there. There was a financial issue here, so after quite a bit of research, the girls decided to go for a church hall in one of the poorer locales of the city, and to cover some of the cost by inviting the entire year, but charge a slight fee.
The bus approached. Emma got up, wringing some of the wetness out of her favourite jacket. It was because of the weather that she was travelling to meet Paula now; they were supposed to be confirming the location tomorrow by giving the deposit, yet they wanted to postpone this exchange until later in the week (after all, they weren't stupid). Whenever Emma had a plan, people knew that it was often a good idea to listen to it, and question nothing. This was why Paula had agreed to meet her friend at such short notice. It was barely two o'clock, but the sky was dark and pessimistic.
"Lisa! Lucy! What're you two doing on here"
Emma had just boarded the bus and saw two of her classmates, Lisa Jones and Lucy Shale, sitting opposite one another in the aisle. The bus was nearly full, but there was a seat behind Lucy's bench. Lucy, a retiring mouse of a girl with brown hair and a pointed chin, smiled at Emma. Friends.
"We were both heading out to meet Dominic, Kavinder and, er, Matt," said the girl, ill at ease with speaking in a vehicle full of strangers. "What about you; are you coming as well"
"No, I'm off to meet with Paula"
Lucy let out an 'ahh' of understanding; it was about the party. She herself had been invited, but was obliged to decline the offer. Her parents did not like her going out and partying at age fifteen. They were strict Catholics, and disliked the idea of their daughter doing anything wild. Lucy, not having the willpower to rebel, and knowing that it was ultimately for the greater good, complied with an air of disappointment. Though she was not evangelical in the slightest, and neither were her parents, she always followed what was expected from her, by God and family, and never caused trouble.
The same could not be said for Lisa. Another of the students who rarely attended school, she was loud and bossy. With wavy, mousy hair, her bark was considerably worse than her bite; she was a complete pacifist, and even when she was in a towering rage, never resorted to violence.
For several miles, the three girls sat without saying much to each other; though none of them hated each other, Lisa simply belonged to a different friendship circle, and it was only via Dominic as a mutual friend that she was connected to Lucy, and in turn, Emma and the others. Suddenly, the bus passed a garage, with several cars in it.
"That's where Rob works, I think," Lisa said, pointing out of the window.
Instinctively, Lucy turned to look out of the window. A number of the girls drooled over Robert Fraser, and Lucy was certainly no exception. A tall boy of sixteen with dark hair, hazel eyes, a pierced ear and an excellent physique, he was one of the boys who would get attention from any girl, if he ever turned up for school, or was remotely a pleasant person. Lucy had particular reason to want to see him; it had been rumoured that he had a crush on her, but was too busy playing his macho role. Anybody with sense could see that it would never work out between them; they were polar opposites. Robert was brash, a smoker, a stoner and had lost his virginity before he turned thirteen; Lucy was quiet, a non-smoker and mild asthmatic, and, of course, a virgin, believing in the old-fashioned concept of saving it for somebody who mattered. It wasn't until Emma asked the time that Lucy was brought back to her senses.
"It's nearly ten past two now," she read out from her digital watch. "And it looks like the rain's stopping a bit"
Indeed, as the girls looked out, the sky certainly seemed to be running out of rain, though it was still as dark as ever; when the three girls got off the bus and went their separate ways, they held their hands and coats over their heads, trying in vain to defend themselves from the howling elements that were drowning them slowly, and could inevitably soak anybody to the bone without prejudice.