Page 53 of The Next Chapter

She shakes her head. ‘Nah, with Mum.’

I realize that we aren’t talking about Harper’s foster mum here.

I don’t say anything, hoping that she’ll keep talking.

She does. ‘If she’d just laid off the booze, we could’ve stayed with her. She wasn’t even bad or anything, not like they made out. I could have looked after Blake. It’s not fucking fair.’

Harper takes some deep breaths. God, parents mess their kids up, or at least some of them do. I guess that it’s the only job in the world where there are no prerequisites. Any old Tom, Dick or Harry can have a baby.

But I do know what it’s like to feel all confused, to wonder why the person who is meant to love you most in the world just doesn’t.

‘I think anger’s good,’ I tell her, after we’ve both been quiet for a little while. I’m a complete hypocrite. I don’t do angry myself. I hate angry.

‘You reckon?’ she asks.

‘Absolutely. If you feel angry, you’re angry. Whatever you feel is how you feel.’

‘Blake’s not angry,’ she tells me. ‘He’s younger than me, though. It’s hard to talk about.’ She starts to study the dried grass by her feet. ‘I just want her to be a better mum, you know?’

I nod again.

‘I get it,’ I say. Harper looks at me. ‘I mean, I don’t get it, but I get some of it.’

Generally, I try not to tell anyone what happened with Lola. Even Colin hadn’t known the whole truth of it. Because who wants to be like, ‘Date me! Marry me! I’m such a catch my own mother abandoned me!’ But I do want to tell Harper more and wish I could. It’s just that everyone here thinks that Seb is my brother, and if I spill that I was adopted as a baby and it gets back to Lola, she’ll definitely be onto me.

And then she might work out that she’s telling me her life story under false pretences. It’s a bit of a dick move. But then she did abandon me, so you know, hopefully we’ll be even after this.

‘Wait, you actually do get it,’ Harper says, and I realize that she’s watching my face really intently. I make a conscious effort to unscrew it.

‘Are your foster parents going to be wondering where you are?’ I ask.

She shakes her head. ‘Told them I was going to sit in the garden. They’ve gone for a walk around that massive lake. It’s not like I can escape from here, it’s like that prison. Alcatraz.’

Teenagers are dramatic.

‘Can I play music through your laptop?’ she asks. There’s a very good chance that we’ve now arrived at the real reason Harper has come to find me, like a teenage moth to a laptop with passable Wi-Fi flame.

‘Sure,’ I tell her, loading up Spotify and abandoning the idea of getting any work done for now. I go and get a bowl of vegetable crisps. ‘Here.’ I prop them on the table in front of her to yet more sounds of retching.

Music starts to play through the laptop. It’s not the sort of grunge screeching that I’d imagined Harper would like to listen to.

‘It’s The Smiths. You won’t have heard of them, but they’re my favourite.’

I have of course heard of The Smiths. I’m basic, but I’m not that basic. But Harper looks pleased with herself, so I let it slide. Plus, it makes sense that Harper would be drawn to Morrissey, kindred spirits and all that. ‘Do you play an instrument?’ I ask her.

Another head shake. ‘Not well. I want to learn guitar, though.’

‘You should speak to Lola, I’m sure she’d teach you. You could do the karaoke on Saturday nights.’

‘Fuck no.’ Harper has her eyes closed, listening to the song. ‘It was bad enough listening to Jake and Sharon singing that thing from Grease on Saturday night. The duet one. Made me want to pull my own ears off.’

I laugh. The song ends and another starts with a similar feel. We don’t talk anymore, though. Instead, I think about what Harper said, about how she wanted her mum to be a better mum.

Harper’s mum, Lola’s mum, Lola. Maybe it’s just that none of them knew how to be a mum. Because it’s a bit of a myth, isn’t it, that as women we’re all born knowing how to look after kids.

The thought of hearing in Lola’s own words how she didn’t want to be a mum, for whatever the reason, sends this deep rolling swell of unease through me, like I’m on a train that’s going to crash with no way off. And even if there was a way off, I don’t know if I’d take it. Because now I’m on it, it’s like I need to know how mine and Lola’s… how our story ends.

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