Hostage Three Read Free

it’s moving fast.
    I also understood some other things:
    You get wiser as you get older.
    Money makes you safe.
    People who die are old, like my granny and grandad.
    I thought I understood these things, same as I understood that if you keep pouring water into a container it will eventually spill over the top.
    But I was wrong.

That night and the next I did the obvious thing: I went out clubbing. The school had called my dad, of course, and he left me, like, a dozen messages about it. He even sent a text. But he didn’t bother coming home from work to see me.
    His messages were funny.
    They started off like:
    I’m so disappointed in you.
    I thought you knew better.
    It’s your future and you’re throwing it away.
    Then they got all like:
    I appreciate what you’re going through.
    Maybe you can resit next year.
    Let’s talk about it.
    I ignored them.
    The third night after the exam, I got home late, drunk, in a taxi – the same way that the stepmother came into our lives eighteen months before.
    I knew how to climb the stairs so they wouldn’t creak. I went to my room and stretched out on my bed, the walls spinning around me. Then I heard murmuring voices. I got up, heavily, and put my ear to the wall. The stepmother was talking.
    â€” . . . getting more self-destructive, I heard her say.
    â€” Mumble, mumble, said my dad.
    â€” But what if . . . what if it’s genetic? the stepmother said. Don’t you think . . . something, something . . . therapy? I mean, have you seen that stuff in her face?
    â€” Mumble, said my dad. Mumble. Only two A levels. No chance of the Royal Academy now.
    I pulled back from the wall like it was a wasp that had stung me. I touched the bolt in my eyebrow. I’m not destroying myself, I thought. I’m marking myself.
    But was that true? I knew what I liked about loud music, drinking, smoking: I liked that they made me disappear, even if for a short while.
    God, I thought. What if it is genetic? I thought of the scars on Mom’s arms and my piercings.
    I didn’t sleep that night.
    Â 
    I came downstairs in the morning and found the stepmother at the kitchen table, waiting for me. At first I thought she was going to confront me about the night before, but she didn’t. Instead, she indicated the chair opposite her.
    â€” Sit down, Amy, she said. I have something to tell you. Your dad wanted to tell you himself, but he had to get into work early for an emergency meeting.
    I looked at the table. There were all these maps laid out on it, while Ham Common spread before us, glistening with dew, on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows Mom always liked because they brought in the light.
    â€” What? I said, my eyes on the maps. You’re sending me away?
    â€” No, said the stepmother, frowning. Remember that yacht? The one your dad mentioned?
    I was hungover, and this whole thing was surreal.
    â€” What yacht?
    â€” The Daisy May . Don’t you remember?
    I vaguely recalled Dad going on about some boat, on one of the few evenings when he was around, saying how he might buy it and sail it round the world.
    â€” I guess, I said.
    â€” Well, said the stepmother. He’s bought her.
    â€” Bought her? I said, confused.
    For an instant, a crazy thought went through my mind – that Dad had bought some other woman. Because you could kind of say that he had bought the stepmother, what with all the Cartier jewellery and Louboutin shoes and stuff.
    â€” The yacht, she said. He bought it.
    I sat down. The maps were kind of swimming in front of me. A yacht. OK, that’s normal, I thought.
    â€” So? I said, my voice coming out even more sullen than I meant it to. He’s always buying things.
    I looked her hard in the eye so she would know what I meant, know that I was talking about her. Then I glanced at the Cartier bracelet on her wrist, just in case she hadn’t got the message.
    â€” Well, she said, not