Page 40 of Oleander

I stood up, went to where he sat, and shoved the gift bag at him.

“Um, it was just a couple of things I saw and thought you’d like,” I said as he took it.

I sat back down and watched him open the bag and pull out the first tissue-wrapped item. A sheet music book of the best of Studio Ghibli. I loved the Studio Ghibli movies, and as soon as I saw it in the bookstore, I couldn’t get the image of Caspien playing something from My Neighbour Totoro out of my head. The second item was a tin of special edition Faber-Castell drawing pencils. I didn’t know much about pencils, but the woman in the shop told me they would make a nice gift, and they had come in a rather elaborate-looking tin.

He flicked through the book quickly, as if he were looking for something, and then closed it and set it beside his other gifts. He tore the wrapping paper off the pencils and flipped open the tin to inspect the contents, nodding.

“Thank you, Jude. This is very kind of you,” he said, setting the tin on top of the book.

It felt like the entire room was looking at me, watching my reaction to his reaction. Finlay on the floor had this weird look on his face as he glanced between us both. Gideon was beaming wide.

I shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

Caspien’s eyes narrowed very slightly at that, but he said nothing more.

“I’ll bring the sandwiches and cakes through, shall I?” Elspeth said, standing. “If there are any left, that is.” She glared at Finlay, who gave her a cheeky grin. Unlike Cas, he wasn’tobnoxious with his overt poshness; he was sort of geeky and childlike with it.

The rest of the afternoon was a weird, awkward thing that felt staged, like we were all part of some play I didn’t know the lines for. We ate sandwiches – tuna cucumber, egg and cress, and salmon cream cheese – and then cupcakes before Gideon carried through a large chocolate birthday cake with ‘16’ written in white chocolate icing, and we all sang happy birthday.

Gideon let Caspien and Finlay have a small glass of champagne each.

This time, since it was a special occasion, Beth and Luke said I could have one, too. I didn’t particularly like it. I thought it tasted like fizzy salted water, but I did like the warm, bubbly feeling that settled over me afterwards. Like how after I’d run or swam really fast, my body felt light and filled with hot air. I gulped it too fast, trying to burp quietly as the fizziness rose up in my chest.

While Elspeth cleared away the cake, Gideon talked with Luke and Beth about some work he planned on doing at the house. Finlay was showing Caspien something on his phone. I took the opportunity to slip away and call Ellie. She wanted to come over that night, but I hadn’t committed to it since I didn’t know what time I’d be home. And now, sitting on the step outside, I hovered over her name in my phone.

I did want to see her and spend time with her; it’s just that I wanted to spend time with someone else more. I was only out there contemplating calling her because the person I wanted to spend time with was inside giving his attention to someone else. It was pathetic. I was pathetic.

Angry with myself, I flicked away from Ellie’s number and brought up Instagram instead. I’d followed Caspien a couple of weeks ago, the day at the beach; we’d all followed him in somepretence that we would all be friends. He hadn’t followed me back, and he didn’t post very often. In fact, he hadn’t posted at all since I’d followed him.

So when I went to his page and noticed a new post from earlier, I sat up straighter. It was a picture of his bed, gifts arranged artfully on top, and a single birthday cake caption. I noted the iPad, dark blue Chanel bag, expensive cologne, and the scarf from Finlay. My gifts weren’t there, but all of the others were. That’s when I noticed it.

Something that didn’t belong. Something I hadn’t watched him open earlier.

The book had a green antique-looking hardback cover. An early edition certainly with the title etched in foiling on the front. No matter how much I zoomed in, I couldn’t make out the title.

Who’d bought him it? Why did seeing it make me feel chilled to the bone?

I tried to reason it out. Of course, given the piles around his room, it was possible that one of his books had found its way onto the bed and into that photo. But something told me that it wasn’t an accident. It looked placed there. Deliberate. It sat in the middle of the bed in the centre of a posed photo. It looked like a message.

I stood up and rushed back inside.

I took the stairs as quietly as possible and made my way to the last door at the end of the corridor. It was closed but not locked and the pile sat on the bed exactly as it did in the photo.

Except the book was gone.

Lots of the books that had been lying in stacks the last time I was in here were now on shelves. Some still lay in piles beside his bed, but if my gut was right, then would he really put the book on a shelf like all the others? I didn’t think so.

I knelt and looked under the bed which was clear and so clean that the wooden floor shone.

There was a tall chest of drawers by the window, which I went to next, opening each one and rummaging quickly through it. T-shirts, shorts, underwear and socks, but no books. I knew the invasion of his privacy was wrong, but I was too keyed up, too convinced about what I would find and how angry I was going to be about it, to focus on something as pointless as right and wrong. Not whenthiswas so beyond wrong.

The ottoman at the foot of the bed had two small doors and three drawers in the centre. Here, I found stacks of unused sketchpads and paper. In the drawers were phone chargers and other cables.

Though I was certain I wouldn’t find it, I turned and scanned the shelves anyway. The books were mainly modern, so I looked for any that stood out as clothbound and green.

As a last attempt, I moved to the bed and stuffed my hand under the pillow on his side, then the other. I pulled out a black eye mask, which I stuffed back under. With a sigh, I sat down to think. I’d confront him. Ask him outright. I doubted he cared enough about what I threatened or thought to lie to me. And now that he was old enough, I supposed no one could really stop him. I felt sick. I felt angry. I felt impotent with both. I felt something dig into my thigh.

I stood and pulled back the duvet. It was such an obvious bloody place, and I’d almost missed it. Snatching it up, I studied the cover of what I could now see was a very old edition ofLes Liaisons Dangereusesby Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. I opened the cover and saw, written in pencil: