Heatstroke

by Hazel Barkworth

Genres: Coming of Age; General Fiction

Synopsis

'Barkworth is excruciatingly good... An impressive first book' OBSERVER
'A sultry, stifling debut exploring power, consent and womanhood' COSMOPOLITAN
'The evocative one' HEAT magazine's READ OF THE WEEK
'Read next if you loved Three Women by Lisa Taddeo' WHISTLES newsletter

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Do you remember the summer that changed everything?

Rachel and her daughter never had secrets. Until now.

Lily is somewhere she shouldn't be. With someone she shouldn't be with.

Mia misses her best friend. But she let her down.

In the middle of a stifling heatwave, the three of them stand on the edge of irrevocable change. By the end, one burning question will remain... how could she let things go this far?

FOR FANS OF ZOE HELLER, EMMA CLINE, EXPECTATION AND MY DARK VANESSA.

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'I wanted to stay within its pages forever' CLARE MACKINTOSH

'Stylish and sensual' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE

'A thrilling look at mothers and daughters, adolescence, sex, suburbia and secrets' NELL FRIZZELL

'I am addicted... dark and twisty with beautiful, poetic writing' EMMA GANNON

'Sexy and provocative' LAURA JANE WILLIAMS

'Pulls you into its sweaty interior and keeps you gripped' RENEE KNIGHT

'I couldn't tear myself away' ERIN KELLY

'Compulsive, sticky and full of gorgeous writing' KIRSTIN INNES

'Gripping and intensely atmospheric... you won't want to put this down' HEAT

'A summer sizzler... with twists, turns and revelations in all the right places' EVENING STANDARD

(P)2020 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: May 28, 2020

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

1

Languid. The word that formed in Rachel’s mind was languid. The figure on the lawn was languid. Its limbs were loose, its joints fluid. Its hands and feet seemed too heavy for the bones that held them. It was draped over the sun lounger, dripping from its edges. Not a single muscle seemed tensed. Rachel knew she was staring.

The sun was so high that everything in the garden was bleached. The grass was brittle and the patio slabs blinding white. Rachel’s feet were cool against the kitchen tiles and it felt indulgent. It had been too hot for days but was only mid-June; there were still five weeks until the school holidays began. The temperature had crept into the high twenties every afternoon, and Rachel had woken tangled in the sheets every morning.

She stood at the sink, squeaking a dishcloth into mugs. One by one, she rubbed the stains from their nooks then placed them on the draining rack. The outside brightness made the inside gloomy. She leaned forward, her eyes never leaving the torpid figure. Even this close to the window, Rachel was still in the shade. There was no way she could be visible from the garden.

A towel made the lounger soft. Rachel had owned that beach towel for eighteen years. She remembered buying it in a Cornish surf shack she’d felt too hip for. It bore a now-faded dreamscape, a technicolour sunset with Aloha Hawaii scrawled in pink. The towel was three years older than the body that lay on it. There she was, in her lime-green bikini. Her head tilted so her metre of hair waterfalled over the side of the lounger. Her drink was only an arm’s length away, but she moved so slowly it seemed to take enormous effort. Just reaching down to the grass was apparently enough to exhaust her.

As Mia settled back, the left strap of her bikini top fell from her shoulder. There was a shock of white where the material had been. The rest of her was slick with lotion, but turning a warm pink that would blossom to brown. She was baking her body perfectly. She stretched to her full length; the wingspan that seemed impossible, the bubble-gum painted toenails. Her eyes would be closed behind those plastic sunglasses. She arched her back, forcing her breasts upwards, pouting as if she was being photographed.

Rachel stepped further back into the dusk of the kitchen. The window would form a mirror in the sunlight. Mia slouched back again. Supine on that towel, nothing could be troubling her. There were no hairs on her legs, not even little golden ones that might glint on her thighs. Not a single bristle would snag any palm that stroked them.

Rachel found her eyes lingering on the shadow where those green bikini bottoms met the skin. It was just as smooth there. Rachel wondered what blade or wax or lotion had removed the hair. Had Mia holed herself up in the bathroom and waited whilst noxious cream burned every follicle away? Had she held the skin taut and dragged a razor against the grain? Had she booked an appointment to have it ripped out of her? Rachel wanted to know who it was designed to impress. Who else did Mia expect to see that patch of flesh? Rachel longed to hold that body she’d known so well. The clavicle she’d kissed so often. The ribs she’d once xylophoned.

Mia lifted an arm to swat something from her thigh, some insect or pollen spore, some floating dandelion seed that had dared to tickle her. Rachel worried it was instead her own gaze made solid. She worried her daughter knew she was watching.



The stillness didn’t last long. As the sun began to ease, the house began to fill and, by six, the kitchen was crammed with teenage bodies. Mia was playing hostess. Three girls arrived, laden down with sleeping bags and backpacks. Between them, there could only possibly be eight arms, but they flailed into every corner. It was incredible they didn’t cause damage. The pizzas Rachel had bought were wolfed straight from the oven.

‘I’m such a cow.’ Ella’s voice rose above the others.

Keira deepened hers. ‘Ah, la vache!’

‘Accurate.’ As perfect as their eyeliner flicks were, as dainty as their ankles might be, the girls ate like boys – folding slices, dipping them in ketchup, then gulping them down in seconds, standing up.

Rachel hung back, eager not to look eager. They all knew her from school. She’d taught half of them, and wanted to avoid anything that might smack of desperation. She kept her greeting swift.

‘Evening, ladies.’ A curt nod in their direction, then she lingered in the garden – tilting her head backwards, pretending to relish the early-evening sun, miming the bliss of it seeping into her skin – and let them colonise the living room. They’d scoured Netflix and chosen a film that had been popular when Rachel was only a few years older than they were now.

‘Shut up. He’s totally cute. He is!’ To hear them watch it felt like mockery. Teenage laughter crescendoed into hysteria so easily; that wracking wheeze. Don’t, don’t. To them, it could only be ironic to lust after that stubbled actor, to crave those clothes, those hairstyles. How Rachel had coveted Winona’s full-length floral dress, her clumpy Mary Janes. She’d never tell them to quell that laughter. In a year’s time, they’d be deep in the mire of their GCSEs, and this lightness would be a memory.

Rachel’s hands itched to open the bags of popcorn she knew were in the cupboard. She could pour them into pastel plastic bowls, then perch on the arm of the sofa, chipping into the edges of their conversation. She resisted. Methodically, she tidied the carnage of the kitchen – rinsing plates for the dishwasher, folding the pizza boxes into neat piles for recycling. She was grateful for the plausible occupation. Afterwards, she settled at the kitchen table with the few remaining slices, nibbling the crusts as she worked through a ream of marking, leaving greasy fingerprints down the margins of essays. She was used to eating alone, but leaned upon the companionship of work. The girls were on their feet now, dancing to a song from the film. The living-room door was open, and she could see them wiggle their heads in pastiche as they sang. Running down the length of my thigh, Sharona. They stumbled over the lyrics of a song they’d never heard before, rewinding to shriek it again.

The girls had risen early. All four of them had showered, dressed and left to catch the bus before Rachel ventured downstairs. Mia had sent a text rather than call out her goodbye. Gone to town, back by four-ish. Then the emoji of a steaming coffee cup. There were too few words to interrogate.

After the thrilling whispers that had punctuated the night, the house felt hollow. Rachel poured a cup of tea. They’d be in Starbucks by now, cooled by the air-conditioner breeze, each making a Frappuccino last for two hours. They’d be squealing at the slightest quip, posing in case boys they knew walked by, still young enough to glean sophistication from their drink’s Italianate name. They’d be sipping at their green straws, tasting a coffee with no hint of bitterness.

Rachel wandered back upstairs. Mia’s usually immaculate bedroom was in disarray. Three sleeping bags still crosshatched the floor. Their sleepovers were usually for five. It was rare to see the group divided, but Lily hadn’t been able to make this one, cancelling at the last minute. Rachel assumed only illness could keep them apart. The bedding swallowed up every nook of the room. When Rachel lay down, Mia’s duvet was still warm, even warmer than the air. She nuzzled her face into the pillow, wriggled her limbs right down, soaking up the heat that had been left. If she placed her head on the dent where Mia’s head had been, she wondered if she would hear the thoughts that had formed there.

Rachel inhaled, trying to catch anything of the remaining scent, but there was no human smell there, no sweat or spit, just the synthetic honey they all loved so much. Those girls were like hummingbirds; they had to swallow twice their body weight in sugar every day just to survive. Their tongues must be thick with glucose. They sipped Diet Coke every second they were allowed to, popped Haribo, sprayed perfume that smelled of an opened sweet jar. Rachel breathed it all in. It made her light-headed, dizzy with that vanilla.

Rachel wanted to open the window, to shake their crumpled sleeping bags until they were crisp and clean, but she moved nothing. The five girls had formed a tight circle before they started school. They’d already clocked up a decade of fierce loyalty. Whatever sticky truths they’d breathed into that ether were safe.

The mornings were a brief respite from the heat, but Rachel was too late. The sun had already hit the exact angle that flooded the back of the house, turning the kitchen into a greenhouse and thickening the air. The stack of essays wouldn’t diminish by itself, but Rachel couldn’t settle. She couldn’t bring herself to sit down in the blazing light and work through them. Tea was too hot to drink, ice cubes vanished before they could be any use, and her phone was silent. Rachel composed messages, trailing her fingers over the screen, letting the technology predict her words, but never pressed send.

She hadn’t arranged to see anyone, and the sun was too bright to contend with. There was no other pulse in the house, and her breaths were all that stirred the air. That black slab was her only portal. Rachel toyed with it, passing it from hand to hand, coaxing it to bleat. The tiny green light would change everything. But Tim wouldn’t call. She could fathom the time difference without arithmetic now. She didn’t even need to check the digits. He would still be asleep.

The telephone rang at exactly two. Rachel was cross-legged on a kitchen chair, a slice of avocado inches from her lips. The shrill ring made her start. Not her mobile, but the landline that lay dormant in the hallway. She didn’t want to answer, but the bleats were so demanding. The receiver felt alien in her hands, heavy, and seemed to require a different sort of greeting. Hello, Rachel Collins speaking. It was Lily’s mother, Debbie.

She’d never called the house before. She had Rachel’s mobile number, her email address – they were linked through a WhatsApp group of mums – but she’d chosen the landline. The number must have lived in an address book, a floral Christmas gift from years ago.

‘Sorry to bother you, Rach. I just wanted to check that Lily was still there.’

‘Lily? No . . .’

Debbie’s voice cut her off, her tone too bright for the shadowy hallway. ‘She said she’d be home a few hours ago, but I know how these things can be. I wondered if she maybe needed a lift, or something.’

The words were out before Rachel considered how to form them. ‘No, Debs, Lily couldn’t make it. I thought she was with you.’ The syllables hung in the air, sounding stupid at first, then – as the silence ticked into full seconds – horrifying.

Rachel could hear Debbie swallow on the other end of the line. ‘No. No, she walked round yesterday afternoon. She said she’d be home in time for lunch today.’

Rachel knew she should say something, but her mouth jarred. She was caught in a spasm. It would fade. In a few seconds it would fade; they’d realise their silly mistake and get on with their day with just the memory of that shudder to haunt them. It happened all the time when you were a mother. Facts got mixed, confused, terrifying. It never lasted.

Before Rachel could exhale, Debbie made a small noise. A hiccup. A yelp. Then a gush of words. ‘I’ve been trying her phone for the last few hours, but it keeps going to voicemail, I thought it had probably just run out of charge, she never remembers to plug it in and they have such short battery lives, don’t they? I was going to try Mia, but I didn’t want to seem like I was nagging. I’ve left Lily messages, but she hasn’t got back to me yet. I’m not really sure what to do.’ The last words trailed off.

Rachel grabbed her own mobile. ‘Mia will know. Mia’ll know where she is, Debs.’ Her numb fingers were somehow able to unlock the phone, to manipulate its digits. It seemed wilfully capricious. That was why Debbie had chosen the landline. Mobiles were tricksy; always at risk of being lost, silenced, ignored. If the robot voice spoke instead of the person you wanted, you could draw no conclusion. It could be out of range, drained of energy. Rachel’s thumb dialled Mia’s number. It only took a few swipes; her daughter was nearly at the top of her favourites list.

The metallic ring pulsed, the seconds between each burst stretching longer and longer. Debbie was silent on the end of the landline. Rachel held both receivers to her ears, clumsy and ridiculous. Their weight doubled, tripled, straining her wrists. Mia answered after five rings, achingly long given her phone was never more than an inch from her hand. Her voice was thick with irony. She’d seen the caller ID; she was playing to the audience around her, poutingly put out at the interruption.

‘Hey, Mother. What is it?’

Rachel slid the untouched rump of avocado into the mouth of the Brabantia bin. There was nothing else to do. Mia was being dropped home by Keira’s dad. There was no use in all the parents driving to town to pick them up. They’d be better off together. They’d be scared. Mia would be home in twenty minutes, twenty-five at the very most. Rachel wiped the kitchen surface with a dishcloth, then wrung it out under the tap, wrenching so hard her fingers turned red, then white. The tap was streaked, blotchy with the dull breath of limescale. Only bleach would lift it. There was a bottle in the cupboard beneath the sink, and Rachel poured a viscous line down the stainless steel. Her eyes watered, but she left it to work its enchantment, to make the silver pure again.

The gleaming taps cast the rest of the kitchen into relief. How could she have ignored the watermarks on the hob, the sticky patches and drips on the cupboard doors where they’d been careless? Rachel began to scrub. Lily would call home soon. This awful hour would become the stuff of stories. Lily was probably with a boy, some smarmy twat in the year above who had persuaded her to go to a party. She might be feeling worse for wear, but nothing a long bath and a Nurofen wouldn’t sort out. Teenagers could be like this. No one ever said otherwise.

Rachel scrubbed the wooden units with a sponge scourer, digging her fingers into the forest-green bristles, feeling them force their way under her fingernails. Mia would be home soon. Inside, safe from anything that might snatch or lure her away. Rachel scrubbed hard, pushing down into the grain, into the pebble pattern of the kitchen surfaces. Once they were clean, she scrubbed the grey slabs of the kitchen floor, the ones she and Tim had chosen when they’d moved in. They were the first owners; they’d selected the shade of every carpet, every detail of the finishings. Mia had hardly known any other kitchen floor.

The sponge was disintegrating under the effort. Rachel threw it in the bin, and grabbed a fat, unopened packet of wipes from the cupboard. She broke the seal with too much force and sent all eighty wipes spilling over the floor, then snatched handfuls of them. They came away filthy. The floor looked clean, but the grime must have been all around them, filling their lungs with every breath. Rachel couldn’t bear it. The house needed to be clean for when Mia came home. She scrubbed. It was too hot for that kind of vigour, but she scrubbed anyway, ignoring the dizzy blackness that fogged her head. She scrubbed until her knuckles were raw, until sweat dripped into her eyes; scrubbed without stopping, without thinking, until Mia’s key grated in the lock.

Rachel squeezed teabags against the side of the mugs they hardly ever used: the ones that were a gift from her mother, the ones that matched. She placed the spent bags into a china dish. Her hands were weak. It was too hot for tea, but she’d offered and they’d accepted. The kitchen shone. She stirred in their milk and one sugar, chinking a teaspoon and setting her face to mild.

Rachel perched on an armchair as they spoke, nothing but a chaperone. She curled her hands around the unbearably warm mug of English Breakfast to keep them from shaking, forced her feet to stop tapping. This was not supposed to be happening. The police officers were not young, not the mavericks of television shows, but a man and woman in their mid-forties who were unerringly calm and polite.

‘Thank you so much for your time, Mia, we really do appreciate it.’ They punctuated their steady questions with sips of tea. It hadn’t cooled, and must have scalded the soft flesh of their tongues, but they didn’t flicker.

Mia was meek at first; eyes down, voice small. Rachel had scarcely addressed the situation with Mia before the police arrived. They’d hugged so tightly their bones had clashed, but Rachel hadn’t articulated her fears. She didn’t want to hear them out loud. Mia answered the first few questions – about who she was and how she knew Lily – incredibly carefully, as if she might be tripped up, calibrating her age to the month. She looked exhausted. Lines ran from the inner corners of her eyes down to her ears, as if her face had been folded with tiredness. She could scarcely have slept the night before, and the news of Lily seemed to have depleted whatever reserves of energy were left.

‘Okay then, Mia.’ The woman spoke most often, brown hair tucked behind her ears, resting her mug on the round of her knee. ‘We do need to know if Lily seemed different to you over the last few days.’ Her tone was light, as if she was talking to a much younger child.

‘She was the same. She was fine.’

‘She didn’t seem worried at all to you, Mia, like maybe she was nervous about something?’ Each of her questions followed the same sing-song pattern of intonation.

‘No.’

‘Did she mention any plans she had to you, anything she was looking forward to?’ That same flimsy rhythm.

‘No, she didn’t. Can you just tell me where she is?’

‘We’re not sure at the moment, Mia.’ The woman, who’d introduced herself as DC Redpath, kept saying Mia’s name, cooing out those two syllables – mee-aah – like she was stroking her, luring her to tell more. ‘Were there no hints or anything at all we might need to know?’

‘No.’ Mia was definite. ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Just tell me where Lily is.’

The philtrum of her lip was curling upwards, a sure sign she was trying to stop herself from crying. Rachel knew that lip. It curled the same way Tim’s did. That same patch of flesh she’d kissed so often had been lifted directly and transferred to her daughter’s mouth. Rachel couldn’t stand to see it twitch. She wanted to stop them, make them wait. Mia needed to process the news before being interrogated. DC Redpath’s manner didn’t stop it from being a grilling. But they’d been adamant. They wanted the girls’ first reactions, unsullied by too much thought, with no chance for them to conspire. They were making an exception by not asking them to come to the station. Rachel had been grateful for the gesture, but now she wanted to stand up and order them to leave her daughter alone, to leave her house immediately and not come back. She wanted them to take their thoughts with them. She knew the grisliness of what they’d been trained for, of what they were imagining. The smells and the textures. Rachel wanted their statistics, their likelihoods, their blood-soaked practicalities far away from her home. She could only sit with her cooling mug of tea and watch.

The man, DC Scott, finally broke his silence. ‘Mia, whatever you tell us now, however insignificant it seems to you, could be crucial in finding Lily and getting her back home. Did she say anything that we need to know? Do you know where she might be? Do you know who she might be with?’

Mia didn’t answer.

Rachel wanted to hold Mia’s face, focus their eyes on each other and tell her it was okay, that she didn’t need to worry, that Lily would be fine, that no one was in trouble. But Rachel had been superseded by a higher authority. Even in her own home, they were both under a different jurisdiction. She wanted to look into Mia’s eyes close up, not clouded by even a few steps. She wanted to see if there was anything Mia had to tell.

‘Lily has been missing for over twenty-four hours now. This is very serious.’

Rachel tried to blank his words and their implications. It wasn’t serious. It was a mistake. As they questioned her from different angles, repeating the same enquiry over and over, Mia lost her stiff calmness. As they kept trying to winkle out a fresh reply, she became every inch fifteen; stroppy and outraged, raking her hands through her hair. Her voice was louder now. Higher. Faster.

‘Why do you think I know? I don’t know anything. You don’t even know. Why don’t you know where she is? How do you even know if she’s okay?’

The roof of Rachel’s mouth throbbed. Seeing Mia’s distress, but not being able to ease it, was painful. It was all meant to be over by now. Lily was supposed to be at home, tearful and apologetic, tucked up in her purple duvet and eating platefuls of toast made by her mother. There was meant to be nothing left but relieved exhaustion and a hackneyed lecture. Instead, two uniformed officers were sitting on Rachel’s sofa, their black shoes square on her cream carpet.

‘Can you come back?’

It was Sunday where he was too, lunchtime, but she’d still had to summon him from a meeting. She had never interrupted his work before.

‘I’m back in just over week, Rach. It’s not long.’

Rachel paced the kitchen. Three steps one way, then three steps to retrace them. ‘It’s twelve days, Tim. We need you back. She’s frightened. I’m frightened.’

There was a time lag between every utterance. A stutter of silence that hindered their flow. It was technology stretched to its limits, struggling to keep up, or Tim stumbling to form his sentence.

‘I know, sweetie, I know. But I can’t do anything. My being there won’t make her any safer. It might just freak her out more, make it seem more urgent.’

Rachel had to modulate her voice. ‘Tim, her bes. . .