Amy’s old school desk was clear except for a foolscap-sized hardbound journal, sitting right there in the middle of the desk, with a pen next to it. Well, if it was a diary, Joy certainly would not read it. Absolutely not. That sort of gross invasion of privacy was only appropriate for one’s own children. Anyway, hadn’t Savannah implied that the problem was that she remembered too much about her past? She wouldn’t need to record her days if they were permanently recorded in her memory.
Joy looked over her shoulder, walked towards the desk. She would not look. There was no point in looking. It was not a diary. If Savannah had something to hide, she wouldn’t leave it there in plain sight.
Who was she kidding? Of course she was going to look.
She flipped open the book. The pages were covered in tiny, rigid handwriting. She put her fingertips to the page. The surface was bumpy. Joy’s mother used to write like that, pressing so hard with her pen it left an imprint on the page, as if she were trying to engrave her words forever.
She squinted. She needed her reading glasses. Heavens to bloody Betsy. Leaving the room to retrieve her glasses made the whole process feel too calculated. Perhaps if she got them fast? She darted from the room, ran down the hallway. She could hear Stan on the phone. His voice was raised. She hoped he wasn’t telling off some poor telemarketer who was only trying to earn a living.
She retrieved the glasses from the kitchen table, ran back down the hallway. He was properly shouting now. She dithered. Should she go and try to help sort it out?
But the volume of his voice dropped, became conciliatory. That was Stan. The telemarketer might even be making a sale now.
She went back into Savannah’s room, put on her glasses and picked up the book. Right, then. She read:
Sunday
Quarter apple
Five sultanas
1 x Toast. No crusts. No butter.
Bolognaise pasta. Eleven spoonfuls.
Half orange
Day after day it went. Detailed listings of tiny portions of food. She flipped to the last page and saw the beginning of that day’s entry. All it said was: Eight spoonfuls of Chia Yoghurt Pudding. Savannah had made the chia yoghurt pudding last night. It was delicious. Joy must have had at least a hundred spoonfuls.
She closed the book and carefully placed it back in exactly the position she’d found it.
All that time Savannah spent creating beautiful food, and then she came back to her room and recorded every mouthful in bleak, rigid detail. The pleasure she’d given Joy and Stan with her cooking. It was almost humiliating how much pleasure Joy had taken in it, especially when contrasted with this disciplined transcription.
She sat on Savannah’s perfectly made bed and pressed her palms to the tightly pulled sheets. Oh, darling. What’s going on in that head of yours?
It wasn’t a surprise. Not really. She’d seen the way Savannah swirled the same spoonful of food around her plate, putting it down and picking it up again. Was she suffering from a full-blown eating disorder? Or was it just a strange, compulsive habit to record everything she ate that made her feel in control of her life?
Joy’s first instinct was to fix it: to get Savannah in to see a professional. As if that would be the silver bullet. It was exactly the way she’d felt when Amy was growing up. They would wait and wait, sometimes months, to get the next available appointment to see the next person. All those different diagnoses they were offered with varying degrees of confidence. She remembered that nice tired-looking psychologist who, when Joy said, ‘You lot keep changing your mind!’ replied, ‘Ours is not an exact science, Joy. It’s not like she has a headache.’ Joy had thought, resentfully, Well, no-one can bloody well fix headaches either!
‘Where are you?’ shouted Stan. She could hear his heavy footsteps pounding through the house.
‘In Savannah’s room!’ she called back.
‘You mean Amy’s room,’ he said, furiously, in the doorway.
‘Amy doesn’t live here,’ said Joy. She looked up at him. His face was white, his eyes red. He radiated fury.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Who was on the phone?’
‘It was Troy. Helpfully letting me know that he has just paid Savannah some exorbitant amount of money not to tell you that I harassed her.’
‘You harassed her?’ Joy looked at him blankly, trying to understand. Her first confused, irrational thought was that he’d harassed her to do tennis drills, like he’d once harassed the children.
‘Sexually harassed her,’ said Stan. ‘Your idiotic son actually believed it. He genuinely believed it.’