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That night it was fish and chips in front of a quiz, justified by my plan to make a start on the decorating. After supper, I creaked up the stairs to Jo’s room, looked around, and decided I could muster up enough energy to shift the furniture to the centre of the room, pull back the carpet and get all my decorating gear ready.
I stood for a while and stared at the room. Beginning any-thing was always hard and I imagined Michelangelo must have felt the same as he stood inside the Sistine Chapel. Before I allowed my imagination to let me plan something rather too ambitious for Jo’s ceiling, I went back to the kitchen and found a couple of cardboard boxes. I carted them upstairs and filled them up with books and ornaments.
Once I had begun the task, my earlier enthusiasm returned and I began to enjoy myself as I stripped the bed and lifted the notice-board off the wall. There was something very sat-isfying about this sort of job. It reminded me of taking down Christmas decorations, hoovering up the pine needles and starting a fresh new year with the old one wiped clean away along with its stale habits, overdone arguments, regrets and remorse.
I began to hum and whistle like a jovial morning milkman as I went about the business of dismantling Jo’s room. It was as if I was taking her life apart to spring clean it, give it a lick of paint and then put it back together again—as if I was certain that that was what was needed.
It didn’t take long to pack the loose items away and I set about the task of hauling the bed and chest into the middle of the room. I slid the top drawer out and found it neatly lined with underwear. At the back were two chocolate bars which Jo must have forgotten about.
The second drawer jammed and I had to rattle and shake it to pull it right out. It was full of black and grey tops and a couple of pairs of shorts which looked like Eliza’s cast-offs. At the back of this drawer were two sandwiches which were as hard and dry as cardboard, the edges bending up like brittle autumn leaves. I took one out and held it in my palm studying it, trying to work out why it was there. Like frantic moths, answers flew into my mind but could not settle.
I placed the stale food on the window-sill and tugged out the remaining drawers, pulling jumpers and tops aside frantically, desperately, like a hungry dog trying to dig up a buried bone. Nothing.
Smiling at my own stupidity, I dropped the stale food into the bin liner and grabbed the radio from the hallway. I switched it on and allowed the rhythmic thump of some old rock music to smother any remaining illogical fears.
Almost cheerily, I pushed the bed away from the wall and picked up Jo’s school bag which had been lying underneath. As I moved it, some books and a lunch box slapped down onto the floor. The lunch box was unexpectedly heavy and I peered through the plastic lid at its contents. There was no mistaking it. I peeled off the top to reveal the spaghetti bolognese I had served up days earlier. I stood still and stared at it for what seemed like hours. Then my brain jolted into action again and I tried to apply some logic.
Of course Jo had already unexpectedly declared herself a vegetarian so why hadn’t she told me instead of stuffing the meat into a plastic box and hiding it under her bed? I supposed she must have thought I would be disapproving or critical. Would I have been? Possibly. I had always cracked jokes about vegetarians being wind-powered and likened tofu to small pieces of mattress. I cringed when I thought of all those stupid remarks I had made about deep-fried Brussels sprouts and plastic sandals. Perhaps the answer was to become a vegetarian myself and declare the house a meat-free zone, but then I thought about bacon. I could almost smell it. Still, surely I just had to reassure Jo that she didn’t have to eat meat, and she simply had to reassure me that she would get her nutrition in other ways.
Yet I knew that such easy communication had broken down between us. Something told me that this wasn’t going to be at all straightforward. If Eliza hadn’t bounced into the room at that moment, I do believe I would have slumped down onto the bed and cried.
‘What’s wrong, Mum?’
‘Nothing sweetie, it’s just…Jo’s become a…’
‘Lesbian?’
‘No.’
‘Drug pusher?’
‘No.’
‘Prostitute?’
‘Of course not. Jo’s become a vegetarian.’
‘Oh, is that all? How boring, everyone’s a vegetarian.’
‘Actually, Eliza, I don’t think she’s eating properly.’
‘No one eats properly, Mum.’
‘But Jo’s so thin.’
‘Then make sure she eats more.’
It didn’t seem right to be confiding in a ten-year-old. Yet sometimes it takes a young soul to see everything in its simplest terms.
‘How an earth can I get her to eat?’
‘Use your imagination.’
Yes, I was good at that. Wasn’t I?
FOUR
I WANTED to go to Dad’s in August. Not because it ‘made a pleasant change’ as Mum said, but because he always left me alone to get on with it. To get on with what? Thinking, working it all out, making lists. He never went in for talking much. Talking can interfere with thinking. He’d moved to the country. It was only just under an hour’s drive from us, but as you got nearer it got greener. Fields full of cows. That sort of thing. Decent cottage, I suppose. Bit small. In a kind of village full of commuters and ladies making jam and divorced fathers. There was a town nearby—market town, they call it. Never seen a market there, though. You could walk into town in twenty minutes. The bus was quicker, but always full of ladies with baskets, wearing brown macs and staring.
Mum and Eliza stayed for lunch. That was when I found out I couldn’t eat in front of Mum. Eating is a bodily function and like all bodily functions it should be done in private. When Dad lived at home they would shout at each other. They would say what they thought. Everything would be on the surface, on view, like portraits in a gallery. Now they sit and smile and clip their words so they do not fly off in the wrong direction. It is the gaps between the sentences you have to listen out for. I preferred the arguing, the obvious tension.
Tension makes the air thick and difficult to breathe in. It makes voices high-pitched and annoying. It was like sitting in glue that lunchtime. Mum and Dad were trying to do and say the right thing. I knew how hard that was. I wanted to tell them not to bother, that it wasn’t worth the effort. But effort made them feel noble and righteous, or something.
When Mum and Eliza left, the air cleared like the morning fog lifting and the sun coming through. We cleared the plates and talked of this and that. I asked about Alice.
‘It’s a pity Alice isn’t here this week,’ I said.
‘She had to go and look after her mother.’
I wanted to ask whose idea it had been. I hesitated.
‘Did Mum make her go?’
‘Of course not, it’s just how it worked out.’
I wished I hadn’t asked. I invited the lie and then was disappointed when it came. Let down. Kind of.
‘I’m playing darts tonight. Come along if you want, but I told Keith and Bev next door you might babysit—thought you could do with the money—but it’s up to you, your choice.’
‘Yeah, I’ll babysit.’
The next morning I woke up and my period had started. It was about ten days early, dragged forward by a vicious moon. I hadn’t come prepared. I padded my knickers out with toilet roll and went downstairs.
‘No breakfast for me yet, I’m just going to the shop.’
The best thing about Dad—you didn’t always have to explain yourself.
‘I’ll come too. We need some more milk.’
‘I’ll get the milk.’
‘OK.’
The next best thing about Dad was he didn’t feel the need to shadow me. And he was practical.
‘Great. That gives me some more time. We’re playing in a tournament at Brampton. Got to rush.’ Dad coached an under-sixteens football team.
The worst thing about Dad? He never changed his arrangements because of me. Maybe that was good, I could never work it out.
I walked to the village shop two streets away. My body was slow and heavy. Every step was an effort, like I’d already walked ten miles or something. I folded my arms across my aching breasts. As if I could stop them getting bigger. I felt messy and grubby and infected. I had a disease that I didn’t want and the only cure was to travel backwards in time.
I opened the shop door to let an old lady out. Then I backed in. I resented spending my babysitting money on tampons and paracetamol. I didn’t look at the girl when I paid for them. I envied Eliza her pre-menstrual childhood.
When I was ten I would run everywhere. There was an urgency about life, as if time was running out. I ran to see friends, I ran up the stairs, I ran races with myself in the garden. Now, as if I wanted time to stand still, I swung my legs slowly back up to Dad’s. I hauled myself up the path to the front door and heaved along the corridor to fall heavily onto the bed.
‘Do you want to come to the football?’
‘No, I’ll get the bus into town.’
‘OK, see you later.’
I had enough money to buy a new top. There was a freedom about shopping in a strange town. Nobody knew me which meant I could be who I liked. I wanted to be myself but I’d forgotten how. Instead I would be a model, an actress, someone with style, money, good taste. I would buy a top to suit the new me. Buy a top she would buy. Something classy and sophisticated, and very very different. Something Eliza would envy and Mum would be unsure of.
I went to the usual shops and saw all the usual clothes. Then I saw a local shop called Hidden Scream and it sounded like a good omen. The interior was lit dimly and smelt of burning musk. I saw a rack of red tops. Crimson, rose, scarlet, blood. I picked out a crimson velvety bodice with a laced neckline and loose, Tudor sleeves. It was theatrical, bohemian, historical, vampish. I paid more than I’d meant to which made me feel daring.
I was thirsty but not daring enough to sit in a coffee-bar on my own. I bought a bottle of diet Coke and found a park near the bus station. A mother and two daughters were feeding the ducks. The eldest girl was about eight or nine. She was pleasing her mother by pulling off fistfuls of bread from a stale loaf and throwing them to the waddling birds.
‘That one hasn’t had any,’ the mother was pointing out.
The girl threw the bread farther and looked at her mother to see if she’d done well.
‘Well done, Georgie. Now try that one over there.’
It was as if the mother was conducting an orchestra. The eldest child was the lead violin and was playing to please. She in turn was encouraging her sister. The eagerness of the girl made me feel sad. No, not sad. More like numb.
My stomach felt heavy, pressing down as if it was trying to escape. A dull ache had spread across my front and down into my legs. I didn’t want to stand up. I imagined sitting on this park bench into the night. Dew would form on my clothes, my bones would slowly turn rigid. Would anyone mind? Who would blame who? I opened my carrier bag and took out the new top. It wouldn’t go with anything I had in my cupboard.
I can’t remember going back to Dad’s on the bus. It was as if I was in a trance, not wanting to think. Not wanting to feel. All I knew was the continuous ache.
The next day I felt better. The first day of my period was always the worst. I had some black coffee and a bowl of cereal. Dad had to go to work. He’d had one day off for the football tournament but couldn’t take any more time. He was sorry, but he could drop me in town. We could go out for a meal in the evening. And to the cinema. I decided to stay at his house and read.
After he’d shut the front door, I felt free. I wandered around the house. I had a shower. I read a bit. I found some DVDs and slotted one in. The film and the space and the solitude made me feel vaguely happy.
The phone rang.
‘Just phoning to say how much I’m missing you. It’s not the same without you.’
Scarlet. So obviously Scarlet. Her words.
‘I miss you too,’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Usual stuff. What about you? What’s it like being at your dad’s?’
I looked around the empty hallway. I listened to the silence.
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘Once you get used to it. It’s better. I’ve forgotten what it was like when they were together now.’
‘I love you, Jo. You always make me feel better. Hey, guess what?’
‘What?’
‘Cathy’s dumped Alfie.’
‘No! Why?’
‘Fran heard him telling Rob that he liked blondes the best, that he’d go for a blonde any time. Blonde with blue eyes and big tits, he said.’
‘She could dye her hair.’
‘Yeah, yeah, and get coloured contacts and a boob job. No, she’s well out of it. No decent girl would change herself for a guy. Can you imagine a guy getting a penis extension just to please you, I mean, come on…’
I laughed. I wished I was like Scarlet.
‘I wish I was funny like you,’ I said.
‘You are, you are. You just don’t realise it. Got to go—text me, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
The hall was silent again. I thought about Scarlet. Missing me, loving me, thinking I’m funny. Funny in a good way. She should have been my sister. That would have worked better. I went and sat in the lounge and did nothing. And didn’t think much. That was good, not thinking much.
Then Mum phoned.
It was as if she was there, in my space. Intruding. The silence had been invaded by voices. My freedom was slashed by her interrogation.
‘Are you having a good time?’, ‘Is it raining where you are?’, ‘Did Scarlet get hold of you? I gave her the number.’
I kept my answers short. I wanted my time back again. Anything lost could never be retrieved. The questions were time-wasters, pointless, conversational, lightweight fillers that didn’t mean anything. The next question had more weight.
‘Has your tummy settled down now?’
‘Yeah.’
I waited. It was a short, split-second of a wait that felt longer.
‘Only the funniest thing happened. Well, it was going to be a surprise but you know how useless I am at surprises. I mean, remember your surprise party last year—mind you, I blame Scarlet for that—anyway, that’s all under the bridge. Now, what was I saying?’
Yeah, what had she been saying? So many words, so little content. I knew what was coming. Like the punchline of an old schoolboy joke.
‘I’m decorating your room as a surprise. There, I’ve told you.’
But she hadn’t told me yet. I hung on for the punchline.
‘The silly thing is…well, I found some food under your bed and in your drawer. I wasn’t looking, I was decorating and, well…you know. I don’t know if it’s to do with this vegetarian thing or if it’s your tummy. Still, well, you know…I had to laugh, seeing all those sandwiches you’d obviously forgotten about, then I thought, Oh, dear, perhaps you’re not well. Only I could make a doctor’s appointment if you want. I only mentioned it because I was phoning anyway.’
Why ask questions if you’re going to supply your own answers? Why ask questions if you know the answer but will accept a different one? I remember Eliza’s questions when she was about three. ‘Why?’ was enough to keep the conversation going. Any answer would do.
‘I knew you were worried about my stomach,’ I explained. ‘I didn’t want you to worry any more. I’m fine now.’
‘I knew there was a simple explanation. Eliza’s fine, by the way—her rehearsals are going well.’
‘Great.’
‘What are you up to today, then?’
If you have a dry, gristly piece of meat, cover it with pas-try or sauce or aromatic herbs. Disguise the feel of it, the flavour, the quality. Maybe nobody will notice. But I always do.
I needed to make a list. No, two lists. A list for the day and a list for the week.
List One (Tuesday):
• Wash hair.
• Buy magazine.
• Text Scarlet.
• Cook tea for Dad.
• Shave legs.
• Sew button on shirt.
• Try on new top.
• Read through chemistry curriculum.
• Find scales and weigh myself.
• Do fifty sit-ups.
List Two (Weds—Sat):
• Weigh self every day.
• Send postcard to Scarlet.
• Go to library and look at university prospectuses/ career books.
• Run every day.
• Measure waist.
• Start a novel.
• Bake a cake.
• Get money off Dad.
• Get hair cut.
• Make a plan for a better life.
The day was my own again. I had reclaimed my space. I started at the end of my list. After fifty sit-ups I lay back on the lounge floor. It didn’t seem enough. I did another fifty.
I went to The bathroom but there were no scales. I went into Dad’s bedroom and opened the cupboard. Suits and shirts, dresses and skirts hung there like a row of headless people waiting in a bus queue. I glanced over at the bed. The bed where Dad and Alice slept. And didn’t sleep. The middle-aged having sex is a thought to be pushed aside. Especially if a parent is involved. I was a sixteen-year-old virgin. I didn’t want to save myself for love, I wanted it over and done with. Like an exam. But I was frightened of failing. I swotted up on it by talking to Scarlet. I studied magazines. I thought I would need to do it before I was eighteen—if I was to keep on schedule. But eighteen would roll around too quickly. The spin of the earth had speeded up, surely it had speeded up.
The scales were lying at the bottom of the cupboard, like a slab of concrete. They looked heavy and cumbersome but they were deceptively light. I weighed myself. I had lost another three pounds. Was it good enough? Was anything ever good enough? Were my results good enough? Probably. Would my next set of results be good enough? Good enough for who? Was I a good enough daughter, a good enough friend, a good enough sister, a good enough citizen? And who decides?
It’s your own thoughts that try you, judge and condemn you. I wanted thoughts out of my head. I wanted to put my hand in and pull out what I didn’t want. Give my mind a wash and a rinse. Being on my own made my thoughts my only company. I phoned Scarlet. No reply. I went to the shop for a magazine. I decided to smile at people on the way. I would pass a comment to the girl in the shop. I would discard the real me and be a friendly shopper. Everybody loves a friendly shopper.
I made the week pass slowly. I was a Time Lord. Or maybe that should be Lady. I worked out that when I got back home, there would be two days before term started. That was fixed. Not even a Time Lord could change it.
Mum looked nervous. I went upstairs and Mum, Dad and Eliza followed me. Like bodyguards. The room was green and everything was back in its place. It was like I’d been burgled or something. Worse than that—molested, violated. The space around me had been raped. It could never be the same. I had to be in that space and it was no longer mine.
‘Do you like it?’
Did I? I didn’t really know. The colour was OK. It didn’t really matter.
‘It’s great. Thanks, Mum.’
I could hear the relief. We all knew it could have gone the other way. We all had a cup of tea. Everyone was happy. I sat in the lounge to read.
I felt sick again that night. Mum said she would phone the doctor. Just to be on the safe side.
The next day I wanted the house to myself, like it was at Dad’s. But it was Sunday and Mum and Eliza were there. They take up a lot of space.
I phoned Scarlet. She was bored.
‘I’ve got no money but we could go and sit in the park.’
So we did. We sat on the grass. The sun shone down on us. We talked. We laughed. We just sat. Doing nothing. Being us.
‘What’s it like, going to your dad’s?’ Scarlet asked again.
‘It’s cool.’
‘I’m going to my dad’s new place next weekend.’
‘It’ll be fine, honestly it’ll be fine.’
‘It’ll seem odd, though, him in a different place. At the moment, it’s just like he’s away on business, but living somewhere else…I can’t imagine it. I don’t think he can even cook. And what will we talk about? We can’t really talk about Mum, but I want to tell him about her, how she’s crying and everything. Do you think he still cares? I don’t want him to be bitchy about Mum. Can men be bitchy? Anyway, it all seems so shitty, you know—awkward.’
‘You get used to it. Don’t worry.’
Scarlet looked into me, pleading with me, wanting more than I could give.
‘Sorry, I’m being a shit friend,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s just I don’t know what to say, everyone’s different.’
‘You’re right, Jo. If you told me about how it is with your dad, I’d expect the same, but it won’t be the same, will it? I think what you’re saying is that I’ve got to work it out for myself. I suppose it just gets easier.’
‘It does.’
‘I just didn’t expect to feel this churned up. Did you feel churned up?’
She asked like it was in the past, like I was over it. At the time, I cried. I think I might have cried a lot. Then I learnt not to.
‘I guess I did. It’s only natural.’
‘Of course it is. Thanks, Jo.’
The park was spotted with small groups of people. Families mostly and some groups of kids and teenagers. Anonymous faces. People I wouldn’t recognise again in a line-up.
Everyone was smiling but they couldn’t all be happy. Statistically impossible. I glanced at Scarlet. Her lips were turned up and her eyes were narrowed as she squinted towards the sun. Sad but smiling, it seemed. I held a mirror to myself. I put my hand towards my face. I was smiling too. In spite of everything. It was the hot August sun. It creased up people’s faces into grimaces with laughter lines. Very deceptive.
‘The bigger the arse, the more likely the chance of them wearing shorts,’ I declared, nodding my head towards an obese woman, ice cream smeared across her chins. It was cruel, but it made Scarlet laugh. That was kind, making her laugh.
‘If I looked like that, I wouldn’t leave the house.’ Scarlet could out-cruel me.
I scanned the horizon for more fat people. There were plenty to choose from. Disgusting white flesh oozing over tight clothes. Like lard in the gravy tray. I pointed to a fat husband and wife.
‘How do they actually do it?’ I asked Scarlet. ‘They couldn’t get near enough to each other.’
Scarlet rolled over with laughter. Her arms and legs splayed out like she was having a fit. Hysterical. Out of control. She really let herself go. I laughed too but swallowed some of it back again.
‘Earthquake alert,’ I whispered as a flabby woman jogged past. Thump, thump, wheeze.
Shared cruelty made us a team. It glued us together.
‘That’s more like it.’ Scarlet sat up and smoothed her clothes down. She was looking at two guys with their tops off, kicking a football about. Showing off. Brown skin sweating in the heat. Aware of Scarlet’s gaze. And mine. I turned away, looking for more people to laugh at. Scarlet nudged me; drew me back again.
‘I’m boiling,’ I moaned. ‘Let’s go and find some shade.’
We bought a couple of Cokes from the van and went and sat under the trees near the bandstand. It was sweltering. I thought about death.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Scarlet lazily.
‘School tomorrow.’
School tomorrow, exams at the end of the year, more exams, a job, house, mortgage, life insurance, marriage maybe, children, middle age, menopause, stair lifts, death. Death is at the end of every list. Whatever route you take, whatever path you choose, they all end in the same place. Nowhere.
I remember when I was four years old. I lay on my bed. I couldn’t sleep. I called for my mother.