Toffee

by Sarah Crossan

  Screaming

  Screaming and scratching at the bathroom mirror

  with a purple lipstick,

  lines and frantic scribbles.

  No! No! Not me. Who? NO!

  No! Go away! Go AWAY!

  I wrap Marla in my arms,

  drag her on to the landing.

  What’s wrong?

  Her whole body is shivering.

  Hands shaking.

  Someone was in there.

  Someone not me was in there.

  An old lady.

  Not me.

  Get away!

  No.

  Jesus.

  Call Mammy and tell her.

  No one’s here except me, Marla.

  I take the lipstick from her hand

  and without knowing why,

  draw a thick moustache above my top lip.

  Was it Madame Croissant?

  Her breathing slows. I let go.

  You’re a silly fecker.

  And proud of it, I tell her,

  rubbing the moustache with my fingertips.

  Who was in there? she whispers.

  Who was that woman?

  We should go.

  She looked shocking.

  She’s gone, I say.

  Shall we dance?

  Roger expects us to practise.

  We need to be good.

  Don’t want Moira beating us.

  Scrubber.

  Moira, I mean.

  Not you.

  You’re dead classy.

  Mashed Potato

  We are up, moving,

  Marla oozing energy,

  sliding left and right,

  feet smoothing forward, back,

  arms up,

  down,

  twisting, twirling,

  smile so wide

  I can see to the back

  where she has teeth missing.

  I copy her

  dancing to ‘Mashed Potato Time’

  by Dee Dee Sharp and

  smile too,

  wishing we really were rehearsing for something.

  Wishing my life had a purpose.

  Slam

  I’m taking a pee break

  when the front door slams

  and heavy footsteps

  enter the hallway.

  Mum? It’s Donal.

  Where are you?

  Oi, Mum!

  Frozen

  Donal reprimands Marla like a headmaster

  scolding a disobedient student,

  and between rebukes

  he sighs,

  as though conversation itself

  is taxing.

  I know you like cheese, Mum,

  but it doesn’t go in the DVD player.

  And what is this?

  His voice is like a hedge trimmer –

  loud, sharp, dangerous.

  It could cut.

  The downstairs toilet

  is across the hall from the sitting room.

  I crack open the door to see.

  Donal is flourishing our feather boa.

  Marla’s face is stone.

  I’ve told you a hundred times to take it easy.

  Last thing anyone needs is an accident.

  I hope you haven’t been going out.

  He paces the living room,

  fishing for mistakes –

  lifting oddities and jiggling them in her face.

  Marla is as still as glass.

  This is none of the Marlas I know.

  This is someone pulled back

  into herself.

  As good as gone.

  You’re sulking, he says,

  prodding her arm with the remote control.

  Why are you sulking?

  What have I said?

  For God’s sake, here we go.

  A memory slithers back to me

  and I watch, as frozen as she is.

  I’m shattered, Marla mutters.

  I’ve been up late these last nights.

  And you don’t think I’m tired?

  I’ve been at work all week

  and this is my treat.

  A mother who forgets who I am half the time.

  Place a pigsty.

  What are we paying Peggy for?

  Was she even in today?

  Not that you’d remember.

  I know who you are, Donal, she croaks.

  You do?

  Brilliant.

  Here’s a prize, he says,

  and cuffs her on the arm

  with the remote.

  The present and past collide.

  I slide the door shut,

  slip on to the floor

  and put my hands over my ears.

  Should Have

  It is dark when Donal leaves.

  In the sitting room

  Marla is quiet.

  I’m sorry, I say.

  I wanted to stop him

  being mean but –

  Who? she says.

  You wanted to stop who?

  Before I can remind her, she is crying

  and mumbling Mary’s name

  over

  and

  over

  and

  over.

  Two Hours Later

  She looks across at me.

  Are you a friend of Mary’s?

  No, Marla. I’m a friend of yours.

  Planning

  It is hard not knowing when

  people will arrive at Marla’s house,

  trying to be out as much as I can,

  jumping each time the doorbell chimes.

  I find her phone

  and scroll through

  the reminders in her calendar –

  daily, it says Peggy,

  weekly, Donal’s name appears,

  Mary is nowhere.

  And there are other things,

  like reminders for medicine

  and doctor’s visits,

  notes about birthdays and

  bank holidays.

  This helps her, I know.

  I’ve seen her check her phone when it pings

  and find peace in the written words.

  And so I add another.

  Toffee,

  I type,

  a recurring reminder.

  Nothing else.

  It should be enough.

  Make-Up

  Marla has old-fashioned compacts

  and bronzers too, which I use to

  make myself implausibly tanned –

  skin the colour of apricots.

  I look ridiculous.

  Question is:

  do I still look like a scabby virgin?

  Homework

  Lucy punches a page covered in grey smudges.

  Maths is such a waste of my life, she groans,

  casting the pencil aside.

  You look clever. Are you?

  Like, help me.

  She pushes her books

  across the beach-hut table.

  My ex-mate used to be good at this crap.

  I can’t be bothered.

  I study the sums.

  Nothing hard:

  I could finish the page in five minutes

  and we could go to the lighthouse,

  lie on our backs in reach of the sea’s spray.

  Shall I teach you how to do it?

  No. Just do it. I don’t need to know.

  She lights up a joint, starts to smoke.

  After a few minutes

  I slide the exercise book back to her.

  You done? How?

  I don’t know. It’s easy.

  Lucy leans back, taps her chin with her finger.

  Where do you go to school?

  Nowhere. I’m homeschooled.

  Well, that makes sense.

  Why?

  Your clothes for a start.

  You dress like a wife.

  But homeschooled is better actually,

  she says with satisfaction.


  You wanna earn some cash?

  Jobs

  Lucy has three jobs lined up

  before I leave the beach hut:

  a chemistry project,

  some maths,

  a personal statement for a sixth-former.

  If I do the work, I get paid,

  wouldn’t have to scab off Marla any more,

  could stop putting my hand into her purse.

  Lucy gets a cut of course.

  Why don’t they just do the homework themselves?

  They won’t learn anything in the long run.

  Lucy is confused.

  You’re not one of those worthies, are you?

  I think about everything I’m missing from school –

  how I might have had a shot at college before

  I ran away.

  Now I won’t even get to do my exams –

  stuff I could pass

  without much preparation at all.

  I’ll be poor and end up like Kelly-Anne,

  relying on men who make me miserable.

  Lucy passes the joint.

  I shake my head and instead

  help myself to some of her Haribo.

  The little bears are sweet.

  You’re hiding something, she says.

  Hiding

  I am hiding my mother, my father

  and my father’s women.

  I am hiding my old home, my new home,

  my old friends and Marla.

  I am hiding my body, my bruises,

  my scars and my burns.

  I am hiding my whole history,

  hoping I will forget it.

  I am hiding everything from you.

  If only I could hide it from myself.

  I Tell Lucy

  I’m not hiding anything.

  Why would you think that?

  Well Dodge

  As she is locking up the beach hut

  Lucy lays her fingers on my shoulder.

  I know you’ve got that thing on your face.

  But the make-up looks well dodge.

  Like a chav or something. Just saying.

  I nod. I know.

  And I do.

  She nudges me and twinkles a smile

  as though we’ve just had

  the deepest conversation

  ever.

  Your skill is your smarts.

  Normals

  Being smart wasn’t enough to get me noticed

  in a school of fifteen hundred.

  For that you needed beauty,

  had to be someone with even edges and sleek hair.

  Or

  if not,

  a kid with serious psychological problems –

  there were loads of those.

  For a while

  Sophie, Jacq and I called ourselves

  The Normals,

  but it was still a way of trying to

  stand out.

  ’Scuse us, The Normals have arrived, Jacq would say,

  pushing through an army of girls with smooth legs,

  the type of figures

  to make grown men look.

  We were even invisible to the years below,

  although sometimes Sophie

  shouldered them out of the way

  to prove we weren’t nothing.

  Thing was,

  Sophie and Jacq really were normal.

  At home their mums moaned at them.

  At school they got detentions.

  At the park boys offered them cider.

  They let themselves be seen

  and didn’t care about mistakes along the way.

  If you aren’t winning, you’re learning,

  Jacq said when Sophie

  failed a French test, and they high-fived

  before heading into Tesco Express

  for Meal Deals.

  The Normals was a perfect description for them.

  My friends.

  And even though it didn’t quite fit me –

  smart and secretive –

  they let me along for the ride.

  Until finally the ride ended.

  The Beginning of Burns

  Jacq and Sophie didn’t really have a choice.

  Jacq said, Why can’t we come in though?

  Sophie said, You’re being well bitchy.

  Jacq said, We got an Uber, Al. Cost us seven quid.

  Sophie said, I don’t think she cares what we did.

  I said, I’m a bit busy. Can I call you later?

  Jacq said, What are you doing?

  Sophie said, A bloke probably.

  Jacq said, It’s not Peter, is it?

  Sophie said, I bet it is. She totally fancies him.

  I said, Please go away.

  Jacq said, What?

  Sophie said, You what?

  I said, Just fuck off, all right,

  and slammed the door.

  Inside Dad was asleep.

  I went to the bathroom

  and found spirits to clean the cigarette burn.

  It was such a small thing

  on the back of my hand.

  A tiny blistering circle.

  Nothing awful

  compared to what he’d done before.

  But with Kelly-Anne gone he was crueller.

  This was the beginning of something new.

  The beginning of burns.

  Funny Thing Is

  Getting a small circular burn

  on the back of my hand

  wasn’t as bad as the week before

  when I swore –

  Shit! –

  and he heard,

  and marched me to the bathroom,

  made me brush my teeth

  with honeysuckle hand soap

  until it foamed up

  and filled my whole mouth

  with sour froth.

  Hot Bread

  I’d like some … Marla hesitates.

  Bread.

  I stand.

  I bought bread with seeds earlier.

  Got the baker to slice it

  even though it was still slightly warm.

  I want it hot, she says.

  It won’t be hot now.

  Make it hot. She is annoyed.

  She tears at the skin on her arm.

  In the thing. I want it crunchy.

  Put it in the thing that makes it baked.

  Not baked. It’s already baked.

  Grilled.

  Oh, I can do it!

  You’re absolutely useless.

  She tries to get to her feet but is too low

  down in the sofa to jump up easily.

  She reaches for a cushion

  and screams into it.

  I let her,

  and when she is done

  I say,

  You mean toast, Marla?

  She plays with a tassel

  on the corner of the scream-cushion.

  I want some toast.

  She sighs.

  Toast. Yes. Please.

  Out There

  Marla’s phone pings.

  She startles, reads the screen and smiles.

  A reminder,

  or a message maybe,

  someone remembering she exists.

  That must be nice.

  To know that out there

  somewhere

  she is alive in another person’s mind.

  With no phone I can’t know

  whether anyone is thinking of me or not,

  whether Dad and Kelly-Anne

  have inundated me with desperate messages.

  But it would be nice.

  To know that out there

  somewhere

  I am being remembered.

  One Thing

  Lucy is sitting on the beach next to another girl.

  This is my mate Mindy.

  The girl nods,

  gawping into her phone

  and grinning.

  Someone else is behind them,

&nb
sp; standing over a mountain bike,

  a cigarette limp between her lips.

  And that’s Jan.

  Lucy points

  but doesn’t turn.

  She’s sort of retro.

  She must mean the cigarette but I don’t know.

  Lucy gives me twelve quid

  for the completed homework plus

  two more maths assignments.

  Can you translate French? Jan asks.

  She sucks on the cigarette

  like someone who hasn’t been

  smoking very long –

  a quick pull,

  hardly inhaling.

  I can do most subjects.

  It sounds arrogant

  but all I mean is that

  studying is the one thing I can do.

  One thing out of a hundred failures.

  My dad is being a right pain

  and it’s parents’ evening next week.

  Jan speaks to my burn.

  I flick my hair to cover it.

  I’ve tried Google Translate but it’s pointless.

  I need to write a description of my family.

  You can make it up.

  All right.

  Another sixth-former needs a personal statement

  for UCAS, Lucy adds.

  I can give you bullet points.