Kelly-Anne’s shirt is patchwork baby sick.
Her hair is wild, eyes sunken.
Give that child here to me.
Marla’s arms make Helena helplessly limp.
You need a rest, young one, Marla says.
She is looking at Kelly-Anne.
Go on up and have a lie down.
We’ll call you down for Blankety Blank.
In and Out
Did you put up the tree? Marla asks.
You noticed.
Ah, now.
I’m not gone totally King George bonkers just yet.
Is that what you think?
That I don’t know a thing at all?
If I had the knees for it I’d get up and
give you a smack.
You come in and out of yourself, I say.
She laughs.
Sure, don’t we all?
You Owe Me
The sand is wet, hard,
easy to stroll along without sinking.
Marla walks on ahead with Kelly-Anne.
I rock the pram.
And then Lucy is there,
a girl next to her
with close-cropped hair like brown moss.
Before I can hide she has seen me,
grimaces like I am something rotten
and walks my way.
You owe me work.
She is focusing on my scar.
Behind her the girl is on the phone.
Oh, right, I say,
ready to collapse into myself.
And then a new voice comes out of nowhere.
You owe me money, I say.
You owe me eight quid.
Lucy hesitates. I don’t think I do.
You do.
Look, I …
Give me what I’m owed.
It’s just eight quid.
I make my face a rock.
A seagull circles overhead.
Lucy reaches into her bag and pulls out a purse.
I only have a tenner.
I’ll take that.
I grab the money.
In the pram Helena is grimacing
like she might be filling her nappy.
Appropriately.
Doughnuts
With the tenner
we buy bags of hot doughnuts
and eat them competitively –
trying not to lick the sugar
from our lips
until we’ve finished.
Marla wins by wolfing
down a doughnut
in two bites.
Where’s my medal? she says.
Calling Dad
His voice is sandpapery tired
when I call to tell him
all the things
he did to sink me,
and by the end of the conversation
he is unconvinced,
unchanged,
angry.
But I am not.
In Need
The morning is spent watching Helena,
so Kelly-Anne can do up the apartment
with fresh paint and bright curtains.
She insists she will have space for all of us.
Even so,
I go to the housing authority
and make my case
as someone in need.
I’m not sure what will happen to my father now.
Enrolment
The students crash into one another,
laughing, swearing, tipping trays,
while teachers pretend not to notice,
hunched over their lunches like crows.
The school smells of custard and bleach.
The head of Year 11 enrols me immediately.
Starting next week then, she says brusquely,
ushering a nosebleeding boy
into her room with an eye roll.
Fighting again, Philip?
For the love of …
I count on my fingers the weeks left
until my exams.
Kelly-Anne says, Will you survive this place?
It’s a zoo.
I laugh.
You know this is how every comp
in the country feels?
She grimaces.
I’m glad I’m not sixteen.
A bell rings loudly and
the corridor is quiet.
The noise is just noise, I say.
I’ll survive it.
What Happened to Toffee?
Marla smells of digestive biscuits.
The bright light outside has faded to salmon.
What happened to Toffee? I ask.
Marla’s breathing is heavy.
Maybe she’s asleep.
Part of me hopes she is so that my question
can get lost in the evening.
Toffee? You don’t sound a bit like yourself.
Are you coming down with something?
If you’re well enough later will we go for a picnic?
We can take some jam sandwiches and crisps.
Is it warm enough for picnics?
We can wear our coats.
She has a ladder in the foot of her tights.
Her toes caress the carpet.
Was she happy in the end? I ask.
Happily ever after?
Yes.
Exactly.
Can I have one of those?
Can Toffee be the kind of girl
who got the good stuff,
who didn’t spend her whole life wishing.
Marla puts her hand on my knee.
Toffee was always braver than I was.
I mean, I pretended to be brave.
I talked a load of old bollocks and wore bright colours.
I flirted with boys much older
and I did things that made Daddy’s hair curl.
Toffee didn’t.
No. She was dead serious.
She wore brown even in the summer.
Sensible. You know what I mean?
And then she left. I stayed.
But she left. Not just for England,
wasn’t a soul in the street who didn’t go to England.
She ran away? I ask.
No. Marla sits up.
She left after Oliver died.
She took a boat and a suitcase to Brooklyn.
Did she survive the trip?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
She never wrote from where she went.
She should have written at least.
Why didn’t you write?
A stamp wouldn’t have broken the bank.
She turns to me and I’m forced to see she is crying.
But you came back. Didn’t you?
Everything works out in the end.
You’re OK.
I’m OK.
The tears are on her chin.
She wipes them away with the back of her fingers.
I have to leave, don’t I?
Yes, I say. But it will all be OK.
I think it really might be OK.
Final Act
Kelly-Anne is clapping.
Helena is dribbling.
Marla and I are puffing and panting
as we go through the old routine again,
for an audience this time:
right foot forward,
right foot back,
right foot
right foot
right foot
right.
Left foot now,
forward and back,
left foot
left foot
left foot
left.
Collapsing on half-packed cardboard boxes,
Marla and I laugh
so hard my whole face is sore.
But it is no longer burning.
Leaving
Oh, it’s you.
Peggy closes the car boot.
Marla is standing at the gate in
a long red coat,
her handb
ag over one shoulder.
Toffee.
She
reaches out.
I’m going somewhere.
A small child whooshes by on a scooter.
A frantic mother scrambles to keep up.
Are you coming too?
I take her hand.
It is thin, dry, warm.
I’ve signed up for dance classes, I say.
It is the truth:
at the Methodist Church on a Saturday morning,
swing and salsa –
All Ages Welcome.
Right, let’s hit the road, Peggy sings.
I think I’m going somewhere, Marla repeats.
I borrowed a book from you.
I haven’t finished it, I say.
It’s called Moon Tiger.
I couldn’t turn the last page when I tried.
Can I keep it?
She turns to face me.
Her eyes are pleading,
and then
her arms are around my neck
and the rough wool from her coat
is against my cheek.
I miss you, she says.
I miss you and you’re right here.
I hold on for as long as I can.
And when I let go
and look at her
I know
it’s unlikely we will meet again,
and if we do
she won’t recognise me.
But still.
In some secluded corner of our minds
we will both always remember.
And hopefully we can forget too.
Tail Lights
A hand waving from the passenger window.
Tail lights gleaming against the grey day.
It will rain by noon.
And then it will be fine again.
It will.
About the Author
Sarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London and New York, and now lives in Hertfordshire. She graduated with a degree in philosophy and literature before training as an English and drama teacher at the University of Cambridge. Sarah Crossan won the 2016 CILIP Carnegie Medal, the YA Book Prize, the CBI Book of the Year Award and many other prizes for her novel One. She is the current Laureate na nÓg, Ireland’s Children’s Laureate.
sarahcrossan.com @SarahCrossan
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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Sarah Crossan, 2019
Sarah Crossan has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-4088-6812-6; TPB: 978-1-5266-0814-7;
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