Home

by Penny Parkes

  And yet, here she was, twenty-one years old – an adult in every sense of the law and she too was fucking it up. Perhaps it was genetic? Or maybe it was simply harder than it looked – like juggling, or making sushi, or leaping off the high diving board.

  She gave herself a shake. She shied away from any suggestion that her parents might just have been young and flawed individuals, doing the best they could in tricky circumstances. Because then she would have nobody to blame. And somehow, even after all these years, it was often the blame and recriminations that had kept her going.

  The adrenaline of getting her A levels, carrying her into the rush of a university degree.

  And not just any degree – but a place at Oxford. Thumbing her nose with every personal achievement at the very people who should have believed in her the most.

  This doubt – it was corrosive. For it brought a hint of understanding.

  She couldn’t stay here in Oxford, she realised. It had been the best of times and the worst of times – that Dickens wanker really knew his onions, she thought, a slightly hysterical giggle escaping her.

  She may have gained so much over the last three years, but it hadn’t been without loss. Loss of her innocence, certainly. Losing Max’s baby before she could even make a decision about a termination might have been a blessing in disguise, but that didn’t eclipse the pain.

  Although, if she were honest with herself, it wasn’t the pain of losing a child. It was the pain of knowing that she was just as fallible as the next person. As her mother had been.

  To make mistakes was human.

  Yet it had still been a crushing realisation to Anna that her life was, often as not, beyond her own control.

  And no matter how tempting Louise’s offer to stay here and write, or Kate’s urgings to stay here and study, maybe it was time for Anna Wilson to go out into the world, on her own terms, and grow up a little bit?

  Chapter 43

  Oxford, 2010

  Bleary-eyed the next morning, Anna lay in bed and stared at the stack of revision notes and past papers that demanded her attention. She slammed the pillow over her face and groaned. Now was absolutely not the time to drop the ball. So close, and yet her conviction that an elusive first would also give her the freedom and closure she needed didn’t make the pressure any easier.

  All around town, final-year students were drinking, smoking, knocking back Red Bull and Pro Plus. All around town, people were making plans.

  Yet for Anna, even with the prospect of academic success within reach – the one thing she had been working towards for so many years – she still felt bound by her circumstances. As though her history might yet eclipse her present when it came to planning for the future.

  ‘I brought coffee,’ Kate hammered on her bedroom door and walked in without waiting. ‘Double-shot latte and a contrite apology for one?’ She sat down and one side of Anna’s bed dipped suddenly.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Anna. I must have sounded like a properly entitled bitch last night and I completely understand if you hate me – “what’s the downside in doing a master’s?” ’ She parroted herself with a tone of disgust in her voice. ‘Here, take the coffee at least, while you consider my fate!’

  Anna struggled upright in bed, her hair sticking out in all directions and, she now noticed, her pyjamas misbuttoned. She held out her hand for the takeaway cup from the deli round the corner. Serious coffee. She took a long, grateful sip and then smiled. ‘You’re such a drama queen this morning.’ She drank again. ‘And I’d say no apology necessary but if it gets me coffee in bed…’

  Kate just shook her head. ‘The apology is as much to appease my guilt as it is to make you feel better, to be honest. No such thing as a selfless good deed. And, of course, you must do what feels right to you. Not everybody wants to spend their entire lives poring over musty documents. That’s what works for me, sure. But it’s not the only way.’ She looked sheepish for a moment. ‘And you can hardly shoot me for wanting you to stay?’

  ‘It’s not a good enough reason though is it?’ Anna said resignedly. ‘Just wanting to be with my best friend?’

  ‘People stay for less. And arguably, I’d say it made more sense than staying for a boyfriend. At least we know we’ll have each other for life.’

  Anna felt herself blush. ‘Oh, you.’

  Kate just looked smug. ‘You see. I know you. And I’m probably the only one around here who does. Let’s face it, you’ve done a pretty good job of reframing yourself while you’ve been here.’

  Anna scowled. ‘You just got in under the wire, that’s all. Before I realised that fresh starts were do-overs just waiting to happen.’

  ‘Then I can only be grateful that I met you on the very first day. Because now I get to know the real you. Warts and all.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ Anna said, laughing as she clapped her hand over her collarbone. ‘It’s just a really weird freckle!’

  But Kate made a valid point. Within weeks of her arrival, as the freshers shared A level results and school stories, their families’ lives edited to create the impression they wanted to share, Anna had realised that this was a golden opportunity to be whomever she wanted to be. Even her own writing evolved and developed, borrowing from her new friends’ lives and experiences. From their anecdotes and even their understanding of how the world turned.

  With each passing term, Anna stepped further and further away from her own experiences, her own life story.

  Denial was effective, rewriting her own personal history even more so.

  Had she lied, she often wondered. Or was she simply reframing the truth to make it a little more palatable and to avoid the head tilt of pity she’d endured for so long?

  Yet it was Kate who predated the gradual transformation, while in so many ways having also been the catalyst for it.

  But with each misdirection, Anna had diluted the truth in all her other relationships, until it became but a shadow in the back of her mind. Ready with a reason she had no childhood photos for T-shirts in rag week. Ready with a quip about carbon emissions being more important than gap years. Ready to be the confident high achiever with a lively bunch of mates and the perfect houseshare.

  But in Anna’s heart, it seemed the truth had never really left her, or that caustic feeling of simply not being enough. For her parents. For herself. For anyone.

  ‘I think we should blow off revision this morning and go out for breakfast,’ Kate said, half dozing from having lain down beside Anna in the warm nest of her duvet. ‘A proper artery-clogging fry up at Greasy Joe’s. And then, while we’re there, you can fill in this.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pristine Moleskine notebook.

  ‘We can make a list of all the places you’ve ever wanted to go. And it’ll be just yours. You can put the John Lewis haberdashery department on it, if that’s what floats your boat. And then you’ll have a plan.’

  Anna nodded, speechless and properly touched. A plan. That was all she needed. GCSEs, A levels, university. Stay alive. Stay safe. Stay solvent. She’d been buoyed along by these milestones for so long, eclipsing the other worries and baggage in her life.

  So now, she just needed a new one.

  As Kate had apparently recognised. Anna took a quavering breath in, her emotions all over the place at this act of true understanding.

  ‘And,’ Kate continued, ‘we’ll put an asterisk by the places I can join you. I’ll have holidays, you know. So if you can’t be here, then I can be wherever you are.’

  Kate sat up, unnerved it seemed by Anna’s silence. ‘Ah, don’t cry about it, ya daft sod. It’s only a notebook.’

  * * *

  They eschewed Greasy Joe’s in the end in favour of tomato and mozzarella paninis in the sunshine watching the college Eights working on their stroke on the Isis.

  They sipped peach Snapples and dipped into bags of salty crisps, their tableau the epitome of the Oxford dream. Revision folders lay littered around them on their rug, more as a
sop to the process than any likelihood of their being opened.

  The Moleskine notebook on the other hand was already filling with handwritten notes: Venice, Iceland, Oslo perhaps more likely than the Galapagos Islands or—

  ‘Look, this isn’t a blueprint – you’re not legally bound to go to these places, Anna. If you want to go to Madagascar, write down Madagascar!’ Kate laughed while Anna blushed.

  ‘It’s just – well, I really like the movies…’ Anna carefully added the island to The List.

  ‘You do know, though, that there won’t be actual penguins there, right?’ Kate snorted. She had a particular affinity with ‘Little Anna’ as she liked to call her, whenever small childhood dreams or ambitions surfaced. Late, sure, but nonetheless compelling.

  Anna just smiled. ‘Maybe we should add Antarctica too. That’s the penguin one, right?’

  Kate, however, was still following a thought. ‘You should have another list in the back of that notebook, you know? Just for your eyes. Make a list of all the things you never had the chance to do growing up, all the rites of passage you missed out on.’

  The idea lay between them for a moment, heavy with significance. Not only that Kate knew Anna so well, but that those gaps in her youth might yet account for her Emmental existence.

  ‘So, you learned to ride a bike when you first got here – there must be other stuff like that?’ Kate persisted.

  Anna simply shrugged, her brow furrowed. ‘I can swim, I can ice skate, I can play a little piano, a little clarinet, a little hockey… I am basically a dabbler. I guess it’s normal to try and adapt to wherever you are. And I have form on the beginner’s luck front too – I pick things up easily. I just never had the opportunity to take anything further.’

  ‘Except literature,’ Kate pointed out. ‘Or you wouldn’t be here.’

  Anna turned on the rug to face her. ‘Yes, but I could take books anywhere. And I didn’t need anybody else to make it happen.’

  ‘Self-sufficient.’ Kate nodded.

  ‘I suppose. But actually,’ she smiled, ‘it wasn’t the big stuff like learning to ride a bike that sprang to mind when you suggested another list. It was all the little things that were missing – having a photo album, knowing my first words for a project at school, knowing stuff for my medical history.’ She paused. ‘Actually does it make me really shallow that after all these years the thing that bothers me most is never knowing if anyone was really proud of me?’

  She swallowed hard. It was one thing to carry that in the back of your mind, it was another entirely to voice it. Out loud. To Kate.

  ‘Anyone in particular?’ Kate asked gently.

  Anna gave a strangled laugh. ‘Well, anyone would do.’

  ‘Shit,’ Kate said, pulling a horror-struck face to break the tension. ‘I was kind of thinking more getting your ears pierced or having a Barbie birthday party.’

  ‘Ah, how well you know me.’ Anna snorted, the laughter and emotion twisting her face as she attempted to rein in a sudden attack of the giggles. ‘It should be perfectly obvious that I was more Ninja Turtle than Malibu Barbie.’

  They both looked out across the river, shouts from the cox in the boat echoing along the water. ‘But did you ever think you’d end up here?’ Kate said.

  Anna nodded. ‘I had to believe. It was the only thing that kept me going sometimes. I mean, everybody knows what “Oxford” means, don’t they? You can’t argue with a degree from Oxford – it says something about a person.’

  ‘It says you deserve a little pride and appreciation.’ Kate nodded, taking in the subtext to Anna’s words. ‘Actually, it says more than that though, about you, Anna. It says that you’re resilient and intelligent and driven. It says that anyone who’s lucky enough to have you as a friend has won the lottery. And anyone who has missed out on having you in their life is really the one who’s been missing out.’

  ‘Oh you,’ Anna said for the second time that day.

  ‘Have you thought any more about inviting your dad to graduation? I mean, they might let him out on day release or something?’ Kate paused. ‘It might be nice to know he’s sitting out there, marvelling at your achievements. Maybe feeling a little guilty?’

  Anna gave a wry smile; hadn’t that been exactly what she’d been thinking when she’d mailed the invitation? ‘I did already. I wrote to him at the prison.’ She reached into her backpack and pulled out a crumpled letter. ‘They sent it back.’

  Kate looked shocked. ‘He wouldn’t even read it?’

  ‘Couldn’t is more accurate. He got out a few months ago, apparently. He just hadn’t thought to, you know, let me know that.’ Anna nodded repeatedly, still struggling to process the excruciating rejection. Not so much a rejection of their relationship as a total lack of consideration that they might even have one. ‘Fool me once…’ she said with a shrug.

  ‘I guess some people never change,’ Kate offered apologetically.

  ‘Yet, it seems that pigeons learn faster than me.’ Anna stared out across the water. ‘I seem destined to attract loser men into my life. But isn’t that the pattern? Loser dad, loser boyfriend… Should I hold out hope that one day I can have my very own loser husband too?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Not if I have anything to do with it! Besides, why on earth would we ever get married? I mean, this is not the 1970s is it? I don’t need a man to make my life work. I like boyfriends – scratch that, I like Duncan. I like our friendship and I really like the shagging, but I cannot honestly see a day when I would need a piece of paper to make it valid.’

  ‘I suggest we make a pact then,’ Anna said with a grin, ‘but I think, on this one, we’re both in agreement. You can still have the kids though, okay? I would be excellent auntie material.’

  ‘Deal,’ Kate said, holding out her hand and shaking Anna’s firmly.

  ‘You know, though, you might have actually hit on something before,’ Anna said, her smile lighting up her face with mischief. ‘There was one thing I always wanted to do as a child.’

  ‘It’s never too late,’ Kate said. ‘I’m up for a challenge.’

  Anna shovelled their folders and notebooks into her backpack and leapt to her feet. ‘No time like the present then.’

  Chapter 44

  Oxford, 2010

  ‘I think maybe the lady at Paint a Pot was right and we should have come back for their ladies’ night,’ Kate said, picking little flecks of paint from her hair. The exuberance of the birthday party at the table beside them had been remarkable to see, not least for the size and extravagance of the birthday cake.

  Anna laughed, still feeling vaguely nauseous from the enormous slice of cake that the embarrassed mother had pressed upon them. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think it was the perfect way to get an authentic tenth birthday experience. And I have to say, my mug will be a masterpiece.’

  ‘It’s true, if the whole writing thing goes tits up, you could always go all Emma Bridgewater. In fact, I think we should swap mugs – like, as a memento of today. Then every time you have a cup of tea, wherever you are, it’ll be like—’

  ‘Like I’m drinking from a shit mug covered in creepy goblins?’ Anna teased.

  ‘They are not goblins!’ Kate protested. ‘It was supposed to be you and me. Dancing in the kitchen with a glass of wine. It’s not my fault it looks like an X-Files massacre.’

  ‘Then, I think it was choosing red wine that was the mistake,’ said Anna drily, before dissolving into laughter, high on sugar and elation at their ridiculous, stupid, wonderful afternoon.

  It had been exactly the tonic she’d needed – the perfect distraction from thoughts of finals and the future. And Kate, as always, was the perfect companion. Assuming you ignored the private smiles that seemed to grow wider with each successive text from Duncan.

  ‘You know,’ Kate said, shaking her head and trying to maintain her faux indignation, ‘there are other ways to have a proper “birthday party experience”. Like, we could actually have a party. A
belated one. For you.’

  Anna shook her head instinctively. ‘Nooo. Too weird. And anyway, you know me, I’d still spend half the night hanging out in the kitchen while the cool kids snogged and got high in the sitting room. I can’t seem to help myself.’ She smiled. ‘It’s like I’m so used to being the outsider looking in, that I’ve given up fighting it.’

  ‘You know other people feel like that too, though, right?’ Kate said, frowning. ‘It’s not a unique reaction to your – er – situation.’ She gave Anna a squeeze. ‘Sometimes I think it’s part of a person’s DNA.’

  ‘Like extrovert, introvert?’

  ‘Nah – more like self-belief, or possibly a complete disregard for what other people think. Or consequences,’ Kate said. ‘Like maybe there’s a “good at parties” gene?’

  ‘You’d think they could test for a thing like that. Put us all out of our misery.’ Anna sighed. ‘And look, I get what you’re saying. I’m not the only person in the world to feel like I’ve got my face pressed against the window, looking in. But I don’t think it’s the same.’

  ‘Okay. But nobody’s experience of anything is exactly the same, is it? I mean, when I was at school, I would literally feel like an alien on my own planet some days. Or as though we were all speaking the same language, but there was a subtext, or a dialect or something, that I just didn’t understand. And it wasn’t because I didn’t want to – I just couldn’t compute how these girls would think – their priorities and interests – their total lack of ambition or self-worth. And so, I stepped back. Because being on the outside of a social group looking in was actually being kinder to me than reducing myself to fit.’

  Anna slowly blinked, blindsided a little by Kate’s heartfelt revelation.