7 Miles Out

by Carol Morley

  I decided I was going to devote the rest of my life to saving people. I wouldn’t be a missionary or anything old-fashioned like that. I would be a pop star and spread Jesus’ word that way. As I couldn’t really sing, I wasn’t sure of how I’d get to be a pop star, but I imagined if I prayed hard enough God would give me a voice, show me the path and set me tasks to accomplish my mission. So I flipped to a random Bible page, looking for a pointer from God, and read: Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you. It was a sign. I vowed that I was going to save Jilly. Her yellow letter jumped into my mind again and made me shiver. Having spent three years hating and avoiding Jilly since junior school I realised that God was telling me it was time to face her. Even though I despised her with every atom of my being, I needed to forgive her.

  The next day, I scoured the school grounds until I found her. She was smoking behind the bike sheds at the centre of a new gang. I was surprised that I could coordinate my legs enough to walk in her direction but the strength came because I was doing it for God. I stopped in front of her and noted that she was now the same height as me and realised I hadn’t got much taller since Dad died.

  She looked me up and down slowly and with a flick of her hair and a vague gesture with her hand, dismissed me and returned to her conversation.

  ‘Jilly?’

  ‘What the fuck. Stop mithering.’

  ‘I’m Ann, from yer other school.’

  ‘And?’ she said.

  I thought of Jesus.

  ‘Jilly, I forgive yer.’

  Her face crinkled up. ‘What yer talking about?’

  ‘I forgive yer for writin’ that note.’

  She stared at me blankly. Her gang closed around her. Was she about to give them a secret signal to start on me?

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘That stuff yer wrote, the yellow letter!’

  ‘Yer not still carpin’ on about that are yer?’

  How could she say that? I had never mentioned the note to her, not in all these years of her blanking me.

  ‘Can I talk to yer? On yer own?’ I asked.

  Her gang straightened and grew a few inches.

  ‘Anything you’ve got to say to me yer say to them.’

  ‘I’ve come to save yer.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve come to forgive yer.’

  ‘Are yer takin’ piss?’

  Jilly chucked her cigarette down and ground it dead with the sharp edge of her shoe. She didn’t take her eyes off me.

  ‘Do yer want a scrap or what?’ she said.

  ‘I forgive yer for hatin’ me.’

  I wondered what Jesus would do in my position. I fell to my knees. I clasped my hands together and looked up at her. Jilly’s face twisted with laughter.

  Closing my eyes, I remembered my lines.

  ‘Jesus said I am the light of the world. He who follows me…’

  Jilly stopped laughing and so did her gang. I opened my eyes.

  ‘…will not walk in darkness but will have the light of light.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  A froth of spit gathered at the centre of Jilly’s mouth. She spat it down and I felt the wet warmth land on my face. Her gang smirked and hovered for guidance. When she turned her back to me, so did they. I left the spit and thought about my next move.

  I stood up and wanted to grab Jilly by the hair and drag her head to my knee where I would kick it to a pulp, but I didn’t. It wasn’t because of Jesus and turning the other cheek, it was because I wasn’t brave enough. I scuttled away, wiping the spit slowly from my cheek with my fingers. That was the moment when I decided that I was no longer going to spread the word of Jesus any more or to forgive anyone for anything.

  Not Jilly for writing that letter.

  Not Dad for going and doing himself in.

  *

  ‘I’m stoppin’ being a Christian,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ Debby asked.

  ‘I just haven’t got it in me.’

  Debby looked puzzled and a bit hurt but didn’t ask me for any details. We didn’t remain friends. She became more devout than ever and ended up going to a proper church.

  Although I stopped believing in religion I still believed in God. He was in my head every day and it was as though he was interviewing me, though sometimes he let me interview him. From our conversations, I decided that he was not really in charge of the universe, had no influence in the death of Dad and that, while he must have created the world, he had lost control of it. The world was not in God’s hands any more but it was not in the devil’s hands either. While God may have invented us, we were now in charge of ourselves.

  brynn

  Ann always tells her that her singing voice is like Hilda Ogden from Coronation Street, but worse. She does have a point. When she was five she was told to stop singing the hymns in school assemblies and mime instead. Even so, she enjoys singing – though she can’t for the life of her remember the words to any song. She makes them up as she goes along.

  It’s nearly midnight, but she starts to Hoover the lounge carpet, which is always her favourite time to sing, as the sound drowns out her voice. It’s nagging at her that she can’t remember who on earth identified her husband’s body. Was it Rob? Or was it her? She thinks that if she’d identified him she would have known, and begins to wish that she had seen him dead, or remembered seeing him dead.

  If only she had held his cold hand and told him that he should never have gone and done it. She would have kissed him and the heat of her lips could have put some life back into him – the life that she had drained away. Why couldn’t she have let him go? He’d loved the Other Woman and if he’d gone to her he might still be alive. Her kids would have a father and she’d probably be on her own, but she was now anyway, so what was the difference?

  But right now she decides actually she was a bloody good wife and he had no right to go and leave her to it. He didn’t give a damn about anybody else. Everything was always about him and how could he throw their marriage away like that and do the unthinkable? She wants to scream, but she doesn’t, she sings instead, an Elvis one. She sings on and on over the sound of the Hoover before she realises what the song is. Funnily enough, it’s Are you Lonesome Tonight? and this time she probably did get some of the words right.

  till I end my song

  ‘It was tricky. He had a wife and a girlfriend,’ Rob said.

  My brother was visiting, as he was going to write a piece on Ian Curtis, the front man for local band Joy Division, who had just killed himself at the age of twenty-three.

  ‘He was the same age as me,’ said Rob.

  Rob seemed full of life as he took giant strides along the pavement, but it occurred to me that you could never really tell who would go and do themselves in, so I eyed him cautiously. Ian Curtis took his own life on the eve of a tour of America. Surely he’d had everything to live for? I mean, he was going to America!

  Rob stood still, which was a relief as I found it hard to keep up with him.

  ‘Ian was a genius, Nip, a total genius,’ he said. He deepened his voice and began to sing in a kind of a monotone about love and separation. He smiled. ‘It’s not been released yet but I know it’ll be huge.’

  I looked up at my brother and took in the vibrant certainty on his face. He knew exactly what was going to happen and where he was going. I was a million miles away from being a genius like him or Ian Curtis.

  Life seemed pretty pointless.

  ‘I was taken to see his body,’ Rob said.

  ‘Really?’ I said, thinking of dead bodies, wanting to ask more but finding all the questions stuck in my throat.

  ‘It’s so I could write about it,’ said Rob. ‘About him.’

  It seemed like the perfect time to ask Rob about everything. Questions such as: Was it because of Grandma and how she brought him up that Dad did what he did? Was Dad laid out for people to look at when he was dead? Why did Dad do it? Was it because he had had an affair
? Had Rob ever seen Dad have a nervous breakdown? How come he was gone for a week before we found out? Could anyone have stopped him? What does someone look like when they’re dead? But I couldn’t bring myself to ask anything.

  Rob stopped at the newsagent to buy Mum a local paper and I followed him inside. From behind his counter, Mr Gurnsey hung his mouth open at my newly-dyed green and orange hair.

  ‘What does yer dad think of yer going around like that?’ he asked.

  Suddenly, I hated bobble-nosed Mr Gurnsey. I had to imagine I was origami paper to keep myself together. I tightened my folds and corners to stop myself coming undone. Why did it feel like Dad had died yesterday? It was three years ago. Why couldn’t I get past it?

  Mr Gurnsey never got his answer. I was out of the shop and walking alongside the main road with Rob. He didn’t need to slow his pace so I could keep up, I wanted to run for miles, I wanted to run till I fell off the end of the earth.

  ‘Do you still miss your dad?’ Rob asked, gently.

  What kind of question was that? Did I not look like I missed him? Could nobody see that I missed him every single nanosecond? All I wanted was to see Dad again. And Rob had said your dad. Was he only my dead dad? Were my brother and sister over him? I was such an idiot to be still thinking about him, and Dad would hate my hair. He wouldn’t have let me do it. It would be long and brown and normal, and I would be doing homework and getting ready for tests, and Mum would not be a widow with a black, rotting heart. Everything would be better. I would be better.

  In reply to Rob’s question, I shrugged.

  He smiled softly like he understood something. As far as I was concerned, he had no idea.

  *

  I knocked on Drac’s door. Her mother opened it and gave me a wary look. She clearly hadn’t got over me choking on the fifty pence and nearly dying in her lounge. Drac hovered behind her in the hallway.

  ‘Ian Curtis went and killed himself,’ I shouted to Drac.

  Her mother frowned with exaggeration, as though I was always bringing trouble to her doorstep.

  ‘Who is this Ian?’ she asked.

  ‘A musical genius,’ I said proudly.

  ‘That’s right,’ Drac added triumphantly, pushing by her to join me.

  We rushed around to Drac’s friend Linda’s house to tell her the news. Linda lived up the road with her mother. She was an only child like Drac and her dad had recently gone off with some girl only five years older than she was. Linda swore that she would never speak to her father again.

  Linda’s lower lip trembled when we told her about Ian. She took us into her back garden and we stood around in the sunshine taking in the news.

  ‘My brother said he’d a daughter, she’s only about one or two,’ I said.

  ‘The poor little thing,’ said Linda.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Drac.

  We stayed silent for a while. It felt like this was a really important moment in history and I wanted to be part of it. We all did. Linda twisted her fair hair around her long slender fingers. Drac sucked the tip of her thumb thoughtfully. I inhaled the fresh hopeful smell of the newly-mown lawn. The grass had never seemed so green.

  ‘My dad did it too,’ I said.

  Drac and Linda looked at me, shocked but impressed as well. I couldn’t believe what I had told them.

  ‘He did what Ian did?’ asked Linda.

  I nodded.

  ‘Wow,’ said Drac.

  ‘Oh, Ann,’ said Linda.

  They draped their arms around me. We sat down on the lawn. Linda stroked my hand. ‘Poor thing,’ she said and looked at me sweetly with her cat-green eyes.

  ‘Did he – how did he…?’ Linda trailed off.

  ‘Did he hang himself?’ Drac asked.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘But he killed himself?’ Drac asked eagerly.

  ‘He did it with gas,’ I said.

  The sun shone brighter and I wondered why I had never told anyone before.

  ‘I were last person in family to see him,’ I said. ‘He drove me to school in the car he gassed himself in.’

  ‘Fuck!’ said Drac.

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Linda.

  ‘Yer know what, though,’ said Drac, ‘I wished my dad’d killed himself. Then at least I’d know where he were.’

  ‘That’s horrid,’ Linda said.

  I looked at Drac’s deep-set eyes and stubborn lips, and I thought about how she had never even known her father. At least I had known mine and Linda had known hers, and it was her choice not to see him.

  What would Ian’s daughter end up like? Would she try to find things out about her dad, like me? Would she search her face for signs of him? I couldn’t find my dad in me, not in my eyes, my nose, my chin or anywhere else.

  Linda squeezed my hand. A tear quivered down her cheek.

  ‘Oh, Linda, don’t,’ I said.

  ‘It makes me so sad that he left you,’ she said.

  I gawped in fascination as her tears flowed and wondered why I couldn’t find it in me to cry too.

  *

  ‘It’s called pitta bread,’ said Linda as she placed the flat pale oval under the eye-level grill.

  ‘Why’s it called Peter?’ asked Drac.

  ‘It’s p-i-t-t-a bread,’ replied Linda, spelling it out.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Linda, annoyed that she didn’t have an answer.

  We watched the bread puff up to meet the heat.

  ‘It’s like a little miracle,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right!’ Linda said, happy again.

  She took the breads from the grill, split them open and spread the yellow margarine. We stood around the cooker and ate them, margarine melting down our hands. Nothing had ever tasted so good.

  When I left Linda’s house, she pressed the rest of the pitta breads into my hand. ‘I want you to have them,’ she said, smiling.

  *

  Rob returned to London and I sat watching telly with Mum, who ate a stale, flat pitta bread. My euphoria from telling Linda and Drac about Dad had worn off and I felt like I had a hangover my head hurt so much. Mum’s legs were bare and I could see how bad her psoriasis had become. Why had I gone mouthing off about Dad? She would have been horrified if she had known I had talked about him.

  As penance for telling, I stopped going out after school and stayed in at weekends.

  Listening to Joy Division took on a whole new meaning. Especially Ian’s voice, which I felt drawn to in a way I never had before. He was a lad from around my way that had taken his own life. His songs took me straight to Dad and the possibility of what his emotions were like.

  I often thought of Ian’s daughter growing up without her father. She would never know him, but at least she would have his music. Once again, I tried to summon up Dad’s voice. But it had gone. I couldn’t do it. It was no longer anywhere in my head. I wished a recording of him talking existed somewhere. I had nothing of him to keep. And the thought of never hearing him again was too much. I deepened my voice and sang:

  ‘This is the car at the edge of the road

  There’s nothing disturbed

  All the windows are closed…’

  hear the sound

  ‘You can’t loll around being morbid forever, Ann.’

  Linda was at my doorstep, pleading with me to hang out with her. Her stiff cotton dress rustled and the fresh smell of soap powder wafted my way. It suddenly made me want to be by her side.

  I stepped out, checked a door key was under the stone, and shut the door behind me. I linked Linda’s arm and she covered my hand softly with hers and I never wanted the moment to end. We strolled aimlessly and I was relieved that she made no mention of Dad. I told her I was worried about my mum because she no longer had a job. She was sending me to cash her benefit books at the post office so she didn’t have to leave the house. I was used to going to the launderette and the shops for her, but now she wasn’t even stepping outside.

  ‘What we c
ould do is get my mum to come to yours pretending to look for me,’ Linda said. ‘But she wouldn’t really be looking for me.’

  ‘So she’d end up staying and having a cup of tea or summat,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right. They could start knitting together and then eventually they might go out shopping.’ Linda looked hopeful.

  I was a little concerned, as Linda’s mum was a Christian. She might try and save my mum, and I knew Mum would hate anything like that. But at least Linda’s mother was so nicely spoken that Mum couldn’t possibly think she was common, which was one thing in her favour.

  ‘I’m not even sure she’ll let her in,’ I explained.

  ‘We can only give it a go,’ Linda said.

  Would Mum open the door? I doubted it, but just as I was feeling in a hopeless position and beginning to despair about my mother being a hermit, she unexpectedly got a new job. All plans for Linda’s mum to visit mine vanished because Mum was training to be a market researcher. She was going to phone people up from an office and ask them about the adverts on the television.

  Equipped with a ruler and a red pen, Mum spent her evenings going through telephone directories underlining a particular row of names and numbers, and copying them onto sheets of paper. She told me it was called random number selection and it would be used by her and the other market researchers to telephone people and ask them what they thought about the commercials. She let me help, and as the television hummed soothingly in the background and I copied out names from the directory, I imagined the people behind the names. What they looked like. What their lives were like. What they would be in the middle of doing when they answered the phone to Mum.