by Helen Mort
She let her face soften into a smile. She hoped Dave hadn’t smudged her eyeliner. The moisture from his fingers seemed to film her skin. She realised, with a start, that the room was loud with singing. Happy Birthday. They were on the last to you. Dave had one hand on his stomach as he sang, the other was held out as if he was ushering someone through a door. How had she not noticed the sound of it? It was her thoughts. They were getting too loud.
‘Make a wish.’
‘You daft twat,’ hissed Sue. ‘You’ve not lit the candles!’
‘Anyone got a light?’ Dave patted his pockets.
‘I’ve got an e-cig,’ said Darren.
‘Oh well, Lex. Better wish for a lighter, then!’
She made a show of closing her eyes and inhaling from her diaphragm. Then she bent forwards and blew the imaginary fires out, one by one. They all whooped and clapped. Then Dave chopped the back wheel in half with his knife and scooped it up.
‘You snooze, you lose.’
It was the first cake she’d had in years. With her eyes half-shut and the room suddenly far away, it was too easy to remember the last one. A birthday without her mum. Two years after the accident. She was short, only just big enough for the table, so the cake seemed very close to her face. A toadstool. Red with huge, white spots, like the ones in illustrated books. Her dad must have daubed the icing on himself, the blobs were uneven, but it was Auntie Maggie who lifted the foil away and lit the candles and nudged her dad in the ribs so he would remember to sing, and Alexa thought he must have been proud of it, whoever did the baking, because he had touched her on the arm for the first time in weeks and ruffled her hair, and he even said something about the colours being Sheffield United and maybe she’d turn out to be a Blade after all. And everyone laughed too hard, except for her cousins, who just wanted to sink their fingers into the toadstool and didn’t understand about Alexa’s dad and his silences and his days on the sofa and the new rows of bottles in the porch that let the sun through. One of them even said it wasn’t as good as the cakes Auntie Angela used to make and Maggie knelt down and shook him harder than she should have. His face turned the same colour as the cake.
After she had blown the candles out and made her one, obvious wish and worried that she’d wished it so hard that all her cousins would hear it, they cut the cake into cubes and wrapped it in white tissue paper, so everyone could take a piece home. Alexa ate hers in her bedroom later on, when it was dark outside and past her bedtime, but her dad hadn’t noticed because he was watching TV. Not even programmes on TV, just the TV. The sound didn’t work any more, so it was just colours and images. From her room, she could hear the electric buzz of it, a high-pitched noise a bit like a dog whistle, and nothing else.
She left the icing because it was too sticky. She wiped her hands down her bare legs and then they were sticky, too. That was the last time her dad got her a cake and she never asked about it again, because she didn’t like sweet things anyway. It was her mum who used to love chocolates and neon jellies and things that made your teeth glue together. Dad used to pack them for her in a plastic tub when she was out instructing all day; he said she needed them to keep warm out on the rocks.
Back in the room, the real room, everyone had dispersed, back to their conversations and jobs and fag breaks. Dave and Sue were having a hushed conversation about the lads in Parson Cross. Darren nodded to Alexa as he left the room, just once. He had spent all of yesterday shadowing her round Page Hall, while she explained, between breaths, what the situation was like since the Section 30, the ways he could get groups of people to move on. He nodded, but he looked as if he was permanently underwater. The others were already calling him Smiler.
Alexa was left holding her three-quarters cake. She would save a wheel for Caron. Cut around it and put it on a clean plate. Stick jelly beans on it in the shape of a grin and two eyes. Caron would be back late. She was always leaving or arriving at the moment, overfilling a bag with climbing gear before dawn, coming back at midnight with sour breath, and pinching cigarettes off Leyton so she could smoke out of their bedroom window before bed, letting the cool air from the street into their room.
‘Thanks for the bike,’ she said to the room and turned to leave.
‘Pleasure, love,’ said Sue. ‘Doing anything nice with your fella tonight?’
‘I’m working late,’ she said, quietly.
‘Don’t work too hard,’ said Sue. ‘I mean it.’
She didn’t work hard. Her hands felt as if they were made out of sponge. On Hinde Street she realised she had been standing next to the same lamp post for half an hour. The pavements were eerily quiet today and all the houses seemed to have their curtains drawn against an unlikely afternoon sun. Everything was happening behind closed doors. She heard a young boy shout his friend’s name and then the sound of feet slapping down a ginnel, but she never saw anything. Page Hall was hiding from her. The peace made her suspicious. She and Darren stood like gargoyles, letting the day run its silent film. She thought about a story her dad used to tell her when he was pissed, about a snowfall during the miners’ strike. The pickets built a huge snowman, finished it off with a scarf and trimmings. An officer told them to knock it down and, when they refused, said he’d do the job himself with his shiny, fast car. He got into the driver’s seat. Her dad would always get animated at this point, slam his glass down on the carpet, spilling some of his beer on the floor. In the story, the officer turned the ignition and revved, then accelerated towards the snowman. It was only when he felt the jolt and heard the crunching sound that he realised the snowman’s heart was made of stone. They had built it around a bollard. Sometimes, when he repeated one of his stories and she didn’t laugh hard enough, her dad just used to get up and go into another room. He had a particular way of turning his back that didn’t seem cruel, only hopeless.
The last time Alexa saw her dad walk away was the year before they went to Burning Man; it was summer in a pub by Devonshire Green. Not the kind of place he would have chosen, too many wines by the glass and bar staff with single hoop earrings. Too many varieties of handcrafted burger. He took his pint with him when he went out of the door and none of the staff tried to stop him. Alexa only watched him from the corner of her eye. She stared at a couple at the next booth who had their legs intertwined under the table. She was trying to work out where the man’s jeans finished and the woman’s jeans started. And her dad was gone and Leyton was gripping her hand and repeating something over and over, saying she had done the right thing. That it was her way of life and her dad had to accept her for who she was or not at all. And, after a year of match days and birthdays and Christmas and the anniversary of mum’s accident, she had known it was going to be not at all.
Caron wasn’t with them then. She’d stayed away in case it was too much for Alexa’s dad. Caron was good at staying away. But when she got back to Ranmoor in tears, Caron had come over and held her face as if it was a bunch of flowers to be kept alive, and had done tequila shots with her and put the lime and salt across her nipples and made Alexa lick it off. She’d licked the salt from Alexa’s face, too, the lines that stained her cheeks and her white T-shirt, then pulled Alexa’s shorts to her knees. When Alexa came, it was like the end of a long sentence, something she’d been trying to say all afternoon. This is who I am. This is my family now.
It took her several minutes to realise that Darren had been talking to her in his flat, accentless voice. His eyes were screwed up against the sun, but he was looking at her.
‘I mean, it seems a shame you’ve got no plans. I know this new micro pub down Eccy Road. It’s … it’s meant to be good. It was in the paper. I could pick you up, get there for last orders.’
His voice was getting louder, as if he was talking to an elderly relative.
‘You’re all right, thanks.’ She squinted back at him. ‘I’m going out with my girlfriend.’
Before he had chance to respond, she walked very slowly away from him, back towar
ds the main road. The sun was setting over the ragged back gardens; its light on them was concentrated, but it gave nothing away. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Probably a late happy birthday from someone she used to know. She pulled it out. Three missed calls from Matt. A message from Leyton:
Come home. There’s been an accident. X
Burngreave Ward
If you look down from above, I’m right where the city’s heart should be. I beat with a steady rhythm: day, then night. Day, then night. It’s almost dawn and lights are going on in houses, slowly, so every part of me has a star, small pinpricks of electricity. Pitsmoor and Osgathorpe, Grimesthorpe and Fir Vale. Shirecliffe shines best, because its name comes from scir-cliffe – my body is a bright, steep hillside. The Don Valley lies flat, an ellipsis, orange street-lamp sheen. Night-shift workers are coming home, shutting the doors of their cars quietly, taking their shoes off in the hall, draping coats on bannisters. In Pitsmoor a man steps from his shirt and it falls open to the floor. A woman folds her skirt carefully on her chair, takes a cup of tea back to bed. At Wincobank there’s an early dog-walker, head-torch lit, climbing the old hill fort the way his ancestors might have done if only he knew them, if only he knew who they were. He stoops and bends to nudge the dog along, an ancient terrier. When he’s spent, he stands on the top of the hill and becomes part of a chain, a ghost border, a defensive line running through to Carl Wark and Scholes Coppice, on to Roman Rig, the ancient dyke north-east of Mexborough. Somewhere, long ago, somebody might have called him king.
Alexa
On the way to the hospital, Alexa shouldn’t have had time to think, but she did. Leyton was driving Matt’s car, badly. The exhaust made sniper noises and people stared at them as they sped past. He didn’t say much to her, so she didn’t say much back, just sat and thought about the only time Caron and Leyton had taken her climbing.
It was a day she’d put off for weeks, exam term in their final year. The sky over Stanage was blue beyond denial, and she’d almost felt happy as she watched Caron from below. The chosen place was near the Popular End of the crag, a route called Flying Buttress. Caron had already climbed the direct version of the route, up and out on a forbidding overhang, but she hadn’t bothered to place any gear, the rope trailing behind her like spider silk as she levered her body up, silent and effortless. So when she got to the strange nest of rock at the top, she could sling the rope down the easier route for Alexa. From where she stood, Alexa could just see Caron’s face peering down over the edge. A head without a body.
Leyton stayed at the bottom of the route and helped her attach herself to the rope, a series of twists and loops she knew she’d never be able to repeat. She was wearing his shoes and they gaped over her feet, too big.
‘Climb when you’re ready!’ hollered Caron.
She would never be ready. She wished there weren’t as many people around, groups in matching jackets swarming, one after another, up the routes to either side of them, urged on by a barrel-chested instructor. She wished she could stop the sweat trickling down her sides and beading the back of her neck, and the midges prickling her scalp.
‘Say “climbing”,’ said Leyton.
‘Climbing.’
But she wasn’t climbing, not really. She was glued to the slab. The first part was easy-angled, not steep at all, but she couldn’t work out where to put her hands and feet. There were small scoops, almost toe-sized all the way up the rock, but they seemed smooth, glassy. She imagined her feet slipping out of them, her body rushing back to the ground.
‘Trust those feet,’ said Leyton. ‘They’ll stay.’
She managed a halting walk up the slab, her movements wooden. Foot, foot, hand, hand. Hand, hand, foot, foot. She realised she had been holding her breath. When she reached the top of the ramp, a ceiling of rock forced her to move awkwardly to her left until she was in a dark corner. She could see handholds above her, a ledge quite high up, but to hold and pull on it would force her body backwards, away from the rocks. Leyton was out of view on the ground. She couldn’t see Caron, either.
‘Alexa?’ Leyton’s voice was level and loud. ‘Are you at the crux?’
‘I’m in a corner. I’m trapped.’
‘OK. This is the difficult part. It’s just one tricky move and then you’ve done it. Can you reach the hold for your left hand?’
She didn’t say anything. She felt like Caron’s and Leyton’s weird child. She wished her parents had taken her with them climbing, just once. Enough for her to know she never wanted to be high up again. Her hands felt damp, but she didn’t dare take them from the ledge she was gripping. Her arms were becoming knotted and warm.
‘Alexa, can you hear me?’
‘Half the crag can fucking hear you!’ yelled Caron from above.
‘Trust me, Alexa. Just this one move, then you’re home and dry.’
And she did trust him. Back then, she trusted Leyton and Caron about everything. They made her life softer at the edges. They kissed her and kissed each other in public and didn’t care who looked. They told her it was OK to be sick of the bullshit and choices other people wanted to make for you. She listened to them talk ten to the dozen about climbing and sex and books she should read and music she should listen to and they always turned out to be right. She trusted Caron most of all, because Caron never said perhaps, she just said yes.
Alexa softened her grip on the high hold slightly. She moved her feet up and tried to lean backwards into the movement, as if she was half-falling, letting someone push her down on to a bed. And she was held. Up and away. She was past the hard move and she was still breathing, and the blood was flowing back down her arms the right way and Caron had her snug on the rope, so she knew she couldn’t fall even if she slipped.
‘Nice!’ Leyton couldn’t mask the surprise in his voice.
‘She’s a natural,’ said Caron.
And, just for a moment, she was. She traversed right, looking down now to notice how high up she was, and the steps were easy, like walking. She padded confidently until she was directly underneath where Caron was perched, framed by sky and floss-thin clouds that shifted behind her. But the last few metres were steep again.
‘Where do I go from here?’ She was very close to Caron now and she was embarrassed to be so out of breath.
‘You climb up to me.’
‘It looks very smooth.’
‘You’ll be fine. I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere.’
Where Caron sat, the edge of the rock was shaped almost like a crown or that red part chickens have on their heads. Caron looked as if she was in an eyrie.
‘I’ve got you, Alexa,’ she said again.
‘I don’t think I can do this.’
The old tightness was back. The feeling that there was something in her chest that was too big for it and she couldn’t keep it in, but it couldn’t get out either. The weight. She got it in lectures when other people asked clever questions. She got it in stairwells, sometimes. On crowded buses. She used to get it every time someone held her hand, until she met Caron and Leyton and holding hands stopped feeling like a loose chain, a thing that bound you.
She realised Caron was looking her right in the eyes. She hardly ever did that and when she did it was like being wrapped in someone else’s coat.
‘You can. I know you can.’
‘How?’
‘Don’t think about it. Just come towards me.’
The first time Caron had looked at her like that was on the first day they met, when they’d walked the perimeter of Weston Park five times at dusk and ended up in the near-deserted library when it went dark, sniggering and sharing a bag of Doritos and a bottle of wine that Caron had in her bag. They were chewing and talking too loudly for the only other person on the top level, a mature Chinese student with a skyscraper of books piled on his desk. They sat down on the floor by one of the shelves like mock bookends, and at some point Caron turned to fix her with that look and said Don’t you think it’s ridic
ulous? All those soaps and shit pop songs where someone has to make a choice. The big love triangle. Do you think pop culture would die if they knew you could have both? And Alexa burst out laughing, not because it was funny, but because it was the truest thing she’d ever heard and she thought that too, exactly that, but she hadn’t known it until now. And afterwards Caron dragged her into the lift and kept pushing all the buttons and took her clothes off and pressed her mouth to her while the lift went up and down. Once, it stopped and the doors opened on them, but there was nobody there, just Alexa’s reflection in the dark window until the lift closed over it.
‘You won’t fall, I’ll hold you.’
It wasn’t the words. It was the way Caron looked. Alexa breathed out, the way she’d done before, and launched herself up at the handholds at the edge of the crow’s nest and the rocks let her scramble over them, up and over and into Caron’s brief world, the tangle of rope and her shining eyes and the scudding afternoon behind.
She would never climb again.
* * *
Alexa didn’t realise she was angry until she got to the hospital. She walked slower than usual through the maze of corridors, a metre behind Leyton. One of the long walls had writing printed across it in a sombre font. It was a bad poem, something about the wards of the body.
Caron was propped up in bed, her auburn hair tousled, sticking up. She was reading a book with a black and red cover.
‘You selfish bitch.’ The words didn’t seem to come from Alexa, and she found herself glancing at Leyton as if it was him who had said it.
Caron’s face creased. It was the first time Alexa had ever seen her look afraid.
‘What were you climbing? Was it that route you can’t shut up about? Was it Black Car Burning?’
The elderly woman in the bed opposite had started singing. There weren’t any words, it was a musical kind of moan. Her voice was deep for an old woman’s.
