‘Salty and sweet, please.’
‘I thought you hated sci-fi?’
‘I wanted to get out of the house.’
‘Ah nice. I want to come visit Dove. When can I visit her?’
‘I’ll let you know.’
‘So you keep saying. Does she not want visitors?’
‘She does,’ I snap. Cam looks offended. Confused, she says, ‘I’ll stop asking. Just let her know I’d like to see her whenever she’s ready.’
‘She would love to see you.’
‘I was thinking she could come tonight? She loves films, she could’ve come to the cinema with us?’
‘Cam, Dove can’t just come to the cinema!’
‘Why not?’
‘Isn’t it obvious …? She can’t come to the cinema … she’s …’ I can’t really think of a reason why she couldn’t come to the cinema actually. I’m talking like somebody I hate. I feel like the staff behind the counter are staring at me, shovelling popcorn into pop-up cardboard boxes and staring. Camille won’t hand over her card to them until I’ve explained why Dove can’t come to the cinema. A queue forms; I blush. ‘Well, maybe she could … The accident’s really changed her. She’s different now … she’s … I don’t know … she’s changed.’
‘I’m not being rude to you, B, honestly I’m not, you know I love you, but do you think it might be you that doesn’t want visitors? Do you think it might be that the accident changed you?’
‘What?’ I feel a lump in my throat, my insides falling out. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just because Dove is in a wheelchair for a bit doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to laugh or cry or enjoy a movie, that she doesn’t want to do stuff like go out. She’s not in a prison.’
‘I didn’t say she was.’ I feel myself boiling up. ‘She looks like a monster. Like a different person – it’s scary. And heartbreaking. Look, you have no idea how it feels to have this happen to you.’
‘B, that’s the whole point. It HASN’T happened to you; it’s happened to your sister. Your sister and, yes, that means you’re going through stuff too, I know. But how many times have you moaned when people say rude stuff behind your back and you say … just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I don’t have ears? Right? It’s like you think, just cos Dove’s had an accident she doesn’t have ears, a heart, a brain, feelings … like she doesn’t want to live. It’s a real bummer, I get that, six months is a long time to be in a chair, especially for someone like Dove, but she’s gonna be all right because … bones mend.’ Her words cut into me and she doesn’t stop there either. ‘Yeah, so you’re right, it hasn’t happened to me, I get that, but if it was me … no, actually, if you were being YOU in this situation, how you’d normally be, you’d be marching her round everywhere you went, bloody scratching her itchy legs with a whatever that thing is that you flip bacon with and helping her and demanding she saw the world as she did before, not hiding her away, acting like the world is over because of a wheelchair!’ She shakes her head at me. ‘You’re being selfish.’
I want to throw the popcorn at her. And her stupid blue drink. And the ugly nachos. I hate Cam. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get it at all. I am so embarrassed and humiliated. Everybody is staring at me. I flush red; my ears tingle; my eyes fill, fast, with tears.
‘I’m going home,’ I mutter and turn away, expecting Cam to run after me and grab me and say ‘don’t go’ like she normally would but instead:
‘Oh, course you’re going home. Course you are,’ she barks across the foyer. ‘Fine. Be a coward. Be a defensive coward like always! Don’t bring your sister to the cinema, don’t collect your exam results …’ She is screaming; she never minds screaming in public. She’s shaking now. ‘LEAVING SCHOOL IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE YOU’VE EVER MADE! YOU’VE GOT SOME SERIOUS GROWING UP TO DO, BLUEBELLE!!’
And as I run down the stairs of the Odeon I notice the accessibility badges everywhere: the chairlifts, the wide automatic doors, the ramp at the entrance. Things I never noticed until they apply to my family. I am so ignorant. I didn’t like hearing Cam because Cam is right. She loves Dove too.
I’m making this all about myself and of course Dove can go to the stupid cinema.
She can do anything she likes.
My breath gets tight. Short. I have to over-breathe. In. Out. In. I scramble out of the cinema, down the steps, sliding. I think I see a couple of girls from my old school. NOT now. Can’t handle the small talk. I hide in the alley.
‘Was that Bluebelle?’ I hear one of them say.
‘No, really?’ the other one replies.
‘Her sister nearly died, you know?’
‘No way, how?’
‘Jumped off a building apparently.’
‘What? Why? Tryna kill herself?’
‘Dunno but … Bluebelle’s not coming back to school.’
‘No way. Lucky. How’d you know?’
‘My mum’s friends with Miss Scott, in’t she?’
‘Ah, she probably works at the cinema now!’
‘Ha! Probably. Free popcorn.’
‘I reckon she’s pregnant.’
‘No!’
‘Yeah, that’s why she can’t come back.’
‘She’s not pregnant, Maliha. She’s just fat.’
I feel my insides clatter to the ground like a broken vase; I’m ashamed. My breathing is tight. I am fumbling wildly for my Ventolin. All blurry. I panic. Cheeks out and in. Puff. Chest tight. My fingers rummaging for my inhaler. I can’t just barge into them like I normally would. With my head against the bricks I try to concentrate on breathing but my chest is so heavy and my head is everywhere. DOVE. The accident. Over and over. Her fall. Her fear. Her face. Her legs. Her body. Smashed. Be brave. Be brave, I said. I told her to be brave … Mum. Dad. Coffee. Alicia. Glaring. Max. Puff. Puff. Puff. Breathe. Breathe. Over-breathe. And again. And again. I cry into the darkness. Trying to calm down.
I am alone and there’s not enough air for me.
TIGER’S MILK
Dove’s sleeping on the sofa. I try not to disturb her while I make tea, gently pouring hot water on top of the teabag, watching the triangle balloon beneath and the brown leaves whip up like a tree in a storm. The water, tinted immediately, a lagoon; the teabag, a sleeping sea monster, waiting to surface.
Milk brings on a silent storm of rain and thunder and swirling skies. I spin the spoon quietly, not allowing even a tinkle. Mustn’t wake my sleeping sister.
You know the tea we drink from teabags is the leftover rubbish bits from excellent tea?
We basically drink ashtray tea.
I think about making a cup of tea for Dove but what if she wakes up and wants to talk; what if she needs the toilet and I get it wrong and don’t know how to do it? Mum says the base of her back is all scabby like she’s been burnt. I don’t want to see it.
And then I notice 2B and Not 2B’s baskets are empty. Their black fleecy blankets are speckled in silvery white dog hair, topped with their chewed grubby rubber rings and soft toys. The daily massacre of dog-toy fluffy organs, dissected and floating across the floorboards like passing clouds.. Dogs know how to just be themselves, be confident and secure in being simply animals. Know how to care when no words are needed. Just by being there … The two dumbest, clumsiest dogs in the world have better social intelligence than me.
Mostly, as I said, a cup of tea can fix everything. Even a lemon and ginger or a fresh mint. A hot chocolate can often do the trick. But it’s the fridge that reminds me: in Mum’s handwriting, magnets holding it to the front on a small scrap of paper, is the recipe.
Sometimes … when we need to heal and feel ourselves again, when we need a mug of warm comfort, when nothing else will do … it has to be Tiger’s Milk. It’s something my mum has always made us when we’re feeling down or not ourselves. You measure out the cups of milk and warm it nicely, then you add the spices: ground nutmeg, ground ginger and a stick of cinnamon. Once the milk is simmering away you turn the heat
off and add a big dollop of honey for sweetness. On the top, I place a fork and shake some extra cinnamon; that’s what gives the milk the stripes.
And before I know it, I am gently stepping towards a sleeping Dove. I hear the faint muffled warbles of a cartoon. The dogs snoring next to her, just happy to be on the wood floor (Dad had to rip up the carpet in the living room for Dove’s chair to move easier). Dove sits up when I enter.
‘Sorry, did I wake you up?’ I whisper.
‘No. I was just dozing.’ She looks happy to see me.
‘Resting your eyes, as Dad would say.’
‘Oh yeah, that would always annoy me. He used to let us draw on his feet with Biro … Is that Tiger’s Milk?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, how’d you know?’
‘I could smell it. I haven’t had one in ages.’
‘Well, it’s time to fix that.’
I balance the cup to hand it to her, trying to twist the handle round so she can grab it.
‘I’ve got it,’ she assures me. ‘It’s OK.’
She takes a sip and sighs with joy.
‘Have you heard from the boys since they came over?’
‘Hmm. I don’t know if we have that much in common now that I’m like this for the rest of the summer … I’m not gonna lie … I actually thought it was a bit hard talking to them. I spent so much time with them before but, like, we didn’t really talk. You know, because we were always doing dumb stuff and, well, now … we kind of have nothing to say. It was a bit awkward. They’re a bit … boring.’ She scrunches up her nose like the idea of the boys puts a bad taste in her mouth.
I nod. ‘Yes, I know what you mean.’ I want to stroke her hair but I can’t look her in the eyes. I joke, ‘You might have to start fancying girls to fit in.’ And Dove does that smile – that hasn’t changed a bit; it’s always been there.
‘The last thing I need is another girl to hang out with. You and Mum are total head-cases.’ She laughs, one eye on the cartoon. ‘Have you seen Mum at the moment? She’s lost the plot. So over the top! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know my bottom half looks like two giant rolls of toilet paper, but I’m not dying.’ She fingers her head.
‘Don’t pick, it won’t heal.’
‘Can’t help it.’
‘It’s Dad that’s making me laugh.’ I lie down next to Dove on the floor by the dogs. They immediately start stretching, thinking it’s time to play. ‘Why’s he acting like him and Mum are going to reignite their passionate love for each other by bonding over re-dressing your war wounds?’
‘Proper begging it, isn’t he?’ Dove sniggers. ‘What a goat! S’pose it’s quite amusing watching them cos it IS well dry being indoors all the time.’
‘Yeah, I should … we should hang out … sometime,’ I say.
‘Well … I’m pretty free,’ she jokes. And her chin wobbles. She looks like she did when she was little. Harmless. Curious. Small. When it was my job to make sure she got home from the park safely and could reach the slide properly and I would leap up to catch her balloon if it floated away …
‘I love you, Dove,’ I say and hold her so tight. I can’t get close enough. I wish we could swap bones for a bit. She could have my big old lazy things and turn me into something wonderful for the summer. Somebody that would DO stuff with herself. She lets me hold her, which isn’t very Dove-like.
‘’K, drink your milk down. It will make you strong like a tiger.’
Dove shuffles her hand under the quilt and brings out her phone. She doesn’t say anything.
‘What’s this?’
‘Just watch.’
It’s the summer-night silver sky. The lights of the city glimmering like a mirrorball. The sound of laughing. Trainers scuffing. Panting and the whipping air. Then I see her, her blonde hair a slash of gold, sparking under the flash of a camera. The boys say the words ‘cat leap’. One of them tells her not to. Another says ‘don’t’, tells her she won’t be able to make it. I hear Dove on the footage say, ‘I can!’
She leaps. Like a superhero. She makes it. The jump. Her grip, tight. She hangs. It’s an old, derelict house. The frame of the window, old wood, crumbles away in her hands, into puffs, like Shredded Wheat. Loose shards of paint splinter away. The boys shout her name. Try to guide her with panicked voices. Dove’s fingers try to find the grip in the surrounding brickwork. I can almost feel her nails breaking. Her body is small. A spider. She staggers. Wriggles. Struggles. I can’t watch. But I can’t not. And then … nothing. I assume the camera is dropped.
‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’ she whispers.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ I snort.
‘No, really. I lied to Mum. And Dad. And the doctors. And you. I didn’t lose my balance. I knew the jump was too high, BB. I knew I couldn’t make it. Even as I jumped I knew I wouldn’t land properly. I just wanted to do something big and brave like you said …’
I feel the worst.
‘It wasn’t your fault. You still made the jump. It was the windowsill that caved in. It was old, the wood crumbled, you lost your grip – you still did it.’
Dove cries. I put my arms tight around her as she cranes her neck into my stomach.
‘I fell all the way down. It gives me nightmares. Why did I do it, Bluebelle?’ she asks me.
‘Sometimes we do things even though they are self-sabotage,’ I say gently, but I know, deep down, this isn’t about Dove …’Or maybe it’s the opposite, maybe the realistic, sensible side of your head told you that you couldn’t make the jump but maybe … maybe a tincy, teeny-weeny bit of you believed in the magic of it … Maybe that little voice told you to do it. Because you’re brave. Because you’re a little bird, you thought you might fly.’
I try and sit as best I can beneath her head and stroke her hair. Her eyes close. She balls her fists and rubs her eyes.
‘Grrrr. I’m nervous to go back to school, BB. I don’t know what they’ll say.’
‘What are you nervous about?’
‘All of it.’ She gulps. ‘Mainly arriving for the first time, people staring at me with these two stupid things on my legs,’ she adds bitterly.
‘Most of your classmates probably know what’s happened by now. And are over it. Plus they’ll scribble all over your cast! You can just enjoy being the centre of attention for a bit.’
‘I don’t want the sucking-up fakeness. It’s so trapping being in this chair. And I don’t like the idea of them all talking about how I did it. I don’t want rumours to spread about me. I don’t like being talked about.’
‘Well, there’s a rumour going around at school that I’m pregnant so …’
‘Is there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘God. You’ve never even done that, have you?’ she asks, tipping the end of the Tiger’s Milk into her mouth.
‘Dove! That’s NOT the point!’ I shout. She passes the empty mug to me with a mischievous smirk painted across her face. ‘And anyway, I’m not talking about that with you.’ I laugh, yanking the empty mug out of her hand. ‘You have nothing to worry about. I promise. The people that laugh and stare at others are the ones that aren’t happy with themselves, and the ones that are sucking up are the ones that don’t get enough attention.’
‘And I’ll be thrown out of gymnastics and football.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘And netball.’
‘No, I reckon you’ll be all good.’
‘I’m not much use now.’
‘How do you know that? You might be the best.’
‘No, I think I’ll just be thrown out.’
‘You won’t be. And if, if, if you are, which you won’t be, at least you were accepted in the first place to get thrown out. I was never accepted into any squad or club.’
‘I thought you were in cooking club.’
I raise an eyebrow at Dove.
‘I might just pretend to be pregnant anyway to get out of life.’ I sigh.
‘I don’t think being pregnant gets
you out of life, BB. I think it gets you into a right mess. I mean, look at Mum!’
‘True.’ I stroke the dogs’ heads with my feet. ‘Ooh, I know what game we still can play though …’
‘What?’
‘A sport that you’ll definitely be better at these days!’
‘Go on …’
‘Bum Tills!’ And Dove bursts out laughing so hard. She tips her neck back and cracks up, tears sprinkling out of her crinkled-up eyes and relief just rushes through me and it tastes better than anything I’ve ever tasted.
A PATRONISING PASTRY
Alicia has me in the ‘sofa area’ for a ‘heart to heart’.
‘I got you this, doll face.’ She slides over a soggy pecan plait. (She didn’t get it for me; she literally just pulled the silver tongs out and shoved it onto a white plate.) It looks like an infected toe. Gammy and sore. Complicated to eat without little hardened nibs of burnt pecan toenails plopping off. ‘It’s on me.’ She winks.
‘Thanks,’ I say but inside I am laughing. It’s like I’m some voodoo witchdoctor that’s only going to open up to her once I’ve been gifted with an ‘offering’. In this instance, a patronising pastry.
‘You enjoy that, sweetie. You deserve it.’
No, I don’t. I’m not a dog. Good girl. Where’s my apprenticeship form?
‘Babes,’ she begins. ‘It’s been so busy we’ve not really had a chance to catch up. How are you coping? With your sister’s illness?’
She’s not ill.
‘Dove’s doing really well; it’s just the getting used to it.’
‘The pain?’
‘No, it’s the boredom. Dove’s really active so it’s difficult for her, being indoors and not being able to do the stuff she likes doing.’ I watch as an impatient woman storms in and demands Marcel make the most over-complicated coffee order the world’s ever heard. ‘A decaffinated extra hot Americano with skinny milk … in a separate cup.’ She then tells Marcel that she’s ‘in a rush’ so can he ‘make it quick’. As if he’d be slow deliberately. And then she adds, ‘I’m late for a meeting.’ I think there must be nothing more irritating than a person strolling into a meeting late, holding a piping-hot coffee from the coffee shop next door.
Big Bones Page 19
