Mum and Dad and I all look at one another. In that brief flash of silence I take in Mum’s wrinkles and puffy eyes and the faint shade of grey that’s starting to take over Dad’s number one haircut and I realise that I feel a lot older than I actually am. With one voice we say, ‘Yes,’ and Dr Cunningham looks quite pleased and wishes us all a happy Christmas before roaring off in her posh blue people-carrier.
‘So,’ Dad says when she’s gone. ‘That’s good, Jay, isn’t it? You’ll be finally able to get your life back on track, once and for all.’
Jay kind of mutters a response to this but Spud’s looking furious.
‘I need a fix,’ she says.
Dad smiles.
‘By all means,’ he says, holding open the lounge door for her. ‘But you won’t be spending Christmas day with this family, in that case. Cold out on the streets in the snow, is it?’
I stare at Dad with admiration. He’s good. He’s very good.
Dad pushes the address of the methadone clinic into Jay’s hand.
‘Do us all a favour, son,’ he says. ‘Get down there now. Go on. Go.’
And to my surprise, Jay looks at the address, gets up, grabs Spud by the hand and disappears out of the front door. Do you think – you don’t think. . .’ begins Mum, but Dad silences her.
‘Just wait and see, Rachel,’ he says. ‘Have a bit of trust in our son.’
Mum looks doubtful but she takes Dad’s hand and I leave them and go upstairs to wrap the rest of my presents.
It’s Christmas day.
Last Christmas day was pretty bad and the one before that was even worse, because it was the first one since Jay had gone missing and we had to do this false jolly thing where the three of us played stupid games and stuffed ourselves with turkey and then Mum went off to cry over the washing-up and Dad shut himself upstairs with his computer or read his lion magazines in stony silence, and we all wished that the hideous day could be over.
I had this picture in my mind of what life in this house would be like if Jay ever came home again. He’d be smiling and fleshed out again and look more like he used to – brown curly hair, red cheeks and big grin. Mum would be back to doing her clown job again and she’d be smiling with happiness at her family being complete. And Dad would be full-time at Morley Zoo, helping the lionesses give birth and seeing to all the sick and newborn animals and coming home with his eyes shining to tell me all about what Shyama and Lazarus, the big lions, were up to.
Some hope.
Christmas day in the May household doesn’t get off to the best start ever.
Daughter (that’s me) gets up with stinking cold and staggers downstairs clutching aching head and begging for painkillers and tissues.
Mother forgets to put the turkey on until nearly lunchtime and, because it’s too big, it takes five hours to cook, so we end up having omelettes and roast potatoes for Christmas lunch.
Father is called out to a zoo emergency and spends the morning away from the house instead of opening his Christmas presents.
And Spud’s back. She did go to the clinic with Jay and they’ve been given methadone and put on a programme that they’ve got to stick to if they want to pack in the drugs. But she’s still a complete and utter nightmare and has been rude to everybody in the usual way.
And she and Jay stayed up half the night listening to the Manics and when I heard this a chill gripped my heart and I thought, Maybe nothing has changed.
So whereas once I’d have rung Bindi and had a good old moan about all this, I now have to sit up in my bedroom staring at the black top I chose for my present and not really having the heart even to try it on.
I really, really want to ring Adam and wish him a happy Christmas, but that would be a rubbish idea. He’s with Bindi. I heard her loud and clear.
In the end I kidnap Benjie from the kitchen and force him to lie on the bed with me while I have a good cry into his furry paws and he looks at me with big, sad eyes.
‘You’re my only friend, Benj,’ I sniff in between sobs and he rolls onto his back and exposes lots of white fluffy tummy so I play with him for a while and feel a bit better.
Dad comes back at lunchtime and we all sit around the table with the Christmas omelette and Mum says, ‘I wish I’d known I was cooking omelettes – I could at least have got some mushrooms,’ and we all stare down at our plates trying not to say anything that hurts her feelings but thinking of the white wrinkled turkey still half-frozen in the oven.
‘Never mind,’ says Dad in the false jolly voice that he’s been using for the past few weeks. ‘There are more important things to celebrate this year, Rachel.’
‘Yeah, and I’m a veggie,’ says Spud. ‘Can’t eat turkey and all that shit. So omelette is kind of cool.’
It’s the first vaguely nice thing she’s said so Mum gives a forced smile and says, ‘More spuds, Spud?’ which makes Jay smile down at his lap.
Dad raises a glass of Ribena because Mum forgot to buy any wine and all the shops are shut.
‘To Jay being home again,’ he says. We clink glasses with Jay. He’s hardly touched any food and is sitting slumped in his chair gazing down at his lap as usual.
‘To Jay,’ whispers Mum. She looks at her son with eyes full of worry and sadness. I guess she didn’t think that it would be like this when he finally came home, either.
‘And we’ve got presents!’ announces Dad. He’s obviously rushed to a petrol station and bought something for Spud at short notice.
‘Oh,’ she says, ripping off the paper. For a moment she flounders for what to say. Then she says, ‘Cheers. I haven’t had a present for nearly four years,’ and then she opens the box of Black Magic chocolates and starts to stuff them into her gob.
Dad ferrets about underneath the table and brings up a parcel, which he tosses to Jay.
Jay doesn’t say anything. He rips off the paper and holds up a Manics T-shirt.
‘Cheers,’ he says. There’s the faintest glimmer of a smile, but it’s a pathetic cousin of the grin he’d have once given Dad for a gift like that.
Mum passes him her presents.
‘Thought you could do with some new gear,’ she says. ‘You’ve grown!’
Jay gives her a faint smile but after opening the present he puts the pile of clothes untouched on the kitchen table.
‘OK, then,’ says Dad, all the time in this forced, cheerful voice that doesn’t sound much like his own. ‘Time to unleash plan B. Step outside, son.’
Jay rolls his eyes at this and exchanges a sarcastic look with Spud, but he gets to his feet and follows Dad outside. Mum and I grab our coats and follow them onto the front drive.
There’s a strange car parked where Dad’s zoo van usually sits. So?’ says Dad. ‘We reckoned that you were old enough and ugly enough to start lessons. How about it?’
My mouth is hanging open.
OK, the car isn’t exactly brand new and it’s very small, but it’s a car. A whole car. So Jay comes home after two years when everybody has been worried sick about him, and he gets a reward like this.
‘Not fair,’ I mutter at my boots, but Dad hears me and his smile fades.
‘Now just a moment, Lilah,’ he says. ‘There are conditions attached to Jay having this car. I was about to get to that.’
I shuffle about in the snow and scowl at my feet.
‘One, he has to be totally drug-free before I will even consider paying for lessons,’ says Dad.
Spud gives a snort at that. She’s followed us out and is aiming lame kicks at one of the tyres on the red car until a glare from Dad puts a stop to that.
‘Two, he gets himself some sort of job and pays for the tax and insurance himself,’ says Dad.
‘And three?’ I say, because it’s obvious that there’s a third condition by the way that Dad’s still facing Jay with his serious face on.
‘Three is that in three year’s time, Jay gives you lessons, Lilah,’ says Dad.
That takes the wind out of m
y sails.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Oh – OK, then.’
I give Dad a small smile.
‘So what do you think, son?’ says Dad.
Jay has hardly looked at the car even though Spud’s been sizing it up and walking around it, no doubt imagining her horrible puny frame sprawled across the passenger seat.
‘It’s OK,’ mutters Jay. Then he heads back inside without another word.
I watch Mum’s own smile fade back into lines and wrinkles of worry and I start feeling that hideous familiar feeling rising up from my feet to my knees and then towards my chest. If it gets to my chest I’m in trouble.
Uh-oh. It’s gone way past my chest and to my head.
Dad knows the signs after trying to tame me for the past few months.
He places his hands on my shoulders from behind.
‘Lilah, don’t,’ he says. ‘It’s Christmas day. No anger today, huh? Let’s just be glad that Jay is home at last. Can you do that for me?’
I look upwards into Dad’s eyes. I can see up his nose from this angle. Gross.
‘No,’ I say, surprising even myself. ‘No, I can’t. I’ve had enough.’
Dad shepherds us all back into the warm kitchen and forces me to sit down.
Mum goes over to the freezer.
‘Christmas pudding will be ready later,’ she says. ‘So how about some ice cream?’
Her voice has gone all high and false again.
Great.
Jay’s scraping his chair back to make his usual escape back to his dank, dark bedroom but I’m quicker than he is.
‘No you don’t,’ I say. I’m blocking the kitchen door so that he can’t make a run for it.
‘Get lost,’ he mutters. ‘Move.’
But I don’t move.
‘I’ve had it with you,’ I say. ‘You’ve ruined the last two years and now you’re ruining Christmas for everybody again. Mum and Dad are trying to be kind and they’ve just bought you a car, a whole car, when they’ve only bought me a stupid top, and you’re just throwing it back in their faces. Why? What’s wrong with you? Oh yes, I know. I know what’s wrong with you, don’t I? I saw you with that man on the street. You said you were giving up, but you’re still doing it, aren’t you?’
Mum claps her hand over her mouth when I say this. Dad shakes his head.
Jay is always pale as the moon these days but when I say this he gets even paler and starts to sweat.
‘You’re talking crap,’ he mumbles, trying to push underneath my arms but I’m not having it. I seem to have taken on some super-human strength, as though my arms were made of steel and bolted to the frame of the kitchen door.
Mum and Dad have kind of melted into the background. I see Dad try to come towards me, but Mum stops him and whispers, ‘This has been a long time coming, Mark. Let her get it out,’ which surprises me because Mum hates shouting and argument.
‘No, I’m not,’ I say to Jay. My voice is quite low and calm now. Another surprise. Yeah, I’m angry, but in a different way. It’s not the usual exploding type – more a kind of steely-determined and honest type.
‘I’m not letting you put me in this position again,’ I say. I blow my nose because my cold’s getting worse. My heart is pounding. ‘That’s what got us all into this mess in the first place, remember?’ is shaking his head.
‘You’re nuts,’ he says. ‘Get out of my way, loser.’
‘No,’ I say, slamming my arm down again and staring him straight in the face. ‘You’re using drugs again. You used to use drugs, right? And I told Mum and Dad, which was the hardest thing I ever had to do and I was only twelve. You told me not to tell them and I did and then you went missing. And it was all my fault and I’ve had two years of shit and beating myself up for that and you don’t know how hard it’s been for me here, and for Mum and Dad!’
Mum is crying at the kitchen table and Dad looks ashen.
Even Spud has stopped smiling and is looking at me in a different way from usual. I swear she looks a bit . . . scared.
Jay laughs.
‘Get lost,’ he says. ‘Like it’s been a picnic for me living on the streets.’
I see great curtains of scarlet when he says that. It seems that my new pledge not to get angry is about to be broken.
‘That was your choice!’ I yell. ‘We didn’t have a choice. We just had to live through over two years of
Jay hell because of your stupid, selfish behaviour.’
Dad gets up at that and starts to come towards me but Mum pulls him back again.
‘Lilah’s right,’ she says. ‘In fact, I think it needs to be said and I think Dr Cunningham would agree that we should get all this out in the open. You put us through hell, son. She’s right.’
Then Mum’s face crumples and Dad gets a tissue out of his safari jacket and passes it to her.
Jay’s stopped trying to escape now and is staring at me with something in his eyes I’ve not seen before. It takes me a moment to see what it is.
Fear.
That’s what it is.
I’m the little sister, but I’ve frightened my big brother.
I can’t stop, though. I’ve got too much to say.
‘Because of you,’ I say, ‘my whole life has been ruined. I’ve lost my favourite boy at school because he couldn’t cope with my anger. I’ve lost my best friend because she’s going out with him. I’ve failed all my exams and had about a million detentions. And that’s all because of you!’
With that last word I aim a vicious kick at the door just by Jay’s leg. It’s either the door or the leg, I reckon, so I have to choose the door.
Jay’s legs buckle under him and he grabs at the kitchen table and then slides back into his chair and buries his face in his hands.
I think he’s laughing because his shoulders are going up and down and this makes me so mad that I’m about to haul him out of his chair and yell at him some more but then I realise that he’s not laughing.
He’s crying.
Jay’s crying.
I haven’t seen him cry since he was a little boy.
‘OK, Lilah, enough now,’ says Dad. He goes over and sits with Jay, holding his hand.
Mum blows her nose and then gets up to fill the kettle.
‘Some Christmas day,’ she whispers. ‘I just wanted to have all my family together again, and happy. But I don’t feel as if I’m ever going to be happy again.’
Jay’s sobs get louder and he looks up through a haze of tears and runny eyeliner and says, ‘M . . . Mum?’ and then he gets up and kind of falls against her and she puts her arms around him and they both cry some more.
Spud goes upstairs and shuts herself in Jay’s bedroom.
I leave my family in the kitchen and go up to lie on the bed.
I feel spent and empty but as though something heavy has at last got off my chest and left me alone.
I stay up there the rest of the day drinking Night Nurse and coughing. I go to bed without speaking to anyone. Mum puts a few slices of turkey and some roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts outside my bedroom door and I’m starving hungry so I eat them in the middle of the night. She’s forgotten the cutlery and it’s kind of difficult eating gravy and meat in the dark but I stuff it all in, anyway.
I don’t cry any more, though. I’ve cried myself out this week. There aren’t any tears left to cry and if I cry it makes my cold feel worse.
But I’ve left things bad with Jay.
So – what’s going to happen tomorrow?
When I wake up the next day my head is still thick with cold.
I fling back the curtains and squint against the bright, cold sky. There are still several inches of snow lying around but it’s beginning to thaw out on the trees and water drips onto the snow on our back lawn and makes black holes. Robins hop in and out of them, looking for worms.
‘Thank God Christmas is over,’ I mutter to my grey reflection in the mirror. Then I tug a comb through my black messy hair and wrap myself up
in my thick pink dressing gown.
‘Morning!’ says Mum, as if nothing happened yesterday. ‘How’s the cold?’
‘Rubbish,’ I say, making myself a honey and lemon drink and blowing my sore, raw nose.
‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘You’re not having a very good holiday, are you? Sit down. I’ll make you a nice breakfast. I’ve got some bacon left over from the turkey.’
I smile at her because I can see she’s had a rough night too. There are purple rings under her eyes and her hair is all squashed on one side and sticking up on the other.
‘Where’s Dad?’ I say. I heard his van roar off early.
‘Samson has attacked another male lion,’ she says. ‘Usual old thing.’
I nod and roll my eyes. We’re used to Dad’s emergencies at the zoo.
‘And Jay?’ I say. ‘Where’s he?’
‘Gone out to get something from somewhere,’ she says. ‘He wouldn’t say what. But he did kind of show an interest in the car this morning. Asked Dad for the key and just sat inside it listening to music for a while. Not sure where he’s gone now.’
My heart sinks.
‘Drugs,’ I say. ‘It’s got to be drugs. Why else would he go out?’
Mum sighs.
I really hope you’re wrong, Lilah,’ she says. ‘But I’ve booked him an appointment with a drugs counsellor next week and I will be dragging him there by the hair if necessary and making sure he continues to go to the methadone clinic.’
‘Good,’ is all I say, but I smile. I’m relieved that she’s not angry with me after my major outburst yesterday.
Mum can’t get the bacon off the top of the turkey so we end up eating cold turkey for breakfast in companionable silence and then the door slams and Jay bursts into the kitchen, shaking snow off his black jacket and shivering from the cold.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Mum asks. He nods and she makes coffee for all of us.
‘Where’s Spud?’ I say. I haven’t seen her yet today.
‘Gone,’ says Jay. ‘She’s not going to do the clinic. She’s gone back up to London to meet this Rat guy.’
Lilah May's Manic Days Page 8
