by A J Waines
I can’t believe it! She’s just sent me a text; I can have appointments at her house! It’s going to be so brilliant, seeing where she lives and spending time in her own personal space. Touching things she’s touched. Breathing the same air. I thought she was going to give up on me, when I said I wouldn’t be able to come to the hospital any more, but she’s come through with flying colours. I knew she would. She’s got a heart of gold. She knows we’ve got something special already. This is only the beginning. I’m so happy!
I put my phone down and kick off my slippers. I’m too excited to stay in on my own. It’s time to celebrate; I haven’t had a good night out in months. The last time was at a leaving party for one of the girls at work, but it wasn’t much fun in the end. Turned out I was only invited so I could help clear up afterwards.
So, I’m sitting in The Great Boar (which would have lived up to its name with a different spelling) and I’ve dolled myself up a bit with a mini-skirt, a low-cut top and one off those push-up bras. My cleavage looks like two cream buns stuffed together on a tray, but I don’t care. I feel like a pot of honey: attracting the city bees who’ve had too much to drink – the ones who have cold and empty homes to go to. It’s done the trick before. Even for a dowdy carrot-top, like me. Only, I’m not looking for a quickie in a back alley; I’m not bothered about the sex at all, really. I’d rather have the touching, kissing, holding. I want to connect with someone, to gaze into someone’s eyes, to flirt and be treated like a lady. Is that too much to ask?
As I look for a free table, a woman in the far corner gets up from her chair, laughing. She reminds me for a moment of Sam, although her dark shoulder-length hair isn’t as glossy. She isn’t as elegant or as slim as Sam either. As she walks towards me in the direction of the bar, I notice she actually looks quite tarty. Too much make-up and her lipstick is bleeding on to her teeth. Sam wouldn’t be seen dead looking like that – or in a dive like this, for that matter.
I sit in a corner I’d like to describe as cosy, but in fact it’s just gloomy. I hope I’m not going to make a fool of myself. I just want to feel special and wanted, that’s all, to find someone who’s interested in me. I know I’m going to see Sam again soon, but I’m aching for attention now. To cuddle up with someone and be close – do what couples do.
My hopes are high to start with. I look up, try to plaster a light-hearted expression on my face, to pout my lips a tad so people might see me as a temptress. A man begins heading my way, but he reaches behind me for a stack of business cards on the window ledge. I’m certain the next one is going to catch my eye. He gets as far as my small table then grunts when he discovers it isn’t vacant.
I sit there for over half an hour and not once does anyone, male or female, acknowledge me – worse than that – no one seems to see me at all. It’s like I’m invisible. I half expect someone to walk right through me. Is this how my life is always going to be? Forever screaming from inside a soundproofed glass tomb where I can see out, but no one can see in?
In the next half hour, I sip two more rum and blacks, one after the other, as slowly as I can. Then, something happens, my luck is in. A group of men saunter over from the bar and one of them comes right up to speak to me. He asks if the seats beside me are free. I nod with a big smile and the four of them join me at the table, or rather take possession of it. After that, not one of them speaks to me again or even looks in my direction. They just wanted the table.
It becomes embarrassing. As a group, they gradually seem to expand, like cake mix swelling in the oven and I’m pushed further and further back, trapped in the corner. I pretend to check my texts, scan my diary. I’m tempted to pull out my paperback, but the light is too faint to read. Eventually, I get up, squeeze through crowds of people laughing and joking and go to the bar. This is a better spot. No one can ignore me here. I perch on a stool and offer punters peanuts, but no one exchanges more than a sentence with me.
The door swings open and a group of rowdy West Ham fans crowd in and elbow me out of the way as they order their pints. One of them turns to me and actually makes eye contact. An unruly football supporter with caterpillar eyebrows and too much nasal hair, wearing a T-shirt that fails to cover his muffin-top. He isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but I’m prepared to lower my standards just this once. He looks like he’s about to give me an oafish chat-up line, but then he calls me a fat slag and guffaws with his mates. It isn’t the kind of human contact I had in mind. I’ve had enough by now, so I get up and leave.
When I get home a pang of nostalgia hits me hard. It’s that time of year, with my birthday coming up. I pull my box of memorabilia out from under the bed. It sounds grand, but there isn’t much in it. I take out the only photos I’ve got and lay them on the tatty candlewick cover like playing cards.
I pretend I’m showing them to Sam, make-believe she’s here in the room with me, sipping a late-night cocoa before bedtime.
A woman I called Auntie Joyce took me in first, after Mum and Dad died. I’ve got one photo of the two of us in Trafalgar Square one winter in the snow. We’re wrapped up in scarves, gloves and hats, bulked out like snowmen. We aren’t smiling at the camera or holding hands or anything, just standing next to each other like we’re in a bus queue. I wasn’t with her long; she was a friend of my mum’s when they worked in the cosmetics’ factory. Then it was Mrs Laine for a couple of months and after that it was Auntie Doris – that’s when I got my viola – but I don’t have any photos of her.
I only have two pictures of Mum and one of Dad in the whole world. None of them together. They’re tatty from years of fingering and flattening down. If my eyes were lasers, the photos would be bleached white by now, I’ve looked at them so often. I try to find more in them each time. I keep hoping for a dog or a bicycle to materialise in the background to bring a fresh memory to light, but there’s never anything there. The only one of Dad shows him wearing an RAF uniform. He looks preposterous in the jacket. He’d borrowed it and it was two sizes too big. I know for a fact he never flew a plane or went anywhere near an airbase. The picture has been folded across his face, so I can’t tell whether he’s smiling. Probably not.
It’s Christmas in a month. Already the shops are full of it. I told Sam I had no joyful memories of family Christmases. When I think of it again now, I can only bring to mind Dad flying off the handle, because the apple sauce was too sour or the parsnips were burnt – he had a ballistic temper.
Christmas Day was no different from any other day in our house. Plates would be routinely thrown, chairs got broken, a grandfather clock was pushed over once on Boxing Day, sent crashing to the floor with a discordant clang. Mum bore it all. She never fought back, except with words under her breath. There were only ever two states at home when Dad was there: incessant shouting or a trembling silence. The silence was the worst of the two, because you always knew something was brewing. Even when he didn’t say a word, I could tell the threats and foul language were flying around inside his skull.
When I think of my dad, I only see a shadow. He was away from home a lot when I was small, but then, when I was about five, there was a massive explosion on his oil rig that sent the whole platform up into the sky. It scattered pieces on the water the size of Mars bars. Dad survived, but he was in hospital for weeks. He came home with a limp and never worked again. He spent his days going to the pub and the bookies – I thought that was some kind of library. I asked to go too, but he shook me off saying it was only for grown-ups.
It’s hard to lose someone who has never really been there in the first place. Would Sam understand that I grieve most over what might have been when I think of my dad? Without the photograph I have no memory of his face, his voice, or the smell of his jacket. That thought makes me feel more isolated than ever.
I suppose if Sam wants to know all this stuff, it won’t do any harm to share it; it’s just that I’ve gone over it so many times on my own and with other therapists, that I don’t see the point. Recounting it n
ever gets me anywhere.
I pick up the most recent photo of my mother and try to imagine being next to her. I do remember her. She was pretty. Her hair was a shade closer to blonde than mine and she had petite features, like a bird. When I look back, I can see that men liked her because she looked vulnerable, not in a weak way, but as if she needed protection, like expensive cut glass.
I remember Dad once saying he didn’t like the way men ogled her, one bit. I didn’t know what it meant then, but it made him so livid that he’d sometimes pull out the wire to the phone and lock me and Mum in the house. I notice keys now; I tend to spot them if they’re lying around because I know how important they are. Mum missed important tests at the hospital one time, because we were trapped inside. I guess he was possessive and that’s one of the reasons Mum wanted to get away.
There are plenty of unpleasant incidents I could tell Sam about, if I had to. Like the time he’d come back from the bookies one afternoon and demanded a fruit pie with a decent crust on it. Two hours later, Mum proudly carried a lemon cheesecake into the room. Dad got to his feet and at first I thought he was pleased, but his voice didn’t sound right. Cheesecake is NOT a pie, he said. Cheesecake is a CAKE! And he smashed his walking stick into the centre of it.
Unbelievable! When I explained this to my last therapist, Erica, she said he sounded like a character out of Dickens.
‘Even in the 1980’s,’ she’d said, ‘your mother shouldn’t have had to put up with that.’
But everything got worse. No one seemed overly surprised about what happened on that horrible day when they both abandoned me forever. Neighbours nodded knowingly when the police cars came and the two of them were lifted into the ambulance inside long thin bags. Some said they saw it coming, others that it had only been a matter of time. I remember that half-filled suitcase on the bed – Mum and me were supposed to be going away together. Instead, they both left without me.
Chapter 11
Rosie
As my shoes crunch up the gravel drive of Sam’s Victorian house, I’m disappointed. There’s a board with buzzers and nameplates by the front door, which means it’s been divided into flats. I was expecting Sam to live in a detached property all by herself or at least somewhere smarter than this. Once inside, I can’t see much of the flat. She’s closed most of the internal doors, but I swear it only has one bedroom.
The decor isn’t what I was expecting either. It’s a bit odd. Quirky. A hotchpotch of battered old and shiny new belongings. An overused velvet settee – but a stylish gold-framed mirror above the fireplace. A trendy light-fitting that’s like a gnarled tree branch suspended from the ceiling and a coffee table from a huge slab of tree trunk on a Persian rug. Bookshelves made with bricks. I want to stop to take it all in properly, I want to work out what it says about her. While she picks up her notes from a small table, I move closer to an unusual painting on the wall.
‘Did you do this?’ I say. It’s loud and colourful, but I’m not sure what it’s meant to be.
I get a measly one-word answer. ‘No.’
She isn’t going any further than that, but I’m one step ahead of her, having spotted a signature in the bottom right-hand corner. Another Willerby. Sam’s mother?
‘A relative?’ I say.
‘Mmm,’ is all I get back.
I take a chance. ‘Your sister?’
‘Yes.’ Neutral. No, she’s actually verging on being annoyed. What’s the big deal?
‘Must be nice having a sister,’ I say, but she says we’re not here to talk about her.
I’m dying to ask if she’s married or has a boyfriend, or any kids, if there are any other brothers or sisters lurking in the wings, but I’m going to have to work everything out for myself. She’s not wearing a wedding ring and she uses the same name as her sister, so that’s a start.
There are no photos of her or any family groups about the place. Instead, just a few pale grey outlines on the wall where several frames have been removed. Is that for my benefit? Something inside my chest shrinks. Why does she have to hide things from me? I’m letting her right inside my head after all. It’s not fair.
I don’t need to go, but in the middle of our session I ask to use the bathroom. You can tell a lot about a person from their bathroom. Sam has put out a tiny guest towel, so far unused, and there’s expensive oil on the side of the bath and only one toothbrush. Only one dressing-gown hangs on the back of the door, too. While I’m in there, I take a quick peek inside the mirrored cabinet above the basin. Wax treatment, nail varnish, creams, hair mousse. Nothing to indicate a second person. I’m rather relieved at that.
There’s no sign of any pets in the place, either. A thought about Erica catapults into my head. She had a scruffy little dog who sat in during our first couple of sessions and seemed to listen to what I said. After that, he lost interest (the story of my life) and stayed in his basket in the hall. I wonder where Rupert is now. Erica always used to offer me a cup of tea when I arrived and she’d sit with her stocking feet resting on a footstool. Now I come to think of it, she was more relaxed, more informal than Sam, who’s wearing the same trademark pale silk blouse and black skirt that she wears at the hospital. I thought she’d be more laid-back at her home; hoped she’d be a bit more chatty.
Our chairs in the sitting room are spread out, so we’re not even within touching distance, and there’s the statutory box of tissues and two glasses of water, making the place look business-like. There are two clocks in the room, so we can each see how much time is left and vases and plants, but few personal items. I can see gaps in the bookcase as well as the walls, as if she’s removed certain books and ornaments. A tiny nugget of hurt hardens in my throat when I think she might have also done that because I’ve turned up.
All in all, the place feels stripped bare, not personal or cosy in the least. Just another room where Sam works. It’s sterile and soulless. Not like a home at all.
I’m miserable and depressed for most of the session and, from the questions she asks, Sam assumes it’s about the accident. I don’t enlighten her. I can hardly tell her I want her place to feel more homely. That I want to feel like she’s properly invited me in.
Towards the end, Sam explains we’ll have another session to complete our first block, then a further three to six sessions to see how I’m getting on. I’m pulled up short by that and a bubble of anger explodes inside my chest.
Now she’s seeing me privately, isn’t it open-ended like it was with Erica? Can’t I come for as long as I like? Bloody hell, I didn’t think there was going to be a time limit. You can’t rush this sort of thing. Doesn’t Sam realise that? I could be cast aside after just ten or twelve weeks, kicked out, like all the other times I’ve had to move on. Then I’ll be forgotten as usual. Rosie who? I can picture Sam’s therapy notes now: The frumpy ginger one who nearly drowned.
As I leave, I notice there’s some post lying on the tufted front mat. Being helpful I pick it up for her. I can’t help noticing a postcard on the top, writing side up. I quickly scan the text. It’s from someone called Con, but there are no kisses at the end and there’s no sign of serious affection. A brother, a friend or an ex? I hand the pile to Sam and wait for her to open the front door.
As she flicks down the latch, I spot a small bundle on the ledge. In a flash, my dismal visit doesn’t seem so fruitless after all. I scoop it up when she isn’t looking and hold it tightly in my hand – all the way home.
Chapter 12
Rosie
The following day, someone deliberately sets the fire alarm off at work and a couple of kids scarper with two trolley loads of DVDs. They aren’t on special offer, so this probably means our pay-rise will be put back a few months, if we get one at all this year. Sid, the manager, is insisting he needs to recover the cost of the increase in insurance premiums through our wages, because we aren’t vigilant enough. The whole business reminds me of Max’s violin. I wonder where it is. Caught up in the weeds at the bottom of the lak
e, or sitting safe and sound in someone’s sitting room? I’ve been checking the catalogues that Dawn emails every week – it’s stupid really. Sam’s right, no one would dare try to sell that kind of instrument on the open market.
Back at Streatham after work, my basement flat hits me as dark, dingy and damp. The three ‘Ds’. A combination of rotting fish and cat’s pee bleeds through the carpets, even though, in the three years I’ve been here, no cat has ever set foot in the place. Sam’s place is airy, aromatic and artistic. I want three ‘As’ instead of three ‘Ds’. Story of my life – again. I want my sister’s paintings on the wall and Chanel bath oil on my flannel, but I have neither a sister, nor a bath. There are so many black holes in my life. Family, luxury and love being key gaps I can single out straight away.
I’m keeping what I took from Sam’s flat warm all night under my pillow and at the bottom of my bag during the day, just in case. I’m thinking about when to put them to use when I notice my answerphone is flashing with a new message.
It’s the Cumbria Constabulary; they must have found something. I ring straight back, but my hopes are raised unnecessarily. DS Eric Fischer, the person I’m supposed to liaise with, says they’ve found a cello smashed up by the bank of the lake, about a hundred yards from where the van entered the water. A little boy was fishing nearby and thought it was a boat. The case was floating under a wooden jetty nearby.
‘We’ve also got the detailed results back from the van,’ DS Fischer tells me. He has an irritating lisp on every ‘s’. ‘The steering wasn’t stable and there was a slow puncture in the front left tyre, but there’s nothing to suggest it was anything other than wear and tear.’
‘Anything else?’ I ask.
‘The brakes were locked at the time of the crash – it looks like the vehicle could have done with a decent service.’
‘And the other passengers?’
