That Girl From Nowhere

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘Yes, of course, to ride.’

  ‘You?’

  Mum loudly settles her cup on the table and fixes me with a stern glare, her mouth a tight circle of indignation and irritation. ‘Yes, me.’ ‘Do you have some sort of problem with that?’ she adds silently.

  ‘Really?’ I say. Everything I was meant to tell her has been wisped away on this random revelation.

  ‘Yes, really,’ she says crossly.

  ‘Really, really?’

  ‘You are just like your father.’ Her voice is brittle. ‘You have no faith in me whatsoever. You think I’m not capable of doing anything beyond cooking and sewing and cleaning. I will have you know that when I was a young girl I had a bicycle and I used to go everywhere on it. I went to work at the factory on it and used to go out with my friends.’ Mum’s huff continues: ‘If you must know, I met your father while I was out riding in the countryside with my friends.’

  ‘Sorry. I was just a bit shocked, that’s all. Get a bike. It’ll be fun. Great idea.’ I won’t spend all my time worrying about you out there on the roads, wondering what havoc you’ll cause, I think. I’m sure there won’t be police at my door at least once a week telling me that you’ve been banged up in jail because you’ve taken some poor unsuspecting motorist to task for daring to come near you. I’m certain that this plan of yours is going to work out brilliantly for all concerned.

  ‘It will be,’ she says. She may as well cross her arms over her chest and stick out her tongue in a giant, defiant fit of pique.

  ‘I have a sister, Mum!’ I’d love to shout that at her. It’d wipe that sulk clean off her face. A bike. A freaking bike! ‘Right, well, I’m off to work. You enjoy looking for your bike.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Don’t forget to get a helmet.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  This was not how today was meant to start. I haven’t even had a drink and I’m being forced out of the house by another of those ‘moments with Mum’ I’m expert at walking into. Each time I get to the end of such a ‘moment’ I look back and find that it was usually precipitated by me not knowing when to keep my mouth shut, and Mum not knowing how not to be herself. A bike! How was I meant to not comment at all when this woman – with her criticism of every other driver on the road, whose constant shouts at me to slow down and ‘mind that car’ made a five-hour journey to Brighton feel like I’d taken a wrong turn and was headed instead to Hades – decides she’s going to join those people out there?

  I should have told her about Abi, though. This isn’t the sort of thing I should keep from her. I need someone to help me with what comes next. What do I want to come next, though? I left without getting Abi’s full name, without giving her my number or my full name. I suppose she could find me if she wanted to, and I could find her if I wanted to.

  Do I want to, though?

  Do I want to get in touch with her? Do I want to see her again? I ask myself that question again and again with every one of the eighty-seven steps I take on my way out of the building.

  Of course I do, I conclude as I open the door. Of course I don’t, I decide as the door shuts behind me and I am out in the open air. Of course I do and of course I don’t. I have no idea which answer is the best one.

  Tyler’s café is buzzing – energetic and alive with customers. It’s just past eight and everyone seems to have got the memo that told them to come here for breakfast and a chat.

  ‘What would Madame From Nowhere like to try today?’ Tyler asks. I hop myself up on to my favourite stool, place my bag on the seat beside me. ‘I have some wonderful smoky coffee beans that would make an interesting double-shot espresso. A nice Chilean blend – fair trade, of course – that would make a delightful mocha, and a truly unique Mexican mix that would make an out-of-this-world cappuccino—’

  ‘No cappuccino!’ I say this much louder than necessary. A few people turn to look at me and Tyler’s eyebrows come together in confusion. ‘I do not want a cappuccino type of day today,’ I state calmly.

  ‘I’ve got a jar of instant I save for emergencies, if you want?’

  ‘That’ll do nicely, thank you.’

  He uses my favourite bucket teacup with the lemon-yellow and white daisies on a pink saucer, to make me a flat white. I knew he was teasing about the jar of instant. ‘Do I detect something troubling in the usual Tour de Force that is Smitty’s world?’ he asks. I draw the coffee towards myself across the counter and my fingers reach for the sugar pot. Four shots of it later, I begin to stir, creating the gravelly sound of undissolved sugar against porcelain. He watches me overdose my drink with the sugar and eventually states, ‘Ah, I detect a huge disturbance in the tour de force.’

  ‘I thought it was only bartenders in American movies who talked to their customers about their problems.’

  ‘And me.’ He leans on the counter, brings his head down to my height. ‘Didn’t I tell you I trained in America? True, true. I was a bartender in a cocktail bar. I am well qualified to listen to problems.’

  ‘I’m kind of stuck,’ I say without really thinking about it. ‘There’s something I half want to do that will hurt someone else if I do it. But I don’t think I can not do it, partly because I’ve already set the wheels in motion. I didn’t actually mean to set the wheels in motion, it sort of happened. And now I’m stuck between doing it and not doing it and not knowing if I’ll realistically not be able to do it. But if I do it, then where does that leave the person I’ll potentially hurt?’ The surface of my coffee is smooth and unbroken. Under the surface, a dozen, maybe a hundred dozen, tiny chemical reactions are taking place as the sugar dissolves.

  ‘Sounds tricky.’

  ‘Tricky isn’t the half of it.’

  ‘How would you solve it if it was a work problem?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have this problem if it was a work problem.’

  ‘Just say it was. Say you had a jewellery piece that you wanted to create that you technically couldn’t do without destroying half of your office? Studio? Workshop?’

  ‘Workshop.’

  ‘You can’t create it without destroying part of your workshop in the process, but you know how great it would look in the end, how it’ll push the boundaries of jewellery making and will have people talking about it until the end of time. What would you do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I sigh and stare into the depths of my coffee, hoping to capture a glimpse of one of those chemical reactions. ‘I’d maybe think of a way of protecting my workshop but still make the piece? It’s not the same, though, people and things. My workshop can always be rebuilt – even if it’s not rebuilt in the same place. This person who’ll get hurt, I can’t ever undo that hurt. I don’t like hurting people. Especially not this one.’

  ‘If they’re that important to you, aren’t you important enough to them that they’d be all right with whatever it is you want to do? Isn’t that the nature of caring about someone?’

  ‘In theory, yes. In reality, not so much.’

  ‘Now, see, I don’t think that’s true. I think when you love someone you try to understand and be supportive of the things they really want to do.’

  ‘So if you were married and your wife really wanted to run off with your next-door neighbour, you’d try to be supportive of that, would you? Or would you be incredibly hurt and unable to get over it?’

  Tyler’s frown ploughs deep lines into the perfection that is his face. ‘Who told you about that?’

  I draw back. ‘Oh, no. Did that happen to you? God, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. It was just an example I plucked out of thin air.’

  His face creases up. ‘No, it didn’t happen to me. Just messing with you. I don’t know, it’s not an easy answer, but it doesn’t sound like your dilemma will have you running off with someone unsuitable. It sounds like it’s something important to you. And as simplistic as it sounds, people who care about you want you to be happy, even if it is sometimes at their expense.’ Tyler stands upright.

&nbs
p; That sounds so true and noble, how we’d all love the world to work, but does it really? Do we all at some point have to submit ourselves to pain because it will make someone we care about happy?

  A digital buzz emanates from my bag and its sound, although technically ‘silent’, cuts through the good-natured hum of conversation in the place. Tyler grins at me like we’re old friends, and disappears back into the kitchen area.

  The number is a mobile and I don’t recognise it. I know who it is when I slide my finger across the screen to answer the call – it could be a new client, it could be Seth calling from a new phone, it could be anyone in the world. It’s obvious who it’s going to be, though. It’s what I would be doing if I was in their situation.

  I inhale. Pause. Say, ‘Hello, Clem speaking,’ with as much confidence as I can.

  ‘Hi,’ she says. ‘It’s Abimbola … Abi. From yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. Hello.’

  ‘I talked to my mum last night,’ she says. When I say nothing, Abi continues, ‘She really wants to meet you.’

  Without ceremony or much thought, I take the phone away from my ear, hit the flashing red ‘call end’ button, and quietly, calmly, I then turn off my phone.

  17

  Abi

  To: Jonas Zebila

  From: Abi Zebila

  Subject: Damn!

  Sunday, 21 June 2015

  Really, Jonas, really?! I tell you we have a secret sister and I get nothing from you? Nothing at all? Not even the slightest bit of curiosity?! Do you think I made her up or something?.

  Well, I didn’t. I found her number and called and she hung up on me. She actually hung up on me. I’m still smarting about that three days later. Especially since her phone seems to be permanently off now.

  Mummy’s keen on seeing her, too, even though she’d never admit it. She spends all her time staring into space, as if she’s back reliving that time of her life. I can’t even begin to imagine Mummy doing it. Any of it. The sex before marriage, the handing over a baby in a butterfly box. I’d love to ask her about it, but I know she won’t talk. She’ll just clam up and pretend it’s all a mistake.

  I tried to show her Clemency’s website and she just sat looking at it like the computer wasn’t there. I can’t even begin to understand what’s going through her head right now. Or Clemency’s. I just realised, I didn’t tell you her name – that’s it: Clemency.

  Since she hung up on me I’ve been trying to find out as much as I can about her, but do you know how many photos there are of our sister on the internet? Pretty much none. Do you know how easy it is to find out information about her? Really bloody hard. She’s got an unusual name so you’d think it’d be easy to find out about her, but no. Nada. It’s like she doesn’t really exist. But I know she does because Mrs L clearly knew who she was, which is why she sent me to talk to her, and there’s the website. And I met her.

  Jonas, I really need someone to tell me what to do right now. I can’t tell anyone else about this. Where would I even begin telling Declan? He thinks we stayed there the other night because I’ve fallen out with Mummy, which I have in the most quiet way possible. I am so confused.

  Abi

  xxxxx

  Part 3

  18

  Smitty

  Mum has her bike. Technically it’s a tricycle, which makes me less worried about her wobbling into traffic on two wheels. It’s a much more substantial vehicle and she has a greater surface area on the road, which can only be a good thing.

  Whenever it was wet outside and Seth would speed off to Wakefield for work on his motorcycle, I would worry because he was so vulnerable and had less space on the highways than cars did. All it would take would be one slip on a patch of water or oil, or the misjudgement of a corner, and that would be it. He’d be gone. I’d have lost him and I could have prevented it if I’d stopped him from riding his damn bike.

  My fears are similar about Mum, except I fear for those who dare to cut her up, too. I was dragged along to a bike shop out in Littlehampton and was expected to make approving noises and comments, which I duly did.

  Guilt about not telling her about Abi unfurled its silky red ribbony threads and bound my questioning tongue so tight I barely spoke during the whole trip – I simply nodded and smiled approvingly. Even when she chose a black helmet with biker girl flames along the sides, and big brand-name trainers almost blindingly white, which she insisted on buying specifically for cycling, I smiled and nodded and showed my full support. Guilt also allowed me to watch her try on pair after pair of shiny Spandex cycling shorts until she came to the conclusion all on her own that khaki Bermuda shorts were more her thing.

  It’s too impossible a thing to tell her about Abi. Every time I try, my mouth will not form the words. I know, eventually, Mum will be fine, she will understand that I did not go looking for this and I did not want it to happen. It’s the initial reaction I don’t want to deal with. The way her face will become a blank of incomprehension. How she’ll sit back in her seat or will sit down heavily. The way her eyes will cloud over as she tries to formulate the first of many questions to find out if it was truly an accident or if I had betrayed her after all she’d done for me. How I’ll have to keep reminding her that I love her and I haven’t been in touch with them since.

  I feel guilty too about not answering any of Abi’s calls or texts. That is also an impossible thing to do. I want to speak to her so much it’s almost physically painful, but to do that I have to speak to Mum first. Or I have to set in motion a life where I lie to my mother. I left Seth for lying and I do not want to become a person who does it and then justifies it as necessary. I want to talk to Abi, reply to her, but instead I screen all calls from numbers I don’t know and I only call back the people who are clients or potential clients.

  In this café-bar courtyard area of a boutique wine hotel in Brighton, I’m waiting for a new client and thinking about Mum out there on the mean streets of East Sussex on her bike. I’ve spoken to this new client a couple of times on the phone and he needs me to make an engagement ring for his girlfriend. He wants to propose at the end of the month and was hoping I would be able to make the ring quickly. ‘I can’t rush it,’ I told him, ‘it won’t turn out right if I rush it.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t want you to rush, it’s just it’s our anniversary then, and I want to propose.’

  Why leave it so late? I asked in my head. I thought of Seth, of course. How he persuaded me against my better judgement to have an engagement party two years ago. I was very proud of myself that when the inevitable happened and we had to cancel it while actually standing in the hall, dressed up and ready to party, I didn’t say to him ‘I told you so’. And Seth was good, too, in that he popped all the one hundred and fifty balloons and ate as much of the buffet as he could before we had to bin it.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I promised the client when I dislodged the memory of how that night went from my mind. I told the client, Declan, to meet me with photos of his girlfriend wearing her favourite items of jewellery, to bring any ideas about the design and a list of her favourite things that could potentially be incorporated into the finished article. From talking to him it turned out that he didn’t want a stone set, which would make it easier, but he did want an elaborate design. I’d wanted to meet at Beached Heads, of course, but this guy could only meet me in his lunch break from work without arousing suspicion from his other half, so I’m here.

  A few steps away you have the main road along Brighton seafront with its attendant noise and busyness, beyond that the aqua-green railings that are punctuated by entrances to steep stone steps that take you down to the promenade and then to the beach. Yet, this courtyard feels secluded, quiet, like you could be in a large villa on a private island. There are huge parasols sheltering each table, which from above must look like a giant patchwork quilt with the seams made of daylight. I’m drinking coffee in an ordinary cup. Whenever I take a sip, I experience what feels suspiciously li
ke a pang of missing Tyler. Obviously I fancy him, I won’t pretend to myself I don’t, but missing him? That’s beyond ridiculous when I still have Seth texting me every other day and I don’t know Tyler well enough to miss him. Or maybe I’m missing Seth and, because I don’t want to, I’ve transferred those feelings to Tyler. That sounds far more likely.

  I lazily flick through my photo album of Polaroids of my work. In the back of my head I am still looking for inspiration for reworking Melissa’s locket from her birth mother into something new and wearable. I keep coming back to making the locket body into a watch and using lengths of the chain to make the strap. I can’t make clockwork, though, and if I got someone else to do it, the price of the piece would be astronomical. But time seems so appropriate for Melissa: she had that locket waiting for her for such a long time.

  ‘You’re going to hate me, I know, but I had to do it.’

  My fingers holding the corner of a page and about to turn it over, stop working. My heart feels like it has been fired out of a cannon and is now rattling against my chest, trying to find an exit point from my body. I carefully, slowly, raise my head to her.

  ‘Look, I know it’s not good what I’ve done.’ Abi pulls out a chair and sits down opposite me. ‘But hear me out, please?’ She rushes on whether I intend to hear her out or not: ‘You dropped a huge bombshell on me. It’s not easy to just walk away from that. I only wanted to talk to you.’

  I lower the corner of the page in my hand, sit back to regard her. She has wonderfully shiny hair. It’s sleek and hangs just below her shoulders. She has perfectly applied make-up – she obviously learnt long ago which shades of blacks and browns emphasise the shape and size of her eyes, which tints of foundation give her a flawless complexion, which hues of lip-gloss endow her lips with that glossy sheen. She’s wearing a well-cut, expensive-looking suit jacket over a burgundy, ankle-length dress.

  We’re dressed the same. Except my outfit has probably cost a third of what hers has. My burgundy dress was from a shop I found in the Markets in Leeds five years ago, my jacket was found in a second-hand shop in Wakefield and was taken in to fit only after much pressure on Mum three years ago.