Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  She had a point; I had to give her that one. Although her comment was rather outdated. It wasn’t so much pen-to-paper as fingertip-to-keyboard these days. But whichever way you said it, I still wasn’t doing it. There’s nothing like a pile of rejection letters to make you never want to write again.

  I bristled in lieu of a response and took another swig.

  I was an irritant in my mother’s life, like a particularly abrasive hand soap. We rarely had a conversation that wasn’t a battle of some kind. The prize was never known, the stakes uncertain, yet we still battled.

  I don’t know if it was the same between fathers and sons as it was between mothers and daughters, the battle to establish hierarchy, the war for head of the house. I suppose it is, especially if said son or daughter is grown and ready to run their own house but can’t leave their parents due to monetary restrictions. One day, I assumed that it would come down to some sort of gladiatorial battle in the garden, a fight to the death when one of us would prevail and gain control over the pressure cooker and the TV remote.

  ‘How was your day, Mother? Get a lot of menial chores done?’ I asked, the wine making me brave.

  ‘Actually, I did. Thank you. But you’d know nothing about that, would you?’ she said with a razor-sharp tongue and I wished I hadn’t drunk as much wine; that way I’d have been able to come up with a good retort.

  Chapter Nine

  I stared at my lunch with curious revulsion.

  Theo had left me in charge of myself, a task that I had never boasted to be an expert at, and had told me to carry on with the list. I didn’t feel too confident about finding a band to see alone or getting up before my shift to view the sunrise. And so, on my lunch break, I’d gone to the nearest supermarket and picked up the weirdest food that I could find in an attempt to tick off mission number seven: Eat something new and strange.

  I’d pondered over the unfamiliar items of the World Foods aisle and had almost opted for a jar of kimchi – fermented cabbage that looked like stringy hangover vomit – but as I wandered past the fish counter, my eye had been caught by something so strange that I’d hastily shoved the kimchi onto a shelf and bought that instead.

  When I’d returned to the shop, I’d found Amy riffling through the magazine section.

  Amy is this girl who comes by every other week to pick up the latest copy of Writer’s Inspiration magazine. She’s a writer who tells everyone about her plot, her characters, her worries and doubts. It’s quite exasperating really, but she’s a customer so I’m forced to smile and nod while she prattles on about scene structure.

  I’d made a terrible error of judgement when I’d told her that I was also a writer, or playing at being one anyway. Ever since then she’d latched on to me like I was some kind of role model or something. I couldn’t think of anyone worse for her to look up to, unless being a drunken failure was what she aspired to be.

  Her eyes seemed to gleam with the sparkle of a mind always gathering information for the next paragraph, a gleam that I’d lost a long time ago.

  She was nineteen and naïve; life hadn’t yet rubbed away her sparkling enthusiasm. Her eagerness reminded me of my own, or lack thereof, and every time I saw her keen little elfin face it made me remember just how much I’d given up on my dream.

  ‘How’s the book coming?’ I asked as I slid her purchase into a paper bag.

  ‘Great. I’m on the second in the trilogy now.’

  Oh yeah, I should have said, Amy writes tons.

  She’s already completed two short novels and is now halfway through a trilogy. She doesn’t let the rejections knock her down though; if anything they spur her on to write more.

  Her eyes glinted at me from behind her thickly rimmed glasses that suited her so well they just looked like an accessory.

  ‘You still writing?’ she asked, her brow creasing as if she pitied me.

  ‘No.’ I took her money and sorted her change. ‘There’s only so many times you can hear that you’re not good enough.’

  She took her bag and pocketed her change. ‘Just remember that George Orwell and Stephen King were both rejected. Everyone has to start somewhere.’ She took a mint imperial and popped it into her mouth before leaving with that same irksome skip in her step.

  At least that was over and I had a fortnight of peace before she came back and reminded me of the extent to which I’d given up.

  I took my lunch to the least frequented section of the shop, the sad little Local History corner. Barely anyone set foot in there and so it was the best place to eat, undisturbed. I made myself comfortable against the shelving and crossed my ankles.

  Popping the lid from my ‘lunch’ caused a vinegary scent to rise from the little polystyrene tub. It smelled like that weird foam that the sea makes sometimes – it wasn’t particularly appetising.

  The guy at the counter had called it Seafood Salad, but I failed to see where the salad part came into it. All I could see were oil-coated octopus tentacles, white rings of leathery squid and mussels that looked like shrivelled little vaginas.

  I took a photo and sent it to Theo. If I was actually going to eat this monstrosity and complete this mission, then I was at least going to have photographic proof.

  I placed a tentacle in my mouth and it took all the will I had to chew it. The taste wasn’t too bad. The texture, on the other hand, was something I guessed I’d have to acquire a liking for.

  I heard Arthur heading down from his flat above, his feet clunking heavily on the creaking stairs. I looked up into the anti-theft mirror and watched as he anxiously paced behind the till, his hands drumming out a rhythm on his thighs.

  I was about to shout out to him and ask him what his deal was, but then someone came in through the door and I no longer needed to ask.

  Toby stood in the doorway with his old battered grey briefcase in one hand and a paper bag clutched in the other.

  I shuffled back and made myself comfortable as I watched them in the convex reflection of the mirror. Watching those two was like the longest-running will-they-won’t-they sitcom coupling of all time. It was obvious for all, except the two numpties involved, that they both liked each other and yet neither of them had the nerve to make the first move.

  ‘There are a few things I need to check over with you, before we put this whole issue to bed,’ Toby cooed in his soft Scottish tones. ‘I brought lunch; you can share it if you like.’

  I saw Arthur’s blushing smile as he walked out from behind the counter, put up the Closed for Lunch sign and joined Toby on the sofa.

  I watched them quietly, not really thinking about how creepy I was being. Toby accidentally brushed Arthur’s arm and Arthur leaned over and flicked a crumb from Toby’s tie. It was all I could do not to giggle with excitement.

  Was it finally happening?

  Arthur had never wasted time in getting what he wanted, but this charade with Toby predated our friendship. I couldn’t work out why he was dancing around the subject when all he needed to do was say one word and Toby would be his.

  Maybe that was always the case when you knew that something was going to be special.

  I thought of Daz and how willingly I had run to that diner and how I had known from the get-go that he was going to be a tool. Yet I had gone there expecting opposites to attract and sparks to fly, but then an adolescence filled with Taylor Swift songs and Nicholas Sparks novels had led me to have unrealistic expectations about love. Love was never like it was in the songs or the stories; love was disappointing and painful, but some sadistic side kept hoping that I’d eventually stumble upon the love of my life. My soulmate. My lobster – I mean seahorse. Who knew, Theo could be my blond-haired, blue-eyed seahorse, but when he’d come along, I’d done nothing but try and scare him off, almost breaking my own neck trying to get away when he’d attempted to kiss me. Maybe it was natural – when you could feel a hard fall coming on – to jeopardise your chances or try and talk yourself out of it, just so you wouldn’t get hurt when it
all inevitably went tits up; like those animals that flee when they sense a natural disaster coming.

  Was that what love was – a natural disaster?

  They talked about accountancy, but after a while they got waylaid with talk of travelling and days spent in the sun. Toby was telling Arthur about his cousin’s house in Prague when I realised that I’d eaten the entire pot of seafood, leaving nothing but a pale yellow swill in the bottom.

  I snapped another picture of the empty tub and sent it to Theo.

  Mission 7 – complete!

  He texted back quickly:

  I’m going to trust that you ate that and didn’t just chuck it in the bin. XXX

  I studied his text for a few minutes, my eyes lingering on the three kisses at the end and wondering if he had really meant to send them or if it was just a force of habit.

  I’d been sitting/eavesdropping on Arthur and Toby’s date for half an hour when I realised that I could no longer feel my legs. I clambered up as quietly as I could, using the shelves to pull myself higher until I was standing, my legs feeling like they might buckle under me.

  I took a tentative step forward and rolled my ankle. I cursed under my breath.

  ‘Effie?’ Arthur called and I knew the jig was up.

  I stepped into view, the pot of seafood swill clutched in my hand on its way to the bin.

  ‘How long have you been hiding in there?’ Toby asked with an inviting smile. Arthur, however, looked incredibly pissed off that I’d crashed his date.

  ‘I know this looks creepy but I promise I wasn’t listening,’ I lied. ‘Just pretend I’m not here.’

  I hobbled over to the bin, my legs prickling with pins and needles. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and reached down to look. It was a photo from Theo of him posing beside a huge taxidermy owl.

  What do you think about this for the treehouse? he’d written.

  I smiled and replied: I love it. We can put it in the sunroom in the east wing.

  I had planned on binning my pot of disgust and then getting out of their hair, but as per usual I didn’t quite manage it. As the feeling began to return to my legs, I became aware of a tightness around my ankle. I took a step to relieve it, realising too late that it was the card machine cord and causing everything on the counter to clatter to the floor. I tumbled with the rest of the rubbish and landed face down in the octopus juice, groaning as I felt it seeping into my hair.

  ‘Effie, are you all right?’ Toby ran over to the counter and pulled me out of my mess.

  I used my sleeve to wipe the gunge from my cheek and turned to see Arthur staring at me with annoyance.

  ‘I’m fine, go back to what you were doing. If the world stopped every time I fell down, then nothing would ever get done.’

  ‘Good God, what is that?’ Arthur scrunched up his face and eyed the fish juice that lingered on the floor in an unsavoury puddle.

  ‘It’s probably best if you don’t know,’ I replied as Toby handed me a tissue and I mopped up the viscous liquid.

  ‘I’m going to have to go and find an air freshener. It smells like a hooker’s gusset in here,’ Arthur said before jogging up into his flat to find something that would overpower the stench.

  ‘I’m not going to wonder how he knows that,’ I said, tossing the sullied tissue into the bin and smiling at Toby. I’d always liked him. He was gentle and soft-spoken; a stark contrast to Arthur.

  ‘You know that this accountancy business is only a ruse to get you here, right?’ I lowered my voice, watching his reaction as I spoke.

  His lips curled, his eyes creasing at the corners.

  ‘Oh, I know. Only someone who knew exactly what they were doing could have made that many perfect mistakes.’ He pushed his glasses further up his nose and smiled my way.

  ‘You going to tell him that you know what’s going on?’

  He leaned in close, as if about to tell a secret, and said, ‘And spoil all the fun? Never!’

  ‘Why a person does that to themselves I will never know!’ Joy blurted from the safety of the sofa. It was where she always sat, the upholstery faded and sagging from years of scrunching herself up into the same corner. The newly cut angle of her hair brushed against her neck as she spoke. I still hadn’t mentioned her new haircut and I knew it was eating her up inside.

  My father had made a rare appearance downstairs and he had managed to stay conscious for all of twenty minutes before dozing off into a blissful slumber; soft snorts sounding from his wide nostrils. His head lolled, his thickly bearded chin bobbing against his chest as he breathed. He was looking old these days. His red hair was slowly turning snowy, his hands beginning to look more and more like my grandad’s had as the days went by.

  I craned my neck from the armchair in the window to look at the television screen and the person my mother was complaining about. The girl was pretty, in a rock star kind of way, with darkly lined eyes, sultry red vampiric lipstick and from her septum hung a small silver hoop.

  ‘I mean you may as well cart her off to Spain and enrol her in a bull run with that thing hanging out of her nose.’

  ‘I like it,’ I said before turning back to the window and staring at the road.

  I often found some kind of dark thrill in actively disagreeing with my mother. I would sometimes fully agree with what came out of her mouth and yet I would still say that I disagreed, simply for the pleasure of disagreeing.

  ‘You’d never get that done would you, love?’ Joy asked before loudly slurping at the tea in her Michael Bolton tour mug; the sound set my teeth on edge. ‘I know you wouldn’t. We didn’t raise you to poke holes in your face – did we, William?’

  My father woke from his reposed position in the reclining chair. He looked around puzzled for a few seconds, agreed with his wife without knowing what he was agreeing with, and then swiftly fell back to sleep.

  ‘I don’t know, I think it would suit me,’ I said, the pathetic feeling of power making me feel alive for a moment. I would never actually get a septum piercing, for the simple reason that I couldn’t pull it off, but hearing the mild terror in my mother’s voice was all I had really set out to achieve.

  ‘Well, we’d be very disappointed in you – wouldn’t we, William?’ Joy raised her voice on his name and, just like before, he was roused, quickly agreed and fell back to sleep.

  ‘How would I ever live with myself?’ I muttered into the coarse maroon fabric of the chair. I looked down at my lap and lit up my phone, opening Theo’s texts and grinning to myself at the numerous photographs he’d sent me throughout the day. He’d sent one at around three o’clock of him posing in a pith helmet and then another at five of the drive-thru dinner he’d eaten in the car on his way back home. It had been a long time since someone had thought of me enough to send me more than one text per fortnight. I was sure that my phone would soon have a breakdown over its sudden increase in usage. I opened a new message and began typing.

  I miss you.

  I stared at it for a minute or two, my thumb hovering over the send button.

  For a moment I thought that I might send it, but my thumb moved down to the backspace button and deleted it.

  ‘Look at that dress,’ Joy said with a maniacal look in her eye. ‘Who told her she had the right to show the world those legs?’

  I rolled my eyes and wondered if she’d always been this judgemental and I’d just not noticed or if she was slowly ageing into a bitter old bigot.

  I looked down, opened the Facebook app on my phone and began trawling the news feed. There were the obligatory reposted videos – one of a man rescuing a cat with its head stuck in a tin can and one of a lipstick that could withstand eating, drinking, kissing and nuclear weapons. There were a few posts from Arthur’s business page about November deals and a number of those infuriating public diary posts, usually by someone on some kind of torturous diet, who saw fit to inform every fucking person in the entire fucking world about their low-calorie, high-protein lunch. I scrolled further an
d saw a fresh new selection of posts that made my stomach churn.

  A picture of a newly built detached house on the outskirts of York came onto the screen. A smiling couple stood before it next to a SOLD sign; a shiny new Vauxhall gleamed in the driveway. I recognised the man in the photo as Andrew Golding. He’d sat behind me in French class and was forever fiddling with the groin of his trousers. I hoped he’d grown out of it by now.

  The next post was one from Kate. A photo of her plane ticket to Toronto sat, artistically lit and surrounded by strategically strewn fairy lights, beside a glass of prosecco. The caption read: ‘Can’t wait to fly out to Canada, eh. #Blessed.’

  I swallowed down my bile – both verbal and physical – and pressed the lock button on my phone. I suddenly felt ashamed and like my skin was too tight. My stomach churned like I’d just eaten an out-of-date prawn and all I wanted to do was vomit it back up.

  What was I doing with my life, sitting in a cat-hair-clad armchair, picking at my too-long toenails and gawping at other people’s successes? Where the fuck were my successes? Surely the laws of probability would bring at least a mild victory to me soon.

  My phone buzzed, making me jump, and I saw a message from Kate open up on the screen. My smile disappeared.

  The text read:

  Hey guys. As you all know, I’m moving to Toronto for a few months for an incredible job opportunity and Callum is throwing me a going away party. You’re all invited so dress up in your best clobber and get yourself to ours on Saturday at six. K xxx

  I locked my phone and pushed it down between the arm of the chair and the cushion. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to a party to celebrate everything that Kate had somehow managed to achieve. I had nothing to brag about, nothing to be proud of. All of my pride had languished and died long ago and so, the thought of stepping into a room of sparkling, Gucci-clad overachievers was not something I relished.

  I wondered what Kate was doing right now.

  Probably bathing in rose petals, her beautiful fiancé between her legs and her lips pressed to the rim of a flute filled with champagne more expensive than the shitty car that I shared with my parents. My chin rested on the back of the chair as I watched Elliot groom himself lewdly on the driveway. He looked up at me, his stare boring into me like drills into my soul.