by Juno Dawson
By the fourth night, even Margot is looking exhausted. The new routine is to drive back to the farm, have a late supper and slope off to bed ready to do it all again the next day.
I plonk myself in the Land Rover. Margot climbs into the driver’s seat and puts the key in the ignition. She pauses. ‘Regular way home,’ she asks, ‘or shall we go on an adventure?’
‘An adventure?’
‘Let’s turn left and see where we end up.’ She turns to me and gives me an uncharacteristic wink.
Uncharacteristic it may be, but I like it. I have to smile. I can’t help it. Although I’m aching for bed, I say, ‘Adventure it is.’
Margot pulls out of the car park, and, instead of turning right towards the farm, she swings us left into the night.
We drive and drive. With lights on full beam, we snake along winding country lanes, thickly black with no street lights. We pass a disused mine, the skeleton of the lift shaft silhouetted against the pale moon. It’s way pretty. We are dwarfed by snow-capped mountains and I’m almost breathless with how beautiful they are and how tiny I feel. How nothingy I am in the bigger picture.
We drive on. I see the city in the distance, a blob of glitter on a black map, busy roads feeding into it like veins, lit with headlights. Planes pass overhead, landing lights flashing. Margot and I don’t really talk much, but it’s not a scary silence, it’s a relaxed one.
We keep going until we run out of Wales. We arrive at a point at the top of a rocky cliff overlooking a curving beach. The sea is gentle, rippling like navy-blue silk. Staying in the car because it’s so cold, I stare into it, letting it hypnotise me. I have no idea what time it is. I stopping checking hours ago.
‘Where are we?’ I say finally.
‘Gower Peninsula. South of Swansea.’
‘It’s beautiful.’ At night, the sand looks silver. It’s all a bit science fiction, like we’re on an alien planet with purple oceans and diamond beaches.
‘I didn’t know this was where we were going until we got here,’ Margot sighs.
We both seem to relax, sinking further into our seats. For a few minutes it feels a bit like we’ve escaped. I don’t want to escape Mum, obviously, but the walls of Llanmarion are shrinking in on me. Farm, school, hospital, farm, school, hospital on repeat are making me crazy. Seeing the beach, seeing out to the horizon, reminds me I’m not in a bubble. There’s room to breathe at last.
We sit in quiet for a while, listening to the tide yawn in and out.
‘To answer your last question,’ Margot says, turning the heaters down, ‘I didn’t go back to the farm until the late fifties.’
I had completely forgotten there was anything left to know.
‘I brought your mother when she was a baby. By then Peter and Jane were long gone, obviously, and it was just Glynis and Ivor and the animals. They doted on Julia. Ivor in particular was so wonderful with her. Between you and me, I rather think Ivor would have taken to fatherhood splendidly.’
‘What? You think it was Glynis that didn’t want kids?’
‘I suspect so, although they were happy enough.’ Margot smiles, obviously enjoying rolling back through the years. ‘We went back a couple of times, but I stopped when Glynis became ill. She had cancer too. She died in the spring of ’66, if I remember rightly.’
‘Oh no! What did Ivor do?’
‘He ran the farm until the day he died. Which was three and a half years ago.’
I do the sums very quickly. ‘That was when you moved here.’
Margot smiles. ‘I last saw him about five years ago. I received a letter from him, unusual in itself, asking if I’d pay him a visit. I went at once, abandoning my poor deputy editor. Ivor never changed, the same giant, same giant heart. I arrived at the farm and found it the same as ever. He was very old. He walked with a stick and relied on some farmhands to keep it all in order. By then he wasn’t really producing much – about the same as I’m managing.
‘I made us a pot of tea and we drank it in the rose garden. He rested his stick against that little bench and sighed this world-weary sigh. “Margot,” he said, “I’m too old for all this, like. I’m ready to throw in the towel and go meet my Glynis.” I told him he was being a silly old man. “Ah, Margot, I’m tired. I’ve had enough. I’m off to put my feet up. Now listen,” he said, “you’re the closest thing to a daughter we ever had, like, and I’m leaving the farm to you.”
‘Well, how I laughed. The very idea of me having a farm was ridiculous. I’d hardly set foot out of north London in the last thirty years except for holidays. I didn’t even go south of the river if I could at all avoid it. He wouldn’t hear otherwise. “The farm is yours to do with as you will. Look after it, won’t you.”
Sure enough, he died about six months later. Just went to sleep one night and never woke up. At first I thought I’d sell the place, to be honest, but I came to have a clear-up after his funeral. Everything was so familiar, so warm, so … like home. I knew at once I could never sell it. I hadn’t planned to leave London, especially when your mother was in remission, but, and I know this sounds peculiar, I swear I heard a little voice telling me I was home … reassuring me. And it felt right. It felt like the right thing to do. And I think it was. When I left London, I trusted your mother would get better, but even now, with everything that’s happening, I still think here is the right place to be … for both you and me.’
Voices? Like the voices in the woods? Surely not … I almost say something, but hold my tongue. ‘Was it you who changed the name of the farm?’
She smiles a very slight smile. ‘Yes. Keeps the kids away,’ she says with a wink. ‘Come on. I suppose we should think about driving back, even if tomorrow is Saturday.’
‘Just give me a minute.’
She nods and I step out of the car. Despite the calm waters a stiff wind slices across the clifftop and the long, silver grasses seem to bow down. I wrap my arms around me and let the breeze slap me full in the face. I feel it tug and whip at my hair. The air smells super-beachy – salty and briny and piratey. I close my eyes and see candyfloss on Brighton pier, Blackpool Tower, sailors at Portsmouth, Dracula in Whitby and donkey rides on Scarborough beach.
All days with Mum. It’s always been just her and me. I feel hot tears blow back to my ears. I just let them roll. I am not ready to lose her. Not even close.
Margot waits in the car until I’m calm enough to get back in.
Chapter 36
There’s nothing like a makeover to cheer a girl up. I pull the mirror off the wall in the hallway and sit on my bedroom floor where the light is best. Mum came home two days ago, but she’s too ill to really do anything. She can make it to the sofa, but that’s about it.
I have nowhere to go (it is Llanmarion) but I find putting on make-up oddly therapeutic. I start with base, as you do. I have two foundations, one for summer, when I have more of a tan, and a cooler one for winter. I’m careful not to cake it on too thick or you get that terrible tidemark around the jawline.
I tidy up my eyebrows with tweezers before using a little primer over my lids. I try to perfect my smoky eye, mixing white, grey and black – blending them over my lid, black extending towards the outer tip of my brow. A little kohl under the eye and liquid liner along the edge of the upper lid.
I glue some false lashes on. I regret it at once – they’re too long and look stupidly fake. Maybe if I curl them they’ll look better. I do so and add mascara. It’s clumpy and a bit ‘tarantula lashes’. Christ. I sigh and start on my cheeks.
You have to be so careful with blusher, or you look like a cheap doll hooker. I prefer a very subtle peachy-bronze shade over the cheekbones and then some pale highlighter above the line. Maybe it’s the light, but it looks OTT. I vigorously pummel my cheeks with a thick, clean brush to blend, but it doesn’t seem to help much.
I’ve come too far to turn back. Again, to avoid looking like a prozzie, you can choose eyes or lips, and with such a heavy eye I need a light lip
so pick a pearly ‘nude’ shade. It’s a too pale and it looks a bit gothy. I wipe it off and instead choose a dusky pink.
I apply too much, missing my lipline. I swear loudly and rummage in my make-up bag for a lipliner to straighten it up. I take a good look at myself. Am I drunk? I’m so far outside my lips I look like a Page 3 girl.
I look like total shit.
I’m too hot.
I’m sweating.
My left eye is clearly bigger than the right.
I look like the Hamburglar.
Or a raccoon.
Or RuPaul.
I’m boiling.
I want this shit off my face.
I itch all over.
I drag my left hand over my left eye, leaving a horrid coaly smudge over my cheek.
I unwind the pink lipstick all the way and press it hard against my reflection. I write until the whole lipstick is broken off and hurl it across the boxroom.
The big pink letters say CLOWN.
Chapter 37
‘How’s your mum doing?’ Thom asks in the library. We’re all there, having morning tea as usual. The stab I used to feel when I saw Thom is now more like pressing on a bruise. My head knows I can’t have him, but it doesn’t stop me wanting him. I know it’s not right, but have you ever tried telling a cloud to stop raining? That doesn’t work and neither does telling my tummy not to flip when I think about him. A crush, and I do feel crushed by it.
That said, I love that both of us are chirpily pretending that moment never happened. I can sense he’s keeping his distance though. If I’m with Danny and Bronwyn, he’ll join us; if it’s just me, he has work to do. It’s fine, I don’t want him to be in any trouble, and I brought it on myself, didn’t I?
‘She’s back home. For now.’ I squirm. I don’t wanna talk about it.
‘Will she be home for Christmas?’ Danny asks.
‘I hope so. Can we talk about something else, please?’
‘Sure,’ Bronwyn says. ‘Every year, Danny and I do Christmas Before Christmas if you wanna join in?’
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘Does what it says on the tin. We all go away for Christmas so we have our own special one first.’
Danny elaborates. ‘I cook a little Christmas dinner and we swap presents and sing Christmas songs. My Mariah is very special.’
‘That’s one way to describe it,’ Bronwyn adds ruefully. She leans in. ‘Do you think I should invite Robin this year?’ The boy in question is sitting at the other side of the library, reading Terry Pratchett.
‘Yes!’ Danny and I say in unison.
‘In fact,’ I say, ‘watch this.’ I stand.
‘Fliss, what are you doing?’ Bronwyn hisses.
‘Watch.’ I weave through the tables and book tree to where Robin is reading. ‘Hi, Robin.’
‘Fliss.’
I sit in the seat next to him. ‘Bronwyn is planning a little pre-Christmas get-together. Would you like to come?’
‘Sure,’ he says without hesitation. ‘When is it?’
‘TBC.’ I lean in very close. ‘PS, if you ever wanted to ask Bronwyn out sometime, she’d almost certainly say yes.’
He looks doubtfully over my shoulder. ‘Bronwyn Parry? Really? I thought she hated me. She’s always punching me and stuff.’
‘Oh, dear, sweet Robin, you have much to learn. She likes you, I promise. Don’t tell her I told you.’
‘OK!’ He looks befuddled, but not repulsed, which I take to be a good thing. Well, that’s my good deed for the day done.
I return to our table. ‘What did you say to him?’ Bronwyn says through gritted teeth.
‘Nothing. Just explained the whole Christmas Before Christmas concept. That’s all. Relax. He said he’ll check if he’s free.’
‘Oh. OK. Good. Otherwise I’d have to go drown myself in the pool.’
Danny grimaces. ‘The piss levels in the pool would kill you before you drowned.’
The bell rings out, signalling what will no doubt be a very long Monday which features double hockey. We return our tea mugs to the pinched-from-the-canteen tray at the centre of the table. ‘Fliss, just hang on a sec,’ says Thom.
Danny and Bronwyn head off to registration without me and we’re left alone.
‘I just wanted to check, with everything going on at home, that you’re still up for The Chess Club Presents?’
Uh, I’ve hardly thought about it, but I am suddenly determined. ‘Yeah. Of course.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I will get something ready, I promise. My mum really wants to see me dance one last time before …’ An elephantine awkward silence fills the whole library. We both know what words follow: one last time before she dies, and he’s just dying to ask, Will she make it to January? It’s so obvious, the words don’t need saying aloud.
Even if she doesn’t make it to the show, I promised her a dance.
Thom rubs his jaw. ‘I also wanted to say something about what happened the other week …’
I almost physically fold inwards like shame origami. ‘Oh God, do we have to?’
‘I want to clear the air, otherwise it’ll hang over us, and I don’t want that. The library should be a safe space, not an awkward one.’
I take a deep breath. I’d sort of hoped he might suffer a tiny, harmless brain haemorrhage that erased that one memory and nothing else. ‘I said I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’
‘Look.’ I meet his gaze, possibly for the first time since the World’s Worst-Advised Kiss™. ‘I … I think, with a little hindsight, that was more about me than you. I obviously thought you were … cute.’ Oh crapbag, I’m making things worse. ‘But … but … it was me. I don’t think I was dealing with things very well. Moving … Mum … Megan … other things beginning with M.’
‘I know, that’s what I was going to say.’
‘Then we’re on the same page. I was, like, drowning and I clung to the nearest possible thing. It was you, and I’m sorry.’
He chuckles, again rubbing his stubble. Yep, still hot. Yep, still totally illegal. ‘I’m a rubber dinghy.’
I laugh. ‘Something like that. I think I channelled all my crazy into you. God, you must think I’m insane.’
He gives my shoulder a deeply professional pat. ‘Fliss. Fifty per cent of my job is the Dewey Decimal System and the other fifty per cent is really poorly paid therapist. It’s what I’m there for, OK? I will always be there for you lot. Always.’
I nod and smile and I think that is the end of that. I see a day, just around the corner, when I might laugh about my first ‘love’.
That weekend I bite the bullet. It’s a little like visiting the dentist. You dread it and dread it, but then you actually go and it’s never that bad. It took every ounce of energy I had (and bribing myself with a visit via the corner shop to get a Kit-Kat-Chunky-shaped reward), but I haul myself to the dance studio.
Danny lets me in. ‘Can I watch?’
‘Absolutely not! I haven’t danced in about a hundred years.’
‘Please!’
‘Sorry, Danny. This is … sort of a big deal for me.’
He feigns a swoon. ‘Oh, such a true artist. I’ll be in the house. Give me a knock when you’re done and we can watch Powerpuff Girls or something, yeah?’
‘Sure!’
There’s no CD player here, only a crap old tape deck, so I’ve brought the only cassettes I could find – the mixtapes we used to listen to on road trips. I grab the first one that comes to hand and stick it in the slot. It’s definitely one of the ones Mum made – the first track is ‘Blue Monday’.
I pull off my coat and throw it over the back of a chair. I’m wearing black leggings under a black leotard. They’re much too tight – I really did used to be a stick figure. I pull my hair into a messy bun and pull on leg warmers. It’s so weird, like travelling back in time.
Using the barre, I stretch and limber up, feeling muscles I’d forgotten existed. I
used to be able to hold my leg high above my head, but now my hamstrings angrily protest at the halfway stage.
‘Blue Monday’ fades to a finish and there’s a sad piano chord. A woman howls, reminding me of hospital ward. I stare at the cassette player. I recognise the song, but haven’t heard it in a long time. God, what is it? It’s Kate Bush, her voice instantly recognisable. Oh, it’s ‘This Woman’s Work’. It’s Mum’s all-time favourite song.
I stop and listen, really listen, taking in the lyrics, probably for the first time. It’s heart-breaking and perfect all at the same time. I listen to the whole song, absorbing the story.
I face myself in the mirror. I didn’t even realise my eyes were watering. It’s become second nature. I inhale and briskly wipe the tears away. Now I know what I have to do.
First position. I turn my feet out. My hips protest in a way that they never used to. I’ve let my posture get so slack. Somewhere in Battersea, Madame Nyzda is telling me to imagine a piece of string pulling me ramrod straight from the top of my skull. I tuck my tailbone and stomach in, rolling my shoulders back. ‘You should be able to hold a shiny pound coin between those shoulder blades, girls!’
Tendu into fifth position. Even pointing my toes feels alien. Holding the barre, I perform an experimental grand plié: bending my knees and lowering myself almost all the way to the floor. My thighs burn and my knees make a deeply unsexy clicking noise as I come back up through demi-plié. I run through dégagé, working my right leg forward, backward and to the side. I turn and do the same on my left side.
When I can put it off no longer, I hop en pointe into échappé, bobbing from fifth to second position, my legs opening and closing. At once I remember the singular pain in the arch of my feet and toes. It’s like my feet are screaming, OH HELL NO, NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN, but I have to admit that in the mirror I look so elegant.
I’ve still got it.
I pirouette a couple of times, finding my centre of balance. I’m ready. I travel across the studio, casually running some steps together: glissade, jeté, coupé, step, jeté again, pas de chat, entrechat quatre, soubresaut, and rest in fifth position.
