The Things We Thought We Knew

by Mahsuda Snaith

  About the Book

  The first memory I have of you is all knickers and legs. You had flipped yourself into a handstand and couldn’t get back down. We became best friends, racing slugs, pretending to be spies – all the things that children do.

  Ten years later, eighteen-year-old Ravine Roy spends every day in her room. Completing crosswords and scribbling in her journal, she keeps the outside world exactly where she wants it; outside.

  But as the real world begins to invade her carefully controlled space, she is forced to finally confront the questions she’s been avoiding. Who is her mother meeting in secret? Who has moved in next door?

  And why, all those years ago, when two girls pulled on their raincoats and wellies and headed out into the woods, did only one of them return?

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  A Constellation Is Born

  The Constellation of Bed

  The Constellation of Stinging Nettles

  The Constellation of Lightning Bolts

  The Constellation of Spies

  The Constellation of Killer Toasters

  The Constellation of Stolen Souls

  The Constellation of Clocks

  The Constellation of Slugs

  The Constellation of Physiotherapists

  The Constellation of Rabbit Heads

  The Constellation of Phagol Betty

  The Constellation of Sandwiches

  The Constellation of Confessions

  The Constellation of Keeping Hidden

  The Constellation of Getting Dressed

  The Constellation of Disappearing Suns

  The Constellation of Marbles

  The Constellation of Surprise

  The Constellation of Yellow Eyes

  The Constellation of Return

  The Constellation of Car Boots

  The Constellation of Truth and Lies

  The Constellation of Fireworks

  The Constellation of Regret

  The Constellation of Goodbyes

  The Constellation of Tree Roots

  The Constellation of Life

  The Constellation of Us

  Acknowledgements

  Some Questions for Readers

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Acclaim for

  THE THINGS WE THOUGHT WE KNEW:

  ‘An original, heartfelt read that will appeal as much to children of the nineties and noughties as it will readers of any age excited by a new British talent.’ INDEPENDENT

  ‘Snaith has a delightfully fresh voice and vividly conveys the claustrophobic nature of Ravine’s situation as the mystery of what happened ten years earlier is gradually revealed.’ Fanny Blake, DAILY MAIL

  ‘Told with warmth and humanity, this is a novel that shines because the characters feel so human and their plights feel so real … A powerful debut.’ CULTUREFLY

  ‘One of the most brilliant summer beach reads … a promising debut.’ RED

  ‘An original and affecting coming-of-age novel … Snaith’s clear-eyed depiction of estate life at the turn of the millennium resists clichés.’ OBSERVER

  ‘Mahsuda Snaith is an exciting new voice in fiction. Her writing is deceptive. Crystal clear sentences ooze with texture and nuance. Characters that drip with lived experience. And above all, a clarity of vision. Mahsuda’s work is brave and bold and she has a massive future ahead of her.’ Nikesh Shukla

  ‘A resonant, insightful look at the way the truths of the past can challenge the promise of the future.’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

  ‘A break out book from an incredibly talented debut writer … a brilliant, heartbreaking debut that perfectly captures the delirious highs and bruising lows of intoxicating friendship … [with] its quintessentially British humour … and the understanding that the most mundane things in life are a rich source of comedy and that they often go hand in hand with everyday tragedy.’ Francesca Brown, STYLIST

  ‘This intriguing debut gives a voice to the marginalised.’ BIG ISSUE

  ‘A very impressive debut – I’m sure we’ll hear more of Mahsuda Snaith.’ MY WEEKLY

  ‘Brimming with great characters … one to watch.’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

  www.penguin.co.uk

  To everyone who made me

  Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

  Søren Kierkegaard

  A Constellation Is Born

  1999

  You came for me at midnight. A squishy hand tugging mine, yanking me awake. I rubbed my eyelids, asked what the heck was going on (I needed sleep. I was a growing girl). You giggled through gap teeth, passing me my robe before continuing to tug-tug as we crept from the cave of my room, past the rumbling snores of Amma’s lair, down the stairs and out of the flat.

  Your brother was standing outside in lightning-bolt pyjamas. The scruffy strands of his hair matched the zigzag pattern. He looked sleepy and cross at the same time.

  ‘Marianne …’ I said, trying to sound stern as my body yawned.

  You pressed a finger to your lips then turned away, guiding us through the night. Our feet stumbled against concrete steps, hands stretching up to metal railings that made me shiver.

  On the fourth floor you signalled for us to sit in our usual places. Our legs dangled through the balcony railings as you slid your body between us and linked your arms through ours. Curls of your hair brushed against my cheek.

  You pointed to the sky.

  ‘Look,’ you said.

  I looked. I saw. A billion stars against an indigo sky. The brightness of them. The sheer number of them.

  ‘That,’ you said, pointing straight up, ‘is the Constellation of Cartwheels.’

  Your head fell back, a crescent grin across your face.

  I sneaked my hand into the pocket of my robe and felt the edges of the book inside.

  ‘That,’ I said, pointing to a wispy cluster, ‘is the Constellation of Mini Dictionaries.’

  I looked over at Jonathan, waiting for him to object.

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, his glasses wobbling on the bridge of his nose. ‘That is the Constellation of Thunderstorms.’

  You looked at me and I at you; we were fizzing with surprise.

  Our fingers rose, arms outstretched.

  ‘The Constellation of Lemon Sherbets …’ you said.

  ‘The Constellation of Hurricanes …’ your brother said.

  ‘The Constellation of Vegetable Dhansak …’ I said.

  We continued naming the constellations all through the night until we weren’t even using words but a jumble of made-up sounds. I felt your body next to mine, warming me like a blanket. When I looked at the horizon I saw a shooting star. It skimmed across the velvet night in a streaking blaze.

  Or maybe I didn’t see that. Maybe that’s just what I wanted to see …

  The Constellation of Bed

  2010

  I wake up to find my room has been entered ninja-style during the night. Streamers line the ceiling, balloons are taped to the corners in clusters and a giant holographic banner dangles crookedly on the wall. Below it a dozen photographs are tacked in a row. It’s like a museum timeline done on the cheap.

  Photo 1: 1992 – Birth of Ravine (shrivelled newborn with too much hair)

  Photo 3: 1996 – Nativity Play (girl dressed as sheep, straw hanging from mouth)

  Photo 8: 2009 – New Year’s Eve (teenager lying in bed, party hat perched jauntily on head)

  If there were an award for the World’s Worst Listener, my mother would win hands down. Give her the simplest sentence and w
atch the cogs of her brain pull in the words, twist them up and spit out a new meaning. You say you want a kitten; she buys you a coat. You say you don’t like cabbage; she cooks seven different cabbage recipes. You say you don’t want a party and you wake up to a sight that makes you sweat so heavily your pyjamas stick to your skin and you have to check your knickers to make sure you haven’t wet them.

  I rub my eyes as the smell of onion bhajis floats up from the kitchen. It’s mixed with the heavy scent of citrus breeze air freshener. I hope this is a nightmare. As I prop myself up, the twisting muscles along my arm confirm the truth. This is real.

  ‘You are up!’ Amma says, wobbling through the door with a cake the size of a coffee table in her arms.

  She’s wearing an orange sari pleated perfectly down the middle, a gallon of coconut oil combed through her hair. Leaning to the side, she kicks the stereo with her heel to ‘play’. Synthesized drums erupt into the room. She stands grinning at me as though this is the finale of a great show and it’s time for me to applaud.

  I place my pillow upright behind me and sink back.

  ‘Amma …’ I say.

  She shakes her head, eyes fogging over as she cocks her ear to the music. I watch her nod in time to the beat. The song continues to play, the cake begins to slide.

  ‘Amma,’ I say.

  ‘Wait, wait!’ she says, straightening the platter.

  Cymbals crash over drums as Stevie Wonder hits the chorus.

  ‘… Happy biiiiiiirthday!’

  I wait until it finishes, then watch Amma wiggle over to me before placing the chocolate gravestone across my lap.

  ‘It took three days to make,’ she says.

  Covered in brown frosting and a series of plastic roses, the cake has a collection of half-used candles plotted around its perimeter. In the middle, iced in pink loopy writing, are the words ‘Happy 18th Birthday Ravine Roy!!’. The letters shrink as they reach my name but somehow Amma has still managed to ice a smiley face after the exclamation marks.

  My spine rolls forward like a sapling snapped in the wind. Amma interprets this as a sign of awe.

  ‘It is not a problem!’ she says, waving her hand in the air. ‘Anything for my darling Ravine!’

  I made it clear last week: no balloons, no cake, no party. But somehow Amma’s brain has churned my words into all the balloons she can blow up, the biggest cake she can bake and as many party items as she can fill the room with.

  Amma begins lighting the candles. Because there are so many this takes a good two minutes. By the time she’s on the fourth match my face is clammy; the throbbing in my limbs is making my vision woozy. I suck in a huge breath, ready to blow the whole monstrosity to another building, but as soon as the last candle is lit Amma begins slapping her thigh, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me in Bengali.

  Amma’s been singing Bengali to me since I was in the womb, trying to trick me into learning the language. When I was a toddler she translated every nursery rhyme and changed all the animals, but ‘Baa Baa, Kala Chaagal’ doesn’t have quite the same ring. At bedtime she sang me folk songs about boats and paddy fields until I couldn’t get to sleep without them. I rebelled against her sing-song brainwashing by blocking out the meaning of all Bengali words. I can now chant the entire national anthem of Bangladesh without any idea of what I’m singing. The only Bengali I actually use is ‘amma’, meaning ‘mother’.

  With my cheeks puffed out and afraid that either I’ll pass out or Amma’s sari will catch fire, I blow out the candles. She stops mid-verse and looks down at the cake.

  ‘Of course you made a wish?’ she asks.

  Spirals of smoke circle my body. I close my eyes and clear my throat.

  ‘I wish for no more celebrations.’

  I look up eagerly. Amma frowns, shaking her head as she pulls out a pillbox from the waist of her sari petticoat and places it on the bedside table.

  ‘If you say it out loud, it will not come true,’ she says. ‘Everybody knows this, Ravine.’

  And, of course, she is right.

  Within half an hour a crowd of neighbours floods into my room. Some of them I know (Sandy Burke and her twins), some of them I recognize (Mrs Patterson and her famously large breasts) and some of them I’ve never seen in my life. The ones I know say hello, the ones I recognize congratulate me with forced grins that look painful. The ones I’ve never seen in my life stand gawping at my statue of Shiva, the pile of unread books on the floor and the out-of-date CD collection by the stereo. I hope they won’t notice the museum timeline across the wall or the My Little Pony curtains, but these are the things they stare at most. I wait for Amma to click her tongue in that disapproving way of hers and make them stop. Instead, she wiggles through the crowd, placing her hands on top of each guest’s hand, thanking them with little curtsies worthy of a maharaja.

  I can see what she’s done. Amma, cunning woman that she is, has scurried to every flat in Westhill Estate, knocking on each door and tempting residents with the promise of free cake. She’s given them samples, tiny pre-cut cubes that are just enough to set their mouths watering. Then, as she dashed away, she’s cried out, ‘No more until the party. Make sure you are there!’

  I watch as Amma makes her way to the side of my bed. I open my mouth, but before I can say a word she’s spun around to face her new-formed army. She has a crazed-dictator smile as she raises her hands, clapping twice, as though doing the flamenco. Our guests lift their eyes from Bombay mix, small talk is sliced mid-sentence and Stevie Wonder is turned down in the background. The bed sinks as Sandy Burke sits on the end and works her way through a box of fun-size chocolate bars. She used to be skeleton thin, the bones of her hips jutting out from beneath her jeans like tent poles, her afro sitting like candyfloss on top of a stick. The image of Death tattooed on the side of her neck looked far healthier than she did. But now she has smooth contours of flesh on her face and neck. Her arms aren’t matchsticks any more but round and shapely.

  When she tilts the box towards me I shake my head.

  ‘It is so good to see you all!’ Amma says (as though it was an accident, as though she hasn’t planned the whole thing).

  She places her hand on my shoulder. It’s my bad shoulder so she touches it gently.

  ‘Today, my darling Ravine is eighteen years old.’

  I cringe.

  ‘This is important because it is the beginning of her life as an adult.’

  I cringe again.

  ‘Also, it is important because it is the beginning of her life outside this flat. Right, shona?’

  I don’t have time to cringe because she’s looking down at me with round, dark eyes that could compete with a puppy dog’s. They make you do things, those eyes; make you give promises. They even make you believe you can keep them.

  There’s a pause as everyone waits for me to speak. My muscles tense like tightropes. I lick my lips.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say.

  Amma pats me on the head to show this is the correct answer. She clasps her hands together.

  ‘Now, time for cake!’

  The crowd cheers as she cuts the cake into squares. From the corner of the room I catch Sandy Burke’s twins staring at me. Their identical-shaped heads are tilted at identical angles, ripples of confusion etched across their foreheads and black waves of hair hanging at the sides of their faces. They are only eleven years old yet their expressions make them look like scientists trying to decide if they’ve discovered a new virus. I clutch the edge of the duvet, listening to Stevie Wonder’s lyrics, reading the words across the banners, feeling my room fill up with smiley faces.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

  HAPPY!! HAPPY!! HAPPY!! …

  ‘I’m going to sleep now!’

  The words shoot out from my throat like bullets. I sink my fingers into the covers, tugging so hard that Sandy Burke jolts up from her seat. Amma looks at me, bindi raised high on her forehead.

  ‘But shona, it is ten-thirty in
the morning.’

  I shuffle down flat. ‘Thanks for coming!’

  The room falls silent. It’s only when I begin to make snoring noises that everyone moves. They collect their pieces of cake and go down to the living room. As the last guest leaves, my body sighs. When I look over at Shiva and the My Little Ponies on the curtains, I see them sighing too.

  Amma begins searching the room for painkillers before placing a bottle carefully on the bedside table.

  ‘Happy birthday, Ravine,’ she says and plants a wet kiss on my earlobe.

  I keep one eye open as she leaves a piece of cake next to the bottle, watching her as she collects the rest of the food on a tray before sneaking out of the room.

  I curl my knees to my chest. As the party continues downstairs I stay like this, pickling in the vinegar of my misery.

  Some people have a deathbed. I have a lifebed.

  It’s like when you have a cold. Not a tickly er-herm, er-herm cold that you down a couple of painkillers for and recover from in forty-eight hours. No. This is like an All-consuming Cold. Bleary vision, clunky limbs, the feeling of your brain oozing out of your nostrils and your muscles being jumped on by panda bears.

  You drag yourself to school or work or wherever you need to be that day. You’re slightly productive for a few hours before the school bell rings or the clock strikes five and you get on the bus or in the car and drag yourself home. And that’s when it happens. The slam of the door. The thump of your coat on the hallway floor. Heavy footsteps up the stairs.

  Bed.

  It’s safe in bed. It’s warm in bed. No one’s asking you what date it is or how to solve an algorithm in bed. You sink into the mattress. You rest your head on your memory-foam pillow. Every part of you sighs – even your eyeballs and intestines. In a far-off country the doorbell rings but you don’t hear it because you’ve already set sail. In the realm of the All-consuming Cold, this is the closest you’ll feel to bliss.

  Now imagine this again. Your cold is not a cold but chronic pain syndrome. A condition that leaves the majority of your body in constant pain, the type of pain you’d feel if killer sharks were biting through your muscles. Imagine sinking into your bed every day for nearly eleven years. You wake up. You go to the toilet. You collapse back in bed and sail off. Except you don’t sail anywhere because some bastard has moored you to a pole. You float in your sea of pain, hoping someone will come and hack the rope to pieces and set you free. They never do.