by Sara Barnard
‘Yeah, a vice,’ Rosie says. ‘How many are you working with?’
I kick her and she kicks me back, grinning.
Kel comes to join us about half an hour later, a fresh bottle of wine in each hand. He passes one to Rosie and me, keeping the second for him and Caddy, who’s already shifted to make room for him beside her. We talk about everything, moving from the fringe festival to the construction work at the seafront to tennis to university, as the sky gets darker and the wine goes down. I’m tipsy but not drunk, just warm and cosy.
Caddy and Kel drift away together after a while, curling like smoke trails around each other at the end of the garden, two silhouettes framed by tiki torchlight. I watch them as Rosie talks, her calm voice mingling with The 1975, loud even though the music is coming from inside the house. The wicker crackles under my bare shoulders as I shift, resting my head back. The silhouettes combine and become one. The word comes to my head – ‘safe’ – and it’s nice, and I’m happy for my friend for a whole thirty seconds before the opposite word – ‘unsafe’ – replaces it. I am not safe. There is no one who will make me safe. I have no matching silhouette, no answering smile in the dark. Just aching, reaching loneliness. Cold. Inside and out.
I’m not listening to Rosie any more. The words in my head are louder, more insistent. A steady hum turning into frantic shouting. I need to be held. I need to be touched. I have to get out of my head. Is there anyone here? There must be. There’s always someone. I glance around us, the cluster of people dancing, laughing, talking. I scan the faces, dim as they are in the faded light, waiting for the inevitable eye contact. I’ll smile, just the right kind of hey-I-canbe-interested-if-you-are smile, and the rest will take care of itself.
‘Hey.’
I actually jolt. A spasm of energy shoots up my spine and I turn to look at Rosie, who has put her hand on my wrist, her fingers pressing down. ‘Hey,’ she says again. ‘Shall we see if there’s any pizza left?’
The noise has drained from my head at the light touch, her steady voice. I’m breathing again. I nod and she nods back, eyes on mine. She stands first and takes my hand, pulling me up beside her. I expect her to let go, because it’s Rosie, but she entwines her fingers through mine so we’re clasped, close and safe, as we head into the house together.
I’m on my break at work a couple of days later when an email from Darren Watts appears in my inbox. The sight of my dad’s name in my alerts makes me jump; physically jump, like he’s right there in the room with me. I stare at the name for a while without clicking, looking from it to the subject line, which is the unrevealing ‘Bed’. I take a deep breath and click, closing my eyes as I do and then forcing myself to open them. The first thing I see is that the email isn’t actually to me, I’m just CC’d in. The email is addressed to Sarah, Brian and Mum. Weird.
I hesitate, still not feeling quite safe enough to read the actual message. I close the email and send Brian a message instead.
Me:
Is that email from Dad safe for me to read?
It takes him a while to reply. I’ve finished work and I’m back at Ventrella Road when my phone finally beeps.
Brian:
Yeah, it’s just Dad being a bit sarky to me and Sarah. Thinks we’re not looking after you properly.
Wtf.
I know. Don’t worry, it’s safe. Go ahead, and let me know what you think about the bed.
I open the email and take it in at a glance before letting myself read it from the top.
All –
What is this utter nonsense I’m hearing about Suzanne not having a proper bed?
If this sort of problem, so easily remedied, has not been fixed in six weeks, I’m really questioning the wisdom of letting Suzanne live by herself and the capacity of the rest of you to supervise. I can only assume you’ve all lost your minds.
You can say what you like about me being some kind of awful failure as a parent, but at least I always made sure there was a proper bed for my children to sleep in.
Suzanne, I will get you a bed, or if you really can’t bear to accept any help from me, I will send you your old bed and you can sleep on that. It’s just gathering dust in your old bedroom anyway, and frankly you’ll be doing us a favour by taking it off our hands. Deal?
The price of independence is not you having to sleep on an airbed for the rest of your life. Don’t be a martyr.
I understand why all of you are reluctant to keep me in the loop when it comes to the goings-on of my apparently estranged daughter (give your mother a call every now and then, won’t you?), but if there are actual problems like this, easily fixable problems, please just tell me, for Christ’s sake.
D.
I read the email three times. It’s pure Dad; I can practically hear his confident, sarcastic drawl in my ear. This is the voice I grew up with, the undisputed head of the household, always slightly exasperated with everyone around him. You’d never know he was the one causing so much pain. This is the man who once had a go at me – ‘Oh, Suzie, look what you did!’ – for getting blood on the carpet.
I don’t reply. I know he doesn’t expect me to, that including me in the email at all was to make some kind of a point. I don’t know exactly where on the scale of caring (I’m concerned you don’t have a bed) to sinister (I want you to know that I know about your furniture) he means it to be, but it’s probably somewhere in the middle. That’s pure Dad, too. And the fact that you never know quite which one it is … well, welcome to my life.
I don’t see anyone else’s replies either, but I assume that’s because no one else CC’s me in. Which is fine with me, quite frankly.
You want the bed? Brian texts.
Sure, I reply.
Four days later, I have a bed.
7
‘Blackbird’
The Beatles
The next time I see Dilys, I bring my laptop. I open it up on the table after I’ve set the washing machine to go. ‘I found you,’ I say. ‘Look!’ I press play on the video. ‘That’s you, right?’
Dilys squints at the screen, her expression a mix of confusion and pleasure. ‘Goodness me,’ she says. ‘So it is. How did you find this?’
‘I searched for Hallé Orchestra clips from, like, the eighties,’ I say. ‘But that had loads and it was taking ages to look through them, so I tried searching ‘Dilys Fairweather’, and this came up! See how the names of all the musicians are listed under the video? Cool, right?’
‘But … why?’ she asks, looking from the screen to my face.
‘Because I wanted to see you play,’ I say. ‘You and the orchestra. And there you are! Isn’t it cool?’
‘You’re a sweet girl,’ Dilys says, and I look at her in surprise. She pats my hand. ‘I’m very glad you don’t have a washing machine. Now, it’s only fair I get a chance to see you play something. Where’s your guitar?’
‘Upstairs,’ I say. ‘I thought you were kidding about that. You don’t want me to play the guitar.’
‘Of course I do. I want that very much. It’s been too long since I had anyone playing music in my company. Indulge an old woman, won’t you?’ When I hesitate, she says, ‘Or … I could always teach you to play the piano.’
‘I’ll go and get my guitar,’ I say.
When I get back downstairs, Dilys is pouring out tea from an old-fashioned teapot. I’m just thinking that it looks awkward and unwieldy, too big for her hands, when her wrists seem to give way and she has to fumble to stop herself dropping the entire thing. I leap forward and steady both her and the pot.
‘You should have waited for me to come down,’ I say. ‘I would have poured it.’
The last thing I mean by saying this is to offend her, but I feel her whole body bristle beside me. ‘You are not my carer,’ she says, in a completely different tone than she usually uses with me. ‘I am perfectly capable of pouring out tea.’
This clearly isn’t true, judging by the tea spilled all over the table, but it doesn’t seem
like a good time to say so. ‘OK, sorry,’ I say. I take a dishcloth from the sink and begin mopping up the liquid, avoiding her gaze.
There’s a long, awkward silence. I’m still wiping the now-clean table. Finally, she says, ‘This is my favourite teapot.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I say automatically.
‘Should I be forced to stop using it because I’m not as dexterous as I once was?’
‘No,’ I say, mostly because I know that’s what I’m meant to say.
‘Good. I’m glad we agree. Shall we try again?’ She takes a careful hold of the pot and pours out two determined, shaky cups. ‘Now, if you could carry these over to the coffee table, I’d be grateful.’
We sip the tea in silence for a few minutes until she puts her cup down and asks, briskly, to see my guitar. I take it from its case and silently hand it over. Her face softens as she takes a hold of it and she smiles a small, inward smile.
‘Ah,’ she says. ‘It’s quite worn, isn’t it? How long have you had it?’
‘A couple of years. It wasn’t new.’
‘Where did you get it?’ Dilys asks, holding it in her lap and looking at it from every angle.
‘It was donated,’ I say. ‘From an arts charity for abuse survivors.’ I feel my face flush, my stomach clench.
Her fingers still, just for a moment, on the strings. But, ‘I see,’ is all she says. ‘What are you going to play for me?’
I take the guitar back from her and let the familiar weight rest against my thighs. ‘I’m not really that good. I can’t play that much. And it’s not, like, classical or anything.’
She smiles. ‘I wasn’t expecting classical guitar from you, my dear. Play anything you like. Something that makes you happy.’
I play ‘Blackbird’. It was the first proper song I ever learned to play on the guitar that made me feel proud, like I’d accomplished something. The finger patterns and the chords. The melody, so familiar, created by my own two hands.
I don’t sing, because I don’t sing in front of people, and I get about halfway through the song before Dilys puts a gentle hand on mine and asks why.
‘You asked me to play,’ I say, sidestepping the question.
‘You’re playing beautifully,’ she says. ‘But won’t you sing? The music is half the story.’
‘I thought it was the music bit you liked,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that why you like classical music?’
‘Classical music is very different from the Beatles,’ she says. ‘This song has beautiful lyrics to go along with the melody.’
‘You know the Beatles? I thought you didn’t like pop music.’
‘Everybody knows the Beatles,’ she says drily. ‘Even former classical violinists. Now, won’t you sing? Remind me of the lyrics.’ She smiles expectantly.
I shake my head, looking down at the strings. My skin feels hot and tingly. ‘I don’t want to sing.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just don’t.’ I strum the opening chords of ‘Blackbird’ again, trying to distract myself from the whispers in my head. But I can tell this isn’t going to be enough, so I add, ‘Not when other people are around.’
‘I see,’ she says. ‘What a terrible shame.’
I look up and smile, but it’s not a real smile, and I can feel it. It’s a Suze smile, the kind I don’t do with Dilys. ‘You haven’t heard me sing.’
She’s looking at me like she can see through me, and I suddenly regret ever coming here, playing this guitar, letting her in. ‘I’d really love to hear you sing,’ she says.
‘I could be tone deaf for all you know.’
‘That doesn’t matter. It would make me happy regardless.’
I can’t figure out how to extricate myself from this conversation. The guitar feels heavy against my knees. I hear myself say, ‘My dad doesn’t like it.’
And she says, ‘Your dad isn’t here.’
This is an obvious statement of fact, so I have no idea why the words bring on tears. But they do, and I put my hand to my face, instinctively shielding myself.
‘Oh dear,’ Dilys says, soft. ‘I’m very sorry. Of course you don’t have to sing.’
I tell her everything, then. It all spills, unstoppable as tears, out of me. I tell her about my family, my first move to Brighton, Gwillim House, being fostered. She listens quietly, her head bent slightly, eyes on the floor. Every now and then, she nods.
‘He’s why I love music,’ I say. ‘My dad. I was brought up surrounded by it. But at the same time, he didn’t like it if I sang. That’s probably why I never played anything, either. Maybe.’
‘He was trying to control it?’ She says this as part statement, part question.
‘Well, probably, yeah. He controlled everything.’
‘He gave you this wonderful gift – a joy and appreciation for music – but put boundaries around it for you. Music is about freedom.’ She shakes her head. ‘How terrible for you, to feel trapped like that. To not be free to share music as well as receive it.’
‘It was just about singing, really. He used to say only show-offs and professionals sang in public. That’s what he said I was.’ I swallow, the memory rising sharp and painful. ‘A tedious little show-off.’ He’d only said it the once, and it was just a passing comment when he was in a bad mood. He probably wouldn’t even remember that he’d said it.
Dilys has taken my hand, which would be weird if I hadn’t just spilled my heart out to her. ‘It’s very easy to be cruel,’ she says (which surprises me, because I was just expecting her to say something nice, like ‘You’re not a show-off’). ‘Especially to a child who is vulnerable and seeking approval or love. When you remember these things, and the terrible things that were said or done to you, you must think: How easy it is to hurt a child. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
I think of my dad, all six feet of him, solid and strong, sneering at an eight-year-old girl. It’s like looking at an old photograph through a new filter.
I nod.
‘Good.’ She pats my hand. ‘Maybe one day you’ll feel ready to sing for me. I’d like that very much. But for now, let’s have some more tea, shall we?’
August arrives and passes in a haze. Rosie goes on holiday with her friends from sixth form in the first week and returns in time to collect her A-level results. Both she and Caddy get exactly the grades they were predicted and are officially going to university next month. They’re thrilled, but the reality of their imminent departure makes me heartsick. I keep it to myself.
After the results, Caddy goes on holiday with Kel – their first couples holiday, which makes her giddy and anxious in seemingly equal measure – and returns tanned, smiling and somehow older. I get the results of the last couple of GCSEs I’d taken in college before I left Southampton – Biology and Chemistry, both passes – to take my overall total to five. It feels good. Not amazing, but good. I still have no idea what I want to actually do with these qualifications, but just having them makes me feel … possible. Less useless, anyway. I don’t tell Rosie or Caddy because a handful of belated, adequate GCSEs is nothing compared to high A levels, and they’d be too excited anyway and make me even more aware of it. I tell Sarah, who makes me a cake, and beams like I just graduated with honours, and Dilys, who smiles and says, ‘Well done.’
On the last weekend in August, I go to Reading Festival with my old friends from my pre-Brighton life. I don’t see them much any more, but it’s nice when I do. It’s basically three days of drunken, musical joy. Friends, music, freedom. My favourite things. I come home on a high, only to find I’d left my window open and the rain’s got in, because of course I had, and of course it has.
A couple of days after I get back, Caddy turns nineteen and it feels like the tipping point; the beginning of the end.
‘I always used to feel like that,’ Rosie says when I mention this to her. ‘Caddy’s birthday meant school starting again. It’s actually weird for me that it doesn’t mean that any more. Don’t worry, we’ve s
till got a few weeks before we leave.’
Summer is over, though. That feeling of endlessness and lethargy seems to have been left in August, because everything changes in September. When I visit Caddy and Rosie they have boxes piling up in the corners of their rooms. They talk excitedly and nervously about potential flatmates and seminars and lecture halls. Caddy worries about being in a long-distance relationship. Rosie worries about being alone. I try to remember how they were when I first met them: Caddy, mousy and self-conscious; Rosie, all snark and bolster. But now they have adulthood and the future in their eyes, and it is brighter than I can bear.
Before, I was new to them, shiny and unpredictable. I was a spark. Now I am the old friend, the one they are leaving behind.
‘You’ll visit,’ Caddy says confidently, as if that’s the answer to what I’m really worried about. ‘It won’t be that different, not really.’
I try to believe her but, one week before she’s due to leave to go to Warwick to study Psychology with Linguistics, she mentions casually that she’s going to the hairdresser and then meets me in the pub that evening with entirely different hair. ‘Holy crap!’ I say, hearing how shrill I sound but not quite managing to contain it. Her highlighted hair always fell thick and straight to her shoulders. Now it’s a rich, coppery red colour, styled into a long bob with a sweeping side fringe. ‘Who are you and what have you done with Caddy?’
She laughs, self-conscious, and slides on to the bench beside me. ‘Do you like it? It’s my leaving-home present from my sister. Toni & Guy. Cost a bomb.’
‘It looks great!’ I say, because it does. I don’t actually answer her question, though, because the truth is I don’t like it. She doesn’t look like Caddy, and the best thing for me about Caddy is that she is Caddy. ‘Has Kel seen it?’
She nods, smiling. ‘He likes it.’
I don’t know if this is understatement for effect because he likes it a lot, or underplaying that fact that he doesn’t like it at all, but I don’t ask. I’m not about to start trying to decipher their relationship code. Besides, that’s the moment Rosie arrives and lets out a shriek so loud that three other tables turn to look at us.
