It’s Kevin. He’s in on it too. But in on what? Is there some massive conspiracy going on behind my back?
I feel sick. I don’t understand anything anymore.
And even though I know I should go over there and ask them what the bloody hell it is that they want . . .
I don’t. I turn and run. And run. I am scared to find out what they want. Or what they want to tell me. Or what they want to accuse me of.
I am not a bad person. I try not to be horrible to people. I try to do as it says on my living-room wall: ‘Work hard and be nice to people.’
I am the Good Person of East Ham. I was nice to Kevin, and he was nice to me. Is that a crime? OK, so I didn’t know what his political allegiances were, but I’m pretty sure the IRA are probably quite decent these days and do party political broadcasts and the like. Nick Clegg might even be a member.
Yes, I know this is ridiculous, but I’m panicking. But that’s OK because the panic makes me run faster. For a second I think that all professional runners should get panic attacks. It’d shave seconds off their personal bests, though it might make for uncomfortable TV viewing as they hyperventilate on the starting blocks and knock back Rescue Remedy at a rate of knots or breathe into brown paper bags.
I jump on a bus.
After the bus I jump on a Tube.
After the Tube I jump on another bus.
I run. I walk. I run again, then stop and catch my breath and soon I am home.
I could collapse I feel so exhausted. That is probably the most exercise I’ve done in years. I may as well have run a marathon.
And I feel so silly, so small, bunking off school at the age of thirty-six, with no idea why. Just an irrational fear that maybe they’re all out to get me, but with absolutely no notion as to what they’re going to get at me about. I close the front door and put on the chain, hoping that now, finally, I will feel safe. But I don’t. Once again I feel panic rising in my chest, but as soon as it starts, it evaporates, because I see a familiar figure descending the stairs. Warmth floods over me as I see Michael smiling at me. I know he is going to make everything all right.
Is he?
I hope so.
Oh, but the last time I saw him we had that little spat and. . .
‘Are you going to be nice to me?’ I ask quickly, spitting the words out conspiratorially like that Resistance woman in ’Allo, ’Allo! who used to say, ‘Listen very carefully. I shall say zees only wance.’
He nods.
‘Oh good. ’Cos I’m having a really weird day.’
‘Why don’t you come up to the bedroom and put your feet up?’
Now listen, I’m not daft. I know that usually when a man asks you upstairs to the bedroom, it means only one thing. He wants to do the furtive fandango with you, particularly if he’s your ex. But I know that’s not on the cards right now, and somehow I know he’s right. I need to retreat to the comfort of my bedroom to escape the strangeness of what’s going on outside, out in the big, bad world. It’s like I’m in a sci-fi film. Maybe it’s the end of the world and someone forgot to tell me. Nothing out there is making sense right now.
Out there. Suddenly my life has taken on two dimensions: stuff that happens Out There (bad/weird) and stuff that goes on In Here (good. Well, OK anyway). When did that happen? Just this morning? I think so, but I can’t really remember. I’m so tired.
Once I get to my bedroom, Michael is over by the window, his back to me. He draws the curtains and then flicks the lights on low. I kick off my shoes and flop onto the bed, exhausted. I should really be questioning him about why he’s here, how he let himself in. I should really be telling him to take a running jump, but I’ve had a shock and for some reason it just feels right and I don’t want to ask him anything in case it makes him want to go. It must still be early. I don’t even know if school’s started yet. I should really have phoned the office to let them know I was going to be sick, but even the fact that I’ve not done that doesn’t bother me. They probably don’t want me there anyway. It looked like they were all about to gang up on me outside the gates: my parents, my housemate, my boss and my co-spooner/terrorist one-night stand (no sex). The only person who isn’t ganging up on me is Michael.
He’s moving around the bedroom tidying things away for me, putting all my shoes in a corner, picking up a few open books and putting them on my bedside cabinet. He drapes a scarf across the top of the mirror over the fireplace. Then he turns and smiles at me and encourages me to get some sleep. He sits on the end of the bed and squeezes my ankle. Not that I’m particularly aware that this is a well-known procedure for encouraging people to sleep. His weirdy Nazi coat flops open and I see that purple bruising on his neck. It still shocks me.
‘How did you get that?’ I ask.
He pulls the lapels of his coat to and shakes his head. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’
‘Why are you here?’ Oh God. I said it.
‘I knew there was something not right.’
How? How did he know?
‘Did Meredith tell you?’
He sighs.
‘What did she say? I don’t know what it is that I’ve done wrong. I’m not sure why Mum and Dad were at the school.’
Suddenly out on the street we hear a screech of brakes as a car pulls up abruptly outside the house. We both look to the curtains, as if magically we’d be able to see through them. When seconds later we hear the key go in the lock downstairs, my anxiety floods back.
‘I think you’re about to find out,’ says Michael.
He looks to the door and his expression of alarm engenders a new thought: What if the people out there are pissed off with what’s going on in here? What if they’ve found out I’ve seen Michael and that is what’s causing them alarm?
Have I told anyone that Michael keeps coming back? I might have told Meredith, but I’m not sure. I definitely told Wendy, but I’ve not seen Wendy for ages, not since she beggared off without so much as a by your leave after meeting her septuagenarian Lothario, and it’s not like she’s here today. In fact, she was conspicuous by her absence outside the school.
No. It must be something else. And I don’t want them knowing about Michael. Michael’s my secret. I mustn’t let them know about him. They’d think I was mad, letting him back in when he’s caused so much pain.
I put the chain on the lock when I came in, so whoever is trying to get in downstairs can’t open the front door. They’re banging their body weight against it in an attempt to break the chain.
‘You could just go and let them in,’ suggests Michael.
I look at him. Is he mad?
‘But they haven’t rung the doorbell,’ I say. ‘For all I know it’s some mad rapist.’
For a second I get even more confused. For a second I see the Nazi-ishness of Michael’s coat and think I’m Anne Frank hiding away in her attic and the Germans are coming to get her. But I’m not.
Who am I?
I am Karen Carpenter, the girl with the stupid name whose boyfriend left her and . . .
Someone weightier has thrown themselves against the front door and I hear the chain break and the door burst open and someone fall in. Then I hear Dad’s voice: ‘Karen?’
Oh God. Why does he sound as scared as I do?
I hear various footsteps downstairs, then some coming up the stairs. I jump off the bed and lock my door so they can’t come in.
More calling: ‘Karen? Karen?’
I look to Michael, then motion to the wardrobe. He frowns, but my desperate look tells him he has no choice.
‘I don’t want them knowing you’re here. That’s the last thing I need,’ I say in a bit of a stage whisper.
It’s then I hear Mum’s voice through the door, obviously speaking to someone else.
‘She’s in her bedroom. She’s talking to herself. What did I tell you?’
I watch Michael climb into his side of the wardrobe and pull the door shut. I look back to the bedroom door. I take a deep breat
h. I turn my lips into a broad smile. I grab the lock, unlock it and open the door.
Mum is standing on the landing, looking anxiously towards me. A fearful smile is frozen on her face. Dad is coming up the stairs.
‘All right, Karen, love? How you diddlin’?’
‘Dad! Hi! What are you doing here, and why have you broken my chain?’
I push through them, heading for the stairs. Maybe if I can make a run for it, I can get out of the house, but Meredith is at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Oh, we just wanted a chat with you, love,’ Dad’s saying.
‘Meredith!’ I say, all surprised. I look at my watch. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’
‘Shouldn’t you?’ she says forcefully.
‘Oh, I was just about to ring in, actually. Feeling a bit peaky.’
Damn, I can’t make a run for it.
I know, I know. It’s madness. Why would I want to run away from my parents?
I decide that if I head downstairs, the parents will follow me and then be less likely to discover my ex-boyfriend lurking in the wardrobe, so I sweep downstairs, my hand on the banister, all crinkly-eyed smiles and beaming grins. Really I should be wearing a straw hat and a crinoline to finish off the look, and be uttering, ‘Fiddle dee dee!’ in a Deep South accent. As I get to the bottom of the stairs, Meredith intercepts me. She doesn’t quite administer a roundhouse kick to my face, but she may as well do. She grabs my wrist and holds on to me.
‘Get off me.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To get my phone to ring in sick.’
‘You don’t need to. You just need to talk to your mum and dad.’
‘About what?’ I emit with a girly giggle. ‘This is ridiculous!’
Not half as ridiculous as I sounded emitting that girly giggle. Meredith looks past me to the stairs, where Mum and Dad are now galumphing down after me. They must be exhausted, all this running about. God, what has Meredith told them to warrant them legging it around the East End of London at this time on a Monday morning? It’s completely unfair at their time of life.
I take advantage of her distraction, looking up the stairs, and duck underneath her arm, forcing her to squeal as I bend her wrist into a painful cat’s cradle. I grab the handle on the front door, pull it open and run.
I seem to spend my life running out of this house, escaping the bizarre. Now more than ever. As soon as I step outside the house, I see an unfamiliar car parked there, its engine running, the back passenger door open, a man in the front seat I don’t recognize. He’s looking at me, though. Who is he? I make to run past the car but feel Meredith launching herself at me from behind. She rugby-tackles me and pushes me up against the car. I hit cold metal with my cheek and bang my ribs.
‘What are you doing?’ I scream. ‘That hurts.’
‘Don’t overdo it, Meredith!’ I hear Dad calling, coming out of the house.
‘She’s a lesbian,’ explains Mum, following him, and for some reason I know exactly what she means.
Next thing I know, Meredith is bundling me into the car. Like I have no say in the matter. I stumble onto the back seat and look at the man in the front. I check out his jacket. It’s tweed. Not exactly a man in a white coat.
‘Are you a psychiatrist?’ I ask.
Just then Mum opens the front passenger door. ‘No, this is Jorgen.’
Dad is clambering in too, beside me.
My God. It’s Jorgen Borgen Stick It Up Your Horgen, I think. I may actually say it out loud because I hear Mum going, ‘No, Karen, just Jorgen,’ as she sits up front next to him and slams her door shut with some force. Wow, she seems angry.
Just Jorgen, eh?
I am reminded of an advert from my childhood for a juice that had no pips or crap in it and I sing the jingle for everyone: ‘No pips, no powders, no preservatives, Just Juice!’
Then I laugh. Doors have shut and the car is moving now. I am hemmed in between Meredith, who’s now on my left, and Dad on my right. I look to him.
‘You know about Jorgen?’
He nods curtly.
‘Are you fuming?’ I ask.
‘Not now, Karen.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘All will become clear eventually,’ says Mother cryptically from the front seat.
‘Am I being sectioned?’ I ask.
‘No,’ says Meredith.
‘Should you be?’ asks Mum.
I don’t answer that.
‘I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. What’s this about?’
‘Try not to worry, love,’ says Dad, and gives my arm a squeeze.
‘You told Wendy you’d seen Michael, didn’t you, love?’ says Mum, turning to look at me. She sounds sympathetic.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘I’m sure it’s a perfectly natural reaction,’ Jorgen suddenly pipes up in his telly Danish accent.
My immediate thought is to say, ‘Who asked you?’ but when I realize he’s being supportive, I warm to him briefly. Then I hate him again.
‘Er, thanks for splitting my family up, by the way,’ I hiss at him.
He looks unperturbed, from what I can see in the rear-view mirror.
‘They do not look particularly broken up to me, Karen,’ he insists. I decide to ignore him. He looks quite handsome from the back. Except that he has a beard. Not that I can see this from behind. I just catch a glimpse of it from the side. He has freckles, sandy hair. He’s wearing a tweedy Barbour jacket, the sort designed for men to go shooting in, but now appropriated by trendy types who hang out in Hoxton, or want to give the impression of hanging out in Hoxton. I’m not a big fan of beards. Everyone’s got them these days, even women.
‘Have you seen Michael?’ Mum asks.
‘No,’ I lie, taking my eyes off the Bearded One.
Mum looks to Dad, shakes her head and turns back. ‘Why haven’t you spoken to Rita?’ Mum says, checking her nails now.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘She loves you,’ adds Mum.
‘If I don’t want to speak to her, I don’t have to,’ I insist. ‘Michael left me. If she wants to take his side, she can.’
And Meredith, Dad and Mum all appear to sigh in unison.
‘What?’ I shriek, but they ignore me. I turn to Dad. ‘How did you get to London so quickly? Have you seen the time?’
‘I came last night,’ he explains. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’
‘Oh, because she –’ and here I indicate Mum ‘– reckons I’m all dark and suicidal, and I’m so not.’
‘No, because of the Michael thing.’
I don’t like where this is going, so I side-swipe him with a quick ‘I found out this morning that my new boyfriend’s in the IRA.’
‘IRA?’ asks Meredith. Oh, so suddenly she’s got a voice.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It stands for . . .’ and then my voice trails off, as I’m still not sure what it stands for exactly.
‘He’s not from Northern Ireland,’ Meredith points out, as if that means anything.
‘It’s far too soon for you to have a boyfriend,’ Mum says.
‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ I say pointedly, giving both people in the front of the car daggers.
‘Anyway, you’re a grass,’ I tell Meredith, wanting to sting her. She doesn’t respond, so I explain. ‘Telling thingy, Ethleen.’
Again, no response. God, she’s hard-faced. I hear a clicking noise and try to locate it.
Jorgen’s got the right indicator on. We’re waiting for the traffic to clear on the right. When eventually it does, we sweep round and through some wrought-iron gates. As I bump into Meredith and quickly remove myself from her grassy touch, I recognize the gates and suddenly realize what this is all about.
This is about me being a bad mother.
Oh God.
Moments later I am walking down a gravel path. Mum and Dad have an arm each and I am being cajoled against my will. Meredith and Jorg
en have stayed in the car. Either side of us there are row upon row of gravestones.
‘This is about me not visiting the grave, isn’t it?’ I venture.
I’ve not been to Evie’s grave since Michael left. I know it’s unforgivable, I know it’s inexcusable, but I’ve just not been able to face it. I have left my daughter all on her own and for that I am deeply ashamed. I used to come every Saturday, spruce up the flowers, have a little chat, but since Michael left, I’ve not wanted to.
‘I’ve just not been able to face it since Michael left.’
‘When you say “left”, what do you mean?’ asks Mum as we hurry along.
‘You know what I mean.’ I am sounding surly. I am surly. Probably because I am embarrassed.
‘I don’t,’ she insists.
‘He walked out on me.’
‘He walked out on you and what did he do?’
I don’t want to answer that. I change the subject.
‘This is about Evie, isn’t it?’
I’m a bad mother, you see. So rubbish at being a mum that I couldn’t even keep my baby alive inside me, and even more rubbish now that I’ve not visited her grave for months. As I said, inexcusable.
But they don’t answer.
We veer left down a path of more modern graves. Blocks of dark grey granite lying on the grass like little statues of discarded phone books. Polished circles of silver at the top with holes in like old telephone dials, some with flowers in. And then we stop. And I look down. And I see those all-too-familiar words:
The Confusion of Karen Carpenter Page 24
