by Ross Welford
Except they’re not looking at me, but a little beyond my shoulder. Without turning, I mouth the words, ‘Is he there?’ to Kirsten, who nods almost imperceptibly.
I get up with my tray. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him, tray in hand, easily close enough to hear what I said.
Without even getting close to look at his face I know he’s looking sad and puzzled, like he did at the lockers the other day.
I hate myself.
There’s a memory I have from when I was very little: it’s Mum’s funeral.
Gram says Mum’s funeral was quite a small affair, but in my memory it’s not. I guess that’s because we all like to think of our mums and dads as really important, and a small event wouldn’t fit that image, would it?
Anyway, we’re in a big church, but instead of organ music there’s rock music. Loud, thrashing rock music, and lots of people, all eating Haribos.
(This is not a dream by the way – at least, I don’t think so. It’s definitely a memory, but maybe it’s mixed up with other stuff because you wouldn’t normally have loud rock music at a funeral, although there were Haribos, so I don’t know for sure.)
Gram is with me, and I think Great-gran as well, in a wheelchair. And Gram is angry, though not with me.
Not sad: just angry. Her face is cold and hard, like the sea on a Whitley Bay winter’s day.
That’s the memory. It’s a weird one, eh?
It’s not much, but bear with me.
Now, I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but did you know that when we talk about a dead person’s ashes, they’re not really ashes? It’s ground-up bone. Bone is pretty much all that is left after a cremation, which is when you burn the body of a dead person rather than bury it, and you get given the ashes to bury yourself or to throw in the sea or something. It’s what happens to most people nowadays, says Gram.
How did I get on to this? I know it sounds creepy, but I’ll be done soon. The reason is this: my mum does not have a grave.
You see, I’ve watched films and read books that people die in, and dead people always have graves. The living person – usually a husband or girlfriend or something – then goes to the grave and talks to the dead person and tells them about their life. Then they usually place some flowers there, or touch the headstone, and it’s sweet and sad and I often cry in these bits.
But I can’t do that – visit a grave – because Mum was cremated.
I don’t even know what happened to Mum’s ashes, now that I think about it. I’ll have to ask Gram.
Why am I telling you this now?
I think I am punishing myself. The Boydy thing has upset me, and I deserve to feel bad by thinking of my mum.
Most people in my situation would try to be happy when they remember their mum. Not me.
At least, not unless I’m looking through my shoebox of Mum stuff.
(And even then, I don’t feel exactly happy.)
It stays with me, though, that feeling of sadness and guilt, and is one of the reasons that I end up becoming invisible again.
Which is – to say the very least – inadvisable.
It’s more than a week later, and I haven’t yet been back to see Great-gran.
To be honest, I’m beginning to think I imagined the whole thing. You know, Great-gran secretly signalling to me that she wanted me to come back on my own. Why would she do that? I’ve replayed it again and again in my head and all it was, really, was a look.
She’s a hundred. It could easily be nothing.
But my instinct is that it’s not. My instinct is that it’s something – that Great-gran is trying to tell me something I need to know.
On my way home (alone, obviously), I notice another missing pet poster has gone up on Missing Pet Lamp Post. It’s Geoffrey. There’s a picture of him, and the text:
MISSING
Yorkshire terrier, front leg missing. Red collar
Answers to Geoffrey
Call Mrs Q. Abercrombie
07974 377 337
REWARD
Back home, and tea with Gram is just strange.
She has gone very quiet. What with my guilt at hurting Boydy, and whatever it is that’s going on with Gram, we sip our tea in virtual silence.
Shop-bought biscuits too. That is unusual.
I say nothing.
A little later, I text Boydy. It’s probably the hardest thing I have ever had to write.
Hi. Sorry about the other day. It’s not what I really think. Friends?
Thirteen words. I’m wondering if it will be enough when a text pings almost immediately.
Too late. Forget it. ‘Lump’? I thought some things were off limits. Apparently not.
So he heard it all, including ‘lump’. It’s not quite calling him fat, but it’s in the same territory. Why did I do that?
In the time we have known each other, Boydy has never once made a reference to my spots, or for that matter to my appearance at all, apart from once saying he thought my hair looked nice – and then he blushed so much that I think he must have regretted it.
Nor have I ever mentioned his size.
But some things are out of bounds, however upset you are. Making references to Boydy’s weight, I now discover, is one of them. The hurt is written all over his text message.
He once told me he had been ‘large’ all his life and that he hated it. I have just made it worse for him.
Hurting people’s feelings would definitely merit a place on Gram’s list of ‘rather common’ things. Come to think of it, hurtful comments about someone’s appearance are probably ‘frightfully common’.
Ms Hall said she would upload my homework to the school’s website but it’s not there, or I can’t find it, and I’m clicking around the site when I see the notice for the school’s talent show, which is tomorrow, and there’s Boydy’s name as one of the contestants.
Inevitable, really. If there was anybody who would refuse to let an absence of talent hold them back from a talent show it would be overconfident Elliot Boyd. He has told me about this, in one of his coming-home-from-school monologues, but it kind of got lost in the general Boyd-noise.
He has been learning the guitar for precisely one month. And I can see from the list that he’s going up against that he’s already toast.
A Year Ten thrash-metal group called Mother of Dragons, who played in assembly once and are really noisy and good;
Savannah and Clem Roeber, who do ballroom dancing to modern music, like on TV. They’re good too;
Nilesh Patel, who’s in Year Eleven and does proper stand-up comedy and not just a long list of jokes from a book.
In fact, everyone’s good. He’s going to be slaughtered. Poor Boydy cannot play the guitar for toffee and he will be booed off.
Actually, he won’t be booed off, because that wouldn’t be allowed. But he’ll be watched in total silence, applauded insincerely, and mocked for ever after.
And I realise that:
a) I don’t want that to happen to him. And …
b) if I somehow prevent it, then he will forgive me for slagging him off to Aramynta Fell and Co.
That’s when I decide I’m going to become invisible again.
To try to save Boydy. It’s the least I can do, really, given how I’ve hurt his feelings.
It’s odd, too, how quickly the decision forms in my head. It’s like I’m staring at the computer screen and then – boom! – it all becomes clear. That, I find, is reassuring: it must be a good plan if I’ve thought of it so quickly.
No?
See what you think: it is less hare-brained than it sounds.
A bit less, anyway.
I will go onstage when he’s performing. I will be invisible, having somehow got myself out of school for that day and spent the morning on the sunbed. I will whisper directions in his ear and lift the guitar from his hands thereby creating the most wonderful illusion:
The floating guitar!
I can actually play a bit. Bette
r than Boydy anyway, so as it floats I will strum some chords, and he will wave his hands like a magician and his act will be received with rapturous, elated, wondrous applause!
Sounds good, eh?
No. Now that I have outlined it, it sounds completely ridiculous: the fantasy of a mind that has been warped by herbal concoctions and overexposure to UV light.
You decide, but at least I’ve made my mind up. Yes, it’s a risk. But any ill effects from the last time have been, well … non-existent. My skin has improved. I can even convince myself that my hair is shinier, and I try tossing it like Aramynta Fell but I can’t really do it. I probably look like a demented horse being annoyed by flies.
So, that’s one decision made. But right now I have something else to do. This is the evening that I told myself I would visit Great-gran alone and find out what on earth she meant – if anything – with that look she gave me on her birthday.
I hear Gram call from downstairs:
‘I’m off! Bye, darling. I won’t be late.’
Tonight is Gram’s ‘concert night’. Once a month or so, Gram and some of her friends go to a concert. Classical or jazz: old people’s music, basically.
It’s an early one tonight. Six-ish at the Whitley Bay Playhouse. Some jazz quartet. It finishes at eight.
Which gives me a little over two hours to get to the old people’s home and find out why Great-gran was being so odd on her birthday.
It’s seven by the time I get to Priory View, and I’m soaking wet – on the outside from the rain that started the second I stepped out of the door, and on the inside from sweating inside my waterproof.
I’ve come on the Metro and I’ve brought Lady with me. It’s nice with Lady at Great-gran’s home because if Great-gran’s in a not-saying-anything state (which is usual) then we can stroke Lady, who doesn’t mind who says what so long as she has her tummy tickled. And Great-gran always smiles when she sees Lady.
It’s only three stops to Tynemouth. Then it’s a five-minute walk down to the seafront, where fat needles of salty summer rain are coming off the North Sea.
So I’m going in the entrance of Priory View Residential Care Home, Lady is on the lead, and a man is coming the other way, out of the door. Except he’s not looking where he’s going and we almost collide, but not quite. I notice straight away, though, that he’s a smoker: the smell of old tobacco lingers on him.
He looks up from his phone, which he’s been texting on, and an exchange happens between us. It seems ordinary enough on the face of it, but it leaves me feeling uneasy and puzzled.
We both say, ‘Oh, sorry!’, like you do, then he stops, kind of blocking my way, but not aggressively or anything, and the thing is, he’s looking at me really intensely.
Then he looks down, as if he knows he was staring, and says:
‘Nice dog!’
Do you have a dog? Whether you do or don’t, ‘nice dog’ is like the universal conversation starter among people when at least one of them has a dog. It’s a bit like when you talk about the weather, but less boring.
It goes like this:
‘Nice dog!’
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘What breed is he/she?’ (This is usually only used when the breed is not obvious. If it is, like in Lady’s case, it goes: ‘Labrador, is it?’)
‘How old is he/she?’
‘What’s his/her name?’
That’s it, more or less. After that, you’re away and running with the conversation if you want, and if you don’t want, then everyone goes their own way.
And that is pretty much exactly the way the exchange goes with this man, except it’s a little awkward because:
a) We are both kind of stuck together in the lobby of a care home, and
b) He keeps looking at me.
Strangely, I don’t feel creeped out by it, which would be normal. An unknown man staring at you would usually be enough reason to feel creeped out, but apparently not this time. Every time I look up, he is gazing intently at me.
He’s youngish – early thirties, I guess – and dressed like a teacher. Corduroy trousers, collared shirt open at the neck, V-neck jumper, shiny shoes. He has short, sandy hair on top of a thin face and a set of perfectly even teeth that are far too white, which he keeps flashing at me, grinning – a bit too much for someone you’ve just met.
Lady is sniffing his shoes and wagging her tail while this is going on, and when the man puts his hand out to pat her head, I notice a thing that – to me – seems completely inconsistent with his sensible Head of Geography style, and that is that the first two fingers on his hand have got yellowish stains on them from cigarette smoke. (The only time I’ve ever seen that before is on a shabby old guy at church who Gram always stops to say hello to because, she says, no one else does.)
‘Look, I’d better be, erm …’ I say, nodding my head towards the interior.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ he says, as if suddenly embarrassed.
He talks with a London accent. Definitely not a Geordie. For a second, I wonder if he might be Boydy’s dad or something. But why would he be here?
‘Bye, erm … I didn’t catch your name.’
OK, now this is getting a bit creepy. Dog chat doesn’t normally extend to personal introductions.
‘Ethel,’ I say, and I don’t mean it to sound so cold, but that is how it comes out.
‘Right,’ he says, his tone flatter now. ‘Right. Bye then, Ethel. And Lady.’
‘Bye.’
I watch him go out onto the steps, and the old tobacco smell lingers in the lobby after him. We go into the warm carpety reception and straight on towards Great-gran’s room. As we turn the corner I look back, and he’s still there on the steps, lighting a cigarette, and he immediately turns his head, embarrassed at being caught looking.
‘Eeh, petal – ye’re soakin’!’ says one of the staff when I walk in, dripping rain.
Lady gives herself a good shake, and instead of being annoyed the woman just laughs. She knows me but not by name.
‘Y’come to see yer gran, petal?’
‘My great-gran, yes.’
‘Well, she’s just had her hot milk. She’s sitting up now.’
‘How is she?’
The nurse pauses, clearly weighing up how much to tell me. Eventually she settles on: ‘Up an’ down, pet. Up an’ down. Not so canny today. But she’ll be pleased to see you. You’re the second visitor she’s had today!’
I don’t know anyone else who visits Great-gran, but I suppose I don’t know everything about her.
Lady and I pad down the corridor, past old Stanley’s room. He’s there, as always, facing away from the window, and he lifts his hand weakly in a greeting – more to Lady than to me, I think, but I don’t mind. This time I stop.
‘Hello, Stanley,’ I say.
I would call him Mr Whatever if I knew his last name, but I don’t. He doesn’t hear me, I don’t think.
Then a nurse pushes past impatiently, ignoring me completely.
‘ALL RIGHT, STANLEY, LOVE! I’VE GOT THEM SUPPOSITORIES FOR YOU!’
I move away. I don’t want to know more about Stanley and his constipation remedies.
Great-gran is sitting almost exactly as I last saw her, but she’s not responsive today. She doesn’t seem to be expecting me, even though I phoned Priory View to tell them I was coming.
Her chair is facing the big window, and her hands are underneath the tartan blanket.
‘Hello, Great-gran!’ I say, and Lady goes up to her, nudging her arm for a stroke.
There is no response. Instead Great-gran stares out, moving her jaw a little. I think she has a sweetie in there, probably a Mint Imperial. She likes those.
‘How have you been? You look well. I like your cardigan. Is that new?’
I pause after each question, and if there’s no reply, I sort of pretend there has been one. I’ve got all this from Gram – that’s what she does.
So I start to tell her about scho
ol. And that leads to telling her about Aramynta Fell and her posse and how tiresome they are. I try to make it funny, but it’s hard when there’s no reaction.
Telling Great-gran about Aramynta leads on to Boydy and, before I know it, I’m telling Great-gran all about being invisible.
I know I shouldn’t, but even if she tells anyone, who on earth would believe her? It would be dismissed as the rambling of a very old lady. This makes me feel guilty when I realise it: it feels like I’m taking advantage of Great-gran’s silence. She just sits there, gazing at the rain splattering on the window, sucking her sweet, which has lasted a good ten minutes already. Perhaps – without really knowing it – I had meant to tell her all along.
Lady has settled at Great-gran’s feet and stretched herself out for a good nap.
We pause. Or rather, I pause. It’s pretty exhausting maintaining a one-way conversation. What has she heard? What has she understood?
Then she says something.
‘Invisible.’
That’s it. That’s all she says. It’s enough, though, for me to know that I have not been completely wasting my breath for the last ten minutes.
I prattle on.
‘I hear you had another visitor today, Great-gran? Who was that? Was it an old friend from Culvercot? I expect it’s nice to get visitors, yeah?’
Oh dear, I am getting desperate now. It’s OK, though, because when I next look over, Great-gran’s head has drooped and she is asleep, upright in her chair. I get up to go and, seeing me, Lady scrambles to her feet as well.
Just then one of the nurses comes in.
‘Hokay, Lizzie. You wantin’ to come to lounge? EastEnders is on. We get you in wheelchair an’ I take you along.’ She has a foreign accent. I don’t know where it’s from, but she talks a bit like Nadiya in Year Seven who’s from Lithuania.
‘She’s asleep,’ I say to the nurse.
‘Asleep? I no think so – not Lizzie. YOU’RE NOT ASLEEP, ARE YOU, LIZZIE?’
Great-gran’s eyes flicker open, and she seems surprised to see me.
‘See? She just restin’ her eyes, innit?’
‘Excuse me,’ I say as politely as I can to the bustling nurse. ‘Who was my great-gran’s visitor today?’
