The Year of the Rat

by Clare Furniss

  Mum watches me, waiting for me to say something more. ‘Anyway,’ I say quickly, trying to move on from the subject of The Rat, ‘you’re right. I’d better get going or I’ll be late.’

  She pauses, as though she’s going to say something, but then seems to change her mind. ‘Yes of course. What is it today?’

  ‘English,’ I say, but I just lie there looking up at the patch of brown on the ceiling where rainwater must have seeped through, years ago by the look of it. I don’t want to leave her.

  ‘Well, go on then,’ she says. I sit up and look at her.

  ‘I thought you’d come when I needed you,’ I say at last. ‘But you didn’t.’

  She watches me, perched on the window sill. ‘When have you needed me?’

  I think about it. ‘All the time.’

  She laughs. ‘I can’t be with you all the time.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, apart from anything else, it would drive us both completely stark staring mad. You’d kill me if I wasn’t already dead. Or vice versa. You know how we argue, sweetheart, if we have to spend more than two hours together in a confined space.’

  ‘No we don’t.’ I think about it. ‘Not really.’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘Remember that week in Barmouth when it rained non-stop and we couldn’t leave the caravan? You said you needed counselling after that holiday. You said you were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.’

  It’s funny, I’d forgotten about that bit. I’d remembered the one sunny day when we all had ice cream on the beach and Mum and me buried Dad in the sand. But I can’t deny she’s right.

  ‘And what about when you had your appendix out and I took a week off work to look after you?’ she continues. ‘You said you’d pay me to go back to work. You got on your knees and begged me.’

  I groan, remembering. ‘You kept trying to cook me things.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then expecting me to eat them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you kept making me watch The Sound of Music and then you’d sing along.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Really loudly.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And out of tune.’

  She stops and stares at me. ‘Out of tune? I don’t think so, Pearl. I have an excellent singing voice. Loud perhaps. Out of tune, no.’

  ‘Flat as a pancake,’ I laugh. ‘And that’s being kind.’

  She’s about to retaliate when she stops herself and smiles. ‘You see? You’re just proving my point. We’re arguing already.’

  ‘You’re arguing.’

  ‘Look. No one wants to spend twenty-four hours a day with their mother, dead or alive. Now come on. Shift. You need a good breakfast before exams.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ I haven’t really been able to face food since Mum died, but today it’s even more true than usual. ‘Anyway, I don’t care about the exams. What’s the point?’

  She stares at me.

  ‘The point is you’re brilliant, my love, and I don’t want you messing everything up because of me and my bad timing. I’m not having everyone blame me. “Poor Pearl, she’d have gone to Oxford AND Cambridge and won the Nobel Prize and written a string of international bestsellers—” she breaks off to take a breath, “if it hadn’t been for that no-good mother of hers kicking the bucket at the wrong moment.” I won’t have it. Now come on. No more self-pity. Go and have a shower.’

  I haul myself off the bed.

  ‘But come and give me a kiss first,’ she says. I walk over to her and let her kiss me on the cheek. Then I lean on the window sill with her. It’s been raining during the night, but the sky is a perfect pale blue now, and the air so clear and fresh that everything looks new and bright.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ she asks.

  ‘Not really. I just want it to be over.’

  She puts an arm round me and I rest my cheek against hers for a moment. She smells of smoke and perfume.

  ‘How?’ I say. ‘How can you be here?’

  She shrugs. ‘You wanted to see me, didn’t you?’

  I know she’s avoiding the question.

  ‘You will come back, won’t you?’

  ‘Course.’ She flicks her cigarette stub out of the open window. It soars in a perfect arc and lands in the fishpond, disappearing under the algae to join my mobile phone. ‘Now go on. You’ll be brilliant, my love.’

  When I come back from my shower, the bedroom is empty.

  I knew it would be, but I cry anyway.

  As soon as I hear the sound of Dad’s key in the front-door lock, I switch off my bedside light and my iPod and pretend to be asleep. He’s late back from the hospital tonight; it’s almost ten thirty. I always make sure I’m in bed by the time he gets back otherwise he just goes on and on about The Rat: what amazing progress she’s making and how he can pick her up and give her cuddles now, and how the nurses are dying to see me and maybe I can go in soon. It doesn’t matter how bored I look, he just keeps on and on.

  The front door slams and I hear his footsteps on the stairs. Every night my bedroom door opens. A rectangle of light from the landing falls across the dark of my room, but it doesn’t quite reach me. He never says anything, just watches me for a few seconds. I’m rubbish at pretending to be asleep; I always was, even as a kid. I always forget to breathe. I don’t know whether he knows I’m pretending. In the end the door always closes.

  But tonight something’s different. The door doesn’t close.

  ‘Pearl?’ Dad whispers. My heart thuds. Something’s happened. I open an eye a tiny bit to try to see his face, but I can only make out his silhouette against the landing light.

  ‘Pearl?’ He says it louder this time. Panic rises inside me. What if something’s wrong with The Rat? What if I’m pleased?

  He walks over to the bed and sits down. ‘Are you awake?’

  I don’t speak.

  ‘They’ve said she can come home soon, Pearl.’ I can hear the excitement in his voice. ‘Rose. They’ve said she’s nearly strong enough to leave the hospital. If she keeps improving it could just be weeks till she’s here at home with us.’

  He couldn’t wait to tell me. I lie there, not breathing.

  ‘Pearl?’

  He wants me to sit up and smile and hug him. He wants me to be happy. I want it too. But I don’t know how.

  ‘Mmmm,’ I say, trying to sound as though I’m still asleep. I roll over, away from him, to face the wall.

  He doesn’t move for a moment. I can feel his eyes on my back. I can feel his disappointment. A hot tear trickles sideways down my nose. I want him to say something. I want him to stroke my hair like he used to when I was a kid and I’d had a nightmare. He’d always be the one who came when I woke up, and then he’d stay with me till I went back to sleep. I didn’t have to tell him that I needed him; he just knew. He understood then how scared I was, how alone and lost I felt, lying in the dark.

  But now he just gets up and walks away. Through my closed lids I see the room go dark as he shuts the door behind him.

  ‘Do you need any help at all?’

  The shop assistant gives Dad a bright smile. She can obviously see we haven’t got a clue. We’re standing in front of the fleet of buggies on the shop floor, lined up against us like an army.

  Yes. We need help.

  ‘What is it you’re looking for today? Do you have any particular requirements or was there a specific model you were interested in?’

  Dad looks at her, bewildered, and a hot wave of embarrassment washes over me. All the other customers in the Baby Department seem to know what they’re doing: women resting their hands on their big smug baby bumps, men holding wriggly toddlers. Dad and I are all wrong: too sad and thin and quiet. I worry that they’ll notice, the happy, noisy people. They’ll sense we’re bad luck. Or are they too busy holding hands and laughing and wiping their children’s noses? I shrink down into my clothes.

  ‘We need a pram,�
� Dad says. He goes red as he says it and he can’t look the smiley assistant – Julianne, her badge says – in the eye.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ she says. ‘Was it an actual pram you wanted or a travel system?’

  ‘Oh,’ says Dad. ‘I, um . . .’

  Julianne waits, smile fixed.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it depends what you’re going to be using it for really,’ says Julianne helpfully.

  ‘For putting a baby in,’ snaps Dad. I stare at my feet. I should never have let him talk me into coming. But he’d looked so desperate. Please, Pearl. I don’t think I can face it on my own.

  Pathetic.And I was all ready to tell him so. You’re the one who wanted a baby. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have to go shopping for a buggy. If he could just have been happy with how things were . . . But then I’d had a sudden feeling that Mum might be watching from behind the curtains, or through the window, and that she’d give me an earful about it later. So, sulkily, I’d let him persuade me.

  ‘Is it . . .’ Julianne pauses, her eyes flicking from Dad’s face to mine, down to my distinctly not-pregnant middle and back again. ‘Is it for yourselves?’

  Dad doesn’t say anything. Along the aisle a couple and another shop assistant are applauding as a toddler pushes his chewed-looking rabbit toy along in a lurid green pushchair.

  ‘Oh, well done, Harry,’ the heavily pregnant woman gushes. ‘I think you and Bunny have chosen for us, haven’t you, darling?’

  I hate them. All of them. Even Bunny.

  ‘Yes,’ I mutter to Julianne. ‘It’s for us.’

  ‘OK,’ she says brightly. ‘Well, let’s start with something simple. Did you want baby to be forward facing or facing towards you?’

  Dad still doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Of course if it’s for a newborn . . .’ She looks at us questioningly and Dad nods. ‘Well then, you’ll be wanting something that can go completely flat, either with a carrycot that fits into the frame like this one or . . .’

  Julianne carries on talking. I watch her mouth move and I hear the words, but they mean nothing at all. Dad’s face is as blank as mine. And suddenly I remember the two of us in the relatives’ room at the hospital the day Mum died. The doctor had talked and talked at us. Pre-eclampsia. Cerebral oedema. Caesarean section. Words and more words that meant nothing to me.

  ‘Facing you is great when they’re little,’ Julianne says. ‘Helps with bonding . . .’

  I can remember the doctor’s face so clearly: smooth dark skin, short greying goatee. It was a kind face. At the end he’d asked us if we had any questions.

  ‘. . . pneumatic wheels are great for bumpy terrain,’ Julianne’s saying. ‘But of course they do add weight . . .’

  Is she definitely dead? I’d asked.

  The doctor had looked at me, surprised. Yes, he said at last, his eyes sad behind his glasses. I’m sorry.

  ‘And of course this one,’ Julianne rests her manicured hand on the handle of yet another buggy, ‘has the option of an additional seat which can be added for a little brother or sister if you should need it in the future.’

  She beams at Dad. He stares at her, but I’m pretty sure he’s not really seeing her. He just stares and stares till it’s awkward and I have to pretend to look for something in my bag.

  ‘I didn’t realize it would be so difficult,’ he says at last. His voice sounds strange. I look up and my stomach clenches. There are tears running down his face.

  ‘Dad!’ Christ. Please don’t let anyone see.

  Julianne’s not smiling any more. ‘Are you OK, sir?’ she says.

  The stupid kaftan-wearing Bunny woman looks over then quickly looks away again. I’ve got to get him out of here before anyone else notices.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ Julianne says. ‘Can I get you some water?’

  ‘No,’ Dad says, trying to get it together. ‘I just—’

  And he walks off, leaving me and Julianne staring at each other.

  ‘Is he OK?’ she says.

  ‘What do you think?’ I mutter and then go after him. I follow him down the escalator; he’s going fast and I have to run to keep up. I finally catch up with him in the kitchen section. I grab his arm and turn him round to face me.

  ‘How could you do that? How could you humiliate me like that?’

  For an instant he looks so angry that I think he’s going to shout at me right there in the middle of the shop, surrounded by kettles and sandwich toasters. Then it’s like he just hasn’t got the energy.

  ‘I need a coffee,’ he says wearily. ‘Come on.’

  I hesitate.

  ‘Don’t argue with me, Pearl. Just this once.’

  So I trail after him, back through the store, till we get to the huge airy coffee shop. I sit at a table next to a wall of windows, looking out over the car park while Dad gets the coffees.

  He brings the tray over and we sit in silence for a while. Dad sips his coffee. I stare out over the rows and rows of cars, stretching almost as far as I can see, sparkling in the sunlight.

  ‘I’d pictured it all, you know,’ he says at last.

  ‘What?’

  ‘All this. Coming here and buying all the kit. Moses baskets and little Babygros. Before. When Mum was pregnant. I imagined how it would be. Mum pretending not to be excited, moaning about her sore feet, getting all the shop assistants to run around after her. And you acting like you didn’t want to be there, texting Molly half the time, and then picking out all the most expensive stuff. And me just . . . happy.’

  He looks through the window into the distance, seeing things that I can’t, memories that never happened. It’s hot outside. Summer has arrived suddenly and everyone’s in T-shirts and shorts or summer dresses. But in here the air conditioning is fierce and I shiver.

  ‘Every day is a collection of tiny little things that don’t happen,’ Dad says.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He’s silent for a minute, thinking. ‘I thought I’d tidy up the CDs yesterday,’ he says at last. ‘You know how Mum would always put them in the wrong box or just leave them lying around. And I’d have to go through them and put them all back where they should be. Used to drive me mad.’

  It was true. I’d go into the kitchen and he’d be there, all red and annoyed, waving CD boxes around, saying, She’s put her bloody Abba in with my Wagner! Again! as if anyone cared or even knew what he was talking about. And Mum would snort and roll her eyes and say, Of course Hitler was a big fan of Wagner you know.

  Dad looks at me. ‘But yesterday they were all there. On their shelves in the right boxes in the right order. Just like they should be. Just how I’d left them.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘You can go along day to day. You can get through it, convince yourself you’re doing OK. But it’s the unexpected things . . .’ he says, faltering.

  Please don’t let him cry again.

  He gives me a tentative look. ‘Do you find that?’

  I look back at him. ‘I don’t know why you don’t just get an iPod.’

  He blinks. ‘I’m not your enemy, Pearl,’ he says. ‘Why do I feel as though you think I am?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say, but I can’t meet his eyes.

  We finish our coffees in silence.

  We don’t go back to the Baby Department.

  ‘I’ll order a pram on the website,’ Dad says as we drive home.

  But I can’t help feeling it’s a victory, as though fate has stepped in. As though no pram equals no baby.

  Dad drops me off at home and goes on to the hospital. He doesn’t bother to ask me if I want to go with him. I get out of the car in silence and he doesn’t say goodbye. I go up to my room and get out my revision notes to read through, but I can’t concentrate on them. All I can think about is The Rat. While she’s been in hospital, I’ve almost been able to pretend she doesn’t exist. But soon she’ll be here, in the house
, all the time.

  I walk out on to the landing and stand in front of the glossy white door of her room. Slowly, I push it open and go in. I haven’t been in here since Mum died. Next to the cot there’s an old rocking chair. Mum had painted it and stacked it with cushions that she’d covered with scraps of the old curtains from my room when I was a baby. I’d forgotten all about them till I saw them: elephants carrying balloons with their trunks. I’d felt pleased that she would have something of mine, the plump, smiling baby with the blonde curls. I picture her sleeping peacefully in her cot under the little embroidered quilt Molly and I had picked out, her thumb in her mouth and her cheeks flushed pink. I sit down in the chair and rock myself gently to and fro. I close my eyes and imagine I’m holding the baby that should have been. She smiles, gurgling, reaching out her tiny perfect fingers towards me—

  I stop the chair abruptly with my foot. Then I get up and leave the room, closing the door behind me.

  This is her room, not The Rat’s.

  The Rat is an imposter.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ Molly squeals, hugging me as soon as we’re out of the exam hall. ‘We never, ever have to sit another exam again in the whole of our lives if we don’t want to.’

  The noise around us is deafening, everyone chatting excitedly, hugging each other or comparing notes.

  ‘Are you going to come and celebrate?’ Molly says, taking my arm as we all file out into the afternoon sunshine. ‘A load of us are going over to the park later.’

  But all I want to do is be somewhere quiet on my own.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to get back.’ I know she’ll assume it’s something to do with the baby, and I don’t put her right.

  ‘Oh.’ Molly’s face falls. ‘That’s a shame. Haven’t you even got time to come and have a quick coffee with me and Ravi? He’s got his last A level tomorrow so he can’t stay long.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  We walk down to the school gates together.

  ‘How is everything?’ Molly asks. ‘How’s little Rose?’

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘She’s coming home next week.’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Fantastic.’