****
Mon 26th September
I’ve been reading my sister’s diary again tonight. It’s my way of keeping an eye on her, especially after what I’ve seen recently through the shop window. I want to make sure she’s not keeping any secrets from me.
I’ve also been trying to keep a record of her movements. I know which floorboards creak when I tiptoe around number eleven tracking her. Doors throughout the house move imperceptibly as I inhale and exhale behind them. I am a shadow peeping through the cracks at my little sister, tracing her every movement inside and outside the house.
She mostly goes to see him after we’ve had dinner, and she spends prolonged periods in the shop, lasting up to one hour.
Tonight she’s been gone for ages. What’s worse, he’s also disappeared from the shop, leaving Mrs Phillips to serve behind the counter while their tiny baby cries in her arms. Its noise jars the air. When I walked in this evening, she was actually breastfeeding it in the shop like a farmyard animal.
I stole a tin of Delmonte apricots.
Helen is so pretentious. Instead of writing a proper diary, she writes her account of each day in the form of a poem or a made-up story with ‘she’ instead of ‘I.’ She also tries to make the diaries exciting by introducing plot, suspense and invention. Some of her entries are complete fabrications, like the time she claims she went to Howletts Zoo near Canterbury, or the time she says she sat and watched Flashdance twice in succession at the cinema, sitting in the dark for four hours. Nobody’s ever taken her to Howletts Zoo! The only time she’s been to a zoo was when Dad took us to Port Lympne and we secretly fed Polos to the elephants. And I would have known if she saw Flashdance once, let alone twice.
Her diary is so large and home-made you can see it from her bedroom doorway in amongst all her plants and flowers. The black cover stands out against the paintwork on her mantelpiece. On the cover, she’s written ‘Number 1’ in lumpy Tippex.
The pages bulge with mementos. In her diary my sister keeps unimportant things like bus tickets and sweet wrappers. She tries to make this rubbish look special by gluing it onto the page and drawing frames around it with her felt-tipped pens. She writes captions under each piece of litter: ‘Helen’s voyage into town’ or ‘Helen’s luxurious lunch.’ She can’t spell these words correctly, of course. I don’t know where she finds some of the things she sticks in, like the stub for a swimming pool with a wave machine. I expect she picks them up off the road or out of rubbish bins, or she gets them off Katie Nelson. She also includes pressed flowers and leaves from her pot plants, carefully sandwiched in-between blotting paper, with information about each one’s growth and seasons.
Her little stories and poems are an embarrassment. They should be burnt.
I flick through the diary.
I laugh out loud when I read an entry written back in July:
I have been very busy looking for caterpillars all summer. I found four but I could not find out the names of three of them. There was a quite light green one which I found when I was grasshopper tracking and it had tiny white dots down its sides. The other two were both the same or very similar but one was big (that one drowned in my tadpole water) and the other one was little. The fourth caterpillar I found I think was one of the hawks because you could see a horn thing at its rear end. Mummy found an Elephant Hawk Moth moth on the rose bush and a Common Butterfly butterfly. So we are doing quite well.
Moth-moths and butterfly-butterflies! What on earth does she think she’s talking about?
Helen’s writing has no style or grace. She would benefit from a calligraphy lesson or two from me, if I could be bothered to teach her. I might offer her a weekly handwriting tutorial in exchange for a percentage of her pocket money.
There’s a strange poem she wrote last week. It makes no sense at all:
His voice. The wind. The mud.
Head under water.
Roll on back. Lap the water.
Hello, who’s that?
Jump up, lick, sniff.
Don’t pat my head. Heron?
Chase it chase it. Free.
This poem doesn’t even rhyme like proper poems should.
Anyway, this is her False Diary.
Diaries are places where you keep secrets. We all know that. Since finding out about her and him, I’ve realised that she must have a Real Diary hidden somewhere, containing all the details of their secret games and meetings. I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy recently looking for the Real Diary. I know the one I’ve seen is the False Diary because she’s deliberately left it out for me to find. You can tell she’s written all these lies and pasted in all this rubbish in order to put me off the scent of what’s really going on with him.
It’s lucky I’m not stupid.
The Real Diary. That’s what I’m looking for now, not this bulging home-made book which makes my eyes sore and my head ache with its strange poems and endless accounts of the progress of seedlings and tadpoles.
One thing has really shocked me about the False Diary. She’s tucked Dad’s letters in amongst all the rubbish. Each familiar A4 sheet is folded into three, following the original folds Dad made when he finished writing and put his last row of x’s at the bottom. Each letter peeps out from the top of the diary. I’ll read them another time. I doubt he’s got much to say to her because she always sided with Rebecca in their arguments. I was the special one with my Dad. I would never put my letters from my Dad in the same place as bus tickets, sweet wrappers, stuff picked out of rubbish bins and mouldy leaves.
****
Tues 27th September
‘Did you really steal all this?’ The headmaster shakes his head and looks at me with disappointed eyes.
The treasure-trove in my gym bag has been discovered. It’s all lined up on the headmaster’s table. So many things have gone missing since the start of term that the teachers locked the building one lunchtime and carried out a full-scale search of all our desks and bags as well as the cloakrooms.
Tearfully, I explain my innocence. The real thief has cleverly put these objects in my bag to avoid her own discovery. I have been stitched up. I am being persecuted by certain classmates out of jealousy. It’s not my fault I always come top in class. Certain people have poisoned the minds of others against me. I haven’t committed any offence. Those Three Girls call me stuck-up. They push into me in queues and call me a thief.
The headmaster listens patiently, but he keeps shaking his head.
Now the whole school building is going to be locked at break-times, and nobody will be allowed inside, except to go to the toilet. This leaves me very vulnerable. Those Three Girls have been eyeing me ever since it became public knowledge that the stolen items were discovered in my gym bag. During afternoon break, they make loud, disgusting comments about sex when I walk past. They always move through the school looking for targets, and now I am their Number One Target. They have the same effect on people as washing-up liquid in a greasy frying pan. Wherever they go, a halo of space opens up all around them.
Since people’s possessions started to go missing a few weeks ago, everybody has been carrying their bags around with them in the playground because they think their stuff will be stolen if they leave it inside the building. I don’t care. I’ve been stalking first-years during morning breaks, making them give me their packed lunches in a swap. I call it a swap, even though I don’t give them anything back. I enjoy sliced white bread with Heinz Sandwich Spread. Afterwards I like to eat a Penguin or a Mars Bar. I detest luncheon meat, but slices of ham are okay, so long as there’s no mayonnaise or cucumber.
****
Wed 28th September
‘Peas! Hurry!’ Rebecca says, thrusting a five pound note in my face. I’ve been loitering in the kitchen doorway for the last fifteen minutes, stomach rumbling, watching her cook. ‘Quickly, darling, before the shop shuts.’
I don’t see why I should always have to do things when Rebecca suddenly remembers them, as if
I’ve got nothing better to do with my time.
A saucepan of water boils enthusiastically on the hob, rattling its lid, waiting for the peas. Beside it, another pan full of baked beans heaves and bubbles, emitting muddy slaps.
Rebecca got home from work early today. She’s been whistling while she cooks.
‘Are we having peas and baked beans for tea?’ I ask in a sceptical tone. Meals certainly have taken a turn for the worse ever since Dad left the kitchen.
‘I wonder if I should put the toast on now, or wait for when you come back?’ Her voice trails off. Rebecca always has problems with planning and coordination. ‘Try to find Helen while you’re out!’ she calls as I open the front door. ‘Tell her tea’s ready.’
‘Isn’t she in her room?’ I can’t believe I’ve lost track of my sister again. She sneaks out like a cat. It’s impossible to keep up with her movements, especially when she rushes off on her bike. I hate bicycles! I tried to ride one during Cycling Proficiency lessons at primary school, but I couldn’t get the hang of it and failed the test. That’s the only exam I’ve ever failed.
Although I’d never reveal this to Rebecca, this evening’s task is actually perfectly acceptable to me because it gives me a chance to see my Mr Phillips. Although I’ve seen lots of him recently through the window, I haven’t actually been into the shop for four days.
As I walk up the road, all the dinner smells of the village combine in delicious clouds of flavours which hover around my nose. I pause outside Katie Nelson’s house and sniff slowly, pulling the succulent meaty bouquet down into my throat. A pool of saliva forms on my tongue. I balance the smell just over the pool, then let it drop with a splash, and swallow.
Just as I push the shop door open, I am positive that I see my sister’s head plummet out of view behind the counter.
‘Hi Lizzy.’ Mr Phillips’s voice sounds quite high-pitched. He stares straight at me without moving his eyes to the left or right. ‘You’re lucky you caught me. I was just about to close.’
‘Did I catch you?’ I ask in my Sherlock Holmes voice, leaning forward as I edge along the counter towards the hatch. I stare hard at the glass front of the counter, trying to see past the sugar necklaces on elastic threads and edible cigarettes into the grey-brown space beyond, at the back. I think I can see a dark shape huddled in a corner. It might be a coat.
Mr Phillips places both hands squarely over the hatch, and leans forward. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to just below his elbows. We’re almost nose to nose, except that my nose is several inches lower down than his.
I am in a tricky situation, which I try, silently, to resolve. I can’t accuse him of anything because, even if she is hiding down there, he will stop liking me if I flush her out of her dusty snughole. On the other hand, given that Rebecca has sent me out to find Helen as well as frozen peas, if my sister is located in the same room as the peas then I would like to know about it.
‘What can I do you for?’ Mr Phillips asks, trying to adopt his normal jovial manner, but keeping his hands planted firmly on the hatch.
Rather than confronting him in an obvious way, I decide to trip him up on an invisible wire using the subtlety of my natural intelligence.
‘Two things please. First of all, we need frozen peas for tea.’
‘Oui to the peas, mademoiselle. And the second thing?’
Putting on my playful voice, I say, ‘I’ll tell you the second thing when you’ve fetched the frozen peas.’
‘They’re in the deep freeze just behind you.’ He sounds relaxed, now, and gestures to the freezer with a nod of his head.
‘Would you mind fetching them for me, please? Frozen bags always stick to my hands.’
‘Don’t be silly! You’ll be fine!’
I tilt my head to and fro, listening for the smallest disturbance in the air behind the counter, the squeak of a plimsoll sliding a fraction of an inch along the lino, the knocking of a nervous heart under a woolly jumper. I feel like a blackbird searching for a worm.
‘Don’t mess around now, Lizzie. Chop-chop! I’m trying to close up.’
I try to keep my eye on the counter as I walk over to the deep freeze, but unfortunately I am obliged to turn my head away at the last minute. The freezer creaks open, sending shards of ice spinning across the lino.
‘It’s heavy. Can you hold the lid open while I try to find the small size?’ This comes out in my paying-customer voice.
Mr Phillips hurtles through the hatch like a dart from a blowpipe, grabs a packet out of the freezer, thrusts it into my chest, arrives back at the till, rings up the amount, and hands me my change with a beaming smile.
‘Now what was that second thing?’ he asks, sounding efficient and busy.
My strategy has failed. Clearly, Mr Phillips and I are equally matched. This just goes to show how compatible we are.
I adopt a blunter style. ‘Have you seen my sister this evening? I bet she’s not far away from here.’
‘No. I haven’t seen her at all. Why do you ask?’
Wearily, I say, ‘Oh, nothing. She’s not at home and tea’s ready.’
‘I’ll tell her if I see her.’
‘Yes, tell her if you see her.’ I move away from them.
‘See you soon.’
As I close the door behind me, I hear a rustle and a clatter, and I spin around, expecting to catch sight of Helen. But all I see is his hand by the door. The green ‘open’ sign on the shop door turns into a fierce red oblong saying ‘closed.’
I don’t know how she managed this feat, but Helen is standing in the kitchen when I get back to number eleven. She gives me a smug smile when I come in.
‘Honestly! How long does it take to get peas?’ Holding a wooden spoon like a chisel, our mother chips at the baked beans in the pan.
‘I haven’t been that long.’ I scrutinise my sister’s knees and shins for signs of shopfluff. ‘Where have you been? I was looking for you.’
‘In my room.’ Her voice lilts upwards at the end, which is one of the signs that a person is lying.
The peas are ready almost immediately. Rebecca drains them. She stands at the sink to serve the food. She had to cook the entire contents of the packet because we haven’t got a freezer.
‘Voila!’ Down come the plates in front of us.
‘This looks good,’ Helen says sarcastically. She lifts a forkful of food, and peas roll over the table. Suddenly she starts to giggle.
I look at my plate of thick baked beans and crunchy peas. I can’t see what there is to laugh about this evening. My sister, however, can’t stop laughing. Every time she manages to get peas in her mouth, she spits them out with explosive guffaws. She howls especially loudly when she looks at me. I can’t see what is funny about me. Finally, she is reduced to hiccupping and laughing at the same time.
Bemused, our mother simply sits there and smiles.
****
Thurs 29th September
The food Rebecca makes is disgusting. She doesn’t bother at all. Dad did all the catering at number eleven. Apart from that one time with the tinned tomatoes, he cooked amazing meals, especially on Polite Party nights, when he made plates of special treats: mouth-watering cheese straws, miniature dropped scones, slices of bread as thin as tracing paper, fruit tartlets that glistened on white doilies. He used a special scoop to make curls of butter that looked like cockles which he heaped in a miniature silver bowl. Even though he knew there were four of us around the table, he always placed five items on each plate to test our politeness and make us learn how to share.
As he polished each plate and pushed our frayed napkins into the wooden rings, I would throb with pleasure, tracking every small movement and gesture with my eyes.
Rebecca always told him to stop showing off and get on with serving tea.
He said that Helen and I were special guests, young ladies who were paying a surprise visit to number eleven from the upper echelons of English society. We’d brought our grumpy old nanny along with
us, and she could sit with us at the table, too, but only if she would stop making comments.
****
Fri 30th September
All their eyes are the same, beady and deep-set under fluffy grey brows. They observe me from the walls. Nobody ever smiles on Rebecca’s side of the family. They hang in their frames all around the study with pursed puritanical faces, watching me.
Rebecca’s desk is covered with tatty books of poetry and loose sheets of paper. It’s extremely untidy compared to the table in my room. I take after my dad, neat and well-ordered with a strong sense of discipline, whereas Rebecca’s work surfaces are littered with notes.
I pick up a couple of pages and examine them. Each sheet is covered with words inside circles. Arrows point in all directions to more words inside circles. I look at the other sheets on the desk. They all have the same patterns of circles and arrows. One page bears the word ‘structure’ in huge letters inside a circle, with four black arrows pointing away from it like the sails on a windmill. The page labelled ‘synopsis’ looks like a map in secret code, with hundreds of words inside circles, linked by a labyrinth of lines. Two sheets are different from the rest: ‘chapter plan’ and ‘proposal.’ These have hardly any words inside circles, and no arrows at all.
I flick through page after page of notes. There’s no proper writing. Nothing resembles the essays I write at school. On numerous pages all the words have been scored out fiercely with black marker pen.
I start to open desk drawers and rummage through the contents. Papers bounce up enthusiastically from each drawer as if they are relieved to sniff sunlight and air, even though the atmosphere in here is thick with the smell of stale cigarettes. Every sheet of paper I find is filled with diagrams like the ones on her desk. Most of them have been scrubbed out with black marker pen.
The Third Person Page 5
