“No,” I told him. “It’s burning.”
“Well, let Mrs. Hardwick know you’re all right,” he said. “She’ll be worrying.”
Bloody Mrs. Hardwick. If our life was in a book, there’d be some cozy aunt you never heard of to bustle in and cluck about and gather us up somewhere else when everything went wrong. But things didn’t work out like that. There wasn’t anyone else, except maybe some dead aunts and distant cousins and near strangers. It hadn’t bothered me that family was just us and not something that spread outward like a tube map, like other people’s. But I guess when there’s only a few of you and the cracks start showing, you lose more than if there were thirty-five other faces you could turn to.
Mrs. Hardwick was the closest thing we had to extended family and she was basically a nosy, bored old woman who smelled of talcum powder and lived next door. None of us kids really liked her. She used to keep an eye on me and Jack for Mum years ago. She had a lot of stuff with the queen on it—cups and tea towels and plates that went on the wall. She was way too strict about what you could and couldn’t touch. We always got brain-dead and grouchy at her house, and we’d end up bickering about nothing so she probably didn’t like us that much, either.
By the time Stroma was born, Mrs. H had given up babysitting and taken to twitching her curtains and tutting in a meaningful way.
She couldn’t get her head around Mum. She thought Mum was just being rude when she didn’t answer the door or didn’t want a sponge cake or a nice cup of tea and a chat. After all, Mr. Hardwick had died more than ten years ago and Mrs. Hardwick had gone out the next day with her makeup intact and her hair neatly set and her shopping list for one, and she didn’t tire of telling you, either. She had no sympathy for someone who wore their pajamas all day and left the curtains drawn and could be heard crying through the walls. I don’t know, maybe she thought it showed a lack of effort.
I didn’t bother to tell her we were safe and sound. She’d have seen us coming home, anyway. She didn’t miss a thing.
That night I didn’t think about Jack, for once. I thought about Harper.
I thought about the way we’d smiled at each other for ages that morning without saying anything. I thought about how comfortable that was, because with some people it would be weird. With some people I’d have been yelling in my own head about how awkward it felt, but with Harper it was just saying hello without talking. I thought about how straight and white and American his teeth were; how good they were at that, whatever else you think.
I thought about the way he was too shy to shake hands the first time I met him, the way he hid his hands in his pockets and looked away.
I thought about his hands and how big he was, how tall, and how full of joy, like a kid in a grown-up’s body, like the opposite of me.
I thought about how much energy he had for everything, and how fascinated he was by stuff I’d always just passed straight by.
I thought about where he’d come from and the things he’d seen and the places he’d go next. And I thought about how nice he was to Stroma, how he noticed her and talked to her and made her smile.
It was a better way than usual to fall asleep.
Ten
When I woke up the next morning, the clock said 9:24. Normally Stroma was in my room by eight, even on Sundays, but not today. Maybe yesterday had tired her out so much she’d actually overslept for once. I lay there for a bit just enjoying the fact that I wasn’t needed, and then because I wasn’t used to it I got up to find her.
On my way down the stairs I could hear her little voice crooning away in the kitchen, joining in with the radio. She didn’t see me in the doorway. She had her back to me and she was busy. Next to her on the draining board was Mum’s big flowery enamel tray with a bowl of cereal, a jug of milk, and a spoon. Stroma was dipping the rim of a wineglass in a big pile of sugar on the counter. She filled the glass with juice and put that on the tray too. Then she started skewering grapes with a drinking straw, like a cocktail party kebab, and she stuck that in the glass. There was sugar everywhere, grapes all over the place, rolling off the counter and onto the floor. She put a piece of paper on the tray, folded so it could stand up. It said ROWAN.
I went quietly back up the stairs before she saw me and waited for her in my bedroom. I didn’t want to ruin her surprise.
I was lying there pretending to be fast asleep when I heard the most almighty crash from downstairs—shattering glass and china and the loud, long ring of enamel, and this little panicked wail.
I took the stairs two at a time. Stroma was standing in the middle of the kitchen. Her bare feet were splashed with dark juice and white milk. The floor was covered with grapes and cornflakes and broken glass and sugar, the juice and the milk moving and curdling through them. She was standing like she was on the edge of a sheer drop, as if there was nowhere she could move to, and she was crying.
“It’s all right, Stroma,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
She said, “I tried to make things all nice and now look at this broken soup!” Her voice cracked while she was talking, sort of caved in.
I put my sneakers on because they were right there by the door. I picked Stroma up and sat her on the counter next to the sink, not quite on the sugar.
She said, “Mum’ll tell me off.”
I said she wouldn’t because she wasn’t going to know, and I hoped on the quiet that Mum hadn’t heard and wasn’t on her way downstairs to scowl at everyone. I started picking up the big bits of china and glass and dropping them in the garbage bin. Then I got a cloth and began mopping up the mess, squeezing the cloth out into the sink, treading on grapes and cornflakes and shards. The cloth was too slow and I kept getting fragments of glass in my fingers, so in the end I used the dustpan and brush to sweep most of it up, and then I rinsed it and put it on the heater to dry.
While I mopped the floor, Stroma put her feet in the sink and tried to rinse them. She had a dark stain on her nightie so I took that off and rinsed it, too, under the tap. She sat there in her underwear, looking at me with her sad eyes while I cleared up the mess she’d made on the counter. I wiped the bottom of my sneakers and put them back in the hall. Then I carried her up the stairs, which was pretty difficult because she was heavier than usual, leaning into me like a deadweight.
“Thank you for my breakfast in bed,” I said while I was pulling a sweater over her head. The crown of her head showed first and then her face popped out, like she was being born out of a polo neck. She’d stopped crying by then. She was starting to look like she knew there was a funny side, even if it wasn’t quite here yet.
I asked Stroma what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to go in the van again with Harper.
“We can’t do that today,” I said, and Stroma said, “Why not?”
“Because we did it yesterday,” I said.
Stroma said she wanted to do it every day because it was fun. “But we should see Dad,” she said. “So he doesn’t feel left out again.”
I looked at my sister and I couldn’t believe how cool and resilient and generous she was. She let Dad pick and choose her, and Mum carry on going insane, and she never fought them. She never threw herself at them or made demands or bitched. Now here she was thinking about Dad’s feelings and trying to take care of me.
When Stroma was dressed, we went downstairs to the sitting room. It was a quiet day. We could hear Mum walking around upstairs, but she didn’t appear. Dad picked Stroma up. He wanted to take us both to the petting zoo and then somewhere cheap for supper. I said the petting zoo wasn’t really my thing these days, given that I wasn’t six anymore.
He said, “I don’t see enough of you, Ro.”
I had a list in my head of things I had to do while they were out. Wash the school uniforms, clean the bathroom, make sure Mum ate something, do my history essay, cook something that wasn’t pasta with cheese. I shrugged and tried to look comfortable and said I was busy with schoolwork.
“And eighteen-ye
ar-olds?”
“Enough, Dad,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I didn’t want to be home without Stroma. I’d feel like a sad case, moping around like Mum, just in a different room. I called Bee, but she had a school project to hand in the next day and she’d left it to the last minute. I thought about catching up with some friends and getting loud on the high street, but actually I didn’t feel like it one bit. I wasn’t missing them and they certainly weren’t missing me.
I wanted to see Harper.
I walked into Camden, looking for his van, but I didn’t find it. I wondered what he was doing at that minute. I doubted he was thinking about me.
I went by the shop where I didn’t drop the negative but left with it anyway. It was the same girl behind the counter as before. Her T-shirt said BUY ONLY WHAT YOU NEED and I couldn’t agree more, but I wondered if her boss minded. She was on the phone and she smiled and sort of waved with her fingers wrapped around the wire like she couldn’t put the thing down if she tried. I picked up some yogurt and broccoli and some chips shaped like teddy bears that Stroma gets worked up over. I felt like a bit of a sad case. Two hours off and I go food shopping for my kid sister.
The girl was watching me like a hawk, like I might be a shoplifter and liven up her day. She mouthed, Are you OK? at me, which was clever because it could mean was I ready to pay, or did I need help, or was I actually feeling all right, without committing to anything, without even getting off the phone.
I said I was fine. She held the receiver between her jaw and her shoulder to ring up my things on the till, and she held out her hand for the money. Then she looked at me for an extra second and muttered something like “Hang on” into the phone. She smiled that kind of smile that means you want something and then she said, “You’re Harper’s friend.”
I said, “Yes, kind of, a bit,” and the way she looked at me made me feel small and stupid.
“You met him in here? That’s you?” she said, and I nodded.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Nearly sixteen. Why?” I said.
She laughed at me. “Nearly. When he told me you were a kid I thought he was joking.”
I told myself she knew nothing about me. I stared her out until she blinked. I asked her name, keeping my voice light, trying not to show a thing on my face.
“Rhea.”
“Funny,” I said, shoving my stuff in my bag, getting ready for the door. “He never mentioned you.” It made me feel good for less than five minutes.
For one thing, she was probably right. What did an eighteen-year-old from New York on a European tour need with me? All he’d done was pick up something he’d seen me drop. I’d practically stalked him since. God, it didn’t mean we were going to be friends for life or anything.
I didn’t see him that week. Every day he didn’t show I saw a little bit more how wrong I’d been, how I’d read more into things than was there. I didn’t see Bee much, either, not out of school. She said Sonny was sick so the babysitter wouldn’t take him. Her dad had too much work to do, so she had to help.
It was me and Stroma again, Stroma and me. I tried to be more enthusiastic about it, like Harper; more generous with it, like Bee. But I wasn’t fooling anyone.
I was pretty lonely.
I’d promised to take Stroma swimming on the weekend. I was moody and it was a horrible day and I hated the idea of getting wet and cold, but we got the bus to Archway because Stroma loved to swim. She was like a little fish. She’d go under and I’d watch the lifeguards go tense and lean forward in their seats. Then she’d bob up, somewhere else entirely, treading water with a big smile on her face, a little mermaid. You couldn’t help feeling happy about how much she loved it. She loved the wave machine and the noise that meant it was starting. She loved the tube slide that takes your skin off every meter where it’s bolted together. And she loved the walk-in dryer, like a silent disco, all flashing lights and hot air that made your hair fly around.
We got the bus back with our crazy blow-dried hair and our freezing fingers and toes. Stroma was nibbling at a pack of mini cookies like a mouse. She was saying something about Neil Armstrong or capital cities, and then suddenly she was off down the street. I didn’t get why until I saw the roof of the ambulance, sticking up behind a transit van, parked outside our house.
I’d told myself not to look for Harper and there he was, walking along the pavement to meet us. I looked over at our windows. Most of the curtains were closed. There was nobody watching.
Stroma was jumping up and down at his feet, and he picked her up and swung her around. She offered him a cookie. He said thank you and pretended to eat the whole pack. He was smiling at me and I was smiling back and my face was starting to ache, but I didn’t want to stop.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Visiting my aunt,” Harper said, and I was about to say “Really?” when I saw the look on his face.
“Very funny,” I said. I felt different just from looking at him.
“Where have you been?” he said to Stroma in this funny way, like he’d been in agony without her. “I’ve been waiting and waiting.”
Stroma got the giggles. It took her ages to manage the word swimming. He asked her if she was good at swimming and then he started tickling her so she couldn’t tell him because she was laughing too hard.
“She’s a fish,” I told him, tickling her too.
“What do you want to do?” he said. “Do you want to do something?”
I said, “Stroma will get tired out and hungry any minute. She always does when she’s been swimming.” I sounded like a neurotic mother when all I wanted to say was “Yes, anything. I want to do anything. Let’s go.”
He said, “So shall we go get her some lunch?”
I wondered if Mum had eaten. Stroma was moving in circles chanting, “Lunch yes, lunch yes,” and I wanted her to stop so I could think.
Harper said, “Come on, Rowan.” He pulled this sulky puppy-dog face, all bottom lip. It made me laugh. I said I’d go and check. He got back in the van while I took Stroma across the road and let us in.
Mum was in the kitchen. She was standing there, in the middle of the room, like she’d forgotten what she was doing. She sat down when we walked in. Stroma kissed her on the cheek and she frowned. I said we were going to the market and did she want anything. I took her cash card from the top shelf. I made her a cheese sandwich and put it on the table.
“Will you be all right, Mum?” I said, and she waved me away with her hands.
We came out of the house and kept walking, and I signaled Harper to meet us at the end of the road because of Mrs. Hardwick.
“What was that about?” he said as I helped Stroma up into the van. She clambered over the front seats into the space at the back.
“Neighbors. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” I asked him what he’d been up to.
Stroma’s voice piped up in the back, “She missed you!” and I turned and glowered at her. Harper laughed.
“No I didn’t,” I said. “It’s just you’re not around, and then suddenly there you are, on the doorstep.”
“Don’t you like me showing up?” he said.
I tried to explain it wasn’t a question of me liking it or not, it was just a question, that’s all. I wondered how he spent his time. I said, “I thought you might have been somewhere good.”
“I have.”
“Where did you go?” Stroma asked, sounding a bit cheated.
“I went to Camber Sands,” he said. “You been there?”
“No.” We spoke at the same time.
“Well, this guy I met told me about it. It’s only a couple of hours from here. There were people riding their horses on the beach, along the edge of the water, with the sun going down behind them. God, it was good. The place was empty apart from them and me. I slept on the beach for a night and I drove around, went to this place called the Fire Hills.”
> “We did miss you,” Stroma said.
“Maybe we’ll go there together sometime.” He winked at her in his mirror.
I said I wasn’t grilling him about where he’d been. It was none of my business.
“But you missed me, though. Admit it.”
We went to the noodle alley at the Stables in Camden Market. We brought a blanket from the van and wrapped it around the three of us. It was full of sand. Stroma sat in the middle, shoving vegetable ramen into her mouth with a plastic spork. I kept watching Harper over the top of her head and she must have noticed because she said, “If you want to lose me, take me to Bee’s dad. I want to do cooking with Carl.”
I felt like I’d been caught out.
“Don’t be crazy,” I said. “We can’t do that. I can’t just call Carl up and dump you there.”
“Call him, go on,” Stroma said. “He said we could. He told me.”
I asked her why she wanted to go. I said she didn’t have to. I thought she might say something devastatingly mature about how I was always looking after her and I needed a break. I thought she might embarrass me by saying, “You’re the one who fancies Harper, not me.” Actually she shrugged and said, “I like Carl. And Bee. And I want to see Sonny,” which was logical enough.
When I had my mobile in my hand, I asked Harper for his number. I thought I sounded supercasual, all sort of “Oh, while it occurs to me…”
He said, “I don’t have one.”
“Really?” I asked. “That’s a bit of a statement these days.”
“Hate them,” Harper said. “I hate the amount of shit they make people talk.”
Stroma started giggling at the sh- word. Harper pulled a face and slapped his hand.
“They don’t make people say anything,” I said, feeling defensive, thinking, Do I do that?
“Too much planning,” he told me. “What happened to impulse? Everyone has to make ten calls first and tell everybody what they’re doing and change the plan.”
“So you don’t have one.” I was smiling now because he had such a thing about it.
Broken Soup Page 6
