Broken Soup

by Jenny Valentine

  I said, “I’ll give it to you one day. I’d like you to have it.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said.

  “I know that. But someday this room is going to have to be dismantled so…” I got this picture in my head of me in my thirties, with a job and a mortgage and all that, Stroma grown up and Jack still sixteen, with his room untouched and his photos faded. It was so wrong. A wave of how wrong it was hit my chest. I wasn’t supposed to get older than him.

  Harper picked up Jack’s guitar and pulled a face that said, “Is this OK?” I nodded and he started tuning it, holding his head close to hear, bending the notes in and out.

  “You play guitar?” I said.

  Harper said, “A little,” and then he started playing this thing that was so sweet and sad and simple, like a circle of music, the way it kept going, and I said, “Liar.”

  I didn’t hear the footsteps because I was listening to him play. I was the happiest I’d been in a while just sitting there and listening. I didn’t see the door opening because I had my back to it and I was watching his hands move. I only turned around when Harper stopped.

  Mum was standing in the hall, staring at him. There was so much in her face where normally there was just a blank.

  I said, “You OK, Mum?” She didn’t say anything. She turned away like a slow ghost. I heard her go and lie down on her bed next door, could hear the creak of the mattress and the awful silence.

  Harper said when she pushed the door open she looked like she’d just won a prize. He saw the disappointment bloom on her face and she didn’t move. “She just stared.”

  I thought about Mum waking up all groggy in the dark downstairs and hearing footsteps in Jack’s room. Not just footsteps—a boy’s footsteps and a boy’s voice, a seventeen-year-old’s, a guitar playing more than six stilted notes.

  It must have been like waking from a bad dream. She must have thought her boy was home.

  Harper said he should go and I didn’t argue. We walked past Mum’s room on quiet feet, our movements exaggerated, the closing of a door, each tread on the stairs slow and soundless.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” he said while I was trying to open the front door without clunking. We were whispering. “Will you be all right?”

  “Course,” I said, but how did I know? Probably not.

  “I’m sorry, Rowan,” he said. “That was bad.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s OK.”

  He kissed me on the cheek, so warm and quick, and his hand was on my neck, and then he walked down the path into the street. I couldn’t see the ambulance, but I stood in the open door listening to it cough and start up and drive away.

  I went up to see Mum. She was lying on her back with her arms above her head. I sat on the bed, gently so it wouldn’t annoy her, so she wouldn’t feel crowded. I said, “Sorry we scared you.”

  Her eyes were sort of glistening in the half dark and I could see she was looking at me. I kept on. “He’s my friend, Mum. You’d like him.”

  She breathed out and turned her head away from me. I stayed there, not knowing what to do, getting ignored until I heard the key in the lock and Stroma’s bright voice in the hall.

  I knew nothing I could do would help. She’d lie there till the morning and probably even after that, and it would be my all fault.

  Stroma’s cheeks were bright red from all the indoor running and Dad was smiling. They must have had a good time.

  I should have told him about Mum there and then. I should have told him what just happened and what had been going on for months. But I didn’t want to watch his smile disappear. I thought that would do more harm than good. Another great decision.

  Stroma was tired out and Dad stayed for a while and made us some pasta. Part of me wanted Mum to come down and give the game away in some spectacular fashion—let Dad find out without me doing the telling. I had to force myself to sit down. I kept jumping up to rinse pans and wipe surfaces, and I was feeling a bit speeded up, a bit quicker than everything around me.

  It was good though, to eat something I hadn’t cooked. I caught myself pretending Dad hadn’t moved out at all, that this happened every night and I wasn’t responsible for absolutely bloody everything after all.

  “How’s Mum?” Dad said. Stroma and I stopped chewing and stared at him.

  “Not so good,” I said. I was thinking, Just tell him, just ask him for help. It won’t kill you.

  “In what way?”

  “She’s got the flu,” Stroma said. “She’s in bed sleeping.” I looked at Stroma and she stuck her chin out and glared back.

  “What? How long’s she been sick?” Dad said.

  I wanted to say, “Oh, years, didn’t you notice?” but Stroma said “Since yesterday” before I could think it through. That girl was frighteningly good at lying.

  “Have you been managing all right?” he said, and I wanted to hit him. I really did.

  I looked at my food and Stroma said, “It’s OK, Dad. We’re good helpers.”

  “Does she need anything?” he said, getting up. “I’ll go and see her.”

  “No,” I said, a bit too quick. “It’s fine, Dad. I’ve just been up there. She’s sleeping.”

  There was this awful count to five while he decided whether to sit down again or not. I could feel Stroma holding her breath beside me. Then he said should he stay the night, he could sleep on the sofa, and on and on until I said, “Dad, I’m fifteen years old. You can go home. It’s fine.”

  We practically had to push him out the door.

  As soon as he left I said, “Why did you lie to Dad?”

  “You do,” she said. “All the time.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to tonight. I was going to tell him. Mum’s really bad, Stroma. I think we need his help. I don’t want to lie anymore.”

  “If Dad thinks Mum is sick, he won’t love her anymore and he won’t come home so we’re not telling on her,” Stroma said. Her face started to cave in and her shoulders started to heave up and down, but she kept it together and she didn’t cry.

  “What if she gets worse and not better?” I said.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “We have to think about it, Stro. Maybe we’re not such good helpers after all.” I tried to give her a hug, but she was angry and turned away. I knew how she felt, like if someone comforted her she might just fall apart all over the place and make a big mess.

  Me and Stroma couldn’t do this anymore.

  I dug out an old family video when Stroma and Mum were both asleep and I was all by myself for once with a TV.

  Jack used to have this thing about Princess Diana, about how if nobody had told us she died, we could all have survived on TV clips alone, her getting out of cars, attending galas, stroking children. There must have been tons of stuff on film that no one had seen yet, enough to last for years. He said that considering most of us never actually clapped eyes on her for real, how would we know the difference?

  Watching us all in the past, unthinkingly, carelessly happy, I wished I could say the same about our family. I wished I had enough unseen footage to pretend things were the same as before.

  The first bit of film was of me and Jack in a wading pool—pretty young, sun hats and underwear, the usual stuff. We were splashing each other, laughing and pouring water on our heads. Mum and Dad were laughing behind the camera, you could hear them. Then I started wailing about something—a watering can in the eye maybe—and Mum came into view, all smiles and big sunglasses and long hair. She was so pretty and she was wearing this thin dress with bare feet. It just froze me to the sofa seeing how young and lovely she was then.

  I fast-forwarded the tape for a while, stopped to look at me as the grumpiest bridesmaid on earth, Stroma walking and falling over balls in the garden, Jack waving from the top of a tree, endless football games, several birthdays. I was thinking I should show Stroma the tape, remind her of the way things started. Then this line of crackle went
down the screen and there was Jack like I remembered him, headphones on, shining and full of it, singing into the camera, filming himself. He was so close up he could have been in the room. Once he stopped singing, the crackly line came down again and it was back to some party we’d forgotten we had—Dad at the barbecue, Mrs. Hardwick and her husband, Mum laughing.

  Jack had basically crashed the family album, hijacked it. And I just played him and rewound him, played him and rewound him, played him and rewound him until my eyes were so tired I couldn’t see him anymore.

  Seventeen

  The next day started out like all the rest. I turned off the alarm and sleepwalked to the kitchen to make Stroma’s lunch and have a cup of tea. We had an argument about oatmeal because she asked for it and then wouldn’t eat it. Then I started stressing out about being late (again). I had to give her a piggyback to the bus stop because she refused to run. She was getting good at that, digging her heels in and winning. Mum was still in bed when we left. We crept in to say good-bye to her and crept out again. A pretty ordinary morning, really, nothing to write home about.

  After that, I had a lecture about my timekeeping, double English, an apple because I hadn’t actually eaten any breakfast (too busy arguing about Stroma’s), double biology, and then lunch, when I went to find Bee.

  She wasn’t there. I called her.

  “I couldn’t face it,” she said. “I didn’t sleep so well. And Sonny’s babysitter was sick so I stayed home with him.”

  I asked her if she needed anything. If I could bring anything around.

  “I need to talk to you some more. Just you and me, no Stroma. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not. I’ll sort something out.”

  After school I called Harper. He said his phone ringing made him jump. He said it sounded like giant crickets. He had me laughing straightaway.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said.

  “Forget it. Me too. How’s your mum?”

  “Asleep, last time I looked.”

  “I had a good time,” he said. “It meant a lot, you showing me Jack’s room and everything, so thank you.”

  “You know Bee’s never seen it.”

  He made this noise, this outbreath that meant “Poor Bee.” “I’d like to meet her,” he said. “I don’t know her.”

  “There’s time for that.” I said she wasn’t at school. I said she needed to talk some more. I asked would he look after Stroma maybe?

  “I can do it tomorrow. Is that OK?”

  I was at Stroma’s school gates. I could see her lining up in the playground, talking nonstop to Mrs. Hall. She waved at me, jumped up and down.

  “Got to go. Tomorrow is perfect. Thanks, Harper.”

  “Bye, beautiful,” he said.

  As we turned into our street I saw Harper’s ambulance outside the house and I thought, He couldn’t wait to see me, and I sped up. But I couldn’t have seen it right because then the ambulance put on its lights and siren, pulled away, and hammered past us. Stroma put her hands over her ears.

  Dad’s car was there. Mrs. Hardwick was standing at our front door like a policeman at the prime minister’s house, only dressed in tweed and white as a sheet. I asked her what was going on.

  “You can’t go in,” she said.

  Stroma put her hand into mine. “What’s happened?” I said.

  Mrs. Hardwick just shook her head. “You can’t go in. You’ve got to come to my house.”

  “Where’s my mum?” I said.

  Mrs. Hardwick’s eyes followed the path of the ambulance. “Your dad’s with her,” she said. “And he told me not to let you in.”

  I crouched down in front of Stroma. She was starting to snivel. I held both her arms and I looked into her eyes and I said, “Go with Mrs. H. I’ll be right there. Please, Stroma. It’s OK.”

  Mrs. Hardwick was still standing there like all five foot two of her could stop my getting into my own house. She said, “You really shouldn’t. It’s for your own good.”

  I felt very calm right in the middle, like the eye of a storm. My hands were shaking. I said, “No offense, but I’ve been running this family for a while now and I think I’m old enough to look after myself.”

  She didn’t argue and I was glad she didn’t try. I got the keys out of my bag and waited for her to move out of the way. I opened the door and closed it behind me and leaned my back against it, just breathing. I could hear them retreating down the path, Mrs. Hardwick’s voice, oddly gentle, and Stroma’s little sniffing noises.

  Mum.

  I dumped my bag and walked across the hallway and into the kitchen. My steps sounded louder than they should have on the slate floor. Everything was tidy and clean, just like I left it. She must have had a cup of tea. There was a mug on the side, rinsed, upside down. It left a ring when I picked it up.

  The sitting room was tidy too. She’d folded her blankets and made a neat pile on the sofa. Usually it was me who did that. The TV was off and the fish were there watching me. I left the room and took the stairs three at a time to my landing.

  There was a note on my bed in an envelope, in Mum’s handwriting. That’s when time doubled up on itself and I really started moving. Mum didn’t write letters. Mum didn’t have anything to say.

  I left it where it was and this strange noise came from the back of my mouth that I didn’t even connect with me for a second until I realized I was making it, and I sounded really scared.

  I can’t remember taking the next set of stairs. I burst into her room. The bed was made. There was no dirty laundry on the floor. It wasn’t normal.

  The bathroom was where she did it.

  I should have noticed the blood on the stairs, but I didn’t see it till later.

  The bathroom looked like Bee’s bathroom the day we printed Jack’s picture, the day she fitted that red lightbulb and the whole place drowned in one color.

  The bathroom was red.

  The bath was full of red water. Red had run down the sides and onto the mat on the floor. Red made patterns on the square white tiles, on the shower curtain. I didn’t think a body could hold that much blood.

  I had blood on my hands, but I didn’t remember touching anything. The door handle was bloody. Everywhere was wet with cooled steam and blood, and there was this smell, like the butcher’s, like metal, like earth.

  I don’t know what I did next. It’s like things just went blank because when I got to Mrs. Hardwick’s, time had passed differently for them. Stroma was eating toast on the best rug and watching the TV. She didn’t see me. Mrs. Hardwick hugged me when she opened the door. I remember how soft and powdery her skin felt, and the strange sweetness of her perfume.

  “Where is she?” I said.

  “UCH.”

  “Can you keep Stroma?”

  She nodded and put twenty quid in my hand. “Get a taxi, dear,” she said.

  I had blood on my face. I looked at my reflection in the cab window. I must have wiped my eyes and got it on myself. I looked like a warrior. I tried to get it off, but I just smeared it in with my snot and my tears and the blood on my hands. The cab driver kept looking at me in his mirror and I was thinking, Don’t talk to me don’t look at me don’t ask me a thing.

  I got out and gave him the twenty quid and I didn’t wait for my change. Then time slowed down again when I hit reception. The woman at the desk took what felt like three hours to look up at me.

  I said, “Where’s Jane Clark? I’m looking for my mum.” And she took another three hours looking at the computer and fiddling around. I couldn’t slow my breathing down.

  Then Dad came out through some double doors and he had red on his hands and red on his shirt and he was trying to wipe his hands on this used-up piece of tissue and he was crying.

  Please don’t let her be dead. Please, God, don’t let her be dead. I started to shake like there was an earthquake in there, but it was only underneath me.

  Eighteen

  I’ve thought about
it since, how come Dad didn’t know about Mum, how come I didn’t tell him. Of course I have. And I feel bad about it. I really do.

  I’ve thought about why I tried to deal with it all myself and just messed up everything, how I managed to turn real life into broken soup instead of just breakfast.

  I must have had my reasons, but I’m not going to try and name them.

  Who knows? Sometimes you open your eyes and realize you’ve been going through life with them closed. And what you thought was the world was just the inside of your head all along.

  Mum wasn’t dead. Not for lack of trying.

  She wasn’t dead because of Dad letting himself in the back door when nobody answered, walking around the house, ending up in the bathroom.

  “I nearly didn’t go up there,” he said. “I thought everyone was out.”

  “Why did you go around?”

  “I wanted to see you. I left work early. I wanted to be there when you got home from school,” he said.

  “She left a note on my bed.”

  He said, “What if I hadn’t gone upstairs?”

  He said, “Where did my life go—breaking into my own house, finding the person I love like that in the bath?”

  He had my hand in his and we stayed in the hallway, drinking rank, scalding coffee, blinking under the fluorescent lights like lab rats.

  “I’m sorry, Rowan,” he said, and he was studying my hand like he’d never really looked at it before. He smiled and he was so hollowed out and unhappy, and I smiled back, but I bet I looked the same.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

  About eight o’clock my phone rang. I took it because it was Bee. I had to go outside because phones weren’t allowed in the building and people were giving me stick for it just by looking.

  There was a strange half-world outside the hospital. Patients were wandering around in their backless gowns, drinking coffee at silver tables across the street, standing at ATMs, smoking with their pajamas on. Like ghosts in the real world, like extras on a film set.