The A-Z of Everything

by Debbie Johnson

  ‘Are you jealous?’ I say, sitting up so I’m not quite so blinded. ‘Because you sound jealous.’

  She gives me a dirty look, and throws the duster at my face.

  ‘Maybe I am,’ she replies, sitting down next to me. ‘In the spirit of honesty and transparency. It’s been … well, a few years, shall we say. I’m not exactly fending them off with a shitty stick back in Liverpool.’

  ‘That,’ I say, throwing the duster back at her and hoping I haven’t caught some rare form of gnome disease, ‘is because you send out this incredibly unsexy old lady vibe. It’s nothing to do with the way you look – it’s the way you act. You need to get in touch with your inner Irene Cara.’

  ‘What? Start working in a welding plant?’

  ‘No, dummy, I mean you need to start feeling luscious again. Feeling like the world is going to remember your name. Do some sexy dancing through the garden sprinklers the next time your fine-assed neighbour is out mowing his lawn.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Rose says, as she screws up her eyes and tries to imagine the scene. ‘No, I just can’t see that one working. Partly because we don’t have sprinklers, I use a giant watering can I got in Home Bargains.’

  ‘You’ll have to improvise then,’ I reply. ‘I’ll hold it over your head while you do it.’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway. I took a look in the box.’

  I feel momentarily taken aback by this, at her intrusion into what I have started to think of as my territory. I remind myself that Mum left those boxes for both of us, and that I can be a deeply unattractive control freak at times.

  ‘I know we’re on L, and I know that means we’re moving on – but what is it, specifically?’

  ‘Come on inside. I’ll get us some coffee and you can see for yourself. Plus you need to pack. I’m already done, and I can’t imagine it’ll take you long to stuff all your lap-dancing thongs in a carrier bag … it’s two photos, by the way – one of Mum at my house, and one of her in your flat. With some instructions written on the back.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m coming,’ I groan, as I drag myself back to my now quite sore feet. ‘God, I’m tired … parts of me I never even knew I had are aching …’

  ‘Don’t. Want. To. Know.’

  Chapter 44

  Andrea: L is for Location, Location, Location

  Hello darlings!

  I hope you’re both doing well, and my evil plan is working, even a little tiny bit. If you’re reading this, then I have to assume it is, and that you’re still at the cottage. I hope you both had fun at the karaoke night – did Lewis do his ‘My Way’? He’s such an old ham!

  Anyway, not much room to write on these cards, so I’ll make it quick – today, I’d like you to move on. You’ll be visiting two places, both of which also begin with L, in a magnificent coincidence! Liverpool, and London.

  I’ve stayed in both of your homes, and had wonderful times with you there – but you’ve never set foot on each other’s turf, have you? Now it’s time to throw off the sheltered environment of the cottage, and get out into the real world. Rose, you must stay a night at Poppy’s flat; and Poppy, you’ll also be heading North to see where Rose and Joe live.

  This doesn’t sound like much, but I think it’s important. I don’t want you to just go through this A–Z like a task you have to complete, then box it all back up without it making any difference. You need to see each other’s real lives for the first – and hopefully not last – time.

  Happy travelling, Rosehip and Popcorn – make sure you tell Lewis you’re going so he can come and sort the blue tits out!

  Lots of love,

  Mum xxx

  Chapter 45

  Rose

  A road trip with my estranged sister turns out to be not quite as much of an ordeal as I’d expected. We decide to go in her car, with our A–Z boxes packed in the boot.

  Partly it’s because I’m nervous about driving all the way to London in my duct-taped McDonald’s recycling bin, but partly it’s because I want to leave part of me behind. That way I know I’ll have to come back, if only to get the car.

  Over the last week, the cottage has somehow started to feel like home again. The initial shock of being there without my mother, and with Poppy, has scaled down to something bearable. More than bearable – comforting. I still find myself crying when I come across some precious Mum-related object – her nail scissors, in particular, set me off – but it is starting to feel like less of a trauma, and more of a consolation. Being here, and touching the things she touched, in such familiar surroundings.

  The thought of leaving throws me off balance – as though we have created a little bubble of unreality that is allowing me to function. I suppose that’s why she asked us to move on, but I don’t have to like it.

  Locking the place up, insanely checking the lights are switched off over and over again, filling the birdbath to brimming, loitering in the hallway and tidying up her coats – it’s all because I’m nervous. As though, if I leave the cottage, I’ll leave my mother behind, and never be able to recapture her.

  I think Poppy is feeling some of the same thing, and she tries to make it easier by giving me the old cassette player for the journey, along with the ancient carrier bag full of tapes.

  Some of them are my recordings, and some of them are Mum’s. A weird mix of Ultravox and Fleetwood Mac and Michael Jackson and a random Tracy Chapman album.

  We settle on a few cassettes from about 1988, when I went through a phase where I used to record the Top Forty singles live off the radio on a Sunday. What can I say, I thought it was cool.

  By the time we get to Islington, navigating our way through Oxford and the sprawling London suburbs, we’ve managed to not talk to each other at all, and instead have produced some very spirited singing along to ‘The Only Way Is Up’ by Yazz, ‘Push It’ by Salt-N-Pepa, and Guns N’ Roses doing ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.

  She parks the car in the underground garage, and I follow her into the lifts up to her flat. She’s gone very quiet, and is jiggling her keys around nervously, her face all pursed up like a cat’s bottom. She keeps pushing her hair behind her ears, and tapping her toes, and all of the carefree energy I’ve seen in her over the last few days seems to have dried up.

  I’m not sure if she’s so nervous because I’m here with her, if she’s having one of those Mum-is-dead meltdowns that we both keep having at unexpected moments, or if she’s simply slipping back into being London Poppy. If that last one is true, then I genuinely feel sorry for her, because London Poppy seems to be incredibly tense.

  Her flat is in one of those old buildings that has been swished up for young professionals – all neutral colours in the hallways, and a gym in the basement, and about as much personality as a dead kipper. I’m sure it costs an arm and possibly both legs to live here, but it wouldn’t be my first choice, and I find myself already judging.

  I remind myself that that is not in the spirit of the A–Z, and that I have nothing to be judgey about – it’s not like a small semi in the posh end of Liverpool is much to write home about either.

  She unlocks the doors, and gestures for me to go in first, following silently behind and plonking her bags down. She picks up her mail, flicks through it, and immediately presses a button that makes the blinds swoosh open.

  Sunlight floods in, and allows me to see the place properly for the first time. It’s so neat and tidy that it looks like nobody lives here. All the furniture is black leather or chrome or a combination of the two, and the biggest single item in the room is a desk, where I presume she carries out work vital to the survival of the luxury pet supplies industry.

  There’s one framed photo of her and Mum – a really funny one of them both with green face masks and towel turbans – and one bookshelf, crammed with marketing manuals and that type of hardback non-fiction that’s bought as much for the way it looks as what it contains.

  This surprises me, as the Poppy I knew was a voracious reader �
� her bookcase back at the cottage was just as crammed, but there you’d find Thomas Hardy slumming it next to Judith Krantz, and Harry Potter getting intimate with Daphne du Maurier.

  ‘Coffee?’ she says, sounding business-like and to the point.

  ‘Please,’ I reply, gazing around at the flat, trying to imagine this as my once supremely creative sister’s home and failing. It’s got an open-plan design, and I see her walk into the kitchen and slam a few cupboard doors open before she pulls a so-annoyed-I-could-scream face.

  ‘Sorry,’ she shouts through. ‘I ran out the night Lewis called, and I just kept forgetting to buy more … I have wine, or water.’

  ‘What about bread and fish? Then we could invite the five thousand round and have a party.’

  She frowns at me, obviously having had a sense of humour failure, and runs the cold tap for a while. She pulls one of those water filter jugs out of the fridge, and starts to fill it up.

  I notice the old tobacco tin on her desk, and it makes me smile. I’ve not seen her smoking at all recently, so she must have given up, but it’s nice to see it there – yet another blast from the past, one connection to the crazier Poppy of yesteryear.

  Here, in this pristine environment, it’s hard to imagine that Poppy existing – hard to envision her sitting in this room, with its walls in a million shades of beige, and its black leather and its chrome, rolling up a joint and actually relaxing.

  I sit down on the sofa, which is actually more comfortable than it looks, and wonder what the hell we’re going to do for the whole day and night. I’m feeling tense because she is, and I can’t wait to get out of here and back to Liverpool – I just wish she wasn’t coming with me.

  ‘I don’t have any food, I’m sorry,’ she says, passing me a glass of water and perching on her desk. ‘I just … well, I don’t have any.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I say. ‘We can order a takeaway, or go out. In fact, let’s go out. We can get an early tea and have a drink. Are there any nice places round here?’

  ‘Loads of nice places,’ she replies, chewing her lip and frowning, ‘if you’re about twenty-five. I don’t know … this feels weird, doesn’t it? I’ve lived here for years, and it’s only now, with you sitting there on the sofa, that I’m starting to feel a bit pissed off with it. With a lot of things.’

  ‘What do you mean? It’s really nice. It’s a lovely flat.’

  She laughs, but it sounds brittle and strained.

  ‘It’s a lovely flat, yes – but I should have outgrown it by now. I should have outgrown a lot of things. Like going out on the pull with women in their twenties, and never having any bloody food in the kitchen. I bet you never run out of food, do you?’

  ‘All the time,’ I reply, smiling gently. ‘Because I rampage around the kitchen like it’s an episode of Man v. Food, and eat it all. Apart from the quinoa salad. That always ends up in the bin because it’s past its sell-by date.’

  She taps the side of the glass with her fingernail, and the sound echoes around the sterile room. I hate this place too, but I’m not about to say it. I don’t think Mum brought us here so I could put the boot in. Poppy seems to be doing a good enough job of that herself.

  ‘I don’t know, Rose. I felt different in the cottage … happier, even though we were there under bloody awful circumstances, and even though Mum was making us jump through all kinds of evil flaming hoops … it felt like home. This feels like … like a hotel.

  ‘Like somewhere I should stay for a few nights while I’m at some business meeting, not a place where a grown-up woman should live. Not that I spend that much time in here – I’m usually at work. And when I’m not at work, I’m at that desk, doing more work. It’s literally all I have in my life, apart from Mum … and, well. She’s gone, isn’t she?

  ‘And I know you’re trying to be nice – thank you – but I think perhaps I’m seeing this through your eyes. And it looks empty, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Well,’ I say, not totally sure how to handle this one. ‘It’s tidy. My place is a dump, as you’ll see. But perhaps you could just put a few more photos up? Buy some more books? Make a bit of … mess? You used to love a bit of mess.’

  ‘I know I did,’ she answers, managing a small smile. ‘I was an absolute pig! But after I got sacked from that first job, and then decided to try again in London, I made myself change. I needed to be organised, and focused, and work hard. I couldn’t let myself carry on being the way I was – mooning around after you, wallowing in my own filth, so chaotic I forgot to brush my own teeth half the time. I had to be different – and this is what I ended up with. It’s definitely different. I’m just not sure if it’s better.’

  ‘Well, come on, it’s not that bad, is it? I mean, you must have friends? Go out a lot?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ she replies, not looking too enthused about it. ‘There’s this girl Kristin I go drinking with. And this guy called Josh I met in the gym … but he’s just a fuck buddy.’

  I recoil at the phrase, and of course she notices.

  ‘It’s true, sorry if it offends your delicate sensibilities. We don’t all live like nuns.’

  I wave it away – it’s none of my business what she does with her vagina – and ask: ‘What else? Do you have any more nice photos we could frame up?’

  She thinks about it, chewing on the skin around her finger, and pulls an uncertain face.

  ‘Well, I have some of Mum. And … well, there are the pictures of the kids.’

  ‘What kids?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  She jumps up and dashes around to the other side of her desk, apparently filled with a new enthusiasm. She comes back bearing a black vinyl photo album, which she hands to me, hovering by my side as I open it.

  The whole album is filled with smiling little faces – some obviously African, some Asian, all shiny teeth and big eyes. Page after page after page of them.

  ‘Who are these children?’ I ask, confused.

  ‘They’re my sponsor kids. You know, like in those adverts on the telly, where you pay X amount a month so little Jimmy can drink clean water, that kind of thing?’

  ‘But there are loads of them!’

  ‘There are … twenty-seven, I think. I get little letters from them, and photos, and updates about how they’re doing, and I send them Christmas presents … it’s nice.’

  I flip through the pages, looking at brightly coloured scenes from the rural Third World, and shake my head.

  ‘You sponsor twenty-seven children?’

  She nods, not seeming to think it’s weird at all, and I realise that this is one of her many coping mechanisms. The guilt, the pain, of the last seventeen years has taken its toll on both of us. I’ve dealt with it by eating, and throwing my whole energy into Joe’s life at the expense of my own. She’s been tidying up, working, finding fuck buddies and sponsoring children. It’s absolutely insane.

  I close the album, and stand up.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘We’re going out. We both need a drink. I’m going to have a quinoa salad, and you’re going to have pasta, and we’re going to at least try and enjoy ourselves, okay? Then we’ll come back, and I’ll spend the night pretending I’m in a posh hotel, and tomorrow we can go to Liverpool and I’ll show you my humble hovel. How does that sound?’

  ‘You had me at pasta,’ she says, finding her smile again.

  Chapter 46

  Poppy

  My self-pity party has well and truly ended by the time we pull up in the driveway of Rose’s house on the north side of Liverpool. I’ve been given a commentary on the way there, and seen the Liver Birds, and the river, and the beach. She’s chattering away furiously, because, I think, she’s a bit freaked out by all of this. By bringing the enemy into home territory – letting the sniper through the gates.

  I don’t know if she’ll ever feel any different, but I do know that Mum was well and truly an evil genius – she must have understood that this, this swapping of life ex-perienc
es, confronting the realities we’d built without each other, was one of the biggest tests we would face. Bravo, Mommie dearest.

  Rose switches off the mix tape as we arrive – Lisa Stansfield was at number one with ‘All Around the World’ – and we both sit and look at the house. It’s quite small, with a patch of garden in the front, and it’s in a nice neighbourhood of similar properties, all neatly lined up like Stepford homes. The cul-de-sac is quiet, and there are small kids out and about riding on their bikes, playing football, and chasing each other up and down the street.

  There are grown-ups out gardening, and every driveway seems to have a mumsy-looking car parked in it, and grey wheelie bins waiting to be collected are lined up like plastic soldiers.

  ‘Right,’ she says, sounding determined. ‘We’d better go in. I warn you, it’s not like a hotel. Or if it is a hotel, it would have terrible reviews on TripAdvisor.’

  She carries her bags up the path, and I follow her, staying silent.

  She unlocks the door, and walks through. Within seconds, she is looking around, sniffing, her face screwed up. The curtains are closed, just enough sunlight creeping through to show a hallway with stairs leading to the bedrooms, and she seems slightly off balance as she leads me through to the lounge.

  ‘What’s up?’ I say, looking around curiously. ‘Have you been broken into or something?’

  ‘Not unless the burglars decided to order a Domino’s and get the beers in,’ she says, pointing to an empty pizza box and scattered Heineken cans. ‘I mean, I’m not the world’s best housekeeper, but I didn’t leave it like this …’

  She stands, hands on hips, and frowns, trying to piece it all together, before walking back into the hallway and bellowing at the top of her voice: ‘Joe! Are you up there?’

  It’s an impressively loud bellow, and done in that certain tone that only mothers seem able to pull off. Even I feel automatically like I’ve done something wrong.