Dear Nobody

by Berlie Doherty

  ‘Chris,’ Tom said to me one night. His tent was pitched a couple of metres away. ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you still missing her?’

  ‘Christ, Tom!’

  ‘You’re not snoring so I knew you were awake.’

  He put his torch on and crawled over to my tent on his belly, still in his sleeping bag. He unzipped my tent and we both sat in the opening. The stars were huge. We could hear a stream trickling near by. The night seemed to be full of noises, bumping into each other, starting up out of the darkness.

  ‘Hear that dog?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Fox, I bet,’ I said.

  ‘Bet you’re right.’

  There was a hare or something too, trapped out there, crying like a child.

  ‘Finished your book?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah. Savouring it. It’s good.’

  ‘I’m reading that Kerouac book. On the Road.’

  ‘Another of Hippy’s recommendations.’

  ‘Can’t believe it was written in 1959, though! I mean, it’s a history book!’

  ‘But maybe all kids want to get out in wagons and burn off across the horizon,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s why it still works.’

  ‘It sold eighteen million copies, that book. That says something, I suppose. That means eighteen million kids have read it and wanted to drive vast distances and turn their heads over and meet themselves again at the other side.’ We were lying on our backs now with our sleeping bags tucked up round us and our hands under our heads, looking up at the sky, like a pair of caterpillars that had been rolled over the wrong way. ‘Are they chasing something or running away from something?’

  ‘I rolled over. Those stars were too bright to look at, too hard and cold and icy. ‘I reckon they’re just going somewhere, anywhere, just for the hell of it.’

  ‘Is there anywhere to go, anyway?’

  Tom and I talked for hours about it. Anyway, ten years after he wrote it, Jack Kerouac was dead. Drank himself into oblivion. That says something too, I suppose. That’s another kind of journey. All the time we were talking, drifting to sleep and waking up and talking again, Helen was there, right in front of my mind, brighter than the stars.

  July 17th

  Dear Nobody,

  I can’t believe it’s the middle of July, and that you have been inside me now for six months. It’s no secret now, however loose my dresses are. It would be like trying to stop day coming, if I tried to hide you now. You keep pushing out with your leg or your arm, as if you’re trying to wave in there, to say hey! I’m here! You’re not taking any notice of me. But I’m thinking about you all the time. I can’t take my mind off you.

  And it’s so hot! We’re in the middle of a heatwave. I feel as if I’m trudging along with a bag of shopping tied round my middle. I try to imagine you, in the cool sea cave that’s your home. Is it like being in a dark rock pool, turning over and over with the tide of my beating heart? Are you calm in there, and all crouched up safe? You’re a real person. I can’t wait to see you.

  Oh but these are happy daytime thoughts, little Nobody. Night after night now I wake up lonely and afraid. I went out into the garden last night. The sky was clear, the stars looked enormous. I could hear the hum of the city, even at that time, the drone of traffic. Everywhere, everywhere in the world, people were on the move, people were dying, people were being born. Our garden was full of shadows, trees and moonlight and shadows, silver and velvet, lonely, quiet, humming shadows. I wanted to scream out into them. What will I do? I don’t know where we’re going to live, or what we’re going to live on. I don’t know how to look after you. I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this. I’m frightened of the dark. And when I turned back into the house, into the kitchen with all its gleaming, useful machinery, all its domestic reassurances, I was frightened of the light. I don’t know anything. I want Chris to hold me in his arms and say, it’s all right, we’ll manage, we can do it together. But I’ve turned my back on all that, and nothing will stop day coming, nothing will stop you being born. You’ll march into the world bursting with power and wisdom because you know how to be born. I don’t know anything.

  I closed the curtains because I couldn’t bear to look at the sky; it was growing light: dawn was coming, and nothing, nothing would stop it.

  The next day Tom pigged at me for snoring all night and keeping him awake. We were both so tired that it took us two hours to have breakfast and pack the tents and load the bikes.

  ‘We can’t mess around like this all the time,’ I grumbled. I wanted to get my head down and ride like the wind, kind of punishing myself. Tom was just there for a laze. We sneaked into a camp-site and had a shower, which felt brilliant, and the next night a farmer, who told us his name was Monsieur Bienvenu, let us come on his field for free. We talked to him for ages, watching him while he milked his cows. I’m not kidding, that milk came out hot and steaming! I’ve never seen or smelt anything like it. He dipped a jug into the churn and ladled some out for us to drink. It tasted like grass. Tom’s French is desperate but when he doesn’t know a word he just makes one up and says it in a French accent and he gets away with it. I take hours trying to sort out the tense and working out whether the nouns are masculine or feminine and by the time I’ve got the sentence right it’s too late to say it because they’re on about something else, so even though I’m the one doing French A–level he did most of the talking and I just prodded words into spaces. The farmer’s wife gave us some home-made orange liqueur and after that the talking was easier and the jokes started flying. I think we drank it too fast.

  The next day we were cycling through some town or other with headaches and had to remind ourselves that the traffic all goes in a different direction and that roundabouts are death traps. I kept imagining Helen hearing that I’d been killed in France. Would you feel sorry then, disdainful Nell? At night it was too hot to sleep. I was sunburnt and saddle sore. I’d got baguette blisters inside my mouth. Every girl I saw looked like Helen.

  I bought three postcards. One for Dad. One for my mother. And one for Jill.

  Dear Nobody,

  ‘Nan,’ I said, ‘tell me about when you were a little girl.’

  Her room was nearly in darkness, even though it was glorious day outside. She had her curtains pulled to keep out the sunlight. I hated its stuffiness; always have done.

  ‘When I was a little girl? What d’you want to know about that for?’

  I wanted to know everything, Nobody. I want to peer into all the corners.

  ‘Did you live in Sheffield?’

  She tittered unexpectedly. ‘I lived in a drawer.’

  I knew this already. Long ago, when I was a little girl, she’d told me that, but she’d never gone on to tell me what she meant. I waited in the silence. Outside in the garden Grandad was cutting the hedge, whistling.

  ‘In them days, if you couldn’t afford cradle nor cot, you put your bairns in a drawer. Good enough, I’d say.’

  Well, I was thinking, I’ll do the same if I have to, only I’ll be sure to line it with soft things first, and she said, ‘And anyway, what better place to hide me, eh? If I cried too much, or if the lady from upstairs wanted to visit the kitchens, my mother just had to push the drawer, and I’d disappear. Very handy, if you think about it.’ She laughed again, her little, light, tittering laugh that seems to come from a little girl rather than a woman in her seventies.

  ‘But she didn’t do it, Nan, did she?’

  She glanced over to me sharply. ‘It wasn’t that she wasn’t married, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was married to the butler. But she wasn’t allowed to have a child, you see, not while she was in service. She’d have lost her job. So I was a secret.’

  ‘But she didn’t close the drawer?’

  Nan closed her eyes. She clasped her hands together tight under her chest, and tucked her chin down. Her voice came out in little whispers. ‘I believe I can remember it now. Shelves right up ther
e, stacked with black pots. I can hear the sounds of skirts and footsteps and voices. I can remember daylight changing into dark across my face, like that.’ She moved her hands in front of her eyes, so her eyelids trembled slightly, then she clasped them together again across her chest. ‘I can remember sliding, and a sudden jolting. Crack! And I can smell it, too, stuffy and sweet.’

  ‘Weren’t you frightened?’

  ‘Too young to be frightened,’ she said, in a little whimpering voice. ‘Besides, I like the dark.’

  *

  I went out to see Grandad. I wanted to help him to sweep up the hedge clippings but he wouldn’t let me, so I sat on a stool in the sunshine and watched him. He grunted every time he stooped.

  ‘Nan’s asleep,’ I told him.

  ‘Ay ay,’ he said. ‘She’ll sleep till tea time now.’

  ‘Can’t you get her to sit out here sometimes?’

  ‘She will, when she feels like it. She’ll be as chirpy as a sparrow tomorrow, maybe. But when she’s a mood on, nowt’ll shift her.’

  ‘My mum never comes here, does she?’ I said.

  Grandad grunted. His cheeks purpled slightly when he bent down. I wish he’d let me help him. The privet smelt sharp and sweet as he brushed it.

  ‘She’s a mind of her own. She comes when she fancies to.’

  ‘Were you pleased when she married my dad?’

  You see what it was like, Nobody. I wanted to know everything. I’ve never dared ask questions like this before. Grandad leaned on his garden brush, blowing his lips out a little. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘We thought it was a strange match, him being so reserved, you know. She had a bit of spirit about her. We thought, this’ll never suit our Alice. Your mother was always one for schooling and bettering herself, all that palaver. I think she thought your dad was rather posh, being a university librarian. But I think he’s been a bit of a disappointment to her.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ I felt disloyal, talking about them like this, as if they were strangers, yet I was itchy to know about them. ‘I think Dad’s crazy about Mum.’

  ‘Oh, ay. He’d do anything for her. Anything for a quiet life, I reckon,’ Grandad chuckled. ‘But he let her down over the dancing.’

  ‘Dancing?’

  He was sweeping vigorously now, chasing bits of twigs down the path. I slipped off my stool and followed him.

  ‘Mad on dancing, your mother. Didn’t you know that? When she was a kid she used to frisk round the house like a fairy.’ He laughed again, shaking his head at the memory of it. ‘Twirling all sorts round with her – ribbons, scarves, string, anything. She used to cut strips of toilet roll or newspaper and use them as streamers! Anything. She met your dad at a jazz club. He was the pianist, just a night job, you know. She used to go down there a lot, with her friends. Dancing. She was a classy dancer, your mother. I reckon that’s what made him fall for her.’

  I tried to imagine it: dim lights and smoke, Dad sitting in his shirtsleeves at the piano playing ragtime; Mum…? No, I couldn’t picture Mum.

  ‘But why did he let her down?’

  ‘I’m not so sure… he seemed to put his foot down, once they were married. Stopped her going to the club, anyway. That’s the only time I’ve seen him do anything like that. Shy man, you see, your dad. Didn’t like that sort of exhibitionism, probably. Not in a wife.’

  ‘I never knew about that,’ I said.

  ‘Ay, well.’ He was intent on watching a pair of sparrows taking a dust bath in the middle of his sweepings, squabbling together. ‘There’s lots of things about parents that kids never imagine, I reckon.’ He thrust the brush forward and the sparrows lifted themselves up, still squabbling, and flew off in opposite directions. Grandad swept up the last of the leaves and dusted his hands on his trouser legs. ‘People will get wed. They think it’s going to open up the world for them. But it doesn’t, you see. It closes all the doors.’

  He heaved the garden sack round to the back to tip on the bonfire pile. ‘Won’t burn yet,’ he grunted. ‘Too green. Besides, I like to light bonnies in the evening, just on dusk. Nice and quiet, sitting out here on my own, watching the woodsmoke curl. Can’t beat the smell of woodsmoke, Helen. And d’you know, when I’m sitting out here, just me and the midges and the bonfire crackling, there’s a toad that comes and squats by me, just there, where you’re standing, that far from the flames! Sits there blinking and swallowing, just watching it, little bright eyes yellow with flames. Thinking daft thoughts, same as me, I reckon. You’d think it would be too hot for him, wouldn’t you!’ He shook his head. ‘Funny old thing, that is.’

  ‘I’d better be getting back, Grandad,’ I said. I didn’t want to go, really. I love being with him.

  ‘Helen…’ as he bent down to kiss me, ‘… is he going to marry you, that lad?’

  I looked away. ‘No, Grandad. I don’t want to get married.’

  ‘He’s a nice lad, but he’s young. You’re too young for this, both of you.’

  ‘I know. It’s done now.’

  He walked back up the path with me, stooping to pick up the bits of privet that had dropped out of the sack, splaying them out in his hand like a bridal spray. ‘I know your mother. She won’t be making it easy for you. If you want a home, Helen, you and your bairn… it’s not much of a place, is this. I’d love it.’

  I nodded.

  ‘You could come here. Remember that.’

  We’ve had a long journey today, little Nobody. We seem to have walked for miles and miles and miles, in all kinds of strange spaces. I feel a few steps nearer to Mum, anyway. But there’s a long way to go yet, and lots more questions to ask.

  Looking back on that holiday in France, I can only explain what happened by blaming it on circumstances. I’m not making excuses for myself.

  On that day, the day that it started, we’d been going about two weeks and my bike was giving me major problems. The back wheel was buckled and the tyre kept rubbing on the frame. The gears were slipping, we were doing murderous hill climbs, I had sunburn and bum-ache. We searched round for a bike shop and when we found it it was closed because it was Monday. We sat on the pavement eating baguettes. My mouth was so cut up with the crusts by then that I could only eat the middle bits. There was no way I could fix the bike properly. All the spokes were loose. Some of them had gone through the rim and punctured the tyre. I reckon someone must have walked over the back wheel at the last camp-site. Persig calls these kind of things ‘gumption traps’ in Zen. I could think of more colourful epithets. Tom was useless. He was all for hitching a lift on a lorry and going back home. At last we made it to a pebbly camp-site and spent two hours pitching my tent. Then I had a proper go at my back wheel. There was a spoke wound round the hub, and three others were hanging loose. Ten others looked as if they were ready to fall off any minute. We were grounded for a couple of days till I could fix the thing. I felt quite calm about it all, strangely enough.

  Tom started to pitch his tent and we found a massive hole in his tent bag and half a dozen little ones in the outer tent. We couldn’t believe it. I’d been carrying it in my pannier bag and one of the loose spokes must have gone through it. We cursed a bloody hell of a lot then. Tom was in a massive peeve, with the heat, with France, and most of all with me. But that wasn’t the end of that day’s events. He went to have a shower to calm down, and I emptied out my other pannier. My sleeping bag was covered in oil.

  So. That night it started to rain. Tom was going to have to share my tent, and I was going to have to sleep without a bag. My back wheel was in bits where my feet would have to be. Two girls started to pitch their tent near us and because they were having trouble with all the pebbles too, and because he fancies himself and because we weren’t talking much, anyway, Tom went over to help them. I sat and sulked and tried to read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which didn’t make me laugh. The worst disco in the world started up on an island on the river next to the camp-site. That DJ should hav
e been flung in a bed of nettles. Tom went to it with the two girls. I pretended not to see them walk past, laughing their heads off at the terrible music. I couldn’t read. After a bit I went down and watched. It was lousy. One of the girls saw me and waved to me to join them. I didn’t. I went back to the tent, feeling terrible. She had a smile like Helen’s.

  Tom finally crawled into my tent long after midnight, and woke me up to tell me that I was winning 2–1 – his tent was as holy as a church, my back wheel was dropping to bits and I had a sleeping bag covered in chain-oil. He was remarkably cheerful about it all. ‘And,’ he said, as I drifted back towards sleep, ‘I’ve fallen in love, Chris.’

  The next day I spent ninety francs at a bike shop. I left the bike there first thing and spent the rest of the day reading. I finished Restaurant and started Catcher in the Rye. ‘This will change your life,’ Hippy had told me. Well, it needed changing. Tom and the two girls were messing about, playing with a frisbee and rounding up all the camp-site dogs. They seemed to spend all their time laughing, annoying the hell out of me. The girls were Welsh. Bryn and Menai, they were called. They were hitching round France, which I think is a stupid thing for girls to do. They talked to each other in Welsh all the time, and that irritated me from the start. The little one, Bryn, was dark, and just wouldn’t stop talking. I tried to ignore her but she seemed to know a lot about books and kept asking me which bit I was up to. I hate people talking to me when I’m reading. But every time I looked up, she had that incredible smile.