The Art of Hiding

by Amanda Prowse

  He briefly caught her eye as if to acknowledge her efforts.

  ‘I’ll make you a nice supper in a little while.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Please talk to me, Con!’ she implored, sitting on the edge of his bed. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  He looked at her. Nina smiled at how she had won him over with the reasoning that the sooner he spoke, the sooner she would leave.

  ‘It wasn’t great,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What wasn’t great?’ She was grateful for the insight and grabbed it like a hook.

  ‘All of it,’ he fired back.

  ‘Connor, put your laptop away and talk to me properly, please. Tell me how it went and how you are feeling.’

  He gave a short laugh and sucked his teeth. ‘What is it you want to know?’ He closed his laptop as instructed, and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Everything!’ She held out her hands.

  Connor sat up in the bed and rested his back against the shallow headboard.

  ‘They follow a different order for sciences so I am about a year behind, but they are confident I can catch up, which is easy for them to say, it’s not them that’s going to have to do the extra work. Everyone, literally everyone, either told me I was posh or took the piss out of my accent. No one told me that they don’t stand up when a tutor comes into the room, and so in the first lesson the master came in and I jumped up with my arms by my sides and waited to be told to sit, and the whole class doubled up laughing. The teacher shouted at me, asking if I thought I was being funny.’ He shook his head. ‘I felt like such an idiot.’

  Nina silently berated herself. This hadn’t occurred to her. Her son continued.

  ‘I am used to a system where pupils are only allowed to walk in twos along the right-hand corridor wall, which means everything flows, but at this school’ – he shook his head – ‘it’s like a free-for-all, crowds getting bottlenecked and everyone yelling, all of the time. It’s chaos, so noisy. I have a headache. And apparently I am only allowed to take one language, so I have to drop German or French because “That’s how the timetable works if I want to do three sciences”.’ He drew invisible speech marks in the air. ‘Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? And the very best thing?’ His words dripped with sarcasm. ‘I already have a nickname – can you believe it? One day in, and my new name is Snow.’ He looked up and bit his lip.

  ‘Why Snow?’ She struggled to figure it out.

  ‘Oh, don’t try and guess, you never could,’ he spat. ‘There was already a guy called Connor in my class whose dad keeps horses in the New Forest. He is known as Connor Ponies, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously.’ She nodded.

  ‘So this kid, Brandon I think his name is, started calling me “Connor’s Got No Ponies”, shortened to “’S’no Ponies”, and by the end of the day they had dropped the pony idea all together and I am now “Snow”, apparently.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a term of endearment?’

  He looked at her with daggers in his eyes. ‘They’re dickheads! All of them, especially Brandon, who I hate! Snow? I mean is that the best they could come up with? Jesus, it’s not even clever! They are pathetic. And they had never heard of Kings Norton.’

  ‘Well, why would they have? It’s a long way from here.’

  Her son’s comments were just another reminder of how he felt the whole wide world revolved around his school. She thought again of little Joe Marsh-Evans, who had had to leave school, and her pulse raced. It tore at her heart to think of her lovely boys being similarly forgotten so quickly.

  Connor looked desperate. ‘I’m telling you now, Mum, if they don’t let me play rugby, I won’t stay there – how can I?’ His eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘Did they say you couldn’t play rugby?’

  ‘No, but they made it clear that they have a stable team and there is only about five months for me to get a place and make my mark. It’s all I want to do, and if I can’t train and can’t go to a professional club later and say that I played throughout my school, it’ll be pointless!’

  She watched the anxious rise and fall of his chest, knowing just how much this would mean to him.

  ‘I am confident that as soon as they see you play you will get a spot on the team. Don’t forget you won your place in the A team at Kings Norton, it wasn’t gifted to you. There were several boys after your spot, but you fought hard and the coach picked you. You got it on talent, and that talent is still there, waiting to be seen. You can dazzle them when you get the opportunity.’

  ‘You don’t know anything, Mum! How can you be confident about anything? You just don’t get it! The rugby training has started at Kings Norton and it was all I could think about, picturing the boys on the field, wearing the kit that I was so proud to put on. And I was stuck in that horrible place, with everyone asking me to repeat words and laughing at my voice, wearing this . . .’ He pulled roughly at the logo on the sweatshirt. ‘And I didn’t ask for any of it! And I don’t understand what’s happened to my life!’

  She felt a wave of anxiety at the thought that not only was her son deeply unhappy, but that it was her fault. Finn’s fault.

  ‘I understand, Connor, and you have every right to be angry, but I meant what I said to you this morning. You are an amazing boy, and you have the strength and resilience to come through this. I don’t think it will always be easy, not at all, but I do have faith that things will get better.’ She hoped her words might act as a balm in some way, or if nothing else as a distraction.

  She smoothed his hair and laid her hand on his arm. ‘I know everything feels tough right now, but you need to give it a chance. You are only one day in, and who knows what will happen tomorrow?’

  ‘I think I can have a good guess at what will happen tomorrow.’ He ground his teeth. ‘More of the same. I hate it here. I hate it. I want to go home.’

  Nina pictured the padlocked gate of The Tynings and the empty shell of the house. It broke her heart that her boy had been forced to take this onto his shoulders, to face these challenges at his tender years.

  ‘I know. And I miss it too. I miss everything. This couldn’t be more different, could it? But this is home for now. No matter how grim, or cold, or’ – she borrowed his word – ‘shitty. I can’t make promises, Connor, I can only tell you what I believe: the Kings Norton motto – determination, courage and faith – and those attributes will get you through.’

  He looked up. ‘George and Charlie FaceTimed me today during my break – they were hanging out on the pitch.’ The expression on Connor’s face was enough to make her weep.

  ‘That must have been tough to see.’

  ‘It was.’ He nodded. ‘I felt like running away.’

  ‘Don’t do that. I shall only run after you, and my running isn’t what it used to be. I have my gran’s dodgy knees, sadly.’ She tried out a smile, which he failed to return. ‘They can always come here to see you, or you can go back and see them, if you want to,’ she suggested softly.

  Connor shook his head. ‘I don’t want them to come here and I definitely don’t want to go to Bath and have to hear all about who got my place on the team.’ He gulped and pushed his hair from his forehead.

  ‘I get that. And it probably feels like little reward now, but at least when you go through bad times, like this, you really appreciate the good. I pray for you that they are just around the corner.’

  His distress flared again. ‘Well, you keep praying, because I can’t wait, Mum. Feeling like this sucks. It really does!’

  It was going to take a bit more than a few changes to the bedroom and a well-placed side table to make everything feel better. She felt her bubble of joy from earlier well and truly lanced.

  Connor kicked off the duvet and jumped up, standing in the gap by the side of his bed; he narrowly avoided tripping over her feet. His breathing got faster and shallower. He looked perilously close to tears and she hated how quickly his sadness turned to anger.

  ‘If I ha
ve to live here, I need to study. Where am I supposed to do that? Sitting on my bed? Or on the crappy sofa?’ He blinked quickly.

  ‘We can pick up a little desk, eventually, and put it where you are standing,’ she answered quietly, trying to keep her calm.

  ‘Yes that will make it perfect!’ he sneered. ‘And talking of studying, I got the piss taken out of me for calling it “prep” because they say “homework”, and I have some crappy assignment to do that needs to be in tomorrow.’ He jumped over her legs with an athletic leap and made his way into the sitting room. She got the feeling he wanted to be anywhere she wasn’t.

  Sitting on her son’s bed for a second or two, she closed her eyes and tried to picture her mum’s hand on her shoulder. Times like this, all she wanted was to feel her mother’s arms around her and to hear her words of advice.

  ‘Mum!’ Declan yelled from the other room.

  She opened her eyes. ‘Yes, love?’ she managed.

  ‘Are there any more biscuits?’

  She walked into the sitting room and stared at the crumb-filled plate on her boy’s lap.

  ‘Connor said he didn’t want any,’ Declan offered in his defence.

  ‘Not like I had any choice! You’d eaten them all!’ Connor spat. ‘Pretty much sums up my life.’

  ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, Con!’ She rubbed her temples. ‘Do you know what, love? You need to cut it out!’

  He leapt up, shifting again to the bedroom, any place where she was not, and ran back towards the bedroom. She thought of Finn and considered for a second how lovely it might be to simply run away . . .

  The boys had been at school for a whole week, and there had been little change. It took all her resolve to remain upbeat and to keep momentum going on her job search. She spent hours with her face inches from the laptop screen, firing off letters and applications to companies she thought might be hiring in the future. The money had dwindled to two grubby twenty-pound notes and a handful of coins. To think about the situation caused her to nearly choke and made sleep damn near impossible. As she waved across the street to Lucia one morning and considered the girl’s love of art and the advice she had given her, Nina had a light-bulb moment. And there was only one person she wanted to share her realisation with.

  She climbed into her jeans and boots and pulled a sweatshirt over her pyjama top before locking the door and tramping the pavements, heading towards The Bear. She covered the two miles with a small seed of hope growing in her gut. After ringing the doorbell, she stood back, looking up at the lattice windows of the flat above that showed no sign of life.

  ‘You’re a bit early, love!’ a man called from the passenger seat of a white van that drove past. She nodded a small smile in his direction. When she turned again to the front door, Tiggy was there in her pyjamas and dressing gown. Her hair was mussed and her cheek held a faint line of a pillowslip crease.

  ‘Have I woken you up?’

  Tiggy looked at her, with one eye still clamped shut, and nodded. ‘Tell me this is a matter of great urgency.’

  ‘Not really, but it’s quite important to me.’ She put her hands in her pockets.

  ‘It had better not be about a cushion you’ve found in a charity shop.’

  ‘No! I’m sorry. I forgot that you have very late nights.’

  ‘Is everything okay with the boys?’ Tiggy now had both eyes open.

  ‘Yes! Well, I think so. They haven’t been expelled yet, so that’s something. Mind you’ – she glanced at her watch – ‘there’s still plenty of hours left in the day for that. Can I come in?’

  ‘Sure.’ Tiggy stood back. Nina walked past her, watching as her sister secured the bolts and relocked the door. Her eyes roamed the spacious bar. It was as she remembered it from her last visit two years ago, with its wooden floor, clusters of tables and red-velvet-backed chairs, all looking rather forlorn and abandoned in the early hours of the day. Large lanterns hung down near a vast, brick-built inglenook fireplace. The scent of stale beer and floor wax hung in the air; blindfolded, no one would be in any doubt that they were in a typical, slightly run-down English boozer.

  ‘So how are the boys doing? I’ve been thinking about them. How much did they love knocking down that wall?’

  ‘A lot!’ Nina smiled. ‘They’re still a little edgy, nervous. Dec had an upset tum on his first day, poor little thing, and Connor perpetually looks like he wants to kill me, but they are definitely calmer than they were. Slowly, slowly, and all that . . .’ She looked skywards and crossed her fingers.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘God, no! Are you kidding?’ Nina waved her hand. ‘It’s way too early for me.’

  ‘Jesus, Nina, I meant coffee!’

  ‘Oh, coffee would be great, I thought you meant . . .’

  ‘It’s nice to see you here.’ Tiggy stated as she reached up onto the shelf for two white china cups.

  Nina looked around. ‘I like this pub.’

  ‘Thanks. I like it too.’

  ‘And actually, taking control and getting back on my feet is what I wanted to talk to you about.’ She bit her bottom lip excitedly.

  ‘Go on.’ The welcome smell of coffee brewing filled the air.

  ‘I was talking to Lucia – pink-hair Lucia?’

  ‘Oh, right, yup. I know who you mean,’ Tiggy said.

  ‘I wanted to tell her it was important to live her life and follow her dreams, but that advice feels very easy to give out and not always that easy to follow.’

  Tiggy grimaced. ‘It is hard, otherwise I’d be working on the Space Station right about now.’

  ‘So I am going to follow my dreams. I am going to go back to school. Not now, but eventually, part-time evening and weekends, or whenever I can fit it in. I am going to sit my exams and I am going to become a nurse.’

  ‘Oh my word, that’s big news!’

  ‘I think so. It might take ten years, longer even, but I am going to do it. And just making the decision feels like a big step towards my future. I am going to have a career so that I can take better care of me and the kids.’

  ‘You always used to want to be a nurse. I remember when you were little, turning the couch into a hospital with your teddies and dolls lying in rows, with tissues stuck to their limbs as bandages,’ Tiggy said.

  ‘I remember that too. I lost my way with that, stepped off the path, but it’s not too late for me. For us. You are right, Tig, I have decades of work left in me yet.’

  ‘Wow.’ Tiggy looked at her squarely.

  ‘Is that good wow, or you-must-be-crazy wow?’ She cowered a little, awaiting her sister’s response.

  ‘It’s . . .’ Tiggy was clearly searching for the right words. ‘My-little-sister-just-might-have-walked-back-into-the-room wow!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  Her chest swelled at the compliment; it was good to know her big sister thought this.

  ‘I think about when you were young and first left school. You were bursting with energy for life and . . .’

  ‘And what?’ Nina wondered which words now faltered in Tiggy’s throat.

  ‘I don’t know . . . A drive, I guess, that made you seem invincible. That was when you went with Dad to Bath. I couldn’t believe you opted to go with him. But nothing fazed you.’

  ‘As I recall, you didn’t want to come. You were in love with what’s-his-name,’ Nina said.

  ‘Dad was relieved, I think.’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, you were twenty-odd, Tiggy. And Dad adored you, did everything he could for us. For you . . .’

  Her sister sighed. ‘Really?’ She folded her arms over her chest.

  ‘Yes, really! I went with Dad to Bath so he wouldn’t be alone. I knew he’d spent lonely periods of his life wandering the UK after he lost Mamma, working wherever the next dead-end job took him, and I could see he wasn’t well. I didn’t want to leave you here, and you could have come, but you were keen on Ross Baker at the time and didn’t want to.’
The boy’s name sprang into her head. ‘I remember it clearly. You chose Ross-bloody-Baker over us!’

  ‘Yep, and look where that has got me! I didn’t get the life we had always dreamed of, the fairy tale, I got to stay here in bloody Portswood, sitting with Gran and Pop and scrabbling enough cash together to go out and snog boys like Ross Baker outside Jesters. And then after they died, it was just me.’

  ‘I hate to think of you unhappy here on your own,’ Nina said.

  ‘I wasn’t really on my own. I have always had mates, and a job, people around, you know?’

  Nina nodded, wishing Tiggy didn’t always feel the need to be so brave. ‘But it would have been better to have me here, though, right?’

  Tiggy ran her tongue over her bottom lip, as if deciding whether to speak frankly again. ‘Yes. Yes, it would.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Nina felt a little overcome. ‘Thank you, Tig, for saying that. It makes me happy.’

  The two sipped their coffee and Nina followed her sister up the narrow, winding staircase to Tiggy’s room. It was spacious, and well fitted with a bed at one end and a sofa and TV at the other, but it was still just a room. The bathroom she shared with the landlord was down the hall. Nina realised that the flat she and the boys lived in, that she had bemoaned on countless occasions to her sister, was spacious in comparison, and she felt a pang of guilt. She took a seat on the unmade bed.

  Her mobile phone rang. She fumbled for it in her pocket, racing to answer it, fearing it might be from the boys’ new school. She squinted at the screen – she didn’t know the number.

  ‘Nina?’

  ‘Yes, hello?’ She vaguely recognised the voice on the other end of the line but couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘It’s Fiona Walters, from Celandine Court.’

  ‘Oh, Fiona!’ Nina gripped the phone and waited, trying to imagine why she would call. Maybe Nina had inadvertently broken the law in turning up unannounced. Her mind raced at all the unlikely possibilities.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling, but I wanted to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Yes, I . . . I quite understand, and I am so sorry for turning up like I did. I’m more than a little embarrassed,’ she stuttered, nerves filling her stomach with butterflies. ‘I . . . I didn’t think it through.’ She closed her eyes and faced the bedroom wall, as if this might give her a bit of privacy from Tiggy, who stood only feet away.