by Ann Morgan
Panic gripped her: the image of two little girls running across the grass, plaits and bunches flying. She dug her fingers into the armrest of the door and tried to breathe.
‘Yes,’ said Nick. He paused. ‘Just one. Heloise. She’s six. Margaret’s been very helpful about looking after her while all this has been going on.’
Relief flooded through Smudge, thrumming against her eardrums, so that for a while she didn’t register the final sentence, didn’t realise that Margaret meant Mother.
When at last she did, she opened and closed her mouth like a fish. The thought of Mother being helpful, playing the grandmother role, was unsettling. She couldn’t make it stick. In her mind, Mother was poised for ever as she had been the last time she’d seen her: standing on the doorstep in her evening wear, her hair teased into a brittle cloud, watching the police car drive away.
18
After Bill 2, things change. People look at me in a narrow way and there are muttered conversations behind the kitchen door with the light shining through the cracks like a warning. When Baby Richard comes – in a bluster of footsteps on the stairs and Akela’s car garrumphing into life and Hannah C’s mother coming and making us play Ludo because Mrs Dunkerley doesn’t like to see us any more – I am not allowed to touch him.
Part of me is pleased because Baby Richard is fat and bald with a big head like Akela’s and playing with him would be boring. But another part of me is sad when I see Mother sitting with her arm round Ellie, showing her how to hold him properly and everything. Sometimes I stand in the dark of the hallway and peer in at them sitting in the glow of the gas fire: Mother, Ellie, Baby Richard and Akela, with the television twinkling behind. They are like a family in a story that has nothing to do with me. They don’t even know I’m there. And when I creep to the front door and slink out to go and sit in the upside-down tree in the park nobody says a word.
The years go round like the cars on the old Scalextric track the boys play with during wet breaktimes. We are the third-oldest class, then the second-oldest, and then all of a sudden it’s the last year and soon we will have to say our goodbyes and go off to different big schools. On the last day, there’s a show in the main hall and all the popular girls do their party pieces to show everyone how talented they are. Jessica wiggles three hula hoops at a time and Charlotte and that lot do a dance they made up by themselves to Michael Jackson’s ‘Heal the World’. Then Ellie steps forward and recites a funny poem about a lady running a tombola at a church bazaar. She does voices and everything and when she finishes, everyone cheers and says how talented she must be. I sit, small and not-clapping, at the end of a row, thinking how the old Helen would never have said a poem and done funny voices – how Ellie has taken Helen and pulled her out of shape and added bits, so that now there is a person you would never recognise in the place where the old Helen should be. It is a Hellie now, not a Helen at all. Helen is gone. And I begin to think maybe she won’t come back again.
In September, when we start at the big school, I hope things might be different. Most of the other people we know have gone to St Stephen’s down by the shopping centre and Jessica and Charlotte are off to the Guild of Our Lady, a school where parents pay so you can wear a nicer uniform and have a swimming pool. I hope the fact that we are going to Bridge Oak means that there can be a fresh start so that I will stop being pushed into the Ellie corner that seems to get smaller and smaller every day. If I have to be Ellie, at least I can try to be the best Ellie possible, I think, and maybe Bridge Oak will be the chance I need, away from all the people who think they know what Ellie is before she opens her mouth.
Except that when we get there on the first day in our navy blue jumpers, white blouses and ties, it turns out that people have been sending letters about us and before the register has even finished, someone has come to tap me on the shoulder and lead me off to another room with carpet on the walls where there is a fat woman in a spangly jumper who wants me to match up animal pictures with the words that represent them. Anger blows through me like a gale and all I can do is sit there, gripping the table, trying not to let tears bubble up out of my eyes. When the woman goes out to the toilet, I get the pencil and slash all over the page until the elephant, the rhinoceros and the giraffe are just bits of eyes and legs and tails, and then I sob and cry until they have to take me to the headmaster, leading me down the corridor past the gym, where Ellie is twirling around in her new leotard, spiralling a red ribbon over her head. And that makes me scream even louder because I know it’s all starting worse than ever and now there will never be a way out.
That evening when we get home Richard runs up all bright and smiley wanting to show a picture he has been drawing. Ellie takes it and makes all the right cooey noises so that Richard laughs and slaps his hands on his thighs like she has made the best-ever joke.
No one is looking at me, so I slip out and away to the park where the upside-down tree waits like a cascade of glistening hair. The September sun is starting to sink behind the houses at the far side of the park, poking their shadows out towards me like tongues as I make my way across the grass. A rook cackles as I reach in and push the branches aside. And then I stop, because where there is usually empty space and the tree trunk to sit on, there are bags and legs and faces. Teenagers.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ says a lad with spots, staring up at me.
A girl holding a plastic bag turns and peers blearily at me.
‘Give it a rest, Baz,’ she says. ‘She’s only little. What’s your name, sweetheart?’
I looked round at them, sitting hunched around a pack of beer cans, their hands tucked into their sleeves.
‘El-lie,’ I say slowly.
The boy, Baz, narrows his eyes at me. ‘What school do you go to?’ he asks.
‘Bridge Oak,’ I say. ‘But I only started today and—’ And suddenly the room with the carpet walls and the animal drawings is rushing at me and it’s all I can do to stop the tears spilling out of my eyes.
‘Ah, poor love,’ says the girl. ‘Did they give you a rough time? Well, you come and sit next to me, sweetheart. I’ll look after you.’
So I go and sit next to the girl, who smells of smoke and chewing gum and Impulse vanilla body spray. The others stare at me. There are six of them: four boys and two girls. On the floor between them, next to the slab of cans, there’s a tube of glue like the stuff Akela uses to fix the parts of his miniature planes. I look around for the model they are making, but I can’t see anything among the twigs and leaves.
Baz cracks open a can of beer and thrusts it at me. ‘Here,’ he says, not meeting my eye.
I shake my head. I’ve seen what drink does: Mother giddy in the kitchen and the bedroom door not quite closed while Akela’s pawing at her. ‘No thanks,’ I say.
He rolls his eyes. ‘Just trying to be friendly,’ he mutters.
‘Don’t mind him,’ says the girl sitting next to me. ‘He’s a grumpy fucker. You stick with me.’
Baz jiggles his legs so his feet tap fast on the ground. He looks around.
‘Here, Shaz,’ he says, tilting his head in my direction. ‘Give her some of the… you know.’
‘Baz…’ says the girl next to me.
‘Ah, come on, Gina man. It’ll be funny,’ he says.
Gina turns to me. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Ellie,’ she says.
She is all softness. And when she says ‘Ellie’ it sounds all right – just a name that might belong to anyone. Nothing more terrible than that. I would like to show her how mature I am so that then we can be friends. I look at the Tesco bag Shaz is holding. How bad can its contents be? I think. Whatever it is, I can always just pretend to take a bit and then chuck it away when no one’s looking.
‘Yeah, OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll give it a try.’
‘Classic!’ says Baz, clapping his hands together.
They pass the bag over. But when I look inside, there’s nothing to eat in there, only a sor
t of clear, sticky substance at the bottom.
I go to dip my finger into it, but Baz laughs and says, ‘Nah, you don’t eat it. You’ve got to sniff it.’
So I put my nose close to the bag and sniff. There is a faint, petrolly smell.
‘Nah,’ says Baz again. ‘You’ve got to do it properly. Put the bag round your nose and take a proper huff, you know.’
So I press the edges of the bag to my cheeks, close my eyes and breathe in as hard as I can. A sour wind rushes up through my head and the ground falls away. I am pedalling my arms and legs in deep water and all around me stars are pricking through. I look at the others, but they have all tilted off at an angle, their heads bent and stretched like faces in a mirror at the fair.
Then the water starts to ebb and I am sitting back on the log with a headache and a sick feeling bubbling inside me.
‘Fuck me,’ says Baz. ‘I told you to sniff it, not honk the whole bag!’
‘Are you OK, love?’ says Gina, putting her arm around me. ‘Takes you out of yourself a bit, doesn’t it?’
But when I look at her, her eyes are huge and I shuffle away in alarm.
‘I think I need to go home now,’ I say, standing up as the floor jerks sideways.
‘Are you sure?’ says Gina. ‘Why don’t you sit here and wait for it to go off a bit?’
But I can’t look at her any more. I shake my head.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I say again, and I turn and push out through the branches into the park that has become one big shadow. I run across the grass, which someone seems to be shaking out in great waves, like a tablecloth ready to lay a meal on, until I am at the gate where the streetlamp lights the way to the road beyond. Then a figure peels off from the dark bushes and stands across the path.
‘Oh hello,’ it says in a flat, wolfish voice. ‘Where do you think you’re going in such a rush?’
I look up but all I can see with the streetlamp behind is the orange dot of a burning cigarette hovering about his face.
‘Please,’ I say, as my stomach lurches. ‘I’ve got to go home. I’m feeling sick.’
‘Wait,’ says the voice, and a hand reaches out to grab my wrist. ‘Aren’t you one of the little girls who used to come round to play with Mary? The twins.’
I nod, gulping back a mouthful of vomit.
‘Well, isn’t that a fucking stroke of luck?’ says the voice. ‘I’ve been thinking about you twins a lot, you know. Especially you. I’ve been wondering how you are. Why don’t you just come with me and—’
But my stomach is heaving now and any minute it’s going to go everywhere. I yank my hand away and push past him, stumbling up the path. I run along one street that lurches and tips like a seesaw, then another, until at last there is the front door. I put my key in and burst through, and there, in the warm, yellow light, with Akela’s model Spitfire zooming down towards me on its stand, I throw up all over the carpet.
19
It was dark by the time they pulled up outside the house. The wrought-iron streetlamps glowed orange, throwing splashes of light up at the underside of sycamore trees coming into leaf and wisteria buds dangling like mini bunches of grapes. Nick got out to unlatch the gate and they swung on to the rectangle of drive, crunching gravel under the wheels.
The house loomed over them, ghostly white with exposed brickwork on the upper storeys. Early Victorian, she supposed, or maybe older, built back in the days when this part of Islington was still a village and there seemed to be plenty of space.
‘This is where you live?’ Smudge said as they got out of the car.
Nick made a shushing gesture as he let them in, but when they got into the hall they found themselves caught in the glow of light spilling from the living room, where a familiar figure sat on a large cream sofa. A bolt of fear shot through Smudge and she shrank back, pulling her hair over her face, but it was too late: Akela looked up with a start. The years had coarsened him, thinning the hairs on his head and speckling his cheeks with purple. He was fatter too and his clothes had not kept up, so that he had the appearance of an over-stuffed soft toy, bulging at the seams.
‘Hullo,’ he said. A table stood in front of him, level with his knees, bearing a half-finished jigsaw puzzle on a board. The rest of the pieces were in a box beside him on the floor, a bright picture painted in the ruddy colours of a Boys’ Own annual showing what appeared to be a Boeing 747 taking off.
‘Horace,’ said Nick, stepping forward. ‘You remember Ellie. Of course you do. She’s been… unwell and needs some TLC so she’s going to be staying here for a few days.’
‘I see,’ said Akela dubiously. ‘Does Margaret—?’
‘I’ll speak to Margaret about it,’ said Nick. He swallowed. ‘Is she…?’
‘She’s gone to bed,’ said Akela, keeping his eyes fixed on Smudge. ‘Early night.’
‘Excellent,’ said Nick with evident relief. He looked between them.
‘Have a seat, Ellie,’ he said, gesturing to two other cream sofas arranged around the coffee table. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Tea, please,’ she said. It was the last thing she wanted: the caffeine would make her angsty. Still, it was something to say. It was stupid, but she actually thought she might wet herself, faint or be sick. Standing here under Akela’s reproachful gaze, it was as though no time had passed since that evening fifteen years ago – as though any minute they would come, static crackling through their radios, and manhandle her into the car.
‘Great,’ said Nick. ‘Horace?’
‘Hmmn,’ said Akela.
Nick bustled out to get the drinks and Smudge perched on the farthest sofa and looked around the room. It was tastefully done, with lots of ingenious little touches – hideaway stools that slotted into the wood of the table and a deconstructed chandelier overhead, all bare bulbs and slivers of metal. Hellie must be doing very well, she thought dully.
She picked at some dried blood clotted along one of her cuticles and gnawed the inside of her cheeks. Her muscles felt tight. The silence stretched.
At length Akela coughed and fixed her with a benevolent grimace.
‘So,’ he said. ‘How’s life in… Where is it now? Sidcup? Slough?’
‘Walworth,’ she said.
He pointed at her with all the scout leader’s forced jollity. ‘That’s the badger,’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘It’s—’ Shitty? Grim? Hopeless? ‘OK,’ she said.
‘Recession hit there much, has it?’
She frowned, swallowing a plug of vomit. ‘Umm. Not to my knowledge.’
He shook his head and picked up a piece from the box on the floor beside him. ‘It’s taken its toll where we are,’ he said. ‘Shops closing left, right and centre. Queues outside the job centre. And they’ve knocked down the library to build another Tesco. I don’t expect you’d recognise the place if you saw it now.’
He looked at her then quickly back at the piece, holding it out for comparison against a wooded area in the top left corner of the picture emerging in front of him. After turning it from side to side for a moment, he laid it down outside the frame and bent to rootle through the box once more.
‘I don’t do the models nowadays,’ he said, seeing her watching him. ‘Margaret – we thought it caused unnecessary clutter. These are a pretty good replacement. And the great thing with the board is you can tidy it away and cover it over any time you like. Once it’s done I’m thinking about gluing it together in a frame and hanging it on the wall. At home, obviously. Not here.’
He coughed again. ‘So, er, what are you up to now?’
Smudge stared at him, at his pink, balding head. What did he think about when he was by himself? she wondered. What did he tell himself when he looked in the mirror? Did he ever think about what happened and whether maybe – just maybe – he could have intervened to make it all fall out another way?
She opened her mouth. ‘Well—’ Visions passed before her eyes of the grey wash of days, the afternoons spent
watching a sun ray move across the ripped lino and bare concrete of the living-room floor, the evenings where everything seemed to sag and slosh as though the world were underwater, and then the flashes of lightning and pits of darkness that sucked in everything and crunched you to the bone. ‘Actually, I’m working part-time in the post office,’ she said.
Akela pursed his lips and widened his eyes as he slotted a piece of runway into place.
‘The post office,’ he said. ‘I see. What? Cashier work, is it?’
‘Mostly,’ she said. ‘And a bit of low-level managerial stuff. I think they’re training me up.’
She talked on about her responsibilities, hearing her voice sound smooth and capable. In her mind, the post office took shape and it soothed her. The shelves filled with stock – useful things like post-it notes and jiffy bags, ball-point pens. She saw herself pricing them up, helping old ladies send packages to their grandchildren in Australia, stopping to exchange a word with Sam, the visually impaired man who came in every week to deposit his pension into his post office account because the people there were friendlier than at the bank. It was a busy and tiring job, but it was rewarding too. You felt like you were really doing something in the community, making a difference – particularly in this day and age when local services were closing everywhere you looked. In fact, she was wondering about going full-time. Everyone wanted her to. The customers all asked for her when she wasn’t there. Her line manager had even offered to increase her hours, but she had to think carefully about it. She didn’t want to overdo it, and besides, she needed to leave enough time for her art.
Akela raised his eyebrows. Then: ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ he said.
Smudge looked at him, her eyes bright with all her success at the post office. But his eyes were on the doorway. A small figure in SpongeBob SquarePants pyjamas slunk into the room.
‘I want to show Daddy my picture I drew to make Mummy well,’ said the little girl, her hand scrunching the bottom of her pyjama top so that SpongeBob developed a menacing frown.
