How Not to Disappear

by Clare Furniss

  The way she says it makes me wonder.

  ‘You don’t think that now?’

  She pauses. ‘There was a lot I didn’t understand back then.’

  Was it that same day, the Sunday Mum and I walked back from church and I spun round and round on the Common? Perhaps it was. I think it was.

  Stop! Gloria, really! You’re not a child—

  Damn, damn, damn. Damn Vinnie. Bloody Vinnie—

  Yes. I think it was the same day.

  I can tell Father’s been drinking when Mum and I get back from church, and by the time we sit down for Sunday lunch with Gwen and Vinnie he’s drunk. He never really looks properly drunk, like Uncle Bert at cousin Betsy’s wedding. Bert was laughing and dancing, crying and then back to laughing till his face was wet with tears again. ‘No fool like an old fool,’ Aunty Alice said.

  But Father doesn’t laugh or dance when he’s drunk.

  As I sit down across the table from him, I take in the pink flush in his cheeks, and the knowing smirk that flickers round his mouth, like the gin tells him secrets the rest of us are too stupid to understand. Yes, he’s drunk plenty. You’d never notice the tiny telltale signs if you didn’t know him. But I notice them. My stomach flips with – what is it? Not fear exactly. It’s the nervous feeling you get when someone’s blowing up a balloon and it’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You try to brace yourself for the BANG so you won’t flinch. But there’s no way you can do it.

  ‘There we go,’ Mum says, too brightly, placing the roast beef on the table.

  Father stares at me across the glistening meat, his pale-blue eyes not quite focused. I look away, down at my plate, because I know it’s a challenge, just like it always is. He wants a fight and he knows he won’t get one from Mum. So he’ll prod me and goad me and toy with me until I crack, until I lose my temper, until I scream or cry. We’ve played this game, his game, for as long as I can remember. But today I won’t do it. I don’t want to accept his challenge. I think of the sunshine, that joy I felt on the Common. I want to hold on to it. It feels precious.

  ‘Well, this is nice, isn’t it?’ Vinnie says, and Mum laughs nervously.

  Gwen smiles. Father pours another drink. I say nothing.

  They talk and talk, about business and how well Vinnie’s doing, about how he and Gwen have had a new bathroom suite fitted.

  ‘It’s blue,’ Gwen says.

  ‘Lovely,’ I say, thinking about Sam and how soon I can get away to meet him. I check my watch. I’m later than I thought I’d be already, but I know he’ll wait for me.

  ‘Got somewhere to be, have you, Gloria?’ Vinnie smiles at me in his knowing way.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not keeping secrets, are you, Gloria?’

  The atmosphere in the room thickens.

  ‘Not off to see your fella, are you?’

  ‘What?’ I say, palms prickling. He can’t know about Sam. I haven’t told anyone.

  ‘Must say it’s very open-minded of you, Des, letting Gloria go out with a darkie. I’d hit the roof if she was my daughter.’

  I stare at Vinnie. How does he know about Sam? He always seems to know about everything. I bet it was stupid Brenda Onions who told him. She saw me and Sam together at the pictures a couple of weeks ago. I knew she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.

  At first I’d wanted to tell Father about Sam because I knew how angry it would make him. He hates everyone, Father, and any difference between him and another person gives him an excuse. Having different coloured skin from his own is blatant provocation in his view.

  He turns to me, quiet.

  ‘Tell me that’s not true.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Tell me it’s not true.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I won’t tell you anything. It’s none of your business.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said it’s none of your damn business.’

  ‘Gloria!’ said Mum.

  ‘That’s no way to talk to your father, Gloria.’ It’s Vinnie. Bloody Vinnie, looking all pleased with himself. He’s goading me. I try to stay calm. I concentrate on eating. I chew my meat, chew it and chew it, but it seems to be growing in my mouth. ‘You want to take her in hand, Des. You’re too soft on her.’

  ‘What would you know about it?’ I snap. ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘You really shouldn’t talk to me like that, Gloria.’ Vinnie’s smiling but his voice isn’t. ‘Of course it’s my business. You’re family. I’ve got your best interests at heart, you know. And anyway, your . . . behaviour, it reflects badly on Gwen. And I can’t have that. I’d like you to apologize, please.’

  I can’t swallow the meat without gagging. Panicking I reach out for my glass of water and knock over the gravy boat. Dark reddish brown spreads across the white tablecloth.

  Mum jumps up.

  ‘Oh dear.’ She laughs nervously, ‘Not to worry, Gloria, I’ll get a cloth.’

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ I say, out of the door before anyone can stop me.

  In the kitchen I lean against the wall, gulping in air as though I’ve come up from underwater.

  ‘You get back in here, Gloria!’

  It’s Father.

  My eyes fix on the picture of Jesus hanging on the wall next to the sink, his Sacred Heart so red and hot and fiery that it has burst right out of his chest. I always hated that picture as a child; it seemed grotesque. But now I press my hand against my own heart, feel it beating and beating, and inside me I feel the red heat of it.

  I look at Jesus, at his eyes, so sad and still and calm. And all the while his heart is on fire.

  ‘Help me,’ I mutter to him and I squeeze my eyes shut.

  ‘GLORIA!’

  It’s Father again.

  I take a cloth, run it under the cold tap, splash a little of the water onto my face. The ghost of my reflection looks back at me from the window above the sink. Beyond it, out in the garden, the sun is still shining.

  I clench my teeth and brush away the tears that are on my cheeks.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whisper to Jesus as I open the back door. I haven’t believed in him since I was seven, but I still can’t help feeling it’s partly my fault he looks so sad. ‘Sorry,’ I whisper to Mum too, although I know she can’t hear me.

  I step out into the warmth and the light.

  ‘Gloria!’

  ‘I am going to see him. You can’t stop me.’

  ‘Really? We’ll see about that,’ Vinnie says.

  But I’m already running out of the back gate.

  I wake in the middle of the night, from a dream where Ollie and I had been standing on a balcony outside a house that was ours but wasn’t. It was by the sea and as we stood there the sea kept rising higher and higher. ‘It’ll reach us in a minute,’ a boy who was Ollie but also wasn’t him was saying, and I’d said, ‘Hold my hand tight,’ but his hand was wet and kept slipping from mine, and I’d shouted at him and he’d started to cry, not because he was scared of the sea but because I was angry, and then he’d disappeared under the water . . .

  I stare blindly into the dark, completely unable to remember where I am. I can feel it’s not home, the wall isn’t where it should be next to my bed, and I have a moment of sheer panic as my mind gropes for where I am and why. Then it comes to me: the bed and breakfast. Cambridge. Gloria is in the adjoining room.

  I have a sudden understanding of what it must be like for her. That’s what dementia must be like. I feel the hollow fear that must be with Gloria all the time. It must be terrifying, the reality of it and the fear of it getting worse, of it getting more frequent, until that’s all there is . . .

  My heart is still pounding from the dream, but at least it wasn’t about driving or pancakes. I lie there trying to fall asleep again but I can’t switch my brain off. There’s too much to think about. Eventually I give in and get up to go to the shared bathroom down the corridor. As I go past Gloria’s room I hear movement and I notice th
at there’s light shining through the gap at the bottom of the door.

  I hesitate, unsure whether to knock. What if Gloria doesn’t recognize me? The last thing I want to do is give her a fright in the middle of the night. And she had made it very clear last night that she didn’t want me fussing. ‘Will you be all right?’ I’d said, remembering the bit in my book that said people with dementia can find it difficult to be in new surroundings. ‘Well, I’ve managed to struggle on without your help for the last seventy-two years,’ she said. ‘I dare say I’ll survive another night, don’t you think?’

  But what if she’s ill or needs help? I knock gently on the door.

  ‘Gloria,’ I call softly. ‘Are you awake?’

  There’s a pause, then footsteps. The door opens a crack. Gloria’s face behind it looks tired, and older without her make-up.

  ‘What is it?’ she says.

  I pause, not sure whether she knows who I am, and unsure how to ask without annoying her.

  ‘I know who you are, Hattie,’ she says. ‘If at any point I don’t recognize you I’ll say, okay, so we can avoid this ridiculous charade every time we see each other.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, even though I don’t believe for a moment that she would admit it if she didn’t recognize me. She’s too proud. And too clever. She’d talk to me until she worked it out. But I’m not going to argue about it. ‘I saw your light was on,’ I say. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Too much to think about.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Me too.’

  She hesitates. ‘Do you want to come in?’

  It’s not just the lack of make-up that makes her face look different. She’s less guarded somehow. Funny how the small hours of the morning have that effect.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I say.

  I go in and sit on the bed. The room is lamplit and Gloria has obviously been sitting at the desk writing in her notebook.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I just can’t sleep. Usually when I wake up in the middle of the night I’m terrified. It’s easy to pretend you’re not scared during the day. But in the middle of the night somehow that rational-sounding voice that tells you everything’s going to be okay seems to stay asleep.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know.’

  ‘But tonight it hasn’t been like that. I woke up with my head full of memories.’

  ‘Happy memories? Or sad ones?’

  ‘Both,’ she replies. ‘I was remembering Sam.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I say.

  As we walk down the street we see a couple wrestling a pram up some steps into one of the houses.

  ‘Maybe that’ll be us one day,’ Sam says. ‘What will we call them?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Our children, of course!’

  ‘Who said anything about children?’ I say, laughing. ‘No thanks! I want to travel. I want to be a famous actress or go to university or . . . something.’

  He laughs. ‘Well, you can do all that. And then we’ll have our children. And we’ll call them . . . Danny, that’s a good name. And I always thought Vivienne for a girl. What do you say? Danny and Vivienne?’

  I stare at him, unsure whether he’s serious.

  ‘I’ll be a great dad. I will. I’ll change nappies and everything. I’ll teach them how to play guitar. I’m good with kids. I’ve spent enough time looking after the little ones at home. I tell you what, I’ll stay at home with Danny and Vivienne and you can go out and be a famous actress-professor-explorer. Okay?’

  I laugh. ‘You’re not right in the head,’ I say.

  I look at the house, with its window boxes and its lamps lit inside and the couple smiling, besotted with their baby. The thought of it has always horrified me. Gwen’s the one for settling down and having babies. The thought of domesticity and responsibility, it’s always made me panic. It’s not what I want. I’ve never wanted it. I want to run as far away from it as I can. But maybe I could one day. Maybe. Sam makes anything seem possible. Or maybe it’s not Sam. Maybe that’s what love does.

  ‘Family doesn’t have to be a bad thing,’ he says, seriously now, putting his hand up to my face. ‘It doesn’t have to make you sad. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  Sometimes he seems to understand what I’m feeling better than I understand it myself.

  I look at him, and I can’t think of anything to say, so I just kiss him.

  ‘Filthy nigger!’

  I spin round to see a kid going past on his bike. He spits at me.

  ‘Filthy nigger’s whore.’

  ‘Hey!’ I shout after him. ‘You come back here, you little bastard, I’ll kill you—’

  Sam puts his arm round me and turns me back to him.

  ‘It’s just a kid,’ he says. ‘He’s just some little kid who doesn’t know any better.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it all right,’ I say, fighting to hold back tears.

  ‘No,’ he says and although his voice is calm there’s an intensity behind it that I haven’t seen before. ‘I know it’s not all right. I’m used to this; I get it all the time. And not just from kids.’

  I know he’s right. I’m used to the looks he gets when we’re out together, the looks I get for being with him, too. Sometimes it’s just curiosity, people gawping like idiots. What d’you think you’re looking at? I’d snapped at a woman on the bus last week. Sometimes people mutter things that I’m glad I can’t hear. But I’ve never seen such outright hostility.

  ‘Aren’t you ever afraid?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I know all about being afraid,’ he says, looking me in the eye. ‘My brother Jimmy was in Notting Hill when the riots broke out. He was attacked by teddy boys who told him he should go back to his own country. They cut him with razor blades. He’s still got the scars. They kicked him and punched him till they thought he was dead. We didn’t even recognize him when we went to see him in hospital.’

  I want to say something but I can’t.

  ‘The worst thing was my dad’s face when he saw Jimmy. Dad fought for this country in the war, just like yours did. He thought we’d be welcomed with open arms by the mother country. He thought we’d be treated like heroes. And instead, there he was looking at his son, nearly dead in a hospital bed. He just couldn’t understand why.’

  ‘Why aren’t you angry?’ I say. ‘How can you talk about it so calmly?’

  ‘Oh, I’m angry all right,’ he says. ‘Don’t ever think I’m not angry. But there are good people too, people who have welcomed my family, helped us, treated us no differently from anyone else. And some of the people who do treat us differently, I know they’re just scared. They can’t understand we’re just people, same as them.’

  ‘That’s no excuse,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ Sam says. ‘It’s not. But I can’t let those people change me. If I let my anger take over, if I fight fire with fire, I’ll become someone else. I’ll have let them stop me being the person I am. The way to fight is to prove them wrong.’

  ‘But don’t you worry about your family? Aren’t you frightened of what might happen to you if you’re out one night and you run into the wrong people?’

  As I say the words, I realize that I’m frightened for him. More frightened for him than for myself. I’ve never felt like that about anyone before. If anything happened to him . . .

  ‘Of course,’ he says.

  ‘I’ve never admitted that I’m afraid of anything,’ I say. ‘Not to anyone. Not to Mum or Gwen.’

  He holds my face in his hands. ‘People think being brave means not being scared of anything. But that’s wrong, Gloria. How can you be brave if you’re not scared? Feeling afraid and not letting it stop you. That’s really being brave.’

  It’s right then, in that moment standing in the street in Cambridge with the horrible boy cycling off down the road, that I realize I love Sam.

  ‘It’s amazing to think people were so hostile,’ I say. ‘So openly racist. Thank God things h
ave changed.’

  Gloria looks at me and raises an eyebrow. ‘Really?’ she says. ‘Everyone’s welcomed with open arms now, are they?’

  She’s got a point.

  ‘He sounds pretty amazing, your Sam,’ I say. ‘How come things didn’t work out with you two?’

  She ignores me. ‘Tell me more about whatsisname.’ She flicks through the notebook. ‘Reuben.’

  I sigh. I don’t really want to. Thinking about him just reminds me of my conversation with Kat earlier and the fact that the clock is ticking down way faster than I’d thought.

  But fair’s fair. Gloria has told me about Sam, so I tell her about Reuben.

  Reuben and I became friends for two reasons. First, because within an impressively short time he’d managed to alienate, sleep with, split up with, insult (either intentionally or by omission), start a fight with or otherwise piss off pretty much everyone else in our year or their best friend/boyfriend/girlfriend. Most of the boys hated him because most of the girls fancied him, and because he swaggered about the place like he owned it from the first day he arrived, paying no attention to all those long-established hierarchies that everyone else just accepted. Reuben didn’t care about in-crowds or geeks or bullies or being bullied. It would have been refreshing if he hadn’t managed to unite all these groups in universal dislike of him.

  Of course, not everyone hated him. The ones who didn’t adored him. He had a little cluster of acolytes and admirers around him most of the time, an odd assortment of fellow rebels, outcasts, misfits whether by choice or misfortune, and just those who felt they needed a bit more excitement and glamour in their lives. The exact members of his crowd changed regularly, but they were mainly clever, thin girls from the year above us with a lot of black eyeliner and dyed hair. Hard kids who liked trouble and disruption and recognized that Reuben was trouble and disruption made flesh.

  There’s a power in not appearing to care what anyone thinks of you. Not many people can pull it off. Reuben did it with style. He seemed not to even notice he was doing it. And of course, the fact that he was tall and had long dark eyelashes and cheekbones so sharp they were almost painful to look at and a general air that teetered (in my mind anyway) somewhere between rock star and Lord Byron probably helped.