The Secrets We Keep

by Jonathan Harvey

  It still feels too soon. But I have to know. So I check the number again. I say it aloud and then quickly dial it.

  I hear it ring. Then a woman answers.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello. I’m calling about the advert in the post office window?’

  ‘Oh right.’ She sounds surprised. ‘God, I’ve only just put it up.’

  ‘Oh, really? God, I didn’t know that.’

  No, I don’t suppose I would have done.

  ‘So are you a cleaner?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’ I lie.

  ‘And what’s your hourly rate?’

  ‘Ten.’ I plucked that from the air.

  ‘And how are you with dogs?’

  ‘Love dogs,’ I lie. Well, it’s not a lie. I like dogs, but . . .

  ‘Well. Maybe you should come round and meet Snowy, and we can take it from there.’

  ‘Great. Where are you based? I’m assuming somewhere in Chorlton?’

  ‘Yeah, Mayville Road, number twelve. What’s your name, by the way?’

  ‘Josie.’

  I have no idea where that came from.

  ‘Josie Greengrass. And yours is?’

  ‘Miriam. Miriam Joseph.’

  ‘Great.’

  We make an appointment for the next day. I then drive round the corner, park outside the post office and head in. I pretend to look at a display of padded envelopes in front of the window. Then, when the shopkeeper isn’t looking, I lean in and slide Miriam’s advert out of the display frame. I crumple it up and slide it into my pocket.

  Poor Miriam. Just one person applying for the job.

  You really can not get the staff these days.

  I appear to have driven home on autopilot, as when I pull up outside the house I don’t recall many details of the journey. But I am here in one piece, and the car is too. I hurry inside and make myself a cup of tea. I look around to see if there is a ‘while you were out’ card from Lucy’s delivery people. There isn’t. I hope to God they’ve not left it with a neighbour. I’m not relishing the prospect of venturing to see any of them again. Even the weird quiet one whose breasts were leaking. Says a lot that she seemed the most normal, yet appeared to be tranquillized up to the eyebrows.

  I get my iPad and do something I should have done this morning before my knee-jerk trip to South Manchester: I Google the name Miriam Joseph. I’m not sure what I’m going to find here – not everyone has an existence online, but maybe she’s a famous . . . dog groomer, or . . . hand-writer of signs, I don’t know, but maybe she’s achieved something in her life that has merited a few mentions on some website or other.

  Turns out not. There’s one Miriam Joseph, who was in fact Sister Miriam Joseph and a bit of a nun who’d written some books about the trivium. I have to then Google the word trivium and discover what it means. My first click tells me it’s an American heavy metal band from Orlando, which is an odd thing for a nun to be writing about, and then a further click reveals it’s a term from medieval universities, concerning grammar, logic and rhetoric. I stop myself Googling those words, as I kind of know what they mean, and find myself thinking about Lucy. Her Dylan works at the university, and is writing a paper about something. I don’t even know what. I know possibly more about Sister Miriam Joseph than I do him right now. I click the screen back a few times and find there’s another Miriam Joseph who’s a Hollywood film producer, known it says for the movies Don, Rock On and Don 2. I have heard of none of them. Now whereas I would be more than happy to think that a ‘top’ movie bod could live in a suburban street of red-bricked houses in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, I don’t really believe it in my waters.

  Miriam Joseph, my Miriam Joseph, appears to have done very little with her life.

  Lazy thing, I think. Then catch myself on. I don’t know her. I don’t know her connection with Danny, beyond collecting a suitcase on his behalf. This could be perfectly innocent.

  Poor Miriam, I think instead, doing so little with her life.

  A bit like me.

  Yeah, but has she run a few nightclubs? Made enough dosh from them so that she doesn’t have to work again?

  I’m being bitchy and showy-offy again, and I don’t like it.

  I’m saved by the bell.

  I head to the front door, wondering who it might be. I see the shape of a man through the mottled glass of the porch door. And when I open it, I get a very pleasant surprise.

  Cally

  Just for the record. And I’m only going to say this once but. My mum is a Class A Disappointment to womankind and all who sail in her.

  She’s late home from God knows where, she expects me to help her with the tea, and then to top it all, just before I’m going to bed she’s like, Oh God, I completely forgot. Aba called.

  Wh-a-t?

  ‘Sorry, love. I’ve had my mind on a million other things.’

  Like. Seriously?

  You . . . FORGOT?

  Hmmmmm.

  At first I let my DEEP IRRITATION that she had omitado’d (Spanish) to tell me till the witching hour go, because of course I was totes excited to hear that lovely gorgeous BFF Aba has been touch. But then I couldn’t help but get SO ANGRY with her as she wittered on. And if there were an Olympics for wittering my mother would scoop gold, silver and fucking bronze.

  What is completely amazing is that Aba thinks my pictures rock and so do loads of amazing modelly-type influential dudes in London who could really take me places. I didn’t want to tempt fate when we went to London coz like you just never know what will happen and of course I had Mum in tow, which is like having a massive air raid siren going off non-stop predicting oncoming multiple deaths and gloom, so she’d been saying don’t get your hopes up like a fucking MANTRA like she is a Buddhist or something. But I really enjoyed posing for the pictures and when Aba showed us the pics on her laptop I didn’t recognize myself and stuff. The girl in the pictures looked really beautiful. Well, she looked really interesting. It was quite a shock, if you must know.

  So. Upshot is Aba – who is one of the nicest most genuine people on the planet and has amazing jewellery and shoes and smells like a flower garden in somewhere amazing like Monaco – also she is black, and I don’t mean any kind of black, she really IS black, like REALLY black which is SO COOL – wants me to go and stay in London for a week or something and meet some amazing life-changing people so I can have a career in modelling.

  And what does Mum want?

  The best for her daughter?

  Oh no. Remember, this is Mum we’re talking about here.

  GET THIS, MOFOS.

  She wants to say no to Aba, which let’s be honest is really unspeakably rude, and tell Aba I have to wait till I’ve done my exams next summer.

  Yes, you heard it right and you heard it here first. Bitch be wantin fe me to say da NO NO. (Patois, babes.)

  I mean, seriously. Why take me out of school for the day and treat it like a big exciting adventure if you weren’t serious about it in the first place? Er, hello?! Cally calling Sense? Common Sense? Do you hear me?

  I can’t even talk to her. How do you communicate with a one hundred per cent numbskull? God. Keesha Lomax’s cousin Patsy is cleverer than Mum, and she goes to school on a special bus. Swear down.

  I remained a lady at all times. My tiny glimpse into the modelling world and the girls who work at L’Agence showed me they are all super-cool ice maidens who glide about with their heads in the air like nothing ever gets to them, nothing ever pisses them off, so I tried to do this for as long as I could.

  Apart from that bloke snorting gak in the bogs. He was a bit weird.

  But everyone else was cool.

  And actually, cokey bog bloke was kinda reaaaaally cool and stuff?

  But like, the girls. They were so aloof and seemed to walk on clouds. So I channelled my inner them.

  Oh, don’t get me wrong. I did scream at her for about twenty minutes, saying she was ruining my life. Think I might have accused her of killing D
ad as well. But mostly it was the usual stuff about how controlling she is and doesn’t love me and is thwarting every single thing I choose to do. And what’s really bloody annoying is she just stands there, arms folded, staring at me and not REACTING. Like she is an ice queen who works in one of the top London agencies, etc. etc. etc. Yeah right, as if they’d employ her.

  She’s actually an amoeba.

  When I had stopped my pretty amazing speech about the injustices in the world like having had to crawl out of her stinky womb and make my own way in the cosmos with zero help from her, she had the audacity to say, ‘Have you quite finished throwing your toys out the pram?’

  You know what? Every time she says that to me I reeeaaallly want to get a pram full of toys. Toys with really jagged edges. AND THROW THEM RIGHT AT HER. SQUARE IN THE CHOPS. GOD!

  ‘I’m going,’ I go.

  ‘You’re not,’ she goes.

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘I’d like to see you try. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve had a busy day and I need my bed. And just for the record, I didn’t kill your dad. And it’s pretty bloody hurtful when you say I did.’

  And then she does this massive queenie strop flounce up the stairs which was SO FUNNY I had to grab hold of the banisters I was peeing my pants that much. I hear her bedroom door slam. She should do stand-up. She’s like Jo Brand or something.

  I shouldn’t have said that. About Dad. But sometimes I feel I have to say something, anything to get her to actually talk about him. Like, when he first went missing, we’d have these things called Dad nights when me and her would curl up on the sofa and watch DVDs of things he liked – Trigger Happy TV, Bottom, Red Dwarf – and eat Mexican food (his favourite) and look through the box of old photos and just talk about him. These days it’s as if he never even existed. I’ve been in her bedroom. At the old house she used to have some photos of him up. Here? None. She has airbrushed him out of history. And yes, OK, she hasn’t killed him, but she has DEFO killed his memory. And maybe in a way that’s worse. And now I’m bloody CRYING. And I HATE IT when this happens. From nowhere. Bloody great big tears for NO APPARENT REASON. I am such a DUFUS.

  Actually I don’t really know what a dufus is or does. Maybe it’s the name of Rufus De Villeneuve’s brother or something.

  To cheer myself up I sit on the bottom stair and look at the picture of me and Rufus that Owen took at Clothes Show Live. It’s a horrendous shot of me, but what’s really cool about it is that Rufus put his like arm around me and it looks a bit like he’s indulging in a spot of boob gropage. The pic was greeted with shouts of PAEDO and stuff when I tweeted it and stuck it on Facebook. So much so that Owen said I should take it down as Rufus might catch wind of it and then sue me because apparently if it’s on my wall it’s like I’ve written it in the Times of London or something and that’s a no-go and stuff. Which I did. But it’s a shame coz we totally look like boyfriend and girlfriend.

  But today it doesn’t cheer me up. I’m seriously crying here. What a day I’ve had. It’s been MAJOR. I had to lie to Freya Copeland that her new dip-dye was a huge success which really took it out of me because, even though I love her to bits (not in a lesbo way) she is soooooo needy and kept going on and on about it all day long. I tried to choreograph some Year Sevens in the playground who have decided that Pharrell is STILL a thing. I had the most pathetic litterpicking detention because I was caught cartwheeling in the modern languages corridor. And then I come home to this? The groundbreaking earth-shattering news that I have an opening in the modelling world. One of the most sought-after openings in like the WORLD. And my mother nearly forgets to tell me? Get me that pram full of toys and let me empty it. I’ve earned the ass out of it.

  In my room I get stuff ready for the next day. We’ve got swimming. I hate swimming. Ever since that day. I was doing swimming with the school when I saw Mum’s friend Lucy coming down the side of the pool and talking to the teacher. Then the teacher looked over at me and tilted her head to beckon me over. In the changing room Lucy told me how Dad’s car had been found at Beachy Head and what Beachy Head implied. And although I collapsed inside and went to pieces and a million things were shooting through my head. And although all I could see in my imagination’s eye was Dad. Facing up. Floating in the water. But below the surface. And although in this image he was actually in the swimming pool I’d just been in and not in the cold, choppy sea. And even though it was a really really hideous image. And even though all I wanted to do was run away, as far from Lucy as possible, and drown myself or scream and scream and scream . . .

  I didn’t.

  I like, looked at her. Sooo calmly.

  Like, you wouldn’t have known anything of what was going on in my head right then.

  And I was like, You dragged me out of swimming to tell me this?

  And she looked like I was biggest piece of shit to have ever fallen from the devil himself’s anus.

  And so she might.

  Coz I then just like walked back out of the changing room and got back into the pool.

  She came and knelt on the side and told me Mum wanted me to go home. Mum needed me. Mum had sent her.

  I just ignored her and carried on with the class.

  Imagine that. Mum wanting me. Needing me.

  Those were the days.

  I don’t speak to her over breakfast the next morning. She is not worthy of my words. And I’m sure she makes my porridge taste like wallpaper on purpose to punish for me for ‘ranting’ last night. I think of something really funny to say but don’t say it coz why should I spoil her with my witticisms? Instead I will spoil my followers and make it a twitticism.

  Maybe the reason I am so skinny is coz you make me shit food Mommie Dearest. #porridgegate

  I wait to see if anyone retweets or favourites it. No-one does.

  And then some girl in Year Ten tweets me:

  I’m sure your mother’s food is fine you anorexic freak horse. #haveapastie

  I don’t know this girl that well but really LOL at her. I do a ‘Quote retweet’ and add the comment LOLZ!

  She replies again.

  I wasn’t joking you stupid walking rake. Enjoy your mid morning snack of bog roll. #eatingdisorder

  Hahahahahahahahahahaha, mid morning snack of bog roll. Now that really is funny. Some people are just totes jel of my slim physique. I’ve every mind to tweet about my modelling news but I don’t want to ruin anything yet. I don’t want to show off about it and then have to own up to the fact that she who passes herself off as my doting mother has actually put a massive great kibosh on it. Nobody knows I even went to London for the day yet, coz loose lips cost lives and I didn’t want anyone telling the teachers, coz as far as they’re concerned it’s fine to miss a day if you’re lying on a couch watching Jeremy Kyle and Loose Women and feeling a bit headachey. But God forbid you go to the capital city and tout yourself as a model who could make millions and like, buy them a new geography block or theatre wing. Oh no. They want us all to have boring jobs like scientists or politicians or teachers or captains of industry. And wear Alice bands and Barbours. Lily Allen went to boarding school and she doesn’t wear that rubbish. At least, she doesn’t in public.

  But anyway. I don’t mind keeping this to myself. Pride comes before a fall. And I don’t intend to fall on this one. Oh no.

  And besides. I have a plan.

  I phone Aba at lunch break. I go right to the other end of the gardens beyond the playground where you sometimes see Mr Meacher having a crafty cig and playing with himself in his nylon trouser pocket. GROSS. Although it was funny that time Jemima Lesser-Beauchamp shouted, ‘Don’t flick your ash on my bush, Mr Meacher!’

  She is so funny. We call her Jemima Lesser-of-two-evils. I came up with that. RANDOM!

  Aba picks up on the second ring. She HEARTS ME.

  ‘Babe!’

  Awwww.

  ‘Aba, has my mum called you this morning?’

  ‘Yeah babe, and I’m completely
gutted.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘I’m a bit upset actually, Cally. It’s not every day I get a feeling about someone, and I got that feeling about you.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Oh, how you’re going to put everything on hold till next summer.’

  ‘Did she?’

  She is officially the biggest bitch in the universe. No wonder Dad buggered off. Todal Respeck to the Mon. *sucks teeth*

  ‘I understand, babe. It’s cool. I did GCSEs too. Not everyone in this business is an airhead.’

  I feel like crying.

  ‘I hate her,’ I say.

  ‘Babe?’

  ‘She’s such a bitch. She knows I want this more than anything in the world and she’s insisting I stay on at school and stuff.’

  ‘I know. All I can say is, well, if you can hold off putting any weight on before the summer and we’ll see what we can do.’

  ‘I could kill her.’

  This actually makes her laugh.

  ‘But until you’re sixteen, what she says goes.’

  Er, wait on one cotton-pickin’ second.

  ‘I am sixteen,’ I say, quietly. Why does Aba not know this? I filled in that form when we met at Clothes Show Live.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I am sixteen.’ I’m more indignant now.

  ‘But your form says you’re not sixteen till next October.’

  ‘No, I was sixteen this October.’

  Her voice TOTALLY changes and it is REALLY exciting.

  ‘Are you being honest with me, Cally?’

  ‘Why would I lie?’

  I hear her ruffling about with pieces of paper.

  ‘Hang on,’ she goes.

  I wait. I’m getting excited now. And I’m not sure why. Eventually Aba is like, ‘Hon, your form looks like your D.O.B. is 9th October 1999.’

  ‘It’s 1998,’ I tell her.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘I was like . . . scribbling when I wrote that. I wasn’t leaning on anything. And my handwriting’s total pants anyway. I am. I’m sixteen.’

  ‘Straight up?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die, Aba. I wouldn’t lie to you. Ever.’