by Louise Voss
I recognized Cynthia’s writing on the envelope and immediately got a tense, choked-up feeling in my throat. It was so nice of her to think of me, but I almost resented hearing from her simply because she wasn’t Sam. We’d kept in touch since Sam died, but had only seen each other once. I’d called on her and we’d sat in her homely front room, knowing that underneath our feet was Sam’s abandoned basement flat, both of us wishing we could be down there having tea with Sam instead. And the worst thing of all was that Sam’s name never once came into the conversation. We both knew she was the reason we were sitting there together over the syrupy flapjacks and the Earl Grey, and I’m sure we were both aching to talk about her, to get into one of those “Do you remember when Sam …?” conversations, but we didn’t. I assumed we were both afraid of upsetting the other, and we avoided the subject of our loss studiously, as if the mention of her name would have incurred some embarrassing forfeit.
“Who’s it from?” asked Mum.
“Cynthia,” I replied dully. “She says she might come and visit.”
“Oh well, if she’s not too busy, I guess that would be nice for you,” Mum ventured, looking disapprovingly at a postcard David and Joe from the band had sent me. It was a cartoon depicting two doctors examining a man with a camera jammed up his bottom, under the caption: “Yes, Doctor, it’s one of the worst cases of media intrusion I’ve ever seen.” On the back they’d written: “Get Well Soon, little Sis. Wish we could be there for you, but we’re just about to start a Bowie tour—well, it pays the bills. Can we come stay with you next time we’re in the U.K.? Love you lots, D&J.”
Mum propped the cards back up on the window ledge with the dozens of others, moving the offensive “camera-up-bottom” one to the back. There was so little space left up there that she had to slot Toby’s card inside another one, which irritated me. What was the point of bothering to put it on display if no one could see it? All those supposed well-wishers clogging up my windowsill with cheap sentiment, because they couldn’t be bothered to actually visit me in person. (Well, except for my production team, but I didn’t think that them shuffling in for ten minutes really counted.)
I made her move the daisy card back into my line of vision.
“No, it won’t be nice,” I said. “She’ll just sit here and torture me by looking and sounding exactly like Sam, and we won’t even be able to talk about her. I hope she doesn’t come. In fact, I’m glad I’m not getting any visitors. I look like a freak. My life is over. I wish everybody would just go away.”
Mum took my hand but I shook her off and looked away. I didn’t want her sympathy.
“I heard the nurse mention that Toby was asking after you again,” she said casually. “Is that the Toby who sent that card? ”
I ignored her and opened my notebook. I’d started writing about my blissful childhood, when Sam and I were first friends, and it had become almost an obsession. It was the one thing that kept me sane, and kept the black dog of my depression in his kennel.
“Who’s Toby, Helena dear?” Mum’s hopeful tone made my skin crawl with irritation.
“Nobody, Mum. He’s just a journalist trying to get a story on me. He says his wife’s in Intensive Care, but …”
But what? Of course, I knew deep down that Toby’s wife really was in a coma somewhere down the corridor. Nobody could be calculating and callous enough to invent a story like that. Not to mention the child. Me kith Mummy better echoed in my head, and I suddenly felt a deep and long-overdue wash of shame. Did I really think he’d put Ruby up to that? I remembered Toby quite clearly now, from our one meeting all those years ago. The thing that had most impressed me about him, apart from his disarming smile, was his obvious openness and honesty. I’d really fancied him.
“Well, the flowers he sent you are pretty. And why would he be bothering to write a story on you if his wife is that sick, for pity’s sake? I think you’re being rather overdramatic, and unfair on the poor man. He’s got plenty enough on his plate without you slandering him.”
Mum sounded quite cross. I realized she’d probably already gleaned the sad tale of my meeting with Toby from Catriona the nurse and was just fishing to get my point of view. For once I didn’t jump down her throat and defend myself. I just nodded miserably.
“Have you even thanked him for the flowers? ”
“No,” I whispered, feeling about six years old and in disgrace.
Mum tutted and rose to leave, tucking the stiff tortoiseshell handles of her handbag firmly over her forearm. She was clearly enjoying exercising a different emotion with me, not one pulled from the tired old selection grab bag of Pity, Sympathy, Patience, and Understanding, all much overused since my accident. No, today we had Displeasure, and boy, it was a refreshing change for her.
“Well, honey, I’ll leave you to your … memoirs,” she said disapprovingly. “I need to get back and ring your father. Heaven knows how he’s coping over there on his own. I expect the house has gone even more to rack and ruin. He told me last week that he put dishwasher salt into the salt cellar—and he expected me to be pleased with him for using his initiative! Honestly, he is the limit.”
She kissed the top of my head and tried to get a sneaky peek at the writing on my pad. Preempting her, I turned it upside down on my lap so the words weren’t visible. Mum was torn between being pleased that I was doing something creative to keep myself occupied, and being absolutely paranoid that she’d been cast in my “memoirs” as Mommie Dearest. We didn’t exactly have a very close mother-daughter relationship—not that it was bad, just very distant, in all senses of the word.
After Mum finally left, I tried to get down to work. But being in hospital was not dissimilar to being on a promo tour, waiting ages for room service while an endless succession of people wanted things from you, and I found myself constantly interrupted. There was an orderly asking me to check off what I wanted for dinner from the menu list (although why bother, I thought—it all tastes the same when it’s pureed); a nurse wanting to change my dressings; the doctor checking on my skin graft; Rosemary the tea lady; and finally, when my patience was about to snap, my mobile phone rang.
Sighing, I put down the notepad and wriggled laboriously across the mattress toward my locker, to reach the illicitly switched-on phone. Wriggling gradually was less painful than the direct lean-over.
“Yes?” I snapped, holding the phone out of habit to my damaged left ear and wondering why I couldn’t hear anything.
“Who is it?”
Through my right ear and over the top of my head I could hear a faint guinea-pig squeak from the receiver, which alerted me to the problem. I transferred the phone to the other side, and the guinea pig turned itself into Justin.
“Oh. It’s you,” I said unenthusiastically. I was still deeply hurt that he hadn’t called or visited.
“H, Jesus, I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe what’s happened to you. I came in the ambulance with you, you know. It was a nightmare—paps everywhere, people screaming. I’ll never forget the sight of you lying there on the floor with blood coming out of—”
“If you don’t mind, Jus, I’d rather not know, thanks,” I interrupted stiffly. It was too humiliating even to contemplate.
“Listen, baby, I’m totally cut up that I haven’t been able to visit you since, you know, but I’ve been doing PAs and a couple of TVs in South America. I told you I was flying out the day after the UKMAs, didn’t I?”
First I’d heard of it. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt—after all, my memory of that night was probably not all that it should have been.
“So why didn’t you call me, then?”
There was a brief pause.
“Man, H, I didn’t think you’d wanna hear from me. It was all my fault. You wouldn’t believe how shitty I feel about it.”
He really did sound sincere, and I felt for him.
“Oh, Justin, please. Of course it wasn’t your fault—it was my idea, wasn’t it? I talked you into it. Don�
�t give yourself a hard time. To be honest, I’m more gutted that you haven’t been in touch.”
“Do you mean that?” I could hear the relief in his voice.
“Of course, you moron.”
“So how are you now, then? ”
“Still in hospital, but better now that I’ve had my teeth capped, thanks. I broke both the front ones in different directions and it made me sound like Daffy Duck. And I expect you heard I lost my eye. I’m still deaf in one ear, I’ve got skin grafts on my face, a ton of stitches, and a broken nose. Oh, and a concussion, obviously.” I couldn’t face the prospect of more ham-fisted commiserations, so I plowed on. “But that’s almost better, and hopefully I’ll be going home next week. So when are you next in London?”
“Not for a while now. I’ll be doing a bunch of promos in the U.S. for the next two months, and then I’m out on tour. Why don’t you fly over for a visit soon? ”
“I don’t think I’m up to flying. Besides, I’ve got … stuff to do here.”
“Oh, right, of course. I forgot you’re the top DJ now. Well, duty calls. I’m sure London’s hepcats can’t stand to have their morning coffee and muffins without your sexy voice telling them what’s what.”
I didn’t have the stomach to tell him I’d lost my job. “We don’t eat muffins for breakfast here.”
“Eggs and bacon, then. Whatever. Listen, babes, I have to run. I’ve got a photo shoot for some Brazilian mag in twenty minutes. Did you get my flowers? ”
“Yeah, thanks, Jus. They were lovely. Take care, okay? And don’t feel guilty about anything.”
“Okay, love you, honey. Get well soon,” said Justin, hanging up happily. I knew that I’d be forgotten again in an instant—being Justin Becker was a full-time job, one that didn’t leave room for unproductive emotions like guilt and remorse. But that said, he was, like the other two former band members, a good mate and a warm-hearted person, once you scratched beneath the vinyl of the pop star. I was glad that we had at least talked before I got to implement the Plan.
Funny how his career hadn’t been harmed by allegations of drugs, though.
Justin’s suggestion of a visit to the States gave me an idea. I dialed the number of my agent, Ron, and listened to a lengthy answering machine recording inform me that the offices of Pickett Management Services were currently closed, and if I left a message, they’d get back to me pronto.
“Ron, it’s Helena. Thanks for the card. I’m still in hospital, but I’m on the mend. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to go and stay with my folks in New Jersey for a few months, until all the fuss dies down. Geoff Hadleigh’s fired me, but I feel like a break from work, anyhow. So please could you keep all my mail and any messages for me until I get back? I don’t know exactly when that’ll be, but I’ll call you. The main thing is to please not tell anyone where I am—just say that I’m away. Thanks. Bye.”
That should keep the press off my back, I thought.
Sandie Shaw
(GET YOUR KICKS ON) ROUTE 66
A FEW MONTHS AFTER SAM AND I FIRST MET, I SAW MY FIRST snowstorm. I’d woken up and opened my bedroom curtains to be startled by huge, fat, whirling flakes, bouncing off the glass and bumbling silently down to land on the place where the garden path used to be. And it wasn’t just the garden path—everything had been swallowed up: houses, trees, our street, and even, oh no, the spire of Salisbury Cathedral! I ran along the landing in a panic to tell my parents, but as was often the case, their bedroom door was forbiddingly closed.
“Mummy, Daddy, it’s snowing, and the spire’s gone! Let me in!”
There was a long pause. I rattled the door handle and it opened a fraction and then stopped, which meant that they had flicked across the catch. I caught a glimpse of its skinny upside-down beckoning finger on the other side of the door. A finger whose sole job it was to tell me to go away.
“Pleeease can I come in? I’m scared!”
Then my mother’s voice, blanket-heavy and slow, like the snow. The voice she used before she put her makeup on.
“Don’t be silly, Helena, the spire hasn’t gone. You just can’t see it because of the snow. Be a good girl and get yourself some cereal, would you? Put it in your Peter Rabbit bowl, and mind you don’t spill the milk. We’ll be down soon.”
“But why can’t I come in? ”
This time Dad spoke. “Your mother’s terribly tired, Helena. Please just do as she asks and go and have breakfast.”
I leaned my head on the door with frustration.
“I hate it when you lock the door!” I said, and stomped down the stairs, slapping each banister as I went.
After breakfast, once I’d had a bit of time to get used to the dizzying blur outside the window, I went to stand in the living room to get a better view. I traced the flakes’ descent with my finger down the windowpane until my fingertips became numb with cold. I could see my breath and it made me shiver.
I had dressed myself in my favorite cardigan, fuzzy yellow wool. It made me feel like an Easter chick, but even this didn’t keep out the cold from the window. The fur of my sleeves stood upright like hairs on gooseflesh, and I felt like the cardie was colder than I was. So I took two steps back into the warmer center of the room to warm us both up.
Eventually the snow-intensified silence became too oppressive, so I gave in to the forbidden game of switching on the big wooden radiogram on the low shelf. One of my favorite things to do was to twiddle the radio’s tuning knob and see the green fluorescent needle rush from left to right across the dial, past all the numbers and dots and markings. The language I could make it speak was fascinating; I imagined a country where everyone talked in those strange jumpy fragments of sentences, interspersed with blasts of jazz trumpet, organ, or soprano, and the scratchy hiss and fuzz of static fading in and out, linking words. Perhaps I was even tuning in to God’s language.
That day, however, I got a song straight away, a song I recognized because my dad had bought the LP just a few months ago. It was Shelley Beach, my favorite singer! It was a bouncy, jolly sort of song about—well, actually I wasn’t quite sure what it was about. Getting your kicks on root 66. I remembered last year’s church fete, where the table with the prize-winning vegetables and things had all had numbers on them. Perhaps it was like one of those sideshows where you queued up to throw wet sponges at people who couldn’t move, only this was queuing up to kick large vegetables. Which seemed a strange choice of subject for a song. They were usually about kissing and stuff.
I liked Shelley a lot. I imagined she was right there in the room with me, ready to come outside and help Sam and me build a snowman, although she’d need to wrap up a bit warmer. On Dad’s record, I remembered her wearing little more than a gold bikini and a crown.
“That was a smashing number for you,” said a man when the song finished, “the very lovely Sandie Shaw singing ‘(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,’ a song from her last record, The Sandie Shaw Supplement.”
Through the floor of the bedroom above my head, I heard the muffled thump of a parent getting out of bed, and hastily turned off the radio. Sandie Shaw? I thought. No, he must have got it wrong. That’s Shelley Beach.
Dad used to listen to that record all the time, although come to think of it, I hadn’t heard it recently. Not since the night that Mum went a bit wirey-lipped and accused Dad of fancying Shelley Beach. I had a quick flick through the records in the LP box, a thick, square green box with a flip-up top, which smelled of dusty paper and sweet vinyl, and sure enough, The Sandie Shaw Supplement was missing.
So was her name really Sandie Shaw? I preferred Shelley Beach; I thought it suited her image better. The picture had shown her lolling on a chilly-looking beach. Maybe that was why I’d misremembered her name.
All was quiet, above and below. The snow against the window seemed to press the silence further into the house. The only sound in the room was a clock, ticking robustly on the mantelpiece above the square brick fireplace. Even though I couldn
’t tell the time properly, I liked to watch the gleaming hands trace their slow path.
I soon got bored. There were none of my toys in there, it was too cold to be by the window, and it was no fun to watch the snow if you couldn’t feel its chill. I wondered if it was worth the risk of getting shouted at by going upstairs again. Really, even by their standards, my parents had been up there for ages.
I decided to give it a few more minutes. I noticed that yellow fluff had got onto my tartan kilt and tried to pick it off, frowning with concentration as my small hands grappled with the microscopic fibers. There was too much, so I gave up and stared at my shoes. They felt like part of my body, as if I had shoes instead of feet—actually, they looked similar to my legs: sturdy, scratched, and reddish-brown with mottled white patches. Like my cardigan and myself, my shoes were also cold.
Finally, eventually, I heard my mother tread heavily downstairs in her fluffy mules.
“Mummy!” I cried, running out to meet her and trying to leap into her arms as she stepped off the bottom stair. But her arms stayed by her sides, and she didn’t even try to catch me. She was wearing her quilted nylon dressing gown, a garment so shiny that I slipped right down her, landing painfully hard on her foot.
“Ow! Goodness, Helena, must you be so boisterous? You’re far too big and heavy for me to carry you these days! Have you had breakfast?”
She opened the front door to take the milk bottles off the step, and a flurry of snow whirled into the hallway, making everything even colder, as if the Ice Queen herself had driven the milk float that morning.
I squeaked and ran into the kitchen. “Don’t let it in! Don’t let it in!”
Mum followed me, limping slightly, and put the milk bottles on the kitchen counter.
“I asked you a question, dear. Have you had breakfast or not? ”
I nodded, still dancing around her as if my surfeit of energy could help boost her lack of it.
“And look, Mummy, I got dressed all by myself, too, shoes and everything.”
