by Louise Voss
I ripped off the necklaces and the gluey green shirt, just catching Mum’s stricken, defeated look as I flounced out of the room.
Sam was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “Come on, Augenbrau, let’s go to my place,” she said sympathetically, putting an arm around my neck as we went through the back gate and toward the Prince of Wales.
Augenbrau was one of our many code names for each other. It was usually accompanied by sweeping a forefinger slowly across one’s eyebrow while looking shiftily from right to left, and could be used in any language, although it sounded best in German. We already knew the word for eyebrow in about six different languages.
Raking a glittery hand across my eyes and sniffing unattractively, I said in a tremulous voice, “Where’s the Hel-Sam box? And how did you hide all the bits of felt and glue and stuff? ”
“It’s all in your room. I swept up most of the glitter with your mum’s hairbrush,” Sam said sheepishly. “As long as she doesn’t want to do her hair until you’ve had a chance to clean the brush a bit, we should be all right.”
I smiled at her, ruefully giving the Sign of the Eyebrow to show my gratitude.
“Thanks. You’re one hell of an eyebrow, girl.”
Arriving at the pub, we cut through the bar. Mr. Grant looked up from wiping beer mugs to give us a cheery wave as we headed up the stairs. Dylan was sitting at the kitchen table when we arrived, leafing through the pages of Shoot! magazine and picking his nose. “What’s the matter with you, then, fatso?” he said to me without looking up.
“Get lost, moron,” I retorted as we passed through the kitchen in search of Mrs. Grant. She was in the living room, ironing shirts and dancing around to the Jackson 5 on the tinny transistor that dangled by its plastic handle from the doorknob. “ ‘Oh no, no no-oo no, never can say good-byeeee,’ ” she warbled to herself. Fascinated, we watched her fluorescent polyester-clad hips shimmying to and fro, until she spotted us in the doorway and wiggled to a halt.
“Oh, hello, girls! What are you up to?” she asked in a cheerful voice. Unlike my own mother, Mrs. Grant always seemed to be in a good mood.
“Helena’s had an argument with her mum because her dad’s taken the bed and she wouldn’t let us do our dance for her and she’s all cross and Thinifer,” gabbled Sam.
“I can’t do anything right. I don’t think Mummy loves me,” I said dramatically, making my eyes tear up again with self-pity.
Mrs. Grant smiled faintly and propped the iron up on its base. She leaned across the ironing board to talk to me, the contours of her breasts puffing out sympathetically across its scorched surface. “Listen, sweetheart. Your mummy loves you very much. I think she just gets tired a lot of the time, doesn’t she? ”
“But why?” I asked. “You don’t.”
She laughed. “Oh, I do. It goes with the territory. Maybe not quite as tired as Mummy, though. Just try and be a good girl for her—I think that’s all you can do, really. She often doesn’t feel well, and it’s very hard to be jolly when you’re poorly, isn’t it?”
“But Mum,” Sam joined in. “Mrs. Nicholls is really scary when she’s cross! Even more scary than the witch in Pufnstuf!”
Mrs. Grant gave her a look, and picked up the iron again to attack a recalcitrant crease in one of Mr. Grant’s sleeves. “Don’t worry about it, Helena, love. Why not do something extra-nice for her later? Make her one of your super cards or something.”
“All right,” I said, feeling fobbed off. “Thank you, Mrs. Grant.”
“Oh, good gracious! How many times have I told you to call me Cynthia?”
Many times, it was true—but I just could never bring myself to call a parent by her Christian name. Somehow it didn’t seem right. I loved that she always asked me to, though. It made me feel very grown-up.
Just then a different song came on the radio. Mrs. Grant immediately turned up the volume. “Listen, girls, it’s the Wichita Lineman!” she said. “I love Glen Campbell!”
Sam rolled her eyes and looked bored, but I began to listen. It was a bit confusing: Glen needed me more than wanted me, wanted me for all time—but what did that have to do with tennis?
“Um, Mrs. Gra—er, Cyth-nia, is Wichita like Wimbledon, you know, where they have the tennis tournaments? ”
I pictured Glen as a lanky thirteen-year-old dressed in a purple shirt and green shorts, crouched at the side of a tennis court, poised to run out after stray balls. Perhaps he was in love with Billie Jean King, and that was who he was singing about, although he did sound a bit old to be a linesman.…
Mrs. Grant looked askance at me. “I don’t think so, poppet. It’s just a place in the middle of America.”
It was no clearer to me than Root 66 had been three years earlier, but the tender sentiment of the song sent a sudden wave of emotion funneling up inside me, and I began to cry again, for real this time.
Mrs. Grant seemed concerned. “Aaah—come here, duckling, and give me a hug!”
She came out from behind the ironing board and gathered me into her arms, bracelets jingling. She smelled of Chanel No. 5. I knew that’s what it was because Sam and I had often sneaked into her bedroom for an illicit squirt while she was working in the bar downstairs.
I buried my face in her generous bosom and wept. Right then I really did wish she was my mother.
RUBY’S TOES
“TOBY,” I SAID, NEXT TIME HE CAME IN. “DO YOU FEEL SORRY FOR me?”
Toby looked surprised. “Of course,” he replied.
“Well, I don’t want your damn pity.” I looked away from him. I had the distinct feeling that he was rolling his eyes. At least he had two to roll.
“You feel sorry for yourself, don’t you?” he said. “I don’t see why everyone else shouldn’t, too. If you don’t want me to visit you anymore, just say so.”
We sat in huffy silence for a minute. Then he spoke again. “Ruby said good-bye to all her toes this morning, individually, before they went into her socks.”
I was determined not to smile. What difference was that going to make to me? Perhaps it would be better for him not to come again. I had masses of work to do on my manuscript, and Mum’s visits were more than enough distraction.
“Listen, Helena. I know what you mean. I get that, too, you know. That look in people’s eyes when they talk to me—’Oh, that poor, poor man, wife in a coma and a toddler to look after.’ It’s the same sort of thing, and it’s a nightmare. But you’ve got to keep remembering that they do care, most of them, and are genuinely horrified that you’re having to face something so awful.”
My lip trembled. “But what happens when I leave here and go home? Then it’s just going to be weeks of photographers trying to stick lenses in my face, jumping out at me from behind bushes, that kind of thing. The whole country is going to pity me. I don’t think I can stand that.”
Toby reached over and picked up my hand. “You’re strong, Helena. You’ve got through so much. You can get over this, too. ‘Over This,’ right?”
I groaned. “Over This” was the title of the song I’d written for Sam when she was first ill with leukemia. It later became a huge hit for Blue Idea.
“You asked me about that song in your interview, didn’t you?”
Toby laughed. “Yeah. I was terrified you were going to break down and cry, or punch me, or something, but you were strong then, too. I was really pleased it went so well. Best interview I ever did, actually.”
“Really?” I realized that he was stroking my hand in a—well, a caressing sort of way. The more I concentrated, the more sexual it felt, as he rubbed tiny circles and sweeping streaks up the inside of my thumb, and began to feel the little web of skin between each of my fingers. To my amazement, I felt like I was getting pink in all kinds of places.
The door swung open and my mother appeared, hidden behind a large box and a bulging bag of fruit from Waitrose.
“I’ve brought in your juicer, Helena. Vitamin C is terribly good for the healing
process, you know, and you don’t get enough. That tiddly little glass of orange they give you at breakfast is just—oh!”
She nearly dropped the juicer when she saw Toby and me. I snatched my hand away immediately, but it was too late.
“Hello!” said Mum, in a very Leslie Phillips voice, delight written all over her face. She strode purposely toward Toby, in a manner not unlike a charging rhinoceros, and he shrank back slightly.
“Eve Nicholls, Helena’s mother. And you are?”
Toby stood up manfully and shook her outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Nicholls, I’m Toby Middleton.”
“Well, I must say, Helena’s kept you very quiet. Have you only just heard about her accident? Not that it matters now, anyway, does it? The main thing is that you’re here. So, when did you two meet?”
I moaned. This day was getting worse by the minute. “Mum, Toby’s not my boyfriend. We met here, the other week, although we knew each other a bit from ages ago. His wife’s in Intensive Care in a coma.”
Mum opted to cover up her embarrassment with censure. “Oh, my Lord! So you’re the guy whose poor, poor wife is unconscious! How dreadful for her. Well, we mustn’t keep you, I’m sure she’ll be wondering where you are. They do say that people in comas understand a lot more than we give them credit for, don’t they?”
Toby looked at his watch. “Actually, I came a little early to have a chat with Helena, so Kate won’t be missing me yet, but I suppose I’d better be getting on. Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Nicholls. I hope we meet again. Bye, Helena. See you tomorrow.”
I waved feebly, wondering how soon I could get Mum booked on a flight back to Freehold. Really, enough was enough. Even though her visits were now down to an hour or two each day, her presence seemed to hover around me constantly, like a sort of knitting ectoplasm. It had been quite nice having her there at the beginning, but now she was bored rigid and worried about Dad at home on his own, and I just wanted to get on with my manuscript. We had spent more time together since the accident than in the last fifteen years put together, and the strain was beginning to tell on us both.
Mum began to unpack the juice extractor. “It’s too bad,” she said thoughtfully. “He seemed so nice, but there he was, taking advantage of you in your vulnerable state, and practically cheating on his poor comatose wife. Men! You watch yourself with that one, Helena.”
Blondie
SUNDAY GIRL
MY FATHER WAS “SOMETHING IMPORTANT IN COMPUTERS,” according to my mother, although she, like most other people in 1980, had only the haziest notion of what computers actually did. The company he worked for in Salisbury was owned by a giant U.S. corporation, the top dogs of which had decided to reward him with a huge promotion and a sub-company of his own to run—in Freehold, New Jersey. America.
“I’ll have to talk it over with the family,” he’d said when he got the news. “It’s a very big step.”
He broke it to my mother at dinner that night, as she was ladling out the macaroni and cheese.
“No,” Mum said, “absolutely not.” She slammed the plate down in front of him, and a yellow curl of macaroni detached itself, sliding onto his lap.
I looked up, surprised. I hadn’t even been listening to what he’d said, since I was planning in my head what to wear to Melanie Welling’s fourteenth birthday party the following night. Melanie was a friend of ours from school, and her uncle was, allegedly, a member of Madness. Even more thrillingly, the word on the lacrosse field was that said uncle would be at the party.
“What?” I said, wondering if Mum would let me wear her Marks & Spencer pale blue eye shadow. It had this really nice iridescence to it.…
Dad repeated his news while scraping the macaroni off his trouser leg with his knife.
“NO!” I screamed, all thoughts of makeup and pop stars instantly flying out of the window.
“You don’t know what this means to me,” he pleaded.
Mum sat down, very suddenly. “Well, I know what it means to me, George. It means good-bye to all my friends, good-bye to my nice house, good-bye to Salisbury.… ”
I couldn’t say anything further; terror had seized my throat and was holding it closed. I stared hard at the steaming bowl of peas in the center of the table. Macaroni and cheese and peas was my favorite meal, but I was not hungry anymore.
“Eve, Helena, listen. We’ll have an even nicer house, and you’ll make new friends. And we’ll have so much more money, I’m sure we’ll be able to afford regular visits back here.”
“Forget it, I like this house, these friends. I’m sorry, George.…”
And so the debate continued, pleas and retorts, back and forth from one to another. I followed them with my eyes, rooting silently and fearfully for my mother, as if they were playing a tennis match on whose outcome my life depended. The steam from the untouched peas gradually dwindled down to nothing, and they took on a dull glazed appearance. They looked as shocked as I felt.
Eventually my mother’s defenses began to crumble. “I do know how hard you’ve worked for this, George, really I do. How long did you say it would it be for? ”
With absolute horror, I watched her edge into capitulation.
“Five years firm, then contract renewable by mutual agreement.”
“Weeell, I suppose now is as good a time as any, before Helena starts her O-level courses. And it would be lovely to have a big comfortable house. How much more money did you say you’d get? ”
I could almost see the dollar signs in my mother’s eyes. It was as good as over. I pushed away my chair and stormed out of the room.
Two weeks later our house was on the market. I was enrolled by telephone in a totally foreign “high” school, whatever that meant. Our airline tickets were purchased. We were leaving in three weeks’ time. Sam and I had not been out of each other’s sight for more than a couple of hours since the bombshell dropped. We hated the world.
There were three moving men, all dressed in identical royal blue boilersuits with their company logo on the breast pocket: Shipley’s Ships Safely. Huge sheets of off-white paper lay around everywhere, and the sound of scrunching and heavy breathing hung in the air as the men wrapped, packed, lifted, carried.
Sam and I drifted despondently from room to room; as soon as the men had cleared enough space, we sat down back-to-back in the middle of the carpet, and remained there until that room had been emptied around us. And so on to the next room. I had to do this, otherwise I wouldn’t have believed that we were actually leaving. Up to this point I had not. It had been like a bad dream and I had closed my ears to all talk of real estate, junior and senior high schools, Social Security numbers, work visas. This was what made it real, seeing our possessions wrapped up and carried away, and much as I hated it, part of me realized it was important to accept it.
At first the moving men took our presence as a sign that we were interested in them, and tried to engage us in friendly banter. When they were met with stony silences or abrupt monosyllables, they soon began to mutter about us being in the way. There was a young, jovial Irish one with huge ears, who glanced surreptitiously at Sam’s legs more often than he probably should have done; a balding, middle-aged, barrel-chested one who sighed deeply every time he lifted up a box; and an officious gray-haired one with a clipboard, who was obviously the boss. When they went outside for a tea break with their thermos flasks and Dunhill Extras, Sam picked up the clipboard and inspected the list attached to it: an inventory of the Nicholls.
56—Coffee table (SITTING ROOM)
57—Box—assorted ornaments and vase (S. ROOM)
58—Sofa (DITTO)
59—Radio (DITTO)
Peering at this over her shoulder, I lifted the chewed stub of pencil that was dangling from the board by a grubby piece of frayed string, and with a couple of deft pencil strokes I changed the 57 to a 52, the 59 to a 69, and inserted an H between the S and the I of SITTING ROOM. Before the men came back, we hastily returned the clipboard to it
s resting place on top of a crate, sniggering guiltily.
I had been more rebellious of late, with Sam my willing partner, although we hadn’t gotten into any serious trouble. My parents were not behaving rationally by taking me away from my home, this place I’d lived my whole life, so why should I?
But even though she seemed to be veering toward a Fattypuff period of lethargy and depression, my mother had been remarkably understanding about our little protestations. She didn’t even say “Serves you right” when we stole Dad’s razor from the bathroom and I shaved off the bit of hair in front of my left ear. It grew back as a frighteningly bristly sideburn, and I was deeply traumatized. All the same, I felt grateful that she’d never discovered us behind the garage, spluttering and coughing over a bent and creased-up Marlboro cigarette, which we’d finagled from the floor of the Prince of Wales one afternoon.
On moving day, however, Mum gave up trying to get us out from under the men’s feet. She was too distracted, stage-managing Dad in getting everything finalized: the gas turned off, the fridge defrosted, the curtains unhooked.
So we sat, watched more boxes go, stayed in the empty space for a while, moved to the next room, sat again. It was so strange seeing all the rooms with no furniture or pictures, like catching a shameful glimpse of somebody’s father naked. Walls loomed down on us, blank and shabby-looking, darker squares where paintings had hung.
Once all the rooms were empty, we sat side by side on the stairs.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go round to Melanie’s house for a bit?” Sam said. “Bridget and Jo were going over this afternoon to look at the program from The Specials concert Mel went to with her brother.”
“No thanks,” I said crossly. “I’ve already said good-bye to them. This is hard enough as it is.”
