I tilt my head to the side and look up at him, admiring the light freckles on his beautiful, sun stained skin. He still smells of the sea and I’m tempted to lick him to remind myself of our day. I don’t though. Bee is sat right next to me, for one. And my mother being in the next room is also a bit of a passion killer.
“So are you going to introduce me to them?” I ask.
He winces. “One day. Maybe. Far, far in the future. I don’t want them to scare you off.”
“Nothing could do that,” I reassure him, my cheeks blushing as I say the words. I’m unaccustomed to declarations of affection. I have a weird kind of floating feeling, like I’m outside of my body looking down. When I remember the beach and what we did, it all feels unreal, like a dream. In a way I almost wish dinner was over already so I could climb into my bed and digest the day. But then he would be gone, and I’m not in a rush for that to happen.
Albert
Every moment we’re apart, I find myself plotting how to be with her again. Planning our next escapade. I spend so much time looking at my phone to see if she’s texted that Francine hauls me into the office and kindly asks me to please leave my phone at home, or at least switch it off when I’m at work.
“Now that you’re on a contract,” she says pointedly. “We expect your attention to be here with us.”
“Of course,” I apologise. “I’ll turn it off.” And I do. Well, I turn the sound off but leave it on vibrate in my back pocket so I’ll still feel if Maddy texts. I can’t help it. Love has made me reckless.
I thought what Kate and I had was love, and it was, but it was nothing like this. The feelings I had for her were like damp fireworks compared to the explosions of colour and light I feel when I see Maddy. Or think about her. The cynic in me knows that everyone feels like this when they first start a relationship. But the romantic in me feels that no one, ever in the history of love, has ever felt anything like this. I can’t get enough of her. She makes me feel like I could do anything. Like the world is just sitting there, waiting for us to do what we want with it. I have more dreams than I can keep up with. Things I want to experience. Places I want to go. Before Maddy, I was stuck in limbo but not aware of it. Now, I’m tensed, on a springboard, ready to take her hand and catapult ourselves out into the universe. The world really is our oyster, and I plan on salting that squishy little bastard and downing it in one.
I know as soon as she steps out of the car at the riding stables that something is wrong. Her face is drawn together in annoyance, anger, and she snaps at Bee when she takes too long putting on her boots, something I’ve never heard her do before. She apologises straight away and Bee is none the wiser, but it’s out of character for her to lose her patience with her sister like that.
“Morning you two beautiful ladies,” I say loudly when they come through the gate, Maddy leading Bee by the hand. I’ve been loitering beside the stables, pretending to be doing something vitally important but really just looking at things and nodding and walking back and forth a bit, even though only Matt is anywhere near and he couldn’t give a fuck whether I work or not, as long as I don’t dob him in for the million and one illegal smoke breaks he takes daily. Then I ask a little quieter. “You ok?”
“Hey,” she smiles. “Yeah I’m fine. Well, sort of. Just angry.”
“At me?”
“Horse riding,” says Bee.
“No. Why? Have you done something I should be angry about?”
“No.”
“Then that was a bit of a stupid question.”
“Horse riding,” Bee says.
“Sorry.”
She sighs. “No I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take my bad mood out on you.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“No. Not unless you have friends in high places.”
I point up to the sky. “You mean like -?’
Her eyes follow the direction of my finger. “God? No. If he even exists. No I meant like politicians, someone who can tell the stupid pencil pushers sitting behind desks in the benefit office to take their pencils out of their fat lazy butts and stop being power tripping dicks.”
“Oh.”
She sighs again. “It’s complicated.”
“It sounds it.”
“Horse riding,” says Bee.
Someone clears their throat behind me and Maddy looks over my shoulder.
“Sorry Ann,” she says. “We got a little held up.”
‘It’s ok,” Ann says warmly. “But we really do need to get started.” Ann comes forward and takes Bee’s hand. “Good morning Bee,” she says cheerfully.
Bee ignores her, although she smiles.
“Say good morning Bee,” Maddy prompts her.
“Say good morning Bee,” Bee says.
“How are you today?” Ann asks her.
“Horse riding,” Bee says.
She’s a lovely lady, Ann, a motherly sort. She’s in her fifties I would guess, from the grey hair, but after the Francine fiasco I’m keeping all guesses to myself. She’s the kind of lady who brings a chocolate cake to work in a Tupperware container when it’s someone’s birthday and does a whip around collecting money if someone needs help. I’m usually dubious of people like her, sensing that nobody can be that genuinely good natured all the time. But in her case I think it’s the truth. She’s just a nice person.
“Come along, Teddy is all ready and waiting patiently for you.”
She leads Bee towards the arena and I put a hand on Maddy’s arm to hold her back. “What’s happened?”
With Bee gone she drops her guard and kicks at a stone on the ground angrily. “Bee normally gets a weekly disability living allowance but they’ve stopped paying it. They are saying we missed a medical appointment.”
“What sort of medial appointment?”
“That’s the thing. It’s so fucked up. They wanted us to see a government appointed doctor to make sure she still needs 24 hour care. Only we never got the letter so we missed the appointment. But she only saw someone last year and it’s not like anything has changed. Now they’ve stopped paying her benefit and we really need that money.”
“That’s lousy.”
We walk to the arena entrance and stop. Ann is holding Bee’s hand and is helping her stroke the length of Teddy’s nose. We hear Bee giggle and she leans forward to kiss teddy’s mane.
“It’s like they think she might have magically woken up one morning and been cured.” Maddy says. “If only.”
“That’s stupid.”
“I know. Any normal person can see that. But these people aren’t normal. I swear they just like making us jump through hoops for their own sick enjoyment.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No. I mean I know that there are people who rip the system off. I get that, I really do. But how can they think that someone like Bee, with all her illnesses, is out to scam them?”
‘I’m sure they don’t think that.”
“Maybe not, but making her take a medical to prove it when they have her entire medical history already on file is just pathetic.”
“I one hundred percent agree.”
Ann flashes us a smile. “Are you ready Maddy?”
“Absolutely,” Maddy calls back. She wraps her arms around my waist quickly and gives me a tight squeeze. “Thanks for listening.”
“What are boyfriends for?”
She flashes me a wicked look and tip toes up to whisper in my ear. “I can think of one or two other, more exciting uses.” She bites my lower ear lobe gently and I moan.
“Thanks. Now I’m going to be walking around work with a raging great boner.”
She laughs and shrugs. “Sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
I watch as she walks over to join Bee and Ann. She coaxes Bee up onto the mounting block she stands on to climb onto Teddy’s back but Bee misjudges it and face plants into Teddy’s neck before awkwardly sitting back up. Ann takes the ladder away and then picks up the reins t
o lead her around the ring.
“It’s a nice day, why don’t we go outside Bee?” Ann asks.
I open the gate for them to pass through.
“Call you tonight?” I ask Maddy.
“You better.”
I don’t though, in the end. When I get home from work just before six and walk through the back door I can immediately sense an unpleasant vibe in the air. Mum is in the kitchen, frying sausages while a pot of spuds boils merrily on the stove. She gives me a look that I fail to interpret, and I’m just about to ask her what’s up when my father walks in from the lounge with an empty beer bottle in his hands. He sees me and his face darkens. My heart drops and I feel a part of me shut down as my coping mechanism kicks in. I know that look. He’s had a shit day at work and he’s spoiling for a fight.
“Here he is, the useless lump himself,” he growls.
“I’ll be in my room.” I say, desperate to escape before whatever he’s angry about erupts out of him like some molten, furious volcano and oozes everywhere leaving hurtful words that can never be taken back. I’ve had more than enough of those words from him to last a lifetime. They are stamped inside every part of me.
My mother shakes her head ever so slightly and gives me an imploring look. I don’t blame her though. I never have.
“My room, don’t you mean,” dad says. “After all, I pay the mortgage.”
Bitter experience tells me there is nothing I can say that will diffuse the situation, especially when I don’t yet know the cause for it. My father, once started, must finish. I say nothing.
“And do I ask for much in return? Eh?” he carries on. “I don’t think I’m unreasonable, am I love?”
My mother doesn’t answer, concentrating on the tongs she is using to turn the sausages.
“I put a roof over your head, food in your belly, and you can’t even repay me by mowing a goddamn lawn when I ask you to.”
So that’s it.
“I was going to do them this week.”
“Yeah right. You’re just saying that because I’ve reminded you.” He slams the bottle down on the bench and my mother jumps. “Jesus Albert, when are you going to grow up and start acting like a adult, eh?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll mow them now.”
“You’re goddamn right you’ll mow them now. And you’ll do a proper job of it too. I’m sick of our house looking like the shit heap of the street because you won’t pull your weight and help out around here. I shouldn’t have to keep asking you.”
“No. Sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” he sneers. “I’ll tell you what you are; you’re useless and a disappointment, fawning about over some girl instead of getting a real job and trying to make something of yourself.”
I hold his gaze levelly, trying not to show any spark of defiance in my eyes. If I do, it will escalate. If I don’t, he’ll grow bored and move onto something else. I must do a good enough job because he scowls at me once more and then turns to open the fridge for another beer.
I mow the lawns, and then I drop the lawnmower down a level and I mow them again. Anything to avoid going back inside. I mow while the sun sinks behind the hills and the lights come on in the houses around me. I can see the TV blinking through the net curtains of Mrs Dansie’s house across the street. When I’m finished and I know I have done them well enough to satisfy him, I put the lawnmower away, making sure I have filled it back up with petrol so he doesn’t have another thing to complain about, and lock the shed. Then I sit on the front steps, the concrete cool underneath me, and I dream about being somewhere, anywhere, else.
Maddy
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I ask again, for the twentieth time. Mum rolls her eyes.
“Of course not.”
“You guys will be ok?”
“We’ll be fine. I do know what I’m doing you know, despite what you might sometimes think.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Relax. Enjoy yourself. You haven’t spent a night away from us since your Year 6 camp.”
“That’s not helpful. I’m nervous.”
“You’ll be fine. You’ll be more than fine. I wonder where he’s taking you? Ooh, maybe a flash hotel.”
“I have no idea. He wouldn’t give me any clues.”
I drop the kitchen blind, which I have been nervously looking out of on and off for the last hour, and unzip my bag on the counter top again to check the contents.
“How did you know what to pack then?” Mum asks. She’s sitting at the breakfast bar with Bee, colouring in some of Bee’s tape covers. Bee is pointing to what she wants mum to write, and after mum writes it on the covers Bee colours it in with felt. She’s a talented artist, my sister, and we have a few of her framed drawings up on the wall.
“I didn’t. I’ve just tried to cover a few bases. Jeans, a nice top, a t-shirt, shorts, togs, a dress and some sandals.”
“Should be ok then.”
“I hope so.” I’m seized by a fresh set of nerves. “What if I’ve forgotten something important though?”
“You haven’t. It’s not like you’re going away for a week.”
Beep beep
I jump when we hear a deep horn sound out front and lift the blind.
“Is it him?” mum asks.
“I have no idea.” There’s a large black truck outside our house. The kind with a cab and a flat bed deck. I’ve never seen it before. A hand comes out from the driver’s side and waves, then the door opens and Albert steps out and grins at me.
Mum follows me outside and stands on the doorstep, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed as I walk self consciously up the garden path lugging my bag.
“Hey,” he smiles.
“Hey. Nice truck.”
He steps back and surveys it proudly. “She’s a beauty eh?”
“As far as trucks go sure. Whose is it?”
“Mine.”
“Seriously?”
A bubble of excited laughter escapes him. “Yes, seriously. I can hardly believe it myself, but I’ve just signed the paperwork.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“You bought a car.”
“I did.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Expensive?”
“Not too bad. Second hand of course. I should just about be able to afford the monthly repayments and still treat my girl to the odd night out.” He takes my bag from my hand and throws it onto the back of the truck in one smooth move. Then he freezes. “There wasn’t anything breakable in there was there?”
“Luckily for you, no.”
“You’re ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
He holds out a hand. “Then your chariot awaits madam, to take you on your next adventure.”
I put my hand in his and run my eyes over his face. It’s only been a few days since we last saw each other but when I see him again I am hit with the intensity of how much I have missed him. “Still no clues as to our destination?”
He shakes his head and pulls me into his embrace. “No. But you’ll like it. At least, I hope you will.” He dips his head down until the tips of our noses are touching and I’m swept away by the emotion in his eyes.
“As long as I’m with you how can I not?” I breathe, feeling the heat from his lips only millimetres from mine.
“Christ, get a room you two,” mum hollers, ruining the moment. I’d forgotten she was there. “Stop putting on a floor show for the neighbours.”
Albert laughs, his breath warm on my face.
“This from the woman wearing tartan tights,” I call back over my shoulder.
“What’s wrong with my tights?”
“If you have to ask, there’s no hope for you.”
“Ah away with you,” mum laughs, putting on a fake Scottish accent.
Albert opens the passenger door and I hesitate, one hand on the roof.
I turn my head to look at mum. “Are you sure you guys will be ok?”
Mum sighs and looks at Albert. “Do you see what I have to put up with?” She looks at me. “For the last time, we will be absolutely fine. Now go and enjoy yourself.”
Albert looks at his watch. “Yeah we need to get going or we’ll miss part of the surprise.”
The truck has a black interior, tidy. It has an odd smell like it once belonged to a cigarette smoker, but time and a little strawberry shaped air freshener dangling from the rear view mirror have erased most of the offensiveness.
“Do you like it? Albert asks hopefully, proudly.
“I do.”
He pats the dashboard lovingly. “I can’t believe it’s all mine.”
“Me either. It’s a very grown up thing to do, buying your first car.”
“I know right?” he grins. “Although I had to ask my mother to sign as guarantor.”
“Maybe don’t tell your friends that part. Kind of ruins your street cred.”
It’s Friday night, and as we cruise through town I can see people in bars enjoying the happy hour after work, or sat on tables outside restaurants enjoying a combination of good food, conversation and a balmy evening. Normal things that people do. Most people anyway. People with less worries or responsibilities. I feel a little pang of sadness inside and squash it. I am not going to feel sad, not tonight.
I notice Albert take the same turn out of town as he did a few months before, the last time we escaped together.
“We’re going to the beach?” I ask, puzzled.
“You did promise me we’d go back someday.”
I nod. “Yes I did. I just figured it would be during the day.”
He flicks a sideways glance at me. “Have you ever watched the sun set from a beach?”
I don’t even need to think about it. “No.”
“Then I can’t wait to share it with you.”
The steady rhythm of the wheels on the road lulls me into a dozing state, until the sound changes when we crunch onto the gravel and I sit up, rubbing my eyes. The sky has darkened, but the sun is still above the horizon.
“Hey sleepy head,” he says, reaching over to squeeze my leg. “Been a long week?”
“Not any longer than normal,” I yawn. “Just a few rough nights with Bee. She had another fit, and I always find it hard to sleep after that.”
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