"Can I keep that?" Mum said.
"Well, ma'am, I might just have to write it out again." Doug Page held his pad out to show her his writing.
"No, look, I can read that. That's perfectly clear. You are a messy writer, though, aren't you?" He blushed. Mum smiled, and he tore the pages off to pass over. She folded them and tucked them into her sleeve.
Peter came out of the cupboard and held her hand. Her face had colour again. I stopped coughing.
"You have a lovely family, Mrs Searle. I'm more sorry than I know how to say that this has happened," Dad's boss said.
He kissed her cheek then there was silence. No one had explained to me yet what had happened.
"Where's Daddy?" I said. The officers quickly picked up their hats and made their farewells. No one wanted the job of explanation.
"Peter, call Auntie Ruth," said Mum. "Get her to come over." And I didn't see Mum for a lot of school days after that. She was in her room; Auntie Ruth fed us, mothered us, all three. She had a family of her own but didn't like them. She liked us better. She called me a little monkey, because I clung to her like a baby ape.
Dad's funeral, I'm told, was very nice. I wasn't allowed to go. Mum said I'd fidget and get bored. I'm glad it happened when I was young. I think funerals must become more terrible as you get older. People become more terrified of death when they've known each other longer. "It was twenty years," they can say.
My father was twenty-nine when he died. I was nine. Peter was eleven. Mum was twenty-eight.
Mum began baking for people so we had money from that. And there was some cop's fund which kept us going, and the grandparents, and Dad's granddad had given us the house. Mum made our lunch every day and we always had clean school uniforms.
And all of the men who thought they'd be our father paid for things, brought presents. "No obligation," they often said. I have never felt a sense of obligation to anyone.
All those dads disappeared when she died.
Years after Dad died, one night during a commercial break, I asked Mum if she'd known that Dad was dead as soon as those cops walked in the door. Because it struck me later, when I thought about one thing leading to another, that she was pale and horrified and crying before the cops told us the news. And almost relieved afterwards.
"Did you know, Mum?"
"What do you know?" she said, sharp and nasty.
"I didn't know anything. I was only nine."
"But what do you know now?"
"Nothing. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when Dad died. Did you know he was dead before they told us?"
"Of course not. How could I have known that?"
The commercials finished, and so did the conversation..
My house was full of dour-faced people.
I didn't like them there, touching my things, leaving their fingerprints in my dust. I stood one step behind Peter, ignored.
Peter reached back without averting his gaze from the man giving condolences and pulled me to his side. He put one hand on my shoulder and offered the other to the man to shake.
It was the only time I ever felt his strength as an older brother and I believed he loved me.
It made me sad that Peter was being so kind. It reminded me of Dad's death, when Mum, Peter and I closed in on ourselves, forming a shell, because we were so damaged by being public property after his public death.
We were nice to each other then. I can remember that clearly. Peter was in his element, being kind and helpful, squeaking out advice about how to deal with things. The weird thing is, people listened. Crap which made me snort in disgust had the rest of them agape.
The people in my house cheered up. They drank Dad's wine and vodka, picked things up and looked at them. They forgot I was there.
Mr Krowska from next door spent a while upstairs, doing what I don't know. I counted all the cash I kept stashed about the place, and there was none missing, and my jewellery was untouched, but there was a dent in the middle of the duvet in the spare room, the one which used to be Peter's. The weirdo had a snooze. He came downstairs, grabbed his wife, and left without saying goodbye.
That night there was a towel strung across their bedroom window. I couldn't see a thing. That was a shame. I liked laying in Peter's old bed to watch the Krowskas fight or make up. It was a nice bedtime story.
I asked some of the neighbours about who owned the house before us. "Who used to live here?" I kept asking. But nobody knew.
Someone had lined up all the cards we'd received. There were dozens. Even some of my teachers had sent cards. But they don't show up, do they? Cook my dinner, do my shopping? So what's the point?
It was my first memorial, so I didn't know what people did. Melissa was there, from next door. "Haven't you moved?" I said.
She nodded. "I came back for this," she said. She stood there, shaking like a rabbit. I think she wanted to hug me, make me feel better.
I just wanted them all out of my house.
I lost interest in the people in my home, so, with the night lit by a huge moon, I went and sat amongst my work in the backyard. My Dad had loved the backyard at night; I had often seen him out there digging.
Maria came up and whispered, "You better get back inside. All of this is for you, you know. Because you missed the funeral. Don't you think you should be there?"
"No," I said. But I went inside and let Auntie Jessie tell me stories about my parents' lives. This was one of my favourites:
They made a good family, Alex and Heather Searle and Mike and Ruth Walker. They were a set, and great friends before the kids came along. Dinner at all sorts of mad places, like the Russian restaurant where you drank vodka straight from the bottle. They joined a bowling club where the other patrons stared and envied them their youth. And Ruth would laugh and touch Alex's thigh, tell Heather in the toilets there was nothing to worry about, when the very words were meant to create worry. Heather had never envied her older sister, not for her beauty, her wit, her liveliness. Heather had always possessed the knowledge that she needn't be the best. It was a comfort.
For Heather's sake, Alex was patient with Ruth's antics, though he found the gossip, the laughter, more irritating that he could express, and he pitied her husband Mike, though by all accounts they enjoyed a full and adventurous sex life.
On one occasion Ruth paid Alex a visit at work.
"I want to report a crime," she told the desk sergeant, "but I'm too nervous to deal with anyone but my brother-in-law." She didn't look nervous. Her lipstick was red and perfect, her eyes unblinking. Her hair was in place. She wore a skirt suit in a masculine cut, and she leaned one elbow on the desk as if preparing to give orders.
"Your sister-in-law's here to report a crime," the desk sergeant said into the phone.
"He knows about it," Ruth whispered, leaning in.
"She says you know about it." There was a pause, then the desk sergeant hung up.
"He'll be with you in a minute. Just take a seat."
Ruth did so, crossing her legs to display them to him. She smiled; he smiled back, glad of the excuse. Alex had said to him, "Tell her she should have fucked the taxi driver on the way over."
Ruth did not drive; would not drive. She considered it menial, and preferred other people to do it for her.
"So, what crime are we talking about, here?" Alex said. He didn't offer her a cup of tea.
"Well, it hasn't actually happened yet, but I'm terrified. It's Mike." she paused, wanting Alex to nod, throw himself at the mercy of her passion.
"Mike?" he said.
"I think he's trying to kill me."
Alex took a sip of tea, rose from his chair, walked around the desk and leant so close he could see the pulse in her throat.
Around him, all was silent. An attractive woman in the squad room drew attention.
"Right," Alex said. "And your proof is?"
"It's just a feeling. He's jealous. I don't think he loves me anymore."
"I'm sure his fe
elings for you haven't changed," Alex said. "I'm sure he loves you as much now as he did the day you were married." He wondered how far he could go, how deluded she was. Mike had never loved her.
"Perhaps if you could talk to him," Ruth said. She leaned forward. She had a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes, as if wiping away tears. There were no tears there.
"Or better yet, come over when he's not there and make me feel better."
Alex could hear his colleagues sucking air.
"Heather and I could do that," he said. "Certainly. Now can one of my fellow workers provide you with a lift home?"
Her eyes flickered over the eager parade.
"No, thank you," she said. "I can manage. As for you, you'll be sorry when I'm found dead."
"I don't think so. I doubt that," he said.
He never told Heather how Ruth liked to corner him. She had bared her breasts once, making them an offering she imagined he would fall upon.
"Cover yourself, Ruth," he said. He didn't like the way Ruth tried to undermine Heather's confidence, or the way she wanted their kids to like her best. She had a family of her own. Alex thought her time would be better spent home with her own children and he told her so. She was insulted; told Heather he had banished her from the home. Heather told Alex she would not have her own sister banished from her own home, and he drew her to him and squeezed her till she laughed.
"I didn't banish her. But we have our own family now. You are the children's mother. It's you they love."
Ruth didn't visit for a while. She said she had to work in her garden.
There were people in my kitchen. They no longer talked about Mum and Dad; they were gossiping, arguing, flirting.
We have this great ceiling in the kitchen; sometimes Peter and I used to lie on the floor and gaze up at the pipe work, trace it with our eyes, find letters and stories in the curves and bends. We dreamt about swinging on them. Peter waited until I did it once, when Dad was at work and Mum was talking to the neighbour over the fence. Then we both did it whenever they weren't home.
The people were still at my house at midnight. Is that what people do at other people's houses? Maria had drunk so much wine her teeth were stained red, but she still put on her pose of being mature and in control.
Lee came through the door. He'd been at the pub; he'd told me he wasn't going to show up. Their mum wouldn't let Tim come, even though he wanted to. Lee and I shared a good friendship. Neither of us expected or demanded anything. We weren't disappointed with rejection or overjoyed with acceptance; we just carried on. I like things that way. I like to be able to do things if they need doing, and not have people beholden to me. I hate it when people think they owe you something. Lee and I liked to go out to pubs, to sit quietly and drink. We never felt we had to talk to each other. We had been going out for a couple of years, since his 16th birthday, when it was legal and we didn't have to worry about being caught.
Lee took one look at the scene in my house and said, "Let's go down the pub." Brilliant suggestion. I didn't say a word to Peter, snuck out the back door. No one noticed.
The pub was full, rowdy, almost too much. At least no one knew me. No one would tell me how sorry they were. I watched Lee's face slacken and redden, watched the people around darken or lighten, depending on who they were. I liked using drunkenness as an excuse, too; you could get away with anything. Knocking people so their drinks spilled everywhere, stepping on people's toes.
I was coming back from the toilets and there was this tall, blonde man standing alone at the bar. I fell against him, he grabbed me. I reached up and kissed him. A big, sweet bourbon kiss.
Lee saw it, but he wasn't confident enough to come over and make a claim. That wasn't my aim; I didn't want him jealous. All I wanted was the feel of this big man.
He was there alone; that was the two sentences of conversation we had.
"Are you alone?" I said.
"Are you?" he said. I nodded. He took my hand and we left. My house, people gone. He was gone in an hour, maybe two.
The next morning I went out and uncovered more treasures. I found a damaged glass cufflink, a pair of half-rotted Spiderman underpants, a bath plug and a tiny silver spoon. I was inside washing the things in the laundry sink when I got a phone call from a local department store. Tim had been caught shoplifting, and he told them I was his sister. I guessed didn't want his parents there to ream him out so I went along with it. I caught the bus to the store, put up a good case; the police hadn't been called, so I knew we were dealing with a bit of a softie. I said how good Tim usually was, for an eleven year-old, how Dad had lost his job and we were struggling. I said it was Mum's birthday soon and Tim was probably stealing for that.
"She has odd taste in music, then," said the manager. He fanned out some rough stuff.
"Oh, Tim," I said. "You shouldn't pinch stuff for me." We gave each other a big hug. I tried to fake crying but couldn't; in retrospect that was probably a good thing. Less is more, they say.
I offered to pay for the CDs but the manager wouldn't hear of it. "I hope your Dad gets back on his feet soon," he said, and that saddened me, because my Dad was dead and would never be at work.
We went home on two buses. Tim said, "Where's the lecture?" but I had no idea what he was talking about. "Oh, yeah, that's really something I'm into," I said. I grinned at him. "Listen, don't worry about it. It's just another event in the rich vat of life." It made me feel quite sad, though, talking about Mum's birthday and knowing she'd never have another. I was in the mood for a celebration. For her birthday one year Peter and I put on a special show. "The Elopement of Mum and Dad." We only did it once. Mum got too upset.
We both put on as many of our clothes as we could, and waddled down the stairs. We all laughed so much we didn't get started for about half an hour, and Peter and I kept cracking up, having to stop the show.
Mum stopped laughing and didn't start again. We didn't realise till the end how upset she was. I actually didn't realise at all; I was totally excited by my acting.
I danced around the room, throwing gear off, trying to cover every object in the room with an item of clothing.
"Stop it, Stevie," Peter said. He had his arms around Mum.
"Why?"
"Mum's upset."
"No, she's not, she loves it, don't you Mum?" and I went to dance in the backyard.
at twenty
I don't know if I had the shortest career a checkout chick ever had, but I must have come close. Three weeks and two days into it, I knocked a mountain of spaghetti cans flying for the third time. I had already smashed the plate-glass near the information booth when a trolley went out of my control, and when marching proudly out in my uniform I had fallen over and cut my lip, splashing blood all up aisle seven.
The manager was very controlled. Her assistant hissed at me, "You fucking clumsy idiot fucking loser." But Mrs Gibbs said, "Stephanie, I'm afraid we feel that someone as accident-prone as you is not quite suitable to this kind of work."
"I don't do it on purpose. You can't discriminate against someone because accidents follow them around. My Dad always calls me accident-inclined," I said. Mrs Gibbs smiled. "I like that. Your Dad must be a lovely man."
"Oh, yes, he is," I said. He was. When I think about it now, I'm not so sure he was being kindly. Accident-inclined, I'm inclined to do it, I do it on purpose. I'd been saying it for years, proud of it, proof of how much my Dad loved me. But what was he saying? I did it on purpose, to get attention or something? That I'm a victim of Munchausen's? I didn't discuss that with my counsellor. She's got no more room to list the syndromes she's matching to me.
Mrs Gibbs said, "To be honest, Stephanie, I don't think you are suited for other reasons." I wasn't going to jump in and guess what reasons she had in mind. She went slightly red in the face as the silence continued.
"Well, for example, there was that woman you accosted."
I told Mrs Gibbs how ridiculous that was. The bloody woman hit me in the back
of the ankles with her trolley to get my attention, then she says, "Young lady, I have been looking for three hours for the tinned asparagus. Is it asking too much that it be placed in a less than hidden position?"
"I tell you what's asking too much," I told the woman. "You expecting me to believe you've been here three hours, but you've got a wet raincoat on, and it only started raining thirty minutes ago. I know that for a fact. It was sunny before that, that's why we're understaffed, people always stay home on the good days. And I'm guessing, from the look of your cheap shoes, that you're looking for the noname asparagus that we got in from Asia. Because the good stuff, the local stuff, is out for all to see. We don't have the cheap stuff anymore. There were reports of tetanus."
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