Lucky Girl

by Fiona Gibson

  It was a clammy summer’s afternoon. We weren’t long home from school but already Charlie had slugged enough Fireball to fuel an idea. ‘Where’s Dad?’ he asked.

  ‘Still at the allotment, I think.’ I was lying on the living-room carpet, dabbing my earlobes with wet cotton wool balls. Cheryl Havers had pierced my ears on the hockey pitch at lunchtime and they still felt scalded.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Charlie said. ‘See what he gets up to.’

  ‘You mean spy on him?’

  ‘Come on, it’ll be a laugh. We could make weird noises. Spook him out.’

  ‘Know where it is?’ I asked. It was a childish idea, but anything Charlie wanted to do, I was keen to be a part of.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, grinning. ‘It’s round the back of the old match factory.’

  By the time we set out, the day was tipping into dusk. Charlie walked purposefully, humming to himself. I was thinking about the small navy-blue box I’d found in the desk drawer in Dad’s study. I’d opened it, expecting to find nothing more enticing than rubber bands or paper clips. A gold heart-shaped locket nestled inside.

  For a moment, I thought he’d bought it for me. I shut the box quickly, wishing I’d never seen it and not spoiled my birthday surprise. By the time I’d come downstairs I’d figured that Dad would never buy me anything so special. I felt so stupid, I didn’t even mention the locket to Charlie.

  We headed into town, past the docks and through a small housing estate, its gardens littered with paddling pools containing dregs of murky water. We crept along a damp-smelling alley and gazed up at the fire-escape stairs that zigzagged above us. The alley ended unexpectedly at a small square of tired-looking grass. It looked as if someone’s lawn had been stolen from its proper place and hidden there between towering factories.

  ‘Here it is,’ Charlie announced. The lawn was bordered on one side by a looming brick wall.

  ‘How d’you get in?’ I asked.

  ‘Through that little green door. But we’re not going in. We’re going to spy.’

  I was fifteen—long and narrow, like a chimney—but still couldn’t see over the wall. Charlie crouched down and I clambered onto his shoulders. He straightened up unsteadily. I gripped the top of the wall and peered over.

  ‘Wow,’ I whispered. I’d imagined neat rows of vegetables being prodded by men in acrylic shirts and fawn-colored slacks. It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be flowers: swathes of clashing yellows and purples, and hydrangeas laden with deep pink globes. Sweetpeas surged across the far wall. There were flowers I didn’t know the names of, and sunflowers taller than the neat row of sheds. It was secret and lovely, as if someone had gone wild with different inks. No wonder Dad spent so much time here. He barely used his study anymore. He wouldn’t even comment if the paper roll from his adding machine had been unraveled from its spool and left strewn all over his desk.

  ‘What is it?’ my brother hissed from beneath me.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Charlie.’

  ‘Can you see him?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ A girl with coppery streaks through her hair was crouching at a neat row of lettuce. Someone was sitting on a bench wearing a bottle-green corduroy jacket like Dad’s. It was Dad. A woman was lightly resting her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Jesus, Stella, you’re killing my back,’ Charlie whined. ‘I’ll have to put you down.’

  ‘Just a minute. There’s someone…’ She had delicate shoulders and was wearing a red-and-white spotted head scarf. Her feet were tucked neatly under the bench. It wasn’t Lindy Richards. Lindy was always trying out different perms—from tight curls, like pan scourers stitched together, to bouffant-y waves—and wouldn’t be seen dead in a head scarf. Dad had stopped seeing her anyway. He’d even given up going to the Social.

  I didn’t know this woman. I could only see the back of her: the thin brown arms, and the scarf tied at the nape of her slender neck. Charlie lowered me to the ground. I stood there, trying to find words.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, frowning. He was still chewing spearmint gum to mask the Fireball smell.

  ‘Dad’s there,’ I said quietly. ‘He’s with someone. A woman.’

  Charlie pulled himself up and peeked over the top of the wall. We walked home slowly, without talking. My earlobes were still leaking where Cheryl’s needle had gone through. Charlie didn’t seem happily drunk anymore—just deflated, as if something had shriveled inside him.

  It was nothing really. Just two people sharing the tail end of the day. But both of us realized that, until that muggy June afternoon, we had never seen anyone matter to Frankie Moon. ‘She’s probably just a friend,’ Charlie ventured as we reached the end of our road. ‘Someone who helps him with weeding and stuff.’ I knew he was only trying to make both of us feel better.

  ‘No she’s not. He’s in love with her, Charlie.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ He was seventeen, could correctly identify more than thirty species of crab and been offered places at three universities, and yet he knew nothing.

  I didn’t say what I was thinking: that he had never bought Mum a gold heart-shaped locket. Jean Patou, it had been, year after year. I rammed my key into the lock. ‘I just know,’ I said, thinking, It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ Midge says when I won’t agree to bring her to Aquasplash. ‘No one takes me anywhere.’ She’s tired of firing potato pellets at my kitchen window. The Christmas holidays are stretching too long—for Diane, at least. I’ve heard her shouting, ‘For God’s sake get out from under my feet. Go play, do something. Go and see Stella.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I tell Midge, ‘I just want some time by myself. I’ll take you swimming another time.’

  ‘Why do grown-ups like being by themselves?’

  ‘I just want to swim, Midge.’

  ‘Well, I can swim. I’ve got my own stroke.’ She rotates her arms, demonstrating a curious crawl/doggy paddle hybrid.

  ‘I’ll give you a knock when I come back. You can come round for a special tea.’ She screws up her face, as if no tea could possibly compensate for my meanness. ‘I’ll make jelly,’ I add.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, grudgingly.

  ‘Raspberry jelly.’

  ‘Yeah, all right.’

  I can’t understand how this child of seven, who ruined my Mum’s makeup—and regularly trashes my house—can activate my guilt mechanism with just one little wrinkle of her upwardly pointing nose.

  I stroll out of the changing room, through the showers and into the chlorine-filled air of the pool area. Despite all the kids, yelping and splashing and balancing precariously on lily pad-shaped floats, I spot him immediately.

  The diver. Ed. Not diving now, but pulling himself out of the deepest pool—the lagoon—then striding across the wet tiles, toward me. ‘Stella,’ he says, my name tripping off his tongue. He’s all long, brown limbs, all smiles.

  ‘Hi Ed, come for a swim?’ I’m a tongue-tied fifteen-year-old.

  ‘Thought I might, while I’m here,’ he says, teasing me.

  ‘It’s so busy. I don’t usually come here, especially in school holidays.’

  ‘I know,’ Ed says, and I assume he’s agreeing with me until he adds, ‘You prefer the sea. I’ve seen you at the back beach.’

  My cheeks simmer. ‘And I’ve seen you diving.’

  Droplets trickle down his chest. I try to keep my gaze firmly fixed on his face.

  ‘Can you dive, Stella?’ he asks.

  ‘No, I’ve never been able to.’

  ‘Like to try?’

  I shake my head firmly. ‘I’ve got a…kind of fear of it.’

  ‘Really? Which part scares you?’

  ‘Falling in. Letting myself go.’

  ‘Come on,’ he says, taking my hand and leading me to the deep end of the main pool.

  ‘Ed, I can’t do it.’

  He stops at the pool’s edge, still holding my hand. Honey-colored hair clings to
his broad back. ‘Believe you can do it,’ he says, ‘and you won’t be scared.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I really can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asks gently.

  ‘Our teacher used to bring us to the old pool, before this place was built. It was one of those Victorian pools—just an enormous rectangle really, with three diving boards at one end. This teacher forced us onto the first one—it was much higher than this one—then the next, and finally the highest board….’

  ‘Why?’ Ed asks.

  ‘If you wanted to be in the swimming club you had to learn to dive. I was desperate to be in—I was the strongest swimmer in my class—but every time I stood on those boards I’d just freeze. Mrs Clegg would send me out early to get changed.’

  ‘That’s nuts,’ Ed says.

  ‘So that’s why I can’t dive.’

  ‘You don’t start on boards. You start like this.’ He comes down to his knees and topples in headfirst, surging out of the water to face me.

  I copy him, and we tumble over and over; it’s just a game we’re playing, like a couple of kids.

  ‘Okay,’ Ed says, clambering out, ‘stand up now, just bend at the waist.’ I pull myself up and stand next to him at the poolside. His hands hover at my middle, but don’t touch. Goose pimples prickle my entire body. ‘Now fall forwards,’ he says.

  I’m about to say no, let’s do more tumbling, or swim lengths—but I’m standing at the pool’s edge, toppling in. I come up spluttering, but alive.

  ‘See,’ Ed says, ‘you can do it.’

  ‘It felt good. I could do that again.’

  ‘Want to try the diving board?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m joking,’ Ed says.

  ‘No, I really want to.’

  He frowns and says, ‘Are you sure?’

  Something surges inside me, something stronger than fear. I say, ‘Yes.’

  Me and Dad. The two of us are jammed into his study with my maths homework scattered all over his desk. ‘At your age,’ Dad thundered, ‘I can’t believe you can’t long divide.’ I imagined my whole body split lengthways, exposing a substandard brain that couldn’t figure out numbers. I couldn’t do maths, couldn’t dive. I played the flute, but what good would that be when I was grown up? Charlie could do anything. I was useless.

  Dad was occupying the leather swivel chair. I’d had to bring up an orange vinyl-covered stool from the kitchen. My pencil scratched at the paper. I’d bitten off the rubber from its end, plus the silvery metal band that had attached it to the pencil. My mouth tasted of wood.

  Dad had never supervised my homework before. He had no idea what my subjects were—what I was good or bad at—until Mr Kearny, my form teacher, had contacted him about my poor performance in class. Dad kept saying, ‘Really? I see,’ into the phone. He’d never met my teachers, and had only ventured once into school when Mr Bazrai from the allotment had said it would look bad if he didn’t watch his daughter’s solo flute performance. I found him aimlessly wandering along a corridor, as if he’d wound up in my school accidentally when he’d meant to go to the butchers.

  ‘You’re not concentrating,’ Dad snapped, tapping his desk. He snatched my sheet of hazy calculations and ripped it in two.

  ‘I am,’ I protested. ‘I just can’t do it.’ Charlie was hiding in his bedroom, surrounded by anatomical diagrams and the slender arms of Sarah-Jane, the school beauty, who loved him so much she’d made him a tape of moon songs: ‘Blue Moon,’ ‘Moon River,’ ‘Fly Me to the Moon.’ Sarah-Jane was so lovely, with flowing fair hair and caramel skin, that Dad had relaxed his ‘no visitors’ rule.

  I drew the long-division shape: the upright and the line across. It looked like a wobbly diving board. ‘Now,’ Dad said, ‘seven into a hundred and twenty-six.’

  Small number, big number. The little one had to fit into the big one. This would probably involve an extra bit, an untidy leftover, which meant that the answer was point-something. Nothing fitted exactly. My left eye had developed a tic, as if an electrical current was running through it. Warm tears dripped onto Dad’s leather-topped desk.

  ‘Look at the state you’re in,’ Dad snapped, spinning round on the swivel chair to face me. ‘Take a look at yourself.’

  I couldn’t look at myself. There wasn’t a mirror in Dad’s study. Just the dark wooden desk, the typewriter and adding machine, and a shelf bearing coin jars and an old Blue Band Margarine tub filled with cheap plastic pens.

  I stared down at a fresh sheet of white paper, wondering if the gold locket was still hidden in the drawer. I wanted to take out the box and lift out the necklace—dangle it in front of Dad’s face, like a pendulum. I could hypnotize him into forgetting about maths and bumbling off to attend to his sweetpeas at the allotment.

  Long-bloody-division. It sounded like some kind of torture. The top buttons of Dad’s shirt were undone, and curly gray hairs peeked out. He was rapping the desk with his fingernails. ‘Why won’t you pay attention?’ he thundered. ‘You’re just like—’ Then he pushed back the swivel chair, sending it clanging against the filing cabinet, and flounced out of the room.

  Just like who? I wondered.

  From Charlie’s bedroom came Sarah-Jane’s sparkly laughter. ‘Stop it,’ she cried, smothered in giggles. I was pretty certain that she didn’t have an issue with long division.

  I wiped my dribbling nose on my sleeve. Then I rested my head on my folded arms, gazing sideways at the spindly diving board, and the clumsily formed numbers queuing upon it, poised to leap into the deep.

  17

  The Orange Tree

  ‘I feel awful,’ Ed says, ‘for making you do it.’ I had frozen there, mesmerized by sunlight that hit the pool’s surface like fragments of mirror. I’d stepped down and gone to get dried and changed. I hadn’t expected to find Ed waiting for me outside Aquasplash.

  ‘You didn’t make me,’ I tell him. ‘I just panicked.’ We’re sitting on battered wooden chairs amid the rubble in what will eventually be the Orange Tree Café, owned and run by Ed, and offering the finest lattes and cakes—but which currently amounts to a semi-derelict launderette with its washing machines taken away. Dad used to come here. Rather than bother himself with our temperamental washing machine, he would drop off his laundry for a service wash, thus avoiding being spotted using the machines (I could imagine the article: TV Has-been Whiles Away Twilight Hours by Watching his Socks Go Round).

  ‘I’d hoped to be open by Christmas,’ Ed says, handing me not an expertly brewed latte but a chipped mug of weak instant, ‘but the friend I moved down with changed her mind…got cold feet.’ The way he says it, I know he means a girlfriend.

  I glance into the back room where Lil, the launderette lady, used to smoke skinny roll-ups and watch old black-and-white movies. ‘What made you leave Glasgow?’ I ask.

  ‘We—she—just wanted…’ He pauses.

  ‘An adventure?’

  A flicker of a smile. ‘That’s right. Her idea really, really. And I wanted to come. We were going to set it up together, until…’

  Fat droplets of rain start to streak down the blue lettering on the window that still reads Fully Attended Coin-Operated Washeteria.

  ‘She changed her mind?’ I suggest.

  He nods. ‘The café thing—turned out it was just a phase she was going through.’

  ‘Sounds familiar,’ I murmur. ‘So, did she go back to Scotland?’

  ‘No, she’s travelling around Europe—I get the occasional postcard.’

  ‘When will she be back?’ I ask, trying not to sound as if I care.

  Ed shrugs. ‘When she’s over her traveling phase.’

  ‘So you’re setting up this place by yourself.’

  He nods, edging forward until our knees are nearly touching. I glance at the piles of cracked plasterboard and ragged holes where the machines were plumbed into the walls, and remember Alex’s notion of opening an American-style diner in town, before he decided that his
future—our future—lay in figure of eight-shaped water features.

  ‘Think a café will work in this part of town?’ Ed asks. His green eyes remind me of a pale dessert, like sorbet. Anyone can dive, he told me. Just let yourself go.

  ‘Of course it will,’ I say firmly. Then another dessert, sweeter than sorbet, pops into my head.

  Jelly. I promised Midge I’d make jelly. ‘What’s wrong?’ Ed asks as I leap up from the chair.

  ‘I told Midge I’d make her a special tea to make up for not taking her swimming. I said I’d make jelly. God, Ed—’ I check my watch. Six forty-five. An hour has swilled by, without me noticing.

  ‘Is Midge your little girl?’ Ed asks.

  ‘No, just my neighbor, nothing to do with me really—it’s ridiculous that I feel bad for forgetting, but—’

  ‘And it’s too late for tea?’ he asks, amusement flickering across his face.

  ‘I think,’ I tell him, ‘the jelly’s off.’

  To avoid detection, I scurry up my path, unlock my door with a swift turn of the key and close it quietly behind me. There’s no note from Midge, no answer phone message. No ‘Stella, where are you?’ Those girls—they make me feel hounded. Nervous in my own home. Through the wall I can hear giddy laughter, and the whine of something like a hair drier. Maybe Dad was right. They should learn to respect other people’s privacy.

  I dump my bag of swimming things in the hall, wondering why I didn’t ask Ed for his number, or offer him mine. I’m out of practice, that’s the trouble. I’d never imagined, before Alex left, that I’d find myself in a potential number-swapping situation again.

  I head upstairs, run a hot, deep bath and climb in, washing away the chlorine smell that never seems to swill away in the showers. ‘Hello?’ calls a thin voice through my letterbox. ‘You there, Stella?’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I mutter. She’s only come round to make me feel bad for forgetting Midge’s jelly. Why doesn’t she make jelly?