by Fiona Gibson
‘Stella, hi! I’ve been meaning to call you.’ His elbow collides with the glass dish of pretzels on the bar.
‘That’s okay. You told me you’d be busy for a few weeks. How are things at home?’
‘Got a letter from Verity’s lawyer. We’re in lawyer territory now.’
‘What does she want?’
‘A divorce, of course.’ He glances toward the table where the teachers are sharing ripped-open packets of crisps.
‘I’m sorry, Robert.’
‘Hey.’ He brightens. ‘Those kids from next door still plaguing you?’
‘Had a bit of a fallout with their mother. She went out one evening, left the girls at home on their own—’
‘That’s terrible. Some people aren’t fit to be parents.’
‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ I murmur.
‘Not like that, they don’t. Did anything happen, while she was out?’
I think for a moment. It feels wrong, discussing Diane’s shortcomings as a mother with Robert. ‘They just got scared,’ I tell him.
I carry our drinks between after-work crowds, intending to go back and ask him to join us. But when I look, he’s already gone, leaving a half-finished beer on the bar.
‘Who’s your friend?’ Claudine asks.
‘Just a guy I teach…’
‘And make lunch for,’ Jen adds, ‘but the sod didn’t turn up.’
‘Cute,’ Claudine says. ‘Worth forgiving, I think.’
I smile, shaking my head. ‘He’s about to go through a divorce and has two year-old twins….’
‘God,’ Claudine laughs. ‘I can’t imagine you, Miss Sorted and Organized, taking on someone else’s kids.’
After the pub I stride along the promenade. Yellowish light filters through the canvas at the launderette’s window. Behind it are moving shapes, and the sound of urgent hammering. The area outside is cluttered with skips piled high with shattered plasterboard and rusting radiators. I wonder if Ed’s a little like Alex with a headful of dreams and schemes that come to nothing. The Orange Tree’s grand opening seems as distant as the tanker that forms a thin line on the smudgy horizon.
I come home to an answer phone message from Lori Pearson’s mother explaining that she’ll be taking a break from lessons. ‘So many activities to fit into the week,’ she exclaims, ‘what with gymnastics, Brownies and tap. Sorry we couldn’t give more notice, Stella. We’ll keep in touch, in case Lori ever wants to start lessons again.’ She speaks as if music is just something else to be fit in, another task on the to-do list.
I erase the message and lift Midge’s pad from the bookshelf, flicking through pages and pages of intricate drawings of robots. Some have clusters of cogs nestling in cut-away sections in their bellies; others have springs sprouting from their rectangular heads, like crazy hair. I tear out a blank sheet, trim it to a neat square with round-ended scissors and write:
FLUTE TUITION OFFERED
IN YOUR OWN HOME OR TUTOR’S HOME
ALL AGES, ALL STAGES TO GRADE EIGHT PLUS
MUSIC THEORY
NO BLOCK BOOKING REQUIRED
My handwriting is immaculate; it just comes out that way. I used to hope that the praise heaped upon it would cancel out bad stuff like long division. I’d practice at Dad’s desk in his study, looping my beautiful letters until I reached a plateau of neatness.
I reread the ad. It sounds like someone who’ll do anything for anyone. It sounds desperate.
There’s the click of my front door opening, and a small sound in the hall. My chest tightens. Someone’s there—in my hall. Another click. I sit rigidly, aware of prickling of the hairs on my arms, and my silent, shallow breathing. Jangling music drifts and fades from a passing car.
I shift position, flinching as the chair legs scrape against the floorboards. ‘Hello?’ I call softly.
Nothing. I pad across the living room and peer round the door into the hall. And I see it: the slender black case, which has been placed on the floor, close to the front door. I crouch down, rest the case on my knees and click it open. The flute is in perfect condition—looks recently polished, in fact. I fit the pieces together, turning the instrument in my hands. It feels different—no longer mine.
Earlier this week Jojo’s class teacher hurried after me as I left school. ‘About Jojo,’ Polly said. ‘Had her mother on the phone. Rather…forthright, isn’t she?’
‘I don’t really know her,’ I said.
‘She wants Jojo to stop music lessons,’ Polly continued. ‘Says she’s worried it’s interfering with her…core subjects.’ Polly smiled brightly, as if relieved at having got this over and done with.
‘Is that what she said? Core subjects?’
‘She said her main stuff like reading and writing.’
I forced a smile and said, ‘Well, that frees up a place for someone else.’
I stand up now, lifting the flute to my mouth, ready to play right there in the hall. I run through scales, playing through the blasts of a horn as a car struggles up Briar Hill, its occupants roaring their delight at Plymouth’s victory.
Then I take the flute to pieces, place them back in the case and shut the lid firmly. It feels like an old friend who’s strolled back into your life when you’ve forgotten how to be with them.
19
Ready or Not
My ad on the newsagent’s glass-fronted board is surrounded by For Sale cards depicting bunk beds, a Barbie scooter and a fully adjustable dog lifejacket with grab-handle ‘to stop you losing a beloved pet at sea’. A smattering of callers has responded to my card. When I told her my fee one woman announced, ‘Good lord! We could only stretch to lessons once a month,’ and I heard myself saying, ‘Fine—we can set something up.’
An elderly sounding man asked if I teach bassoon—I don’t—and was I the music teacher who worked at St Mary’s in the late fifties? Another man thoroughly quizzed me on my teaching credentials, and said he’d consider whether I was ‘right’ for his daughter. I wondered if I should cut-price myself.
‘Good response to your ad, Stella?’ asks Joyce. She has owned the newsagents for as long as I can remember. Charlie and I used to come here for our sherbet lollies and crisps, which constituted our school lunches.
‘A few inquiries,’ I tell her, ‘but I’d like to pay for six more weeks.’
She leans over the counter and murmurs, ‘I’m sorry to hear your Dad’s news, Stella.’
‘What news?’
Her eyes flick down to the small stack of South Devon Echos on the counter. A headline above a narrow column—beside the main story, about flooding at the new housing development—reads: TV Frankie Sacked After Dramatic Scuffle.
‘You didn’t know?’ Joyce asks.
I pick up a newspaper, folding it over to hide Dad. ‘One of those stupid exaggerated stories,’ I tell her. ‘You know what the papers are like.’ I pull out my purse from my bag to pay for my ad and the paper. Coins scatter all over the neatly arranged copies of Surfing World and Yachting Today.
‘I didn’t think it sounded like your dad,’ Joyce adds kindly. ‘Absolute nonsense, that Friday Zoo. Never watch it myself.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘TV programs aren’t what they used to be,’ Joyce says.
Outside the newsagents I open the paper and read:
TV has-been Frankie Moon has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons—by slugging Dirk Turner of Friday Zoo. Turner, who suffered a fractured jaw, told the Echo: ‘The whole point of the slot is to make fun of Frankie in a kind and affectionate way. After all, lots of our older viewers remember his shows from the late seventies and are very fond of him.
‘What he did was out of order, particularly as Friday Zoo has revitalized his career and brought him to a whole new generation of viewers.’ The heartthrob’s lawyers are pressing charges against Mr Moon, 61, who lives in North Cornwall. Frankie’s agent, Coral Dawson, and Mr Moon himself, have declined to comment.
Maggie says,
‘Frankie can’t come to the phone, dear. He’s resting upstairs. He’s been very tired, after all this fuss. Not himself at all.’
‘Will they prosecute?’ I ask.
‘We’re taking advice,’ she says carefully, then adds, ‘He was provoked, of course. That wretched man, soon as they came off air—jibing him…’
‘What did he say to Dad?’
‘I don’t want to repeat it. It’s so unjust, when you think of your poor father, with his experience and professionalism….’
I start to tell her that Dad’s not a violent man—there must be some mistake—but I’m drowned out by Surf’s fretful barks.
Midge stands in my hall like a stranger. ‘Does your mum know you’re here?’ I ask.
She shrugs and says, ‘She’s having a sleep.’
‘Are you allowed to come and see me?’
Midge gnaws a snag of skin by her thumbnail. ‘No, we’re not.’ It’s always we, even when she’s on her own, as if the specter of Jojo hovers over her.
The front of her hair, which is too long to be called a fringe, clings to her face in damp clumps. There’s been a light flurry of snow. I saw her, out in the street, trying to catch meager flakes on her tongue. ‘Maybe you should go home,’ I suggest.
‘Don’t want to. Don’t care what she says.’
‘You should, she’s your mum—’
‘I hate her.’
‘Don’t say that.’
She pulls off her damp coat, strides into the living room and tosses it onto the rug. ‘I do hate her,’ she announces. ‘She shouted at me just ’cause of my glitter.’
‘What did you do with your glitter?’
‘Nothing! Just sprinkled it in the toilet to see if it would float.’
‘Does glitter float?’ I ask, smiling.
‘Yeah. But it won’t flush away. So every time Mum goes to the loo it’s all glittery and she remembers what a bad girl I am.’ She curls up on the rug, where I left the Echo. I nudge her coat with my foot to cover Dad’s startled face. ‘Want to play a game?’ she asks suddenly.
‘Okay, just for a few minutes. I don’t want you to get into trouble with your mum.’
‘Hide-and-seek?’
‘Want to be hider or seeker?’
‘I’ll seek,’ she says firmly and slaps chilled-looking hands over her eyes.
One. Two. Three. Four. I hurtle upstairs and into my bedroom but remember her ruining Mum’s makeup and head for the bathroom instead, where no bad things have happened. There are no real hiding places—only behind the door—so I duck into the small bedroom where my spare mattress is propped against the window.
Eleven. Twelve. Fourteen. Fifteen. She always skips thirteen. It’s unlucky, like walking under ladders or leaving up your Christmas decorations beyond January six (although Diane, I noticed, only got around to taking hers down three weeks after Christmas; I really can’t see why she takes such issue with glitter in the toilet).
Nineteen. Twenty. Coming-ready-or-not!
I have squeezed behind the mattress. The back of my head is pressed against the cold glass. Midge thunders upstairs and makes straight for the bathroom; there’s the clank of the toilet lid being flung back, as if I might have stuffed myself down there. She bounds on, humming, to explore my bedroom. There’s a slithering sound, as if she’s worming under my bed.
She’s on the landing now, breathing coarsely. ‘Stella?’ comes the tentative voice. I cough, a small clue. She clomps in, sniffing, then scampers downstairs, roaring, ‘Where are you?’
Cough.
‘Stella!’
Cough-cough.
‘Where are you?’
‘Up here,’ I call out, and we collide on the stairs as she flings herself into my belly, sending me toppling backward. ‘Midge,’ I say, ‘what on earth’s wrong?’
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she cries.
I pull her toward me and hug her. Her heart beats frantically through her Tank Girl T-shirt. ‘It was only a game,’ I say softly.
‘I don’t ever want to lose you,’ she whispers.
‘You won’t lose me, sweetheart. I’ll always be your friend.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise,’ I say. ‘Come on now, let’s dry your face, and I’ll take you home.’
We find Diane reclining in her glossy apricot dressing gown and puppy slippers on the sofa. ‘Hi,’ she says, idly flicking the pages of Woman’s Life.
‘I went to Stella’s,’ Midge mutters.
‘So I see,’ Diane says, poring over an article entitled I Lost Five Stones and Wasn’t Hungry Once. The woman in the picture is grinning fiercely, next to a blurry snapshot of her former self.
‘Just wanted to see her,’ Midge adds defiantly.
‘It’s up to you where you go.’
I shift uneasily, aware of Diane’s hostile vibes, even though I can only see the back of her head. ‘Diane,’ I say, ‘I wondered if you still have any boxes or tea chests from when you moved in?’
‘Mmm, probably.’
‘Could I borrow some?’
‘What for?’ Reluctantly, she tears her gaze away from the magazine.
‘I’m packing up my ex-boyfriend’s stuff. It’s driving me mad, seeing all the stuff he left behind, every time I open a cupboard.’
‘Oh,’ she says, softening. ‘Yes, of course you can. I’ll bring them over later, when I’m dressed. You can make me some tea.’
This, I figure, is the closest Diane ever comes to saying sorry.
‘Alex, I want to drop off the rest of your stuff.’
‘Hey,’ he says—his don’t-hassle-me voice, ‘what’s the problem?’
‘Your things. Can I bring them round?’
‘I’ll pick them up sometime. I saw your ad in the newsagents—not taking on more pupils, are you? How d’you find the time?’
‘I work, like most people have to.’
‘Well, I work, too.’
‘Faking crop circles, Alex, and that was last summer. So, will be you in later, if I come round?’
‘That urgent, is it?’ he asks, sounding hurt.
Yes, it is. You’re still here, all around me. Like Mum’s spilled perfume, you won’t go away. ‘I’m just trying to tidy the place up,’ I tell him.
‘It was tidy the last time I looked.’
‘Around eight, will that be okay?’
Alex sighs. ‘I’ll be ready and waiting,’ he says.
In the bathroom cabinet I find three unopened tubes of Alex’s eucalyptus toothpaste (why had peppermint suddenly become so unpalatable?). It made his morning kisses feel medicinal, although that might not have been just the toothpaste.
His fishing rod is propped up and impossibly tangled at the back of the wardrobe. Behind my boxed shoes—he laughed at my habit of keeping shoes in their original boxes, like precious things—is the stack of encyclopedia he bought from an ad in a Sunday supplement. I flick through the P-T volume.
Rainbow. A series of arcs caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight falling on water droplets. The common primary bow results in arcs of the following colors…
Beneath it, rainbow trout. Member of the salmon family, with an ability to leap dramatically and fight hard in an attempt to resist capture. Species: Oncorhynchus mykiss. Mykiss, I like that.
I stack the encyclopedia into Diane’s boxes and haul them downstairs. I drag down the bags of shirts, and the zip-up bag of his summery things, and a carrier bag of his creams and lotions, plus the fishing rod.
Here, in the cupboard under the stairs, are his rake, spade, some implement to drill small holes in the ground, and knobbly gardening gloves with a brittle soil crust. I’ll keep these, as Alex no longer has a garden.
He’d had big plans to grow things, for all of one fortnight in May, and placed a row of tomato plants on the shelf at the kitchen window. They grew fervently, sprawling across the glass and leaving me shrouded in shadows. My sea view had gone.
Alex had chosen a variety
called Big Boy to make me laugh. Despite the abundance of foliage, the plants produced a total of three orangey pearls that he dressed, ceremoniously, with olive oil and vinegar, carefully cutting the third tomato in half so we could share it. I watched his mouth as he ate, wanting to kiss it.
I carry the boxes and bags to the car and fill the boot. In one carrier bag I can see Alex’s checked pajamas, bought when he’d decided to stop sleeping naked and required a thin layer of cotton between us.
Jojo appears, ghostly pale in her lilac nightie at the window, and watches me drive away.
Alex’s yellowy stair light ekes through the rippled glass rectangle above the door. I have unpacked the boot and piled everything on the damp pavement. It’s all his now, which means it really is over. I look down at the boxes and carrier bags, swallowing hard. At least I folded his shirts carefully, nestling fragile items between layers of faded cotton. I’ve taken a lot more care than those Movers & Shakers men.
The door opens. Alex looks slightly bewildered, as if he’s just woken up. ‘So much stuff,’ he says quietly.
‘You did leave a lot.’
He crouches to unzip the bag. He pulls out the battered Birkenstocks, wincing, as if they’ve been fouled up by a stranger’s feet.
‘I’ll help you carry them up,’ I say.
‘You needn’t bother.’
‘I’d like to, Alex.’
We haul up the bags and dump them in the middle of the living room. His flat feels cool and sparse and is painted all white. The small pale gray sofa, and the metal shelving unit—housing a portable TV, stereo and small stack of books—look as if they’ve been brought in to make it look as if someone actually lives here. The living room is carpeted in an oatmeal color, the kind you tend to find in offices. Everything about the room feels temporary.
Alex peels the tape from a box and starts to unpack magazines: Trout and Salmon, Caged and Aviary Birds, Poetry Now. There are reminders of his eco-warrior phase: Green Living, One Planet. I sit cross-legged on the carpet, watching him sort them by title and stack them neatly like mini tower blocks on the floor all around him. ‘Don’t know where I’m going to put everything,’ he says.
