by Julie Cohen
‘Jo?’
She turned. He was still looking at her.
‘If you – if you really don’t want me to replace your top that I ruined, maybe I can replace your cup of tea. Sometime?’
‘Um.’ What was this? ‘Yes, of course. I mean, yes! That would be great. Thank you.’
‘See you later, then.’ He bent down to pick up something, and a minute later Jo heard the sound of hedge clippers. She hurried into the house.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the stainless steel refrigerator door. Her hair had come loose in tendrils; her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. For a moment she thought she saw someone much younger. Someone that she used to be.
Chapter Eleven
Lydia
WHERE’S DADDY?
It was Oscar’s voice she’d heard as she came out of her room, Oscar’s little plea, but for a moment she’d thought it was her own. High and innocent, with a childish lisp, asking the same thing.
Where’s Daddy?
Daddy’s gone, darling. He’s gone.
Lydia ran. She rarely walked anywhere when she was alone; she liked going fast. And besides, Avril’s text had sounded … worried.
And Mum had sounded disappointed when Lydia hadn’t stayed to have a painting party with her. Like she was trying to make Lydia feel guilty for wanting to have a life of her own. And Lydia did feel guilty, a little bit, because it was true that she and Mum hardly had any time together any more, but why did it always have to be on Mum’s terms, something Mum wanted them to do?
Anyway, Mum enjoyed stuff like painting. Within five minutes of the kids being picked up by Richard (when he got there, finally, the jerk), she would be humming along with the radio, in that way she had of being slightly behind the beat, and opening all the windows and twirling around with a big grin on her face because it was a beautiful day.
Her mother did things like that. She made daisy chains and danced in parks. She thought eating an extra cupcake was the height of naughty fun. Lydia used to think it was really cool. OscanIrie still did, and they were lucky, she supposed.
Mum’s view of the world just didn’t encompass being sixteen and gay and in love with your best friend. Even in the worst times, Mum was cheerful. Smiling. Looking for silver linings, trying to stay happy. She acted as if she was a rubber duck, able to bob over all the troubling things in life, saying you had to accept them and move on, when anyone could see that if Dad hadn’t died, if Mum hadn’t married Richard, everything would have been much better.
Avril lived nearly a mile away, in an estate of one-and-two-bedroom flats, built too close together around a courtyard of a car park about ten years ago and starting to wear. It was a different world to Lydia’s neighbourhood with wide lawns and high fences; here the grass was studded with dandelions, and someone’s bin had overturned into the street. Lydia skirted the spilled rubbish, which looked as if foxes or dogs had been into it, and went through the car park to Avril’s block.
Avril was sitting outside the door on the step. Her chin was resting on the knees of her curled-up legs, her arms around herself; she was looking out for Lydia. She looked fragile and pale and Lydia’s heart made a great thump.
‘What’s up?’ She was breathless.
‘I need you to …’ Avril swallowed. Her voice was hoarse, and she was wearing the T-shirt she usually slept in. ‘I can’t lift her myself.’
Lydia’s eyes widened. Avril got up, hugging her chest now. They went inside and up the stairs to the flat where Avril and her mum lived. Their footsteps echoed.
The flat was dark, and there was a sour smell in the air. Shoes cluttered the floor of the narrow corridor leading into the flat. The curtains in the living room beyond had all been closed, but there was sunlight filtering through the open bathroom door, and in it Lydia could see something on the floor, something coming out of the doorway to the bathroom.
‘I found her this morning,’ Avril whispered. ‘I don’t know how long she’s been there. She wasn’t in when I went to bed last night.’
Avril stayed, hovering near the closed front door, still hugging herself. Lydia went forward and saw, as she got closer, that the shape on the floor was a pair of feet, shoes still on. Dread pooled in her stomach.
When she looked through the door of the bathroom, she saw Avril’s mum lying on the tiled floor. She lay on her side, her mouth open, her face grey. A pink fluffy blanket had been draped over her and tucked beneath her body. A string of saliva dangled from her mouth and pooled on the floor near the toilet.
‘Oh my God.’ Lydia took a step back. ‘Av, is she …’
Mrs Toller answered the question Lydia couldn’t ask by taking in a great shuddering breath, and letting it out with a long moan.
‘She’s passed out,’ said Avril over Lydia’s shoulder. ‘I put the blanket on her because I didn’t want her to get cold. But I can’t leave her here, and I can’t lift her myself.’
‘Have you tried waking her up?’
‘Of course I have! When I found her, she’d been sick all over the floor. I cleaned her up and put her on her side like they said in that First Aid course we did at school. Yelling in her ear the whole time.’
Avril’s voice was high-pitched and hysterical. Lydia reached back and took her hand. It was cold.
‘I just … I just need you to help me lift her up and put her into bed.’
‘OK. Of course. Do you think we need an ambulance?’
‘No. No, no ambulance. The neighbours would all see. I did that once and she …’ Avril scrunched her face together as if she were trying to stop from crying. ‘No, she’s just had too much. She’ll be all right in a few hours when she’s slept it off.’
‘But what if she banged her head, or hurt herself falling?’
Granny Honor had broken her hip, just falling down a few stairs. Older women had fragile bones, especially older women who didn’t look after themselves, like Mrs Toller. She was skinny and slack under the blanket. Lydia had never seen her eating anything. Avril often made herself a sandwich or got some crisps from the garage, on the nights when she wasn’t eating at Lydia’s house. Lydia wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know that, but she did.
‘She’s just drunk,’ said Avril, and now her voice was no longer hysterical. It was angry, with a brittle edge to it. ‘She went to the pub and she drank too much and she came home and passed out in the bathroom. She promised she wouldn’t do it, but she did. Just … help me move her.’
Lydia nodded. Carefully, she went into the bathroom, stepping over Mrs Toller’s legs. ‘Mrs Toller?’ she called loudly. She bent down and shook her shoulder. Mrs Toller’s eyelids fluttered, but they stayed closed, and she took in one of those shuddering breaths again and let it out with another moan.
‘I’ll get her shoulders, and you get her legs, all right?’
‘OK.’
Lydia pushed at Mrs Toller’s shoulder so that she was on her back, and she put her hands under her armpits. She had no idea of the best way to lift a person. That might have been on the First Aid course she’d taken with Avril, too, but she hadn’t remembered it. All she remembered was giving CPR to a plastic dummy that smelled like stale Barbie dolls.
‘On three?’ she said, hoping she’d be strong enough to lift Mrs Toller, hoping they wouldn’t drop her halfway to the bedroom. Hoping she wouldn’t puke again. Hoping, though it was a betrayal of Avril, that a grown-up would walk through the door and take charge. That someone had already called an ambulance.
‘One … two … three.’ She heaved upwards, and Mrs Toller was heavier than she’d expected, a dead weight, but to her surprise, she and Avril managed to lift her. Her midsection hung down, dangling the blanket, just over the floor.
Avril shuffled backwards into the corridor and Lydia moved forwards, Mrs Toller slung like a sack of potatoes between them. She moaned and muttered something.
‘Just taking you to bed, Mum,’ said Avril, trying to sound bright and failing, breath
less. Lydia had a split second to worry that they wouldn’t be able to bend Mrs Toller’s body enough to get her into the corridor, but since she was so limp, they were able to manoeuvre her by bending her at the middle. They carried her the few feet down the corridor and into her bedroom; Avril bumped open the door with her hip.
Mrs Toller was heavy enough that she’d slipped down quite a bit, so it was a struggle to lift her enough to put her on the bed, which was unmade, the duvet a tangled heap at the bottom. Lydia heaved, but her arms lacked the strength to get Mrs Toller up. In the end she climbed onto the bed herself, with her shoes on, taking Mrs Toller with her, crawling backwards on her knees and sliding the woman across the bottom sheet so that her head was more or less near the pillow.
Panting, she watched Avril take off her mother’s shoes and push her legs onto the bed. She pulled up the duvet over her, and Mrs Toller groaned again, turned on her side, and curled up. The curtain was already drawn, and Avril and Lydia tiptoed out of the room. Avril went straight to the kitchen, found a large bowl and poured a glass of water, and brought them into her mother’s room.
Lydia waited for her in the corridor. ‘Are you sure it’s OK?’ she whispered. ‘Doesn’t bumping your head make you throw up, too? If she’s got a concussion, shouldn’t she go to A and E?’
Avril shook her head. ‘It’s not concussion, it’s gin. I checked her head for bumps and there aren’t any that I could tell. I think she just lay down and went to sleep in the bathroom. It wouldn’t be the first time, though usually I can wake her up.’
Her face was still white, and she was beginning to shiver. Lydia put her hand on her cold arm and stroked it to warm it up.
‘I could call my mum,’ she suggested.
Avril shook her head again, so hard this time that her hair nearly whipped Lydia’s face. ‘Don’t do that. I don’t want your mum to know. She’ll be all right. She’ll just have a hangover.’
Avril’s teeth were chattering now.
‘Do you – do you want a cup of tea?’ Lydia asked. The question sounded like something her mum would ask. ‘Or something else to drink? I know – a Coke.’ Avril started for the kitchen, but Lydia stopped her.
‘Go and sit on the sofa. I’ll bring it in.’
The fridge had cans of both full-fat and Diet Coke in it; Lydia took the red can, because even though Avril usually drank Diet, she could do with the sugar. She put some bread in the toaster, too, and while it was toasting, went to get a blanket from Avril’s room. She brought both to Avril, then went back to the kitchen to spread the toast thickly with butter and jam.
This was also something her mum would do: feeding. It drove her crazy, sometimes – as if real problems could be solved with carbs. But Lydia couldn’t think of anything else to do, any other way to help. She brought the plate through with another two cans of Coke. Avril was staring into space on the sofa, with the blanket wrapped around her. Lydia balanced the plate on the arm of the sofa next to Avril and sat down next to her, popping her own can.
‘She just had one too many in the pub,’ said Avril.
It was more than that. Lydia heard the pain in her friend’s voice, all the other times that Avril had never told her about, all the times that Avril had had to deal with by herself, and she wanted to hug her, kiss her, hold her close. Curl around and into her, surround her. Kiss her forehead, her eyebrows, her cheek. Stroke her hair and tell her it didn’t matter, she loved her, she would look after her. That the two of them could be happy. They didn’t need anyone else.
‘What can I do?’ she asked helplessly.
‘Just … stay here. Can you hang out for a while? I don’t want to leave her, and I don’t want to be by myself.’
‘Yeah.’
Avril reached for the remote and turned the telly on. They sat there side by side, in the blue light, looking at the television without seeing it. Lydia felt every breath Avril took; slowly, minute by minute, she felt her shivering subside, and her body quieten.
She could not reach out her hand.
What felt like much later, after Avril’s mum had woken up and slumped into the kitchen, feet dragging, to put the kettle on, Lydia went home. She was astonished by the sunshine.
At home, the entire downstairs smelled of paint. In what used to be Lydia’s bedroom, Mum was reaching up, rolling a second coat of light blue paint on the walls. The purple underneath still showed through in patches. She turned around when Lydia entered, putting her free hand on the small of her back.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said. ‘Is Avril with you?’
Lydia saw that Mum’s cheeks were flushed; she appeared to be wearing make-up, though she was wearing a lot of paint on her face and hair as well. The top of her chest was pink, and her eyes bright, as if Lydia had caught her doing something naughty, instead of putting a second coat of paint on the walls.
She looked younger and prettier. More like the Mum she remembered of a long time ago, when Lydia was little, when they had done all those things together. When Dad was still alive. She was the Mum who fed her, who bought her Disney DVDs, who insisted on painting the toenails on both of their feet pink and who loved to fly kites and dance in fields. Who always told her things were going to be all right, when Lydia was young enough to believe her.
All in a rush, Lydia wanted to go across the room and snuggle up into her mother’s arms. She wanted to tuck her head under Mum’s chin and let her stroke her back and make ‘there there’ noises like she used to when Lydia had a bad dream in the middle of the night.
But that would require explanation. It had been too long. And she knew that it wouldn’t change anything, not really.
Instead, she picked up a paintbrush. ‘Where do you need help?’
Mum’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Well – if you wanted to go along the skirting boards for a second coat, that would be great. Thank you.’
Lydia nodded, and the two of them worked together in silence for a while. It wasn’t a painting party, but it was sort of peaceful.
Chapter Twelve
Jo
LYDIA WAS PLUGGED into her phone, staring out through the windscreen as they negotiated the North Circular on the way to the hospital. Above the sound of the car engine, Jo could hear the flimsy drum and bass sound escaping through the headphones. It was as if yesterday hadn’t happened. Not that they’d said much to each other yesterday. Sometimes it was like living with a stranger.
She reached over and tapped Lydia on the arm. Lyddie sighed and took one of her earbuds out. ‘What?’
‘I thought maybe we could have a chat while we were driving to get Granny Honor.’
Lydia sighed again and took the other earbud out.
‘We don’t seem to spend much time together these days,’ said Jo. ‘When you were little, we spent every day together.’
‘Well, I have a life now, you know.’
‘I know. And it’s natural that you’re growing up. And I’m really busy, too, with your brother and sister. I’m sorry that I don’t have as much time for you as I used to.’
Jo waited, hoping for some response, an apology in kind, but Lydia only fiddled with her phone.
‘How’s school?’
She shrugged.
‘Are you worried about your exams? Not that you should be; you’re a very clever girl. But I know they put the pressure on these days.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘I thought we could work on a revision timetable together. You know, with coloured pens and stickers. With treats built in, so that you have something to aim for. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?’
‘Mm.’ Lydia stared out of the window.
She was losing her. Her little girl, her firstborn, was slipping away all the time. Jo couldn’t gather her up into her arms any more; couldn’t tickle her until she laughed so hard she was squealing. Couldn’t play dress-up and paint her nails, couldn’t make it better with biscuits and warm milk, couldn’t tuck her into bed and kiss her on the forehead.
W
hen she was little, Lydia would laugh easily, and cry easily, too. Her emotions were so clear on her face. She was soft-hearted and tender. When she was seven, a skinny little girl with no father, she’d saved up all of her pocket money and asked Jo to donate it to the plaque they were putting up on the bridge for Stephen.
Lydia’s phone played a musical note, the special note she had for texts from Avril. Jo heard it all over the house at least twenty times a day. Lydia read the message, and stuffed the phone into her pocket. When Jo glanced at her, her face was screwed up, as if she’d just received some sort of a blow.
‘Lyddie? Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Was it some bad news from Avril?’
She couldn’t look at Lydia properly because she was driving, couldn’t study her face for pain or evasion. ‘Avril’s fine,’ said Lydia, but her voice was angry.
Jo swallowed her questions and tried to concentrate on her driving, and on giving her daughter some space. The Range Rover was much too big for driving around London. It was much too big in general; Jo felt silly driving around so tall, as if she were looking down on everyone else. Richard had bought it, as Richard had bought everything.
‘How did you know that Dad was in love with you?’ Lydia said abruptly.
Jo signalled left and negotiated the bend before she answered. ‘I knew from the very beginning. You know the story, right? How I was working in that café in Cambridge to save up some money so I could go to uni?’
‘And how he came in every day with all these big thick books to study and drink tea, and how he never even looked up from his books for the first three weeks and then suddenly one day he did?’
Jo smiled, pleased that Lydia was talking at last. ‘I looked forward to him coming in every day. I even had a cup ready for him and I would save him one of his favourite scones, even though he never noticed that I did it. You probably don’t remember the way he had, of being so fully absorbed in what he was thinking of that it was as if nothing else existed. I thought he was adorable. He needed a haircut and he was tall and gangly and he wore glasses. He looked like a young mad professor.’ Jo grinned. ‘The other girls in the café teased me that I was falling for a nerd.’
