Falling

by Julie Cohen

  But after that Avril just sat there, watching the boys playing football. They could hear them shouting good-natured abuse to each other. Lydia felt a burning in her chest. She knew why Avril couldn’t say it.

  This was the moment, the moment she’d been thinking about for almost as long as she’d known Avril. The moment where she was supposed to open her heart and let the truth shine out. Where she was supposed to be brave enough not to care about the consequences, where she was supposed to wait, holding her breath and hoping for the answer that would make her happy rather than the answer that she knew was the truth.

  Her mother had said: it was the time to trust. The time to be truthful to each other, and let love sort everything out.

  But there were all those other moments with Avril. Not the ones where Lydia was silently wanting, where she yearned to touch but couldn’t. There were the moments of laughing together, or watching a television programme in separate houses while they were texting to each other, throwing Maltesers into each other’s mouths and missing. The moment where Avril had asked Lydia to walk into school with her that first day because both of them were invisible and visible in the wrong sort of ways, because both of them wanted to be normal and be liked.

  Those moments were truth, too. And they were precious enough not to be lost to another kind of truth.

  ‘No, you’re not my type,’ she said to Avril. And when she smiled at her, it was mostly a real smile. One that would become more real as time went on. Because she was beginning to discover that there was a sort of freedom in hopelessness. It let you look for other, new things to hope for.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Lydia

  AFTER AVRIL HAD gone home to revise, Lydia walked around the corner to her house. She sped up when she saw the postman, out of instinct almost, and intercepted him before he turned into her drive. He gave her a small bundle of post, circulars and bills. ‘Nice day for it,’ he said to her, and walked off on the rest of his round. Lydia put the bundle under her arm. Mum was on her knees in the flower bed near the front door, weeding with her good hand. She glanced up and Lydia knew that she’d been watching out for her.

  ‘You shouldn’t be doing that with your shoulder,’ Lydia said. She held out the post and her mother shook her head.

  ‘Dirty hands. Anyway, I wanted to get this done before Richard brings Oscar and Iris back tomorrow. How did it go with Avril?’ She wiped hair away from her forehead, leaving a smear of soil.

  ‘Yeah. We’re friends.’ Her mother studied her. ‘It’s OK,’ Lydia said. ‘I mean, it’s not OK, but I’d rather have her as a friend than not having her at all.’

  ‘Are you sure she isn’t …?’

  ‘No, Mum, she isn’t. You really have no gaydar whatsoever, do you?’

  Mum laughed, but then she caught sight of something behind Lydia and she stopped. A violent blush rose on her cheeks.

  ‘Mum?’ Lydia turned. She should have guessed: it was Mr Graham, at the end of their drive.

  Mum scrambled to her feet. There were dark dirt patches on the knees of her jeans. Lydia looked back at Mr Graham and he was flushed, too. God, like a couple of teenagers. How embarrassing.

  He hesitated. ‘I … er, wondered if I could talk with Lydia?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mum, obviously trying really hard to be calm, and she went into the house, shutting the door a bit too firmly behind her. Lydia watched Mr Graham watching her go. He had on a T-shirt and jeans. It was sort of weird to see him in normal person clothes. Also weird to see him looking at her mother that way.

  He cleared his throat and came up the drive. ‘It’s partly an unofficial school visit. I wanted to see how you were doing, and talk with you a bit about what you think you might want to do about your exams.’

  ‘I haven’t had much time to think about them.’ Lydia sat on the grass, laying the post beside her, and Mr Graham joined her. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, which made him look even less teacherish.

  ‘And that’s absolutely fine. Your health is the most important thing. I thought you’d like to know that the school did have a look at the cache of your Facebook page before it was deleted, and several students have been suspended as a result. The ones in Year Eleven will be taking their exams, but in a different part of the building. They’ll be completely isolated from the rest of the school.’

  Lydia nodded. As when Avril had told her, it didn’t really give her any pleasure to know that people were being punished because of her. They deserved it, but she’d rather it hadn’t happened at all. ‘I might go to the college next year.’

  ‘Good idea. We can arrange for you to do some exams at the college now, if you’re up for it. But we can sort all that out on Monday when you come in with your mum. The thing that I wanted to tell you is that this isn’t make or break, Lydia. You can catch up on all of these exams. And it is my personal priority to ensure that your future isn’t affected because of this. I know you want to go to Oxbridge after A levels, and though it might take a little more time for that to happen, I’ll do everything I can to give you the best possible shot.’

  She knew it was at least partly his guilt talking, but she could also tell that he meant what he said.

  ‘It happened to me,’ he added, in a lower voice. ‘Though I was younger than you and I was bullied for a different reason. And it was boys who were picking on me, for being smaller than them, so it was a little bit more … straightforward. But it was similar enough.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I should have noticed what was happening with you. I’m very sorry that I didn’t. If it helps … it does get better, Lydia. Though you never forget it. If you’re lucky, it can make you stronger.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. Not prepared for this shift of perspective from seeing Mr Grin, the teacher who smiled too much, to a person who’d suffered, who maybe wanted to be liked because he had spent too long without friends.

  What if everyone had something like this – a similar twist inside, a reason, a fear? Even Erin, Darren, Bailey? What if it was all done, every bit of it, to connect, to be liked, not to fall through emptiness, alone?

  She sat very still on the grass, feeling a bit dizzy with the thought of it. An entire universe inside every person, too huge to comprehend, except in glimpses. The world so much larger than she had ever imagined, so much bigger than she had thought it could be when she balanced on the ledge of the bridge.

  Mr Graham cleared his throat, bringing her back to here, in front of her house, sitting with her teacher who was suddenly a human being.

  ‘I also …’ He took a deep breath. ‘I also wanted to apologize for keeping secrets from you. And if I missed seeing something important because of the way I feel about your mother, I am truly sorry.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘What happened between your mother and me has absolutely nothing to do with you. Nothing at all.’

  ‘God, I hope not.’

  ‘And I like her a lot. I don’t know if she feels the same way about me.’

  Lydia grimaced. There were glimpses inside a person, and then there were glimpses. ‘That’s sort of gross, actually.’

  ‘Because you don’t like me, or because you don’t think I’m good for her, or …?’

  ‘Because she’s my mum. Would you like to think about your mum shagging the neighbour?’

  ‘My mum lives next door to two gay men and a goat. But I take your point.’ He sighed. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I don’t think I can live up to your dad.’

  ‘Nobody can,’ said Lydia. ‘But the thing is, he’s dead.’

  ‘That makes it even harder to live up to him. Lydia, this might be a bit unusual, but I wanted to ask your permission to invite your mother out on a date.’

  ‘You don’t need my permission,’ she said, surprised.

  ‘I think I do. You’re the most important thing to your mum right now, and that’s the way it should be. I want to be part of her life, but I can’t – I don’t want to
be – unless you’re OK with it.’ He held out his hands. ‘It would be all above board, no secrets. Dinner, a movie. Boring stuff.’ He smiled wryly.

  Lydia considered him. He was all right. He tried too hard, but you couldn’t hold that against him, especially once you knew why. He was better than Richard by a long shot. And the way her mother had actually blushed when she saw him … it was sort of sweet … and a little disgusting. But sweet. And didn’t her mother have more inside her, too – more than Lydia would have ever thought?

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ she said. ‘She’s inside now. Probably taking a cake out of the oven. It might be a good time to ask. If she says no she might feel obliged to feed you in compensation.’

  She watched him go inside the house, and listened hard for any sounds of pots and pans being flung about. But there was nothing like that. All she could hear was a wood pigeon sighing, and the distant sound of crows, and the buzz of a hedge-trimmer. Maybe, far away, a train.

  She turned over the envelopes that the postman had given her, remembering how she had used to wait for the post when she was a little girl, hoping for something exciting, or something she could put away and save for the day when she might be able to give it to her daddy. She remembered how she’d longed to read his letters aloud to him, and see the pleasure and surprise when he listened.

  It had been a magical wish, a wish that would never come true. But today had been a day of second chances. You never knew.

  Gas bill, credit-card bill, a clothing catalogue, money off online shopping. At the bottom, made of tissue-y thin paper, was a blue airmail envelope with a US stamp and a California postmark, addressed in a handwriting that she recognized. It was the same handwriting that had been on eight carefully saved Christmas cards full of words of regret and love, which had been written to her father but read aloud, years later, by his daughter to her grandmother.

  It was addressed to Dr Honor Levinson.

  Lydia let the rest of the post fall onto the grass. Holding the letter to her heart, she ran into the house to deliver it.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my agent Teresa Chris and my editor Harriet Bourton – you are absolutely my dream team. Also thanks to Bella Bosworth and Sarah Harwood, and everyone at Transworld who are so brilliant. I have owed my copy-editor Joan Deitch very many thanks for a very long time now: thank you, Joan, for your keen eyes and understanding.

  Thank you to Dr Linda Cameron OD for advice on AMD, including giving me funky glasses that replicated Honor’s view of the world. Thanks to Dr Joanna Cannon for advice on mental health services for young people, and Clare Mackintosh for insight into police response to attempted suicide. Thanks to Dr Iris Kwok, Caroline Stewart and my brother Dr Matthew Cohen for medical advice on what to do with an eighty-year-old woman with a broken hip, and to my cousin Sara Kass for advice about physical therapy and really unwise ways to use a mobility scooter. Thanks too to my cousins Olivia and Lewis Kass for advice and demonstrations on how teenagers use social media. Thank you to Irina Hernon for providing Russian translation of insults during our children’s Sports Day, and to Kirsty Jane McCluskey for discussing the nuances of said insults. Thanks to young Oliver Frankland for going through a ‘No!’ phase.

  Thank you to my running buddies Harriet Greaves and Claudia Spence for listening to my plot problems while we covered the miles. Thank you to Rowan Coleman for sharing and encouraging certain unhealthy obsessions, and to Brigid Coady, Miranda Dickinson, Tamsyn Murray, Cally Taylor, Kate Harrison, Natasha Onwu, Anna Scamans and Ruth Ng for constant support.

  Thanks as always to my husband, my son, and my parents, all of whom have taught me everything and who put up with me.

  Last, but certainly not least, thank you to Stonewall (www.stonewall.org.uk) and the It Gets Better Project (www.itgetsbetter.org) for helping young people facing homophobic and transphobic bullying.

  About the Author

  Julie Cohen grew up in Maine and studied English at Brown University and Cambridge University. She moved to the UK to research fairies in Victorian children’s literature at the University of Reading and this was followed by a career teaching English at secondary level. She now writes full time and is a popular speaker and teacher of creative writing. She lives with her husband and their son in Berkshire. Her novel Dear Thing received great acclaim and was a Richard & Judy Book Club selection.

  Talk with Julie on Twitter: @julie_cohen or visit her website: www.julie-cohen.com

  Also by Julie Cohen

  Dear Thing

  Where Love Lies

  and published by Black Swan

  Reading Group Questions

  Which of the three protagonists – Honor, Jo or Lydia – do you think is the true heroine of this novel?

  All three women feel that they are different from each other … but how are they alike?

  The book begins with Honor’s fall, and there are many types of falling in this novel, both literal and metaphorical. What others can you find, and why do you think falling is important in the book?

  Honor, Jo and Lydia all fall in love with the wrong people. How do they each deal with this problem in different ways?

  In Lydia’s school, there are openly homosexual students who are accepted. Why do you think Lydia is afraid to tell the truth about her sexuality, and why do you think she’s bullied for it?

  The novel has a fairly open ending: what do you think happens next?

  Honor says: ‘Sometimes hope is too painful to contemplate.’ And later, Lydia thinks:

  ‘There was a sort of freedom in hopelessness.’ What do you think the novel is saying about hope, and about second chances?

  Where Love Lies

  * * *

  Lately, Felicity just can’t shake the shadow of uncertainty that has pervaded her life. Her husband Quinn is the kindest person she knows and loves her peculiarities more than Felicity feels she deserves. But suddenly it’s as if she doesn’t quite belong.

  Then Felicity experiences something extraordinary: a scent of perfume in the air that evokes memories and feelings that have been settled deep within her for a long time, untouched and undisturbed. As it happens again and then again, the memories of a man Felicity hasn’t seen for ten years also flutter to the surface. And so do the feelings of being deeply, exquisitely in love …

  Which would you trust: your head or your heart?

  Available to read now

  Dear Thing

  A Richard & Judy Book Club Pick

  * * *

  After years of watching her best friends Ben and Claire try for a baby, Romily has offered to give them the one thing they most want.

  But Romily wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming feelings that have taken hold of her and which threaten to ruin her friendship with Ben and Claire – and even destroy their marriage.

  Now there are three friends, two mothers and only one baby, and an impossible decision to make …

  ‘This bittersweet story of friendship and love is impressively compelling’

  CLOSER

  ‘Will move you to the core – and really make you think’

  SUN

  Available to read now

  Turn over to enjoy a taster chapter from Julie Cohen’s tender novel about an impossible choice.

  Dear Thing,

  I want to tell you a story.

  Once upon a time, when we still believed in wishes, there lived a prince and a princess. The prince was handsome and clever, and the princess was beautiful and good, and they were deeply in love.

  That’s something you might ask about one day, when you’re older. What is love? Some people think it’s magic. Some people think it’s biology. In this case, the prince and his princess seemed meant for each other. It’s difficult to explain why; he liked football and she liked concerts. She liked old things, and he liked new. Their life together was a series of compromises. Maybe that’s what a ‘happily ever after’ really is.

  The prince asked the princess to
marry him. Their wedding was a wonderful day, full of silver and gold and flowers and joy. The prince danced to ‘Boogie Wonderland’ and nearly knocked over the top table. I wish you’d been there to see it. In a way, you were there; the princess and the prince had certainly thought of you. They already wanted you. A perfect child, who would make their love complete.

  But the years went by, and went by … and you never appeared.

  It’s not much of a fairy tale, is it?

  1

  A Little Secret

  THE DAY BEFORE she was supposed to have the test, Claire escaped the music block so she could look again. Her suede boots spotted with wet as she walked across the grass past the pet shed. Two lower-school boys were checking on their guinea pigs, their breath rising in clouds. She raised a hand to them in greeting and headed for the small path leading into the wood that surrounded the school.

  On the field a group of girls were playing hockey. As soon as she entered the wood, their cries of encouragement faded. She tightened her right hand around the objects in her pocket and quickened her steps. She skirted rhododendron bushes, pine needles releasing scent beneath her feet, until she reached the rusted iron gates tucked in a corner near the school boundaries. She pushed open the gate and walked into the cemetery.

  The St Dominick’s students rarely came here. The one time she’d brought half a dozen A-level students, thinking it might give them some inspiration, they’d shuddered and told her that they’d been whispering scary stories about the nuns’ graveyard for years. There was a rumour about a crying lady, and another about a swirling mist. But in the light of day, the graveyard wasn’t frightening: sunshine streamed through the towering pines above and pooled around the grey stones. They were all different shapes and sizes, some very old, some recent. Although St Dominick’s School hadn’t housed nuns for many years now, Sisters of the Order who had moved elsewhere were occasionally buried here, where they’d started their lives of service. The newer graves towards the outside were low granite blocks. One or two had plastic flowers in baskets next to them.