Vintage

by Maxine Linnell

  “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you at all. I don’t trust people easily. You know – since my mum and everything.”

  Marilyn mumbled. This felt like very deep water and she didn’t think she could swim.

  “She’d be forty now. It’s her birthday tomorrow.”

  “Oh.” There was no way that Marilyn could keep up with this. She was obviously supposed to know something she didn’t know. And Kyle wouldn’t believe what she did know. Or he might get upset. But then he was a boy. He wouldn’t get upset, or cry.

  “I miss her – you know? Dad’s cool and everything, but your mum’s important. Like your mum – she’s great.”

  Marilyn thought of her own mum, working away in the kitchen. She never knew whether she’d be silent, or screaming at Marilyn for some completely unknown reason. She didn’t know who her mum was. She’d never thought of that before. She swallowed.

  Kyle was crying. She’d never seen a boy cry. She didn’t think boys cried, ever. When her brother cried her mother said boys didn’t cry and laughed at him. He soon stopped.

  But Kyle was crying. Marilyn held out her arms to him. He let her hold him, his face buried in her shoulder, for a minute or two. She’d never held a boy like this. She’d never even touched a boy, except for her brother, when he was little.

  “It’s okay, I just need to let it out. Dad says he’s had to learn to do that, since she died. We’re always blubbing.”

  Marilyn let go of him and he wiped his eyes and picked up the phone.

  “Right, let’s get this mobile working.”

  Sheila and I escape from the table. In the end. She’s better at making polite conversation than me. I’m beginning to like her. Good, considering she seems to be Marilyn’s only friend. Great for my project. The real inside story on 1962. From real people living here. Sheila will be my first interviewee.

  “So what’s the most important thing in your life?”

  She looks at me. “Is this one of those quizzes? Okay, boys, friends, music, clothes, my family.”

  Nothing new there then. Is everyone the same? Would it be the same in 1952? 1942 even? 1842?

  “What about you?”

  “Hm. Same I suppose. Only my career’s important to me. Really important. I want to succeed, don’t you? Earn loads, go on amazing holidays, have a great house.”

  I’m getting carried away.

  “Just find a rich man. That’s what Mam says.”

  I’m shocked. “You can’t just live off some guy.”

  “You don’t want children then?”

  “Course I do. When I’m older. About thirty.”

  “Thirty? That’s very old. I’d like children in the next couple of years. Two, a boy and a girl.” She looks down at her hands. I notice how thin they are. “But that means I’ve got to find someone, a good husband, pretty soon.”

  “You’re only seventeen. Anyway, you don’t have to have a man around to have children.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Loads of people have kids on their own.”

  Sheila’s looking dead scared.

  I realise I’ve been talking as if she knows who I am. As if we’re in my world, not years ago. Totally bad move. Correct myself.

  “No, of course, you’re right. You need to find a man, right. Anyone in mind?”

  “They’re all so spotty and stupid.”

  “I suppose they are.”

  “Are you interested in Tony? I thought you were.”

  “Nobody’s interested in me.” Back on track now. Poor old Marilyn. No self esteem at all. Fashion sense to match.

  “He asked you, didn’t he?”

  I didn’t realise Marilyn had someone already. “Did he tell you?”

  “No, stupid, you did. You said he’d asked you out, but you turned him down.”

  “Yeah. Not sure I was right though. He’s not so bad, for a boy.”

  “No. And beggars can’t be choosers.”

  I’d take offence at that. But perhaps Marilyn wouldn’t. Perhaps it was right. But Sheila’s going on. Looks down at her fingernails.

  “What do you think of Alan?”

  I play for time. “Alan?”

  “You know, the one from the Co-op. He works in the back on Saturdays. My mam says he’s a good catch. His dad’s got his own business.”

  “Do you like him?”

  She blushes and squirms. “Don’t know.”

  These people can’t talk about how they feel. Not emotionally literate.

  I could do with a good scream.

  Kyle handed Marilyn the mobile. The crying was forgotten, but they were awkward with each other.

  “There. Now you can text whoever you like.”

  “This – looks a bit different from what I’m used to.”

  Kyle hit his forehead with his hand. “Hey, it’s a different make. Your dad must have got you an upgrade. I’ll show you how it works.”

  He took her through how to send texts, though Marilyn didn’t know how it would work. And who would send her a text?

  “I’ll send you one.” Kyle seemed to be enjoying teaching her about the mobile. He even looked brighter.

  “You’d be a good teacher,” she said shyly, looking at him in the eyes for the first time.

  He smiled. “Maybe when I’ve done with being rich and famous and everything I’ll give it all up. Offer my services to some uni.”

  He got out his own mobile and typed with his thumbs, so fast that Marilyn couldn’t believe he could do it. He pressed a final button.

  “There you are.”

  Nothing happened for a while and they both looked at her mobile. Then it almost leapt out of her hand and made a loud noise.

  A message saying ‘show’ came up, and she pressed the middle button.

  She read the message: “UR my best m8.”

  Marilyn read it, and looked up at Kyle again. They both smiled. She noticed the little creases by Kyle’s eyes.

  “I’ve put in the contacts, you know, from my list. So you can see who it’s from, and you can send them out.”

  Marilyn pressed the reply button and slowly typed in a message, turning aside so Kyle wouldn’t see.

  “UR my friend 2. From Marilyn.”

  She pressed send. Then before they could both get very embarrassed Kyle’s phone began to play a tune.

  “It’s my dad,” he said, pulling a face.

  He spoke to his dad for a while, or rather listened. Marilyn went over to the strange keyboard and touched some of the keys, but nothing happened.

  “I’m going to have to go,” Kyle said as he put the mobile back in his pocket. “Family meeting about all my sins. My brother and my dad. If I don’t go now I’ll be grounded for tonight.”

  “What about the research?” Marilyn didn’t want him to go.

  “We’ll get on to it tomorrow. Sorry.” Kyle looked unhappy and Marilyn gave him another hug.

  “I’ll come round about half nine.”

  “In the morning?”

  “No, tonight! For the club, remember?”

  “That late?” Marilyn had dropped her guard.

  “It’ll take ages to get ready – and we can’t get there much before eleven. Nobody will be there before then. Then things will start to happen. You could warn your mum you won’t be home until two or three. Four maybe. I’d say you could stay at mine, only it’s best not tonight, with everything going on.”

  Marilyn’s youth club started at 7.30. Everyone was there by then, queueing up at the doors, giggling and pushing each other, looking at each other’s clothes. At ten o’clock they were all back home in their beds. She’d never been up past eleven o’clock, except last year on New Year’s Eve. Nobody else at home stayed up, but she sat and watched the Scottish programme, and waited to feel different because it was another year. But nothing changed and she went to bed. It was cold. She was really tired in the morning and her mum grumbled at her.

  Tonight was going to be very different. M
arilyn realised how excited she was. This was something completely new.

  “Bye then,” said Kyle, and let himself out, closing the door behind him.

  “What’s happened to you? You seem so different.”

  Sheila’s standing up. We’ve been talking. For a while.

  I’m trying to remember everything. So I can write a section in the 1962 project. ‘Day in the life of a seventeen-year-old girl’ or something.

  I think I’ve got carried away.

  “Marilyn, you’re so quiet. I always know when there’s always something going on underneath. Are you covering something up?”

  My heart heads way over its speed limit. Could go into cardiac arrest any time. Not sure if they’ve invented the kiss of life yet. Even if Sheila could bring herself to give it to me.

  I think hard. If I died. Would it be Marilyn who died? Or me? Or am I meant to die to get back to myself?

  She’s right. I’m different. Very different.

  But she doesn’t know how. Would she believe me? Has Marilyn told anyone? Can’t even think about that right now.

  Sheila’s looking at me. Hard.

  I take a breath. Heart slows. To a manageable speed.

  “Sheila, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  She sits down again. Looks like she could run away. At any moment.

  “You’re my best friend, right?” Need to establish some ground rules here.

  “Yes.” She sounds doubtful.

  “So there’s nothing I can’t tell you?”

  She shifts in the chair. Doesn’t say anything.

  “There is something different, you’re right.” My voice has a little quiver in it. Clench my hands. So the fingernails dig in. Only Marilyn’s fingernails are short so it doesn’t hurt like it should.

  Sheila looks worried.

  “You’ve not done something stupid have you? With that boy, Tony? Or someone else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve not – lost it, have you?”

  “I’m always losing it, that’s my trouble.”

  I see from her face that she means something else, not having a major tantrum.

  “Don’t avoid the question. You know what I mean.”

  I’m now seriously lost.

  “And don’t ask me to find a way out if you are. It’s illegal, and you could die. And anyway, I don’t know how. Something to do with knitting needles and a bottle of gin, Mam said.”

  My eyes are filling up. Make a little sobbing sound without meaning to. Can’t help it. Everything’s bad enough. Without all this dying talk.

  Sheila’s gathering power. Her back’s straight. Her voice is clipped. Staring straight ahead. Avoids looking at me.

  “Why would you do it anyway? It’s not as if you want to, it’s disgusting, and you need to save yourself. Or nobody will respect you.”

  I don’t understand what she’s telling me. I seem to be losing the only friend I’ve got here.

  “Don’t cry.” Sharp voice.

  “What?” I can’t believe this.

  “Don’t cry, I said. It won’t help. How late are you?”

  She’s looking at me. Face red. Like she’s said something totally shocking. I’m stunned into silence.

  She tries again.

  “How late? The curse?”

  What curse? Is there a curse – on Marilyn?

  I can’t stop the crying now.

  “Shh. Your mam will hear.”

  She edges closer. Puts an arm round me. Not hugging or anything. I feel lonely. Want a tissue. Sniff.

  “Where’s your hankie? Here, have mine.”

  She pulls a little cotton handkerchief out of her sleeve. Passes it to me. Work hard on not looking disgusted. I think she’s trying to help.

  “It’s nearly clean,” she says. That doesn’t help at all. But I blow my nose on it anyway. Pass it back.

  “You could get married, I suppose. But that would be the end of all your plans. Are you going to keep it then? Or have it adopted?” Looks like the words taste bad.

  I finally get it.

  “Pregnant? You think I’m pregnant?”

  Not that I haven’t ever thought I was. Every month. Since I started having sex. Counting the days off on the calendar. Even though I’m on the pill.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No! I’m not. I’ve never…”

  Uncertain. Who am I to know if Marilyn’s ever done it? I’ve only lived in her body about eighteen hours. Could she be pregnant?

  I remember the journal, and I’m sure. Nobody tells lies in their own journal.

  “No, of course not. I’ve never even been kissed.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I thought…”

  “No, it’s okay. Really. It’s fine. Let’s forget it.”

  “Yeah. Let’s talk about what we’re going to wear tonight. At the club.”

  The moment’s gone. I can’t tell her the truth now. Even if I ever could. It’s down to me to find a way back. Hope so much Marilyn finds my note. She has to.

  I stumble through an hour, looking at the clothes. Tiny dark brown wardrobe in the corner. It’s like a charity shop rail in there. Most of the clothes are home made, horrible. Not like the vintage shop. Must have come later.

  “You choose. I’m hopeless at this.”

  “I told you, the navy dress. This one.”

  She gets out the dress and lays it on the bed.

  “With American tan stockings.”

  She lays out the stockings. A kind of orange colour.

  “And the red jacket you got from C&A.”

  The red jacket lies on top of the dress. Sleeves arranged so the arms look folded. Look at the collection. Like a body. Lying there flattened out. Dead. Like someone’s just moved out of it.

  But I’m not sure whose body it is.

  Marilyn could hear bangs and thuds coming from downstairs, then a shout:

  “Holly!”

  She froze for a moment.

  “Holly!!”

  She remembered Holly’s mum snoring on the settee last night, and she felt braver. She went downstairs to find Holly’s mum in the kitchen in a cloud of dust.

  “It fell off!”

  “Fell off?”

  “The cupboard. I was trying to ease it off the wall. The screws weren’t holding very well, so I thought I could give it a pull.”

  Not with my dad putting it up there, Marilyn thought. If he put something up, it stayed up. She couldn’t believe what a waste it was, taking down those cupboards.

  There were big holes in the plaster on the wall. The packets and tins were covered in a thick grey-brown dust that filled the air. Marilyn coughed.

  “You go out of here, you’ll get your asthma.” Holly’s mum wiped her dirty hand on her forehead.

  “No, it’s okay. Let me help.” She didn’t know what to do, but it sounded like what Holly’s mum wanted. She looked at the woman’s face and saw she was regarding her curiously.

  “You seem so much brighter this last day or so…” she looked away then, as if she’d said something wrong. “Is Kyle still here?”

  “He went a while ago. His dad wanted him back.”

  “Poor Kyle. He was so young when his mum died. Can’t work it out – with two boys and a man who didn’t know how to boil an egg.”

  “He’s all right. Really.”

  “Anyway, if you’re okay to help, maybe you could wipe the dust off this stuff and put it in some carriers. I should have done that in the first place.”

  Marilyn fetched a cloth from the sink, ran it under the tap and squeezed it dry. So the mum had noticed a difference in her. What was Holly like? This mum was so nice and chatty, like a big sister. Wasn’t Holly happy here? Was she as fed up as Marilyn had been in her own time? How could she be?

  She began to go through the tins and packets. It gave her a chance to look at what they were – strange mixtures of things, not flour and sugar and rice like her kitchen at home, but mixtures to sti
r into water that made soup, or even whole meals.

  She wondered when anyone ate all this stuff. Maybe it was there in case of shortages, like dried milk and some old powdered egg her mother still kept ‘in case’, in the pantry. That seemed to have been turned into a toilet now. Why would anyone need two toilets?

  “Could you look at the sell-by dates? I should think half of this is out of date. Chuck it if it’s gone.”

  Marilyn sighed, worked out what she meant, and got on with the job. It was strange seeing 2010, even 2011 on the stuff.

  Eventually Marilyn got towards the back of the pile. On top was a yellowing sheet of paper, folded into four, covered in dust with a string of cobweb across it.

  Not knowing why, she pushed it into her pocket for later and carried on wiping the tins and checking the dates.

  Sheila leaves. Her mum wants her back home by three. Can’t believe she does everything her mum wants. Seems happy to. Go downstairs with her to the front door. She seems to expect it. Marilyn’s dad is groaning in the kitchen. Loads of crashing about. I’m not going in there, he scares me. He’s not really there, somehow. And he talks in a clipped-up way. Like some robot.

  I head for the front room. Door’s open. The boy’s in there. Watching football on TV. Only you can hardly tell the ball from the black and white dots on the screen.

  I’m feeling braver after the cry. And after rescuing myself from the mix-up with Sheila.

  “Hi, bro,” I say, like I might if I had a little brother. I always wanted a little brother. But not like this one.

  “Shut up, Maz,” he says. Swinging his legs on the sofa. Must be about eight, but he’s got grey shorts on. Even though it’s cold.

  “What’s on?” I settle myself next to him. He looks at me. Moves away.

  “You wouldn’t be interested. It’s the football.”

  “Who’s playing?”

  “Since when did you care?”

  I give up trying to be nice to him. “Do you know any science fiction stories? You know, about aliens, and time travel and that?”

  I look at him carefully. Eyes don’t leave the screen.

  “Course. I read comics, stupid.”

  “I’ve got something to tell you.” I need to tell someone. Or I’ll explode. But not sure this is a good idea.