by Molloy, Ruby
I take copious notes, fully aware that I’ll have to write these up at some point. Prisha and I have time to grab a sandwich on route to the study pod. The room has glass walls and an oval table that seats six. Already I can see that Josephine is sitting there, her books lined up in front of her.
“Shit! What’s she doing here?”
Prisha casts me an apologetic glance. “She overheard me talking to Jon about the session and invited herself along. I was going to lie and tell her it was full, but Jon got in there first and told her it was fine.”
It’s not fine. It’s the bloody opposite of fine, but I’m not about to let her bitchiness get in the way of my studies. I deliberately take the seat opposite hers, splaying my books, staking my territory. Prisha sits to my left and when Jon arrives he takes the seat to my right. He’s the eldest of our group. The other seats are occupied by Brett and Simon. They look like brothers, both with reddish brown hair and a multitude of freckles populating their pale skin. We’re a quiet bunch, ready to settle down and get on with our studies, but Josephine has other ideas. She’s needy, constantly asking questions, questions she should know the answers to. At first, the guys readily respond, but as time wears on the distance between questions and answers expands until finally no-one is prepared to answer. They’ve had enough, and apparently it’s my turn now. “Hey, Finnegan, what year was the FBI Laboratory founded?”
I think about lying, but I’m not about to sink to her level. I don’t make eye contact and barely pausing from writing when I say, “1932.”
I’m still writing, listing the current social issues that impact on crime when water cascades over my notebook and pours onto my jeans. I scoot back and everyone is moving, dragging books out of the way, mopping up the mess with tissues and scraps of paper. Everyone except Josephine, who’s sitting in her chair, her expression malicious as she watches me.
“Oops,” she says, picking up her water bottle and screwing on the cap is if this will somehow help the mess she’s created.
“You did that deliberately.” My voice is vibrating with anger.
She arches one perfectly shaped brow, her orange skin wrinkling above its sharp curve. “Really, Frankie, why would I do such a thing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the same reason you stuck that photo on my back? Because you’re crazy?!”
She smirks, her red mouth too full and too wide. “Grow up, Frankie. This is not high school. I can assure you it was an accident.”
“You did it on purpose, Josephine, admit it!”
Her scornful laughter ratchets up my temper. She’s collecting up her books, packing them away as if she’s the injured party.
“Why are you doing this? What have I ever done to you?”
She hesitates, her red-tipped fingers clutching a ruled notepad, leaving marks on their no longer pristine pages. “Standing there like butter wouldn’t melt. You and your friends make me sick! All you have to do is blink those baby blues and the guys come running.”
Now is not a good time to remind her that my eyes are grey. I watch as she points her pointy red finger at me. “You think Mason’s gonna stick around and watch your skinny arse grow fat, think again. No-one’s gotten close to him since Tamsin. No-one!” She smirks and throws her notebook in her bag.
I fall back in my chair, numb. “How do you know Tamsin?”
“None of your business, Finnegan. But I do know you’ll never replace her, not when she gave him Josh.”
Blood drains from my face and my heartbeat picks up speed. Her venomous eyes are shining with spiteful satisfaction at my obvious pain. “You didn’t know?” She’s outwardly gloating now, smiling at my shock as if someone’s given her a gift. “You didn’t know Josh was his? That Tamsin’s his mother? Oh my God, that’s so funny! I guess you’re not so special after all, are you Finnegan?”
I’m not sure if she’s finished, but I am.
Instinct kicks in and I run from the room, tearing down corridors until I’m outside, running over damp grass onto pavements busy with commuters. My books and bag are back in the study pod, but my keys are in my back pocket. I don’t stop running until I’m outside the house. The kitchen lights are on, the windows misted from Ella’s cooking.
I can’t go inside. I can’t have them see me like this. Myrtle is parked at the kerb, her tired paint dull as dried mud. I climb inside, inhaling the familiar scent of mildew and bubble-gum. It’s the wrong time to be on the road. Traffic is heavy and I end up queuing at the lights, my foot poised on the clutch. I don’t know where I’m heading and it’s not until I’m doing seventy in the outside lane that I realise I’m on my way to Ivy’s.
It’s dark when I reach her house. Her curtains are drawn and I can hear a TV Game Show blaring through her front door. I knock twice and wait. I hear the security chain being placed in position and the door opens to reveal Ivy peering through the gap, her eyes sharp in her wrinkled face. She closes the door, removes the chain, and opens the door wide.
“Frankie? What you doing here?”
I burst into tears and tell Ivy why I’m there, but my words are mangled by sobbing. She pulls me inside, locking the door and replacing the chain.
“Sit, sit,” she says, waving her hands towards the kitchen. I do as I’m told while she busies about making tea for herself and a mug of coffee for me.
“There,” she says, seating herself at the table, nudging a garish floral mug in my direction. “Now what’s this about, as if I don’t know?”
“Mason.”
“Yes, yes, I gathered that. What happened? Has he dumped you? Or is he disrespecting you?”
I blink, a little disconcerted by Ivy’s language.
“Uh, no.”
“Oh.” She sighs and her shoulders droop with disappointment. “What then?”
“Did I ever mention his nephew, Josh?”
Ivy nods, her dark eyes watchful.
“Josh isn’t his nephew, he’s his son. And Tamsin is Josh’s mum. I know this because Josephine, the biggest bitch at Southern Falls, told me.”
Her brow crinkles into little criss-crosses. “I’m confused. Who’s Tamsin? And who’s Josephine?”
“Forget Josephine. Tamsin is Mason’s ex-girlfriend. They’re still in touch, but she lives in America.”
Ivy rests her round head on one skinny hand and waves the other hand in the air. “Oh, tush, then what’s the problem? He has a son whose mother lives in America, what’s the big deal?”
“He lied to me, Ivy!”
She considers this carefully, her index finger held flat against her lips. “That’s true. Well, you’ll have to dump him! Such a shame, he was such a lovely boy!”
“Ivy!”
“Yes, dear?” She blinks, registering my frustration. “Oh, you don’t want to dump him?”
“I don’t know. I trusted him and now I’ve found out he lied to me. I mean, it’s a big deal, isn’t it? Lying about having a son?”
“Well, yes, that’s true. What did he say when you told him you knew?”
“I haven’t told him yet. He doesn’t know I know.”
“He doesn’t?! Well, what are you doing, girl? Go talk to him!”
“Ivy, I’m not sure―”
“What do you want?”
I gaze at her blankly, mystified by her change in direction. She snaps her fingers and hurries me along. “Come on, come on, what do you want?”
“Mason. I want Mason!”
She relaxes back in her chair, her eyes bright, an air of excitement about her. “Well, there’s your answer.” Her aged fingers spread out against the table. “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
I’m thinking on my toes here, because I know Ivy wants my answer now. “I guess I have to tell him I know. About Josh and Tamsin, I mean.”
Ivy nods and smacks her lips together. “There is no love like the love for a child,” she says. “You don’t want to be getting in the way of that.”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t
―”
“There’s plenty who would.”
I shake my head. “Not me.”
“Good,” she says. “Now fetch me that album over there.”
I know which one she means. It’s the one with the photos of her and gramps, from a time when they were young. I ready myself for her stories, the ones I’ve heard a hundred times before, but she surprises me by sliding a photo from a pocket in the back cover. It’s gramps, his arm wrapped round the shoulders of a girl. She’s pretty, her hair brushed back from her face, her mouth wide, showing perfect white teeth. She’s smiling at the camera, but gramps only has eyes for her.
“Ivy ...”
“That’s Dorothy, or Dottie as she was known. They were childhood sweethearts. She was sixteen, he was eighteen. That’s their last photo together. He went away on National Service and Dottie succumbed to polio.”
“Oh, Ivy ...”
“Took him a good while to get over her, if he ever did. He loved me and it never mattered to me that he loved Dottie first, because I never let it. I wasn’t going to let some poor, dead girl come between me and Bill.”
“That must have been tough,” I say, but she’s shaking her head as if I don’t understand.
“There was nothing tough about loving your Gramps. Never. I didn’t know about Dottie until after we were married. I came back from shopping with my friend, Shirley, all excited because I’d bought a beautiful fabric for a dress. I showed it to your Gramps and next thing I know he’s tearing it out of my hands and throwing it on the fire. ‘Course I went wild and, well, never mind ... It turned out the fabric reminded him of her dress, the one in the photo. That’s how I found out about Dottie.”
Ivy gets up from the table and slips the photo back in its pocket. I watch her place the album back on its shelf and open a kitchen cupboard. She takes out her favourite bottle and pours us both a small sherry, pushing mine towards me. “Drink up, Frankie.”
I do as she says, taking it down as if it’s a shot. Ivy does the same before rinsing and drying the glasses.
“I never knew,” I say.
“No reason for you to know. It was private. Nobody needed to know but me and your Gramps.” She places the glasses back on their shelves. “Must be difficult,” she says. I’ve lost track of where she’s going and wait for her to clarify. “For Mason. Seeing Josh being raised as his nephew can’t be easy.”
My thoughts hadn’t yet travelled down that road and I’m embarrassed that Ivy got there before me. “I need to talk to him.”
Ivy nods and looks at me expectantly. “Well? What are you waiting for?!”
“Ivy, he’s not expecting me. I can’t just turn up on his doorstep.”
“You’re dating him aren’t you?”
“Well, I guess so ...”
“Francesca Amelia Finnegan, what kind of girl did I raise? Are you a man or a mouse?”
“Uh, I’m a woman ...”
Ivy waves her hand dismissively. “No need to split hairs, Frankie! Now, are you going to see him or not?!”
“I look a mess ...”
Ivy slumps back in her chair, defeated. “I raised a mouse.”
“Oh for god’s sake! Fine! I’ll go see him!”
Re-energised, she jumps from her chair. “Good girl! Go sort it out and you can call me tomorrow and tell me all about it.”
“Shit, I can’t go! I have an exam in the morning!”
“Stop fussing, Frankie. We both know you’ll sail through your exam and this one night won’t make a difference. Now off you go!”
She hussles me towards the door, barely giving me time to remove the chain before her enthusiasm has her pushing me between the shoulder blades, forcing me out the door.
I don’t get a goodbye. The door is closed and the chains are back in place. I look to the sky, taking in its cloudy, starless expanse, and wonder why the universe saw fit to give me Ivy. I see Ella’s and Nora’s mums with their calm assuredness and I realise that as great and normal as they are, I wouldn’t swap Ivy for the world. My whacky, screwball gran suits me just fine.
By the time I reach Mason’s, it’s nine o’clock and Myrtle’s consumed a tankful of petrol I can ill afford. Plus, when I said I looked a mess earlier I wasn’t exaggerating. I’m wearing combats that are two sizes too big and though the ties are pulled in as far as they go, it’s not enough. They sit on my hips, ready to fall to the ground, and the crotch is ridiculously low, hovering somewhere between my thighs and knees. My hot pink t-shirt on the other hand is impossibly tight and resembles something a porn star might wear. This is not a good look and I can see this reflected back at me by the expression of the concierge.
“Hi, William. Could you buzz Mason for me, please?”
“Sure thing, Frankie.”
I pace while he makes the call.
“He says to go straight on up.”
“Thank you.”
Flinching at my reflection in the polished steel lift, I select Mason’s floor, my right foot tapping on the ride up. He waiting for me, leaning against his door frame. He’s wearing joggers. They’re black and thick, riding on his hips as if that’s exactly where they want to be. It’s the first time I’ve seen him wear such casual clothes and I like it. I like it a lot.
“Hi,” I say awkwardly.
He backs up into his apartment, closing the door behind me. “You okay?”
I’m scared now, terrified of how this is going to go. I shouldn’t have come, I shouldn’t have listened to Ivy. Everyone knows she’s crazy. “I, uh, I probably should’ve called first.”
“That’s okay. Come through.” He leads the way into the living room. Notebooks and papers decorate one of the sofas.
“Sorry. You’re working.”
“Frankie, it’s fine. What’s going on?”
He sits on the sofa, the one without the papers, reclining against its cushions. I’m too stressed and hyper to sit. My right knee is flexing repeatedly and my hands are clasped in front of me, as if I’m twelve and I’ve been summoned before the headmaster.
“I know about Josh,” I say. “I know he’s yours.”
He’s not so relaxed now. There’s a tightness about him. He rolls forwards, elbows on his knees, his hands linked. “Oh, yeah? Who told you?”
“Josephine. She goes to my uni―”
“I know who she is.”
“You do?”
“Orange skin, brown hair?”
I nod.
“Tamsin’s cousin.”
“Oh.”
“They don’t talk.”
I can appreciate this. I’m not sure there are many people out there who can suffer Josephine.
“She made a play for me in front of Tam once.”
“Oh.” I recall that night in Torment, Josephine lingering at his table and passing him a beer, him passing it to his friend. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He plays dumb. “About Josephine?”
“No! Josh!”
“I thought about it. Almost told you that day your ex showed up.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Will you tell me now?”
He shakes his head. “Not tonight.”
Hurt cuts deep. “Because you don’t trust me? I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Well, except Ivy, but that’s all.”
“Frankie, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But I know about Josh. I don’t understand why you can’t tell me―”
“Because it’s none of your fucking business!”
I stand, staring at this stranger before me. This guy, the guy I love, who just told me his secrets are not my business.
“None of my business?!” The words repeat inside my brain. I pace the floor, my Converses giving off an occasional, soft squeak as hateful words rise in my throat. I’m crying now, great big sobs that sound appallingly loud in this chamber he calls a living room.
“Fuck!” He lowers his head, running his hands through his hair, leavin
g them buried for several seconds. When he finally looks up, he’s frowning and his mouth is tight, his jaw hard. “You should have called first,” he says.
I flinch. He makes me sound like an unwanted visitor. I make a move to leave, but I don’t get to take a step because he jumps up, hands on hips, blocking my way.
“What, you going to run, Frankie?” he asks. “Coz that’s what you do. You hear something you don’t like and you run, every damn time! Well I’m sorry this isn’t what you want to hear, but this is not your business, this is my business, and I’m trying real fucking hard to deal. Laying it open ...” Again, his hands run through his hair. “That’s not gonna happen, so stay, we’ll talk, but not about Josh, okay?”
“Talk? About what? The weather?! I can’t do this anymore! I can’t be your ... your ... Dammit, I don’t even know what I am to you! I mean, if I’m not your girlfriend, what am I? Your booty-call? Your fuck-buddy? You know what, Mason? I sold myself cheap and you give nothing in return.”
“Frankie, ―”
“Shut up!” I’m screaming now, a banshee on the loose. “I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see you for what you are. You’re a coward, Mason. A yellow-bellied coward, scared of being hurt, scared of offering anything except your body for sex. Well, I hope you’ll be happy with your one-night-stands and your bimbos and I hope one day you’ll understand what you threw away!”
He towers above me, hands back on his hips, eyes black with fury. “Are you finished?!”
“Go to hell!”
“Fuck, no!”
Mason fastens an arm around my waist and lifts me off my feet. I kick and scream as he carries me down the hall, my nails ripping into his forearms. “Let me go! Let me―” I scream again as he half throws, half drops me on to his bed.
He’s breathing hard, his chest heaving when he roars, “Shut the fuck up and listen!”
Fuck that! I roll to the furthest side, but he snags me again, rolling me to my back, pinning me to the mattress as he straddles me, forcing my arms above my head, one hand at each wrist.
“Josh is my son,” he says, struggling for breath.
