Hurry Up and Wait

by Isabel Ashdown

  There’s a long pause. Sarah holds her breath in, afraid she’ll miss something if she breathes out.

  ‘Well, actually, yes, poor me! The shit I’ve had to put up with, living with you all these years! Disappearing down the youth club whenever it suits you. Playing about with your bloody records all the time, when you should be home. Making us move house willy-nilly whenever things don’t work out for you. It’s a wonder I’m not a nervous wreck.’

  ‘What d’you mean, “it’s a wonder”? You are a bloody nervous wreck! Look at you, knocking back your happy pills right now! No wonder you look so bloody knackered all the time. You’re half-asleep.’

  There are sounds from the kitchen, more moving about.

  ‘I’ve had enough,’ Patty says, her voice growing clearer. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  Her footsteps move unsteadily up the stairs and past the girls’ room. After a minute, the toilet next door flushes, and the door to Patty’s room clicks shut.

  Sarah lies motionless on the futon bed beside Tina, who’s deep in sleep, her skinny white arm draped high above her head. Sarah hears the light switch going off downstairs, and the clunk of metal as Jason pulls the deadlock on the front door. She hears him sigh heavily at the foot of the stairs, before his tread becomes audible as he reaches the top step and passes their door.

  ‘Happy fucking Anniversary,’ she hears him mutter, and when his bedroom door clicks shut the house falls silent again.

  Sarah has study leave on Friday afternoon, so she finishes school after lunch and heads home via Selton High Street, stopping off at the Co-op to pick up a madeira cake for Dad to have with his afternoon tea. The steady drizzle has soaked through her school jumper by the time she reaches town and she decides to take cover in Shattered Records before making the ten-minute walk home.

  The owner looks like an overgrown teenager, with long unkempt blond hair and a thin gingery beard. He’s wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt and a pair of bleached jeans which are frayed and torn around his heavy boots.

  He looks up from the rack of second-hand albums he’s sorting through beside the counter. ‘Alright,’ he says with a convivial nod.

  ‘Hi,’ Sarah replies.

  The tiny box-shaped shop feels claustrophobic and muggy, appearing windowless and dark behind the posters and gig flyers that cover every inch of the glass shop front. The wall-to-wall album racks are painted entirely black, starkly contrasting with the grubby white walls and flaky ceiling. A life-sized poster of Alice Cooper stretches up the wall behind the counter, disguising what must be the door to the back room. She recognises the music playing as Bob Marley, which seems strangely incongruous in a shop like this.

  She walks slowly around the rows of albums, checking out the handwritten A–Z tabs, trying to think of something she wants to look at. Her mind goes blank, and she starts thumbing through the sleeves aimlessly, starting to wish she hadn’t come in. There’s no one else in the shop. It’s just her and the beardy man.

  ‘Looking for anything in particular?’ he asks, moving behind the counter and easing on to a high stool. His voice is soft and slow.

  Sarah looks over her shoulder at him. ‘Not really. Just looking, thanks.’

  ‘Just shout,’ he says, popping open his Golden Virginia tin and placing the lid gently on the counter. ‘We’ve got loads more out the back.’

  She tries to remember the name of the tape that Dante gave Kate for Valentine’s. It began with a Z. She moves along to the Z section, and flips the album covers over one by one. ZZ Top. Ziggy Stardust. The Zombies. Zappa. Frank Zappa – that was it. There are a few different albums of his, and she lifts one out and turns it over in her hands.

  ‘Classic,’ says beardy. He’s finished rolling his cigarette. He leans back to push open the stock room door and lights the roll-up with a snap of his brass lighter. ‘Joe’s Garage. Classic.’

  She looks up again and nods, just as John walks in through the entrance. Sarah is partially obscured by the middle rack of albums, so John doesn’t notice her immediately. She watches him as he walks across the small shop towards the till.

  ‘Alright, John,’ says beardy.

  ‘Alright, Sol.’

  Beardy slowly scissors his fingers along a thick lock of drab blonde hair and pushes it behind his ear. ‘I’ve got that King Crimson album you were looking for, John-man.’

  ‘Nice one.’ There’s a bar stool on the customer side of the counter, which John pulls out and sits on.

  ‘It’s in mint condition, man. Hardly been played, I’d say. I gave it a little spin myself, when it came in. Classic.’ He reaches under the counter and produces a freaky-looking album cover which he carefully slides across the desk.

  John picks it up by opposing corners and spins it neatly between his hands, surveying it with respect. ‘The sleeve’s in really good nick, too.’ He nods, impressed. ‘How much do you want for it?’

  Beardy reaches for a small notepad at the side of the till and places it on the counter between them. He writes a figure down in pencil.

  John rubs his chin. He takes the pencil and writes his own figure on the pad.

  Beardy rubs his chin and jots one last number on the paper. John nods, stands, and shakes him by the hand. They both grin broadly, and John reaches into his back pocket for his wallet.

  ‘Hiya, John,’ Sarah says, coming out from behind the stand.

  He visibly jumps. ‘Sarah!’ he says, looking delighted.

  ‘Hey, man,’ says beardy, ‘I forgot you were there.’

  Sarah smiles.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asks John, tipping her album sleeve forward so that he can see it. ‘Zappa?’ he says, looking perplexed.

  ‘Why not?’ she replies. She’s uncomfortably aware of her school uniform.

  He takes the album sleeve from her and turns it over. ‘Have you ever listened to Zappa before?’

  She feels the blood rising to her cheeks. ‘No. Someone told me it was good.’

  ‘He’s a misogynist sex-maniac. That’s what all his songs are about. There’s all this hype about Zappa, and I just don’t get it. Anyone who writes songs about genital lice and wet T-shirt contests can’t be all that talented.’

  Beardy laughs behind his till. ‘Come on, man. Lighten up a bit. Zappa’s a classic.’

  ‘It’s classic crap,’ says John. ‘Whereas this, on the other hand – ’ he holds up his King Crimson album ‘ – is something else altogether.’

  Beardy purses his lips.

  ‘OK,’ says John. ‘You’ve got to choose one album, Sol. If you were on a desert island. One or the other – Joe’s Garage or In the Court of the Crimson King. Which is it to be?’ He holds out the two sleeves for scrutiny.

  Beardy pinches his chin hair. ‘Alright, man. You’re right. It’s gotta be the Crimson.’

  John turns back to Sarah, flicking the ponytail from his shoulder triumphantly. ‘See? I’ll do you a tape, if you like. Forget about the Zappa – it’s a waste of time. Really.’

  Sarah laughs and slides the Zappa album back into the racking. She didn’t really want it anyway.

  They leave the shop together, and John walks her to the end of the path where the High Street turns into Tide Road. The drizzle has disappeared now, and the sun is trying to break through the strewn clouds.

  ‘See you at work tomorrow?’ he asks, holding the white carrier bag protectively against his chest.

  Sarah nods. ‘Don’t forget my tape,’ she calls back as she walks away.

  Deborah’s purple Escort is on the driveway when Sarah arrives home. She looks at her watch; it’s just after three.

  She crunches over the gravel and pauses at the door, wondering which room they’re in. Faint laughter travels through the living room window at the front of the house, and Sarah clenches her jaw as she wiggles her key into the lock. She pushes the door closed behind her, noticing Deborah’s strappy leather sandals sitting side by side beneath the coat rack. She bought them in Corfu, she told
Sarah. They were made to measure in an open market, to fit her small wide feet perfectly.

  The hallway smells of fresh cooking: fish and vegetables, at a guess. She glances into the kitchen, where pots and pans are stacked up on the side, waiting to be washed up. Ted comes out to meet her, carrying one of her stripy socks in his mouth.

  ‘Oi!’ she says, pinching his nose and retrieving the balled-up sock. ‘Mine!’

  Ted’s body wags excitedly, as if he’s hinged loosely in the middle. He trots into the living room, looking back, wanting her to follow.

  ‘Aha,’ Dad calls out before she can escape to her room. ‘Here she is! Look who’s here, Sarah-Lou!’

  Sarah grinds her teeth together, attempting to push back her intense irritation. In the living room she holds her school bag across her body and smiles stiffly. ‘Hi, Deborah.’

  Deborah and Dad are sitting on opposite sofas, an open bottle of wine on the coffee table between them. There are dessert plates and forks beside their glasses, alongside a large bowl of fruit salad and a little jug of cream. Ted jumps up to sit beside Deborah.

  ‘Hello, darling!’ Deborah says, trying to get up off the low sofa without disturbing Ted. Her loose kaftan top catches beneath her heavily jewelled hand, and Sarah can see it’s a bit of a struggle.

  She waves her hand. ‘Don’t get up. I’m off to do my homework anyway.’

  ‘Oh, Sarah! Come and say hello for a few minutes, at least!’ Dad stretches over to the coffee table to pick up a large glass of red wine. He twists round to look at her, hooking his elbow over the back of the sofa. ‘Come and tell us what you’ve been up to.’

  Sarah gives him a disapproving stare, as Deborah reaches for her own glass. ‘I thought you were meant to be working on your Selton project today?’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ he says, turning to Deborah with a melodramatic expression. ‘Looks as if I’m in trouble. Naughty, naughty.’ He takes a drink from his glass and widens his eyes at Sarah. He’s clearly had one too many.

  Deborah smiles and shakes her head. ‘Ignore him. He’s only trying to wind you up.’

  ‘Nothing new there, then.’ Sarah crosses over into the dining room where the glass doors to the drinks cabinet have been left wide open. She pushes them shut with a loud rattle, picking up the discarded wine foil and cork from the side. She marches back into the living room and drops them into the bin in full view of Deborah and her father.

  ‘Actually, I don’t think he’s used to drinking during the day. Are you, Dad? Well, I’ve never seen you drink during the day, anyway.’

  Dad gives her a patronising smile and turns to Deborah on the opposite sofa. ‘I think someone’s being a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud, if you ask me.’

  He pushes out his bottom lip and looks at Sarah as if he’s a five-year-old.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she says, still clutching her school bag. She looks at Deborah, and gestures towards him with an upturned hand. ‘Deborah, how can you bear it?’

  She doesn’t wait for an answer. She leaves the room and thumps up the stairs where she won’t have to endure his embarrassing attempts at humour. Outside her bedroom door, she pauses to eavesdrop on their conversation below.

  ‘Do you have to provoke her like that, James?’ Deborah says, sounding exasperated.

  ‘She knows I’m only joking. She’s known me long enough to be able to take a joke, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Well, if you really want me to get to know Sarah better, that’s not going to help, is it?’

  There’s a pause, and the sound of a glass being placed on the table.

  ‘Maybe I should go up and see her?’ Deborah says. ‘I can’t help feeling I should do something to help.’

  Sarah makes a little fist and pushes open her bedroom door.

  ‘No, no. Leave her. She likes to be left alone when she’s in one of her moods. I’ll speak with her later.’

  Silence.

  ‘Trust me, Deborah. She’ll be fine.’

  Sarah clicks the door shut behind her and flops on to her single bed. She thinks about the old times, when she and Dad would buy fish and chips on a Friday night and settle in front of the TV, just the two of them. She kicks her shoes off the bed and blows hot air between her lips.

  ‘Just go,’ she whispers up towards the dusty rattan lampshade. ‘That would help.’

  In the last week of term, one of the office staff interrupts Sarah’s Maths lesson with a message calling her out of class.

  ‘Sarah Ribbons, you’re to go to Mrs Jensen’s office. Take your bag with you,’ she says.

  As Sarah stands up from her desk her chair scrapes noisily across the wooden floor, and everyone turns to look.

  ‘What’ve you done?’ Kate whispers as Sarah quickly stuffs her books into her bag.

  She hurries along the silent corridors and up the stairs towards Mrs Jensen’s room. Without the usual sounds of footsteps and chatter, the Victorian building takes on an eerie quality. Its wood-panelled walls seem to sigh with each step she takes along the worn parquet floor. Clack – sigh – clack – sigh. Her mind is leaping through all the possibilities, causing her heart rate to double as her speed increases. By the time she arrives at the Head of Year’s room, she’s almost running. She knocks.

  Mrs Jensen opens the door and invites her in. ‘Sarah. How are you?’ She places her hand on the centre of Sarah’s back and guides her into the orange plastic chair that faces her desk. She’s uncharacteristically gentle, so Sarah knows that something really bad has happened.

  Her throat feels as if it’s closing up. The room is tiny, pinned in by chipped bookshelves, which bow under the weight of files and staple guns. The messy paperwork on the desk is excruciating.

  Mrs Jensen walks around to her own side of the desk and sits, clasping her hands together on the desktop.

  ‘Sarah, we’ve had a phone call. About your father.’

  Sarah thinks she might faint. She stares blankly at the teacher. The window behind Mrs Jensen is made of reinforced glass, with metal bars across the lower half. It’s like a prison window. It reminds her of the old Victorian workhouse they visited in the third year. Scary shop dummies were dotted around the old building, dressed in authentic clothing, posed with chimney brushes and milk pails. One of the child dummies had its nose missing, broken off at an obscene slant to reveal the grey plaster beneath.

  ‘He’s been taken to St Jude’s,’ says Mrs Jensen, ‘with a suspected heart attack. Now, he’s doing fine, but they need to keep him in until he’s stable. Sarah, do you understand?’

  Sarah nods. What about Ted? He’ll want feeding. She’ll have to go back home and sort him out. She needs to think about all this; she can’t do it here. Mrs Jensen is still talking and Sarah realises she hasn’t heard any of it.

  ‘What?’ she says, frowning irritably.

  Mrs Jensen looks affronted. ‘I said, you’ll have to stay with relatives for a few days.’

  Sarah feels the panic rising through her ribcage. ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘You must have some,’ Mrs Jensen replies briskly.

  Sarah shakes her head. ‘But I’ll be fine on my own. It won’t be a problem.’

  ‘No, no. We can’t have that, Sarah. You’re just fifteen. It would be wrong of me to allow you to do that. So you’ve no living relatives at all?’ She seems to think Sarah is lying.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right, so we’ll have to arrange for you to stay with a friend. Who would you like me to call?’

  ‘Um.’ Sarah can’t seem to work it out. She shakes her head. ‘I’m mostly friends with Kate and Tina in my class, so one of them, I suppose.’

  ‘Right. I’ll phone their parents and sort something out. It will only be for a few days, Sarah, until they let your dad go home. In the meantime, Mrs McCabe is going to run you down to the hospital. You can stop off at home and pack a bag, and I should have something sorted out by the time you get back. You go and wait down by the front office, and we’ll be with you short
ly.’

  Mrs Jensen stands and walks around her desk to open the door to see her out. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine, Sarah,’ she says, patting her firmly on the shoulder.

  Sarah walks down the hushed stairs towards the front office, the numb sound of her school shoes echoing softly in her wake.

  When Sarah sees her father lying flat against the starched white of the hospital bed, she has to suppress an involuntary shriek. His eyes are closed and he has wires stuck to his exposed chest, a tube taped into his nose. He must sense her there, because he turns his face towards the door and smiles weakly.

  ‘Sarah-Lou,’ he says, lifting his hand from the coverlet.

  She walks towards the bed, winded by shock, and takes his hand. It all feels wrong, standing here like this, looking down on him. ‘What happened?’ she asks in a whisper.

  ‘You can sit down, you know,’ he says. ‘I won’t break.’

  She perches on the side of the bed.

  ‘It’s all my own fault, of course,’ he says when she asks him what happened. ‘Thought I’d get myself walking again, you know, lose some of the excess baggage and all that.’ He pats his stomach, pausing as his breathing becomes laboured. ‘Pass me a drink, Sarah-Lou?’

  He takes a sip and she returns the glass to the bedside cabinet.

  ‘Just took it a bit far. I was going for the eight-mile circuit, up to West Selton along the seafront, then back through the farmland and into town.’

  ‘Dad! I can’t believe you could be so stupid! You haven’t been on a big walk like that for years. You can’t just launch straight into a big hike, for heaven’s sake!’ She swipes at her forehead; the ward is uncomfortably warm.

  ‘Anyway, I did quite well – got as far as the town centre, before I had a bit of a funny turn. Right outside your chemist’s, as it happens. Nice young man with a ponytail came out and helped me, got me off in an ambulance in no time.’

  ‘They want me to go and stay with friends until you get out,’ Sarah says, scratching at a small dot of dirt on the hem of her skirt.