by Byrne, Tanya
‘So how were The Ruby Bullets?’ he asked as he took back his card.
I laughed. ‘What do you know about The Ruby Bullets?’
‘I’m still with it.’
‘People who’re with it don’t say they’re with it,’ I told him, as I put everything back in my bag and followed him out of the petrol station.
‘Nance’s been playing their album all week. They’re alright.’ He nudged me with his hip and I nudged him back with a girly giggle. ‘The riff from that song about the girl from Shoreditch totally rips off “I Fought the Law”, though.’
I gasped. ‘That’s what I said. But Nance thinks they’re so original.’
‘What do you know about The Clash?’
‘I’m with it.’
‘People who’re with it don’t say they’re with it, Ro.’
He nudged me with his hip but before I could nudge him back, I stopped to stare as a police car pulled on to the forecourt. My lungs seemed to seize up as I watched the officer get out. She stopped to nod at Mike and there was an endless moment where I was sure he was going to talk to her, but, mercifully, he just nodded back.
‘Come on. I’ll give you a lift,’ he said, but I shook my head. I never let anyone near my flat. As comfortable as I felt as Rose Glass, possessions don’t lie – what if the bedroom I was saying was my mum’s didn’t look slept in, or someone noticed that there were no photos on the walls? Juliet asked all the time, but I always had an excuse; Mum had a migraine or there was no food in so we might as well go out to eat.
‘It’s alright. I only live down the road,’ I told Mike, but he ignored me and opened the passenger door to his car.
‘I’m not letting you walk down Upper Street by yourself at midnight.’
It wasn’t a discussion so I got in. As soon as I did, I inhaled the fake smell of vanilla and realised that I reeked of cigarettes and beer. It wasn’t pleasant; I smelt like a pub carpet. I wanted to take the freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror and rub it all over me.
‘Seat belt,’ he muttered, climbing in next to me.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Yes, Dad.’
‘Jesus,’ he groaned. ‘Don’t call me that!’
‘Do you miss it?’ I asked as I watched the police officer at the till, paying for a can of Red Bull. I don’t know why. I didn’t think. Looking back on it now, I must have enjoyed it, the thrill, the farce. If I told Doctor Gilyard, she’d ask me if I wanted to get caught.
‘Miss what? The police?’ Mike thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
‘So why’d you leave?’
‘After I got shot, Eve said she couldn’t do it any more.’
I turned to blink at him. ‘You were shot?’
‘Yeah. Didn’t you know?’
‘No! When?’
‘About three years ago. Here.’ He took my hand and put it under the neck of his jumper. The muscles in my arm tensed as my fingers brushed over his warm skin, but I didn’t pull my hand away. I should have, but I didn’t, I let him move my hand to his right shoulder.
‘Oh!’ I gasped, yanking my hand away as I felt a sudden pucker in his skin.
He laughed as I stared at him, my fingers still trembling.
‘Did it hurt?’
He nodded. ‘I was in hospital for weeks. But when I was discharged, I promised Eve I wouldn’t put her through that again.’ He smiled when he said it, but I remember it now, the trace of regret in his voice, just for a second.
‘So is that why you work with young offenders now?’
He nodded.
‘Do you enjoy it?’
‘Ask me again tomorrow,’ he sighed, starting the car.
As soon as he did, I heard the hum of a cello and my heart fluttered. ‘Bach.’
‘The Clash? Bach?’ He winked. ‘You’re a girl after my own heart, Rose Glass.’
I giggled as we pulled on to Upper Street. ‘Why are you listening to Bach?’
‘After the day I’ve had, I need a bit of Bach.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘I’ve been at the police station most of today.’
For an awful moment, I thought I was going to throw up. He knows, a voice in my head began to scream. He knows who you are. That’s why he insisted on giving you a lift, why he showed up from nowhere. He didn’t, of course. But that happened a lot then; someone would say something, however benign, and I was sure they knew.
It was like this blade, swinging over my head. It had to fall eventually.
‘How come?’ I asked carefully.
‘One of the kids I’m working with got in a fight.’
My lungs finally relaxed. ‘Why?’
He was quiet for a moment too long as he stared out at the road. I’d never seen him look so sad and I suppose most people would have tried to console him, would have told him it’d be alright, but what did I know?
‘I dunno,’ he said, finally. ‘I mean, I get it. I get that this other kid was chatting shit, trying to wind him up, and he lost his temper, but I don’t understand it. I work with kids like that all the time, kids who’ve had horrible upbringings and don’t know up from down, let alone right from wrong, but,’ he stopped to shake his head, ‘I’ll never understand how you can stick a knife in someone. Never.’
Back then I didn’t, either.
I thought of Dad and turned to look out the window at the shuttered-up shops on Upper Street. I wanted to tell Mike to ask Juliet; she knew.
‘What’s going to happen to him? Will he go to prison?’
He shrugged. ‘He’s only fifteen and it’s his first offence. He’ll probably get a supervision order for wounding with intent.’
Like Juliet.
‘What about his parents?’ I asked when we stopped at the traffic lights.
‘He doesn’t know who his dad is and I’m trying to find his mum.’
‘Can you do that if you don’t work for the police any more?’ I asked, and I don’t know how I said it; I couldn’t breathe.
‘You can find almost anyone if you know where to look for them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It isn’t like it used to be, Ro. The Internet has changed everything. Google is a powerful thing if you know what to do with it.’
‘So, that’s all you need to do, look on the Internet?’
When he nodded, I thought about Mum and my heart started to throb.
In another life, I might have asked him to help me find her.
‘You alright?’ he asked as we pulled up outside my mansion block. I didn’t think he knew where I lived, but I didn’t dare ask; I just wanted to get out of the car.
‘Yeah. I’m just knackered. I’d better go.’
When I turned to open the car door, he put his hand on my knee to stop me. My whole body tensed. It just tensed again as I thought about it. I can still feel the weight of his hand, the heat of it through my jeans.
This is what I hate. All these pieces. I didn’t think they meant anything, but Doctor Gilyard is putting them together. She sees something I didn’t.
I must look exhausted because no one lectured me about not eating my breakfast this morning. Even Naomi ate in silence as I opened packet after packet of sugar and poured them onto the table in front of us.
Doctor Gilyard, however, took this as a sign of weakness and went straight for the jugular. ‘Let’s talk about your mother.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ I muttered, rubbing my eyelids with my fingers. ‘You’re like one of those games at the fairground where that rat pops up—’
‘Mole,’ she corrected.
‘Yeah, that mole, rat, whatever. And you have to whack it with the sledgehammer.’
‘Are you saying I’m a rat?’
‘I’m saying I need a sledgehammer.’
I heard her writing. ‘Why don’t you want to talk about your mother?’
‘I don’t want to talk about anything,’ I said with a long yawn. ‘I think it’s time to move on to the interpr
etive dance portion of these sessions.’
She ignored me. ‘You haven’t mentioned her once.’
I got up and walked over to the window. There was a pigeon on the windowsill strutting back and forth as if to say, LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME. I’M FREE.
‘Free?’ I wanted to tell it. ‘You can go anywhere in the world and you came here. Idiot.’ But I didn’t, because if I start talking to pigeons, Doctor G will full on McMurphy me. So I just slapped the glass and smiled as it jumped, then flew away.
‘Why don’t we start with something small? What’s your first memory of her?’
‘I don’t have any memories of her,’ I said, pressing my finger against the glass and watching the fingerprint appear then disappear like a ghost.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t remember her.’
‘You don’t remember anything?’
It’s true, I don’t remember anything. I was tiny when she left and when she did, Dad got rid of every trace of her. There were no photos, no mementos. He wouldn’t even say her name. It was like she never existed. All I remember is her being there, then she wasn’t. There were no raised voices, no slammed doors. There was no incident before she left; she didn’t forget me at the supermarket one day or lock herself in the bathroom.
But there are pieces, tiny pieces. The colour of hair, the same as mine, yellow as a freshly baked cake. Her laugh, loud and bright. Her gold rings, one on every finger. Her bracelets that I used to tug when I wanted her attention. And she would sing this song, every time it came on the radio, something about a train, leaving on a train. It was years before I realised it was ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’. The first time I heard it on the radio I cried for hours. I got to go. I got to go. I got to go. I cried so much Dad kept coming into my room to ask me what was wrong. I had to tell him that I’d had a row with Olivia.
‘Emily,’ Doctor Gilyard said, but I didn’t turn around, I just stared out the window and thought about the jumper I’d found, the one in Dad’s wardrobe.
I used to look through his wardrobes a lot when I was little, hunting for some clue about where Mum was, some sign that she might come back.
One summer, I was so determined to find something that I looked every day. Dad was always at work so I did it while the housekeeper was downstairs because she couldn’t hear me rooting around over the wheeze of the vacuum cleaner. I had to be careful because Dad’s wardrobes were so neat. Even at twelve, I knew to line the coat hangers up and smooth down his ties if I disturbed them. I eventually learned what went where so I could put everything back. I made sure that the toes of his shoes were facing out and his heavy bottles of cologne were in a straight line on the bathroom counter.
But I found nothing.
That’s the trouble with being neat, you can see everything. Dad’s bedroom, much like Doctor Gilyard’s office, was stripped clean. Everything he owned was immaculate; his bed linen looked new, the soap by the sink in his bathroom untouched. There was a wardrobe for everything; one for shirts, one for suits, one for what he wore at the weekend. Everything had its place. There was nowhere to hide anything. Or so I thought; I guess I should have known then just how adept he was at hiding things, the moment I saw the shirt box.
It was on the top shelf of one of his wardrobes so I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t so desperate to find something. But there it was, the one white box in a neat row of grey ones. And I knew. As soon as I saw it, I knew.
I was so excited that I didn’t care if the housekeeper heard me drag Dad’s favourite Eames chair across the bedroom. It was far too expensive to stand on, but I didn’t care about that, either, I just had to look in that box.
I opened it and tore past the tissue paper with Christmas morning impatience and there it was: the jumper. It was Mum’s, I knew it was before I even touched it, before I even pressed my nose to it and inhaled the smell of her: washing powder and white musk.
At last, something of hers, some evidence that she existed. Every day after that, I went into Dad’s room and smelt it. I memorised the weave of it, learned the colour. (Pink. The colour of the strawberry Quality Streets no one ever eats.) But each time I opened the box, a bit more of her scent escaped until, eventually, it was all gone. I had taken it all, drained it. Then it smelt of nothing, just wool, and it broke my heart.
That’s why I have to be careful now, why I hold on to everything, in case that happens again. I guess that’s why Dad tucked that jumper into that shirt box and put it on that out-of-reach shelf. I understand now. So when I told Doctor Gilyard that I didn’t remember anything, what I meant was, of course I do, but you can’t have it.
I’m on nicotine smack down again.
It’s not my fault, it’s this place, it’s ridiculous. It’s a young offender’s institution, but they had us decorating cupcakes in art therapy this morning like we’re children. Aren’t we supposed to be shanking one another and touching each other inappropriately in the shower? I’m eighteen. I don’t decorate cupcakes. I smoke cigarettes and drink vodka and kiss boys without knowing their names. So I decorated mine with a variety of swear words, which isn’t the most mature response, I know, but I almost wet myself laughing when the nurse changed one of them to DOCTOR GILYARD LOVES DICKENS.
Naomi took pity on me and let me share her cigarette after dinner in exchange for another story about Rose. I knew she just wanted to mock me mercilessly about Sid, but I didn’t care; I needed a cigarette. So I told her about last Halloween.
The girls at St Jude’s seemed to stumble from one Martini melodrama to the next, so when it comes to mid-party break-ups, I’ve seen it all. Girls slapping girls. Boys slapping boys. I even watched someone go at a vintage Aston Martin with a cricket bat once.
Dad would have cried.
I honestly thought it was just them, that as soon as you mixed all of that privilege with lashings of Veuve Clicquot and a handful of hormones, they lost their minds. But the parties in London were no different. Yeah, the houses were smaller and we drank warm cans of cider instead of shots of Patron, but when it comes to drama, we’re all created equal.
‘Give me that,’ I heard someone shout at Simone Campbell’s Halloween party. I was dancing with Juliet at the time and looked up as a boy barged the DJ out of the way.
‘Listen up, yeah!’ he shouted.
The music stopped so abruptly that everyone in the living room turned to look at him. It was a strange scene; Simone hadn’t insisted that any of us dress up, so the crowd was an odd mix of boys in their Saturday Best dancing with girls dressed as sexy witches.
‘You heard of the Whore of Babylon, yeah?’ he asked, and we all looked at each other, completely bewildered. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Marilyn Monroe and Elvis stopped kissing. I shrugged at Juliet. She shrugged back.
When he didn’t get a response, he grabbed the mic from the DJ and asked us again.
‘Yeah?’ I heard someone shout back.
The boy nodded slowly and raised his hand as though he was preaching. ‘Yeah? Well, Ashley Hensman is the Whore of Basildon!’
I had no idea who Ashley Hensman was, but I gasped. So did Juliet. We gasped again when we saw a flutter of movement in the corner of the living room. A girl appeared from nowhere, rising above the cluster of heads as though she was floating. She was dressed as an angel, which made the scene even more surreal.
‘You’re a prick, Jason!’ she shouted, pointing at him across the cluttered living room.
‘And you’re a whore!’ he reiterated, in case he was being too subtle with the Whore of Basildon thing.
There were more gasps as everyone charged into the living room to find out what was going on. A girl in a purple wig almost knocked me off my feet as she pushed past Juliet and me to get a better look. I shouted after her, but I was interrupted by Ashley who began to tell us – in full, breathtaking detail – just how inept Jason was in bed. (I won’t repeat what she said because Jason has been humiliated enough, but let’s ju
st say that it was enough to make me spill my drink over my shoes.)
Everyone in the house seemed to hold their breath as we waited for Jason to retaliate, but when he dropped the mic and stormed out, there was a collective groan.
‘We’re disappointed now, but if he’s gone to get a gun,’ I said with a sigh, then looked down at my wet shoes, ‘I need another drink.’
Juliet leaned closer as the music started again. ‘Can you get me one too, please?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Anything.’
Thanks to the drama, the living room was full so it was an effort just to get to the door. I stepped on people’s toes and knocked a row of beer cans off the sideboard as I slid past Marilyn and Elvis who had started kissing again with such abandon that I had to look away.
In my haste to avoid them, I walked straight into someone wearing a Scream mask. He raised his arms and I jumped back into a group of girls from my art class who cheered when he pretended to kiss me.
When he let me go I staggered into the hallway giggling, only to be confronted by a guy in a Ghostbusters uniform who charged towards me holding a water gun.
‘Who you gonna call?’ he asked with a filthy smirk.
I nodded at the water gun. ‘You’re the one who’s going to need to call someone if you spray me with that.’
‘It’s got vodka in it. Open up, darling!’
‘Vodka?’ a girl in a red dress said, turning away from her conversation to eye the water gun with a wide smile. ‘What flavour?’
‘Roofie, probably,’ I muttered. But she ignored me and I retreated down the hallway in disgust as she tipped her head back and opened her mouth.
The hallway was just as busy as the living room and the music was louder, somehow. I could feel the bass line everywhere; in my bones, in my teeth. I even felt it when I reached out for the radiator to steady myself as I almost stepped on an empty sambuca bottle, this buzz, deep, deep in the metal, as though the radiator was alive. That’s how the whole house felt – alive. The curtains fluttered and the framed photos of Simone and her brothers rattled against the walls. Even the floorboards shuddered beneath my feet as I stumbled towards the kitchen door, spilling what was left of my cider as I did.
