Part of me is gutted I spent so long resisting it.
Another, much bigger part of me just can’t wait to make up for lost time.
41
‘Ready?’ Tanvi asks as the car pulls up outside the school gates.
It’s less than two weeks since I was last here, but it feels like longer.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ I reply.
‘Have a good day, girls,’ Tanvi’s mum says. ‘Now, are you absolutely sure you’re OK getting the bus home?’
‘Sure,’ we say in unison.
As Tanvi and I make our way to registration, people whisper and stare.
‘Is it true you tried to burn your house down?’ Sienna asks, falling into step with us.
‘Oh, shut up, Sienna,’ I say, and keep walking.
‘You OK?’ Tanvi whispers, scampering to keep up.
‘I’m good,’ I reply.
And I am.
With everything out in the open, there’s nothing left to fear now. At least, not from them.
I am a duck and their opinions are water off my back.
It’s only now I realize that they always were.
WINTER
42
I stick my head around Tanvi’s bedroom door.
‘You off?’ she asks. She’s sitting on the floor painting her nails Father Christmas red.
‘Yep,’ I reply.
‘How you feeling?’
‘Weird.’
‘Ring me if you need me.’
‘I won’t, but thank you.’
She grins and salutes. I salute back and leave her to it.
Downstairs, I yell goodbye to her parents and head out into the fading December daylight.
After all those Saturday mornings leafleting here, I’m still getting my head around the fact Hopewood Gardens is my temporary home. I’ve been living with the Shahs for nearly six weeks now and it’s been pretty great. Despite my monthly visits to Dad’s over the years, I’d forgotten what it was like to feel like part of a family. I relish every bit of it, from the chaotic breakfasts and noisy dinners, to the squabbles over whose turn it is to wash up and what to watch on TV.
There’s a bus due, but I decide to head on foot into town instead. As I walk, I murmur ‘O Holy Night’ under my breath. I’m singing it in the school concert next week, and even though I know it inside out I’m not taking any chances, practising any chance I can get.
By the time I reach the high street, it’s almost dark and the Christmas lights are on.
I pause outside the café where Bonnie and I have arranged to meet and peer through the snow-sprayed window. She’s sitting at the table in the corner of the café, stirring her tea. She looks nervous.
It’s been six whole weeks since I last saw her. She’s been staying with Danielle, a singer friend of hers over one hundred miles away. We’ve texted and talked on the phone, but this is our first face-to-face meeting.
I take a deep breath and push open the door.
Noticing me, she stands up, her mouth twisting into a timid smile. She holds out her arms, but I can’t quite bring myself to step into them. She realizes, swallowing and dropping them to her sides.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ I murmur.
‘It’s nice to see you.’
‘You too.’
There’s a pause. Kylie’s version of ‘Santa Baby’ is playing in the background.
‘Er, would you like something to drink?’ she asks.
I glance up at the chalkboard menu on the wall. ‘Hot chocolate please.’
She nods and heads up to the counter, returning a few minutes later with my drink plus a slice of Yule log on a small china plate.
‘I thought we could share,’ she says, slicing it in half, transferring the smaller half onto a napkin and pushing the rest across the table towards me.
‘You got a gig tonight?’ I ask, nodding at Bonnie’s battered hot-pink suitcase, the one she takes to gigs, at the side of her chair. One corner of it is shrivelled from where the plastic casing melted in the heat of the fire.
‘Yes. Corporate jobbie at that big hotel on the ring road.’
‘Nice.’ A pause. ‘How’s life at Danielle’s?’ I ask, blowing on my hot chocolate.
‘Oh, you know. All right,’ Bonnie says, wrapping her hands around her mug of tea. ‘Bit cramped, and in the middle of bloody nowhere, but it could be worse.’
I wonder how Bonnie’s coping there, with only a suitcase of belongings for company, or whether she’s already started rebuilding her hoard within the four walls of Danielle’s spare room, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. My stomach turns over at the thought.
‘I’d prefer not to be there for Christmas, but what can you do?’ Bonnie adds. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘Any news on the house?’ I ask.
‘They’re saying after Christmas now. I keep pushing for earlier but I’m not holding out hope …’
‘Right,’ I murmur.
‘How about you?’ Bonnie asks. ‘How are you getting on at Tanvi’s?’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘The Shahs have been really nice to me.’
Understatement of the year. They’ve been incredible.
‘Remind me to add them to my Christmas card list,’ Bonnie says.
I smile faintly.
‘I saw Yvette again yesterday,’ she adds.
It was Social Services who put Bonnie in touch with Yvette, a psychologist with specialist experience in treating people with compulsive hoarding disorder.
‘And?’ I say.
‘It was hard work,’ Bonnie says.
I frown.
‘No, no, that’s a good thing,’ she insists. ‘Apparently it means I’m putting in the work.’ She smiles a smile that manages to be look both proud and sad at the same time. ‘And I am,’ she says. ‘Working hard, I mean. I want you to know that, Ro, that I’m taking it seriously.’
I nod, unsure what to say. I want to believe Bonnie but there’s still a glimmer of fear (more than a glimmer) that all the progress could unravel at any moment and we’ll end up back at square one.
‘She suggested I share some of the stuff I’ve been talking about with you,’ Bonnie continues tentatively. ‘Yvette, I mean. If that’s OK with you, of course.’
‘OK,’ I say slowly.
‘OK, super.’
There’s a pause.
Bonnie looks down at her hands then back up again. ‘You’ve probably already worked out that I don’t get on all that well with my parents,’ she says.
‘The fact I’ve never met them is kind of a giveaway.’
She smiles tightly.
‘How come?’ I ask. ‘Did you fall out?’
‘It’s not quite as straightforward as that.’
‘What were they like?’
She thinks for a moment. ‘Cold,’ she says. ‘You’ve heard the saying “children should be seen and not heard”?’
I nod.
‘Well, that was my parents to a tee.’
As I listen to Bonnie telling the story of her lonely childhood rattling around a big empty house, for perhaps the very first time I feel like there might actually be a day when the massive join-the-dots puzzle that is my mother stops being a collection of random dots with no numbers and starts to form some sort of picture.
‘Yvette thinks that’s why I started singing,’ she says. ‘For the attention. You’ve got to admit, it sort of makes sense …’ She pauses and plucks a shard of chocolate off her slice of yule log.
‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘How come you don’t see them any more?’
‘There was no big showdown as such, just the gradual realization I was never going to be the daughter they wanted, and they were never going to be the parents I needed. I moved out the second I was old enough and that was that.
‘What are you thinking?’ Bonnie asks, tilting her head to one side.
‘Just that that sounds really sad,’ I say.
She smiles and s
hrugs. ‘Oh, I’m sure there are much sadder tales … They just never should have become parents. Then again, you could probably say the same for me …’
Her voice trails off and there’s a moment of almost complete silence before the next song kicks in.
‘Before I forget,’ Bonnie says, producing a red envelope from her handbag and pushing it across the table towards me.
‘Do you want me to open it now?’ I ask.
‘It’s Christmas time, isn’t it?’
I open the envelope. The front of the card features a picture of three penguins, each of them wearing a red Rudolph nose and a pair of antlers. Inside, in her distinctive slanted handwriting, Bonnie has written: To Ro, I found this card when I was going through the house the other day and I don’t know why, but I thought the picture might make you smile. Love, Mum xxx
Not Bonnie.
Mum.
‘Thank you,’ I say, sliding it into my bag. ‘It did.’
‘What?’
‘Make me smile.’
Bonnie’s face melts into a grin.
What time’s your gig?’ I ask.
‘Seven.’ She checks her watch. ‘In fact I should probably get going in a bit if I’m going to fit in a proper sound check.’
I nod.
‘You could, er, come along if you fancied,’ she adds casually as she checks her reflection in her compact mirror.
‘To your gig?’ I ask, blinking in surprise.
Bonnie’s face flushes a little. ‘Yes. You could sit at the back, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.’
I consider her proposition. I haven’t seen Bonnie sing in ages. Years. I’m tempted. But not enough. The bottom line is, I’m not ready to pretend everything is OK between us. Not yet.
‘I don’t think so, Bonnie.’
Her face falls slightly.
‘But ask me again,’ I add.
‘I will,’ she promises.
Bonnie insists on giving me a lift back to Tanvi’s.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says, clearing the passenger seat so I can sit down.
‘That’s OK,’ I say, pulling on my seat belt. Although the car looks just as awful as it did when I last saw it, this is the first time Bonnie has acknowledged it or looked even remotely embarrassed. It’s only a small change, but it feels enormous somehow.
‘Anything exciting on this week?’ Bonnie asks we turn into Hopewood Gardens.
‘Nothing special. Just end of term stuff,’ I reply.
This isn’t strictly true. Friday is the Christmas concert.
‘How about you?’ I ask.
‘Back-to-back gigs,’ Bonnie says. ‘’Tis the season and all that.’
‘It’s this one,’ I say, pointing out Tanvi’s house.
All the lights are on, making it look extra warm and welcoming.
‘Nice digs,’ Bonnie says, letting out a low whistle of appreciation as she pulls up outside.
‘Yeah, I kind of lucked out.’
The engine’s purr dies out, plunging into silence.
‘Have you heard from your dad?’ she asks.
‘A few times, yeah.’
‘Everything OK there?’
‘As OK as it can be.’
I’m just sorry it took the house burning down for me to finally accept Dad was never going to step up and be the person I needed him to be.
There’s a pause.
‘I’m going to get better, Ro,’ Bonnie says, her fingers gripping the steering wheel, her eyes fixed on an invisible point beyond the windscreen. ‘I’ve been doing lots of thinking, not just with Yvette but on my own too, and I’m serious about sorting myself out, I really am.’
I bite my lip. I want to believe her. More than anything.
‘I’m going to go in now,’ I say.
‘OK,’ Bonnie whispers.
I plant a dry kiss on her cheek. She smells of hairspray and her favourite perfume. I’m shocked to realize just how much I’ve missed it. How much I’ve missed her.
‘Night, Bonnie,’ I say.
‘Night night,’ she murmurs in reply.
I slam the door behind me and make my way up the driveway. Bonnie waits until I’m inside before driving away.
Tanvi is waiting for me on the stairs. ‘So? How was it?’ she asks as I take off my shoes.
‘It was … OK,’ I say.
‘Good OK or bad OK?’
‘Let’s go with interesting OK.’
‘Wanna talk about it?’
‘Yes. But maybe not right away if that’s all right.’
‘Want some of my mum’s dhal in the meantime?’
‘Definitely.’
That night, as I lie in Anish’s old bed, staring at the ceiling that still looks strange, even though I’ve been sleeping beneath it for over a month now, I’m overcome by a wave of sadness and longing that ties my stomach in a series of impenetrable knots.
Because as much as I’m enjoying living with Tanvi and her impossibly kind family, I’m homesick.
I’m homesick for Arcadia Avenue.
For Bonnie.
For the place, for better or for worse, I call home.
43
I think I’m going to throw up, a situation not helped by the fact Tanvi keeps peering through the gap in the curtains and reporting just how many people are in the audience.
‘Oh my God, it’s almost full!’ she gasps. ‘Come see!’
I shake my head hard. Having spent dozens of hours up in the lighting box, I can easily imagine the scene – the school hall dark and dim as the audience file in and take their seats, the sense of anticipation in the air as they flip through their paper programmes and open their sweets. The Christmas concert is always popular, people forced to stand at the back once all the seats have been taken.
‘Positions, everyone,’ Mr Milford says. ‘Tanvi, how many times do I have to tell you, come away from the curtain.’
Tanvi reluctantly shrinks into line, grinning sheepishly.
The choir is opening the concert with a medley of festive hits, before returning to perform a more traditional selection to close the second half.
Including my solo.
Yesterday’s dress rehearsal actually went pretty well. My voice, still tender if not fully warmed up, felt strong and healthy as I lost myself in the soaring music. But that had been singing to an empty, brightly lit hall. With the choir standing behind me, out of sight, it was easy to convince myself that it was just another rehearsal with Mr Milford. Even though the memory of the London audition no longer hurts in the way it once did, I still can’t forget the way the nerves attacked my weak defenceless body like limpets, clinging on until I crumbled. Successful dress rehearsal or not, there is no guarantee it won’t happen again tonight.
I take my place in line next to Tanvi. As the red velvet curtains swing open, a hush falls over the waiting audience. Mr Milford steps forward and welcomes them before striding over to the piano. As he starts the introduction to ‘Sleigh Ride’, I allow my eyes to adjust to the strange version of darkness in front of me. Although I can only make out the first few rows, I can sense just how full the room is. I wonder where Jodie and the poor mate she’s dragged along are sitting.
And Noah.
Over the past month we’ve played eleven games of chess, watched three films at the cinema, and shared two large portions of fish and chips.
Oh, and one kiss.
The kiss happened on Sunday night, the last time we saw each other. It was gentle and soft and made my tummy turn over and I’ve replayed it in my head at least a thousand times, counting down the minutes until I can do it again.
The opening medley goes well. The songs are natural crowd-pleasers and the audience is clearly in a festive mood, many of them draped with tinsel or wearing flashing Santa hats as they clap along with the familiar tunes.
As the choir troops off stage to make way for the school band, the nerves that more or less behaved themselves in the group numbers just now, are back, creeping
up my legs like the climbing ivy that covers 48 Arcadia Avenue.
I remove myself from the group and walk over to the corner of the room, my back to everyone. A few seconds later, Tanvi is at my side, waggling my arm.
‘Ro?’ she says sternly. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Freaking out,’ I reply.
‘Why? You’re going to kill it out there.’
I whirl round to face her, gripping her elbows. ‘But what if I don’t? What if I miss all the big notes or forget the words or I open my mouth and nothing comes out?’
‘None of those things are going to happen, Ro.’
‘But what if they do?’
‘Then they happen.’
‘Tanvi!’ I cry. ‘You’re supposed to be helping!’
‘I mean, it’ll be shit and everything,’ Tanvi continues. ‘Painful and humiliating and frustrating, but do you know what would be even worse?’
‘I don’t know – being buried alive? Burnt at the stake? Eaten by a bear?’
‘No! Not singing the solo at all and regretting it your entire life. Worst comes to worst,’ she adds, ‘just imagine everyone in the audience totally naked. Or even better, on the loo. Having a really painful poo.’
I can’t help but laugh.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘For that delightful image.’
‘What are best friends for?’ Tanvi says, taking a small bow.
The rest of the concert passes in a flash and it’s soon time to reassemble on the stage. ‘O Holy Night’ is the penultimate number. During ‘Carol of the Bells’, I can feel my heart thumping inside my chest so loudly I can hear it over the rest of the choir. It gets faster and faster, until the individual heartbeats are almost indistinguishable from each other. And then the audience is applauding and I’m putting one foot in front of the other and making my way to the centre of the stage. The applause dies out and there’s a pause as Mr Milford adjusts his position at the piano stool. The audience follows his lead, taking the opportunity to cough and shift in their seats and rustle in their packets of sweets. Unsure quite where to look, I find my gaze drifting up towards the lighting box. My old domain.
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