The Things We Learn When We're Dead

by Charlie Laidlaw

* * *

  It was the first time she’d visited Suzie’s house, and its size marked their families as coming from different planets. Lorna’s home was a small flat where you could hear the neighbours squabbling, or cars roaring down the High Street just underneath the front window, or drunks trying to find their way home on Friday nights, which shouldn’t have been difficult as it was such a small town. It was a flat where you could listen in on other peoples’ lives whether you wanted to or not, or admire their washing hanging out to dry. Suzie’s house was a world apart: set back from a quiet road, with a red gravel drive that scrunched under her feet, and a downstairs and an upstairs – and, looking up, another upstairs above that. There was a garage for the cars, grown over with climbing roses (garage not cars), and a summerhouse under trees at the bottom of their garden. The silver Porsche was parked on the driveway. The house itself was painted white and had bay windows that looked onto manicured grass, on which was set a round wooden table and chairs. The lawn overlooked the town and the sea. What struck Lorna first, once she’d negotiated the loud drive, was the silence. Their house was always filled with sound: shoppers and cars, revellers, and the crash of waves. Here, simply the distant grumble of an aeroplane on its descent to Edinburgh airport. Lorna swallowed nervously, despite Suzie now being her official best friend in the whole world.

  ‘Why, hello you!’

  The front door, painted lustrous red and framed between dwarf conifers in bronze ceramic pots, had been opened by a tall women in blue jeans. She was wearing a pink cashmere jersey, her hair cut short. She had pearls round her neck. ‘I’m Susan’s mother. And you must be Lorna.’ She was smiling and seemed to be an exact replica of Suzie, only very old.

  Lorna had pushed her bike up the driveway and didn’t know what to do with it, thinking there might be a special shed for bicycles, perhaps with a servant to park it. After some indecision, she propped it against the wall of the house.

  The hallway was cavernous and hung with paintings that Lorna knew were called Modern Art, because they seemed like random blobs and streaks of colour. They didn’t look like anything. If she’d done something like that at school, Mr Downie would have told her to go back to her desk and do it again properly. Lorna’s home was filled with pastel watercolours of sea and beaches, some painted by her mother, rather badly. Her mother was given to random enthusiasms. The previous year she had taken up painting, bought a smock, churned out several masterpieces (her word, not anybody else’s), and given up – all in the space of a few months. The year before, it had been yoga. The year before that, modern dance when she’d come back from her weekly class all hot and sweaty and wearing a sparkly jumpsuit, which was utterly gross. Suzie’s hall was dominated by a giant (real) Christmas tree and around its base was already stacked an acreage of parcels in festive wrapping. Lorna looked jealously at the parcels. Lorna’s tree was small and plastic and didn’t have presents underneath it. Any smaller and it would have had AIR FRESHENER written on it.

  Then there was an eruption of noise and from the shadows at the end of the hall bounded Suzie, grabbing her arm, and pulling Lorna towards the stairs.

  ‘Whoa there, you two!’ said Suzie’s mother. ‘I haven’t been introduced yet.’

  ‘This is Lorna,’ said Suzie. ‘Right, we’re out of here.’

  ‘Susan, manners, please!’ Her mum turned to smile at Lorna. ‘Your mother works in the bakery, doesn’t she?’

  Lorna nodded.

  ‘I thought so. Next time I’m in I’ll introduce myself properly. Bet you’re looking forward to Christmas.’

  Lorna didn’t know if this was a question, so just nodded again.

  ‘Is there anything special you’re hoping to get?’

  She furrowed her eyebrows. ‘A hamster,’ Lorna said eventually.

  ‘A hamster? Well, if it’s what you want.’ Suzie’s mum wrinkled her nose, making Lorna wonder what she had against rodents. ‘Anyway, I thought the Nativity play was simply wonderful!’ Suzie’s mother seemed to mean this. ‘Very enjoyable and so ... different! Not what we were expecting at all. And it had a tiger in it.’

  ‘It was a lion,’ said Lorna, acutely aware that the lion had said more than she had.

  Suzie’s room was at the very top of the house. It was surprisingly small, smaller than Lorna had imagined, but it was her very own kingdom. She even had her own bathroom, with a fancy shower and a bidet, which Lorna looked at blankly and had to ask Suzie what it was for. Even when Suzie told her, it didn’t make any sense. Her bedroom was painted in vivid reds and pinks. On a polished oak desk sat a large stereo system. CDs were scattered over the carpet, competing for floorspace with discarded clothes. A poster of Guns‘N’Roses was pinned above her bed, unmade, which had cream cotton sheets. Lorna had always suffered nylon. In the morning her hair stood on end and crackled. She would give herself electric shocks eating toast.

  Suzie put on a Red Hot Chilli Peppers CD and jumped around on the bed. Lorna wandered to the window and looked down into the town, then called out excitedly to Suzie.

  ‘Look! That’s my bedroom window!’ She had recognised her blue striped curtains. It felt strange looking at her bedroom from a new angle, and to be connected with Suzie like this; it also reinforced Suzie’s otherworldliness, like she was a princess in a castle.

  Suzie had rushed to a cupboard and was rummaging through clothes and toys. She bounded back, waving a torch. ‘We could talk to each other,’ she announced, eyes wide and shining, golden curls framing her face, ‘when we’re in bed.’ Suzie switched the torch on and off, on and off, shining it into Lorna’s eyes.

  Lorna thought for a moment. ‘We’ll need a code.’

  Suzie didn’t know what a code was. Lorna explained that it was how secret agents talked to each other. ‘Like, one flash means Yes.’

  ‘And two flashes means No.’

  ‘And three flashes means How’s things?’

  After that, they sat on the floor and tried to puzzle out what else they could say in torch language. They agreed that four flashes would be Hi and five flashes Goodnight, but after that they ran out of ideas. It was all very well saying yes and no, but how could they ask questions? Lorna suggested that they could use short and long flashes to mean different things. She’d seen a programme about ships at sea and that’s what they did. Suzie suggested moving their torches sideways or up and down, or in circles. It was clear that inventing torch language was going to be very hard.

  * * *

  It was during that afternoon of new friendship that Suzie, now Lorna’s best friend in the world (ever), told her about the birds and the bees, which came as a surprise because there were no birds or bees involved, if Suzie could be believed, which wasn’t always the case. Such was the shock that Lorna couldn’t later remember how the conversation had come up: perhaps from the Nativity play and how the son of God had come to be born.

  It was after Suzie’s mother had fed them tea, cake, several kinds of biscuits, and various sandwiches. They’d walked to the beach and for a while they threw stones into the water, watching them being devoured by waves.

  ‘I’m going to be an actress,’ said Suzie. After the previous night’s triumph Lorna had asked her what she was going to do when she grew up. ‘I’m going to be in magazines and on the telly,’ she added, sounding utterly convinced.

  Lorna didn’t know how to be famous, or whether she really wanted to be. All she knew was that she couldn’t compete with Suzie. Even then, Suzie was the school beauty. Pre-pubescent boys would bring her little bunches of flowers stolen from local gardens or the cemetery. ‘What does your dad do?’ Lorna asked instead, thinking about the shiny Porsche outside their utterly mammoth house.

  ‘He’s a lawyer.’

  Lorna thought for a few moments. ‘What do lawyers do?’

  Suzie explained that her father went into Edinburgh in the morning and came back in the evening. He had an office in the New Town, with his own parking space. Lorna supposed that this was a ni
ce thing to have. Her father, when he was working, which wasn’t often, took the train, and didn’t need a parking space. Sometimes, said Suzie, he looks through big jotters full of important letters. Sometimes he writes things down with a pen. Sometimes he types things on the computer. Suzie, imparting banal information, eventually conceded that she had no idea what her father did.

  They were walking along the east beach and past the grand houses that front the sea. The east beach was Lorna’s favourite bit of North Berwick. It was rocky, not pristine sand like the west beach, but it always felt more real to her; the west beach looked constructed, the east beach – with its jumbled rocks and crab-infested pools – seemed authentic.

  The tide was in. Grey clouds were chasing across the sky, uniform and formless. Lorna pointed to a grassy bank between the shoreline and the cliffs.

  ‘I was born there.’ Although her mum could never be sure of the exact spot, Jack and Alice Brotherstone were, and while Jack jogged very slowly into town (being American he was somewhat large), Alice had stayed with her mother. The Brotherstones were therefore able to accurately identify the spot to the local paper.

  ‘Jesus! Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘You were born next to a rusty beer can?’

  Lorna looked along Suzie’s extended finger. ‘I don’t suppose the beer can was there then.’

  ‘But maybe it was,’ said Suzie. ‘Maybe your mum drank it, and that’s why you were born there.’

  ‘Mum says it was a dodgy prawn sandwich.’

  ‘So she didn’t plan to give birth by the seaside?’

  ‘God, Suze! Why would anyone want to do that?’

  Suzie kicked up sand and shrugged. ‘Why does anyone do anything?’ she said, which sounded wise, but wasn’t, because it was Suzie saying it. ‘Like sex. Why would anyone do that?’ Her eyes had gone big and round, like a kitten’s.

  Lorna understood the concept of sex, but not the nitty-gritty. She knew about kissing and how things could get out of hand. She’d seen enough TV programmes to know that people got sweaty and took their clothes off, and then sometimes gazed at the ceiling and smoked cigarettes.

  ‘First the boy’s thing gets big and hard,’ said Suzie, not waiting for Lorna to answer, which she positively hadn’t intended to do. Lorna had an inkling she didn’t want to know what happened between getting sweaty and smoking cigarettes.

  Lorna didn’t know what Suzie was talking about.

  ‘You know, his thing,’ said Suzie. She had golden ringlets and big blue eyes and looked like a Barbie doll, according to Lorna’s mother, who had suggested giving her one for Christmas and who evidently didn’t much like the idea of a fluffy rat in their home.

  ‘What thing?’ was all Lorna could manage.

  ‘The thing between his legs.’

  This Lorna could understand, having seen her dad’s thing before. He seemed unable to lock bathroom doors, or maybe didn’t know it had a lock. Feeling a little sick, Lorna had never realised that boys’ things could be multi-functional.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Then he puts it between your legs.’ Suzie pointed graphically with one finger.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Then he squirts stuff into you which makes babies.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘It’s what married people do when there’s nothing on TV,’ concluded Suzie, looking triumphant.

  Lorna thought this was both disgusting and very unlikely, and queasily said so. Her mother would never let something as gross take place under her roof. She couldn’t see why anyone would want an erect thing being stuck inside them and then being squirted with stuff. It would be like the man going to the loo inside you, which was an utterly horrible thought. Lorna’s life was framed in certainties, and although the adult world to which she aspired had a nuanced vocabulary from which she was often excluded, she also assumed that she knew the ground rules: that grown-ups didn’t have much fun, had to work to earn money, got married, and had children. Against those certainties, she had never thought to ask why or how. She knew where babies came from, but had never wondered how they got there in the first place.

  Dark, scuddy clouds were now crowding in, making the horizon cold and indistinct, and a couple of seagulls were quarrelling over a scrap of something at the water’s edge. It somehow seemed possible that Suzie’s truth could have some basis in fact. That between cute puppies and dog poo was a middle way: that the truth was malleable, without precise definition. Looking east, the far horizon was uniformly grey, sea and sky melded together. Suzie had seemed very sure of herself. Nevertheless, even if any of it was true, which Lorna doubted, she absolutely vowed that such unpleasantness wasn’t ever going to happen to her. It was a promise she didn’t keep, but sometimes wished she had.

  That evening, Lorna sat in the kitchen and read a book. Her mum was pottering and she could hear the rustle of homemade Christmas decorations being hung in the hall. Her dad had a glass of whisky in one hand and was standing silently by the kitchen window, immobile. She had no idea what he was thinking or, worse, what his thing was thinking, because he’d said earlier that there was absolutely nothing worth watching on TV.

  Flatulence

  Lorna had only once eaten in a posh restaurant, and that was on Suzie’s birthday. Suzie wanted to be grown up and for the two of them to be the only people at the table. Of course, her dad was paying. The evening started out badly. Lorna was wearing a frilly blue dress (from the Red Cross), which she hated. Suzie was wearing a red cotton dress, which she also hated, although it had a proper label from a proper shop. They were also about a millionth the age of anyone else in the restaurant. To make things worse, most of the menu was in French, and the things on the menu that were in English didn’t seem edible.

  ‘Pumpkin soup?’

  ‘Ugh!’

  ‘Squid cooked in its own ink?’

  A shudder, Suzie biting her lip.

  ‘Veal?’

  ‘Cruel.’

  They were in Suzie’s dad’s favourite restaurant with Marcel, the head waiter, fussing around them, treating them like royalty, bowing as he approached the table and bestowing warm smiles at Suzie, who had been to the restaurant with her parents many times before. Lorna was more used to the occasional Pizza Hut. The room’s walls were lined with gilded mirrors, and it seemed that several Marcels were advancing on them from different directions.

  ‘Your usual, mademoiselle?’ enquired Marcel, his pen poised.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Lorna looked at Suzie for help. At the doorway to the restaurant, where an unctuous young man with slicked-back hair had taken their coats, had been a small fountain with naked cherubs holding up a large potted plant. The waiters were dressed in white. Marcel’s gold pen hovered over his pristine notepad.

  ‘The steak is excellent, mademoiselle,’ he whispered, ‘as I’m sure young Miss Bryce will attest to.’

  ‘Is that what you’re having?’ Lorna asked.

  Suzie nodded.

  ‘Does it come with chips?’ Lorna asked Marcel, blushing. In the places where she was usually taken for special treats, everything came with chips, and you didn’t need to ask for them.

  ‘But of course, mademoiselle. It can come with whatever you want it to come with.’

  ‘I’m also having deep-fried camembert to start with,’ said Suzie.

  ‘Deep-fried cheese!’

  ‘It tastes better than it sounds,’ confided Marcel.

  Lorna nodded uncertainly.

  She could see other diners watching them. How, they were thinking, can such young girls be allowed to eat in here? How could they afford to eat in here? ‘I’ve never been to a place like this,’ Lorna whispered over the table, and picked up a fork. Around her place setting was a profusion of other knives, forks, and spoons, and she was entirely mystified as to which ones to use.

  ‘My dad can afford it,’ said Suzie.

  ‘Are all lawyers rich?’

  ‘I expect so,�
� she replied. ‘All the ones I’ve met have been rich.’

  ‘With big cars?’

  She nodded.

  Lorna reached into her pocket and handed over an oblong box. ‘That’s from me,’ she said.

  Suzie peeled off wrapping paper and extracted a Kylie Minogue tape. It was one that Lorna knew she’d been wanting.

  They finished with ice cream and raspberries and then, unexpectedly, all the lights went out. In the sudden darkness, all Lorna could see were pinpricks of light from the candles on each table. Then she realised that one of the candles seemed very bright and was moving towards them.

  Marcel was holding a small cake, into which has been stuck a sparkler. Two other waiters were beside him. Marcel led everyone in singing Happy Birthday and, bit by bit, the other diners joined in. At the end, everybody clapped and the lights came on again.

  At that moment, Lorna wished she knew what lawyers did, because the steak and the deep-fried cheese had been delicious, and Marcel had made her feel like someone really important, not just the daughter of a bakery worker, and had ignored her ill-fitting dress. She wanted to eat in places like that again and again.

  * * *

  Her dad used to say better out than in, which usually preceded him farting loudly. Fathers weren’t supposed to fart, Lorna would think, let alone draw attention to it. She found this utterly gross. But on their Broads holiday she had realised that her dad’s intestinal workings were plumbed differently, and she would have to put up with it. Or that his mental faculties were plumbed differently and didn’t see that breaking wind in public was something that most people didn’t do. (Some boys at school did it, to guffaws from classmates, but they didn’t count.)

  She would have been happier if out-rather-than-in extended beyond flatulence, because Lorna had never really had a good conversation with her dad. She always hoped he would pass on nuggets of wisdom acquired through his great age and huge experience. But, on reflection, he wasn’t experienced at very much: only at living in North Berwick, travelling to work in Edinburgh, and venturing to the Auld Hoose or the golf course. Her mum was much the same, working in the bakery, indulging in her transient passions. So Lorna never had the benefit of parental advice, nor much in the way of encouragement. To them, in their different ways, life wasn’t what you made of it, but about accepting what it made of you.