by Dawn French
Her on the way to school.
Him on the way to work.
She in grey uniform.
He in dusty plaster-splattered sweats and big steel-toed boots.
He had a beard and a shaved head. She found out later he did it to come out in sympathy with his sister who was losing hers. Chemo. So he shaved hers and she shaved his. It was damn cold in the winter so he wore a beanie hat outside. His sister had embroidered the word ‘TWAT’ on the front of it, and he wore it unapologetically, with pride, for her, anytime he was outdoors.
When Minnie met him, however, he was inside the steamy café with his work buddies. First of all, she noticed that he seemed to have his head on upside down, and then she noticed that all of them were having a huge fry-up, except him. He was having porridge with fruit scattered on top. He had definitely clocked her as she came in: she was unmissable with her mop of orange curls and her glossy kissy mouth. He took as many quick peeks at her as he dared without either Minnie or his own mates noticing. So he thought. He was mistaken on that one. Minnie was forensic when it came to boys. She was used to unwanted attention. It was impossible to be as individual and distinctive a person as she was without drawing focus. She didn’t desire the attention, but equally she wasn’t prepared to forgo her style simply to avoid silly comments.
On the day she saw him in the café, she was in her drab uniform, yes, but as always, Minnie found ways to customize it, all the while staying JUST inside the school rules.
The rules stipulated a uniform skirt; they didn’t say you couldn’t embroider it with giant red roses all around the hem.
The rules stipulated a grey blazer; they didn’t say you couldn’t have a bunch of real flowers, whatever you can find that morning, sticking out of your pocket.
The rules said to wear hair ‘up’; they didn’t say up where or how; they didn’t say that you couldn’t braid it with red ribbon and twist it until the orange curls became an exploded profusion of a Mohican like an overstuffed pot of marigolds.
Minnie went to school as if she were the love child of Coco the Clown and Frida Kahlo.
There was no missing her.
And he didn’t.
But, like her, he was, in actuality, the littlest bit shy, so he would never have made the first move, for all the bravado his tattooed arms and shaved head seemed to indicate.
Luckily, she had her earphones in, listening to Lady Gaga telling her she was ‘Born This Way’, and she didn’t hear his friend behind her, telling her she’d dropped a five-pound note on the floor from her pocket as she was getting her purse out of her silver rucksack to pay for her cinnamon swirl Danish and hot chocolate, so Lee had to touch her arm in her field of vision to get her attention. She jumped abruptly when she felt his touch, as if electricity were volting through her. She wasn’t wrong. There was certainly something …
She removed her earphones, and for the first time she heard him speak, this sorta bashful, cheeky-Charlie, baldy beardy-weirdy she’d already had a sneaky side-eye at.
He smiled. ‘Hey. Sorry. You dropped a Lady Godiva.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Fiver. This …’ He handed it back to her.
‘Oh, sorry. Yeah. Thanks. Duh.’
‘You won’t need it …’ he said, pocketing the note as she reached to get it.
‘Hey! Yes, I will …’
‘Nope, I’m getting your breakfast today, Curls. What is it to be? Side of pig? With chips? Or endangered fruit from exotic countries?’
She instantly liked his vibe, especially since he could hardly bring himself to look her in the eye when he spoke to her. He was a curious mix. Not the run-of-the-mill loudmouth she ordinarily dealt with in here. He was different, in a really good way.
She left the café with four cinnamon swirls in her bag and a large hot chocolate to boot. He pushed her fiver back into her hand as she was leaving. She grinned and thanked him. Only later, when she unscrunched it, did she see that he’d written his number on it, with ‘TWAT’ next to it lest she forget who he was. She wasn’t going to forget him. Ever.
That was over a year before. She was just seventeen then. He was nineteen.
Now she was eighteen and Curls was having Twat’s baby.
Lee whispered, ‘I know what would help to get this bean moving … They DO say … y’know … C’mon, foxy lady, you’re looking mighty fine today and you know you want to …’ He was snuggling into her neck.
She giggled. ‘You must be joking! Get off. The docs told me I had to stay still and quiet as poss. Besides, you ain’t coming to paradise ever again, boy. Look what happens!’
‘Your loss. Coulda made it twins, last minute.’
‘Shut it.’
Lee wandered off to resume his PlayStation game, reassured that Minnie was OK. Well, as OK as a very uncomfortable, very pregnant girl with an underlying heart condition could be.
Minnie watched his bare pink bum as he strode off. She loved the sight of his long strong legs, his manly form.
She reached down into her silver rucksack and, puffing from the effort, took out her notebook. She liked paper and she liked different coloured fine-tipped felt pens. She drew, she wrote poetry, she copied down quotes and she wrote letters. Sometimes she wrote letters to fictional people, but mostly she wrote to real people. She had never yet actually posted one of her letters, but just writing them gave Minnie an outlet for her humour, her flights of fancy, her joys and her rages. She had shelves of these notebooks, always the same make, ‘CD Notebook, 7mm ruled, MADE IN JAPAN’, lined up in neat ranks in her bedroom, here in the Bristol flat she’d always shared with her mum. The notebooks were intensely private. She might have occasionally shown her mum the odd picture she’d drawn, or a funny quote, but otherwise it was all for her eyes alone, so she let rip in those pages. She often stayed up late at night filling up endless notebooks rather than sleeping. She’d been known to fall asleep on her desk at school because she was shattered. She had never fallen asleep in English though. She would fall asleep in useless classes like Maths or Chemistry. Or Politics. Pointless lessons, where words or drawings didn’t seem to matter. She liked the patterns that formulas made in Maths, but not enough to keep her awake.
Most of her friends were forever looking at their tiny phone screens, but not Minnie.
‘Cha, put that daftness down for a second and look at mi face, eh?’
Minnie preferred everything to be outward, flowing from her own imagination on to the page. She was a sender rather than a receiver. A creator. Originator.
Minnie had never taken a selfie in her life.
She didn’t want to be the focus of any attention.
She didn’t need to see photos to know what she looked like.
She looked like Minnie.
Minnie with the broad open face, huge dark brown eyes and skin the colour of a perfect new acorn. She had a high forehead with a button-broad nose which was covered with currant-bun freckles. She had a wide, full mouth with what her mother called ‘enviably even teeth’ and ‘lips that everyone wants to kiss’. Her hair was a bit of a trademark, a veritable fountain of reddish-brown curls, which gave zero tosses about tidiness.
In a moment of crazy abandonment, Minnie had asked her mum to bleach the top part of her hair from her ears up, like a wild Mohican. It took hours to lift her natural colour out, but she had a topknot of pure yellow straw until she added the bright orange dye on top. When it was dry, it fell down over the dark hair like a creamy curly topping on a carrot cake. When they saw the result mother and daughter ran around the room, clapping with glee, they loved it so much.
But that was all way before she knew she was pregnant, before she knew … everything.
When she was Minnie Parker, no question.
When she knew who she was.
Not like now.
Minnie stroked her tight belly, took a deep breath in an effort to steady her erratically thudding heart, and she strained to write:
Dear Mum,
Bean is so ready to be born. It isn’t time yet, but I’m about to burst, and I’m getting too tired too quick, so she better come soon.
I say ‘she’. I don’t know. I told them not to tell me. The nurse said, ‘Oh what a lovely healthy-looking little …’ and I started to do lalalala really loudly so I didn’t hear what came next. Lee was laughing so hard he did that snorting thing, then he joined in with the lalala and so did the nurse and know what? – Bean was jumping about inside. I reckon she was giving it the full lalala too. I call her ‘she’ because that’s my normal. Girl power, eh, Mum?
Oh God, how much did we love the Spice Girls?!
So, this is the soundtrack to My Weird Life, OK?
Spice Girls on a daily basis – you
The Specials and Bob Marley on a daily basis – Grandad Zak
Madonna – Nanna Doris
Gaga – me
Rihanna – me
Kate Tempest – me
Katy Perry – you & me
Pink – you
Green Day – you and me
Beyoncé – you and me
Adele – you and me
Cardi B – me
Skepta – Lee
Best Best Best Thing right now: Janelle Monáe – there are no pretenders to this kween’s throne.
Btw, talking about Girl Power, you able to catch up with the news? On #MeToo? That American film producer is done, guy!
Ever seen a man look more like a predator than him? No. I saw the first girl who blew the whistle, Rose something, in an interview. Her face, Mum.
she’ll never be all right
she has to haul the hate around
she’s packing disgust
worst of all, it’s mainly for herself
she loathes what she did
what he did
and what he did made her loathe herself
i can’t even forgive him … how could she?
there’s no way out for her
except a tiny crack of light
where all her sisters are
where i am
where you are
saying come on Rose
tell it all
put him away
but telling means
Rose has to set fire to herself
so we can all keep warm
and safe
she’s not Rose
she’s Joan
So that got me thinking about how some people sacrifice everything so that other people can live better.
and that’s you, mama
the judge decided THEY were the victims
and me
but I know what you did
i know how you lugged your secret about
all on your own
to protect me
worried and guilty and heavy
you sacrificed your honesty
and for an honest person, the most honest
that was a huge forfeit
with a huge price
but when you come home
Bean will be here
i will tell her all about you
she will know you
my mum
her grandma
look at what you did to be a mum
how much you wanted it
how lucky am i?
to be so longed for
but today – i am understanding something
in a way I couldn’t ’til now
i will be a mum soon
and like you did
i feel her moving about inside
i know
that if Bean died now
i would be out of my mind
she mustn’t die
she must live
or i will die
i already love her too much
i’m scared, mum
what if – i have your same genes and it’s an inherited thing?
then
i remember
because i do forget
that
I DON’T HAVE YOUR GENES
i have hers
the ‘victim’s’ genes
and SHE DID have a living baby
so …
at this exact moment
however much i love you
and i do
i have to say
i’m glad she was my mum
there
said it
PLEASE PLEASE understand
it’s just about Bean
right now i want the best chance for her
I want everything to go right
i know you will get it, mum
because you get me.
i wish you were here
not just for me
for you
and for Bean
she’s getting ready, mum
she’s got to be strong
i can hear you
telling me it will be OK
come on, Minnie Moo
come on, Bean
come on, life
i love you, mama
for EVERYTHING you are
i can see all the memories in my mind:
i am in your arms
i am three and i fell over when I tried
to walk in your best red weekend wedges
you picked me up
magic-kissed it better
kissed the hurt arm
and the hurt pride
told them to stop laughing
you knew that was my worst hurt
told them i was an extraordinary ray
didn’t obey the ordinary laws of refraction
shone in my own unique way
i was a style pioneer
artists like me should be encouraged
to go our own way
to wear a mum’s best red weekend wedges
takes skill
balance
dash
better to fall off ’em
than never to wear ’em
you put me back in ’em
i did a whole circuit of that front room
left them all eatin’ my badass stylish shit
please let me be even half the mother
you are
because you are A LOT
you are EVERYTHING
Suddenly, Minnie felt a sharp pain in her chest.
Deep down in there, where her heart was hurting the most, it was starting to give up. Literally. Minnie’s heart couldn’t take any more. Of anything. The engine was too knackered to cope.
‘Lee!’ she called out.
