by Janet Ellis
Does anything really happen by chance? I’d put my hand into a drawer, looking for the other sock. I’d found only one of Eddie’s, in the washing basket. The name tape sewn on to it read: E M Deacon. I had opened several drawers in Sarah’s room without finding its partner. My hand closed around a little book, leather-bound: Sarah Jane Deacon PRIVATE DIARY. Keep out. If I hadn’t had time that day, I wouldn’t have opened it, but the fates cleared the way. I wasn’t busy. I had nothing to do but read it. That’s how it was.
Chapter 2
20 September
I am definitely going to give all my toys away to Eddie. I’ve been thinking about it for a while but whenever I open the cupboard to have one last look at them, I feel queasy. I’ve been trying to play with him for months but every time we start a game, I feel so frustrated I want to hurt myself. I decided to start by giving him the horse. I hid it from him ages ago. I’d kicked it away so he couldn’t see it and then pretended I didn’t know where it was.
I had to lie flat on my front to slide my hand under the sideboard. Where my bosoms are growing it hurt like bruises. The dining room floor is hard wood blocks laid in diagonals and there is loads of muck trapped in the gaps between them. I swore because my feet hit the wall as I stretched my legs out behind me. Eddie snorted. All I could see of him were his fawn wool socks and his school shoes. He can’t tie his laces properly, they’re always coming undone. I wiggled the little plastic horse out of its hiding place and brushed away the grey fur of dust that clung to it. It made me sad. I used to think the heat of my hand would be enough to start its heart. I could see a whole world through its hard eyes. It felt like a long time ago.
I gave the horse to Eddie and told him I was too old for it. Eddie said I was only twice him, because he is seven. He adds himself up all the time. He said it wasn’t fair if I stopped playing anyway because we’d laid out a whole farm. He pointed at the fields and lanes we’d marked out with knitting needles and at the reels of cotton that stood for hay bales. I told him he could have my whole farm set. He gasped and said, Really? Really? because he’d often begged me for even one small part of it, even a lend of it. He asked me to tell Mum it’s all his now. He was scared I’d go back on my private kindness and make him out to be a liar. Fair enough, I usually do. I said I’d tell Daddy too and we should shake on it and I held out my hand and he put his whole little fist into my open palm.
I am lying on my bed writing this, trying to remember what I used to care about. Everything is muffled and stale. All my Beatrix Potter china animals face in different directions because I haven’t arranged them properly for weeks. I have an essay for homework I can’t be bothered to do. Mrs McCain set it as she lifted her big bum from her chair at the end of the lesson. She paused mid-rise, her palms flat on the desk to support her weight. I could tell she said the title without really thinking. Describe Your Environment, Inside and Out. She had to give us some homework, it’s in the timetable. She’ll be bored to death by my essay, anyway. I’m going to write about how we live in a small semicircle of houses at the edge of the village. I’ll describe how you can see the footpath and the fields beyond from Eddie’s room at the back of the house. Our window cleaner is so old that he can remember when it was all fields here. He told me our houses were built because of the baby boom. He made it sound like a bad thing. I’ll write about how our gardens never seem to be in full sun. I’ll say that you can see everyone’s lights turning off at night, but you hardly ever catch sight of the other people who live here. Except Sheila from three doors down who patrols all the time, like an old sentry.
I’m not going to say how much I want to look out of my window and see a boy standing there. He’ll be coming to see me. I haven’t met him yet. I don’t know what he’ll look like. I can’t even give him a name. But I’m going to matter to him. I wish this could be the last Monday ever that I don’t have a boyfriend. The next time there’s a full moon, I’m going to wish like mad on it. Otherwise, I can see all the boring Mondays bobbing across the weeks and months and years for the rest of my life, like boats on a flat sea, with nothing exciting to disturb them. Ever.
There were thick, grey stripes across the bottom of my white school socks. I must have dusted the top of the skirting board with my feet. That shows you how gross and low her standard of housework is, which is ALL she has to do all day.
Chapter 3
Michael sleeps. It gives his body something different to do. You wouldn’t say he sleeps like a baby; he looks guarded and wary, even in slumber. Over the years since everything happened, he’s had to stay as ready for action as a soldier in the trenches. He can’t risk mistaking any silences for a lull in the fighting. I’d like to close my eyes, too, but if someone came in, they might think I was ignoring him. I feel the contents of the bag as if I could identify each letter by shape alone. They don’t give themselves away. I pull one out as if I’m drawing a raffle. My prize is a card with a picture of a building on the front. Though it’s taken from what must be its best angle, nothing could enhance its squat shape and featureless exterior. It’s not where you’d choose to end your days.
18 December
Dear Mrs Deacon,
I write to thank you on behalf of the residents of Hillview Residential Home for your splendid contribution to our Christmas party. The decorations looked wonderful and were much admired. Please accept this invitation to our small staff gathering on Tuesday for a mince pie (or two), to herald the festive season.
The decorations were some old-fashioned paper chains and the balding tinsel saved from last year. I remember Helen, in the same tartan skirt she always wore, holding the coloured links between finger and thumb. ‘Careful with these, Marion,’ she’d said, passing them to me as I stood on tiptoe on the refectory table. ‘I can’t entirely vouch for them, there was only so much glue left by the end of the session. But I wasn’t allowed to interfere, you know what they’re like.’ And sure enough, by the end of the afternoon, two or three chains broke free and dangled just above head height, trembling. And the old women (it was mostly old women) warbled carols and brushed cake crumbs from velvet tops, worn specially. I had a reindeer brooch they used to like; its red nose flashed on and off. I can’t reminisce with Michael about that time, he didn’t share it with me. So much of my life, afterwards, is solitary.
There’s a jacquard dressing gown on the chair. I packed it with his things, but it seems unlikely he’ll need to wear it. Monogrammed pyjamas, too. That’s an upgrade. I had to pack his bag very quickly; I didn’t want the doctor to see I didn’t really know where everything was and have him watching me open all the wrong drawers. ‘Thank you, Mrs Deacon,’ he’d said. ‘It is Mrs Deacon, isn’t it?’ I close my eyes. I always seemed to be tired when I was young. I used to wake in the morning feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all. When I was pregnant with Sarah, I burrowed into bed every afternoon without guilt and drifted in and out of sleep. Make the most of it, the health visitor said. She’d woken me with one of her visits and without apology. After the baby comes, she’d said, you won’t be able to take yourself off like that. You will chase sleep like an escaped balloon on a windy day. She’d looked askance at my unkempt hair and watched me stifle a yawn.
Chapter 4
I see myself the day I found Sarah’s diary. I’d held it for a few minutes before I’d opened it. It wasn’t honour that held me back, I didn’t value her secrets. The ebb and flow of her days was well known to me. Her school timetable was pinned to the cork board downstairs and I organised all her other appointments. I thought her diary would reveal – nothing. It would be only an amusing catalogue of forgettable events, childish ambitions and daydreams. I was afraid that her adolescent musings might reveal a certain small-mindedness. She was so lacklustre these days, so seldom moved to any displays of emotion beyond anger or spite. What if her assumed indifference to the world concealed genuine hostility? There was always a possibility that she didn’t really like us. That she really didn’t like me.<
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When I was her age, I’d sought out the wilder girls, the ones who were so busy being bohemian they expected nothing from me. They certainly didn’t want competition. I was admitted to their ranks only because of a single fact – my mother had recently died. This made me interesting and stopped further conversation. They were too young and too selfish to question me about how I felt, what she was like or even how she’d died. Her death was just the way I was described, nothing more. I wore it like a badge. I would have avoided the subject, anyway, in case I accidentally revealed the way she’d spent her last months. She had been bedridden, soiled, forgetful. That version of her embarrassed me. Instead, I mourned, privately, the mother I’d scarcely known. I knew she’d loved me, though. I was almost sure I could remember that.
The first few pages of Sarah’s diary seemed to be mostly lists of girls whose names I didn’t know, ranked in order of importance as friends, with a few character traits added. Molly Green (1) Nice nails. Isobel Huff (2) Likes Simon and Garfunkel. Vanessa Stewart (3) Two brothers. There was a tiny clump of hair stuck to one page with ‘Cut from My Fringe’ written beneath it. Most of the entries were short. She’d written several times about wanting a part in the school play: we didn’t go and see Pygmalion, so I supposed she wasn’t successful. Then this longer, more confessional page. Bruises where my bosoms will be. It was odd to see her write about her body. It was a mystery to me these days. I’d known it so well for so long. I’d dried under her arms and between her toes, held and tickled her, squeezed her into coats and pulled vests over her head, the necklines tight enough to stretch her eyelids. I’d brushed her hair and cleaned her ears with a Kirby grip. She hides herself from me now. She’d yelped theatrically when I’d come into her room the other day, snatching up the counterpane to hold it between us. She’s been steadily removing herself physically from me over the last little while. She closes every door behind her and grimaces if I even leave the bathroom door ajar while I wash my hands. As she retreats, so I shrink away, too. When she was small, I could distinguish her crying out to me instantly, among all the other children’s babble. Would I even know her voice soon? Would I recognise her from any angle except straight on, while we confront each other? I glanced back over a few weeks of writing to see if I was mentioned. Mum got cross, unfair and Mum said I could try coffee if I want to, were all I could find. I wouldn’t read her diary again, I thought. It was like having a strange, one-way conversation with someone I wasn’t sure I liked.
I’d watched her carefully that evening, armed with my new knowledge. I expected to see her break her promise to Eddie. ‘Were you and Eddie playing together earlier?’ I said.
She frowned at the coincidence of this conversation. ‘I’ve given him my farm set,’ she said.
‘Have you? Don’t change your mind,’ I said. ‘It would break his heart.’
She glared at me. ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Unless I do, of course. It’s up to me. If I want it back, I’ll just take it. I don’t care.’
Irritation flared in me like kindling to a match, quick and bright. She set these little fires all the time. ‘Where is he?’ I said.
‘He’s built a farmyard in the sitting room,’ she said. ‘An entire farm. Masses of it. That’s annoying, isn’t it? You don’t like a mess in there, do you?’
I watched from the doorway as Eddie examined his new kingdom, touching each animal in turn, as if they’d turn to ash if he ignored them for too long. He lifted a small, wide-legged plastic man tenderly on to the back of his rigid mount. The man’s arms stretched forward for reins he couldn’t possibly hold in his solid hands. The horse can fly if it wants, he said aloud, jiggling horse and rider across the floor. But the boy just puts the man on its back and makes it walk. Do what the boy says. He is the master. He lifted them above his head. Whee, go up in the air before you’re on the ground. Jump over the hay bales, sit tight, man, sit tight, you have a good seat. Go in single file, but the boy doesn’t know what single file means, so it is just whee right up to the sky and down again. You are the champion horse. That was a clear round. Mummy might say is it hers, it is Sarah’s, give it back, don’t take her things, but the boy says, it is mine for ever now because she promised. He clutched the horse and rider to him. He is riding too, he said. He’s not scared of horses. He doesn’t think about the big fast feet and falling off then lying on the ground where they could tread on him. Do you want to go back to the farmhouse, man? He trotted the little pair to a cardboard box on the floor and placed them tenderly inside. He leaned against the sofa looking bereft without them, even though he’d brought it on himself.
‘Eddie,’ I said.
He looked up. His face softened then tensed, as if he’d been dreaming and couldn’t make sense of the real world as he woke. ‘It’s mine,’ he said. ‘Sarah gave it to me.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘She told me.’
‘Will she take it away?’ he said. ‘Even though she promised?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I won’t let her.’ She doesn’t want it, any of it, any more, I thought, but that won’t stop her twisting his heart till it hurts, simply because she can.
Chapter 5
Eddie had actually seen a dead body but at first he hadn’t known that’s what he was looking at. He’d peered through the fence surrounding the big house’s big garden because the man lay on his back on the grass. He was wearing a light yellow suit and the hat that should have been on his head had rolled away, to lie at an angle to its owner’s prone form. Around him, a group of adults either stood or knelt. Someone was undoing his tie and another loosened his shoes. The man wasn’t helping them. Eddie assumed he was asleep and they were doing things to him for fun. He wondered what the man would do when he woke up. His face was very red, perhaps he was only pretending to be asleep and was getting angrier all the time. They’d be really for it when he opened his eyes. One of the kneeling people was holding the man’s hand by the wrist, the fingers drooped. He looked up at a large woman and shook his head. She began to make a funny sort of bleating noise. Then the man looked beyond her to where Eddie stood, his satchel at his feet.
‘Oy!’ he said.
Eddie winced. He sensed he was about to be told off but he couldn’t think what he was doing wrong.
The man got up and came over to him. ‘Bugger off,’ he said.
Adults always said swear words so clearly. The woman’s bleating was louder now. The man fished in his pockets and Eddie heard the jangle of loose change.
‘Bugger off,’ he said again, holding his hand out over the fence to reveal several coins.
Behind him, bumping over the pristine lawn, an ambulance came into view. Eddie was impressed by the fact that the vehicle was on the grass. It was clearly the sort of garden you didn’t play in, let alone drive over.
‘Don’t you want this?’ the man said. ‘Not enough?’ He rattled the change.
‘No thank you,’ said Eddie. ‘Can I watch?’
The man smiled. He looked a bit like one of the prefects in the Upper House. ‘How old are you?’ he said.
People always asked him that. ‘Seven,’ said Eddie.
‘Go home,’ the man said. His voice was soft this time and kinder. He looked behind him to where the ambulance men were covering the man with a blanket. They pulled it right over his head. ‘He’ll be all right,’ he said.
Eddie understood in that moment that the man wouldn’t be all right at all. The crying woman, the kneeling and the ambulance all fell into place. He picked up his satchel and walked away, transfigured by knowledge. He wasn’t afraid and that very fact amazed him.
Chapter 6
10.52. Beside Michael’s bed is a timepiece that reduces each moment to a bald, numerical display. He’d noticed an actual clock above his bed as he was wheeled in but, unable to turn round, he can’t see it now. He’d only heard its thudding tick briefly, too, before various machines were switched on and there was no more silence. The roar of the mask clamped to his face is so l
oud and intrusive it reminds him of dealing with a heatwave. There’s no point in examining how hot you are, it doesn’t cool you down. Similarly, fighting against the rushing in his ears gets him nowhere and he succumbs. He would like to see the clock, though, there’s a kindness in knowing how each hour is measured. The circle of numbers is a comforting reminder of other times on other days. The digital display condemns him to a heartless present. His wristwatch waits in the locker, its leather strap curled and worn. He misses its face. Marion shoots furtive glances at the clock whenever she thinks he won’t see.
Michael’s world has reduced to the size of his room. Over the last few weeks, as his breath got shorter and people began to look much harder at him than they usually did and to insist on doctors and specialists, he felt as if he were being remodelled ineluctably in a simpler form. Matters that would once have preoccupied him now glanced off him, without leaving any impression. He noticed it first with the weather. He had always followed the forecast keenly; he based not just his wardrobe but his whole demeanour on what might happen. Knowing that the weekend promised sunshine would make him shrug off Tuesday’s rain. If he knew storm clouds loomed a few days hence, he found it hard to enjoy being outside. Just before his last, catastrophic deterioration, a neighbour had called round. Her dripping umbrella bloomed from the end of her arm like a peony. It wasn’t supposed to rain that day. That faulty forecast should have unnerved him. Instead, he felt joyful. He realised he was happy to leave others to deal with any unpredictability, meteorological or otherwise.
He tested this new state when Marion was with him. He could see how bored she was, fidgeting in the chair, getting to her feet whenever someone came in to tinker with the apparatus, although she could be of no use. He sliced into his old feelings for her, as if he were assembling a slide for dissection. Closer and closer he went, examining all the layers. He could detect a simmering tension, more to do with unfinished business than historic events. It buffeted him a little, like the wake from a distant boat hitting the shore. But when he thought of his home, he felt calm.