Unbecoming

by Jenny Downham

  And Katie had felt two things at exactly the same time. One – excitement. Two – fear.

  ‘Come on, Katie. How hard can it be to say one measly fantasy out loud?’

  ‘All right, how about my dad announcing it’s all a joke and he loves my mum after all?’

  ‘Not that kind of fantasy, you doughnut! A proper one. A sexy one, you know. I’ve got tons.’

  ‘Have you?’

  Esme crossed her legs on the bed like a storyteller in for the long haul. ‘Hundreds.’

  She really did. They mostly involved werewolves or vampires falling instantly in love with her, but she also had one about a boy at the tech college who had a car and had gone round a friend of Esme’s house and chucked stuff at her window and then, when she opened it, whisked her off to the some field where they made ‘sweet love under the stars’ (Esme’s words) and she’d quite like that to happen to her (though not with that particular boy). She rattled off a few more about doing it in public and some steam punk weirdness to do with an automaton coming to life, and just as Katie was beginning to wonder if they’d drifted apart so much they literally had nothing in common any more, Esme mentioned Simona Williams from the year above (who everyone knew the rumours about).

  ‘Sometimes I imagine the stuff she gets up to,’ Esme said, ‘and I think how she seems so confident, almost cool, you know. She looks like a boy with that haircut. She could actually be a boy in a certain light, and sometimes I look at her in the canteen or wherever and I wonder what it would be like to have her do that stuff to me.’ She looked at Katie. ‘You ever wonder that?’

  Katie was shivering. She had so much fear in her guts her fingers were in knots. She shook her head, blushing. ‘I don’t know.’

  They didn’t talk for a while and Katie wondered what that meant. Was Esme leaving a space on purpose? Was Katie supposed to fill it?

  Esme scooted up the bed, opened the window and leaned out. She waved the joint. ‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Esme sighed. ‘Such a good girl.’

  And maybe it was that. Because that’s what Mum always said and Katie didn’t want to be someone who was always so predictable and boring.

  Or maybe it was watching Esme with the joint – the way she kneeled there, her elbows on the window ledge, taking long drags and blowing smoke into the garden where it danced off into the trees and got all mixed up with the branches. She looked so far away, like nothing could reach her.

  But mostly it was what she’d said about Simona. Because why would she say stuff like that?

  ‘I do have a fantasy,’ Katie said.

  Esme turned from the window. ‘Yeah?’

  It was like standing on a high building and looking down and being crazily attracted to the idea of falling. No, it was like knowing you were already falling, that you were tipping over the edge and it was too late to even think about clawing your way back up. It made Katie’s heart race, her nerves scramble as she moved closer to Esme on the bed, so close she could run a finger down Esme’s arm, down to her hand until their fingers brushed.

  And then … Katie leaned in and kissed her.

  No! She couldn’t think about it now. Remembering would have to wait, because now (oh God!) she was walking through the school gates and there she was – Esme, sitting on one of the benches near the main path with all four of her ridiculous friends. These were the girls Esme had been in primary school with. They’re like my sisters, she used to say, although she’d been perfectly happy to drop them when Katie arrived at the school. ‘You know so much more about so much stuff than they do, Katie.’

  Not stuff about clothes or boys though, or stuff about music or what was cool or not. Or where the best parties were, or which bars or shops served you alcohol without asking for ID. And, slowly, Esme decided it was dull to have a friend who was never allowed out, who didn’t have a Smartphone or a Facebook page, who was always looking after her brother or spending time with her mum.

  Esme had new trousers – blue with white polka dots and a tie belt and a white blouse with little capped sleeves. She looked amazing. Katie had never seen any of these clothes before.

  A couple of the other girls had taken their shoes off and hitched their skirts up to expose their legs to the sun. They were talking way too loudly about some gig over at the tech college and how it was a fiver to get in, and how someone’s brother worked the bar, so maybe they’d get in for free.

  The world seemed to pulse as Katie got closer, like she could hear her own blood.

  You just have to walk past. They might not even see you.

  She breathed her mantra – fire, earth, water, air – and told herself that the elements were older and stronger than any human and that these girls were insignificant, and one day they’d all be dust.

  Keep walking. Soon it will be over.

  ‘Look who it is.’

  The mouthiest of the group, Amy, had a sixth sense for sure, sniffing the air like a pack animal who could smell fear approaching. And now she’d spoken, Esme turned and for a moment it was as if she forgot to be appalled, because there was a flash of warmth in her eyes before she leaned back on the bench in disgust. The others looked over slowly, one at a time, and something rippled through them.

  Amy shielded her eyes with her hand from the sun’s glare. ‘Hey, I like your cardigan.’

  Katie ignored her, kept on walking.

  ‘Very unusual.’

  It helped to pretend she was foreign and didn’t speak their language or understand sarcasm.

  ‘But then you’ve got unusual taste,’ Amy said. ‘Or, at least, that’s what I heard.’ She shot a knowing look at the others. ‘Any of you heard that?’

  And there it was again. Proof Esme had told them. Proof Esme had betrayed her.

  They giggled like children who’d been told a filthy joke. One of them even bothered to fall off the bench with merriment.

  Go up to them, Katie willed herself. Go up and stamp on their stupid feet. But instead, she found herself trying to look smaller, found herself walking past as if she was insignificant, worthless and might as well be ignored. It was a way of walking that felt familiar. Despite his weight in the world, she’d seen Chris shrink into himself when people stared at him, and it shocked her to realize that walking past these girls made her feel like her brother.

  The maths room was empty except for Ms Nayyar, who looked up from her desk and gave Katie a broad grin as she walked in. ‘Ah, my most reliable student.’

  ‘No one else here?’

  ‘Too hot for them, perhaps?’ She wiped her brow with a dramatic sweep.

  Katie got out her maths stuff. Yes, she agreed, it was a heatwave and yes, it was surprising after last night’s rain and yes, it probably was hotter than Delhi, where Ms Nayyar’s brother had taken his kids to visit their grandparents. Katie tried to be interested in the details, tried to nod and smile in the right places, but all she could think was – Esme, why did you tell them?

  All the way through the study session she felt anger build inside her. She was an idiot for trusting anyone. She was also an idiot for coming to maths – the hottest day for ages and she was the only one who’d bothered. What a fool! By the time the class was over, the anger began to feel like something alight. She was so predictable. She hated it about herself, and yet the only unpredictable thing she’d ever done had gone horribly wrong. Even now, she knew that she’d walk across the playground, and if Esme and that lot were still there, she’d hang her head and slink past them. Then she’d walk home in twenty minutes (she’d once been dull enough to time it) and then up to the flat to do more studying.

  The girls had gone. The twenty-minute walk took exactly that, even though fury should have made it quicker, so to make something different happen before a predictable afternoon set in, she went to the shop and bought a box of strawberry Cornettos.

  Mum was at the kitchen table when Katie got in and Mary was in the lounge, which meant they p
robably hadn’t been in the same room since she left for school. The whole world was at war.

  ‘What’s this?’ Mum said. ‘More sugar?’

  Katie ignored her, tore open the box and handed two to Chris, handed Mum hers and sat at the table to open her own.

  ‘Am I allowed?’ Chris was clearly gobsmacked.

  ‘Live a little,’ Katie told him. ‘Take the other one to Mary.’

  Mum raised an eyebrow. ‘Mary?’

  Katie gave her a long look. ‘We have to call her something. What do you suggest?’

  She knew she was spreading the anger. It was stuck to her like tar and the only way to get it off was to rub it onto other people.

  She ripped the cardboard disc from the top of her ice cream and exposed the white chocolate curls and strawberry sauce. She peeled back the red shiny paper. It made her feel about six years old.

  Chris came back and shoved one of the Cornettos in the freezer. ‘She’s asleep.’

  They sat in silence, licking their ice creams.

  ‘How was school?’ Mum asked eventually.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Maths went OK?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’ll do some practice papers tonight?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Mum sighed. ‘For goodness sake, Katie, don’t go all monosyllabic on me. I’m having a hard enough day as it is! I only asked a simple question.’

  But it wasn’t simple. How was school? It was a more complex question than Mum could ever imagine. Should Katie say, I kissed my best friend and now I’m a social pariah? No, she could never in a million years tell Mum that. What then? News of the gig at the tech college? No, none of that either. They’ll need fake IDs for that, Mum would say. Where are their parents, that’s what I want to know? I don’t want you hanging around with girls like that, they’re a bad influence, blah, blah.

  Katie decided all Mum wanted was a distraction, so she told her that school was pretty quiet now exams were in full swing, maths had been empty, the teacher had been sweet and it was definitely useful to look at stuff one-to-one.

  ‘That’s what university will be like,’ Mum said. ‘Just you and a tutor going over mathematical theories together.’

  Katie didn’t think of maths when she thought of university. Instead, she imagined a place where she could reinvent herself, a place where nothing had gone horribly wrong yet.

  She crumpled her ice-cream wrapper, tossed it in the bin and took a breath. ‘So, how did the phone calls go?’

  Mum looked instantly exhausted. ‘I’ve had enough of it, stuck upstairs in this weather. I’ve been passed from department to department and absolutely no one wants to take responsibility.’ She slid a notebook across the table. ‘Look at this. I’ve spoken to every one of those people. Seems you can only be given help once you’re in the system, and to get in the system you need to be assessed, and to be assessed you need a doctor’s referral, and to get one of those you need a doctor and a permanent address.’ She laughed with no humour. ‘I managed to get her an appointment with my own doctor, but not until Tuesday, so what are we supposed to do with her until then?’

  Katie scanned the notes, pages of scrawl with numbers and names and random sentences. Can she manage personal care? Does she have wide-ranging medical and social needs? Mini mental health exam? Adult Care Team referral?

  The anger slid out of her. Poor Mum. Poor Mary.

  She passed the notebook to Chris, but he ignored it, was tracing patterns on his ice cream with his tongue and pretending to be stupid. She passed it back to Mum.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Mum smiled wearily. She read and reread the notebook, like picking at a scab.

  1954 – the promise

  Mary leans over the side of the bed and clutches at her sister, because surely this can’t, surely no one can be expected … Another one, already another one, like a great wave coming from afar. Mary’s back arches against it as it comes closer, like a belt tightening – pulling every ligament, wrenching muscles into tension, straining each vertebra so that her spine will surely snap. She’s turning inside out with it. She’s going to burst, wet and violent, across the bedroom walls.

  ‘I can’t do this.’ Her voice is smaller, seems to come from far away. ‘It hurts, Pat. Please make it stop.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be done,’ Pat says. ‘It’s too late for anything.’

  Mary closes herself to Pat then, because what does she know? Even now, in the heat and terror of it, Pat’s determined to be right. They should call an ambulance, shouldn’t they? Get a midwife to come?

  Out there, beyond the window, Saturday night is happening. Out there, girls are putting on lipstick, spraying perfume at their throats, walking to the Roxy, their heels click-clicking, their breath like smoke in the frosty air. Mary envies them with all her being. She’d trade anything to be out there instead of in here, with this … oh … this awful inevitability. There’s no escape, that’s the worst thing. And it’s going on for ever and … ahh! here comes another one!

  ‘They’re getting closer, aren’t they?’ she gasps. ‘That was sooner than before.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Pat says. ‘It means it’s nearly over.’

  ‘But this is already more than I can bear.’ She can hear herself moaning, low moaning, pushing into screams.

  ‘Quiet!’ Pat hisses. ‘You want the neighbours to hear?’

  ‘The neighbours can go to hell!’

  Mary knows she’s desperate. She sees herself as Pat sees her, desperate and so afraid and she doesn’t care. See me like this. This is me. Did you know this was me? All these years you envied me, big sister, but I reckon you don’t envy me now! The peak arrives more quickly, takes her more completely than before.

  ‘Breathe,’ Pat says. ‘I read it somewhere. Like blowing smoke.’

  And Mary blows, blows until she’s giddy …

  And then something amazing. There’s suddenly distance and over there, far away, she sees herself as a child sitting in the arms of the cherry tree. It crosses Mary’s mind that perhaps she’s dying, which seems a shame, but at least there’s no pain here for an instant. Here’s the day the sun shone ladders down the side of the house and she spied Norman, the boy next door, cleaning his bike. She wanted to secretly throw something at him, but the cherries weren’t grown yet, and apart from branches and leaves there wasn’t anything. Here was the day she smeared her lips crimson and smacked them together, enjoying the strange taste of stolen lipstick as she clambered swiftly down the tree, crossed the grass, slid silently over the wall and tapped Norman on his shoulder. ‘You want a kiss?’

  And now this – oh, again, oh, not again! Will this last for ever? She wants to push. She’s losing it, completely. This will never end and she hears herself screaming. She really can’t stand any more. All moments of peace are ended, all memories have gone, and she’s back in her bedroom with these walls and her sister flapping about like a lunatic and this unavoidable need to push. It’s like puking. Urgent and ridiculous.

  How can she still be alive and feel this much agony? She actually feels the baby as, ‘Oww!’ as its head presses against her, opening her, stretching her so wide it burns. It has to stop, she has to make it stop. It’s like being eaten by fire. She scrabbles with her hand, reaches down to put an end to this, to do something, anything that will make it go away. But her fingers meet the baby’s head – and it’s so entirely shocking to touch her unborn child, that the room goes still. She is touching her daughter. She is the first person in the world to touch her. For the rest of Caroline’s life, that will always be true. The baby’s head is convoluted like a soft mountain range. Her hair is wet fluff, the curve of her skull so tender as she, as Mary, pushes her out and there’s a face between her legs. For an instant, for a completely odd and confusing second, it’s her being born, she thinks, and she lies blinking between her own mother’s legs with the pressure of the world across her shoulders and she knows above all
things that this child must be loved. If I can give you nothing else, I promise you that. Pat’s fumbling with hot water and towels and saying, ‘Pant, don’t push!’ when there’s nothing Mary can do to avoid it, nothing, no panting in the world is stopping this.

  It takes three pushes (only three! Pat will recount later, as if even in the process of giving birth to an illegitimate child, Mary is blessed with good fortune) and the baby lies on the bed slippery as a mackerel and Mary is a mother.

  She’s done it. She’s survived, and so has the baby and so has Pat and all three of them are crying.

  ‘It’s relief,’ Pat says. But then she looks at her watch, so maybe it’s fear, because their father’s at the pub and he’ll be home soon and how the heck are they going to explain away a baby?

  Six

  ‘“Slut” was a word I was familiar with,’ Mary told the girl who came running up. ‘But from my father’s lips it made me feel terribly exposed. Can you imagine?’

  ‘I’d say Houdini was a more appropriate term,’ the girl said, grabbing her arm and steering her back across the street. ‘Mum’s freaking out.’

  ‘I had errands.’

  ‘What errands?’

  ‘A place I needed to go.’

  ‘Just ask me if you need anything.’ The girl chivvied her along a stretch of pavement. ‘Come on, we have to hurry.’

  ‘Where’s the fire?’

  ‘Sorry, but Mum’s pretty stressed. Also, you’ve still got your nightie on, which is kind of mortifying.’

  And then they were hurrying through a gate, across a courtyard, through some doors and into a lift. The girl said, ‘I won’t tell her you made it all the way to the main road, if that’s all right with you?’

  Out of the lift and into a hallway and Mary was struck by a blankness, by the hollow sound the girl’s knuckles made as she rapped at a door.